Slide, Tony, Slide!

There are so many cards with Tony at the plate waiting for a pitch, or swinging at a pitch, or following through on a swing. But here are some cards showing Tony baserunning in dramatic style.

Card Number 141: Topps Stadium Club, 1996; #301

I've been trying to identify the Cardinals player who is getting in Tony's way there. Working on the assumption this was a photo from 1995, none of the regular basemen seem likely candidates. I asked Madding, who writes the Cards on Cards blog dedicated to Cardinal players who the St Louis player was. Madding's educated guess is that it's shortstop Ozzie Smith, covering second base. It's hard to know because he's pulling a bit of a funny face there as Tony slides towards him in a cloud of red dirt.

Stadium Club cards all had some kind of stats system or ratings to make them a bit different to other cards. The 1996 cards had a "skills matrix". Tony had superior Hitting and Clutch skills, but was average on power and range. It seems a fair assessment. He was a precision hitter, not a swinging slugger, which explains why he had the lowest strike-out rate in the Major Leagues in 1995 as per the cardback. There's another decent factoid there as well about Tony being the first player in sixty years to record three seasons in a row with a batting average above .350.

Card Number 142: Leaf, 1993; #28
An elevated angle capturing Tony sliding into home.

I have coveted this card ever since I started reading the Sportscards from the Dollar Store blog. The blogger, Doug, scans highlights from the repacks he buys in various dollar stores and he always scans the backs of Leaf 1993 cards because of the way they combine an image of the player with local scenery.

Having wanted this card for ages, I have acquired two in short succession. I am very tempted to try and build the set, so obviously I needed more than one in readiness for if I go on and do that...

Card Number 143: Score Select, 1993; #5
A surfing style slide on this one.

Score Select was a slightly higher quality product than regular Score cards, which I have already described as cards that have better backs than fronts. Not so on this card. Tony is kicking up grit there!

Although, this is a good cardback. It's a great photo of Tony set up for some media work wearing some proper vintage technology.

Score selected Tony's On Base Percentage for their 'Select Stat'. Although that stat was higher than the average, it's a long way behind the all time season records set by Barry 'Got a Lot of Walks' Bonds.

The final card on this theme comes from Tony's final active season.

Card Number 144: Topps Stadium Club, 2001; #15

By 2000 Tony was carrying a terrible persistent knee injury that required him to have fluid drained from the knee quite regularly. Sliding like this won't have helped.

Topps have created a horrible compound term on the cardback: "Analyskills". In that little blurb box it notes that he was "not as quick, but still a quality right fielder". The knee injury was part of the reason Tony had lost some speed. According to this cardback he was 15 pounds lighter than in 1996.

These were the first Stadium Club cards to feature on this blog. I'm going to rectify that in some upcoming posts.

Total: 144/394