Football '14 Week 1: Shakin' in the Sixties.

       Football!  Football is back. With the Mets being so terrible for most of the year (and with no love whatsoever for Derek Jeter or his day), I have been aching in anticipation for the return of the gridiron where at least one of my teams might not suck.  To open up this year's weekly Sunday spectacular, I figure I would do a nice "What I Did Last Summer" review.  Now, I have done decade breakdowns before, one of them - the 1970's version - is the second most viewed post on this site.  This summer, I focused on building nine pocket pages, via ebay and shows, for the decade of the 1960's, the NFL's big turning point decade.  How did Topps cover this turbulent decade?  Let's take a look...

1969:

I covered the first two years of the 60's back on that 70's post, but for the sake of continuity, I will cover them again.  I kinda like the '69 design, it is simple and effective with little quirks.  The most striking quirk is that some of the backgrounds are full bleed and some of them are white-bordered.  I haven't quite figured out if there is a pattern to that, but it is definitely hard to miss once you realize it.  Perhaps I would find a pattern if I had the whole set in front of me, alas, building a vintage football set is not in the cards for me.

1968:

I stand by my earlier analysis that these cards totally look like time-release capsules.  It reminds me of an old commercial where they would split the capsules and all the little dots of medicine would spill everywhere and my OCD, even as a child, would just start screaming "nooooooooooooooo!"  Anyway, this was the first year in a few where both the AFL and NFL were seen together.  I guess when they merged the leagues, they saw fit to have only one card maker. 

1967:

In the decade of drugs, this is as psychedelic as it gets.  Sad.  We'd have to wait until 1972 baseball to get pure colorful explosions.  For the Summer of Love, these aren't the grand Lucy In The Sky artifacts they could have been, more like staring at your gramma's cameos after a single hit of blotter acid. 

1966:

Topps went all TV set in 1966 and they even synchronized the hockey and the football designs but I guess they didn't feel like aping the 1955 Bowman baseball design.  This was a much more effective design for hockey because they used the fun rink backgrounds and here you just get head shots and blue sky.  But really, Topps had already done the perfect horizontal card, which we will get to in a moment.

1965:

Tall boys!  Now these cards are the ones I picture when I think of the 1960's.  I don't think I saw a 1967 Topps football card until I was at least 20 years old but these are ubiquitous in their familiarity.  Sure, their size makes them annoying but man, who cares, just look at those.  The colors, the photos, it all works.  It helps that probably the iconic football card of all time is in this set - the equivalent to the 1952 Mantle.

And look at these amazing backs:

The extra real estate makes room for an enormous cartoon.  All the players get a long write up. The pink and black on off white make them very easy to read.  Topps tried to reprint these in the regular size two years ago, which misses the point.  I really wish they would do a separate throw-back Heritage set in this size and design.

If the size of these bugs you, there is always 1965 Philadelphia to soothe your soul.  You will also see that the Fleer cards (Philadelphia was the name of their football sets) of the era had the NFL and the Topps cards had the AFL.  This was true from 1964 to 1967, probably the last time there was any real friction in the card world between leagues and the only time between 1955 and 1981 Topps had any real competition in any sport. 

1964:

A while back I wondered why Topps didn't use the stars they use on their printer's sheets as part of a design, completely forgetting that the 1964 football cards exist.  I must say, my musing that this would make a good border was a proper one, these look great.  Plus, if the 1970's was the decade of the ribbon, the 1960's is the decade of the solid color background.  No less that 4 of the sets use it, plus 2 others have a majority of the cards with the sky as the background. 

1963:

I would really like to know if the dude who designed these also designed the 1975 baseball because, whoa, colors.  Twelve years before that seminal set, these were the obvious prototype: greens, reds, blues, yellows everywhere.  My favorite thing about this page, though, is the position on the center card, you just don't see that anymore in the age of specialization. 

1962:

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the best sports card design ever.  Not just football, not just horizontal, but the best period.  I will not accept any other applicants.  I will fight you if you disagree with me.  This is it, this is the pinnacle.  It has been a slow decline ever since.  The large square color portrait. The small black and white action shot.  The blast of color with the text box.  It is perfect composition.  It is all very De Stijl; they are of its age but timeless.  The black borders tie the whole thing together, keeping everything in balance.  Topps has been doing baseball cards in older past designs of other sports, I would kill to see them do a baseball set like this. My love of this set is very violent.  I take it back, I might build a vintage football set after all and this one would be it.

Okay, let's calm down and look at the backs.

The only thing that isn't perfect about this set is that they backs are "eh.."  I mean, the cartoons are nice and big but the write ups and stats leave something to be desired. Not to mention the red is also too drab.  I guess you can't have everything.

