Robert Spinazzola - Sculpture

75 lb., "World's Heaviest" Baseball Cards.

The steel baseball cards are a link to my childhood and an exploration in drawing with a cutting torch. As a kid playing summer sand lot baseball for every waking hour during the early 1960's, The Detroit Tigers were as close to living saints as I could imagine.
There were great players on those Tiger teams, Jim Bunning, Frank Lary, Al Kaline but one of my favorite players was Jake Wood, a tall lanky second baseman. In a season when Detroit battled the dreaded Yankees for the pennant in 1961, Jake Wood, as a rookie, led the league with 14 triples. He played solid ball for seven years with the Tigers and then was traded and disappeared from my life.
When I was invited to create artwork for the Art of the Baseball Card Exhibition, I knew who I wanted to appear on my first steel card, Jake Wood. Like so many players throughout the leagues, men like Mr. Wood were outstanding professionals who gave their all and received little media attention for the years of dedication to the greatest of sports.
The 75 lb. baseball cards are made of salvaged steel, the images are cut into the front plate with an oxy-acetylene torch.The statistic are impressed into the rear plate with a hammer and steel letter stamp. The image plate and the statistic plate are joined together by arc welding. The card surfaces are coated with paint and oil.