Sunday, October 24, 2010
A HAPPY THOUGHT
While watching televised football and baseball games, as the commercials keep coming ad nauseam, our comment is always “Thank heaven for the mute key on our remote”. We’d feel lost without its constant utilization.
NO ECONOMY SLOWDOWN FOR THE DIAMOND BUSINESS
The reader shouldn’t be mislead into thinking this piece concerns the jewelry trade. We don’t really know how our recent pseudo-recession has affected the diamond ring peddlers, and couldn’t care less, quite frankly. As may already have been otherwise surmised, our current subject is baseball.
A review of the appropriate internet files will readily show that ballplayers aren’t exactly living off food stamps, or expecting the sheriff to knock on the door any minute with lock in hand. It’s further obvious that the major league clubs don’t seem to be hurting either, since they have plenty of funds available to pay their field stars. Even mediocre and downright inept performers have drawn fabulous sums in this past and earlier seasons.
If time permitted, we’d enjoy calculating the 2010 campaign’s average salary per time at bat for hitters, along with that per third of an inning pitched for moundsmen. One can rest assured that the arithmetic results in each case would be on the astronomic side. However, player remuneration doesn’t appear to be the only extravagance evidenced by their well-heeled employers. The club owners are proving themselves equally careless regarding the use and cost of balls. Anyone watching a game on the tube can easily see what we mean.
Since this writer dates back a number of years, recollections abound from the olden days when ball consumption on the playing field was far more conservative. The major league clubs would buy the most expensive ones at a dollar each, less whatever volume discount they were accorded. Meanwhile, those of us who cavorted as youths on makeshift vacant lot diamonds could only afford the cheaper twenty-five cent models, which suited our needs very well.
Even at prices we’d now dismiss as “peanuts” by ultramodern standards, the big leaguers applied extreme care back then, in order to avoid wastage as much as possible. A baseball would be exempted from further use only if hit into the stands to become a take-home souvenir for a skillfully-handed fan, or else ordered by the umpire to be discarded due to scuffing or a torn seam. Fouls not leaving the field were retrieved by the nearest player, to be thrown back to the pitcher for continued service. At the end of a half-inning, somebody would leave it at the mound to be picked up by the next hurler for his warming-up and subsequent action.
By way of contrast, what do we observe nowadays, in this period of supposed economic downturn? Heck, balls are being passed out to fans as if they were favors at a birthday party. The clubs employ teenage-looking boys or girls to gather up the fouls and blithely give them to frontal seat occupants. The last player to have one in his possession when a half-inning winds up obligingly tosses the spheroid into the closest stands, as eager hands raise up for the catch, resembling baby birds waiting to be fed by their mother.
We don’t know the discounted price of a baseball these days, but feel certain it exceeds a dollar by more than a bit. What we fail to comprehend is this 180-degree swing from prior age parsimony to downright lavishness when it comes to per game consumption.
At the end of the line, who is paying for these plush salaries and wastrel ball practices, undoubtedly complemented by a myriad of other extravagances? Nobody but those cheering fans who more often than not fill the stadia to maximum capacity, after shelling out highly inflated sums for tickets. We humbly advise our readers to stay home and watch the games on the moron tube instead.
A review of the appropriate internet files will readily show that ballplayers aren’t exactly living off food stamps, or expecting the sheriff to knock on the door any minute with lock in hand. It’s further obvious that the major league clubs don’t seem to be hurting either, since they have plenty of funds available to pay their field stars. Even mediocre and downright inept performers have drawn fabulous sums in this past and earlier seasons.
If time permitted, we’d enjoy calculating the 2010 campaign’s average salary per time at bat for hitters, along with that per third of an inning pitched for moundsmen. One can rest assured that the arithmetic results in each case would be on the astronomic side. However, player remuneration doesn’t appear to be the only extravagance evidenced by their well-heeled employers. The club owners are proving themselves equally careless regarding the use and cost of balls. Anyone watching a game on the tube can easily see what we mean.
Since this writer dates back a number of years, recollections abound from the olden days when ball consumption on the playing field was far more conservative. The major league clubs would buy the most expensive ones at a dollar each, less whatever volume discount they were accorded. Meanwhile, those of us who cavorted as youths on makeshift vacant lot diamonds could only afford the cheaper twenty-five cent models, which suited our needs very well.
Even at prices we’d now dismiss as “peanuts” by ultramodern standards, the big leaguers applied extreme care back then, in order to avoid wastage as much as possible. A baseball would be exempted from further use only if hit into the stands to become a take-home souvenir for a skillfully-handed fan, or else ordered by the umpire to be discarded due to scuffing or a torn seam. Fouls not leaving the field were retrieved by the nearest player, to be thrown back to the pitcher for continued service. At the end of a half-inning, somebody would leave it at the mound to be picked up by the next hurler for his warming-up and subsequent action.
By way of contrast, what do we observe nowadays, in this period of supposed economic downturn? Heck, balls are being passed out to fans as if they were favors at a birthday party. The clubs employ teenage-looking boys or girls to gather up the fouls and blithely give them to frontal seat occupants. The last player to have one in his possession when a half-inning winds up obligingly tosses the spheroid into the closest stands, as eager hands raise up for the catch, resembling baby birds waiting to be fed by their mother.
We don’t know the discounted price of a baseball these days, but feel certain it exceeds a dollar by more than a bit. What we fail to comprehend is this 180-degree swing from prior age parsimony to downright lavishness when it comes to per game consumption.
At the end of the line, who is paying for these plush salaries and wastrel ball practices, undoubtedly complemented by a myriad of other extravagances? Nobody but those cheering fans who more often than not fill the stadia to maximum capacity, after shelling out highly inflated sums for tickets. We humbly advise our readers to stay home and watch the games on the moron tube instead.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
FOOTBALL FOR MORONS
Within recent years, our casual perusal of the internet has continually turned up references to Fantasy Football. Not wondering especially what the term was all about, we’ve merely passed over them, while searching for matters of more immediate interest.
Recently however, we became apprised as to the essence of such fantasizing activity, thanks to a confessed regular weekly participant. By way of personal reaction, never, throughout many decades of open and uninhibited affection for football, have we sensed sheer imbecility to a comparable degree, insofar as downright blasphemous contempt for a major sport is concerned.
Although this nonsense hardly merits further mention, we do feel compelled to summarize the fallacy in as contemptuous a selection of words as are digupable.
To join in the supposed fun, some clown appoints himself a vicarious NFL club owner with the right to select individual players or teams which remain unclaimed on a master list. Each Monday or Tuesday when the latest statistics are all out, he (or probably she as well) checks the passing, running, goal-kicking, defensive, or other appropriate results for the preceding weekend’s games. If a chosen performer or club puts on a good show numberwise, the member earns points, which probably may bring some monetary return over a full season for the lucky “employer”.
Over many past decades, this writer has deplored the age-old practice of betting on sports events, in that such action prostitutes any appreciation for athletic values. Despite such longstanding disgust, we are now viewing an all-time low.
Why do we deem this particular exercise as being corollary to the lowest of back alley hookers? Simply because it connotes complete disdain for the sheer thrill of watching a player or team perform before a cheering crowd. The participant cares not a whit about the careful game planning by the coaching staff, the on-the-spot field strategy, the clutch effort displayed in tight situations, or any other spine-chilling aspect of a combative effort. The stupid jerk need have little or no knowledge of the sport, but only the capacity to read meaningless weekly stats. Whoever invented this scheme has to be on the demented side.
We must close this piece right away, so as to avoid having to resort to words of less than five letters from here onward.
Recently however, we became apprised as to the essence of such fantasizing activity, thanks to a confessed regular weekly participant. By way of personal reaction, never, throughout many decades of open and uninhibited affection for football, have we sensed sheer imbecility to a comparable degree, insofar as downright blasphemous contempt for a major sport is concerned.
Although this nonsense hardly merits further mention, we do feel compelled to summarize the fallacy in as contemptuous a selection of words as are digupable.
To join in the supposed fun, some clown appoints himself a vicarious NFL club owner with the right to select individual players or teams which remain unclaimed on a master list. Each Monday or Tuesday when the latest statistics are all out, he (or probably she as well) checks the passing, running, goal-kicking, defensive, or other appropriate results for the preceding weekend’s games. If a chosen performer or club puts on a good show numberwise, the member earns points, which probably may bring some monetary return over a full season for the lucky “employer”.
