Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Farewell 42

Mariano Rivera closed out his All-Star appearances last night.  I won't repeat what has been well documented about the game.  Didn't actually see it except at a distance.  I figure I made out OK since I missed Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

Gotta respect a guy who pitches with such consistency and longevity, even for a Yankee.  Bonus points for rockin out to Metallica when he enters a game.


Saturday, June 22, 2013

1949 Bowman Ken Venturi

Geez, nothing like posting every six months or so....

Anyway, I was just watching the Feherty show with the late great Ken Venturi, who had a short ten year PGA golf career (1956-1967), and was the revered broadcaster for CBS for so long before his retirement in 2002.  Venturi passed away on May 17 of this year.
At one point in the interview, Venturi mentioned he had been offered a contract by Lefty O'Doul of the New York Yankees in 1949 at the age of 18.  He turned them down when he “ found out they live a lot better at country clubs than they do in dugouts.”


That gave me the inspiration for the card above.  What might his card have looked like had he forsaken golf for baseball?  I merged an old picture of Ken and Phil Rizzuto.  Then colorized the face and cropped it to size.  Had to cull the nameplate and PSA label name from a few different cards.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Tribute to 1965 Topps tall boys

I've had most of the pieces for this one for a good while, just never finished it.  Since Topps revived this design for a mini set in their 2012 offering, I figured it's a timely choice.  I actually considered using it before the set came out.  Simple enough design.  Just have to find two cards with all the right letters and then crop and blot out the background of a good photo, which was hard to find in Priest's case.  Not a lot of helmetless pics of him out there.  Solid background makes this one real easy.  Just had to raise him up so he was closer to the team name and extend the jersey down a little....


Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Happy Birthday Dutchess and me! 2013

Happy Birthday to (pregnant) Kate Middleton!  As I mark my 46th year, along with Bart Starr, Jimmy Page, Bob Denver, Crystal Gayle, Richard Nixon, Dave Matthews, Chad "formerly Ocho Cinco" Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Dick Enberg and Muggsy Bogues.