The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[jchcollins]

Gasp! How dare you call one of my favorite Willie Mays cards "ugly"? J/K...

I get it though. His face did seem to age fast in comparison to other ballplayers. Was he a smoker? In fairness the '65 Mantle is also one of my favorite vintage cards, and that's a downright awful image of the Mick...

[OsFan]

I’ll give it a shot. Let’s face it there are very few if any bad Koufax cards, similar to Clemente. I don’t think Roberto has a single bad card. Anyway: (and remember I’m trying to keep it slightly humorous if I can)

The good - 1963 Topps - The perfect profile pose, great colors, good shot of his LA Dodgers uniform. The lightning is also great, looks almost like an old movie still frame. He straight up looks like a badass!


The Bad - 1964 Topps - First he has a “hurry up and snap the pic dude” look on his face. It’s a tight portrait so no view at all of the uniform or stadium surroundings. There’s not a great shot of the cap, you can’t see the LA, but what you can see is a gnarly sweat stains, ha! Also looks like he has a pimple on his forehead above his right eye.


The Ugly - 1960 Topps - This truly is my least favorite Koufax card. Problem number one is he looks like he’s trying to pass a deuce. Who snaps a pic of a guy passing a deuce? It just not right. But the biggest problem for me which is the cardinal sin of baseball cards, HE'S NOT WEARING A BASEBALL HAT!!! I hate that on baseball cards, even if it’s a traded card and the guys moving to a new team. Even then I hate it. But in this case Koufax was going nowhere! It makes no sense and looks like crap!
End of rant, I feel much better now.


Well there you have it, kinda fun. Now I challenge someone to try to do the same with Clemente.

[jchcollins]

Your “bad” is actually a ‘66 Topps - one of my favorite cards. 😬

[OsFan]

Originally Posted by jchcollins

Your “bad” is actually a ‘66 Topps - one of my favorite cards. 😬

Truth be told I'm a fan of the '66 as well. Like I said it's near impossible to find a bad Koufax card. With the exception of the no cap '60 Topps.

[cesarcap]

Good thread. Here’s my contributions on Johnny Bench, w/o pix as I’m traveling.

The Good: 69 Topps. As others have said, this card is nicer than his true RC. He’s alone, looking spry and ready to play. The trophy and background makes me want to grab a hot dog, beer and cracker jacks and settle into my seat.

The Bad: 73 Topps. A lousy attempt at an In Action card. It had potential. I actually like the graininess of the photograph as it fits into the era. But if he was just looking a bit more towards the photographer...

The Ugly: 78 Topps. Couldn’t the photographer ask him to just face the camera a bit? Or use a flash to brighten up his face? He looks more like a 3rd base coach w/o a bat resting on his shoulder.

[Bigdaddy]

Here's my Johnny Bench choices:

The Good: 1976 Topps - one of my favorite baseball cards of all time. Classic photo; looks like something that would fit right in a Clint Eastwood movie.

The Bad: 1977 Topps - could the photographer have cropped it any closer? I can see the pores in his skin.

The Ugly: 1983 Fleer - really Fleer - is that the best photo you have of the greatest catcher of all time? Johnny looks like he's annoyed at something.

[KCRfan1]

Originally Posted by Bigdaddy

Here's my Johnny Bench choices:

The Good: 1976 Topps - one of my favorite baseball cards of all time. Classic photo; looks like something that would fit right in a Clint Eastwood movie.

The Bad: 1977 Topps - could the photographer have cropped it any closer? I can see the pores in his skin.

The Ugly: 1983 Fleer - really Fleer - is that the best photo you have of the greatest catcher of all time? Johnny looks like he's annoyed at something.

Tom,

It was hard for me to take Fleer and Donruss seriously when they showed up in the 80's due to a lot of their poor photo choices. Some are just goofy.

Bench is just winding up to nail the Fleer photographer......