Project 2020 Jackie R.

 

In honor of Presidents Day I'm posting a card I've had on my desk for a month or two. I didn't follow the Topps Project 2020 thing very closely but I'm somehow back on their mailing list and this one caught my eye. I love that it's not the same old pose of Jack Roosevelt Robinson and besides that, it's pretty sharp. I didn't notice that there is some sort of 'gem' embedded in the thing to the left of the name box. I guess it makes sense given the card was designed by someone named Ben Baller who is, among other things according to the blurb on the back, a 'world-renowned jeweler'.  

It sat on my desk because anything in a case is a pain to scan and I don't like posting phone pix, but here we are. I'm hunkered down in Houston awaiting tonight's record low temp and feeling lucky that our power is still on. Figured I'd put my time to good use.

I've also been meaning to mention that, from the looks of the comments on my 'Paid Too Much' post, I'm not alone in being dismayed/bemused/confused by the state of the hobby right now. And if you don't think the hobby is wacky, check this out at the Heritage Auction site. Apparently, for the low price of $35K (!!!) you can own a piece of a video replay of a basketball two pointer. I'll be damned if I can make sense of the whole thing but there it is. And heritage is no fly-by-night outfit. They are a big player in the memorabilia business.

 

 

Mickey, A Day Late

OK, so yesterday was supposedly Labor Day. Honestly, ever since I retired, every day is a holiday. But to the point of this post....

 

...growning up in North Jersey Labor Day marked the last day of summer. School was going to start the next day. More often than not there was a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium and my father and I were there. That usually meant seeing Mickey Mantle. But with his injuries, you couldn't count on it. Lots of great memories from those times.

I'm slowly meandering my way through the 1967 Topps set. I'm not in a hurry for several reasons, not the least of which is that my main supplier of 60's Topps cards has been my friend Darryl who runs the hotel card shows. Of course, those shows.

Not having those shows meant that every card I picked up probably cost me more than I would have spent on nicer cards from Darryl's boxes. That's all about to end as the hotel shows are returning this month. There are going to be the expected precautions in place, and I'm going to have my work cut out for me convincing my wife that going to a show is a good idea.

But I'll get there. I usually just get a box from Darryl and go sit in the lobby and pull cards anyway. One card I won't need to look for is the Mantle. That one up above arrived not long ago. Perfect for my needs. It is in reasonably nice condition and didn't cost an arm and a leg. Even better I used an eBay coupon for $25 off and I had been gifted with some cash in my PayPal account from the guys in my fantasy league. With the uncertainty of the season being played all the way through I had decided not to charge the usual small fees that cover the league hosting site. draft night groceries (no in-person draft!) and a trophy. But my guys sent some money my way anyway. More than I usually collect.

That made the Mantle nearly free. And free is good. Especially since the '67 set has so many high dollar, high number cards. 

That's a lot of words for just one picture so here's the back:

Those are phone pics, my scanner hates slabbed cards more than I do. Mickey will be able to breath very soon. 

BTW..this is my first time dealing with the 'new' Blogger. It sucks, but it doesn't suck as bad as I thought it'd suck. Thank goodness for small favors.

Finally, here's a gift. Seven minutes of the late, great Mitch Hedberg.

Happy late Labor Day.

Fun With Football

I've been spending quite a bit of time lately putting together Topps football sets from the 80s. It's my favorite NFL era despite the fact that the Colts bailed in 1984.

I showed the '86 set a month or two back. That will always be my favorite 'modern' Topps fb set. But the follow-up, the 1987 set ain't bad. Topps matched team colors to the cards (mostly), and they could show helmet logos and all that. The flag design element leaves room for a large player pic. I wouldn't call it 'inspired', but it's grown on me. And, hey...Eric Dickerson appeared in those ultra-cool goggles.

I put the William Andrews card here because those Falcon uniforms were amazing. So good, in fact, that I insisted my teams wear similar ones. I got laughed at.

Nice, right? OK, maybe it's just me. But I love the color combo.


Only the Chargers were close.

The set runs to 396 cards including the two checklists which finish it off. Topps used the team-by-team format as they had in '86. Teams are in order of the '86 season records, from the SB Champion Giants, through the other playoff squads, and on down to the 2-win Bucs.



The 80s were a star-laden time in the NFL and obviously, they are all here. Joe Montana on the headset. I used to have a collection of 'Guys on the phone' which showed players using electronic devices, bullpen phones, headsets, microphones, etc, and this was part of it.

