A Red Hot Custom Card (And a Giveaway)

I suppose the title of this blog post could be a little cryptic.

But if you happened to have music or rock bands on your mind, you might have guessed where this was going.

 

It's the Red Hot Chili Peppers on a custom card!

 

Design-wise, the 1974 "rookie" template worked very well, as it provided plenty of room at the top for the band's full name. And the red color seemed the right fit, for obvious reasons. 

 

As for the personnel, I had to go with John Frusciante as the guitarist—although that takes nothing away from the other guitarists who've been part of the band, like Hillel Slovak or Dave Navarro.

Regardless, because the templates I use for these customs are usually taken from sports trading cards, something I try to do with these posts whenever I can is to tie sports into them. And in this case, there's a pretty cool sports tie-in.

 

Did you know that the Chili Peppers teamed up with tennis star Andre Agassi to make a Nike commercial back in 1991?

 

Check this out!

 

 

 

Man, that was such a fun time for American tennis.

And the fun kept going and going after that. Andre Agassi won his first major championship the following year (Wimbledon, 1992). He won 8 majors in all, the final one coming at the Australian Open in 2003. He collected 60 career ATP tour titles from 1987 through 2005.

 

As for the Chili Peppers, they've created 13 studio albums, starting with their self-titled release in 1984. Their most recent releases were in 2022. It's impressive to me that the band has written hit songs and maintained a certain amount of freshness across all those years.

My favorite Chili Pepper era spans the late-80s and early '90s. (Think Mother's Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik). I do like the Californication (1999) and Stadium Arcadium (2006) albums as well, but they just can't hold a candle to that earlier stuff.

I think it's because to me, the Chili Peppers are guys that should just never get old. And I know you can say that about almost any rock band that ever existed. We tend to remember rockers when they're young, and full of raw energy. But I don't know. Maybe that's not always the case. I mean, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards don't need to be young, right? I don't necessarily picture them as young guys when they come to mind. Anthony Kiedis, however? Somehow I always see him as that young punk up there on the top left of the card.

In any case, I'm glad to have some copies of this card in hand now, including a few extras. And here's a question for you that has a Chili Peppers–themed answer:

What am I going to do with one of those extra copies?

 

The answer:

 

Give it away, give it away, give it away, now!

 

(How many of you saw that one coming?)

 

Last year I tried the fun and goofy duck race to choose the winner of a giveaway, and that seemed to go over pretty well with readers. So I think I'll do that again. And just like last time, all you have to do to enter is leave a comment below. If you have a favorite Chili Peppers song, add that to your comment as well.

I'll start out by offering one custom Chili Peppers card to the winner of the duck race, but how about this? If at least 10 people enter the giveaway, I'll award a Chili Peppers custom card to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finisher.

Sound good? 

 

Alright. Get to it, then. Comment below. You have until next Sunday, January 12th, to enter. After that I'll close it up and get the ducks ready to race.

 

Thanks for reading, as always!

I've Been Released!

Okay, it's really not that dramatic. 

But a couple of weeks ago, I received a text message from my softball captain. He said that the team's regular third baseman, who'd been injured all of last season (hence the reason I was picked up in March), was healthy and ready to reclaim his role on the team. So, unless I wanted to just ride the pine or play a fill-in role, the captain suggested I look for another team to join.

Fair enough, especially considering this team has, by and large, been together for 20 years. I'm not going to mess with that dynamic. Besides, he was very complimentary about my glove skills over at third and about having me on the team, and said if they were ever short on players, he'd love to have me fill in for a game. That felt nice. 

 

In the meantime, it's back to the free agent market I go.

Because this is a trading card blog, I've tried to find a vintage baseball card with an appropriate "released" note on the front that I could share here, but haven't come up with anything. There are a couple of interesting "free agent" notes on hockey cards that I've shown on the blog, but that's as close as I've gotten. So here are some similar examples from the 1974 Topps baseball set.

Cecil Upshaw seems confused to learn that he's been traded. Fernando Gonzalez looks outright incensed. And Bob Johnson? He's just happy to be playing pro ball somewhere!

 

I think Bob Johnson's expression is the one I relate to here. I had a decent feeling my team's regular third baseman would be back at some point, so the news isn't confusing or aggravating to me. I'll definitely miss the guys. They're a good bunch. And this league really pushed me to be a better ballplayer. But I'll have to find another team now. No biggie.

