Brian Matusz, 2012 Panini Triple Play #8

Here's another card from Night Owl. I love the Triple Play set, and only partially because they don't have an MLB license and I want to stick it to The Man. I also love the price point (a dollar per 7-card pack) and the creativity of the set. Going with player caricatures draws the attention to the artwork and away from the lack of team logos. Some of the player likenesses are pretty accurate. Others are just silly. Then there are player portraits like this one of Brian Matusz, which fall into the "so bad it's good" category. I would think that the young lefty would be easy to cartoonize, what with his perpetually pink cheeks, protruding ears, and his long, giraffe-like neck. You can see hints of a long neck in this doodle, but even that's obscured by the pitcher's glove. It goes downhill from there. The rain-thin Matusz is depicted as a moon-faced, squinting fellow with shocks of unruly black hair. Even when Brian experimented with a shaggier 'do in early 2011, his locks have always been a medium brown. The guy on this card looks more like Josh Beckett on a bender than Brian Matusz. But that's why I enjoy this card. It's so completely off the mark that it amuses me every time I look at it.