Tuesday, April 4, 2017

the devil in dan mcginn

for the record, i am a fan of the 2015 topps buybacks.  i like the stamp that was added to the cards much more than the 75th anniversary stamp that was on 2014 topps buybacks, and much more than the multi-colored 65th anniversary stamps that were on 2016 topps buybacks.  i have purchased many lots and singles of the 2015 buybacks in an effort to acquire as many dodgers as i can.

sometimes there are other gems in those lots, such as this 1971 topps dan mcginn card
a close-up of the stamp
shows that the beard and horns - classic devilry doodling - were applied to the card prior to it achieving buyback status.

what might have possessed a person, assumedly a youth, to disfigure this card to such a degree?  here, for the record, is the back of the card, which features a clean-shaven mcginn, unaltered by dastardly sketching.
mcginn didn't pitch in the big leagues in 1971 until june, so perhaps the owner of the card was disappointed to open a first series pack and get a guy who wasn't on a major league roster at the time.  or, perhaps this fan was listening to a game in which mcginn pitched poorly, of which there were several during the 1971 season.  my guess is that the card's owner figured out that mcginn's presence in a game was a curse against the expos, as the team lost 25 of the 28 games in which mcginn appeared during the 1971 season, including the last 22.  

regardless of the reason, i envy the person who opened a pack of cards in 2015 and found this card.

1 comment:

Scott Crawford said...

I've got a lot of similar cards (a '72 Johnny Unitas probably being the strongest of the bunch), but this...with the buyback stamp...fantastic. You are very, very lucky to own it.