#77 - Dustin Moseley

What’s that Turtle doin’? Serving up a gopher ball, perhaps? Can't say that is a very optimistic look about this next pitch.

Like cards with a cut-off foot, Moseley's right leg disappearing just above the knee (much like the  #59 - John Axford card) gives an appearance that he just this instant bounded onto the baseball card, but then the planted right leg suddenly anchors the viewer, too. That transference of the line finally draws the viewer back to the baseball about to launch from his right hand.

Overall though, after owning this card for just about exactly 7 years as I write up this entry, I still know almost nothing about Dustin Moseley. Which is why I started this blog, actually, rather than simply reading the whole card back before I file away the matching parallel and then go another who knows how many years still not knowing very much about Dustin Moseley.

I particularly like that in the "Gem Mint" era of collecting baseball cards, where so many collectors lean on outside validation of their choices before committing to own a 3.5" x 2.5" picture of a baseball player, well ... I doubt if anyone reading this blog happened to notice how off-centered my copy of this card is. No way will this one make a PSA 10.

Which makes me like this one all the more. It is actually a little challenging to pull a copy of a 2013 Topps Baseball card this noticeably off-centered. So, yeah, that makes MY copy better than your copy.

Uniform Hero? yeah, nope. But then I got to thinking - #77 would be a pretty cool # to have in the NFL, wouldn't it? Double Touchdowns would be the nickname, wouldn't it? That stray thought only yielded Red Grange however.

Still though, two 7s - anyone, anyone? Bueller? No, he wasn't playing baseball yet in 2013. 

So I looked it up, and one player did wear #77 in MLB in 2012. He appeared in 76 Games and hit .293. That should earn a Topps Baseball card, shouldn't it? Alas, it did not; bench utility guys can be a bit like middle relievers when it comes time to make a Topps Baseball checklist, and Pedro Ciriaco did not appear on a Sea Turtle card.

Where’d the egg hatch? Dustin Mosely was actually a 1st round pick by the Cincinnati Reds way back in 2000 - that should yield a treasure trove of Bowman cards, wouldn't it? 

Actually he was the 34th pick in that round - of 30 teams? I looked into this as I keep discovering this about so many players on this checklist. After the 1st round of the draft, there are certain "compensation picks" related to the current state of the Free Agent system rules in MLB, and lately also what is called the "competitive balance round" as MLB continues to try to help the small market teams battle the large market teams, somehow.

How about the migrations? As it turns out, there are some Bowman cards for Dustin Mosely, even a Topps Traded & Rookies card, all featuring him in a Cincinnati Reds uniform that he never wore in an actual MLB game. Before his MLB Debut could occur, the Reds traded him to the Angels for one Ramon Ortiz, who managed to put up a perfect 0.0 WAR value in his one season in Cincy. Moseley finally did make The Show in 2006, though his Odysseus like career continued from there onto the back of this baseball card...

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

So I launched this quest to understand this baseball card and I found really one of the more amazing card back quotes I have ever read: "who happens to have very bad luck."

This is so simple and direct it is a little staggering. Imagine if the Topps card back writer could deploy this basic honesty whenever it was called for, which would be rather frequent, really. I have to wonder how often the word "luck" ever appears on the back of a baseball card.

I mean, there is a lot of luck involved in the game of baseball, we all know that. But only recently, with deeper 'sabre-metric' analysis, has this been talked about openly all that much, perhaps most commonly around the BABIP stat. And I doubt a Topps card back writer would call out a player who finishes a season with a high BABIP (indicating a bit of a lucky season), even though most of the rest of the baseball commentary class does, routinely.

But the card back does explain the bad luck directly, as best it can in such a small space, though again this is different than how most baseball commentators would likely refer to Mosely. The common descriptor would be "injury prone" and the tone of that is almost always fairly dismissive, not sympathetic about "luck."

A savvy reader will notice the totals in the "G" column, which also seem to indicate bad luck with injuries. A little more context on what the Topps writer was referring to is that the 2011 season, where Mosely finally triumphed with the best results of his career, was cut short by an injury (shoulder) that happened while batting, not pitching.

The final line of the card back text also proved prophetical - the one start in 2012 was Dustin Moseley's final game in the Major Leagues. Which somewhat explains why I could never connect any baseball memory to this baseball card. That makes this a Final Card, as well as a true Sunset Card; those MAJ. LEA. TOTALS you see there are his total career #s, somewhat rare to see on the back of a baseball card. 

This is not his most epic card, a very memorable issue in 2011 Update, which I never mentally connected to this card before as the '11 card is really just one of the more amazing Pitcher In Action cards you ever will see. So amazing that I never noticed that on that card, the Moseley I had never heard of was a Pitcher and thus connected to this obvious Pitcher named Moseley I had never heard of on this baseball card. But I will leave that other card for a 2011 Topps Baseball set blogger to highlight, some day.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 101 games pitched, Moseley is 1,151 away from Jesse Orosco's all-time record of 1,252.

Appearing in an average of only 14 Games a season is going to make it pretty tough to catch the all-time record holder. But I would bet the Topps card back writer was pretty glad this particular CAREER CHASE was available to use here.

