[Eric72]

When I picked up card #83, Karl Spooner, I had no idea who he was. This is not surprising, considering the fact that he only played for two seasons. I came to learn that the left-hander was a phenom of a pitcher who enjoyed a stunningly good start to his career. It was not meant to last, though. An early injury ultimately took him from top of the world down to being a flash-in-the-pan.

While doing a bit of research on the player, I also discovered something interesting about the '56 Topps card on which Spooner appears. There are (at least) two versions of the front. The portrait was cropped a bit tighter on one of them. This is perhaps easiest to spot at the top of the Brooklyn "B" on his cap. Details, one of which I grabbed from eBay, appear below.

Is this a common occurrence for 1956 Topps Baseball? Were there two different fronts for the cards with a white/gray back variation?