Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Earlier this week, Les Richter and Chris Hanburger were named the 2011 senior finalists for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. You can read the announcement and see the players’ biographies on the Hall of Fame site.

Richter’s two rookie cards are a 1952 Bowman Large and a 1952 Bowman Small, issued the year he graduated from the University of California. (The 1952 Bowman Small is pictured here.) He served in the Army for two years after graduating, and he joined the Rams in 1954. Richter played for the Rams from 1954 to 1962, and he appeared on at least one football card in each year of his career–unusual for a defensive player. He passed away earlier this year.

Hanburger’s rookie card is a 1967 Philadelphia, issued in the third year of his career. After that, he appeared on at least one card or stamp each year until he retired after the 1976 season.

Judging by recent history, it is likely that at least one of the two senior nominees will be elected to the Hall. The Hall of Fame’s senior nominees page shows that at least one senior candidate has been elected each year since 1998. Since 2004, when the senior committee began nominating two players per year, 11 of the 14 nominees have been elected. One nominee, Bob Hayes, was not elected in 2004, but he was nominated again in 2009 and elected that year.

You can see all of Les Richter’s cards and all of Chris Hanburger’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Les Richter, who played linebacker, guard, and kicker in nine seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, passed away this morning. Richter made the Pro Bowl in eight of his nine seasons. According to an article on the Crazy Canton Cuts blog, Richter was traded from the Dallas Texans, who drafted him, to the Rams for eleven players. After he retired from football, Richter became involved with auto racing, and at one point he served as NASCAR’s director of competition.

Richter appeared on at least one card in each year of his football career–remarkable for a defensive player–and on two cards before his career even started. His rookie cards are 1952 Bowman Large and 1952 Bowman Small cards, issued after he graduated from the University of California. (The Large is pictured here.) He served in the Army for two years after college, so he did not play for the Rams until 1954.

You can see all of Les Richter’s football cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

One day, while scanning cards, I noticed that the cartoon on the back of Homer Jones’s 1968 Topps card said that “Homer defeated the Russians in the 1960 Olympics.” Hmm, I thought, that’s a good idea for a blog article. There was a problem, though: I couldn’t find a reference saying that Jones had ever competed in the Olympics. He was a star sprinter at Texas Southern, and he might have defeated the Russians in some competition, but it doesn’t appear to have been in the Olympic Games. (According to his Wikipedia page, however, Jones did invent the touchdown spike, which is “said to be the origin of post-touchdown celebrations.” While not quite beating the Russians, that’s still quite a legacy.)

In my research for Jones, I found a list of other pro football players who had competed in the Olympics. It’s a long list, so I narrowed it down to those who had won medals, and then to those who appeared on vintage football cards. That left six players, a number suitable for a blog article. I also added one more I knew of, Brick Muller.

Jim Thorpe

Jim Thorpe won gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon in the Stockholm Olympics in 1912. In 1913, the International Olympic Committee took the medals away when they learned that Thorpe had played minor league baseball (and thus had been a professional athlete) before participating in the Olympics. In 1982, Thorpe’s family succeeded in having his medals restored.

Thorpe played professional football from 1915 to 1928, for six different teams. He was a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1963. Thorpe also played professional baseball–including seven seasons in the major leagues–from 1909 to 1922. Pictured here is his rookie card, from the 1933 Sport Kings multi-sport set.

Harold “Brick” Muller

Brick Muller took a silver medal in the high jump at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp. He played and coached one season in the NFL, 1926, for the Los Angeles Buccaneers. (The Buccaneers lasted just one season in the NFL.) Like Jim Thorpe, in 1951 he was among the inaugural class of players elected to College Football Hall of Fame. Muller is shown here on his 1926 Spalding Champions card. He also appeared on a 1955 Topps All-American football card.

Clyde Scott

Clyde Scott won a silver medal in the 110 meter hurdles in the 1948 Olympics in London. He played four seasons in the NFL, as a running back and defensive back for the Eagles and Lions. He appeared on the 1950 Bowman card pictured here, and on a 1951 Bowman card. According to Scott’s profile on the Encyclopedia of Arkansas web site, the readers of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette named Scott the state’s Athlete of the Century in 2000.

Ollie Matson

Ollie Matson won a bronze medal in the 400 meters and a silver in the 1600 meter relay in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. He then had a fourteen-year, Hall of Fame career in the NFL. Matson appeared on a lot of cards. Pictured here is his 1962 Topps card.

Bo Roberson

Bo Roberson took silver in the long jump in the 1960 Olympics in Rome, missing the gold medal by a centimeter. He then played six seasons in the AFL, for four different teams. His 1966 Topps card is pictured here. According to a his profile at ivy50.com, after football, Roberson attended law school, earned a master’s degree at Whitworth College, and earned his doctorate degree at age 58. Wow.

Bob Hayes

“Bullet” Bob Hayes won two gold medals in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, in the 100 meter sprint and 400 meter relay. Hayes then played wide receiver for eleven years for the Cowboys and 49ers, and he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2009. Hayes appeared on many football cards; the one pictured here is a 1971 Topps Game card.

Henry Carr

Henry Carr also won two gold medals in the 1964 Tokyo Games, in the 200 meter sprint and 1600 meter relay. The New York Giants, according to an article at pe.com, then signed Carr primarily to cover Bob Hayes. Carr spent three years with the Giants, the highlight of his career being a 101-yard interception return for a touchdown in 1966. His 1966 Philadelphia card is pictured here.

