This card looks to be a Night Card, though not the most dramatic example of one, probably because it looks to be more of an Indoor Stadium card with it's rather even lighting and no specially dark darkness. It has the same basic lines, lines alignments that draw the viewer to the plate just as the previous card for Adam Wainwright does on a nice sunny day.
Mr. Redlegs does try to get in to the action there on Broxton's left shoulder, but he takes far better star turns on many other baseball cards including a couple in this set.
The other main attraction of this card is probably Broxton's glove; though it isn't a nice team color nor is sporting any dramatic webbing or anything. But it is an uncommonly seen brand name - "Mizuno." This is a brand over 100 years old now, started in Japan to make baseball gear, and is still one of the top 5 manufacturers of baseball equipment and many other sporting goods, with bats and gloves in use in MLB daily. Despite that long-term pedigree, I think this is the first card I have seen with their logo on it, or at least where it has been prominent enough to see it this clearly.
Uniform Hero? Now this card includes an interesting development in this uniform # driven checklist - Broxton is sporting the exact same uniform #, 50, as seen on the previous card, but here on card #51.
What gives? Tough spot here for the Topps checklist composer as Broxton had worn #51 throughout his long, successful stint with the Dodgers, on probably the MLB uniform with the most memorable uniform #s of them all. And Topps still does manage to get this 2013 baseball card correctly synced to Johnathan Broxton's uniform # - in 2013.
But in 2012, Broxton was new on the Reds, arriving in a mid-season trade as we will see shortly. But since Sean Marshall was already wearing #51, Broxton did sport #50 for that half season before claiming his preferred # in the year of the Sea Turtle.
What gives? Tough spot here for the Topps checklist composer as Broxton had worn #51 throughout his long, successful stint with the Dodgers, on probably the MLB uniform with the most memorable uniform #s of them all. And Topps still does manage to get this 2013 baseball card correctly synced to Johnathan Broxton's uniform # - in 2013.
But in 2012, Broxton was new on the Reds, arriving in a mid-season trade as we will see shortly. But since Sean Marshall was already wearing #51, Broxton did sport #50 for that half season before claiming his preferred # in the year of the Sea Turtle.
Where’d the egg hatch? Broxton was drafted by the Dodgers in the 2nd round back in 2002, straight out of high school in Waynesboro, GA, which your intrepid wandering baseball card blogger can tell you is a very friendly small town with a nice Mexican restaurant featuring pretty darn good home-made salsas. Or at least did back around the time this card was being created; I am sure the town is still full of friendly people but Mexican joints can tend to have a short half-life sometimes.
How about the migrations? He then made it to the Majors in 2005 and quickly settled in to the Dodgers bullpen, eventually becoming their regular Closer, as well as the Closer for the 2009 and 2010 National League All-Star teams. Once again I'll let the Topps card back writer take it from here...
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
...which nicely sums up his career moves to land him on this Cincinnati Reds baseball card, though without quite explaining that injury in 2011, the last year of his contract with the Dodgers, probably led L.A. to not re-sign him. The AL Central was glad to see him traded to the NL Central, that I can tell you.
Broxton would go on to pitch in Milwaukee and St. Louis; his final outing in May, 2017 was against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 111 saves, Broxton is 497 saves away from Mariano Rivera's all-time record of 608.
Since Broxton had been such a successful closer to this point in his career this would be the natural comparison. However by appearing in 694 Major League Baseball games, he got over half-way to Jesse Orosco's record, but never half-way to Rivera's record as he finished his career with 118 Saves.
Since Broxton had been such a successful closer to this point in his career this would be the natural comparison. However by appearing in 694 Major League Baseball games, he got over half-way to Jesse Orosco's record, but never half-way to Rivera's record as he finished his career with 118 Saves.
Subspecies? I haven't looked but I would imagine that 3 and 4 years before this, Broxton would have appeared in the 2 kin sets to the regular Topps Baseball set, but in 2013, this is the only example of this card.
Bling That Shell As we will see in the next entry, this parallel binder page is still under construction. However the blue teams always require the most finesse, so I am quite certain that this card will hold it's color combo, a nice red-on-purple which the stadium lighting seems to nicely complement:
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