First Five in the Fabulous Fleer Fortnight

I have a lot of Fleer cards to blog and so I decided to do a theme week... then I thought about it and I thought a Fleer Fortnight was more apt. And it would help me 'clear the Fleer'. So this is the first post of my Fabulous Fleer Fortnight!

This first post will feature five cards from the special Tony Gwynn commemorative set - an insert series in Fleer Ultra in 1992. I have gradually acquired eleven of the twelve cards in this set. Here are cards numbered 1, 4, 5, 8 and the two mailaway cards. (I blogged those in August 2020, nearly 700 cards ago!)

Card Number 920: Fleer Ultra Tony Gwynn Commemorative Series, 1992; #2

That's a nice picture of Tony in the proper vintage Padres colours from when he first broke into the team. It looks familar though... Back in July last year I noticed that Topps were using a photo that originally appeared on one of these cards in the commemorative set, on the Archives insert in Series 1 of their flagship set. This photo really looks like the photo used by Topps on their 2021 Stadium Club card.

It was only when I compared the two I realised it wasn't eactly the same photo. Tony is wearing exactly the same gear, but that is a different bat. The dug-out in the background is also different, but I wouldn't put it past Topps to alter that anyway.

There is a decent chunk of biography on the back of the card.

I doubt that Tony really went to college thinking he would "play a little baseball" as well. The way his fellow alumnus Bobby Meacham tells it in He Left His Heart in San Diego, Tony was reluctant to approach his basketball coach to ask about playing baseball. 

Card Number 921: Fleer Ultra Tony Gwynn Commemorative Series, 1992; #3

Outfield photo!

Another chapter of "Big T's" biography on the back. (Big T? Really?)

This chunk of Tony's life concludes by mentioning the broken wrist he sustained in the Puerto Rican league in the winter of 1982-3. It was his right wrist. He had already broken his left wrist during the regular season! 

I do think it's testament to how much Tony loved playing baseball that after a very successful season in the minor leagues he would head off to Peurto Rico to play even more baseball. 

Card Number 922: Fleer Ultra Tony Gwynn Commemorative Series, 1992; #6

This card shows Tony posing with a silver slugger award and a golden glove!

Tony's golden gloves don't get mentioend very often - perhaps that's because he didn't in any in the latter half of his career. His batting titles were evenly split between the first ten years and last ten years that he played. The golden gloves were all early career awards.

Some of his fielding achievements are mentioned in the biography on the back.

As an aside, this is why I roll my eyes when people suggest Fernando Tatis Jr is a better player than Tony Gwynn. Brilliant though he is, Tatis is never going to win five gold gloves in his career. I will predict that now.

Card Number 923: Fleer Ultra Tony Gwynn Commemorative Series, 1992; #9

A baserunning photo. Fleer were trying to show all aspects of Tony's game in this set.

Tony was a multi-sport man. He was a basketball player good enough to be offered an NBA contract. He was a keen fisherman and golfer. I don't know if he ever boxed, but he's putting up his fists on the back of this card. 

Tony's commitment to playing baseball possibly cost him a batting title in 1991. If he had limited his appearances and maintained that .360 average, he would have won it by a margin. (Julio Franco won the batting crown with an average of .341 that season.)

Card Number 924: Fleer Ultra Tony Gwynn Commemorative Series, 1992; #10

These photos on the last card were bang up to date at the time,as the Padres had just switched out their brown accoutrements for blue. 

Tony looks contemplative in the photo on the back. 

This is the second card in a row where Kirby Puckett is mentioned on the back. There is also a mention of his wife and children. His son is referred to as 'Anthony II' instead of junior. 

You may have noticed that the card I am missing from this set is card number 7! Do you have one lying around at home in a random old card box, not really doing anything? Could you help me complete this insert series? I would great appreciate it!

Total: 924 cards

Champions! (My 300th blog post)

I like marking milestones on my blog. This is my 300th blog post since starting on 9th May last year. I thought I'd celebrate by blogging my first card with a picture of Tony as a basketball player.

Card Number 630: Upper Deck Goodwin's Champions, 2013; #101

Most photos I've seen of Tony playing college basketball he is wearing a white jersey. The blue top he's wearing in this photo doesn't seem to say Aztecs on it, so I don't know the provenance of this photo.

