Finishing Fleer Fortnight in a Traditional way

Fleer Tradition was the company's retro range at the tail end of the 90s and across the cusp of the millennium. It sometimes combined a mix of fairly ordinary looking cards with vintage style parallels and sometimes just went for a full set of full-on retro designs. Some sets also had some well-designed subsets and insert sets. One of my favourite Tony Gwynn cards ever is a Fleer Tradition insert that I blogged about in my first month of blogging.

Card Number 954: Fleer Tradition, 1998; #250

An unusual - and fantastic! - photo on the front of this base card. Tony has a pen in his hand so he was presumably turning that shirt into an autographed shirt!

The use of the shirt for the backdrop on the cardback is very effective. I've not seen it done on many (if any) cards. It seems like the sort of design technique that should appear frequently because it's such a simple yet impactful idea. 

There is lots more colour in the stats box than is usually applied on a card, whihc makes it easier to read than the usual rows of tiny numbers. Plenty of thought went into the design of this card.

Card Number 955: Fleer Tradition, 1998; #315

There were 10 "Golden Memories" cards in the middle of the 600 card Fleer Tradition set in 1998. It's a shiny card that looks really special but is actually 'just' a base card. Trading Card Database has a note that these cards were inserted at a ratio of 1 in 6 packs, which probably makes them more common than regular base cards.

The back has a flamboyant cameo frame and a factoid about how Tony scored 4 hits in 5 at bats against Greg Maddux in a game in 1997. 

Greg famously reckoned Tony was the only player it was impossible to strike out. It's always worth a re-quote.

“Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different release points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. 

But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision. 

Except for that f---ing Tony Gwynn.”

Card Number 956: Fleer Tradition Update, 1999; #U-145

Fleer Tradition was so popular in the late 90s is merited an update series, which included some season highlights from that year.

I doubt any regular readers don't know that the 6th August 1999 was the date of Tony's 3000th hit. This is one of the first cards released commemorating it. 

What is really strange is that Tony was the first player in 20 years to reach the 3,000 hit mark. The next player to reach 3,000 hits was Wade Boggs on the 7th August 1999. The day after Tony reached that milestone!

Card Number 957: Fleer Tradition Dividends insert, 2000; #9

Sometimes when an insert series has an odd name like 'Dividends', I just assume it's because baseball companies were running out of words...

Red borders always make a card look good. However, the offset nature of the black and white photo is a little jarring.

The same photo appears on the back, except it's rendered in sepia.

Although the write up implies hits were inevitable when Tony made a plate appearance, they were relatively rare in the 2000 season because Tony made comparatively few plate appearances - just 140 compared to 446 in 1999.

Total: 957 cards

One Card Only - FFF Focal point

Fleer Focus was a short lived Fleer range in the early noughties. It had some nice cards in it though.

Card Number 945: Fleer Focus Focal Points insert, 2000 #2F

A shiny front. Fleer did a lot of shiny cards.

On the back we have a trademark Fleer oddly written blurb that starts with "Death, taxes and Tony Gwynn batting .300."

As it's a card from 2000, it mentions Tony topping the 3,000 hit mark in the previous season.

Total: 945 cards

Topps in Y2K x 4

The sheer volume of cards being produced at the turn of the Millennium means there are loads of cards in my collection from the year 2000. Here are some from Topps.

Card Number 876: Topps Opening Day, 2000; #2

I know I could have waited and put this in a 'Tuesday Twins' post, but hey, it's in this post instead. 

The Opening Day set had a silver border around it and the foil stamp saying opening day. I wish Topps would go back to foil stamps instead of photoshopping in Opening Day logos. 

This card has the same number as the regular flagship set, which doesn't always happen with Opening Day sets.

The back is uninspiring.

From a cheapie parallel set to something a bit odder.

Card Number 877: Topps Finest Moments refractor, 2000; #FM3

There were only 4 "moments" commemorated in the Topps Finest set in 2000. Chipper Jones winning the 1999 National league MVP, Ivan Rodriguez winning the American League MVP, Wade Boggs recording his 3000th hit, and Tony recording his 3000th hit. In a freaky alignment of events, Tony hit his 3000th hit the day before Wade hit his. Two 3000th hits on consecutive days! 

The back talks about Tony's 3000th hit and notes that it was just one of four hits for him in that game. 

Also, a bonus point for Topps actually putting the word 'refractor' on the back under the set number. That's the handy information that often gets left off cards. 

