#75 - Barry Zito

What’s that Turtle doin’? I'd say we are lookin' at a curveball there, cap'n. I mean, once 2/3 of the card kind of leads you over to see it, hiding from the batter there at the end of Barry's glove.

Fortunately, we are over behind the First Base Coach probably, to zoom in on this live baseball action like this. The other 1/3 of the card leads you back to home plate, where the baseball is going to end up here shortly. This is such a nice sunny day on the foggy Bay that Zito's face is still nicely lit up even fully in the shadow of his cap. Perhaps that works so well on this card that it kind of leads Topps to think that can work on other cards when there isn't enough sunlight to pull that off as well as it is done here.

One odd starring element in the image is the pin-striping on the uniform, which eventually somewhat roller-coasts the viewer right down to the high sock (team color, too), and straight off this here Sea Turtle baseball card.      

Uniform Hero? An affirmative there, cap'n. Zito wore #75 for every year of his career except his rookie season. 

This is actually a 'sunset' card so it is not too surprising to find it correlated with the uni # here on this checklist spot. It is not, however, a true final card as Topps would issue 2 more inserts featuring Zito in 2014, one of which simply uses the #75 on his uniform back rather than his face in the photo.

Where’d the egg hatch? Zito was actually drafted 3 times, by the Mariners in the 59th round (only 40 rounds in the 2010s) in 1996, then again in 1998 by the Rangers in the 3rd round after 2 years of junior college in 1998.

Ultimately Zito signed with the Oakland A's after they made him the 9th pick in 1999.

How about the migrations? Zito's career arc from there surely illustrates that the Athletics were on the upswing, as they never traded him while holding his first contract. However the realities of baseball in Oakland are illustrated by their not re-signing him after that contract ended in 2006, upon which he signed just across The Bay - the San Francisco Bay.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

And that's how you baseball card, folks. I like how the only 2 League Leader in Italics nicely yin-yang themselves illustrating life as a Major League Starting Pitcher. If Games Started separate from Games (as in Appeared In) could somehow fit on a card back, Zito would have four more bits of red ink here.

Though this is Barry Zito's final regular checklist spot in a Topps Baseball set, this card is not the more robust, but more rarely issued, type of Sunset Card which includes all final MLB stats.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 160 wins, Zito is 351 away from Cy Young's all-time record of 511.

On one of the inserts Topps issued for Zito in 2014, one of his career milestone marks listed by specific date is one for his 150th Win, which kind of illustrates how other-planet the Cy Young record really is.

Zito would pitch his final full regular season in the year of the Sea Turtle cards; a final attempt at a comeback back on the other side of The Bay in Oakland, in 2015, did not result in any baseball cards. It did however result in a tribute type start late in the season, his final in the Majors, vs. old team-mate Tim Hudson, which these days would probably have resulted in a Topps Now card, or 10, with relic and signature versions, etc., etc.

Barry Zito finished his career with 165 Wins.

Subspecies? Given his popularity in a general sense, it is not surprising to find this card on the Opening Day checklist, but meanwhile over at Topps Chrome, there isn't as much room for sentimental old favorite Veterans when brand new (will play 5 MLB games) Rookies have to be introduced to us all, so this card does not appear there. There are no photo variant versions.

Bling That Shell There must be something in my mind that connects the Giants and the Emerald parallel, something jolly and green, or maybe something connects Giants starting pitchers in the early 10s and the color green, like the way Zito was card #420, once upon a time, cuz here is the 3rd Emerald Giant in this project:

#73 - Brandon Crawford

What’s that Turtle doin’? Comin' right atchya there in the on-deck circle. I have always wanted to watch a game from there.

The actual star of the card is actually the sole of Crawford's left shoe. The card looks so 3D I half expect the various foil/shiny parallels of it to somehow make the rest of Crawford disappear into the shiny, leaving just that sole.

