Card of the Week - 1/17/11

The plan was to feature cheesy '90s inserts for each Card of the Week feature this year. Then I got sick, caught up in work and family and stuff, then the blizzard hit, I realized in a panic I am way behind in packages and e-mails and such, then the Falcons utterly choked and I went into mourning and I got finally fed up with it all and never got around to picking out a card and scanning it and all that other rubbish. So no '90s insert for you, you all didn't seem to like them much anyways. Instead here's a badly abused 1956 Topps Herb Score with the border removed that I had lying around in my draft folder. I might not post again until at least this weekend so I really needed something nice to show up as my image in your RSS feeds for the next few days.

What is it with pitchers having unfortunate names for their line of work? Bob Walk. Homer Bailey. Kevin Slowey. Grant Balfour. Herb Score. I'm not sure why the kid who pulled this card in 1956 decided the border had to go. Maybe he was trying to make it the same size as the new '57s that came out a year later. Maybe it was done many years later by a kid trying to fit it into a standard 9 pocket page. Maybe the kid just got a little happy with the scissors. I do know one thing, the 1956 Topps set looks fantastic with a full bleed border.  Hey Topps, just make this your 2012 design. '56 Topps, full bleed. Exact same design, no '89 Topps Bigging it up. You can even print the name in foil to make it unreadable and slap a giant Topps logo in the middle to squeeze out the photo, we won't mind.

The back of this card always bugged me. I don't understand the Hall of Fame cartoon at all. Herb had a fantastic rookie season, sure. I don't think it's too hyperbolic to be declaring him a future HOFer after winning the Rookie of the Year in 1955. Hell, I've already hung Jason Heyward's plaque at Cooperstown, they just haven't noticed it yet. It's the year that bugs me. Why is Herb putting in his reservation for 1965? He was a rookie in 1955. In '65 he would be only 32 years old. If he retired in 1964 he would just barely have the requisite 10 seasons to be eligible and the only way he'd actually get in would be to die in the offseason and get an exemption. 1975  I could see. 1965, no. Maybe Herb was a big fan of Pud Galvin and anticipated Pud's induction thanks to the Veteran's Committee in '65 and wanted a front row seat for Pud's speech. Wait, Pud died in 1902, nevermind. It's probably just a case of the cartoonist getting the date wrong. It really should not bother me this much.

BUT IT DOES.