However, it's worth recounting that Tony attended university in San Diego on a basketball scholarship and wasn't allowed to play baseball in his first year. He still holds the San Diego State University record for assists. And when he graduated, Tony was drafted by both the Padres and the local NBA franchise, the San Diego Clippers (now the Los Angeles Clippers). Several people who contributed to the book He Left Hs Heart in San Diego opine that Tony preferred basketball as a sport to watch. He regularly watched the Indiana Pacers, as his family often spent a lot of time in Indianapolis in the winter.

None of this is mentioned on the cardback.

In the eight years since this card was printed, Tony has dropped to 20th on the all-time ranking for career hits. He was overtaken by Derek Jeter, who reached number 6 in the rankings before retiring, and Albert Pujols, who needs less than 100 hits this season to climb to 9th in the all time rankings.

One reason why Upper Deck printed this card with a photo of Tony posing with a basketball is because it was a neat way to get around the lack of licensing. A few years previously, Upper Deck reacted to Topps buying sole licensing rights to Major League Baseball by printing cards anyway. They thought they could do that with the rights granted by the Major League Baseball Players Association, but then Topps sued them for using MLB logos and team names.

One of the cards in the middle of this legal tussle would have been from the first Goodwin's Champions set released in 2009.

Card Number 631: Upper Deck Goodwin's Champions, 2009; #135

This retro card set is printed on old-fashioned card stock. This is very noticeable when the card is turned over.

The alignment of factoid and one-line stat box earn this card a bonus point. If a card mentions a particular year, it makes perfect sense to just show that year's stats. 

There are five lines of boilerplate legalese at the bottom of the card and the logos of two licensing organisations - the MLBPA and the Cooperstown Collection, which I think sells rights to retired players who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. All that wasn't enough to protect Upper Deck from getting sued, however. They haven't released a baseball set since. The later Goodwin's Champion sets have included leading sportsmen and women from a range of sports, with a few baseball players included.

Total: 631 cards

One card only: Gone fishin'

Baseball card companies like to be a bit quirky sometimes and show a player in a different environment, or playing a different sport. 

Card Number 232: Upper Deck, 1997; #492

Did you ever expect to see Gwynn and Trout on the same card?

In He Left His Heart in San Diego, Jerald Clark relates a funny story about going fishing with Tony and how he had to tie Tony's lures on for him because otherwise they flew off when he cast. It's one of the few stories in the book that is actually about something Tony couldn't do very well.

The brown splodge on the card is a foil stamp for the 1996 All Star Game in Philadelphia. Upper Deck applied it to all the All Star players in the set. Although Tony was initially named as a starter for the National League, he didn't actually play. His fellow Padre, Ken Caminiti, scored a home run though, as the National League won 6-0. This game was also Ozzie Smith's final All Star game before retiring. To date it is the most recent All Star game to be played on artificial turf.

The cardback mentions Tony going fishing.

The three factoids down the side are more informative than the large stats box. It notes that Tony collected his 2,500th hit on 14 August in the preceding season. There's also a reference to a relatively rare event - a Tony Gwynn home run!

Total: 232/394

Two Hundred Tony Gwynn Cards

Today's post will take us up to 200 cards on the blog. Two whole centuries! So what better than to show two cards about the 20th Century's Best?

Card Number 199: Topps, 2000; #229
This is a shiny Topps insert. It doesn't scan well. Sorry.

It's hard to read, but in the little box on the front, it says 'average'.

On the back, it lists Tony as the leader in batting averages among active players. He doesn't make it onto the all-time top ten list though. He is joint 16th on the all-time list, according to ESPN.

It is always difficult comparing players from different eras, though. It's the same in any sport. Equipment changes. Rules change. Ballparks change. Substances are banned.

In He Left His Heart in San Diego, Michael Schell repeats his claims made in 1999 that Tony was the greatest hitter in the history of Major League Baseball. Schell adjusted the hitting rates for all time, comparing the first 8,000 at bats for all players, and on that basis proclaims Tony to be the best ever. He also notes that strike out rates have risen immensely since players like Ty Cobb and Ted Williams were playing, and that Tony's strike out rate was unusually low. (Schell's section in the book is from page 135 onwards.)

Card Number 200: Topps, 2000; #468
Another shiny card. One day someone will invent a scanner that works on shiny trading cards. I will buy one!

