1971-72 NFLPA Wonderful World BALTIMORE Colts Stamps

Back when I was doing my rundown of all things BALTIMORE Colts I came across this stamp set which was listed as the NFLPA Wonderful World Set/Album. There were 15 players from each NFL team in the set for a total of 390. The stamps were distributed in packs of 8.  

They albums issued in '71 and '72 have different covers as do the packs. But the stamps are very close to being identical in both year's sets. I had a few stray singles but a month or so ago I came across a listing for the complete Colts set. It was pretty cheap so I picked it up. 

The stamps themselves are very simple with no text on the front and just a minimum ID on the back. A short write-up is found in the box for each players' stamp in the album. I scanned most of the Colts. This being an unlicenced set there are no team logos to be found. 

The great John Unitas. This was just as he was starting to let his hair grow out. No more flattop for Johnny U.

Next is another Hall of Famer, John Mackey. John has those 70's sideburns going for sure.

Badass linebacker Mike 'Mad Dog' Curtis.

Did I mention he was a bad ass?

Below is left tackle Bob Vogel. The logo on his helmet is whited out giving the impression that he's holding a balloon. 

Here is the back of one of the stamps.

Norm Bulaich, the 'Human Bowling Ball'.

Another balloon holder, receiver Eddie Hinton.

Safety Rick Volk.

Ted 'The Mad Stork' Hendricks

Versatile halfback Tom Matte.

And finally the hero of Super Bowl V, Jim O'Brien.

Excuse me just a second as I re-live a great moment:

Anyway I found some photos on eBay of the album and wrappers from both years of this thing.

I spied my high school hero Ben Hawkins on the Eagles page. I may have to track his stamp down. 

Lastly here is what Beckett has to say on these:

This set of 390 stamps was issued in both 1971 and 1972 under the auspices of the NFL Players Association in conjunction with an album entitled "The Wonderful World of Pro Football USA." The album features a photo of Earl Morrall and Mark Washington from Super Bowl V. The stamps are numbered and measure approximately 1 15/16" by 2 7/8". The team order of the album is arranged alphabetically according to the city name and then alphabetically by player name within each team The picture stamp album contains 30 pages measuring approximately 9 1/2" by 13 1/4". The text narrates the story of pro football in the United States. The album includes spaces for 390 color player stamps. The checklist and stamp numbering below is according to the album. There are some numbering and very slight text variations between the 1971 and 1972 issues on some stamps.

It's nice to knock another oddball item off my BALTIMORE Colts wantlist.

I did it anyway

I had promised myself I wouldn't resort to digging through old boxes of hobby 'stuff' to find posting fodder. And I really wasn't intending to do it for this post but here we are.

I went looking for somethings I intended to send out to another blogger and pulled a plastic storage box from my hobby closet. Remarkably what I was looking for was actually in the box! You'd really be impressed by that fact if you saw my hobby closet. But there were also a bunch of cards I hadn't seen in awhile and some of them sparked my interest and immediately I saw a post might come from them. A timely one at that.

There were a boatload of my Pro Set football dupes from '89-'92. I'm posting two from the 1991 set. Up top is the Whitney Houston Anthem card, #350. It shows her National Anthem performance at Super Bowl XXV earlier that year. That was an anthem for the ages. Oddly just this morning I came across a story that ran in USA Today on Thursday concerning that performance. It makes for an interesting read, especially if you remember that goosebump-inducing few minutes.

Next is the '91 Bill Belichick. Back then he didn't look like a guy you'd cross a downtown street to avoid.

1989 Marion Butts for no other reason than the fact that it was the best football card in the box. Oh, and I had Marion Butts for a couple of years in my fantasy league. He seemed to have his best games on the weeks I didn't start him. I always said "Marion Butts makes me nuts."

Now on to a few baseball cards. A K-Mart Cal Ripken from some long forgotten boxed set. Back when we first moved out here there was not much around. A K-Mart served as 'big box' retailer for the area. I bought lots of their boxed sets. I gave away most of the cards but kept the Orioles

Here's brother Billy on his 1992 Stadium Club card. I seem to recall being some sort of charter SC member and getting small boxed sets in the mail. Or maybe I'm imagining that. I know I have SC cards marked Charter Member or words to that effect. This isn't one.

I'm posting this Dave Parker for the same reason I posted the Marion Butts. I think it's the best baseball card I dug out of the box. It's from the 1991 SC set which I think was the first. I have absolutely no recollections of Parker with Milwaukee. He's a Pirate to me, or a Cincinnati Red. But his BR page reveals a very solid season with the Brew Crew in 1990. I hadn't thought about him with the Athletics either until I looked at his page and remembered him playing in the World Series.

