I miss my BALTIMORE Colts

Don't get me wrong. I love the Texans. I got in on the ground floor with them, I've had season tickets since the first day they were available. But I grew up a Baltimore Colt fan. Not just a fan. More of a religious follower. I say that because I spent my Sunday mornings during the football season in prayer for Johnny Unitas, John Mackey and all the rest.

The day they left for that other city was one of the worst days of my life. Oh, I know the franchise had already been run into the ground by their drunk owner but they were still my team. After they left I tried rooting for the Oilers since I was here in Houston. I was a very lukewarm Oiler follower. And when the Ravens arrived in Charm City I just couldn't make myself root for a club that arrived in the same underhanded way the Baltimore Colts had left. 

So I wandered around until the NFL birthed the Texans. Meanwhile I've continued to collect Baltimore Colt memorabilia. Press guides, cards, pictures, all sorts of things. Which brings me to this item. It's an NFL publication which is essentially an 8x10 magazine-style yearbook covering the whole league. I can't remember where I picked it up but I used to buy a lot of publications from a couple of dealers who regularly showed up at Houston card shows.

The covers are comprised of an illustration by George Bartell. He has an unmistakable style seen in all sorts of ways back in the 60s and 70s. He did the illustrations for some great NFL posters and tons of program covers. He's best known for his automotive illustrations. He also did album covers and book illustrations. A great blog, the Fleer Sticker Project featured those NFL posters Bartell awhile back.

The inside features a four page spread on each team. There is a write-up and a head shot of almost the whole roster. I'd have loved this back in the day. 

And the inside front cover just screams late 60s.

1956 Koufax, finally!

Funny thing about this card. I put together my Koufax collection back in the early 80s before I got out of collecting about 1990 or so. At some point after that I guess I convinced myself  that I had all of his cards. I know i thought that for years and when I began going to cards shows again a few years ago I never had any Koufax cards on my want lists.
Turns out I was wrong. When my kids moved out to go to college I reclaimed my 'office'. Back before we had three kids that room had been one of our back bedrooms and lined with shelves full of memorabilia and card binders. Then our family grew and my collection was boxed and stored. That is until I took back the room and unpacked many of my boxes. Going through my 'stuff' I made a discovery.
Not only was I missing two Koufax cards, one of them was the '56 Topps which had been one of my favorites. So a couple of years ago I decided that if I found a reasonable card at a reasonable price I'd grab it. I've had it on the back burner for quite some time. And last week, inspired perhaps by adding the long sought '58 Mantle All Star, I found one.
At $56 I couldn't pass it up. It's much nicer than others that were going in that range and higher. It's in a graded slab (and I have not yet attempted to free it, but I will) so the scan doesn't really show it off like it should. The bottom right corner is kind of soft and there is a surface crease but the card is bright and clear. There are comparable ones on eBay now going for twice what I paid.
I'm pretty happy with it. Now I will try to find my other missing Koufax, the '63 'Dodger's Big Three' special he shares with Don Drysdale and Johnny Podres.
My '55, his rookie card, is in pretty poor shape but I doubt I'd ever spend what it would take to upgrade it. Besides, truth be told, I like the '56 more. Koufax bears a striking resemblance to my late father in it. And even now, at 73 or so, he and my Dad could have been brothers.

Boog Powell Auto Card

I usually don't go after autographed cards. I pick them up if they are reasonable and I like the look of the card. And for the most part I will own just one auto'd card of any one player.

I found this Boog Powell card from the 1993 Ted Williams set on eBay and I bid $2. I won it so here it is.

The High Cost of Impatience

Somewhere along the line I've mentioned that I collect a card of each player I own on my fantasy football team. Since this is my 33rd season in the league I've had more than a few players come and go. From Tommy Kramer to Christian Ponder. I keep the cards in a huge binder which currently contains 73 nine-pocket sheets holding more than 650 cards. 

All of which brings me to William Powell of the Arizona Cardinals. That's him in the two cards above, one a homemade card 'crafted' by me in MSPublisher, the other a blank backed  'shiny' unauthorized card that probably violated eBay's TOS four different ways. I bought it anyway. Spent several bucks on it, too. And paid shipping.

