No Sleep Till Custom

I'm going to guess that Fuji over at the Chronicles knew what was coming as soon as he saw the title of this post.

 

 

If the Beastie Boys were Major League baseball players, their rookie season would have fallen around 1981 or 1982. And if their opening campaign turned out well, Topps would have likely given them a Future Stars card like the 1982 version you see above.

I stayed true to the original design, using headshots of the young trio and listing them in alphabetical order. I also borrowed some spring training backgrounds from a couple of original Future Stars cards. For the fielding position, I used each member's stage name. (Although it's important to note that all three played musical instruments as well.)

As a 1980s kid growing up in lower New York, it seemed hard to avoid the Beastie Boys. Their names would come up in school, on the radio, and in the news. Early on I remember thinking they were just a novelty; three city kids trying a little too hard to be bad boys. Kind of a spoof. But they kept going, developed their talents, created a style and sound all their own, starred in some rather creative music videos, and my goodness did they ever build up a huge following and sell a lot of records. They also inspired quite a number of the next generation's musicians and performers.

If you want to continue with the baseball card theme, by the time the 1990s arrived you would have certainly found Mike D, Ad-Rock, and MCA on all-star cards and league-leader cards in addition to their base cards.

They even linked some lyrics to baseball, saying "I got more hits than Sadaharu Oh" in the song Hey Ladies.

That's a fun line, isn't it? 

It's so fun, in fact, that it inspired me to cook up another custom card.

 

 

The highlight card template is from the 1984 Topps baseball set. The song Hey Ladies wouldn't be released for another five years, and because of that the card doesn't make sense chronologically. But the opportunity was just too perfect. Three image frames, three Beastie Boys. And in the empty space, a blue text box to describe the highlight. So I went for it, and just switched the date on the front to 1989.

This was a fun mash-up, for sure. Thanks for reading, as always.