Long before "Madden NFL" video games, there was a table called eccentric toy electric football.
Surely you remember the metal tone. Two teams of 11 soccer players plastic standing on a rectangular base with spikes on the bottom side and a knob.
At the beginning of each game, man "coach" sets players in the desired position and placed the ball in the hands of a. A change occurs, the football field vibrates and moves to the players, often violently in all directions. Sometimes, the player with the ball "turns" in the light of day.
Norman Sas invented the electric football in 1948 and introduced a year later. But it was not until 1967, when he signed a contract with NFL Properties, the licensing division soccer championship for the product, plastic men represented current NFL teams and football really took off electric .
Sas, of 87 years, died June 28 at his home in Vero Beach, Florida, after a stroke, was "one of the true innovators of the land of the toy," said Chris Byrne, content director of timetoplaymag.com, a toy review site.
"Who would have thought that a vibrating metal plate that awakens the imagination of so many children?" Byrne said, adding that the "chaos and unpredictability" of the movements of soccer players gave their electrical magic.
Born in New York in 1925, Anders Norman Sas received a degree in mechanical engineering and business economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before and after serving in the Navy during World War II. He became president of the company from his father, Elmer Metallic Products, New York, Tudor, in 1948.
Among its products were of toy musical instruments and an element of frugality was born of depression: a "budget of the Bank" for the classification of coins and banknotes.
The Norman 23 years old, lost no time leaving their mark. Inspired by a toy horse racing that was vibrant, electric football he came and quickly hit the market.
"The current enthusiasm for football chair strategists!" He said 1949 show in New York while promoting the game, available for $ 5.95 in a department store of A & S on Fulton Street in Brooklyn.
The title was screaming,'' men actually moved to New Electric Football Game! "
Electric football success was such that the Tudor Metal Products changed its name to the Tudor games. Other providers launched their version, but it was a game Sas', which received the approval NFL and landed in the Sears catalog.
In December 1971 Sports Illustrated story identified with grid electricity Soccer - then retail $ 9.95 to $ 14.95 - as the "best seller" among all NFL licensed products.
"For the first 10 years, we have generated more money for the Heritage of the NFL than anyone else," SAS said in a Washington Post article from 1999 in football electrical phenomenon. "Then the [video] games left, and this was the beginning of the end."
Sas retired in 1988 after the sale of Tudor Miggle Toys Toys and Games. He moved to Alpine, New Jersey, in Vero Beach, Florida, 15 years ago. Survivors are his wife of 62 years, Irene, two daughters and seven grandchildren.
About electric football, still smoking and vibrant in this era of video and electronic toys, and there are national competitions sponsored by soccer coaches miniature Assn., A group of fans.
Toys Miggle Electric Football was doing it in February Miggle was bought by a toy manufacturer in Seattle Ballpark Ballpark Classics Inc. restore the name of the company SAS, Tudor Games - a reference to the importance Electric Football agree.
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