Yes, I was busy

Just because I wasn't blogging here doesn't mean I wasn't doing hobby stuff. In fact, I was really getting after some sets I had been considering for a long time. They were all football sets and that was one reason I wasn't motivated to post. Not much interest in vintage football in the blogging world.

But I decided that I'd throw some stuff up here just because. I nabbed some oddball baseball sets as well and maybe they will find themselves here, too.

I posted some of the '71 Topps football set last year. I finished it off a few months ago with some COMC pickups. It's a fun set with the obvious colorful 1975T baseball set vibe going. The majority of the set is comprised of posed training field 'action' shots like Joe Willie here.

For the most part, the rest of the set consists of portraits. Many of them are practice field shots as well like this one of fellow Hall of Famer Paul Warfield, who will always be a Cleveland Brown in my mind. Some portraits were just cropped into headshots.

There is a sprinkling of game action shots. Dennis Shaw is one. Like everyone else seen in this set wearing a helmet, his is airbrushed.

Joe Greene's rookie card is the most expensive (and one of the least interesting) cards. But it's by no means hard to find. It was the last card I picked up for this bunch because I took my time to find one with the right balance of affordability and condition.

I pulled a random page to show off the colors and variety. AFC guys with red borders, NFC got blue. And the All-Stars got the combo treatment which really foreshadowed the '75 baseball set.

Kind of an interesting page there as I look at it. Alan Page has his game face on for sure. He is among the best defensive players I've ever seen. Spike Jones is not related to the 40s-era comedian and bandleader of the same name. But he does share the nickname. Duane Thomas was a real talent in the early 70s. His Wikipedia page is worth scrolling thru. Daryle Lamonica was known as the 'The Mad Bomber'. I always think of my childhood friend who called him Daryle Harmonica. It's no funnier now than it was then. 

And finally, there is Dick Anderson. He was a Pro Bowl level corner for a decade in Miami. He also sent a dagger through my heart in the 1971 AFC title game when he found a Johnny U pass in his arms and took it back 60+ yards for a soul-crushing score. Almost 50 years later and I'm still not sure I've ever recovered.

Because I like torturing myself I dug up (several) videos of the play on YouTube. The one below is in black and white but it features the NBC call by Curt Gowdy that still haunts me. Curt, of course, was an AFL guy and that came through in every broadcast. In this one, he all but explodes with joy. Funny thing, I never resented Gowdy. He was a fantastic broadcaster. I could stand watching more than I had to of this tape but it appears to be Curt's own analysis of the play from some sort of TV show. Whatever.

So that's the '71 Topps set. I have several more vintage sets complete. A couple have a few empty slots and are awaiting my COMC delivery scheduled for Tuesday.  I hope a few folks are interested in them because I'm going to keep posting 'em whether you like it or not. 😉😄

All in on '71T Football

Putting the 1969 Topps football set to bed didn't stop my interest in sets of that era. I had considered completing one of the Philly Gum sets that I have starter lots of but something else came along. I was sorting through some boxes as part of my hobby 'clean-up' and found a few stars from this '71 Topps set including the only high dollar card, the Terry Bradshaw rookie.

I've always liked the design of this thing. It's colorful and has that goofy cartoon 'position guy' on it. The fact that my Baltimore Colts were coming off a Super Bowl win probably helped. At 263 cards and only a couple of noteworthy rookies (Bradshaw and Joe Greene), it's not hard to complete.

When a Net54 member offered up a decently priced lot I bought it and committed to building the thing. The same guy offered me a second lot later and I nabbed that as well. Between the cards I already owned and the two lots I bought I was at about 100 cards.

Last Saturday's hotel card show netted me over 100 more. Show promoter/friend Darryl had promised to bring a box of them for me to browse, and he didn't disappoint. The cards he had were in great condition and I found almost 100 more that I needed. I found some others at another dealer's table and have since nabbed more on COMC. So just like that, I'm within striking distance of finishing it.

The cards I'm posting are a mix of those I already had and those I've nabbed in the last month. Starting off with one of my favorites, Gene Washington of the Vikes.

Washington as an alum of the school I taught at for much of my career. He came to speak to our kids a couple of times. I got him to sign one of these cards for me but it's part of a display at the school. When I retired I didn't want to take it with me. Here is part of a previous blog post I wrote about Gene Washington in 2017:

His is a pretty remarkable story of growing up as an athlete in Texas. His home town had no high school that would allow blacks so he took a bus to Baytown, across under the Houston Ship Channel, to all black G. W. Carver High School. He played football and ran track and set records against other black high schools in the Prairie View Interscholastic League. 

He went on to become an All American for the Spartans and is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. As for Carver...it's still there in Baytown. It's no longer a 'stepchild' and no longer a high school. I've taught and coached there for nearly 29 years. Gene has visited a few times and is a gracious, soft-spoken gentleman. When I look up from my door at school every day I see a fantastic framed nearly life-sized photo of him in posed action for Michigan State. Next to that are framed banner listing the football, hoops and track state titles the Gene Washington and his schoolmates won while at Carver.

