You could say Todd Tobias was born in the wrong decade.
The 41-year-old La Mesa native became a rabid sports fan after getting his first baseball card at the age of five, but his greatest passion is the short-lived American Football League (AFL) of the 1960s, a decade he missed completely.
Tobias has made a career out of his love of sports. He spent many years working for the San Diego Hall of Champions sports museum, managing its awards program, helping it transition to its current location and acting as curator. He also worked for the San Diego Chargers managing their memorabilia and outfitting their professional offices; he helped the San Diego Padres with their throw-back displays at the new Petco Park; he managed personal memorabilia collections for various pro football players; and he’s made a good living doing what he loves best, being one of the most — if not the most — diligent collectors of historic sports memorabilia around.
Tobias is all La Mesan. He was born at Grossmont Hospital, graduated from Grossmont High School and went to college at the University of San Diego, all while living in La Mesa. He continues to live there with his wife and three children today.
His love for the AFL came after he decided to write his master’s thesis on Sid Gilman, the first head coach of the San Diego Chargers.
He has amassed a tremendous amount of AFL memorabilia in the 15 or 16 years since, purchasing from professional athletes, eBay, and garage and estate sales. Items he’s picked up along the way include thousands of football cards (both Topps and Fleer), player and coach jerseys, jackets, personal letters, autographed footballs, bobbleheads, pins, programs, team photographs and much, much more. He even has a life-sized bust of Chargers wide receiver Lance Alworth, which is a story in itself; just ask him.
This native son’s collection is not limited to the San Diego Chargers, but what he has gathered about them is more than impressive. His comprehensive collection also includes items from the Los Angeles Chargers and every other football team that played during the AFL time period.
Over the years he’s met and interviewed dozens of players, coaches and families, becoming close with many of them. Two of his larger personal collections are of Gilman, the Chargers first coach, and Alworth.
In 2004, he wrote “Charging Through the AFL: Los Angeles and San Diego Chargers football in the 1960s.” He followed that up with “Bombs Away: Air Coryelle and the San Diego Chargers” in 2006. Both books rely heavily on interviews and photographs of their respective periods.
A few years ago, Tobias decided to channel his love for the AFL through his website, TalesFromTheAmericanFootballLeague.com. Here Tobias shares his many interviews of the past, runs a blog where he opines on the latest news of players related to the AFL, deposits videos, stats, historical data, photos and even has a forum section where others can share their love for the league and its players.
He said his goal with the site is to “edutain (educate and entertain) football lovers with stories about all things AFL.” To support his internet endeavor, he’s also taken up social media, and can be followed on twitter at @TalesfromtheAFL and on two locations on Facebook, “Tales from the American Football League” and “I loved the 1960s Chargers” (a public group). On the latter he shares vintage photographs of the team and banters with the families of players. He shares links back to his blog and website on both pages.
His many followers recently noticed Tobias absent from posting for a time. That’s because he recently gave up approximately 85 percent of his collection to pursue his dream of opening a lacrosse store in La Mesa with an old friend. Despite months of hard work, that opportunity never panned out. Now, the five pallets of blood, sweat and tears that he consigned to an auction house a few months ago are sitting in a warehouse somewhere in the Midwest being individually categorized and valued in preparation for a national, Internet-based auction block next spring.
“I was trying to trade one passion for another,” Tobias said. “If I’d known it would have just been trading one passion for money I never would have done it, but it is what it is.”
Deciding what to keep was a challenge, but Tobias said it came down not to which collections were worth the most money, but which provided him the most enjoyment.
The two-dozen binders still resident on his shelves are neatly filled to the brim with pages of plastic inserts containing football cards, with most every card there signed.
Tobias said he pulls each binder down two or three times per week just to look through them. Inside are vast collections of football cards. Many are duplicated, but they are categorized in dozens of ways. Some collections are still incomplete — like his 1965 collection of every card Topps put out for that year; he is only missing two out of 176 cards — and each time he removes that binder from the shelf he strategizes new ways he can complete that collection. There is a story behind every collection and another for every card.
He has some cards that he’s certain do not exist anywhere else, and he has numerous cards that had the wrong player’s image printed on them in the publishing house’s haste to get them out in advance of the new season. He’s reached out to many of the players over the years, sending along his books and asking for autographs, and he has the response letters to prove it.
In the wake of his failed business attempt, Tobias finds himself facing a forgotten challenge: looking for work.
“I haven’t had to do that since graduating college,” he said. “For now I’m just working in the back yard, putting in a sprinkler system and taking my mind off of it.
“San Diego can be a tough place to live in if you are a sports historian,” he said. “It’s probably time for me to find another line of work.”
Morgan M. Hurley can be contacted at morgan@sdcnn.com.
