Celebrating the Upper Dec(k)ade

To celebrate their tenth anniversary, Upper Deck released some special baseball cards that have one of my favourite things on the back - pictures of other baseball cards!

Card Number 990: Upper Deck 10th Anniversary Preview, 1998; #55

These shiny inserts appeared in the 1998 Upper Deck flagship set. Design-wise, they ape the design of Upper Deck's first set released in 1989.

On the back is a write-up about what a great batter Tony is, linked to a card that Upper Deck released in 1992, which was notable for being the first Upper Deck insert card with a full-bleed photo design. 

The card was in an insert series supposedly curated by Ted Williams - I blogged about it here.

Card Number 991: Upper Deck 10th Anniversary Team (Double), 1999; #X8

I received this card back in January from Riley in Nashville - thanks Riley! The X in the card numbering is the Roman Numeral for 10!

This insert series featured players who were active during the Upper Deck era, and the team selection was made through a popular ballot.

Upper Deck produced four different versions of their 10th Anniversary Team insert cards - there was a regular version, this version that was called a 'double' and numbered to 4,000, a 'triple' version numbered to 100 and a 'home run' version that had a print run of 1! All the versions are numbered X8 and it's only the serial numbering that really differentiates this from the vanilla version. The triples have silver foil stamps on the front. There are no reference pictures on Trading Card Database, but I imagine the home run versions had gold stamps on the front.

On the back is one of my favourite Upper Deck cards, featuring Tony fishing!

I blogged about that card showing Tony fishing way back in August 2020! The serial number is big and bold. I can't think of a meaningful link between Tony and the number 497.

Upper Deck had a hobby-changing impact when the first cards landed in 1989. I've written a bit about how the "UD asteroid" wiped out the cardboard dinosaurs that had ruled the hobby in the 1980s. By the end of the 1990s, the other card companies were no longer playing catch up. Almost all of Upper Deck's innovations became standard across the industry - from foil stamps, to parallels, to relic cards, to autographed cards inserted in packs. Even now, a couple of decades later, it feels really fitting to celebrate the decade of innovation that Upper Deck brought to the world of baseball cards. 

Total: 991 cards

One card only: Gone fishin'

Baseball card companies like to be a bit quirky sometimes and show a player in a different environment, or playing a different sport. 

Card Number 232: Upper Deck, 1997; #492

Did you ever expect to see Gwynn and Trout on the same card?

In He Left His Heart in San Diego, Jerald Clark relates a funny story about going fishing with Tony and how he had to tie Tony's lures on for him because otherwise they flew off when he cast. It's one of the few stories in the book that is actually about something Tony couldn't do very well.

The brown splodge on the card is a foil stamp for the 1996 All Star Game in Philadelphia. Upper Deck applied it to all the All Star players in the set. Although Tony was initially named as a starter for the National League, he didn't actually play. His fellow Padre, Ken Caminiti, scored a home run though, as the National League won 6-0. This game was also Ozzie Smith's final All Star game before retiring. To date it is the most recent All Star game to be played on artificial turf.

The cardback mentions Tony going fishing.

The three factoids down the side are more informative than the large stats box. It notes that Tony collected his 2,500th hit on 14 August in the preceding season. There's also a reference to a relatively rare event - a Tony Gwynn home run!

Total: 232/394