Can't Beat a Real Ad

I'm a bit of an amateur advertising analyst (I guess that has to do with my career working in marketing), so going thru my old pile of stuff in my closet has been a fun trip for me.

I came across this beaut below in a Phillies Scorecard Magazine from 1991, and will continue to bring up other ones from that era in future posts.  So this one comes from Coca-Cola, a brand that has always been a leading advertiser in various media, tossing around big bucks for plastering its name everywhere and anywhere.

I just find it terribly ironic that the slogan of this ad is "Can't Beat the Real Thing" and yet they have a photo of some fake baseball pitcher with a cheap, puffy, no-logo'd hat and try to pull it off as "the real thing" of watching a baseball game.  Meanwhile, why is the shortstop or second baseman standing ON TOP of second base in the background during the pitch? 

This ad is now 20 years old, but it sure seems light years away from today's marketing from big brands like Coke.  And I guess it could be one reason by they no longer use the "Can't Beat the Real Thing" slogan, since they pretty much beat themselves on this one.