 

(Also, just for fun, maybe I should have created a custom softball card with my face on it, and a big "RELEASED" note in a yellow banner.)

 

In any case, the free agent feelers have been deployed. There are two or three softball leagues that are located within 30 minutes of my home. Something is bound to come up. Who knows? Maybe I'll even join another team in the same league!

Stay tuned, and thanks as always for following along with my sports journeys.

 

If any of you have some interesting "traded" or "released" stories from your personal sports lives, feel free to share in the comment section.

More 1974 All-Star Custom Cards

As I finished putting together the Wolverine/Thor 1974 all-star custom card last year, I had a thought: That template could produce an almost endless amount of combinations. Right then and there I jotted down some potential ideas and set them aside for another time. It's been quite a while, but I've been on a creative streak lately, so I decided to sit down and get to it.

Since the original card was from the 1970s, I thought it would only be fitting if I kept the content in that decade (or close to it). For this batch, I'm also staying with the entertainment theme.

First up, another two superheroes. This time they represent TV shows.

Wonder Woman aired from 1975 to 1979, while The Incredible Hulk ran from 1978 to 1982. That means for at least two years (not including reruns) you could have probably watched both shows each week in prime time. Talk about cloud nine if you were a superhero-loving kid!


Next, another fun show where good guys foiled bad guys.

CHiPs aired from 1977 through 1983. I must have caught the very tail end of their run, because in my early days (i.e., bicycle with training wheels) I remember having a plastic CHiPs helmet, complete with a tinted plastic visor that you could flip down.


This next show is one I remember my mom watching.

Laverne & Shirley ran from 1976 to 1983. I'm not sure I've ever watched a full episode, but the opening theme that shows both characters at the brewery is so iconic that I wanted to make a card.


Now here's a show where you might consider all of the characters to be all-stars. (Even though they're not human characters.)

The Muppet Show ran from 1976 through 1981, although reruns must have aired for years afterward because I definitely watched the show as a little tyke in the mid-1980s. I really could have chosen just about any character from the show—Kermit the Frog, Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, Animal, The Swedish Chef, the list goes on and on. But for this card I went with Beaker, skittish lab assistant to Bunsen Honeydew, and First Mate Piggy from the "Pigs in Space" series. (PIIIGS INNN SPAAAAACE!)

And talk about shows where all of the characters were all-stars...

Taxi ran from 1978 to 1983, and starred Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Tony Danza, Andy Kaufman, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Conaway, and Marilu Henner. Similar to the Muppets card, I could have made a great custom with any of these actors, but chose Marilu and Tony for this one. Great theme song, too.


Finally, on the subject of theme songs, here's a TV show that contains one of my favorite theme songs of all time.

The Odd Couple ran from 1970 to 1975. Have you ever thought about whether you were more of an "Oscar" or a "Felix"? They're both pretty far toward their respective ends of the spectrum, but if we're honest, we've all probably had some Oscar moments and some Felix moments in our lives.

One more note about theme songs: You'll see that I listed each show's title with a clickable link. Those links will take you to the respective theme songs/intros on YouTube. I encourage you to take a few minutes to watch them, because they're all such classics and they define the era so well. Here's one from The Odd Couple to whet your appetite:

I think I'll allow the backdrop of Manhattan skyscrapers and historic hi-rises in that closing scene to wrap up this post. Wow.

Thanks for reading, everyone.

A Custom Card with a Custom Backstory

Today's custom card was inspired by an obscure Major League pitcher, and features a man with special powers who tried to spend some of his younger days in obscurity.

Here's the original card:

1974 Topps #261, Jerry Bell

Any guesses for the look-alike? Here are some hints:

Grow those sideburns down even farther, and make the hair a little more wild.

Add him to a well-known team of superheroes.

Just hope he keeps his claws from tearing up that baseball glove.

Got it?

Here's the custom card:

Wolverine (a.k.a. Logan) has been everywhere over the past couple of decades. But I've got to say that I'm not a big comic book or superhero guy. I haven't even seen any of the X-Men films. That means for this custom card I had to do a little research on the guy.  

It turns out that he spent some of his young manhood in the Yukon, living in deliberate obscurity on a mining colony. In fact, that's where he adopted the name "Logan". And all of that is excellent news, because it helped me come up with the perfect name for his baseball team: The Yukon Miners.

How well does it work? 

Just have a look at the image on the card once more. There's an "M" on his cap, originally for Milwaukee, but that can easily stand for Miners. And on his jersey you can only make out the E-R-S from the word BREWERS. Well, now it's the E-R-S in the word MINERS. There's even the edge of a mountain and a wide-open blue sky in the background, which would certainly match the scenery of the Yukon.

And after a long week of mining, I could picture Logan and the boys winding down with a game of baseball on Sunday. After all, the same sort of thing happened in farming towns all across America in the early 20th century.

Maybe someone from Marvel Entertainment will read this post and add the baseball-themed backstory to a future X-Men film. They've got to run out of material at some point. And Logan would make quite a pitcher, don't you think?


Now let's get to the man on the original card, Jerry Bell.

After being selected in the second round of the 1969 amateur draft by the Seattle Pilots, he'd have a short four-year career in the majors, all with the team the Pilots would soon become: the Milwaukee Brewers.

Seems like he spent some time as a middle reliever in 1971 and 1972, and in 1973 got his chance as a starter, going 9-9 in 25 starts, logging 183.2 innings along the way. 

Here are some career pitching numbers: 17-11, 3.28 ERA, 283 IP, 89 SO.

Interesting note: Bell threw right-handed, but batted right-handed and left-handed. Not quite Wolverine superhero level, but rare for a pitcher nonetheless. The switch-hitting didn't do much for him, though. Bell only had one hit—a single—in 14 career at-bats. He also had a sacrifice bunt.

There's not much additional information out there on Mr. Bell. According to his 1973 Topps card (which has a very similar picture on the front compared with the 1974 version), Bell had good control and spotted his pitches. And he was a basketball MVP in high school.

So I guess you could say that both Logan and Jerry Bell have a bit of a mysterious nature.

At least now they're both captured on a baseball card.


WOLVERINE ALL-STAR:

The design of the 1974 Topps all-star subset diverged from the norm. Not only did the cards have a horizontal layout this time, but they also featured two all-stars per card: the National League and American League representative at each fielding position. This resulted in some attractive combinations, such as Carlton Fisk/Johnny Bench, Dick Allen/Hank Aaron, Rod Carew/Joe Morgan, and Reggie Jackson/Billy Williams.

It also provided a great opportunity to feature two superheroes on the same card. I chose Wolverine as one all-star, of course, and for the other I went with Thor.

I know that's quite an outdated image of Wolverine, but it shows him in a uniform of sorts, and that makes a better parallel to baseball players and their uniforms. (Otherwise he would be wearing a leather jacket or flannel shirt or something.)

As for the rest of the card, the "A.L." and "N.L." designations that appeared next to the banners in the original design didn't really make sense, so I replaced them with the star design. The player name and team name, however, work perfectly, as Wolverine is a member of the X-Men and Thor is a member of The Avengers.

Another fun project complete. Thanks very much for reading, as always.

The Well-Matched Card

Note: While this post was sitting in my queue, another Greg in another area of New York (he's better known as Night Owl) happened to publish a post on a similar subject. Like-minded Gregs, you could say. 

Whereas Night Owl's post much more thoroughly covers the entire 1974 set, this post focuses on just one card. Regardless, I hope it will add to the cheers for 1974 Topps.
 

Have a look at this card:

1974 Topps #155, Bert Campaneris

It might be the most well-matched vintage baseball card I've ever seen.

In 1974, Topps matched the colors in their design to the colors of the represented team—most of the time, at least. (The Cubs and Angels, for example, had a magenta banner instead of a more accurate red, and the Dodgers had that same magenta color in the thin borders that surround the image.)

For Oakland, though, it was an easy choice. And for Bert Campaneris's card in particular, that easy choice paid off. Look at the green "Oakland" banner at the top and then look at the green in Bert's baseball cap. Look at his jersey and then look at the yellow in the card border. Even the palm trees in the background match, and they frame the card left and right.

Not all of the A's cards in the set earn a perfect score, of course. Sal Bando's green jersey almost looks black on card #103, while Deron Johnson's is more of the traditional Oakland gold color on card #312. Even the green banners on one Oakland card can vary slightly in color from the banners on another. 

But that just makes the color matching on Campy's card up there even more impressive. Think of the times you've briskly thumbed through a stack of cards, stopped, and gone back a couple of cards to get a better look at one that caught your eye somehow. That's the effect here, and it's terrific.

If you're already thinking of a vintage card in your own collection that exhibits the same type of color-matching perfection, why not share in the comment section?

And thank you for reading, as always.