Daniel Duffy loves art, and he loves sports – and so he has combined two of his passions into an awesome gig: making “word art” of iconic moments and figures in sports history.
His latest commission: to commemorate Derek Jeter’s Hall of Fame induction, Duffy has created a word art photo of Jeter, with the dates and scores of every game from the five seasons Jeter and the Yankees won the World Series.
According to Duffy, it took about 150-200 hours of research and production, as well as 13,207 letters and numbers, to put together all 880 games from 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2009 into a photo of Jeter standing in his iconic pinstripes, smiling with a bat over his left shoulder - even if he maybe "hated" every minute of it!
“In 2009, The Captain crushed my hopes of a Phillies back-to-back championship run. But time heals all wounds and there’s no denying Jeter is an all-time Yankee," Duffy, a Phillies fan and suburban Philly native, told WFAN.com. "I was honored to write out all 5 of his championship seasons and made sure I got those dimples!”
Take a look:
Duffy’s New York-related work includes a rendition of the Old Yankee Stadium with the names of every Yankee who played there, as well as one of fans filing into Shea Stadium with the names of every Met from 1962-2008, and Lou Gehrig delivering his famous Luckiest Man speech with the words to that speech. There’s also one of Yogi Berra jumping into Don Larsen’s arms, the characters noting every game from the Yankees’ 1956 World Series championship.
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He also has an exterior of the Baseball Hall of Fame with everyone enshrined through 2021 – yes, including Jeets – and several other pieces that fans from New York to Los Angeles and Michigan to Alabama can enjoy.
Duffy also does a lot of non-sports commissions, which include pics of music icons (from Sinatra and Springsteen to Jerry Garcia and 2Pac) and Presidents (Lincoln and Kennedy, among others), skylines and scenics from NYC and several other cities, and even fictional characters – like, say, Rocky Balboa, with the words to “Eye of the Tiger” providing the text.
And even better than the art itself? A portion of all proceeds go to the ALS Association.
You can check out and purchase Duffy’s work, including the new Jeter print, at artofwords.com.
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