[Merkle923]

Tough Bravo reliever.

To answer the Cruz question: what you see is what they've got. One of the most startling revelations of looking through the Topps photo files was that nearly everything (except action photos) before the '90s was shot "camera-edit." In other words, this image of Mike Davey below would have been used in only one of two ways. It would have been used, full-size, as the image on a card. No blowing up to make it a headshot, no reduction to make it fit a smaller space. Or, it would be cut to fit on a rookie or leader card.

You'll note that the Cruz negative that just popped up on the vault storage site as KA-674 fits, exactly, the space between the card edge and the pinkish border framing it, next to the pinkish border framing Jamie Quirk. The actual negative probably measures, at best, 1-1/4" wide by 1-3/8" high, which is why it reproduces so small. Your only hope of getting anything better is to buy the negative when it comes up on eBay and scan it or have it scanned for you, professionally, at very high resolution.

At least three of the original shots in that four-player "'76 ROOKIE OUTFIELDERS" card were trimmed in this way. The Cruz shot is probably nearly full-figure, mid-swing, bat pointing in the general direction of the camera. That's my guess for Turner, too (although that could be a bunt pose). Quirk is clearly an image, at least showing the player down to the belt, with a bat on his shoulder. The only one that might have been altered by reducing it is the Wallis portrait, but even this could be a full-body pose holding a glove or something.

Thus what you saw when you spent an hour thumbing through these negatives would be thousands and thousands of negatives which came out of the development broth ready to go. The photographers were expected to produce images that needed no editing, and that provided the opportunity to physically cut the negative to a smaller size to fit a rookie card. As a production method it was not nearly as sophisticated as, say, the process by which 1887 Goodwin Old Judge cigarette cards were made.

Today's Topps upload update (KA): 671 Sparky Anderson; 672 Lou Piniella; 673 Frank Reberger; 674 Hector Cruz; 675 Terry Crowley; 676 Mike Cubbage; 677 Victor Cruz; 678 Jerry Crider; 679 Willie Crawford; 680 Jim Crawford; 681 Del Crandall; 682 Jerry Cram; 683-684 Merv Rettenmund (second one depicts him with Rochester, Int'l); 685 Rick Reuschel; 686 Al Cowens; 687 Mike Remlinger; 688 Andy Replogle; 689 Alan Trammell; 690 Ron Darling; 691-692 Bob Decker (Washington system); 693-696 Brock Davis; 697-700 Storm Davis; 701-702 Mike Davey; 703-704 Boots Day; 705-706 Butch Davis; 707-710 Willie Davis; 711-712 Keith Moreland; 713-714 Dwight Evans; 715-716 Tommy Dean; 717-718 Cot Deal; 719-720 Al Dawson; 721-722 Mike Davison; 723-726 Bob Davis; 727-728 Dick Davis; 729-730 Ron Guidry.