Instead of cowbell, the Topps guy was saying, "I got a fever...and the only prescription is more green!!!!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s

Why don't you guys consider the 1956 Topps cards to have "Action shots"? Is it because they were hand-toned? Or because they also have profile pics on the cards? Something else?

1952 Topps Clyde King
 

What shocks me is that "screwball artist" Clyde was actually able to find the direction of home plate. He had a 14-7 mark with 33 SO and just 50 walks in 1951.

This wonderful card just begs so many questions …

That '66 Keane in the OP scared the heck out of me that year--my first year of collecting. Scared in that old can't look, can't look away sense. Talk about rode hard and put away wet.

As a ballpark fan, the 1969 Topps Chris Cannizzaro was shocking because the photo was taken at the Polo Grounds, which as you all know was last used for MLB play in 1963.

https://caimages.collectors.com/psac...8_947x1596.jpg

I keep looking at one and he stares me down, then to the other....infinite loop!
Bwhahaha

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

Whenever I see his skinny head topped by a hat seventeen sizes too large...

Attachment 553291

...all I can imagine is that he took the cap off the bullpen buggy that brought him to the mound and wore it...

Attachment 553290

May you all find someone who looks at you the way Long and Moryn look at Ernie Banks.

One begets the other . . .

Buzz Guy certainly fits the facial expression, don't you think? And talk about unfortunate luck, this Bob Gibson was also a pitcher.

It doesn't get more shocking than a big blast of lightning. Thankfully, Barry was evidently able to outrun it.

This card requires a little story to go along with it:

I bought this card on eBay and when I got it in the mail I noticed the return address listed Pat Neshek as the sender. I knew his name and realized I'd purchased this Greinke card from a former MLB pitcher and All Star.

Then I found this article where Neshek talks about Greinke being the only guy in baseball to blow him off when he asked for an autograph and I've always wondered if Neshek sold the card because it made him sick to look at:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9bd0d1a171.jpg

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...590&fit=bounds

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...793&fit=bounds

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...502&fit=bounds
https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...268&fit=bounds
https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...487&fit=bounds

The Menendez Brothers courtside on the Mark Jackson Hoops:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a9fe4e1e_w.jpg

This one isn't shocking per se, but interesting if you know the story. I worked for the Birmingham Barons from 1997-2004 and the team card set was my project each year. In this set, we decided to create our own design instead of using the stock designs from Grandstand, which most Minor League teams did. I worked with my friend Brad, who was a graphic/web designer and did some graphics work for the team.

I would go through all of the photos we had collected and tried to use the best ones of each player we had. Brad and I saw this photo and thought it was great but there was one problem... the baseball was too far to fit into the frame without turning the card horizontally and that didn't fit the design. This was my 2nd favorite design we did. Brad said he could fix it, and cut the baseball and pasted it back so it would fit into the frame. We adjusted it several times to try to get the right angle and clarity of the ball, so no one would notice. No one ever did and it became one of my favorite action shots! It just so turned out that it was of a player that went on to play 12 years in the Majors.
Attachment 554588

This is my favorite design we did. When I was the kid 1975 was the first year I bought cards and the first World Series I remember. 1975 Topps was and still is my favorite set (and my current collecting obsession) so I wanted to do an "Ode to '75". In 2003, no one else really got the reference, but to me, creating this design was a ton of fun. Grandstand was the printer and Len made us change a few things so as not to completely knock off Topps' design.

A funny story... When I took the players sets to them, Neal Cotts didn't care for the pink and purple border his card has. I told him it was good enough for Nolan Ryan so he should quit whining and for him to look it up. The next day, when he got to the park, he stopped into the office and told me he approved.

Note: You can see from these photos that getting good pics was not easy. We had to get all of the pics taken early in the season when it was colder and crowds were sparse, so it was hard to get any angles with fans in the background.
Note 2: The upper right card of Cotts was in an Update Set we did at the end of the year and features him in a throwback mid 80's Barons uniform. That game was played at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, built in 1910, is still the oldest ballpark in America. It is a shrine that should not be missed and oozes history, with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Satchel Paige and Willie Mays (as a 17 yr old) playing there at one point.

Very cool card of Morse, Chris. And my younger brothers played Little League with Neal Cotts, pride of Lebanon, IL!

Shocking in the sense that when I got these autographs in person in Helena, Montana, when Nyman was a coach in the Pioneer League, I did not expect to hear the story of him striking out Mickey Mantle in 1968. One of the coolest sports memories I have.

I don't collect this set, but for some reason a Topps 1969 Hal Greer always shows up in my searches, and my first thought always is, "Who in high heck did Hal piss off at Topps to make them say, "Off with his head!!"??" Why didn't they reduce the size of the photo to make him fit into the design layout????

(If you look at the bottom screen grabs, you'll see how the majority of players in that set had their images playfully breaking out of the upper reaches of the oval confines, like Mr. Reed and Mr. Unseld.)

