One card only - Tony's first home run

Opinion is divided on 'manufactured relics' like this card. They're usually found as bonus cards in blaster boxes. While I realise they aren't to every collector's taste, they're a bit out of the ordinary and I like adding them to my collection. This particular one was an eBay purchase from a seller in Germany.

Card Number 1035: Topps First Home Run Medallions, 2015; #FHRM-TG

These cards were bonus cards in blaster boxes of Series Two of Topps's flagship set. The 'medallion' is a heavy piece of metal embedded in a partial hole scooped out of the foamboard material used to make the 'card'.

Credit to Topps for using a photo of Tony in a uniform from roughly the right era to commemorate an event in 1982. (I feel like I'm crediting Topps for doing the bare minimum these days!)

If I was more co-ordinated I would have posted this on 22nd August! But sadly I have only just realised I have missed that by a handful of days. 

Wrigley Field is on my list of ball parks I want to visit. As Tony hit his first home run there, I think I might have to make it a priority when I'm next planning a trip to the USA.

Total: 1035 cards

Score gets gritty

Card companies seemed to struggle thinking up new names for subsets in the 90s. Today's card is an illustration of that.

Card Number 973: Score, 1997; #535

There's a photo of Tony fielding on the front. The partial beer advert in the background would qualify this for a list of cards featuring alcohol advertising.

"True Grit". There's no explanation what aspect of Tony's game that refers to. 

The subset logo seems a little bit unbalanced to me. It's because Tony's head is leaning, which throws off the symmetry, along with the lopsided alignment of his name and the different number of letters on the crossed bats.

The arrangement is repeated on the back, and still feels slightly wonky.

The way the cardback write up is divided makes it hard to read. The designer would have been better served putting the words into two columns. Otherwise, this reads like a checklist of things to include in a cardback write up in 1997 - a reference to Tony being in the Hall of Fame in the future, a comparison to a legendary player from long ago (in this case Honus Wagner), a comment about setting records (without saying what those records are) - these all make frequent appearances on cardbacks. 

However, this card was also released as fans started to really get interested in players hitting home runs. This peaked at the end of the 90s with several record-chasing power hitters trying to outdo each other in the race to blast as many homers as possible. On this card, Score decided to just list that statistic, which is one of the few batting stats that makes Tony look quite ordinary.

Ironically, 1997 turned out to be the season Tony set his personal best for home runs - 17 - so even he wasn't immune to the late 90s hype around hitting homers!

Total: 973 cards

Modern Monday... (2015 is still modern, right?)

Generally speaking I get my recently released cards from people in the UK Facebook groups breaking new product wanting to move on the cards they don't want. It seems that in the last couple of months the number of people buying boxes and ripping packs has really slowed down.

However, what counts as 'modern' for a "Modern Monday" post. Well, 2015 wasn't that long ago, even if it does feel like it was.

Card Number 861: Topps, 2015; #FHR-18

Come on, Topps! Card number 18 in an insert series? When you could so easily have given Tony number 19? I swear, sometimes it feels like you don't even try...

This insert series comemorated the first home run of several players. There were 40 inserts in both Series 1 and Series 2 of Topps's flagship set and both are numbered FHR-01 to FHR-40. Because, Topps, I guess.

We get a photo of Tony in the classic early 80s Padres road uniform on the front, along with the date of Tony's first major league home run. 

I was going to look up the date on Baseball Reference, but Topps have put details on the back. Should I fact check this? It is a Topps card...

I went and checked. Tony hit a home run off Bill Campbell in the sixth inning. He had two hits that game and scored two runs.

That last sentence is an opinion rather than a fact. Did Tony develop more power later in his career? He was never much of a home run slugger even though he played through the power slugger record-chasing era.

Card Number 862: Topps Stadium Club, 2015; #265

Whoah! That is a card.

My only criticism of this card is that, like all modern Stadium Club cards, it's warping slightly. 

But still, what a lovely card. Quite apart from the photo on the front, everything on the back is spot on, from the use of the word "thwack" in the write up to the one line of career stats, to the picture showing Tony with a handful of bats. 

I know I give Topps a hard time sometimes on this blog -  in fact, even in the first half of this blog post! But in this case, I have nothing but admiration for what they have done here.

Total: 862 cards

End of a century - 4 from 1999

Getting towards the end of Upper Deck week, here are four cards from the end of the 20th century, the last year starting with 19 - 1999.

Card Number 828: Upper Deck View to a Thrill insert, 1999; #V24

It's a shiny card! I gave it a couple of passes on the scanner.

That second one is a bit over-exposed. It's tricky to get this right. 

Design notes - hexagons are unusual. I've always liked them ever since watching Doctor Who in 1984 when the interior of the TARDIS was made of white hexagons. Red always looks good on baseball cards too. The red foil on the front isn't as bright as the red on the back, somehow.

This insert series is reminiscent of the last James Bond film to feature Sir Roger Moore in the role, A View to a Kill. That was also released in 1984 and featured a theme song by Duran Duran. None of that has anything to do with this card, of course. But it's funny how certain cards trigger all kinds of tangential thoughts.

Card Number 829: Upper Deck Challengers for 70, 1999; #73

Remember the power hitting contest between home run sluggers seeking to break all kinds of records for home runs, which later was revealed to be fueled by steroids? Upper Deck got caught up in the hype and released an entire 90-card set about the 'race for 70 home runs'. Depsite never, ever, being a big hitter of home runs, Tony got a card in the set comemmorating his home run in the World Series the previous year.

I'm a fan of cards that refer to Tony's World Series appearances, even if they are in weird cash-in sets like this one. Upper Deck were skimping on the photos in this set, with the same picture appearing on the front and the back.

