Tony's insights on Jeff

This cameo card was a bonus in the recent joblot of cards I bought off eBay. I knew there were two ProFiles cards in the lot and I banked on at least one of them being one of the ones where Tony offered an opinion on another player.

Card Number 710: Topps Profiles by Tony Gwynn, 1996; #NL-01

There were 20 cards in this insert series. This card features Jeff Bagwell. I blogged about another card from the series back in June.

It's super-shiny, so I used the overhead scanner. There wasn't enough light in the room so I tinkered with some settings and the resulting scan is a bit grainy. But you can get the idea.

So, what did Tony think about Jeff Bagwell...?

One thing that I've noticed with Tony's take on hitting is that he always used to say that a hitter needed to find their stance, swing, rhythm and then stick with it - here he talks about Jeff finding continuity. Except of course, Tony was happy to change things in his own batting. That's how he earned the nickname 'Captain Video' in the early stage of his career, because his wife, Alicia, would tape his games and he would watch and re-watch his at bats to see what he could have done differently. He also changed his preferred bat on the advice of Ted Williams in the early 90s, setting him up for his four latter batting titles.

So, there was continuity, and also scope for change. Which is kind of what he says here about Jeff's approach to hitting. 

And, speaking of Ted Williams, there's a card tomorrow featuring him.

Total: 710 cards