Wow! Awesome items.
Mike, nice Lavie Dilweg piece. I also bid on a matchbook once which I think may have been a promotional piece for his campaign, but I’m not sure.
Jeff, great idea for a thread. Several of the players depicted in your Canton Bulldogs composite in addition to Calac are on my list of pre-NFL players worth a look for the HOF:
Ralph “Fats” Waldsmith (who I list first because I have him as the best Center of the era which is saying something because there was good competition)
Howard “Cap” Edwards
Clarence “Doc” Spears
Milton Ghee (probably not considered as good of a pure passer as his contemporaries Al Marht and Gus Dorias, but I liken him to Bob Waterfield.)
Not to go on a tangent, but... my records have Greasy Neale playing for Canton in ’15 and ’17 which matches him not being in your composite, but why didn't he play in '16? He didn't want to risk his day job?
Nice photos of Ted and Al. I think Frank is the most underrated - he was a solid passer, punter, and ball carrier and played some minor league baseball which to me shows he was a solid athlete, not just a big goon on the line
. Wikipedia says this:
"Nesser was also a minor league baseball player in the Ohio State League from 1910–1914. He later played in the North Carolina State League in 1915 and 1916. After abandoning baseball for a few years he restarted his career in the Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League in 1920 and played one final season, in 1921, in the Michigan–Ontario League. He left baseball after 9 seasons in which he posted a .325 batting average."
It would be something if there had been a baseball card of Frank. I think some of the contemporary tobacco card issues did include minor leaguers.
Great signed Latone piece. He was a senior finalist at one point and in Ralph Hickok's bio of Johnny Blood where they are both at the HOF in '73 and Blood is asked by John Bankert and Jim Campbell if any players from his era ought to be in the HOF he said:
"Tony was a Jim Taylor type, ran low with real high knee action, and you couldn't hit him hard enough to make him happy. You could just clobber him, you'd think you wiped him out, knocked him out of the game, and he'd get up and grin at you. Like he was saying, 'Is that the best you can do?' If you tried to tackle him low, one of his knees might break your nose, and if you tried to get him high, he'd carry you on his back for five or six yards, and then he wouldn't go down unless a couple other people helped you out. He was also a great linebacker, if he played today, he'd be in a class with Nitschke and Butkus, the same type, a ferocious hitter. And he could also get into pass coverage when he had to."