Cameo blogger

A little diversion today, to redirect readers to a guest post I wrote for Baseball Fans Only. Dave from the UK Collectors Group on Facebook runs the blog and asked me to write something about collecting Tony Gwynn cards. You can read the post here (and see a picture of me looking a bit tired in the Hall of Fame!)

A couple of weeks back Fuji described a card I showed as a "cameo card" - that's when a player appears on another card that isn't really "theirs". The card in question was this card from the Topps 1989 set which features Tony sliding in to second base on the 'Pirates Leaders' card.

The year prior to this, Tony featured on the Padres Leaders card, alongside Benny Santiago. I'm not sure whether this is really a 'cameo', but it was listed on the checklist just as Padres Leaders and it doesn't have Tony or Benny named on the front.

This is another card that I have already blogged about, which arrived in a joblot of Tony Gwynn cards, but wasn't a Tony Gwynn card. He is high-fiving, and partially obscuring, his team-mate Greg Vaughn.

And here's another card that arrived in a similar lot of Tony Gwynn cards. Like on the first card in this post, he is sliding in to second base. This time it's Astros second baseman Bill Doran trying to avoid a Tony Gwynn slide. 

I admit I'm inconsistent with these cameo cards. The first two I count in the collection, the latter two I don't. I think if it has another player's name on the front then it can't really count as a Tony Gwynn card. 

I hope you enjoyed the cameos - sorry, no new cards today. If you want to see my cameo on Dave's blog, then here's the link again!

League Leader with a swoosh

I got chatting to Jason after he posted a picture of his set of Project 2020 Tony Gwynn cards in the UK Facebook Group. They looked really nice together and I have a tinge of envy. The envy is mixed with gratitude, though, because Jason sent me a picture of some of his duplicate Tony Gwynn cards and asked if I needed any. I did, and shortly afterwards an envelope arrived with some cards in. (It actually arrived the day after the cards from Dean arrived so I had consecutive days with baseball cards in the post. Happy days!)

Back in the 1980s Topps had other ranges besides their flagship, including smaller sized cards depicting 'league leaders'. I've already blogged about Tony's card in their range from 1986. 

Card Number 581: Topps Major League Leaders,1989; #39

The front of the card is recognisably from 1989 because it has that 'swoosh' effect for Tony's name, the same as his base card that year, which looks like this: 

The swoosh is also on the 'accidental appearance' Tony made in the 1989 set when he was almost taking out Al Pedrique on the Pirates Leaders card.

I'm a fan of the swoosh effect and the 1989 Topps lay-out generally. When it comes to late 80s Topps designs, I'm definitely keener on the card sets released in odd numbered years - 85, 87, 89.

The card is a bit smaller than a regular flagship card, though. Here they are next-to-next to show what I mean.

The back is a lovely bright yellow, with a colour headshot photo of Tony. This is a much better cardback than Topps normally produced. 

While he was the batting champion in 1988, he ranked lower in on base percentage and didn't record as many hits as might be expected. He was ranked joint tenth overall. Partly that was down to injury during the 1988 season.

In 1989 these cards were sold in packs of 7 for 30 cents a pack. There were 77 cards in the set, with a few players from each team. Although it doesn't seem the cards are particularly rare, they don't turn up as often as might be expected in sale lots so I was very pleased to have the opportunity to obtain this card.

Total: 581 cards

One card only - leading the league

The second card in the couple that Brian sent me was an insert card from the Topps flagship set in 1995. It's definitely a contender for cards with backs more interesting than fronts.

Card Number 578: Topps (League Leaders), 1995; #LL4

The front has a dark background and the Topps logo and Tony's name are in hard-to-scan foil.

However, on the back we have a colourful list of names and a graph!

Cardback graphs are usually poorly annotated. This one looks like it might actually be in proportion. 

Another odd quirk on this cardback is showing the batting leaders for the National League and the National League West. The other players in the NL West top 5 in 1994 were Bip Roberts, who was back in San Diego after two seasons with the Reds, Andres Galarraga who played for the Rockies that year, and Mike Piazza and Brett Butler who were both playing for the Dodgers. (As an aside, I always smile when I see a Bip Roberts card. It wasn't his given name though. His given name was Leon.)

None of those four players featured in the top 5 for the National League, where only Jeff Bagwell of the Astros came anywhere near Tony's post-war record batting average score, and even Jeff was some way behind.

A final note is the consistency of the font used for Tony's name on the back and the caption to the left of the graph. This is the font used for player names on the front of the base cards in the 1995 set. 

I appreciate the consistency in font use - bonus point for this card!

