Olde-tyme football...a lack of respect?

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Posted By: Mike McKee

I am not sure it is a lack of respect as much as it is a lack of knowledge and the game just being a different experience.

To know anything about these guys one really has to look and look hard. Most it seems are not willing to do that. And even when you do look, dead ends abound especially when you are trying to get information on Pre NFL stuff. At that time, the topic was not written about at length and until the NFL was organized almost never.

When March wrote his book, Pro Football Its Ups and Downs, basically the treatise on the subject of Professional football, the sport was approximately 50 years old. Compare that with Baseball which had probably 100 books published within its first 50 years. The other issue is College vs Professional. Baseball does not have that problem. Who knows anything about college baseball in the 1800's. Does anyone care about it? The best college baseball pieces all have early Ivy League football players on them and I almost guarantee the buyers are football collectors and not baseball.

The other is baseball had its mentors such as Lew Lipset. The sport was popularized in collectors eyes by dealers who for no matter the reason brought the sport alive in the collectibles they sold. Football did not ever have that luxury and probably never will. 1895 Mayos were not followed up until the silver match covers of the early 1930’s with significant collector sets. Not many dealers can feed a family on that few of high value collectibles. A few but not many.

Unfortunately, some of the early history of the game is lost because it was never written about and all the participants are now long ago deceased. Try calling a town’s historical society about an early significant Pre NFL football team and note the response you get. A long pause, then a Hummm, followed by “I am not sure, let me get back to you on that”. The return call never comes unless a 90 year old football fan lives in the town. Guess what there are not many of them around.

However, maybe the most important reason in my mind is. With baseball, people remember watching a game with someone and remember the scene more than the game. Peace and tranquility is part of the baseball mystic. The air is warm and the air always smells better in the summer. Sharing peanuts with your Grand Dad or taking your father to the game in his old age just like he did when you were a boy are memories as vivid as your first bike under the Christmas tree. Football is about conquest, hard hits and the coldness of winter. Different emotions which are great but nowhere near as warm and fuzzy. So people collect, debate and think about what takes them back to happier times and people who may not be around anymore or are quite a bit older. This is just an opinion and I am sure others will not agree but I honestly feel it is part of the reason. However, as primarily a football collector myself I do not personally subscribe to the theory but the above is many times listed as the reason why people collect.

In short, I am not sure football will ever totally supplant baseball in the collectibles realm but it is nipping at its heels and in the current heart of the American public football has become king. My guess is that is where it has to begin and maybe followed by a mentor with some more books written and then maybe, it may begin to get some more respect. Knowledge always comes before respect which is what I guess this thread is about.