And there on the bottom of that shoe —— it is a little striking how no chance to put a corporate logo in to your field of vision is ever missed, these days. I have a sad hunch lately that Baseball is still in the early stages of slipping down an advertising-on-the-uniforms slope as attendance declines a little bit every year, but somehow, revenues manage to go up. And player salaries absolutely, positively must rise at all times, or else the players are getting ripped off - a sentiment of a large portion of the fans. I don't think it will all end up in NASCAR territory, but I also don't think the Swoosh now appearing on the right breast will be the last such uniform icon, either.

A minor star of the card is the ring of some sort on Crawford's left hand. I tried to do my best blogging due diligence on this, but Crawford has had so many miscellaneous small finger injuries during his career that tracking down just one in 2012, presuming this is a 2012 photo, wasn't actually possible at this point, nearly 8 years later.

I like how Crawford is not only illustrating near textbook sliding style but also seems to be waving Aloha! as he comes in to Home, without a Catcher or an Umpire anywhere to be found. 

This is another one that if I had to pick just 9 Sea Turtles to be stranded on a desert island with, I think might make that cut.

Uniform Hero? No sir.

Where’d the egg hatch? Crawford was drafted by the Giants in the 4th round in 2008.

How about the migrations? Brandon had good baseball skills it turned out, reaching the Giants in just three years in 2011, rather than 4.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

After just a season and a half in MLB for Crawford, we get full minor league stats and a text blurb. Neither of which really tell us a whole whole lot, so I guess when things get rather staid, leather and lumber always make for a good fall back. I have a nagging suspicion I will end up borrowing that technique myself as this blog moves along.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 148 hits, Crawford is 4,108 away from the all-time record of 4,256.

This one almost makes me like how it kind of dovetails with the image on the front of the card, but then the Hit King was famous for sliding in head-first, in photographs at least.

Crawford is a bit of a rare player in the 2010s MLB in that he has played his entire career in San Francisco; he is currently signed through the 2021 season.

After the 2019 season, Brandon Crawford has 1,055 Hits in MLB action.

Subspecies? Although Crawford was just getting established after a first full season in 2012, this card does make the Opening Day checklist as well, but has no variants. It takes a little more star-power to hang on to that checklist spot later in the year in the Chrome release, and there this card can not be found, which is a bit of a pity, really, as this would be one card I would want to check out with some shiny hub-caps.

Bling That Shell Of course, I do have some options for shiny even without an official Chrome card given all the 2013 parallels, one year before the total # of those options peaked in the 2014 release. Here I am once again finishing out a page with an Emerald Giant:

That means it is time to see how the parallels all fit together; I like how on this page, the 3 shiniest options all gravitate together on the bottom row. I'll have to let that row hang out in a bit of sunshine sometime, just to see what happens.

#69 - NLCS

What’s that Turtle doin’? Celebration time, c'mon! Who doesn't want a champagne downpour on a baseball card?

I have always wondered about this card - were the Giants celebrating their League Championship out on the field, in a fresh rain, or could this card be from the locker room, afterwards? 

As it turns out, when the Final Out was caught (fittingly, by the player on this baseball card), the infield in San Francisco was already looking like open water puddles. Ahh, life in the 21st Century, where anything that ever happened can be watched again and again.

And thus, this is actually perhaps the most rain ever seen on a baseball card.

Other playoff/WS cards have probably done a better job of showing off a trophy handed to a player, but I don't expect very many such cards include the word "Champion" right in the image.

The only mystery left to this card is — just who are the two guys with grey hair?

Uniform Hero? While I think it would a pretty neat feat of baseball card trivia to somehow link a Playoffs card to some certain checklist #, the number 68 and this player and this event have exactly zero connection points. Which is of course par for the course on most baseball card checklists.

Where’d the egg hatch? The Giants had won the World Series just two seasons prior, making this the middle point of a mini-dynasty in the National League, as it all worked out.

