In a previous post, I noted that Topps used the same 1958 Packers’ team photo for its team cards in 1959-63. Here are custom versions of the 1960-63 team cards, using the actual team photo for that year. Although the 1961 Fleer set did not create team cards, I have included a custom version of what that could have looked like. To see the real Topps cards, visit the Vintage Football Card Gallery link on the right side of this page.
Topps 1960
Topps 1961
Fleer 1961
Topps 1962
Topps 1963
When the Packers and Bears meet at Lambeau Field this evening, it will be the 192nd game between the two rival franchises, including two playoff games and the 1921 game when the Bears were known as the Staleys. The overall record stands at Packers 92, Bears 93 and six ties. Should Thanksgiving prove to have a happy ending in Green Bay, the Packers will have drawn even with the Bears for the first time since October 21, 1933. For 82 years, the Bears have held the advantage. The only period Green Bay has been even or ahead in the series was from September 28, 1930 until October 22, 1933, when Chicago beat Green Bay 10-7 with 10 fourth quarter points.
Curly Lambeau continually found himself outcoached by Halas throughout the remainder of the 1930s, and in the 1940s was increasingly outmanned. When Vince Lombardi took over in 1959, the Packers record in the rivalry was 25-48-6. At this first all-time low point, Green Bay was 23 games under .500. Over the next 16 years, Lombardi, Bengtson and Devine posted a 23-9 mark against Chicago, but then Starr, Gregg and Infante reversed that to 9-23 in the ensuing 17 years (no games in 1982).
However, since Ron Wolf installed his coach and organizational framework in 1992, the Packers record against the Bears is 35-13. (Although he was hired on November 27, 1991, we can’t hang that December 1991 loss to Chicago on Wolf.) The following two tables give the breakdown for Packer starting quarterbacks (since 1950) and head coaches (since 1921) against the Bears. The three quarterbacks most responsible for turning the series around will be present tonight. Go Pack Go.
| Starting Quarterback | W | L | % | |
| John Hadl | 2 | 0 | 100.0% | |
| Zeke Bratkowski | 1 | 0 | 100.0% | |
| Don Horn | 1 | 0 | 100.0% | |
| Aaron Rodgers | 13 | 3 | 81.3% | |
| Scott Hunter | 4 | 1 | 80.0% | |
| Brett Favre | 22 | 10 | 68.8% | |
| Bart Starr | 15 | 10 | 60.0% | |
| Don Majkowski | 2 | 2 | 50.0% | |
| Jerry Tagge | 1 | 1 | 50.0% | |
| Lamar McHan | 1 | 1 | 50.0% | |
| David Whitehurst | 2 | 3 | 40.0% | |
| Lynn Dickey | 3 | 7 | 30.0% | |
| Tobin Rote | 3 | 11 | 21.4% | |
| Blair Kiel | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | |
| Jim Zorn | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | |
| Carlos Brown | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | |
| Don Milan | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | |
| Mike Tomczak | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | |
| John Roach | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | |
| Anthony Dilweg | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | |
| Randy Wright | 0 | 6 | 0.0% | |
| 70 | 62 | 53.0% | ||
| Coach | W | L | T | % |
| Curly Lambeau | 21 | 35 | 5 | 38.5% |
| Gene Ronzani | 2 | 5 | 1 | 31.3% |
| Lisle Blackbourn | 2 | 6 | 0 | 25.0% |
| Scooter McLean | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Vince Lombardi | 13 | 5 | 0 | 72.2% |
| Phil Bengtson | 4 | 2 | 0 | 66.7% |
| Dan Devine | 6 | 2 | 0 | 75.0% |
| Bart Starr | 6 | 10 | 0 | 37.5% |
| Forrest Gregg | 1 | 7 | 0 | 12.5% |
| Lindy Infante | 2 | 6 | 0 | 25.0% |
| Mike Holmgren | 12 | 2 | 0 | 85.7% |
| Ray Rhodes | 1 | 1 | 0 | 50.0% |
| Mike Sherman | 8 | 4 | 0 | 66.7% |
| Mike McCarthy | 14 | 6 | 0 | 70.0% |
| 92 | 93 | 6 | 49.7% |
The 1960 NFL draft was the last for scout Jack Vainisi and the first for Vince Lombardi, but it was not a very good one. The best pick, Iowa halfback Bob Jeter, came in round two, but instead signed in Canada with the BC Lions. The third and fourth round picks had been traded away, so following top pick Tom Moore, the next pick to make the team was fifth rounder Dale Hackbart from Wisconsin. Those traded draft picks had brought value in 1959, though. Quarterback Lamar McHan was acquired for the third rounder and Hall of Famer Henry Jordan for the fourth rounder.
