In 1983, the Donruss / Leaf company featured an issue in their annual collection of Cardboard Multimedia Baseball Information Units of to-be-Hall-of-Fame pitcher Rich “Goose” Gossage which gave us a look behind the scenes.

Whether this was intentional or not, we do not know.

Anybody familiar with these Cardboard Multimedia Information Units will be familiar with the approaches that are taken with the photographs of the players. The types of photos can be broken down into two general categories:

1. Action shots
2. Poses

For a good part of the 1980s (and possibly earlier), it seems apparent that there was not a layer of intense scrutiny involved in the process of deciding which photo should ultimately be chosen to be printed as a part of that year’s issue.

This resulted in photos that some may describe as objectively “bad”.

Some issues such as lighting or contrast issues could have likely been fixed in editing, but issues with the actual content of the photo itself are a different type of challenge.

Our assumption can only be that if the photographer took 10 photos of a player and all of them are bad or mediocre, there is really no choice but to pick the best of the lot.

The interesting part about this particular Rich “Goose” Gossage 1983 issue is that the reflection off of his sunglasses gives us a glimpse of what is going on behind the scenes.

This was not an impromptu, serendipitous moment where Goose was unaware of being captured on film – perhaps sitting there, reflecting on the game, daydreaming and staring off into the distance.

No, instead Goose was sitting there, letting a camera person set-up and do their thing.

In Goose’s glasses lens on the left (therefore on Goose’s right), we see another person – possibly a teammate? Perhaps this suggests it was a lineup for photos and the players were simply shuffling through?

In the glasses lens on the right (Goose’s left), we see the culprit behind this piece of work: there is the photographer (shall we say ‘the artist’?) apparently peering into their camera to snap their award-winning shot.

Goose’s expression is not one of youthful enthusiasm. This is not Goose’s first go-round in this rodeo. At this stage in his career, Goose has likely had his photo taken thousands of times.

What this card says is “are we done yet?”

Was this the photographer’s best work?

Did the photographer feel a sense of pride when this was sent to print and the card was ultimately issued?

“I call this one ‘Goose doesn’t care about photo day’,” the photographer says to their friends at the bar.

But did the photographer notice that Goose flipped the script?

The photographer got caught in-the-action of catching Goose not-in-the-action.