Of course, plenty of companies licensed the right to show player pictures in the past without getting MLB permission to show uniforms. This Nestle card's one example.
1988 Nestle #5, Ozzie Smith
While a great close-up of Ozzie Smith, Nestle calls the team "Cardinals" and airbrushed everything to solid red, as if The Wizard actually plays for a weekend softball team.
Upper Deck could've gone this route (by photo-editing each card) and clearly chose not to do so. I doubt that a 700-card set of bland pictures would sell well, so wonder--did they have much of an alternative?
3 comments:
the 80's and early 90's were loaded with these oddball sets licensed by the mlbpa and for the most part they look decent. i actually love collecting them!
There's a lot to like about these sets, but they were never a personal fave of mine. Mostly because of the weekend beer league softball feel you pointed out---it looks like OZ is wearing a mesh trucker hat.
Drizz, I've got a bunch of extras from that era. Want me to send you any Tigers I find?
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