Darryl Strawberry Strongly Dislikes This Baseball Card

Saranac Glove is a glove manufacturer which is still around today.  They make gloves for all types of uses including sports.  In the late 1980s, Saranac struck a deal with New York Mets superstar Darryl Strawberry to promote their line of batting gloves.  Marketing thought it would be a good idea to package a baseball card with the gloves they wanted Strawberry to endorse.  Instead of using a standard photograph, Saranac Glove hired artist Dan Gardiner to paint a picture of Strawberry.  Upon viewing the final piece of work, Darryl Strawberry wasn’t satisfied with the way he thought his nose looked.  Apparently they didn’t check with him as the painting was being worked on.  By the time they found out he didn’t approve, Saranac Glove already had the cards printed.  The promotion was eventually scrapped.  All printed cards at the time were ordered to be thrown out.

Whenever an unreleased card is instructed to be trashed, someone almost always doesn’t follow through.  Its a guarantee that a small batch will find their way out.  And that’s exactly what happened here.

The official count as to how many are still floating around will never be known.  I can tell you its not many.  Most aren’t in the best condition.  This leads me to believe these could’ve been dug out of the trash.  I’m sure the artist, and certain Saranac Glove employees kept some for themselves.