1987 Broder Rookies #17 - Bobby Thigpen"We're going to bust you for illegal carding."
"Yeah!"
- A paraphrasing of a Spaceballs quote.
I don't know who Rob Broder is. I can't find any information on him, but he takes wonderful photographs. Why aren't there more sets with photographs like these? The colors are rich. The subjects are natural, not posed. The framing is outstanding.
I sure hope that a baseball card company scooped up his work at some point. I have only seen a handful of cards, but what I have seen amazed me. As soon as I received these cards, I started looking up information about them and the elusive Rob Broder. I can't find much information on the cards and I cannot find any information on the man responsible.
Even the rounded corners are an inspiring touch. They are thicker than regular cards of the same era and don't suffer from the bends that the major companies are prone to. I'm looking for other White Sox cards from the Rookies sets.
This Bobby Thigpen card is awesome. It reminds me of something I would find in a family album when I was little. I recall that photographs were rounded at the corners back then. I'm not exactly sure why they were rounded, but I instantly think of those family photographs from the seventies and early eighties when I look at this. I would expect to see this mixed in with a trip to Comiskey Park. That is if the pictures were in sharp focus and were centered perfectly like these are.
These cards weren't authorized by MLB, nor were they authorized by any team. I'm sure Rob Broder had some sort of credentials, or else he wouldn't have been able to get some of these shots. I wonder if these started out as promos for his work or if these were done for fun. I really wish I knew the backstory for these cards. I'm striking out with Google searches.
Whatever the story, I'm happy to have this Bobby Thigpen card. This is almost as special as the autographed cards that I received from Bobby's brother Scott. On my list of Thigpen cards, this stands right underneath those two autographed cards. Nothing, so far, has topped those autos, but this has come the closest.
2 comments:
Many nostalgic comments!
I don't know why old developed photos have rounded corners, but I do know that I enjoy using my corner rounding punches when I scrapbook so I can get that old effect on pictures from today! (Most of my baby pictures are Polaroids, which are a whole other country of difficult preservation....)
Those pants are ridiculously tight. Ah, the 1980s, where all the ballplayers looked like they were trying out for the role of King Jareth. (The only guys I know of today who wear their pants that way are Chan Ho Park, who should, and Heath Bell, who definitely shouldn't.)
I can't remember where I saw it, but I think Broder was a lawyer or a used car salesman that used the cards as a promotion for his business. The 1988 cards didn't have rounded corners.
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