Reccius cigar Wagner card seen in 1950 TSN

As I was nearing the close of 1950 in my reading of microfilms of The Sporting News, I was surprised to find a familiar image on Page 18 of the Dec. 6 issue.

Imbedded in the third installment of the paper’s serialized baseball biography of Honus Wagner was a picture of the Henry Reccius cigar card that stirred up so much interest and a bit of controversy in the hobby more than a decade ago.

Produced by a Louisville cigar manufacturer, the black-on-orange 3-3/8” x 4-11/16” card has a portrait photo of Wagner in what is presumed to be a Louisville uniform dating from the years (1897-99) he played there. On back is a poem extolling trade unions.

What made the card such a big hobby deal is that it was touted as Honus Wagner’s “rookie card.” With no indication of when the Reccius card was distributed – some suggested it may have even been years after Wagner’s played for Louisville – owners of the two known examples claimed the card predated what had generally been accepted as Wagner’s first baseball “card” appearance, in the 1898-1899 National Copper Plate series of 10” x 13” baseball player portraits. Those portraits, and additions to the series, were reissued in a slightly different format by The Sporting News in 1899-1900. These are classified within the hobby as M101-1 supplements.

The M101-1 Wagner is a $10,000+ item in top condition. The first-known Reccius card has been graded Poor-Fair by PSA and was auctioned in November, 2001, for $21,850. It appeared at auction again in April, 2006, and was hammered down for $52,040. If it has resold since 2006, I don’t have a recollection of the details or of its current whereabouts.

A second example of card, graded “Authentic” by PSA was found in 2012 and sold in mid-year for $21,400.

Among the loose talk by nay-sayers after the discovery of the Reccius card, some even suggested that it was not vintage at all, but a recent fabrication. I guess the appearance of the card in TSN in 1950 lays that theory to rest.

Wagner vs. ATG Pitchers

Also in that issue of TSN was a chart of how Wagner performed against the All-Time Great pitchers of his era. I think that chart is worth reproducing in modified form here.

Pitcher                        Threw  G         AB       H         Ave.

Amos Rusie                  R          5          21        11        .524

George Wiltse              L          31        117      43        .368

Nap Rucker                  L          37        135      48        .356

Kid Nichols                  R          27        105      37        .352

Cy Young                     R          17        70        24        .343

Christy Mathewson     R          86        327     106      .324

Mordecai Brown         R          49        181      50        .276

Clark Griffith                R          15        58        16        .276

Joe McGinnity             R          40        149      41        .275

Grover Alexander       R          27        100      20        .200

Sherman Plunkett custom created

You've seen here in the past week or so that I've been winding up my football custom card creation "season" with a few of my favorite players from the 1968 Jets.

My last football card (for a while) is a former N.Y. Jet who ate himself out of the NFL in 1967.

Even if he wasn't part of the World Champion team, I always liked Sherman Plunkett.

Plunkett was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 1956 . . . then drafted by the U.S. Army. He spent his military days at Ft. Dix, in New Jersey, playing on the camp football team and learning the ropes from such NFL veterans as Rosey Grier.

The Colts signed him as a free agent after he was released by Uncle Sam.

Perhaps Plunkett's greatest contribution to the history of pro ball was that it was he who gave Joe Namath the nickname "Broadway Joe," after seeing Namath on the cover of the July 19, 1965, issue of Sports Illustrated.

At the time he debuted in the NFL with the Baltimore Colts in 1958 he was the biggest man in the league. Reports of his playing weight varied all over the scale from 290-330. For my card, I chose 305 as likely the most accurate in his early seasons.

While Topps had photos of Plunkett from his 1968 rookie season with the Colts, he didn't get a football card  from them until 1965. And his 1966 Topps card was his last.

I can't prove it by the photos that Topps sold recently on eBay, but I believe his 1965 rookie card was actually from the 1958 photo session, and the 1966 card definitely was an eight-year old photo.

1965 Topps. Notice the cartoon on back
shows Plunkett in a San Diego Chargers helmet. He was
with S.D. during the 1961-62 seasons.

Notice Plunkett was in his Baltimore Colts
jersey from a 1958 photo shoot on his 1966 Topps card.

