Modern Monday - recent retro with Topps Archives

I have some cards from the new 2022 Topps release on their way to me in the mail! In the meantime, here is a card from last year that looks a bit older.

Card Number 975: Topps Archives, 2021; #140

Topps used seven different former card templates in their 2021 release of Topps Archives. Tony appears on a card laid out in the 1973 template. 

I have zero complaints about that card front. It's a great photo that works well with the design. Tony's face is visible and so is the team name on his chest. Neither of those things are a guarantee with photos that Topps put on cards!

On the back we have a little cartoon guy wielding a bat that looks like a bowling pin, and a succinct factoid. I'm going to award this card a bonus point for that. There's a second concise factoid just above the stats box.

I like cardbacks with clean and complete stats boxes and relevant factoids that don't go overboard with flowery language.

I am sometimes critical of Topps, but this is probably as close as it gets to the perfect baseball card. 

A big thank you goes out to Gawain for sending me this card!

Total: 975 cards

Return to 80s Week - Topps trio

In November 2020 I ran my first "80s week". In the spirit of 80s movie sequels, here is the Return to 80s Week! Our week kicks off with some Topps cards. 

Card Number 881: Topps Baseball Champion Superstars, 1986; #13

This photo is from the same overly-lit photo-shoot that featured on Topps's Glossy All-Star Card in 1986. This card was sold in a complete set of 33 cards of "Baseball Champion Superstars", which sounds like one of those multiple word team names in pastiches of Japanese manga.

The back is a minimum effort job, even by Topps' standards.

I've seen stickers with better backs than this.

Card Number 882: Topps League Leaders Minis, 1988; #74

This card has a rare photo of Tony bare-headed. This is such an odd photo. Is he trudging back to the dug-out having failed to get on base?

The back is colourful with a little photo of Tony. He was the league leader for both batting average and hits in 1987, but only 4th in runs. Seems like he got marooned on base more often than some other players then. 

Card Number 883: Topps Big, 1989; #58

These cards are anoying because they don't fit in my binders. I mean, I could ram them in if I really wanted to have them in there. But it's not ideal. 

The front is a nice combo of action photos and close up. 

On the back we get cartoons. Is that chap with the letter meant to be Tony? Or the chap passing the basketball? Because, er, there's a slight tonal dissimilarity between those cartoon people and Tony.

Because this is such a big card, there is room for some fielding stats as well. Always a bonus!

Total: 883 cards

One Card Only - caricature All-Star

Card Number 860: Score, 1993; #525

This card is everything that was right about the baseball card hobby in the early 90s. It's cheeky. It's fun. It's different. It's just a great card.

On the back we have the starting line-up for the national league team in 1992 and a nicely phrased summation of why Tony made the team.

Some of the names on that list need no introduction. Ozzie Smith, Barry Bonds, Fred McGriff, Gary Sheffield, Ryne Sandberg and Greg Maddux were dominant players at the time. Andy Van Slyke is less famous, but this was the second of three All-Star appearances for him. Darren Daulton was also a three-time All-Star and was part of the Marlins team that won the World Series in 1997. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 55. I wasn't familiar with Lee Smith either, but it turns out he held the record for the number of saves in Major League Baseball from 1993 until Trevor Hoffman passed his figure in 2006. He is currently third on the all-time list, behind Hoffman and the current record holder Mariano Rivera.

All in all, that was quite the All-Star team in 1992!

Total: 860 cards

Cards for kids

I have read there was some concern about the way the baseball card hobby was going in the early to mid-90s. Cards were becoming more expensive and with inserts, parallels, relics and autographs, kids - the collectors of the future - were being priced out of the hobby. In an attempt to rectify this the major card companies launched sets designed for younger collectors. These never really took off that well, but they have left collectors with some quirky cards to hunt down.

Card Number 740: DonRuss Triple Play, 1994; #187

Yaaarrrrr!

Tony looks almost like he is yelling or laughing in the photo. This card gets a bonus point for including the year in the set logo. I also like the effect of the see through 'cut out' letters.

It's a fairly boring cardback for a range aimed at kids, particularly compared to the Triple Play cards from 1992 and 1993. DonRuss had obviously decided that what kids really wanted was a massive stats box. 

