Brush  with  Greatness

 

Roman Mdrowski
Opie Otterstad was in the visitors' clubhouse at Minute Maid Park in Houston the day Michael Barrett slugged A.J. Pierzynski in the jaw. After a replay flashed across a television monitor, Otterstad's buddy Kevin Millwood, who pitches for the Texas Rangers, said, ''It's about time somebody popped that son of a [gun] in the chops.'' The anecdote has nothing to do with why the Sunday Drive is featuring Otterstad this week, except that it speaks to Otterstad's life on the fringe of the sports world.

 


He isn't an athlete, but his artistry in portraying athletes has earned him critical acclaim. Otterstad was named sports artist of the year by the American Sport Art Museum of Archives. Major League Baseball has commissioned Otterstad to paint a World Series commemorative piece every year for the last five, then sells prints to the public. Otterstad visited the world champs at U.S. Cellular Field on June 10 and presented them with a print of ``White Sox Victory.'' ''How I work is I get an idea from either watching a game or experiencing it live,'' Otterstad said. ''And then I get an idea of how to show it and frame it. I find images and Photoshop them. The White Sox piece is about 400 different images all cut and pasted together in Photoshop. I do whatever I need to do to match the image in my head. For instance, in the Sox piece, [A.J.] Pierzynski's hand is my hand, and [Mark] Buehrle's hand is my hand.'' Otterstad, 36, lives in Austin, Texas. His work is hanging in six major-league clubhouses and front offices and in the MLB offices.