Breakfast baseball bonus

Topps has produced a few promotional issues for other companies over the years. This one is unusual because it celebrates the Topps company even though it was a giveaway in breakfast cereal. 

Card Number 1041: Post 50 Years of Topps, 2001; #17

I mean, it's a free card, you don't expect to see the player's face in the photo do you?

Topps's trademark rubbish photography aside, the other quirk is placing the Padres logo on Tony's foot as if he's balancing a soccer ball there. A small soccer ball, like the "mini Mitres" I remember from school. 

(OK, that might need an explanation. When I was in high school in the late 80s to early 90s, the soccer ball company called Mitre brought out smaller versions of their balls that were supposed to be used for training purposes. They were also, probably intentionally, the perfect size for carrying round in a schoolbag which meant my gang of friends could play soccer during the lunchtime break with something resembling a proper soccer ball. I didn't have a mini Mitre myself. The kids who did were the gods of the playground.)

The most interesting thing about this cardback is the ribbon around the baseball and Tony's facsimile signature... which I think I'm right in saying is what he used on his very first contract with Topps when he was a teenager. It also appears on his Bowman cards from 1998 and 1999. 

It feels like the era of free cards in random products is over. This is probably one of the last times baseball cards appeared in boxes of breakfast cereal. (You can see the advert promoting the giveaway on TCDb.) This card is therefore a real throwback and the last hurrah of the late 90s overproduction era.

Total: 1041 cards

Sharing the (oddball) Spotlight

I have a few cards that feature another player alongside Tony. Here are a couple of examples of Tony sharing the spotlight on 'oddball' issues.

Card Number 771: French's, 1992; #16

These cards were a giveaway linked to French's Mustard. This condiment debuted at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, and is still sold today. Each card in this set featured two top players. Tony shared his card with Joe Carter, who was playing for the Blue Jays at that time. 

Joe was born in March 1960, almost two months before Tony arrived in the world. He was in the 1981 draft with Tony and was selected by the Cubs. After a spell with the Indians he played alongside Tony at the Padres before being part of the deal with the Blue Jays that brought Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez to San Diego. Roberto Alomar also moved to Toronto with Joe in that deal.

That move worked out better for Joe and Roberto as both of them won back-to-back World Series titles with the Blue Jays - the first one was the year this card was given away with French's Mustard, 1992.

Depsite being the same age as Tony, Joe retired in 1998. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2003, which was the first year he was eligible for entry. Being a first year inductee is yet another thing he has in common with Tony. 

There is a short write up about each player on the cardback. 

Design-wise, I like this card for several reasons. I like cards that are green. I also like the bat and ball drawings in the background of the cardback. The photos are quite small so the player's features aren't very easy to make out. But this is still a nice card featuring two Hall of Famers.

Card 772: Classic Blue, 1990 (NL Hit Kings); #87 

Are Classic cards really 'oddballs'? I think they kind of are.

There are two versions of this card. This one that says NL Hit Kings on the front, and another version that says Clark / Gwynn on the front. Trading Card Database lists this version as 87b.

That's Will Clark next to Tony. "Will the Thrill" made his major league debut for the Giants in 1986. Before that he was in the USA baseball team at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, part of the squad that included Tony's brother, Chris, and several other players who later had major league careers. In 1994 Will moved to the Rangers, and after five seasons in Arlington, had brief stints with the Orioles and Cardinals before retiring. He is on the Giants Wall of Fame and the Giants have announced plans to retire his shirt number (#22) in 2022.

This photo is slightly awkward because Will is looking at the camera and Tony isn't. Given the logos of other baseball clubs on the wall behind them (the Brewers and Phillies logos are visible) I conclude this was taken at an All Star Game with the players getting papped by multiple photographers (or at least two!) at the same time. 

Classic cards were marketed as board games rather than baseball cards - which seems to have been a clever way of subverting licensing arrangements -  so along with a few stats, there are trivia questions to ask as part of the game on the back of the card.

