Modern Monday - Topps pay tribute again

This rather lovely card came to me courtesy of Graham in the UK collector's group on Facebook. It's a high end card printed on 1mm thick stock that feels more like plastic than cardboard. 

Card Number 680: Topps Tribute, 2021; #58

The blue outline on this scanned card is silvery foilboard in real life.

I would guess this photo was taken around about 1986 and it felt familiar. It looks very similar to the photo on the Topps insert released in 2019 that used the 1975 template.

I would not be surprised if those photos were taken a split second after each other. The blurred out faces in the crowd behind look like they might be the same, particularly the guy in the blue cap by Tony's right hip.

The back is incredibly clean for a cardback and has some great factoids on it.

I didn't know about Tony's excellent hit rate against Hall of Fame pitchers. It goes to show how Tony wasn't in awe of anybody. He was happy to try and hit against the greats of his generation as much as against people nobody remembers. (To that end, I think it's really impressive that he recorded his 1,000th career hit off the legendary Nolan Ryan!)

When I discussed this card with Graham, he said he really liked the Tribute set this year and that it was one of Topp's nicer designs. I agree with him completely and am very pleased to have added this card to my collection.

Total: 680 cards

Brotherly bonus card

Chris Gwynn, Tony's younger brother, was also a Major League Baseball player. He featured on a card with Tony shortly after making it to the majors, and of course had his own cards too. 

I recently purchased a joblot of random cards because there were several cards from the Leaf 1993 set, which I have toyed with trying to setbuild. It turned out all the Leaf cards were from the Update set (#450 and above). And as an added bonus, one of the Leaf cards was of Chris Gwynn!

I think Chris really looks like his older brother in the photo on the front.

The really nice thing about the Leaf set from 1993 are the cardbacks that include images of relevant landmarks and city-scapes. I presume this is somewhere in Kansas City.

Chris had a fraction of the number of baseball cards that Tony had. Although Chris mainly featured on base cards in common sets, I have only got two of his cards. I have probably got more cards of Tony that mention Chris on the back than cards of Chris!

Tony's Project70 cameo appearance

I'm bending my own rules here about cameo appearances on cards, but I have some good reasons. 

Card Number 679: Topps Project70, 2021; #61

This is a card of Fernando Tatis, Jr. But I'm including it anyway, for obvious reasons if you look at the card.

This card was designed by Keith Shore in a homage to Tony's Topps card from 1986.

And Tony is featured in Keith's artwork, looking on from Heaven as Fernando tears up records for the Padres. (He was the fastest Padre to reach 200 hits a couple of days ago, and one of the fastest players ever to reach 50 home runs.)

It's a bit of a sentimental depiction and I'm in two minds about it really. It's less intrusive than the 'Master and Apprentice' card from the Topps Gallery insert set in 2020, which paired Fernando and Tony, and was anachronistic on a number of levels. But I'm not sure whether it's particularly respectful of Tony's memory to reduce him to a 'spirit in the sky' onlooker.

There is a short biography of Keith Shore on the generic-looking back. Keith is a popular baseball card artist, and that's reflected in the demand for this card, which had a print run of 9,884. That's well over three times as many sold compared to the Project70 card of Tony by Mimsbandz that I blogged about yesterday. I think partly that reflects the popularity of Fernando Tatis, Jr as well. 

So, although this is a 'cameo card', it's a bit different to cameo cards where Tony is in a photo of another player. He has been deliberately included in the artwork, so I'm counting this as a card in the collection, even though, technically, it probably isn't really a Tony Gwynn card.

Total: 679 cards

My Project70 postal saga

I don't seem to have a huge amount of luck with the post. Back in November last year I had the saga where Royal Mail charged me a customs fee and then delivered the parcel to the wrong house. I've also had cards occasionally arrive with dinged corners, although that's a packaging issue more than anything else. 

The saga over the past month has set a new low in terms of waiting for parcels that just seem to never come. I ordered two Topps Project70 cards via Dugout Classics and got the shipping notice about them on 26 April. I had hoped to have them in time to blog on my one year blog anniversary, but they seemed to disappear.

