Interview with Tim Flannery

Giants third-base coach Tim Flannery, who played ten years in the major leagues, kindly took time out of his busy schedule to answer a couple of my questions about his baseball cards.

Of course, I had to ask him about his famous 1988 Fleer card, which featured him posing with a surfboard. Was it his his idea or Fleer's?
"The photographers brother shaped those boards and wanted some promo, I needed a new board...it was a good trade off."

I also asked him what his favorite card was. He answered:
"I like my bunting card the best because I am the bunting coach with the Giants. Whenever a guy needs some work, I put that card in his locker with an appointment time with the bunt doctor..."

Thanks, Coach Flannery! Considering that the Giants ranked 14th out of 16 NL teams in sacrifice hits last year, I think that card will be making a lot of appearances in the Giants clubhouse this year!

As the surfboard is a Sauritch, the photographer must be Lou Sauritch. You can find a bio of Sauritch with an unused Fleer photo here. Doing some research on Sauritch, I found a story about how he caught the error on another Tim Flannery card, 1981 Fleer. I also found Sauritch's explanation for why so many 1982 Fleer cards appear blurry. It's not the photographers fault. I even found a cool story by Sauritch on ESPNs website about Juan Berenguer. He was going through his slides and noticed that Berenguer had an obscenity written on the bill of his cap. Wonder if anyone has seen it on any of his cards? Too bad Sauritch wasn't editing Bill Ripken's card in 1989...