This site is
dedicated to those who played and coached in America's professional sports
during the time when men played and built teams for the love of their
game. The site is intended as a visual tribute the teams of every season
and era -- and for that reason the site is built around the teams, not the
individual players. This site also seeks
to preserve the memories of those places where their feats occurred -- the
ballparks and stadiums that served as the backdrop for all the memorable
moments that define the history of our games.
My goal is to make the history of these sports come alive by putting faces with the names, especially those more obscure players who didn't have Hall of Fame careers or featured on "Greatest players" shows, but who nonetheless were an important part of their teams. My hobby is historical sports gaming (I am a long-time Strat-o-matic player), and I have collected sports cards and memorabilia since I was eight years old. While this site will likely be of special interest to those who share my hobbies, ultimately, my hope is that the site will inspire millions more people to enjoy reliving the greatest times and moments of America's favorite games.
Please note that Yesterday's Game is not intended as a commercial site, nothing is sold here. However, links are also provided on every page of the site to others who share the goal of preserving the history of American sports -- including many who sell collectible products.
Here's what you'll find on this site:
¨ Complete sets of cards for every player on every team that is covered, both in major league baseball and pro football. This requires creating many "virtual cards" for players who either didn't have a card in that year, or else were not pictured with their concurrent team. For baseball, this is relatively easy since most players had their own baseball cards, and for the ones who don't, high quality photos of most are available on the internet. For pro football it is a more daunting task, because only an average of ten players per team per season are pictured on cards, (out of a roster of 40-45) and historical images are a bit harder to come by.
¨ Historical Images and Replications of America's sports palaces -- High quality images that bring out the detail in the stadiums and ballparks as fans remember them during each era.
¨ High-quality images of the actual sports cards produced in the years covered -- most of them from my own vast collection.
This site is intended to be a co-operative effort -- those who have produced these items, either professionally or just for their own enjoyment are welcome to become contributors to this site. Additionally, if some have the vision and ability to assist in developing and maintaining this site, your assistance will be most welcome.
Inspiration for this site came from many sources who are already doing their part to preserve America's rich sports history. Chief among them are:
Sports-reference.com -- Looking for sports statistics? This site doesn't provide them because the folks at sports-reference.com have already written the book- literally! This is the most complete sports reference site on the internet, statistics are available by league, team, player or year for every major American sport. On every page of Yesterday's Game dedicated to a league or team, there will be a direct link to their statistics on sports-reference.com!
"Dressed to the Nines" and the "Gridiron Uniform Database" -- Baseball historian Mark Okonnen began ground-breaking research in his project to identify every major league uniform ever used, it became a book "Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century", and by the end of the 90's as the internet took off, Marc's work was inducted in to the baseball Hall of Fame, where it became the online presentation "Dressed to the Nines". Baseball historians working have now completed and updated this collection. The folks at Gridiron Uniform database have taken that work to an even higher level. creating higher resolution and painstaking research to uncover the information about what every NFL team was wearing in every season and every game. They are now starting to work on a more detailed baseball uniform site also.
"Chris Creamer's sports logos" --Sportslogos.net systematically presents every logo and many other graphics of pro and college sports teams. Site has been around since 1997 and has gotten bigger and better as it has grown.
My vision is for "Yesterday's Game" to be for sports cards and graphics what these sites have done for stats, uniforms and logos: Create a systematic, on-demand site where those interested in sports history and sports gaming can go to find the best available graphics with one stop.
There are also numerous blogs devoted to this subject, and many of them have served as great inspirations for Yesterday's Game, here are some of the best:
Baseball:
Baseball-Fever.com -- Baseball's foremost discussion forum site. Very knowledgeable fans and interesting historical discussions and remembrances, many images are also uploaded to this site along with the discussions.
Baseball Birthdays -- This forum site is dedicated to preserving photos of all American baseball players -- it has been instrumental in preserving and capturing photos available on the internet and making them available, which in turn has helped the dream of creating quality cards for every player much more realistic.
