#74 - Kenley Jansen

What’s that Turtle doin’? Probably making short work of another 9th inning; it must be a big divisional weekend game as Jansen definitely seems to be keeping the fans in their seats back there.

This card has great left-to-right motion, kind of like Jansen's most famous pitch. The tilted glove seems to be what the camera lens focused on and it initially draws the eye to the left side of the card but then Jansen's fore-arm draws the viewer back to the right where finally you notice Kenley's eyes focusing in on home plate. 

Though it is much harder to see the ball there near the same point as on the Lincecum card, there is just enough light on this bright sunny day to reveal the seams on the ball - and a four seam fastball grip, the basis of a cutter.

The bright sunshine again makes for nice combinations of white, light, shadow, and the iconic Dodgers team colors.      

Uniform Hero? Clearly. Jansen has worn #74 for his entire career.

Where’d the egg hatch? Kenley Jansen is from Curacao and was signed there by a Dodgers scout in 2004. Curacao has a population of a little over 150,000 people - but 3 Sea Turtle cards, which is quite probably the highest ratio of any country to supply players to this set.

How about the migrations? Jansen has been in the Dodgers organization since the signing and debuted in the Dodgers bullpen in 2010. He has never started a Major League game.

However, he was not signed as a Pitcher, but rather as a Catcher. "We're all told" goes the famous quote from Moneyball; but when Kenley was 'told' that his lack of a good hit tool would probably keep him out of the Majors he was fortunately also told that perhaps he could try pitching instead. His coach for that effort was one Charlie Hough, nearing the end of his post-MLB coaching career.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

It's the little things, the itty-bitty things, that jump out at you sometimes reading the back of a baseball card. Quick - name another switch-hitting Pitcher. Yup, up there under "Bats:" it says "Both." But before you detour off to the Google Machine for the story of Kenley at the plate, I can tell you he has had only 9 Plate Appearances in his career. Still though, this card will keep me on my toes a little on flipping over Pitcher cards.

I was a little surprised to see mention of Kimbrel on this card; placing a youngster in the role of Closer was a bit of a thing in MLB in the early 2010s and Kimbrel was the prime example. But this card back makes it clear he was not the only impressive example of such a career start.

Also I would not advise hitting up the Google Machine for the details on Netherlands Antilles vs. Curacao; I think it would be smarter to just enjoy a nice vacation there instead.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 34 saves, Jansen is 574 saves away from Mariano Rivera's all-time record of 608.

The 'Save' is such a captivating stat. Every baseball fan wants their team to have not just a 'Closer,' but preferrably a 'Proven Closer'; evidence of that allure is the presence of Kimbrel and Jansen in the Hero # portion of this checklist. 

So it is no surprise that this would be the stat comparison here. But given the card back text we just read, it is a bit of a pity that we can't compare K/9 or something, for Relievers, without making this odd little baseball card feature just too complicated.

As the 2020 season commences, Kenley Jansen has 301 Saves.

Subspecies? Though Jansen would certainly become a 'Proven Closer' after this card appeared, as it was being created he only had one partial season of closing games for the Dodgers, so this is the only Sea Turtle card for Kenley as it does not appear in Opening Day nor Chrome.

Bling That Shell This is another parallel that has migrated in and out of the project at times; I really like the Topps Black parallel but I have been trying to avoid using them for the blue teams due to a lack of 'pop'. Lately, this particular card is back in, mostly due to the PITA factor of trying to re-arrange this page otherwise, and I do want an example of almost every team color + parallel color.

#56 - Joe Blanton

What’s that Turtle doin’? This time, here in the middle of the Pitcher parade, we have just driven to the plate. I would hazard a guess that the batter's swing (or not), and the Ump's call are in the process of completion right, now, as we gaze upon Joe Blanton. I would make that claim because Blanton has not begun to relax his body from the end of his delivery motion in any single way that can be seen here. His right, throwing, arm has completed it's follow through all the way back to his torso after releasing the ball, and that is all.

Blanton does seem optimistic on the call and this card almost makes the cut for a sub-collection I like to keep called The Pitcher Is Smiling At Me.

This Pitching card is a little less common than others in that a photo clicked _after_ the Pitcher completes his delivery is not the norm for an 'In Action' card of a Pitcher. This is only the 3rd such card in the set of 24 Pitchers on the checklist so far.

Overall though, this is a nice sunny day baseball card day out in sunny Los Angeles. It has a nice balance of sunlight and shadow created by Blanton himself, which makes one forget this is almost a purely 2-tone card of all white and blue but ultimately works very well thanks to all that sunshine.

