rayonsports.com

1973 Topps football card of the player who was the Buffalo Bills’ first pick in the NFL’s inaugural “common” draft, defensive back John Pitts. The year was 1967, and it marked the first year that the National and American Football Leagues, which had just agreed to a merger, drafted eligible college players together from one pool. It ended the bidding war the two leagues had battled through for players in previous years. Although he is pretty much a forgotten player in Bills’ annals, Pitts played 7 of his 9 years in pro ball for the Bills, then spent a year each in Denver and Cleveland before retiring.

1977 Topps basketball card of a former player who excelled in both the American and National Basketball Associations, Maurice Lucas. He was a preeminent power forward in his time, starting in the ABA with the Spirits of St. Louis franchise, then with the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers, where he was part of that franchise’s 1977 championship team. He played a total of 14 seasons of professional basketball, 12 of them in the NBA. Lucas was a five-time NBA All Star, and his physical play as a power forward earned him the nickname “The Enforcer”. He served as a Portland assistant coach after retiring, but health concerns forced him to resign from that position in 2010, the same year he passed away from cancer.

When I first started this blog five years ago, a regular feature of the early “Sports Card of The Day” posts were “error” cards – sports cards in which the card company erred in producing the cards. In honor of Rayonsports’ fifth anniversary, today’s featured card is a 1965 Topps football card of Oakland Raider split end Art Powell, who was an American Football League star in the early ’60s. The card, shown above on the left, has a photo that is actually Raider halfback Clem Daniels, who was also a pretty good player for Oakland. Daniels’ actual 1965 card is shown on the right. Powell was one of the AFL’s first marquee players, and was named to the All-AFL team chosen when the league merged with the NFL.

1988 Topps hockey card of former NHL player John Tucker. He played 12 seasons in the NHL for 4 different teams, most notably  the Buffalo Sabres. He finished his playing career overseas, playing several seasons in Italy and Japan. Tucker once scored four goals in a single Stanley Cup playoff game for Buffalo against the Boston Bruins. He was recently named head coach of the Buffalo Junior Sabres of the Ontario Junior Hockey League.

1961 Fleer football card of one of the top offensive linemen in NFL history, former Green Bay Packer guard Jerry Kramer. The signature play of his career came in the “Ice Bowl” NFL championship, when his block cleared the way for Bart Starr to score the winning touchdown. He was a five-time Pro Bowler, a member of all five Packer title teams of the Vince Lombardi era, and was named to the NFL All Decade team for the 1960s. Still, amazingly, he is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In fact, Kramer was #1 on the list of top ten players not in Canton, according to NFL Network. He authored a number of books about his life in the NFL, including Instant Replay, Farewell to Football (written after his retirement), and Distant Replay, which updated the whereabouts of the players on the Packers’ Super Bowl I winning team.

A pair of classic sports cards of one of the greatest two-sport stars of all time, Bo Jackson. On the left is a 1989 ProSet football card of Jackson as a Los Angeles Raider, on the right a 1987 Donruss baseball card of Jackson during his days as an outfielder for the Kansas City Royals. Jackson is the only pro athlete to be named an All Star in two major sports. He won the Heisman Trophy at Auburn and then focused on playing both sports in the pros, starring for the Royals, and the Raiders for four years before a major hip injury ended his football playing days. He then turned full time to baseball, although the Royals released him rather than pay him while he rehabbed his football injury. He played two more years for the Chicago White Sox.

1984 Topps hockey card of former National Hockey League goaltender Tom Barrasso. Drafted as a teenager  in 1983, he became the first player in history to go directly from high school into the NHL. Amazingly, he won both the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year and the Vezina Trophy as top goaltender in his first year. Barrasso wound up playing a total of 18 seasons in the league for six different teams, with his most successful years coming in the early 1990s while playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he won a pair of Stanley Cups.

1989 Topps football card of former Chicago Bears’ linebacker Ron Rivera, who played nine seasons for the team. He was a member of the famed 1985 “Super Bowl Shuffle” Bears team, which beat New England 46-10 in the big game. That made Rivera the first Puerto Rican player to play on a Super Bowl championship team. After retiring as a player, Rivera entered the coaching ranks, and currently is the head coach of the Carolina Panthers.

1961 Fleer football card of former Baltimore Colts’ receiver Raymond Berry, who played 13 seasons with the club, teaming with Colt QB John Unitas to form the NFL’s first big-time passing combination in a run-first era. Known for his precise route running and great hands, he was said to have dropped only two passes in his entire career. Berry was a six-time Pro Bowler, helped the Colts win a pair of NFL championships, and is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest receivers of all time. After retiring as a player, he entered the coaching ranks and eventually became head coach of the New England Patriots, where he served for 6 years, leading the team to a Super Bowl appearance in 1986. Berry was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973.

1955 Bowman football card of Hall of Famer Emlen Tunnell, a defensive back who played 14 seasons in the NFL, 11 of those with the New York Giants. A ball-hawking defender, Tunnell had 79 interceptions and 16 fumble recoveries in his career. He was the first African American to play for the Giants, and also the first to be inducted into Canton when he was elected in 1967. Tunnell was a nine time Pro Bowler and a member of the NFL’s All Decade team for the 1950s. He played on two championship teams, in 1956 for the Giants, and 1961 with Green Bay. Tunnell passed away in 1975.