Sunday, February 3, 2019

AIRBRUSHING THROUGH THE 1970'S- 1973 TONY TAYLOR. BUT WHY?

I posted about this card a few years ago and never got an answer to my plea: why did Topps feel the need to airbrush the cap on the 1973 Tony Taylor card?
Take a look:


Taylor was obviously suited up in Tigers gear in this image, having already played a year and a half at this point for the organization.
But why the paint-job on the logo on the cap? I understand the Tigers had the orange “D” logo in effect on the caps, but if you go through other Detroit cards in the set, it was about 50/50 between the classic white or the new orange “D”.
So why mess with the image, especially when the result was this sloppy mess?
Anyone know what happened here?
As for Taylor, he put together a very nice 19-year Major League career, collecting 2007 hits and scoring 1005 runs while swiping 234 bases, mainly for the Philadelphia Phillies for whom he played 15 seasons.