Card Number 478: Upper Deck, 1997; #378
The Capture the Flag subset featured 18 different players who were involved in the post-season in 1996. They are heavily foiled so they scan badly.
Here's a photo that shows how it looks unscanned. Even the photo doesn't capture how shiny it is.
Variations of this card exist with a white background on the back, but this is the regular cardback.
In 1996, the Padres won only their second ever National League West divisional title. The season came down to a straight contest with the Dodgers in the final series of the regular season. Whoever won the series would win the division pennant. As the cardback says, Tony's 2 run single in the penultimate game of the series meant that the final game was effectively a championship decider.
The winning hit in that final game was actually made by Tony's brother, Chris Gwynn, who was a pinch hitter with the Padres for the final two seasons of his major league career. Chris made 100 plate appearances for the Padres in 1996, recording just 16 hits and a season batting average of .178. But he got the hit that mattered, to make the Padres champions of the NL West.
Card Number 479: Upper Deck Hitter's Club, 2000; #EP6
Tony was one of 10 players honoured as "Epic Performers" in this insert series in the small "Hitter's Club" set. I've already blogged about Tony's base card from the set.
It's another heavily foiled card. (Sorry, no photo this time.)
On the back, there's a reference to Tony's 3000th hit the previous season. This was also commemorated on another card in this set - the fourth in this anniversary blog post.
Card Number 480: Upper Deck, 1998; #136
This was one of 18 cards in a subset called Define the Game. The front and back feature a quote from Mike Chaldu, who is listed here as a copy editor for Baseball. What that means is, he was an employee of Upper Deck who wrote copy for baseball cards.
The quote in it's entirety is:
(Tony Gwynn) of: A man at the top of his profession. I've had the pleasure of watching Gwynn up close honing his craft. Want any further proof of "Mr Padre's" hitting prowess... ...How about the fact that he just completed his fifth straight season with an average above .350?Mike Chaldu would have had the pleasure of watching Tony Gwynn honing his craft. Before he worked for Upper Deck he spent a year as assistant editor of the Padres Magazine in 1995. He was with Upper Deck for five years from 1996 - 2001 and also did some sports reporting for a local paper in San Diego during the time. (Helpfully he listed all of this is on his public LinkedIn page.)
Apart from the quote from an Upper Deck staffer, this card stands out as one of the brownest cards in my collection. I'm all for brown, being a Padres fan, but it doesn't really work as a base colour for a baseball card. It feels like Upper Deck were padding their set somewhat with these cards and they could have chosen a slightly better colour for them.
Total: 480 cards
We are into the 480s, number-wise, and tomorrow we start 80s Week!
.350 for five consecutive seasons is darn impressive. Sadly these cards really aren't. That being said... I really do miss Upper Deck. Bring on 80's week!
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