The only other pick to make the squad was Paul Winslow, a halfback from North Carolina Central. Andy Cvercko, a guard from Northwestern drafted in the fifth round of the 1959 draft, also joined the team in 1960 after spending the prior season in the injured list. Finally, three free agents stuck in Green Bay in 1960: Willie Wood, a quarterback from USC; Ken Iman, a center/linebacker from Southeast Missouri State and Dick Pesonen, a defensive back from Minnesota-Duluth.
Winslow had one moment of glory as a Packer when he blocked a punt and fell on it in the end zone for a touchdown in the the season finale Western Conference clincher against the Rams in Los Angeles. Winslow left a year later in the Vikings expansion draft, while Cvercko was traded to the second-year Cowboys in 1961. Journeymen Hackbart and Pesonen would each play in the league for several seasons, but not for the Packers. Ken Iman was a talented reserve for four years in Green Bay, who was sent to Los Angeles as payment for Zeke Bratkowski in 1964 and started for the Rams at center for a decade.
Future Hall of Famer Willie Wood ultimately would prove to be the gem of the 1960 rookie class, but as a freshman, he struggled when he was inserted into the lineup at cornerback against the Colts and was nothing special returning punts. He would emerge as a star safety a year later.
Top pick Tom Moore, a halfback from Vanderbilt, was destined to be a reserve and kick returner for his entire Packer career, but played well right from the start. As a rookie, Moore averaged 5.3 yards per carry backing up Paul Hornung and led the league with a 33.1 kick return average. He was the Packers top rookie in 1960.
Today, November 22, 2015, the Packers meet the Vikings in Minnesota with first place in the Central Division at stake. This game also will mark the third time the Packers have met the Vikings on the campus of the University of Minnesota. The Vikings beat the Packers 19-7 on October 5, 1969 when Metropolitan Stadium was being used for a Twins playoff game. Last year, the teams met on November 23rd, and the Packers prevailed 24-21. This year will mark the final time they meet on campus because the Vikings move into their new dome in 2016.
Before the Vikings came into the NFL as an expansion franchise in 1961, the Packers relied heavily on talent from the University of Minnesota. 44 Minnesota Gophers have played for the Packers, and 28 of them played for Green Bay under Curly Lambeau. Lambeau liked the local university so much that he made a Gopher his number one draft choice four of five years from 1939-43 with Larry Buhler, Hal Van Every, Urban Odson and Dick WIldung being the picks. The only year he skipped, 1941, he grabbed a Gopher in round two with Bob Paffrath, who never played with Green Bay. Wildung was the only one to have a sterling Packer career, though. Since then, Green Bay has selected a Minnesota player in the first round three times: 1950 Clayton Tonnemaker, 1966 Gale Gillingham and 1990 Darrell Thompson. While the first two were All-Pros, Thompson was a bust. The last Minnesota player to don Green and Gold was Tony Carter in 2002.
When the Vikings came into the league in 1961, they selected three Packers in the expansion draft: halfback Paul Winslow, defensive tackle Ken Beck and defensive back Dick Pesonen. Pesonen, who hailed from the University of Minnesota at Duluth was the only one to make the initial Vikings squad. The other two players never again appeared in the NFL, although Beck did play in Canada.
Custom cards of the expansion draft players.
In the football card sets for the 1950s, Bowman never produced team cards, while Topps just did so for 1956, 1957 and 1958. Topps used the previous year’s team photo but colorize them to resemble uniforms the Packers did not wear. In fact, Topps liked the 1958 team photo they used in 1959 so much, they reused it in 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963, at which time they lost the NFL contract to Philadelphia Gum.
So what I’ve done here is create Packer team cards from 1951-59; the 1950 Bowmans were too small to use for a team card. I have used the current year’s team photo for each team card, although I did cheat in 1955 and use the Topps colorization of the 1955 photo that Topps used on its 1956 card.
