May 16, 2012 Union Square, San Fran­cisco, CA
Moon­al­ice poster by John Mavroudis

Accord­ing to Moon­al­ice leg­end, today’s poster by John Mavroudis depicts another mem­ber of the Moon­al­ice Base­ball Hall of Fame, Yogi Moon­al­ice, the catcher. The great Casey Sten­gel used to say every team has to have a great catcher; with­out one, you get a lot of passed balls. It’s really impor­tant for catch­ers to keep their head in the game, not in the clouds. What do you with catcher whose head IS a cloud? You put him on the Moon­al­ice base­ball team, which is where Yogi Moon­al­ice has been ever since.

“When I think of Spring the first two things that come to mind are renewal (nature and cre­ative) and baseball.

Using the base­ball theme as a frame (I chose the base­ball cards from the 1952 Bow­man set, which, I think, are the most beau­ti­ful card set ever pro­duced), I arranged the cards by com­mon­al­i­ties… the bal­let (hands above the head) pose, blue sky and clouds shots, catch­ers, por­traits, bat­ting posi­tions, etc…. and then finally fin­ished an image that been danc­ing around my head for a long time: the catcher is most dis­tinc­tive fig­ure on the field… and so… stands apart from the rest of the crowd. It’s not easy being dif­fer­ent and he’s got the pro­tec­tion to prove it. This unique fig­ure stands alone, head not in the clouds but actu­ally part of the cloud… dream­ing cre­ative things while await­ing the next pitch.”

- John Mavroudis, artist

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