Bullets FourBall

From my sportlots onslaught part one which arrived on 11FEB2012. Here are four more of the Bullets cards I got. Brace yourselves folks because Thursday 16FEB2012 was a 10 package day and the results of some of that stuff will filter onto this blog sometime soon.

1979-80 TOPPS BASKETBALL

1979-80 Topps Basketball 18 Tom Henderson Bullets

Not much to say about this one. I don't recall Mr. Henderson.

1979-80 Topps Basketball 65 Wes Unseld Bullets

Looks like Mr. Unseld is swinging and getting some kind of groove on, maybe there is a Broadway musical there somewhere. Now the pose in this card is similar to the next card. I think I will do a separate post semi-in-depth comparison on these two cards sometime later.

1979-80 Topps Basketball 90 Elvin Hayes AS Bullets

As I said this card looks similar to Mr. Unseld's card from above. They both seem to be getting the rebound. Mr. Hayes seems to be fully planted where Mr. Unseld is in motion.

1979-80 Topps Basketball 103 Phil Chenier Bullets

My first reaction to this card was Mr. Chenier is waking funny. Upon further review it looks like he is actually running so it does sort of explain his weird walk.

Bullets 1975-76 Topps: Chenier to Kozelco

1975-76 Topps Basketball Washington Bullets Cards Collage

 Back in the day 1975 to be exact I had gotten a few basketball cards from Topps for the 1975-76 NBA season. Fortunately I had gotten a couple of my Homie Team the Washington Bullets. I first became aware of them a few years before when they were the Baltimore Bullets. I think I started getting into them around '71 when they made their move, anyway I digress. It was around this time 1975 or 1976 when I attended my first Bullets Game of maybe 2 or 3 total in my life. I do recall their opponent was The New Orleans Jazz (years before they would move to Utah - UTAH? JAZZ?) I think the Bullets won. I'm not sure if that was the game that was the free T-Shirt Jersey game, or the School Safety Patrol discount game (maybe it was both). Anyway for the t-shirt game they gave away t-shirts that looked like the players jersey's. I wanted either Wes Unseld, or was it Phil Chenier I wanted? I ended up with Leonard Robinson. I don't think I have that shirt anymore, and never took a photo of me in it.

Of the basketball cards I had collected as a kid the 1975-76 Topps was one of the few I had gotten. My brother might of had some of the 74-75 Topps and definitely some of the tall boy 1970-71 cards.Once again I digress (you will notice I do that on this blog a lot. Shall we get on with the 1975-76 Bullets cards then?

1975-75 Topps Basketball  220 Washington Bullets Team Card

220 Washington Bullets: Team Card and checklist. I think I had this card back when I was a kid, not sure I only had 4 or 5 of the 12 cards in this team set. This card is an uncorrected error card, check out the back.

220 back of Team Card/Checklist Uncorrected Error

The uncorrected error on this card is that both the cards for Leonard Robinson and Wes Unseld are listed as card number 151. The correct number for the Wes Unseld card should be 115. The team card they talk about is the Team Leaders card Which I will get to at the end of my list.

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 190 Phil Chenier AS

190 Phil Chenier: This is one of the 4 or 5 cards I had when I was a kid. I always thought it was cool that of the few Bullets cards I had from this set it has been one of my favorites. I thought it was cool that he was on the All-Star team (2nd team).

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 173 Clem Haskins

173 Clem Haskins: Yep had this card as well. I didn't follow the team well enough to know much about how good a player Haskins was. I just had his card from this season.

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 60 Elvin Hayes

60 Elvin Hayes:  Don't think I had this one as a kid. I do however have a good maybe very good conditioned Elvin Hayes card from 1970-71 Topps #70 from when he was on the San Diego Rockets, it's warping dinged on the corners and some sides and a light crease at the bottom. I used to think it was in worse condition but I was confusing it with the 1976-77 #133card I have of his. That one has creases that look like lighting strikes and major corner bending falling apart. Someday I'll have to scan those. Both of them I've had since the day, the 1970-71 card was my brother's I'm fairly sure about that. This card is pretty well off center to the left and bottom, maybe I can do with an upgrade.

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 23 Jimmy Jones

23 Jimmy Jones: Didn't have this one. Don't have any stories about Jimmy I don't remember him from those days since I didn't wholeheartedly follow the Bullets even when I was following them. Sorry Mr.Jones. It's an OK action shot but for a card the image of him is pretty small.

1975-76 Topps Basketball - 202 Tom Kozelko

202 Tom Kozelko: Gesundheit, but seriously didn't have this card. He might have been the last card I got from sportlots for this set or was it Wes Unseld? My first thought was he looks awful scrawny and white to be a basketball player. He is another player I don't recall from those years. I should upgrade this card since it is soooooooooooo off center to the left and top (thus the back also has centering issues).

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?

Mayor Dave Bing 1975-76 Topps Basketball

1975-76 Topps Basketball

Dave Bing - Detroit Pistons

Here is a basketball card I've had since my childhood. As I said in my post about my Phil Chenier RC yesterday (well actually just a few minutes ago I'm scheduling these posts at a later time) I don't follow basketball anymore, but when I did the man on this card was one of my fave players. In 1975 he played for my fave homie team the Washington Bullets. I saw him play a few games during his career with the Bullets from 1975-'77. Not many but a few in fact at one game a friend and I attended we got to the "Cap Center" a little early and got to watch the warm-ups/shooting practice (or whatever basketball calls "batting practice") and got a close up look at some of the players including Dave. The Capital Centre was located in Landover, MD later renamed US Air Arena but I will always know it as the Cap Center. Sadly it no longer exists.

OH by the way Mr. Bing is now the Mayor of Detroit. When he was elected or started his campaign I blogged about it at my regular blog in the post titled "The Politics of Sports".

*A Homie team is the team located in your home city/town or area that you root for so calling them my "fave homie" team is a bit redundant. It gets the point across anyway.

Phil Chenier Rookie Card 1972-73 Topps Basketball

1972-73 Topps Basketball

Phil Chenier RC - Baltimore Bullets

This is Phil Chenier's Rookie Card, he was drafted by Baltimore in 1971. Phil would be one of the Bullets' top shooting guards but after a back injury in the 1977-78 season his game would be very off. I never kept track of basketball statistics as a kid I would just occasionally watch and a few times attend Bullets' games, until sometime in the late 1970s maybe early '80s when I grew tired of basketball.

The 1972-'73 NBA season would be the last season for the Baltimore Bullets (1963-1973) previously the Chicago Zephyrs (1962-1963). In 1973 they would move to Landover, MD and become the Capital Bullets for a season and then the Washington Bullets. In 1997 the team bowed down to pressure from the Politically Correct crowd and changed their name to the non-violent Wizards (and actually move into the City of DC eventually).