One new element on this card is the right shoulder patch Joe is wearing, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of Dodger Stadium. However we will see much better views of that patch on other cards in this set.

Uniform Hero? Normally home Dodger uniforms give a splendid view of the player's # on their baseball cards but such is not the case here. Nevertheless, Blanton did wear #56 for the Dodgers in 2012, but by 2013, he was wearing a different uni # for a different team.

I mentioned a 'Pitcher parade' at the head of this post as we have just passed the half-way point of a very long string of Pitchers on this checklist, likely the longest in the set. Pitchers do seem to favor uniform #s in the 50s; of 21 players that wore #56 in the 2012 season, 17 of them were Pitchers.

Where’d the egg hatch? Blanton is one of the more veteran Sea Turtles in the set, as he was drafted in the 1st round in 2002 by the Oakland A's, right at the core of the action in the book "Moneyball," which does discuss the pre-draft thinking on Blanton some. He was actually Oakland's 2nd pick in the 1st round (24th overall), as the A's had 4 picks in the top 30. This all makes him 33 years old on this card, though he looks not far removed from his Rookie season on the front.

How about the migrations? Blanton's 8 IP 'cup of coffee' debut came in 2004 before joining an A's rotation depleted by trades in 2005. Naturally, he would eventually be traded away from the A's in 2008, off to the Phillies (Josh Outman only really known return piece; not one of Billy Beane's better trades but then Beane is always hamstrung by looming player paydays). Has Beane ever drafted a player who retired from the Oakland A's? Not that all that many MLB players do that any more for any team, but to see a career arc like that in 21st century Oakland would be noticeable.

After that mid-season trade in 2008, Blanton would hit a Home Run while pitching for the Phillies in the World Series, currently the last MLB pitcher to perform the feat. 

Blanton landed on this baseball card via a trade to L.A. on August 3, 2012, a few days after the 'no-waiver' trade deadline which confuses 99% of baseball fans, but does not confuse Topps, who will definitely not print an Update card for a player traded that late in the summer. The return piece for the 'rental' of 2 months of Blanton's contract never made the Majors, well illustrating a common outcome of such trades despite the value casual fans place on them.

Blanton would then sign a contract with the Angels on Dec. 12, 2012 and would not actually pitch an inning for L.A. in the actual year of the Sea Turtle cards. He would appear in the Heritage set, which releases a month after Series One, as a photo-shopped California Angel. All of which probably illustrates something about the lead-time required for Topps to create accurate Topps Baseball cards.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

A player in the Leagues this long runs out of room for the Topps crew to write up a blurb for them, in any set with "full stats" like this one, rather than 5 year stats. It is often a bit of a pity whenever a Lead League in Italics is a counting stat the player would rather not have compiled, although in this case Blanton had such respectable WHIP and ERA figures there that allowing 240 Hits is more a positive indicator of his ability to stay in games — and pitch his rotation spot 100% reliably as this card misses the fact that by starting 34 games in 2007, Blanton should have earned another Lead League in Italics bit of red ink for that.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 228 games started, Blanton is 587 away from Cy Young's all-time record of 815.

Now this is a surprising comparison in a couple ways. For one, this is the first such comparison in the set here on the 56th card. It is also a stat that the card collector can't verify for themselves right on the back of the card. I suspect we might see a few more of these unexpected All-Time stat comparisons sneak up on us as we read the back of each and every card in the set, as composing them had to have been a bit of a chore, really.

Blanton would pitch for the Angels in 2013 before one could almost call him a journeyman starter for the rest of his career, if he hadn't largely switched to the bullpen after this card was created. After a season with the Angels additional stops included a 2nd stop in Oakland though injury would prevent him from pitching there, a 2nd stop in Dodger Stadium, as well as time in the bullpens of the Royals, Pirates, and Nationals before he retired after the 2017 season.

With 252 games started of 427 games appearing in, Blanton finished his career 563 away from Cy Young's all-time record.

Subspecies? This is the only Joe Blanton Sea Turtle designed card.

Bling That Shell We have started a new binder page now and this one leads off with a blue on Gold choice, one which will be pretty common in the all parallel set as the blue Sea Turtle baseball diamonds don't mix so well with some of the blue Sea Turtle shells. But these always look classy:

#22 - Clayton Kershaw

What’s that Turtle doin’? I doubt there is any other checklist of Topps Baseball cards that needs 22 cards before a 2nd Pitcher is found. And now here we are, for probably the best Pitcher in the whole set.

The card is strong. The line of Kershaw's left leg and his solid torso, half-way through his motion, then illustrate where a substantial portion of the power of his pitches comes from, making his thin chain necklace snap forward. Then a 2nd strong line is created by his billowing uniform lifting up "Dodgers" to line up with his golden left arm.

