Tony Gwynn

I feel like I've been living in a hole recently.  I've taken on some extra duties at work that have kept me busier than normal, on top of it already being the busy time of the year for my line of work.  I haven't kept up with much baseball.  Heck, I haven't even watched as many Braves games as I'd like to.  So to say I was caught off guard by the news of Tony Gwynn's death is an understatement.

Any time I can sneak in a Pacific card like this I will!

I was sadden to hear of the news.  I always thought Gwynn was one of the best students of the game.  Seeing how he played his entire career with a team that resides on the other side of the country from myself, I never got the chance to see him play a lot.  When I did however I would marvel at the guy's patience at the plate.  The guy seemed to never strike out.  He just kept churning out hit after hit. 

Gwynn also seemed well liked and respected around the league.  I never heard nasty things said about him.  He seemed to stay out of trouble off the field too...something a lot of today's young athletes could learn from.  If Gywnn's name was in the headlines, it was for something remarkable he did in the game of baseball.  For those reasons alone I started casually collecting Gwynn's cards years ago.  I didn't chase the high end stuff, just a lot of the what I thought cool inserts of his I had in the 90's when I first started collecting.  I tried to pick up some game used cards and I'd still love to grab a RC or two of his and an authentic autograph, but for now I'll stick with what I got.

As I was going through my meager folder of scanned Gwynn cards, I came across this one that I thought summed it all up pretty well...

1996 Fleer Ultra

Stadium Club Firebrand wood inserts are back!

Just when I thought I'd skip over this year's Archives set, I saw that they contained a 10 card Stadium Club Firebrand insert set.  Sold.  In just one day I managed to pick 6 of the 10 cards for less than $10.  I'm waiting for the Carlos Baerga to show up in the mail.

These are cool because 1) they are wood, 2) they feature some decent die-cuts and 3) feature a mix of old school and new school.  And here I was thinking I was getting a little bored with Topps!