This week, we feature perhaps the strangest-looking card to ever feature a player wearing a “California Seals uniform.”  Note the use of quote marks in the previous sentence; they were not typed in accidentally.  Now, look at Ted Hampson in the card below.

Ted Hampson

In case you’re wondering, and you haven’t yet glanced up at the top right corner of this website, THIS is what the California Seals 1967-68 logo looked like:

California Seals logo

Compare that to this close-up of the logo on Hampson’s “California Seals uniform.”

piss-poor-logo

You may be wondering why Ted Hampson is wearing what appears to be a uniform designed by Barry van Gerbig’s half-asleep pre-schooler.  You see, Hampson was traded to the Seals mid-way through the 1967-68 season, a situation which always caused card companies problems in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.  Instead of simply writing that Hampson was “no longer with Red Wings,” O-Pee-Chee had the brilliant idea of drawing the traded player’s new uniform over his old one.  What I don’t understand is WHY they gave Hampson the Crayola treatment when John Brenneman, who was traded with Hampson to Oakland, is in his Seals uniform (note the lack of quote marks).

4824-1177583fr

See how much better that looks?  But no, O-Pee-Chee seemingly found a preschool and asked the kids to get creative.  The results of these “uniforms” were almost always hilarious, although, to be honest, they usually paled in comparison to that Rogie Vachon card which we inducted a few months ago.  This, kids, is what we had to do before Photoshop came along and we didn’t like our camera work.  It was a sad time indeed, but at least a couple generations of children got to express themselves artistically.