Willie McCover-up
 

It's always been pretty obvious to me that much like the silly George Scott card from the same set, Willie McCovey's 1973 Topps card had more work done on it than any of the faces seen on those dumb-ass 'The Real Housewives of...' shows, but I noticed something else today, too.

Take a look at the space between Johnny Bench's helmet and the umpire's hand. There is a clear demarcation line separating the 'real' photo and the Topps art department's airbrushing activity. They obviously fuzzed out the area hitting the umpire, and that same fuzzing engulfs the upper half of 'Stretch' and the outfield stands as well. The jagged edges of his face almost makes him look pasted in (and the ump's edges above the outfield wall are choppy and not naturally smooth either).

Does anyone have any idea what they were obscuring here? Normally, you would think of a brand name that needed to be hidden, but although Candlestick had large red-based ads for Budweiser/Marlboro/Coke/etc. looming in the outfield, they were in the left center area, and the area of right field shown seemed to be free of such things.

Anyone have access to the original photograph used? Perhaps the crowd area was too busy and took the focus away from Willie??

This 'problem' is now a half century old, but it's really bugging me!!!!

Attachment 553643

I have no clue, Darren - but will be interested to see what you can come up with here. Though I own this card, I never noticed the "work" on it before.

Anyone have access to the original photograph used? Perhaps the crowd area was too busy and took the focus away from Willie??





Something tells me that in the 1973 in particular they weren't very concerned with the composition of their on-card images - I'm talking to YOU, Steve "Get out of my way Wes" Garvey, Joe "That's Mrs. Tenace's baby boy!" Rudi, Tommie "which one is he?" Agee and Luis "you want the undercoating packaged with that?" Alvarado.

Yeah, there sure was a lot of work done to that card. But I don't think there was any work done related to the bleachers. There were not seats in that lower area of right field at Candlestick. The football bleachers pushed in right there. You could sit higher up, but nowhere near the top of the outfield fence.

"It's a mystery! It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin' photographers don't even know! Don't you get it??!!"

Maybe the CIA blurred everything??

Topps did this on their display boxes all the time, Ben Solomon's Art Dept. was kept busy with this kind of stuff, I'm sure. Here's a link to my blog post about the 1973 Wax Wrapper art, they did some interesting work on those:

http://www.thetoppsarchives.com/2015/11/wrapping-is-many-splendored-thing.html

A screwy amalgam?

It's also very possible that the three-man image came from a separate photograph, was X-Acto knifed out and laid atop a generic outfield scene. There's a lot of evidence for this, but there are also semi-seamless areas that may dispute it. How skilled were the airbrushers? Tough call.

The 'right fielder' (who looks to be situated only a step in front of the warning track) seems way too large for that perspective to be real, coupled with the top of the wall being much too thick to have been photographed from some 400 or so feet away with the 'McCovey folks' in the foreground.

Here's a bold (but maybe accurate?) theory. That outfielder may actually be a left fielder (with red blatantly added to his entire head to definitively be a Cincinnati Reds player) playing at Candlestick (with the slice of red at the very top right of the image being from the Budweiser of Marlboro ad next to the scoreboard), and that's the generic photo that McCovey, et al, were laid on top of. Topps then airbrushed the heck out of everything to shoehorn the images together to make a whole.

I think you are looking at right field in Candlestick. My recollection from attending games there is that section was always ugly to look at when the football seats were retracted, it was an unsightly dark cavernous space so I can imagine the Topps people blurring it out to make a consistent background. The yellow uprights you see behind the outfielder are part of the retractable bleacher contraption. The orange peeking out at the top of the photo is the color of the bleacher seats, you can see the start of the section starting at Willies chin line and going up. The outfield wall, which I believe is 330 down the line, is not a wall at all, back then it was chain link or something similar, and what you're seeing is the padding that was on the posts and top.

I think they missed the blurring behind Benchs head and that darker color is more representative of what the background would have looked like. I don't get why they blacked out the umps lower half, makes him look like he's wearing a Blacksmiths apron.

I obviously used the generic baseball term of 'wall' to denote the outfield fence. And who knows how far away from the plate the photographer was? That's why I approximated 400 feet or so.

In case anyone is still paying attention, here's a reverse image of the card that really highlights how blatant the cropping around his head is. Wish I could locate the source photo.

