What’s that Turtle doin’? Demonstrating just exactly perfect pitching mechanics, I expect.
By that I mean, I sure hope Trevor Bauer likes his sophomore Topps Baseball card, as he is fairly well known for a deep study of all things Pitching. The lines of the image do seem to align correctly in every way, both for a good photo, and a good pitch. Having his right foot included in the frame makes for a particularly strong overall line all the way to the top of his cap; a line which doesn't carry the viewer to the plate with the ball but does make the viewer of the card easily hear the announcer saying "from the stretch" pretty clearly. I always like the high socks look; it says to me 'baseball' far better than the pajama leg uniform look does. With the socks, the long sleeves, solid color uni, the red advertising on the outfield wall, the cap, the red Sea Turtle, and the red team logo — well, overall the white frame nicely offsets all that red very nicely. Would a 'full bleed' card design do the same, for this photo? I suspect this is probably a Night Card; day games under a roof tend to have a different lighting I think. But indoor Night Cards aren't usually as noticeably night-timed. However the photographic effect of shooting it at night creates my favorite part of the card - the white orb just beyond Bauer's pitching hand. So calming, somehow. Somehow, so far, this 2013 Topps Baseball set manages to only offer up a 100% complete image of a baseball player about once per binder page; this card is only a close, but no toes for that idea. The result of seeing 99% of Trevor Bauer is that we are a little less able to see the expression on Bauer's face, which, given his now well-known enjoyment of discussing the state of Major League Baseball very publicly - is not surprisingly a fair bit 'earnest.' If you wish to see that a little better, this same image is used on an insert card in the set, his "1972 mini."
Uniform Hero? Negatory. Although MLB regulars wearing uniform #s this high start to thin out some, Topps did still have some options here for players that would appear elsewhere in Sea Turtle land.
Where’d the egg hatch? Trevor Bauer was drafted by Arizona in the first round in 2011, as the 3rd pick, which is something that leads to the creation of a lot of baseball cards, such as being included on insert checklists despite appearing in only 4 MLB games so far.
How about the migrations? Like most successful college starters selected early in the draft, he debuted the next year, but the Diamondbacks elected to largely keep him in the minors after that brief July call-up. Bauer was then one of an impressive set of chips moved in a 3-team trade in early December 2012 as this card was 'going to press,' as it were, which also included Shin-Shoo Choo and Didi Gregorius; Bauer ended up in Cleveland where he again pitched in only 4 games in 2013 before joining their rotation to stay in 2014. At the 2019 trade deadline, Bauer was again on the move in a complex 3-team trade, this time changing leagues but not States of the Union as he moved just downstate to Cincinnati. As the 2020 season commences he has only a year of club control left for the Reds.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
One thing feels certain to me about Trevor Bauer — the Topps card back writer will never lack for subject matter in this assignment, something his Rookie Card foreshadows as well.
I do enjoy occasionally reading any active Major Leaguer's current take on Major League Baseball, but I do hope that Bauer someday shares a few thoughts on baseball cards. Though I can't say I am optimistic those will be sunny ones, I would still like to hear them.
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 17 strikeouts, Bauer is 5,697 away from Nolan Ryan's all-time record 5,714. This could be the greatest counting stat differential in the entire run of these stats, depending on how many Rookies Topps might subject to a Nolan Ryan comparison later in the set. This is surely the greatest differential so far. As the 2020 season commences, Bauer has thrown 1,179 Strikeouts.
Subspecies? There will be more Trevor Bauer Sea Turtle cards in the set, but there are no variants of his Diamondbacks card.
Bling That Shell High print run parallels make this whole project possible; here I went with the Emerald parallel that might have fallen out of any pack of Sea Turtle cards, in every pack design:
What’s that Turtle doin’? This is probably the most zoomed-in Pitching card yet seen in the set, as Weaver's belt almost doesn't make the cut here. I have read how people appearing on Television these days have to have just exactly perfect make-up, because the super duper clear resolution of the HD XD LED Ultra Q 4K four-wall TVs we watch today will instantly reveal every tiny blemish on a human being for everyone to see.