This particular framing of a Kershaw snapshot would probably look just as strong on an overcast day at the ballpark. Instead, Clayton is leaning almost directly into some later afternoon sun, perfectly lighting up the proceedings.

A far more subtle part of the card is supplied by Dodger Stadium as it quietly fades into the twilight, letting the Ace appear to be pitching in front of a painting as he is just about to paint a corner of Home Plate, again.

Plenty of Pitcher cards are boring. Not this one.

Uniform Hero? No kid collecting the 2013 Topps Baseball Dodgers is ever going to forget this Uniform #, nor likely this baseball card #, either. This is our fifth sequential card to include the Uni # in the photograph.

Where’d the egg hatch? Kershaw was drafted - not surprisingly, as it turns out - by the Dodgers in the 1st round in 2006, as the 7th pick overall. What that dry factoid doesn't reveal is that he was drafted just out of High School. Normally in media coverage leading up to the Draft each year in early summer, there are a lot of heebie-jeebies declared over the risks of using a high pick on a High School Pitcher. This makes it more common for 1st Round Pitchers to come from the College ranks.

Kershaw debuted with the Dodgers just 2 years later, at Age 20, which perhaps is the exception that proves the rule, or something. No risk, no reward, seems the more fitting aphorism.

How about the migrations? Does anyone really expect that the Dodgers would ever let go a Pitcher like Clayton Kershaw? His latest contract extension took all of 6 days after the end of the World Series to complete negotiations, keeping him signed with L.A. through 2021.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

Sure, it is easy to chuckle at the fate of the Topps card back writer when they have to dream up something positive to say about about some former hot Rookie now battling the Mendoza Line to stay up in The Show.

But imagine, instead, about having to write something creative and not just yet more repetitive news-of-the-obvious sports cliches about the premiere players in the Leagues. Would you have expected to end up thinking about Taylor Swift _and_ Sandy Koufax when you turned this card over? How did that happen?

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 974 strikeouts, Kershaw is 4,740 away from Nolan Ryan's all-time record of 5,714.

Now if this is not the first card in the set that you had turned over in order to absorb every little baseball factoid you possibly could, well, you might be thinking ahead of time that if anyone in 2013 Major League Baseball could break an All-Time pitching record — it would be Clayton Kershaw.

Until you started thinking about the reality of chasing none other than Nolan Ryan. An apt choice here on the part of Topps. But Nolan freakin' Ryan? Give Kershaw a chance at somethin'!

After the 2018 season, Clayton Kershaw has 2,275 Ks, which is still not half-way there, though good for 8th on the Active list, where Kershaw is the youngest Pitcher in the top 10.

Subspecies? For a star like this, there should be little surprise that he appears on numerous Topps checklists, annually, including the Sea Turtle versions of Opening Day and Chrome. Although I would never expect a Pitcher to feature on a "Great Catch" themed card, there is one Short Print variant of this card, inserted with Series Two, of the "Autographs" aka "Fan Interaction" type. I have yet to 'collect' one of those.

2013 Topps Chrome also delivers a Kershaw photo variation card featuring a post-At Bat return to the dugout, which is so scarce I hesitate to guess how many times "super" should be repeated before the "short" appellation.

There is also an autographed version of this very card, issued with a sticker auto as part of the customer loyalty 'Wrapper Redemption' packs in the winter of 2013. It is numbered to /35 and I seriously doubt I will ever see one of those with my own eyes, let alone be able to afford one if one were ever for sale, ever again.

Later in the set, Kershaw will make a very nice cameo on another player's card, which is reminiscent of this card, from the 5 card checklist issued with All-Star edition of the Factory Set, which I do have:

This is an interesting card in a couple ways. As we know from the back of the card, Kershaw had pitched 2 Complete Games in 2012, and normally these 'Battery Mate' photos on baseball cards are taken at the end of a game. 

However this picture has a specific visual clue - what appears to be a memorial type ribbon on Kershaw's left breast. This is highly likely to be the Sandy Hook / Newtown, CT memorial patch worn by all teams for one game, after the terrible school shooting in December, 2012. Here is an example:

The one game? That was on Opening Day, April 1st, 2013. It is basically horrifying that such a tragedy can lead me to using this kind of clue to identify the specific date of a photograph on a baseball card and is unfortunate I couldn't have done this more simply with some Opening Day bunting in the background or something.

