Tuesday Tribute Triple

I recently bought a few cards from an eBay vendor that shipped very quickly from the USA. However, unfortunately some of the cards arrived with dinged corners. The dealer refunded the money for those cards and said they didn't want me to send them back. So, basically what I'm saying is the cards in today's post were effectively free. I will hopefully replace these in my binders at some point. However, for now, they are shiny placeholders.

How shiny? Well, they broke my scanner.

This is more reflective (ha!) of how they actually look.

They are three more cards in the 5-strong "Tribute" insert series that DonRuss including in their 2015 set. One of the cards from the set was the 100th card to feature on this blog.

Card Number 423: DonRuss "Tony Gwynn Tribute", 2015; #1

Until the cards arrived I hadn't noticed that the little picture of Tony on the front was different on each one. This card shows him following through on a swing, but it really looks like he's busting out some dance moves!

This card commemorates Tony's perennial selection for the All Star teams and particularly focuses on his first appearance, in 1984.

Tony was the lead-off hitter for the National League team in the 1984 All-Star Game, with a hit and a strike out from 3 at bats. He also stole a base. It was a night game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco and the National League won 3-1.

Card Number 424: DonRuss "Tony Gwynn Tribute", 2015; #3

The third card in the series is about Tony's career hits. (You can really see the corner ding on this one!)

There's a slightly forced write up on the back, punning on the idea of Tony having hits if he was a musician. Tony's wife, Alicia, is actually in the music industry. She owns a record label and studio in Indianapolis. Tony's daughter, Anisha, released an album called '19' back in 2003 and the single from that album ('No Means No') was in the R&B charts for 19 weeks! This version on YouTube apparently features Tony. If DonRuss were going to riff (ha!) on the music idea, it's a shame they didn't mention this.

Card Number 425: DonRuss "Tony Gwynn Tribute", 2015; #5

I only bought the odd numbers in this series this time around.

The final card in the Tribute series is about Tony's career batting average.

There's some real truth in the comment that Tony's batting average was a throwback to baseball history. If you look on Baseball Reference at the Career Batting Average Leaders, Tony's is the only colour photo. 

Tony is joint 18th on the all-time list and most of the players ahead of him had passed away before he was born. The exceptions are Ty Cobb (died, 1961), Rogers Hornsby (died, 1963), Lefty O'Doul (died, 1969), George Sisler (died, 1973), Bill Terry (died, 1989) and Ted Williams who lived until 2002. Tony is the only player in the top 20 to play baseball after 1960. That was Ted Williams' final season in the game and the year Tony was born. So there was literally nobody hitting to the same consistency as Tony throughout his entire lifetime!

Total cards: 425