i was ready for some football

the big game is on! i don't follow football as closely as i once did, but i still pay attention a bit.

back in 1978, i was a big rams fan, and we neighborhood kids turned our attention fully to the gridiron after the world series that fall. our collecting shifted, too, as we began buying packs of football cards. i liked the design, and, because 1978 was my first year of collecting, i thought that maybe the 1979 topps baseball set would look like those cards. of course, they did not, and i should have known better since i had bought a pack of 1977-78 basketball cards that year, too, and so knew that the card designs varied  by sport. still, it blew my mind how different the 1978 football design was from the baseball design of the same year.

anyway, that is a long lead-in to say that i was disappointed to know that i would not find a steve garvey all-star card with the 1978 topps football design in 1979.  i did, however, find one in 2023

that's a custom card by roselle avenue that i bought on ebay. i will very rarely purchase a custom made by someone else, but given my history with this card i just had to pull the trigger.  here's the back

which is a bit disappointing, but i get it. the card is printed on decent stock and looks professionally done.

in 1979, i began to familiarize myself with older football card designs as i continued to purchase packs of the current release, and even considered going back and completing older ram team sets. i lost interest in buying football cards sometime in 1980 as i remember having very few cards with that design. i did, however, pick up a few cards from years like 1973, 1977, and 1976.

speaking of which - another baseball card with a football card design that i've added to my collection is this 2022 topps throwback thursday mookie betts card

that uses the 1976 football design.  when i saw 1981 fleer hit the shelves, i thought of this design. fleer had the common sense to make the baseball white, even if they made it smaller. this ball on betts' card looks like a softball.

i was not familiar with the 1971 topps football set, but i am now thanks to a couple other throwback thursday cards i've picked up recently:

the pink one is a poster design, or so i am told.

as for that 1978 topps football set, i fell just short of completing the set - hollywood henderson eluded my grasp - and i believe the near set, along with my other football cards, was thrown away sometime around 1981. i kept the 1978 tony dorsett rookie and 1979 earl campbell record breaker cards, but none of the others. i was down on the nfl then, as the rams failed to re-sign vince ferragamo after they lost the super bowl to the steelers. i was bummed and started paying attention to the raiders, who had a local tie to my hometown. ferragamo eventually returned to the rams, but it wasn't the same, and when he left after the 1984 season, i dropped the rams altogether.

sure they've won a couple of super bowls since then, but i've never looked back. i do wish i still had those 1978 cards though.