Another thank you to Brian for sending me these cards. Keep busting those wax boxes!

Total: 578 cards

SE Stat-urday

I am reaching the end of my stockpile of Tony Gwynn cards and seem to have ended up with a few odd ones that don't really fit into a themed post, like these Upper Deck cards.

Card Number 543: Upper Deck Collector's Choice Special Edition, 1995; #140

Collector's Choice was Upper Deck's other main set, and Special Edition was a smaller additional set of Collector's Choice, like a spin-off of a spin-off.

The stat leaders card is relevant to this blog because it commemorates Tony's .394 score in 1994. The blue foil SE logo marks this out as part of the Special Edition set.

On the back we have all the leading hitters across both leagues in 1994. Tony was .026 more prolific than Jeff Bagwell, who had the next highest average.

Looking down the list of other players, it feels very odd seeing Wade Boggs listed as a Yankee, but he spent five seasons and won the World Series with them in 1996.

Card Number 544: Upper Deck UD3, 1997; #35

UD3 was a high end card range brought out by Upper Deck that went heavy on emphasising its use of "unique technologies" on its cards. Tony's card was a PROmotion [sic] card that featured "Light-FX" - an effect that doesn't scan very well. 

This wonky photo captures the colourfulness of the cardfront better.

The cardback isn't treated with the same coating. It predicts Tony has a place reserved in Cooperstown - he entered the Hall of Fame ten years later!

There were only 60 base cards in this set, which sold at $3.99 for 3 cards. If we adjust for inflation, the retail price for packs of three cards would be $6.47 in 2020.

Card Number 545: Upper Deck Past Time Pennants, 2005; #76

This set from Upper Deck was composed of retired players. There were 90 cards in the set and 69 of them were Hall of Famers, or have been elected since the set was released. Tony was included in the set two years before he was elected.

The cardback lists Tony's five best seasons and it's notable that three of them were grouped between the 1994 season and the 1997 season. 

Although I sometimes comment negatively about truncated stats boxes on cards, this works really well in this kind of set that features legends of the game. 

Total:545 cards

A league-leading record and a "what might have been"

Yesterday I blogged how the unanswered question about Tony Gwynn's modern record batting average will always be, would he have recorded the same average over a full season if the 1994 season had not been prematurely ended by the Major League Baseball Player's Association strike?  It was a question that the card compilers at Fleer asked as well - in their words "the saddest 'what could have been?'" of the 1994 season.

Card Number 393: Fleer Ultra, 1995 (League Leaders card); #6

The foilboard scans a bit like a refractor on this card.

The cardback sums up the situation.

Tony's 1994 hitting title was his first in a streak of four in a row in the 1990s. He would also lead the National League in hits in two more subsequent seasons. (Tony was overall leader in hits across both leagues four times!)

Total: 393/394

Saturday or Stat-urday?

The other night I was half watching the game between the Mariners and the Angels and the camera panned across the squad numbers that have been retired by Seattle. There was number 42, same as everywhere else, then in a palindromic manner number 24, for Ken Griffey Jr, and than finally number 11 for Edgar Martinez. Seeing the big outline of a shirt with Martinez's name on it made me think of this card:

Card Number 250: Upper Deck Collector's Choice, 1996; #2

Edgar and Tony were the leaders in batting average in their respective leagues. This isn't the only card that Tony shared with Edgar - they were also paired on a Leaf checklist in 1996.

The back of the card lists the top ten hitters in each league. 

There are some great names in those lists including famous future hall of famers, and some other lesser well-known but highly memorable names. (My puerile Welsh sense of humour regards Chuck Knoblauch as a funny name.)

Edgar Martinez had a good season in 1995, including a tremendous performance in the divisional series as the Mariners made the post-season for the first time in their history. The success of the team in 1995, particularly centred on Edgar's game-winning double that took the Mariners past the Yankees to the Championship series, paved the way for a new baseball stadium in Seattle. That double has even been described as the hit that saved baseball in the city. 

Last year Edgar became the second player to enter the Hall of Fame as a Mariner, following Ken Griffey Jr.

A couple of years after this card was produced, Tony shared a similar card with another giant of the game who has also had his shirt number retired and been elected to the Hall of Fame. 

Card Number 251: Upper Deck Collector's Choice, 1998; #253

While the batting average leaders card isn't as colourful as the one in 1996, those are some nice photos. They have positioned Tony's portrait slightly higher than Frank Thomas's. His average was a bit higher too. 

Edgar Martinez is listed on the back of the card as he had the second best average in the American League. The only other National League player to make both lists was Mike Piazza. 

