Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Harlon Hill, a receiver from 1954 to 1962 for the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, and Pittsburgh Steelers, passed away on March 21. Hill won the Newspaper Enterprise Association NFL MVP Award in 1955, and he is still the Bears’ second-leading all-time receiver. (Johnny Morris is first.) See whnt.com for a nice video tribute to Hill.

Hill played college football at Florence State Teachers College, now named the University of North Alabama. His quarterback for two seasons was George Lindsey, who became famous as Goober Pyle on the Andy Griffith Show. In 1986, the trophy for the Division II College Football Player of the Year was named after Hill.

The cards pictured here are Hill’s rookie card, a 1955 Bowman, and his 1956 Topps card. (The 1956 card is an uncorrected error card: Topps misspelled his first name “Harlan.”) He appeared on at least seven more football cards, as well.

Dick Stanfel and Jack Butler were named yesterday as the 2012 senior finalists for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You can read the announcement and see the players’ biographies on the Hall of Fame site. This is the second time Stanfel has been chosen as a senior finalist; the first time was in 1993.

In the 1950s, defensive players and offensive linemen often got short shift, card-wise, and that is the case with these two players. Butler, a defensive back, played for the Steelers from 1951 to 1959, but he did not appear on a football card until his seventh season, 1957. His rookie card, a 1957 Topps, is pictured here. He also appeared on 1958 Topps and 1959 Topps cards.

Stanfel, who played from 1952 to 1958 for the Detroit Lions and Washington Redskins, was a five-time first team All-Pro at guard. He appeared on just two football cards, his 1955 Bowman rookie card, pictured here, and a 1958 Topps.

Chances are very good that at least one of the two senior nominees will be elected to the Hall. The Senior Nominees page of the Hall of Fame web site shows that at least one senior candidate has been elected each year since 1998.

• Find Dick Stanfel football cards on eBay
• Find Jack Butler football cards on eBay

Last week I added virtual uncut sheets of 1955 Bowman cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. I have not seen an actual sheet of 1955 Bowmans, but I presume they followed the same numbering pattern as sheets of older Bowman cards. I believe that the 160-card set was printed on 5 sheets of 32.

Bowman apparently printed the fifth 1955 sheet in smaller quantities than the other four, because most of the scarce cards in the set are from the fifth sheet.

(Click on the image to see all five sheets.)

The holiday made me think of the movie, and thinking of the movie made me wonder what NFL players were born on the Fourth of July. I found the full list at pro-football-reference.com; the eight who appear in the Vintage Football Card Gallery are shown below. Wish them a happy birthday!

Six-time Pro Bowler Erich Barnes was born on July 4, 1935. Barnes’s rookie card, shown here, is a 1960 Topps. Two-time Pro-Bowler Emerson Boozer was born on July 4, 1943; he is shown here on his 1971 Topps card. (Boozer also appeared on my all-party team.)

Two-time Pro Bowler Rosey Taylor was born on July 4, 1937; he is pictured here on his 1965 Philadelphia card. 1963 Pro-Bowler Lee Folkins was born on July 4, 1939; his rookie card, a 1964 Philadelphia, is shown here. (I heard from Mr. Folkins once. He told me that the signature on his 1964 Wheaties Stamp is not in his handwriting.)

Five-time Pro-Bowler Rick Casares was born on July 4, 1931. His rookie card, shown here, is a 1955 Bowman. Hall of Famer Floyd Little was born on July 4, 1942; he is shown here on his 1968 Topps Stand Up insert card.

1981 Pro Bowler Frank Lewis was born on July 4, 1947; his rookie card, a 1973 Topps, is shown here. And, finally, Fred Forsberg was born on July 4, 1944. I don’t believe Forsberg appeared on a card, but I do have his 1972 Sunoco Stamp.

Enjoy your picnics!

Lee Riley, who played defensive back from 1955 to 1962 for the Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, and New York Titans, passed away on June 9. Riley’s best season was 1962, when he intercepted 11 passes for the Titans, leading the AFL. Riley was the son of Leon Riley, who played briefly for baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies, and the brother of Pat Riley, longtime NBA coach and current president of the Miami Heat. He is mentioned in Pat Riley’s profile on the NBA web site.

The card pictured here is Riley’s rookie card, a 1955 Bowman. (1955 Bowmans are the only vintage football cards I can think of that indicate which players were rookies.) He also appeared on a 1963 Fleer card, issued after his last season.

You can see Lee Riley’s career stats at pro-football-reference.com.

John Henry Johnson, who played fullback from 1954 to 1966 for the San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Houston Oilers, passed away on June 3. Johnson also played one season, 1953, with the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders.

Johnson was a four-time Pro Bowler, once with the 49ers and three times with the Steelers. He was also a member of the Lions NFL Championship team in 1957. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987.

The card pictured here is Johnson’s rookie card, a 1955 Bowman. Topps used the same image, recolored, on his 1957 Topps card. (See them side-by-side in an earlier blog article.) Johnson appeared on many other cards during his long career, as well.

Also see:

• A summary of Johnson’s career on the Pro Football Hall of Fame web site.
• Johnson’s career NFL and AFL statistics at pro-football-reference.com.

