Happy Anniversary Prince Fielder 2009 Topps #1

September 6th 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of one of the more memorable moments of Prince Fielder's career.

2009 Topps #1 Prince Fielder

The Brewers defeated the Giants 2-1 in extra innings that day, the winning blow was a Walk-Off Home Run by Fielder. To celebrate the Brewers executed a choreographed bowling style celebration. The moment polarizes old and new school fans. I suppose if you want to pinpoint a moment where MLB decided that maybe it is ok to celebrate big Home Runs might have been Prince Fielder September 6 2009.

The image of that moment was honored by Topps with the lead-off card for their 2010 set.

I did some digging and I believe the photograph was taken by Morry Gash and can be found at AP-Images.  There are a number of similar shots across the net, but this is the only one that I was unable to find any discrepancies between the card and photo.

Flip

2009 Topps #1 Prince Fielder (b-side)

Fielder didn't get the #1 slot just for the September 6th Walk-Off.  He was a superstar player at the peak of his career. Checking his numbers on the card back we notice he lead the NL in RBI with 141. The 46 Home Runs trailed only Albert Pujols (47).

The text also mentions Fielders 2009 HR Derby victory.

2009 HR Derby Cards

As part of the Derby Topps created a set of jumbo cards that were on display at Citifield for the All-Star game.  I took the above photo at the Futures game.

Stray Observation
The pitcher that gave up the Home Run was reliever Merkin Valdez. In 74 career games Valdez only took the Loss in one game, this was the one. 

Sources & Links
Topps #1 Club
Game Dated Cards Index
AP Images - Morry Gash
baseball-ref

Buster Posey - Catcher for 3 World Series Teams and 3 No-Hitters

I don't think I have a Chris Heston card,  Rather than digging around looking for one of his cards we are going to post one of Buster Posey who joined a pretty elite group himself last night. 

2010 Topps #2 Buster Posey (rc)

Posey became the 16th catcher to work 3 no-hitters. The all time record is four held by Jason Varitek.
At 28 years of age Buster is young enough to catch Tek, However...

We don't know how many games Posey will actually catch for the remainder of his career. He is spending about a quarter of his time at first base now and that ratio will likely increase as Posey's
career continues.

2010 Topps #2 Buster Posey (rc - b-side)

Congrats to Chris Heston and Buster Posey. In a year where we are covering the Year of the No-Hitter it is exciting to see the first No-Hitter of 2015

Sources and Links
Baseball-Almanac
Baseball-ref

2010 Topps #552 Chris Tillman

This week the Baltimore Orioles host the New York Yankees for a four game set that could propel one of the two teams into a Wild Card spot. 

Entering the series the Orioles are 2 games behind the Rays for the 2 WC, while the Yankees are an additional 1/2 game behind. The O's are sending out their Ace for game 1 of the series.  

2010 Topps #552 Chris Tillman

Yes I said ACE. Chris Tillman is only 25 but I have him as the #1 pitcher on the O's staff. He leads the team in Wins, ERA, Ks, and Innings. For the Orioles to make the playoffs, they are going to need Tillman to continue to perform at an Ace level.

The O's are on ESPN Monday Night Baseball tonight and with the Phillies out of it, I will be keeping an eye on my AL squad this week.
 
2010 Topps

Two notes on 2010 Topps. I generally like the design of the set.   The wave along the cards lefthand side gives a nice splash of colors, however the Orioles got screwed here - the black wave is way to dark for my taste.

The other observation I wanted to note is the common complaint regarding the poor scanning of foiled fonts. I have moved over to using a smart phone to upload pix of cards.  This is for a variety of reasons, but this time through I realized that I can beat the foil by tilting the camera(phone) at angles until I get the photo I want. The image is a little dark, but I think that is low afternoon light in the Team Phungo card room, more than the camera angle.

#54  
2010 Topps is only three years old but the #54 Tillman is shown wearing on the card is 2 numbers ago for the righty.  Tillman wore 54 has a rookie in 2009, he yielded that number for #24 which he retained until 2012 when Wilson Betemit joined the Orioles. Tillman then switched to the #30 which he currently wears.   





Sources
mlb.com
baseball-ref.com