Over many past decades, this writer has deplored the age-old practice of betting on sports events, in that such action prostitutes any appreciation for athletic values. Despite such longstanding disgust, we are now viewing an all-time low.
Why do we deem this particular exercise as being corollary to the lowest of back alley hookers? Simply because it connotes complete disdain for the sheer thrill of watching a player or team perform before a cheering crowd. The participant cares not a whit about the careful game planning by the coaching staff, the on-the-spot field strategy, the clutch effort displayed in tight situations, or any other spine-chilling aspect of a combative effort. The stupid jerk need have little or no knowledge of the sport, but only the capacity to read meaningless weekly stats. Whoever invented this scheme has to be on the demented side.
We must close this piece right away, so as to avoid having to resort to words of less than five letters from here onward.
Friday, October 1, 2010
THEY'VE DONE IT AGAIN
The most prominent performer in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics was a young American Indian lad named Jim Thorpe, who swept aside all competition while winning both the Pentathlon and Decathlon championships. The King of Sweden himself presented him with the appropriate gold medals, proclaiming him the greatest athlete in the world. That he was indeed, and his legend shines vividly to this day in the annals of track and field, not to mention football.
Nevertheless, it was discovered shortly thereafter that this lad had committed the mortal sin of having played minor league baseball for a spell in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and receiving a few bucks through such effort. “Horrors!” shouted the International Olympic Committee bluenoses, “Off with his head!”
Well, they didn’t go quite to that extreme, but did retroactively strip the fellow of his illustriously-earned awards. Probably no more painful an injustice has ever been foisted on a man, for what amounted to a relatively small sports world misdemeanor.
We’ve long entertained the hope that no such ill treatment would ever be repeated. Unfortunately, though, it has, after a 98-year hiatus.
A recent news announcement has burst open, to the effect that Reggie Bush, the former Southern California running back, now cavorting with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, has been coerced into returning his 2005 Heisman Memorial Trophy. To pour a little more sand into the wound, the esteemed powers who run that institution have decided to levy sanctions on his school’s athletic program, and remove any mention of the boy’s field prowess forevermore, recording that year’s award to have been presented to absolutely no one.
This is the lad some pundits were declaring to be the best running back in gridiron history a few short years ago. Although we consider such comments to have stemmed from emotion-driven exaggeration, he does rate among the finest kick returners ever spawned.
What grievous fault, then, did young Mr. Bush perpetrate to deserve such gross indignity? Why, tsk tsk, he accepted cash and other gifts while performing at USC, which renders him ineligible after the fact for part of the 2005 season.
Is Reggie the only football player who ever received under-the-table financial support during his undergraduate days? To believe so would amount to naivety in the ultimate degree.
Anyone with minimal knowledge of collegiate sport goings-on over nearly the whole past century is aware how the hypocrisy level has been mushrooming year-by-year to an almost explosive point today. However, just one supposedly guilty chap has been singled out for vicarious capital punishment.
It’s a fact that athletic history has long been rife with cases where offenders have either been punished, chastised, or sometimes ridiculed for various indiscretions. A backward glance at incidents which readily come to mind are those cited below.
1. Muhammad Ali, the world heavyweight champion, was deprived of his title because he challenged the so-called necessity to make war against North Vietnam, forcing him to regain his formar status after he had been cleared of supposed non-patriotism.
2. Billy Cannon, a hard-running halfback at Louisiana State University, and another Heisman Trophy winner for 1959, was initially denied admission to the collegiate football Hall of Fame until 2008, due to having been involved in a counterfeiting scheme following his graduation.
3. Paul Robeson, an excellent concert and movie singer, had also been an outstanding gridiron player at Rutgers University, but held socialistic sympathies. As a result, those same Hall of Fame moguls refused to consider him for membership until several years after his death.
4. Barry Bonds hit more home runs in a full career and a single season than any other slugger. Still, his fibbing about use of steroids (and certainly not the only person to do so), has turned his name to mud in official baseball circles, to the extent that we’re expected to pretend those feats were never really accomplished.
On the other hand, we can condone certain past penalties meted out by sports universe rulers. The Chicago White Sox boys who threw the 1919 World Series to Cincinnati were duly punishable, and deserved lifetime banishment from their playing roles. Hal Chase, although highly praiseworthy as a major league first sacker, will forever be excluded from Hall of Fame eligibility, because he openly bet on games throughout his career, sometimes even against his own team.
We also excuse NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s one-year suspension of Packer running back Paul Hornung and Lion defensive tackle Alex Karras for betting, albeit innocent when compared to the Chase antics.
This writer has personally maintained all along that on-the-field performance is what counts above everything else, regardless of what guilt lies with a person, either during his playing days or afterward. If an ex-hero holds up a liquor store, beats up an opponent in a barroom brawl, or joins a protest movement against the sacred establishment, that, from this viewpoint, detracts nary a whisker from the glory he achieved as an athlete.
Now that the Jim Thorpe incident has been virtually repeated in the Reggie Bush matter, where should we go from here onward, to continue the flow of condemnation or scorn accordable for private life offenses? How about taking back the many golf trophies earned by Tiger Woods, due to his off-the-fairway extra-marital behavior? If immoral activity becomes a criterion for “disbarment”, might we not refuse to recognize that Grover Cleveland, Warren G. Harding, FDR, Dwight D. Eisenhower, JFK, and Bill Clinton ever really occupied the White House, because of spousal infidelity?
If Paul Robeson’s leftist feelings were enough to override recognition of his athletic prowess,
shouldn’t we also say that Charlie Chaplin was never very funny after all, for the same reasons?
The sports realm has chosen to forgive Babe Ruth’s incessant roundering and womanizing, as well as Ty Cobb for his post-career viciousness. Nobody seems to care that pitcher Pete Alexander and outfielder Paul Waner were known lushes, even while engaged in playing field action. NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s misdeeds seem to have been forgiven as well, except perhaps by devoted dog lovers. It has become more a case of individual selectivity, keeping our eyes closed where and when deemed prudent.
We see a sole solution to this overall hypocrisy, and that would be to drop this foolishness about the sanctity of amateur athletics, declaring every performer a professional from gitgo, since that’s what the truth amounts to these days. Otherwise, where is the sense in picking on the Thorpes, the Bushes, and other isolated unfortunates for their various rule infractions?
Nevertheless, it was discovered shortly thereafter that this lad had committed the mortal sin of having played minor league baseball for a spell in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and receiving a few bucks through such effort. “Horrors!” shouted the International Olympic Committee bluenoses, “Off with his head!”
Well, they didn’t go quite to that extreme, but did retroactively strip the fellow of his illustriously-earned awards. Probably no more painful an injustice has ever been foisted on a man, for what amounted to a relatively small sports world misdemeanor.
We’ve long entertained the hope that no such ill treatment would ever be repeated. Unfortunately, though, it has, after a 98-year hiatus.
A recent news announcement has burst open, to the effect that Reggie Bush, the former Southern California running back, now cavorting with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, has been coerced into returning his 2005 Heisman Memorial Trophy. To pour a little more sand into the wound, the esteemed powers who run that institution have decided to levy sanctions on his school’s athletic program, and remove any mention of the boy’s field prowess forevermore, recording that year’s award to have been presented to absolutely no one.
This is the lad some pundits were declaring to be the best running back in gridiron history a few short years ago. Although we consider such comments to have stemmed from emotion-driven exaggeration, he does rate among the finest kick returners ever spawned.
What grievous fault, then, did young Mr. Bush perpetrate to deserve such gross indignity? Why, tsk tsk, he accepted cash and other gifts while performing at USC, which renders him ineligible after the fact for part of the 2005 season.
Is Reggie the only football player who ever received under-the-table financial support during his undergraduate days? To believe so would amount to naivety in the ultimate degree.
Anyone with minimal knowledge of collegiate sport goings-on over nearly the whole past century is aware how the hypocrisy level has been mushrooming year-by-year to an almost explosive point today. However, just one supposedly guilty chap has been singled out for vicarious capital punishment.
