Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Dick Felt, a defensive back from 1960 to 1966 for the AFL’s New York Titans and Boston Patriots, passed away on November 17. The Salt Lake City Tribune has a story about him, along with a few photos. Felt played in the 1963 AFL Championship game, which the Patriots lost to the Chargers. After his playing career, he was an assistant coach at BYU for 26 seasons. He was inducted into the BYU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1977.

Felt appeared on two AFL football cards, the 1963 Fleer and 1964 Topps cards pictured here. There are two variations of the 1963 Fleer card, one with a red stripe on the bottom of the back, and one without the stripe. (See the bottom of my 1963 Fleer uncut sheet page for details.) Felt’s 1964 Topps card is one of the short prints in the set.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Last year I gave you Flowers, this year it’s Harts. Here we go:

First is Leon Hart, a Heisman Trophy winner and College Hall of Famer. Hart played eight seasons for the Detroit Lions, and he appeared on at least twelve football cards. His rookie card, the 1948 Leaf pictured here, was issued while he was still at Notre Dame. It is a high number and one of the key cards in the set.

Next is Pete Hart, who played for the New York Titans in the AFL’s inaugural season, 1960. (The Titans were renamed the Jets in 1963.) Hart appeared on a 1961 Fleer card and the 1961 Fleer Wallet Picture shown here.

Jim Hart was a quarterback for nineteen seasons in the NFL, all but one of them for the St. Louis Cardinals. He was a Pro Bowler for four straight seasons, 1974 to 1977. Hart appeared on a lot of football cards; the one pictured here is a 1968 Topps Stand-Up insert card.

Doug Hart played from 1964 to 1971 for the Green Bay Packers. He had the NFL’s longest interception return in 1969, an 85-yarder. The Packers had a lot of great players in the 1960s, of course, so Hart didn’t appear on a card until 1970. His 1970 Topps card is pictured here. He also made it onto a 1972 Sunoco Stamp, but he did not play in 1972.

Tommy Hart played thirteen seasons for the 49ers, Bears, and Saints. He appeared on several cards during his career; you can see most of them in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. His rookie card, a 1973 Topps, is pictured here.

Finally, Harold Hart played four seasons, 1974-1975 and 1977-1978, with the Raiders and Giants. Ironically, his only card is a 1976 Topps that shows him with Tampa Bay, but he didn’t play in 1976, and he never played a regular season game for Tampa Bay. According to his page at bucpower.com, the expansion Buccaneers acquired Hart in the 1976 Veteran Allocation Draft, but he hurt his knee in the pre-season and spent the year on injured reserve.

That’s all the Harts! Next year, Roseys?

I probably looked at this 1960 Fleer Roger Ellis card a hundred times before I realized that he wasn’t wearing a Michigan helmet. I always assumed that the “winged” helmet design was Michigan’s only, and that it somehow symbolized a wolverine. As I wrote yesterday, though, the design has nothing to do with wolverines; it merely reflects the structural design of leather helmets back in the 1930s. Other teams used the winged design on their helmets in the 1930s, also, but most moved to different designs when they went to synthetic helmets.

Maine is another school that used the winged design, though I don’t know whether they used it on leather helmets or adopted it afterward. And that’s whose helmet Ellis is wearing: he was a Maine Black Bear before joining the AFL’s New York Titans. According to the Colonial Athletic Association page at the Helmet Project, Maine used the winged design until the mid-1970s. And guess what? Delaware, which is also in the CAA, uses the winged design to this day. I had no idea! Henshots.com has lots of recent photos of the Blue Hens in their winged helmets.

• Search Nearmint’s Cards for 1960 Fleer football cards
• Search eBay for Roger Ellis

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.

Al Dorow, who played quarterback for the Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Titans, Buffalo Bills, and three CFL teams, died on December 7. Dorow was the New York Titans’ starting quarterback when the AFL started play in 1960. (The Titans became the Jets in 1963.) There is a detailed article about Dorow’s career on the profootballresearchers.com web site.

Pictured here is Dorow’s rookie card, a 1955 Bowman. Over his career, he appeared on five NFL and AFL cards. He also appeared on one CFL card, in 1959. I don’t have Dorow’s CFL card, but there are a lot of them on eBay.