97. (SOLD OUT) "Mild Thing: The Sultan of Slow" 7" x 10.5" Art Print

"Mild Thing: The Sultan of Slow"

My ninety-seventh 7 x 10.5" baseball print is live in the shop. "Mild Thing: The Sultan of Slow" is live for one week, and then it's retired forever.

Before I learned about Doug Jones' great nicknames, he was an athlete I hoped to immortalize as a part of this project. Being the antithesis of what you'd expect as a dominating, late-inning reliever, he was such a treat to watch pitch. One of my favorite things to watch is a batter swinging early on a 3rd strike change-up. It is a move more of strategy than athleticism.

Growing up, I knew that Jones was from the small town of Covina, right next door to my hometown of West Covina. I watched his career closely because of that proximity. At age 12-ish, I wrote him a letter and asked him for his autograph. He kindly obliged, and I still have that signed 1988 Topps card in my collection to this day. Looking back too, there's plenty of inspiration that was lost on me at the time. Most of his success came after age 30. As an artist who has found some amount of visibility of my work after age 40, I am drawn to stories like this; an aging minor leaguer with a family, on the cusp of giving up, sticking through it, and finding how their own greatness on the other side of that despair.

Sadly, the world lost Doug Jones a few years ago. I would've loved to have had him be a part of the project and tell him how much I enjoyed his career -  from a kid who had fallen in love with baseball, and was cheering on the local boy who made good.

This is a pre-order item and will be shipped 40-60 days after the print is retired.

Our art prints (not a comic book) is printed on double-thick card stock & comes packaged in all the nostalgia you can ask for. The art print is a pre-order item for sale for one week only and then the print is retired and the print run is locked. *Frame not included.  

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A new piece of art each week -- a sports-themed 7” x 10.5” double-thick cardstock art print of an original artist-made piece of art. That's right, this isn't a comic book, it's just one piece of fun sports-themed nostalgia at a time. There are 20 different art prints released in a season (1 per week) and once they're gone… they're gone! From then on they'll only be available at higher cost on the secondary market.

*Tariff fee is applied during checkout on shipping cost for international orders.