Baseball players don't have the luxury of preparing like that for their baseball card closeups. Nevertheless, Jered Weaver appears just fine on this baseball card. He is focused on delivering a Strike to Home Plate, not worrying about some super duper obscure baseball card blogger 6.33 years in his future.
When the live action cards get this close-in to the player, there isn't always much to consider on the card. The only thing really goin' on on this card is Weaver's momentum making his hair stream out behind him. Topps likes a good hair day on a baseball card, that's for sure.
Uniform Hero? The players with the big red uniform #s right on the front of the card really make this checklist format work the best.
Where’d the egg hatch? Jered Weaver was selected by the Angels in the same draft as the previous card for Justin Verlander, in 2004, though he was picked 12th.
How about the migrations? Weaver debuted soon enough in Anaheim, pitching a solid 123 Innings in 2006.
This card captures him coming off 3 straight All-Star Game appearances and a 20 Win 2012 campaign which included throwing a No Hitter. There were still some more solid seasons on the way.
My memory of Jered Weaver is one of intensity, something this up-close card does hint at. Somehow, he and the Detroit Tigers developed a "beef," the details of which I doubt can be remembered by many, and I am certainly not one of them. When a Tiger reached base against him somehow, there was a palpable tension between the mound and the basepath as if the 60' distance between the 2 was still a little too close.
He almost completed his career as a California Angel for 100% of his MLB service time; the Angels declined to re-sign him after his final contract extension with them ended after the 2016 season. He was still a Major League Pitcher, but was just becoming hittable in his mid-30s. Weaver gave it 'one more go' with the Padres, appearing in 5 games for them in 2017 before finally retiring during the season, his 12th.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
3 undefeated Aprils in a row. Neat.
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 102 wins, Weaver is 409 away from Cy Young's all-time record of 511.
Well, he was just coming off a League Leading 20 Win season, so I guess he had a shot at it. Whaddya think?
Jered Weaver finished his solid MLB career with a nice round 150 Wins.
Subspecies? All-Stars do well on Topps checklists and Weaver was no exception in 2013. This card # would not be tied to any photo variants, and the same image did appear in Chrome.
But in 2013 Opening Day, Jered Weaver did receive a unique card - quite a rare feat in that set, until just recently at least, especially for a player that wasn't switching teams in the just preceding off-season. I think this was the only such card in 2013 Opening Day. So here we get a bit of a bonus Sea Turtle:
Bling That Shell The end of the page draws near and it is time to make an easy choice. Even All-Stars can be acquired very easily on the Emerald parallel. I do think the best cards for these are the super close-ups like this one. Every other element of the image largely disappears on a foil parallel, so this one works just fine -
What’s that Turtle doin’? Playin' baseball right on the baseball card - as definitive of a "live action" baseball card as you can get.
A 'live' baseball captured on a baseball card rarely disappoints. On this one, you can even see the laces. That suggests to me that Utley hasn't made contact with the ball yet, because when that has already happened in a photograph, with the ball that close to the bat, the ball usually blurs significantly, and quite often appears as no longer perfectly round, even. If Utley had just finished driving the ball with the bat a split-second before the shutter-click, I suspect the baseball would look much different in the photo.
There also appears to be a bit of shadow on the bat, caused by the actual baseball in the directly overhead sunlight. Although it is exciting to see the live pitch and live swing in this image, it seems highly likely we are about to hear a "Strike!" or whatever odd sound the Ump will make to indicate the same. Though perhaps Utley still has a chance to Foul it off with some brief minor contact on the top of the bat.
This striking image seems so familiar on baseball cards of the 2010s that it made me reach for the adjacent binder for the 2014 set, to see how many examples it held. I only found one, the Avisail Garcia card, on a pleasant journey back through that set. Something I always enjoy about baseball cards; when one card leads you off into absorbing other cards.