Card Number 878: Topps Gallery, 2000; #118

Tony had another card in the Gallery in 2000, as well as this card in the "Masters of the Game" subset. (The other card is blogged here.)

Topps used a similar photo on their Magic Moments cards in the flagship set from 2000.

The back has a confusing array of fonts and, frankly, looks a bit of a mess.

Reading the question on the back, it was kind of easy to guess the answer. Of course it would be A. Any kind of question where one of the options is a ridiculously low number of strike outs in a season, the number of strike outs is always lower than the other thing it's being compared with. Always.

Card Number 879: Topps Stars, 2000; #60

I have worked with a number of graphic designers in my career and I feel I am able to interpret the intentions of designers fairly well, even when they don't work out. I think the idea here is that the player is illuminated by searchlights, like a film star would be, and that is casting the player's shadow. It doesn't quite work because Tony is running a base path and there is a person in the background in the photo, but Topps have never let the results interfere with their vision. If the card ends up looking like there is some kind of interdimensional rip in space-time going on, then, well, print it anyway.

Having said all that, I quite like Topps Stars. On the back we get a batting donut picture, again. That's been a recurring theme this week! Weirdly Fuji lists the other Tony Gwynn card from this set in his list of cards featuring batting donuts. So, again, that's two cards from the same set with a picture that includes a batting donut - as was the case a few days back!

I blogged the other card that Tony had in Topps Stars in 2000 back in September.

And that's it for Topps cards from 2000... for now!

Total: 879 cards

More recent Monday - Baseball hero

It's Upper Deck week on my blog. Usually Mondays are days when I show a 'modern' card, but as Upper Deck haven't released any baseball cards since they put out an unlicensed set in 2010 and got sued by Topps, today's cards are just a bit "more recent" than the other cards I will be showing this week. They were issued after Tony retired and are a mere 16 years old.

Card Number 815: Upper Deck Baseball Heroes, 2005; #85

Tony appeared on five cards in this 200-card set. I am blogging three of them today and I'm doing them out of numerical order.

Numerically, this was the highest numbered of Tony's cards in the set, but I think it's the ideal card to kick off this post. 

The back gives a short precis of why Tony is a baseball hero. 

Card Number 816: Upper Deck Baseball Heroes, 2005; #84

The other cards in the set focus on certain individual feats. Number 84 in the set is about Tony's 3,000th hit. 

Unlike when some other card companies commemorated this milestone, Upper Deck got all the facts right on the back. 

The synchronicity of Tony's career milestones always seems remarkable. He notched up 1,000 hits in exactly six years - to the day!

Card Number 817: Upper Deck Baseball Heroes, 2005; #83

This card also marks an achievement from 1999 - Tony's 15th appearance as an All Star.

While Tony was named in the All Star Game line up, he didn't actually feature in the game, so there is a slight error there in the way they report this. He was sat with the reserves, though. On the back that's described as "participating".

Tony received the All Star call up 15 times, and went up to bat in 13 actual games. 13 is still very impressive.

There are another two cards featuring Tony in this set - numbers 82 and 81. For now they are on my list of cards to get someday!

Total: 817 cards

Another Victory quartet

My previous blogpost about Upper Deck's Victory sets contained four cards. This post contains four cards. Victory cards just seem to come in fours.

Card Number 765: Upper Deck Victory, 1999; #337

Tony was a 'Big Play maker' according to this subset.

This was from the first year of Victory sets. Upper Deck used the branding in other sports too and issued Victory cards for five years. 

Design-wise, I like this card. It's bold. It's colourful. Tony is kicking up a clod of dirt in the photo. It also looks a lot like a DonRuss card at first glance (or is that just me?)

The back explains why Tony qualifies as a 'Big Play Maker', noting that he was on the brink of joining the elite group of players to record 3,000 Major League hits.

Card Number 766: Upper Deck Victory, 1999; #338

The very next card in the debut Victory set featured Tony in another subset - 'History in the Making'.

The overlay of Tony running on a background made to look like a TV image is quite effective. The date history was made was the 28 April 1998. There are more details on the cardback.

I wonder how demoralised the Cubs pitching staff were at the end of the game after Tony had gone 5 for 5 in his plate appearances. They must have been glad to see the back of him at the end of the game. 

