Good Old Days

As a kid going to Falcon games, one of my favorites was QB Bob Berry, who played here from 69 – 73 or so. I was 10 – 14 and was eating up Falcon football. He led them to their first winning season. He certainly wasn’t the greatest, but was usually among the league leaders in completion percentage. Went to the Pro Bowl in 1969, when Van Brocklin coached and took several Falcons. Uni-Watch had a link to photos of the 1971 starting QBs, which included Berry. He always had this double bar face mask that was comically huge in relation to his helmet. In the 1969 photo the mask is large, but in later years he got one even bigger. I searched for more photos with no luck…but did find a link to him…now a real estate agent in Colorado. I plan on writing him a short email, asking for info on his facemask.

Here’s the link...a quote from the Uni-Watch Blog...

Football historian Mark Bolding, whose excellent web site was spotlighted here two weeks ago, has added a new section to his site, focusing on starting QBs at various points in NFL history. Among the visual highlights: a good look at the Packers’ 1950 jersey; the Rams in canary yellow; the Saints wearing heavily white-outlined uni numbers (and dig all those stripes!); the Eagles’ double sleeve stripes; Joe Namath wearing a knee pad outside his pants; and the Broncos in red pants. The full section is available here. … Well, this sure didn’t take long (you can order your own here). …

This last link is a takeoff t-shirt of the D’backs new red-trimmed unis. I also spotted an error from 1971…the Saints photo link lists #14 as Billy Kilmer (who was 17). Instead, Ed Hargett was 14. Readers also deemed the red Bronco pants to be orange…though they did seem more red to me back in the days of Floyd Little.

Last night I researched 2007 schedules for SF and Oakland (and Boston). The SF web site already has the all-star game logo up, which includes a ball splashing into the Cove. The A’s site has info on their new stadium plans, which is similar to SD. On the BoSox site I checked out photos of rookie outfielder David Murphy, who was called up in September and played 20 games for the big club …only 23 ABs…hit one HR, but didn’t hit .240.