Bowman had mail-in offer in 1949

In its early years of baseball card production, Bowman was a frequent advertiser in The Sporting News.

For 1949, they began their ad program quite late, the first ad appearing in the paper's All-Star Game special issue dated July 13.

Rather than just introducing its annual issue, as they did in later years, the 1949 Bowman ads in TSN were actually a mail-in promotion offering "25 assorted pictures" for 10 cents and two "outside wrappers" from the company's product, officially branded "Baseball Bubble Gum." The ad didn't specify whether the wrappers had to be from five-card nickel packs or whether they could be from single-card penny packs.

To avoid having you strain your eyes reading the body copy on the Bowman ad reproduced here from a microfilm of the TSN page, I'll spell it out . . . 

What a thrilling collection to own! 240 exciting photo picture cards of American and National League headliners -- ALL IN FULL COLOR! You can get these picture cards only in BASEBALL BUBBLE GUM-- five pictures in every 5-cent package of bubble-blowing chewing delight. Start your collection TODAY by sending 10 cents in coin, plus two outside wrappers from BASEBALL BUBBLE GUM, for 25 assorted pictures. Address: BASEBALL 9 West 61st Street, New York 23, N.Y.

On a related note, I found a tidbit in another 1949 issue that mentioned that at a game in the Polo Grounds during the season, Bowman had given away 5,000 packs of its baseball cards.

The mention didn't say whether they were penny packs or nickel packs. That surely must have been one of the first, if not the first, baseball card stadium giveaways. 

Perhaps they were packs left over at the New York fulfillment house that was handling the Bowman mail-in offer.

Cubs autographed balls benefited boys' homes

Because the Chicago Cubs didn’t “approve” of autographed baseballs in the late 1940s, several Windy City boys’ homes received windfalls of baseball equipment.

A short article in the Feb. 8, 1950, issue of The Sporting News was headlined, “Cubs’ Autographed Balls Supply Boys’ Equipment.”

The article read:

CHICAGO, Ill.—For the third straight year a school for homeless boys in Chicago has received a gift of playing equipment as a result of the Cubs’ policy of selling autographed balls for $5 each.

Every person asking the Cubs for an autographed ball receives a statement of policy which reads:

“We don’t approve of the fad for autographed baseballs. We think baseballs should be used in ball games, giving enjoyment to players and spectators, rather than reposing as relics on shelves or in drawers. But since some folks insist on autographed baseballs, we are trying an experiment. They are available at $5 apiece and the proceeds of the sale will be used to purchase baseball equipment for youngsters.

The article went on to specify that in 1947, the baseball equipment was given to Lawrence Hall, a home for Protestant orphans and “boys from broken homes.”

Subsequent beneficiaries were Angel Guardian Orphanage, a Catholic home, and, for the 1949 season, Nathan Marks Hall, operated by the Chicago Jewish Children’s Bureau.

For his $5, the ball collector received an Official National League ball supplied by the team, that was authentically autographed. In 1950, teams were paying $2.10 apiece for league balls.

Speaking of autographed balls . . .

In the Feb. 15 issue of TSN, it was reported that Lefty Grove auctioned one of the balls used in winning his 300^th game at an American Legion dance in Lancoming, Md., to benefit the March of Dimes. The ball sold for $20.

Speaking of autographed balls (2) . . . 

A frequent advertiser in The Sporting News throughout 1949 was the company that sold facsimile-signed team balls, Autographed Ball Corp., of High Point, N.C.

The company was owned by former major leaguers Dick Culler and Billy Jurges. 

In 1949, a souvenir ball from any team could be had for $2. Today such facsimile-autographed balls from that era can sell for $50-100 to collectors.

The company is still in business today.

Custom card for tragic Angels pitcher Dick Wantz

As best I remember Topps only created one "In Memoriam" card for a player. That was 1964 card #550, Ken Hubbs, remembering the Cubs second baseman who was killed in a  plane crash on Feb. 15 that year.

They could have created a similar card the following year.

Dick Wantz was a California boy whom the Los Angeles Angels signed to a bonus contract out of a 1961 tryout camp in Southern California.

At the time the Angels were looking to develop their farm system in the same season that they debuted in the American League. In '61 the Angels had only two minor league teams, Dallas-Ft. Worth in the Class AAA American Association, and Statesville in the Class D Western Carolina League.