How about the migrations? To reach this NLCS comeback from a 3-1 deficit to St. Louis, the Giants had first spotted the Cincinnati Reds a 2 game deficit before roaring back to win the NLDS, the hard way.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

14 Hits in a League Championship Series certainly explains the front of this card, perfectly. 

On this card, for once the usually rather plain line score by innings here nicely echoes the text, or vice versa perhaps.

Bling That Shell I don't plan to use the orange-on-red combo often as a go-to choice, particularly with how much more difficult it is to get good combos for the blue teams. But I want to get every (or, almost every) color combination into the project at least once; things are breaking right on this page for the Target Red parallel to meet an orange Sea Turtle:

#67 - World Series Game 4

What’s that Turtle doin’? Oh just gettin' all iconic here some 15 seconds or so after the very last second of live baseball action in the 2012 MLB season.

This is pretty much THE image that I now connect to on any stray thought of the 2012 World Series, and as a Tigers fan, I have more stray thoughts on it than most. But to have this image in my mind about that Series pretty much indicates how much time I have spent with this set over the years.

And some of that might actually flow from my experiences with the 2016 World Series, which has some definitely more well-known images of Bryant-to-Rizzo-to-History from the fielding of the final out there. Which is something I never saw on TV and in fact actually heard called by the great Cleveland radio broadcaster Tom Allen. But afterwards, Topps came to my rescue on that with several cards depicting the play, and in their low end sets, too.

So it goes here. I think most collectors would prefer some World Series cards in their Topps Baseball set, even if it is a card depicting basically the lowest point for their favorite franchise in an entire decade.

One thing that is striking about being a Tigers fan is the high levels of bitter vitriol one will encounter in the fan base. In the 2010s, Detroit went on a roll winning 5 straight AL Central titles. But not only did they not "win it all" in the end of any of those 5 years, their one World Series trip resulted in a sweep. And to twist the knife just a touch more, it is worth recalling that the photograph used on this card was shot on the Tigers Home field. It is quite easy to miss that Romo and Posey are wearing their road greys here, amidst all the other baseball goodness. I have long thought that if Detroit could have at least played a 6 or 7 game Series in 2012, Tigers fans wouldn't be quite so cynical and bitter about things, ever afterwards, really. It also doesn't help that by being swept, the Tigers didn't get even one World Series card of their own.

Another angle to the sadness of it all, for a Tigers fan, can be seen in one of the Associated Press photos from the game, which also captures just about this exact same moment:

FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2012 file photo, Detroit Tigers' Miguel Cabrera walks away after striking out to end Game 4 of baseball's World Series against the San Francisco Giants in Detroit. Cabrera will be remembered for two things during the baseball season of 2012: Becoming baseball's first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, and striking out on an 89 mph, belt-high fastball to end the Giants' 4-3, title-clinching win. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

Yes in a phrase 20th Century Tigers fans can connect to this all too very well, Miggy stood there like the house by the side of the road to officially end the 2012 World Series. It was almost a bit of a blessing that Ernie didn't have to see this one.

Despite all that, I do like this baseball card quite a bit. Even half-sleepy baseball fans who can't even pick a favorite to win a given World Series will stir to action in the bottom of the 9th (or later) inning when the Series is on the line and the big celebration is about to erupt. So this is an excellent moment to immortalize on cardboard. Topps had no shortage of photos to pick for this particular card, from multiple photogs and angles, but this was a good choice.

Minor things I like on this card include seeing all the orange accents on Posey's catcher gear, and the way the World Series logo gets repeated on the card and on Romo's right shoulder. I work with trees for a living, and routinely work in Oak trees, so to get a few Oak leaves mixed in with my love of baseball is always nice, for me.

Uniform Hero? I wish I could tell you that Topps slyly gave some baseball card love to that one bench player who had that key hit in the middle of Game 2 of the Series, but neither S.F. nor Detroit had a player wearing #67 in 2012.