Frank Thomas was known as The Big Hurt and consistently batted over .300 during the 1990s. He also found time to be a movie star (a small but important role in the film Mr Baseball which starred Tom Selleck) and was the face of a computer game and a pinball machine. Having played most of his career with the Chicago White Sox he became the first White Sox player elected into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. He also has a statue outside the stadium - another similarity he has with Tony Gwynn. 

Total: 251/394

Fleer Limited Editions from 1989

In 1989 Fleer released some 44-card sets that were sold in packets like a deck of cards. Tony Gwynn was given a card in both the "Baseball All Stars" set and the "League Leaders" set. The cards were branded as 'limited edition' and featured different photos to the base set. They were also glossier and printed on better card stock.

One thing I really appreciate about both these sets is that Tony's card number is also his uniform number - 19. However, I think that is totally accidental in both sets because the players are numbered alphabetically. It's just sheer luck that 'Gwynn' is the nineteenth name on the list.

Card Number 164: Fleer Baseball All Stars, 1989; #19

I like the frame on this. It's a notable improvement to the overwhelming use of grey on the regular Fleer base issue.

There is very little information on the cardback, just an unfussy stats box and basic bio-data. This was the era before card companies cared what went on the back of cards. They just had to have something on there.

Card Number 165: Fleer League Leaders, 1989; #19

There's something about bright red borders that appeals to me. This reminds me of the Kay-Bee Kings card from 1990 and also the DonRuss base set from 1990. I'm not going to start collecting cards with red borders, but I'm tempted to put the ones I've got together, just for fun.

The cardback is as unremarkable as the Baseball All Stars card. In a way, I feel this is what cardbacks ought to be like.

Total: 165/394

One Card Only: "Now, that's a bat!"

I'm running a little series of posts about Stadium Club cards. I really like this one.

Card Number 157: Topps Stadium Club, 1995; #475
That's a bat suitable for a hitting champion.

I simply adore this photo. It is so odd and staged and Tony looks a bit embarrassed about the whole thing.

It also reminds me of the denouement of the Dr Seuss book I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, which chronicles the dangerous journey of a disaffected youth who wants to leave behind all the irksome beasties that are troubling him by escaping to the magical city of Solla Sallew, where they don't have any troublesome critters. He eventually gives up when he realises there are troubles everywhere and goes home to try a different approach to dealing with the things that trouble him. The last page always makes me laugh:

"But I've bought a big bat.
I'm all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going
To have troubles with me!"

Anyway, this card picture makes me think of that line. "I've bought a big bat!"

The cardback is a definite contender for the 'Mid-90s Design Horror Award', if such an award existed. Topps have managed to orient the wording in three different directions! On the plus side it has bar charts.

I am a bit of graph nerd and I like a good bar chart. These don't seem to be based on actual figures and are more of a graphic representation. However they show that Tony was the league leader for hits and batting average, and the Padres leader for second base hits, third base hits and RBI. The blue bar chart is just the "Topps Skills Rating System", which I suspect are totally arbitrary opinions of Topps staff rather than based on any observed measurements.

Also, of note, this is the third Topps Stadium Club logo. The second logo lasted one season.

More Stadium Club cards tomorrow.

Total: 157/394

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

Saturday round up: Time Sinks and Serendipities

A chap called Tim got in touch with me, having read a few of my blog posts, and said he would like to try and help me out on my project to collect 394 different cards featuring Tony Gwynn. Then he asked if I had a wants list.

I am a disorganised collector. My cards aren't in any real order. I keep them in a repurposed Panini soccer cards binder and they are roughly ordered by date of acquisition. I've grouped certain types of cards together, but mostly they are random.

So, I decided I needed to make a list. My first thought was a trusty Excel spreadsheet but then I realised that would take a while. So I went on Trading Card Database (TCDb) where you can log the cards you own. I thought this would be quicker, but I think I chose an inefficient way of doing it because it took me several hours.

There are over 10,000 Tony Gwynn cards on TCDb. Or at least that's what they tell you. In reality many of the "cards" they list are 1/1 printing plates and the like, or barely-remembered sets with a billion variations like Topps Tek. (Do you remember Topps Tek? I don't. And after scrolling through literally hundreds of varieties I don't feel particularly enamoured of them.)

However, the huge glorious timesink that is TCDb did throw out a couple of really interesting little factoids for me, and even revealed a hitherto disregarded card in my possession that counts as a Tony Gwynn card.

Firstly, last weekend I posted about Tony's DonRuss cards in 1990. What I didn't know then, but thanks to TCDb I do know now, is that the All Star Card I've got is an error variation.

