Signature Sundays - Three Hall-of-Famers from the '50s!

I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the 2012-13 Panini Classics Signatures autographs, which means the few cards I have left to show are relatively big names.  This week I'm featuring three players who all began their NHL careers in the 1950s, and who are all members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

After playing a few games with the Rangers in the two seasons prior, Andy Bathgate joined the team full time for the 1954-55 season.  Andy was a star at right wing, regularly ranking near the top of the league in points scored.  He was always in that upper tier of points but seemed to come up just shy of leading the league year after year.  The closest he came to capturing an Art Ross Trophy was 1961-62 where he tied Bobby Hull for most points in the league, but lost in a tie-breaker due to the fact that Hull had more goals.

After many successful individual seasons with the under-performing Rangers, Bathgate was dealt to Toronto in '63-64 and won his only Stanley Cup with the Leafs that season.  He did capture a Hart Trophy as league MVP in '58-59 when he reached the 40-goal plateau which was quite a feat in that day.  Later in his career he spent a couple of seasons in the WHL, where he won two championships and was named MVP of that league as well.  He even came back and played a handful of games in the WHA before hanging up his skates for good.  Bathgate's sweater hangs above the rafters at Madison Square Garden, and he was enshrined in 1978, before I was even born!

Next up is Norm Ullman, whose card has one of my absolute favorite photos from this set.  I love everything about this shot of a helmetless Ullman with brown gloves circling in front of the referee, with the unique lighting and shadows spilled across the ice surface.  Norm began his NHL career with Detroit in '55-56.  He was able to rack up a ton of points, in part I'm sure as a result of playing on a very talented Red Wings team (centering a line with Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay couldn't have hurt).

Ullman never captured any individual hardware like Andy Bathgate did, but he was just about a lock for at least 20 goals a season and he did once pace the league in goals scored (1965).  He scored close to 500 career goals, which is insane given the era he played in, and was nearly a point-per-game player over the course of his NHL career.  Norm was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1982, the year I was born.

Last but not least, we have Pierre Pilote.  Pierre began his NHL career in '55-56, same as Norm Ullman.  He was a stud blue-liner, and during his prime he was consistently in the running for the Norris Trophy as league's top defenseman.  He finished runner up for the award in 1962 (the year he was named Blackhawks team captain), then won it for three straight years from 1963 to 1965, before returning to runner-up status in '66 and '67.  You could make an argument that Pierre was the top defenseman of the 1960s.  I kind of think of him as bridging the gap between Doug Harvey and Bobby Orr in terms of best D-man in the NHL.

Pilote's #3 was retired by the Blackhawks (he shares the number retirement with Keith Magnuson), and he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1975.

Although many modern day NHL fans may not be familiar with these names, and although all three players hung up their skates long before I was born, I applaud Panini for including these guys on the checklist for this set.  These three gentleman were important contributors to the game's long and glorious history, and I'm honored to have these on-card autographs call my collection home.

These are the 96th, 97th and 98th autographs I've been fortunate enough to land from this fantastic set.  Believe it or not, I've still got a few more left to come in future Signature Sundays posts...