1971 topps baseball insight needed...

Axtell

I am up to a several hundred of this set now, and I've noticed something that is kind of peculiar: the set holds my all-time favorite action shot, the #5 Thurman Munson card. It's a great horizontal action shot of a play at the plate. I've gone on to notice that the only cards (at least of the ones I have) that have this horizontal layout are yankee and mets cards.

Other than team photos and playoff/world series cards, only Mets and Yanks seem to be horizontal:

#355 - Bud Harrelson
#514 - Ron Woods


Of all my other cards, not a single player is horizontal...just yankees (2) and mets (1). Is this true of the entire set? Why would just NY teams be this format?

joltinjoe

Because New York has special teams?

Axtell

<< <i>Because New York has special teams? >>



I was thinking of a real reason...thinking perhaps they were closest to where topps was headquartered at the time...there has to be a 'real' reason

rbdjr1

Maybe Topps' designer for '71 Topps simply started with the two NY teams' action cards (i.e., with a horizontal design)? Then the Topps artist laid-out the next action shots vertical, and decided to "go with the vertical design" from that point on?

Oh well, "thats a stretch"!

rbd

edit: Or the artist was a NY baseball fan?

SoFLPhillyFan

It's possible that the photographer took only shots that could be laid out in the horizontal format.

I have some original slides of shots taken by two different card photographers. Some, especially pitchers at the end of the wind up were shot with the long side horizontal and coould not be cropped to fit vertically.

I imagine that todays pics are taken with digital cameras and you can do much more with the shot. The old ones were developed to slides then printed from there. Slides have a different width to length ratio. Instead of an 8 x 10 print you get 8 x 12.

I have noticed that some of the card photographers work regionally so maybe the same guy shot the NY teams and no others.

Treetop

I know the Jim Fregosi Card is horizontal. He was still with the Angels back then. I believe there are a few more horizontal cards with non-NY team players, but can't but my finger on who they are at the moment

tkd7

Not my card, but I tried to win one on ebay a while back because I loved the shot

joltinjoe

I was thinking of a real reason...thinking perhaps they were closest to where topps was headquartered at the time...there has to be a 'real' reason

Of course, I was kidding but someone bought up the fact that maybe the artist was a New Yorker which seems like a reasonable guess.

MooseDog

Ironically, while the Rudy May card isn't a New York player, it WAS taken at Yankee Stadium, and Rudy became a Yankee later in his career. Still a connection?

phreakydancin

The real reason probably has to do with the availability of action shots. With Topps based in NY, photographers no doubt spent most of their days at games in New York.

Inevitably you will find that nearly all small-market team players are shown in their road uniforms, because the photos were taken while they were visiting larger markets, primarily New York. This would have given Topps a significantly higher number of action shots of Mets and Yankees players to choose from, many of which would have fit better in the landscape (horizontal) format.

Edited to add: As a Vancouver Canucks fan, I can attest to this, as it is pretty close to impossible to find a hockey card showing a Canucks player in their home yellow uniforms from 1980's Topps/OPC cards. They are always shown in their road blacks.