• Search Nearmint’s Cards for: Jim Thorpe, Clyde Scott, Ollie Matson, Bo Roberson, Bob Hayes, Henry Carr, Brick Muller.

Most football fans know by now that Merlin Olsen passed away this morning. Lots of people published articles about his career today, so I’ll just show you some of his vintage cards. According to the Beckett blog, Olsen appeared on a total of 338 cards, but most of those were issued after the end of his career.

A couple of these are actually stamps, so I don’t know if Beckett included them in their count. Hold your cursor over any thumbnail image to see what set it’s from, and click on it to see a full-sized scan.

Missing from this group are his 1971 Bazooka card, 1971 Dell card, 1972 NFLPA stamp, and possibly other oddballs I haven’t seen. He also appeared on two or three Topps poster inserts in the late 60s and early 70s. That’s a remarkable number of cards for a defensive player.

I wondered if perhaps Olsen appeared on a Little House on the Prairie card, if there were such cards. So I searched eBay and I found a set that was issued in Argentina. Alas, Jonathan Garvey, Olsen’s character, didn’t have a card in the set.

Two of Olsen’s brothers, Phil and Orrin, also played in the NFL. Phil appeared on a 1972 Sunoco Stamp and on a 1973 Topps card while he was Merlin’s teammate with the Rams.

Jack Zilly, who played offensive end and defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles, died on December 18. In college, Zilly played on Notre Dame’s national championship teams of 1943 and 1946. In the intervening two years, he served in World War II. Before his rookie season with the Rams, Zilly played in the 1947 College All-Star game, scoring a touchdown in the All-Stars’ win over the Chicago Bears. He played for the Rams from 1947 to 1951, finished his career with the Eagles in 1952, and went on to coach at Montana State and Notre Dame.

Zilly is pictured here on his 1951 Bowman football card. I always liked this action shot, with the grass flying up behind him and the ball entering the picture in the upper right. Zilly also appeared on a 1950 Bowman card, and his obituary in the Los Angeles Times has a nice action photo of him with the Rams.

Leon Clarke, a receiver for the Rams, Browns, and Vikings from 1956 to 1963, died on October 5th. He was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1956, his rookie season with the Rams. Clarke played college ball at USC, and he was a member of the Trojans’ 1955 Rose Bowl team. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times has a nice photo of Clarke in his college all-star uniform.

Pictured here is Clarke’s 1959 Bell Brand Rams card. He also appeared on a 1961 National City Bank Browns card.

A few months ago I created a page called Mistaken Identities: Vintage Football Cards Picturing the Wrong Player. The page shows numerous cards that show the wrong player in the main photo. I learned from my Beckett catalog, though, that there are also a bunch of 1962 Topps cards that picture the wrong player in the black-and-white inset photo. What’s more, it appears that Topps faked a couple of these photos intentionally, altering the impostor’s jersey number to match the player on the card.

Here is one of the altered jersey numbers: the inset photo on Zeke Bratkowski’s 1962 Topps card actually shows John Unitas, with his number changed from 19 to 12. Topps apparently couldn’t find a good game photo of Bratkowski, though he had been in the league for eight years. It’s too bad, because Bratkowski took great action shots. On his his 1962 Post Cereal card, he’s throwing while going down, and on his 1958 Topps card, he’s leaping over palm trees!

The second altered jersey is on Fran Tarkenton’s rookie card. Beckett says that it’s Sonny Jurgensen in the inset photo, with his number changed from 9 to 10. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but did Topps leave the Eagle wings on Jurgensen’s helmet?

The third impostor is on Roman Gabriel’s rookie card. On this card, the player in the inset photo is clearly Y.A. Tittle. It is understandable that Topps didn’t have an NFL game shot of Gabriel, since 1962 was his first year in the league. This time they didn’t try to fool us: they just picked out a nice quarterback photo and called it good.

Last, we have a couple of Redskins. That’s Don Bosseler pictured in the inset photo of Dick James’s card. Bosseler didn’t appear in the 1962 Topps set on a card of his own, so it’s nice that they gave him a cameo. (He did, however, appear on a 1962 Post Cereal card.)

Shortly after I added 1962 Post Cereal cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery, a customer pointed out to me that Mike Henry, who appears on one of the cards, later had a successful acting career. After seven seasons at linebacker for the Steelers and Rams, Henry went on to play Tarzan, Junior Justice, and Donald Penobscot! Brian’s Drive-In Theater has a nice acting biography of Mike Henry.

Shown here is Henry’s 1962 Post Cereal card. To my knowledge, this is his only card, but he did also appear on a 1963 Salada Coin. There are usually one or two available on eBay.

Here’s a clip of Mike Henry as Tarzan. I like how the helicopter goes behind the bushes to blow up!

Bob Boyd, a receiver for the Los Angeles Rams from 1950 to 1957, passed away earlier this month. With Norm Van Brocklin quarterbacking, Boyd led the NFL in receiving yards in 1954 with 1212.

Pictured here is Boyd’s rookie card, a brilliant 1951 Bowman. He also appeared on 1955 Bowman, 1957 Topps, and 1958 Topps cards.