I colorized the 1951, 1954, 1957, 1958 and 1959 team photos for these custom cards.
1959 was the year of the big change in Packers history. Vince Lombardi signed on as the team’s Coach/GM on February 2, 1959 and would bring in 12 new Packers for his first season in Green Bay. However, only five newcomers were rookies, and only three of those rookies were selected in that year’s NFL draft. Lombardi had nothing to do with the 1959 draft that was held on two days: rounds one to four on December 2, 1958 and rounds five to 30 on January 21, 1959.
The 1959 draft was probably Jack Vainisi’s weakest in his tenure. First round pick quarterback Randy Duncan of Iowa signed with the BC Lions in Canada rather than Green Bay. Had the Packers decided on Iowa Coach Forrest Evashevski as their new head man, Duncan may have signed with the Packers, but ultimately losing Duncan was not a loss. He tossed 25 touchdowns and 38 interceptions in two years up north, before signing on as the backup quarterback for the Dallas Texans of the AFL in 1961 and completed just 37% of his passes in his last season in pro football.
Second round pick Alex Hawkins, a free-spirited halfback from South Carolina, did not get along Lombardi and was sold to the Colts before the season began. Max McGee and Paul Hornung lost a potential wingman for their night life escapades that day, and Alex would go on to become the first kicking teams’ captain in the NFL.
Boyd Dowler, the team’s third round pick from Colorado, was the only gem of the draft. A single-wing quarterback for the Buffalos, he led the team in both passing and receiving as a senior. Lombardi converted Boyd to flanker, and he would go on to be named to the All-Decade team for the 1960s. The other two draftees to make the Packers were 27th round halfback from Ball State, Timmy Brown, who was cut after some troubles holding on to the ball in the opener against the Bears, and 19th round defensive back Bill Butler from Chattanooga, who was waived in August but re-signed to replace Brown in week two. Fifth round Northwestern guard Andy Cvercko spent the season on the injured list. Brown would prove to be an excellent scat back for the Eagles in the 1960s.
The team’s other two rookies were drafted by other teams. Tight end A.D. Williams was drafted in 1956 by the Rams, but spent three years in the military before catching on with the Packers as a free agent. Texas A&M defensive tackle Ken Beck was drafted by the Cardinals and acquired for a 10th round pick.
Dowler was the only one to have an impact. Boyd caught 32 passes for 549 yards and four touchdowns and was named NFL Rookie of the Year; he was the Packers’ top rookie for 1959.
For nine years now, John Kuhn has been a popular figure in Green Bay despite not being in the position to accumulate yards as a modern day fullback who gets on the field almost solely to block. 80 years ago, the Packers had another popular blocking back, albeit 55 pounds lighter than Kuhn, who lasted nine years with the team – Hank Bruder. Bruder played both offense and defense, but it’s funny how similar the meager offensive statistics of the two are as of this writing:
G AT Rush YPA TD Catches Yards YPC TD Scrimmage Yards
Kuhn 131 189 577 3.1 14 78 529 6.8 8 1,106
Bruder 98 265 778 2.9 7 31 487 15.7 6 1,265
Bruder was known as “Hard Luck Hank” at Northwestern, where he injured the nerves in his hip, tore knee ligaments, broke his leg and contracted smallpox. Still, he was team captain as a senior and an All-Conference back who signed with Curtly Lambeau in 1931. The Milwaukee Sentinel said of Bruder before the Packers broke training camp that September, “Hank won’t set the league afire with his plunging or his open field work, but he’s big and tough and ought to be the high class, rough and tumble blocker that the Packers have needed.”
After a 14-10 win over the Giants in New York on November 22, 1931, the New York Times raved, ”In the second half the Giants defense began cracking under the pile driver pounding of Hank Bruder of Northwestern University fame. Bruder’s terrific punch came into play both offensively and defensively and it was his headlong dive into the Giant phalanx that turned the tide the other way.”
The New York World Telegram added, “The second Packer backfield, with Russ Saunders and Hank Bruder doing the ball carrying, was instrumental in producing the winning touchdown…there was no holding the lightning fast Saunders or the hard plunging Bruder.”
