Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
Thereâs got to be a statute of limitations for this kind of thing.
After some 70 years of existence, a woman claims that it was her uncle who created the cap logo for the New York Yankees. She is, of course, seeking damages for copyright infringement, breach of contract and âunjust enrichmentâ.
The logo has long been credited to Lon Keller. Spokespeople at the Yankees simply say there is âno proofâ for the allegations.
A friend of mine and I were chatting about baseball and baseball cards in particular today and the topic of the Topps George Bush baseball card fiasco came up. Itâs a local story from 11 years ago I was woefully ignorant.
The details can be summed as such:
In 1990, Lee Hull and Dan Cook were owners of Whoâs on First, a baseball card shop in Champaign, Illinois. They bought what they thought was a typical Topps baseball card set from a woman. Among the other cards though, was a baseball card with George Bush dressed in his 1947 Yale uniform. Very odd.
As told by the owners of the shop, the were sued by a local lawyer who claimed the shop owners offered up for sale for fifteen cents. Rumor has it they were asked how much they thought it was worth and they gave their opinion with no intention of selling it (letâs face it, do baseball card shop owners EVER sell any cards for 15 cents).
Hereâs the rub: Topps got wind of the lawsuit and heard about one of their George Bush baseball card floating around. The baseball card company claimed that only 100 of those cards were made and they were presented to the White House (remember this was back in 1990 when Bush was in the White House).
Topps went as far as to accuse Whoâs on First baseball card shop of possessing stolen property.
The story had all the twists and turns of a late night B movie. Even People magazine picked up the story back in 1990 As for Hull and Cook, they resolved to stay strong:
Hull calls the suit ridiculous and vows to play hardball with any and all comers. As for Topps, he says, it “asked if we’d give it back if George Bush asked us to. I said only if he came here or we got to go to the White House.”
As for how the story ended, Iâm not really sure. Whoâs on First folded after a year a so and Iâm not finding any news reports that give any conclusion to our little melodrama.
Are we seeing a retro trend in uniforms? The Oakland Aâs have announced they are âgoing with the goldâ similar with the Finley-style unis. Team GM Billy Beane refers to them as âcanary yellowâ. These uniforms will serve as the alternate to the white home uniforms (hint: theyâre beta-testing them).
Yeah, itâs another move to move more merchandise to the baby boomers but I like the style. Next up, Houstonâs bright orange with the star on the chest???
Iâve just been perusing Grant Smithâs paintings on his website (http://grant9smith.com). As the saying goes, I donât know art but I know what I like. And I like these. It helps that a good portion of Smithâs work is devoted to baseball (see his Fine Prints section for a good representation of his work).
Again, Iâm no art critic but even I can appreciate the way that Smith uses symbolism in his paintings. See his Rube Foster work entitled âWe Can Dreamâ for an example of this. Smith uses a bit of dark humor in the selection of his titles. Youâll see what I mean.
Why the â9â in his domain name? Smith addresses this on his âaboutâ page:
I made reference to the number 9 originally because of Ted Williams. As I grew older I sensed added meaning in the number, seeing it as the highest number before additional digits are added.
Seiler is a Chicago based artist who was commissioned by Major League Baseball to do some art for the 2010 World Series program. Thatâs quite an honor!
On his blog, Itâs Funny Because Itâs True, Seiler writes about his experience but mostly breaks down each piece art (almost literally as he zooms in and shows segments of each piece art).
If youâre a baseball art fanatic, this is definitely worth looking at. For me as the old saying goes, I donât know art but I know what I like. And I kinda like this.