Nonetheless, that does reveal that the All-Star Game set special card is probably the first Sea Turtle card issued to actually use a photograph from the 2013 regular season. And Baseball Reference, as handy as ever, reveals that this is indeed a Complete Game Win celebration shot, much like the #4 - Yadier Molina card, as on Opening Day of the 2013 season, Clayton Kershaw pitched a 4 hit Shutout of the visiting San Francisco Giants, which is just about the most perfect way Dodgers fans could want a season to open.

Bling That Shell Picking a parallel for this particular card was an easy decision that came at the start of the project, and a lucky one, as I would certainly not want to attempt to purchase one. I pulled this one from a pack:

#16 - Andre Ethier

What’s that Turtle doin’? "I got it!" A basic Outfielder in Action card. A complete player image that is nice to see for a complete player. There are some combinations of parallel lines to consider, but none of the combos really add together in any cohesive way. Even the ones that lead you to the ground, not always a good thing on a baseball card, don't really matter - he's about to catch the ball. Out!

I would hand out only a 9.5, Gem/Mint, for the way the tennis shoes come to rest on the frame; more like the Adam Jones card than the more near to Pristine framing effort on the Ryan Howard card, though his isn't quite a Black Label in that regard.

This Fielding card reveals something on the checklist - Fielding cards are easily keeping up with Hitting cards. Hitters Hitting cards are so same-same sometimes, that I bet you expect there a lot more of them than Fielding cards. I know I do. So I decided to add a "Hitting" label to each appropriate blog post, to keep track of Topps here, over the long haul. Adding a "Pitching" label still seems a little pointless however, but if I am keeping track of all the rest...

Probably my favorite element on the card is the classic red Uniform # the Dodgers wear. Without it, this would be a fair bit more dreary of a card; blue, blue, blue. I am fairly sure I have a Wal-Mart Blue copy of this card in a little pile somewhere for a future "None More Blue" baseball card contest on my other blog.

Blue is a solid baseball color, but it really needs it's eternal American trinity mates red & white to be hanging out with it, too. The odd red dot on Ethier's wrist-band and the red stripe on the outfield wall advertising helps, a little, but those also just remind you of how this card is almost a monochromatic card like a White Sox card. A Blue Sox card? We can't see his socks. Ahh, red #16 to the rescue. 

Fortunately, in 2013, we have all those parallels....

Uniform Hero? A just about perfect example, just about perfectly in the center of the card.

Where’d the egg hatch? Would it surprise you to learn that Ethier was actually drafted by Billy Beane? (2nd Round, 2003). Has anyone ever calculated what % of MLB players have passed through Oakland? It certainly seems like Beane would have some League Leader #s in italics on the back of his card, under Transactions.

How about the migrations? Beane traded Ethier to L.A. in December, 2005, before Ethier had ever appeared in MLB. The return player? Milton Bradley, and one other player who adds little to this narrative, but can be discovered easily enough.

Ethier debuted with a full, excellent Rookie season in 2006. He went on to play his entire career in L.A. with eventually fairly similar, and quite good, #s as Bradley, though without all the drama. Advantage: L.A.

After 2 frustrating seasons of injury-comeback-attempts, Ethier retired after the 2017 season.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

That Rookie season was no fluke as Ethier became a model of excellent consistency. 

Usually in a set of baseball cards the Topps card back writer is too, effortlessly summoning classic (imaginary?) statistical bon mots like this one, casually dropping a "Jerry Mumphrey" from way downtown! 

Oh sure, _you_ remember the game on the 50th anniversary of Dodger Stadium like it was yesterday, but I bet _you_ can't name all the other players who hit Home Runs on their 30th birthday, let alone which ones did it after the 8th inning. But Topps can.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 535 RBI, Ethier is 1,702 away from Hank Aaron's all-time record of 2,297.

1,702 away, huh? I think we have a long way to go with these in this set.

Ethier finished his career with 687 RBI, 1,610 away from Hank Aaron's All-Time record. Wait. So much for trusting Topps math, which was off. 

Ethier was 1,762 RBIs away from breaking Aaron's record when this card was created. So close, Topps, so close.

Subspecies? Like a few more than 200 of the other top 1/3 of MLB players, and a bit before RC logo mania commandeered ever more checklist spots, Ethier appears in 2013 Opening Day and 2013 Chrome with this same card image.

I can't think of owning too many Ethier cards from the first half of his career, when my collecting activity was quite low. But I also thought Topps and Andre Ethier and baseball cards got on pretty well, when I did find one of his cards a bit later in his career. And that warm touchy-feely feeling is reinforced by his presence in the "Great Catch" SP series, which I can share with you below. Pondering that Lawrie "Great Catch" card just 2 cards ago, I realized the blog needs a new section here in Series One, for these cards -

So, did he catch it? I mean, Topps probably wants you to just presume the player caught the ball. What fun would it be if he didn't? We don't need to know this, to show off a cool looking baseball picture card like this one.

