First up is a poster of the famous Sports Illustrated cover picture. I’m not sure when this is from exactly but it has compliments of  Home Federal Savings in the lower right hand corner. Christopher Paluso was the artist and upon doing a Google search I find out that he did a bunch of those amazing Legends Sports Memorabilia magazine covers that I still have from when I was a kid. The guy does absolutely amazing work, lives in San Diego and has actually even done some of the plaques in the San Diego Hall of Champions.

This 1977 Hostess card (#26) isn’t exactly in the best of shape. But when cards were packaged with Twinkies, Ding Dongs & HoHos, cards in pristine shape were pretty hard to come by.

In 1988 Grenada released a set of baseball stamps. Once again my stupid scanner cut it off and I really don’t have the patience to scan things twice. The only other Padres that I can see in the set were Tony Gwynn and Benito Santiago…but 3 Padres in a set of 81 superstars and Hall of Famers ain’t half bad really.

In 1999 Fleer gave Sports Illustrated a set that was titled Greats of the Game. RJ scored 3 cards in this set with this one (#35) being the base card. I’m still working on acquiring the other 2 cards though.

When I posted the “Leather” version of this card (which made sense), I brought up the fact of how weird it was for a pitcher to get a “Lumber” card. Oh well, here it is the 2005 Leather & Lumber “Lumber” card (#LC-34)….for a pitcher.

Since I’m posting the other half of the Leather & Lumber cards I might as well post the other half of the RC Cola cans. This one is from the first series in 1977 and unlike the 1978 version, does not have a number.

Because I’m sure you’re sick of all the “disc” cards, I’ll shoot off the rest of the ’78 disc’s that I own. Like I said before, the majority of the disc cards use the same front with the rare instance that the sponsor put their name at the top. This is one of those instances as Holiday Inn slapped their name on the front instead of 4 stars….like these 3 cards.

I have no clue what Saga is, but it looks like some sort of either vitamin or health supply store/company. We all obviously know what Wendy’s & Holiday Inn are. And last we have Zip’z. Apparently they are still around in the New York/New Jersey area. It’s a place where, like the card says, you “make your own sundae!”

In 1993 & 1994 Upper Deck released a set titled the Ted Williams Card Co. The Splendid Splinter himself personally chose players that he thought best represented the game. Hall of Famers, Negro Leaguers, All-Stars and past and current stars. Our buddy RJ made the list in the ’94 set (#84). That’s quite the honor to be selected by one of the all-time greats.

Here are 3 RJ cards from the same season involving the same picture….yet all are different. The first one is the standard Topps issue (#458). The next is the O-Pee-Chee issue (#148). Like all the other O-Pee-Chee cards I’ve listed, the back is brighter & has the text in French & English. But because O-Pee-Chee was released AFTER the Topps cards, RJ had already been traded so they wrote “Now with Mets” on the front (on his right shoulder) and have the Mets cap on the front. Next up is a Topps Coke issue (#4). They used the same picture but airbrushed a Mets cap & jersey on him. It’s surprisingly pretty authentic looking for the time.

In this 1981 Donruss card (#122) it shows RJ on the front in a Padres uni with Padres above his name. On the back side under Career Highlights it states that he was traded to the Mets already. Sounds like Donruss was a little lazy back in their first year.

Now despite this card having the year 1975 on the back, it was indeed produced AFTER the 1975 season and for the 1976 season. SSPC (Sports Stars Publishing Company) was a one off set that was produced by a card dealer. He was apparently sick of the way Topps was producing cards, calling them to “flashy” and opted to create a nice simple & basic card set. Soon after he started selling them Topps forced him to stop creating cards with active Major Leaguers. He then switched the name to TCMA and began selling cards of Minor Leaguers & retired ball players.

*Bonus tip: Former ESPN host & current political annoyance Keith Olbermann edited the backs of every card in the set

I somehow fell a bit behind in my RJ a day. So here are 6 items to now give you 28 RJ’s in 28 days. First up is the 1993 Upper Deck Sheet to commemorate 25 years of Padres baseball. I’m not sure if it was a stadium giveaway or not. RJ, Graig Nettles, Steve Garvey, Dick Williams & Nate Colbert are shown. I’m not really sure why Nettles was represented over Tony Gwynn but maybe they didn’t want to list any active players.

Next up is a 1976/1978 Wiffle Ball disc. Here’s the thing regarding the year….it says 1976 on the disc but in listings there is no 1976 Wiffle Ball set but there is a 1978 set. So I’m not really sure what to list it as. Unlike the other ’76 discs that are 3 3/8″ around, this one is a much smaller 2 3/8″ and instead of a pink front it is yellow.

Speaking of the “other ’76 discs” here is a 1976 Crane Disc. For the most part it’s the same as the other ’76 discs….except it actually says Crane on the top of the front instead of having 4 stars. The Crane Potato Chip is no longer around. The quick research I did shows that they were bought out by Borden Foods in 1988. Borden Foods was then shut down in 2001.

Another out of business company is Burger Chef. The last one closed down in 1996 but they still gave us this awesome 1977 Burger Chef Disc with the “Where Wolf” character on the back. Apparently at their peak they were 2nd to McDonalds and are actually the creators of the first kids meal.

This card was a part of the 2003 Padres Carl’s Jr. stadium giveaway set. Fans voted on the All-Time team earlier in the season and then they made this set to giveaway to fans on August 10th, 2003. The others in the set were…Manager Bruce Bochy, SP Kevin Brown & Gaylord Perry, RP Trevor Hoffman, C Benito Santiago, 1B Steve Garvey, 2B Roberto Alomar, SS Ozzie Smith, 3B Ken Caminiti, OF Dave Winfield, Steve Finley & Tony Gwynn.

Lastly we have a deck of RJ Playing cards. I honestly don’t know when these were made nor do I know what the story is behind them. But it’s a full on playing deck of cards. I remember getting these at a card show at the Scottish Rite Center in Mission Valley back in the 80′s though. Man those shows were fun to go to, but I haven’t been to one since probably middle school.

Kelloggs mixed things up a bit and instead of doing the traditional cardboard card they decided to go with a “3-D” style card. This (#17) is perhaps one of my favorite RJ cards just because of how different it is from all the others.

This card from the 1981 Fleer (#487) set is interesting. Everything on the back is normal and for the most part everything appears to be normal on the front. But look at the patch on his sleeve and his uniform. The picture was taken 3 seasons earlier, during the 1978 season when the Padres hosted the All-Star game (hence the patch). Also, 1978 was the ONLY year they used those particular uniforms. By 1981 they were already wearing the uniforms that are now referred to by all the fans as the ’84 unis. So it’s kind of a retro card before they had retro cards I guess.

In 2001 Upper Deck released a pretty cool set based on the 70′s. Despite the base set being pretty small (180 cards) RJ was all over the place with 4 cards total in the set (#78 & #160). It featured many “groovy” cards and a few insert sets like Disco Era Dandies, Bellbottomed Bashers, Arms Race (#AR5), Decade Dynasties & Super Powers. They even had a Bat Card series and RJ, despite being a pitcher, makes an appearance there too (#B-RaJ).