From the Gallery

Topps released their Gallery sets for five years starting in 1996. They brought it back in 2017 in much the same vein. (Thick card stock. High quality pictures and matt print to give an art effect. Small set numbers. The big players for each team.)

Card Number 349: Topps Gallery. 1996; #147

Tony was included in a section of the set called The Masters.

On the back were the reasons why Tony was considered one of The Masters - there's his records and his honours.

Card Number 350: Topps Gallery, 1999; #78

A much more pensive, less celebratory photo on the front this time.

On the back it has the unusual element of explaining the photo on the front. They've also added a tagline on the back - 'the art of collecting'. See what they did there? 

The stats box is a month-by-month breakdown of the preceding season. The "snapshots" relate to his college career 20 years prior.

I am at a loss to explain the obsession with those college years by cardback factoid compilers. Are baseball fans really that interested in what a player has achieved before signing a contract with a Major League club? Are the details of his draft more interesting than, oh I don't know, the player in question winning four of the last five batting titles in the years before this card was published?

Card Number 351: Topps Gallery, 2000; #42

I notice card set numbers. 42 is a noteworthy number to baseball fans and to sci-fi geeks for different reasons.

In the photo, Tony is about to sign something with his face on the back. There have been a few cards over the years where Tony is signing autographs. It is intriguing seeing what people are handing to him.

Topps get a bonus point for putting the year the set was released on the front. There's an explanation for the photo on the front, again as well, along with some 'Gallery Notes'.

I actually learned something from the Gallery Notes. Not the college basketball thing, or that the San Diego State Baseball stadium is named after Tony. (There's a mistake there, Topps - the actual field is named after Charlie Smith the long-time university head coach.) But I didn't know that Tony went to Mexico to run a youth programme. It's nice to learn something new off the back of a card!

Total: 341/394