Happy birthday Mr Padre (redux)

Two years ago I started this blog on what would have been Tony Gwynn's 60th birthday. My plan then was to collect and blog about 394 different Tony Gwynn baseball cards. Now, two years and over 500 blog posts later, there are over 1,000 different Tony Gwynn cards chronicled on this blog. 

The first card I posted was from the Topps set in 1987. I chose that card because the first baseball cards I ever bought, while on a childhood holiday to America in 1987, were from that set. The card has a terrible photo of Tony on it where he has no visible distinguishing features.

Two years later, and I have a chance to revisit those cards from 1987 with the most recent card to arrive in my collection. Marc sent me the card (thanks, Marc!) and it arrived towards the end of April. The card is from the most recent Topps flagship set where the company are marking the 35th anniversary of the release of the set in 1987. That makes me feel a bit old, thinking that me buying those cards in Florida was 35 years ago!

Card Number 1009: Topps 1987 Throwback, 2022; #T87-57

Unlike the card from the 1987 set, at least Tony's face is visible in this photo. It would have looked better with the 1987 style logo. The photo is also from the 90s rather than from 1987. It's all setting off the anachronism klaxon!

Topps really bodged the back as well. It looks like the back of a card from 1987, but the designer only included a selection of years on the back. Given that Tony was active in 1987, they only needed to include the years from 1982 to 1986. They would have had space for a factoid then!

Even though the card has limitations, it felt like a nice way of marking the anniversary of my blog, and, of course, celebrating what would have been Tony's 62nd birthday!

Total: 1009 cards

SMILE, IT'S CARD #1000

A double milestone today - the 1000th card on the blog in my 500th blog post.

Why did I pick this card to be the 1000th card on the blog? Well I just love it. I loved the original version. And this is the super-shiny parallel.

Card Number 1000: Pinnacle Summit (foil board parallel), 1996; #134

Although the overhead scan captures the almost impossible shininess of this card, the much duller flatbed scan below shows the set logo a bit more clearly. 

The back includes the nicely laid out representation of Tony' performance on a month by month basis. He was very hot at the end of the 1995 season.

Pinnacle and it's various sub-brands are being kept on life support by Panini now. But this card represents everything that was right with baseball cards in the 1990s. I love it and it feels like an exciting and special card to celebrate getting into triple figures on this blog.

As ever, a massive thank you to everyone who has helped me along the way. I am very grateful to you all!

Total: 1000 cards!

Two more cards from 1996 and a blog milestone!

For the previous three days I have blogged three cards a day from 1996. I still have more cards from that year and I've picked two today that will take this blog up to 800 cards.

Card Number 799: Pinnacle Zenith, 1996; #91

This is the pinnacle of scanning nightmares - a black shiny card. In retrospect, scanning it on a black background wasn't the smartest move. The display of fanned out bats in the background makes this card distinct.

On the back there is a 'hit location chart'!

Pinnacle made a point of doing data differently on their cardbacks. This visualisation is very informative. Tony didn't score many homers but they almost all went out beyond right field. He used to spray the ball all over the outfield, so clearly he just didn't quite have the power to get it over the wall in left field. This cardback is definitely worth ten bonus points.

Also, I'm not sure if this is deliberate, but the card number is the reverse of 19. 

Card Number 800: Pinnacle Zenith, 1996 #150

Another black shiny card! The last 20 cards in the 150-card set were the 'Honor Roll'. Tony had card number 150, which was the last card in the base set.

The other names listed on the Honor Roll all had cards in this subset too.

This is a nice card to illustrate Tony's place in the game during his 90s peak - his zenith, if you will - and also to show some of the cards produced during the baseball card industry peak as well. Pinnacle went to the wall a couple of years later as the hobby contracted, although it lives on now as one of Panini's many acquired brands. 

This brings me up to 800 cards on the blog. When I reached 700 cards back in July, I wasn't expecting to complete another century so quickly. But I still have lots of cards waiting to be blogged and am back into the daily posting routine which I hope to keep up throughout the winter!

Total: 800 cards

One Vid Only - Opening a box from Richard (YoRicha)

I have been very fortunate while doing this blog that other collectors have got in touch and sent me cards all the way from America. Tim from Pennsylvania, Jeff from North Dakota, and now Richard from Georgia. 

If you read the comments on here, Richard often comments on posts as YoRicha. A little while back he said he had some things to send me and late on Friday I picked up an unexpectedly large box from the post office after the postman stuck a note through my door telling me to go and collect it.

