Topps Project70 is a special project where Topps has selected 51 artists to recreate their favorite baseball cards using their own style. In this card, Ermsy has chosen Randy Johnson’s most unfortunate pitch, where he accidentally exploded a dove.
(Randy Johnson Kills Dove - YouTube)
To my knowledge, this is the first example of Pokemon being referenced on an official baseball card.
Interestingly, for the Project 2020 release last year. Ermsy did a Signed & #/15, Artist Auto Art Set for Ichiro (And for most of the other players he did a #/15 too). As far as I know, two of those 15 sets had Pokemon customization, this is the one I was able to buy and own today!
Ichiro has such a cool story and I love Ermsy’s style. Ooyama vibes 
@casual , he still does companion cards, customizations, and autographs, which are sold through his website: www.ermsy.com/ but you have to catch them as soon as they drop because they sell out pretty quickly. i was glad to see that he added his Pokemon customization to the main card this time around, instead of relegating it to the customized cards, which are still very cool regardless.
i really enjoy his approach to modern pop and stylized movement
Really surprised Topps would authorize a card of that unfortunate incident. I also have to wonder if the Big Unit signed off on it.
The art style itself is very cool, though.
@japanime , surely Topps reviews every card before they go live, though they have made mistakes in the past.
and i imagine Johnson has made peace with it, considering that he uses the dove as his gallery logo: rj51photos.com/ and one article says, “the event remains iconic, and the Big Unit says he gets asked about the incident nearly as much as he does about winning the World Series later that year with the Arizona Diamondbacks.” while unfortunate, that bird will take his place on 1st base in the sky forever.
Wow thanks for this thread. If you haven’t posted this I probably would’ve never known about this awesome card ermsy did:
Not a baseball card collector but I love this story and the artwork. Just bought my first ever baseball card!
new card drop by Ermsy for any fans of Ken Griffey Jr.
Dang, this is some cool stuff! Definitely piqued my interest. I dropped out of interest in baseball cards forever ago, but man these are some pretty neat ideas! I’d consider collecting baseball again if this kind of effort was put in regularly. Do they have to get permission from pokemon for the stylization or anything? Something like that font, or the clearly evident Pokeball make me think they have to, but I’m not sure if those aspects specifically are trademarked.
Ohtanimax is too legit!!
This is my new favorite discovery of the year. These are sweet!
I agree with @nickofturl, this thread is awesome @bbqcat. Might have to buy a few baseball cards now
I just realized that this artwork is an error. Randy Johnson is a lefty. He’s holding the ball on his glove (right) side with no glove.
I saw this card on eBay just now when searching for the original card. ebay.us/xhUN5L
Thought it was pretty cool. No clue how it’s supposed to be distributed normally. Couldn’t find anything on google.
I have one of the extra ones coming in the mail that I’ll take pictures of. The one on the left is a companion card that ermsy, the artist, was selling separately on his own website. He’s done them for most of the official project70 cards he’s done and does them in limited drops occasionally.
