#59 - John Axford

What’s that Turtle doin’? Oh, probably showing off the best 0-60 speed of any Turtle so far. Topps always does seem to love printing Action! shots for the players with long hair.

For some reason, the 'knee high' cards - the ones where the player's leg(s) get cut by the card design framing below the knee, rather than above the knee, seem to impart the most sense of motion to me, fairly often. The player then appears to be on his way   -through- the card sometimes, until the photographer forced a stop so we can watch the game of baseball on our baseball cards.

The Brewers are wearing their dark blue 'Home Alternate' here; I think the roof might be open at Miller Park but it's a Great Lakes grey day overhead. The solid mass of blue helps make this quite a bit more memorable of a card, particularly as the Pitcher Parade wears on in this checklist.

Uniform Hero? Yes indeedy; the card # is one of the image elements leading the way to the plate here.

Where’d the egg hatch? John Axford was drafted twice — but still officially signed with an MLB club as a Free Agent.

First, the Mariners requested his services in the 7th round in 2001, but a scholarship to Notre Dame seemed like a better deal, and he did get a degree there, after Tommy John surgery along the way.

Then, the Reds took a chance on him in the 42nd round in 2005, but upon sending a scout to see him pitch with a final year of college eligibility (after that injury loss of a playing, but not a studying, year) the Reds declined to actually offer a contract. Which is something I haven't heard of before, possibly because it is usually kind of sunny on the back of a baseball card.

Axford seemed to enjoy playing the game, so he continued along in his home country, playing in the Canadian 'Western Major Baseball League' (Alberta & Saskatchewan), where a Yankees scout saw him pitch in the summer of 2006 and then signed him.

How about the migrations? As with the Mariners and Reds, a Yankee he was not to be; New York released him after a year in their minor league system. So, Milwaukee gave him a try in Spring Training 2008 and there everything finally worked out. By late 2010 he had become their Closer.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

Only by doing a deep dive with this card back for this blog post did I learn that Axford is from a small Great Lakes port town, just like me. And I have owned this card for a full 7 years now. Naturally here in the 21st Century, I quickly turned to the kindly free hosting service of this blog - Google - for more details.

Which must happen to the crew at Topps sometimes, when their wizard like ability to summon a 'once did X in only Y days for only the Z amount of times in team history' statistic eludes them and they turn all team-media-guide-like ("the Club"), as on this oddball card back effort.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 106 saves, Axford is 502 saves away from Mariano Rivera's all-time record of 608.

With a nice Lead League in Italics for Saves already gracing his card back, there was naturally some optimism that Axford could anchor a bullpen for a long time to come.

However the more common result for relievers is only a few years of being able to generate those "SV" stats. Axford would move on from Milwaukee to serve in 7 more Major League Bullpens through 2018 until a final comeback attempt for an Ontario home boy via the Blue Jays' minor league clubs in 2019 ended in season, and career ending surgery in August of that year.

Axford would finish his career with 144 Saves.

Subspecies? A dominant Closer as Axford was in 2010 and 2011 is popular enough to make a popularity based small checklist like Opening Day and this card can be found there in 2013, but not in Chrome later that year, as Rookies need cards, too. There are no variant versions of this one.

Bling That Shell I think this dynamic action based card would look good on a number of parallel options however this project wouldn't be possible without the 'retail' parallels printed in higher quantities than even Topps Gold cards, so here I paired the classic dark blue uniform with a classic dark red parallel:

#45 - Travis Ishikawa

What’s that Turtle doin’? This is not an inherently exciting card. But after so many pitchers appearing sequentially in checklist just before the previous few cards, this is still a welcome card when you reach it, however you might have stored, stacked or sorted a set of 2013 Topps Baseball.

A Fielding card like this one is livened up immensely by a live action baseball, but the baseball is not cooperating with the photographer. 

But that's OK. The uniform hooks us up with the team name and then the card shows off the logo. Beer comes from grain, you know. In Wisconsin. Exciting stuff. 

I notice details on Brewers cards a little more than most teams; I think a pro photographer working at Miller Park often sets up somewhere behind Third Base, as this is not the only Brewers card one can find showing their First Baseman awaiting an incoming throw.

And Ishikawa sure likes his armbands.

Uniform Hero? This card shows off it's card # on the front not once, but twice. That might be unique in the set. I will be watching, I guess.

Although the uniform<>card # linkage has to inevitably run out of steam as the card #s start to climb, this card is still a nice selection, due to all those Pitchers. As we shall see, they like the higher uniform #s quite a bit more than the positional players do.

