Will the joe namath rookie card Topps 1965 become the next Mantle 52?

[jefferyepayne]

Originally Posted by DezHood

Great Thread!

I think Peter hit the nail on the head when he said this:

Unlike baseball, the relatively early stars (Graham, Baugh, Motley, Hutson, etc.) just do not seem to be revered. Not sure why that is. Football is as or more popular than baseball as a sport but the history seems much less important to fans and collectors.

I've talked to people who are completely football obsessed - spend their whole weekends watching/travelling to college and pro games etc. But if you talk history with them its Jim Brown, Lombardi's Packers, Gale Sayers - that's about it. Anything earlier than that they don't even recognize the names. That's been my experience - admittedly a very small sample size.

I think there lots of reasons why football fans feel this way:

1. The NFL does a horrible job of glorifying its past ... its just not something they seem to care about doing. Baseball does a much better job.

2. Football is often considered the perfect sport for TV and, perhaps because of this, players / teams prior to the TV era of the 50s don't get a lot of attention. The popularity of football exploded when it moved to the tube.

3. The rules have changed soooo much that nobody from way back owns any of the major records any longer so their names never come up. People can't identify with a QB who has the same number of interceptions as touchdowns or a completion percentage of 50% as being any good. Way back those were considered pretty good numbers! At one time throwing for 3,000 yards in a season was a MAJOR accomplishment. Today QBs might get fired for that low of a yardage total.

jeff