Will The Drought End Tomorrow?

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I remember the last Triple Crown winner — vaguely. I had just graduated from high school — and broken up with my girlfriend. I was going to enroll in college in the fall. I didn't really pay close attention to horse racing at that time in my life. After all, a Triple Crown? What was so special about that? It was the third one in six years.

In hindsight, the duels between eventual Triple Crown winner Affirmed and his rival Alydar were quite special. In addition to producing the most recent Triple Crown winner (in 1978), they were just darn good horse races.

I must admit that I have been pretty busy this year. I have managed to watch the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness as usual, but that has really been the extent of it this year.

Still, I learned a few things. For one, I know — as everyone knows about horses that win the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness — that American Pharoah is a speed horse. But that means nothing going into tomorrow's race. The first two races of the Triple Crown emphasize speed; the Belmont, which will be run tomorrow, is the longest race any horse will ever run, and it emphasizes endurance. It is really more of a jockey's race. The jockey must make critical decisions, such as when to make your move and dig deep for any reserves of energy. You don't really see signs of that in the Derby or the Preakness. They're over in the blink of an eye. But the Belmont is a longer race. The jockey's strategic skills combine with the horse's endurance.

I didn't realize until three weeks ago how good American Pharoah could be on a sloppy track. His victory in the Preakness was dominant in soggy conditions, which might tell us a lot if rain was in the forecast. But there's only a slight chance of rain in Elmont, N.Y., tomorrow. Should be a pleasant day, actually, with a northerly breeze and a temperature in the mid–70s.

But the track should be dry, as it was at the Kentucky Derby five weeks ago. American Pharoah's victory wasn't as dominant in that one.

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That was, by far, the more dramatic race, with American Pharoah bunched with two other horses as they sprinted to the finish line. They were so tightly bunched, in fact, that I thought I was about to see my first–ever photo finish involving three horses. But American Pharoah pulled away and was the clear winner.

I've become a bit jaded about the Triple Crown in recent years. We've been disappointed a little more than one–third of the time when the Derby/Preakness winner either did not win or did not enter the Belmont; the rest of the time, there was no chance that the winner of the Belmont would win the Triple Crown because two different horses had won the Derby and the Preakness — and that meant low TV ratings and low attendance.

Last year, with California Chrome making what turned out to be an unsuccessful bid for the Triple Crown, more than 100,000 people came to the track, and things got out of hand. This year, organizers say they're putting a cap on attendance at 90,000. We'll see how that works out.

So will American Pharoah end the drought? He's the clear favorite going into the race, but I have been skeptical in recent years. I have written about that before, and I feel much the same way this time. I doubt that it will happen.

I don't have any overwhelming reason for that. I don't have a horse in mind that I think will win the race, although there are a couple of names I have been hearing mentioned frequently — Keen Ice and Frosted. Keep an eye on those horses. Even though the 1½–mile Belmont emphasizes endurance, I think it is possible that either of those horses could make a move from the start that forces American Pharoah into a speed race. Unless he really turns out to be one of those rare perfect blends of speed and endurance, he will run out of gas before he reaches the finish line.

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Here's a look at the last time a horse won the Triple Crown — Affirmed's triumph in the Belmont Stakes in June of 1978.

Pitcher Bob Welch Dies at 57

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Imagine being 21 years old, a rookie pitcher playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and you're in the World Series against the New York Yankees.

That was the situation in which Bob Welch found himself on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 11, 1978, when he came in to close out a 4–3 victory for Los Angeles. Starter Burt Hooton had gone six innings and staked the Dodgers to a one–run lead when he left; then reliever Terry Forster pitched 2⅓ solid innings but left after serving up a single and a walk in the ninth.

In came Welch.

In front of more than 55,000 fans in Dodger Stadium — and millions more watching on TV — Welch nailed down the save. He got Thurman Munson to fly out to right, then won an epic showdown with future Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson. Jackson had driven in all of the Yankees' runs that night, and he came to the plate with two outs and runners at first and second.

This was at the time, it should be noted, that Jackson was gaining his reputation as "Mister October." A year earlier, he hit three consecutive home runs to lift the Yankees to their World Series–clinching triumph over those same Dodgers and won the series MVP in the process.

