Monday, February 24, 2020

Vintage backgrounds: The Big A

The Big A is the famous scoreboard of Anaheim Stadium, which loomed over left field until renovations for the arrival of the NFL's Rams in 1979 necessitated the relocation of the Big A to the stadium's parking lot. The card of Billy Cowan with a "halo" is well-known to most baseball card fans.
 But my eye was drawn to this one of Clyde Wright showing the Chevron ad behind him. The space above the big scoreboard was used by a variety of sponsors but Chevron seems to have used the space the longest. F-310 was notable as the first gasoline specifically marketed as environmentally-friendly.
Even cooler, part of the sign lit up at night, as can be seen in this 1966 photo of Marcelino Lopez pitching to the Yankees' Roger Maris.

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6 comments:

  1. gregoryFebruary 24, 2020 at 1:02 PM

    What a cool-looking view from the seats in that bottom photo.

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  2. friend11February 24, 2020 at 1:21 PM

    Do you collect cards with specific stadiums in the background?

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  3. JonFebruary 24, 2020 at 8:13 PM

    Interesting bit of trivia about that F-310.

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  4. bbcardzFebruary 24, 2020 at 8:42 PM

    Very cool post! I'd only been to one game at Anaheim Stadium when the Big A was still part of the stadium. But it wasn't the Angels playing. It was my high school team playing in the championship game. One of our players actually hit a home run near the Big A but our team still lost.

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  5. FujiFebruary 25, 2020 at 11:48 AM

    Awesome stuff. I knew about the Cowan, but everything else in this post was new to me.

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  6. The Snorting BullFebruary 25, 2020 at 1:50 PM

    Great looking cards. Be cool if there were more cards with stadium specific backgrounds. Very nice!

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