Out with the Old

The 1979 Football Cardinals weren’t good. They had coaching issues and changed coaches after Bud Wilkinson went 3-10. Former Cardinal Larry Wilson took over and the team went 2-1 to finish the season. For whatever reason, Larry didn’t come back in 1980. Since ownership sucked, and still does, it was probably a bad decision on their part. The one highlight of the season was the outstanding rookie performance of Running back Otis Anderson. Otis the 8th overall pick for the Cardinals in the 1979 Draft rushed for an amazing 1,605 yards in 1979 the most for a rookie season up till then. In his debut game he rushed for 193 yards one shy of the record.

Yoourrrr 1979 Football Cardinals 17 Jim Hart, 32 Ottis Anderson, 85 Mel Gray
25 Roy Green, 83 Pat Tilley, 54 Tom Banks C, 72 Dan Dierdorf T, 71 Joe Bostic T
78 Ron Yankowski DE, 22 Roger Wehrli CB, and 12 Steve Little K/P. One can see how a young boy from the STL would be following and rooting for the 49 teams of the 80s.

Still no agreement with the NFL, Topps would continue their airbrush magic. Somewhat like the 1973 Topps issue the fronts of the 1979 Topps would use a pennant. Since there was no license there is no city with the team name-so there is a little pennant in the right top corner-with a football in the middle containing the player’s position. Team and player name are in the top left. The player’s picture is framed in a three color border with each team having a color-Cardinals’ color is Purple and Orange-which are the colors of the pennant and one of the border stripes.

The player’s photos are well done. They look like many were shot in training camp and have a relaxed intimate feel to them. Which is a nice departure from the norm.

The reverse is a little different than you would normally see-and I can’t say much except whom ever designed this was stoned. Not sure what else would explain the oddness. There are four “boxes” that contain the bio information, the name and card #, stats and a factoid, and a cartoon. What saves the reverse is the color combination of yellow and purple on a grey stock.  There is a cream back variation (the normal version is on the left and the cream on the right). Some of the team set cards I picked up are doubles and I will compare against the ones I have to see if I have one.

We have 18 of 19.