The 101 Games pitched is Dustin Moseley's career total.

Subspecies? By now you can probably guess that a hard luck career like this one can generate a sympathetic card back, but no other variant versions.

Bling That Shell That navy blue Home Alternate San Diego uniform calls for a tasteful choice here, so I went with the Target Red parallel. I particularly like that my particular copy is also off-center, but off to the left, rather than the right as on the base copy at the top of this post. They make a nice pair this way:

#60 - Jon Rauch

What’s that Turtle doin’? Dramatically planting it's actually quite large frame right into our frame of reference - this baseball card. 

As with the previous card, but even more impressively, a player missing a foot or lower arm in a picture sometimes seems to have suddenly leapt into the camera's lens. Despite the impressive entry, the missing foot also seems, to me, to stop the motion entirely at "Click."

A somewhat strange result of the image selected here is that the viewer of this baseball card has absolutely no way to guess a singular, trivia contest winning fact about Jon Rauch: he is the tallest player in Major League Baseball history at 6' 11".

After a while looking at cards for Pitchers from the New York Mets, one begins to theorize that CITI Field must have some sort of just slightly elevated area along the first base side, possibly in the lowest level of the various boxes above the lower level seats, for media photographers. The mound at CITI Field is a regular feature on Mets baseball cards.

Though I generally like bright sunny day baseball cards the most, I don't care for this card at all. I always want to see a baseball player's face on my baseball card, which was just about a golden rule of the genre for decades. I think 1991 Topps was the first set I can recall with a few cards that traded in showing the subject's face in exchange for a dramatic live action baseball photo; I do think that is worthwhile, sometimes. But for a player like Jon Rauch, who played for more teams (8) and in more seasons (11) than he had cards in a Topps Baseball set (7), I don't think this is a good approach to photo selection, particularly as this is Rauch's first card with the Mets after being skipped completely in 2012 Topps Baseball.

As I have owned and enjoyed this set of 2013 Topps Baseball cards all through the life-span of the TV series for "Game of Thrones," I sometimes look at this card and expect it to say "Valar morghulis."

Uniform Hero? Another clear card # just about perfectly centered - on the front of the baseball card. It is tempting to chalk up the appearance of a journeyman reliever here on a Series 1 card to the need to match those #s, but I think, as we will see shortly, that would be a touch overly cynical. Also, Topps was not without other options on this uni-card # choice.

Where’d the egg hatch? Rauch is one of the oldest Sea Turtles, as he was drafted in the last draft of the 20th Century (1999), in the 3rd round by the White Sox.

How about the migrations? Before Rauch would debut with the White Sox in 2002, he was a key part of a Championship baseball club: the gold medal winning Team USA at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

His time with the White Sox was brief (10 games) before they would trade him and another rookie reliever, Gary Majewski, to the Expos in 2004 (the White Sox received 1.5 years of still league average service from Carl Everett near the end of his career). Very few players on the Sea Turtle checklist have any remaining connection to Montreal.

Eventually as with most largely 'middle' relievers, Rauch's career became quite migratory, moving on from Washington to Arizona, Minnesota, and Toronto, usually as a Free Agent each time, before signing a one year deal to pitch for the Mets in 2012.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

I regularly presume that some of the favorite players at composition time for a new Topps Baseball set - are the ones with a long enough career to just simply fill up the back of the baseball card with their journeys.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 541 games pitched, Rauch is 711 away from Jesse Orosco's all-time record of 1,252.

Jesse Orosco broke in with the New York Mets and represented them on 2 All-Star teams early in his career. Topps Baseball cards are created right in the New York Mets' home-town, and Topps never forgets a good New York Met. 

541 games pitched represents a very successful out-of-the-bullpen career; it is a good thing the text for a Lead League in Italics always appears on the top right of the stats on a card, otherwise it would be easy to miss the one for Rauch, in 2007, for "G" - games pitched.

Another key stat to read on this card is near the bottom right. A 0.99 WHIP across 73 "G" is an excellent result for a reliever, and that is what probably explains the presence of a journeyman reliever card in Series One - a nice touch by Topps rewarding a job well done.

However, Rauch's one year deal with New York ended as this card was being created. He would sign for the 2013 season with the Marlins but would only pitch for them for about 6 weeks and would be unable to reach the Majors again despite 2 final attempts with the Orioles and Royals.

This, then, becomes the final baseball card for Jon Rauch, a first in this set; 2 other players, #23 - Jemile Weeks, and #40 - Chien-Ming Wang, technically appeared as a Sea Turtle on their final Topps Baseball card, but each had a minor league card issued later.

Rauch finished his career with 556 Games pitched.

Subspecies? No, middle relievers are lucky enough to appear in a Topps Baseball set at all, usually.

Bling That Shell There is one parallel from 2013 that I would really like to see Topps use again, and that is the "Blue Sparkle" edition with a print run of /150 (not stamped), that were issued via a wrapper redemption program for Series 1 and as a hobby shop giveaway for Series 2. I generally like sunlit cards with some infield grass on them the best on those, so went with that vibe for this spot with the Parallel Turtles: