One Card Only - another crown

Way back in June 2020, I blogged about a card that I really liked, a die-cut Pacific Crown Royale card. It had a special provenance because it was in a repack of baseball cards I bought at the Hall of Fame. 

Well, anyway, that card has been joined by another die-cut crown card now.

Card Number 910: Pacific Crown Royale, 1999; #119

Compared with the other die-cut crown, this is muted and under-stated. 

On the back we get a potrait and a brief paragraph with some salient stats. Tony had a decent year in 1997, hit a milestone in 1998, and they even managed to squeeze in a mention of his opening day performance in 1999.

I also love cards that I learn something from - I did not know that the Padres opened the 1999 season in Monterey. It's inconceivable now that the first competitive games after an appearance in the World Series would be staged in another country!

Total: 910 cards

One Card Only - Run Producer!

In between the two big parcels that arrived last month, was a single card in a plain white envelope that I bought from Jay, who is a member of a Facebook group dedicated to insert cards from the 1990s.

Card Number 786: Upper Deck, 1996; #RP-8

These die-cut inserts of "Run Producers" were inserted at a rate of 1 in every 72 packs in the second series of the Upper Deck flagship set. That makes them reaonably rare. 

The red top and bottom of the card are foiled, and as you can see from the scan, prone to getting dinged up. The Upper Deck Company is emblazoned in a cursive font along the red top of the card. 

The way 'Upper Deck Showcase' is written on the back made me think it was the name of the set initially. 

Every so often I point out which other players get mentioned on a cardback. Here Tony is compared with Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Stan Musial, Ted Williams and Rod Carew. That's an impressive line-up of baseball players!

Total cards: 786

Set lasers to cut!

 A theme post featuring two cards with holes in.

Card Number 650: Topps Stadium Club Prime Cuts, 1996; #PC-4

Topps used the same technology as in their Topps Laser set from the same year for this 8 card insert series in Stadium Club.

The photo shows Tony's brief mid-nineties flirtation with a beard.

The white lines around the solid gold 'CUTS' are all holes through the card.... as you can see from the back view.

Tony is cleanshaven in the photo on the back. I find it slightly amusing that this juxtaposition happens on a card along the theme of 'cuts'.

These cards are 'Prime Cuts' and the stats on the back are 'Prime Numbers', except none of them are actually prime numbers in the proper mathematical sense.

Yet again, the sheer paucity of strike outs in Tony's career is remarkable. I've not seen a strike out to at bat ratio on a cardback before, but card companies should have included it more often. In 1995, Tony struck out once every 35 at bats. If he had 5 at bats in a game that would be one strike out every seven games.

The only confusing stat on the back is the batting title one. They are trying to say that Tony won his sixth National League batting title, but it looks like they are saying he was sixth in the batting tables. However, I'm not going to quibble too much with that, given how good this stats box is overall. 

Card Number 651: Pacific Aurora On Deck Laser Cuts, 1998; #14

A couple of years after the Stadium Club Prime Cuts card, Pacific lasered bits out of these insert sets from their Aurora set.

The card front is a rather glorious mish-mash of photoshop elements and the cut out 'rings' in the centre of the card. There is some gold foil applied as well for good measure.

The back has a big picture of Tony and a tiny write up underneath the lasered out section.

I have grown to love Pacific cards. True, they are gaudy and the designers never seemed to know when to stop adding stuff, but that is part of the charm. Plus they were absolutely brilliant at including the years and set names in those little circles with the card number on. It makes them so easy to identify and for that reason alone, I could forgive any excess in the design.

Aurora cards were one of the sets Pacific produced without a licence initially, which is why it just says San Diego on the card. However, this was before companies with licences got really protective about the official MLB team logos and icons, which is why the logos on Tony's shirt and helmet haven't been airbrushed out of the photo on the front. Those dark days of airbrushed jerseys were coming. 

Total: 651 cards

Die cut double down

For the second day in a row, I'm blogging about a die-cut card.

Card Number 639: Upper Deck SPx Die-Cut, 1997; #SPX42

This set was a premium product in 1997. These cards were sold in packs of 3. There were 50 cards in the set and parallel versions to collect.

And, yes, that's a hologram in the big cresecent bit.

On first glance I didn't see the SPx logo, and I thought it looked like the DonRuss logo from when DonRuss was issued by the Play Off company. I kind of see an S and a P and the X is obvious.

The big prominent 19 on the front is not the card number. (Boo!)

The write up on the back is about Tony's home run production. He was never a home run guy, but 1997 was about the start of the obsession with home runs and records and so on, which is probably why the card focuses on that side of his game.

Total: 639 cards

I don't usually comment on current events but huge congratulations to Joe Musgrove who pitched the first no-hitter in Padres franchise history last night. Well done, Joe!

There's that photo again

Last week Glenn from Glasgow sent me a photo of a card asking if I had it. The answer was 'no' although the photo on the card is one that is becoming more familiar. In fact, I blogged a card that uses the same photo last week, and a different card that used it a fortnight ago! Glenn kindly sent it to me and here it is:

Card Number 638: Topps Minis, 2014; #TM-4

This card was part of a 100-card insert set of die-cut minis that reused the Topps template from 1989. I've always liked that card design.

Yes, that is the same photo that was used in the Gypsy Queen set in 2014 and in an insert series in the Topps Update set in 2019 and again in Topps Update in 2020.

There's reusing photos and there's reusing photos. 

The cardback on this is great though, with a tip-top factoid about Tony's dual sporting Collegiate career, on a pink background like the cards from Topps 1989 set.

So, there are a lot of plus points to this card to counterbalance Topps reusing the same photo: the 1989 swoosh design, the great cardback factoid, being a die-cut card, even the coloured edging around the border. 

And I suppose it does fit in my developing gallery of cards that use this photo. I am up to five now!

When I messaged Glenn to tell him the card had arrived we started chatting about photo reuse, and he sent me a picture of some of his vintage Tigers cards, showing how Topps had been doing this since the 60s. At least they have been consistent in their practice for a long time!

Total: 638 cards

Laser confrontations!

Let's have a look at a brace of cards from the middle of the 90s to end the week. This was the season the Padres won the National League West with a winner-takes-all showdown against the Dodgers. Tony was the batting champion that year - his seventh title.

Card Number 504: Topps Laser, 1996; #43

The Topps Company is rarely an innovator. It's a follower not a leader, which is why when other companies started using laser die-cutting to slice bits out of cards, they soon followed suit with a set revolving around that gimmick. This is one of the 128 base cards. There were 48 laser-cut inserts as well. 

The laser-cut running man was the same on a streak of 25 cards in the set. There were different cuts on other cards.

I'd give this card bonus points for having interesting "Spotlight Stats" on the back. Even though I know that Tony was one of the greatest hitters of all time, it's still pretty amazing to think that he got safely on base in over three quarters of the games he played in a three-season period.

Card Number 505: Topps (Classic Confrontations insert), 1996; #CC-9

This was from a 15-card insert series in the Topps flagship set from 1996.

The back of the card shows how well Tony batted against the top pitchers that he faced. John Smoltz must have felt his heart sink every time he saw Tony come up to the plate.

I would like to see more of this kind of statistical breakdown on baseball cards, although with the way pitching has changed I doubt current players would be able to rack up as many at bats against individual pitchers.

Total: 505 cards

Modern Monday - two from Topps

It's a bank holiday. Here are two cards from 2020 for you to enjoy today.

Card Number 310: Topps Decade of Dominance insert, 2020; #DOD-11

Dean from the Baseball Cards UK group on Facebook busted lots of Topps Flagship and sent me this.

It's a nice die-cut X.

Tony earns his place in the 1990s pantheon as a dominant batter because he rarely struck out at the plate. How rarely I hear you ask...

One in every 26.5 at bats, according to the cardback. Given that Tony would usually make around 5 plate appearances each game, that would mean you would only see him strike out one game in six. 

Card Number 311: Topps Decades Best insert, 2020; #DB-56 (#d Gold Parallel)

This was a whimsical purchase on eBay.

I didn't actually clock this was a gold parallel version of the card until it arrived. It has a slight gold sheen to it.

The way Topps have written 1990s in the coloured blocks there is probably the best bit of design in a Topps flagship product in the last five years. I'm happy to be corrected on that point, but I can't remember seeing anything else that was so bang on. It just screams "Now That's What I Call Music" albums from the start of the decade. (These were compilation albums released in the UK that featured chart-topping singles released over six months or so - everyone I knew had at least one "Now album" back when I was a teenager.)

There's a succinct summary of Tony's career in the 90s on the back. Note how his batting average for the decade was higher than for the previous decade.

You can also see there that this card is numbered out of 50. I doubt the person selling it realised it was a short print parallel because it didn't me cost very much. I like numbered cards so the numbering counteracts my usual disdain for parallels. 

Total: 311/394