Willie McCover-up

[bocca001]

Yeah, there sure was a lot of work done to that card. But I don't think there was any work done related to the bleachers. There were not seats in that lower area of right field at Candlestick. The football bleachers pushed in right there. You could sit higher up, but nowhere near the top of the outfield fence.

[JollyElm]

"It's a mystery! It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin' photographers don't even know! Don't you get it??!!"

Maybe the CIA blurred everything??

[toppcat]

Topps did this on their display boxes all the time, Ben Solomon's Art Dept. was kept busy with this kind of stuff, I'm sure. Here's a link to my blog post about the 1973 Wax Wrapper art, they did some interesting work on those:

http://www.thetoppsarchives.com/2015/11/wrapping-is-many-splendored-thing.html

[JollyElm]

A screwy amalgam?

It's also very possible that the three-man image came from a separate photograph, was X-Acto knifed out and laid atop a generic outfield scene. There's a lot of evidence for this, but there are also semi-seamless areas that may dispute it. How skilled were the airbrushers? Tough call.

The 'right fielder' (who looks to be situated only a step in front of the warning track) seems way too large for that perspective to be real, coupled with the top of the wall being much too thick to have been photographed from some 400 or so feet away with the 'McCovey folks' in the foreground.

Here's a bold (but maybe accurate?) theory. That outfielder may actually be a left fielder (with red blatantly added to his entire head to definitively be a Cincinnati Reds player) playing at Candlestick (with the slice of red at the very top right of the image being from the Budweiser of Marlboro ad next to the scoreboard), and that's the generic photo that McCovey, et al, were laid on top of. Topps then airbrushed the heck out of everything to shoehorn the images together to make a whole.

[Casey2296]

I think you are looking at right field in Candlestick. My recollection from attending games there is that section was always ugly to look at when the football seats were retracted, it was an unsightly dark cavernous space so I can imagine the Topps people blurring it out to make a consistent background. The yellow uprights you see behind the outfielder are part of the retractable bleacher contraption. The orange peeking out at the top of the photo is the color of the bleacher seats, you can see the start of the section starting at Willies chin line and going up. The outfield wall, which I believe is 330 down the line, is not a wall at all, back then it was chain link or something similar, and what you're seeing is the padding that was on the posts and top.

I think they missed the blurring behind Benchs head and that darker color is more representative of what the background would have looked like. I don't get why they blacked out the umps lower half, makes him look like he's wearing a Blacksmiths apron.

[JollyElm]

I obviously used the generic baseball term of 'wall' to denote the outfield fence. And who knows how far away from the plate the photographer was? That's why I approximated 400 feet or so.

[JollyElm]

In case anyone is still paying attention, here's a reverse image of the card that really highlights how blatant the cropping around his head is. Wish I could locate the source photo.

1973mccovey410reversed.jpg


And it gets a little weirder (as I continue down the rabbit hole). Here's an aerial view of Candlestick from the era...

candlestickparkfromabove.jpg

Look behind the 'wall' in right centerfield. See the one angled ramp-looking thing closest to the fence? Now look to the right of the fielder in the reversed picture of the McCovey card above. The bottom of one of those angled things (presumably) is in view and it's oriented the same way now...in a REVERSED pic (thus, in the original pic it would be going the wrong way)!!! Is it possible that a reversed random pic was used for the outfield section? The Reds right fielder was most likely Pete Rose, who threw righty. The reversed player seems to have a mitt on his left hand. I dunno. If there's no reversal, then perhaps it was Bobby Tolan (or possibly lefties César Gerónimo or Joe Hague depending on the year of the picture) either playing in right or positioned in right as part of the McCovey shift.

Man, I gotta stop. Occam's razor, Occam's razor!! Nothing weird to be found here. It's just a blurred out airbrushing job.

[savedfrommyspokes]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

"It's a mystery! It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin' photographers don't even know! Don't you get it??!!"

Maybe the CIA blurred everything??

It's all in the shadows....just like with the CIA's "back yard" photos.

[savedfrommyspokes]

This video seems to offer some insight as to when the card's image was taken.

https://youtu.be/_GG_bIHpsUo

Go to the 22:30 mark.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

"It's a mystery! It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma! The fuckin' photographers don't even know! Don't you get it??!!"

Maybe the CIA blurred everything??

LOL now I'm picturing Joe Pesci going through a pile of '73 Topps...

[D. Bergin]

You'd think they'd have just found a nicer shot of McCovey, so the photoshop guys didn't have to work overtime just to create such a weird shot for a baseball card.

Looks like the umpire was just laid in there from a completely different photo, for some reason.

[JollyElm]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Looks like the umpire was just laid in there from a completely different photo, for some reason.

1973mccovey410.jpg


Yup, look at the size of the ump's tiny little G.I. Joe hand when compared to Bench's or McCovey's. We know they're big guys, but come on now!! And the umpire is in the 'foreground,' for cripes (or is it the possessive "cripe's"?) sake, so his hand should appear even larger. Plus, how tall does 'Mini Me(diator)' look in this shot, as he is standing, but barely clears the top of the crouched/basically seated Johnny Bench (and again, he's in the FOREGROUND, so his head should be way up there towards the top border of the card)???

I cry foul!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I won't even mention the incongruity of his body positioning, as he seems to be involved in an entirely different play, looking down to watch a pitch in the dirt or something.

The Magic 8 Ball says, "All signs point to a cut and paste job."

1973mccovey410-isolatedump.jpg

[ALBB]

I dont know...did Topps really care that much in 73 about " trying to keep it real "..did someone in the art dept. feel the card wouldnt look right without an " ump" pasted in ?

I realize 73 T set had loads of brush work, awful photos etc..but seems to me its nothing more then sloppy , blurry, distant shooting photography .

[JollyElm]

I agree that it very well could be a bit of a nothing burger, but just look at the effort put forth in pasting in an entire background of fans looking the wrong way to the George Scott card, and you have to wonder what the heck was going on over there in Duryea, PA...

1973georgescott.jpg