Tales from the Card Show

OK, I really don't have any 'tales' of this past Saturday's hotel card show. I didn't even stay that long. But I did bring back a rather large piece of a set I've been working on (off and on) for a very long time...the Pete Maravich rookie from the 70/71 Topps hoops set.

It's a weird and wonderful set, maybe the last set I bought from packs before college life took over and I put collecting on a back burner. I'm waiting on an Amazon delivery of the six pocket sheets these cards require. I'm going to finally get this one organized and make an attempt to finish it in 2018.

It's also one of those sets in which the backs are more interesting than the fronts. The Pistol gets a glowing write-up on this one to go along with his vitals, his college numbers (he averaged over 44 points a game at LSU) and a cartoon that mentions that his father (Press Maravich) was his college coach.

I never saw Pete play in person as a collegian but I had just started working for the UH Rec/IM department when LSU played in a holiday season tournament against the Cougars in the Astrodome in 1971/72. Press was still their coach but the Coogs prevailed.

Speaking of the University of Houston....I was thrilled to see Case Keenum's magical moment on Sunday. That last play TD pass to Stefon Diggs and the ensuing media attention is something Case richly deserves after a long uphill fight to grab a bit of NFL glory. He was overlooked coming out of high school (UH was his only offer), ignored by the Heisman voters despite his eye-popping stats, spurned by the NFL scouts ('too small, weak arm, system qb' etc)and undervalued by the teams he played for. He's a class guy who deserves every second in the spotlight.

Houston's first alum to play QB in the NFL was this guy, Bobby Clatterback who was drafted by the New York Football Giants in 1954. He was a 27th round pick! He muscled his way past a couple of much higher previous picks to win the back-up job in New York and played for several years before finishing with the AFL's LA Chargers in 1960.

I guess finding his 1955 Bowman in the dollar bin at the show on Saturday should have tipped me off that Case was destined for a memorable weekend.

Almost all the hockey cards I add to my collection come through the generosity of fellow bloggers. But I managed to find a couple of Rangers in the bargain bins. Unless you were a Rangers fan in the 60s and early 70s it's hard to fathom just how popular Rod Gilbert was.

Jean Ratelle partnered with Gilbert and Vic Hatfield on a line known as the "GAG Line"...as in Goal A Game. When the Rangers traded him AND Brad Park to the Bruins for Phil Esposito I was beside myself.

These cards are from the 1969/70 Topps set. That was my last year to live in hockey country. I don't remember the stamps that apparently were inserts and were supposed to be applied to the back of the cards. The Cardboard Connection site says this:

Any card that has a stamp attached to its back will be considered to be damaged. 

To which I bull. Those stamps are awesome additions!

I grabbed a few other vintage cheapies as well. No specific reason other than I liked them and I knew that Darrell, the show promoter whose tables I haunt, would knock the price down to nearly nothing since I was buying the Maravich from him.

Love the old Browns uni and mascot on Lou Groza's 1955 Bowman. 

Of course Topps bought Bowman the following year and used the same pic on his '57 card.

Chuck Bednarik was famous for being a two-way player. He was a center and linebacker for the Eagles and was the guy old farts always mentioned when they were comparing the 'toughness' of then-current players and those of days gone by. I once bought a large print of the famous Bednarik photo of him standing over a KO'd Frank Gifford and was intending to mail it to him for signing when he passed away in 2015. He was a prolific signer who famously would inscribe a few lines about the hit. Check out the video below the '56 Topps I bought.

George Shaw's '56 Topps was one of several Colts cards I bought because they had a chance to be better than the ones in my All Time Colts collection binder. Shaw's card wasn't but one or two others were.

Finally I selected this 1956 Sandy Amoros. Why?  #1) I dig the set (who doesn't?) #2) It's got Yogi Berra there on the card, a fun guest appearance and #3) I'm sure someone out there needs this card.

That's pretty much all I could do in my short visit. I grabbed a few cards for some other bloggers but Darrell seems to have rotated his oddball box off his tables which was a disappointment. He had some real gems in that thing in months past. I forgot to ask him about it. 

The huge TriStar show blows through Houston next month. It's always fun to wander around a couple of hundred dealer tables of 'stuff'. Negotiating around the lines of folks waiting for the (seemingly) 4000 autograph signers..well that's a different story.

Fuji's H-Town Takeover

I got a great manila envelope from Fuji a week or so ago. He always sends some cool stuff. He sent cards that hit a bunch of my collecting habits. The two highlights are bookending this post.

Isn't that an awesome '67 Topps card of Andy Etchebarren? There is no mistaking that face. Etch is wearing the O's '64/'65 home uni. The last time these were worn was Spring Training of 1966 so that may be when this shot was taken. I love the 'Yoo-Hoo' sign on the outfield fence. Our fantasy football league used to award a ceremonial bottle of the stuff to our champion each year. But it got harder and harder to find so we ended that tradition.

Ryan Minor is the guy who 'replaced' Cal Ripken at 3B for the Orioles. He also was a big time basketball player at OU. I believe he is still in the Orioles system in some non-playing capacity but I'm not sure about that.