'68 Jets custom card trilogy, Part 3

Back on Nov. 7, 2010, I created a blog post about a 1955 Topps All-American-style custom card I had created for Johnny Sample. 

Since there's no reason to rewrite the reasons I've chosen to create a 1969 Topps-style custom of Sample, I'll reprint the salient portions here.

Sometimes it's hard to say why a collector chooses a player as a personal favorite. That was the case with me and Johnny Sample. I don't know whether it began when I first saw his 1960 Topps rookie card, which remains to my mind one of the most visually appealing football cards of its time, or whether it was my natural teenage contrarian tendency to embrace what others loathed. And many was the Packers fan in the 1960s that cursed Sample as an uppity something-or-other as he laid out another Green and Gold receiver.

I remember reading his book, Confessions of a Dirty Football Player, published in 1970, after his retirement. That candid assessment of professional football as he lived it was to the NFL establishment what Jim Bouton's Ball Four was to Major League Baseball. I'm going to order a copy from Amazon and re-read it. I suggest you do the same, or at least google him and read some of the articles available on the internet.

Sample was perhaps the finest all-around athlete ever to play for Maryland State. That school, one of what is now known as an Historically Black College/University, last fielded a football team in 1979 and is now known as University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

From 1954-58 Sample starred on the gridiron as a running back, defensive back, punt and kick returner and punter/place kicker. He was named a first-team Black College All-American in 1955 and 1957. His teams had a 28-1-1- record and he earned the distinction of being the first player from an HBCU team selected to play in the College All-Star Game.

Sample also played basketball as a freshman, was a member of the track team and was said to be an accomplished gymnast. On the baseball diamond, he was a slugging, base-stealing all-star second baseman, named the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Player of the Year in 1958 and earning a contract offer from the Philadelphia Phillies.

Sample chose to sign with the Baltimore Colts after they made him a seventh round pick (#79 overall) in the 1958 NFL draft. In 11 pro seasons, Sample gained the reputation as a hard-nosed -- some would say dirty -- defensive back. If he didn't exactly invent the art of trash-talking and the bump and run, he raised those intimidation techniques to a fine art. He also backed up his bravado with studious preparation for games, keeping elaborate notes on pass receivers' tendencies.

Sample's bellicose nature and unwillingness to to stifle himself concerning the black man's place in pro football and in the USA at large made him unpopular with coaches, league officials and most of the mainstream media. His on-field play, however, meant there was always some team willing to give him a job.

In his career, Sample was on the winning side of two of the NFL's most famous games. In the 1958 NFL Championship Game, often called the "Greatest Game Ever Played," Sample intercepted two passes in the fourth quarter, including a 42-yard touchdown, to help the Colts defeat the Giants 23-17 in overtime in the game that many say began the NFL's rise to domination in American sports.

At the other end of his career, Sample was co-captain of the 1968 N.Y. Jets. His interception of an Earl Morrall pass on the Colts' two-yard line helped the Jets cement Joe Namath's guarantee of a Super Bowl III win over the Colts, establishing the AFL's parity with the NFL and assuring the eventual merger of the two leagues.

Sample retired from football after the 1968 season. He owned a ticket agency and the Sample's End Zone sporting goods store. in Philadelphia, where he also hosted a talk radio program for a time. Most impressive to me, however, was that after more than a decade of being pounded in the NFL, Sample took up tennis. As a player he earned a No. 1 ranking in the over-45 age group of the American Tennis Association. He also became a professional linesman, officiating at top tennis events all over the world. Off the court he sponsored grass-roots tennis programs for kids and sponsoring tournaments.

Sample remained politically active, as well. In 1986 he organized 73 buses from Philadelphia and northern New Jersey to ride to Washington, D.C. for the Million Man March.

Sample died from complications of heart disease in 2005, at the age of 68.

For whatever reason(s), Sample was a favorite of mine, which was too bad because as a kid there was virtually nothing in the way of his football cards to collect. In terms of mainstream cards, he appears only in the 1960 Topps set and, as a Redskin, in the 1966 Philadelphia Gum set (after he had joined the N.Y. Jets). I see on eBay that he also has at least one Kahn's Weiners card and probably appears on a few other regionals over his 11-year pro career.

