#54 - Jaime Garcia

What’s that Turtle doin’? We're driving to the plate from the southpaw lane this time. Only a 2-seamer on the way though.

Garcia seems a little concerned about his aim or his Catcher's call for this fastball; over here in the on-deck circle, I am starting to get a little optimistic - maybe I'll have an RBI chance when I reach the plate.

This card is still on the same binder page as the Wainwright card, so St. Louis uniforms will get a good look together whenever and wherever collectors take a look at their Sea Turtles. This card was shot neither on a Sunday (regular interlocking STL logo as on the card), nor in St. Louis - their 'road greys' also say Cardinals on them, rather than St. Louis.

Though the lines and image structure of the photo make for a very good baseball card, the plethora of this type of card in an 'action image' set like this once again leads the collector to ponder the glove. This time it is a cool looking 'team color' glove but also features an unusual logo in that it doesn't have the Swoosh or say "Rawlings." Under a little zoom on the scan, it proves to be the letters "Xdl" at first glance but eventually enough Googling reveals that to be upside down - the true letter combo is T-P-X.

Which is something I discovered via a now partially dated, but still fun little web article called "The 20 Prettiest Gloves in Baseball History."

Uniform Hero? Still going strong here at 54.

Where’d the egg hatch? Although Garcia was born in Mexico, he entered the MLB player system via draft, a bit of a rare combo. He went to High School in Texas and was first drafted by the Orioles in 2004, but elected to go to college for a year and was then drafted by the Cardinals in the 22nd round in 2005.

How about the migrations? Jaime reached the majors in the 2008 season, but didn't 'stick' until the 2010 season. He would be a main-stay (and a popular one) in the Cardinals rotation until they traded him to the Braves after the 2016 season. Like many older veteran 'rentals' none of the following trades involved players with very many, if any, MLB baseball cards ever produced.

At the 2017 trade deadline Atlanta flipped him to Minnesota who in turn quite soon shipped him on to New York. This created a unique situation as explained on Garcia's Wikipedia page: "He became the first pitcher to start three consecutive games for three separate teams since 1895."

After his dizzying 2017 season he would sign with Toronto and then give it one last "go" in Chicago late in the 2018 season, after which he retired.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

What I like most about this card back is a simple pleasant detour in to baseball statistics and pondering how they might show player/team results. In particular what is striking here is Garcia's remarkably consistent WHIP (Walks + Hits / Innings Pitched) ratio but wildly divergent ERA results. A little less obvious is the way the WHIP # stayed the same but Hits / 9 IP increased slightly, but overall those large differences in ERA might well correlate to changes in St. Louis team defense rankings.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 34 wins, Garcia is 477 away from Cy Young's all-time record of 511.

As this card was being created, Garcia was firmly established as a member of the Cardinals excellent early 10's rotation, so "W" is again the obvious comp for this.

Garcia would go on to finish his career with 70 Wins.

Subspecies? This is the only Jaime Garcia card on the 2013 'Sea Turtle' design.

Bling That Shell This card has a nice, day-game brightness to it that makes the infield grass a nice bright green. Which in turn made selecting the 'Wrapper Redemption' 'Blue Sparkle' parallel my first choice:

#50 - Adam Wainwright

What’s that Turtle doin’? Just about to deliver another Strike! on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in St. Louis.

How do I know this photo was created on a Sunday? Wainwright is wearing the Cardinals' special 'one bird' cap only worn at home on Sunday, rather than the cap featuring the famous interlocking StL logo.

This is actually the 2nd card Wainwright has appeared on in the set as he is also a key part of the #4 - Yadier Molina card. 

Otherwise, this is a standard issue live action shot of a great MLB Pitcher playing the game. I like how the sun is still high overhead, making all the shadows on the card draw the eye up, as does the line of Wainwrights arm and even the bat on the uniform contributes to this. For a live action baseball photo, this is a very good one.

I like a few other tiny details on the card such as the probable appearance of the MLB Logoman on the baseball, and the way Wainwright's index finger probably hasn't finished placing his desired grip on the ball - or has it?

Uniform Hero? Once again, yes. And #50 is also a traditional "hero" # in Topps Baseball sets. As we will see for quite a while now, Pitchers like uni #s in the 50s.

Where’d the egg hatch? Wainwright was drafted by the Braves in the first round in the year 2000 as the 29th player selected.

How about the migrations? The Braves would then then trade him to St. Louis after the 2003 season with 2 other players in exchange for 2 players. The key piece going to Atlanta was J.D. Drew, who would accumulate a similar career WAR (44.9) to Wainwright's current tally (40.2); however Drew moved on to other teams whereas Wainwright has been a mainstay in St. Louis ever since. I would say St. Louis 'won' the trade in the aggregate.