In 1936, Curly Lambeau extolled Hank to the Milwaukee Journal, “He is a great pass receiver, is smart on defense, a good punter, a smashing tackler, a good passer and a real hard blocker. He has no weaknesses. He is the most valuable man on the team.” Perhaps a bit over the top, but Bruder was a solid team player.
For his part, Bruder piped up, “I like to carry the ball and, like everyone else, I like the write-ups. But I like most to win those football games. I never knew how a lineman played or how he felt until I became a blocking quarter[back]. But I like to play football. I like the body contacts, like to ‘hit them where they live,’ like to get the other guy. I would play in the line if they would let me. In fact, a couple of times I have asked for a chance to play guard.”
Hank played on championship teams in 1931, 1936 and 1939 in Green Bay. He was traded to Pittsburgh for guard Lew Midler in 1940 and broke his ankle late in the year against the Giants, essentially ending his career. A few years later, tailback Cecil Isbell lamented, “I hadn’t been up in Green Bay long when I saw Lambeau go around the locker room and tell players like Herber and Gantenbein and Bruder that they were all done with the Packers…I vowed it would never happen to me.”
Three colorized custom card designs for Hank Bruder.
On the Packers’ website, the team lists 31 players who were on the active roster in a season, but never appeared in a game. The only one prior to 1964 is Don Miller, a back from the University of Wisconsin signed as a free agent and on the roster for parts of 1941 and 1942 before he went into the service.
Not surprisingly, more than half, 16, were quarterbacks. Other marginal players are likely to at least get into a game on one of the kicking teams. Third quarterbacks are only there for emergencies, though. With the exception of Mark Brunell, we can be happy we didn’t get to see these guys line up under center any more than necessary:
1964 — Dennis Claridge (1965)
1974 – Dean Carlson
1978 — Neil Graff
1980 – Mark Miller
1985 – Joe Shield (1986)
1985 – Vince Ferragamo (1986)
1987 – John McCarthy
1989 — Blair Kiel (1988, 1990, 1991)
1990 – Mike Norseth
1992, 1994 – Ty Detmer (1993, 1995)
1993 – Mark Brunell (1994)
1998 – Rick Mirer
1999 – Aaron Brooks
2008 – Brian Brohm
2010-11 – Graham Harrell (2012)
None of the quarterbacks prior to 1990, had a Packer card, but we can fix that we these custom cards:
The 1958 Packers’ draft was probably scout Jack Vainisi’s finest. With two Hall of Famers, the Greatest-Guard-of-the-NFL’s-first-50-Years-who-can’t-get-into-Canton and an All-Pro linebacker, this draft laid the foundation for the team’s turnaround under Lombardi a year later. In 1958, though, Scooter McLean was the team’s new coach, and success looked very far away.
Vainisi hit on seven picks over the first six rounds altogether, although not all seven made the Packers. First rounder from Michigan State Dan Currie and third rounder from Illinois Ray Nitschke both moved into the starting lineup at linebacker as rookies, but had a lot of learning to do before rising to All-Pro and Hall of Fame levels, respectively. Fourth round guard from Idaho Jerry Kramer also displayed great potential and forced himself into the starting lineup as the season progressed. Fifth rounder Joe Francis struggled as a passer, converting from college single-wing tailback at Oregon State to T formation quarterback in Green Bay.
Two other high picks were dispatched on September 23, five days before the season began, and both decisions were mistakes. Third round kick returner from NC State Dick Christy was traded to Pittsburgh for a 1959 fifth round pick that turned into guard Andy Cvercko, as McLean chose to keep slight Oregon free agent punt returner Jim Shanley instead. That same day, McLean cut sixth round pick from Howard Payne University, Ken Gray, to keep veteran guards Hank Bullough and Jim Salsbury. Shanley, Salsbury and Bullough would all be out of football by 1959. Dick Christy twice led the AFL in punt returns for the New York Titans, while Ken Gray spent a dozen years with the Cardinals, making six Pro Bowls and drawing All-Pro notice seven times. As with John Nisby in 1957, had the Packers kept Gray, they probably would not have traded for Fuzzy Thurston in 1959.
The Packers’ sixth rookie, its second round draft pick, got off to the best start of the group, although that start was delayed until late in the season. LSU fullback Jim Taylor only carried the ball eight times in the first ten games of the year but was finally given a chance to start on the team’s season-ending West Coast road trip and gained 238 yards on 44 carries against the Rams and 49ers, an average gain of 5.4 yards. Future Hall of Famer Jim Taylor was the Packers’ top rookie of 1958.
