[Jenx34]

This is my favorite design we did. When I was the kid 1975 was the first year I bought cards and the first World Series I remember. 1975 Topps was and still is my favorite set (and my current collecting obsession) so I wanted to do an "Ode to '75". In 2003, no one else really got the reference, but to me, creating this design was a ton of fun. Grandstand was the printer and Len made us change a few things so as not to completely knock off Topps' design.

A funny story... When I took the players sets to them, Neal Cotts didn't care for the pink and purple border his card has. I told him it was good enough for Nolan Ryan so he should quit whining and for him to look it up. The next day, when he got to the park, he stopped into the office and told me he approved.

Note: You can see from these photos that getting good pics was not easy. We had to get all of the pics taken early in the season when it was colder and crowds were sparse, so it was hard to get any angles with fans in the background.
Note 2: The upper right card of Cotts was in an Update Set we did at the end of the year and features him in a throwback mid 80's Barons uniform. That game was played at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, built in 1910, is still the oldest ballpark in America. It is a shrine that should not be missed and oozes history, with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Satchel Paige and Willie Mays (as a 17 yr old) playing there at one point.