The stats compare Will and Tony's seasons in 1989. Will was .003 behind Tony in batting average so not far off winning the batting title! He had seven fewer hits than Tony but also had fewer At Bats, possible because he drew more walks. A mathematician could probably work out what the true differential of .003 would be in terms of hits. Maths isn't my strongpoint, but it feels like he was literally just a couple of hits away from taking the title. 

The other thing I noticed from the stats comparison is that Will struck out over three times as often as Tony did - 103 strike outs to Tony's 30. The mind-boggling bit of that is that Tony only struck out 30 times in 158 games. I often bring this up, but on average you would have had to go to six games in 1989 to be guaranteed seeing him strike out. It always astonishes me how rarely he struck out.  

Total: 772 cards

Giveaway Gwynns

These cards had a logo saying Starline on them, but on Trading Card Database, they were listed as Starline Long John Silver. I couldn't find any details of where this set originated from until, on the second page of Google results, there was a blogpost by Fuji, who often comments on my blog, all about them. 

I regard Fuji as a reliable authority on Tony Gwynn cards and baseball cards in general. So, this is what he had to say about these cards:

These cards were distributed by the Long John Silver restaurant chain back in 1990 over an 8 week period. Each week, the restaurant would hand out a different cello pack that contained 6 cards: a header card plus 5 player cards.

There is a great picture of the entire set, complete with all the header cards on Fuji's blog [relink], but I'm just interested in the two cards that I recently acquired. (Incidentally, that blog post by Fuji is from 2011 - thank goodness the Internet never forgets!)

Card Number 769: Starline Long John Silver, 1990; #4

These would have been given out in the packet distributed in week one of the two month promotional period. 

At first glance I thought the picture on the front had been airbrushed to remove any logos from Tony's uniform.

However, the photo on the back includes the SD logo on Tony's hat and the word Padres on his training top.

This is a decent cardback for an oddball giveaway, with some bullet pointed factoids and a full-sized stats box. As early as 1990, Tony was the all-time leader for the Padres in hits. Nobody else has come close to his totals since. 

Card Number 770: Starline Long John Silver, 1990; #29

This card was in the set given out in week 6 of the promotion. 

The white mark above Tony's name is a scuff mark. These were giveaways in restaurants. Some minor marks on the cards are to be expected. The Padres logo on Tony's helmet and shirt are clearly visible. 

The photo on the back includes a recognisable member of the crowd pulling a slightly goofy face just behind Tony. Imagine making it onto a baseball card and then realising that you had a funny expression!

The biodata and stats box are the same as the other card in the set, but the four bullet point factoids are all different. The bullet about Tony's hitting with runners in scoring position is a neat little statistic.

The cards also include the Coca-Cola logo on the back, so presumably Coke contributed towards the production of these cards.

Long John Silvers is still going with over 700 locations in the USA. It's a seafood restuarant named after the famous character from Treasure Island, that looks to serve UK-style fish and chips (battered deep-fried fish with chipped potatoes). They also do "lobster bites". Sadly it doesn't seem that baseball cards are still on the menu!

Total: 770 cards

Tuesday Twins - photo edition

When I looked through the cards that Richard sent me recently, two cards matched so much I instantly thought, 'That's a twins post!'

Card Number 760: Topps All-Star Collector's Edition, 1985; #29

This was the first time Tony was included in these sets of glossy cards that were mailed to collectors who sent in tokens. I have previously blogged some of his cards from these sets that were issued in later years.

That yellow shirt was history in 1985. After reaching the World Series in 1984, the Padres revealed an all new look for the following season - white pinstripes at home and grey pinstripes for the road uniforms. The background of this photo makes me wonder if is was taken at a Spring Training game in 1984. Topps used photos taken at Spring Training on some cards.

The back of this card is very dull. The glossy photo on the front is supposed to make up for having nothing to look at on the back.

The other card this matches also has a dull cardback.

