Monday, July 27, 2009

2009 Topps Catcher Cards

Last week, Night Owl posted this card as his latest entry for the worst card of 2009. I pretty much agree with his assessment but wondered about other catcher cards. Due to the equipment they wear, catchers can be hard to identify on a baseball cards. And although this is a picture of his back, you can figure out who he is if you recognize the Astro's uniform because you can see enough of his name. I have 40, 2009 Topps cards of players identified as catchers on the card. Of these only 14 feature the player on offense, either at bat or running the bases, which means most of them (26) feature the player on defense. I don't have any hard stats but I suspect catchers are more likely to be shown on defense than other position players. Almost half of the cards (12) on defense feature the player with his mask on and in most of them (9), I think the player is pretty much unidentifiable.
Here's Victor Martinez of the Indians. You can't see his face at all and I'd be hard put to identify his uniform.
Yadier Molina of the Cardinals. Lots of teams have red uniforms. I guess you could guess he is a Cardinal if you look carefully at the wall between his legs.
This is Kenji Johjima. The card could just as easily been of the runner (whoever that is) or the catcher. In these days of inter-league play you couldn't even make a good guess as to which league the catcher is in.
Ramon Hernandez. Perhaps my favorite catcher card. Extreme closeup of somebody. Maybe his mother would recognize him. Here are some cards without masks.
Paul Bako. You can see his face and his team insignia. Looks like a spring training game.
Jorge Posada putting on his equipment. The only catcher card like it in the set.
Ramon Castro. You can see his face, the name on his back and his team insignia.
Nick Hundley. I only call this player identifiable because you can see his face. I would have had a hard time recognizing him because is uniform is unfamiliar. I guess it's a good thing they put the player's names on the cards. He's apparently giving the "Hook 'em Horns" sign to somebody in the stands.
My second favorite catcher card, Brandon Inge. He looks awfully unhappy as he pinches the top of his pants and carries a bottle of water (I assume).

2 comments:

Rod (Padrographs) said...

Hundley is letting his teammates know there are two outs.

Anonymous said...

Yes,
I agree with you...
there are two outs.....


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