Wantz, at age 21, was assigned to Statesville. As the Angels expanded their farm system into higher classifications, Wantz advanced a step or two every season, despite the fact that he never had a winning season. He was 20-33 with a 4.29 ERA between 1961-64.

He was a lanky right-hander with a propensity for wildness. In 1962 he led the Midwest League with 16 hit batsmen. But he also could throw heat. In 1963 at Tri-City he recorded 164 strikeouts in 137 innings. Since the Northwest League didn't keep strikeout records, I don't know if that was league-best or not.

Wantz pitched in the Arizona Instructional League in the winter of 1964-65, with a 2-1 record. On the basis of a strong spring training, he made the major league team for 1965.

Wantz pitched only a single inning in the big leagues. In the top of the eighth inning of the season opener, with the Cleveland Indians ahead 5-0, Wantz was brought in to relieve Don Lee. While he struck out two of the six batters he faced, he gave up two doubles and a single for two earned runs.

A month later he was dead.

Wantz had been suffering from severe headaches for some time. When the Angels visited Detroit at the end of the month, Wantz was hospitalized there for a week before returning to Southern California where he was operated on at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood on May 12 in an effort to remove a cancerous brain tumor. He never regained consciousness and died the next day.

We'll never know at this late date why Topps chose not to issue an In Memoriam card for Wantz. They certainly had a usable photo.

The picture I used on my Dick Wantz custom card is courtesy of Keith Olbermann, who acquired it from the Topps archives. It's a good thing Olbermann recognized the importance of the image because I haven't found any other decent color photos of Wantz. Also courtesy of Olbermann are Wantz's strikeout numbers from 1961, 1963 and 1964 Tri-City. In that era, the leagues didn't promulgate certain stats for pitchers. Olbermann maintains an extensive baseball library and was able to get the K numbers from appropriate edition of the Baseball Guide.

In making a 1965-style Dick Wantz card, I chose to go with the regular format. Given the timeline of Wantz's MLB appearance and his death. It's just as easy to presume that Topps might have created an In Memoriam card for its high-number series. 

It would be easy enough for me to do an In Memoriam version, and I probably will in the near future. For now, I'm very happy with how my first attempt at a 1965-style custom card came out.

Cobb became Cardinal in 1949 cover contest

When the St. Louis Cardinals upgraded their scorecard to a “Souvenir Program” for the 1949 season, they created a contest to design the cover.

The prize for the winning idea was worth $100. If the winner could produce acceptable final artwork, another $400 was awarded.

St. Louis commercial artist Frank W. Love was named the winner from among 390 sketches received. He took home all $500 with his knothole look at a play at third that many collectors recognize as a Charles Conlon photo of Ty Cobb sliding into third base, as seen on a 1929 T202 Hassan tobacco card.

Notice that on Love's creation, the "Cobb" figure is wearing a St. Louis Cardinals uniform.

Judges for the contest were J.G. Taylor Spink, publisher of The Sporting News; D.R. Fitzpatrick, editorial cartoonist of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; James B. Wilson, president of the St. Louis Advertising Club; Harry Caray, Cardinals radio broadcaster, and, O.A. Zahner, vice-president of Ruthrauff & Ryan Advertising Agency.

Very reasonably priced today, a decent example of the 1949 Cardinals program can be had for less than $20.

Jackie Robinson worth $2,000 to Bowman

In his “from the RUHL BOOK” column in the May 10, 1950, issue of The Sporting News, Oscar Ruhl wrote:

A close friend of Jackie Robinson says that Jackie’s total earnings from his life-story movie, baseball salary and endorsements for 1950 will run something like $135,000. One firm alone, a maker of bubble gum, paid him $2,000 for the right to use his name.

I assume that the bubble gum company that paid Robinson two grand must have been Bowman, since Leaf was out of the baseball card market by 1950

Berardino's face insured in Indians' contract

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

While it was likely done more for the publicity than in a serious vein, when Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck acquired John Berardino from the St. Louis Browns in the 1948 pre-season, Berardino’s contract called for Veeck to pay for a $100,000 insurance policy protecting the player in the event of significant facial injury as a result of playing baseball.

Berardino had played for St. Louis in the 1947 season, then been traded to the Washington Senators for Gerry Priddy. That deal fell through when Berardino announced that he was retiring from pro ball to concentrate on his movie career.

At the time he was filming the horse racing movie Winner’s Circle.

Working in concert with producer Richard F. Polimer, who held Berardino’s Hollywood contract, Veeck arranged a deal whereby Berardino would play for the Indians from spring training through the end of the season and any post-season in which Cleveland was involved (the Indians won the Word Series in 1948).

