Washington Wednesday: Spirit of The Game

 Spirit of The Game

Some weeks back I mentioned the card I'm going to show today, in of all places the semi-return of my Mascot Monday feature. Dang it haven't made any since. I got the card from a Sportlots Store along with a few other cards.

1992 Pro Set Football 374 Spirit of the Game Washington Redskins

Notice the lyrics to the Redskins Fight Song "Hail To The Redskins" are on the back of the card. If the image is not clear enough or your computer/smartphone doesn't show the image(s) from this post the lyrics are as follows:

Hail to the Redskins!

Hail Victory!

Braves on the Warpath!

Fight for old D.C.!

Run or pass and score—We want a lot more!

Beat 'em, Swamp 'em, Touchdown! -- Let the points soar!

Fight on, fight on 'Til you have won Sons of Wash-ing-ton.

Rah!, Rah!, Rah!

Hail to the Redskins!

Hail Victory!

Braves on the Warpath!

Fight for old D.C.! 

The card stops at the line "Sons of Wash-ing-ton.". Then final line the "old D.C." is held for several bars sort of like old vaudeville acts. The Line "Fight for old D.C." often sounds like "All D.C." and might be sung that way. It was at one time "Fight for ol' D.C." Technically I think it still is. I also understand that at one time the original lyrics for the middle verse was "Scalp 'em, swamp 'em -- We will take 'em big score.  Read 'em, weep 'em, touchdown - we want heap more" Looks like them 'Skins were a bit more racist in them olden days than they are now. People still accuse them of being racist.

I also got the Los Angeles Rams "Spirit of The Game" card as well.

 1992 Pro Set Football 366 Spirit of the Game Los Angeles Rams

Yes these cards from 1992 were THAT OLD that the Rams hadn't moved to St. Louis yet (They moved there in 1995) I don't know what is with the melon helmets one guy even has the Rams horns hat on-top of his melon helmet. He is in front of another guy with a melon helmet and they look like they are the same person. Weird.

Related links at:
haruth.com
wikipedia.org

Vintage Ramskins 3 Feb - Part 2 Philadelphia

OK so here is part 2 of my sportlots card onslaught for 03 February 2012. The Philadelphia Cards. I don't have much to say about these cards other than I like them and I don't want to go into the whole contract thing about Philadelphia Cards vs. Topps and the NFL vs. AFL and then the merge later on thing. Other blogs and card websites tell the story much better than I ever could. So just enjoy the cards.

First up is the only Redskin in this batch of four cards.EEK this card is as old as I am.

1965 Philadelphia 194 Vince Promuto - Redskins

 Next up a trio 1966 Philadelphia's. I like this particular year of Philly cards probably because the yellow banner at the top looks kind of like the vintage magazine covers from that era Like Sports Illustrated. OK so maybe not exactly, I'm not sure if any magazines from that era had a yellow (or some other color) banner at the top, but it looks like it should be on a magazine. One of my first cards from this set is Merlin Olsen's Card #102 (which I feature in my blog logo at top - or one of my blog logos if it currently is not featured)

 1966 Philadelphia 98 Marlin McKeever Rams

The odd and slightly annoying thing about these 1960s era Philadelphia cards is the "Guess Who?" questions on the back, the answers given are to a question on another card. I'm not sure how they determined which answer to put on which card they appear to be totally random. For instance this card's back (card 98) gives the answer for card number 42's question and the answer for this card's question is found on card number 154. A better way to do it is to put the answer on the next card, then that will leave one card without a question? Another way it has been done is to put the answer at the bottom of the card and upside down.

1966 Philadelphia 98 Marlin McKeever Rams (back)

So here is is QB from the 1965 Los Angeles Rams team. Bill Munson played on the Rams from 1964-67, his played on a few other teams until 1979. Tragically Bill died at age 58 found drown in his swimming pool on 10 July 2000.

1966 Philadelphia 101 Bill Munson - Rams

This next card is one of the Team Play cards which even though there are Rams in the picture, the card and the play is actually for the Minnesota Vikings. That year the card set was organized alphabetically by The Teams city, the card order was the Team card usually a team photo (1966 was the Atlanta Falcons first season so their team card featured the team logo), the featured players and an In Action Play card (again a team logo card for Atlanta). That is part of why I like many of the vintage years the cards were well organized. Now who knows what their reasons for the particular order they put the cards in is? The play on this card (from the game played 03 October 1965) gained a first down for Fullback Bill Brown despite Merlin Olsen's efforts spoiled by Larry Bowie.

1966 Philadelphia 117 Minnesota Vikings Team Play Card

1966 Philadelphia 117 Minnesota Vikings Team Play Card (back)

Vintage Ramskins 3 Feb - Part 1 Topps

This is part one of two posts of some Vintage RamSkins (Rams + Redskins = RamSkins) I got nine cards on 03 February 2012 from one sportlots seller I have dealt with before OK lets get on with the roll call.

First Up Here's Johnny! John Carson, not the late late-night talk show host but rather the Washington Redskin End.

1958 Topps 47 John Carson - Redskins

The cartoon on the back is hard to read. The answer to the question: "What is John Carson's nick-name?" - "Long John because he uses his height to catch passes". The cartoon shows a pirate reaching for a football pass.

1958 Topps 47 John Carson - Redskins (back)

Next up: 1959 Topps 15 Del Shofner - Rams Don't know what to say about this one.

1959 Topps 15 Del Shofner - Rams

The back's scratch off "Magic Answer" looks to be incomplete or it's an order for a Chinese restaurant.

1959 Topps 15 Del Shofner - Rams (back)

OK so at first this card doesn't seem to fit because the player is in a previous team's uniform The Pittsburgh Steelers. 1969 Topps 111 Roy Jefferson - Steelers. Roy became a Redskin in 1971.

1969 Topps 111 Roy Jefferson - Steelers

This next player has a solid strong name for a Tackle Rock.

1969 Topps 146 Walter Rock - Redskins

It's Rookie Time. From 1975 a player who would have his career cut short by a horrible leg injury Joe Theismann. Joe started his pro career in the CFL (Canadian Football League) on the Toronto Argonauts. Although this is Joe's Rookie Topps Card and Rookie NFL card it is not his TRUE Rookie card because he had a 1971 O-Pee-Chee Rookie Card when he debuted with the Argonauts. So Canadians are laughing at us silly American's thinking this is Joe's RC!

1975 Topps 416 Joe Theismann RC- Redskins

That does it for part one. The next post part two the conclusion is the Philadelphia Cards will be posted "tomorrow" in about two hours. Gotta love scheduled posting.