Saying goodbye to Upper Deck week

After lots of Upper Deck cards this week, what better way to sign off than some of the cards produced when Tony signed off his career?

Card Number 832: Upper Deck Tony Gwynn Celebration of 20 Seasons, 2001; #unnumbered

This one-sided 'thank you' note to the fans acts as a 'header card' for the five card set. Trading Card Database lists these cards as an insert series in Upper Deck's 2001 set, but Baseballcardpedia does not. These cards feel like they were given out as freebies somewhere, based on what this card looks like.

The back of the card is totally blank. I have made the rare decision not to show the cardback because there is literally nothing to show.

Card Number 833: Upper Deck Tony Gwynn Celebration of 20 Seasons, 2001; #1

This card has the same design template at the Upper Deck 2001 set. Tony's base card from that set was the 267th card that I blogged about. 

Considering this was a 'tribute' series, the massive stats box on the back feels a bit unnecessary, particularly when it was replicated across all the cards in the set (which it was!)

The factoid kicks off the series with the best known statistic about Tony Gwynn - his .394 batting average in 1994.

Card Number 834: Upper Deck Tony Gwynn Celebration of 20 Seasons, 2001; #2

While I would never want to underplay Tony's achievements, it feels a bit odd to read the claim on the cardback that Tony "flourished" in the post-season. Tony only played in the post-season three times, which amounted to a National League Championship defeat and two World Series defeats. 

The Padres lost both their World Series without taking the series to game 7. In 1998 they lost 0-4 to an absolutely dominant Yankees team. 

Tony's personal post-season records weren't particularly spectacular by his exceptional standards - with the exceptionof the 1998 World Series when he posted .500. He Posted .368 in the national League Championship season in 1984. but only .263 in the World Series - well below his career average. 

There was then a 12 year wait for Tony's next post-season appearances, in 1996. The Padres crashed out in the divisional series and Tony posted a .308 batting average. The three post-season series in 1998 saw him build up to that .500 World Series average. In the four games of the divisional series his batting average was a measly .200, and in the Championship series he posted .231.

In total, in 27 games in the post-season, Tony posted an overall batting average of .306, which is well below his career average. It's not really what I would describe as "flourishing". (Although, he still has more World Series appearances as a Padre than anyone else who has ever played for them!)

Card Number 835: Upper Deck Tony Gwynn Celebration of 20 Seasons, 2001; #5

I'm missing number 3 and 4 in this little set!

This is easily the best photo on the cards I've got from this set. Tony always seemed to take really good "candids".

I'm not sure on the timing of this card set release because this refers to Tony's retirement in the past tense.

As I remarked about the first card, having the massive stats boxes on all these cards seems daft. 

Total: 835 cards

The season after the sunset season

I'm not sure where I read about 'sunset seasons' - that's where a player signs on with a team for one final year at the end of their career. They usually have a few cards issued in the new team's uniform, and those are something a bit different to collect. I know I read a blog post about them a while back and the term stuck with me.

Tony Gwynn didn't have a 'sunset season' in that sense, because he stayed with the Padres the entire length of his career. However, his final season, in 2001, was restricted by injuries. He had to have fluid drained off his knee after most games - sometimes he would have the procedure on the 'plane home. 

He still appeared in 71 games, but he only made 112 plate appearances in that final season, with 33 hits. In comparison, he only played 36 games in 2000, but he made 140 plate appearances and recorded 41 hits, so had a better output from half as many games.

Tony's retirement was announced quite early in the 2001 season, on 28 June. However, that news seemed to take a long time to get processed by some of the card companies and he still appeared in a couple of sets in 2002. This was before card companies dropped retired players into their flagship sets as a matter of course, although it may have been a deliberate choice by the companies to honour a player of Tony's stature within the game.

Card Number 389: Fleer Ultra, 2002; #19

Fleer went with a photo of Tony making a very athletic looking leap on the front of their Ultra card in 2002. The foil panel with his name in doesn't scan very well.

Fleer definitely decided to make this card as a 'tribute' to Tony. They deliberately gave him the 19th card in the set, and they referenced 2001 being his final season on the cardback.

The stats box only showed the latter half of his 20 year career. As ever, I question the point of having a stats box that shows only part of a career. However, this card earns a lot of bonus points for being #19 in the set, which offsets the stats box issue.

Card Number 390: Topps, 2002; #99

One day I will do an actual tally of the number of Topps base cards that didn't show Tony's face. There are loads of them. This photo is taken from an angle, where but for the sleeve patch, it could easily be dropped onto an unlicensed card without infringing any copyrights.

Also, and this is a minor gripe compared to the choice of photo, but the blue ribbon with his name on curls up and over his foot. I realise it's the card template and would have been difficult to change, but it looks messy.

There is no reference to Tony retiring on the cardback, although there is a complete stats box.

The complete non-referencing of Tony's retirement and the inclusion of his stats like on any other player's card honestly make me wonder if Topps knew he had retired. 

Still, it's fun to look at these cards from the season after Tony's sunset season.

Total: 390/394