These are two of my favorite cards ever. I've been meaning for years to throw together a post about them, but me remembering to do stuff is basically a coin-flip. Today is Tito Fuentes' seventy-first birthday, so that was all the reminder I needed to dig around through a folder of unlabeled pictures since I knew I'd scanned them like a year or so ago one of the other times I meant to do this.
It's not like Tito Fuentes is one of my favorite players -- in fact, he played his final game four years before I was born -- but the two cards I have of him would be two of the last I'd part with if I had a gun to my head. I just really appreciate the fact that he had his own style back when individuality was discouraged even more than it is now.
He and his headbands are shown here on his 1976 and '77 Topps cards; these were his only licensed cards as a Friar since his tenure in San Diego lasted just two seasons, 1975 and '76. This wasn't just a passing phase for Tito, though. He's pictured wearing head bands on his Topps cards both before and after his time with the Padres, as a Giant on his 1974 card, and as a Tiger on his 1978 card.