Posted on 02/27/2007 11:23:52 AM PST by SuperSonic
NEW YORK -- As President Bush smiled and waved from the stands and Mickey Mantle looked on from the dugout, Derek Jeter swung his bat. Talk about pressure.
The game never happened, though. It was just someone's idea of a visual gag -- pulled off in a recent Topps baseball card through digital manipulation.
"Somewhere in between the final proofing and its printing, someone at our company -- and we won't name names -- thought it would be funny to put in Bush and Mantle," said Clay Luraschi, a spokesman for Topps in Tuesday's edition of the Daily News.
The president's image is superimposed on the picture, while whoever played the trick took some time blending Mantle into the background of Jeter's card, No. 40 in the set.
Luraschi said that the gag was discovered during proofing of the card, but that it was already in the set. "We couldn't do anything but laugh," he said.
It's not the first card to have silly errors or odd prints, said T.S. O'Connell, the editor of Sports Collector's Digest. "For collectors, there's a real giggle factor for something like this," he said.
The Jeter card could join other famed oddball cards, like the 1969 Topps of Aurelio Rodriguez. That card featured a photo of a bat boy instead of the infielder.
Another collector said the joke would raise the price of the card, which currently goes for $2 on eBay.
Jeter told the News said he didn't know anything about the card. A White House spokesman declined to comment.
Luraschi said he doesn't know whether the card would be corrected in the future.
This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
ttiwwp
These are selling from $60-$120 on ebay right now..
If the "someone" wasnt put up to it, then they will probably see a promotion for the good PR.
I bet you whoever did this was trying to just get Mantle in the card. The Bush image stands out so much, that I could easily see someone catching that obvious manipulation and then miss the well done Mantle image.
$355 with days to go...
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-2007-Topps-Jeter-Mantle-Bush-40-card-lot-rare-sp_W0QQitemZ160090329809QQihZ006QQcategoryZ636QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item160090329809#ebayphotohosting
I love you Jeter!
I happened to get it the day the story broke.
Fake hype, all PR-orchestrated.
Wow..I guess its too late to buy a pack or box of 2007 S1 topps with this card today.
this was no accident.. Those people monitor the spoilage and overs of the cards tighter than the mint monitors the currency. Anyone trying to walk away with scraps is subject to arrest for theft. I can't imagine that those people would allow a flaw like this to go through the multiple approval stages by accident and then allow it to make it to market w/o someone losing their job/jobs..
That being said, it's pretty cool.
My favorite error card.
Looks like he's wiffing. Probably a Pedro Martinez change-up.
This Double Indemnity, as [Billy] Wilder called it, was something that derived from an old newspaper story. Back at the dawn of time, back even before Arthur Krock first arrived in Washington to cover the administration of William Howard Taft for the Louisville Times, a terrible thing happened at the printing plant in Louisville. There was an ad in the paper for women’s underwear, as Krock recounted the episode to a young writer on the New York World, and it was supposed to say, “If these sizes are too big, take a tuck in them.” But as Krock was reading through that night’s first edition, he saw that someone had changed the first letter in the word “tuck.”Krock ordered the ad changed for the next edition, then summoned the printer and demanded an explanation. The printer couldn’t provide one. He couldn’t understand how such an embarrassing accident could have happened. Krock remained suspicious. Two days later, he went and interrogated the printer again, in the interrogatory manner that would daunt future presidents and secretaries of state when Krock became Washington bureau chief for the New York Times. The printer confessed. “Mr. Krock,” he said, trying finally to explain, “you do nothing your whole life but watch for something like that happening, so as to head it off, and then, Mr. Krock, you catch yourself watching for chances to do it.”
— Otto Friedrich, City of Nets.
I see Buckner at first...
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