I ran into Robert Marosi Bustamante at the George Krevsky Fine Art Gallery in San Francisco. It was opening night of the Krevsky Gallery’s annual Baseball Art Show. The place was packed. Robert walked up to me and said hello. I’d emailed him twice and called him four times over a period of two months, asking if he had any paintings of the 2012 World Series—like the one he’d done for the front cover of my Giants 2010 World Series book—but he never called or emailed back. My reply to him now was, “Fuck you, Robert.”
He apologized for not getting back to me, explaining that he’d gotten married in Brazil and spent two months there. I accepted his apology and apologized for what I’d said to him. Then he showed me, on his phone, a painting he’d done of the 2012 World Series hero Pablo Sandoval hitting one of his two home runs off Detroit’s Justin Verlander in Game One. (Pablo hit his third homer of the game off of Al Alburquerque.) I wanted his painting for my front cover and he was all for it. “But my book might be printed tomorrow,” I told him. “The cover is already set.” Robert said, “It’s your book, your money. Do what you want with it.”
I called Don Ellis, the artist of the front cover, also the editor of my 2012 Giants book. I told him I was at the Krevsky Gallery and that I’d shown a bunch of people his painting of Sandoval, and not one of them could identify the player. Don was perturbed. When I’d asked people, “Can you tell me who this is on the cover?” no one had a clue. One person guessed Buster Posey, another Willie Mays, another Barry Bonds. I was terrified that nobody recognized Sandoval. Every time Don showed me a revised version of his painting, I told him, “You have to make Sandoval look heftier.” He worked on the belly a little, but the body just wasn’t Sandoval’s, and that only made me want Bustamante’s painting even more.
Don told me to call Medius Printers first thing in the morning. “They might have already printed the thousand copies you ordered,” he warned. If Medius had started the run, Don’s painting would be on the cover of my book, whether it looked like Sandoval or not.
I didn’t sleep that night.
I called the printer at eight a.m. “We haven’t started,” he said. Thank goodness, I thought. “I’ve got a new cover coming,” I told him. “My graphic designer will get it to you as soon as he can.” Then I spent the morning calling Bustamante—three calls, four, five—until he finally phoned back six hours later and gave me the green light to use his painting. I called Don to tell him the cover was changing. He went quiet on the line, then said in a subdued tone, “If that’s what you want, Joe.” Zac Rymland, the graphic designer, needed the image on a disk. I drove to Bustamante’s place, picked up the disk, then crossed the Bay Bridge to Zac’s office in Berkeley rather than risk any delay.
Two days later, Zac sent me a PDF of the front cover. I sat at my desk, looking at it, and for the first time since the Krevsky Gallery, I felt like I could breathe again.