Bobw's Custom Cards: Bob W has been creating custom cards using Photoshop for numerous years. They are posted on his weekly blog, and served as an inspiration for me to start making cards also several years ago.
Football:
Remember the AFL Incredibly thorough database, photos and articles on the American Football League.
There are many others too numerous to mention in this introduction to "Yesterday's Game" but many more will be linked on the MLB, NFL and various team sites.
If you are interested in becoming a contributor to this site, please email: yesterdaysgame@sbcglobal.net.
It would take me forever to do justice to all of the years of major league baseball and the NFL by myself. My primary interest is between 1964 and 1977 for both sports, but it would take a long time even to get to all the seasons within that 14-year period. For 2014, my goals are to present cards and images for the 1966 through 1968 baseball seasons (beginning March 2nd), and the 1967 and 1970 football seasons (beginning August 15th). If others enjoy collecting and creating cards and images and would like to help, please email me. There are numerous opportunities to help build this collaborative site,
¨ Contributor: If you enjoy doing virtual cards using concurrent topps designs, or would like to learn how, we need help in creating the master sets for all sports. Pick the years or teams that interest you, or volunteer for assignments. Do you design and produce your own set of virtual custom cards for various teams or leagues? You can post them here, we will create a special section for these!
¨ Photo Contributor: Don't want to do the Photoshop thing and make virtual cards and stadiums but have some awesome photos you would like to contribute? Please pass them along to us and we'll make sure that they take their place among the most awesome sports graphics on the web!
¨ Section manager -- Within each sport, we need volunteers who will manage the pages for a specific time period for each sport.
¨ Sport webmaster: I am primarily interested in major league baseball and NFL football, but would love to see this site expand to include the other major professional team sports, primarily hockey and basketball. Also NCAA college football and basketball. However these parts of the site would need to be built and maintained by others.
¨ Assistant webmaster -- need to have managed your own public website/blog site, some web-building experience would be preferential.
¨ Troll -- If you enjoy surfing the internet for certain types of old sports photos then you can also contribute those photos here to help build our site when you find them.
My goal is to make the history of these sports come alive by putting faces with the names, especially those more obscure players who didn't have Hall of Fame careers or featured on "Greatest players" shows, but who nonetheless were an important part of their teams. My hobby is historical sports gaming (I am a long-time Strat-o-matic player), and I have collected sports cards and memorabilia since I was eight years old. While this site will likely be of special interest to those who share my hobbies, ultimately, my hope is that the site will inspire millions more people to enjoy reliving the greatest times and moments of America's favorite games.
Please note that Yesterday's Game is not intended as a commercial site, nothing is sold here. However, links are also provided on every page of the site to others who share the goal of preserving the history of American sports -- including many who sell collectible products.
Here's what you'll find on this site:
¨ Complete sets of cards for every player on every team that is covered, both in major league baseball and pro football. This requires creating many "virtual cards" for players who either didn't have a card in that year, or else were not pictured with their concurrent team. For baseball, this is relatively easy since most players had their own baseball cards, and for the ones who don't, high quality photos of most are available on the internet. For pro football it is a more daunting task, because only an average of ten players per team per season are pictured on cards, (out of a roster of 40-45) and historical images are a bit harder to come by.
¨ Historical Images and Replications of America's sports palaces -- High quality images that bring out the detail in the stadiums and ballparks as fans remember them during each era.
¨ High-quality images of the actual sports cards produced in the years covered -- most of them from my own vast collection.
This site is intended to be a co-operative effort -- those who have produced these items, either professionally or just for their own enjoyment are welcome to become contributors to this site. Additionally, if some have the vision and ability to assist in developing and maintaining this site, your assistance will be most welcome.
