Name: Dan Reeves
Position: Owner-Administrator
Pro Career: 1941 – 1971
Team Affiliation(s): Cleveland/Los Angeles Rams
College: Georgetown
Induction Class: 1967
Brief Bio: A great innovator, Dan Reeves forever changed the landscape of the National Football League. In January 1946, just one month after winning the NFL title, Reeves shocked the league by announcing he was relocating his Cleveland franchise to Los Angeles, 2,000 miles from the nearest NFL city in an era before air travel was commonplace. He suffered massive financial losses in those first few seasons, but eventually his team’s success, winning four division titles and another NFL championship, proved to be a gateway that opened up the West Coast to professional sports. His L.A. Coliseum saw more than 80,000 in attendance 22 times in the Rams’ first two decades out west. Beyond bringing the NFL westward, Reeves was also the first team owner to sign a black athlete in over a decade (1946), the first to hire a full-time scouting staff, and was a pioneer in TV contracts that would lay the groundwork for the league’s unparalleled TV success of today.
Featured Card: 1988 Swell Greats #102. As an owner, there is little wonder why Dan Reeves was not featured in a football card set during his tenure with the Rams organization. Fortunately, he has been included in several Hall of Famed focused sets, including this 1988 Swell Greats card. Trivial Beckett value of this card is $0.10. Copies are not necessarily easy to come by online as most retailers don’t bother listing junk wax cards of owners, but you should find that the going rate is not far off Beckett’s price. The only real point of warning for a card of this magnitude would be to watch your shipping fees. If you can get the same cheap card from multiple vendors, why not go with the one to whom you will pay the lowest fees?
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cool to see a post about a builder….