I've thought occasionally of going through all the cards and listing the other baseball players who get mentioned on Tony's cardbacks. Ty Cobb has been mentioned on loads. Realistically, I probably won't ever get round to doing that. It would be a fun diversion though. 

Card Number 767: Upper Deck Victory, 1999; #464

Further on in the set, Upper Deck gave Tony a 'Rookie Flashback' card.

Despite being totally devoid of context, it's evident that is a picture of Tony sliding into home plate, given the player in front of him is wearing the strapping for catcher armour. It looks like it could be a photo from Tony's rookie season - 1982 - in which case there were three catchers who wore #14 in the National League that season. They were Alan Ashby (Astros), Mike Sciosa (Dodgers) and Matt Sinatro (Braves). Ashby played 100 games and Sciosa played 129 games that season, so they seem to be the most likely to be the mystery catcher in this photo. 

This card almost set off the Anachronism Klaxon, as Upper Deck didn't exist when Tony was a rookie. In fact, Upper Deck didn't exist for the five years included in the graph on the back of the card. (But, hey, there's a data representation bonus point for having a graph on a cardback!)

Card Number 768: Upper Deck Victory, 2000; #203

This is Tony's base card from the second year of Victory sets. If it looks familiar, that's because a shiny blue foil parallel "Ultimate Victory" version was in the first blog post about Victory cards back in July 2020.

This card design doubles up on Tony's smiling face. No complaints here!

The cardback is quite dull.The stadium picture in the watermark under the stats box is the same on every card in the set. I don't know which stadium it is; odds are high it's not Jack Muprhy stadium. 

Total: 768 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

The one club man in two hitting clubs

Back to the joblot that arrived from eBay and a rare 'theme post'. Usually I group cards by make or year, but sometimes there are slightly less obvious connections as with these two cards today. As I extracted them from the envelope I realised there was a fun similarity.

Card Number 589: Leaf 300 Club, 1995; #13

The 300 Club was an insert series in honour of the active players in 1995 with a career batting average over .300. 

In 1995 Tony was second on the list with .333, behind Wade Boggs who had .335. However, Tony would go on to finish his career with a batting average of .338, elevating him into the top 20 all time career batting averages. He is the only player in the top 20 born after the Second World War. Wade Boggs meanwhile saw his batting averages tail off in his final seasons in the game, and he finished with a career average of .328 - which is still very, very good, of course.

The rest of the list includes some famous names - Kirby Puckett, Mike Piazza, Paul Molitor, Ken Griffey Jr, and at the bottom, Tony's one-time room-mate at Walla-Walla, John Kruk.

These kind of cards are a great snapshot of who was dominating around that time. There were some very good batsmen competing with Tony for titles in the mid-90s. 

Leaf put Tony in the 300 Club. A few years later Fleer went a digit better.

Card Number 590: Fleer Ultra 3000 Club, 2000; #unnumbered

The joy of collecting cards from the 90s and the turn-of-the-Millennium includes trying to find the things on Trading Card Database. Fleer did their best to hide this one, but I found it in the end. There were '3000 Club' cards inserted in all the Fleer ranges in 2000. There were 2 or 3 cards each in Fleer Focus, Fleer Mystique, Fleer Showcase, Fleer Tradition, and Tony's cards were hidden in packs of Fleer Ultra. 

The card is also a snazzy die-cut!

The middles of the zeroes aren't punched out. Unlike some other card companies (*cough* Topps *cough*), Fleer have got the date of Tony's 3000th hit right.

There's also a nice little write-up that avoids any weird superlatives and is probably one of the best summaries of Tony's playing style - not flashy, just consistently productive. I'd say the same for this card design, with it's big numerals and rounded edges.

This was around the time when Fleer added the year below their logo, which is very handy and earns this card a bonus point. Not that it needs too many bonus points as it's pretty special already.

Total: 590 cards

Some Upper Deck Inserts

Welcome to the weekend - here are a handful of Upper Deck inserts for you to enjoy.

Card Number 478: Upper Deck, 1997; #378

The Capture the Flag subset featured 18 different players who were involved in the post-season in 1996. They are heavily foiled so they scan badly.

Here's a photo that shows how it looks unscanned. Even the photo doesn't capture how shiny it is.

Variations of this card exist with a white background on the back, but this is the regular cardback.

