Washington Wednesday: R.I.P. Wes "Mr. Bullet" Unseld

R.I.P. WES UNSELD 1946-2020

On Tuesday 02 June of this year 2020 while doing my daily routine of checking out the main page of TCDB (Trading Card Database) for the random card of the day, new forum posts, born on today and then finally In Memoriam I saw the image of a familiar RC. (I don't have the card but am familiar with it). That of perhaps the most iconic Washington Basketball Player of All-Time Wes Unseld. I was beyond shocked another of my childhood sports idols passed from this Earth. I think it was during the years between his playing career (1981) to his coaching career (1988) that I drifted away from being a basketball fan and would eventually stop caring about the sport until a few years ago. Plus I was more attached to football at the time, as the Washington Senators were long gone, and the Washington Capitals were not very good yet.

1969-70 Topps Basketball: 56 Wes Unseld Baltimore Bullets

Image from comc.com

OK so his rookie card was when the Bullets were still the Baltimore Bullets, but the man would play his entire career with the Bullets Franchise, work with the front office and then later return to the court as Head Coach. He then moved onto General Manager for the team on into the transition to the name change to Wizards and a few years after that.

Here are some (but not all) of my Unseld Cards as a tribute to one of my childhood Icons. For the most part I have already shown these cards on this blog sometime previously so I don't need to explain them.

The following items are a few gems in my collection:

Next is a "card" in my collection that is more of a mini poster than a real "card" it is from 1969-70 Topps and they call it a "ruler" it is only 10 inches by 2.5 inches so not a true ruler but hey it is only paper. I got it from Ebay I think some years back for I forget how much I might have mentioned where and when some posts back a few years back.

1969-70 Topps Basketball Ruler: 22 Wes Unseld Baltimore Bullets

Finally here is a photo of an item I have from my childhood, the photo is actually from an image search I did a few years back and from someone's Ebay auction for which they had I think the whole set was listed for of course way too much money. I forget if they sold or not. Anyway as I said this is something that I actually have but not my copy in the image (I haven't scanned or photographed mine). It is a mini poster that was available from McDonald's in 1976. The size is 12" x 16" One of those premium things during the basketball season that year. Each week they featured a new poster that had two caricatures of Washington Bullets players. There are a total of 4 mini posters. This is the one with Wes and K.C. Jones.

1976 McDonald's Washington Bullets mini poster: K.C. Jones and Wes Unseld

1977-78 Bullets and a Rocket Boost

From the Ebay Bullets package I got on 11 Feb 2012. Here is a group of three cards from:

1977-78 TOPPS BASKETBALL

 

 1977-78 Topps Basketball - 40 Elvin Hayes - Bullets

OK so this card looks a little weird because Mr. Hayes appears to be slam dunking but his team-mate Mitch Kupchak appears to be walking on air? 

Bullets #25 Mitch Kupchak

Photo from Bullets/Wizards Alumni webpage

They must have lowered the basket or used a small kiddies basket that is only about 6 feet off the ground (Edit That can't be right either the players are 6 feet plus) instead of the standard 10 foot regulation height baskets in the arenas. I didn't notice that until I started commenting on this card in this post.

1977-78 Topps Basketball - 75 Wes Unseld - Bullets

The way Wes is leaning here it looks like he might end up on the floorboards. Anyway if I recall some of my childhood basketball memories correctly, despite starting to hate basketball sometime during the early 1980s, Mr Unseld was my favorite or one of my favorite Bullets players. I'm not sure where I have it but somewhere I have a mini poster circa 1976 from McDonalds of Wes and Coach 'K.C.' Jones from a series of mini posters they sold. The posters were one of the premiums that if you bought a certain sandwich (probably a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder) or "meal" you got the poster free, or you could buy the poster for $1.00 I think was the price. Each poster had 2 players pictured on them, there were 4 posters in the set. The "pictures" were caricatures of the players. I noticed someone on Ebay is selling the full set for $275.00 with $6 shipping.

