THREE Rookie Stars. AH AH AH AH AH!
Billy Parker was a second baseman who logged 278 plate appearances over three seasons with the California Angels. He was taken by the Yankees in a Rule V draft where he spent three additional seasons at their AAA level before concluding his career.
Art Kusnyer was a backup catcher who played in parts of 6 MLB seasons with 3 teams, spending most of his time with the Angels. He hit just .176 in his career with an unsightly .461 OPS. He later became a coach for Tony La Russa during his time with the White Sox and A's.
Tom Silverio was an outfielder who had a few cups of coffee in three separate seasons with the Angels, logging just 32 plate appearances in 31 games. He had an 8 year minor league career that was apparently cut short by today's standards at the age of 26 and was a productive hitter throughout.
Why did Topps airbrush these photos? There's a common theme here, of course, and it's that these players probably didn't make enough appearances in the majors for Topps to get a decent photo of them in their proper team's gear. It should be noted, however, that all of these players played for the Angels at some point in the previous season (1971) so they must have come to spring training with California as well.
What's wrong with this picture, anyway? If you assume for a moment that Billy Parker's photo is the only one that isn't actually airbrushed (certainly possible), his cap provides a stark contrast to Kusnyer's and Silverio's. They glow. And the little halos look more like tiny footballs for some reason.
If you are interested in obtaining a card featured here, please send me an e-mail. If you have a card you would like to nominate for Airbrushed Fridays, please get in touch as well. I will require that I am able to see the card in person, either on loan or as a donation, so that I can examine the card and experience it in all its cruddiness.
All the college football games are over for the year, which means the Bowl Pick 'Em Contest has also drawn to a conclusion. Congrats to AJ of The Lost Collector for taking top honors, while last year's champ - Stats on the Back - came up just short and took second place this time around. Third place goes to hiflew of Cards from the Quarry, while Joseph's GRAVITRON entry managed to be the least successful. Winners (and "winner"), please email me your mailing addresses so I can get your prizes out to you soon. I am aiming for getting these packaged up this weekend and dropped in the mail on Monday in order to avoid 2011-style procrastination.
Meanwhile, the cards featured in this post are from a group break hosted by My Cardboard Mistress. A bunch of random products were opened which led to me getting quite a variety of Cardinals cards, many of which I didn't own already. I kind of like this group break thing.
I completely missed out on the whole 2011 Topps sticker craze. I need some more of these in Cardinal form.
I did like the Legends of the Game inserts and wasn't so pleased with some of the other things Topps tried in 2010 and 2011. One issue was photo selection, however. It would be really great to see Topps sign up with some other third party with access to a lot of archives for some of these retired/Hall of Fame cards.
There are so many shiny and sparkly J.D. Drew cards made of all sorts of interesting materials. It's just too bad that the Cardinals go-to marketable young player at the time was J.D. Drew.
This is a great card and a great get for me. I am glad that Ozzie played in an era where there were plenty of photo ops.
Finally, here's another "manupatch" that goes straight in my collection. I wonder if Topps will still be doing this for this year's set. I can't even remember what this year's set looks like, but I'm pretty sure I was not very impressed.