Why do I have these cards? Because I simply cannot stand to own a player and not have him represented in my binder. I picked up the rather obscure William Powell two weeks ago as a possible bye week fill-in. (I have Arian Foster and Ray Rice off this week.) But being that he has no history in the NFL and wasn't a huge prospect coming out of Kansas State there are no cards of him anywhere. 

So since I couldn't wait for an update set later this year (does Topps do one of those for football?) I decided to use my horribly rudimentary graphics skills and make one. The result is the card at the top of the post. I have about eight homebrews in my binder due to the fact that I've picked up a few players along the way who never had one issued in any form.

As my homemades go it's not the best and not the worst. And it's not as crappy as it appears when it comes to the borders. My scanner rejected this one and sliced off the left side. I even do card backs. They are just as lousy as the fronts, maybe worse.

The day after I made this one I found the shiny gold Powell card on eBay. The seller made no bones about the fact that it wasn't authorized in any way. But in my hierarchy of desired cards a 'professional' bootleg ranks a notch above one of my own creations so I bit.

All because it actually bothers me to not have a card of a "Baltimore Flyer'. Pretty sad actually. 

My latest (and oldest) pin

This is a Williams Jennings Bryan campaign pin from the 1896 race between Bryan and William McKinley. McKinley won the election and the two faced each other again in 1900. McKinley again came out on top. I posted a McKinley pin from that 1900 race a few week ago.

The front of the pin is in really good shape considering its age. the back shows the ravages of nearly 120 years of sitting in someone's drawer. It's impossible to read without a magnifying glass but the back shows the pin was manufactured by The Whitehead & Hoag Co. of Newark N.J. Patented and it lists three dates, July 17, 1894, April 14, 1896 and July 21, 1896. Don't know what the dates signify. The July '86 date shows up in a Wikipedia entry as a date that a patent was awarded to the firm of pinback buttons:

Benjamin S. Whitehead patented the first innovation to the design in 1893 by inserting a sheet of transparent film made of celluloid over a photograph mounted on a badge to protect the image from scratches and abrasion.^[3] Whitehead had patents for various designs of ornamental badges and medallions previously, patented as early as 1892.^[4] Another patent was issued to Whitehead & Hoag on 21 July 1896 for a "Badge Pin or Button" which used a metal pin anchored to the back of the button to fasten the badge.

Apparently Whitehead and Hoag was a well known firm back in the day.

I'm excited to add this one to my collection.

We'll get back to sports stuff with the next post.

The Elusive 1958 All Star Mickey Mantle..... Finally

I've been after this card for a long time. I'd bet I put in eBay bids/offers on 40 different copies over the last few years. And I never was able to win. That's because for once I set a certain standard and price point and was determined to stick to it. I was finally able to pick this one up for a 'best offer' of $27 or so.

Chasing vintage cards to me is chasing childhood memories. Yankee fan or not (I was not) I watched many many of their games with my Yankee fan father growing up. And you couldn't watch that many games without developing an admiration for the sheer talent of Mickey Mantle.

Combine that with my affinity for the 1958 Topps All Star subset and you get a card that I've had on my want list since I've been back in collecting. It's not 'gradeable' but it doesn't have any creases or paper loss. The corners are soft but I'm not too fussy about corners, especially when the picture is clean and the back looks as good as this one does.

As I mentioned in my Ted Williams post last week the numbers versus each team makes a great card back for a numbers nut like me. Mickey hit less than .333 against only one club, the Tigers. I would have thought that Yankee killer Frank Lary was responsible for that but Mantle hit .357 against him in 1957. But Billy Hoeft and Paul Foytack gave him fits

I haven't decided on which of my 'Most Wanted' cards I'll pursue next. The '56 Koufax is tempting. It's the only one of his Topps cards I need.

My Gym Alums

That's a dumb title for a post but I can't come up with a better one so there ya go. I've taught for 23 years now and had some pretty good athletes come through my gym. Among them are a few who went on to play college and NFL football at a high level.  I've picked up a few cards of them when I came across them.

Former Iowa and current defensive back for the Panthers Charles Godfrey.

Godfrey's brother and Kansas State and CFL quarterback/receiver Ell Roberson.

University of Houston wide out James Cleveland. He was a free agent pick-up of the Dallas Cowboys last season but was cut during camp.

Probably the most accomplished of the kids I've taught is former Yale running back Robert Carr. He was a quiet kid from a good family. He broke several season and career records at Yale. I haven't come across any type of card of him.