Unexplained sports card phenomena

Cafe Society
1

There are a couple of things I remember from the sports cards I collected when I was growing up in the 70s. Actually, I still have most of the cards and have added to my collection but that is not what this is about…

From about 1971 to about 1982 or so, Topps brand football cards never showed helmet logos. The Green Bay football-shaped “G,” the Patriots colonial-soldier-snapping-a-football, the Cowboys blue star, and all the other helmet logos were airbrushed off of the pictures. Sometime in the early 80s, they stopped airbrushing out the logos.

Also, Topps basketball cards of the early 70s often showed players wearing their jerseys backwards. For example, at least a couple of Wilt Chamberlain’s cards showed him wearing his jersey so that his name was in front rather than “Lakers.” I definitely know that the Lakers and the Knicks players wore their jerseys this way on their cards.

Does anyone know anything about either or both of these situations? My guess in both cases is that the leagues (NFL and NBA) wanted Topps to pay some kind of royalty to display the helmet logos and the team names on the basketball jerseys, and that Topps did not want to pay so simply avoided showing the logos.

2

[Ed McMahon] You are correct, sir![EM]

The card companies have to make deals with both the teams and the players. If they can’t reach an agreement with the team, the logos cannot be shown.

3

I think something like that happened with former Houston Oiler Earl Campbell. Topps issued a “rookie” card of him after his first season, then never issued any more cards of him. IIRC, they even avoided issuing “NFL Rushing Leaders” cards for a while because they could not show Earl Campbell.

4

Something similar happened with Maury Wills. Evidently, when he was a minor leaguer, Topps had a policy of asking the coaches who had a chance of making the club. They were told that Wills would never be a major leaguer, so they didn’t sign him.

When Wills made the team, he remembered and refused to sign. While he was rewriting the record books for stolen bases, you could not find a Maury Wills baseball card. His first appearance was in 1969 when he was traded to the Pirates (he did have a card in a Dodgers uniform a few years later, when he returned to LA).

Topps changed their policy and began to sign every ballplayer to a contract, whether they were likely prospects or not.