The
1977 Laughlin Erorrs
set (yes the misspelling is intentional) is a 40 card set that is dedicated to
errors that appear on baseball cards! It's a great little set with those great
Laughlin cartoons, and I thought it would be fun to do a semi-regular series
dedicated to the set and errors found within!
When I do these posts, I go into them blind. I don't really know what error on what card is going to be my topic until I go to the set on TCDB and pick the next card listed. It leads to some fun circumstances and call backs. Case in point today's card:
Once again, we have another card where there is a case of mistaken identity. Funny enough, this very card was brought up in the comments for the Ewell Blackwell card I did prior.
Unlike other mistakes, you can almost give Topps a pass on this one. The much more prominent headshot is obviously Hammering Hank. It's that artistically painted action shot. Although the player has a stronger build than Aaron, the blurred facial features could make this easy to miss. Even so, it didn't take long before people realized that this action shot was a repainted Willie Mays.
It's not the only time the artists at Topps used some creative licensing in their product. Look at this great catch on Mickey Mantle's 1956 card:
Mantle never made that catch. He wasn't even close. Getty Images has the photo it was based on here: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/yankee-outfielder-mickey-mantle-seemingly-walking-on-air-news-photo/515364894?adppopup=true
Back to the Aaron card. As I said, as far as errors go, this one was easy to miss. The focus on this card is the head shot, not the action pose. You see Hank Aaron's face, you assume it's him elsewhere on the card. In my research I came across another article detailing a similar instance where the person in the background is not the person in the forefront. I present to you this example from the 1970 Topps Posters inserts:
That guy batting is not Seattle Pilots' Don Mincher. Can you guess the Hall of Famer cameo? (Obviously you could click on the link, but what fun would that be?)
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