Washington Wednesday: RIP Redskins HTTR

WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY:

RIP Redskins: HTTR4LIFE

Redskins Super Fan Chief Zee crying (date unknown)

Well they went ahead and did it. The NFL's Washington Team The REDSKINS gave into the pressure to change their controversial Nickname. I won't go into all the history of the name and the periodic attempts from outside entities to force the team to change the name they have held for 87 years. all that can be found on the interwebs. Along with all the Pros and Cons. Sure some people are now not offended but now a different group of people have been offended and some angered.

I will say that I am far from happy about the whole thing. I've been a life-long fan of the team, growing up with an older brother who was a super true blue fan, even my father who wasn't much of a sports fan enjoyed watching the occasional Redskins game on the telly and kept track of them during the season from time to time (mostly I think to please his fan family). What ticks me off the most is it appears to be that the owners were being blackmailed by FedEx one of their biggest financial supporters, investors and others. The delivery service sent a letter saying basically "Change the name or move to another stadium", they have about 7 more years on the stadium's lease so that isn't really one of the pressing issues. Also several big named merchandise retailers such as Amazon, Target and Walmart to name a few have pulled all Redskins merchandise from their shelves and have stopped selling them.

A couple of weeks after announcing that the name was going to be changed and the old name dropped the team now has a temporary name for the 2020 season "The Washington Football Team". They will keep the maroon and gold colors, but will be logoless. The helmets will be plain maroon with large gold numbers on the sides. Apparently they will have a permanent as yet unannounced new name and logo starting in the 2021 season.

I guess to a non-fan the best analogy would be if the high school you and your siblings graduated from, maybe even one of your parents and their siblings graduated from as well, was forced to change their mascot's name and/or even the entire school name. That is how it has affected me. After several generations of history.  It just "always was the way it was". It is part of the fandom intangibles. You don't know exactly what it is unless you have it. Even then it seems to be different for every fan.

As a fan of the old team I am not in the mood to attempt to become a fan of whatever the new team will be. Collecting cards for this year/season will be bittersweet. I'm not sure what I will do for next season. Do I stay with the team trading group I am a part of once the new team is established and cards baring the new team name and logo are made? A big part of me doesn't want to. 

OK rant over for now here are some historic DC Football cards that are sure to offend some people.

Lets start with one of my fave QBs of ALL-TIME Sonny Jurgensen. This one is from 1991 a special Quarterbacks set. I chose to show it because of it's original old school looks, especially the back pic with the original arrow helmet design (not the 1990s retro version)

1991 Quarterback Legends: 24 Sonny Jurgensen Washington Redskins

These next two cards I picked to show are of the same Player Jim Lachey. Both are very cool photos the first is a portrait from the 1991 Pro Set Football set, 

1991 Pro Set Football: 381 Jim Lachey Washington Redskins

Next Card. Check out the cool up close and personal pic. I picked this card to show because of the peeling of the stripe stickers on his helmet. Thought it was very cool looking.

1991 Upper Deck Football - 102 Jim Lachey Washington Redskins

This next card I chose because of the retro looks with the airbrushing/photoshopping (or maybe it is just unbranded spring training gear). It is also close to what the "temporary" helmets of this 2020 season will look like, with the exception that the new temporary helmets will have the player's uniform number in gold on the sides.

2004 Score Football: 330 James Thrash Washington Redskins

The final card I'm showing is one of the cool retro cards from 2004 Fleer Tradition Football set. Not only is the card design retro but this was the year the Redskins were sporting an anniversary retro uniform with the Arrow Helmet and a retro looking jersey and their return to the mustard colored pants.

2004 Fleer Tradition Football: 196 LaVar Arrington Washington Redskins

*UGH Due to the recent formatting updating changes that Blogger did, on my ancient computer at home I can no longer edit posts on blogger. It just gave me a blank page, well it had part of the editing "frame" of the page but the part where content was supposed to be it was blank. An incomplete page. I think it is because of something with my outdated Chrome browser. I didn't think about checking with Firefox (or Internet Explorer) until after I had shutdown my ancient Windows XP laptop/notebook. I'll try seeing if my ancient Firefox or IE works sometime later. Probably not because I think they had problems ages ago preventing me from using them then. So I won't be able to directly upload from my laptop to Blogger. I will have to use other sites or do what I did this time and transfer the images to a thumb drive and do it old school. Not to mention I will have to use my work laptop to do all the post editing, not just some of the last minute corrections before the scheduled Noontime posting. Yeah Yeah Yeah I need to get a new up-to-date home 'puter/laptop.