One thing I completely do not understand about this card is why it appears as the first World Series card on the checklist. What does this mean? Will there be other World Series cards? I wish I had a shelf full of perfectly organized Topps Baseball sets to consult on this question - how have other Topps Baseball sets handled this, of which World Series card goes where on the checklist. All I can note here is - I will be looking into that particular bit of baseball card trivia when I read about other World Series in other sets of Topps Baseball.

Where’d the egg hatch? The San Francisco Giants were organized in 1883 as the New York Gothams, only becoming the Giants in 1886.

How about the migrations? One can only imagine what it must have been like to be a huge baseball fan in New York in the 1950s, when not one but two NYC teams moved to California; the Giants became the San Francisco Giants in 1958.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

I noted on the first post-season card back in this set how there often seems to be only a 50-50 chance that the hero of the card back is the hero on the front of the card. So it is nice that Sergio Romo makes the cut here; Closing games in the World Series is a definite feat of skill. But there will be many more Giants-in-the-Postseason cards to come in the set, so I think the other Giants mentioned will be OK.

But overall, given how it must often be a four letter word spelled w-o-r-k to create baseball card backs, I often wonder why the post-season cards can feel so phoned in, quite often. A line score reveals so very little about a baseball game, compared to a box score, or even just two paragraphs of easy to compose text, rather than this short one. 

Bling That Shell Of all the parallels of the 2013 Topps Baseball set, I think there is only one that is just exactly perfect enough for each card, such that complete binder pages of just that parallel would actually look nice. And that is the classic Topps Gold. So for such a key card in the set, it feels like the right choice:

#55 - Tim Lincecum

What’s that Turtle doin’? "The Freak" is showing off some of his unique delivery motion, a delivery that was at times called 'iconic,' even. Meanwhile we are back in the other on-deck circle as Topps keeps switching the lefty-righty starters every card so we can't get too comfortable facing these hurlers.

As Lincecum's delivery was always more 'rotational' than some, this image does set up some contrasting lines with his raised left arm, but that is unavoidable for a photo shot so early in the delivery.

One very interesting photo element is again the pitch selected, which looks to be a 'circle change' off-speed pitch. This in turn makes one wonder how well the batter may have been able to see that, however that is probably just a trick of the photo selection as the ball would only drop into view like that for a brief portion of a second.

Overall, the most memorable take-away from this card is perhaps Lincecum's eyes and one of the more worried expressions I can recall on a Pitcher Pitching card like this one. Which, as we will see shortly, fits very well with the state of his career at the time this photo was shot and then this baseball card composed.

The card also shares a photo element with the CC Sabathia card in that Tim is wearing some sort of bracelet on his left wrist. Post-scan zoom reveals this one to feature Kanji characters (I think); his different bracelets in different seasons can still dredge up some Google results if you are curious.

There is a final element I quite like on this card, which is supplied by the Giants' "Home Alternate" uniform in and of itself, as a solid color alternate uniform makes for a better baseball card than one featuring home whites or road greys. This is only the 3rd card in 55 now to feature such a uniform, which somewhat surprised as I just counted them as I think Topps has been increasing their use of photos of these uniforms. And that colorful orange uni gives it a nice colorful harmony with the blurred advertising on the outfield wall - a well chosen ad strategy, it appears.

Uniform Hero? It can't be fully seen on-card but Lincecum did wear #55 throughout his career and he was still one of the brighter stars in the game when this card was composed.

Where’d the egg hatch? Lincecum showed so much promise as a teenaged Pitcher that he was actually drafted 3 times, something I figure has to be fairly rare. First the Cubs tried to sign him straight out of high school in 2003 (48th round), then the Indians tried again after two years of pitching in college in 2005 (42nd round), and then finally the Giants stepped up and made him their first round pick, 10th overall, in 2006.

How about the migrations? He would then debut with a nearly full (24 starts) Rookie season in 2007, before really 'nailing it' in 2008, making his first All-Star team, his first of 2 consecutive Cy Young awards, and earning the first red ink stat totals on the back of his baseball card -

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

By the late fall of 2012 when this card was being composed, Lincecum's unique mechanics were so well-known that they became a simple, and perfect, topic for the Topps scribe here.

