Blue Jays pitcher calls out Topps for getting his baseball card hilariously wrong
Aug 14, 2022; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; The Toronto Blue Jays logo during batting practice against the Cleveland Guardians at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports
One Toronto Blue Jays player is finally getting his own baseball card … only it isn’t actually him on the card.
Images went viral this week of a Topps card, from the 2024 Heritage set, purportedly showing Hagen Danner, a pitcher in the Blue Jays organization. While Danner is currently pitching in AAA Buffalo, he made his MLB debut with the Jays last season, which was enough to earn him a card from Topps.
The problem? It wasn’t Danner’s image on the card. Danner called out Topps in a post to X this week over the mistake, saying he had even alerted them about it beforehand, only for the erroneous image to still get printed.
“Definitely not even close to being me,” Danner wrote. “What do we got @Topps?? Told you guys it wasn’t me and still released.”
Definitely not even close to being me. What do we got @Topps?? Told you guys it wasn’t me and still released😂😂 https://t.co/XI779gsK6u
— HagyD™ (@HagenDanner) April 15, 2024
One X user shared what Danner actually looks like for reference.
We don't believe that thisis Hagen Danner! It doesn't look at all like him and he's never worn a grey visitor's jersey. He's only pitched one major league game and that was a home game.
This is Hagen Danner. He finally gets a major league card & it's not him pictured. @Topps pic.twitter.com/7D6iyQ5QwR— Claudia Sanders🇨🇦 (@claudiatsanders) April 14, 2024
As for who the player depicted in the card actually is, that remains somewhat of a mystery. Former MLB pitcher Bradin Hagens replied to Danner’s post claiming that it was an old picture of him from the minors around 2014 (suggesting Topps had made a “Hagen”-“Hagens” mix-up).
that is definitely me from my time in double AA Mobile back in either 2013 or 2014.
— Bradin Hagens (@bradinhagens) April 15, 2024
But Hagens has been pitching overseas for years now and never played for the Blue Jays organization. Thus, it does not make sense that he would be wearing a Jays uniform (unless Topps did some blatant Photoshopping).
In any case, a whiff like that one is not a great look for Topps, especially if they had advanced notice of the mistake as Danner claimed. That might be as bad of a goof as the one that Topps made several years ago on a World Series-themed card.