It’s a fact that athletic history has long been rife with cases where offenders have either been punished, chastised, or sometimes ridiculed for various indiscretions. A backward glance at incidents which readily come to mind are those cited below.
1. Muhammad Ali, the world heavyweight champion, was deprived of his title because he challenged the so-called necessity to make war against North Vietnam, forcing him to regain his formar status after he had been cleared of supposed non-patriotism.
2. Billy Cannon, a hard-running halfback at Louisiana State University, and another Heisman Trophy winner for 1959, was initially denied admission to the collegiate football Hall of Fame until 2008, due to having been involved in a counterfeiting scheme following his graduation.
3. Paul Robeson, an excellent concert and movie singer, had also been an outstanding gridiron player at Rutgers University, but held socialistic sympathies. As a result, those same Hall of Fame moguls refused to consider him for membership until several years after his death.
4. Barry Bonds hit more home runs in a full career and a single season than any other slugger. Still, his fibbing about use of steroids (and certainly not the only person to do so), has turned his name to mud in official baseball circles, to the extent that we’re expected to pretend those feats were never really accomplished.
On the other hand, we can condone certain past penalties meted out by sports universe rulers. The Chicago White Sox boys who threw the 1919 World Series to Cincinnati were duly punishable, and deserved lifetime banishment from their playing roles. Hal Chase, although highly praiseworthy as a major league first sacker, will forever be excluded from Hall of Fame eligibility, because he openly bet on games throughout his career, sometimes even against his own team.
We also excuse NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s one-year suspension of Packer running back Paul Hornung and Lion defensive tackle Alex Karras for betting, albeit innocent when compared to the Chase antics.
This writer has personally maintained all along that on-the-field performance is what counts above everything else, regardless of what guilt lies with a person, either during his playing days or afterward. If an ex-hero holds up a liquor store, beats up an opponent in a barroom brawl, or joins a protest movement against the sacred establishment, that, from this viewpoint, detracts nary a whisker from the glory he achieved as an athlete.
Now that the Jim Thorpe incident has been virtually repeated in the Reggie Bush matter, where should we go from here onward, to continue the flow of condemnation or scorn accordable for private life offenses? How about taking back the many golf trophies earned by Tiger Woods, due to his off-the-fairway extra-marital behavior? If immoral activity becomes a criterion for “disbarment”, might we not refuse to recognize that Grover Cleveland, Warren G. Harding, FDR, Dwight D. Eisenhower, JFK, and Bill Clinton ever really occupied the White House, because of spousal infidelity?
If Paul Robeson’s leftist feelings were enough to override recognition of his athletic prowess,
shouldn’t we also say that Charlie Chaplin was never very funny after all, for the same reasons?
The sports realm has chosen to forgive Babe Ruth’s incessant roundering and womanizing, as well as Ty Cobb for his post-career viciousness. Nobody seems to care that pitcher Pete Alexander and outfielder Paul Waner were known lushes, even while engaged in playing field action. NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s misdeeds seem to have been forgiven as well, except perhaps by devoted dog lovers. It has become more a case of individual selectivity, keeping our eyes closed where and when deemed prudent.
We see a sole solution to this overall hypocrisy, and that would be to drop this foolishness about the sanctity of amateur athletics, declaring every performer a professional from gitgo, since that’s what the truth amounts to these days. Otherwise, where is the sense in picking on the Thorpes, the Bushes, and other isolated unfortunates for their various rule infractions?
Thursday, July 29, 2010
THE SCRIPT OHIO
Unquestionably, no educational institution on earth has a marching band capable of matching or coming remotely close in performance to the one representing Ohio State University. We confidently stand ready to reject any reader claims to the contrary. At home football games, the OSU crew consistently outclasses the halftime competition from every visiting school, Saturday after Saturday. Most significantly, the piece de resistance, the show of shows, the cat’s pajamas, is its traditional Script Ohio formation, which still lingers among this writer’s more nostalgic experiences from undergraduate years there.
For the benefit of those unfortunate folk who’ve never witnessed a Columbus stadium football encounter, we invite everyone to call up Script Ohio on the internet and view a live field presentation of what has been featured over countless decades in magnificent fashion. Although drum majors and musicians keep coming and graduating, the drill never fails to live up to its long-established standards. Flawless and downright inspiring execution remain the unalterable result.
By way of explanation, the entire marching band begins in a square formation near the opponents’ side of the field, spanning the fifty-yard line. Then, to the tune of the Somme March, the drum major leads a single file center-stage maneuver, whereby the group gradually “writes” – in longhand, mind you – the word Ohio. Finally, with a unison high kick strut, he escorts the tuba player to the point where the lad dots the i. Without fail, this closing step times precisely with the last note of the song.
Throughout four gridiron seasons, we were privileged to watch the state’s name methodically spelled out in such manner, and never tired of doing so. Even if the home team suffered a drubbing on the battlefield, the band’s halftime show would nevertheless make the afternoon worth remembering.
We were often tempted to urge the school’s athletic authorities to invite UCLA for a game in Columbus, so our marvelous band might go a bit further and perform a script University of California at Los Angeles. We honestly believe they could even have managed that.
For the benefit of those unfortunate folk who’ve never witnessed a Columbus stadium football encounter, we invite everyone to call up Script Ohio on the internet and view a live field presentation of what has been featured over countless decades in magnificent fashion. Although drum majors and musicians keep coming and graduating, the drill never fails to live up to its long-established standards. Flawless and downright inspiring execution remain the unalterable result.
By way of explanation, the entire marching band begins in a square formation near the opponents’ side of the field, spanning the fifty-yard line. Then, to the tune of the Somme March, the drum major leads a single file center-stage maneuver, whereby the group gradually “writes” – in longhand, mind you – the word Ohio. Finally, with a unison high kick strut, he escorts the tuba player to the point where the lad dots the i. Without fail, this closing step times precisely with the last note of the song.
Throughout four gridiron seasons, we were privileged to watch the state’s name methodically spelled out in such manner, and never tired of doing so. Even if the home team suffered a drubbing on the battlefield, the band’s halftime show would nevertheless make the afternoon worth remembering.
We were often tempted to urge the school’s athletic authorities to invite UCLA for a game in Columbus, so our marvelous band might go a bit further and perform a script University of California at Los Angeles. We honestly believe they could even have managed that.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
THE BALLADE OF NOVEMBER 2, 1935
(To Be Sung to the Tune of Abdul El Bulbul Amir and Ivan Skivinsky Skivar)
Ohio State’s Buckeyes were gridiron’s best
At midseason one nine three five;
On victory’s wave, they were riding the crest,
‘Til November second arrived.
Their sportswriters’ label became “Scarlet Scourge”,
Descriptionwise, very profound;
While eagerly, fans deemed their legions “Real George”,
‘Til November second rolled ‘round.
But meanwhile, the Irish at Notre Dame, Ind.
Weren’t being excitingly cheered;
Things looked pretty gloomy in yonder South Bend,
‘Til November second appeared.
Despite a tradition of champion play,
This one was a woebegone band;
But then, the day’s calendar page was torn ‘way,
With November second at hand.
They met in Columbus, the Buckeyes’ home field,
As host forces quickly took hold;
The downtrodden Irish two touchdowns did yield,
And November second seemed cold.
The third quarter showed no additional score,
As fifteen more minutes ticked on;
A thirteen point lead in those past days of yore
Meant November’s Buckeyes had won.
The fourth quarter opened with old Notre Dame
Across the Bucks’ goal line at last;
But extra point kicking was found to be lame,
And November two would close fast.
In due course, the stadium clock advised then
That just ninety seconds remained,
When Ireland’s brave stalwarts hit pay dirt again,
But only twelve points had been gained.
However, it wasn’t all over quite yet --
Ohio soon fumbled the ball;
An Irish recovery allowed them to get
One more skimpy chance to stand tall.
The clock said that only a play it would yield,
As halfback Bill Shakespeare’s last gasp
Was skillfully hurling the pigskin downfield
To receiver Millner’s firm grasp.
A climactic touchdown within a mere wink,
With eighteen to thirteen the spread;
The great Scarlet Scourge had turned into pale pink,
And Notre Dame full speed ahead.
The aftermath brought about many sour grapes;
Excuses abounded galore.