After searching through pics of the 99 card set, I found only one other player suffering this blatantly-guillotined indignity, Walt Wesley...but with him it seems to be the result of a careless layout error, because if you look at his 'center' position, it is skewed over to the side to make room for his head and 60's hair (as can also be seen on the Reed/Unseld cards) to invade the white area. Someone apparently forgot to crop the photo properly to make it look like the other cards in the set.

But what the eff happened with Hal???????


Attachment 554608

Attachment 554609

Thanks! Neal and Mark Buehrle were 2 of my favorites during my time there.

Good entry, that is whack.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

Yes, along with the 2017 NCAA champions McKendree University women's bowling team.

And I agree, great 1975 Topps tribute cards.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

I was looking through my Kaline cards, saw his 1970 and was reminded of this thread. Al Kaline was probably "shocked" when he saw the released version of his 1970 card.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...c90f761f_b.jpg

Awesome story!

Has your Clyde King card been photoshopped, Steve, or is that an actual copy?
I'm guessing Clyde would have likely preferred another photo on his 52 Topps card than the one that portrays him, but my copy, and many others that I've looked at don't have him as crossed eyed as your copy.
Curious if your copy is a variation?

It was shocking to me to learn that teams could not afford to replace torn uniforms in 1968.

Topps Photog:
"Hey, Jer, today we're just gonna snap the standard posed portrait shot of you for your card...but how 'bout we try to add a little bit of flavor to it, some pretend game-action?? I got it!! Okay, make believe you're running downcourt at full speed...when you suddenly stop and lunge out to swat at the ball in your opponent's hands. Yes...perfect!! Feel your momentum stop!! Hold the pose!! Keep that chin up...yes, yes, just like that!!!!"

*CLICK*

Attachment 567443

Hal Greer threw the pass that Johnny Havlicek famously stole.

That Barry Sanders card made me think of this card.

Shocking!

Attachment 567889

Thought I'd add a bit of a call back to post #78...

Attachment 569872

Sadaharu Oh lighting Shigeo Nagashima’s cigarette in bed on a 1974 Calbee card took me by surprise when I first saw it.

Since we've posted basketball too here I'm going to flex the board rules slightly. One of my favorite "WTF?" cards. This is from the tough E77 issue of 24 cards, 23 of which are nice cards. I don't know what happened here. The artist painted half his shirt and then decided there wasn't enough man boob on the card so he better not finish the shirt? He portrayed Kaufman shirtless and then decided half a shirt would look better? Nobody ever noticed how absurd the picture is?

The first 'wardrobe malfunction'?

Photobomber, clearly just leans on into the shot.

Here's another caramel wardrobe malfunction, from Philadelphia Caramel this time. Prize fighters sometimes didn't wear much, but this gentleman on the right has his shorts drawn only above his ass with his cheeks hanging out. No wonder they didn't put his name on the card! Little embarrassing.

Did you know there is a prostate cancer awareness relic baseball card? Of an unnamed player! I wonder how this was used...

Reddy Kilowatt playing card fits the bill I think.

Attachment 570820

Now that IS shocking!

This card has always freaked me out.

As a die-hard Mets fan and the son of a pair of Dem Bums fanatics, I was well aware that Gil Hodges died suddenly during spring training 1972, and this card (#465) might have actually been released after he died (talk about further creepiness, the 1972 O Pee Chee version has "DECEASED April 2, 1972" prominently displayed on the front of the card!!). It's bad enough that I was a young kid staring into the soul of a man who had JUST died, but the color balance of the card adds so much more ghoulishness to it. The blue of his eyes is amiss, so it gives them a haunting and eerie see-through quality, as if he's a ghost looking right through you. And further, assuming the pic was taken during the 1971 season, he was ONLY 47 years old, although he looks decades older.

However (if you can ignore all I just wrote, which I personally cannot), with the beautiful combination of red and blue (and white, Go USA!!!!!!), it really is a wonderful looking card 50+ years later...

Attachment 581358

The first thing I thought of was that my brother and I both had the Garbage pail Kids of our names (depending on the series) each year stuck to our dresser mirrors. I thought immediately of his in the first series ( I guess it's easy to figure out my brother's name, lol).

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/dxQAA...t3/s-l1600.jpg

Wow this has turned into a great thread.

Hodges was a heavy smoker they say. Kind of odd that such an apparently well put together guy, great player, great coach, good family man would smoke so hard but I guess a lot of guys from his generation did that.

Hodges was a paid spokesman for Lucky Strike Cigarettes. If you listen to the final Brooklyn Dodger broadcast available on Youtube you can hear one of his commercial spots.

Any baseball card featuring Bill Tuttle with a wad on chewing tobacco in his cheek is retro shocking to me seeing how he was the face of the anti tobacco movement in the 1990's. He was terribly disfigured and toured Spring Training with Joe Garagiola and lectured on the dangers of tobacco. RIP to both men.