Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

In honor of Al Davis, who passed away today, I added an interactive 1964 Topps Oakland Raiders team card to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. The card pictures the 1963 Raiders team, which Davis coached to a 10-4 record. That was the Raiders’ first winning season, and Davis was named the AFL Coach of the Year.

As always, I learned a few things while assembling the interactive card. One thing I learned is that one of the players pictured, Tom Morrow, holds the NFL record for most consecutive games with an interception. As far as I know, Morrow never appeared on a card by himself.

(Click on the card image shown here to go to the interactive version.)

Don’t ask me how I got there, but the other day I found myself thinking about players with “Mad” nicknames. Here are four I thought of: Daryle “Mad Bomber” Lamonica, on his 1968 Topps Stand Up insert; Ted “Mad Stork” Hendricks, on his 1975 Wonder Bread card; Alex “The Mad Duck” Karras, on his 1966 Philadelphia card, and Jim “Mad Dog” Mandich, on his 1976 Topps card.

Can you think of more?

By now, most NFL fans have heard that Bubba Smith passed away. Smith was a defensive end from 1967 to 1976 for the Baltimore Colts, Oakland Raiders, and Houston Oilers. He made the Pro Bowl twice, and he played in two Super Bowls: Super Bowl III, which the Colts lost to the Jets, and Super Bowl V, in which the Colts beat Cowboys. A New York Times article from earlier this week has a summary of Smith’s career, along with a few photos.

After football, Smith appeared in many films and television shows, most notably the Police Academy movies. I had no idea how many until I checked out his IMDB page.

Smith’s brother, Tody, also played in the NFL. You can see the family resemblance in one of my earlier articles.

Smith appeared on numerous football cards in the 1970s, and most of them showed the same image. Pictured here are his rookie card, a 1970 Topps, and his last card, a 1976 Topps. You can see the rest in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

For Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d give you a bunch of Flowers. As always, you can click on any image to get more details.

First is Keith Flowers, on a 1952 Bowman Small card. Flowers had a short NFL career, playing nine games in 1952 for the Dallas Texans and Detroit Lions. Bowman issued two sets of football cards in 1952, identical except for their size, so Flowers appeared on a 1952 Bowman Large card, as well. Not bad for a few games.

Next is Stan Flowers, who appeared on a 1960 Fleer card with the Patriots but never saw playing time. (I’m inferring this because he does not have a page at pro-football-reference.com.) Fleer apparently chose the players for their 1960 set well before the season started, because I’d guess that a third of the players in the set never actually played in the AFL.

Charlie Flowers is also in the 1960 Fleer set, and he did see playing time: two seasons at fullback with the Chargers, and one with the New York Titans. He appeared on several cards with the Chargers, one being the tough 1961 Golden Tulip Chargers card shown here.

Unlike the guys above, Richmond Flowers actually played awhile before he appeared on a card. He was a defensive back and kick returner for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants from 1969 to 1973, and he made his debut on a 1973 Topps card. In 1973, Topps increased the size of their football card set from 351 to 528, so they were able to include many players who had not appeared on cards earlier.

Finally, we have Tom Flores, a longtime quarterback and coach for the Oakland Raiders. (He also played a couple of years for the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs.) This is one of his rookie cards, a 1961 Topps; the other is a 1961 Fleer. Flores appeared on a bunch of other colorful 1960s cards, as well.

That’s it! If you haven’t gotten your sweetie something yet, maybe you can dig through your collection and find a couple of these guys. But first I’d see if Hallmark is still open.

In 1968, after the NFL and AFL decided to merge, Topps became the sole major producer of American football cards for the first time since 1959. The 1968 Topps football card set was the first since 1961 to contain cards of both NFL and AFL players. To mark the occasion, Topps decided to honor the teams who had participated in the first two NFL-AFL World Championship Games–or, as they came to be known, the first two Super Bowls.

First, Topps honored the Super Bowl II contestants, the Green Bay Packers and Oakland Raiders, by using a horizontal format and alternate design for their cards. The two examples pictured here are Donny Anderson, on his rookie card, and Daryle Lamonica. You can see all of the horizontally-oriented 1968 Topps Packers cards and 1968 Topps Raiders cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Second, Topps honored the quarterbacks of Super Bowl I, Bart Starr of the Packers and Len Dawson of the Kansas City Chiefs, by putting puzzles of them on the backs of some of the 1968 second series cards. The piece pictured here, Dawson’s right eye, is on the back of Ernie Wright’s card. A page in the gallery shows both assembled puzzles. Oddly, for Dawson’s puzzle, Topps chose a seven- or eight-year-old photo from when he was still with the Browns, though they had been picturing him in his Chiefs uniform since 1965.

• See my 1968 Topps virtual uncut sheets
• See 1968 Topps football cards for sale at nearmintcards.com

In an article a couple of weeks ago, I wrote that Rick Redman’s 1965 Topps card doesn’t picture Rick Redman. In a comment on that article, my friend Todd, from whom I learned about the Redman error, pointed out that Art Powell’s 1965 Topps card pictures the wrong player, too. So I added that card to my Mistaken Identities page, as well. Somehow, I don’t think it will be the last one.

Todd, in his own blog, recently wrote a nice article about Art Powell and his older brother Charlie. Charlie Powell played for the 49ers and Raiders, and he was a world-class boxer, to boot. Check it out!

You can see all of Art Powell’s cards and all of Charlie Powell’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery. You can also search for all of the error cards–or at least the ones I have identified so far.

Most NFL fans have heard by now that George Blanda passed away today. The first notice I read was on the San Francisco Chronicle web site. The news is sad for me: I was a Raiders fan in the late 60s and 70s, so I watched Blanda play on many Sunday afternoons. I remember well his heroics in 1970, especially the game against the Browns, which I watched with my grandmother. She jumped out of her seat when he kicked a 52-yarder in the waning seconds to win the game.

The sports pages and TV shows will undoubtedly cover Blanda’s career in detail over the next few days, so I won’t attempt to do that here. Instead I’ll just show you his cards. He played for 26 years, so he appeared on a lot of them. I have most of them, but I am missing a couple from the end of his career. Pick any thumbnail image to see a larger version.

Jack Tatum, who played safety for ten seasons with the Oakland Raiders and Houston Oilers, passed away today. Tatum was a three-time Pro Bowler and a member of the Raiders team that won the Super Bowl in 1976. He was also a member of two national championship teams at Ohio State, and he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004. His obituary on the ESPN web site includes a recent photo.

Pictured here is Tatum’s rookie card, a 1973 Topps. He appeared on numerous cards after 1973, as well. You can see Tatum’s early cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery, and you can find his later cards on eBay.

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.

I knew that Fred Williamson had been in movies after his football days, and today I did a search to check out what he films he had done. I had no idea! Williamson’s IMDB page lists 110 acting roles, as well as 20-some films he wrote, directed, or produced. And he’s still at it: 9 of the movies are still in production!

I must confess, other than his appearances in M*A*S*H (as Captain “Spearchucker” Jones) and on Monday Night Football, I don’t think I have seen any of Williamson’s work. I’m just not much of an action movie fan, I guess. But next time “Fist of Fear” or “Vegas Vampires” comes up in conversation, I’ll now be able to say, “Hey, wasn’t Fred Williamson in that? I have all of his football cards!” And everyone will be impressed.

Shown here is Williamson’s rookie card, a 1962 Fleer. The video below is a nice synopsis of his football career and film work.

• See all of Fred Williamson’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery
• Search for Fred Williamson cards on eBay