Religious intolerance took on new shapes,
As prejudice uttered a roar.
It seems that the Buckeye who’d fumbled the ball
Was true Roman Catholic by choice.
So, with no delay, out came a loud call
In boisterous, obnoxious voice.
The rumor was spread in terms both clear and frank
That Catholics on OSU’s squad
Had orders from priests it was either the tank,
Or else condemnation from God.
An ironic twist to this religion bilk
May come as a surprise to you,
That passer Bill Shakespeare of Protestant ilk,
Connected with Millner, a Jew.
Ohio State’s Buckeyes were gridiron’s best
At midseason one nine three five;
On victory’s wave, they were riding the crest,
‘Til November second arrived.
Their sportswriters’ label became “Scarlet Scourge”,
Descriptionwise, very profound;
While eagerly, fans deemed their legions “Real George”,
‘Til November second rolled ‘round.
But meanwhile, the Irish at Notre Dame, Ind.
Weren’t being excitingly cheered;
Things looked pretty gloomy in yonder South Bend,
‘Til November second appeared.
Despite a tradition of champion play,
This one was a woebegone band;
But then, the day’s calendar page was torn ‘way,
With November second at hand.
They met in Columbus, the Buckeyes’ home field,
As host forces quickly took hold;
The downtrodden Irish two touchdowns did yield,
And November second seemed cold.
The third quarter showed no additional score,
As fifteen more minutes ticked on;
A thirteen point lead in those past days of yore
Meant November’s Buckeyes had won.
The fourth quarter opened with old Notre Dame
Across the Bucks’ goal line at last;
But extra point kicking was found to be lame,
And November two would close fast.
In due course, the stadium clock advised then
That just ninety seconds remained,
When Ireland’s brave stalwarts hit pay dirt again,
But only twelve points had been gained.
However, it wasn’t all over quite yet --
Ohio soon fumbled the ball;
An Irish recovery allowed them to get
One more skimpy chance to stand tall.
The clock said that only a play it would yield,
As halfback Bill Shakespeare’s last gasp
Was skillfully hurling the pigskin downfield
To receiver Millner’s firm grasp.
A climactic touchdown within a mere wink,
With eighteen to thirteen the spread;
The great Scarlet Scourge had turned into pale pink,
And Notre Dame full speed ahead.
The aftermath brought about many sour grapes;
Excuses abounded galore.
Religious intolerance took on new shapes,
As prejudice uttered a roar.
It seems that the Buckeye who’d fumbled the ball
Was true Roman Catholic by choice.
So, with no delay, out came a loud call
In boisterous, obnoxious voice.
The rumor was spread in terms both clear and frank
That Catholics on OSU’s squad
Had orders from priests it was either the tank,
Or else condemnation from God.
An ironic twist to this religion bilk
May come as a surprise to you,
That passer Bill Shakespeare of Protestant ilk,
Connected with Millner, a Jew.
THE 1954 CLEVELAND INDIANS
Our most recent contribution to this blog dealt with one Whitey Prokop, who failed to come through on promises made by the Cleveland, Ohio newspaper sportwriters that he’d soon be setting the world on fire as a Notre Dame gridiron ace. That particular journalistic shemozzle occurred in the early 1940s. Then, roughly a decade later, the local press gentry pulled off a similarly overzealous blunder.
There’s no question but that the 1954 Cleveland Indians were a fine ball club. Although the hitting power wasn’t overly sensational, the team had been blessed with one of the most potent pitching staffs in history. The hurling corps of Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, Mike Garcia, and Herb Score as starters, along with two bullpen stalwarts in Don Mossi and Ray Narleske, proved way too much for all the American League rivals, including the mighty New York Yankees.
It was those very Bronx Bombers who’d held the regular season record of 110 victories ever since 1927. While the Indians were in the process of clinching the 1954 pennant, and getting progressively closer to that figure, the Cleveland sports pundits began tossing “greatest baseball team of all time” accolades their way. When the dust finally cleared, the ending total of 111 wins confirmed such point in their vacant home city minds. They proudly shouted by way of printed copy that the Indians had surpassed every other club in diamond annals, basing their case strictly on a less-than-truly-meaningful statistic.
For any readers who may not readily recall the 1954 World Series, the underdog New York Giants gave the Tribe a dowsing, then a thumping, followed by a clobbering, and lastly a whupping, to wind up the October classic four-zip in the National League’s favor.
Due to some unexplainable reason, the local papers suddenly forgot to affix that all-time greatest label any longer, while seeming most reluctant even to admit having used it in the first place. Once again, they’d gone overboard, as do so many journalists worldwide virtually every day of the week.
There’s no question but that the 1954 Cleveland Indians were a fine ball club. Although the hitting power wasn’t overly sensational, the team had been blessed with one of the most potent pitching staffs in history. The hurling corps of Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, Mike Garcia, and Herb Score as starters, along with two bullpen stalwarts in Don Mossi and Ray Narleske, proved way too much for all the American League rivals, including the mighty New York Yankees.
It was those very Bronx Bombers who’d held the regular season record of 110 victories ever since 1927. While the Indians were in the process of clinching the 1954 pennant, and getting progressively closer to that figure, the Cleveland sports pundits began tossing “greatest baseball team of all time” accolades their way. When the dust finally cleared, the ending total of 111 wins confirmed such point in their vacant home city minds. They proudly shouted by way of printed copy that the Indians had surpassed every other club in diamond annals, basing their case strictly on a less-than-truly-meaningful statistic.
For any readers who may not readily recall the 1954 World Series, the underdog New York Giants gave the Tribe a dowsing, then a thumping, followed by a clobbering, and lastly a whupping, to wind up the October classic four-zip in the National League’s favor.
Due to some unexplainable reason, the local papers suddenly forgot to affix that all-time greatest label any longer, while seeming most reluctant even to admit having used it in the first place. Once again, they’d gone overboard, as do so many journalists worldwide virtually every day of the week.
BUILDUP AND LETDOWN IN SOUTH BEND or LOCAL BOY FAILS TO MAKE GOOD
Back in this writer’s youthful Cleveland, Ohio days, there used to be an annual city championship football game between the winners of the two major high school athletic conferences, the East Senate and West Senate. Lakefront Stadium, home field for the Indians, was always the location, which indicates the local importance attached.
We still recall a particular hero of approximately 1940 vintage known as Whitey Prokop, whose real first name has been forgotten. This sterling halfback led his Cathedral Latin High teammates to a solid championship victory for the East Senate. All three Cleveland newspapers promptly hailed him as maybe only a notch or two below Superman, in their customary overblown journalistic manner.
Unhappily, the story didn’t end there. A few months later, the local tabloids heralded the fact that Whitey had enrolled at Notre Dame University, where his gridiron deeds would no doubt soon be lifting the Fighting Irish to new highs, as they mopped up the floor with Army, Navy, Southern California, and a huge array of Big Ten adversaries.
Come the following early autumn, we’d frequently see sports page writeups on pre-season practice at South Bend, never failing to mention the powerful Prokop, sometimes supplemented by photos. Most assuredly, “our boy” was destined to knock them dead.
As things turned out, however, poor Whitey’s chief accomplishments in four years at Notre Dame were serving with maybe the tenth or eleventh team, not even being part of the traveling squad. His name never appeared on the school’s annual lists of coveted ND monogram winners.
Why, pray tell? Hadn’t young Prokop been the best football player in the entire city of Cleveland throughout his high school career? Of course he had. At Notre Dame, though, he was competing for a lineup spot with the best from Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, not to mention Fargo, North Dakota and Podunk, Kansas. Only the most select could attain starting positions. Countless and useless words of local newsprint praise had proven to be far from enough to vault the lad into gridiron immortality.
Whitey had a younger brother named Eddie, who followed in his wake at Cathedral Latin with comparable distinction. We once learned that the elder’s fraternal advice upon graduation was to steer clear of Notre Dame, for rather obvious reasons. Who could blame him for feeling this way, after falling flat in the face of such verbal blasts about his coming greatness?
Wisely therefore, Eddie opted for Georgia Tech, where he carved out a pretty fair niche for himself in that school’s annals as a single-wing tailback, guiding his team to continued success, culminating with a 1944 Sugar Bowl victory over Tulsa. It’s somewhat gratifying that the Prokop name can still be remembered, despite the unfortunate downfall from anticipated grace of Whitey Who.