Card Number 741: Upper Deck Fun Pack, 1994; #119

Not to be outdone by their competitors, Upper Deck also had their own range aimed at kids, selling packs of fun cards called Fun Pack!

"Ruh Roh!"

I would love to know what Tony has seen in that photo. A ghost in the outfield, perhaps? Maybe he's just feeling a bit dizzy, which is why he is surrounded by swirls.

Fun Pack cards lived up to their name with the cardback. Instead of a photo there's a little charicature of Tony. At this point he only had four batting titles, although he had come mighty close to five the previous season. He would collect his fifth title the year this set was released. 

Both card companies discontinued these sets after 1994. One theory I have seen is that kids felt these sets were condescending, and preferred to chase after the valuable insert cards in the regular sets. But these sets were also released just before the 90s baseball card bubble popped and the hobby went through a very difficult period of readjustment. Now they are relics of an era of desperate market differentiation when card companies tried as many different angles as possible to sell pictures of baseball stars to as many potential customers as possible.

Total: 741 cards

Much travelled minis

Back in November (I think), my friend Gawain bought a job lot of cards for me on eBay and sent them to his US shipping address. It was one of those lots that cost pennies in the USA but shipping it over would have cost a fortune in fees. And so they sat in Gawain's mailbox until he had enough stuff there to ship it all to the UK and they arrived last week.

I had actually forgotten all about it until Gawain started sending me photos of the cards.

The cards are mainly oddballs, promo cards and "food issues" - cards that are easy to obtain in America but harder to find over here. Well over half the bundle were new cards to the collection - in fact there were 19 new cards, which feels wonderfully symbolic. That also takes me over another century mark.

I thought I'd start with a couple of odd-sized cards, for fun.

Card Number 686: Topps Major League Leaders, 1987; #35

I am nostalgically fond of the 1987 Topps design with the wooden border, and I'm glad Topps used it on this set of smaller sized cards. The front is very different to Tony's base card in the Topps flagship set because you can actually see his face!

The back looks similar to other Major League Leaders cards. In 1986 Tony had the most hits and tied for the most runs but was only third in batting average.

One other thing I noticed is that the two line stats box has his stats for the previous season and for "life" not "career". I wonder when Topps stopped using "life" in this way.

Card Number 687: Topps Mini, 1989; #36

Another "mini" card - this is listed on Trading Card Database as "Topps UK Mini", but when I blogged about the card from the previous year's set I just called it "Topps Mini".

When I blogged previously about a mini card issued in the UK, I mentioned buying a packet of similar sized NFL cards in a shop while on a school trip in 1986. I didn't realise until much later that Topps had tried to sell baseball cards here in the 1980s as well.

There was a boom in interest in American sports in the 80s - in school we all knew who The Refrigerator was and that he played for the Chicago Bears. I doubt anyone actually watched any NFL. Maybe the Superbowl was on TV back then. If so, it was niche viewing, not the hyped event it is nowadays.

The UK minis rarely appear for sale in the UK Facebook groups. In fact, I have only ever found them for sale 'in the wild' once - at a collector's fair with lots of cigarette card sellers and stamp dealers. If this was sourced in the UK originally, then it has crossed the Atlantic twice!

On the back of this much-travelled card, there is a panel explaining baseball terms - I think these would have been quite helpful for UK consumers back in the 80s.

There is also a cartoon, of a teacher at a blackboard to illustrate the 'school' that Tony part-owned. I think Fuji, who is an educator, might like this!

Total: 687 cards

One card only - headless Tony and #53

The previous three posts have all featured cards I received from Jason, who I initially chatted to when he showed off his collection of all 20 Tony Gwynn cards from Topps' Project 2020 endeavour. After he had sent me those three cards, Jason asked if I wanted to buy a spare Project 2020 card he had available. 

As I only had one Project 2020 card already, I quite happily said yes, and it arrived in the post yesterday. I haven't bothered including the outer sleeve as it's the same as the one I scanned previously. And this time I went straight to careful sticker-peeling and popped open the mag holder so I could put the card directly on the scanner.

Card Number 584: Topps Project 2020, 2020; #161

The card designs of all the Project 2020 cards took Tony's 1983 rookie card as it's base. Card #161 in the project was designed by Ermsy, and his take on the rookie card design was to remove Tony's head. I'm not really bothered by that because one of my frequent complaints about Tony's rookie card is that you can't see his face and his most prominent feature in the photo is his backside. I know other people love it, and that's fine. But I just don't.

The back of the card is plain, and has a blurb about the Project and about the artist. This isn't really a 'card' as it's printed on 3mm foamboard. I think it would be quite fun if Topps introduced these designs as insert series in future sets printed on actual cardboard.

This card had a print run of 5,543, which is quite a lot lower than the print run for the other card I own, which was designed by Efdot. That was #94 in the series at the absolute apex of the interest in Project 2020. If sales were plotted on a bell curve, this card by Ermsy was on the way back down! It's also the 33rd card released in 2020 in my collection.

Seeing this reworked image of Tony's rookie card reminded me of another thing that has bugged me about the card, and that is Tony's uniform number in the photo.

It has always been a mystery to me why he was shown wearing a number in the 50s, which looked like number 53. I have seen pictures from Tony's debut where he is quite clearly wearing number 19 - he was given that number and wore it consistently for his entire career. So that really made me wonder when this photo was taken.

I didn't find an easy answer on Google, and I went through a number of options. Maybe Topps had a photo of the wrong player - that has been known to happen. Except nobody wore 53 in 1982, and that's clearly a 1982 uniform, and none of Tony's team-mates looked like him. Another possibility was that it was a minor league picture, especially given the background. There was no way that was Jack Murphy Stadium; I've seen enough pictures to know it wasn't taken there.

I did read a story somewhere that Tony was involved in a Padres photoshoot while he was still a student at San Diego State, but I doubt he would have been running the bases in a random photoshoot and it seemed very unlikely Topps would use that. Plus that would have been in 1980 or 1981 and the uniform would have been slightly different.

Jason runs Dugout Classics in Scotland, billed as "The largest collection of vintage and throwback jerseys this side of the Atlantic", so I thought he might be the chap to ask about the number. He quickly sent me a link to a fascinating story about the restoration of this very jersey, which reveals the truth about this photo.

Tony was allocated #53 in Padres Spring Training in 1982 held at the Desert Sun Stadium in Yuma, Arizona. The guide for the Spring Training has Tony listed in a footnote - there is a picture here. This would be after Tony's successful 1981 season with Walla Walla and Amarillo, and before he went out to Hawaii to play for the Islanders. 

When he was brought up to the Major Leagues in July 1982, Tony was given the number 19 jersey. At some point Topps compiled their checklist for the 1983 season and would have noted San Diego's hot rookie and allocated him card #482. Then they needed a photo, and presumably the only one they had on file would have been this one from Spring Training.

I really want to thank Jason for offering me this card and also for helping me discover why Tony isn't wearing #19 on his rookie card. I had been pondering it for ages and now the mystery is solved!

Total: 584 cards

There are three packages in transit from North America as I write this. But unless one or more of them arrives tomorrow, there's going to be a little break in blogging!

It's even more Tradition!

And a treat today, as Fleer inadvertently revive a great tradition of baseball card production.

Card Number 418: Fleer Tradition, 2000; #346

Fleer ditched the base set that looked like every other card set and instead rendered all 450 cards in a retro look that wasn't based on a Fleer set, as much as the Topps set from 1954 (judge for yourself)

One thing I really like about the back is that the watermark logo looks like a proper gum stain!

But the "gum stain" isn't the great tradition of card production from back in the day that I was referring to. (Although, as an aside, it surely won't be long before Topps start adding faux gum stains or tobacco stains to their retro products!)

Card Number 419: Fleer Tradition, 2001; #141

No, the tradition I was talking about was the good old miscut card! I bought these at the same time, just because! I've also scanned them together.

You can see how on the bottom one the ribbon is much closer to the bottom of the card. The dark line on the top edge is actually part of the image from the next card on the printing plate.

The misalignment is also noticeable on the cardbacks.

It's not obvious which set this is meant to be, so I think it's an attempt at a totally new retro-looking set. It also earns itself bonus points for having a cartoon on the back.

Little things like miscut cards amuse me. In one sense this kind of mistake helped Fleer succeed in making a genuinely retro product.

Total: 419 cards.

Modern Monday (no, really, it is, honest)

Today's brand new card is masquerading as an old card.

