1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL Rick Cassata #89 Ottawa Rough Riders Quarterback

Description

1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL Rick Cassata #89 Ottawa Rough Riders Quarterback Every championship team needs its quarterback, and this 1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL Rick Cassata #89 Ottawa Rough Riders Quarterback card captures the man who would soon lead Ottawa back to the summit of Canadian football. Issued in the legendary 132-card, red-bordered 1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL set — printed only in Canada and home to Joe Theismann's first professional card — this single sits at the end of a stacked Ottawa team run and carries real historical weight for Rough Riders collectors. Rick Cassata's path to Ottawa was anything but ordinary. A 5'10", 185-pound import out of Syracuse University, he was a gifted enough all-around athlete that, as the O-Pee-Chee cartoon reveals, Rick was drafted by a pro baseball club as a shortstop — with the cartoon quarterback quipping "I prefer football." The card back recounts that he spent his first two seasons in the CFL with the Saskatchewan Roughriders as the backup to the immortal Ron Lancaster and could even play defence when needed. Traded to Ottawa, Cassata inherited the impossible task of following Russ Jackson — and delivered, quarterbacking the Rough Riders to victory in the 1973 Grey Cup, where he was named the game's outstanding player. That championship pedigree makes this early Ottawa card a quiet key within the team set. The reverse is an authentic Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, with English and French biographies and the "©O-Pee-Chee / Printed in Canada" imprint; this set used biography backs, not puzzle backs. The front presents a steely portrait in the black number 9 jersey with rich red borders and strong gloss. Centering is approximately 55/45 left-to-right and slightly high. The corners show light whitening at all four tips, with the bottom-right displaying the most noticeable touch, and there is faint edge chipping along the right border. The back shows even tan toning with clean, legible bilingual print and no writing, staining, or paper flaws. We detect no creases, wrinkles, or surface indentations across either scan. In keeping with our conservative approach to this chip-prone red-border issue, we grade to the cautious middle of the scale. For quarterback collectors, Syracuse alumni hunters, and anyone building the 1971 OPC CFL set, this 1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL Rick Cassata #89 Ottawa Rough Riders Quarterback single is a future Grey Cup MVP at a bargain vintage price. Grade Estimate: EX 5