Every young boy or girl who wants to play sports for a living dreams of someday being featured on a playing card. Usually kids envision themselves on the front of a card jacking a home run or catching a touchdown pass. It didn’t exactly work out that way for Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Daniel Hudson.
Hudson is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery after he blew out his elbow last June. The right-hander made 33 starts for the D-Backs in 2011 and another nine in 2012 before his injury, but the Topps baseball card company decided to use a photo of him from the day he got hurt.
Thank @toppscards for using a close up of me right after my elbow blew out! Card will be around forever as areminder! twitter.com/DHuddy41/statu…
— Daniel Hudson (@DHuddy41) March 24, 2013
The distressed look you see on Hudson’s face is the one you see from a pitcher who has a feeling he has thrown his last pitch for quite some time. As Big League Stew pointed out, this is only Hudson’s card from the Topps Heritage set, which are designed to look like playing cards from 1964. His card from the regular set is more standard and shows him delivering a pitch.
Perhaps Topps thought Hudson’s pained expression looked the most retro. Or maybe it was just an unfortunate coincidence Either way, he’s probably not going to be pinning it to a bulletin board in his house anytime soon.
