As of late, Easter eggs on baseball playing cards have develop into moderately commonplace, even other than literal ones. Right here is actor/comic Kevin Hart on a 2024 Topps Trea Turner parallel, for instance.
A well-known Easter egg now almost (laborious to consider!) 20 years previous is the 2007 Topps Derek Jeter variation that options Mickey Mantle within the dugout and President George W. Bush within the stands.
So far as presidential Easter eggs are involved, Topps went even nuttier three years later in its subtle addition of Abraham Lincoln to varied Cubs playing cards.
After all, many classic collectors are conscious of Easter eggs planted greater than half a century earlier than these. Particularly, the 1953 Topps set is stuffed with playing cards whose backgrounds embody the Topps model itself, some portion of the participant identify, or different surprises camouflaged inside outfield wall advertisements or billboards.
It could be, nevertheless, that the unique baseball card Easter egg got here 20 years earlier, towards the tip of the 1933 Goudey set.
In reality, most playing cards within the set integrated extraordinarily simplistic backgrounds: both a strong coloration or sometimes some filth and grass.
Nonetheless, a comparatively small variety of playing cards included extra elaborate ballpark surroundings. Two examples early within the set are Bob O’Farrell and Fresco Thompson.
In some circumstances, there are even outfield wall indicators, which can or might not have been impressed by any actual product or enterprise.
Towards the tip of the set (the ultimate 72 playing cards are shortly recognized by their lack of a “Huge League Chewing Gum” promoting strip), readability and element enhance simply sufficient that it’s attainable some younger collector of the period might need pointed to the massive orange-red circle on a wall signal and say, “Look, ma! It’s an advert for Fairweather Peaches!”
In the end, although, I’d be shocked if these advertisements recommend something particular to as we speak’s collector. In the event that they had been as soon as Easter eggs, they aren’t anymore. That stated, I consider there’s a single exception within the set, discovered on the cardboard of “Cardinal pitching artist” (because the Related Press described him on this picture) Dizzy Dean.
As was the case with all 1933 Goudey playing cards, the artist took numerous liberties with the picture, significantly the place background parts had been involved. Amongst these liberties was the position of a billboard off within the distance.
I gained’t fake the billboard is straightforward to learn, however my greatest guess is that the billboard reads, “BIG LEAGUE GUM.” (Although the longer identify “Huge League Chewing Gum” was extra prevalent in 1933, “Huge League Gum” was additionally used to discuss with Goudey’s baseball choices.)
If that’s the case, that is the earliest baseball card Easter egg I’m conscious of, although I invite our readers to make use of the Feedback part to share their very own eggs-cellent analysis!
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