The Football Card Blog

Continuing the theme from last week's Gary Hogeboom card, this week's football star turned actor is Fred Dryer.

Dryer was a star at San Diego State University (a teammate of Rocky's Carl Weathers) before being drafted in the first round by the New York Giants in 1969.  He had (unofficially) 29 sacks in three years in New York, before being traded to New England in February 1972, and on to the Los Angeles Rams a short time later during the same year's draft.

Dryer split time at the left defensive end spot with Jack Youngblood in 1972, before starting all 14 games on the right side in 1973, a season in which he became the only player in NFL history to record two safties in a single game. 

Dryer was a two time Pro Bowler (1970 and 1975), played against the Steelers in Super Bowl XIV, and finished his career with 104 unofficial sacks (sacks becomeing an official statistic in 1982, the year after Dryer retired).

Dryer's acting career actually started in 1976, with an uncredited role in the classic Gus (you know, the one with Barney Fife and the kicking mule?).  He had a few one episode appearences on shows like Laverne & Shirley, Lou Grant and CHiPs, and in the movie Cannonball Run 2, before appearing as Detective Sergant Rick Hunter in the series aptly named Hunter, for which he would become most known.

Hunter was on the air for seven seasons, and has had a couple of come back movies as well.  Dryer also had some short runs on shows like Cheers, and Diagnosis Murder, and has his own production company.

The card featured is Dryer's 1977 Topps issue, #513 in the set, which books for $1.00.  Or would, if it wasn't fairly beat up.  Dryer has a total of 22 cards, the most valuable of which is the Mexican version of the same card, which books for $200.  I have no idea how the card ended up in my collection, but it's actually the card that inspired me to post this series of cards. 

I've been reading a lot lately about football players wanting to become actors--Jason Taylor was on Dancing with the Stars, hoping to kick start a career in show business.  And Terrell Owens recently appeared on an episode of some ridiculous show starring Flava Flav, which I won't bother looking up the name of--and apparently thinks 1) he's too good for Dancing with the Stars, and 2) he's going to go beyond acting in just comedies.

Football players crossing over into acting isn't really new--several former players have gone on to careers on the small and big screen, some with some fairly decent success.  Of course, to my knowledge, they were already retired when they made the move.  So, over the next few weeks, we'll look at a few of those players who made the crossover.

These won't be guys who rode the pine for a season or two in the NFL, and moved on to acting when no team wanted them any more--obviously, they had to be known enough to actually have cards.  Nor will it be guys who tried to gain some attention on a reality show (looking at you, Jesse Palmer and Ryan Hoag), nor big name stars who tried to expand their horizons on Dancing With the Stars.

Of course, if you're reading this, you most likely read the title, which means that you already know that the first player we're going to look at is Gary Hogeboom--who was a reality TV star.  So why him, and not the others? 

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Just came across a post on Sports Cards Uncensored, responding to a post on The Baseball Card Blog, regarding the state of price guides in the industry.  I started to leave a comment on SCU, but when I saw how long my comment was, I decided maybe it was worth a full post.

I actually don't mind the price guides, although, their proliferation into side businesses--grading, selling, marketplace, etc--is annoying, and an in my opinion a blatent conflict of interest, even though they deny deny deny. Not the first company to profit off of a conflict of interest, not the last. 

I know that the price guides don't  provide a "true value," of a card, but at least it gives me some comparative indication into what I can start to expect if I wanted to list a card on eBay, or what to ask if I am at selling it at my local card shop, or what to offer if I was at a show.  Of course, I can do all that research on eBay too, but the price guide can save me some initial legwork, and is more portable than a computer (for now).

I don't think price guides are killing the industry, though--at least not directly.  Price guides have existed for well over 20 years--it's just the last 25-30 that they've turned into monthly publications rather than yearly books.

I think the single most destructive thing in the industry is the card manufacturers themselves, and their inability to do anything in moderation.

They hear a handful of people say "That's kind of cool" when they see a game used jersey card from a superstar, and next thing you know, I'm pulling a game used Nick Punto patch as a "hit" from a box.  Then, in order to make more memorabilia cards, we start having 'event worn' cards, and 'was in the same room as this jersey card' cards, and 'personal assistant opened and tossed the unsolicited invitation to event where the jersey was' memorabilia cards.