Amongst all the red ink stats however are a trio of very telling ones from the 2012 season that perhaps inform that worried expression we see on the front of the card.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 1,317 strikeouts Lincecum is 4,397 away from Nolan Ryan's all-time record of 5,714.

After 3 league lead in italics for Ks in his first 4 seasons one would think that would be the perfect launching point for an attempt at Ryan's record. But despite starting a career with those 1,317 strikeouts in 6 years, here Lincecum is still more Ks away from Ryan than all but 2 MLB Pitchers have ever even thrown.

Lincecum would never return to his dominant early career results and would only pitch for the Giants through the 2015 season. A probably never-ending hope of finding the right mechanical adjustments, after this card was made, included a final attempt with a new coaching staff in southern California via 9 starts for the Angels in 2016, but then Tim Lincecum had to retire.

He finished his MLB career with 1,736 Strike-outs.

Subspecies? Only one year removed from elite MLB production, Lincecum probably appeared on every Topps checklist in 2013 and this same card can be seen in Opening Day and Chrome. There is also one photo variant for this card # which was released in Series 2 as part of the "sunglasses" set of Short Prints. It is a good looking card that I look forward to owning some day, and sharing with you here.

Bling That Shell As black is basically the secondary 'team color' for the Giants and one that is most easily noticed on the Home Alternate uniform shown here, a black parallel of this one would be a very nice card. However matching the black parallel to Adam Wainwright's special hat on card #50 has already used that color for this page. So I went with the emerald parallel seen below, which amuses me via tying into a lesser known, off-season incident in Lincecum's heyday that you can Google up if you wish. In this scan there does appear to be a print line running across the name plate/bar area of the card, but that is completely invisible in-hand. It has been a good 20 cards or so since we have seen one of these:

Normally right here it would be time to scan up a colorful page of 9 parallel Sea Turtles however page construction is on-going for this one. So this page will ultimately have 2 more photo upload updates as this blog moves along at a turtle's pace over the years to come.

#38 - Brian Wilson

What’s that Turtle doin’? It's always sunny on Topps Baseball cards. Err, well, not always on the front of the card. But who doesn't like a nice sunny baseball card? I like night cards too, but as I ponder this card in the depths of February, I gotta say I have always liked the way baseball cards can just brighten things up sometimes, like this one does.

This is another card that, for me, comes with an instant soundtrack - "and from the stretch..."

On this card, Topps has done a perfect framing job. Yes, the frame costs seeing 2 feet, but this is OK. I just slightly prefer when just one leg leads off the side of the card, making it look like the player is still on his way into the frame. But we know a Pitcher is going to plant that left foot and hurl the pitch, anyway, so that whole motion illusion isn't as much of a big deal, but yet on this card it is still there. Brian Wilson is playin' some baseball.

One thing I can never decide about this card is if I should add it to my The Pitcher Is Smiling At Me collection. It seems like a good possibility, but I never 100% talk myself into that.

+Bonus points for the team logo t-shirt he is wearing. Does it ever really warm up all the way right there next to McCovey Cove?

Uniform Hero? Yes. Brian Wilson has a famous name of course, and he was still a famous player as this set was produced. I sometimes wonder how many Twitter/Instragram hashtags would have circulated around him if his career had peaked today.

Where’d the egg hatch? Wilson was drafted by the Giants in the 24th round in 2003, which was a post-college date for him. He was also drafted by the Indians in 2000, that time in the 30th round. So he didn't move up all that far, which somehow seems like a match for an eventual reliever.

How about the migrations? And he did debut as a reliever for San Francisco, throwing 30 Innings in 31 games in 2006. He would become their closer in 2008.

