Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Sisto Averno, a guard from 1950 to 1954 for the “old” Baltimore Colts, the New York Yanks, the Dallas Texans, and the “new” Baltimore Colts, passed away on March 26. The Baltimore Sun web site has a report and a recent photo. Averno moved so much because there was a lot of churn in the NFL in the early 1950s, and the franchises he played for kept folding.

Averno appeared on one football card, the 1953 Bowman card pictured here.

I discovered two more reversed images today, these on the 1961 Fleer Wallet Pictures of Dan McGrew and Chris Burford. It is easy to see the errors when you put the pictures alongside the players’ regular issue 1961 Fleer football cards. Fleer used the same images for all of the players who appear in both the Wallet Pictures set and the regular Fleer set, but they happened to get these two backward. They made lots more errors on the Wallet Photos, too, mostly misspelling the players’ names on the backs.

These are the ten and eleventh reversed images I have identified in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. All of them are pictured on the Gallery’s Reversed Images page.

I hope you like this feature, because it took me awhile: I identified all of the players in the Vintage Football Card Gallery who are members of the College Football Hall of Fame. You can do a search for all of the College Hall of Famers, all of the College Hall of Famers from a certain college (say Ohio State), or all of the College Hall of Famers from a certain pro team (say the Los Angeles Rams). Use the Gallery’s Advanced Search page to specify whatever combinations you like.

What I like most about this feature is that it highlights some cards that you typically find in the commons bin. Some players with stellar college careers had short or not-as-stellar pro careers, and you wouldn’t know from their cards how good they were in college. The player pictured here is one example: Jim Swink was runner-up to Howard Cassady for the Heisman Trophy in 1955, and he was elected to the College Hall of Fame in 1980. Swink played pro football for just one season–1960 for the AFL’s Dallas Texans–and this 1960 Fleer card is his only football card.

Jimmy Harris, a defensive back in the NFL and AFL from 1957 to 1961, passed away on August 8. Harris played one season each for the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, Dallas Texans, and Dallas Cowboys. He did not play the 1959 season.

Before his pro career, Harris was a star quarterback at Oklahoma. He went 25-0 over three seasons, contributing over half of the wins in the Sooners’ 47-game winning streak. NewsOK.com has an account of Harris’s college career, along with lots of photos.

The card pictured here is Harris’s rookie card, a 1957 Topps. Topps apparently colored a college photo of Harris to put him in Eagles green, because the image closely resembles the photo in the NewsOK.com article, and Harris wore number 20 for the Eagles, not number 15. The image on Harris’s 1960 Fleer card appears to have come from the same photo session, as well.

Harris appeared in a Dallas Texans uniform on a 1961 Fleer card and a 1961 Fleer Wallet Photo, but he played for the Cowboys that season.

For Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d give you a bunch of Flowers. As always, you can click on any image to get more details.

First is Keith Flowers, on a 1952 Bowman Small card. Flowers had a short NFL career, playing nine games in 1952 for the Dallas Texans and Detroit Lions. Bowman issued two sets of football cards in 1952, identical except for their size, so Flowers appeared on a 1952 Bowman Large card, as well. Not bad for a few games.

Next is Stan Flowers, who appeared on a 1960 Fleer card with the Patriots but never saw playing time. (I’m inferring this because he does not have a page at pro-football-reference.com.) Fleer apparently chose the players for their 1960 set well before the season started, because I’d guess that a third of the players in the set never actually played in the AFL.

Charlie Flowers is also in the 1960 Fleer set, and he did see playing time: two seasons at fullback with the Chargers, and one with the New York Titans. He appeared on several cards with the Chargers, one being the tough 1961 Golden Tulip Chargers card shown here.

Unlike the guys above, Richmond Flowers actually played awhile before he appeared on a card. He was a defensive back and kick returner for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants from 1969 to 1973, and he made his debut on a 1973 Topps card. In 1973, Topps increased the size of their football card set from 351 to 528, so they were able to include many players who had not appeared on cards earlier.

Finally, we have Tom Flores, a longtime quarterback and coach for the Oakland Raiders. (He also played a couple of years for the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs.) This is one of his rookie cards, a 1961 Topps; the other is a 1961 Fleer. Flores appeared on a bunch of other colorful 1960s cards, as well.

That’s it! If you haven’t gotten your sweetie something yet, maybe you can dig through your collection and find a couple of these guys. But first I’d see if Hallmark is still open.

Dick Hoerner, fullback for the Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Texans from 1947 to 1952, passed away on December 11. Hoerner made the Pro Bowl in 1950, and he was a member of the Rams team that won the 1951 NFL Championship. Hoerner’s obituary on the Los Angeles Times web site includes a nice photo of him in action.

The card pictured here is Hoerner’s 1950 Bowman football card, which, to my knowledge, was his only card in a major issue. He also appeared on a 1950 Admiral Rams card. I don’t have that card yet, but I did find a couple of them on eBay.

Don Flynn, who played for the Dallas Texans and New York Titans in 1960 and 1961, passed away on April 14. He appeared on one football card that I know of, the 1960 Fleer card pictured here. Flynn’s obituary at tulsaworld.com includes a nice picture of him with Bill Meek, his college coach at the University of Houston. There is a recent photo of Flynn and his granddaughters at fanbase.com.

Though his card says he was a quarterback, Flynn spent his playing time in the AFL at defensive back. He had five career interceptions in the AFL, returning one of them for a touchdown.

Prior to his days in the AFL, Flynn spent one season, 1958, in the Canadian Football League, playing running back for the Edmonton Eskimos. His page at cflapedia.com shows his stats for the season. An article at tylerpaper.com says that Edmonton and the Dallas Texans “vied for Flynn’s services,” but that probably is not correct, since the Texans did not exist in 1958.

Brad Ecklund, who played center for five years in the AAFC and NFL, passed away on February 6. Ecklund started his pro career with the New York Yankees of the AAFC in 1949, then joined the New York Yanks (formerly the New York Bulldogs) of the NFL when the AAFC merged with the NFL in 1950. He remained with the team when they became the Dallas Texans in 1952 and the Baltimore Colts in 1953. He made the Pro Bowl twice, in 1950 and 1951.

After his playing days, Ecklund coached for nineteen years for five NFL teams. His obituary in the Philadelphia Enquirer includes a nice photo from his days as an Eagles coach.

Ecklund’s rookie card is a 1951 Bowman, pictured here. Like the other Yanks cards in the 1951 Bowman set, it shows a picture of Yankee Stadium rather than a logo. Perhaps the team never had a logo as the New York Yanks: I don’t see one on logoserver.com, and the team’s Wikipedia page shows a Bulldogs logo.

Ecklund also appeared on two other cards, a 1952 Bowman Large and a 1952 Bowman Small, in the team’s only year as the Dallas Texans.