I've mentioned before how David Wells was on the mound for San Diego the night I went to my first ever Padres game. I didn't know then that he was the pitcher that Tony hit his home run off in the World Series in 1998. I might not have ever seen Tony play, but I saw David Wells, so that gives me a personal connection to this factoid.

Card Number 830: Upper Deck MVP, 1999; #S4

Shiny insert!

"Swing Time" gives me an earworm of that song 'Springtime' from Mel Brooks's The Producers. Which is unfortunate. I love pseudo-sciencey diagrams on baseball cards. This looks like a blueprint. They add to the technical manual look on the cardback.

The write up for point 2 uses the phrase "as much as" twice in one sentence. That repetition is below Upper Deck's usual standards for cardback factoids.

Card Number 831: Upper Deck Ultimate Victory, 1999; #93

I've previously blogged three of Tony's cards from the Victory set in 1999. This is the 'Ultimate Victory' foil version of Tony's Victory base card... which is the one card I don't already have! There were 470 cards in the Victory set, but only 180 were included in the Ultimate Victory parallel set. 

It's a nice card with a posed portrait photo. The back is absolutely rammed with information including a write up of the Jack Murphy Stadium and a breathless summary of Tony's career below a truncated stats box. They have not wasted any space at all!

And that's the end of the blog post about cards from the end of the century!

Total: 831 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!

Scraping the bottom of the box

This is the third card that was in the envelope from Jason. When I saw it in the photos of cards he sent me I knew I didn't have it, but I also had no idea how I hadn't seen it before. When it arrived it suddenly became clear!

Card Number 583: Topps Display Box Bottom, 1988; #F

(That's right, this card is number F!)

Just like I knew straightaway that the mini card I blogged about a couple of days ago was from 1989, I could tell this was a card from 1988 immediately. But I knew it was a different picture and the turquoise border threw me slightly. 

When it arrived and I saw the back, and the slightly squiffy edge, I realised what it was.

Topps, and other companies, used to print additional cards on the display boxes. It's actually something Topps revived a couple of years ago with their Big League range which had an extra card printed on the side of blaster boxes that could be cut out. In 1988 these 'box bottom' cards were printed in panels of 4, and there were 4 different panels to collect, with the cards 'numbered' A-P.

Tony was one of three Padres featured on the box bottoms, the other two being Marvell Wynne and John Kruk. The write up on the cardback explains why those three players featured. In a game against the San Francisco Giants on 13 April 1987, Marvell, Tony and John all hit a home run in consecutive at bats off pitcher Roger Mason - they were the first three at bats in the Padres first inning.

And you thought Slam Diego was a new thing for 2020!

Sadly, despite this feat, the Padres lost the game 13-6. Tony had 3 hits, picking up a couple more singles, and had a walk as well. It was one of the first of many defeats in a losing season for the Padres. They finished with 65 wins and 97 defeats, and in sixth place in the division. Tony's batting title was one of the few bright spots of the year.

Although this card is a little bit damaged, with a slight crease on the front and a mark on the back, I really like it. Of course it won't be pristine. It was cut from a counter-top display box after all the packs had been sold. But that makes it authentic, a genuine artifact from the 1980s baseball card hobby explosion.

Plus, there's a batting doughnut in the photo, so I know Fuji will appreciate this. In fact, if you look at his blogpost with a "dozen doughnuts", you'll see this card is the very first one. (And his card has an even more visible crease on it!)

I'd like to finish with a big thank you to Jason for sending me the cards I've blogged over the last couple of days. 

Total: 583 cards

A DonRuss trio from 1998

Three cards today, all released by DonRuss in the year the Padres last reached the World Series.

Card Number 535: DonRuss, 1998; #22

DonRuss flagship sets were using full-bleed images by this point. The orange and blue stripes at the bottom are reminiscent of a circus tent.

On the back, we have a contender for best photo on a cardback ever. It's maybe just exceeded by the one Pinnacle used on their 'New Pinnacle' card in 1997, but it's close.

How many Hall of Fame, record-setting, multiple All-Stars, would bother collecting up the balls after batting practice? Tony has got them scooped up in his jacket and is just about to dump them into the ball box. 

Is there a more human moment captured on a baseball card anywhere? 

Card Number 536: DonRuss, 1998; #167

Tony is the featured player on Checklist number 2 in the set. There is a point when checklists aren't really checklists.

There are some good names on the back of the card. Derek Jeter is #100 and there are several Hall of Famers or contenders for the Hall of Fame. It's a bit odd that all the names are superimposed on a Padres logo. DonRuss could have used their corporate branding as the watermark.

Card Number 537: DonRuss Preferred, 1998; #175

Given the shininess of this card, I think "Preferred" was DonRuss's version of Topps Finest and other shiny card sets. It doesn't really scan very well. 

The double hoop motif that frames Tony's cameo portrait on the back is the set logo for DonRuss Preferred. The write up is about Tony not hitting many home runs.

1998 was the year that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were both chasing the record for home runs. That interest had been building ever since Albert Belle topped 50 home runs in 1995. Ken Griffey Jr and Mark McGwire both topped 50 home runs in 1997 and there was a lot of expectation around the record set by Roger Maris in 1961 finally being surpassed.

So, it's perhaps not surprising that DonRuss looked at Tony's home run records. Given the hype that was around home runs, his numbers had increased in 1997 as well. He never recorded more than the 17 homers he hit in 1997 - although he did notch 16 in 1998, the year this card was released. The 33 home runs in those two seasons made up a good percentage of his career total of 135 home runs.

Total: 537 cards