1968 Alt-Topps *Football Edition*

A Tribute to Bart Starr

First a tribute to Bart Starr who past away last week. He died the day before Bill Buckner, to whom I have already paid tribute. As much as it pains me (a lifelong Bears fan), I have to respect the man if not the uniform. A five Time NFL Champion including the first 2 Super Bowls. He was also MVP of those Super Bowls. The accolades go on for this first-ballot Hall of Famer, but I won't.

When looking for a suitable card to make, I decided to use one of the discarded Topps demo card designs. This was one of the football card mock-ups among the Topps baseball card prototypes I have been experimenting with.

Overall, it is a pretty cool design. But I'm not sure where to begin when stating what's not right with this mock-up.  Let's start with the obvious, that is a close-up of a basketball.  Not a football.  

Second, that is not Paul Warfield. It is Jimmy Warren.  That photo was taken from his 1968 Topps card.  But we're not done yet. That card has him on the Dolphins but the photo is obviously him in a Chargers uniform. He played for the Chargers in 1964 and 65. The Dolphins took him in 1966 durning the AFL's first expansion draft.

Color photos of football players in that era are pretty hard to find.  I tried unsuccessfully to find one of Warren in a Dolphins uniform. The search did turn up one interesting photo over and over.  Warren was infamously the last man to beat on Franco Harris's "Immaculate Reception". At this time he was wearings a Raiders uniform.

Here is a card that actually features Paul Warfield with a football in the background instead of a basketball. Warfield played for the Browns and Dolphins from 1964-1974. In 1975 he and Dolphins teammates Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick joined the WFL Memphis Grizzlies (AKA Southmen). He returned to the NFL and the Browns in 1976.

And here is a similar treatment for Jimmy Warren.  Alas, I had no luck in finding a color photo of him on the Dolphins so I re-used the same photo on the original prototype.

I also created a few more. First were the eventual MVPs of the 1968 season from their respective leagues.  Joe Namath for the AFL and Earl Morrall of the NFL.

After a pre-season injury to Unitas, Morrall led the Colts to a 13-1 record and ultimately Superbowl III.  After 3 interceptions he was pulled and Unitas was reinstated. But the damage had been done. The AFL Jets beat the heavily favored NFL Colts.

I felt the need to balance these offensive MVPs with defensive stars. So I chose the defensive MVPs from their respective all star games. Although these games were technically played in 1969, they were played by the 1968 season all star selections.

 

The MVP of the AFL All Star game was George Webster. He was the AFL rookie of the year in 1967 as selected by United Press International. He was an All Star selection in each of his first 3 seasons.

In the NFL, Merlin Olsen was co-MVP of the 1969 Pro Bowl along with Rams teammate Roman Gabriel. Olsen was a Pro Bowler 14 of his 15 NFL seasons and was a first ballot Hall of Famer.  

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Just a footnote here: football sets of this era were pretty small. The actual 1968 Topps set was only 219 cards which was actually the largest football set they had issued to date. It was also the first to contain both NFL and AFL players since 1961. These sets contained almost no cards that were not player cards. In 1956 and 1957-1964 Topps also had team cards. The 1961 set also included a handful of "Highlights" cards.  The team cards never really returned. In the late 70s they added team-leader cards. It wasn't until 1972 that Topps had anything other than basic player cards and checklists. In 1972 they went all out. Topps added All-Pro cards, post season cards, leader cards and "Pro Action" cards. That set contained 348 cards and moved football cards into a new era.

The point of this abbreviated history on Topps football cards?  It's my way of saying, "this is it."  I won't be making any additional subsets.  If I ever did choose to make football subsets, I think I would make them for the existing Topps (or Fleer or Philadelphia) football sets. If there is interest, I will make a couple requests. Just be aware of the scarcity of useable player photos from this era.  So I may not be able to cover your request, but I will try.

1958 Topps Bobby Mitchell

Just like in 1956, in1958 there were two different Rookies of the Year. United Press International declared Pittsburgh's Jimmy Orr the Rookie of the Year. But The Sporting News named Cleveland Halfback Bobby Mitchell the winner. I had previously created a Card That Never Was for Jimmy Orr, here. 

The Sporting News awarded the ROY to future Hall of Famer, Bobby Mitchell. Although he is better known as an All Pro receiver for the Redskins he began his career sharing the Browns' backfield with Jim Brown. In 1958 he rushed for 500 yards, while Brown gobbled up 1527 yards on the ground.

