Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Don Joyce, a defensive lineman from 1951 to 1962 for the Chicago Cardinals, Baltimore Colts, Minnesota Vikings, and Denver Broncos, passed away on February 26, according to the twincities.com web site. Joyce made the Pro Bowl in 1958, and he was a member of the Colts’ NFL Championship teams of 1958 and 1959.

Joyce finally appeared on football cards in his 11th NFL season, after the Vikings acquired him in the 1961 NFL Expansion Draft. The cards shown here are his 1961 Fleer and 1961 Topps cards. He also appeared with the Vikings on a 1962 Post Cereal football card, but he played for the AFL’s Denver Broncos in 1962.

Clarence Self, a back from 1949 to 1955 for the Chicago Cardinals, Detroit Lions, and Green Bay Packers, passed away on January 21. Self played college football at Wisconsin, and he still holds the school record for kickoff return yards in a game, with 178.

Self appeared on one football card, the 1948 Leaf card pictured here, while still at Wisconsin. It is one of the scarce high-numbered cards in the set. 1948 Leaf cards were printed on two sheets, one holding cards 1-49 and the other holding cards 50-98, and Leaf apparently printed the second sheet in much smaller quantities. The Self card is number 78.

When I read yesterday that Ollie Matson had passed away, I thought I’d do a quick web search for him. It kept me busy for a couple of hours. A San Francisco Chronicle article provides the best summary I found of Matson’s career. The article includes a recent photo and a few photos from his playing days.

Before reading about Matson yesterday, I didn’t know about his 1951 San Francisco Dons team. The Dons went undefeated in 1951, but, because they refused to play without their two black team members, Matson and Burl Toler, they were not invited to a bowl game. A book about the team, by Dr. Kristine Setting Clark, is available. Two other Pro Football Hall of Famers, Gino Marchetti and Bob St. Clair, were also members of the 1951 Dons team.

Matson’s two rookie cards–1952 Bowman Large and 1952 Bowman Small–picture him in his Dons uniform. His 1952 Bowman Large card, pictured on the right, is one of my all-time favorite football cards. The back of the card shows that Matson was drafted by the Chicago Cardinals in 1952. He shared NFL Rookie of the Year honors that season with Hugh McElhenny.

Before joining the Cardinals, Matson ran track in the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics. He won two medals: a bronze in the 400-meter dash and a silver in the 1600-meter relay. (For other pro football players who won Olympic medals, see my blog article on the subject.)

According to Matson’s page on the Pro Football Hall of Fame web site, he spent the 1953 season in the military, and he returned to the Cardinals in 1954. In total, he played 14 seasons for the Cardinals, Los Angeles Rams, Detroit Lions, and Philadelphia Eagles. According to his page at pro-football-reference.com, he was a fullback, halfback, flanker, defensive back, and kick returner at various times during his NFL career. He is a member of the Cardinals Ring of Honor and the Philadelphia Eagles Honor Roll.

During his long NFL career, Matson appeared on at least 16 football cards. My favorite, after his 1952 Bowman cards, is his 1959 Topps card, pictured on the left.

You can see all of Ollie Matson’s football cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Here’s another record from the nfl.com history page: on November 27, 1966, in a game against the New York Giants, the Redskins’ Charlie Gogolak attempted ten extra points. That means, of course, that the Redskins scored ten touchdowns that day, and they beat the Giants 72-41. The Redskins’ 72 points in one game is an NFL record, and so is the 113 total points that the two teams scored. According to an account of the game at sportsthenandnow.com, the Redskins weren’t very sportsmanlike that day: with only a few seconds left in the game, instead of running out the clock, coach Otto Graham sent Gogolak out to kick a field goal. With those final three points, the Redskins surpassed the previous record for points in a game, 70, which the Los Angeles Rams had set in 1950.

If you’re quick at math, you’re thinking, hmm, Gogolak must have missed one of his attempts against the Giants. He did; the Giants blocked it. Thus Gogolak shares the record for most successful extra points in a game with Pat Harder and Bob Waterfield. Harder, of the Chicago Cardinals, went 9-for-9 twice: against the New York Giants in 1948, and against the New York Bulldogs in 1949. Waterfield, of the Los Angeles Rams, went 9-for-9 in a game against the Baltimore Colts in 1950–the game in which the Rams set the scoring record I mentioned above. According to the box score, Elroy Hirsch kicked the final extra point in that game, or Waterfield alone would hold the record for most successful extra points in a game. Waterfield threw a 63-yard touchdown pass for the final score, and maybe it was too far to walk.

The cards pictured here are the rookie cards of the record-holding kickers: Gogolak’s 1967 Philadelphia card, Harder’s 1948 Leaf card (with his name misspelled), and Waterfield’s 1948 Leaf card. Waterfield and Harder also had rookie cards in the 1948 Bowman football card set.

• See all of Charlie Gogolak, Bob Waterfield, and Pat Harder‘s football cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.
• See the career stats for Charlie Gogolak, Pat Harder, and Bob Waterfield at pro-football-reference.com.

Woodley Lewis appeared on three Topps football cards, and Topps spelled his name differently on all three. In 1958, he was Woodly. In 1959, he was Woody. In 1960, Topps finally got it right and spelled his name Woodley. The card companies misspelled plenty of players’ names (see a previous blog article, E is for Error Cards), but I can’t think of another player who had his name spelled three different ways.

As I usually do when I write about a player, I did a little web search for Lewis, and I turned up a couple of nice non-card images. One, on the University of Oregon web site, pictures him in the middle of a broad jump. Another, on flickr, shows him in front of the Sportsman Bowl, a bowling alley that he owned after retiring from football. I also found an old matchbook for Woodley Lewis’s Sportsman Bowl on eBay.

Vince Banonis, an offensive lineman and linebacker for the Chicago Cardinals and Detroit Lions in the 1940s and 1950s, passed away on October 23. Banonis was a member of the Cardinals’ NFL championship team in 1947–the last time the Cardinals won the championship–and of the Lions’ championship teams in 1952 and 1953. A New York Times article about the 1947 Cardinals includes a great photo of a muddy Banonis with Charley Trippi.

Banonis appeared on three cards that I know of: the 1948 Bowman card pictured here, a 1948 Leaf card, and a 1949 Leaf card. I have not yet added the Leaf cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery, but you can usually find them on eBay. The fronts of the 1948 and 1949 Leaf cards are identical, but the backs are different–see L is for Leaf for examples.

Steve Romanik, who quarterbacked for the Chicago Bears and Chicago Cardinals from 1950 to 1954, died on September 16. He was the Bears’ leading passer in 1952, sharing duties with George Blanda and Bob Williams.

Pictured here is Romanik’s 1952 Bowman Large card, one of the divisible-by-9 short prints. (See B is for Bowman.) He also appeared on a 1952 Bowman Small card, identical except for its size.

As anyone following the Super Bowl coverage now knows, the last time the Cardinals won the NFL championship was 1947, while they were still playing in Chicago. One of the stars of the 1947 team was Charley Trippi, pictured here on one of his rookie cards, a 1948 Bowman. (Charley’s other rookie card is a 1948 Leaf. Both Bowman and Leaf printed football cards in 1948.)

Reading about Trippi and the rest of the Cardinals’ “Million Dollar Backfield” (also Paul Christman, Elmer Angsman, and Pat Harder) led me to look at Charley’s stats. I knew he had played halfback, but on his stats page I noticed that in 1951 and 1952 he also had a lot of passing statistics. Cool, I thought, he played quarterback for awhile, too. Then I noticed he had punting stats. And kick and punt return stats. And interception stats. The guy played five positions!