There is definitely one more identical card to this arriving later in the set, and Topps has never stopped using this vantage point for cards throughout the 2010s. I am not always a fan of an action shot that obscures a player's face, but I guess with the number of different baseball cards produced annually for many players, particularly extremely popular players of Utley's caliber, it is probably better to produce a card like this.
+Bonus points for a tiny Logoman on the back of Utley's uniform.
-Bonus points for the Umpire's fingers creepin' in off the side of the card.
Uniform Hero? Yes.
Where’d the egg hatch? Utley was drafted by the Phillies in the first round of the 2000 draft, selected 15th overall, and broke in with them in 2003.
How about the migrations? When this card was produced, one would have thought there would be an excellent chance that Utley would retire a Phillie, as similar to so many of the players near him here on the checklist. A highly successful member of a relatively recent World Series winner, why wouldn't he play his whole career in Philadelphia?
One thing that reading baseball cards does not reveal much about the game is the ceaseless chatter from all the other fans, specifically on the way rosters are constructed. Fans often decry the loss of favorite players, but at the same time many other fans can often want to 'cut bait' on most any player the instant they don't make an All-Star team.
So it was for Philadelphia around the time of the Sea Turtle cards - some fans were more than ready to drop all of the remaining World Series heroes on the club and pick up a new set of Legos, err, prospects, and start over. The Phillies brass eventually agreed though by the time they did, with just 6 weeks to go in the 2015 season they could only essentially purchase a pair of unlikely prospects from the Dodgers by sending Utley to L.A. while still paying a portion of his remaining salary.
Still, as one would expect for a player sporting the descriptor noted on the back of his card, Utley wished to keep playing even at a reduced salary (in his hometown, too) and he went on to complete 3 more increasingly part-time seasons with the Dodgers, drawing some praise for his intangible "veteran leadership" that remains largely inscrutable to those of us outside of a Major League clubhouse.
He announced his retirement during the 2018 season; it is thought he will draw a healthy amount of votes for the Hall of Fame some day, making this 3rd binder page in the set the 3rd page, sequentially, likely to hold multiple Hall of Famers some day.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
A bit of a prescient effort here by Topps as that highly respectful adjective for Utley would really come into use around him the year of his retirement. A more telling nickname for Chase is revealed on his Baseball Reference page: "The Man."
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 779 runs, Utley is 1,516 away from Rickey Henderson's all-time record of 2,295.
I would expect few baseball fans check out a player's Runs total in any given year; even more than with RBI stats most would understand how beyond a player's control scoring a Run is - except for the best base stealers in the game, who help manufacture them.
But it seems clear this selection was made obvious by Utley's sole League Leadup there in red in his stats. Still, invoking Rickey Henderson leads the reader to consider any potential ability to steal bases. This reveals a single 20-20 season for Utley, in his 7th season, which would be a bit late to become a noted base stealer, manufacturing Runs along the way.
Utley would retire having scored 1,103 Runs.
Subspecies? Naturally for such an epic baseball card, Topps would want to use this elsewhere, and it does appear in both Opening Day and Chrome. A short print / photo variation did arrive with this card # inserted in Series 2 packs, of the "Autographs" variety.
Bling That Shell As we will see with the final card on this binder page, I have not quite set this card in stone, in terms of parallel desired. I would rather have a Toys-R-Us Purple card here, to preserve a little more of the totality of the live game action, much of which disappears on a foil card. Hopefully that will become true some day, but until then this card will be represented by an Emerald:
What’s that Turtle doin’? The only mystery to this card is whether Joey Votto just hit a Home Run. Given the near complete Stop Time that is captured, it seems to be either a no-doubter, or a pretty high one yet hit on a line such that will lead the announcer to say "and the centerfielder takes just one step to his left and snags this one easily."
