Does Woody Strode have a rookie card?

One of my favorite Hobby journalists, Horacio Ruiz, wrote an article called “Rookie Cards of the First Black Players in Modern NFL History” for Sports Collectors Daily back in 2022.

While the article mentioned Woody Strode, who broke the NFL color barrier with Kenny Washington in 1946, it stopped short of identifying Strode’s rookie card. In fact, it didn’t mention any of Strode’s cards, noting only that “Strode didn’t play long enough to be included in the [1948] Bowman or Leaf sets.”

Still, given that there are at least a handful of Woody Strode trading cards, shouldn’t at least one be regarded as a rookie card? The short answer is it depends who you ask.

Compared to the world I grew up collecting in (i.e., late 1970s) rookie cards have gotten complicated. They also matter a whole lot more to today’s collector. “But wouldn’t it just be the player’s first card?” you might ask, if you haven’t paid much attention to the last 20 years of collecting. Ideally, yes, but there are a lot of ifs, ands, or buts to contend with.

Modern Hobby orthodoxy requires that a rookie card meet all of the following criteria:

• Officially licensed
• Major national release
• Trading card vs photograph, yearbook, frisbee, etc.
• Base card vs insert
• Player already a major leaguer (e.g., NFL, WNBA, MLB but not NCAA, MiLB, etc.)
• First such year that all of the above are met

That said, even the most rigid collectors tend to relax these criteria somewhat for older cards. For example, Hobby consensus confers rookie card status on Warren Spahn’s 1949 Leaf baseball card even though he had a fully qualifying Bowman card in 1948 AND his Leaf card wasn’t even licensed!

How about Kenny Washington? His earliest cards came in 1948, released by two different manufacturers, Bowman and Leaf. While I don’t know that his Leaf card was licensed, both cards are universally recognized in the Hobby as rookie cards.

WHAT ABOUT WOODY?

With Strode, an early decision point is whether we are concerned only with football cards or if we might also consider his cards as an actor. As the latter category brings dizzying complications that would bamboozle even a Talmudic scholar or the Great Vizzini, this article will presume the former. Here then is what I believe to be a complete, chronological list of Woody’s football cards, along with my evaluation of their cases for rookie card status.

2009 Upper Deck “Legendary Cuts” SN2

Woody’s earliest football card is this 2009 Upper Deck issue from the “Legendary Cuts” series, but is it a rookie card?

On the plus side, it is his earliest football card, and he had definitely made the NFL by 2009! However, the card was an insert of which only two were made—an instant disqualifier. One might also point out that Woody himself is not even depicted. Fair point, though I don’t believe an image is required for rookie card status.

2012 Extreme Sports “CFL Grey Cup 100 Years”

Woody’s next card comes courtesy of the 2012 Extreme Sports CFL Grey Cup 100 Years set. This card features the 1948 undefeated Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League, and includes Woody in the middle row wearing the shiny jacket and bright white hat.

The good news for rookie card hunters is that we have left the realm of inserts and landed on an easily pulled card from the set’s “base” checklist.

One could fairly question whether 2012 Extreme Sports qualifies as a major set, much less whether the CFL is a major enough league. However, I find such quibbles demeaning to my Canadian neighbors to the north, so I’m gonna say so far so good.

Unfortunately, the card fails in another area. Hobby intelligentsia eschews team cards insofar as rookie card status is concerned. Two, three, or four players? Not a problem! The whole team? Calgary, we have a problem!

2018 Jogo CFL Alumni “Short Prints”

Our last candidate comes from the 2018 Canadian Football League Alumni “short print” series produced by Jogo.

The good news is it has Woody’s picture (along with an accidental picture of Sugarfoot Anderson!), it’s not a team card, and it’s not an insert. On the other hand, as the “short print” descriptor implies, only about 60-70 copies of this card were ever made. By most definitions, this was not a major release.

FINAL VERDICT

Evidently there’s a good reason Horacio excluded Strode cards from his article. Strictly speaking, none of Strode’s football cards satisfy all requirements. They’re also too recent to be granted any Spahn-like waivers. Were I forced to declare one his most rookiesque, simply because it seems insane that there’s no rookie card of a man who integrated the NFL, I’d go with the 2018, largely because Strode is pictured and is the card’s primary focus.

What this #HobbyFail points to, at least in my mind, is the need for Panini (or somebody!) to finally honor the league’s barrier breakers. After all, here are the facts.

• Apart from an unlicensed 1990 reprint, Kenny Washington hasn’t appeared in a set since 1950…and that was as a baseball player!
• Woody Strode still has zero cards as an NFL player.
• The last major release with base cards of Marion Motley and Bill Willis was more than 30 years ago!

The 80th anniversary of each of these players’ debuts is coming up in 2026. Time’s a wasting, Panini! Let’s go!