Card Number 379: Topps Archives, 2020; #106

Yes, it's Topps Archives, which this year has resurrected a few card templates from the history of the Topps company. Players are allocated a design based on either the 1955 card set, the 1974 card set, or the 2002 card set. (That one is quite clever because Topps included the year on the card front in 2002, which they have replicated but transposed the last two digits so it reads Topps 2020.) Tony appears on a card in the '74 template, which means he features on a card template from a year earlier than one he was given last year.

On the back the stats box misses out Tony's rookie year. The cartoon stat is accurate, in a way, but it includes the season Tony turned 33 (1993) as well as the ones after. 

Given that the player in question has retired, and in Tony's case has actually passed on, it feels a bit mean to include his weight on the back. Particularly as Topps have chosen the upper end of the spectrum that Tony's weight moved along during his career. 

Overall, however, it's a nice-looking card set in a 'classic' template.

Total: 379/394

Taking a look at Bazooka!

Bazooka Gum was a Topps brand of gum launched after the second world war. As you'd expect there were trading cards linked to the gum. There are actually three eras of Bazooka cards - the 1960s, the mid-90s, and a short run from 2003-2006. More recently Bazooka has been an insert series in Topps Heritage and also been variant cardback for Allen & Ginter mini cards.

These cards featuring Tony are from the second era of Bazooka cards, the 1990s. 

Card Number 229: Topps Bazooka, 1995; #30

Although Bazooka was a cheaper card range aimed at kids, this is a really nice card.

The back is some kind of game called Play Ball. It looks fun.

That's a fairly in-depth statistical background for a kids' range. It reveals that in Tony's most memorable batting season, he did better against right-handed pitchers than left-handed pitchers. I hadn't seen that stat anywhere else, which kind of shows why it's important to collect all the cards! 

It doesn't say what the ratings in the little blue box are based on. Why was Tony's throwing rated an 8? (And out of what?) I suspect these are fairly meaningless numbers that had something to do with the game.

I've read a few theories about why Topps Kids undersold in 1992, and one of them was that it had no parallels. Younger collectors may have felt they weren't getting as good a product as adults were getting. Topps made up for that in Bazooka with a few different parallel versions of their cards.

Card Number 230: Topps Bazooka Red Hot Parallel, 1995; #RH-6

In addition to the slightly apocalyptic red background, this parallel had Tony's name in gold foil on the front.

The cardback has more red in the colour scheme and the wheel contains different parameters. Tony is less likely to strike out with this card! (If that's how the game works!)

Card Number 231: Topps Bazooka, 1996; #124

Having the bat with Tony's name on makes this card look a bit more like a card for kids.

There's another kind of game on the back as well. But the main attraction is a cartoon of Bazooka Joe who is sporting an eyepatch for some reason. 

Bazooka Joe was character who appeared in little comic panels on pieces of Bazooka gum. The other things to feature on gum wrappers were 'fortunes'. There's also one on this card - at the bottom, upside down - which is a baseball prediction about Tony Gwynn. According to this on 4 August 1996 Tony would appear in his 79th game in a row without striking out, thus acquiring a new National League record. 

I don't believe in spoilers so I'll leave it up to anyone reading this to find out if it happened.

Total: 231/394

3 from 93

Following on from yesterday's post which featured a card from Upper Deck in 1993, here are 3 more cards from the same year, and the same card company!

Card Number 226: Upper Deck Fun Pack, 1993; #138

In the early 90s most of the card companies put out sets aimed at kids. Topps called their range Topps Kids, DonRuss/Leaf had Triple Play, and Upper Deck released the Fun Pack, with 225 cards to collect, jazzy stickers, scratch off cards and even cards featuring mascots! The "Stars of Tomorrow" were rookies in a zodiac style constellation and there was a subset with photos of top stars from their childhood. (Most of them look adorable!)

Compared to those cards, Tony's is quite plain.

Well it's plain on the front! On the back there's a cartoon!

It's not a funny cartoon, but I'm all for cartoons on cardbacks! Back in 1993 his best hitting average was .370 and that's the one that's gets mentioned here.

Card Number 227: Upper Deck, 1993; D-14

Meanwhile in the main Upper Deck range, Tony had a card in the "On Deck" subset.

