Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Hall of Fame defensive back Emmitt Thomas is celebrating his 70th birthday today. Thomas played from 1966 to 1978, all for the Kansas City Chiefs. He played in both of the team’s two Super Bowls: a loss to the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl I, and a win against the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl IV. He had 58 career interceptions, still a Chiefs record, and he is 11th on the list of all-time interception leaders in the NFL.

After retiring as a player, Thomas began a long coaching career. He is currently the defensive backs coach for the Chiefs, a position he has held since 2010. The 2013 season will be his 33rd as an NFL assistant coach.

Thomas is pictured here on his rookie football card, a 1972 Topps. He appeared on many more cards, as well.

Happy birthday, Mr. Thomas!

Yesterday I added 1979 Kansas City Chiefs Police cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. This is the one of the first NFL police sets ever produced, and it is the first one in the Gallery. I anticipate adding more police sets, so I created a new category for them. You guessed it, it’s called Police Sets.

Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy’s first card is in the 1979 Chiefs Police set. Levy coached the Chiefs for five seasons before going to the Buffalo Bills.

Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of interest in Curley Culp’s 1973 Topps rookie card since he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame a week ago. Less known are Culp’s pre-rookie issues, but there are collectors who find pre-rookies highly desirable, as well. Culp appeared on at least two: the 1971 Kellogg’s card and 1972 Sunoco stamp pictured here. They are the latest additions to the pre-rookie card page of the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Today is a milestone birthday for two players in the Vintage Football Card Gallery: Jim Kearney is 70 years old, and Tony Davis is 60.

Kearney played defensive back from 1965 to 1976 for the Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs, and New Orleans Saints. He was a member of the Chiefs team that won Super Bowl IV against the Vikings. In 1972, Kearney returned four interceptions for touchdowns, tying an NFL record. He still shares that record with Ken Houston and Eric Allen.

Kearney is pictured here on his rookie card, a 1973 Topps. He also appeared on a few other cards and stamps.

Tony Davis was a running back from 1976 to 1981 for the Cincinnati Bengals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He also returned punts for two seasons with the Bengals. As far as I know, Davis did not appear on any regular issue football cards, but he did appear on University of Nebraska Playing Cards in 1973 and 1974. His 1973 card is pictured here, and you can see his 1974 card in the Gallery.

Happy birthday, Messrs. Kearney and Davis!

Can you think of cards that look more like bookends than Bobby Bell and Buck Buchanan‘s 1964 Topps cards? Not only did the players’ rookie cards mirror each another, so did their careers:

• Bell played from 1963 to 1974, all with the Chiefs. Buchanan played from 1963 to 1975, also all with the Chiefs.
• Bell played in nine AFL All-Star and NFL Pro Bowl games; Buchanan played in eight.
• Bell was inducted into the Chiefs Hall of Fame in 1980, Buchanan in 1981.
• Bell was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983; Buchanan was inducted in 1990. Buchanan was also a finalist four times previously, starting in 1984.
• Finally, both are members of the College Football Hall of Fame. Bell was inducted in 1991, Buchanan in 1996.

Tom Keating has passed away; he played defensive tackle from 1964 to 1975 for the Buffalo Bills, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Kansas City Chiefs. There is an article about Keating on the San Francisco Chronicle web site. Keating played on the three American Football League championship teams: the 1964 and 1965 Bills, and the 1967 Raiders. The 1967 Raiders team went on to play Green Bay in Super Bowl II.

The card pictured here is Keating’s 1968 Topps football card. In 1968, Topps honored the prior season’s Super Bowl contestants, the Raiders and Packers, by giving their cards a different design than the rest of the teams. Keating also appeared on a 1965 Topps card, a 1970 Topps card, and a 1972 Sunoco Stamp.

Dave Robinson and Curley Culp were named yesterday as the 2013 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 web site. This is the first time that either player has been chosen as a Hall of Fame finalist.

Robinson, a linebacker, played for the Packers from 1963 to 1972, and for the Washington Redskins in 1973 and 1974. He made the Pro Bowl three times, and he was a member of the Packers’ NFL Championship teams of 1965-1967. Robinson’s rookie card, a 1967 Philadelphia, is pictured here. He appeared on a number of other cards and stamps, as well.

Culp, a defensive tackle, played from 1968 to 1981 for the Kansas City Chiefs, Houston Oilers, and Detroit Lions. He made the Pro Bowl 6 times in his 14 seasons, and he played on the Chiefs team that won Super Bowl IV. Culp’s rookie card, a 1973 Topps, is pictured here. Prior to his rookie card, Culp appeared on a 1971 Kellogg’s card and a 1972 Sunoco stamp, and he appeared on numerous Topps cards later in his career.

Chances are good that at least one of the two 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 Dave Robinson football cards on eBay
• Find Curley Culp football cards on eBay

Last week, at the National Sports Collectors Conference, I picked up two badly miscut 1967 Topps football cards that will help me determine what an uncut sheet looked like. Here they are: a Johnny Robinson card with a bit of Wahoo McDaniel on the left, and a Jim Hunt card with a bit of Johnny Robinson on the left. You can see the pieces of the sheet I have so far on my virtual 1967 Topps uncut sheet page.

For a full list of the virtual uncut sheets I have assembled, see my previous blog article, U is for Uncut Sheets. If you happen to have pictures of full sheets, partial sheets, or miscut cards that would help the effort, I’d love to see them!

Today is the 40th anniversary of the longest NFL game, a Christmas Day AFC semi-final playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs. The game went 7 minutes and 40 seconds into the second overtime before Garo Yepremian ended it with a field goal. The final score: Miami 27, Kansas City 24.

Kansas City’s Ed Podolak was the star of the game; he rushed, received, and returned the ball for a total of 350 yards. The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s summary of the game includes a great photo of Podolak in action. Dig the facemask!

Topps commemorated the game in 1972, sort of. The 1972 Topps football card set was the first to contain a card for each of the previous years’ playoff games, and the Miami-Kansas City marathon happened to be one of them. Unfortuately, Topps missed an opportunity and didn’t mention that the game was the league’s longest ever. I believe that’s Ed Podolak running the ball on the front of the card. Podolak wore number 14, and that facemask looks familiar.

Merry Christmas!

Today I identified the members of the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. To search for them, go to the Advanced Search page and pick Chiefs Hall of Fame in one of the Honor menus.

The Chiefs Hall of Fame is interesting. Rather than inducting a group of players in an inaugural class, the team inducted one person in 1970 and one person each year since–except for 1983, when they did not induct anyone. (I don’t know why they skipped 1983. Does anyone else?) The first person inducted was Lamar Hunt, one of the eight founders of the American Football League and the first owner of the Dallas Texans. Hunt moved the Texans to Kansas City in 1963 and renamed them the Chiefs.

The second person inducted was Mack Lee Hill, a running back who died after knee surgery after a game in his second season. Hill was a good player, but clearly he was inducted because he had passed away unexpectedly while with the team.

Jerry Mays was the first person inducted for years of outstanding play. His rookie card, a 1962 Fleer, is pictured here. Mays played ten seasons with the Texans and Chiefs, and he was selected for the All-AFL team in seven of those seasons. He was inducted into the Chiefs Hall of Fame just two years after retiring.

You can see the full list of Chiefs Hall of Fame inductees on the Chiefs web site.