I'll show the card back because it includes his awesome 1974 Topps.

"Any Spahn card is a cool Spahn card" ©

I've said that a million times it seems. And even this 1992 Ziplock Spahn fits the bill. Spahnie is all angles,... his cap, nose, grin, and eyebrows. I have no idea where I got this card. There were only 11 different ones issued and supposedly they came on boxes of the plastic bags. Heaven knows we used a lot of sandwich bags back when my kids were in school so it's possible I actually got this from a box.

And one more card....

A 1990 Payne Stewart. He, along with Fred Couples, was a favorite of my sons and me. My boys loved him because he always acknowledged them at the Shell Open. They would stand between the 11th green and 12th tee and wait to say hello to every golfer that passed by. Stewart never failed to smile and high five them no matter where he stood on the leaderboard.

I was a fan because he had (like Couples) an exceptionally smooth, fluid swing. It was something that back in my frequently golfing days I was always trying for but never close to achieving. His affiliation with the NFL also makes this an appropriate card to post on Super Sunday.

Here is a bonus. It's Whitney Houston's Tampa SB performance. It is and always will be the best Anthem performance ever. Enjoy!

Super Bowl Opening Night

I was gifted with some tickets (Thanks, Texans) to the quasi-official opening event of Excess Super Bowl Week a.k.a. Super Bowl Opening Night. So Monday evening my lovely and patient wife and I traipsed down to Minute Maid Park in downtown Houston to see what used to be known simply as 'Media Day'.  The NFL, in all it's wisdom (read: greed), saw a way to turn an overblown press conference into a money making event. Imagine that.

I really had no clue as to what it would entail until we got into the building.  I saw immediately that one of my stated goals would be impossible to fulfill. No, I didn't want to snuggle with Tom Brady. Rather I've been interested in what the new center field configuration of the park would look like. The old 'Tal's Hill' has been removed for more seating and a concession options. But the large stage and curtain stretched nearly from foul pole to foul pole. No way for me to peek behind the curtain.

I'll mention here that I went there reppin' my BALTIMORE Colts. I tweeted this shot and it was posted on the video board. They showed it about the same time that in-house host Scott Hansen of NFL RedZone fame was ragging on the many Cowboy fans in attendance. 

The set up was pretty ingenious. A big stage with 11 podiums arranged in front of it. Players sat at the podiums and answered (mostly inane) questions. Six of the players were shown on huge video boards flanking the stage. They switched up who was being shown from time to time. Two more video boards were broadcasting the NFL Network feed and Hansen's in-house ramblings with floor interviews by Ladanian Tomlinson.

The Falcons were featured for an hour and then, following a ceremony with the captains and coaches from both teams, there was a concert by a group I've never heard of.

It's not often you get to see the world's worst dressed rich guy wearing a tie. These two shots are from the web. We were no where near close enough to take them.

After the intermission concert they rolled out the Patriots for an hour of interviews. My wife and I had had enough by the time the Pats here herded onstage so we headed for the doors. Another concert and fireworks were scheduled to conclude the evening but we were home by then.

Our tickets were for seats in the mezzanine and had a $30 price listed on them. I'd have been rather unhappy had I paid $60 for what was delivered. Besides the privilege of hearing some dork ask Matt Ryan if he has ever considered changing his nickname from "Matty Ice" to "Matty Ice-cream" (I only wish I was making that up) we each received a drawstring backpack with 'stuff' inside. We got men's grooming samples, a towel, and Snickers bars among the swag.

We were also given this 'radio'. It was pretty ingenious actually. It was to be used to hear your selected interviews. You could slip it over either ear. Each player or coach that was featured on a video board also had their interview broadcast on a numbered channel. You tuned your radio to hear whichever one interested you. The NFL Network and Hansen's chatter had channels as well.

As far as I've been able to figure the radio is useless now that the event is over. I tried it at home for laughs and only heard static. I've since employed skills I've learned breaking graded cards out of slabs and snapped the radio off the cord. I now have a SB51 lanyard.

The goody bag also had packs of Panini NFL cards. I don't think these were retail packs. And I'm pretty sure these were not cards that were sold at retail either but my knowledge of current football cards is nearly nil.

The cards are pretty sweet actually. Each pack had five and they were all shiny and pretty. Each pack had a couple of current players....

...and a legendary player in this design.