On the back there, where is says "Recent Major League Performance" it should have said "All Star Game Performance." In my previous post I made fun of how the DonRuss team had used cut'n'paste for the career highlights sections. Turns out they did the same for the box header as well, and that really should have been changed. I did point out in the post that it was his All Star Game stats but I didn't realise this card was changed for subsequent print runs. From the looks of it on TCDb, almost all the All Star cards  in this part of the DonRuss set had a similar error.

So, what does this mean? Well, it means I can keep an eye out for the corrected version and add it to the set as another card, and probably quite cheaply compared to 1/1 printing plates.

The second bonus was finding Tony listed on a Pirates card, which I actually owned.

Card number 44: Topps 1989, #699 (Pirates Leaders)

Yes, that's Tony, failing to safely make it to base. The Pirates player tagging him out is shortstop Al Pedrique, who only had three seasons in the Major Leagues after spending nine years in the Mets farm system. Originally from Venezuela, Al is now a coach with the Athletics.

This again highlights the odd choices Topps made for certain cards. Why have a leaders card that doesn't show team leaders on it? Al Pedrique wasn't a leader in any category on the back, and was barely even a Pirate for any length of time.

Two other things, though, about the back of this card. 1) It's the second Topps set in a row where Tony is on the card numbered 699. In 1988, that was the Padres Leaders card. 2) One of the names on the back of the card is infamous. Bobby Bonilla was the Pirates' joint leader for RBI. Yes, that Bobby Bonilla, the guy who signed a contract with the Mets that was so huge he will be getting paid $1,193,248.20 a year every year until 2035, despite retiring in 2001. (That really is a story worth reading about as epic fraudster Bernie Madoff is involved, and it's leaves me shaking my head at the insanity.)

Anyway, so I saw this card listed on TCDb and it rang a bell. I went and had a look through the little pile of Pirates cards that I have acquired over the years because I had a weird memory of seeing this card at some point. I must have pulled it out of a repack. Going through the cards I found it, and there was Tony, sliding desperately into a base and already being called out. I didn't know I had this card.

I did consider whether it should really count towards my total, but then I thought, if it's good enough for the TCDb, then it's good enough for me. Plus, rule 4 applies.

I have another card that Tony is gatecrashing. It arrived in a bundle of his cards I bought from someone, sight unseen. One of the cards wasn't of Tony, it was of his team-mate Greg Vaughn. However, I can see why the person would have thought it was a Tony Gwynn card.

There he is, high-fiving Greg, with his name very prominent.

Unlike the Pirate Leaders card, I'm not counting this card as a 'bonus Tony card', because it's Greg's card and it seems unfair to take it away from him. It's from the 1999 Sports Illustrated set published by Fleer.

Greg was a very different batsman to Tony, hitting 50 home runs during the Padres World Series season in 1998. The following year he was traded to the Cincinatti Reds - the first time any player had been traded the season after hitting 50 home runs. His beard was an issue, as the Reds had a ban on players having facial hair, but they lifted it for him. So, as a great servant to the Padres, who they cashed in as quickly as they could, and the trailblazer for today's hipsters who want to play for the Redsame and keep their beards, I don't feel it would be right say this card isn't his.

Total: 44/394

80s All Star

In the previous post, I went through Tony's 1980s Topps base cards. The Topps sets also included other cards for players who were "All Stars", like this one.

The Major League All Star game is played mid-season between representatives of the American League and the National League. Tony was named in 15 All Star teams during his career, all for the National League. Usually being selected for the All Star Team earned you an All Star card in the Topps set. Tony's 1987 All Star card pictured above is in my opening blogpost.

Card Number 9: Topps 1988, 402 (All Star Card)

Tony had one 'at bat' in the 1987 All Star Game, but didn't get a hit. This is a great card though.

The back of his card compared the number of runs he scored with other players. Despite having the most hits and the best batting average in major league baseball, he was fourth on the list of runs, 4 behind Tim Raines.

Tony was on a third card in the Topps 1988 set.

Card Number 10: Topps 1988, #699 (Padres Leaders)

The Team Leaders cards were included to tell you who the best player in each team was for all the different aspects of the game. Tony was the leader on all the batting side, except for home runs and RBI. Tony only hit 7 home runs and his RBI stat was 54, a long way behind team leader John Kruk.

The person with Tony on the team leaders card is catcher Benny Santiago. Benny was another Padres All-Star in the 1980s. Strangely he wasn't named on the back of the card as a leader in any of the stats, and yet there he is on the front. I have a little sub-collection of cards featuring Tony and someone else. This looks like a photo taken during a training session, but I'm not sure why Topps didn't try to get a picture of Tony with one of the successful pitchers.

Total: 10/394