Card Number 761: Topps Allen & Ginter, 2012; #205

Topps had been releasing Allen & Ginter sets since 2006 but I think this is the first time Tony appeared in one of the sets. He is also on an insert card from this set.

And, there it is, 27 years after Topps produced that glossy All-Star card, the same picture appears with a small filter applied to make it look more like it has been drawn.

And here is the back. This must have felt fun and quirky once, but I feel the novelty has worn off. 

This isn't the only time Topps re-used the photo. In 2013 they mocked up what an All-Star card from 1984 could have looked like. (At least the uniform would have been right on that card!)

Topps go through phases of using the same photos in several sets released around about the same time, so seeing this picture in sets released in successive years isn't that surprising. It's a nice photo, so I'm not complaining. It was just a bit odd getting two cards in the same parcel that were released so far apart and yet look so similar.

Total: 761 cards

One Card Only - PG rating

I might need to explain the post title for any readers based outside the UK. Basically, 'PG' means 'Parental Guidance' and it's used for films that might have a few scary scenes in, so parents should be aware of that before letting their kids watch the movie. 

There's no parental guidance needed for this post though, as the PG in question is Proctor & Gamble, a huge multinational corporation that mainly produces chemical products from cleaning products to shampoo. In 1992 they also produced some promotional baseball cards in partnership with Score.

Card Number 725: Score Proctor & Gamble All-Stars, 1992; #16

There were 18 cards in this set, featuring all the players in the starting line-ups for the 1992 All Star Game. Sets were received in return for proofs of purchase from Proctor & Gamble products (which included Pringles back in 1992 so if snacking was more of a priority than cleaning, then the mailaway was still achievable!). Score printed 2,000,000 sets (according to Baseballcardpedia) and I'm guessing most were claimed.

The back has a stats box and some information about Tony's contributions to the All-Star Game. There's also an endorsement from the then Cardinals manager, Joe Torre.

This card should probably be classed as an 'oddball' but it was produced by a fully licensed card manufacturer in the era when lots of companies could legitimately produce cards. It has the Proctor & Gamble logos on either side, so acts as a historical marker to a time when baseball cards were so popular just about every company wanted to use them to help shift their products.

The 1990s were an exciting time for Proctor & Gamble as the company became one of the first victims of a chain-email hoax. The email revived an old rumour that the corporation's profits went to the Church of Satan. This was compounded by claims that the company's main logo included Satanist imagery, which was part of the deal struck with Satan to ensure the company's success. Whoah, maybe there is a PG element to this post after all!

It turned out this hoax was started by a competitor trying to encourage a boycott of Proctor & Gamble products by earnest (and slightly gullible) Christians. This persistent rumour led to a multi-million dollar pay-out for Proctor & Gamble in 2007 against a competing company whose representatives had repeated the claims.

I remember reading an amusing book by someone who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home where he wrote about his parents believing the rumour about Proctor & Gamble and throwing away all the products made by the company. It makes me wonder how many sets of baseball cards might have ended up in the trash by people worried about being contaminated by evil. 

Fortunately this particular card has survived the purges caused by the hoax and now has a safe and loving home in my collection.

Total: 725 cards

Mother Lode

Freshly unpacked from the parcel from France, here is a trio of oddball cards from the 1990s, which were given out at ballgames or inserted into Mother's Cookies bakery products.

Mother's Cookies was a company founded in Oakland in 1914 where it had it's main bakery until it went bankrupt in 2008. The brand was subsequently bought by Kellogg's and is now owned by Ferrero. They released their first baseball cards in the 1950s for a few years, then resumed printing cards during the 'overproduction era', which is the polite term for the 80s and 90s.

Being a California-based company and mainly supplying stores on the west coast of the USA, Mother's Cookies focused on teams that side of the country with commercial tie-ins to produce franchise-specific, and even player-specific, sets and co-ordinating in-stadium giveaways. They produced team sets of Padres players in 1984 and 1985 and from 1992 to 1998. 

