I noticed the piece also, before seeing any of the threads (I can read, not contribute), and recalled recognizing that unusual card waaaay back in 1993 when I was sorting cards from that set. I was momentarily excited to find so glaring an error; but then I flipped the card over, where the secret is revealed. So, I sent an email to the articlette's author, to wit (some redactions and one clarifying edit, mine; nothing important, and only the email recipient has seen this before):
In ... the recent issue, you present the 1993 Upper Deck SP #167 Tony Gwynn card, picturing a player wearing jersey #27 nameplated "Sanders". Your explanation, that the player is Tracy Sanders and not Gwynn, is off the mark.
UD defended the picture choice on the back of the card ... by writing "Gwynn confused onlookers by donning Padres pitcher Scott Sanders' jersey for a spring training game." Obviously, no one is going to confuse Scott Sanders with Gwynn; Scott Sanders is white.
Scott Sanders was drafted by the Padres in 1990 and made his ML debut in August 1993, and wore #27 during his entire first tenure (1993-96) with the team (when he returned briefly in 1998 he wore #26). It therefore seems likely that he was with the major league squad for at least part of spring training 1993, as UD's card implicitly claims.
Tracy Sanders was briefly in the Padres system, the second half of the 1993 season, at AA level. However, he opened the season (and therefore, presumably, was at spring training) with [the] Cleveland [system], the organization he had been with since being signed in 1990. He was traded on 01-June-93 along with Fernando Hernandez to San Diego in exchange for Jeremy Hernandez, one of history's deservedly forgotten transactions. Sanders moved on to the Mets in 1994, and so spent very little time with the Padres, and was not likely ever in a position to get photographed on the same field as Gwynn. As you noted, he never reached the majors.
As the SP set came out late in the 1993 season, the production constraints of designing and printing the set make it extremely unlikely that the player pictured is Tracy Sanders, and highly probable that UD's given explanation is correct. For whatever reasons, Gwynn wore Scott Sanders' jersey that day, giving history a tiny wrinkle that Upper Deck captured.
The author responded with a brief note of thanks, mentioning that he plans to print an apology/correction, and that alone makes for worthwhile content. Sounds good to me; my interest does not extend beyond presenting accurate information. No harm, no foul, just an interesting card; all the more rare than today, in that the confusing Gwynn card is an instance wherein Upper Deck did not mess up. Ah, those were the days.
Part of the backside of a 1993 Upper Deck SP #167 Tony Gwynn, with the comment about the Sanders jersey.
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