There is a strong line from the uniform to Votto's left arm, which perfectly leads the viewer up, and away — which is what the baseball just did. The full extension of his left arm argues for a potential that the announcer is actually saying "and he sure got all of that one," especially when one compares it to other cards/photos of Votto in this same post-swing instant, without that extension.
And that's all this image wrote. It is a nice one for this player in particular, subtly reminding the viewer to flip the card over and consider this player's power, which is not what he is famous for. Because would you really want an In Action card, showing The Canadian God of Walks, generating a +1 in his famous, perpetually League Leading stat? Though come to think of it, maybe a carefully photographed trot to First would make a nice little tribute to serious On-Base skills.
If you have absorbed all 19 cards in the set so far, you know this card has basically everything in common with the #2 - Derek Jeter card, except for which side of the plate they bat from (& they even use the same brand and color of bat). Could it be that the biggest superstars get the most 'zoom in' on their baseball cards? We shall have to keep looking at these cards to figure that out. Darn. +Bonus points for the colorful blurry crowd, and another tiny batting glove MLB logoman appearance, supplying the tiniest possible smidgen of blue on the card.
Uniform Hero? Yup. Probably the largest on-card Uniform # yet seen.
Where’d the egg hatch? Somehow, the scouts had Joey Votto a tad low on the draft priority boards, as he was selected in the 2nd round by Cincinnati in 2002. How that might relate to his 5 year (a tad long) path to his MLB debut in 2007, I am not sure. I also think MiLB stats for Votto would be basically interesting.
How about the migrations? Another prestige low-checklist-spot-holding Sea Turtle that has remained a 'Franchise Player' throughout his career. Votto won an MVP in 2010 and is currently signed through the end of 2023.
I doubt there is a fan anywhere that can truly say they don't like Joey Votto - everyone likes Canadians, in my life experience. 2019 will be an interesting season for him, his first in several years, as Cincinnati has somewhat pushed a few chips into the center of the table and said "Call." Unfortunately for the Reds, the other clubs sitting at their table comprise the NL Central, a couple of whom have also picked up some more chips from the cashier this winter.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
If this blog were even more contemporary, Votto would likely be a contender for being a League Leaderleader, with many more to his credit beyond the 5 captured on this card back.
I'm not sure exactly when Topps first began using direct quotes on the back of baseball cards, but it is definitely a handy technique for these constructions.
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 197 doubles, Votto is 595 away from Tris Speaker's all-time record of 792.
Just 19 cards in to the set now, and the Topps research department is making an honest effort to diversify these.
At the end of 2018, Votto had hit 372 Doubles.
Now one would think that even in November, 2012, a fan might have likely already been daydreaming about Votto's chance at breaking a different All-Time record, particularly given the way he had just tied for the League Lead in Walks in 2012, despite appearing in only 111 Games. (!) So let's re-imagine this card back segment, and see what happens, as it could have appeared to baseball card collectors desperately absorbing some brand new Series One amidst the deep Polar Vortex of the winter of 2013:
CAREER CHASE: With 429 walks, Votto is 2,129 away from Barry Bonds' all-time record of 2,558.
At the end of the 2018 season, Votto had 1,104 Walks, which is 2nd among Active players (Pujols leads this one), and currently 78th All-Time.
Subspecies? Once again without all that much surprise, Joey Votto appears in both Opening Day and Chrome in 2013, with this same card image. Although First Basemen make good candidates for the "Great Catch" series, this card has no other variants.
Bling That Shell As I have noted all through this run of 9 cards that makes up the 2nd binder page in this set, I still need cards on it. For the Votto card I have a definite specimen purchased, not yet delivered - the Emerald parallel, which probably has the 2nd highest print run after the Wal-Mart Blue - something that helps tremendously for a strongly collected player.
