This has long been one of my favorite Cal Ripken, Jr. cards, and finally the truth behind the photo is known. ESPN.com's Jim Caple featured the card in
an entertaining article about "The Weird, the Bad, and the Ugly" of baseball cards. He went straight to the source, and Cal explained that it was general manager Roland Hemond's phone, and that even in 1993 it was comically oversized. The Iron Man picked up the phone mockingly, and Upper Deck's photographer was in the right place at the right time. A few other great O's cards made the cut, though Caple has no further details on them. But I'd recommend giving it a read. You'll also get some insight into other collector favorites, like Lowell Palmer's sunglasses and Orel Hershiser's chunk of sod. What more could you want?
I always thought this was a card of Cal receiving a call from Zack Morris.
ReplyDeleteI remember getting this card back in 1995 at a batting cage when I was 10 or 11, the batting cage was called Rounding Third. It was one of my favorite cards as a kid, a few weeks ago I bought one of those random rack packs with mainly late 80's Topps at Rite Aide, and got another one of these.
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