1961:

Between this and the baseball set, 1961 could very well be the most dull year ever in terms of set design in Topps' history.  I mean, a simple text box on the bottom can be very dynamic if you want it to be, but let's face it, this is not.  All black backgrounds, all yellow text.  Yawn.  No wonder they had to step up their game in '62 on both fronts.  I will try not to fall asleep before I finish the last year.

1960:

See?  This set proves that simple doesn't have to be boring.  The texture of the photos are reminiscent of the 1957 baseball set and I believe this is the first appearance of the "chubby football" element I am so fond of that Topps uses from time to time.  I do like how the simplicity of the '60 and '69 sets nicely bookend the decade.  Plus, look at that helmet Middleton is leaning on in the bottom center card, is that a leather helmet?  In 1960? No wonder all these guys died in their 50's.

Speaking of the 50's, I have precious few Topps cards from that decade.  If I am going to do a 1950's version of this post, I am gonna have to step up my eBay purchases.  Luckily, the first Topps set from that decade didn't happen until 1955, so I only have to do half the work I did here.  Heck, I don't even have all the 1990's sets covered in full nine pocket page form, so that one is gonna have to wait too.  For now, you will have to be satisfied with this glorious post and the return of football.  Really, what more do you need?

***

And 64 silver dollars if you got the post's title reference...

Football Week 16: Living in the 80's.

       Since it worked so nice last time, let's go through Topps Football cards from the 1980's.  The designs from the decade of excess are all over the place, from crushingly boring to "dear lord" gaudy.  The one nice thing: very few ribbons.

1989:

Speaking of boring, wow.  There is minimalist and then there is letting the intern designer mail it in.  I believe this one falls in the later category.  The worst part is, there is no rhyme nor reason to the colors of the borders.  These make the 1989 Topps baseball offering look like Andy Warhol designed them.

1988:

Ah, much better.  Simple, but effective, with jaunty angles and team logos in helmets punctuated by team color borders.  I also like the integrated All Pro and Super Rookie designations.  I was always a fan of the 1988 Topps football cards.

1987:

If the 70's were dominated by ribbons, the 80's seemed to be dominated by pennants.  Here you have team color appropriate interlocking pennants.  It's a good look. What isn't is the cropping on some of the photos, especially the action shots.  What's going on with the Steve Young up there?

1986:

This design gets an A for effort, but a D for execution.  The green borders with the yard lines seems like a good idea, but punctuated by team color borders for the photos, you get some horrifying color combinations.  If they could combine the 1989 and 1986 designs, you might have something.  These also seem to be prototypes for the 1988 Topps baseball set.

1986 backs:

As a palette cleanser to the fronts, I like the backs of these with the cartoonish background for the write ups.  This is something I wish Topps had done more of with their backs, to fill in the empty spaces.

1985:

I consider this a very 80's look.  The big last name, the font, the black borders with a splash of color.  All it needs is some neon.  These black borders also echo the 1962 design - one of my all time favorites.

1985 backs:

I really enjoy the vertical backs and long write ups on the backs of these.  The red, on the other hand, make it very difficult to read.  I have seen a lot of Pro Bowl and All Pro (and even all star) designations on the fronts of cards, but this is the only time I can recall where it is on the back and only on the back.

1984:

Bright colors, team logos, odd angles.  These cards scream "MID EIGHTIES!" and they do it well.  They foretell the coming of the 1985 Topps baseball set, as well, though it wouldn't be until 1991 when Topps would purposely use the same design elements for both baseball and football in the same year.

1983:

I never liked the white outlined team names on these, it looks like someone forgot to finish the design, unless they were trying to make the cards look like proofs, in which case, mission accomplished.

1982:

1982 Topps are the first set in a long time to include official NFL team logos on the card, and they highlighted the fact in fine fashion by putting the helmets right on the front.  You also see the player name in a pennant (sort of like the team name in 1965 Topps). Plus, gosh, the All Pro designation on these cards is huge!

1982 In Action:

With those logo rights, and taking from the larger 1982 baseball set, Topps included "In Action" cards for the first time since 1972.  All the big stars are included and at some point I had so many of them, I made a separate page of them. 

1981:

Pennants? Flags?  Ribbons?  I was underwhelmed with this set when I was six years old and I am underwhelmed now. Check out the bald spot on Garo Yepremian there.  Wow.

1980:

I always really liked the 1980 Topps football cards.  I like the football logo, I like the font for the player names, I like the big photos.  This perfectly shows the difference between minimalist and boring.

1980 backs:

Plus, for whatever reason, I love the 1980 backs.  Here, you can actually read on the red background.  I like the continuation of the football from the fronts, and I like the teeny tiny cartoons.  The only problem? The odd and small card numbers, which makes for troublesome collation.

So that covers the 1980's in Topps football cards.  No other manufacturer made football cards through most of the decade.  That would change when Score came in in 1989 and Fleer and Upper Deck followed suit in 1990.  Those years make for some way overproduced and odd looking football cards, but for a time, Topps dominated the field even more so than they did baseball. 