While Topps didn't often print cards of players in the years after they retired, I chose to do my Sample/Jets cards in the 1969 format for several reasons: I had just finished creating a '68-style card for Emerson Boozer, I like the look of the '69T FB set, and, by doing a '69-style card I was able to mention Sample's Super Bowl III highlight.

Knowledgeable vintage football collectors will notice that I chose to revert to the Series 1 format from 1969, rather than the Series 2, which had a white border at the top and sides. I did this for no better reason than it is my personal preference. Besides, who's to say that if Topps had done a Series 3 in 1969 they wouldn't have reverted to the earlier design?

I still have a few good photos of Sample in my files. So I imagine this will not be my last Johnny Sample custom; I'm sure there will be a 1958- or 1959-style Colts card forthcoming.

'69 Jets custom card trilogy, Part 3

Back on Nov. 7, 2010, I created a blog post about a 1955 Topps All-American-style custom card I had created for Johnny Sample. 

Since there's no reason to rewrite the reasons I've chosen to create a 1969 Topps-style custom of Sample, I'll reprint the salient portions here.

Sometimes it's hard to say why a collector chooses a player as a personal favorite. That was the case with me and Johnny Sample. I don't know whether it began when I first saw his 1960 Topps rookie card, which remains to my mind one of the most visually appealing football cards of its time, or whether it was my natural teenage contrarian tendency to embrace what others loathed. And many was the Packers fan in the 1960s that cursed Sample as an uppity something-or-other as he laid out another Green and Gold receiver.

I remember reading his book, Confessions of a Dirty Football Player, published in 1970, after his retirement. That candid assessment of professional football as he lived it was to the NFL establishment what Jim Bouton's Ball Four was to Major League Baseball. I'm going to order a copy from Amazon and re-read it. I suggest you do the same, or at least google him and read some of the articles available on the internet.

Sample was perhaps the finest all-around athlete ever to play for Maryland State. That school, one of what is now known as an Historically Black College/University, last fielded a football team in 1979 and is now known as University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

From 1954-58 Sample starred on the gridiron as a running back, defensive back, punt and kick returner and punter/place kicker. He was named a first-team Black College All-American in 1955 and 1957. His teams had a 28-1-1- record and he earned the distinction of being the first player from an HBCU team selected to play in the College All-Star Game.

Sample also played basketball as a freshman, was a member of the track team and was said to be an accomplished gymnast. On the baseball diamond, he was a slugging, base-stealing all-star second baseman, named the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Player of the Year in 1958 and earning a contract offer from the Philadelphia Phillies.

Sample chose to sign with the Baltimore Colts after they made him a seventh round pick (#79 overall) in the 1958 NFL draft. In 11 pro seasons, Sample gained the reputation as a hard-nosed -- some would say dirty -- defensive back. If he didn't exactly invent the art of trash-talking and the bump and run, he raised those intimidation techniques to a fine art. He also backed up his bravado with studious preparation for games, keeping elaborate notes on pass receivers' tendencies.

Sample's bellicose nature and unwillingness to to stifle himself concerning the black man's place in pro football and in the USA at large made him unpopular with coaches, league officials and most of the mainstream media. His on-field play, however, meant there was always some team willing to give him a job.

In his career, Sample was on the winning side of two of the NFL's most famous games. In the 1958 NFL Championship Game, often called the "Greatest Game Ever Played," Sample intercepted two passes in the fourth quarter, including a 42-yard touchdown, to help the Colts defeat the Giants 23-17 in overtime in the game that many say began the NFL's rise to domination in American sports.

At the other end of his career, Sample was co-captain of the 1968 N.Y. Jets. His interception of an Earl Morrall pass on the Colts' two-yard line helped the Jets cement Joe Namath's guarantee of a Super Bowl III win over the Colts, establishing the AFL's parity with the NFL and assuring the eventual merger of the two leagues.

Sample retired from football after the 1968 season. He owned a ticket agency and the Sample's End Zone sporting goods store. in Philadelphia, where he also hosted a talk radio program for a time. Most impressive to me, however, was that after more than a decade of being pounded in the NFL, Sample took up tennis. As a player he earned a No. 1 ranking in the over-45 age group of the American Tennis Association. He also became a professional linesman, officiating at top tennis events all over the world. Off the court he sponsored grass-roots tennis programs for kids and sponsoring tournaments.

Sample remained politically active, as well. In 1986 he organized 73 buses from Philadelphia and northern New Jersey to ride to Washington, D.C. for the Million Man March.

Sample died from complications of heart disease in 2005, at the age of 68.

For whatever reason(s), Sample was a favorite of mine, which was too bad because as a kid there was virtually nothing in the way of his football cards to collect. In terms of mainstream cards, he appears only in the 1960 Topps set and, as a Redskin, in the 1966 Philadelphia Gum set (after he had joined the N.Y. Jets). I see on eBay that he also has at least one Kahn's Weiners card and probably appears on a few other regionals over his 11-year pro career.

While Topps didn't often print cards of players in the years after they retired, I chose to do my Sample/Jets cards in the 1969 format for several reasons: I had just finished creating a '68-style card for Emerson Boozer, I like the look of the '69T FB set, and, by doing a '69-style card I was able to mention Sample's Super Bowl III highlight.

Knowledgeable vintage football collectors will notice that I chose to revert to the Series 1 format from 1969, rather than the Series 2, which had a white border at the top and sides. I did this for no better reason than it is my personal preference. Besides, who's to say that if Topps had done a Series 3 in 1969 they wouldn't have reverted to the earlier design?

I still have a few good photos of Sample in my files. So I imagine this will not be my last Johnny Sample custom; I'm sure there will be a 1958- or 1959-style Colts card forthcoming.

The puppy chewed my '52 Mantle!

Thankfully it was only my 1952 Red Man-style Mickey Mantle custom card.

Nipper is our long-haired Chihuahua pup.
He loves to grab stuff he shouldn't have
and run off with it.

I must have knocked the pair of my 
Mantle customs off my desk top. When I
saw one of the plastic covers was empty
on the floor, I knew immediately what had
happened.

'68 Jets custom cards trilogy, Part 2

Last time I showed you the first of my recent trilogy of custom cards for members of the World Champion N.Y. Jets; that was a 1972-style Matt Snell. In the entry, I explained my interest in the players of that team.

This time I present my Emerson Boozer "rookie card."

Boozer was a Jets rookie in 1966, but Topps didn't issue a football card until 1970, then every year through the end of Boozer's career in 1975. He didn't even get a card in 1968, the year after he led the NFL in touchdowns despite playing in only eight games.

That's why I decided to create my Boozer custom in the 1968 Topps format. Recreating the '68 in this format was a first for me, though I have previously done Brian Piccolo and Jerry Kramer cards in the horizontal '68 style that Topps used for Packers and Raiders cards.

I did not find a great selection of Boozer photos to use for my card, but I think the picture I chose worked out fine. 

Prior to conducting my research for the player bio on back, I had not known that Boozer appeared in the 1976 Blaxploitation private dick flick Velvet Smooth. 

Next time I'll show off my 1969-style Johnny Sample Jets card.

With this series of Jets custom cards, I've very nearly finished my "football season" of custom card making. I've done quite a few this fall and winter. 

I believe I have one more that I'll be making before I switch over to baseball card creation for a while. Watch this space for that card.

Three '49 Dodgers also shared bithday

In my blog entry on Feb. 11, I mentioned the statistical anomaly of three players on the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies sharing the same birthday.

Perhaps that really isn't so rare, as I recently found out that three members of the Brooklyn Dodgers in that era also shared a birthday.

I wrote this is my original blog . . . 

While the math is way over my head, I learned years ago that the odds of two people sharing a birthday are about 50% for a group of 23, about 95% for a group of 50 and over 99% for a group of 60 persons.

There's tons of related math stuff on the internet, but I could not easily find the odds of three persons sharing the same birthday.

The Dodgers who shared the birthday of Dec. 13 were: George Shuba (1924), Carl Erskine (1926) and Billy Loes (1929).

'68 Jets custom cards trilogy, Part 1

I've had a busy week creating some custom cards of players who were members of the World Championship 1968 New York Jets.