Mitchell was a 4 sports star in high school running track, playing baseball, football and basketball. He was drafted by the Cardinals to play baseball but elected to play football at the University of Illinois. He was drafted by the Browns in 1958 and played primarily halfback and punt/kick returner. 

In 1962 the Washington Redskins were under pressure from the federal government to racially integrate their team. The Redskins were the last NFL team to integrate an in 1962 they were in danger of losing their stadium lease. They traded for Mitchell, Steelers guard John Nisby and drafted Michigan State running back Ron Hatcher. The three broke the color barrier in Washington. Hatcher played in just 3 games in 1962.  Nisby who played for the Steelers from 1957-1961, switched from right guard to left and played with Washington until 1964. 

Mitchell went onto lead the league in receiving yards in 1962 and 1963. He led in receiving TDs in 1964. He continued playing until 1968 then became a scout for the team eventually becoming Assistant GM. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1983.

1956 Topps J.C. Caroline

It's week 3 of the NFL season and I am just getting around to some more Cards That Never Were for the Rookies of the Year. One of the reasons is that there were several Rookie of the Year Awards. The one that I had been using for reference was the UPI award. The UPI was a press award given out from 1955-1996. 

Although there was much overlap, The Sporting News also handed out annual awards vote upon by NFL players, coaches and executives. The Sporting News began awards in 1955 as well and are still doing it now. 

But it only gets muddier from there. The Newspaper Enterprise Association got into the act in 1964. They continued issuing awards through 1996 and from 1971-1976 they issued two awards. one oa AFC one for NFC, except for the 1974 season. OK got that? Because we're not done yet.

In 1967 the Associated Press got into the game. They issued separate awards for the offensive and defensive Rookies of the Year. They are still issuing that award. In 1969 Pro Football Weekly played the same game, awarding offensive and defensive ROY trophies. The latest ROY is awarded by Pepsi. This began in 2002 and is voted online only by fans at NFL.com. 

I started making these cards quite a while back, in April of 2014, I made a 1957 Rookie Card That Never Was for the great Jim Brown. 

 I noted that the 1955 and 1956 Rookie of the Year winners were given cards by Bowman in 1955 and Topps in 1956, their rookie seasons. However that is not strictly the case. In 1955 Alan Ameche of the Baltimore Colts was the winner of both the UPI and TSN award and he had a card in the 1955 Bowman set.

In 1956 the UPI award was given to another Colts player, Lenny Moore.  Moore had a card in Topps 1956 set.  But The Sporting News awarded the Rookie of the Year did not have a card in 1956. The Bears defensive back / offensive halfback, J.C. Caroline was primarily a defensive back but was used by the Bears as a halfback and kick returner as well through the 1958 season. After that he was used exclusively on defense. 

J.C. Caroline played 2 years at the University of Illinois breaking Red Grange's rushing record before being ruled academically ineligible. He the played in the CFL for the Toronto Argonauts but was placed on waivers the picked up by the Montreal Alouettes. J.C. and the Alouettes beat his former team in the semi finals to advance to the Grey Cup. Montreal lost to the Edmonton Eskimos. The following year J.C. got a degree in Phys Ed from Florida A&M and was drafted by the Bears. In his rookie year with the Bears he picked off 6 passes and ran 2 back for touchdowns. He was the Sporting News Rookie of the Year which meant that the honor was bestowed by his fellow players and coaches.

1957 Topps Jim Brown

In 1957 Jim Brown was named the NFL Rookie of the Year by the United Press as well as the Most Valuable Player by the Associated Press and The Sporting News (Y.A. Tittle was the UPI MVP). The Cleveland Browns 1st pick (6th overall) led the league in rushing his rookie year. He would go on to be the league leading rusher in 8 of his 9 years in the NFL.

I think Topps missed an opportunity when making their 1994 Football Archives set. They could have included cards like this one and cards of the other key players and rookies missing from the original set similar to the Baseball Archives sets.

In 1955 United Press International began recognizing the top rookie in the NFL. Since then there have been several incarnations of the NFL Rookie of the Year award. Many of them were overlapping. But NFL cards have lagged badly. Oddly the very first ROYs were included in the 1955 Bowman and 1956 Topps sets.

But from 1957 until 1988 there was exactly 4 ROYs included in all the sets from Topps, Fleer and Philadelphia. 1 NFL and 2 AFL ROYs from Topps and 1 AFL ROY from Fleer.

 It wasn't until 1989 when rookies began to appear.  In 1989 Topps added a "Traded" series. That series was in response to the new competition from Score and Pro Set who included several rookie players in their sets.