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.

Card Show Stuff

After a series of unavoidable events caused me to miss a few months I finally made a hotel card show in October. I'm not chasing any baseball sets and the one football set I'm building (1964 Philly Gum) wasn't in great supply among the dealers of vintage cards. I was able to add a couple of stars from that set.

So I made do with grabbing some cheap cards that just caught my eye. I'm not sure what attracts me to cards of coaches like this 1954 Topps Ray Blades. But I added it to my stack and I'm glad. Blades was a player I wasn't aware of but in the 1920s he carved out a nice career as an outfielder with the Cardinals. As the back of his card notes Blades hit .342 in 1925 during a string of .300+ seasons. You can check out his SABR bio here.

Blades was one of those baseball 'lifers' who played, coached, managed and scouted for numerous clubs thru several decades. He managed the '39 Cardinals to a second place finish in his first year at the helm but was fired early the next season after the team stumbled early.

When I see these cards of coaches I always wonder if Topps someone else in the checklist originally but had to remove them for some reason.

Here's my first Dom DiMaggio card, a decent 1953 Topps.

Not much to say other than I don't think I was aware of the fact that Dom was four inches shorter than his more famous brother.

I love this 1960 Topps of Ralph Felton. I didn't know him when he played but a quick search showed that he won a national title at Maryland and played 11 seasons of pro football with the Redskins and Bills. He was better known as 'Rass' Felton and opened a grocery after his playing days.

There is something about the 1960 Topps football set that just makes it appear to be a much older set. I can't really explain it but the set strikes me as something from the mid 50s.

George Webster was a terrific player in his day with the Oilers. He was an All American safety at Michigan state but the Oilers made him a linebacker. The story goes that as a rookie in a 1967 exhibition game against the Cowboys he caught Bob Hayes from behind. I was at that game at Rice Stadium but I have no recollection of that. I do remember Hayes made a long catch and run on what was a rainy night.

My scanner didn't do a very good job on this 1970 Kelloggs' 3-D Webster. It's a really neat set. Very underrated.

One of Webster's teammates at Michigan State was Gene Washington. 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. 

This is a 1971 Topps Gene Washington game card. It's the spiritual brother of the 1968 Topps baseball game inserts. Pretty neat. I can't believe I never thought to pick it up for my GW collection before this. 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. 

And finally a Cal Ripken medallion card from one of the Topps issues of 2017.  This was a freebie. One of the regular dealers at the show was ripping mini boxes (probably looking for Aaron Judge cards) and this was some sort of insert. I've bough enough stuff from him that he will sometimes toss Orioles things my way. 

And yes, the medallion appears to be crooked. That's not a scanning error. 

I'm actually closely reading the back for the first time and see that it came out of Update. Likely to be the only card out of that set I'll own. 

I was only mildly disappointed at the lack of vintage football at the show. There are plenty of dealers who carry football cards but they stock mostly new stuff.