Missing Noses, Chins, Eyebrows and Foreheads: The Worst Baseball Card Photo Cropping in History

 

I recently added the above card, #177 from the 1975 NST set featuring Shigeo Nagashima, to my collection.  

Its notable for the fact that although it depicts Shigeo Nagashima it does not depict all of Shigeo Nagashima's nose.  Or his left eye.  Or his left eyebrow.  Or the top and back of his hair.

You can really see those beads of sweat running down his face though.

This is the 1970s Japanese baseball card paradox.  On the one hand they feature some of the best photography in baseball card history and completely blow away the boring posed spring training shots that appeared on most Topps cards in the US from that period.  They are loaded with interesting shots, some candid, some in action, almost all taken during the regular season during games in the player's home stadium.

On the other hand they also feature some of the worst photos ever, mostly due to really bad photo cropping like the one above.  For all its faults, I've never seen a Topps card which cut the tip of the depicted player's nose off.

I have a small type collection of these on the go now.  They include:

Card: 1977 Calbee #17

You wouldn't know it but this card features all time home run leader Sadaharu Oh and all time hit leader Isao Harimoto singing a victory song after winning the pennant.  You can't see the top half of Oh and Harimoto's head.  They cropped it out in order to create more space at the bottom of the card for.....the backs of some photographers.

Card: 1976 Calbee #646

This card features 1975 PL MVP award winner Hideji Kato.  All of him except the top of his head.

Card: 1987 Calbee Tatsuo Komatsu

Ever wondered what former Dragons' pitcher Tatsuo Komatsu's chin looks like?  To this day I still don't know.  

Are there any examples out there of American cards (or other Japanese cards) cropped this badly?

Hideji Kato's Weird half-head Card

One of the cards from my 75-76-77 Calbee set that I've always been struck by is card 646 featuring Hankyu Braves first baseman (and 1975 MVP award winner) Hideji Kato.

Its another one of the 1970s Calbee cards which display photo centering decisions which are very hard to justify. Why is the top half of his head not on this card?  This isn't a miscut or even off centred card, I have 4 copies of this one and his head is cut in half on all of them (also note that the text on the bottom of the card is correctly positioned).

The Calbee sets from the 1970s have photography that blows anything Topps was doing back then away, but there are a few cards like this one where you wonder what was going on at Calbee.  Why didn't they just slide the photo down a bit so they could get all of his head in?  Was it that important to include his feet?  Or was this like an unusually egregious Billy Ripken 1989 Fleer type of deal in which Kato for some reason had an obscenity written on his batting helmet which nobody noticed until they were getting ready to make the cards and they panicked since this was the only photo they had of him and they just made do with what they had?

I don't know, but I do know that I feel very awkward whenever I see this card.