Chuck Muncie

As my time as a Chargers fan approaches its end (yeah, I don't think my loyalty will carryover to the Los Angeles Chargers of Carson), the direction of my football collection is up in the air. I suppose I can still celebrate days-gone-by with old cards. I'll still enjoy picking up cards of LaDainian Tomlinson, for example. But my heart won't totally be in it. Not that I've really followed the team much for the past 5 years or so anyways.

But cool vintage football cards, sure, still a place for them in my collection for now. This post is just to show off a couple Chuck Muncie cards.

Gotta love this card! Athletes with distinctive eyewear are easy to be a fan of, aren't they? (Chris Sabo, Kent Tekulve, et al.) The glasses and the facial hair would make him a stylish hipster of today. I think he'd fit in the band TV on the Radio just fine.

Muncie's heyday was before my time, so I wasn't familiar with him beyond a couple cards that made their way into my collection. But I researched it a bit (Wikipedia), and his is an interesting story. Essentially, he was an outstanding player with his career brought down by drug addiction, eventually leading to homelessness and prison. But he redeemed himself later in life, doing lots of good in the world, such as starting a nonprofit organization and working with troubled kids. He died in 2013 at the age of 60.

I went looking for an auto of his to pick up and found he had one in 2013 Archives Football (hey, same design as the card up top!). I set an eBay search waiting for one at a good price, and a few weeks later, this one popped up cheap. Got out the door with it for $5.80. (Not sure why the scan makes it look like the lower right corner is bent. Maybe a dog hair or something.)

Thanks for reading.