This is a bit like a Studio card, or one of the early Stadium Club cards.

The cardback is a bit different.

I like this idea for a cardback. It reminds me a lot of the player profiles that used to be a staple of soccer programmes when I was a kid. It's always interesting finding out what players like, dislike, treasure and regret. Even though nowadays we have much closer access to players through social media accounts and stuff, more cardbacks should be like this instead of yet another stats box.

Looking at this now, 27 years later, Tony came close to that career goal in 1998, but never made it. He probably would have been a basketball player if he hadn't been drafted in baseball. Who knows how that would have gone if he had accepted the draft offer from the Clippers? I'd actually read about that most embarrassing moment before, so that must have really haunted him. 

Tony really admired Barry Bonds. One of the contributors to He Left His Heart in San Diego said that Tony actively laid out Barry Bonds's credentials for induction in the Hall of Fame after Bonds retired, despite the steroid scandal that tainted the end of Bonds's career. 

Card Number 228: Upper Deck Fun Pack, 1993; #221 (All Star Advice subset)

And back to the Fun Pack range!

Want to swing like Tony Gwynn? Here's a scientific explanation for why he made all those hits.

The back breaks down the mechanics of his swing.

This is another cardback I find really interesting. It's unique in my collection so far, and I would like to see more cardbacks that look like this. 

Upper Deck also released their Fun Pack range in 1994 but like other companies the 'kids' ranges faded a bit. Still, at least this brief flurry by Upper Deck into segmenting the market gave me some fun cards to show on my blog.

Total: 228/394

Monday Mixer Miscellany

The usual round up of unconnected odds and sods today, although there is sort of a theme here. These cards are just slightly odd ones.

Card Number 101: Upper Deck Collector's Choice "Push Out", 1999; #24

Trading Card Database lists this as "mini bobblehead". I'm intrigued whether they actually work as bobbleheads, but I'm not pushing out my push out card to find out.

The back has the instructions of how to assemble it.

This is one of those innovations from a card company that leaves me wondering if anyone actually did this.

Card Number 102: Score, 1992 (All Star), #779

Another case of putting Tony's real head atop a cartoon body.

I actually really like this card. I even love the funny way they've written 'All Star' in a cartoonish font. Panini own Score now, and they've revived this style of card, which is a great choice for a retro card design in my opinion (I have a card of Fernando Tatis Jr in this style that somebody sent me.)

In a previous post about Score base cards I said that Score tended to have better cardbacks than card fronts. Not true in this case, but this is definitely one of the better cardbacks for an All Star card. For one thing it has the National League line up for the 1991 All Star Game.

For the record, the 1991 All Star Game was in Toronto and the National League lost 2-4. Tony had 4 at bats, got 2 hits, scored 1 of the National League's 2 runs. He made it home when Andre Dawson hit a home run. (Box score)

Card Number 103: Upper Deck Collector's Choice You Make the Play, 1996; #17 (Groundout variant)

I think that is officially the longest set name I will ever write on this blog. 'You Make the Play' was a baseball card game you could, um, play, in some way. There are two versions of this card, a "Groundout" and a "Single". Every card in the 90 card set has a variant, making it a 180 card set in actuality.

Every time I see this card with Tony surrounded by a neon glow it makes me think of the Ready Brek Kid, with his bright orange outline after he'd eaten Ready Brek. The adverts had the tagline "Central heating for kids!" Which in turn reminds me of the rumour that Viz Comic got done for a tasteless joke that a high strength lager was "Central Heating for Tramps!" It's funny where a train of thought ends up, and mine always ends up there every time I see this card.

The back is like this.

All the card backs in the set are the same, so that you can actually play the game. From the packaging pictures on TCDb, it looks like You Make the Play cards were inserted as 'bonus cards' in regular packs of Collector's Choice cards. 

Card Number 104: Upper Deck Collector's Choice Stick-Ums, 1998; #23 

Another insert from Collector's Choice packs. They are stickers, not cards.

You actually get five sticker elements on the front, which include Tony, his name, and two San Diego logo motifs. The fifth sticker is a generic baseball.

The back is a checklist of the Stick-Ums. There are some star names on the list.

That's the end of this week's Monday Mixer. I hope you enjoyed it.

Total: 104/394