Washington played seven NFL seasons, all for the Vikings. There is a neat video on the Vikings site. It's part of a documentary done by Gene Washington's daughter chronicling his 'road' to Michigan State and the pros. It's well worth the 10 minutes. 

This is the photo I mentioned in that post. It was hard to take a glare-free pic.

And now back to the '71s!

When I was a high school freshman our locker room was so small we shared lockers. My locker mate was a running back whose favorite player was this guy:

The two NFL Conferences were separated by card frame color in 1971. NFC cards were blue. AFC guys got red cards. All-Stars got fancier cards, both red and blue! These bear a strong resemblance to the '75 baseball design. Here's Alan Page.

As great a player as Page was (and trust me, he was terrific!) his accomplishments during his post-playing days dwarf anything he did to gain the Hall of Fame. Page obtained a law degree and went on to serve on the State Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Fran Tarkington made his name with the Vikings, but he still had that scrambling ability that made him famous when he played for the Giants.

The ageless George Blanda. Classic practice field photo on this one. Mis-cuts are a big issue with the '71 football set. Left-to-right, top-to-bottom, it is an equal opportunity challenge. These don't bother me as long as the cut doesn't run through the picture or text. I'd rather have decent corners if given a choice. Wrong backs and severely mis-cut backs are fairly common as well.

Mercury Morris! An electrifying kick return guy and he had his moments as a running back as well. The NFL has changed the rules so that kick returns are no longer much of a factor in games but back in Morris's day, he was a threat to do his 95-yard-momentum-changing thing every time.

Bonus points if you knew his given name is Eugene.

I can't post a group of football cards without a Baltimore Colt in the mix.

And here is my chance to show the back of one of these. Mackey's card has a cartoon that references his role as the Players Association president. It doesn't mention that the same role would influence the closed good ol' boy network of clowns who kept him from induction in Canton until it was almost too late.

Gale Gillingham's card brings to mind Ray Scott, Packer (and CBS) play-by-play man, who I have always considered the best I've ever heard. "Starr............. this is Dowler.......... Touchdown".

Spider Lockhart, a favorite of my Dad.

Charlie Krueger was 33 years old or younger when this shot was taken. I'm serious.

Jackie Smith was a Hall of Fame tight end for the Cardinals and later, the Cowboys. He had a fine career but is mostly remembered for his drop in the end zone in Super Bowl XIII. Another classic practice field card photo. "That's right, hold it up like you just caught it." It was a popular pose back then.

See?

Oh, and I have a better cut Moses waiting for me in my COMC queue.

I included this Don Hermann card because I think he resembles Eli Manning. 🤷

I think all the Raiders were photographed on this field. The photographer had Biletnikoff stand a little closer.

Preston Pearson is shown on a Steelers card but he was photographed when he was with the Colts. (which, BTW, hadn't been the case since May 1970).

Whoever was assigned to take the Colts' pics lined most of them up against that blue brick wall and snapped away. I pulled this page from my Baltimore Colts collection binder:

Check out the two different fonts Topps used for the team name. Lower card numbers have that wider font. Without digging into it I'll assume that corresponds to the two series, 1-131 and 132-263. Once I get my cards sorted I'll check other teams.

The 1970 set used a bunch of these shots as well:

We'll end this with another All-Star, Bob Griese...with an electrical or phone wire running through the pic behind him.

The last dozen or so cards I need for this set are listed over in the sidebar. I've got a nice stack of dupes if you are interested and have something to swap.

If you are not building it but have been thinking of going after a vintage football set... you could do worse than this one.

Knocking off sets

Nothing remarkable here but I wanted to post the final cards from a couple of sets I've been working on for a while. Up top is the 1957 Bobby Richardson that came last week. The right border is there despite what my scanner did to it. Richardson is a clear-eyed rookie pictured with a faintly seen Yankee Stadium scoreboard behind him and the Bronx as a backdrop.

His card wasn't the last card purchased for the build (that honor went to his infield partner and fellow rookie, Tony Kubek) but it was the last to arrive and find its slot in the binder. Both the Richardson and Kubek cards were part of the shorter-printed 4th Series, both (as noted) were rookie cards and both, being Yankees, carried the 'pinstripe tariff'.

I actually have a few items on my '57 list, a couple of unnumbered checklists and some contest cards, all of which can wait for later. I have 'examples' of each in the binder and that will do me for now.

Below is a poorly scanned '74 Dave Roberts 'Washington' card. I ended up with three of these in my mailbox within a few days of each other due to some good fortune and generous friends. I actually have a few '74s coming from COMC that will be the last to make the binder but this was the last card I found for the set.

Back in early October I was bitchin' and moanin' about the problems I had putting this thing together and I'm still not crazy about it but looking at it in the binder I'm coming around to appreciating it again.

Meanwhile, my '73 build is a card or so from completion and a huge bundle of '71 Topps football cards came my way at the card show on Saturday. I'm now close to 75% done with that fun, colorful set just a few weeks after deciding to tackle it. I think the collecting gods were smiling Saturday as the lot of 71s were in amazing condition and my friend Darryl was in a holiday mood and practically gave them to me.