But if you buy Topps products for long enough, you can start to become a little suspicious. You know things are not always as they seem in the cheerful world of Topps baseball cards. You would enjoy your "Great Catch" baseball card so much more if you could just hear the announcer definitively giving you some closure with a bumped up volume "And He Makes THE CATCH!!!"

So you want to be sure, and you double check to see if Getty Images was the original hook-up for Topps here. Odds are usually good on such an inquest, with all the live baseball used in the Topps Baseball set now. I'm not perfectly clear on using the images here, so for now I will just tip with you an example of how easy their search window is to use: "Andre Ethier 2012 Catch."

And there it was, a photo obviously taken just after, probably even the next shutter click after, the one on this card. Confirmed by the exact same set of fans in the stands, and is a fun photo worth a quick copy/paste and a few clicks of your own to see it; it looks like Ethier is casually drinking a Coke during this catch. On that photo, you can see the ball, and it is not where Topps probably thinks you should think it is. So instead of the second photo, and to still give a minor, probably never seen shout-out to the sports photog for this one, I will share just the caption of the 2nd photo with you, since you have a digital baseball card of the first photo to go along with it:

HOUSTON,TX- APRIL 22: Andre Ethier #16 of the Los Angeles Dodgers leaps but can't make a catch on a grand slam home run off the bat of Jordan Schafer #1 of the Houston Astros in the second inning on April 22, 2012 at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas.(Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)

Bling That Shell

A package of 2013 Parallels has arrived here at Sea Turtle HQ! An original sealed package of Parallels packaged by Topps Chewing Gum Co. New York, NY, no less! Tune in to blog post #19 in a few days to see what's in the little package of baseball cards from all the way back in the year two thousand, thirteen, as well as actual construction techniques used to create an all-parallel page of 2013 Topps!

#9 - Dee Gordon

What’s that Turtle doin’? This is another long-time standard live action baseball card image - a middle infielder attempting to create a Double Play.

Fortunately for the card, Oakland wore their Home Alternate, solid color uniforms that day, supplying this card with a helpful extra dollop of primary bright color.

One potential color missing here is the classic red of the Uni # the Dodgers wear, blocked by Dee's glove. His glove does pleasantly line up with the "Los Angeles" of the road uniform. Although half of all MLB teams are wearing a road uniform in every game, by no means do road uniforms supply half of all baseball card action shots, which is definitely for the better. But for the sake of assembling a team set each year, it is always nice to have at least one card with a well executed road uni shot.

Uniform Hero? Yep. Dee Gordon has worn #9 for his entire career.

Where’d the egg hatch? Gordon was drafted by the Dodgers in the 4th round in 2008. He debuted in L.A. in 2011, when he received one of the more bodacious RC logo Rookie Cards of the 2010s, in 2011 Topps Update.

How about the migrations? Dee played for the Dodgers through 2014, when he had his best season in L.A., playing 148 games and leading the League in Steals for the first time with 64, and Triples with 12. Despite that, he was traded to Miami Marlins after the season. In Miami his career blossomed significantly and he led the NL in Steals once again - and Batting Average at .338.

At the beginning of the 2016 season, his 2nd in Miami, he was suspended for 80 games for failing a test for PEDs, supplying a bit of irony to his checklist position adjacent to Ryan Braun.

At the end of the 2016 season, he hit probably one of the most famous Home Runs in Marlins franchise history, in the team's first At Bat after learning of the previous day's death of their young Ace Jose Fernandez. The next year he again led the NL in Steals and hit over .300, but was traded to Seattle for 3 prospects after the season, in the midst of a deep re-build in Miami.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

It is always nice to read of Major Leaguers of the past on a card back, even when mentioned somewhat obliquely.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 56 stolen bases, Gordon is 1,350 away from Rickey Henderson's all-time record of 1,406.

This is our first consideration of the Henderson record, and an apt choice for a Dee Gordon card, even this early in his career. But I do not think we will see this particular "Chase" considered often in the set.

Gordon has since led the NL in Steals three times and a current card would be well lit up with various League Leads in Italics.

At the conclusion of play in 2018, Dee has stolen 308 bases and is 31 years old.

Subspecies? Gordon is our first player who does not appear in either 2013 Opening Day or Chrome, making this a unique card in the Topps pantheon. Except, of course, for the parallels....

Bling That Shell The first binder page is filling up now, and it is time for a classic Topps selection - the Gold parallel, numbered to the year of the set: