THE CRANE POOL FORUM cranepoolforum.net (.com)

Uniwatch was having a discussion about the old Hostess baseball cards that were on the backs of Twinkies boxes, and I was reminded of this Rusty Staub disaster.

Among the flaws:

1) They left the Expos logo on the jersey

2) They painted on only some of the pinstripes.

3) They used a photo that was more than three years old, as this is from 1975.

I can only guess that the artists were on a major sugar buzz from eating too many Ring Dings and was distracted. Or, they just didn't give a damn.

If this is from 1981, and I guess it is, Rusty was also a firstbaseman by then.

Should cards that you have to cut out the bottom of a donut box really count as cards?

I don't see why not.
They are:
card shaped
part of a series
have baseball players on them
are collectible.

Later

do they have the player's stats on the back or nutritional info on twinkies?

That's just hideous. Is that from your own collection?

The cap doesn't look painted on at all.

I found the reference at Uni-Watch, and it credits MGiM. That's allegedly 1975?

Yup! But I'm not responsible for the equally hideous cutting job. I've only seen this card once, and picked it up. I like the oddball sets.

There was a time when I had every Mets card. But then the companies got crazy with the inserts, short-prints, 1/1s and other nonsense that made it impossible. So now I have to say I have every base set Mets card.

The back has stats through 1974. Nasty!

I wonder if Hostess had nothing but Expos pictures to work with because Staub was a Topps hold-out for the 1972 and '73 seasons. Staub was not included in the '72 and '73 sets. His first Mets card is from the 1974 set. Perhaps Hostess got their pictures from Topps and that was the most recent one available. If so, then maybe Topps also did the airbrushing. Just a theory.

Interesting... I guess I knew that players got a fee for their likenesses on cards but never occurred to me they would hold out.

Staub I think was weird about baseball cards. Late in his career he was a guest at a banquet event I went to. They gave away packs of baseball cards and I was thrilled to find a Rusty Staub card in mine. I thought this was great because it would give me the CAHNfidence to walk up to him, which I did, only to be dumbfounded when he told me "I don't sign baseball cards." I was like, what? and he said "I don't sign baseball cards." End of story.

That kind of put down could ruin you for years......fecking Rusty

I'm guessing that Hostess licensed their pictures from Topps and that the screwup with the Expos "elb" logo and pinstriping was not an artist's oversight, but that the photo was supposed to be cropped higher up, at around Staub's neck and through the shoulder line. I've seen several proofs of old Topps cards where the cap or helmet was airbrushed to reflect the player's brand new team. In those proofs, the jersey top (former team) was left unaltered. The final card was cropped above the jersey.

At his original restaurant (the one on 73rd St) Rusty had a sequential display of what I thought were all 20-whatever years worth of his bb cards on one wall - although I suppose it's possible there were a few missing.

He was one of the earlier leaders in those nascent days of the player's union so there may have been some battles with the Topps folks and their monopoly at the time.

Pretty funny, considering Rusty's apparent antipathy toward the card industry, to see his 1974 card depicting him looking a bit sassy and petulant.

I remember that 1972 Rusty Staub Topps card was one that everyone in my neighborhood wanted. Little did we know that it didn't even exist.

That's a darn good theory!

Not as much fun as the Ring Ding Defense, but it sure makes sense.

If my theory rings dings true, then that Hostess card might've been Staub's 1972 Topps card, but with better cropping: a head shot.

shame on you guys for not inventing the internet so you could find a checklist!

I want one. It's been added to my wantlist.

I've been trying to figure out the park in the background. Did Jerry Park even have a roof like that? Maybe the road grays were a light shade of gray, or this is from the spring?

You rarely see Rusty in long sleeves, much less a windbreaker under the jersey.

There were. It was Marvin Miller's idea to seek higher royalty fees from Topps for the players during the very early 1970's. Initially, Topps wouldn't budge; they had all the players signed up and thought that Miller and the Union were powerless to effect any change. Topps did not even bother to negotiate with Miller. But when players began refusing to renew their expired contracts, Topps saw the light and eventually caved in. It appears that there was no reserve clause in baseball card contracts.

Here's a classick:

Beautiful!!!