After several long conversations with Jason who runs Dugout Classics, we finally decided on Monday - which was 4 weeks after the cards had shipped - to call it a bust. Jason refunded my money and I felt disappointed, but okay about it. I figured the cards would tip up on the secondary market eventually. I even joked with Jason that we were tempting fate by doing the refund and now the universe was bound to find the cards for me.

Tuesday morning the postman put a form through the letterbox saying I needed to collect something from the main sorting office. Was this the missing Project70 cards? Was it something else entirely? I couldn't find out because they have restricted opening times at the moment, so I had to wait until Wednesday to go and pick the parcel up.

So, yesterday, the 26 May, one entire calendar month since the shipping notice, my wife went to the sorting office on my behalf and came back with a padded envelope with the Project70 cards in!

Huzzah!

(And yes, that is a thank you sticker on the back of a Fleer base card of Tony from 1989. I have several already - here's where I blogged about it just over a year ago.)

Card Number 678: Topps Project70, 2021; #51

I really like this card because it looks very different, designed to look like a fabric patch. Mimsbandz were embroidered designs produced for and worn by many players in the 1980s as a drugs awareness programme. 

I think almost all the player who wore Mimsbandz were black. Until recently Mimsbandz was the only black-owned company to have a contract with Major League Baseball, but that contract lapsed in 2020 and there are no black-owned companies linked to MLB. (Hat tip to Jason who found this out while researching about the Negro Leagues. recently.)

Tony wore Mimsbandz during his career and they are quite prominent on a couple of his cards, including this Topps Archives card from 2003:

Here's a close up of the patch.

The bands were also prominent on the Topps Super 70s Sports card released in 2020.

The back of the Project70 card has a bit more information about Mimsbandz. The repeating Topps logo are actually holograms.

Trading Card Database lists this card's print run as 2,713. Due to the huge postal delay, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that I was the 2,713th person to receive their card. (But I was the first person to upload a picture to TCDb!)

Total: 678 cards

Now Topps shows some heart

A couple of months ago I blogged Score's card from 1997 referencing the 'Heart of the Order'. Topps waited 18 years amd then released an insert series called the same name.

Card number 677: Topps Heart of the Order insert, 2015; #HOR-11

This is quite an unusual card for Topps as it relied heavily on a quirky design and less on the photo. The racked bats are an interesting design choice but make the card look a little bit dated. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was 20 years older. 

I received this card from Jamie, who posted a large spreadsheet of cards he had available in one of the Facebook groups for UK-based collectors. This was the only Tony Gwynn card on his list, and one I had not seen before, from an insert series I hadn't seen before either. Cards from 2015 don't come up that often in the groups - it's from a lean spell in the hobby just before baseball card collecting really started to take off again.

This card was released the year after Tony passed away but his passing isn't mentioned on the card back. Instead they tried to justify including Tony in an insert set called the 'Heart of the Order' with stats about his place in the Padres' batting line up. 

I was surprised that Tony batted most often in third place in the line-up because he's often described as a lead off hitter, who left other batters in clean up duty. Given Tony's improved batting average in third spot, maybe he should have played there even more often. (Although this is a Topps card we are talking about, so take these statistics with a hefty pinch of salt. Topps have been known to get things wrong!)

All told though, this is an interesting looking insert and I'm grateful to Jamie for listing his cards so it was easy to find the one I needed, and for being willing to send out just one card from his large list!

Total: 677 cards 

Modern Monday - The Art of Hitting

I mentioned yesterday how two fellow collectors contacted me on the same day last week to ask if I wanted a Tony Gwynn card they had available. Russell was a bit hesitant in his offer because the card in question was unlicensed. However, that isn't an issue for me, and when an unlicensed card looks as good as this one, who cares about logos?

Card Number 676: Panini Diamond Kings Art of Hitting insert, 2021; #AOH6

There are 10 cards in this insert series. It's especially relevant to Tony who wrote a book called The Art of Hitting. I remember reading a comment that Tony should have called his book the Science of Hitting instead of the Art, because he took a very methodical approach to the game and applied trial and error to everything. However, Ted Williams had already used that title for his book about hitting, which Tony read and re-read multiple times.

Diamond Kings cards are all 'illustrated' in a similar style now and no artist is credited with designs like these. I like the way the image has been replicated on the cards in this insert series, although in this case it does look a little bit like a chorus line. (My wife, Cathy, said "Ooh, he's dancing!" when she saw it.)

