Fun with Photoshop at Topps
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Feb 27, 2007 
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The mania over baseball cards faded a while ago. So somebody at Topps decided to create some buzz by inserting George Bush and Mickey Mantle into the background of Derek Jeter’s card.
“A few people have mentioned it to me but I haven’t seen it,” Jeter said. “I don’t know anything else.”
The folks at Sports Collectors Daily figured it out four days ago. Now the mainstream media is picking up this “story” and running with it.
Meanwhile, what a terrible card to begin with. That’s the best photo they have of Jeter?
I was going to mention this OT in one of the other blog posts, and decided against it. I started collecting cards again a couple of years ago, picking up my childhood hobby again.
I pulled one of these Jeter cards first thing last Friday and immediately noticed the “additions”. The idea of Mantle looking on from the dugout is OK, but the inclusion of Bush is just downright stupid (he’s only got one arm in the picture to make it even worse). I hope they release a corrected/normal card later this year.
I agree Pete – surely they have a better picture of DJ as well. I’d like to see them use a picture of one of his mid-air throws to first deep from short after a backhanded stab.
It’s inane, for sure. The one aspect I don’t see any blogs or “news” reports suggesting is this: Bush’s “missing arm” looks more like his sleeve is pinned up, as though his arm were amputated. I saw a larger photo over at the Topps forum and that’s how it totall appears to me and my fellow coworkers. Was this “rogue PhotoShopper” (yeah, riiiiiiiiiight!) also putting in an extra dig, political style?
But nonetheless, it’s kinda stoopid. I guess Topps will now stoop to almost anything in order to get people interested in their new cards each year. This was clearly done on purpose and I think the Topps spokepeople are being very disingeneuous.
Just want to clarify the last part of my post (sure wish i could just edit!).
I know the Topps people are saying they knew about the PhotoShopping, but they’re saying they “only spotted it during the proofing stage.” Hey, guess why proofs are made? So you can REVISE OR CHANGE them if necessary. They HAD to know about it before that late stage….
I’ve looked at a larger scan of the card and while it appears at first that Bush’s left arm is missing, he actually has his left hand in his pocket and the angle just makes it all look funky. His left sleeve kind of blends in with the rest of the jacket because of the lighting. For what it’s worth …. lol
It’s not even a very good job of photoshopping, judging from this one pic. But it has gotten Topps a lot of free publicity. They should have put Bush in Schilling’s card, though.
Totally agreed, DB – as a Marketer and Graphic Artist, it looks to me like they stopped in the middle of the Photoshop “project”. Very poor job, at least on the Bush part. The Mantle job is actually fairly decent, although the color is off a bit.
I was curious so I checked eBay and sure enough there are already a few cards listed from $76 to $200+. I guess the sellers are loving that the “mainstream media” picked this story up.
It looks like they also added facial hair to Jeter’s chin.