October 19th, 2010 |
Published in
Player Deaths
Charley Leo, who played guard for the AFL’s Boston Patriots and Buffalo Bills from 1960 to 1963, passed away on October 7. Leo made the 2nd Team All-AFL in 1960 and 1st Team All-AFL in 1961. I found a photo of the 1961 team on the Patriots web site; Leo is number 63, on the left end of the middle row.
Leo appeared on two cards: a 1961 Fleer card, pictured here, and a 1961 Topps. 1961 was the only year that two card companies printed cards of AFL players, and Leo appeared in both the Fleer and Topps sets. He also appeared on a 1961 Fleer Wallet Picture, a black-and-white version of the 1961 Fleer card, cut from a magazine. (See my previous blog article on the 1961 Fleer Wallet Pictures.)
November 26th, 2009 |
Published in
Player Deaths
Tom Janik, who played defensive back from 1963 to 1971 for the Broncos, Bills, and Patriots, died on November 21. According to his page on pro-football-reference.com, Janik intercepted 25 passes in his career, returning 6 of them for touchdowns. He went to the Pro Bowl twice, both times with the Bills, in 1965 and 1967.
Pictured here is Janik’s rookie card, a 1964 Topps. He also appeared on a 1971 Topps card.
September 20th, 2009 |
Published in
Sites I Like, Uniforms
Today’s article in the Uni Watch blog bemoans the disappearance of “shoulder loops” on NFL jerseys. (Scroll down to Getting Loopy On You.) The article prompted me to look through my old cards to find which teams’ uniforms had the loops. As I did that, I realized that my favorite uniforms were the ones with the loops, and the loops were the reason I liked them. Here they are, both on 1964 Topps cards: the Patriots uniform, modeled by Ron Burton, and the Chargers uniform, modeled by Earl Faison.
I believe these 1964 cards show the players in their 1963 uniforms, so these are also the uniforms that the Patriots and Chargers are using as throwbacks this year. The eight original AFL teams are wearing throwback uniforms in several games in 2009 to commemorate their 50th year of play. The Patriots chose their 1963 uniform because they won the AFL East Division that year, and the Chargers chose 1963 because it was the year they won the AFL championship.