Joe Heap, who played halfback for the New York Giants in 1955, passed away on April 6. According to an article about him on the Allstate Sugar Bowl web site, Heap left the Giants after one season to serve in the U.S. Air Force. Prior to joining the Giants, Heap starred at Notre Dame. The Sugar Bowl article includes a nice account of his college career.

Though he spent only one season in the NFL, Heap appeared on an NFL football card, the 1955 Bowman card pictured here. (The 1955 Bowman set is the only vintage set I can think of that identified rookies on the fronts of the cards.) I believe that the image on Heap’s card was originally a black-and-white photo of him in his Notre Dame uniform, and that Bowman added the Giants colors. The uniform he is wearing on his card appears to be the same one he is wearing in the photo in the Sugar Bowl article noted above. Also, according to his page at pro-football-reference.com, Heap wore number 48 with the Giants.

Earlier this week I enhanced the Vintage Football Card Gallery to let you find the cards of players and coaches who received various honors, such as membership in the Denver Broncos Ring of Fame. Now, for each such honor, I just have to add the honorees to my database. Over the past couple of days I added the members of the Washington Redskins Ring of Fame and the Minnesota Vikings Ring of Honor. The exercise has been interesting: I am familiar with most players who have made the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and now I am learning who was in the next level of great players for each team.

Pictured here are the rookie cards of two players I added to my honors database this week. The first is a 1964 Philadelphia card of Bill Brown, a member of the Vikings Ring of Honor, and the second is a 1955 Bowman card of Gene Brito, a member of the Redskins Ring of Fame. To see the other honors I’ve done so far–and to do more complex searches–see the Advanced Search page of the Gallery.

Vic Janowicz is another player who played both NFL football and major league baseball. (See last week’s article on Carroll Hardy.) Janowicz won the Heisman Trophy for Ohio State in 1950, then opted for baseball rather than football after graduating in 1951. He made the Pittsburgh Pirates team in 1953, and he played in 83 games over two seasons. In that period he batted just .214, and he returned to football in 1954, joining the Washington Redskins late in the season. He fared much better in the NFL, finishing second in the league in scoring in 1955. In 1956 he was seriously injured in a car accident, and he did not play again.

Despite an unremarkable career in the major leagues, Janowicz appeared on several baseball cards. Both Topps and Bowman were producing baseball cards at the time, and I’m guessing that they printed cards of Janowicz mostly because he was famous for winning the Heisman. I don’t have his baseball cards, but you can see all of them on eBay.

Janowicz’s football rookie card is in the 1951 Topps Magic set, which pictures college players. Rookie cards of Heisman winners are popular with collectors, and the Janowicz card is the key card in the set. He also appeared on 1955 Bowman and 1956 Topps football cards. You can see all of Janowicz’s early football cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

The cards pictured here are Janowicz’s 1955 Bowman baseball card and his 1955 Bowman football card.

A few vintage football cards show diagrams of plays. To me the diagrams seem like filler, and I am not fond of them. I can’t think of a better subject that starts with “X,” though, so here’s a quick rundown. (Hmm, does that mean I’m using them for filler, too?)

The 1964 and 1965 Philadelphia sets include a “Play of the Year” card for each team. On the front of each card is a diagram of the play and a small image of the team’s head coach. The small images are a nice touch, I suppose, but I would have preferred dedicated cards with full-size images for the coaches.

Among the coaches on the Play of the Year cards are Don Shula and Vince Lombardi. Neither coach, to my knowledge, was pictured on card of his own during his career. The 1964 Play of the Year cards could be considered Shula and Lombardi’s rookie cards, but I haven’t seen them designated as such. Pictured here are the 1964 Packers Play of the Year card and the 1965 Philadelphia Colts Play of the Year card.

The back of each team’s Play of the Year card includes a list of the offensive players, which I like. Occasionally a player’s friend or relative will ask me if I have a card of the player, but I have to tell him that the player never appeared on a card. Since some cardless players’ names appear on the Play of the Year cards, I can at least offer one of those cards to the friend or relative.

As I wrote last year, the Play of the Year cards actually feature some pretty ordinary plays. I theorized then that Philadelphia chose short plays so the diagrams would fit on the cards. Could the Lions’ play of the year really have been just a ten-yard completion? “But Jim, what about that 75-yard TD pass from Earl Morrall to Terry Barr?” “Sorry, Lou, it won’t fit on the card.” I am sticking to my theory.

The Philadelphia cards are the only ones I can think of with play diagrams on the front. A couple of other issues have them on the back. One of these is the 1955 Bowman set, which has a generic play diagram on the back of most cards. Cards of players with lots of stats don’t have diagrams on them, but cards of linemen, defensive players, and rookies all do. Some of the generic diagrams appear on multiple cards, too. Filler, I tell you.

Finally, we have the 1976 Wonder Bread set, which gets my vote for the worst card backs ever. Each features a diagram one of Hank Stram’s favorite plays, along with a detailed description of the play. As a kid–or, for that matter, as an adult–I wouldn’t have given the diagrams a second look. But Stram had just taken over as the Saints’ coach in 1976, so perhaps Topps (who printed the cards for Wonder Bread) was trying to ride the buzz about that. Whatever buzz there was didn’t last long, though: even with Stram’s playbook, the Saints went 7-21 in 1976 and 1977.

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