A Tale of Two Teds

1975-76 Topps card #244 – Ted Irvine

What’s wrong with this picture?

Obviously, this card has been painted over, to change the player’s uniform to that of the St. Louis Blues, mid-1970s. Whenever Topps (or O-Pee-Chee) spent time retouching a player photo, the final result ended up looking like a painting with a superimposed floating head.

The problem here is the floating head belongs to Ted Harris and not Ted Irvine.

Just to clarify, Ted Irvine played the 1975-76 and 1976-77 seasons with the St. Louis Blues. Ted Harris played the last 24 games of the 1973-74 season with the Blues. By the time this card was released, Harris had already played a full season with the Flyers, and then retired. Why Topps would doctor a photo of a player who was long gone from St. Louis is beyond me. Perhaps the Topps Chewing Gum Company couldn’t tell their Teds apart. The O-Pee-Chee version of this card uses the same photo, so I guess no one really noticed – or cared – at the time.

For that, Topps gets a five minute penalty for bad airbrushing, and a game misconduct for using the wrong photo.

Author: Sal Barry

Sal Barry is the editor and webmaster of Puck Junk. He is a freelance hockey writer, college professor and terrible hockey player. Follow him on Twitter @puckjunk View all posts by Sal Barry