1951 Bowman Paul Richards - WTF?
 

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What's the story behind this card? It doesn't fit into this set at all! Was he included in the last minute and Bowman had to hire some artist to draw him up? Maybe they had no picture of him? It looks awful!

Pretty sure that until the actual color photography of the 53 set Bowman just colorized black and white photos. I think there is one or more threads in here on the Richards card which is a drawing rather than a colorized photo. One theory was that he was a late add to the set and no suitable photo was readily available. He had retired back in 1946 and had just taken the White Sox manager job in 1951. Someone else may have better info

This looks like the pic they used for the drawing

That can't be the photo. Baltimore Orioles didn't exist until 1954; Richards didn't join them until 1955.

I suspect you mean 1951 here.

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All 1951 Bowmans were drawings from actual photos. They are not B&W photos with color added. For some reason, Bowman made the Richards a caricature rather than a life like drawing.

Since he retired in 46 and did not take the managerial job until 51 it may be a drawing was easier that locating a suitable photo to colorize or use to create a color image

That is the most common theory on all of the stories concerning the card after googling it, Richards wasn’t named the manager until the Bowman cards were near ready to print, Bowman didn’t have any recent photos of Richards since he had been out of baseball for a while so they had one of their artists do a last second rush job for the Richards card.

Something notable about the 1951 Bowman set is that it was the first major release since at least the 30s (as far back as I researched) to include a manager card for every team.

Because the Richards hiring came relatively late, I do believe there was a hurry-up element here as early preparations would have assumed Red Corriden at the helm.

What remains a mystery to me is how the artists who did such incredible work on everyone else would have done so poorly here. Even without a photo I would still expect better.

I have been tempted for a while to do a SABR Baseball Cards blog article on this card, but I feel like a missing puzzle piece needs to be found first.

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Could be, but that seems unlikely to me. Richards was a very successful manager in the Int'l League in the late 40's and should have appeared regularly in newspapers, programs, etc. Since the photos were going to be colored anyway, it should not have been that difficult to find a shot of him as manager of Buffalo and adapting it accordingly.

Maybe it was an intentional dig at the White Sox organization. Their 1951 Topps team card was printed upside down, as well. Was Charley Comiskey roundly disliked by card companies, or something?:D