As we are about to see on the back of the card, this card was about the last sunny time in Wilson's career; perhaps a photo from a gloomy overcast day would be more apropos. He was also no longer a Giant when this card was produced, but a photoshop effort wasn't an option at all for Topps as he didn't sign with L.A. until July, 2013. That was somewhat of a baseball story at the time - i.e., a Free Agent not being signed until that late in the season. But that was largely because Wilson was unable to pitch for most of that season, anyway, coming off Tommy John surgery.

One thing that swam back in to my memory tonight, pondering this card, is just how many players end up playing for the Giants AND the Dodgers, two famous long-time rivals. I have an odd perception that there could be a few more such players than there are who have played for both the Yankees AND Red Sox.

But ultimately, all the drama of Wilson's big new post-TJ surgery contract was pretty much a complete fizzle. How much of a fizzle? Though he pitched a full season in 2014, afterwards he was released by the Dodgers, who still paid him $9.5 Million for the 2015 season, when he was unable to return to MLB at all.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

Topps gits r done here, with both a basic update on the state of Wilson's career, and a beard pun, too. It's not always sunny in the game of baseball, after all.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 171 saves, Wilson is 437 saves away from Mariano Rivera's all-time record of 608.

I sometimes wonder if a baseball card has ever been issued with a pitcher's position listed not as "P" or "Pitcher," but as "Closer." Surely, Mariano Rivera would have earned such a card.

Anyhow, I think this particular CAREER CHASE will definitely indicate that, in this set.

Wilson would add only one more Save in L.A. in 2014, and wrap up with 172 Saves.

Subspecies? In 2013, Topps just doesn't seem all that deep into the idea of photo variations, yet, and particularly not for Pitchers, who get very few in '13. These days, a set can have a checklist with as many as 75 Short Prints, and another raft of 25 SSPs to consider as well.

This card has no variants, aside from also being issued in Opening Day, despite Wilson essentially not having a team at all on Opening Day of 2013. But Opening Day baseball cards are designed for kids, in theory, and Topps would hardly leave "The Beard" out of that set. He did not receive a card in the 2013 Chrome checklist.

Bling That Shell I guess given that scenario, I am glad I picked the Opening Day Blue Foil parallel for this card. Foil cards do light up nicely when it is sunny out.

#3 - Hunter Pence

What’s that Turtle doin’? Pence always seemed to me to be both an intense player, in a good way, and a popular player. As he largely played for NL teams on the coast which are the most difficult for me to follow I get that idea largely from baseball cards, and this one supports the former proposition. Hunter is intent on an incoming pitch - the ball is probably on it's way to Home, as he has already raised his left foot, and he seems to have already judged it to be a pitch worthy of a swing. The lines of his left arm and thigh combine nicely with the lines of his left shin and the bat. These then lead you back to his eyes focusing on the ball and the line of the brim of his batting helmet, which lead your thoughts out into the field of play. If he makes contact, a few tenths of a second from now, that ball is going somewhere.

Overall, a fine example of live action baseball portraiture.

Intriguingly, Pence is wearing only one batting glove - a rare approach. Additionally, this card illustrates a fair bit of 'choking up on the bat', also an increasingly rare approach to hitting in MLB these days, as it sacrifices potential power for better bat control and a higher contact rate, if I understand Hitting 101 correctly. I never advanced out of that class aside from perpetual backyard Home Run Derbies in a small neighborhood without enough kids to play 'teams'. Having never analyzed an entire set of baseball cards like this, I will be keeping an eye out for either of these hitting styles later in the checklist. I know one card in Update I will compare this to, many years from today.

Uniform Hero? I would have to oddly call this one an "almost" or "sort of" - Topps felt Pence deserving of a Uniform card #, which seems fitting for such a prime checklist position when using this concept. However they somewhat dropped the ball here. The Topps card wizard back in the hometown of the Mets was probably familiar with Pence from his two half-seasons with the Phillies; subsequently Pence was traded to the Giants in the summer of 2012, astutely noted on the back of the card. In Philadelphia, Hunter wore #3, matching this card #, however in San Francisco he wore #8 for the balance of his career. Fortunately for Topps, the Giants do not put uniform #s on the front of their uniforms, and only baseball card collectors in the Bay Area likely noticed this discrepancy.

