Here’s an interesting one to lead off this week’s Collector’s Corner; a 1944 New York Football Giants press pass. (This auction’s up tonight if you’re interested.) Note what it says on the card bottom; Ladies Positively Not Admitted On This Ticket. Well, OK then! (Women were granted the right to vote just 24 years earlier, so the NFL hadn’t gotten with the program.) Yet- the card is made out to “Shirley Povich.” You’d think that’s a ladies name, right? Not in this case!
Mr. Povich was an esteemed writer and bylined a sports column for The Washington Post for 75 years! He passed away in 1988 1998. (Maury Povich is his son.) In his Post column he once wrote of this legendary loss:
“This is no time for cracks, men, those poor fellows were suffering,” he counseled after Washington’s 73-0 loss to the Chicago Bears on Dec. 8, 1940. “They were trying to play football, if blindly.”
Here’s another Giants pass, this one for 1950. Still no admittance for the ladies! Now for the rest of this week’s picks:
• Does anyone play marbles anymore? I guess we did in 1990- ’cause here’s a set of MLB “SuperStar Collectible Action Marbles! Raines, Sandberg, and Bonds among those included.
• Back to 1970-1971 for this Esso NHL Power Player Trader Wallet! This Canadian promo item held your NHL trading stamps!
• NBA great Karl “The Mailman” Malone among the Utah Jazz players featured on this set of 1994 promo notepads sponsored by Kellogg’s cereal.
• Your room can, er, smell like a 49er with this San Francisco 49er decorative helmet air freshener.
• Are you still a fan of the Montreal Expos? Here’s a 1992 gear bag done up in rouge, blanc et bleu.
• This 1975 paperback is breathlessly titled Louisiana Superdome®, “Newest Wonder Of The World.”
• Here’s a 1980 Philadelphia Phillies “World Champions” serving tray with drawings of the stars of the team.
• “Bless You Boys!” That’s the slogan on the side of this 1984 Detroit Tigers World Series Champions glass.
• The 1992 Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame inductees are shown in this commemorative glass.
• The seller of this vintage Boston Red Sox ashtray says it dates back to the 1950s. Heck, come to think of it–so do I. Barely.
That’ll do it for this edition of CC. See you back here next week!
Were marbles more of a collectable or did kids actually play with them? I’m 56 and I do not recall ever owning a marble or seeing any of my friends or classmates playing with marbles.
I am also 56… In 4th or 5th grade at the school I went to (Council Bluffs, IA), there was a couple month craze of marble playing during recess. That must have been like 1977-ish.
Before or since, I also do not recall marbles as a “thing”. Altho the marbles I played with were from my mom who had a coffee can full of them, so I suppose they must have been a thing for her too at some point.
Lee
61 yr old here. Yes, we played with marbles but I’d say we were on the dying cusp of the fascination. Played a lot when I was 6-10 yrs old in Michigan. Moved to NJ in ’74 and marbles were on the way out. Noc Hockey was huge.
Poviched passed in 1998.
Fixed!
Shirley Povich died in 1998. He was included in the Who’s Who of American Women one year as well. Some good lines over the years:
The million-to-one shot came in. Hell froze over. A month of Sundays hit the calendar. Don Larsen today pitched a no-hit, no-run, no-man-reach-first game in a world series.
…Arlington, Tex., which, to embittered Washington fans, is some jerk town with the single boast it is equidistant from Dallas and Fort Worth…
I dunno about playing marbles, but people certainly race marbles, and there are a lot of fans, too… link
I’ve never seen that specific logo on the 1950 Giants press pass before.
Looks like they did a mirror image of the Yankees logo?
link
The 1970-71 season Esso Power Players were Canada’s equivalent to 1972’s Sunoco NFL stamps.
Power Players remain the greatest ever gas station promotion on this side of the border. I still have my original set in the gorgeous hardcover album and two more sets in softcover albums.
My favorite Shirley Povich line came in his column after the Browns walloped the Redskins. Povich had a crusade against the then-owner of the Redskins, George Preston Marshall, who refused to sign black football players at a time when most other teams were. So he wrote in his column the next day: “Jim Brown, born ineligible to play for the Washington Redskins, integrated their end zone three times yesterday.”
Even though the artwork is hand-drawn (and not maroon), that Phillies plate demonstrates the problem I’ve always had with the home uniforms…red pinstripes make them look pink.
The “no ladies” policy reminds me of the stoning scene in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” I can only hope there were dozens of women in the press box disguised with fake beards.