And that's why I collect baseball cards - to try and stay 'up' on all the players of the game, which I would rather do with cards than by watching hours of cable TV as often as daily. Cable TV is not something I usually have access to in my life, and I don't miss it.
This particular card was the last card I needed to complete this page of parallels, so I often pondered it - just who is Scott Feldman?
On this card, Scott has just delivered a pitch. His leg kick is just about over, and overall he doesn't seem in any way tensed up. Probably, the ball landed in the Catcher's glove, and he is mostly intent on hearing the call from the Umpire. That's my take on what remains of the "action" here.
The overall lines of the card flow from his glove and all the way through his just completed motion, and then his hand-less right arm is sliced off by the Sea Turtle itself. A bit of a downer here, really. How many viewing the card think it will be called a Strike?
The "40" patch on his right sleeve is not a simple anniversary patch for their stadium, as you might all too easily conclude for many other MLB outfits. 40 years was the age of the Texas Rangers club itself, in 2012, as they debuted as an expansion team in 1972.
A final interesting element on the card is what I call "That Necklace." Baseball players have worn necklaces for a long time, though I have to wonder how many could be found on any 1950s baseball cards. But in 2013, I think there was a peak of wearing this certain plastic necklace, generally of 2 colors as shown here, and available to the players in matching "team colors" if they wished.
I'm not sure of which year was the actual peak; perhaps by looking at this question via baseball cards I will figure that out on a one-year-later basis. But I have been setting aside stray copies of cards of players wearing this necklace whenever one appears in a pile of dups/doubles/extras, since 99.9% of such cards have essentially no value, anyway. Eventually over on my main blog I will show off some of the results. One thing I still need to do is find Patient/Card Zero with this - when was the first time this necklace was seen on a card? I am pretty sure that will be in the early 2010s. But to find the last example of this necklace on a card, well, that might not have happened yet - because I saw one on 2018 Topps Baseball cards, and in the Update set even. So perhaps 2019 will be the first Topps Baseball sets to not have an on-card example of "That Necklace."
Uniform Hero? This card throws one for a loop a tiny bit, compared to so many cards that have just appeared, with the clear numerals '40' on the shoulder, but on card #39.
It is also probably where the Topps checklist composer probably first hit the realities of Major League Baseball Uniform #s. The most prestigious Uni #s are usually the lowest, though of course lately Topps has been able to make some very easy decisions about which New York Yankee to assign card #99 - this checklist technique did not debut in 2013 Topps Baseball, nor has it gone away again completely, either.
Until this checklist spot, there was no shortage of players to generally select one to honor a great player with a card # that matched his uniform #. The few times a just regular player was selected, there has been an alternative, more famous player, that didn't work out to use with this concept.
I count about 15 other players that will appear in this set that wore #39 in 2012. But it would be about impossible to rank one ahead of another in terms of fame, or stats, or recent postseason glory, or any other comparative. And of course, that would be inevitable in trying to construct this checklist. We will see some more interesting combinations of uniform and card # as we move along, but the odds of seeing an All-Star match will begin to decline sharply.
Where’d the egg hatch? Feldman was drafted by the Rangers in 2003, in the 30th round, making him the current highest draft position on this checklist, so far.
How about the migrations? Scott would debut in Texas in 2005, pitching as a reliever for his first 3 seasons. That garnered him a few baseball cards, because everyone wants Rookie Cards, Rookie Cards, Rookie Cards. In 2008 he moved into the starting rotation for Texas, but he wouldn't get a Topps Baseball card again until 2010, after his second campaign as a starter. This is because no one wants baseball cards of relievers, in a general sense, and it took Topps an extra year to notice the change in his career. But when you go 17-8 as a starter you do earn their attention once again.
2010 did not work out as well for Feldman despite being the Opening Day starter for Texas, leading to a demotion to the bullpen. In 2011 he battled injuries and threw only 32 innings. Leading once again to a demotion from the Topps Baseball checklist. Then in 2012, he returned to the starting rotation and thus back on to the checklist for 2013, where we find him here.
But by the time this card came out of packs, Feldman was no longer a Texas Ranger, having signed with Chicago in late November, 2012. Topps can't endlessly shift every baseball player changing teams while they create these baseball cards, so Feldman appears as a Ranger.
He then makes a natural candidate for a card in the Update set, where he duly appears as a Chicago Cub - despite having been traded to Baltimore in early July of 2013. My guess would be that was because a Cubs card for Scott Feldman had already been issued in the Factory Team Set blister pack, so it was easier to just copy/paste that one down, 299 baseball cards in the Update set to go.
Chicago would receive Pedro Strop in return, who would appear in the Update set as a Cub even, along with Jake Arrieta, who would not receive an Updated card at all. So 2 players traded for each other would be "Updated" onto new cards on the same team.
After years of looking at both Series One and Update cards, I had never made that connection between an S1 card and an Update card until writing this blog post - I could not even draw the connection that they were the same player. That is how much of an "Everyman" player Scott Feldman was I guess, and for me, a good illustration of why I will continue to collect baseball cards. Major League Baseball rosters have lots of Scott Feldmans, and they are all absolutely incredible at playing the game of baseball, amply demonstrated by their ability to even make a Major League roster in the first place.
Yet Feldman would never receive a card as a Baltimore Oriole at all - perhaps I shouldn't rely so much on Topps to keep me 'up' on the game of baseball. He would go on to pitch for 3 more teams after Baltimore, and appear on a few more scattered cards. In 2017 he had a knee injury while pitching for Cincinnati, which effectively ended his career. Then in 2018, his everyman-become-journeyman baseball career would be capped with a true "sunset" Topps Baseball card, with 100% complete MLB stat totals, something not even every All-Time Great receives. That card also features a truly epic first-ever-to-do-X statistic of the type that only Topps can deliver, but I will leave that one to a set blogger for the 2018 cards to bedazzle you with.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
Whew. So I am all up-to-date on the career of Scott Feldman. I hope you are too, now. If I hadn't decided to write up this blog post, maybe all I would ever know about him was being the 2nd player to start a season 0-6, and then go 6-0. What a loss that would have been.
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 204 games pitched, Feldman is 1,048 away from Jesse Orosco's all-time record of 1,252.
I guess Topps could never quite decide if Scott Feldman was a Starter or a Reliever, so they went with the simple record for Relievers.
Feldman finished his MLB career having pitched in 342 Games.
Subspecies? Perhaps it is a minor miracle that Feldman's signing with Chicago would be documented by Topps in the Update set, given their on-again, off-again coverage of his career. No other Texas Ranger 2013 cards of Scott Feldman needed to be created.
Bling That Shell This parallel was another one that 'completed' the page when I received it. At one point in the project, I was selecting the Toys-R-Us Purple parallel for lots of Texas Rangers cards, because of the way their official on-card logo here mixes red and blue. What do you get then? Purple.
But then I grew a little disenchanted with the lesser-than-possible contrast of the blue Sea Turtle on the Purple parallel, so I went away from the idea of using this combo. But I can't always get what I want - a page of 9 baseball cards in perfect popping contrast, with no repeats. So I went back to my original Purple Rangers idea, and I do still like it:
No comments:
Post a Comment