The image features on the back as well.

Now I'm known as someone who reads cardbacks and has a passing interest in cardbacks that feature other languages besides English. Have a close look at the copyright notice and it looks like there are some hanzi or kanji letters there.

I would like to know if that is Chinese or Japanese, or neither. I'd be very happy to add that tiny bit of non-English to my list of languages that feature on Tony's baseball cards.

A big thank you to Russell for sending me this card. It takes me up to 6 cards issued in 2021 in my collection.

Total: 676 cards

One card only - Gypsy gold from 2012

I had been feeling a little bit down recently but my mood was lifted last week when two fellow collectors contacted me separately on the same day to each show me a card and ask if I would like it. One of those people was Laura, the t-shirt designer who created the .394 t-shirt I am wearing in my bio pic to the right there (if you are looking at the web version of this rather than the mobile version!) 

Laura has created a few Padres-themed t-shirts, including a "Slam Diego" design, which I was wearing on Wednesday to watch the first game in the Padres' double-header against the Rockies, when Victor Caratini hit a grand slam! You can check out more of Laura's designs here.

Card Number 675: Topps Gypsy Queen gold frame parallel, 2012; #252

This card is numbered 252, like the base card, but there were actually only 100 cards given the 'gold frame' treatment.

I had wanted this card for a while because I wanted to talk about Topps re-using images on cards. I knew this card set used the image that had appeared on Tony's Topps card from 1988.

The Gypsy Queen version has been sharpened in photoshop, but the equipment in the dug-out and the people in the crowd are the same. 

I'd like to be able to claim that I spotted this all by myself, but actually it's because I saw the card designs next to each other in an image of an auction lot on eBay. I 'borrowed' that image as a reference and have kept it for several months waiting for the opportunity to use it.

That picture shows what the regular base card looks like. This is a 'gold frame' parallel, which means there is literally a gold card frame stuck on the front of the card in a decoupage style. It's hard to see on the scan but that gives the card added depth and makes a real nice effect.

Based on my research, I think the framed versions were included in the 'value packs' which contained 3 packs of Gypsy Queen cards and 3 framed parallels. The gold were the most common framed card. There were also blue-framed cards serially numbered to 599 cards, and black-framed cards that were released in a print run of one card each (known as 1/1s).

There were lots of variations in this set as well, so there are two variants of Tony's base card and two variants of the 'mini' version of his card. There don't seem to be any variants of the framed cards on Trading Card Database, but even so that adds up to a lot of different versions of this card for collectors to tray and track down. It's also a good illustration of the 'bloat' that has happened in terms of total cards released for a given player. 

The back of the card is sllightly dull in comparison. At least it wasn't complete gibberish like the cardback the previous year.

"He paced the NL..." is an odd phrase. Maybe the cardback writer felt "led" was a bit too boring a word to use on a boring cardback.

And now an added bonus. I said I had been feeling a bit despondent recently. When I opened the envelope and took the card out there was a little post-it note on it with a cheerful message. It really made my day!

I hope that however this blog post finds you, you find the time to look for rainbows when it rains.

Total: 675 cards

Fleer makes some MVPs

Somewhere I have read a story about Tony Gwynn nervously waiting for the announcement of whether he had been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and saying that he wasn't going to get in because he never won the MVP Award. I can't remember where I read that. I have looked through He Left His Heart in San Diego a couple of times but can't find the reference, so I must have read it somewhere else, probably on the Internet somewhere. 

Anyway, Tony might never have won the MVP, but that didn't stop card companies from including him in MVP subsets.

Card Number 674: Fleer Baseball MVPs, 1989; #17

This card was sent to me by Michal. It took 2 weeks to travel the 30 miles from where Michal lives to where I live. I think I could have walked to pick it up and walked back home again quite easily in the time it took for the mail to get it to me.

This card is from one of the 44-card complete sets that Fleer produced. They seemed to produce a few of these sets every year in the late 80s. I have a couple of cards from other sets issues in 1989, and this card brings me up to 12 Tony Gwynn cards issued in sets like this overall. They have a nice quality glossy finish and the card stock is higher quality than the regular Fleer base cards.

The back is a bit dull, but it is nicely laid out.