Obviously, I knew these cards existed. I've seen them on other blogs and I had them on my 'maybe one day' list. So when they appeared on the checklist of cards that Greg had for sale, I was delighted.

Card Number 719: Mother's Cookies, 1993; #3

The cards have rounded edges with full bleed photos. This is a lovely portrait of Tony looking relaxed. 

The back is quite plain, with space for an autograph. As these were often ballpark giveaways, there was a chance, maybe, of getting a player to sign the back of his card. 

Card Number 720: Mother's Cookies, 1994; #2

Another full-bleed photo portrait. This time it's slightly more posed and less natural.

Whoever was working on these for Mother's Cookies didn't go to a lot of effort with the cardback. It is virtually identical to the previous year's apart from the card number and the copyright notice. 

Card Number 721: Mother's Cookies, 1995; #2

We round out this trio with another really nice posed photo. Tony's number is visible on his batting glove and I think that is one of his signature bats he is posing with. There are other people lurking in the background of this card, which makes it a bit different to the other two.

The back doesn't deviate from the established template.

Oddball cards are sometimes a lot more odd than these. The quality of photos used on these cards elevates them above most other commercial tie-ins. Although the backs are a bit plain and repetitive, that doesn't really matter. Only the most committed fans are going to bother looking at the backs!

Total: 721 cards

A trio of Topps parallels

Today I'm going to be blogging cards that have been on this blog before in a different guise. These three parallels came in the recent parcel from France. 

Card Number 716: Topps Gold (Winner), 1992; #270

Tony's name and the word 'Winner' are in embossed gold foil on the front, which differentiates this from the normal Topps Gold card. 

The 'Winner cards' were sent out in return for "runs" collected on 'Match the Stats' game cards inserted in packs. Unfortunately it was apparently easy to cheat and use a torch to reveal the answers on the game cards, so Topps were inundated with redemptions. Topps printed 'Winner' on the cards they sent out because they wanted to preserve the rarity value of the Topps Gold cards that were randomly inserted in packs. According to Baseballcardpedia, these 'Winner' cards are a lot more common than the pack-pulled cards.

There's a nice variation on the cardback with the Topps Gold logo watermarked behind the stats box. This was the last year Topps did a plain stats box on the back.

Tony's son mentioned on the back, was, of course, Tony Gwynn Jr, who went on to have a Major League Baseball career himself. 

Card Number 717: Topps Gold, 1994; #620

There is a little Topps Gold logo top left and Tony's name is printed in gold foil. These cards were parallels inserted into lucky packets. 

There is no difference in the cardback from the regular base card. The factoid is about Tony joining various baseball legends in achieving four five-hit games in a season. He is the only one of those players to have played in anything approaching the modern era.

Card Number 718: Topps Opening Day, 1998; #1

Topps went silver for their Opening Day set in 1998.

Tony was #1 in the flagship set, so it's not a surprise that he was also #1 in the Opening Day set as well. It's still cool that he was on the first card in the set, though. There's also a silver foil stamp celebrating Opening Day.

The back is exactly the same as the base card, even down to it's hard-to-locate set number!

I feel there is enough variation in all three cards to keep these parallels interesting. I now need to add them into my Topps binder, which may result in me moving a few cards around accomodate them. But that's a nice problem to have!

Total: 718 cards

Shining Star from a box of Bazooka gum

According to Baseballcardpedia, this range of cards were shipped at the rate of one per box of Bazooka gum. That seems the exact opposite to Topps normal cards, which had a ratio of lots of cards to one stick of gum.

Card Number 704: Topps Bazooka, 1989; #13

Although this is billed as a starter set, no other Bazooka branded cards were released that year. It was just the 22 cards that were inserted into boxes of gum.

The cardback is fairly standard - stats box, factoid and some bio data.

I like the Bazooka logo used as a watermark behind the stats box. That livens up the cardback a surprising amount.

