Tuesday Twins - unexpected reprints

I received a parcel yesterday containing a job lot of Tony Gwynn cards I bought off eBay a few weeks back. When I bought it I knew it was a mix of new cards for the collection and several I already had, including quite a few base cards. Except, when the cards arrived and I could see the backs I realised that some of those base cards were inserts from later Topps sets. 

Card Number 623: Topps Cards Your Mom Threw Out insert, 2010; #CMT-43

Tony had 3 cards in this insert series.

The front is a straight-up reprint of Tony's card from 1994. The cardback explains why they chose this card.

I like this card as it refers to Tony's batting achievement in 1994. It's also nice to see a reprint that isn't of Tony's rookie card!

Card Number 624: Topps 60 Years of Topps insert, 2011; #60YOT-33

This is another reprint of an iconic card design. 

Basically this insert series reprinted a card from each year and this is the one they chose from the 1984 flagship set. The cardback explains about the Topps design for the year and mentions Tony's first batting title right at the end of the write up.

Again, I like this card because it's a reprint of a card that I feel I haven't seen a zillion times over. Admittedly it's a little bit self-indulgent to produce inserts celebrating yourself, but I'll let Topps off for that because this is a lovely card to have.

I know that after yesterday's post where I wrote about Topps's over-reliance on nostalgia, I'm being much more enthusiastic about these reprints than might be expected.  But there's nothing quite as exciting as realising that cards I'd mentally written off as a dupes turn out to be ones I can add to my collection!

Total: 624 cards

Sharing the spotlight... very tenuously

Sometimes Tony shares a card with another player. Usually there's an obvious reason, like they are a fellow chart-topper, or related to him, or team-mates. 

And sometimes there is no discernible reason at all.

Card Number 285: Topps, 2010; #LL27

This is an insert card from Topps along the theme of 'legendary lineage'. The other player is Joe Mauer, who played his entire career for the Minnesota Twins.

About the only connection on the back is that Joe Mauer had won some batting titles. He never added to the three titles he had accumulated by the time this card was published. (He remains the only catcher to win a batting title in the American League.)

It is possible to find some similarities between the two players. Both Tony and Joe were one-club men for their entire careers. Both have had their shirt numbers retired by their teams. They both have a career batting average over .300. They also both played basketball; both as point guards, although Mauer didn't play at College level. (He did go to college on a Football scholarship, though, so there is a similarity with Tony there, in that both went to college on sports scholarships for sports that weren't baseball!)

But there is no actual connection between the two. Gwynn didn't coach Mauer or play alongside him at any point, which would be reasonable to expect for a card denoting "legendary lineage". There is no lineage. This is just Topps putting two random players on a card.

However, there is one reason I'm glad to own this odd card - it's the only Topps card featuring Tony in my collection that was printed in 2010!

Total: 285/394

Aztec Hero

Writing about my own university days in yesterday's blogpost reminded me of a few cards I own that feature Tony in his college playing days.

Tony earned a scholarship to San Diego State University, but to play basketball. He played Point Guard for the SDSU Aztecs for four seasons and still holds the following records for them:

• Career Assists
• Most Assists in a Season (with two other placings in the top ten)
• Most Assists in a Game - first, second, and third place on the all-time list

Despite his scholarship, eventually Tony was allowed to represent the Aztecs at baseball as well. He was drafted to the NBA San Diego Clippers and the MLB San Diego Padres after college, and opted for baseball because he felt that would offer him a longer career.

There are trading cards with pictures of Tony as a basketball player. However, the ones in this post show him playing college baseball.

Card Number 147: Panini Contenders, 2015; #91

It should come as no surprise that Panini, the masters of licensing loopholes, found a way to produce interesting baseball cards without a MLB licence. This card is an "Officially Licensed Collegiate Product". Well, it's a bit of money for the alma mater. I'm sure none of the players would mind.

I think this is quite an attractive card, but as we will see they made the most of that photo.

Here it is again on the back.

There are 99 cards in the base set featuring contemporary players like Aaron Judge who had been drafted just two years previously and hall-of-famers like Tony, Dave Winfield and Ozzie Smith.

There were also several insert series in the set, including the next card.

Card Number 148: Panini Contenders, 2015; #O-14

I told you that photo was doing a lot of work for Panini. Here it is on a second card. This verson is less cropped and shopped than on the base card, but is also less crisp.

Guess what photo they used on the back of the card.

Yes, there it is again. I don't know if this is a record for numbers of times the same photo has been used in a card set, but it's got to be in there somewhere. There were 47 cards in the "Old School Colours" insert series. 

Panini weren't the first card company to use photos of famous players in their college days to get round licensing restrictions. The year before this Panini set came out, Upper Deck included Tony in their 'Legends' section of their 'College Colors' range.

Card Number 149: Upper Deck College Colors, 2014; #7

I think the choice of a black and white photo is deliberate to invoke feelings of 'it was a long time ago...'