Where’d the egg hatch? Ishikawa was drafted by the Giants in the 21st round of the 2002 draft.

How about the migrations? He would then debut with them in 2006. I will let the Topps card back writer pick up the story from there...

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

...perhaps the crew in Brooklyn couldn't resist calling the Giants mean, a little.

Ishikawa would play only 7 Games in the year this card appeared; the Brewers had released him in November, 2012. Those 7 games were with the Orioles and the Yankees.

After 2013 he put the journey in journeyman, with 2 contracts with the White Sox despite never appearing in an MLB game for them, and then 2 stops in Pittsburgh and also back in San Francisco, also twice.

His most famous MLB moment is a Walk-Off Home Run to clinch the 2014 NLCS for the Giants. It is celebrated on cardboard at least twice.

In 2016 he made one final (unsuccessful) try at reaching the majors once again, naturally once again with the San Francisco Giants.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 199 hits, Ishikawa is 4,057 away from the all-time record of 4,256.

The Hit King, nearly forgotten in this card back feature, after all those Pitchers. At least Topps is getting the math right now.

Travis Ishikawa finished his Major League career with 241 Hits.

Subspecies? And now you know the basic story of Travis Ishikawa, and now you won't be surprised that there are no other variants of this card.

Bling That Shell This spot sat empty in my All-Parallel project for a long time. It was obvious to me that this would be an easy card to acquire, in any color I wished. Finally, I pulled the trigger and bought a copy of a parallel color I particularly like for a baseball card, because every time I see it, I think of bubble gum:

#8 - Ryan Braun

What’s that Turtle doin’? Here we have another just-Now completed swing, as on the Jeter card, without as tight of a cropping effort. The lines in the image, including even the wrinkles in the uniform, all lead the eye around to the bat behind the back, as if one just watched the swing happen, less than one second in the past. Braun has not even had time to exhale yet. Framing off half of his fore-arm doesn't make a great deal of difference - but then there is a bit of wasted space on the left side of the card.

Uniform Hero? There is a bit of a conundrum with this card # = uniform # approach somewhat ranking the players of Major League Baseball, and we are only 7 cards into the set.

After the 2012 season, Braun's stock of popularity with MLB fans had already fallen substantially. A failed urine test for PEDs had become public in late 2011, however Braun had successfully avoided MLB disciplinary action by filing an appeal. This was widely regarded as having been able to get away with cheating on a "technicality."

His perception by the public would continue to fall much further with more Braun & PED related news revealed in February, 2013, just as card collectors were beginning to purchase Series 1 cards. This led to a long season of public spectacle and ultimately disciplinary action by MLB, a sad tale basically known to MLB fans with details easily followed elsewhere. I am interested in the 2013 Topps Baseball set and how it was constructed.

Before the tag "PED" became forever attached to Ryan Braun, his career was white-hot - wait till you see his card back here, eventually. Topps was such a fan of his young career that in 2011, he was card #1 in the set. He proceeded to win the NL MVP and lead his team to the NLCS that year. Topps followed up that success with again making him card #1 in the 2012 set.

Another player famously connected to the words "Performance Enhancing Drugs" had also received multiple Topps Baseball #1 cards over the years - Alex Rodriguez. Even as rumors began to engulf him from 2009 on, Topps continued to issue him "Hero" #s in their sets - #400, #50, and #500 in 2010-2012. He also would have a terrible season-in-the-news in 2013 and ultimately be barred from playing for an entire season in 2014.

However even by the time of the 2013 set construction, there was enough of that type of bad news swirling around a player well-liked by Topps baseball cards, that he did not receive the most prestigious Card/Uniform/Hero # possible at his Uni # - 13. Instead he finished in about 3rd place in the calculations, as we will see here on this blog sometime well over a year or more from now.

So what was Topps to do with a now far less popular, former set poster boy - while building a set based on Uniform #s? Let's consider their options, based on use of Uni #8 in the 2012 season.

Five teams had already retired #8 - the Pirates, Reds, Yankees (for 2 players, even), Orioles and Red Sox.

Here were their options in the AL:

Rays - Desmond Jennings - a solid, mostly regular OF, but just an ordinary MLB player

Blue Jays - Ben Francisco &/or Yorvit Torrealba - who? and who?