After the baseball season, Berardino was free to work in the movies.

Berardino, a handsome leading-man type, juggled baseball and movie careers until he retired from ballplaying after the 1952 season. He'd come to the majors in 1939 and spent the 1943-45 seasons in the military. 

While he appeared in dozens of motion pictures over the decades, Berardino is best remembered for having played Dr. Steve Hardy on the TV soap opera General Hospital from its debut in 1963 until his death in 1996. He is credited in that role as John Beradino, having dropped the second "r” from his surname.

Despite having played in the major leagues for 11 seasons (Browns 1939-42, 1946-47, 1951; Indians 1948-50, 1952); Pirates (1950-52), Berardino appears on only two mainstream baseball cards, 1951 Bowman and 1952 Topps. His first card was in the scarce 1941 St. Louis Browns team-issued set. Also widely available are several Cleveland Indians team-issued photo pack pictures.

Creekmur was targeted by Purple Gang hood

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

In 1950 Detroit Lions rookie guard Lou Creekmur was targeted in an extortion scheme by a former member of the Purple Gang, Detroit’s notoriously violent organized crime syndicate.

On Oct. 21, Dave Mazeroff was arrested in connection with a plot to extort $10,000 from Creekmur as hush money to cover up a non-existent assault on a young woman.

Police became involved when they were approached by 22-year-old Lucille Genoff, who told them Mazeroff had instructed her to accuse Creekmur of attacking her and to demand $10,000 not to go to the police.

According to the district attorney’s office, the woman refused to go through with the plan and Mazeroff threatened her. She said Mazeroff told her, “Don’t mess with me. You’ve heard about the Hooper killing. I’m fingerman in that one.” Police believed he was referring to the unsolved murder of State Senator Warren G. Hooper, who was killed while sitting in his car in 1945. Hooper was set to testify in a grand jury investigation into legislative graft in Michigan.

When he was told of the scheme, Creekmur denied knowing Genoff.

I couldn't find any record of the outcome of the Creekmur extortion case against Mazeroff. Nobody was ever convicted of pulling the trigger in Hooper's murder, though a number of people -- not including Mazeroff -- went to prison for conspiracy in the case.

Creekmur played his entire NFL career -- 1950-59 -- for the Detroit Lions. He was a six-time first team All-Pro and was elected to Hall of Fame in 1996. He died in 2009.

1949 Ruth clock was "$247" item in its day

During my more active years as a collector, I sometimes lingered over auction listings for a bronze-tone art deco style Babe Ruth digital clock. I never pulled the trigger, but if I had encountered an example at a show, I might have made the purchase.

The clocks are a large, functional collectible that was nearly contemporary with the Babe, having been produced shortly after his death in 1948.

I recently found an ad in the June 29, 1949, issue of The Sporting News that offered the clocks to the public. The ad has some details that I don't recall ever seeing before.

The ad was placed by De Four Sales Co., Chicago. The clocks were made by Abbottwares Co., Los Angeles, and several recent auction offerings state that they were a top prize in a punchboard gambling game.

De Four Sales appears to have been distributing the unsold of the timepieces. Contemporary ads for the company show they were also the distributors of other types of bronze desk or mantel pieces such as clocks and radios featuring a Western saddled horse, ashtrays with a large cowboy boot, and radios made from beer and champagne bottles. The Ruth clock is also found in a much scarcer radio versionThey may have also been connected to the Joe Louis bronze clock that was produced about the same time as the Ruth.

The copy in De Four's ad in TSN reads . . . 

The incomparable Babe Ruth exquisitely sculptured in imperishable bronze. This beautiful statuette, flanked by baseballs showing the number of home runs he made in his record season and in his lifetime, is combined with a precision built, time accurate clock.

These magnificent Babe Ruth memento timepieces have been made for a special purpose. THEY ARE NOT FOR SALE IN STORES. But a small production over-run allows us to offer then at manufacturer's cost. This is an unprecedented opportunity to acquire a rare treasure. Write at once. There are very few left.

The ad originally specified "ONLY 117 LEFT" but was altered to indicate a remaining quantity of 94. Whether this was an accurate count of available inventory or just "Get one now, before they're gone!" hype can not be known.