And then no one wants to buy big bucks for them, and the industry suffers.

Of course, one could argue that the price guides listing those cards as 'valuable' is what made the manufacturers overproduce them in the first place--but if people hadn't started buying cards on the secondary market in the 50's/60's/70's, proving that cards had value beyond use in bicycle spokes or card flipping games, we never would have had the price guides in the first place.

Regardless, whether you love the price guides or hate them (or, like me, not really care that much, other than when your issue is a week late), they certainly aren't going away any time soon.  At least until eBay starts putting out their price guide... (talk about conflicts of interest)...

As of this morning, I was ready to write another post criticizing Beckett--no, not for their box break videos that feature apparently loaded boxes (I spread the blame equally between Beckett and the card companies on that one)--but rather because it was a full week ago that I noticed at my local card shop that the latest issue of Sports Card Monthly was out.

And as of last night, mine still hadn't shown up.

Further exasperating me last night, I tried to email Beckett to find out what was going on--which proved to be an adventure in itself.  I clicked around, and found out I had to login with my email address--and when that didn't work, I reached a page that said "Please contact customer service by e-mail at:   or by phone at:   ".

That's right, it encouraged me to contact them, which I was already trying to do, but didn't give me the email addresses and/or phone number to call him.

I then found a help page that offered a way to determine my expiration date via the address label--which showed a label that looked nothing like mine (I knew I wasn't expired anyways).

Finally, after finding a form to use to actually contact them, I got a message that said they would ATTEMPT to answer all inquiries within 72 hours.  In this age of the Internet, Beckett will TRY to get back to me within 3 days (this after it took them more than a week to get my online access set up when I subscribed--and then another 3-4 days to switch it from baseball to football, since that was what I subscribed to).

So, like I said, I was ready to blast away in a blog posting.  Then a funny thing (or two) happened.  First, I got an email from Stacy in Customer Service at Beckett, saying they reshipped the issue today, and asking me to let them know if they could help further.  And, of course, the mail shows up, and there's my copy of the magazine (and it's very possible, even likely, that it's not Beckett's fault--for some reason, we get some things really slowly around here).

So, not post blasting Beckett today after all--in fact, I actually have to give them kudos for how they handled the situation--although I still think their Web site needs a lot of help--and that's even AFTER I started checking out the Beta of their new site (yes, they actually approved me as a tester--not sure if I'm supposed to blog about it or not, but I told them about the blog when I applied).

But, I'll save that for a later date--along with I'm sure more on loaded box breaks and conflicts of interest.  I can't let Sports Card Uncensored have ALL the fun.

Stopped by the local card shop yesterday, as per usual with no real intent of picking anything up (I was actually dropping something off this time). And, as often happens, I walked out with a box of cards, as it was the first time I'd been in since 2008 Topps Progressions came out.

A few things conspired against me--first, my wife is out of town, and for some reason, I tend to buy cards when she's gone (I wonder if she actually reads the blog?  Guess I'll find out).  Second, the boxes were cheaper than I expected, priced at under $100.  Third, there was a guy there opening some, and he was loving it--the Adrian Peterson jersey he pulled certainly helped, but he really was enjoying the cards.

So, despite the reservations I've had about this new Topps product, I grabbed a box and thought, "Maybe Gellman got it wrong."  Hoped, might be a better way to describe it.

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Sorry for the lack of posts lately--I haven't forgotten or given up, I just picked a really crappy time to start a blog devoted to football cards, heading into the offseason.  And even with the new product coming out, it's kind of a lull right now, as mandatory mini camps just don't do much for me. 

I will get back on the Card of the Week bandwagon here pretty soon--been working on another couple of themes ideas to run with, and trying to pull together enough interesting cards to last hopefully until training camp.

Like I said, though, there are some new products hitting the shelves, like 2008 Playoff Prestige.  Unfortunately, I'm on a bit of a budget right now, since I went a little nuts on eBay a couple months back, and I'm getting ready for a little side trip to Vegas (I really hate it when the wife's company sends her there).  More on that in a bit.

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