Card Number 134: Upper Deck Hitter's Club, 2000; #33
This was part of a small set released by Upper Deck that focused on the best batting players.
You can just about make out the foil number just over half way up the card. It reads .339, which was Tony's 18-season average up to the end of 1999.
The career projection graph on the back is actually charting his career batting. You can see the plateau in the mid-90s where he earned four batting titles in a row. This is one of those graphs that bug me slightly because the y axis starts a lot lower than needed. Maybe it's a uniform axis for all the players in the set, but it looks off to me. Anyway, that's enough graph nerdery.
Card Number 135: Pacific Vanguard, 2000; #32
Another card from 2000. Pacific seemed to lose their way a bit at the turn of the Millennium and produced this Photoshop image.
The cardback mentions Tony's five gold gloves. Fielding was something he really had to work hard at when he first signed with the Padres. His diligence and commitment to improve is referenced by quite a few people in the book of reminiscences He Left His Heart in San Diego. He really earned those gold gloves.
Card Number 136: Skybox Metal, 2000; #1
Another one of the #1 card collection. Metal-coated cards don't scan very well.
In hand, this is shiny and has a bit of heft to it.
Tony's watching the ball on the back. His name is printed on the card, but on the scan it looks like it's been imprinted. One of the rare occasions when the scan looks better than the original.
That's the end of the Monday Millennium Mixer fresh from the turn of the century!
Total: 136/394
It's not every day you get to see a line graph used as a tool on a baseball card. I'm even more impressed that they were able to fit that graph on such a small percentage of the card.
ReplyDeleteThat's true. I'm naturally drawn to graphs so it stood out to me as well.
Delete