All-Pro players like Jerry Rice got a designation under the team name. 

The backs are readable. I've seen plenty worse.

The set starts off with a Super Bowl tribute card saluting the Giants' win the previous season.

 Then we get seven Record Breakers.

Then it's on to the teams. Each gets a highlight-type with a checklist on the reverse and then players presented by position, quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, and on and on through the DBs. Occasionally a team threw Topps a curve and they had to adjust.

In the case of the Eagles, LB Mike Reichenbach takes the spot that would have belonged to Ron Jaworski. Jaws was winding down his playing career and had been released by Buddy Ryan between the time this set was planned and the time it was executed. You may also notice in the scan above that the Steelers only had four defensive players on cards. No more Steel Curtain buy 1987.

There were five Leaders cards. In this case, we have ED and Curt 'The Other One' Warner.

Interesting cards are scattered throughout.

You don't see many choreographed pre-game stretch cards these days.

Pensive kicker being pensive.

Man, the Colts' lack of talent at QB between Bert Jones and Peyton Manning is displayed right here. But by this time I was happy to see it.

Here is the optimally-named Chuck Long.

Mark Malone was entering his fourth year as the Steelers' starter and his 29th year of looking like a Hollywood type-cast badass.

Topps had a few guys designated as 'Super Rookies" including my man, Ernest Givens. 

I'm a sucker for sideline cape shots.

Sweetness!

And Lawrence Taylor, a guy whose personal life drags down his legacy as the best defensive player I've ever seen.

As they did many times, Topps had an insert that featured the 1000 yard runners and receivers of the previous seasons.

I picked this one up cheap. I'm kind of surprised at the fact that sets from the late 90s cost much more than this one. Chalk it up to overproduction.

1954 Orioles/American League Schedule Booklet

I don't remember where this little item came from. Someone may have gifted me with it. But it's been sitting on my desk for months waiting to be posted.

1954 was, of course, the inaugural season for the Orioles in the modern Major Leagues. So I suppose this qualifies as a 'rookie' schedule booklet. More than that, though, I love that it features a neat design with Jim Hartzell's original Oriole and some fun typography.

The booklet is 2.5"x4" and I scanned it with a standard Topps card to show how it compares. The card also gives me a chance to plug my 1960 Topps blog. I'm posting four or five times a week over there.

I only scanned the cover. The rest of this post uses phone photos with the schedule held open with clips. I hate squashing old paper items on my scanner's platen. And this piece is in very nice condition.

Most of the pages are a day-by-day American League schedule.

The center pages are specific to the Orioles, beginning with the ticket price and ordering info. NO TELEPHONE RESERVATIONS

Next is the centerfold with stadium and game facts. The opposite page list the Orioles' home night games for 1954. Night games were not the default back then so pointing them out was a necessity I guess.

Next comes a list of Sunday and holiday dates at Memorial. A few things of note include the fact that the Orioles had home games on the three major in-season holidays, Memorial Day, the 4th of July, and Labor Day. There were eight doubleheaders. We're raising a generation of fans who have no idea what it's like to watch two games with one ticket. And it's apropos that the second half of the booklet starts with the All-Star Game, played in Cleveland.

BTW...that was a wild and fun game, won by the AL 11-9. There were four AL homers, two by Indians' corner infielder Al Rosen, a pinch knock by Indians' outfielder Larry Doby, and another by former Indian, Ray Boone. Bobby Avila, yet another Indians' player, started at second for the AL and went three for three before being replaced by Nellie Fox who won the game with a two-run single in the eighth.

Back to the schedule... The whole league took off for the then-annual Cooperstown Hall of Fame Game in August. The Yanks beat the Reds 10-9 with Mickey Mantle hitting a home run.

Following the AL schedule, we get a listing of ALL the league's night games.

Inside the back cover gives us a promo for some big league films available for screening. Nowadays you can just crank up YouTube.

And the back cover had a promotional ad for the official big-league baseball. The AL used Reach branded balls while the NL had ones with the Spalding markings. But as the page points out, Spalding made them both. Spalding had acquired Reach, a rival sporting goods firm, way back in 1892 but kept the name on the AL balls for decades. 

I remember league-wide schedules back when I was a kid. We used to find them at the local car dealerships. I don't think I ever had any with team-specific covers or info, though. It might be a fun area of collecting to dig into.

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.