The Nitty Gritty Card of the Day OR Why Hate Joe Morgan?

Today’s Nitty Gritty Card of the Day comes from 1965 Topps, card #16 of Houston Colt 45s rookie shortstop Sonny Jackson. Initially there was another player on this card, but I have the custom version which just shows Sonny Jackson. I am really drawn to “custom” cards of yesteryear. Mainly I want to know what inspired collectors back then to customize. Did this person just really not like Joe Morgan? Maybe he or she really liked Sonny Jackson and felt he should be solo on the card. I don’t think this is a Traded or update card because Jackson was traded to the Braves long before Morgan was traded to the Reds. Maybe the card owner was a big fan of Morgan and a friend or older sibling did this to the card to get back at them for something. Perhaps this person treasured this card for years and then vandalized it because they dislike Morgan as a sportscaster… Who knows, that is what makes this card fun and interesting to me. The story is most likely that a kid did it out of boredom, outgrew the cards and gave it to someone who passed it along to someone who eventually sold it to someone who sold it to me… I would guess that this cards original owner is in their 50s. I wonder if they remember doing it. I wonder if they followed baseball. I can almost this person using this card as dinner party conversation. “When I was a kid I had Joe Morgan’s rookie card and I blacked his face out with marker. It must be worth a fortune now. If only I still had it and hadn’t marred it”. I can totally imagine it. Either way, it is one of my favorite cards now, I love it! I have never done this to a card myself, but I imagine that it takes balls to do it. I wanted to try and see what kind of a rush I got. I dug around and found this rookie card of one of Morgan’s teammates on the Big Red Machine. I flipped it over and went to town with a black sharpie… Wow, that was a rush. Well, it would have been if I took the card out its top loader but I didn’t because I am not an idiot… Maybe I will try this experiment with a different card down the road. Back to Sonny Jackson. I keep on adding the middle name Man to his name when I think of it in my head, I don’t know why. Anyway, Jackson’s career got off to a quicker start than Joe Morgan’s did. In 1966 Jackson finished second in the Rookie of the Year vote. That was the year that Tommie’s swept the Award. Jackson batted .292 with 49 steals as the 45s shortstop. Morgan batted .285 that year with 11 steals, but made the All Star team. All things considered this card tells a story. Since I don’t know it, I guess I get to make it up. That is fun for me. Plus its pretty neat to have a blacked out rookie card of a Hall of Famer… I love this hobby! 45 years LATER