The backs are fine; when I questioned the rejection the PSA rep told me that they only grade certain publications. The newspapers were a chain so there are 'cards' from coast to coast. Detroit was in the old big book, which seems to drive a lot of TPG decision-making. Funny story there. I sent in a boxing card to PSA for slabbing and they turned it down because it wasn't catalogued. Well, I wrote the damn catalog and I know it was so I sent them excerpts. They then said it wasn't in their catalog. I asked what version. Turned out they were several years out of date. The card got graded.
I started trying to catalog the 1936 newspaper cards some time ago and built up a good partial database, but it is really challenging due to the different publications and variations. Like in LA, they made 'cards' of amateur athletes because there were no major league franchises in BB or FB west of the Rockies. Makes for some interesting stuff. Speaking of variations, that's a nice Ruth. I've not seen that one before.
There have been other newspaper issues too. A very similar one was called "This Day In Sports" and ran in the late 1950s-early 1960s. I got a stack of them when I bought a collection. Here are a few:
