My $3 Tribute to Zito / Hudson / Mulder
 

While I was hunting Canseco cards at the Tri-Star card show over a year ago, I started shuffling through several boxes of el-cheap-o game used cards. They were sectioned off by team, so my first stop was the Athletics, of course. Sadly, they didn't have any Canseco cards at all, but they did have several recognizable names. Zito...Zito...Mulder...Zito....Hudson...Mulder...

Hmmm, wait a second. "Excuse me, sir. How much are these each?"

The dealer responded with "They are $1 a pop."

The wheels in my head started to turn. I had my hand in a bunch of cheap cards from Oakland's former Big Three pitchers! Surely, this would be a fun little project! So, I decided to grab one each of Zito, Mulder and Hudson. To make things interesting, I decided to try and grab each with a different color. I was able to pick up a green, a gray and a white.

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...929_111900.jpg

When I got home, I put them in the "to be slaughtered" pile in the top of my hutch and forgot about them. As with many projects that I conjure up in my head, they just sat there gathering dust.

Mulder has been retired for a while, Huddy said this was his last year, and Zito just recently said he is done. In my mind, these are still 3 young stars - how on earth did it come to this? I honestly don't know, but here we are ... in a Zito-Hudson-Mulderless world (well, baseball world, that is!)

I figured now would be as good a time as any to have some fun with these dusty old $1 cards. I started playing with a few ideas in Photoshop. Here are a few early renditions.

My first try:

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-.../2015/10/1.jpg

Second try:

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-.../2015/10/2.jpg

Third try:

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-.../2015/10/3.jpg

I ended up dropping the Triple Threads type of game used text. I've oftentimes wondered if Topps hired the Chic-Fil-A cows to come up with what they say on cards. Many times they just seem bizarre.

Anyway, I didn't want to spend a TON of time on the card, so I settled on this:

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...Untitled-3.jpg

To amp things up just a bit, I decided to make the card a foil one. I don't think you can tell too terribly much from the picture, but when you look at the card in hand, think: 1993 SP foil cards.

http://www.tanmanbaseballfan.com/wp-...020_165905.jpg

It was a fun little project I was able to do of 3 pitching aces from my favorite team, and aside from the time it took, all it cost me was $3.

That's awesome Mouschi!

Yes, another great piece by you! $1 each, you can't go wrong!

Very cool. How long did it take you to make the card ?

I basically worked on it on and off today. I'm not sure how many "hours" it took, but this one wasn't a long one to do, because it was more of a personal project I had in the hopper and not something that I'd collect personally. If it were a Canseco card, I'd probably put in three times as much time into it lol!

I will say I spent 15-30 minutes on it a week ago, but scrapped everything I did from that one in terms of design.

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.