And before I wander off into my parallel reality, I just wanted to note that the point of this blog is not to beg for help with these parallels, although I will certainly be doing that in a few cases. This particular page has been tough to fill throughout the project, and this difficultly can only really increase as time passes. But I have been thinking to start this blog for quite some time, though my original plan was to finish the parallel project, first.
The pages coming up are largely filled, or one cheap, commonly available parallel (the Votto Emerald cost me all of 60¢) away from completion. I have finally reached a point where I am going to start filling those easy pick-ups, and doing so sequentially, in hopes that acquisitions run ahead of the blog posts, and I do expect that.
This project has meant semi-regular monitoring of any chance to buy these cards, of course. And about ten days ago, a unique opportunity scrolled it's way into my eBay 'feed' - a copy of a 2013 Factory Set, the "Hobby" edition, which includes a 5 card pack of the /230 Orange parallels in each set, which we haven't seen much of, yet. These are found nowhere else, and nowhere close to 230 of each copy will ever circulate, as many collectors buy one of these as part of their investment portfolio, with an additional thought that breaking the Topps logo plastic wrap on the set would ruin it's value. So straight into a closet go untold thousands of these sets. I will return to that concept shortly.
In the meantime, let's rip a pack!
So yeah, that was fun! I hope I do not have the only "Set Blog" post, where someone rips a sealed pack of the cards involved, just to relive the original experience. But that is possible. It is probably especially possible that no other Set Blog has a video of the experience.
I should finish the story on obtaining that little pack. The Factory Set that was posted for sale was listed as "Sealed," but clearly wasn't in the photos. The listing also promised it included the special 5 card pack.
Given the Rookie Card mania that generally consumes so many in this Hobby, most people view the 2013 set as having essentially only about one card - the Manny Machado RC. Their main interest in obtaining a sealed set of these now would be for a copy of that card, quite probably in about as perfect a condition as possible. So without that Topps logo seal, most collectors would be mighty suspicious about whether a Machado would still be included, and whether it might not have been switched out with one horribly ruined by some sort of damage largely invisible to the naked eye of normal people.
The other suspicion would be about that 5 card pack - it comes in a clear wrapper, and would probably be not at all impossible to "search" the 5 cards, while technically still leaving the pack "sealed."
For my purposes, however, I would be just fine with an already searched little pack. As long as the seller was honest about including it, I would be fine taking my chances. I can use about 50 different Orange cards potentially, for 20 slots in the project, that could come out of the little pack. However none of them are valuable and none would register with anyone 'searching' the pack for the Machado Rookie, or a couple other cards that would definitely reward a purchaser of the little pack. I'm not strong on calculating probability, but I think needing one of 50 cards of 660 possibilities, with 5 chances to 'hit' one that I need, would be about a 1-in-3 chance. ?
So I put a $15 bid on the orphaned set of Sea Turtles, and hoped, and was rewarded with a little pack of cards to open, and another set of Sea Turtles to keep. As it turned out, the seller was someone who collects comic books, and the set of cards was just something he picked up as an inclusion with a purchase of a large lot of comics; he knew almost nothing about baseball cards, nor the worries anyone would have about the inaccurate "Sealed" auction title.
I definitely look forward to lucking into this type of purchase again, though not at the more expected $40-ish price point for a normal Sealed 2013 Topps Factory Set. Aside from needing some of these fairly scarce parallels for my project, I am not immune to the "lottery ticket" aspect of baseball cards, even though I never buy anything but the very cheapest tickets. A chance at hitting the Machado RC, or a couple other cards, adds to the motivation. There is also one known printing error card that only appears in early production runs of the Factory Set - we will consider that card here before too long. That one "key" RC in the set, by the way, still sells for all of about $3 "raw", and given Machado's difficulties in signing a new long-term contract this winter, I don't expect that to change all that much, any time soon.