The blurb has an oddly specific comment about ruining a pitcher's attempt at a no-hitter, which takes precedence over his batting title in 1988. There's also a mention of his brother Chris playing in the Major Leagues too. Chris had played 25 games for the Dodgers in the two previous seasons.

Fleer had given Chris Gwynn a rookie card in their 1988 set, which he shared with Peter Smith from the Braves. He also had a Score card in 1988 as a "rookie prospect". In 1989, Chris got a card to himself in the Fleer main set. He was also in the Upper Deck set that year, and was also still appearing in minor league sets. He didn't get a Topps card until 1990, although he was mentioned on the back of Tony's 1985 Topps card.

I have noted before how despite never winning the MVP Award, Tony appeared on a lot of MVP-related cards, mainly from DonRuss cards. Tony was in an MVP insert series in the 1994 DonRuss set, and in earlier sets too. That second link also includes some cards from the Upper Deck MVP brand sets.

Total: 674 cards

Friday French Lesson

Have you ever bought a job-lot of cards for just one card? I have. Dan put a little pile of cards up for sale on the UK Facebook group at a fair price and I spotted two Tony Gwynn cards in it. They were both fairly common cards that, no, wait a minute, that's an O-Pee-Chee card!

Card Number 673: O-Pee-Chee, 1986; #10

Apart from the O-Pee-Chee logo in a big white box on the front, there isn't really anything to distinguish it from the Topps card of the same year.

But when you turn it over, there's a lot of differences because most of the content is replicated in French.

"Parlons Baseball!"

"Premier coup de circuit!"

"Fiche complete comme frappeur dans les Majeures!"

I had an interesting discussion in work a couple of days ago about trying to produce genuinely bilingual resources and one thing we talked about was how pedestrian translated material becomes. The same thing happens on card backs. In English Tony "belted" his first major league home run on August 22nd 1982. The French just notes his first home run was on the 22nd August 1982. (Also, how weird is it that in French they put the dates the correct way round, instead of putting them the American way!)

This cardback is from the era where an unrelated factoid makes its appearance on the back as well. I noticed the French text is about 25 percent longer than the English. We have exactly the same issue in work when we have resources translated into Welsh. English is a language that is very easy to pare down and convey meaning with minimal words and grammar. Languages like French and Welsh have less forgiving syntax and are more precise. 

By the way, that premier coup de circuit was against the Chicago Cubs in an 8-7 defeat for the Padres at Wrigley Field. Tony hit it off Bill Campbell in the sixth inning. It was a solo home run, but Tony had already hit a triple in the second inning, batting in a run.

A big thanks to Dan for making this post possible.

Total: 673 cards

Happy Birthday Mr Padre and to this blog

One year ago, I started this blog with the intention of collecting 394 Tony Gwynn cards. A year later, and I am about to show you my 672nd Tony Gwynn card; 278 over my target! I had 179 cards when I started, so I have acquired 493 cards since launching the blog - a whisker away from 500. That's not bad going for a year.

This is my 331st blog post, which included a run of posts every day from 9 May 2020 to 9 January 2021, which I calculate at 245 days in a row. I passed the 394 card mark in October and carried on. As of this morning, when I published this post, there had been 684 comments on the blog - and I'd like to thank those of you who have commented, particularly Fuji who has added his thoughts to almost every blog post. I really appreciate that commitment and all the nuggets of wisdom he has posted.

I was hoping to celebrate my blog birthday (blogaversary?) with a Project 70 card featuring Tony, but unfortunately the postal service has not delivered. So as of now, I have maxed out my cards to be blogged folder by presenting this rather shiny offering from DonRuss.

Card Number 672: DonRuss Elite Series, 1998; #20

The Elite Series cards were inserted into packs of DonRuss flagship cards during the first wave of cards (Series 1). 

The cards are serially numbered out of 2,500. That seems quite a high print run compared to the kinds of print run seen today, but back then this meant the cards were considered rare.

The cardback notes that Tony was included in one of the 'Elite' insert series for the first time in 1992. DonRuss must have felt that was quite a honour to bestow on a player. Tony's low strike out rate in 1991 earned him the spot among the Elite. It was impressive - as Tony went almost 30 plate appearances between strike outs. I think most of the current Padres team have more strike outs already this season than Tony usually experienced in a year.