I decided to do an 'unboxing' video on my phone, just for fun. However, when I uploaded it to YouTube it would only load as a portrait video for some reason. YouTube has removed the functionality to rotate videos, which is irritating. I have wasted too much time trying to fix the problem, which I think is probably down to an old phone and incompatible tech. Oh, well. 

My suggested fix for you is to watch this video on a phone or tablet and physically change the orientation of the device if you want to see me the right way up!

There was a huge box of cards in the box. Here's a better look.

Richard also included a note:

That is such a nice thing to say. There are a few people who comment on the blog regularly and I appreciate them taking the time to leave a note (or do my research for me!). I'm really glad people enjoy it and with Richard's help I am going to be blogging throughout the winter at this rate!

Back when I started this blog I had almost 200 cards scanned waiting for me to write about them. I'd barely dented that when I acquired over 200 more cards, which I scanned and gradually worked my way through. Since the turn of the year I have been blogging on a more ad hoc basis, as cards arrive. However, with the parcel from France, the envelope of cards from Jeff this week, and now this massive box of cards from Richard, I'm going to be back on that daily publishing schedule. 

As long as I can carve out the time to write the posts, of course.

I did promise in that video that I would let you know what my grand total of Tony Gwynn cards is now. Well, I don't want to deal in spoilers, but the cards from Richard took me into four figures! So I have a lot of catching up to do with my blogging!

(Also, I was wrong about the coin - it wasn't a Topps coin. All will be revealed in good time!)

Thank you again, YoRicha!

Back in black (foil)

Here's my third version of this year's Stadium Club card. Gawain sent it to me and we agreed that Topps are just getting really lazy with their parallels.

Card Number 712: Topps Stadium Club black foil parallel, 2021; #24

The logo and Tony's name are in black foil instead of silver or red.

Even though the back is exactly the same as the two other versions of this card, I scanned it so I could upload it to this blog. I think this means I have made as much effort, possibly more effort, than the set designers employed by Topps. 

It's a nice card, and I am grateful to Gawain for sending me this version of it. But, come on Topps, this is easily the most boring way to produce parallel versions of cards. Maybe spend less time trying to sell glorified jpegs or more unending series of samey cards designed by 'artists' and put a bit of work in on the bread and butter stuff, eh?

SIDENOTE

So, my blogging of cards is slowing up. This is mainly because I don't have a stock of cards waiting to be blogged. Last year I literally had hundreds of scans and could batch write posts and then publish them on a daily schedule. I'm waiting on people getting in touch now or I have to actively go out and find cards. 

And going out and finding cards isn't high on my priorities at the moment if I'm totally honest. In the last few weeks attending live soccer matches has been permitted for the first time since March 2020 and I have jumped on that train. I went to three matches in July, before the season had properly started, and I have already been to four games in August. That's my primary focus at the moment.

I even got offered a card last week that I turned down because, well, it was more than I wanted to pay for a brand new release and I've watched how prices of cards bubble up when a new product line is released, and then a few months later the bubble pops and a £5 card becomes a £1 card, or just gets chucked in a joblot. I literally thought to myself "Will I get £5 worth of joy from this card?" and decided that no, I wouldn't.

I'm not saying I'm bored of baseball cards or blogging. This has been, and continues to be, a really fun project and I still love my collection of Tony Gwynn cards. I'm not over Tony! Not by a long shot. But I recognise that my blogging has been very intermittent over the past couple of months and I just wanted to flag up that it may get worse at least until my need to watch soccer is sated slightly. 

As ever, I just want to say a big thank you to the regular commenters. I do read all the comments and find them very encouraging. Take care of yourselves as the world opens up again!

Karefully Kut Kraft (Kard #700)

In terms of milestone cards on this blog, this is probably the kookiest.

Card Number 700: Kraft Home Plate Heroes, 1987; #44

This card was originally part of food packaging - most likely a famous Mac'n'Cheese packet. The original Kraft Dinner, as serenaded by Barenaked Ladies in their song, If I Had a Million Dollars. Back in 1987, someone very carefully cut along the dotted lines and voila, created a baseball card!

This card image was licensed from the Player's Association rather than Major League Baseball, through Michael Schechter Associates, who specialised in this sort of promotional material. The lack of a Major League Baseball licence explains why Tony's hat is heavily airbrushed. 

The cardback is... well, it would have been the inside of the box.

I think that scan might be upside down. How coud you tell?

Kraft printed two players on each box, but mixed and matched them a bit, so pairings exist of Tony with a few other players, including George Brett from the Royals and Jim Rice from the Red Sox. I'm sure someone is trying to collect all the different pairings of all the cards. There are 122 listed on Trading Card Database. 

