June 15th, 2014 | Published in Football Card Trivia, Uniforms
Ever notice that John Unitas’s 1974 Topps card pictures him still in his Colts uniform, but with the jersey numbers colored yellow to look more like a Chargers uniform? Yesterday was the first time I noticed this. Here are his 1973 and 1974 Topps cards, side by side.
Though he appeared on a card in 1974, Unitas did not play that year. He retired on July 23.
May 21st, 2013 | Published in Milestone Birthdays
A trio of players in the Vintage Football Card Gallery are celebrating milestone birthdays today: Glenn Ressler, Johnny Roland, and John Wilbur are all 70.
Glenn Ressler played guard from 1965 to 1974 for the Baltimore Colts. He was a starter in Super Bowl III, which the Colts lost to the New York Jets, and in Super Bowl V, which the Colts won against the Dallas Cowboys. Before his pro career, Ressler starred at center and middle guard at Penn State. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001. Ressler is pictured here on his 1974 Topps football card.
Johnny Roland was a running back from 1966 to 1973 for the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Giants. Roland was named the UPI NFL Rookie of the Year in 1966, and he made the Pro Bowl in his first two seasons. He played college football at Missouri, and he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1998. After retiring as a player, Roland went on to a long coaching career. His rookie card, a 1967 Philadelphia, is shown here.
John Wilbur played guard from 1966 to 1974 for the Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Rams, and Washington Redskins. He started at right guard in Super Bowl VII, which the Redskins lost to the undefeated Miami Dolphins. Wilbur is pictured here on his 1973 Topps football card.
Happy birthday, Messrs. Ressler, Roland, and Wilbur!
April 30th, 2013 | Published in Milestone Birthdays
Two players in the Vintage Football Card Gallery are celebrating milestone birthdays today: Elbert Drungo and Brian Schweda are both 70.
Elbert Drungo was an offensive lineman from 1969 to 1978 for the Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills. He is pictured here on his rookie card, a 1974 Topps. He also appeared on a 1975 Topps card and a 1972 Sunoco stamp.
Brian Schweda played defensive end from 1966 to 1968 for the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints. He was one of the original Saints, obtained from the Bears in the 1967 NFL Expansion draft. As far as I know, Schweda never appeared on a card, but he did appear on a 1969 Saints Doubloon, pictured here.
Happy birthday, Messrs. Drungo and Schweda!
March 8th, 2013 | Published in Halls of Fame
Earlier this week, the National Football Foundation announced the names of the 2013 Football Bowl Subdivision candidates for the College Football Hall of Fame. Eleven of the 82 players and coaches on the ballot appear on cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. (One of them appears on someone else’s card, however.) Here are the eleven in the Gallery:
Bob Berry, Quarterback, Oregon. Berry had a long NFL career with the Vikings and Falcons. He is shown here on his 1972 Topps card.
John Didion, center, Oregon State. Didion played six seasons for the New Orleans Saints. This is his 1974 Topps card.
Charlie Gogolak, kicker, Princeton. Gogolak played six seasons for the Washington Redskins and Boston/New England Patriots. In 1966, he set a record for most extra points attempted in a game, with 10. (He made 9 of them.) He is shown here on his rookie card, a 1967 Philadelphia. Gogolak’s brother, Pete, also played in the NFL.
Rob Lytle, running back, Michigan. Lytle played seven seasons for the Denver Broncos. This is his rookie card, a 1978 Topps. Lytle finished third in voting for the Heisman Trophy in 1976, so he also appears on my page of cards of Heisman Trophy candidates.
Paul Naumoff, linebacker, Tennessee. Naumoff had a 12-year NFL career with the Detroit Lions. He is pictured here on his 1973 Topps card.
Tom Nowatzke, linebacker, Indiana. Nowatzke played eight seasons for the Detroit Lions and Baltimore Colts. This is his 1969 Topps football card.
