Voted in favor by an overwhelming majority, I am now adding modern day photo "mishaps" to the Airbrushed Friday mix. This could not have come at a better time, as I picked up my first clutches of 2010 Topps Update Series this week. Adobe Photoshop is a powerful tool that can be used to put human heads on horse bodies, male bus driver heads on bikini clad female bodies, and even your face in a compromising position with... well... any of the above. And then, of course, there's baseball cards.Octavio Dotel is a career reliever who has "closer stuff" in theory, but in practice has saved just 105 games in more than 10 years in the majors, ranking him 115th on the all-time career list.
Why did Topps airbrush Octavio's photo? "No Tell" Dotel was traded just before the deadline to shore up the Dodgers bullpen. For the second straight season, like George Sherrill before him, the Dodgers acquired a closer to not close for the final 2 months of the season while giving up potentially useful players in the process. Oh, and Dotel was on my fantasy team because there weren't really any other closers left after last year's draft. Jerks. The Dodgers actually turned around and dumped him two weeks before the end of the season as Colorado was apparently trying to make a similar ill-fated run to the playoffs.What's wrong with this picture, anyway? Some Photoshopped cards are total disasters, and I plan on showing a few of those as time progresses, but this isn't one of the worst. This one isn't given away by the background, which is non-descript, but those numbers on the front of his jersey are ridiculously stretched. The number '2' on his back also seems pretty bizarre. I would love to search through the Topps photo archives to find the original photos for some of these cards when there's no side-by-side comparison you can make with a card that was already issued.
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.
