Ed Brinkman
September 14, 2006
The style used by Topps in 1975 often seemed to produce cards that were off-center, the bordering almost always thicker on one side than the other, as if the process of making the cards was not standardized and mechanized at all but instead one that relied on the judgment and dexterity of a 19-year-old Coast Guard dropout named Smitty who just spent his break smoking a joint out by the dumpster. In general, the mistakes riddling the 1975 set made the universe captured by the cards seem to my seven-year-old self to be homely, disheveled, approachable, as if my personal Mount Olympus was barely less tangible than a bake sale advertised by a mimeographed page tacked to a bulletin board at the Price Chopper. The off-balance layout is apparent in this card, which further lessens the feeling of distance between the viewer and the realm of major league baseball by presenting a figure who seems to have called in sick to his job as an instructor of remedial math and driver’s ed at the vocational high school to sneak onto the grounds of the Detroit Tigers’ training complex. The distance lessens further still with the discovery that this bespectacled ectomorph turns out not to be an imposter at all but a starting major league shortstop; moreover, he has been a starting major league shortstop for well over a decade. He even has his own crudely personalized bat, which he presumably used in the just-concluded season to launch 14 home runs, his career high. I have to go right now if I’m going to catch the commuter train that drags me to my job proofreading educational testing materials; otherwise, I might be tempted to engage in the vice of making nostalgic claims, such as that the world seemed wider back in the days when Ed Brinkman was possible.
1. I have but one distinct memory of Ed Brinkman, and it is totally inconsistent with the grim and mildly terrifying visage shown above. Why this would stay in my memory banks for over 30 years is beyond me, but childhood memories can be random and arbitrary, often frustratingly so.
I am 7 years old. I am watching the player introductions for the 1973 All-Star game. Ed Brinkman is announced. He trots out to his spot along the baseline, grins for the tv camera and FLASHES AN HONEST-TO-GOD PEACE SIGN for all of America to see. I decided at that moment that Ed Brinkman was the coolest baseball player that didn’t play for my beloved A’s. I know I saw this… I swear it happened. I’d love to have it confirmed. ESPN Classic ran the ‘73 All-Star game a while back, but skipped the player intros. Maybe this broadcast exists somewhere in its entirety, perhaps not. I bet I’m not the only person who wishes that the Sabols had been baseball fans, and that MLB treated their film archives with some respect. Shit, I feel an off-topic rant coming on. Time for me to shut up.