Join the (Stadium) Club 3 - including a familiar photo

On the home straight now with the Stadium Club cards. First up, a magnificent image from 1999.

Card Number 161: Topps Stadium Club, 1999; #126

A bit like the 1997 card, this is a photo and design combination that looks incredibly modern, even down to the logo.

It's also without a doubt the most green card in my collection.

There is a green sheen on the cardback as well with the stripes.

The batting breakdown covers Tony's career performance against a number of variables. The only one that seems to make mush of a difference is whether he was playing on artificial turf, when his batting average is a bit higher. Otherwise he is the model of consistency.

There's another 'bottom line' statistic as well, that the previous season he had broken Stan Musial's record for seasons in a row with a batting average over .300.

Card Number 162: Topps Stadium Club, 2000; #137
It would be hard to better the photo in the 1999 set, so Topps didn't try.

The back has a photo taken at dusk in what looks like a stadium parking lot.

There's nothing particularly notable about this card really. In 2000 the Stadium Club set was down to 250 cards, much reduced from its 900-card heyday earlier in the decade. It was beginning to look a bit tired.

Two years later, in 2002, the set was down to 125 cards. A similar small set was released in 2003, before a five year hiatus. The brand had a one-off reprise in 2008 and then it was put back to sleep for another half decade. When Stadium Club came back in 2014 it included some retired players, but was soon almost indistinguishable from Topps's flagship series which dispensed with borders around about the same time.

Tony had a card in the 2001 series - which I've blogged about here. He also had a card when Stadium Club came back in 2014.

Card Number 163: Topps Stadium Club, 2014; #161

If that photo looks familiar, it's because Topps reused it in 2015 as the basis for an 'Archetypes' insert card. (Which I blogged about previously.)

The 2014 Stadium Club cardback uses a youthful picture of Tony, but lists his later career weight under his personal data.

There's a nice 2-sentence summary of Tony's career and a one line career batting record. It's a clean, unremarkable design. There's a Cooperstown logo on the back which is bit odd considering this is a product with an official MLB licence. I think that might be because retired players are represented by a different organisation.

This has been a fun trek through the Stadium Club output. Tony also featured in the 2015 and 2019 sets. (I haven't seen a checklist for the yet-to-be-released 2020 set.) Those cards are still out there for me to add to the collection. In the meantime, there will be something different in the next post!

Total: 163/394