We still recall a particular hero of approximately 1940 vintage known as Whitey Prokop, whose real first name has been forgotten. This sterling halfback led his Cathedral Latin High teammates to a solid championship victory for the East Senate. All three Cleveland newspapers promptly hailed him as maybe only a notch or two below Superman, in their customary overblown journalistic manner.
Unhappily, the story didn’t end there. A few months later, the local tabloids heralded the fact that Whitey had enrolled at Notre Dame University, where his gridiron deeds would no doubt soon be lifting the Fighting Irish to new highs, as they mopped up the floor with Army, Navy, Southern California, and a huge array of Big Ten adversaries.
Come the following early autumn, we’d frequently see sports page writeups on pre-season practice at South Bend, never failing to mention the powerful Prokop, sometimes supplemented by photos. Most assuredly, “our boy” was destined to knock them dead.
As things turned out, however, poor Whitey’s chief accomplishments in four years at Notre Dame were serving with maybe the tenth or eleventh team, not even being part of the traveling squad. His name never appeared on the school’s annual lists of coveted ND monogram winners.
Why, pray tell? Hadn’t young Prokop been the best football player in the entire city of Cleveland throughout his high school career? Of course he had. At Notre Dame, though, he was competing for a lineup spot with the best from Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, not to mention Fargo, North Dakota and Podunk, Kansas. Only the most select could attain starting positions. Countless and useless words of local newsprint praise had proven to be far from enough to vault the lad into gridiron immortality.
Whitey had a younger brother named Eddie, who followed in his wake at Cathedral Latin with comparable distinction. We once learned that the elder’s fraternal advice upon graduation was to steer clear of Notre Dame, for rather obvious reasons. Who could blame him for feeling this way, after falling flat in the face of such verbal blasts about his coming greatness?
Wisely therefore, Eddie opted for Georgia Tech, where he carved out a pretty fair niche for himself in that school’s annals as a single-wing tailback, guiding his team to continued success, culminating with a 1944 Sugar Bowl victory over Tulsa. It’s somewhat gratifying that the Prokop name can still be remembered, despite the unfortunate downfall from anticipated grace of Whitey Who.
Monday, April 26, 2010
THIS WAS A MAN
On the 31st of March 1931, a commercial airliner crashed into a Kansas wheat field, killing all its six passengers plus the two-man crew. Among the fatalities was Knute Kenneth Rockne, Notre Dame’s head football coach, whose team had reached championship heights the preceding autumn. The fact that said gentleman was cut down at the very pinnacle of his career tended to enhance a virtually unsurpassed public image for the time, not only in the sport arena, but others as well. Furthermore, through direct personal observation decades later, we found that the degree of glorification accorded by his peers hadn’t seemed to abate one bit.
While residing in Cleveland, Ohio during the mid-1950s, this writer had a business colleague who’d recently graduated from Notre Dame. Aware of our virtual immersion in football lore, for two consecutive years he extended invitations to be his guest at a particular annual alumni gathering, and both were eagerly accepted.
At the time, and quite possibly ever since, on the Sunday morning closest to March 31, an annual Rockne Memorial Mass and Breakfast affair would be held, at the Cleveland Diocese Cathedral and a major hotel ball room respectively, in honor of the school’s most renowned figure. Not being Catholic, we would forego the religious part of the program, but rendezvous with the host for the subsequent ceremonies.
We can say unequivocally that the sense of amazement experienced on these two consecutive occasions remains vivid to this day. Although a quarter century had already passed since Rockne’s tragic demise, the collective near-reverent feelings about the man showed no sign whatsoever of having dwindled. After the breakfast serving and the prime eulogical address delivery, ex-players and former cohorts of the great coach kept stepping up to the podium, one after the other, to express their own heartfelt sentiments.
By and large, these volunteer speakers were brawny, middle-aging, baldheaded, red-faced and broken-nosed Irishmen, all of whom looked ready to engage in fisticuff encounters at the slightest provocation and hold their own most adequately. In nearly every instance, however, before finishing their individual commentaries, the big fellows’ voices would begin to crack, making it somewhat difficult to carry on. A few of these hulking behemoths even came perilously close to breaking down into tears.
As previously indicated, we witnessed this same sequence of events two years in a row.
The degree of emotion displayed on behalf of a man twenty-five or so years following his death has never been forgotten. Did such beloved persons as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy ever receive comparable adulation that long afterward? The answer has to be not normally, or at least not to such an extent. Off hand, in fact, we can barely recall anyone short of Jesus Himself as having retained such ongoing esteem.
We mentioned earlier that having lost “Rock” when he’d reached his career apex may well have contributed significantly to his lasting memory. Even so, perhaps as in the play Julius Caesar, when Marc Antony gazed upon the body of his vanquished adversary Brutus and stated that nature might stand up and say to all the world “This was a man”, such words might also apply to Notre Dame’s most legendary person.
While residing in Cleveland, Ohio during the mid-1950s, this writer had a business colleague who’d recently graduated from Notre Dame. Aware of our virtual immersion in football lore, for two consecutive years he extended invitations to be his guest at a particular annual alumni gathering, and both were eagerly accepted.
At the time, and quite possibly ever since, on the Sunday morning closest to March 31, an annual Rockne Memorial Mass and Breakfast affair would be held, at the Cleveland Diocese Cathedral and a major hotel ball room respectively, in honor of the school’s most renowned figure. Not being Catholic, we would forego the religious part of the program, but rendezvous with the host for the subsequent ceremonies.
We can say unequivocally that the sense of amazement experienced on these two consecutive occasions remains vivid to this day. Although a quarter century had already passed since Rockne’s tragic demise, the collective near-reverent feelings about the man showed no sign whatsoever of having dwindled. After the breakfast serving and the prime eulogical address delivery, ex-players and former cohorts of the great coach kept stepping up to the podium, one after the other, to express their own heartfelt sentiments.
By and large, these volunteer speakers were brawny, middle-aging, baldheaded, red-faced and broken-nosed Irishmen, all of whom looked ready to engage in fisticuff encounters at the slightest provocation and hold their own most adequately. In nearly every instance, however, before finishing their individual commentaries, the big fellows’ voices would begin to crack, making it somewhat difficult to carry on. A few of these hulking behemoths even came perilously close to breaking down into tears.
As previously indicated, we witnessed this same sequence of events two years in a row.
The degree of emotion displayed on behalf of a man twenty-five or so years following his death has never been forgotten. Did such beloved persons as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy ever receive comparable adulation that long afterward? The answer has to be not normally, or at least not to such an extent. Off hand, in fact, we can barely recall anyone short of Jesus Himself as having retained such ongoing esteem.
We mentioned earlier that having lost “Rock” when he’d reached his career apex may well have contributed significantly to his lasting memory. Even so, perhaps as in the play Julius Caesar, when Marc Antony gazed upon the body of his vanquished adversary Brutus and stated that nature might stand up and say to all the world “This was a man”, such words might also apply to Notre Dame’s most legendary person.
Friday, February 5, 2010
THE DROPBACK T-FORMATION ATTACK -- IS IT BECOMING DYNAMICALLY OBSOLETE?
This piece is obviously directed toward that element of humanity deeply conversant with modern-day football tactics. Nevertheless, we’ll do our best to make matters reasonably understandable to those more oriented to basic fandom and not the game’s offensive mechanisms.
As we enjoy viewing either a collegiate or professional level game these days, we can’t help but notice the ever-increasing employment of the shotgun formation, with a corresponding decline in the more traditional dropback T. Furthermore, an additional and likely growing diversion which has appeared in the most recent years bears the somewhat inappropriate “wildcat” label.
In the interest of optimum clarification, we offer the following brief explanations pertaining to the three above-mentioned terms:
· Dropback T – The quarterback positions himself right behind the center to take a close-up snap, then drops back either to hand off or pitch out to a runner, throw a forward pass, or carry the ball himself;
· Shotgun – Instead of having to receive a minimum-distance snap and start making a hasty retreat, the quarterback stands several yards behind the center, awaiting a between-legs pass straight into his hands;
· Wildcat – The quarterback sits this play out on the bench, being replaced by a running back in the otherwise shotgun spot.