He could have evened the game with a well–hit ball, but the young Welch gunned him down. Jackson struck out swinging, and Welch had preserved the victory for the Dodgers.

Los Angeles would lose the next four games — and the Series — to the Yankees.

The Dodgers ended up trading Welch to Oakland following the 1987 season. The A's faced the Dodgers in the World Series in 1988, and Welch pitched in the only game Oakland won. He didn't get the win — another ex–Dodger, Rick Honeycutt, got the win in relief after Mark McGwire hit a one–out home run in the eighth.

A couple of years later, Welch won the Cy Young Award. He won 27 games that year and remains the last pitcher to win 25 games or more in a single season.

Welch died yesterday at the age of 57. At this point, his cause of death remains undisclosed.

The Punch Heard 'Round the Football World

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"Evidently nobody in authority realized that a full–grown man who attached such importance to a game was, at best, immature, not to say a case of arrested development. The saddest part of the whole affair is that nobody at Ohio State saw the denouement approaching and protected Hayes from himself."

Red Smith (1905–1982)

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Red Smith is one of my favorite journalists. I guess it is appropriate to call him a sports journalist, and he probably accepted that during his lifetime, but he wrote that he always "wanted to be a newspaperman and came to realize I didn't really care which side of the newspaper I worked on."

Frankly, I felt the same way. Smith had a philosophy about sports journalism that I tried to keep in mind when I worked on the sports side of newspapers.

"[P]eople go to spectator sports to have fun and then they grab the paper to read about it and have fun all over again," he wrote. "I've always tried to remember ... that sports isn't Armageddon. These are just little games that little boys can play, and it really isn't important to the future of civilization whether the Athletics or the Browns win."

Thirty–five years ago, Woody Hayes would have been smart to heed those words, especially the part about how sports isn't Armageddon. If he had, Hayes' 28–year coaching career at Ohio State might not have come to an end when it did.

Hayes had a reputation for being a disciplinarian, a man who would take young men and mold them into leaders. He was a military historian who often applied principles from military history to his coaching.

It was known that Hayes had a temper that he couldn't always control. He once tried to punch a sportswriter following a loss, but he missed and hit the brother of the sports editor of another paper instead. A few years later, he almost got into a fight with the athletic director of another school during a meeting of Big Ten Conference athletic directors and coaches.

Late in his career, he seemed to have a particular animosity for photographers. He shoved a camera in the face of a photographer before a Rose Bowl game, leading to a three–game suspension, and about a year before the 1978 Gator Bowl, he took a swing at a TV cameraman late in a loss to Michigan.

In spite of his history, no one suspected, when Dec. 29, 1978 dawned, that the Gator Bowl between #20 Ohio State and #7 Clemson in Jacksonville, Fla., that night would be Hayes' last game as a college football coach.

But when Clemson's Charlie Bauman intercepted a pass late in the game to seal a 17–15 victory, Hayes punched him in front of God and the TV cameras — and, at that moment, I knew Hayes was finished.

I'll never forget that night. I was in my grandmother's home. My family had been visiting her for Christmas, but we were frantically preparing to leave Dallas ahead of an ice storm that was expected within a few days. That night, for whatever reason, my father and I decided to stop packing and watch the football game. We both watched in utter disbelief as Hayes struck the opposing player.

An era was ending in college football. It had been kind of a comforting, reassuring era when the giants from the ranks of college coaches were always there on the sidelines of the truly big games. One by one, though, they were stepping aside, and the next generation was taking over.

It was an inevitable transition. It happens in all walks of life with the passage of time, but we all know that people still get sentimental about endings. It is true of coaches, too; people are always wistful when longtime coaches leave. The coaches themselves are often wistful. It is a bittersweet time.

In many ways, the sports world is the same as it was when Hayes walked the sideline. But in other ways it has changed dramatically. One has to wonder, in hindsight, if Hayes could have remained the Ohio State football coach for much longer.

In the years after the legends of the 20th century roamed the sidelines, that drill sergeant mentality gradually fell out of favor with college athletic directors. There may be a few of them out there, but, for the most part, they have vanished.

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"... Charlie Bauman intercepted a pass and went out of bounds right where the Ohio State coach stood. That architect of young manhood laid hold of Bauman and fetched him a roundhouse right to the chops. Fists flailing, he tried to charge onto the field, but his own scholar athletes, already bruised and bleeding from their pursuit of culture, overpowered him."

