Man have I been sitting on this card for a while!
An absolute gem of an airbrush disaster if there ever was one: the 1973 Topps Rich McKinney card. Take a look:
Where do we begin?!
First off, poor McKinney! As I profiled a while ago, his 1972 card
was also a bad airbrush job, showing him as a New York Yankee with his
cap poorly executed, with his last-name clearly running across the back
of his jersey (something a Yankee jersey has
NEVER had).
It was clearly McKinney in a White Sox uniform, and slapped together for his '72 issued card.
Now here we have something that tops it, a terrible neon disaster
of a paint job trying to show him in an Oakland A's uniform, with a
hilariously done two-dimensional looking paint job!
Just look at the cap! Look at the black stroke around his body against the background! Awesome, just awesome.
I love the almost crayon-fill yellow striping on the jersey, and
that wisp of hair that looks like it's coming out of his cap on the
back.
Definitely one of Topps worst (and for us, best) airbrush jobs of the period.
McKinney didn't play much for a few years after 1973, totaling only 13 games for the A's combined in 1974 and 1975.
He was out of Major League ball for 1976, but did come back and
play in just over half a season's worth of games in 1977, getting into
86 games for Oakland before calling it a career.
As a matter of fact I want to create a "missing" 1978 card for him
since he had decent playing time the previous year, but I just cannot
find a usable image of him in an Oakland uniform anywhere.
If anyone has one, please send it along so we can fill in this "missing" part of 1970's Topps cards!