When writing about the rookie class of 1956, I mentioned that there was more to say about black defensive end Emery Barnes, despite his only lasting two games as a Packer. Barnes led a full and interesting life. Born in New Orleans in 1929, he moved with his family to Oregon at age 12. A few years later, fully grown to 6’6”, Emery earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Oregon while starring at track and football. He was an alternate to the 1952 U.S. Olympic team as a high jumper and was team captain on the gridiron for his senior year.
Drafted in the 18th round by Green Bay in 1954, Barnes first was inducted into the military for a two-year hitch. He finally reported to Green Bay in 1956 and made the team as a backup defensive end, but was cut after week two. Feeling that his biracial children would have an easier life in Canada, Barnes became a Canadian citizen and tried out with the BC Lions in 1957, but suffered a severe leg injury that sidelined him for 18 months. After a failed try out with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 1959, Barnes was out of football for three years while he attained a post-graduate degree in social work. In 1962, though, he earned a spot on the defensive line of the BC Lions and appeared in 30 games for the Lions over the next three years.
After football, Barnes followed a path in social work that led to him serving in the British Columbia legislature from 1972-96, and he rose to the job of Speaker in 1994. His ex-wife, Laverne, wrote a book called The Plastic Orgasm in 1971 that served as an angry expose of racism, exploitation and drug use in the CFL. Barnes died at age 68 in 1998 and a park in Vancouver was named in his honor in 2003.
Some obituaries of Barnes allude to his confronting racism in his short time with the Packers, and I found this interview with him in the spring 1987 issue of Canadian Parliamentary Review that goes into detail about Barnes’ recollections. First, he relates a familiar tale from the 1950s’ American South of black players not being allowed to eat or stay with the white players when the team played a preseason game in North Carolina (September 8, 1955) and asserts that the fact that his white teammates did not stick up for the black players is what bothered him most. He then describes a particular incident:
One day a teammate, Dave “Hog” Hanner, a real southern cracker, knocked on the door of my room. He said he saw me ignore a little white boy who had asked for my autograph. He told me never to do that again and knocked me back against the wall with one punch after another. I went down. That touched off one of the deadliest fights of my life. We were both big and strong and went at it for what seemed like an eternity.
By the time I finally had him subdued, I was so furious I started to carry him over to the stairway with the idea of tossing him about five flights through the stairwell. I might have killed him if some teammates, both white and black, had not stopped me.
When we got back to Green Bay, I had a meeting with the coaches. They told me I did not fit into their plans and they did not have to draw me a picture. As I was packing to leave, I got a note from Hanner asking me to see him in the club training room. I ignored it but [Ralph] Goldston said that sometimes you have to do unpleasant things. I went not knowing what to expect. Hanner was friendly, but in a serious frame of mind. He told me I was one hell of a man to stand up for what I believed and that he had learned something. He wished me well. But what a high price to pay for those few words.
What really happened is anyone’s guess since we only have one man’s remembrance, 30 years later. However, a couple of problems with the story are readily apparent. Barnes’ friend Ralph Goldston was cut by the Packers on September 10, two days after the preseason match in Winston-Salem. The regular season started on September 25, with the player limit at 35. Barnes was seen to be on the bubble at the time, but fellow defensive end Gene Knutson was cut instead. Two weeks later on October 8, the roster limit was reduced to 33, and Barnes was cut. If Ralph Goldston told Barnes to talk to Hanner, then the alleged incident happened a month before and clearly was not a direct reason for Barnes being dropped. The details don’t quite add up.
Assuming there was a knockdown-dragout between the two men, can we be certain there was any racial animus to it? Barnes describes Hanner as “a real Southern cracker,” and the 1956 Arkansas farm boy must have appeared that way to Emery. However, Hawg is one of the longest serving and most beloved figures in Packer history. Vince Lombardi, who tolerated no prejudice, not only coached Hanner for six years, but then added him to the coaching staff. If there were a fight and if it were about refusing a white boy’s request for an autograph, perhaps the “white” part was irrelevant, and Hanner was simply upset about Barnes ignoring a young Packer fan.
packers past perfect 