I'll post a few other pickups from the show and discuss my blogging plans next time.

Monday Morning Quarterback #32 Johnny Unitas 1971 Topps

In this ongoing series of posts I am going to feature cards from my fantasy football player collection, specifically the 117 quarterbacks I've had on my team's roster since 1980. I have one selected card for each player in my All-Time Flyers binder. Through the years I've tried to use as many different card varieties as possible while holding on to my preference which is: a card issued in a year I owned the player showing him in the proper team uni in a vertical format. Card availability and my whims have had a big impact on that standard as we will see. 

NFL Info: Not sure what to say about John Unitas, my hero and the player I consider to be the best football player of all time. Outside of my immediate family no one person's death has ever impacted me personally the way his did. I thought he'd live forever.

 In his 18-year career, Unitas threw for 40,239 yards and 290 touchdowns in 211 games. Those are the basic stats. They don't seem that special anymore. But the game was different then. Compare them to his contemporaries and they stand out. I'm going to post various quotes from sites I've bookmarked over the years.

Unitas could intimidate without being one of the physical players. He played in an era when quarterbacks did not receive much protection, specifically on late hits. Throughout his Hall of Fame career, this three-time NFL MVP played with a number of injuries, including a badly broken nose, broken fingers, ripped arm tendons, and torn knee cartilage. In 1958, with three broken ribs and a punctured lung, he led the Colts to the NFL title while wearing a protective harness. Two years later Unitas played the entire season with a broken vertebrae.

What made Unitas special, [Ray] Berry said, "was his uncanny instinct for calling the right play at the right time, his icy composure under fire, his fierce competitiveness, and his utter disregard for his own safety."

As a player, Unitas was unsurpassed. Unitas threw a touchdown in 47 straight games. He invented the two minute drill. Unitas led more come from behind victories than any quarterback in league history. The hall of fame QB was honored with the MVP award three times during his career. No.19 was also named player of the decade for the 1960s and he made the Pro Bowl ten times during his illustrious career.

Unitas possessed a keen sense of what to do on the field. He absorbed and studied any playbook he had like a computer. His decisions were always precise, rarely wrong.

The greatest defensive end in football history, Deacon Jones, claimed that there really was no way to beat him. If opponents tried to rattle him by hitting him, he kept getting back up. If a team tried to get him moving out of the pocket, he was able to improvise. You try to make him throw deep because he doesn't have the arm strength, but he hits Raymond Berry in stride down the field every time.

And here, from a previous post, is the brief story of the only time I saw him play in a regular season game, in October of 1970:

Two things stand out about that game. First is that had it not been a Colt game we might not have gone. The rain was horrendous as it often can be in Houston, and we had to get up from watching the Orioles and Reds playing Game Two of the World Series. But it was the Colts and my Dad knew how much I wanted to actually see Unitas play so off we went, listening to the Orioles as we drove.
The second thing is how the Colts won. On their last drive of the game Unitas threw a scoring strike to Roy Jefferson for the winning TD. As long as I live I'll never forget seeing my all time favorite athlete throw the pass and begin to trot towards the sidelines even before it was caught, not even watching. Even nearing the end of his career Unitas was a joy to watch.

Fantasy Impact: No, my league isn't quite old enough for me to have had an active John Unitas on my team. But back in the mid-'90s when we were just moving into the computer software age of league management I had the bright idea that it would be cool to use the software's ability to 'add' Unitas to the database and pick him up as a sort of personal 'tribute' to him. So I did.

In 1995, for one brief weekend, Johnny Unitas officially was a member of my fantasy team, the Baltimore Flyers. He then 'retired' and a press release to that effect was sent out.

The Card: 1971 Topps football set is very popular. It's loaded with stars and key rookies. Getting cards in really great condition has to be tough given the 'full bleed' color borders, just as it is with the black bordered baseball set from that year. I have a couple of copies of this Johnny Unitas card and this one is the choice for my fantasy player binder. That's a fabulous picture of Johnny U. He's got that crooked smile and the trademark flat-top haircut.

While the front design is kind of juvenile with the cartoon-ish player indicating position and the big font, the back is one of my favorites from that era of Topps football. That may be so simply because of this card. It's really neat that Unitas is #1 (as he should be!) and nothing beats a 'wall of stats' from a Hall of Fame career.

The restaurant referred to in the cartoon was "Johnny Unitas' Golden Arm". I ate there once with my uncle on a trip to Baltimore. I probably had a burger although all I really remember was all the cool  Colt's memorabilia around the place. My uncle always kidded me because I kept looking around for Johnny U. to stroll through. He didn't. Eating there was like having lunch at the Vatican hoping the Pope shows up.

I finally got to meet The Man in person many years later at a card show. In those days, before TriStar and mega autograph signings it wasn't unusual for the signing players to stroll in and out of the room right through the tables escorted by the show promoter. I positioned myself near the door that day and was able to shake Unitas' hand and fawningly mumble something stupid and awkward as he made his exit. But it's a cool memory.