Each pack also had a Gridiron Kings card and a Legends of the Shield card. I used to collect Marcus Allen pretty casually so the card I posted at the top of the post was appreciated.

Overall it was an interesting experience. Not one I'd do again though. Especially not for $30 a ticket.

Super Bowl Sunday

I'm in a real party town today. My wife is running the New Orleans Marathon. I still wonder why they would schedule the race for today but here we are. Since I don't want my wife sitting in a car for a five hour trip back to Houston after she does the race we are staying over until Monday.

That means we will be trying to find a place to watch the game and enjoy some atmosphere in New Orleans. That's a little like saying I'm at the North Pole looking for snow. I really don't have a favorite today. That's usually the case in Super Bowls for me (unless of course the Cowboys are involved and in that case I root for the other team). I just want the game to be entertaining and I always hope my Buffalo wings come out tasty.

I don't have big Super Bowl parties but we do usually make it a family event. When my kids were young we would have fun decorating the living room with streamers and balloons in the teams' colors, making a 'Super Bowl cake' (it looked like a football field with the teams' mini helmets stuck in the icing of the 'end zones) and planning a junk food-laden menu.

It lost some of it's luster when my boys went off to college and couldn't always be here for the game. And obviously this year there will be no party at all. Which is a shame because for the first time in six years or so both my sons are living in Houston again after graduating.

The card at the top, a 1955 Bowman L. G. Dupre sort of ties all this together (I said 'sort of'... work with me here):

• Dupree was born in New Orleans. 
• He grew up  in Texas City, Texas, just a half hour down the road from my current home.
• He went to school at Baylor, not too awfully far from where one of my boys went (Texas State in San Marcos). 
• He began his career with my team, the BALTIMORE Colts. 
• He finished his career with the Dallas Cowboys. 
• He died in 2001 which was the year the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl. 

It's damn near the circle of Super Bowl life, no?

Dupre's real name is Louis George but he was always known as L.G. and his nickname was 'Long Gone' which is really pretty cool. Just saying 'Long Gone Dupre' brings 1950's football to mind, even if you never lived it.

He never had as many as 400 yards in any of his seven NFL seasons. But he got two World Championship rings with the Colts. And he played in the epic 1958 game in which the Colts beat the New York Football Giants 23-17 in overtime. Dupre carried 11 times for 30 yards and caught two passes for seven more. One of his carries was for 11 yards, the first play of the winning OT drive engineered by Johnny U.

And that card. It came from a one dollar bin at the TriStar show. Love that classic straight-arm, ball tucked pose. And that period Colts' jumping colt logo is a classic. Although the franchise in Indiana uses it from time to time it always makes me think of the days of Johnny U. The card's back contains some old school football terminology. Nobody is listed as a 'halfback' anymore and the 'T-formation' is ::ahem:: long gone. You better watch out for the 'Spinner from Double Wing' that's diagrammed on the bottom, though. I think Peyton Manning still calls that one from time to time.

Two more BALTIMORE Colts from my collection. Both cards from the NFL Championship season of 1959:

Long Gone Dupree, again

and Hall of Fame DE Gino Marchetti, with the two bar facemask no less.

Super Bowl Sunday

Today is the Super Bowl of course. And if all has gone as planned I will turn on the game at the kickoff and  I've successfully avoided all the endless talking heads and stupid personality features that make up the day long pregame.

I'll be rooting for the Ravens, but not very passionately. Baltimore is my hometown but I was long gone before the Ravens showed up. Between the time the BALTIMORE COLTS were highjacked to Indy and the Texans showed up here in Houston I tried to be a Ravens fan. It didn't take. Just felt wrong to cheer for a team that had been taken from their home the same way the Colts had been.

I've gotten over all that. It was painful for a long time but now the Colts are just another team. I don't get twinges of disgust at seeing the blue and white on someone else's team like I used to. What's the point. I adopted the Texans, bought season seats and never have looked back.

I have some cards of Raven players. These are guys I've had on my fantasy team in the last few years. Like almost all the shiny new cards they are all pretty and cool. But are they half as cool as the 1961 Fleer Abner Haynes card up top. I mean look at that thing. They don't make those cards anymore. The great helmet-less action poses! I wonder how many times they asked Abner to jump across the photographers field of vision before they got one they liked? Once? A dozen?

That scan does absolutely no justice to the actual card. In hand, except for the brownish aging tint on the back, it looks like it came from a pack last week.

Here are the Ravens from my fantasy team collection:

Let's hope it's a great Super Bowl!!