Modern Monday: Topps Fire

My main supplier of modern Tony Gwynn cards, Gawain, busts a lot of product, which is one reason why he's my main supplier of modern Tony Gwynn cards. Recently he took delivery of a new release - Topps Fire!

Topps have released so many products this year, people might have missed this one. But if so, that's a shame because they are nice-looking cards and different to Topps's other, samey ranges.

Card Number 452: Topps Fire, 2020; #181

As "retro" cards go, this is a very 80s looking design. Although, I can't recall any 80s cards that actually looked like this. It's an 80s design aesthetic from 2020 rather than based off anything original. Even the set logo screams "80s metal band".

I feel conflicted by this. I feel like I should hate it because it's so jarring, but actually I really like it. It's so nice to see a card that doesn't look like every other attempt by Topps to do retro. And the colours work for me. Turquoise and pink, what's not to love? (Also, it's not a cigarette card!)

There's turquoise and pink on the back too. 

I looked up those dates mentioned on the back because it seemed like a long stretch of time to only make 16 starts. There were 51 regular season games in 1984 from August 5, and 5 May was the 23rd game in the 1985 season. He had five plate appearances in the game on 6 May but didn't record a hit (and also didn't strike out.) 

The dates seem somewhat arbitrary. Baseball Reference has the box score for 4 May 1985, and there's a strike out recorded against Tony. He also struck out on the 28 April 1985.

I went back and looked at the box scores from 1984. He struck out on 5 August against the Astros. Then he had a run of games where he hit safely and didn't strike out. However, on 10 August in the second match of a double-header in Atlanta, Tony got on base twice via walks but didn't actually get a hit. He was also hitless in 4 plate appearances on 12 August as well (also in Atlanta).

There might be a 16 game streak between those two dates, but I decided not to trawl through all the box scores for 74 games. He was obviously hitting well and rarely striking out between those dates, but I can't discern why Topps have picked them.

I mentioned this card came from Gawain, and because he was opening a lot of Topps Fire he also came across some parallels.

Card Number 453: Topps Fire Gold Parallel, 2020; #181

There are four of these parallels per blaster box. They are very shiny gold, which scans very green. This cards looks a lot nicer in real life.

The cardback is exactly the same. In fact, the cardback I showed you earlier may well have been the one off the parallel rather than the base card. There's no way to tell, as you can see from this side-by-side scan.

I need to get smarter about scanning and somehow indicate which one is the parallel. That's a new learning point for me!

Thank you Gawain for these cards!

Total: 453 cards