This concludes the contents of the eBay package. Next up, a card that is brand, brand new.

Total: 704 cards

Lets gloss over the dullness

I'm on to the last remnants of the most recent joblot of cards from eBay. I think all the cards I've posted from this parcel have been 'oddities' in some way and these are no different.

If you have ever opened a junk wax era packet of Topps cards you will have found some little promotional cards that you could collect and send away for more cards. These mailaway cards were advertised as "glossy", and, while they definitely had a slight shine to them, they just weren't very interesting.

Card Number 701: Topps All-Star Collector's Edition, 1987; #2

I am fairly certain this photo was taken at the same time as the All Star card in the flagship set for 1987. Compare the background and also Tony's right sleeve with the white undershirt sticking out.

The back is very boring.

These cards could be bought in six small units or ordered as one big set of sixty. It does make me wonder if some of those sets were more popular than others if kids couldn't afford the full set in one go.

Card Number 702: Topps All-Star Collector's Edition, 1988; #38

This is another familiar-looking photo, but I can't find the card it reminds me of. It's possible that I just have a lot of cards where Tony looks like this.

The back is equally as dull.

Card Number 703: Topps All-Star Collector's Edition, 1989; #58

Again, this is a deja vu photo. It's very similar to the photo used on Tony's base card in 1988.

However, I think this might be from a different game because the fans in the background look different and there also seems to be different equipment on the bench of the dug-out in the background.

All I can say about the cardback is at least Topps varied the colours they used each year.

I wonder what the kids who sent off their pocket money and tokens to Topps thought of these cards when they arrived in the mail. I hope they felt they were getting their money's worth. The photos are nice and big, but the cardbacks are beyond boring.

Total: 703 cards

Cereal freebies: Part 2

A sequel to yesterday's blog post about Post Cereal cards. Today we look at cards produced a few years earlier by a rival company - Quaker Oats. (I realise I have done these in the wrong chronological order. Oh well.)

I was surprised to learn that the Quaker Oats Company was not founded by Quakers. The founders just adopted the name because the Quaker sect had a good reputation for honesty and purity. The Quaker in their logo isn't based on a particular Quaker in the current design, but originally he was sort of based on William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. 

Like Post, Quaker gave baseball cards away in their cereal. Unlike, Post, they got Topps to print the cards.

Card Number 691: Quaker Chewy Granola Bars, 1986; #7

Wait, is a granola bar a breakfast cereal... ah, close enough.

Tony looks a bit downbeat in this photo. At least the Quaker mascot looks cheerful. Because this card was produced by Topps it was fully licensed, so the SD logo on Tony's had didn't need to be airbrushed off. 

On the back these were proclaimed as the 1st Annual Collectors' Edition. It was actually a one and done because a second series was not released.

You can almost tell this card is produced by Topps just by looking at the factoids. This card was in packs of chewy granola bars in 1986, but the factoids only run up to 1984 and the first two are from 1981! (And why lead with those when Tony had played in a World Series in 1984! Topps's approach to factoids in the 1980s was downright bizarre.)

Card Number 692: Cap'n Crunch, 1989; #5

Yes, the Quaker company also make Cap'n Crunch.

Cap'n Crunch's Wikipedia entry has a very entertaining section about the product's marketing, including the complex naval world of the Cap'n and his crew, which I think is mainly one dog. We never had this cereal in the UK, so it's not something that's part of my cultural landscape seascape. 

I'm disappointed that the Cap'n didn't appear on the front of this card with Tony. Or anywhere on this card. I'm also disappointed that the prominent #19 on the front is not actually the card number. (Booo, Capn'n Crunch! Booooooo!)

The factoids on the back are more up-to-date than the Granola Bars card, but that list looks like a cut, paste and change the numbers job. (Were people able to do cut'n'paste in 1989?)

A batting average of .313 is quite low to win a batting title (1988) and is 25 points lower than Tony's career average. He certainly scored a lot higher in other seasons and didn't win the title. 

