I have always been a bit bothered by Hank Aaron's 1970 Topps card (#500).
Now, I'm all for cool photos beyond the typical posed shots. But to
have this photo of a somewhat "surprised" Aaron in the dugout, as if
he's been busted signing a ball for someone he shouldn't be signing for
makes no sense to me.
It's boring, odd, and uninspired actually. And the glare off of his face doesn't help anything either.
When you think about it, Aaron was really shafted with bad or boring cards during most of his career.
There really isn't a "great" or "awesome" Aaron baseball card
except perhaps his 1955 card, or maybe his 1956, but they messed THAT
one up by using a Willie Mays action shot for the background image!
Think about this, Topps even went ahead and flipped the poor guys
1957 photo for his card in that all-time classic set, AND they went
ahead and used the same photo in both 1968 and 1969. Why? This is Hank
Aaron for God's sake!
It's a shame Aaron didn't have nicer cards in his career. Not that I think he cared at all. But for us collectors, well…
I already redesigned his 1973 card (ugly photo), as well as his
1975 card (terrible airbrush shot). So why not go ahead and "fix" his
1970 "candid camera" card?
Instead of trying to use some action shot that was atypical of
Aaron cards in this era, or the type of photos used by Topps in the 1970
set, I just used a much nicer posed shot of him from around 1969.
Hope you like it.
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| As issued by Topps. |
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| Let's use a more classic pose for "Hammerin' Hank". |
