Blue goal post behind Koosman on Nolan Ryan rookie card.
Exodus
Posts: 348 ✭✭✭
Sorry to start a thread on this, but anyone know what those blue lines are behind Koosman on his rookie card ?
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I have always just assumed they were the support poles and cross beam for a raised chain link backstop. The far right of the Ryan photo has a blue pole also, and the top edge of whatever that black object in the background is supposed to be (scoreboard?) is also a darker blue than the sky, and also the top edges of the trees on the Koosman are blue. I'd venture to say it was some anomaly in the printing that turned gray shaded items a darker blue when applying the color for the sky. But I'm only guessing...
I assumed they were support poles for a batting cage or driving range, but the blue color is what makes that unreasonable, unless as you said, something in the printing caused it to turn blue. I do see it on the Ryan too, so maybe this is a spring training shot down in Florida ?
I've always thought it was a printing anomaly on the Ryan/Koosman RC, but after searching for the original photo used on the Koosman image, I stumbled across the '69 Topps Koosman. I believe this photo taken a year later shows that the blue lines are from a fence at the ballpark, probably down in spring training.
Good call. Blue posts they must be! Interesting tidbits in the background of photos are one of the most enjoyable aspects of cards for me.
It appears the mystery has been solved, although I'm not 100 percent convinced that the posts were actually blue in "real life". The reason that I say this is that on both the 68 Ryan and the 69 Koosman, strangely the tops of the trees are also a darker shade of blue than the sky. I would guess that something in the printing process caused the small amount of dark colors/ shadows in the background of the card to pick up the extra blue hue when coloring in the sky.
Yep, could be a bluish-green thing. Would be interesting to locate the particular field or area today -- if it remains as it was -- and even if still a spring training field, the odds of the backstops and such remaining the same? Probably nil.
Noting the coloration of the random car bumper (which we know would be chrome) fading to the same general blue, perhaps the actual shade of the fencing and such was plain old gray/aluminum.
Ryan has the flagpole in the background. I assume the other poles are the light poles.
https://kennerstartinglineup.blogspot.com/
So, it seems like just a quirk, or just as likely, a purposeful stylistic touch, to the photo processing? Ah, to be a kid at the time with a parent, etc. who worked at Topps and could access uncut sheets, etc. if they asked/went through channels.
I'd like to think if I had been a Topps employee back then, I'd have saved a few leftover '52 boxes from the docks in 1960, and purchased a "deluxe set" example for each year, saved a box of each sport -- but who knows! But of course had a lot of people done so, '50s wax boxes might be as ubiquitous as National Geographics.
Does anyone think they could have painted the fence "Met blue" in Port St. Lucie ?
Sure... and the tops of the trees, too...
The Mets haven't been at Port St. Lucie for that long. I think they moved in there in the late 80's or early 90's. Pretty sure they were in St. Petersburg before that.