Topps Now: Trump Now

In today's political madhouse drama, mostly due to Democrats fighting tooth and nail to impeach President Trump by any means possible with wild and weird ways that are by no means constitutional and some of them not entirely legal just because they hate him, it is difficult to say anything positive about President Trump without being given the third degree by somebody somewhere. If you say something negative well then you are applauded and in the running for citizen of the year.

Anyway I decided to get a couple of Topps Now cards that feature President Trump. These cards show Trump receiving a customized jersey from the World Series Champions. Sure there are two Barack Obama cards that are similar maybe more. However there have been many athletes and full teams that have declined the White House invitation to meet with the President specifically President Trump after winning their sports most prestigious trophy. No matter what they claim declining to go to the White House to be honored as a team for winning your sport's championship because of who POTUS is, is a political decision and the fact is a great majority of people hate Donald Trump. When Obama was in the White House there were a few players that were no shows but not entire teams. In basketball the Golden State Warriors made it clear they would not make the trip to the White House because of Trump so Trump uninvited them. The Warriors visited the African American Museum instead. I'll just leave that statement to say what it will. These Trump cards are proof that there are some teams that have made the annual trip to the White House during his administration and continued the tradition and honor.

Usually on these trips the team presents the President with a customized jersey with his name on the back and the number one, or the number President he is (45 in Trump's case), or in the case of the card with the Astros the last two digits of the championship year.

On to the cards for this post. Both are Topps Now cards I got them from Ebay on Monday 23 Apr 2018.

The first is from 2017 and celebrates the Chicago Cubs historic 2016 World Series win. They presented President trump with a customized Cubs jersey with the number 45.The card is number 308 I got it for $5.99 plus $4.49 shipping.

The second card is a 2018 Topps Now number ST-9 and celebrates the Houston Astros 2017 World Series win they presented Trump with an Astros number 17 jersey. I got this card for $6.25 plus $1.35 shipping. The Astros card is an odd one since it doesn't say anything about the event on the back.

For further reading on the tradition of a championship team visiting the White House:
Why White House visits by champions are a U.S. tradition - ESPN (6 Mar 2016)
How Did Athletes Visiting the President at the White House Become a Tradition? - Rolling Stone (9 Feb 2017)
The traditional White House visit began with the 1924 Washington Senators - Washington Post (28 Feb 2018)

ACK! I've Got Nothing Of A Post

ACK!
Once again  have let a month slip by me and have to rush to get a post in before the end of the month to meet my own personal posting quota of at least one post a month. Even if it is a quick and dirty one. Well I do have a few things I really want to post but my damn procrastination of doing the necessary scanning for them prevents me from making those posts. Some of them are partly drafted up just waiting for their scans dontcha know.

In the quick and especially dirty. There is the world of politics. This being an election year and the choices we have are not very enjoyable. That reminds me I need to look out for the latest version of these things.

Since 1972 every election year there has been at least one company that has put out a deck of Parody playing cards that feature the popular political figures of the day. They are called Politicards. Somewhere around here I had mentioned the originals. Since this is a quick and dirty post I am not going to go hunting for my past post that barely mentioned the Original 1972 deck. My "Politicards" label should lead you to it.  To the best of my knowledge I have each of the decks except for this current 2016 set.  Which I think they went super cheesy on this year with making kid versions of the politico caricatures and calling it "PolitiKids".

This was just a quick and dirty way to slip in a card I had scanned at one time but apparently haven't posted about. Due mostly to discussing this card on a trading card forum for some all out bring em out drag em down throwdown contest I came in 3rd or 4th or something.

2012 Politicards - Queen of Diamonds Sarah Palin

Mayor Dave Bing 1975-76 Topps Basketball

1975-76 Topps Basketball

Dave Bing - Detroit Pistons

Here is a basketball card I've had since my childhood. As I said in my post about my Phil Chenier RC yesterday (well actually just a few minutes ago I'm scheduling these posts at a later time) I don't follow basketball anymore, but when I did the man on this card was one of my fave players. In 1975 he played for my fave homie team the Washington Bullets. I saw him play a few games during his career with the Bullets from 1975-'77. Not many but a few in fact at one game a friend and I attended we got to the "Cap Center" a little early and got to watch the warm-ups/shooting practice (or whatever basketball calls "batting practice") and got a close up look at some of the players including Dave. The Capital Centre was located in Landover, MD later renamed US Air Arena but I will always know it as the Cap Center. Sadly it no longer exists.

OH by the way Mr. Bing is now the Mayor of Detroit. When he was elected or started his campaign I blogged about it at my regular blog in the post titled "The Politics of Sports".

*A Homie team is the team located in your home city/town or area that you root for so calling them my "fave homie" team is a bit redundant. It gets the point across anyway.