Football Week 13: That 70's Post.

       Thursday night saw the crushing and horrifying end of my New Orleans Saints' season.  I love Drew Brees more than most of my family, but last Sunday he proved you can't throw two pick sixes on consecutive passes and hope to win, and then three days ago he proved it is pretty tough to throw five interceptions and come out ahead. So now I will just ride out the season, root for the Giants, and enjoy not sweating every single down (not to mention cursing Roger Goodell with every breath I can muster).

So all this finality has me thinking what to show you this week.  As it stands, I recently put together a bunch of Topps pages of old school vintage football cards from the 1970's.  I know every single Topps baseball card design year like the back of my hand, but really, once you get older than 1982 or 1983, my recall for exactly what year a football card might be is a little fuzzy.  I hope this little exercise helps me out (and you). 

1979:

It seems in 1979 Topps had ribbons on the brain.  The baseball cards got horizontal ones and the football here got stubby verticals ones. You will notice the helmet logos are airbrushed out.  Topps didn't have the logos on cards until well into the 80's.

1978:

I don't remember owning any 1978 Topps football at all as a kid.  I guess my brother and cousins hoarded their money that winter.  I blame Jimmy Carter.

1977:

The 1977 Topps football seem to have a little bit of echo to the baseball design, in the sort of curling pennant look on the top border.  I always liked the colors of these.  Topps also released this set in Mexico with Spanish team names.  Those are pretty trippy looking cards.  I should get a hold of 9 of them and make a page.

1976:





































When I worked in the card shop in Boston at the turn of the millennium, there was a box of 1976 rack packs in the store.  As I was wont, when I was bored, I would open random packs around the store to amuse myself.  I recall ripping a few of these, pulling the whale of the set to boot (the Walter Payton rookie).  I am fairly certain most of these cards come from those packs. I am a big fan of the chunky cartoon football on the fronts of these.

1975:

This makes the third year out of five that there was pennant/ribbon looking graphics on the fronts of the cards.  I guess when you can't show the actual team logos or wordmarks, you do what you can.  Or perhaps they gave the football designs to the interns.  Anyway, these are the cards from my birth year and I did not have nine of them to make a page until very recently. 

1974:

I always thought the 1974 football design was so boring.  Then a couple of years ago, I noticed that it is not just a plain little color border around the photo of the cards but they are actually goalposts. Realizing that fact (and boy, do I feel dumb for not seeing that earlier) change this from one of my least favorite designs to one of the top due to the impressive subtlety of that.  Well played, Topps. Well played.

1973:

More ribbons?!? I know I am going backwards here, but that means almost half of the football designs in the 1970's had this.  Screw this, let's look at the backs.

1973 back:

Football card backs in the 70's are all basically the same.  A line of stats for most players, minus the offensive linemen or any defensive player without an interception, a little biographical blurb, and a cartoon.  The football cartoons always tickled me, since the girth of a football player lends to a lot of caricature.

1972:

The 1972 set has some very dull design features and very hard to track high numbers.  I do like the inclusion of some horizontal pictures, though.  I am also puzzled by OJ's fu-manchu there.  Perhaps he has an evil twin?  Perhaps HE is the real killer?

1971:

The 1971 Topps football design is one of my all time favorites.  I love the two tone borders that are prototypes for the 1975 baseball set.  I love the font they use for the team names.  I love the big, broad photos.  And I love the wonderful little position icons.  These were the first pages I ever put together of vintage Topps football cards.  I did two pages so I could include at least one of all of the position icons. In fact, those pages are some of the first "Starting Nine" style pages I ever did.

1971 back:

The backs are great too, because they had full career statistics and very well written blurbs.  They even got a little cartoon in there too.

1971 page 2:

This is the second page.  I think the linebacker icon is my favorite out of all of them.

1971 page 2 back:

And let's look at the backs of these too, just for consistency's sake. Too bad we can't go back in time and mention that Bubba Smith would one day start in half a dozen Police Academy films.

1970:

The 1970 set looks like cameos or something.  And more ribbon?!?  That is five out of 10 for the decade. I sense echoes of the 1959 Topps baseball in this set for some reason.

I only have 2 years worth of 1960's cards, so I may as well include those here as well...

1969:

Hey look! Team logos. These look very retro even for 1969, like they were going for a 50's vibe or something.

1968:

The last year I have a vintage Topps page for.  This design reminds me of a hockey look for some reason.  Or maybe a time-release capsule?

So there it is.  Vintage football pages back to 1968.  I will need to collect back to 1955 to complete all the years.  Perhaps I will have that done before next season.  I do have all the Topps baseball designs in a nine-pocket page back to 1952.  I have been threatening to show them all and the off season seems to be a good time to start doing that (especially with hockey out of the picture...).  Look for those to begin sometime, um, soon.