Red Smith

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Hayes, it was said more and more frequently, physically assaulted his players during practice, and that did bother some people at the time, but most folks were willing to ignore it as long as he didn't do that kind of thing in public. After all, this was football, a man's game, and men are tough.

Today, a college coach who struck an athlete, whether in view of only his peers or a national TV audience, would most likely get the boot regardless of who he was. Politics — and political correctness — won't tolerate that sort of thing.

Three decades ago, schools were more protective of their star coaches, firing them only when they had no choice. And, on this day in 1978, Ohio State was left with no choice.

There really wasn't anything special about the 1978 Gator Bowl. It was the first time — and, until Clemson and Ohio State meet in Friday night's Orange Bowl, the only time — the schools faced off in football.

But the game set no records for scoring or anything else, as I recall. It is remembered only for Hayes' punch.

Muhammad Ali's Third Heavyweight Crown

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Thirty–five years ago today, Muhammad Ali did something no one else has ever done. He won the heavyweight title for the third time.

Seven months earlier, Ali got sloppy and lost his title to Leon Spinks, a newcomer fighting in only his eighth professional fight. The 36–year–old Ali clearly expected an easy time with Spinks, but he wound up losing a 15–round decision.

Ali took the rematch seriously and came into it in much better shape. In many ways, he looked like the Ali of a few years earlier when he won bouts with George Foreman and Joe Frazier.

The Spinks fights were televised in those pre–cable days by one of the networks. That was one of the great things about the years when Ali was the champ. He made boxing accessible to everyone. Before and after Ali's championship years, heavyweight title fights were televised in that era's version of pay–per–view telecasts. They were shown via closed circuit in theaters, and, as I recall, tickets definitely were not cheap (in the financial context of the times).

But Joe Six–Pack could watch heavyweight title fights from the comfort of his own living room — and without paying a penny for the privilege — when Ali was champ.

I didn't get to see Ali lose his title to Spinks in February 1978. It was regarded as a foregone conclusion that Ali would win, and I accepted a social invitation of some kind — and, as a result, missed one of the great upsets in boxing history.

Seven months later, when the two of them met in a rematch, I was in front of the TV watching. I wasn't about to miss it. The Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila get all the attention in the Ali story, but, for me, the fight that took place 35 years ago tonight was the most anticipated fight of my life.

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As I watched the rematch, it was hard for me to believe Ali could have lost to Spinks in that first fight. Ali was sharp. He was crisp. He was in charge of the fight from the beginning.

Long before the final bell sounded, I knew Ali would recapture his title that night — barring some totally unexpected development. Not only did Ali look like he was in charge of the fight, but Spinks appeared hesitant, sluggish, even confused at times. In the later rounds, maybe that confusion was due to all the blows Spinks had taken from Ali. But I could not explain why he was that way in the early rounds.

I thought it was a mismatch. It was hard for me to believe the fight went the distance. True, it resulted in a unanimous decision for Ali, but his age was catching up to him. The Ali of even two years prior would have finished off Spinks in a few rounds, as he did Jean–Pierre Coopman and Richard Dunn (with a 15–round decision over a more highly regarded challenger, Jimmy Young, in between) in a three—month span in 1976.

But, after beating Spinks, Ali went more than two years before unsuccessfully defending his title against Larry Holmes in October 1980.

The Era of Ali was over.

A Test to the Wire

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Thirty–five years ago today, thoroughbred racing witnessed the crowning of its most recent Triple Crown winner.

At the time, it seemed embarrassingly routine. Between 1973 and 1978, there were three Triple Crown winners. There have been none since.

Some folks think 1978 will be the last time a horse ever wins the Triple Crown. Maybe it will be. I hope not. I'd like to see another Triple Crown winner in my lifetime.

When this year's edition of the Belmont was run a couple of days ago, I already knew there would be no Triple Crown winner in 2013. But no one knew if there would be a Triple Crown winner when this day dawned in 1978. Everyone knew it was possible, but everyone also knew that the winner of the first two races, Affirmed, would have to hold off his top challenger in those races, Alydar.