Where’d the egg hatch? Pence was drafted by Houston in the 2nd round in 2004 and came up with the Astros in 2007 for a very impressive 108 game Rookie campaign.

How about the migrations? The struggling 2011 Astros, on their way to losing 100 games, flipped Pence to the Phillies, who found themselves on their way to a .500 record in 2012 when they did the same thing, sending him to the Giants. Neither team really profited from trading away the balance of their time with Pence, and the trade from Houston somewhat later contributed to the 'Stros giving up a pre-MLB Josh Hader to Milwaukee in exchange for some late career starts from Carlos Gomez. Oops. 

San Francisco declined to re-sign Hunter after the 2018 season, and he quickly began playing in Dominican winter leagues. Clearly he is looking for some more playing time in Major League Baseball, which I would say is not an impossibility. Perhaps there will be yet more Hunter Pence Topps baseball cards, but I would not expect one before the 2019 Update set.

Don’t flip over real Turtles.

A perfectly fine workman like effort, succinctly explaining Pence's recent career. Perhaps if a classic "he hit 3 Doubles on every Monday in April last season" type stat was at hand, the last bit of white space at the bottom there could have been used up.

Can the Turtle Catch the Rabbit?

CAREER CHASE: With 516 RBI, Pence is 1,781 away from Hank Aaron's all-time record of 2,297.

If only those first 2 numbers had been reversed, maybe Pence might have had a shot at that over his 6 subsequent seasons with the Giants. The end of the 2018 season found him with 877 RBIs on his ledger.

Subspecies? Pence's Opening Day and Chrome cards mirror this one. There is an intriguing team issue set of the 2013 Giants that I will begin sharing with you a bit later on in this blog, however the Pence card only includes an additional stamp on this same image.

There are no other variants to this card, however I pulled an enjoyable Pence card from this set in the summer of 2014 from a then-discounted 36 card 'rack' pack, found in a Kmart with only another year or two of being open for business, in the capital of the illustrious 51st State of our Union - Superior. You have never heard of Superior? More is the pity, you are missing out on da wonders of da U.P., eh? A beautiful part of our country, though one where it can be exceptionally difficult to find some baseball cards for sale - I can count the # of possible sources on only 2 hands across the whole of the peninsula(s). But since I can so clearly remember that nice summery day in Escanaba, MI, and this particular card, and the way I much prefer bat 'relics' to uniform swatches, and is one of only 2 I have ever pulled amidst my retail baseball card addiction, and as it contributed to becoming a Hunter Pence fan with an eventual 9 card binder page in my collection, including this one, I thought I would share this not-quite-a-Sea Turtle card with you too:

Bling That Shell It took me some time to finalize a decision on which parallel to use for this fondly enjoyed baseball card. Initially, I used a Toys R Us Purple for this slot, after acquiring a /62 Black card elsewhere on this all important first binder page in the project. The Purple Giants really pop, as I think we will see before too many pages deep into the project, but probably quite a long time on this blog's calendar.

However as I began to refine the project on esthetics rather than purely on budget, I realized this card would look best with a bit of a 'team colors' approach, so I finally went large with about  $7 worth of COMC credit from selling all those other miscellaneous pulls of $1 baseball cards that accumulate when you buy baseball cards with your groceries all the time. And the other day, this card finally arrived at Base Set 2013 Sea Turtle HQ, an event which contributed mightily to getting this blog off the ground -- Voila!

On this one I should note that the difficulty in reading the foil printed player name is basically a problem for the scanner to pick up the foil amidst the black cardboard, in much the same way that the 'topps' logo disappears somewhat inside the scans of the actual image. This is not a problem on the card when seen actually in-hand — however that is a definite problem for one of the parallels, which led to a large overhaul of the All-Parallel set a year or two ago now.