Card: 1966 Philadelphia Card #38

Team/Position: Chicago Bears / Halfback

Cost: About 90 Bucks

Born in Wichita and educated at KU, the Kansas Comet was the only fitting nickname for a player of Sayers’ speed and fluidity. For all of Gale Sayers’ greatness, his Achilles heel ended up being his knees.  In this day and age, runningbacks routinely undergo surgery to fix their torn cruciate ligaments and are back up to speed in a year and a half.  However, Sayers wasn’t nearly as lucky and knee injuries robbed him of his greatness, forcing him into early retirement.

Sayers’ first injury resulted from San Francisco’s Kermit Alexander hitting him low during one of his patented cuts.  Sayers’ knee was toast as all four ligaments were compromised. Sayers’ rehabilitation from the injury was detailed in the movie Brian’s Song ( here too, I guess) along with Brian Piccolo’s battle with cancer.  Sayers later injured his other knee and was eventually forced to retire after only six seasons in the NFL, despite comeback attempts in both ’71 and ’72.

Even in such a short career, Gale Sayers made enough of an impression to become the youngest player ever elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame at age 40.

What Made Sayers Great?

Seriously, this is like asking what makes bacon so damn delicious; The Answer: Everything!

Sayers was drafted in the first round of both the NFL and AFL entry drafts, but decided to head for Chicago rather than the big-bucks the AFL had to offer.  Sayers finished 1965 as the unanimous selection for Rookie of the Year after posting gaudy numbers in rushing, receiving and returning.  Sayers’ 22 touchdowns in his 1965 rookie-season still stands as an NFL rookie record.

Gale Sayers and Barry Sanders will forever be linked by their terrific stop-on-a-dime cuts and highlight reel runs, but people too often forget the dreadful conditions that Sayers ran in compared to Sanders.  Sayers was making the kind of cuts in the slop of Wrigley field that Barry Sanders was making in pristine conditions of the Pontiac Dome.  Sayers more than likely would have destroyed his knee tendons by himself had he run on Astroturf, but that’s hardly the point.  By the time the Bears had moved to the Astroturf of Soldier Field, Sayers was a man without knees or any of the skills that once made him great.

Gale Sayers is the epitome of an “Did He Just Do That?” player and where you rank him on your all-time list really depends on how heavily you weight consistency.  I suppose Neil Young’s It’s better to burn out than to fade away line from Hey, Hey, My, My (Out of the Blue) rings true with Sayers.

Who knows how many yards Gale Sayers would have accumulated if he’d stayed healthy, but he’d never have the mysterious quality that transcends sports and begins to enter into modern-american folklore.

What’s Sayers Upto Nowadays?

As is the case with most of the retired greats, Sayers is using his celebrity and influence to help kids. The Sayers family is a strong supporter of the Cradle Foundation, and most recently built the Gale Sayers center in Chicago.  Kansas University is also bringing Sayers on board as Director of Fundraising for Special Projects.

As always, Wikipedia does a good job summing everything up.

The Card

The Card’s pretty nice as it’s got Sayers in the Heisman-pose pasted over what appears to be Wrigley Field, but there’s nothing overly special.  As was the case with Jimmy Brown, the next offering was my favourite card.

1967 Philadelphia (pictured left) used the same picture of Sayers, but zoomed in and added a yellow border.  BAM!

After that, I think we’re on to the 1969 Topps offering which uses a fairly badass magenta background (or pink for those who prefer the simpler times.)

The 1969 Card can be had for as little as about 10 bucks on the eBay, and it’s pretty freakin’ badass if you ask me.

Both Panini (Donruss) and Upper Deck have produced Sayer’s certified autographs in the past couple of years, all of which can be had at a fairly reasonable price:

2008 UD Exquisite Sayers

The 2008 Upper Deck Exquisite series is my favourite with most of the legendary signatures coming in this terrific gold paint pen and double jersey combination.  These can be had for about the same price as a Sayers rookie card on eBay.