One thing about this photo is that at least you can make out most of the word 'Aztecs' on Tony's uniform.

Like the Panini cards, the photo is re-used on the back.

This is another "Officially Licensed Collegiate Product". That licensing stamp is a new one on this blog and makes a change from the MLBPA or the National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame, which are two other organisations licensing photos to baseball card companies while MLB restricts their official licence to just the one company. 

Incidentally, this 26-card set is listed as a 'promo' set on Trading Card Database and is a multi-sport set, not a baseball card set, with 13 legends and 13 'rookies' from various sports. Other "legends" with cards in the set include Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning and Tiger Woods. 

The craft of baseball card companies to find new ways to print 'official' cards of players using innovative licensing makes me wonder if eventually we will get cards with Little League photos of Major Leaguers. Panini have gone a step in that direction already.

Card Number 150, Panini Century, 2010; #34

Before he went to university, Tony went to Long Beach Polytechnic High School. Given that he is wearing a sweatshirt saying 'Poly' on it, I think it's a reasonable assumption this is a photo of him in high school.

Yes, the grey square is a small scrap of cloth. This is a relic card. The weird chunk of white space is because there were autographed versions of this card. This is the unmarked version but the space for the auto is still there.

It's a pretty dull cardback, although it is serially numbered. The blurb about the cloth patch says it is from a game-worn item, but there isn't any detail about the game. I don't know why card companies  don't specify in which game, or games, the items were worn. It seems like that would be information they would know if the items are as authentic as they say they are. 

That feels like a nice way to reach the 150 card mark on this blog!

Total: 150/394

Monday mixer

Here are 3 random, unrelated cards, that I'm posting because it's Monday and we can all use some random drops of joy in our lives on a Monday.

Card Number 62: Sportkings  (Series D), 2010; #180

There are two versions of this card. This is the slightly smaller version. It's not as small as a Topps Mini, but it's smaller than a regular sized trading card. This is also another entry into the 'When is a baseball card not a baseball card?' category. The Trading Card Database lists this as a 'multi-sport' card. The series includes famous sportsmen from across a range of sporting activities.

Sport Kings Gum was one of the ranges brought out by the card manufacturer Goudey before the Second World War. The brand got revived several decades later, and this is from when it was an independent little company. It has also been part of Leaf. When this was produced the company had no affiliations with Major League Baseball, but look at how cunning they have been in their portrait of Tony - on the front of his cap are his pioneering sunglasses, and you can just see a little bit of the SD logo.  That's sneaky!

On the back there is nice little bio and we also learn the card was printed in Canada. Just another odd little aspect of this odd little oddball card.

Card Number 63, Pacific Invincible, 1999; #122

I have one card in my collection so far which is part acetate. This is the card. That little window with Tony's face is actually a window. Pacific are one of those card companies that created little masterpieces that no-one really asked for. Die-cuts and gold foil and see-through bits and all kind of things to make their cards stand out. This may be an unpopular opinion, but the hobby is poorer without Pacific.

There's the back. There's some blurb in Spanish as well as English and the picture of Tony is mirrored because it's printed on acetate. It's weird to think this is the view Tony would have had of himself if he looked in a mirror. He is properly legging it in that photo as well. That's a man on a mission to reach the next base!

Card Number 64: Upper Deck Collector's Choice (The Big Show Insert Series), 1997; #39
The Big Show was one of 20 insert series in the 1997 Collector's Choice set. The premise is that baseball commentators Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, hosts of ESPN's SportsCenter, are talking about various players in a commentator style.

The cards are foiled on the front, so look nicer than in this scan.

The back has one of the most confusing layouts I've ever seen on a baseball card. It's another 90s design classic!

Basically the text is interlinear as if the commentators are talking over each other. It's horrible to read and I can't work out which person is saying what. Separately they are saying:

"Hit .353 in '96 to win his seventh batting title, which is third-most in Major League history... Has hit .300 or better for 14 consecutive seasons ('83-96)... Has .337 career average, highest among active Major Leaguers ... Posted 2,500th career hi 8-14-96."

"If there is such a thing as a hitting artist, Tony is it. "Mr Padre" is another one the small list of players that I would pay to see. He won a batting title in '96 despite suffering from a painful heel injury. If you broke his legs, he'd probably still get a hit off you."

Am I the only one who feels a slightly sinister undertone in that final sentence?

Keith Olbermann has also been a political commentator but he is back on ESPN now. In He Left His Heart in San Diego Keith recalls meeting Tony Gwynn, who called him Mr Olbermann until Keith asked him not to. They became friends and Keith knew how excited Tony was to be playing at Yankee Stadium in the 1998 World Series. He asked the Yankee stadium announcer, Bob Sheppard, to record his intro for Tony Gwynn and then put it in a talking photo frame and gave it to him. Apparently Tony was so taken by it, that he kept the frame in his trophy cabinet next to the silver bats he won.

That's your Monday Mixer. Have a great day!

Total: 64/394