We’ve been working through the entire 1993 Action Packed Hall of Fame cards because they are a great, affordable way to cover a lot of basketball history. We have videos on the first ten “One on One” cards, the coach cards, the Larry Bird subset, and now we’re moving through the base cards. We last looked at the Slater Martin card because there’s not that many cards of him. But Bob Wanzer really doesn’t have a lot of cards. At least Slater was in ’57-58 Topps. Wanzer’s not in 1948 Bowman, he’s not in ’57 Topps, and he was retired before ’61-62 Fleer. This photo seems to be the go to for most Wanzer cards by the way. Both Donruss and Panini used it for some cards post-year 2000.
We’re going way back in basketball history for this one. Back to a time when a 6-foot, 172 pound guard wasn’t as rare as it is today. Back when the BAA and NBL were merging to form the NBA. Back when there wasn’t a draft and the Rochester Royals was scooping up military men for their team. Wanzer was a marine involved in the occupation of Guam, Bob Davies and Red Holzman were coming from the Navy, all finding their way to the Rochester Royals. We’re going back to when we first saw a player shoot better than 90% from the free throw line. Yes, that was Bob Wanzer and that information is part of this card.
But now for the most interesting fact of all. During his last two seasons with the Rochester Royals, Wanzer played while he coached the team!!! He stayed on as only the coach for a third year in ’57-58 when the team moved and became the Cincinnati Royals. There were more player-coaches than you might expect, Bill Russell and Lenny Wilkins are some big names who did it, but it’s still a really cool fact to have on a card and one that takes you back in time to what was truly a different era.
Subscribe and collect with us! We’re making videos of every card we can, one individual card at a time. It’s something a bit different from the usual big-money investing or box breaks.
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