FFF - Sharing the Spotlight with Rickey and Griffey and Steve and Brett

Day three of the Fabulous Fleer Fortnight and today's theme is Tony sharing cards with other players.

Card Number 926: Fleer, 1994; #711

Tony poses with Brett Butler from the Dodgers on the front. 

This isn't the first card I've blogged where Tony is sharing the spotlight with Brett (read about the other one here).

Brett and Tony are the "Batmen" according to the cardback. 

Surely with a surname like Butler, the cardback writer should have made a reference to Alfred to keep in with the Batman theme?

Card number 927: Fleer All Star Game insert, 1995; #7

Breaking with convention and showing the back of the card first. Because that's the side with Tony on.

Technically the front of a card is the obverse. Ken Griffey Jr is on the obverse. He looks a bit worried in this photo as he tracks the flight of a baseball with his eyes. Where is that going to drop?

The Fleer set in 1995 was the most 90s card set of the 90s. These cards are positively boring in comparison. 

Card Number 928: Fleer Ultra Double Trouble insert, 1997; #19

I am pretty sure this is Fuji's ultimate base card of the 90s. 

Tony and Rickey played together in 1996 and for the first half of 1997 before Rickey got traded to Anaheim. They also were both on the Padres roster in 2001, Tony's final season before he retired.

The cardback has some trademark Fleer weird comments. It's hard to decide which player has the strangest description. (Have your say in the comments!)

Junior Circuit? Someone on the Fleer staff doesn't like the American League.

HOWEVER, 19 bonus points for this card for being card #19! Was that intentional? I hope so!

Card Number 929: Fleer Ultra Double Trouble insert, 1998; #12DT

Another 'Double Trouble' insert series. This time the cards are shiny!

One comment on the design of this card - if you had no idea who was who, would you know which player was Steve and which player was Tony based on the positioning of their names?

Steve Finley played in centre field for the Padres for four seasons from 1995, including 159 appearances in 1998, which is when this card was released and was the season the Padres last made it to the World Series. In the close season after the World Series he was traded to the Diamondbacks. 

The back is equally confusing design-wise. It looks like there are write-ups of Tony and Steve but in fact it's one write-up split over two columns. At least the names line up with the correct player.

Come back tomorrow as the Fabulous Fleer Fortnight continues!

Total: 929 cards

Sharing the Spotlight with Eddie Murray

This card was a challenge, but thanks to Google Image Search I was able to track down who was presenting Tony with a glass plaque, and why...

Card Number 745: Upper Deck, 1998; #15

Cards 9-18 in Upper Deck's flagship set were a subset called 'Ken Griffey's Hot List'.

Upper Deck went through a phase of using quirky photos on cards (Tony's base card in 1997 showed him with a fish!), but annoyingly there was nothing on the back of this card to explain what this presentation was about.

The Internet came to the rescue! I uploaded my scan to Google Image Search and found this picture is one that Getty Images has for sale. The complete blurb on the Getty website says:

12 Jun. 1997: Anaheim Angels Eddie Murray gives San Diego Padres Tony Gwynn a crystal plaque commemorating the Padres playing there [sic] first interleague game against the Angels at Edison Field of Anaheim. (Photo by John Cordes/Icon SMI/Corbis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

This image is for sale, so if I wanted to create my own card using this same picture, it would cost me $375. I'm not going to do that but it's nice to know I could if I wanted. 

"Steady Eddie", as Murray was known, spent 11 seasons at the Orioles before moving around several teams. 1997 was his final Major League season at the age of 41. He played most of the season for the Angels although he also played a handful of games with the Dodgers. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2003.

Althought the cardback doesn't mention Eddie, it does have a superb cardback factoid about Tony hitting an inside-the-park Grand Slam in June 1997.

The stats box is also a bit different, comparing Tony's stats in All Star Games, World Series, and so on.

Tony had multiple cards in the Upper Deck set in 1998. Here's a bonus one, which was in the envelope from Jeff that arrived earlier this week.

Card Number 746: Upper Deck, 1998; #458

Upper Echelon was a ten card subset in Series 2 of the Upper Deck flagship set. This has a factoid on the front - I'm presuming the 24 September was Tony's 67th and final multi-hit game of the 1997 season. But maybe it wasn't. The factoid is unclear. 

The back has a different photo to card #15 - this time it captures the retro Swinging Friar arm patch really nicely. There is also a visible blur on the bat as it's swung.

The factoid on the back of this card is also different to #15. Like the factoid on the front, it is also about Tony's haul of multi-hit games.

Tony played 145 games in 1997, so his 67 multi-hit games means he had more than one hit in almost half the games he played. He actually recorded 220 hits that season on his way to a .372 batting average, his second highest total in his career.

Total: 746 cards