Topps' airbrushing has come a long way!
SOM
Posts: 1,555 ✭✭✭
Have you checked out the neat work Topps has done on some of the 2007 baseball cards? Some of the photos have been retouched so incredibly, you'd think they were original photographs. A couple of cards really stand out:
#5 Bengie Molina - that shot of him in a Giants road uniform is slickly airbrushed in.
#25 Gary Matthews Jr - all decked out as an Angel
#230 Barry Zito - looks like he never was an A
but I think the best one is #73 Moises Alou. What an incredible job of sticking him in a Mets uni!
There are plenty of good ones in this year's set. Much, much better than the 60's and 70's freak shows!
#5 Bengie Molina - that shot of him in a Giants road uniform is slickly airbrushed in.
#25 Gary Matthews Jr - all decked out as an Angel
#230 Barry Zito - looks like he never was an A
but I think the best one is #73 Moises Alou. What an incredible job of sticking him in a Mets uni!
There are plenty of good ones in this year's set. Much, much better than the 60's and 70's freak shows!
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Seriously though, I had always thought Topps did away with airbrushing for two reasons. One, the advent of the Traded (or Update in some competitor's case) sets. And two, the use of computers to "retouch" photos in a more convincing manner.
D's: 50P,49S,45D+S,43D,41S,40D,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 241,435,610,654 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
Ron Gardenhire pitching batting practice.
Not the first image you want to find when opening your first pack of baseball cards of the season.
Roger Clemens delivering a fastball like a 24-year-old might. That would be splendid.
Albert Pujols following through on his swing after crushing a hanging curveball. Awesome.
That’s how you open a pack of cards.
Ron Gardenhire throwing to Nick Punto, for all we know – that’s just not right.
Upon closer examination of the Gardenhire card and the rest of this particular pack of 2007 Topps cards, though, Gardy nearly was the only genuine article in there.
That, and the gum – which now is hermetically sealed in plastic to protect the cards, is soft to the chew, sugarless and more tasteless than ever.
Almost everything else was an illusion.
Alfonso Soriano’s first Cubs card, also, was in this pack. A nice shot, possibly in San Francisco, of Soriano in the batter’s box.
Wearing a Cubs uniform.
Except, he didn’t play for the Cubs a season ago. He played for Washington.
It’s not from spring training. No baseball card company is that quick.
It’s not from the future. DeLorean stopped making cars that go 88 mph.
It’s clearly a photo from 2006, meticulously doctored to look like 2007.
Baseball card companies, especially Topps, have a long history of monkeying with photos. In the old airbrush days, when players Dave Kingman and Bobby Bonds modeled new uniforms sometimes on the hour, their baseball cards would look like fuzzy dreams. The photo of Kingman in his 1978 Topps card looks like the person it depicts – who started with the New York Mets, went cross-country to the San Diego Padres, headed north to the California Angels and sprinted back east to the New York Yankees, before doing a bizarre U-turn and landing with the Cubs in the off-season.
The Kingman card and others like it were obviously fake. It was an earnest attempt by Topps to stay current. Technology wouldn’t allow them to also look good doing it.
Technology has almost caught up.
The No. 270 Soriano card is a remarkable forgery – Topps might prefer “photo illustration” – right down to the little Under Armour logo on his wrist band and batting glove.
It’s what the people want, Topps spokesman Clay Luraschi said.
“The collectors and fans love getting that first card of a player in their new uniform,” said Luraschi, who added that the Soriano doctoring (not his words) took “about an hour” on a computer.
Soriano’s not really IN a Cubs uniform, though. It’s like he took the blue pill (or was it the red?) and entered “The Matrix.” It’s a computer’s idea of Soriano in a Cubs uniform.
Fans at Al & Ann’s Collectibles in McHenry (3819 Main St.) have given a mixed response to the Soriano card.
“Some Cubs fans like having him in the new uniform; most collectors don’t want the cards airbrushed, though,” said Al Armstrong, the shop’s owner for 14 years.
Topps did the same thing with Jim Thome a year ago after he joined the White Sox, Geneva shop owner Dan Pennington said.
“Fans want the doctored photo,” said Pennington, who owns Me & Dad’s Collectibles (720 E. State St.). “People have grown to accept the photo doctoring.”
The biggest buzz created by a doctored card came about a month ago, when card anthropologists discovered president George Bush waving from the stands and the late Mickey Mantle watching from the dugout in Derek Jeter’s card.
Neither guy was in Yankee Stadium that day, though Mantle might have been in spirit. Someone was having fun along the production line.
Some variations of the Jeter card have gone for hundreds of dollars on eBay, and even common ones sell for $20.
It’s a funny card – baseball cards are supposed to be fun, so it’s no big deal in that way – but it also shows you that baseball cards are more, or less, than they used to be.
Computers allow card-makers to produce magic tricks.
In the same Topps pack as Soriano, Josh Barfield (No. 79) is playing for the Indians – except that he’s still with San Diego in the original photo; Aubrey Huff (No. 43) now is with the Orioles, but he’s depicted playing for Baltimore before he actually signed with them.
That’s different than a blotchy airbrush of Dave Kingman, whose card should have included his air miles, if they gave them out then.
Heck, speaking of Dave Kingman.
How sure are we he was a real person?
– David Brown is a sportswriter for the NorthWest News Group. Write to him at rdbrown@nwnewsgroup.com.
<< <i>Ron Gardenhire pitching batting practice. Not the first image you want to find when opening your first pack of baseball cards of the season. >>
Actually, I was thrilled when I saw Ron Gardenhire. I picked up a couple of these (both w/ Gardenhire as the top card) at the grocery store for $2.99 each. The bottom card is pretty cool.
D's: 50P,49S,45D+S,43D,41S,40D,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 241,435,610,654 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings,Rising Stars
<< <i>“Some Cubs fans like having him in the new uniform; most collectors don’t want the cards airbrushed, though,” said Al Armstrong, the shop’s owner for 14 years.
>>
This comment surprises me...do people really care?
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Coulda fooled me! Except, Piazza's shirt is a little too green.
Also...that writer stated that no players were photographed in spring training. I am not so sure of that. Is the '07 Gil Meche card from Arizona? Or, is it, too, a well-done fake??
<< <i>Topps has a time machine. >>
Only until 08. I hear Mannys gonna sell it !!
"Heres my time machine I bought for 4K, I dont have time to go in time so Im selling it. If you BIN you get a free autographed jersey from the future."
ON ITS WAY TO NEWPORT BEACH, CA 92658