And that was something Affirmed had barely been able to do in the two speed races of the Triple Crown. The question on this day was whether he could do it in the distance race, the Belmont Stakes.

The Affirmed–Alydar rivalry actually went back farther than the 1978 Triple Crown. They were old foes. The previous year, as 2–year–olds, they faced each other frequently. They were probably horse racing's answer to Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier or Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, two other prominent rivalries of the '70s.

Affirmed surged to an early lead and clung to the lead throughout the race, but along the backstretch, Alydar pulled nearly even, and the two shared the lead for the rest of the Belmont. For awhile as the horses ran down the stretch, Alydar had the lead; briefly, it appeared there would be no Triple Crown winner in 1978.

As befits a great rivalry, though, the battle of the Belmont wasn't decided until the very end, as legendary race announcer Chic Anderson said. Anderson (who made a memorable call when Secretariat won the Belmont by an incredible 30 lengths five years before) observed that Affirmed and Alydar were running neck and neck down the stretch. "We'll test these two to the wire!" he exclaimed.

And so they did. Affirmed barely won the race — and the Triple Crown. Riding Affirmed to that Triple Crown was 18–year–old Steve Cauthen, the youngest jockey ever to sweep the Triple Crown races.

As no horse has won the Triple Crown since that day, it follows that Cauthen's record has been unchallenged in the last 35 years. Will that record ever be broken?

When the Orange Got Crushed

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Before the 1977 NFL season, the Denver Broncos were practically invisible.

They never made the playoffs — so it follows that they had never been to a Super Bowl. In fact, they rarely had a winning season.

But that changed in 1977.

The Broncos didn't win with their offense that year. Half the teams in the AFC scored more points than Denver did.

Denver won with defense. No team in the AFC and only two teams in the NFC allowed fewer points than the Denver Broncos, whose defense earned the nickname "Orange Crush." Only one team — division rival and defending NFL champion Oakland — scored 20 points or more against Denver during the regular season.

My memory is that Denver's defense captured the imagination of the sports world that year. But, in the end, the Broncos couldn't capture the NFL title.

They've played in several Super Bowls now, but, on this day 35 years ago, the Broncos played in their first–ever Super Bowl. Appearing in the Super Bowl became almost a routine thing for Denver fans in the 1980s and less so in the 1990s (although the '90s brought the Broncos their first triumph), but in 1977 it was a brand–new experience for them and for their team.

And, as has been the case with most first–time Super Bowl teams, the outcome of the game wasn't favorable.

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I guess the enduring memory for me from Super Bowl XII is of Dallas' Butch Johnson snagging a Roger Staubach pass that seemed to be just beyond his reach, tumbling into the end zone and bouncing to his feet, ready to pounce on the ball — and he would have, too, if the official had not signaled a touchdown.

To this day, I still don't know if it was a legitimate catch, but in that pre–challenge era, there was no way for Denver coach Red Miller to dispute it.

It was just one of those can't–miss kind of games — for the Cowboys, not the Broncos.

Staubach completed more than two–thirds of his passes, helping the Cowboys race to a 13–0 halftime lead. Eventually, the Cowboys won, 27–10, giving Dallas coach Tom Landry his second — and last — NFL title.

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But even more remarkably, the most valuable player award went to not one but two defensive players, Dallas' Randy White and Harvey Martin.

White and Martin combined for seven tackles and two sacks of Denver quarterback Craig Morton.

Once upon a time, Morton had been Dallas' quarterback, but Morton was stymied in Super Bowl V, and Landry alternated between Morton and Staubach for the first half of the 1971 season before settling on Staubach.

Morton's career in Dallas was over. He stayed in Dallas a few more seasons, but Staubach was the starter, and Morton looked for a fresh start. A few years with the Giants didn't work out for him, and, in 1977, he found himself in Denver.

Morton completed only 42% of his passes that season — but, as I say, the Broncos only gave up 20 points or more once during the regular season so Denver really didn't need him to contribute much.

The Steelers scored 21 on the Broncos in the first round of the playoffs, but the Broncos unexpectedly scored more points than they had in any other game all year (even though Morton completed less than half of his passes) and advanced to the AFC championship game, where they beat the Oakland Raiders.

But Dallas' Doomsday Defense overwhelmed Morton, who completed about one–fourth of his passes and was intercepted four times.