I’ve talked about cards where various items of a player’s wardrobe on a card have been airbrushed, from Rollie Fingers’ Padres cap to Dave Kingman’s hair, but this is the first time I’ve ever come across an airbrushed card of a manager. And it’s a severely airbrushed card at that. I’ve been examining this card for a long time now (maybe a couple of days), and it really looks as though his entire face is a painting. For instance, look at his neck and his nose: the shadows are too smooth, too well-groomed, like they were created from an artist’s palette. Has anyone ever come across an airbrushed card of a manager? It doesn’t seem right. There is just too much time for a photographer to get a shot of a manager—I don’t care how new the manager is or how camera-shy he may be. Also, I think it’s funny that the Topps artistic brass chose to paint Leyva looking up (the quintessential optimistic pose), when really they should’ve painted him staring glumly at his feet. I mean, c’mon, these are the Phillies we’re talking about.
The 1989 Topps Dallas Green is even more fun. Topps uses a photo of Green when he was manager of the Phillies airbrushed to look like a Yankees uniform. The photo had to be at least seven or eight years old.
ReplyDelete