So, although you would know which players you were getting when you picked up the box, it wouldn't be as easy as just looking for two players you didn't already have. You might end up having to buy a dupe of one player to get the other one you didn't already have. That was a bit of marketing kunning from Kraft, there.

As you have probably guessed, I am a fan of oddball cards like these. In one way they recapture the essential essence of trading cards - even down to being part of the packaging that would usually get thrown away. (The first cigarette cards were printed on the cardboard stiffeners inserted to prevent the packets from getting crushed. How many ended up in the bin?) Great care has been taken to preserve something that is quite literally garbage. One person's trash is another's treasure... quite literally. 

For comparison purposes here are the other milestone cards on my blog.

#100 - DonRuss "Tony Gwynn Tribute", 2015; #4 (June 2020)

#200 - Topps, 2000; #468 (July 2020)

#300 - Pinnacle. 1996; #336 (August 2020)

#394 (my blogging target) - Topps, 1985 All Star Card; #717 (October 2020)

#400 - Pacific Invincible Seismic Force (running photo variant), 1999; #16 (October 2020)

#500 - Topps Rookie of the Week, 2006; #22 (November 2020)

#600 - Topps Power Boosters, 1996; #1 (February 2021)

Total: 700 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

Future collecting focus

A few posts back I mentioned how I was thinking about my collection of Tony Gwynn cards and what the next step for me would be.

When I started this blog I had 195 cards and my aim was to reach 394. It's fair to say I smashed that. I  added 374 cards to the collection from my blog launch date to the end of 2020.

What started out as one binder of cards has expanded into five binders, which are varying degrees of full.

There are getting on for 12,000 Tony Gwynn cards listed on Trading Card Database. It would be possible to aim for adding 394 new cards to my collection every year. Possible, but not very sensible. I have other things happening in my life and I spend a lot of time looking for cards as it is. (Although, if I did decide to do this, I have already reached 50 cards in 2021.)

Recently I have wondered whether to try and collect 394 cards per decade. Currently my collection stands at 619 cards split by decade as follows:

1980s - 72 (first card = 1983)

1990s - 329

2000s - 125

2010s - 55

2020s - 38 (after only 2 years of the decade)

The 90s would almost be complete if I chose to do that. However there are a couple of years at the start of the 80s that will always be empty. Tony's first card was a TCMA minor league card released in 1982. It's on my wishlist, but there are still only eight years in the 80s when Tony had cards released.  

If we were going by career decade rather than calendar decade, then we would be looking at different breakdowns of years and cards, as follows:

1982-1991 - 104

1992- 2001 - 382

2002 - 2011 - 46

2012 - 2021 - 87

There's a 'career decade' there that covers the most prolific era in card collecting - the ten years after the UD Boundary is the equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion in card terms with the rapid expansion of companies, sets and rapid evolution in baseball card techniques. So, it's not surprising that well over half of the cards in my collection are from that 'decade'. 

Meanwhile the most sparse decade, 2002-11, would lose two years with a lot of cards, and gain two very poorly represented years in return. The post-2012 decade would be boosted by adding 2020, with its 35 cards. 2022 would be the start of a new decade and I could say that I'm only going to collect cards issued in the first forty years after Tony's first card. But I can't even kid myself that I have the willpower to not buy any of the cards that will inevitably be released next year.

I'm hesitant to go down the route of career decades otherwise I am going to be stuck hunting for cards from after Tony retired. Although, that would be a problem with calendar decades as well.

Maybe, and here's a strange thought, I don't need a numerical target at all. 

If anyone has any bright ideas, then please leave a comment!

Saturday diversion - card art by Dave

I'm not showing an actual card today, because I wanted to post about a 'virtual' card that Dave sent me. Dave has a blog called Baseball Fans Only, and recently published an article about my Tony Gwynn collection. 

We also batted around a few ideas for a 'beginner's guide' to collecting baseball cards. It's a huge topic to try and summarise. (Maybe we need a 'beginner's guide to writing beginner's guides about collecting baseball cards'!) Dave gave me a co-author credit on that article although he did almost all the work.

One of Dave's other interests is creating 'virtual baseball cards', and he sent this to me a couple of days ago.

The BFO logo in the corner stands for Baseball Fans Only. This really reminds me of some of the recent Diamond Kings inserts because of the colour scheme. For example, the flashback card from 2019.

Obviously, the actual card from Panini is devoid of logos, which means Dave's card has a bit of an edge.

This isn't the first card-art I've received, of course. I had a Christmas card off Laura (of Laura's Clubhouse) with a doctored 1994 Topps card on it. This still makes me smile.

So that's a slight diversion for today. I'm very excited about the card I get to show you tomorrow!

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!