As I've written before, I was an AFL fans throughout the 1960s, with particular emphasis on Joe Namath and the N.Y. Jets.

Regular readers know that I have already created three different Joe Namath custom cards, two 1974 Jets cards and a 1977 Rams card. I also have created 1958 and 1959 customs of Don Maynard.

This week I enhanced the football card legacies of three of Namath's teammates, Emerson Boozer, Johnny Sample and Matt Snell. I'll show them all to you in the next few days. Each of the three cards was a first for me in terms of an homage to a particular Topps format.

The first of my Jets customs is a 1972-style card for Matt Snell, the fullback of the championship-era Jets and the only Jets players to score a Super Bowl touchdown. 

I chose the 1972 format because it was Snell's last year as a pro, though for all intents and purposes, his career was over after the 1969 season; he played in only 12 games in 1970-72. I could have done a 1973 career wrap-up card, but I simply preferred the '72 style.

Topps had not ignored Snell during his career. He had regular Topps football cards every year from his rookie season on 1964 through 1971, and appeared on a number of their special inserts, etc., as well.
Snell was also included in Bazooka, Kellogg's 3D, and Eskimo Pie issues during his playing days, and in several 1990s sets from Pro Set, Ted Williams Card Co.,  Fleer, etc. There is even a Lite Beer card from 1985. I was previously unaware that Snell was the first ex-pro football player to star in that series of Lite commercials.

Something else of which I was unaware is that Snell has been estranged from the Jets "family" since his retirement. He has refused invitations to attend Super Bowl reunions and similar Jets' functions. He expresses the belief that the team did not live up to commitments it had made to him about a role with the club following his playing days.

That's not the way the retirement of a guy who spent his entire career with one team should play out.

Ruhl's column offers many nuggets

In the five years or so that I’ve been reading microfilm of 1950s issues of The Sporting News, I’ve come to look forward to seeing Oscar Ruhl’s column, “from the RUHL BOOK”.

I’ve shared with you many of the tidbits that I’ve found in those columns. Most of the card and collectible related excerpts that I’ve found in TSN were in Ruhl’s column.

His column in the June 14, 1950, issue covered a wide range of news, views and gossip about contemporary and past players. In that column I found several interesting items that are worth sharing with today’s collector and fan.

The bit I found most interesting involved the Babe Ruth estate. Like many deceased celebrities of today, the Babe continued to be a good earner after he had been called out by the Great Umpire.

Ruhl reported that from the time of his death through the end of 1949, the Ruth estate received $65,731 from various sources. Ruhl broke it down thus, “The movie ‘The Babe Ruth Story,’ contributed approximately $33,000 to the estate, with $1,200 coming from a radio program. Royalties on sports clothes, comic books [Editor's note: Harvey comics was publishing a title called Babe Ruth Sports Comics] and wrist watches, carrying his name, made up the balance.”

In the same column, Ruhl reported that Cleveland Indians general manager Hank Greenberg made a nod to racial sensitivity when he “decked out the Indians’ band, which plays outside the main gate at Municipal Stadium, in uniforms of the Cleveland team. Under the Bill Veeck regime,” Ruhl reported, “the band wore war feathers, blankets, etc.”

Ruhl then  reported that the “Phillies Quartette,” consisting of players Richie Ashburn, Gran Hamner, Puddinhead Jones and Dick Sisler had recorded for national distribution a battle song titled “The Fightin’ Phils.” The song was written by Bickley Reichner, with music by Elliot Lawrence. Ruhl reported that sheet music of the song was published by Elliot Music Co., and included a picture of the cover, which featured a cartoon Phillie leaning on his bat and tipping his cap. (See song lyrics below.)

Finally, Ruhl presented a bit of baseball trivia that he attributed to Tommy Gibbons, a St. Louis insurance agent and baseball fan. According to Gibbons, in a two-hour, 54 minute game between the Giants and Cardinals at the Polo Grounds, the ball was in play “from pitcher to catcher or when it was hit until action stopped,” for a total of only nine minutes and 42 seconds, according to Gibbons’ stopwatch.

I like to think that Ruhl himself was a collector; he seemed to enjoy the stories of the players and other baseball figures as much as the game itself. 

