Random Card #12

I don't mean any offense to Steve Trout by writing this. Let's just get that out of the way, up front. I'm sure he's a hell of a nice guy in person. He was a halfway decent pitcher and comes from baseball lineage too. I just have one question.

Why does Steve Trout look like an effeminate weirdo on almost every baseball card he is featured on? On this card he looks like he's started premarin a few months earlier. By the time we see Steve Trout on his 1986 Topps card, he looks like a grandmother with a bad perm.

Having the nickname "Rainbow Trout" probably didn't help either. I know the images probably go with his offbeat personality. You don't challenge teammates to burrito eating contests unless you're a little offbeat.

To be fair, most of the photography from the eighties that ended up on cards looked pretty poor. The uniform he's wearing on this 1981 Fleer card looks like a woman's smock. That doesn't help. The 1986 Topps card was a really bad photo. Steve was under thirty at the time of that card and it made him look like a seventy year old woman.

There are much better photos of Steve at his website. He's done a lot since baseball. He runs a wintertime baseball clinic in Florida. He's written a few books. He's been a pitching coach for a few different minor league teams. He is currently the inaugural manager for the Texarkana Gunslingers. Steve also does public speaking engagements.

Knowing who he is outside of the major leagues makes me even more perplexed with his baseball cards. Why couldn't the photographers capture Steve in a decent photo? One that didn't make him look like a transsexual or a grandmother. Personally, I think that Steve got a raw deal when it comes to his cards. I'm sure that there were better photos out there.