Dancing with Bill Doran

Back in May I did a run down of Tony's Upper Deck cards, including this one from 1990.

Back then, I wrote this: "Tony is trying to avoid getting tagged out at a base there. I think he looks like he is dancing. I'd love to be able to identify the baseman. I think that orange stripe on his arm is an Astros uniform, and his name seems to end RAN. The Astros second baseman in 1989 (when this photo was most likely taken) was Bill Doran, so maybe he is Tony's dance partner here."

Well, I think I've answered this question, based on this other card from the 1990 Upper Deck set that has recently come into my possession.

Yep, that's Tony sliding into second base ...and almost taking Bill out at the knees!

Bill's card was #198 in the set. 

I'm not counting this as a Tony Gwynn card, in the same way I didn't count the Greg Vaughn card where he is obscured by Tony, when I blogged about it.

I'm fairly sure both these photos are from the same game, given the uniforms. Which would be cool if true. They certainly seemed to be competing!

It is fun to have Tony appear on other player's cards and for that appearance to be reciprocated. 

Total: 530 cards (same total as yesterday)

One Card Only - Tony's Idol

Card Number 309: Pinnacle, 1992; #591

In their 1992 set, Pinnacle included an 8 card series featuring the baseball idols of some well-known stars of the game. Tony was paired with Willie Davis, who played for the LA Dodgers for 13 years from 1960. (He was also very briefly a Padre toward the very end of his career.)

Tony was taken regularly to Dodger Stadium when he was growing up and saw Willie play, although it's doubtful he would have seen Willie in the World Series winning seasons of 1963 and 1965. He might have seen one of the games in Willie's 31-game hitting streak in 1969, though.

There is a lovely story that Willie Davis was invited to take part in an "old timers" game at the San Diego State University stadium when Tony was head coach for the Aztecs. According to this article, Stephen Strasburg helped arrange it when he was pitching for the Aztecs  (The date given in that article must be wrong because that was before Strasburg was born!). 

Tony was apparently too nervous to speak to Willie because he was still to much in awe of his idol. I like that story because it just shows Tony's humility - after all he had achieved in the game, he still felt shy about meeting one of his own baseball heroes. 

Total: 309/394

Sharing the spotlight... very tenuously

Sometimes Tony shares a card with another player. Usually there's an obvious reason, like they are a fellow chart-topper, or related to him, or team-mates. 

And sometimes there is no discernible reason at all.

Card Number 285: Topps, 2010; #LL27

This is an insert card from Topps along the theme of 'legendary lineage'. The other player is Joe Mauer, who played his entire career for the Minnesota Twins.

About the only connection on the back is that Joe Mauer had won some batting titles. He never added to the three titles he had accumulated by the time this card was published. (He remains the only catcher to win a batting title in the American League.)

It is possible to find some similarities between the two players. Both Tony and Joe were one-club men for their entire careers. Both have had their shirt numbers retired by their teams. They both have a career batting average over .300. They also both played basketball; both as point guards, although Mauer didn't play at College level. (He did go to college on a Football scholarship, though, so there is a similarity with Tony there, in that both went to college on sports scholarships for sports that weren't baseball!)

But there is no actual connection between the two. Gwynn didn't coach Mauer or play alongside him at any point, which would be reasonable to expect for a card denoting "legendary lineage". There is no lineage. This is just Topps putting two random players on a card.

However, there is one reason I'm glad to own this odd card - it's the only Topps card featuring Tony in my collection that was printed in 2010!

Total: 285/394

Saturday round up: Time Sinks and Serendipities

A chap called Tim got in touch with me, having read a few of my blog posts, and said he would like to try and help me out on my project to collect 394 different cards featuring Tony Gwynn. Then he asked if I had a wants list.

I am a disorganised collector. My cards aren't in any real order. I keep them in a repurposed Panini soccer cards binder and they are roughly ordered by date of acquisition. I've grouped certain types of cards together, but mostly they are random.

So, I decided I needed to make a list. My first thought was a trusty Excel spreadsheet but then I realised that would take a while. So I went on Trading Card Database (TCDb) where you can log the cards you own. I thought this would be quicker, but I think I chose an inefficient way of doing it because it took me several hours.

There are over 10,000 Tony Gwynn cards on TCDb. Or at least that's what they tell you. In reality many of the "cards" they list are 1/1 printing plates and the like, or barely-remembered sets with a billion variations like Topps Tek. (Do you remember Topps Tek? I don't. And after scrolling through literally hundreds of varieties I don't feel particularly enamoured of them.)

However, the huge glorious timesink that is TCDb did throw out a couple of really interesting little factoids for me, and even revealed a hitherto disregarded card in my possession that counts as a Tony Gwynn card.

Firstly, last weekend I posted about Tony's DonRuss cards in 1990. What I didn't know then, but thanks to TCDb I do know now, is that the All Star Card I've got is an error variation.

