Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Ken Carpenter, who played halfback from 1950 to 1960 for the Cleveland Browns, Saskatchewan Roughriders, and Denver Broncos, passed away on January 28. Carpenter was with the Browns for four seasons, from 1950 through 1953, and the Browns played in the NFL championship game in each of those four seasons. They won one of those championship games, in 1950, against the Los Angeles Rams.

According to his obituary at oregonlive.com, Carpenter was a player-coach while he was with Saskatchewan and Denver, and he continued coaching after his playing days.

The card pictured here is Carpenter’s rookie card, a 1950 Bowman. He also appeared on a 1951 Bowman card and a 1953 Bowman card while with the Browns. He appeared on a few CFL football cards while at Saskatchewan, but I don’t have those yet in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. You can usually find a few on eBay.

• NFL and AFL stats: Ken Carpenter at pro-football-reference.com.
• CFL stats: Ken Carpenter at cflapedia.com.

Here’s another 1963 Topps CFL card of a player who had a short career in the NFL. Bob Ptacek was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1959, spent one season with the team, then went to the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. According to his Cflapedia page, Ptacek was a jack-of-all-trades for the Roughriders, playing quarterback, linebacker, and defensive back at different times in his six seasons with the team. He made the West All-Star team twice, both times on defense.

The back of Ptacek’s card claims that “Ptacek came to the Roughriders in 1960 in a trade for Jim Marshall,” but I am skeptical about that. Ptacek and Marshall did swap teams in 1960, but I don’t think the CFL and NFL had any trading agreements (someone please correct me if I’m wrong), and Marshall’s Wikipedia page says he was drafted by the Browns in 1960, not obtained in a trade. (Ptacek’s Cflapedia page also mentions this alleged trade, but I suspect that that information came from the card.)

In 1959, before his rookie season with the Browns, Ptacek was named the MVP of the Chicago Charities College All-Star Game. This was an annual preseason game between the top college players and the NFL champions from the previous season. Amusingly, Ptacek isn’t mentioned in the game summary on the College All-Star Game web site. The Baltimore Colts dominated the game, 29-0, but the MVP was always chosen from the college team, and Ptacek apparently had a few bright moments for the All-Stars.

Ptacek appeared on a Topps CFL card each year from 1961 to 1965. So far I have just his 1963 card, but you can see the rest on eBay.

Two Canadian Football League Hall of Famers, Ron Atchison and Frank Rigney, passed away this week. Both players appeared on numerous CFL football cards. I am not an expert on CFL cards (or on the CFL, for that matter), so I took the opportunity to do some web searching and learn a little.

A tribute to Ron Atchison on the Vancouver Sun web site says that he walked-on to the Saskatchewan training camp in 1952, and he ended up playing on the Roughriders defensive line for seventeen years. In that span, the team won one Grey Cup (CFL Championship), in 1966. In one playoff game on an icy field, the resourceful Atchison wore his Hush Puppies for better traction–and they worked!

Atchison apparently did not play college football, but prior to trying out with Saskatchewan, he played for the Saskatoon Hilltops in the Canadian Junior Football League. The league is still in operation, and, according to its Wikipedia page, it serves as a sort of minor league for the CFL. There are some fun team names among the league’s current nineteen teams, including the Big Kahuna Rams, the Chilliwack Huskers, the London Beefeaters, and the Windsor AKO Fratmen.

The card pictured here is Atchison’s 1965 Topps CFL card. 1965 Topps is probably my favorite CFL set, since the cards are colorful and distinct from their NFL counterparts. (Some CFL cards, such as 1958 Topps, 1962 Post, and 1968 O-Pee-Chee, look just like the NFL cards from those years, so to me they’re not very interesting.) Atchison appeared on many more cards, and although I don’t yet have them, you can see a nice assortment on eBay.

Like Atchison, Frank Rigney spent his entire CFL career with the same team, playing ten years on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offensive line. In those ten years, Winnipeg played in five Grey Cups and won four of them. Rigney was a CFL West All Star in seven of his ten seasons. He played college football for Iowa, and he was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, but I did not find anything that said he reported to the Eagles training camp.

Pictured here is Rigney’s 1962 Topps CFL card, half of a panel he shared with teammate Gordie Rowland. The two-card panels in this set are the size of standard single cards. Rigney appeared on many more cards, as well as on some Nalley’s Coins, and you can see examples of them on eBay.

Rigney’s obituary on the CBC News web site provides a nice summary of his career.