Speaking of which - by the time that particular price point might change some day - you might want to open any 'Sealed Factory Set' you might own. They do not have an infinite longevity, like other financial investment instruments, and that is not just a crack about the future value of baseball cards. The glossy cards Topps produces in the 21st century simply can't be left in packs and sets and probably not even those long cardboard card boxes collectors use, without some risk of damage, over time - the cards can all so easily stick together. Check out this image of a card most every collector would like to pull from a pack left over from 2001 Topps:
No, Ichiro is not such a consummate pro that he completed the throw before running in horror from the swarm of bees attacking him. That is the result of what is called "bricking", as over time glossy baseball cards can begin sticking together, and can't be separated without damage.
In my experience with cards from the 2010s, they have been seeming to begin this process sometimes, when I go to look for something from 'doubles' in a 600 count box, rather than in binder pages.
Not every glossy set will do this, and not every set of storage conditions for a glossy set will create this - but it can't be ruled out, either. A lot of people hoarding that one sealed box, that contains the killer Rookie Card (or, maybe 3 of them, if in packs) of that one player, all the way till that player appears on the podium at Cooperstown, and only then will they open the box - will be learning this the hard way.
Of course, one can also realize that for some collectors, the only thing that matters actually IS the seal. As long as the set or box of packs is sealed, that's all that counts. It reminds me of Schrödinger's Cat - the only way to discover if the baseball card is still in good shape is to open the box, which might reveal the GOAT's glossy Rookie Card is now just part of a weird brick of partly melted 'paper' and ink all fused together. So that desirable card is both valuable, and worthless, at the same time, as long as you never open the box.
My advice? Open up your Factory Sealed Sets of 2013 Topps, check out that little pack of Orange parallels in the Hobby edition, and then check my want list. :)
(Or just simply set up a box of left-over glossy cards in the same place you may wish to hold things like Sealed Factory Sets, and just monitor the surplus cards for evidence of 'bricking' every couple years.)
Who knows, you too, could hit the Orange Machado RC, though your odds of that might be about as good as my estimation of his current chance to ever appear in Cooperstown, New York.
OK, so, if you watched the video you know I now have an Orange /230 parallel of the Yu Darvish #10 card. A far more good than meh "pull" from that little pack.
Can I work it into my All-Parallel project? Yes.
Will I? Maybe.
Early on in day-dreaming up this collecting project, I knew I didn't want any "double" colors when selecting a permanent parallel to include. So no Wal-Mart Blue parallel of a card with a blue Sea Turtle. I also completely reject using Emerald/Blue combos, as the blue Sea Turtle largely disappears on those cards.
But over time I continued to refine those decisions and began to collect the cards more on preference for the visual final result. I largely scratched the use of the /99 Camo cards. I even decided I didn't much care for the Black/Blue combo, which exhibits a fair bit less "pop" us card collectors are always ooohing and ahhing over. Other people just call that "contrast." I will use a few Black/Blue as I go along, but I have busted them down to 2nd, or 3rd choice. I have similar concerns about using a Toys R Us Purple with the blue cards, though I will not completely reject those either.
But a key problem is all the 'blue' teams - there are 12 of them as compared to 8 red teams, 5 orange ones, and 5 teams with a unique color. Filling out the blue teams usually becomes the most challenging part of constructing the page now, and they are on every page, guaranteed.
Let's take a look at this page of cards, all in their native glossy white-ness:
This page has 4 blue cards: Darvish, Lawrie, Ethier, and Moreland. It also has a rare feature - 2 cards of the same singular team color, the grey for the White Sox. But the singular team colors can actually make for easier pages, as they work with usually all but only one parallel.
This page also has multiple options to use a dark blue parallel from Opening Day, for which I had a copy for the Pedroia card. Being able to use one of those cards, something not true on every page, means I only have to find 2 of the difficult, low print run parallels, and then the other 6 can be from the much simpler to acquire "retail" parallels (though that includes one "Blue Sparkle" which actually exists in only 150 copies); the Red, Blue, Emerald, Gold, and Purple make up the balance.