Handoffs, pitchouts, passes, and straight run options exist in each of the foregoing deployments. With opposing linemen, backers-up, and even deep defenders seeming to grow beefier and speedier from year to year, rapid-fire offensive play execution has become increasingly mandatory. The need for quickness, coupled with deception and a modicum of explosiveness, has never been more vital than under present playing conditions.
At this stage we feel obligated to toss out as concise as possible a history of how offensive attack formations have evolved, beginning with football’s dark ages and moving forward.
During the very early days, the pre-play lineup showed the four backs in a diamond-shape behind the center. This layout soon gave way to bringing the deepest man in closer, so that a Goodyear blimp shot would resemble an inverted letter T pattern, hence the formation’s modern era tag.
However, the aught and teen years of the last century produced an innovative coaching gent named Glenn “Pop” Warner, who devised two separate backfield deployments, soon to be dubbed the single and double wingback respectively. The quarterback no longer started out right behind the center. Instead, a direct pass would be made to one or more players stationed in what we now call the shotgun position. There were distinct advantages thus provided, in that less ball exchange was required, with the play being executable more rapidly.
The alternate Warner systems became the sole attack means employed for roughly three decades, with the single wing being prevalent by far. Its key feature was shifting the running and blocking strength to one side, usually the right.
This dominance was blown to bits in 1941, following two sensational milestone games – one professional, the other on the college Rose Bowl turf – which found not only the enemy forces, but the fans as well, utterly dazzled with what the T-formation, as reincarnated by the Chicago Bears and Stanford University respectively, could accomplish. With exception of a few diehard Warner system advocates, that year witnessed teams from the NFL down to kids playing on vacant lots returning to the theretofore outmoded setup. No change in the game’s structure has ever been swifter or more universal.
Following that massive reversion to ancient-day offensive methodology, a relatively short time span was needed for variations to be introduced. Pretty soon, the blimp would no longer show a pure letter T configuration. The evolutionary movement produced such strategic layouts as the T with man in motion, the winged T, the T with flanker, the slot T, the split T, the sidesaddle T, the wishbone T, the double T, and perhaps a couple more we’ve forgotten.
In due course, even the schools which had adamantly stuck to the single or double wingback lineups (primarily Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Texas, Southern California, and a precious few others) abandoned Warnerism in favor of the T, never again to change back.
Did we say never? Well, hardly ever. During the late 1940s and earliest 1950s, Michigan and Princeton made devastating use of the single wing, spiced up with a highly deceptive “buck lateral” feature. This faded out in fairly short order, though, since far too much ball-handling was involved, making matters easier for eagerly charging defensive linemen.
Jumping to the present, the deployment diversity we see today challenges even the keenest of viewer imaginations. In most instances before a play starts, we observe men spread almost all the way across the field, at times with the quarterback completely alone behind the center.
The question at this point therefore seems to be where do we go from here? Based on past history, our customary presumptuous predictions appear below, to take effect over the coming decade, or likely an even shorter span:
· Permanent disappearance of the snap-and-dropback quarterback maneuver, hence placing him exclusively in the shotgun position;
· Gradual (or maybe steadier) enhancement of the wildcat setup, resulting in far more running back use as a prime play executor;
· Further evolutionary movement yet, to the point where the wildcat arrangement may find the pure running ace to be supplanted the now-defunct triple-threat, do-everything-superbly back, which we old-timers once enjoyed watching perform so masterfully.
We’d like to enlarge upon that last comment a bit, by saying it would be a pleasure indeed to witness the return of a few Walter Eckersall, Jim Thorpe, Eddie Mahan, George Gipp, Paddy Driscoll, Ernie Nevers, Ken Strong, Dutch Clark, Jay Berwanger, Clint Frank, Ace Parker, Byron White, Nile Kinnick, Bill Dudley, or Glenn Dobbs types, in contrast to the numerous single-skill-only gladiators who grace our playing fields at this time.
We can hope, anyway.
As we enjoy viewing either a collegiate or professional level game these days, we can’t help but notice the ever-increasing employment of the shotgun formation, with a corresponding decline in the more traditional dropback T. Furthermore, an additional and likely growing diversion which has appeared in the most recent years bears the somewhat inappropriate “wildcat” label.
In the interest of optimum clarification, we offer the following brief explanations pertaining to the three above-mentioned terms:
· Dropback T – The quarterback positions himself right behind the center to take a close-up snap, then drops back either to hand off or pitch out to a runner, throw a forward pass, or carry the ball himself;
· Shotgun – Instead of having to receive a minimum-distance snap and start making a hasty retreat, the quarterback stands several yards behind the center, awaiting a between-legs pass straight into his hands;
· Wildcat – The quarterback sits this play out on the bench, being replaced by a running back in the otherwise shotgun spot.
Handoffs, pitchouts, passes, and straight run options exist in each of the foregoing deployments. With opposing linemen, backers-up, and even deep defenders seeming to grow beefier and speedier from year to year, rapid-fire offensive play execution has become increasingly mandatory. The need for quickness, coupled with deception and a modicum of explosiveness, has never been more vital than under present playing conditions.
At this stage we feel obligated to toss out as concise as possible a history of how offensive attack formations have evolved, beginning with football’s dark ages and moving forward.
During the very early days, the pre-play lineup showed the four backs in a diamond-shape behind the center. This layout soon gave way to bringing the deepest man in closer, so that a Goodyear blimp shot would resemble an inverted letter T pattern, hence the formation’s modern era tag.
However, the aught and teen years of the last century produced an innovative coaching gent named Glenn “Pop” Warner, who devised two separate backfield deployments, soon to be dubbed the single and double wingback respectively. The quarterback no longer started out right behind the center. Instead, a direct pass would be made to one or more players stationed in what we now call the shotgun position. There were distinct advantages thus provided, in that less ball exchange was required, with the play being executable more rapidly.
The alternate Warner systems became the sole attack means employed for roughly three decades, with the single wing being prevalent by far. Its key feature was shifting the running and blocking strength to one side, usually the right.
This dominance was blown to bits in 1941, following two sensational milestone games – one professional, the other on the college Rose Bowl turf – which found not only the enemy forces, but the fans as well, utterly dazzled with what the T-formation, as reincarnated by the Chicago Bears and Stanford University respectively, could accomplish. With exception of a few diehard Warner system advocates, that year witnessed teams from the NFL down to kids playing on vacant lots returning to the theretofore outmoded setup. No change in the game’s structure has ever been swifter or more universal.
Following that massive reversion to ancient-day offensive methodology, a relatively short time span was needed for variations to be introduced. Pretty soon, the blimp would no longer show a pure letter T configuration. The evolutionary movement produced such strategic layouts as the T with man in motion, the winged T, the T with flanker, the slot T, the split T, the sidesaddle T, the wishbone T, the double T, and perhaps a couple more we’ve forgotten.
In due course, even the schools which had adamantly stuck to the single or double wingback lineups (primarily Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Texas, Southern California, and a precious few others) abandoned Warnerism in favor of the T, never again to change back.
Did we say never? Well, hardly ever. During the late 1940s and earliest 1950s, Michigan and Princeton made devastating use of the single wing, spiced up with a highly deceptive “buck lateral” feature. This faded out in fairly short order, though, since far too much ball-handling was involved, making matters easier for eagerly charging defensive linemen.
Jumping to the present, the deployment diversity we see today challenges even the keenest of viewer imaginations. In most instances before a play starts, we observe men spread almost all the way across the field, at times with the quarterback completely alone behind the center.
The question at this point therefore seems to be where do we go from here? Based on past history, our customary presumptuous predictions appear below, to take effect over the coming decade, or likely an even shorter span:
· Permanent disappearance of the snap-and-dropback quarterback maneuver, hence placing him exclusively in the shotgun position;
· Gradual (or maybe steadier) enhancement of the wildcat setup, resulting in far more running back use as a prime play executor;
· Further evolutionary movement yet, to the point where the wildcat arrangement may find the pure running ace to be supplanted the now-defunct triple-threat, do-everything-superbly back, which we old-timers once enjoyed watching perform so masterfully.
