Breakfast baseball bonus

Topps has produced a few promotional issues for other companies over the years. This one is unusual because it celebrates the Topps company even though it was a giveaway in breakfast cereal. 

Card Number 1041: Post 50 Years of Topps, 2001; #17

I mean, it's a free card, you don't expect to see the player's face in the photo do you?

Topps's trademark rubbish photography aside, the other quirk is placing the Padres logo on Tony's foot as if he's balancing a soccer ball there. A small soccer ball, like the "mini Mitres" I remember from school. 

(OK, that might need an explanation. When I was in high school in the late 80s to early 90s, the soccer ball company called Mitre brought out smaller versions of their balls that were supposed to be used for training purposes. They were also, probably intentionally, the perfect size for carrying round in a schoolbag which meant my gang of friends could play soccer during the lunchtime break with something resembling a proper soccer ball. I didn't have a mini Mitre myself. The kids who did were the gods of the playground.)

The most interesting thing about this cardback is the ribbon around the baseball and Tony's facsimile signature... which I think I'm right in saying is what he used on his very first contract with Topps when he was a teenager. It also appears on his Bowman cards from 1998 and 1999. 

It feels like the era of free cards in random products is over. This is probably one of the last times baseball cards appeared in boxes of breakfast cereal. (You can see the advert promoting the giveaway on TCDb.) This card is therefore a real throwback and the last hurrah of the late 90s overproduction era.

Total: 1041 cards