Failing Forward
 

Had a strange thought while thinking about some of my all-time favorite cards that I collected as a kid...and that was how God-awful some of the follow-up cards were the next year.
You know how in weight loss ads the gorgeous photos are always featured in the 'after,' not the 'before,' section? Well, it seems Topps preferred to sometimes switch up that narrative.


Case in point: in 1976, my older brothers and I were constantly ripping through the bounty of card packs our parents rewarded us with for being decent human beings.
Besides gobbling up all of the Mets, the prized gem was finding a menacing Johnny Bench 'standing tall in a swirl of dust' card. Man, what a frickin' epic image!!!!

Remember the joy of those days?
I sure do, but what no one seems to recall is having that same obsession the following spring when the new cards started appearing at the stationery store.
Gloriously searching through packs while annealing ourselves (I believe that metaphor works) to the 'foreignness' of the strange, new design, a pack finally yielded a Mr. Bench...and you suddenly found your brain
imitating the screaming guy on the bridge in that Edvard Munch painting as you thought, "What in high f*ck is up with this noggin nonsense??? The card is all head and nothing else. Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

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Luckily, that bitterness was soon assuaged when (with a face full of plank-like gum) a phenomenal Dave Kingman card dropped out of a new pack, making you the envy of your friends.
"My goodness!!! What an awesome shot of 'Kong' (never called him that) launching one at Shea. And the All-Star banner is the icing on the cake!!!! Holy freaking cow!!!!" Life was good again, and that esteemed Kingman always sat atop any pile of cards I assembled.
The cream always rises to the top. (We, of course, had no idea that our tears would be flowing shortly as his first stay in Queens came to an abrupt end, but in hindsight, #26 will ALWAYS be a Met.)


Unfortunately, time is on its Harley forever speeding forward and 1978 arrived much too quickly...and with it came another embarrassing follow-up card. What did they do to Dave Kingman???? They Johnny Benched his head
to ensure it filled up as much space as possible, and the (apparently) drunk Topps Art Department did a kindergarten-level attempt at airbrushing him into the uniform of his fourth different team of 1977. Yuck!!!!!!!

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And again following a pattern, a beautiful vision in cardboard appeared to soothe our ever-desirous eyes - REG-GIE!!! gracing the surface of what is widely acknowledged to be the greatest card of the (then) modern era, and it left everything behind it in the dust.
The previous World Series had turned legions of Mets fans towards loving (or at least NOT hating) the Yankees. This was anathema to everything we believed in, but it was impossible to not get caught up in the fervor of him finally helping the Yanks become champs again!!!

A beautiful era, that...but here came 1979 with yet another saddening headshot. Did Topps not realize that kids imitate their favorite players' batting styles or glovework, and no 13-year-old cared at all about what a player looked like in close-up???
We wanted cool action shots, not cards that resembled the yearbookish (is that a word?) photos mom got of our siblings from the Sears Portrait Studio.

Growing up is tough, I guess.

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Anyone else have any other examples of these types of failing forwards??

Carl Yastrzemski had a few clunkers early in his career. Topps started him off in 1960 with a fine-looking card, then reused the same portrait on the following year's much less appealing design, and the format showed off the pinstriped uniform, indicating that despite the Boston Red Sox hat they had painted on, he was wearing the uniform of the Minneapolis Millers.

You just described the 1957 and 1958 Topps sets. Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Luis Aparicio, Robin Roberts, Hank Aaron, Whitey Ford, Frank Robinson, Early Wynn, Ernie Banks, Richie Ashburn, Larry Doby, Mickey Mantle, Bob Lemon, Al Kaline, Minnie Minoso, Duke Snider, Enos Slaughter, all amazing looking cards in 1957. Ugly head shots in 1958.

1957 Brooks Robinson: a fine looking card. Nothing spectacular.

1958 Brooks Robinson: did they photograph him mid-belch?

I love this. Once you start looking at the late 70s and the early 80s, they're all over the place.

1979 Pete Rose - just lashed a single, maybe stretch it to a double.
1980 Pete Rose - check out my hair and my teeth!

1980 Nolan Ryan - the Express is now departing!
1981 Nolan Ryan - sir, you have to look into the camera for your driver's license photo. And remove the hat!

1981 Dave Parker - the Cobra has struck! A mortal wound?
1982 Dave Parker - is it my turn for BP yet?

1982 Nolan Ryan - the Express is now boarding!
1983 Nolan Ryan - Warming up, gonna throw a 4-seamer. No, I don't know what's going on behind me.


These seem to drop off around 1983, with action shots balancing the head shots at the bottom.