Friday, August 14, 2009

1952 Bowman Small - Art Donovan

I'm a big Art Donovan fan - to be honest, I first knew him as the hilarious guy on David Letterman's Late Night show.

Look at the smirk on Donovan - you can tell from this card he's a character!

I met Art Donovan at an autograph show two years ago in Canton. He had some great stories. I asked him about the '52 season while he was signing a '52 Dallas Texans helmet. The Texans' only win that season was against the Chicago Bears coached by George Halas.

The game was in the Akron Rubber Bowl. Donovan said no one knew who the Texans were and instead of doing team introductions, the team had to go in the stands to introduce themselves to the fans.

I have no idea if it's true or not, but it makes a great Art Donovan story.

Here's a link to the '52 Texans Helmet I have.

Those are all the '52 Texans cards I picked up at the National. I had to dig to find them, but most cost $5 or so a piece. The Donovan card was a little more.

2 comments:

deal said...

I met Donovan once at a friends Wedding. The event was held at some sort of country club maybe in Timonium outside of Baltimore. Donovan was sort of a permanent guest of the Club, not the wedding. He drank with us all night and kept yelling over to the Best Man -
"Hey Best Man".

The bar was basically dedicated to the Donovan family with tons of memorabilia - his father and uncles were boxers I think.

Get this my Word Verification Rocks:

It's "Elvis"

James said...

@Deal - That's a great story... I can totally see it too.