1977-78 Topps Basketball - 124 Moses Malone - Rockets

OK so Mr. Malone is not a Bullet on this card, so why did I get a Non-Bullet card? It won't be until 1986 that he gets traded to DC. My collecting criteria for Basketball cards includes players that at one time in their careers played for the Bullets (Wizards not so much). If that wasn't the reason then the short easy excuse could be there are some Bullets pictured with him by sheer coincidence it happens to be the Two Bullets I have featured here and have their cards of Mr. Unseld and Mr. Hayes. How frackin' cool is that? It was totally unintended and again it wasn't until I was preparing this post that I even noticed the fact.

1974 Wonder Bread Football Update

1974 Wonder Bread Football Cards 1-9

1974 Wonder Bread Football Cards 10-18

1974 Wonder Bread Football Cards 19-27

1974 Wonder Bread Football Cards 28-30

Catching up on an old update on my 1970s NFL Wonder Bread hunt. It is now over. I have edited what I originally drafted for posting since it was written when I still had some of the cards incoming..

As I previously stated at one time (see links below at end of this post) I have been pursuing the football sets put out by Wonder Bread in the mid-1970s. It took me quite a long time to finally complete the 1975 set. I had started out with just two cards (Franco Harris and Ted Hendricks) I had acquired back in '75 and for the longest time just sat on them without looking for the rest. I eventually found the rest I needed mostly from Ebay Auctions in small lots of a handful here and a handful there I think I also hit sportlots for the some of the final ones. I lucked out on Ebay when I found and bought the 1976 full set.

After that it was onto the 1974 set they are the ones that look like 1971 Topps Football.

1971 Topps Football 257 Mark Moseley RC - Eagles

Except they don't have the little position player guys (in the early 80s when McDonalds did their "Build a Big Mac" game the little characters building the Big Mac reminded me of those 1971 Topps guys - I found the image below of the ad for the game here at flickr).

I thought the actual characters on the game pieces looked more like the position characters and were more "cartoony", but maybe I was wrong. I haven't seen those since '81/82 when they had the game running so maybe my memory is just too fuzzy on this one.

At the time of my original writing  I only had 2: My first card from that set was #15 Tom Mack Rams.

 

I now have 2 because in the mad rush of bidding on Ebay and ordering through Sportlots to complete the set I forgot I had it, I thought I just had the next card as my only card. That second card is #19 Jim Plunkett Patriots his name looks pink from a big ol' bread stain on the card that looks like a huge storm cloud rolling in behind Jim there.

I ordered most of what I needed of the '74 set from sportlots.com individually because that is how they roll there. The rest of the cards I bid on Ebay for 9 of them (and won) and the remaining 3 I ordered "Buy It Now" from one Ebay Store. The cards from Sportlots came in 3s and 5s and how many I ordered from individual sellers again that is how they roll. The three cards I used the BIN feature on at Ebay, I requested confirmation on the shipping and the dealer only discounted. 75cents on the shipping. If I recall correctly they were $2.50 per card and total shipping came out to $6.75 which means I paid $2.25 per card. UGH dealers need to COMBINE shipping for small numbers of cards. That's par for the course though because this particular dealer specializes in vintage cards no newer than 1972. His prices for most stuff is outrageous  but these cards were $5.00 a piece (one was $4.00).

With this set the Offensive players have a red border and the Defensive players have a yellow border. Yes the color combination reminds one of McDonalds.

1974 Wonder Bread Football - 16 Jim Otto - Raiders

1974 Wonder Bread Football - 9 Chris Hanburger - Redskins

THE CHECKLIST:

Back of Card 2 Cool Pic Huh?