Early in constructing this page, I decided to use the Pierzynski card with the /62 Black parallel. That means I would need only one more limited /x card. And given my choices for the blue cards, I really only wish to use Red, Gold, Pink, and Orange parallels as first choices with those, and Purple and Black, in that order, as a second choice.
The final concern driving the construction of the needs list for the project is the particular player, and the cost it would entail to get a specific card for them. So in general for an All-Star player I am going to select one of the four parallels with thousands of copies each.
That point made it a simple decision to pick the Target Red parallel for Darvish. It also will go well with his red cap in the image. And so then the want list for the page listed the Lawrie, Ethier, or Moreland cards as wants, as either Pink, or Orange cards. Once one of those is secured one of them could be a Gold, and the other a Purple (or even still whichever of the Pink or Orange doesn't solidify this, if I could get one of each of those, cheaply.)
Confused yet?
But now, I unexpectedly own an Orange copy of the Yu Darvish card. I could complete the page with just a Purple and a Red - easy.
Ultimately though, I haven't scratched a Pink (or an Orange) card off the want list for this page. I still want the Darvish on the Red parallel. Sigh.
I was able to leverage that small pack of Orange cards into nudging another page quite closer to completion - the one with the Hanley Ramirez page, in Series Two. We will see that page here a few years from now.
Now it is well past time to move on here. The next 3 pages are 100% complete. Except, I can't help but look for a few ... upgrades.
Blog Update Highlight Well now one of my most pleasing 64¢ acquisitions has arrived at Sea Turtle HQ. Progress, progress...
What’s that Turtle doin’? This might be one of my favorite photo framing efforts in the set, though we will just have to keep looking at these cards, closely. One can almost hear the announcer calling the action - "and the big lanky first baseman ranges to his left to scoop up the slow roller." It is the first Fielding card in the set, yet features a famous slugger. What I like of course is the way Howard's shoe seems to be coming to a stop on the design itself, as if the game is being played on a baseball card squash court. All-in-all another sterling compositional effort from 1 Whitehall St. +Bonus points for a dirty uniform. Everyone likes those on a baseball card.
Uniform Hero? Yep. Howard started out with #12 on his back during his Cup-of-Coffee type MLB debut in 2004, before switching to #6 for his Rookie-of-the-Year season in 2005.
Where’d the egg hatch? Ryan was drafted by the Phillies in the 5th round in 2001.
How about the migrations? Like many players in this star-studded start to the checklist, Howard played his whole career in Philadelphia. Fans and card collectors always like that, too. Ryan retired after the 2016 season.
Don’t flip over real Turtles.
Ouch!
That's a nice amount of League Leads - 7 - placing Howard firmly in the Sea Turtles Card Backs League Leadslead.
Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?
CAREER CHASE: With 300 home runs, Howard is 482 away from Barry Bonds' all-time record of 762.
After some impressive homer totals from his 3rd (when he was the NL MVP), to his 6th seasons, this does seem an appropriate stat to daydream a new All-Time record about, though the card-back writer leads one to think Howard could make a go at an RBI record. After the 2012 season however, Ryan was 32 years old, and still 415 Homers away from the already-broken record held by Babe Ruth. Howard finished his career with 382 Home Runs.
Subspecies? As we will see later on in the set, solid players staying put during the winter of 2013 are unlikely to receive a unique card in Chrome or Opening Day. Ryan Howard has cards in each, identical to this one. There is a Short Print Photo Variation of card #6, in packs with Series 2, of the "Signing Autographs" variety. I will be collecting those cards, but probably not until I finish the All-Parallel set, and also the 'Great Catch' SPs issued with Series 1.
Bling That Shell Given the distribution of 'team colors' on this page and the card-color combos remaining, time is running out on selecting an Emerald parallel, the basic Foil parallel for the 2013 set, issued in all product configurations. The Red/Green combo works well for me, and brightly lit background elements shine out from under the foil a little.
