The checklist of names appearing on ’93 Finest baseball cards includes a few making their last playing days appearances. The set includes end of career cards for names like Nolan Ryan, Carlton Fisk, and George Brett. At the time of these cards’ release, Ryan was still scary to face, Fisk was breaking down but chasing an enviable record for games caught, and Brett was starting to mellow out compared to his pine tar days (must have been something he ate).
There were other career capstone cards among the 199 guys in the set, but most of those depicted at that stage of their career knew they were conducting a farewell tour of major league ballparks. At this point none of them were at the top of their game. Well, almost none.
The Toronto Blue Jays have only had a pitcher reach the 40-save mark once in club history. That honor would belong to Duane Ward who notched the final 45 saves of his career en route to winning the World Series. Ward was a key component of those competitive Toronto teams of the late 1980s/early 1990s, having twice led the club in strikeouts despite being a reliever. Although he was a reliever, his 3-0 World Series W-L record carries more victories than any other player in team history. His 8 World Series appearances generated a 1.13 ERA and saw him record more than half the outs on his watch in the form of a strikeout. Mariano Rivera, by contrast, generated a World Series record of 2-1 alongside a 0.99 ERA with strikeouts accounting for 29% of his outs.
Those Jays teams relied heavily on Ward, at one point putting him into half of all the team’s scheduled games for 1991. Ward’s all-star 1993 season would prove to be his lightest workload of the early ’90s, in which he made just 71 appearances. A sore arm appeared in the 1993-94 offseason and suddenly he was done.
He appeared in most 1994 baseball card checklists but was effectively out of the game. A comeback attempt in 1995 resulted in small number of disastrous outings and the conclusion that Ward’s career really was over.
Bringing in the Closer
With my Refractor set passing the 90% completion milestone, I figure it is time to bring in Duane Ward as the closer. Cards from this set do not differentiate between pitchers in a starting or relief role, simply identifying subjects as a pitcher.
As with all his baseball cards, he is identified as “Duane” Ward, rather than his given name of Roy. This worked out for a New Mexican hurler’s career arc that took him into Canada, as his name would have produced quite the tongue twister for those in the nation’s French-accented east. Can you imagine pronouncing “Roy Ward” in the same manner one pronounces the name of NHL goaltender Patrick Roy? Whah Ward
Regardless of the naming and position conventions employed by Topps, this is one of the better executed cards in the set. The pictures have the home and away uniform split that really emphasizes the usefulness of putting photographs on both sides of the card. Dark road uniforms are much more impressive than light home jerseys when given the refractor treatment and this card is a prime example.
