Seriously, pinking shears?

A collector whose name is lost to history, and perhaps deservedly so, decided the classic 1952 Topps design on Mr. Hogue's card wasn't artful enough. Did they not like the pinstripes? Too up-and-down, too geometric, too constrictive? It's hard to argue with the pizazz they added. Hard to argue when you're stunned speechless what people would do to a vintage Yankee card, anyway.

Nuts, thinks Bobby. I'm on a contender. I coulda been somebody. Well-centered, crease-free, good eye appeal. Anything but a bum chop-job, which is what I am, let's face it.

This card does feature sharp corners. 39 sharp corners. Typically people trim a card to "fix corner defects" or "true up mis-cut edges." Applying pinking shears to the problem is a novel approach, but I bet even PRO grading wouldn't cotton to this one.

Most vintage collectors, and I'm right there with them, can't be picky on condition. This 1952 Hogue isn't from my own collection, but does present a little better than my set's "Hodges with a cigarette burn" and "Spahn that's sort of rectangular." Check out the lower left corner, though. Our card re-decorator didn't take just one bite at the apple, but came back for a second, touch-up pass. After all, if you're going to jump in, do it with both pointy, zig-zaggedy feet.

1952 Topps #5, Larry Jansen

This somewhat recognizable 1952 Topps #5 features the NY Giant hurler Larry Jansen. Can't blame him for the big smile, given the team's legendary pennant win, his second All-Star appearance, and career-high 23 victories. (In the "burn 'em out young" pitching tradition, Jansen averaged almost 270 innings--and 18 victories--each of his first five seasons.)

The card's condition muddies the relationship between Jansen's smiling face and the world around him. A long, heavy crease gives ol' Larry a rakish mustache. (Is that King Kelly? Rollie Fingers?) Both hands hover like trick horror movie props, one locked in a peace sign and another spread in final agony. The faded backdrop could be stadium seating--or the ribbed lifeboat of a sinking ship. "No problem," says Larry, "we've got room for seven more!" (According to my best research methods--talking with vintage collectors over pizza--Mr. Jansen fathered seven children, hence his photo pose for this seminal set.)

There is, of course, the shape of the card, which is sort of round. Its near-apocalyptic edge wear suggests it passed through the hands of each and every Jansen offspring before reaching me. Did Larry Jr. put daddy in his bike spokes? Use him for target practice? The card's a 1952 red back print variation, I think. Maybe Mrs. Jansen had to daub up a tomato spill, couldn't find a towel, and hey, here's an nicely absorbent card of the old man.

Aside from Topps' capitalization on America's post-war baseball enthusiasm, I propose this set made a big design discovery: the card back stat grid. Can you tell those 1930s and 1940s sets were edited by newspapermen? That's a lot of text for a W/L record or batting average. The way Topps re-framed these stats made them much more readable. By the 1960s, the numbers relegated text and cartoons to virtual steerage class, something that we almost expect now. Here's a fine example from 1981.

My pack-cracking inner child of the 1970s delighted in SLG % and SB counts, even as a lackluster Mariner lineup skewed my perspective. (Sorry former-me, a team 4.58 ERA wasn't good in 1979.) Oddly enough, I liked studying the numbers so much, my cards survived childhood intact. I mean, if that Mario Mendoza card didn't stay kempt and readable, maybe I'd forget his career batting average and have no way to find it again.

1952 Topps - Ralph Houk

Wow! What can I say about this card? It was well loved in its time. Some kid must have tortured the hell out of this card! Was it a Yankee fan who loved too much? Was it a Red Sox fan who hated the Yankees? Did Ralph Houk kill some little kid's puppy?

You have to ask questions like that when you see things like this. It seems like a case that Gil Grissom could solve. I'm guessing he would say that it must have been a Yankee fan because the tape is so lovingly put on. It must have been an accident, since the card was carefully lined up before the tape was placed on there. Either that or it was a random series of events that led to the mutilation of this card.

Maybe it all started with some kid in Intercourse, Pennsylvania putting this card in his bicycle's spokes way back in 1952. He was a huge Yankees fan and didn't realize that he grabbed the wrong card.

Possibly, his little brother took it and put the card in his bicycle spokes. That little brother probably got hundreds of wet willies and purple nurples for his crime. What are the police going to do with a crime like this? Give the little kid a five minute lecture on how it's wrong to steal, Joe Friday style.

I don't own this card, but I found the image of it during the same online search that brought the fire damaged Willie Mays card into our lives. This is a card only a Yankee fan could love now. Or possibly a Red Sox fan seeking revenge.