So that's the first year of this blog done and dusted. Thank you everyone who has been part of this! (There is a list here - I think I have mentioned everybody!)

Total: 672 cards

Black bordered All Star

Black bordered cards always look classy.

Card Number 671: Fleer (All Star Card), 1992; #2

There were 24 All Star cards to collect as inserts in the main Fleer set in 1992.

There is a long, sober summary of Tony's career to date on the back.

A couple of things stand out from that. One is how close Tony was to winning the batting title in 1991. Also his base-stealing exploits are often overlooked, but two seasons with more that 40 stolen bags, and stealing five in one game are aspects of his career that are worth being reminded about.

Total: 671 cards

Bonus note: I was going to title this post as 'Bordered in Black', but then I remembered there is a creepy short story by Larry Niven called that. Someone has uploaded it onto Scribd.

Post-season prescience

Another Fleer card today. A foil Fleer card. So you know what that means... double scanning!

Card Number 670: Fleer Ultra Fall Classics insert, 1998; #13

This actually scanned reasonably well on the flatbed scanner.

But it pops a bit more on the overhead scan. I like the effect. Tony is haloed in light in front of a giant blue-tinged cosmic egg.

The back is about Tony's post-season appearances in 1984 and 1996.

Like the Diamond Tribute card that I blogged about yesterday, this is another prescient card from Fleer. This was issued in 1998, which was another season the Padres would make the post-season and through to the World Series, for the second, and to date most recent, time in their history. I wonder if the same staff member selected Tony for this insert series and the Diamond Tribute inserts. That person may have been clairvoyant. 

Total cards: 670

In the clouds

Ah, the 90s. When photoshop changed everything.

Card Number 669: Fleer Diamond Tribute insert, 1994; #5

With ghostly baseballs and fluffy clouds, this 'tribute' card looks like an 'in memorium' piece of artwork.

The background on the cardback is a similar design, with a different photo (and a different uniform).

Even before Tony posted his modern day record bating average of .394, Fleer described him as "one of the game's all-time great hitters". This card was issued in the season when he achieved that record so this card was very prescient.

Total: 669 cards

Best Big Game Face Century Legend

Today's selection of Upper Deck cards are all from my most recent eBay purchase. (Yes, I'm still working through it.) And, as ever, when I'm blogging about Upper Deck baseball cards, I've thought to myself, "I miss Upper Deck baseball cards".

Card Number 666: Upper Deck Pros and Prospects Best in the Bigs, 2000; #B2

Tony is waiting to see if he should run in this photo. He looks like he is tracking a flyball with his eyes. Photos like this, with an open body stance, are quite rare on cards, but it offers a good look at the team uniform with the word Padres emblazoned on his chest.

Although... this card is another example where the photo doesn't match the theme. On the back Tony is described as a "hitting machine", but the photo shows him on base without a bat.

The write-up feels like it's in the vein of a Skybox cardback. The reference to Halley's comet is completely irrelevant, especially as that comet is a regular occurrence, reappearing every 75 to 76 years. I remember going out into my back garden and looking at it with my dad, mum and brother back in 1986, and my dad saying that maybe I would be lucky and see it twice in my lifetime. If I'm still here, I'll be 86 when it comes back.

There's also another use of the word 'torrid', which is used in a different way here in the UK where is has more negative connotations. I've mentioned this before when I encountered it on a Topps insert card from 1995.

(Also, a brief note on numbers - this is card #666 on my blog. 666 of course is the Biblical 'Number of the Beast'. Sadly, or fortunately, I couldn't find any cards with a 'beastly' theme in my small handful of cards waiting to be blogged.)

Card Number 667: Upper Deck Century Legends, 1999; #49

I have blogged a card from this set before.

The first 50 cards in this set were of the players that Upper Deck decreed were the greatest players of the century. Tony was ranked 49th out of 50 and got card #49. Because most of the players were from the era before colour photography was common, Upper Deck printed all the photos in the first 50 cards in black and white. I think the result looks quite classy.

The back includes a massive stats box and a packed little write up where Tony is compared to his hitting hero, Ted Williams, and early Hall of Famers Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner. One day I might list all the players Tony gets compared against on cardbacks.