In 1996, the Padres won only their second ever National League West divisional title. The season came down to a straight contest with the Dodgers in the final series of the regular season. Whoever won the series would win the division pennant. As the cardback says, Tony's 2 run single in the penultimate game of the series meant that the final game was effectively a championship decider.

The winning hit in that final game was actually made by Tony's brother, Chris Gwynn, who was a pinch hitter with the Padres for the final two seasons of his major league career. Chris made 100 plate appearances for the Padres in 1996, recording just 16 hits and a season batting average of .178. But he got the hit that mattered, to make the Padres champions of the NL West.

Card Number 479: Upper Deck Hitter's Club, 2000; #EP6

Tony was one of 10 players honoured as "Epic Performers" in this insert series in the small "Hitter's Club" set. I've already blogged about Tony's base card from the set.

It's another heavily foiled card. (Sorry, no photo this time.)

On the back, there's a reference to Tony's 3000th hit the previous season. This was also commemorated on another card in this set - the fourth in this anniversary blog post.

The one line of statistics is truly minimalist and only features six numbers. 

Card Number 480: Upper Deck, 1998; #136

This was one of 18 cards in a subset called Define the Game. The front and back feature a quote from Mike Chaldu, who is listed here as a copy editor for Baseball. What that means is, he was an employee of Upper Deck who wrote copy for baseball cards. 

The quote in it's entirety is: 

(Tony Gwynn) of: A man at the top of his profession. I've had the pleasure of watching Gwynn up close honing his craft. Want any further proof of "Mr Padre's" hitting prowess... ...How about the fact that he just completed his fifth straight season with an average above .350?

Mike Chaldu would have had the pleasure of watching Tony Gwynn honing his craft. Before he worked for Upper Deck he spent a year as assistant editor of the Padres Magazine in 1995. He was with Upper Deck for five years from 1996 - 2001 and also did some sports reporting for a local paper in San Diego during the time. (Helpfully he listed all of this is on his public LinkedIn page.)

Apart from the quote from an Upper Deck staffer, this card stands out as one of the brownest cards in my collection. I'm all for brown, being a Padres fan, but it doesn't really work as a base colour for a baseball card. It feels like Upper Deck were padding their set somewhat with these cards and they could have chosen a slightly better colour for them.

Total: 480 cards

We are into the 480s, number-wise, and tomorrow we start 80s Week!

Hit Machine 3000 part deux

At the very start of September I blogged about receiving some cards in a giveaway from Jeff at Wax Pack Wonders. It included a numbered card from an insert series that Pacific released to celebrate Tony achieving his 3000th hit in the game.

I recently watched Tony's speech from his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and he talked about how when he scored his 2000th hit his former team-mate Jerald Clark was on first base for their opponents, the Colorado Rockies. He said he remembered saying to Jerald, "I need to get another thousand hits." Six years to the day later, he snagged his 3000th.

The Pacific insert series was called Hit Machine 3000, which is such a turn-of-the-Millennium phrase it's almost comical. 

I said in my blog-post about Jeff's generosity that "It might not be easy tracking any more of these down." Then, strangely, two cards appeared from that set on eBay from a UK-based seller. I thought they were a bit over-priced at first and I watched them as they cycled through their first auction period. They got relisted at a slightly lower price and I rewatched them again. Then, 24 hours before the auction ended the seller made an offer to everyone watching, and I decided to buy them. 

Card Number 454: Pacific Omega Hit Machine 3000, 1999; #8

Pacific declared Tony an American Hero on this card. The picture would be slightly over the top, without the fireworks!

This is card number 482 in the 3000 print run. Perhaps I should have kept this for a few blog posts' time and it could have been card number 482 on this blog too!

The back shows Tony in a more natural pose - one of the back rooms in the stadium. There aren't many 'behind the scenes' photos on baseball cards. 

Card Number 455: Pacific Omega Hit Machine 3000, 1999; #9

On the 9th card in the insert series, Tony was described as a 'Fan Favorite'.

Although it a posed photo like the previous card, Tony looks much happier here than he looked when he was draped in the American flag. This card is numbered 681 / 3000.

On the back we have a photo of him signing autographs. One of my favourite kinds of photos of Tony 'in action'.

On the back it mentions Tony's humanitarian award in 1995 and also his charitable foundation. There is a moment in his Hall of Fame speech when he mentions the community service team at the Padres and just says, "We've done a lot of good work, haven't we?" That outward focus and care for others is part of Tony's lasting legacy.

Total: 455 cards.