Following on from yesterday's Gold Label cards from 2021, here are some more from the Topps range that perpetuates the class system.
Card Number 963: Topps Gold Label Class 1, 2019; #92
As with the more recent cards that I blogged yesterday, this card juxtaposes an older photo of Tony with a more recent one. In this case it's a photo from either 1985 or 1986 and a photo that's probably from 2001.
Like the cards from 2021, the cardback has Tony's 'average season' stats and states that Tony's season best batting average was .372. I still can't decide if this is an error by Topps or just someone behind the scenes being a pedantic dork and discounting the stats from 1994 because it wasn't a 162 game season. Whatever the reason, Topps has been printing this stat for a while.
The factoid is a useful illustration of how well Tony hit in the clutch. He didn't often get to two strikes as he liked to swing at the first pitch if he could. But when he got to two strikes, it was very rare that he would get to three.
Card Number 963: Topps Gold Label Class 1 (black parallel), 2019; #92
Like yesterday, here is a black parallel to compare with the regular class 1 card.
The black parallel looks much more striking as a card, and also makes the 'class 1' lettering much more obvious in the scan.
I have a confession - the cardback I showed you previously could have been from either the regular or the parallel. I scanned them together and can't tell them apart. Here's a scan of both of them to show what I mean.
And, as a bonus, another card from the same set and same year...
Card Number 965: Topps Gold Label Class 2, 2019; #92
I really like the white Padres uniform with the yellow, orange and brown accents. That uniform is the one worn by the team in the 1984 World Series, and replaced almost immediately with the switch to pinstripes for the 1985 season. (Maybe it's because I'm a child of the seventies, but it feels to me that the move to pinstripes in the 1980s was a boring choice!)
The cardback is the same again, complete with the description of Tony's batting after two strikes as "preposterous", and a mention of Wade Boggs.
With baseball itself very much in the balance for 2022, I don't know if Gold Label is scheduled to appear again. I'm waiting to see if Topps persist with claiming Tony's best batting average is .372. If Topps do, then I might get in touch with them and ask what their reasoning is.
Total: 965 cards
I think they exclude 1994, because it was strike shortened. That being said... I was peeking at Tony's career stats and saw that he only played in 140+ games two times in his final twelve seasons. And he never played in all 162 games during his twenty season career.
ReplyDeleteThat's why this seems so daft. They are only using 162 game seasons... but that's irrelevant considering Tony often played fewer games anyway. Topos is a weird company.
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