Above: The ultimate photobomb – 2007 Topps card featuring Derek Jeter with Mickey Mantle in the dugout and George Bush waving from the stands. Topps spokesman Clay Luraschi told the AP: “We saw it in the final proof and we could have axed it, but we decided to let it run, we wanted to print it. We thought it was hilarious.”
In the realm of card collecting, no other company is more notorious for retouching photos than Topps – they have airbrushed out logos, changed uniform colors and even photobomb popular players (see above). With the advent of Photoshop, fake photobombing may be a new recreational pastime for the Topps creative department, but the removal of logos and changing of uniforms has been well documented throughout the history of the company.
Above: Two cards of John Brockington from the 1972 Topps football card set. On the left is his rookie card which shows him in his college all-star jersey, and on the right is his All-Pro card which shows the same photo with the jersey airbrushed green.
It seems Topps likes to show players in their current uniforms – it doesn’t matter to them whether that player has just been signed or traded and photos of him in action on the new team are either scarce or non-existent. The most recent offense is in the 2010 Topps set of Seattle Mariners pitcher Cliff Lee (see image on right). Considering Lee has yet to play a game for the Mariners, the fact that the image on this card has been fudged is, well, glaringly obvious. Even disregarding that fact, the blue cap he is shown wearing is not the official Mariner blue and the black circle patch with the white “HK” that is over his heart on the jersey is a memorial patch worn last season by the Phillies to honor legendary game caller and sportscaster Harry Kalas who passed in April of 2009. That’s some pretty shoddy retouching work. It almost would have been better to photobomb him.
Update: The site Baseball Think Factory linked to this story (hi BBTF folks!), and the comments that ran under the post on their site have some great insight (and funny commentary) on these and other Shopped Topps cards so I am linking to it here.
Related articles…
Card trick: Bush, Mantle cheer Jeter in gag image [ESPN]
Topps fails to erase all of Cliff Lee’s ties to Philly on new card [Yahoo! Sports]
Topps Screws Up The Cliff Lee Card [Crossing Broad]
Airbrushed Fridays [Cards on Cards]
Airbrushing Football Cards [Nearmint’s Vintage Football Card Blog]
{ 5 comments }
Actually, with the exception of the HK patch, this looks like a fairly decent photoshop job by Topps standards. If you want to see some really awful photoshopping, take a look at what they did for the Roy Halladay card (#286) in this year’ Topps Heritage set — the Phillies script across his chest almost looks cartoonish.
You bring up a good point Matthew – I am actually surprised at the Lee card. The effort it would have taken to put the Mariners across his jersey (and that part WAS well done) requires much more Photoshopping skills than it would have been to remove the patch or properly colorize his cap. I don’t understand why Topps tries to make certain aspects so realistic while letting small details fall by the wayside. (Because, let’s face it – it IS the small details that make a Shop great.) It is almost like they are trying to intentionally be campy or something.
And boy, are you right about the Halladay card! EESCH!
As a long-time Phillies collector, I can point out all sorts of fun stuff Topps has flubbed over the years when handling airbrushing. But one of my favorites has to be the 2006 Tom Gordon card (#163) in which they went through all the trouble of doing another decent-by-their-standards Photoshop and then left his team designation as “Yankees”. So it’s not just the Photoshop department — the fact is that they have poor quality control in general.
(Here’s more on that Gordon card: http://www.sculu.com/sloppy-topps-flash-gordon-34162/)
Thanks for the info on the Gordon card, Matthew!
That Jeter card is ridiculous!
Fine article, Mick. Glad to see one of my old hobbies make its way onto the site (yes, I have a large amount of baseball cards stowed away from my childhood!)
My fave from my childhood was the infamous Billy Ripken “fuck face” card. Basically he had the words ‘fuck face’ written on the handle of his bat, and Fleer had to scramble to doctor the photo. Variations included a black box, a scribble, and whiteout. Good times.
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