The 1950 Phillies yearbook cover featured
the music from "The Fightin' Phils".

The Fightin' Phils

Poking around the internet I was able to find the lyrics to "The Fightin' Phils".

The Fight, Fight, Fight-in' Phils!

It's a tough, tough team to beat.

They're out to win, win evey day.

Every victory is sweet.

Watch 'em hit that ball a mile;

play a game that's packed with thrills.

Get Pa to bring your Mother,

Sister and your Brother.

Come out to see the Fight-in Phils.

The fight, fight, fight-in Phils.

A search of eBay didn't turn up the recording by The Phillies Quartette, or a copy of the sheet music, but I did find out that the song was recorded by at least a couple of other acts.

Tunnell was minor league "Jackie Robinson"

Regular readers of my blog may remember that on June 9 and 10 of last year I presented a pair of custom cards I had created of Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive back Emlen Tunnell from his days with the Green Bay Packers.

I can wait here if you want to scroll back to check those out.

Recently I found some details of Tunnell's short, undistinguished (at least on the field) minor league baseball career.

I believe I knew that Tunnell had played minor league ball, and have a vague recollection of having mentioned that in a series of columns I did 25-25 years ago in Sports Collectors Digest about football stars who had also played pro baseball.

What I didn't know is that Tunnell was the "Jackie Robinson" of the Central Association, a Class C minor league circuit. Some sources indicate that Tunnell was the first black to play on any Organized Baseball team in Iowa.

Tunnell had ended his college football career with the University of Iowa in 1947, leaving behind a year of eligibility to join the New York Giants of the NFL.

That spring he had played semi-pro baseball with the Amana Freezers in Amana, Iowa.

On June 15, 1949, Tunnell flow into Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Two hours later he was playing left field for the last-place Cedar Rapids Rockets.

Besides breaking the league's color line, Tunnell helped to break his team's 11-game losing streak. Tunnell went 2-for-5 in a 16-2 win over Kewanee; he struck out twice.

Tunnell played in just five games for Cedar Rapids. He managed just three more hits in a total of 18 plate appearances. Playing in left field and center field, he had one error. 

Because he appeared in fewer than 10 games, Tunnell's complete stats are buried in local box scores only; they do not appear in the annual Baseball Guide or in the online resource www.baseball-reference.com.

Disheartened by his performance and knowing he would have to leave the time on Aug. 1 to join the Giants in training camp, Tunnell ended his pro baseball career after five games over four days. 

Photo is blast from the past

The other day I was surfing eBay with the key word search of "Lemke." I do this once in a while to see if there are any interesting collectibles connected with the family name.

I once bought a 1953 Dixie Ice Cream lid of Enos Slaughter with advertising on the back from Lemke's Dairy in Wausau, Wis. I've also picked up several patent medicine items from the turn f the century with the Lemke name attached.

Naturally, during the late 1990s and early 2000s I collected Mark Lemke cards and memorabilia. I still enjoy checking eBay to see what items I missed back then. I no longer collect them, having packed it all up and sent it to his mother nearly a decade ago.

Then there are always a few items associated with Gerhard Lemke, who was a World War II German fighter pilot and much-decorated ace. He's no relation but someday I might pull the trigger on an art print or a model plane. 

Also no relation is Donald Lemke, who in recent years has become prominent as a comic book and graphic novel author. 

There are always a lot of listings for the many editions of baseball card, coin and paper money books I wrote while with Krause Publications 1974-2006.

In my most recent search, I was surprised to find a picture of myself among the thousands of listings of sports photos from eBay seller tribunephotos. 

The image is a 1984 UPI wirephoto showing me standing in front of an uncut sheet of 2nd Series 1957 Topps baseball cards that I used to have hanging in my office.

What's even more surprising is that I have no real recollection of the photo or the article that apparently accompanied it. It WAS nearly 30 years ago, and in that heyday of baseball card popularity I did a lot of interviews with the general media.

The caption reads, "Bob Lemke is 35 and still collecting the baseball cards he first treasured as a child. "I'm getting paid to play in my hobby," said Lemke, who is editor of Baseball Cards magazine."

I wish I still had that uncut sheet.