Willie McCover-up

[JollyElm]

It's always been pretty obvious to me that much like the silly George Scott card from the same set, Willie McCovey's 1973 Topps card had more work done on it than any of the faces seen on those dumb-ass 'The Real Housewives of...' shows, but I noticed something else today, too.

Take a look at the space between Johnny Bench's helmet and the umpire's hand. There is a clear demarcation line separating the 'real' photo and the Topps art department's airbrushing activity. They obviously fuzzed out the area hitting the umpire, and that same fuzzing engulfs the upper half of 'Stretch' and the outfield stands as well. The jagged edges of his face almost makes him look pasted in (and the ump's edges above the outfield wall are choppy and not naturally smooth either).

Does anyone have any idea what they were obscuring here? Normally, you would think of a brand name that needed to be hidden, but although Candlestick had large red-based ads for Budweiser/Marlboro/Coke/etc. looming in the outfield, they were in the left center area, and the area of right field shown seemed to be free of such things.

Anyone have access to the original photograph used? Perhaps the crowd area was too busy and took the focus away from Willie??

This 'problem' is now a half century old, but it's really bugging me!!!!

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