Inspiration for this site came from many sources who are already doing their part to preserve America's rich sports history. Chief among them are:
Sports-reference.com -- Looking for sports statistics? This site doesn't provide them because the folks at sports-reference.com have already written the book- literally! This is the most complete sports reference site on the internet, statistics are available by league, team, player or year for every major American sport. On every page of Yesterday's Game dedicated to a league or team, there will be a direct link to their statistics on sports-reference.com!
"Dressed to the Nines" and the "Gridiron Uniform Database" -- Baseball historian Mark Okonnen began ground-breaking research in his project to identify every major league uniform ever used, it became a book "Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century", and by the end of the 90's as the internet took off, Marc's work was inducted in to the baseball Hall of Fame, where it became the online presentation "Dressed to the Nines". Baseball historians working have now completed and updated this collection. The folks at Gridiron Uniform database have taken that work to an even higher level. creating higher resolution and painstaking research to uncover the information about what every NFL team was wearing in every season and every game. They are now starting to work on a more detailed baseball uniform site also.
"Chris Creamer's sports logos" --Sportslogos.net systematically presents every logo and many other graphics of pro and college sports teams. Site has been around since 1997 and has gotten bigger and better as it has grown.
My vision is for "Yesterday's Game" to be for sports cards and graphics what these sites have done for stats, uniforms and logos: Create a systematic, on-demand site where those interested in sports history and sports gaming can go to find the best available graphics with one stop.
There are also numerous blogs devoted to this subject, and many of them have served as great inspirations for Yesterday's Game, here are some of the best:
Baseball:
Baseball-Fever.com -- Baseball's foremost discussion forum site. Very knowledgeable fans and interesting historical discussions and remembrances, many images are also uploaded to this site along with the discussions.
Baseball Birthdays -- This forum site is dedicated to preserving photos of all American baseball players -- it has been instrumental in preserving and capturing photos available on the internet and making them available, which in turn has helped the dream of creating quality cards for every player much more realistic.
Bobw's Custom Cards: Bob W has been creating custom cards using Photoshop for numerous years. They are posted on his weekly blog, and served as an inspiration for me to start making cards also several years ago.
Football:
Remember the AFL Incredibly thorough database, photos and articles on the American Football League.
There are many others too numerous to mention in this introduction to "Yesterday's Game" but many more will be linked on the MLB, NFL and various team sites.
If you are interested in becoming a contributor to this site, please email: yesterdaysgame@sbcglobal.net.
It would take me forever to do justice to all of the years of major league baseball and the NFL by myself. My primary interest is between 1964 and 1977 for both sports, but it would take a long time even to get to all the seasons within that 14-year period. For 2014, my goals are to present cards and images for the 1966 through 1968 baseball seasons (beginning March 2nd), and the 1967 and 1970 football seasons (beginning August 15th). If others enjoy collecting and creating cards and images and would like to help, please email me. There are numerous opportunities to help build this collaborative site,
¨ Contributor: If you enjoy doing virtual cards using concurrent topps designs, or would like to learn how, we need help in creating the master sets for all sports. Pick the years or teams that interest you, or volunteer for assignments. Do you design and produce your own set of virtual custom cards for various teams or leagues? You can post them here, we will create a special section for these!
¨ Photo Contributor: Don't want to do the Photoshop thing and make virtual cards and stadiums but have some awesome photos you would like to contribute? Please pass them along to us and we'll make sure that they take their place among the most awesome sports graphics on the web!
¨ Section manager -- Within each sport, we need volunteers who will manage the pages for a specific time period for each sport.
¨ Sport webmaster: I am primarily interested in major league baseball and NFL football, but would love to see this site expand to include the other major professional team sports, primarily hockey and basketball. Also NCAA college football and basketball. However these parts of the site would need to be built and maintained by others.
¨ Assistant webmaster -- need to have managed your own public website/blog site, some web-building experience would be preferential.
¨ Troll -- If you enjoy surfing the internet for certain types of old sports photos then you can also contribute those photos here to help build our site when you find them.