Post-season prescience

Another Fleer card today. A foil Fleer card. So you know what that means... double scanning!

Card Number 670: Fleer Ultra Fall Classics insert, 1998; #13

This actually scanned reasonably well on the flatbed scanner.

But it pops a bit more on the overhead scan. I like the effect. Tony is haloed in light in front of a giant blue-tinged cosmic egg.

The back is about Tony's post-season appearances in 1984 and 1996.

Like the Diamond Tribute card that I blogged about yesterday, this is another prescient card from Fleer. This was issued in 1998, which was another season the Padres would make the post-season and through to the World Series, for the second, and to date most recent, time in their history. I wonder if the same staff member selected Tony for this insert series and the Diamond Tribute inserts. That person may have been clairvoyant. 

Total cards: 670

In the clouds

Ah, the 90s. When photoshop changed everything.

Card Number 669: Fleer Diamond Tribute insert, 1994; #5

With ghostly baseballs and fluffy clouds, this 'tribute' card looks like an 'in memorium' piece of artwork.

The background on the cardback is a similar design, with a different photo (and a different uniform).

Even before Tony posted his modern day record bating average of .394, Fleer described him as "one of the game's all-time great hitters". This card was issued in the season when he achieved that record so this card was very prescient.

Total: 669 cards

Best Big Game Face Century Legend

Today's selection of Upper Deck cards are all from my most recent eBay purchase. (Yes, I'm still working through it.) And, as ever, when I'm blogging about Upper Deck baseball cards, I've thought to myself, "I miss Upper Deck baseball cards".

Card Number 666: Upper Deck Pros and Prospects Best in the Bigs, 2000; #B2

Tony is waiting to see if he should run in this photo. He looks like he is tracking a flyball with his eyes. Photos like this, with an open body stance, are quite rare on cards, but it offers a good look at the team uniform with the word Padres emblazoned on his chest.

Although... this card is another example where the photo doesn't match the theme. On the back Tony is described as a "hitting machine", but the photo shows him on base without a bat.

The write-up feels like it's in the vein of a Skybox cardback. The reference to Halley's comet is completely irrelevant, especially as that comet is a regular occurrence, reappearing every 75 to 76 years. I remember going out into my back garden and looking at it with my dad, mum and brother back in 1986, and my dad saying that maybe I would be lucky and see it twice in my lifetime. If I'm still here, I'll be 86 when it comes back.

There's also another use of the word 'torrid', which is used in a different way here in the UK where is has more negative connotations. I've mentioned this before when I encountered it on a Topps insert card from 1995.

(Also, a brief note on numbers - this is card #666 on my blog. 666 of course is the Biblical 'Number of the Beast'. Sadly, or fortunately, I couldn't find any cards with a 'beastly' theme in my small handful of cards waiting to be blogged.)

Card Number 667: Upper Deck Century Legends, 1999; #49

I have blogged a card from this set before.

The first 50 cards in this set were of the players that Upper Deck decreed were the greatest players of the century. Tony was ranked 49th out of 50 and got card #49. Because most of the players were from the era before colour photography was common, Upper Deck printed all the photos in the first 50 cards in black and white. I think the result looks quite classy.

The back includes a massive stats box and a packed little write up where Tony is compared to his hitting hero, Ted Williams, and early Hall of Famers Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner. One day I might list all the players Tony gets compared against on cardbacks.

The cardback also mentions how close Tony was to getting his 3000th career hit.

Card Number 668: Upper Deck Faces of the Game insert, 2000; #F10

I like portrait cards, although they don't always come off. This looks like a "catalogue pose".

I'm sure I could caption this with something cheeky, but it's quite a nice photo.

The cardback is a bit boring. The comment that "Gwynn was born to play baseball" ignores that he almost didn't and could have been a basketballer instead.

After being trailed on the card from 1999, this cardback mentions Tony joining the 3000-hit club. It feels like reading the story of Tony's career having cards talking about that milestone one after the other like this.

Total: 668 cards

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

No cards - just talking

A couple of weeks back I mentioned that I was a guest on a podcast called Tea and Topps. If you want to have a listen to me talk about my collection, then you can watch it here.

Attentive listeners may catch me making the kind of factual error I frequently criticise card companies for making. It has reminded me to be more humble in future.

The hosts also asked me to create a baseball card of myself for them to use to promote the show. I ended up with this hideously anachronistic effort.

So, how many things "wrong" can you count on that card? And did you hear the error in the show?

Back to proper baseball cards tomorrow!

One card only - A hologwynn from SPx

Card Number 664: SPx Bound for Glory, 1996; #9

This insert card ticks a lot of boxes. Die cut, shiny, hologram. Lovely.

The scanned version of the front has a grainy TV picture effect due to the hologram. 

The photo on the back is from the short period in the 90s when Tony sported a neatly groomed beard.

This is one of those rare cards that references the events of the year it was released in. This set was issued in 1996, sometime after Independence Day, and references Tony's performance in the early part of the season. The cardback is let down, though, by some terrible word-stretching due to using justified text, and odd hyphenation. 

Total: 664 cards

Spotting sports in Spanish

Welcome to May! Time for a trip to the ocean!

Card Number 662: Pacific Crown Collection Hometown of the Players, 1996; #HP3

A slightly odd subject for an insert series as there are no pictures on the card of Long Beach or San Diego, both the places named on the cardback.

I suspect this insert series was mainly done to use up the excess amounts of gold foil that Pacific had lying around. 

The cardback is in English and Spanish, which was Pacific's USP at the time. O-Pee-Chee had French on their cards. Pacific had Spanish. One day I would like to find a Tony Gwynn card in another language again.

My Spanish isn't great. In fact it's bordering on nonexistent. But I spotted a mistake here in the Spanish text, unless "en futbol americano" was Spanish for basketball. A quick check confirmed it's a different sport entirely - can you guess what it is? (I was the first boring nerd who reads cardbacks to report this on Trading Card Database where it's now listed as an error!)

Card Number 663, Pacific Aurora Pennant Fever, 2000; #16

"Pennant fever" gives me an earworm of this song from The Muppet Treasure Island.

The Padres were nowhere near a pennant in 2000. Two years after reaching the World Series they finished 5th in the National League West with a losing average of .469 and 21 games behind the Giants who won the division with an 11 game margin.

In terms of winning games, that 5th place average was actually an improvement on 1999's performance when the Padres' final average was .457 and they were 26 games behind the winning team, the Diamondbacks. The Padres finished fourth in 1999 because the Rockies were monumentally poor and managed to be even worse than them. 

The cardback doesn't give any indication why Tony would have pennant fever and qualify as part of this insert set. My conclusion is that Pacific liked including cards of Tony Gwynn in all their sets and insert series whether the theme was relevant or not. Tony had links with the company and did some promotional work for them so they weren't going to leave him out.

Total: 663 cards