What is up with those lips?

I promise you this is not my anti-relief pitcher bias coming into play, but I did a double take the other day when we opened up a couple of sample boxes of 2009 Topps Heritage Baseball cards and came across the Francisco Rodriguez card shown here.

Heck, he’s even a new member of my Mets, so I can’t be picking on him, but we did think the card was worth a chuckle. I suspect it’s nothing more than a tad too much of the magenta ink (red) used for the Mets’ trim and logo.

It’s not exactly in Don Mossi's class, but then again Mossi’s contribution to classic cardboard weren’t enhanced by the printing process. Those ears were God’s work; Topps’ graphic guys just knew how to properly present them to optimum effect.

And speaking of properly showcasing ears, Topps attention to detail in re-creating the campy Coaches cards from 1960, even to the point of making the floating heads just a wee bit too small (shown). I didn’t much like those cards 50 years ago, but back then it was mostly because the floaters all looked like old geezers to me. Now that I’m a duly ensconced member of the club, I’m at least marginally more sympathetic.

As you might have expected, I am going to pull the trigger again and put together a Heritage set, if for no other reason than it’s fun to see all the curious little nuances that Topps provides to link the modern to the ancient. Plus, I am pretty sure that as I discover stuff it will provide blog fodder.