Bob DeMarco’s Mystery Airbrushing
January 16th, 2013 | Published in Football Card Oddities
Whenever I see a copy of Bob DeMarco’s 1964 Philadelphia football card, I am puzzled. The image on the card was obviously airbrushed, but I don’t know why the card company would have airbrushed it. DeMarco had been with the Cardinals since his rookie season, 1961, so they wouldn’t have needed to change him out of another NFL team’s colors.
One possibility is that the photo was from DeMarco’s college days (he played at Dayton), and the card company wanted to cover his college jersey. (For an example of that, see John Brockington’s 1972 Topps cards.) That seems unlikely, though, since 1964 was DeMarco’s fourth year out of college, and they should have had a photo of him in a Cardinals uniform by then.
Another possibility is that DeMarco had been wearing a white Cardinals jersey for his photo, like the one on his 1966 card, but Philadelphia wanted all of the Cardinals in the set to be wearing red. The problem with that theory is that there are other players in the set whose jerseys don’t match the rest of their team, and their images haven’t been airbrushed. Tommy McDonald, for example, played for the Cowboys in 1964, but he is pictured still in Eagles green, not Cowboys blue.
At least one other image in the 1964 Philadelphia set appears to have been airbrushed, also, though not as badly: on Dick Schafrath’s card, it looks like Schafrath’s jersey was painted on. I can’t explain that one, either, unless it was to hide the neck roll he is shown wearing on his later Philadelphia cards.
Anyone else have a theory to explain the airbrushing?