Phil Olsen, defensive end, Utah State. Olsen played six seasons for the Los Angeles Rams and Denver Broncos. One of his teammates with the Rams was his brother, Merlin. (See my Teammate Brothers article.) Olsen is shown here on his 1973 Topps football card.
Jim Otis, fullback, Ohio State. Otis played nine seasons for the New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Chiefs, and St. Louis Cardinals. His 1976 Buckmans Disc is pictured here. Otis also appears on my page of cards of Heisman Trophy candidates.
Don Trull, quarterback, Baylor. Trull played six seasons for the AFL’s Houston Oilers and Boston Patriots, and two seasons for the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos. He is shown here on his 1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL card. Trull also appears on my page of cards of Heisman Trophy candidates.
Clancy Williams, running back, Washington State. Though Williams was a running back in college, as a pro he played defensive back. He played his whole eight-year NFL career with the Los Angeles Rams. Williams’s son, Clarence, also played a season in the NFL. The elder Williams is shown here on his only card, a 1967 Philadelphia.
Darryl Rogers, coach, several schools. Rogers never played in a regular season game as a pro, but he did coach the Detroit Lions from 1985 to 1988. Apparently, he also tried out with the Denver Broncos in the early 1960s, because his picture ended up on Goose Gonsoulin’s 1961 Fleer card. For more cards that picture the wrong player, see the Mistaken Identities page of the Vintage Football Card Gallery.
You can see all 82 of the 2013 Football Bowl Subdivision candidates on the National Football Foundation web site.
June 17th, 2012 | Published in Fathers and Sons
As I have mentioned in other articles, I have been gradually adding fun facts for the cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. In May I identified the players whose brothers also played pro football (see my blog article Teammate Brothers), and this month I marked the players whose fathers or sons also played professionally. I used the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s list as a reference.
Many of the players on the Hall of Fame’s list never appeared on cards, and some of them appeared on newer cards that I don’t yet have in the Gallery. I did find five pairs of fathers and sons who both appear in the Gallery, though. In honor of Father’s Day, here they are:
Tony Adamle played six seasons for the Cleveland Browns in the AAFC and NFL; his son Mike played six seasons for the Chiefs, Jets, and Bears. Tony is pictured here on his 1951 Bowman card, and Mike on his 1975 Topps card.
Ted Fritsch Sr., a member of the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame, played from 1942 to 1950 for the Packers. Ted Fritsch Jr. played from 1972 to 1979 for the Falcons and Redskins. Ted Sr. appears here on his 1950 Bowman card; Ted Jr. is shown on his 1974 Topps card.
Dub Jones played for the Miami Seahawks, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Cleveland Browns in the AAFC, and he remained with the Browns when they joined the NFL in 1950. He is shown here on his 1953 Bowman card. Bert Jones, Dub’s son, was a quarterback for ten seasons with the Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams. His 1976 Topps card is shown here.
George Sauer Sr. played from 1933 to 1935 for the Green Bay Packers; he is shown here on his 1955 Topps All-American card. George Jr. played from 1966 to 1970 for the New York Jets; he is shown on a 1969 Glendale stamp.
Finally, George Wilson Sr. played for the Chicago Bears for ten seasons, and he was head coach of the Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins for thirteen. Wilson never appeared on a card of his own, but there is a small image of him on the 1964 Philadelphia Lions’ Play card shown here. Wilson’s son, George Jr., played for his father for one season at Miami. His 1967 Topps card is shown here.
July 26th, 2011 | Published in Player Deaths
Richard Harris, the assistant head coach and defensive line coach of the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers, passed away this afternoon. The Winnipeg Free Press web site has a report and a recent photo. Harris was a defensive lineman in the NFL from 1971 to 1977, playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, and Seattle Seahawks.
Harris appeared on one football card during his playing days, the 1974 Topps card pictured here. He also appeared on a 1972 Sunoco Stamp.
January 31st, 2011 | Published in Halls of Fame
Yesterday I identified the members of the New England Patriots Hall of Fame in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. Pictured here is the first inductee, John Hannah, on his rookie card, a 1974 Topps. In 1981, Paul Zimmerman, in Sports Illustrated, called Hannah “the greatest offensive lineman in history.”
