Thursday, April 28, 2016

Pirates '50s phenom gets 1952 Topps custom



In my reading of early 1950s microfilm of The Sporting News I learned a great deal about baseball's first $100,000  bonus baby, Paul Pettit, who signed out of high school with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1950.

Arm injuries early in his career -- some sources say even before he ever pitched an inning in pro ball -- derailed what had been projected to be a great future.

On March 17 on this blog I presented my 1956-Topps style fantasy card of Pettit later in his career as a position player with the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League.

My new 1952 Topps-style custom card imagines what Pettit's Topps rookie card might have looked like.

For as big a splash as Pettit made going from high school superstar to the pro game, there are not all that many photos of him readily available in a Pirates uniform; certainly none in color. I colorized a pitching-pose photo and it seemed to fit in well with the horizontal format used for some Topps cards in 1952.

The stats box on back is not what I would ideally like to have there. Certain pitching statistics such as runs allowed and strikeouts for his three minor league stops were beyond my ability to hunt them down. I would have preferred the stat box to have lines for his 1951 cup of coffee with Piittsburgh and for his cumulative 1950-51 minor league numbers.

As it is, I'm not unhappy with how this custom card -- my 12th in the 1952 Topps style -- turned out.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comments, criticism, additional information, questions, etc., are welcome . . . as long as they are germane to the original topic. All comments are moderated before they are allowed to appear and spam comments are deleted before they ever appear. No "Anonymous User" comments are allowed.