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...
1972hodges465.jpg