I'm almost POSITIVE this card features Shoeless Joe...

[brett]

Originally Posted by Abravefan11

I've tried to remain impartial throughout this thread but I must admit after closely comparing the newspaper photo with the T202 image I'm on the "It's Joe" team now.

With that said I'm perplexed by the fact that they would use an image of Joe and not mention him on the card. Other players that aren't included on the end panels are mentioned in the description of center panel images.

Yeah, and I can assure you that they were all compensated and signed off on the usage of their names on those cards. Maybe they were simply never able to get Joe to sign off for whatever reason or he just didn't want to be a part of it. Laws back then were much different than they are today and it's quite possible that Hassan had MLB's permission to use any of their player's images as part of the set without having to get the individual player's permission as long as they didn't use his name. I'm a sports agent and there are similar rules today as it related to trading cards. Some companies who don't have MLB's license can use players images and names BUT NO TEAM LOGOS as long as they have a license with the Players Association (like Upper Deck now). On the other hand, card companies have made cards where they didn't specify players names because they didn't have a group licensing agreement (GLA) with the Player's Union, but they could in fact show team logos because they bought the rights from the League. Look at Topps football cards from the mid 70's to around 1981 and you'll see that all the helmet and team logos are airbrushed out (no license from the League). Look at Fleer football cards from the same era and you'll see all the players in team logos, but no specific mention of those players' names (no license from the Players Association). As it turned out, the fans cared more about the players names and statistics and Fleer was put out of the football business for many years. At that point, Topps then got the NFL's rights to use team logos as well. Hope this possibly clears that up.

ALSO, all the players pictured on end panels of the T202 set were from the same exact pictures used in the T205 Gold Border set. Players like Lajoie and Crawford who for whatever reason never granted their permission the be included in the T205 set (but obviously agreed to be included in the T202 set) could only be featured on center panels being as no end-panel artwork existed. Maybe Shoeless Joe never agreed for his name to be used on either. There were several other sets from that era that he didn't appear in as well. In 1915 when he was considered the top player in the game why did he grant Cracker Jack permission to make a card of him, but not American Caramel? I'm sure American Caramel would have liked to include him as they made cards of all the other stars of the day. Looks like Joe wasn't very easy to pin down and maybe he was just way ahead of his time when it came to guarding his intellectual properties.