Laser confrontations!

Let's have a look at a brace of cards from the middle of the 90s to end the week. This was the season the Padres won the National League West with a winner-takes-all showdown against the Dodgers. Tony was the batting champion that year - his seventh title.

Card Number 504: Topps Laser, 1996; #43

The Topps Company is rarely an innovator. It's a follower not a leader, which is why when other companies started using laser die-cutting to slice bits out of cards, they soon followed suit with a set revolving around that gimmick. This is one of the 128 base cards. There were 48 laser-cut inserts as well. 

The laser-cut running man was the same on a streak of 25 cards in the set. There were different cuts on other cards.

I'd give this card bonus points for having interesting "Spotlight Stats" on the back. Even though I know that Tony was one of the greatest hitters of all time, it's still pretty amazing to think that he got safely on base in over three quarters of the games he played in a three-season period.

Card Number 505: Topps (Classic Confrontations insert), 1996; #CC-9

This was from a 15-card insert series in the Topps flagship set from 1996.

The back of the card shows how well Tony batted against the top pitchers that he faced. John Smoltz must have felt his heart sink every time he saw Tony come up to the plate.

I would like to see more of this kind of statistical breakdown on baseball cards, although with the way pitching has changed I doubt current players would be able to rack up as many at bats against individual pitchers.

Total: 505 cards