Attachment 553757


And it gets a little weirder (as I continue down the rabbit hole). Here's an aerial view of Candlestick from the era...

Attachment 553758

Look behind the 'wall' in right centerfield. See the one angled ramp-looking thing closest to the fence? Now look to the right of the fielder in the reversed picture of the McCovey card above. The bottom of one of those angled things (presumably) is in view and it's oriented the same way now...in a REVERSED pic (thus, in the original pic it would be going the wrong way)!!! Is it possible that a reversed random pic was used for the outfield section? The Reds right fielder was most likely Pete Rose, who threw righty. The reversed player seems to have a mitt on his left hand. I dunno. If there's no reversal, then perhaps it was Bobby Tolan (or possibly lefties César Gerónimo or Joe Hague depending on the year of the picture) either playing in right or positioned in right as part of the McCovey shift.

Man, I gotta stop. Occam's razor, Occam's razor!! Nothing weird to be found here. It's just a blurred out airbrushing job.

Here’s some shots of those ramps.
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Yeah that card is a messed up riddle .
I was thinking maybe an artist crudely re-created The entire background from a photo ( The outfielders arm is 4 feet long )
But the green grass between the Bench and McCovey is consistent with the grass in front of McCovey .
Musta hit that foul ball a mile for both of them to be gawking like that

It's all in the shadows....just like with the CIA's "back yard" photos.

This video seems to offer some insight as to when the card's image was taken.

https://youtu.be/_GG_bIHpsUo

Go to the 22:30 mark.

LOL now I'm picturing Joe Pesci going through a pile of '73 Topps...

You'd think they'd have just found a nicer shot of McCovey, so the photoshop guys didn't have to work overtime just to create such a weird shot for a baseball card.

Looks like the umpire was just laid in there from a completely different photo, for some reason.

Yeah, the outfielders left arm looks like he's got the wingspan of Wilt Chamberlain on the body of Freddy Patek.

:D

Attachment 554032


Yup, look at the size of the ump's tiny little G.I. Joe hand when compared to Bench's or McCovey's. We know they're big guys, but come on now!! And the umpire is in the 'foreground,' for cripes (or is it the possessive "cripe's"?) sake, so his hand should appear even larger. Plus, how tall does 'Mini Me(diator)' look in this shot, as he is standing, but barely clears the top of the crouched/basically seated Johnny Bench (and again, he's in the FOREGROUND, so his head should be way up there towards the top border of the card)???

I cry foul!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I won't even mention the incongruity of his body positioning, as he seems to be involved in an entirely different play, looking down to watch a pitch in the dirt or something.

The Magic 8 Ball says, "All signs point to a cut and paste job."

Attachment 554034

mCCovey
 

I dont know...did Topps really care that much in 73 about " trying to keep it real "..did someone in the art dept. feel the card wouldnt look right without an " ump" pasted in ?

I realize 73 T set had loads of brush work, awful photos etc..but seems to me its nothing more then sloppy , blurry, distant shooting photography .

I agree that it very well could be a bit of a nothing burger, but just look at the effort put forth in pasting in an entire background of fans looking the wrong way to the George Scott card, and you have to wonder what the heck was going on over there in Duryea, PA...

Attachment 554036

It's an odd shot for sure but it doesn't look to me like there's anything wrong with the ump. His hand is only showing the first two knuckles and thus his fingers are not elongated but rather gripped, and he easily could have been coming out of his crouched stance and thus not at full height. I also believe he could be looking in the same direction (mostly), although the odd thing to me is 1) seeing Willie McCovey swinging that late so as to foul the ball off basically behind the on-deck circle and fairly deep into the stands, and 2) all of these guys caring enough to look (obviously well out of play or Bench would have chased it and the ump would have followed). The outfield portion of the card looks weird though. Strange indeed.

Looking at the card along with the picture of the park, I think the photo may have had the background swapped out.

Using that pic, and the info about the ramps, to me the angle to pick up the ramps would be along the red line I've drawn (Poorly) That would leave the photographer in a prime spot to get clobbered by a ball fouled back.

But the players look like they were pictured from surprise surprise.. the area that's often a photographers area near the outfield end of the dugout. Blue line, also poorly drawn.

https://www.net54baseball.com/pictur...ictureid=35209