We’d like to enlarge upon that last comment a bit, by saying it would be a pleasure indeed to witness the return of a few Walter Eckersall, Jim Thorpe, Eddie Mahan, George Gipp, Paddy Driscoll, Ernie Nevers, Ken Strong, Dutch Clark, Jay Berwanger, Clint Frank, Ace Parker, Byron White, Nile Kinnick, Bill Dudley, or Glenn Dobbs types, in contrast to the numerous single-skill-only gladiators who grace our playing fields at this time.
We can hope, anyway.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
A FEW REFLECTIONS FROM PRO FOOTBALL'S OLDEN DAYS
When we plunk ourselves down on the living room couch these days and tune into the current Sunday or Monday night NFL matches, played in gigantic stadia with barely ever an empty seat, it’s almost impossible to imagine how relatively humble the pro game used to be during those long years of infancy and adolescence. The ball seldom if ever bounced very high a great many moons and decades ago.
We’re not about to embark on a lengthy history of our favorite sport here, since that would require a virtual encyclopedia. Our purpose is merely to present a few selected snapshots of professional football’s struggle throughout its earliest days. The contrast between the then and the now seems absolutely unbelievable.
The first recorded play-for-pay game took place in 1894, when a Latrobe, Pennsylvania team challenged a squad from the nearby hamlet of Jeannette to a single contest, and came out a 12-0 winner. Essentially speaking, that was page one in pro football’s Book of Genesis.
This sport, which had already achieved some popularity on the eastern college gridiron fields at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania, et al, could hardly avoid attaining professional status in due course. The aught and teen years of the twentieth century found a number of loosely organized teams bashing it out across the northeast and midwest (particularly the latter) from one autumn to the next.
What had made this all happen? Did cheering fans pack the stands to capacity week after week? Were fat pay checks being doled out to the players, supplementable by endorsement fees for shaving cream or athlete’s foot remedies? Did the star performers reign as heroes in the cities their teams represented? Did mass hysteria prevail over each new season?
Well, not exactly. In fact, we have to say not in the slightest. Where, then, did the motivation originate?
The answer could only be an inherent love of taking the field and giving out with one’s best. Not unlike kids assembling on vacant lots for an afternoon match, these were grown men with established grid skills seizing an opportunity for organized combative exercise, in return for a couple bucks to the extent club funds became available.
In 1920, the inevitable result occurred, when a small group of men gathered at a Canton, Ohio automobile agency and sat on running boards as they conceived an official league, with franchises offerable to interested civic leaders anywhere at a whopping $100 price. Their venture proved fruitful. The game’s New Testament had begun.
Fourteen memberships were readily acquired in the American Professional Football Association, to be rechristened later as the National Football League. The 1920 season’s participating cities stretched from New York state westward to Illinois, via Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. Altogether, after a long era of financial successes and failures, location switches, additional entrants, and otherwise, these “original colonies” expanded to encompass 61 different metropoles, smaller towns, entire states, or major regional areas having seen fit to support their gridiron warriors at one time or another. At present, just 32 survivors remain, carrying out their fall schedules before excited fans numbering in the millions.
The ultimate event each year, or professional football’s Book of Revelations, is the classic Super Bowl, whose spectator frenzy has reached a stage comparable to if not exceeding baseball’s world series, the quadrennial international Olympiad, hockey’s Stanley Cup, the British soccer finals, and perhaps all the rest combined.
It’s been a glorious history indeed, so full of highlights over the past century and a quarter that volumes would be needed to cover them adequately. However, we’ve chosen instead to focus briefly on two much dimmer bulbs from the 1920s and 1930s-1940s, to which little or no due credit has ever been accorded.
We’re talking about a pair of clubs that have always held a certain fascination for this writer, namely the Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs from 1920 until their demise following the 1927 season, and the Brooklyn Dodgers (later renamed the Tigers), who reigned in relative obscurity from 1930 to 1944.
In the years 1922 through 1924, the Bulldogs’ record amounted to 28 victories against a single defeat and four ties. They were a decided forerunner to the subsequent age Bears, Browns, Packers, Cowboys, Patriots, and other dynasties which have made their own highly prominent splashes. Still, who remembers these early day stalwarts’ prowess, or has even heard of them?
Some degree of appreciation certainly seems to be in order. The Canton and Cleveland location lineups during that three-year period included:
· Guy Chamberlin, one of the finest ends the game has known;
· Wilbur “Fats” Henry, generally acclaimed to this day as great a tackle who ever lived, the
Roosevelt Browns, Jim Parkers, and Bob Lillys of latter years notwithstanding;
· Roy “Link” Lyman, still another superb tackle in the eyes of many.
This team truly deserves more recognition than it has ever been granted.
The 1933 season found the league broken down into two separate divisions for the first time, with a playoff game at the end between the respective leaders. Only ten teams existed then
In the Eastern Division were the:
· Boston Redskins, later to migrate to Washington, D.C.;
· Brooklyn Dodgers, later to be called the Tigers;
· Philadelphia Eagles;
· Pittsburgh Pirates, later to become the Steelers;
· New York Giants.
In the Western Division were the:
· Chicago Bears;
· Chicago Cardinals, eventually to move to St. Louis and finally Arizona;
· Cincinnati Reds, doomed to extinction shortly afterward;
· Green Bay Packers;
· Portsmouth Spartans, due to become the Detroit Lions the following year.
With eight of those clubs continuing to thrive today, and the Cincinnati Reds having vanished from the scene, that leaves the never-too-well-fated Dodgers/Tigers on whom we’ve decided to turn our spotlight. For 1933 and the next eleven years, they plugged on as well as they could, but consistently ended up as no more than bridesmaids. The reason we’ve chosen to single them out for recognition is that their rosters over this period featured a bevy of players who rate among the game’s greatest in history. What a shame it was that a franchise whose ranks included those shown below never managed to reach division championship status. Nevertheless, we wish to salute them, especially these highly exemplary performers:
· End Perry Schwartz;
· Tackles Frank “Bruiser” Kinard and Bill Lee;
· Guards Herman Hickman and Grover “Ox” Emerson;
· Sterling tailback Clarence “Ace” Parker.
This may not be the most inspiring article on pro football you’ve ever read, but at least it’s been an enjoyable one to write.
We’re not about to embark on a lengthy history of our favorite sport here, since that would require a virtual encyclopedia. Our purpose is merely to present a few selected snapshots of professional football’s struggle throughout its earliest days. The contrast between the then and the now seems absolutely unbelievable.
The first recorded play-for-pay game took place in 1894, when a Latrobe, Pennsylvania team challenged a squad from the nearby hamlet of Jeannette to a single contest, and came out a 12-0 winner. Essentially speaking, that was page one in pro football’s Book of Genesis.
This sport, which had already achieved some popularity on the eastern college gridiron fields at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Pennsylvania, et al, could hardly avoid attaining professional status in due course. The aught and teen years of the twentieth century found a number of loosely organized teams bashing it out across the northeast and midwest (particularly the latter) from one autumn to the next.
What had made this all happen? Did cheering fans pack the stands to capacity week after week? Were fat pay checks being doled out to the players, supplementable by endorsement fees for shaving cream or athlete’s foot remedies? Did the star performers reign as heroes in the cities their teams represented? Did mass hysteria prevail over each new season?
Well, not exactly. In fact, we have to say not in the slightest. Where, then, did the motivation originate?
The answer could only be an inherent love of taking the field and giving out with one’s best. Not unlike kids assembling on vacant lots for an afternoon match, these were grown men with established grid skills seizing an opportunity for organized combative exercise, in return for a couple bucks to the extent club funds became available.
In 1920, the inevitable result occurred, when a small group of men gathered at a Canton, Ohio automobile agency and sat on running boards as they conceived an official league, with franchises offerable to interested civic leaders anywhere at a whopping $100 price. Their venture proved fruitful. The game’s New Testament had begun.
Fourteen memberships were readily acquired in the American Professional Football Association, to be rechristened later as the National Football League. The 1920 season’s participating cities stretched from New York state westward to Illinois, via Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. Altogether, after a long era of financial successes and failures, location switches, additional entrants, and otherwise, these “original colonies” expanded to encompass 61 different metropoles, smaller towns, entire states, or major regional areas having seen fit to support their gridiron warriors at one time or another. At present, just 32 survivors remain, carrying out their fall schedules before excited fans numbering in the millions.