I've put these cards in the same binder page as my five cards issued by the Post company as a mini set of cereal cards. There are also some more 'food issue' cards to share with you in future posts. But for now, I hope you had a good breakfast and have a great day.

Total: 692 cards

Cereal freebies: Part 1

These"oddball" cards by Post arrived in the post from Gawain last week. 

Post is a massive cereal company - currently the third largest in the world. C.W. Post who founded the company spent time at the sanatorium run by John Harvey Kellogg and was inspired to develop his own breakfast cereal. The first cereal sold by Post was Grape Nuts, one of the few America brands readily available in the UK. I always think it's the most misleading brekfast cereal, as it contains neither grapes nor nuts, and is more like eating shards of concrete rather than food. Still, to each their own. 

For several years in the early 90s, the Post company included baseball cards as giveaways in their cereal. (They'd actually first done this in the early 1960s as well.) I've previously blogged cards of Tony that Post produced in 1990(#413) and in 1991(#46).

Card Number 688: Post Cereal, 1992; #26

These cards were licensed by the Major League Baseball Player's Association (MLBPA) rather than Major League Baseball, so the logos and team names have been rather skillfully erased from the photos of Tony. These cards were printed by Michael Schechter Associates (MSA) who arranged print runs of promotional baseball cards for a lot of companies back in the 1980s and 90s.

The back is a fairly solid design, with a photo of Tony and a decent stats box.

Major League Baseball was less protective of franchise names in the early 90s so even though the Padres name and logo have been removed from the photos, the word 'Padres' appears on the front and back of the card. 

Card Number 689: Post Cereal, 1993; #8

Wonky scan! Sorry.

A bunt photo! 

Tony was quite happy to bunt when necessary. He devotes a section in his book Tony Gwynn's Total Baseball Player to "The Art of Bunting". Tony felt it gave opponents something else to worry about, causing the infield to shift and opening up holes a batter could punch a ball through. Tony went on to list the five type of bunt - can you name all five? Answers at the bottom of the post!

This is a nice looking card, with a black border similar to the Pinnacle cards issued in the same year. The back has dispensed with the big stats box and has added a little write-up, which mentions his option to play in the NBA with the Clippers.

Somehow in this joblot of oddball cards I managed a complete run of the three Post Cereal cards that I didn't have already.

Card Number 690: Post Cereals, 1994; #13

Another slightly wonky scan. My bad!

This design looks like the love-child of a DonRuss card and a Fleer Ultra card. It is very green. The designer has also gone for a fancier logo for the set - this is part of the "Post 94 Collection".

The back really emphasises the write up at the expense of the stats. There's some slightly confusing syntax in the first sentence, though. The Padres were playing the Rockies when Tony recorded his 2000th career hit, but it wasn't his 2000th career hit against the Rockies. (Who were in their debut season in the Major Leagues!)

For two years in a row the cardback write-up predicted Tony's eventual election to the Hall of Fame. 

Come back tomorrow for Cereal freebies: Part 2!

Total:690 cards

Answer: According to Tony, the five types of bunt were: The Sacrifice; The Drag; The Push; The Slug; and The Swinging Bunt. - Tony Gwynn's Total Baseball Player pp 49-53.

Tuesday Twins - Sample Seasons Crown

This card is exactly the same as the card I blogged about back in January (and 101 cards ago!), except that it's a sample giveaway.

Card Number 665: Fleer Ultra Season Crowns (Sample), 1996; #2

Although this is numbered as 2, it was one of just two cards in this insert series released in a promotional version. The other card was numbered 4.

The 'Promotional Sample' lettering is overprinted running from the bottom left to the top right on both sides. This means some of the lettering on the front is visible through the acetate on the back.

I'm counting this as a new card in the collection even though there is no other difference to the regular release. I presume this version was given out by the company. I'm just lucky they picked Tony's card as one of the two to use to promote the set.

Total: 665 cards