Remember 'Pogs'? They were all the rage when I moved over to elementary school teaching in the 90's. These things came from the Ted Williams card sets. I've never seen them before. When I was a kid the glass milk bottles that we had delivered to our door had round disks inserted into the opening on top and they frequently featured baseball or football players. That brings back some memories.

These next two cards are Topps Museum Collection items. This Brooks Robinson is one of those textured deals. It looks a lot better in person than it does in the scan.

I still put Raffy cards into my Orioles 'star' box while railing against Hall of Fame votes for Clemens and Bonds, etc. Sue me.

The fact that this next card features the great John Mackey of the BALTIMORE Colts far outweighs the fact that it also has a guy from that other place. It goes in my Mackey pages...I'll just try to look only at the top half of it.

And now to address the H-Town Takeover reference in the title. Fuji sent along some signed cards of Houston Cougars! My Cougar collection has been stagnant for the longest time. I believe now is a good time to kick-start it.

Gee Gervin is the son of Hall of Famer George 'The Iceman' Gervin. Gee played a couple of seasons for the Coogs, ending in 2000. He averaged 19.2 points a game which is 10th all time for UH. He played for the Globetrotters for awhile and he plays in Sweden now. 

Tim Moore played in the mid-90s here and averaged just over 19 PPG. I was still a ticket holder during Moore's time at UH so I saw a lot of him.

And the coolest card of all of them is this Case Keenum auto/swatch card from Upper Deck. Case is one of the best players ever to don a Houston uniform, a regular folk hero among UH fans. And he's a helluva guy to boot.

Case wasn't drafted by the NFL after his time here but Gary Kubiak, then with the Texans, immediately signed him to the Houston practice squad. He ended up playing eight games for the Texans in 2013. He then moved on to the Rams, back to the Texans and then back to the Rams for 2015 where he again found himself as a starter. He's beaten some long odds and negative perceptions in carving out a spot as an NFL qb. He doesn't have a huge arm but he makes the throws he needs to, doesn't make mistakes and can manage a game well.

I hope he continues on this path as the Rams head west for 2016. He deserves every bit of success that comes his way.

Thanks a ton, Fuji. Just a great group of cards.

Watching the Combine on TV.... really?!?

I got an email the other day extolling me to watch the last day of the NFL combine on the NFL Network. Now I'm as big an NFL fan as the next guy, but I simply can't find a single reason why that would be a fun way to spend a day or evening.

Watching guys in spandex shorts and tank tops get weighed, run 40s and take elevation tests is my idea of a slow death. Do they show dudes taking the Wunderlich test? That might be interesting.

Then again I don't understand how some people can spend days or weeks analyzing the upcoming draft in the first place. Now watching the draft, at least the first round, I can see that I guess. I took my boys to a Texans Draft Party once and it was sort of interesting. But I'm not a draft-nic.

For one thing there is a lot more to what makes up a player than those 'measurables'. Take Case Keenam up there at the top. He's one of those guys who probably will never be an NFL star. Likely he'll never be a starter. But he has a ton of heart and desire and a boatload of 'smarts'. He is currently the #3 QB for the Texans (as an an undrafted free agent last spring) after a record setting college career at the University of Houston.

He had to overcome 'too small', 'weak arm' and 'system QB' labels and did well in NFL scouting days on campus. And he's an A-1 totally great kid. Texans' coach Gary Kubiak loves the guy. I think Kubiak sees a lot of himself in Keenam. Case can be seen, home and away, just steps from Coach Kubiak with a clipboard and headset. I know he has designs on being a coach himself one day.

I have a bunch of cards showing Keenam in a UH uni. This is my only one in Texans' gear. It's a sticker auto job but I think the card is terrific. Maybe one day Keenam will defy the odds and get a starters job in the NFL. I hope it's for my Texans and that I'm there so see it.

Case Keenum

I'll be at the Texans preseason game tonight. I hate preseason games and resent having to pay full price as part of the package but not enough to quit being a season ticket holder. I only go because I want to keep my seats filled as they have been for every game the team has played. But nothing good usually comes of NFL preseason games. Usually nothing, but not always nothing.

In a preseason game in 2010 Arian Foster ran all over the Cowboys. I mean he looked super. At the time he wasn't a lock to play over Steve Slaton. He had finished the '09 season before with a 100 yard game against New England but that was a game the Pats seemed to sleepwalk through on their way to the playoffs. But that night against the Cowboys I decided that I'd grab Foster for my fantasy team as early as possible. Lots of eyebrows were raised when I drafted him in the third round.

Tonight Case Keenum, like myself a University of Houston alum, is supposed to get significant work at the qb spot. He's in a battle with John Beck for the #3 slot. I suspect he'll end up on the practice squad (just like Foster did in 2009) but I've seen enough of Keenum to never sell him short. He has a lot of heart and desire.

This will be one of the few exhibition games that I don't doze through from my seat upstairs.