Note the price in the ad was $25.95. That was not cheap in 1949, but digital clocks would have been the latest thing back then. Running the numbers through an internet inflation calculator, I found that $25.95 in 1949 dollars is comparable to about $247 today. In turn, that $247 in 1949 dollars would be the equivalent of about $2,344 today. In the current collector market, a nice working example of the Babe Ruth digital clock sells for $1,500-2,000. 

Notice that the picture in the ad shows a plaque on the front of the clock beneath Ruth's bust and above the digital display. The metal tag reads "Abbottwares," but it is not present on many of the examples seen in the market today.

Natrone stripped uniform, left pro ball

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid.  I figure that if I found them interesting, you might too.

In its Sunday, March 31, issue, The Post-Crescent, published in Appleton, Wis., had a typical minor league season preview feature.

There were several features of historical note, back to 1891, when the city was first represented in organized baseball.

One of the stories detailed the short, but memorable career of former Appleton Foxes outfielder Phil Nerone.

Written by sports staffer Mike Woods, the story quoted former team executive Milt Drier and his recollection of Nerone.

"It was at spring training in 1976," said Milt Drier, a former team president of the Foxes, "All of a sudden one day, while he was in the outfield, he took off all his baseball clothes."

The hat hat, the glove, the pants, the shirt, the socks, cleats and the underwear -- ALL his baseball clothes.

"Then he shouted, 'I don't need this baseball stuff anymore,'" said Drier. "'I'm going to Hollywood to be a movie star. Bye, bye.' And that was the end of Phil Nerone.

No wonder his nickname was "Orbit."

I believe, based on Nerone's record at www.baseball-reference.com, that Drier may have hjad the year wrong, as Nerone played the 1976 season with Appleton.

Nerone had been a multi-sport hogh school star in Pittsburgh. The White Sox drafted him in the seventh round in 1972, but he elected to go to school at Miami-Dade College. He signed with Chicago in 1974 when they made his a first-round pick in the June secondary draft.

The White Sox assigned Nerone to Appleton in the Class A Midwest League and he played his entire professional career there in 1975 and 1976. He hit .196 with no power in those two seasons.

Surprisingly, Nerone appears on two baseball cards. He was playing at Appleton when TCMA began to expand its production of minor league team sets. He's in both the 1975 (shown here) and 1976 sets. 

That's fortunate for collectors of oddball ballplayers.

It doesn't look like Nerone made it big in Hollywood . . . I didn't find his name anywhere on the Internet Movie Database website.

Lee Grissom beat manslaughter charge

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

A 1950 bar fight led to the indictment of former major league pitcher Lee Grissom on charges of manslaughter.

On July 30 at a tavern called The Mint in Los Molinos in Tehama County, Calif., Grissom, who had pitched for the Reds (1934-39), Yankees (1940), Dodgers (1940-41) and Phillies (1941), was drinking with his brother Claude when 27-year-old local truck driver Warren Shermmer entered.

The bartender on duty refused to serve Schermmer because he appeared intoxicated.

According to testimony at a prelimnary hearing, Schermmer then offered to buy a round of drinks for the half dozen other patrons. He greeted Grissom, "Hello, Lee, come on I will buy you a drink," to which Grissom replied, "I know damn well and good you will; I will take it," slapping the bar as he spoke. The bartender turned to get Grissom a drink and as he stood with his back to the two men he heard a sound which he described as that of a blow being struck, though he did not see the blow. He turned and observed that Shermmer was down on the floor on his back; Grissom was trying to get him up, saying "Get up, God damn you, and I will kick your ribs out."

The bartender succeeded in getting Grissom down to the other end of the bar. Grissom then told the bartender to come outside "and he would give me [the bartender] some of it.”

According to the report by Sheriff James N. Froome, Shermmer was struck in the face, fell to the floor and died ten minutes later. The coroner’s autopsy revealed that the death was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage, caused by a blow.

The district attorney charged Grissom with manslaughter and he was arraigned on Aug. 4 before Judge Glenn L. Foster. He was released after posting an $8,000 bond. Brought to trial, Grissom was acquitted of all charges on Jan. 4, 1952.

Grissom’s best year in the majors came in 1937 when he led the National League with five shutouts and was second with 149 strikeouts. He was selected to the N.L. All-Star team. His record that season was 12-17 with a 3.89 ERA.

Grissom had entered the Army in 1942, and did not return to professional baseball upon his discharge in 1946. At the time of the bar fight he was driving truck and working on a ranch in the Paynes Creek area.

He died in 1998 at the age of 90.

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.