Indians - Lonnie Chisenhall - 43 Games in 2012, still largely unknown

Royals - Mike Moustakas - fame would come later; still only a .708 OPS in 2012

Twins - Jamey Carroll - another solid MLBer with 10 seasons of pedestrian stats, 2013 would be his last card 

Mariners - Carlos Triunfel - 22 AB in 2012, never received an MLB baseball card

A's - Kurt Suzuki - already traded to Nationals after '12 season but would appear in Series 1

Rangers - Geovany Soto & Yorvit Torrealba - who? & that guy again?

Angels - Kendrys Morales - a Cuban escapee slugger who had recently been on the Home Run leader boards

Here were their options in the NL:

Marlins - Chris Coghlan - a former Rookie-of-the-Year declining fast, 39 Games in 2012

Braves - David Ross - a solid back-up Catcher in '12 for Atlanta, he would not receive a Topps card in 2013 but go on to fame in the World Series, anyway

Phillies & Dodgers - Shane Victorino - traded in July 2012 but signed by the Red Sox in December, 2012; he will appear on a Red Sox card in Series 2

Nationals - Danny Espinosa - the everyday 2B in Washington in '11 and '12, he led NL in Striking Out in 2012

Cardinals - Ryan Jackson - also never received MLB card

Diamondbacks - Gerardo Parra - another everyday ordinary MLB player mostly unknown off the West Coast

Rockies - Charlie Blackmon - yet to blossom by 2012, when he had barely reached 200 AB

Padres - Jason Bartlett - a long time SS for the Rays, his career looked to probably be over and did not receive a card in 2013

Giants - Hunter Pence - ahh, if only Topps HQ had known the West Coast teams a little better, this whole problem goes away

So after flubbing the potential use of the popular Pence in place of Ryan Braun here, by already assigning him card #3, his _former_ Uni #, Topps had few options at #8. Ultimately, they did reward both Kendrys Morales and Kurt Suzuki with #8-related card #s, as we will see later in Series 1.

A final wrinkle to their possibly unconsidered dilemma with this now premium checklist position - and remember, the really, really bad news for Braun would only occur during 2013 - is also one of Braun's decently well-known nicknames: "Ochoa."

Ultimately, I am looking at this rather trivial question from 20/20 hindsight of course. But I think as you will see through the early portions of the 2013 checklist, the Star power is well concentrated in the card #s below 50; there are some impressive, multiple All-Star binder pages coming up. And looking at the set today, this card for Ryan Braun really stands out after the 6 very well-regarded players that preceded it, and a potentially epic lead-off binder page looks partially dated today as a result.

And unfortunately, that last minor point would become magnified a bit more, a few years after the 2013 season, as we shall see on the very next card in the checklist.

Where’d the egg hatch? Braun was selected by the Brewers in the first round of the 2005 draft, 5th overall, a very successful draft class which ultimately yielded 9 All-Stars.

How about the migrations? Once again on these initial checklist slots, it seems likely Ryan Braun will spend his whole career with the Brewers. It is thought that he has been made available in trade talks the last several years, but his production no longer matches his salary and Milwaukee would likely have to pay a portion of it to receive anything in return. He is now yet another player in his 30s headed towards the "now profiles as a DH" tagline, but the essential problem for all such players is that MLB only needs 15 of them per year. He is signed through the end of 2020.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

This is what you want to see when you turn over a baseball card. A pair of "30-30 Club" memberships is even more impressive than a 20-20. 7 League Leader stats puts him in a tie with the previous Ryan Howard card for the League Leader lead in this set.

A minor pity the text portion begins conflating youthful Hit/Homer production a bit confusingly, particularly with the card feature just above it -

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 202 home runs, Braun is 560 away from Barry Bonds' all-time record of 762.

Well, I guess one has to give Topps credit here for considering a record pursuit of Barry Bonds by Ryan Braun, as it turned out. Hitting 202 Homers in just six seasons would seem to be the way to start such a chase — if it hadn't started at the age of 24.

After the 2018 season, Braun has increased his Home Run total to 322.

Subspecies? Again like the other Star players this low in the Checklist, and star players not changing teams, Braun has this same basic card in both Opening Day and Chrome. He is all over other 2013 Topps checklists both long and short, but without any other Sea Turtle type cards.

Bling That Shell Now we finally get to see one of my favorites of the 2013 parallels, the /50 Pink. All of such cards, regardless of 'team color' of the Turtle, remind me of bubble gum, and that always makes for a pleasant baseball card experience, regardless of the player on the card. I particularly like the blue-on-pink combo seen here -