Sorry Seger fans. This post won't be focusing on his classic song... which happens to be one of my all-time favorites. It will however showcase a periodical that arrived from east of Omaha.
Sometime last year, Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders sent me three issues of Beckett Baseball, two issues of Baseball Weekly, and a copy of Sports Collectors Digest with one thing in common. They all featured Mr. Padre on the cover.
Today's rainy day forecast cancelled my trip to the De Anza Flea Market and opened up my schedule, so I figured today would be perfect to show them off. Unfortunately... after writing for about thirty minutes, I came to the conclusion that summarizing all of these would take an entire afternoon.
My solution? Let's start a new series on this blog. In addition to what Dennis sent me, I have tons of other periodicals laying around with interesting stuff waiting to be unveiled.
Today's subject is Tony Gwynn's first Beckett Baseball Card Monthly cover appearance:
Beckett Baseball August 1991
By the time this issue was published, Gwynn was a 6x NL All-Star, 4x Silver Slugger Award winner, 3x Gold Glove Award winner and had won four NL batting titles. It's kind of a shame he wasn't given the honor by Beckett a little sooner.
2000 Topps Finest Finest Moments #FM3
The article about him covered everything from his rookie cards to his brother Chris. Gwynn also talked about 3,000 hits being attainable (he was about halfway there at this point in his career) as long as he maintained his consistency.
But the one thing that really stood out was Jack Clark and Mike Pagliarulo accusing him of not being a team player:
This took me by surprise. I also learned a little about Babe Ruth in separate article:
It's hard to believe it took the New York Yankees twelve years after his retirement to honor arguably the greatest to ever play the game.
2002 Fleer Fall Classic HOF Plaque #1
A year later (on June 13th, 1948) the he returned to Yankee Stadium and was honored again by having his jersey number retired. It was his last trip there. Three months after that (on August 16th) he passed away in his sleep.
Gwynn would eventually have his jersey number retired in 2004 almost three years after playing his final MLB game.
Getting back to the issue, here's a quick peek at Beckett's Hot & Cold lists from the summer of 1991:
2002 Upper Deck #734
I was surprised that Gwynn was nowhere to be found on either of these lists. At least my other favorite player made it on the list. Rickey Henderson had just broken Lou Brock's all-time stolen base record a few months before this issue came out, so his cards were pretty hot.
By the way... if you're wondering why I'm not featuring one of the cards highlighting this record, that's because all of the cards featured in this post were part of a Christmas care package from Dennis (not to be confused with the package containing the periodicals).
Yup. He sent me that Babe Ruth insert (above)... which completes my 2002 Fleer Fall Classic HOF Plaque set build (which I seem to have misplaced).
When I write another Turn The Page post, I will do my best to include cards from the periodical's era to help make things more relatable.
I'll go ahead and wrap up this issue and post with the inside back cover art:
Chris Modarelli is responsible for this beautiful artwork, but Beckett might have misidentified the card.
And yes... here's a card relating to the Georgia Peach:
1997 Upper Deck UD3 #35
Upper Deck pointed out that the only players to have more batting titles than Gwynn were Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb. However Gwynn would capture his 8th batting title at the end of the 1997 season... tying Wagner... and leaving Cobb as the only player with more batting titles.
Thank you Dennis for providing this issue of Beckett and all of the cards featured in this post.
And here you go Seger fans...
#hopethisworks
Hopefully Blogger and/or YouTube allows me to include the song. If not... click here.
Happy Saturday and sayonara!
8 comments:
Funny Bob Seger gets a mention on my blog come Monday, lol.
Love going through old Becketts. I only have a few left in my collection, at least one Nolan Ryan and a Jim Abbott.
Remember buying Becketts as a kid and still have a pretty large collection. My favorite player ever was Ryno, so he and Gwynn career's matched well together. I always despised the Padres tgough because of the 1984 playoffs!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Fuji! I'm glad you liked the cards (especially the Ruth) plus the magazines I sent earlier. Huge bonus points from here in Michigan for the reference to Ann Arbor's own Bob Seger :D
Before a production night to put out next day's school paper at my college, I remember going across campus all the way to the baseball field to get Gwynn to sign that magazine, when he was a head coach for San Diego State and his team was playing at my school.
I love reading old magazines. They are great time capsules. The Bob Seager version of "Turn the Page" is excellent, but I also enjoy the Metallica cover.
Cool 1991 Beckett, I remember owning that one back then.
I do remember that feud between Jack Clark and Gwynn. I obviously don't know what was going on in the clubhouse, but I always thought Clark came off as the biggest jerk from that episode.
johnnys trading spot - great minds, right?
the angels in order - a few years ago, i recycled hundreds of them. i was the guy with a subscription who never tossed them. but they took up too much space. these days, i hold onto a few with special covers and then i have a bookshelf of them from random dates that i use as a resource
uncle charlie's shoebox - i'm pretty sure ryno was featured in this issue too (maybe inside cover?). if not, he's in one of the other issues. yeah... him, gwynn, and boggs will forever be linked together
dennis - had no idea seger was from ann arbor! that was a total coincidence. but i'm glad it worked out. thanks again for all these goodies
laurens - i have a couple of buddies who love getting in-person autos. they told me gwynn was a really cool signer and they always invited me to go out with them when sjsu played sdsu. sadly i never took them up on the opportunity
the snorting bull - i'm a huge metallica fan. they're one of my favorite groups. but when it comes to this song, seger's version is easily my favorite
sean - i've heard that jack clark was an ass. not sure if it had anything to do with this gwynn incident, but he didn't win any popularity points for talking smack about him.
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