The cardback also mentions how close Tony was to getting his 3000th career hit.

Card Number 668: Upper Deck Faces of the Game insert, 2000; #F10

I like portrait cards, although they don't always come off. This looks like a "catalogue pose".

I'm sure I could caption this with something cheeky, but it's quite a nice photo.

The cardback is a bit boring. The comment that "Gwynn was born to play baseball" ignores that he almost didn't and could have been a basketballer instead.

After being trailed on the card from 1999, this cardback mentions Tony joining the 3000-hit club. It feels like reading the story of Tony's career having cards talking about that milestone one after the other like this.

Total: 668 cards

Tuesday Twins - Sample Seasons Crown

This card is exactly the same as the card I blogged about back in January (and 101 cards ago!), except that it's a sample giveaway.

Card Number 665: Fleer Ultra Season Crowns (Sample), 1996; #2

Although this is numbered as 2, it was one of just two cards in this insert series released in a promotional version. The other card was numbered 4.

The 'Promotional Sample' lettering is overprinted running from the bottom left to the top right on both sides. This means some of the lettering on the front is visible through the acetate on the back.

I'm counting this as a new card in the collection even though there is no other difference to the regular release. I presume this version was given out by the company. I'm just lucky they picked Tony's card as one of the two to use to promote the set.

Total: 665 cards

No cards - just talking

A couple of weeks back I mentioned that I was a guest on a podcast called Tea and Topps. If you want to have a listen to me talk about my collection, then you can watch it here.

Attentive listeners may catch me making the kind of factual error I frequently criticise card companies for making. It has reminded me to be more humble in future.

The hosts also asked me to create a baseball card of myself for them to use to promote the show. I ended up with this hideously anachronistic effort.

So, how many things "wrong" can you count on that card? And did you hear the error in the show?

Back to proper baseball cards tomorrow!

One card only - A hologwynn from SPx

Card Number 664: SPx Bound for Glory, 1996; #9

This insert card ticks a lot of boxes. Die cut, shiny, hologram. Lovely.

The scanned version of the front has a grainy TV picture effect due to the hologram. 

The photo on the back is from the short period in the 90s when Tony sported a neatly groomed beard.

This is one of those rare cards that references the events of the year it was released in. This set was issued in 1996, sometime after Independence Day, and references Tony's performance in the early part of the season. The cardback is let down, though, by some terrible word-stretching due to using justified text, and odd hyphenation. 

Total: 664 cards

Spotting sports in Spanish

Welcome to May! Time for a trip to the ocean!

Card Number 662: Pacific Crown Collection Hometown of the Players, 1996; #HP3

A slightly odd subject for an insert series as there are no pictures on the card of Long Beach or San Diego, both the places named on the cardback.

I suspect this insert series was mainly done to use up the excess amounts of gold foil that Pacific had lying around. 

The cardback is in English and Spanish, which was Pacific's USP at the time. O-Pee-Chee had French on their cards. Pacific had Spanish. One day I would like to find a Tony Gwynn card in another language again.

My Spanish isn't great. In fact it's bordering on nonexistent. But I spotted a mistake here in the Spanish text, unless "en futbol americano" was Spanish for basketball. A quick check confirmed it's a different sport entirely - can you guess what it is? (I was the first boring nerd who reads cardbacks to report this on Trading Card Database where it's now listed as an error!)

Card Number 663, Pacific Aurora Pennant Fever, 2000; #16

"Pennant fever" gives me an earworm of this song from The Muppet Treasure Island.

The Padres were nowhere near a pennant in 2000. Two years after reaching the World Series they finished 5th in the National League West with a losing average of .469 and 21 games behind the Giants who won the division with an 11 game margin.

In terms of winning games, that 5th place average was actually an improvement on 1999's performance when the Padres' final average was .457 and they were 26 games behind the winning team, the Diamondbacks. The Padres finished fourth in 1999 because the Rockies were monumentally poor and managed to be even worse than them. 

The cardback doesn't give any indication why Tony would have pennant fever and qualify as part of this insert set. My conclusion is that Pacific liked including cards of Tony Gwynn in all their sets and insert series whether the theme was relevant or not. Tony had links with the company and did some promotional work for them so they weren't going to leave him out.

Total: 663 cards