The 2020 season is starting to to see bits of motion as I write this one & Wainwright is signed to another one year deal with the Cardinals. This 2013 card probably captures him at the peak of his career, stats wise; 2015 and 2018 would be only partial campaigns for him due to injury. But 2019 was a solid, complete season (31 starts) for him and a reliable veteran starter like Wainwright is a valuable part of an MLB rotation.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

This card back text now nicely mirrors Adam's current situation as this post is composed, after the 2019 complete season earned him another go in 2020.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 80 wins, Wainwright is 431 away from Cy Young's all-time record of 511.

As is semi-routine with the bulk of these comparisons, even a Pitcher as great as Adam Wainwright has little chance to match this one. After the 2019 season, Wainwright has 162 Wins.

Subspecies? Wainwright has always been a popular player and as much of a 'Face of the Franchise' as several of his teammates; after another strong playoff run in 2012 there would be little doubt about finding this same card in Opening Day and Chrome, but there are no other variants.

Bling That Shell I did go through some evolution on building this page; the more I thought about that Sunday cap the more I wanted to match it up with the just exactly perfect parallel to match. And after setting an eBay email alert for a couple years, one finally appeared:

#4 - Yadier Molina

What’s that Turtle doin’? On our first horizontal card, Topps deploys a not uncommon live game baseball card trope, though technically a post-game trope: a Catcher congratulating his battery-mate on a Win.

Except normally, such cards feature relievers at a minimum, and usually show well-known Closers. This card features Cardinals Ace Adam Wainwright, leading one to guess this is a celebration of an ever more rare thing in today's MLB - a Complete Game Victory.

And a quick bit of clicking through Baseball Reference and Getty Images, the source of a great many Topps baseball cards, reveals that this image is from the conclusion of a game on May 22, 2012, when Wainwright threw a 9 Inning, 4 Hit Shut-out at home to beat the San Diego Padres, 4-0. 

Uniform Hero? No question on a card with this low of a #. In his first two seasons, Molina wore #41 before settling in at #4 in 2006. I would say there is a good chance the Cardinals might someday retire this #, as they have not done so since honoring Ozzie Smith at #1, and a future date in Cooperstown is not out of the range of possibilities for 'Yadi'.

Where’d the egg hatch? A 4th round pick for the Cards, Molina debuted in 2004.

How about the migrations? A steady presence in St. Louis ever since, with numerous accolades, MLB Awards, All-Star games, and post-season triumphs, Molina is quite likely to remain a Franchise Player for his entire career. He is currently signed with the Cardinals through the 2020 season.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

A straight-forward, insightful comment on Molina's impressive gains with the bat as his career matured.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 1,022 hits, Molina is 3,727 away from the all-time record of 3,234.

Perhaps The Hit King invisibly looms so large over this stat challenge construction, that the worn-out miner deep in the Topps baseball card mines has lost the ability to do basic math here. Though one also has to wonder just who has 4,749 Hits in some combination of baseball Leagues, somewhere, or who it is/was that had 3,234 somethings playing organized baseball.

Of course few would ever expect a Catcher, given the wear&tear and rest days required of the position, to be able to catch an Infielder in any given offensive stat of the counting variety. This example also illustrates the possibilities that could have existed if Topps could have put more miner hours into the creation of this set, and used occasional position-specific stats for this card-back feature.

After the 2018 season, Molina's career Hit total has reached 1,850. This gives him an excellent chance to reach 2,000 Hits - something only 9 other Catchers have done in the history of Major League Baseball, and just one simple reason he may some day give a speech in a small town in upstate New York.

Subspecies? This image is also used in Chrome, and in Opening Day, which we will see shortly. However as seeing more cards is more fun, I thought I would share a Molina card from an insert set I quite enjoyed and collected to completion in 2013, in Opening Day - the "Play Hard" inserts. 

Now, Play @ the Plate cards are always popular of course, but seeing a moment of impact is somewhat rare. Would a Catcher blocking Home with another Catcher coming down the line from 3rd receive any professional courtesy from that Catcher, a year or so after the famous injury to Buster Posey, but before the new Buster Posey Rule? Nah man, Yadier Molina wants to win this game. Brace yourselves.

Bling That Shell This was another easy decision for the All-Parallel Turtles. As I am already going to be using the Emerald Foil parallels included in S1, S2, & Update, it was not much of a leap to also use the Blue Foil /2013 parallels found on the 220 card Opening Day checklist, about 97% of which uses the same image on the front of the card as is used in Series 1 & 2. I somewhat prefer the parallels that do not use the 'Foil' image modification, but the project would be too overly difficult without them.

The only minor nitpick to the idea is the basically superfluous Opening Day logo included on the cards, but I can live with that. I do like the dark blue border on these quite a bit.

Although 8 of the 9 cards on the 1st binder page have equivalents in Opening Day, 3 of them are "Blue Team" cards, which would break a basic color rule I use for constructing the set, as I will explain a bit more after the post for the 9th card. Of the five choices for using an Opening Day Blue on the page, I pulled this card from a pack: