Mission complete: Card Number 394

I started this blog on 9 May (which would have been Tony's 60th birthday). At that point I had 195 Tony Gwynn cards in my collection. I honestly expected to blog them all and then wait and update this blog as and when I acquired new ones.

However, there was no hiatus. After 152 daily blog posts, today is the day when I reach my target.

I have achieved this with the incredible support of the UK collecting community in various groups on Facebook. People have made cards available for sale or trade, several people have just sent me cards for the cost of postage or for no money at all. I have tried to thank people along the way as I have featured the cards on the blog. I am particularly indebted to Gawain who has sourced me over 250 cards since the blog was launched.

Other people, like Jeff and Bill, have even sent me free cards all the way from America. I have really appreciated the support from Fuji, who I think has commented on every post. 

Finally, my wife, Cathy, has let me disappear off to write blog posts and has always been interested to see what is in the numerous little packages that have arrived in the post. Her comments on some of the cards have sometimes been the best summaries I could publish.

I've saved this card for this target-reaching post because I love it.

Card Number 394: Topps, 1985; #717 (All Star Card)

This is Tony at the start of his career, fresh from a World series outing, rocking that classic early 80s San Diego colour combination. And yet, even though the uniform is so recognisable, this card is timeless. The blue sky behind him and the sunlight casting a shadow from his cap brim onto his face help to render this image iconic. He's looking down the lens of the camera, bat shouldered ready to swing. 

This is Tony Gwynn. All Star.

On the back you can see that nobody came close to his batting average in the National League that year. (Don Mattingly posted .343 in the American League).

That was an explosive April in 1984. No wonder he was an All Star.

Total: 394/394

So, what next...?

Well, I actually passed the 394-card target some time ago and I have been adding new cards in small quantities all through the life of this blog, so I'm going to keep going and posting until I have no new cards left to post. I may take a short break though from time-to-time depending on how things are going in my world beyond the blog! See you tomorrow!

A league-leading record and a "what might have been"

Yesterday I blogged how the unanswered question about Tony Gwynn's modern record batting average will always be, would he have recorded the same average over a full season if the 1994 season had not been prematurely ended by the Major League Baseball Player's Association strike?  It was a question that the card compilers at Fleer asked as well - in their words "the saddest 'what could have been?'" of the 1994 season.

Card Number 393: Fleer Ultra, 1995 (League Leaders card); #6

The foilboard scans a bit like a refractor on this card.

The cardback sums up the situation.

Tony's 1994 hitting title was his first in a streak of four in a row in the 1990s. He would also lead the National League in hits in two more subsequent seasons. (Tony was overall leader in hits across both leagues four times!)

Total: 393/394

A Finest example of the .394 season

This week I will reach my target of blogging about 394 Tony Gwynn cards. As we edge closer to that 394th card, I thought it would be nice to look at a card from the season that is the inspiration for the project - the year that Tony Gwynn recorded a batting average of .394 and was literally just 3 hits shy of recording .400 for the season.

It was, of course, a bit of an anomalous season, as it ended in disarray in August. In a way that makes it a parallel to this year's Major League season which has been significantly restricted because of the global coronavirus pandemic. 

The San Diego Padres have had an excellent 2020 - their most winningest season ever! - and tomorrow night will be playing the Dodgers after having already won their first post-season series since 1998! All their achievements, however, will be noted as taking place in a truncated season. That doesn't make them less special or worthy, just that things are different this year.

The same was true of 1994. The unanswered question will always be, would Tony have scored .394 over a full season if it had run on into September? There is evidence both ways. His form was blistering at the point when the season was cancelled, but he may well have peaked then and not been able to maintain it. We will never know, and we have to accept the stats for what they are, from when they are.

Card Number 392: Topps Finest, 1994; #201

This is a rare "peeled" version of a Finest card.

The scan does not capture the vibrant nature of this card, when held in hand. It is shiny and colourful. The swirl pattern creates a  very mid-90s look.

The "Finest Moment" on the back relates to an event ten years previously. Tony's batting average the season this card was produced would become the achievement he was most known for. Up until that year though, Topps had decided that winning the National League pennant for the Padres was his moment of glory.

It is an achievement that perhaps gets overlooked now. But back in 1994 the 1984 post-season was the only one the Padres had qualified for in franchise history. Tony went on to be the sole player to feature in both the Padres' two World Series appearances to date, with a 14 season gap between appearances. 

After 1994 and the .394 batting average, Tony's achievements in the 1980s were eclipsed. This Finest card is a shiny memento of what will always be his finest season.

Total: 392/394 

One Card Only: Sharing the Spotlight with Cal

Today I'm mashing up two post themes - my regular Sunday "one card only" theme, and my occasional "sharing the spotlight" theme where I show cards that Tony shares with another player.

The baseball great sharing this card with Tony needs no introduction. He is a legend in his own right and was inducted to the Hall of Fame with Tony in the same year this card was released. Like Tony he played throughout the 80s and 90s for the same team, in his case the Baltimore Orioles, and he entered the Hall in his first year of eligibility. 

He is, of course, Cal Ripken Jr.

This is one of those rare cards that I will just leave to speak for itself. If I had one comment it would be that Upper Deck knew how to make really nice cards. The baseball card hobby lost out when Upper Deck lost their licensing.

Card Number 391: Upper Deck Masterpieces, 2007; #42

Total: 391/394

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

Neither rookie or traded

A short while ago I found a very old Excel Spreadsheet from 2008 that catalogued my collection of Padres cards. I checked how many Tony Gwynn card I owned back then. Twelve years ago I owned 16 cards featuring Tony.

Fifteen of them have already been blogged. They were:

• 9 Topps cards - 1986, 1987 (base & All Star card), 1988, 1989, 1993, 1999, 1999 Opening Day, 2005 All Times Fan favourites (which was a reprint of the Topps 2000 card, which caused me some confusion)
• 2 DonRuss cards - both from 1988
• 2 Fleer cards - 1991 and 1993
• 2 Upper Deck cards - 1991 and 2001 (Black Diamond)

and the card I'm about to show you now...

Card Number 387: Score Rookie & Traded, 1998; #RT9

Tony was an odd choice for a "Rookie & Traded" set because in 1998 he was a long way past being a rookie, and throughout his career he was never traded.

I can't remember how I had acquired this card back in 2008, but I remember buying a mixed job-lot of Padres cards off eBay that arrived in a box because there were so many of them and I think it was probably in there. 

It's strange to think this card was only 10 years old when I listed it in my spreadsheet back in 2008. I wasn't to know that over a decade later I would be writing about it on my blog as my 387th card featuring Tony Gwynn!

The stats box is a bit odd because it starts with the number of runs that Tony scored instead of games or at bats, which are usually the first figures listed. It also includes his "Total Bases", which doesn't usually feature in a cardback stats box.

Tony had a card in Score's regular release as well.

Card Number 388: Score, 1998; #50

Of all the photos of Tony at the plate on baseball cards, there aren't many that show him with the bat in front of his head like that, just before he draws it back into the hitting position.

The back is virtually identical to the Rookies and Traded card, except this one mentions him playing in his 13th All Star Game in 1997. It also has a drop shadow effect on his surname, which is a bit of a cheesy nineties desktop publishing flourish, and yet looks alright. 

Total: 388/394

Back to Base: Allen & Ginter

Allen & Ginter World's Champions baseball cards have been issued by Topps for several years now. In addition to baseball players there are usually a number of random quirky cards included in the sets as well, along with "Rip" cards that contain another image under the photo and ask the holder if they will 'keep it or rip it?' and a variety of other inserts, mini cards, relics, autographs and so on.

The original Allen & Ginter was a tobacco company in the 19th Century. The link between baseball cards and tobacco companies predates the link with bubblegum, and a surprising number of very old tobacco brands have been resurrected by the card companies in this century. Upper Deck have their Goodwin's Champions, and Topps release their very high end "206" product and the Gypsy Queen range. 

I am ambivalent about the use of long-gone tobacco company names by card companies. While they aren't recognisable brands and the association with packets of cigarettes or tobacco are purely historical, there is an anachronism that tobacco advertising has disappeared from sports grounds within the last 30 years or so, and yet card companies are still preserving the link between tobacco and the sport, albeit in a very obscure way. (Cigarette advertising has sometimes inadvertently appeared on cards. There's a Marlboro ad in the background of a card from 1994, which was shortly before advertising was banned altogether.)

However, as a fan and chronicler of Tony Gwynn's career, I can't escape the fact his life was cut incredibly short because of chewing tobacco and I am supportive of efforts to ban tobacco entirely from the sport. So, that's another reason why I have mixed feelings about these particular card sets.

And, being honest, the cards themselves aren't particularly interesting to warrant the fuss that is made over them by some collectors. The insert series can sometimes be quite nice -  I really liked the Star Signs card featured on this blog in one of my first posts - but the sets tend to blend into each other and the cards all feel very samey. I have similar feelings towards Gypsy Queen and Panini Prizm cards. Still, at least they put the set years on the front so it's easy to tell them apart.

Card Number 385: Topps Allen & Ginter, 2013; #97

The enforced quirkiness of the Allen & Ginter brand is shown on the front where they just have the player's surname and don't mention the team. In the photo, Tony is wearing a batting practice jersey - Mitchell & Ness have produced a replica of this top complete with the number 19 on the back.

If the front is quirky, the back is similarly trying to be eccentric in its disdain for numerals, instead writing the key numbers out in full words. (Except for the card number.)

At least it's a different way of summarising and displaying career stats. For a known contact hitter, Tony was afforded very few walks in his career. That's probably because he wasn't a home run slugger like the all-time record holder Barry Bonds. But even Ted Williams, Tony's hitting hero, received over 2,000 walks in his career.

As I noted when I reviewed this year's Topps Archives card on Monday, they have decided to print Tony's weight at the end of his career, which seems rather mean-spirited. He didn't weigh 225lbs when he stole most of those 319 Stolen Bases!

Card Number 386: Topps Allen & Ginter, 2014; #223

This year the team name was on the front of the card. It's a photo of Tony in his batting stance - a classic pose for a hitting champion.

The back was very similar to the previous year's card, except it was printed in blue ink rather than black.

As the cardback is to all intents and purposes the same as the previous year, there is very little else to say about it.

Total: 386/394