This card is about hits. Tony was the leading active hitter at the end of the 20th Century. Again, he didn't feature on the all-time top ten.

There was a conversation on Facebook recently about which records will never be broken. I think it's Pete Rose's hits total. A player would have to make 213 hits a season for 20 seasons to break it. Even Tony was 1,000 behind Pete Rose's total when he retired.

Despite not being in the all-time top tens, there's no doubt Tony was one of the best players of the 20th Century. If Michael Schell is right, had he been born 25 years earlier and started playing in the 1950s, he could well have been the greatest batter ever, without needing to have his figures adjusted to take into account changes in the game.

Total: 200/394

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

Saturday round up: Cardbacks and coincidences

This may become a habit. Last Saturday I blogged about how I had discovered more about a card I has already blogged about. This week I'm going to do the same and also talk about a second serendipitous tangential addition to the 'collection'.

One of my first posts was about Tony's 1980s Topps cards. I mentioned how in 1988 there was an acknowledgement of scout Cliff Ditto on the back of Tony's card.

This week I've finished reading He Left His Heart in San Diego, an anthology of memories of Tony Gwynn compiled by prolific author Rich Wolfe. On page 142, one-time Padres manager Jack McKeon is quoted thus:

"About the middle of November... Sy Berger from Topps Baseball Cards called me. He said, "Jack, I've got a problem... I've got four or five scouts claiming Tony Gwynn." I laughed and said "Let me go through the scouting files and see which guy should be credited." I went through the scouting files and there was one report on Tony Gwynn. That was from Cliff Ditto out of the Los Angeles area. That was the only scouting report we had. So I told Sy, "Make them all feel good. Give them all a certificate or whatever they need." They all claimed Tony Gwynn but we had only one report."

There are some learning points from this.
1) Always submit your reports!
2) Other people will try and claim your successes. Which is why point 1 is important.
3) For all that I bust on Topps for their bizarre choices of cardback factoids, they actually did some diligent digging to make sure they were right.
4) Cliff Ditto has risen even higher in my estimation because it seems he was the only scout who actually spotted Tony.

And on to the Saturday Serendipity. A couple of weeks back Jack contacted me via one of the Facebook groups for UK baseball card collectors to show me a couple of Tony Gwynn cards he had, including this one.

Card Number 60: Topps Mini, 1986; #65 (League Leaders)

As you can guess, I didn't have this card but I do now thanks to Jack. The back is unremarkable but is a nice shade of pink.

Anyway, that's not the serendipity. Jack said he was happy to sell this and the other card of Tony's or he would trade. He collects Derek Jeter. So I took a photo of four Jeter cards I had accumulated and asked if there were any he wanted. Turns out he wanted all four, so I asked if he had any other Padres cards and I'd just pick two extra and we would swap four cards for four cards.

Jack showed me his binder pages of Padres and one card leapt out at me. It was a Topps 1984 card. Somehow I have accumulated plenty of Padres 1983 cards and 1985 cards, but I had exactly zero 1984 cards in my binder. So I said I'd take that one and another card as well (which may make an appearance on this blog in a future post.

Anyway, the 1984 card was #224, pitcher Sid Monge. This almost a quintessential example of what a real baseball card looks like.

The back is centred poorly. This makes it almost a quintessential example of what the back of a real Topps baseball card from the 80s looks like. (As an aside, I love that Friar logo.)

A few hours after we agreed the trade I got another message from Jack. "I take it you knew this," he said with a screengrab of Sid Monge's Wikipedia entry with the following line highlighted:

"Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres got his first hit off Monge on July 19, 1982 while he was pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies."

My first reaction was "WHAT!?!?" I wish now I'd played it cool and said, "Yes, of course I knew that. Why else would I have selected that card?" But, really there's no point lying to a fellow collector (who I discovered lives not very far away from where I grew up), especially when a fellow collector is not only helping you out with cards for your collection, but is also going off and doing your research for you! That's going above and beyond, isn't it.

So, there you go. My first 1984 Padre, traded as an add on in a deal, turns out to have an important connection with Tony Gwynn. Being totally truthful I doubt I would have done any research on him at all, just happily filed him away in my Padres binder full of Topps cards. So a massive thanks to Jack for giving me a reason to include Sid's card on this blog.

Total: 60/394