The team’s web site has a list of the all of the Patriots Hall of Famers, along with photos and summaries of their careers.
If you’re not a Patriots fan, you can probably find your team’s Hall of Famers via the Gallery’s Advanced Search page. Not all teams have a hall of fame, but I am almost finished with the teams that do.
November 12th, 2010 | Published in Halls of Fame, New in the Gallery
Today I added the ability to search the Vintage Football Card Gallery for members of the Philadelphia Eagles Honor Roll. I found the list of Honor Roll inductees, along with summaries of their careers, in the Eagles media guide. As I have written in earlier posts, I like looking at team halls of fame because they include the second tier of stars, the ones who have not made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
One name on the Eagles Honor Roll surprised me: Ollie Matson. I didn’t know that he had been an Eagle! So I looked up his stats and found that he had played for Philadelphia from 1964 to 1966, his last three seasons before retiring. He didn’t appear on a football card during those years, I suppose because his production had waned by then. According to Wikipedia, when the Eagles introduced their Honor Roll in 1987, they inducted all former Eagles who were members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So they included Matson, though his best years had been with the Cardinals and Rams.
Another member of the Eagles Honor Roll inaugural class, Harold Carmichael, is pictured above. This is Carmichael’s rookie card, a 1974 Topps.
You can use the Gallery’s Advanced Search page to find cards of members of the Eagles Honor Roll or other team halls of fame.
November 11th, 2010 | Published in Interesting eBay Auctions, Silly Stuff, Sites I Like
I didn’t buy just football cards as a kid; I bought lots of Wacky Packages and other stickers, too. I can’t say I collected them, though, because I mostly stuck them on stuff: notebooks, bicycle, little brother, dog. At any rate, I thought I remembered an old Wacky Packages sticker that parodied Topps football cards, so yesterday I went looking for it. I didn’t have to look hard: the sticker is called “Sootball,” and there are lots of them on eBay. Oddly, there is no mention of cards on the sticker.
Though the Sootball sticker is from the 1975 series of Wacky Packages, it was modeled after the 1974 Topps football card wrapper pictured here. I don’t remember, but I’d guess that Topps released the 1975 Wackys before football season, so they had to use the prior year’s football card wrapper.
Speaking of wrappers, I recently tidied up my wrapper page, added an image or two, and linked the images to the cards that came in the wrappers. If you haven’t seen the page recently, take a look!
Also, if you’re an old Wacky Packages fan, you must visit wackypackages.org. It appears that the site creator, Greg Grant, has images of just about all of them.
April 28th, 2010 | Published in Silly Stuff
Don’t you hate it when picture day comes around and you’ve got a big ol’ scab? Or maybe these guys were sponsored by Johnson & Johnson?
Here’s John Cappelletti on his 1977 Topps card and Dave Lloyd on a 1970 Topps.
Here are two 1974 Topps cards: Calvin Hill sporting two bandages, and Dan Goich modeling the XL model.
Topps used images from the same photo session for six of Joe Namath’s cards from 1968 to 1970. Unfortunately, he had a bandage on his head. Here are Namath’s 1968 Topps Stand Up and 1970 Topps cards; see his gallery page for the whole array.
Topps used images from the same photo session for a couple of Roger Staubach’s cards, too. Steve Liskey, from thecowboysguide.com, pointed out the bandage on Staubach’s 1975 Topps card. (Thanks, Steve!) I thought the image looked familiar, so I looked through Staubach’s earlier cards and found that the bandage had made its debut on his 1974 Topps card.
Here’s Les Richter with a boo-boo on his forehead on his regular 1961 Fleer card and on his 1961 Fleer Wallet Picture. Fleer used the same images for players who appeared in both sets.
Finally, we have Doug Cunningham on his 1972 Topps card. Remove his bandage, add some eyeliner, and he’s Gomez Addams!