On the back there, where is says "Recent Major League Performance" it should have said "All Star Game Performance." In my previous post I made fun of how the DonRuss team had used cut'n'paste for the career highlights sections. Turns out they did the same for the box header as well, and that really should have been changed. I did point out in the post that it was his All Star Game stats but I didn't realise this card was changed for subsequent print runs. From the looks of it on TCDb, almost all the All Star cards  in this part of the DonRuss set had a similar error.

So, what does this mean? Well, it means I can keep an eye out for the corrected version and add it to the set as another card, and probably quite cheaply compared to 1/1 printing plates.

The second bonus was finding Tony listed on a Pirates card, which I actually owned.

Card number 44: Topps 1989, #699 (Pirates Leaders)

Yes, that's Tony, failing to safely make it to base. The Pirates player tagging him out is shortstop Al Pedrique, who only had three seasons in the Major Leagues after spending nine years in the Mets farm system. Originally from Venezuela, Al is now a coach with the Athletics.

This again highlights the odd choices Topps made for certain cards. Why have a leaders card that doesn't show team leaders on it? Al Pedrique wasn't a leader in any category on the back, and was barely even a Pirate for any length of time.

Two other things, though, about the back of this card. 1) It's the second Topps set in a row where Tony is on the card numbered 699. In 1988, that was the Padres Leaders card. 2) One of the names on the back of the card is infamous. Bobby Bonilla was the Pirates' joint leader for RBI. Yes, that Bobby Bonilla, the guy who signed a contract with the Mets that was so huge he will be getting paid $1,193,248.20 a year every year until 2035, despite retiring in 2001. (That really is a story worth reading about as epic fraudster Bernie Madoff is involved, and it's leaves me shaking my head at the insanity.)

Anyway, so I saw this card listed on TCDb and it rang a bell. I went and had a look through the little pile of Pirates cards that I have acquired over the years because I had a weird memory of seeing this card at some point. I must have pulled it out of a repack. Going through the cards I found it, and there was Tony, sliding desperately into a base and already being called out. I didn't know I had this card.

I did consider whether it should really count towards my total, but then I thought, if it's good enough for the TCDb, then it's good enough for me. Plus, rule 4 applies.

I have another card that Tony is gatecrashing. It arrived in a bundle of his cards I bought from someone, sight unseen. One of the cards wasn't of Tony, it was of his team-mate Greg Vaughn. However, I can see why the person would have thought it was a Tony Gwynn card.

There he is, high-fiving Greg, with his name very prominent.

Unlike the Pirate Leaders card, I'm not counting this card as a 'bonus Tony card', because it's Greg's card and it seems unfair to take it away from him. It's from the 1999 Sports Illustrated set published by Fleer.

Greg was a very different batsman to Tony, hitting 50 home runs during the Padres World Series season in 1998. The following year he was traded to the Cincinatti Reds - the first time any player had been traded the season after hitting 50 home runs. His beard was an issue, as the Reds had a ban on players having facial hair, but they lifted it for him. So, as a great servant to the Padres, who they cashed in as quickly as they could, and the trailblazer for today's hipsters who want to play for the Redsame and keep their beards, I don't feel it would be right say this card isn't his.

Total: 44/394

Whole lotta Leaf

Leaf was a bubblegum company that produced its first gum in 1940.  It produced its first baseball cards in 1948, the first post-war cards printed in colour. In the 1980s Leaf took over the DonRuss card brand, and in the 1990s it was one of the worlds largest confectionery manufacturers. It's now sadly disappeared from the candy aisle after various mergers and acquisitions, but the cards live on under the Panini umbrella.

Today's cards all come from Leaf's heyday as a brand and card producer: the 1990s. They were one of many companies contributing to the 'junk wax' explosion, but their cards tended towards the glossier and smarter end of the bunch.

Card Number 39: Leaf Series 2, 1991; #290

I like the solid silver borders on this and the 'photo mount' corners. It's a nice throwing stance photo.

Tony has a bit of a quizzical look on the back there. In among the bio details is a note that he was contracted through to 1996. They also included his minor league stats.

Card Number 40: Leaf Series 1, 1992; #206

Oof! That looks like a wild swing!

I'm developing a fondness for blurred out people behind Tony. (It has made me wonder when Photoshop started offering designers the blur feature, but this could be natural blur.) That lady in the blue top behind the dugout either had a big hat on, or a Beverly Goldberg giant perm. It was the 90s. I don't think we can rule out the perm.

The back of this card really makes me smile, because it looks like Tony is looking down on the catcher and is just about to swing the bat down and bludgeon him. I'm trying to work out who his victim could be. The name begins "DE" and the number starts with a 3. It's a gray uniform with orange or pink piping on it. But a lot of teams wore gray road uniforms in 1991/2.

The bio mentions Tony's contract details again. It seems an odd factoid to include, but I guess Leaf knew their audience. This would appeal to the kids who dreamed of being a Big League accountant when they were older. The minor league stats are included again as well.

Card Number 41: Leaf, 1996; #99

This card has not scanned very well because it is shiny. Now I'm a great lover of shiny things, but this shiny card is actually a bit boring to look at. Well the front is anyway.

But the back? The back is glorious 90s design. 5 different fonts, different kerning, words stretched and curved. There's just one seasons' stats and they are awkwardly spaced out. 2 photos on the back - the little one in the circle is a great little bonus picture. It doesn't mention his contract though. Enquiring number-oriented little minds will be disappointed! (Also of note, this card is copyright DonRuss, not Leaf. The brand was starting to fade by now.)

Card Number 42: Leaf Rookies and Stars 1998, #33
Rookies and Stars was a premium product featuring, erm, rookies and stars.

Because of the banners hanging over the wall in the background I think this photo was taken on Opening Day 1998. If so, that was on 31 March 1998 at Cheney Field in Cincinatti, which would explain why Tony is wearing a blue road uniform. He's on base here, poised to run. he got two runs in that game but only one hit. In fact his stats were 4 at bats, 3 RBI, 2 runs, 1 hit. (Of course, it could have been any of the opening day weekend games, and I might not even be right with my guesses there.)

1998 was the season the Padres won the national League Championship and played in their second (and to date, most recent) World Series. It started out well in Cincinatti, with a 10-2 victory.

There are no minor league stats on the back but there is a complete major league record, so a lot more info compared to the 1996 base card, it's fairly simple. No contract details. And the photo is of Tony grimacing. An unremarkable card back.

And now a question for the ages, when is a baseball card not really a baseball card? Answer: when it's a checklist.

Now, I don't mind checklists. I remember getting a checklist in one of the original packs of 1987 Topps cards I bought as a kid in Florida and just realising there were hundreds of cards in the set. I still have that checklist in the nearly complete Topps 1987 set I've been building, complete with little pen marks denoting which players I had got so far.

In the 90s checklists got a bit more interesting.

Card number 43: Leaf 1996; #205 Checklist
This is another foil card from the 1996 set. It scans poorly.

The back isn't foil, so scans well. Unfortunately, Tony is only on the front. There's a nice photo on the back of Edgar Martinez of the Seattle Mariners. Tony and Edgar shared this card because they were the respective batting champions in 1995.

This checklist is worth reading to see how Leaf divided up their bonus cards depending on what kind of packs you bought. Also, I was really intrigued to see what the #20 MVP Contender card would be as it's just listed as "Bonus Card". So I looked up the set on the Trading Card Database.

Basically, the 20 cards in the MVP Contenders subset were cards you could trade in later for a set, if that player was the MVP - in return for the card you would get a complete 20 card set of "Special Gold MVP Contenders". If none of the 19 players won the MVP then the 'bonus card' was the one you traded in.

Leaf did pretty well with their guesses. Number 2 on their list was Mike Piazza. He was the MVP that year.


Total: 43/394
(Now over 10% of the way towards my target)

Sharing the spotlight 1

Over the years Tony Gwynn appeared on a few cards with other players. This is the first in a series where I show those cards.

I've already posted one card on this blog, the Topps 1988 Padres Leaders, with Tony posing with Benny Santiago.

I pointed out in that blog post that Benny wasn't listed as a leader on the back of the card. In the comments, Fuji reminded me that Benny was Rookie of the Year in 1988. That was a fair point as it meant Benny was probably much more recognisable than most of Tony's other team mates.

The cards I'm including today are also from 1988, from the Fleer set. I've already included Tony's base card in my Sheer Fleer post.

Card Number 37: Fleer 1988, #631

The 'Superstar Specials' were a subset towards the end of the Fleer set. It paired a number of different players who excelled at different aspects of the game. Tim Raines was also a team-mate of Tony's in the All Star Games when he played for the Expos and was selected for the National League team.

Tim was one of Tony's main rivals for batting honours, winning the batting title in 1986. (Nowadays there would be some kind of fan movement calling on him to 'Make it Raine' or something like that, a bit like the Judge's Chambers in Yankee Stadium.)

There's a big write up on the card back.

After 13 seasons in Montreal, Tim moved to the White Sox and the Yankees, where he won two World Series (1996 and 1998). He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2017. He's also one of the very few Major League Baseball players to play in the same team as his son, after an October trade to the Orioles where his son Tim Raines Jr was playing.

Card Number 38: Fleer 1988, #634

Being called a thief on a baseball card isn't the most flattering thing really, even if it's referring to your talent for stealing bases. Tony stole a lot of bases, but Vince Coleman was incredible, stealing 752 bases over the course of his career. He is sixth on the all-time list of base-stealers. He also holds the MLB record for 50 consecutive stolen bases without getting tagged.

After several years with the Cardinals, Vince moved to the Mets and then a string of other clubs. He retired in 1998 after being demoted back down to triple-A. It's a bit of a sad end for a man described on this card as "the most wanted man in baseball" and "one of the most disruptive forces in the game". 'The Hitting King and the Disruptor' would have been a better title for this card. Nicer than 'Thief', anyway.

Total 38/394