01 Jim Bakken - Cardinals
02 Forrest Blue - 49ers
03 Bill Bradley - Eagles
04 Willie Brown - Raiders
05 Larry Csonka - Dolphins
06 Ken Ellis - Packers
07 Bruce Gossett - 49ers
08 Bob Griese - Dolphins
09 Chris Hanburger - Redskins
10 Winston Hill - Jets
11 Jim Johnson - 49ers
12 Paul Krause - Vikings
13 Ted Kwalick - 49ers
14 Willie Lanier - Chiefs
15 Tom Mack - Rams
16 Jim Otto - Raiders
17 Alan Page - Vikings
18 Frank Pitts - Browns
19 Jim Plunkett - Patriots
20 Mike Reid - Bengals
21 Paul Smith - Broncos
22 Bob Tucker - Giants
23 Jim Tyrer - Chiefs
24 Eugene Upshaw - Raiders
25 Phil Villapiano - Raiders
26 Paul Warfield - Dolphins
27 Dwight White - Steelers
28 Steve Owens - Lions
29 Jerrel Wilson - Chiefs
30 Ron Yary - Vikings

Previous Wonder Bread posts:
 Mid 1970s Wonder Bread NFL
Mailday Mostly 1972 Topps  (at bottom of post)

Bullets 1975-76 Topps: Porter to Weatherspoon

 

1975-76 Topps Washington Bullets cards set. Kevin Porter to Nick Weatherspoon.

1975-76 Topps Basketball 220 Washington Bullets Team Card Back

At first this will be weird if you are reading these as they get published. To keep the proper reading order I have scheduled their posting times in reverse order so that later while reading them in the archives they will appear in the proper order since blogs post newest posts first.

1975 -76 Topps Basketball - 79 Kevin Porter

79 Kevin Porter: I didn't have this card as a kid, but I remember Kevin Porter being a good player. The only thing I have to say is I should upgrade this card because the coloring on it is extremely red. It looks worse here online than in person, I just checked while drafting this post.

1975 - 76 Topps Basketball - 95 Mike Riordan

95 Mike Riordan: Didn't have this card and double heavy SIGH! I don't recall the player and this card has major off centering issues. Yes the bottom does cut off there at the white border thus the second part of the heavy sigh. Other than that a fairly nice card other than I think the reds are a bit pink. Maybe that should have been a triple sigh.

1975 - 76 Topps Basketball - 151 Leonard Robinson

151 Leonard Robinson: I think I had this card as a kid. I definitely remember Robinson I had a shirt with his number 33 on it after all. I'm pretty sure it was a game where School Safety Patrol Kids either got in free or had half-priced tickets or some such event as that. I definitely went on a t-shirt give-a-way night. I mention this in one of the other posts for this. The t-shirt was a replica of the jerseys except they were regular sleeved t-shirts they had the stripes on the front with Bullets and the player's number and then the back had their name and I think number again. I recall being a little disappointed in getting Robinson instead of Unseld or Chenier. OH by the way this card is correctly identified on the back of the team card.

1975 - 76 Topps Basketball - 115 Wes Unseld

115 Wes Unseld: Oddly enough one of my all-time fave Bullets I didn't have this card back then. Some where I think I still have a mini-poster that was a giveaway from McDonald's that has Wes Unseld and someone else from the team a coach I think. Well it isn't them on the poster it's caricatures of them. There were four? six? posters in the set and it had the major players in pairs on the posters. It was either a give-a-way with a specific purchase or it was an extra buck or two with a purchase. I forget the details and it's been a few years since I've seen one of them on Ebay but I think one was on there once maybe even the whole set. This card is mistakenly listed as being number 151 on the checklist on the back of the team card.

1975 - 76 Topps Basketball - 48 Nick Weatherspoon

48 Nick Weatherspoon: Another card I didn't have. Not sure I think it might have been the last one I got or the Unseld or Kozelko? I don't remember. I do remember Weatherspoon back then. Again I'm not sure of his stats but I think he was one of their better players.

1975 - 76 Topps Basketball - 133 Washington Bullets Team Leaders

133 Washington Bullets Team Leaders: Nope didn't have this card. Now I have two I don't remember exactly why I ended up with two. Probably because when I was finishing up the set I didn't think I had it so I quickly ordered a second one. Anyway one of them I think is slightly off center, maybe that was why?