The ultimate event each year, or professional football’s Book of Revelations, is the classic Super Bowl, whose spectator frenzy has reached a stage comparable to if not exceeding baseball’s world series, the quadrennial international Olympiad, hockey’s Stanley Cup, the British soccer finals, and perhaps all the rest combined.
It’s been a glorious history indeed, so full of highlights over the past century and a quarter that volumes would be needed to cover them adequately. However, we’ve chosen instead to focus briefly on two much dimmer bulbs from the 1920s and 1930s-1940s, to which little or no due credit has ever been accorded.
We’re talking about a pair of clubs that have always held a certain fascination for this writer, namely the Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs from 1920 until their demise following the 1927 season, and the Brooklyn Dodgers (later renamed the Tigers), who reigned in relative obscurity from 1930 to 1944.
In the years 1922 through 1924, the Bulldogs’ record amounted to 28 victories against a single defeat and four ties. They were a decided forerunner to the subsequent age Bears, Browns, Packers, Cowboys, Patriots, and other dynasties which have made their own highly prominent splashes. Still, who remembers these early day stalwarts’ prowess, or has even heard of them?
Some degree of appreciation certainly seems to be in order. The Canton and Cleveland location lineups during that three-year period included:
· Guy Chamberlin, one of the finest ends the game has known;
· Wilbur “Fats” Henry, generally acclaimed to this day as great a tackle who ever lived, the
Roosevelt Browns, Jim Parkers, and Bob Lillys of latter years notwithstanding;
· Roy “Link” Lyman, still another superb tackle in the eyes of many.
This team truly deserves more recognition than it has ever been granted.
The 1933 season found the league broken down into two separate divisions for the first time, with a playoff game at the end between the respective leaders. Only ten teams existed then
In the Eastern Division were the:
· Boston Redskins, later to migrate to Washington, D.C.;
· Brooklyn Dodgers, later to be called the Tigers;
· Philadelphia Eagles;
· Pittsburgh Pirates, later to become the Steelers;
· New York Giants.
In the Western Division were the:
· Chicago Bears;
· Chicago Cardinals, eventually to move to St. Louis and finally Arizona;
· Cincinnati Reds, doomed to extinction shortly afterward;
· Green Bay Packers;
· Portsmouth Spartans, due to become the Detroit Lions the following year.
With eight of those clubs continuing to thrive today, and the Cincinnati Reds having vanished from the scene, that leaves the never-too-well-fated Dodgers/Tigers on whom we’ve decided to turn our spotlight. For 1933 and the next eleven years, they plugged on as well as they could, but consistently ended up as no more than bridesmaids. The reason we’ve chosen to single them out for recognition is that their rosters over this period featured a bevy of players who rate among the game’s greatest in history. What a shame it was that a franchise whose ranks included those shown below never managed to reach division championship status. Nevertheless, we wish to salute them, especially these highly exemplary performers:
· End Perry Schwartz;
· Tackles Frank “Bruiser” Kinard and Bill Lee;
· Guards Herman Hickman and Grover “Ox” Emerson;
· Sterling tailback Clarence “Ace” Parker.
This may not be the most inspiring article on pro football you’ve ever read, but at least it’s been an enjoyable one to write.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
ANOTHER CHINK IN THE NFL'S ARMOR
This blog has already presented more than one article dealing with certain elements which we consider to be major flaws in our 21st century version of professional football. In view of two very recent playing field occurrences, we are extremely displeased to add yet another.
Despite having to stage a few sensational come-from-behind victories throughout the 2009 regular NFL campaign, the Indianapolis Colts appeared to be headed for the first totally undefeated season since the Miami Dolphins' superb 1972 performance in that regard. The game's massive fandom tends to love excellence, and a great many folk everywhere were cheering this band of brothers, whose helmets bear the turned-up horseshoe emblem, on to a perfect record, enjoyed by only a few teams in the league's entire history.
Then came December 27, when their opponents were the New York Jets, an enviable but decidedly weaker array. With an Indianapolis win being a certainty, Coach Jim Caldwell decided instead that Peyton Manning, an all-time great quarterback, and other starters should "sit this one out" on the bench for most of the second half. The final result found the Colts on the short end of a 29-15 score.
A week later, the same coach poured more salt on the wound by pulling his stars in mid-game, as his boys met defeat again, this time to the relative pussycat Buffalo Bills, by a lopsided 30-7. How ignominiously can such an otherwise mighty squad close out its regular season?
In some respects, Caldwell's reasoning made sense. With the division title already won and the vital playoff schedule looming ahead, he chose to rest his prime aces and thus avert danger of severe injury to key performers. He had his eye on the long pull, forsaking the glory of sixteen consecutive victorious conquests.
Such a strategic move on his part might be further justified by the fact that the New England Patriots' star pass receiver and kick returner Wes Welker suffered a closing game injury serious enough to put him out of the playoffs, thus handicapping the team no end.
Nevertheless, we honestly fear that an unfortunate precedent may have been established by this overly conservative act. Will future season clubs follow suit once they have playoff berths sewn up? If this actually happens, we envision the game taking still another step downward.
By way of analogy, just imagine the famed General George S. Patton having said in the early spring of 1945 "We have the war practically won, so I'll order my troops to rest until it's over. That way, we won't be facing any more casualties."
We have no quarrel with the benching of one's top players when his team holds a 35-0 lead late in the game. Keeping the score from mounting to excessive heights can only be construed as sportsmanlike humanitarianism. However, when the opponents are ahead or the outcome looks iffy, we deem it a coach's duty to put forth a maximum effort to achieve victory, and not don the Cautious Clarence mantle due to concern that some of his fellows may get hurt.
The Indianapolis lads look strong enough to pick up all the Super Bowl marbles this year. Even if they manage to reach such coveted goal, we personally will see the team's 2009 season record as having a large hole smack in the middle.
Despite having to stage a few sensational come-from-behind victories throughout the 2009 regular NFL campaign, the Indianapolis Colts appeared to be headed for the first totally undefeated season since the Miami Dolphins' superb 1972 performance in that regard. The game's massive fandom tends to love excellence, and a great many folk everywhere were cheering this band of brothers, whose helmets bear the turned-up horseshoe emblem, on to a perfect record, enjoyed by only a few teams in the league's entire history.
Then came December 27, when their opponents were the New York Jets, an enviable but decidedly weaker array. With an Indianapolis win being a certainty, Coach Jim Caldwell decided instead that Peyton Manning, an all-time great quarterback, and other starters should "sit this one out" on the bench for most of the second half. The final result found the Colts on the short end of a 29-15 score.
A week later, the same coach poured more salt on the wound by pulling his stars in mid-game, as his boys met defeat again, this time to the relative pussycat Buffalo Bills, by a lopsided 30-7. How ignominiously can such an otherwise mighty squad close out its regular season?
In some respects, Caldwell's reasoning made sense. With the division title already won and the vital playoff schedule looming ahead, he chose to rest his prime aces and thus avert danger of severe injury to key performers. He had his eye on the long pull, forsaking the glory of sixteen consecutive victorious conquests.
Such a strategic move on his part might be further justified by the fact that the New England Patriots' star pass receiver and kick returner Wes Welker suffered a closing game injury serious enough to put him out of the playoffs, thus handicapping the team no end.
Nevertheless, we honestly fear that an unfortunate precedent may have been established by this overly conservative act. Will future season clubs follow suit once they have playoff berths sewn up? If this actually happens, we envision the game taking still another step downward.
By way of analogy, just imagine the famed General George S. Patton having said in the early spring of 1945 "We have the war practically won, so I'll order my troops to rest until it's over. That way, we won't be facing any more casualties."
We have no quarrel with the benching of one's top players when his team holds a 35-0 lead late in the game. Keeping the score from mounting to excessive heights can only be construed as sportsmanlike humanitarianism. However, when the opponents are ahead or the outcome looks iffy, we deem it a coach's duty to put forth a maximum effort to achieve victory, and not don the Cautious Clarence mantle due to concern that some of his fellows may get hurt.
The Indianapolis lads look strong enough to pick up all the Super Bowl marbles this year. Even if they manage to reach such coveted goal, we personally will see the team's 2009 season record as having a large hole smack in the middle.
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