Show a Card that is 'Shocking' (whatever that means to you personally)...

[philliesfan]

Now that IS shocking!

[JollyElm]

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

[JustinD]

The first thing I thought of was that my brother and I both had the Garbage pail Kids of our names (depending on the series) each year stuck to our dresser mirrors. I thought immediately of his in the first series ( I guess it's easy to figure out my brother's name, lol).

[Kutcher55]

Wow this has turned into a great thread.

Hodges was a heavy smoker they say. Kind of odd that such an apparently well put together guy, great player, great coach, good family man would smoke so hard but I guess a lot of guys from his generation did that.

[mortimer brewster]

Originally Posted by Kutcher55

Wow this has turned into a great thread.

Hodges was a heavy smoker they say. Kind of odd that such an apparently well put together guy, great player, great coach, good family man would smoke so hard but I guess a lot of guys from his generation did that.

Hodges was a paid spokesman for Lucky Strike Cigarettes. If you listen to the final Brooklyn Dodger broadcast available on Youtube you can hear one of his commercial spots.

Any baseball card featuring Bill Tuttle with a wad on chewing tobacco in his cheek is retro shocking to me seeing how he was the face of the anti tobacco movement in the 1990's. He was terribly disfigured and toured Spring Training with Joe Garagiola and lectured on the dangers of tobacco. RIP to both men.