Here in Texas there is widespread reverence (except in College Station, I suppose) for the 2006 national championship game between the Texas Longhorns and the Southern Cal Trojans.
Even now more than a decade later.
If you ask people around here what they remember about that game, they are almost sure to mention Vince Young's scamper into the end zone in the final seconds to win it.
It was a classic, all right, and I remember that moment, too, but what I remember most about that game was how familiar it all felt — with Keith Jackson calling it.
It was the last game in a remarkable career, a career that included coverage of pro football, the Olympics, boxing, racing. All sports, really, but especially college football.
His career spanned more than half a century so the odds are pretty good that you or someone you know — perhaps both — grew up listening to Jackson's play–by–plays.
Lots of people forget that Jackson was on the original Monday Night Football broadcasting crew doing the play–by–play. Frank Gifford was the original choice, but he had other commitments in that first season so Jackson handled the play–by–play. Gifford took over the next season.
People have been sharing their memories of Jackson on social media today, and they are all great memories.
I grew up listening to Jackson, and I can't say I have a special memory. But all those other moments sound familiar, whether I actually witnessed them or not.
One thing I can say is that Jackson and I were once at the same game — at least once.
My family attended the Sugar Bowl a couple of times when I was growing up, and I know that Jackson was on the broadcast team at one of them. Maybe both.
I didn't hear the broadcast, of course, because I was at the game, and it was long before people could watch TV from handheld devices. But I knew he was there.
Among other things, Jackson is remembered for his colorful descriptions of people and things. He was the one who called the Rose Bowl "the granddaddy of them all." He dubbed Michigan's football stadium "The Big House."
His signature line was "Whoa, Nellie!" when something big happened. If I happened to be in the kitchen getting something to eat and I heard Jackson exclaim, "Whoa, Nellie!" I knew I needed to get back into the living room pronto because there was sure to be a replay of whatever it was.
And it was not to be missed.
It's been awhile since Jackson participated in a broadcast, but he still will be missed. And whenever I hear anyone say "Whoa, Nellie!" I know I will think of him.
Secretariat is a name that has been known by hundreds of millions of people for more than 40 years — but most probably never heard of Penny Chenery until the Walt Disney Co. made a movie about Secretariat.
If you didn't grow up in the South, you may not know that is about the highest compliment one can pay. To be a tough old bird suggests that you have lived a long life and fielded everything life threw at you. Penny Chenery was a pioneer, and pioneers always have to be tough old birds.
They rarely win popularity contests.
In Penny Chenery's case she took over her father's once–successful horse breeding business when he became disabled and, applying what she had learned in business school, revived it and pursued her father's dream of winning the Kentucky Derby.
She had her father's love of horses, but she knew that horse breeding was not the kind of business she had studied in school. She encountered plenty of resistance along the way, but she achieved her father's goal with Riva Ridge in 1972.
In fact, with Secretariat, she went beyond her father's dream. She won all three of the Triple Crown races the following year, and Secretariat became the first Triple Crown winner in a quarter of a century.
Even now when I watch the footage of Secretariat's astonishing victory in the third and final jewel of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes, I feel that same sense of awe and excitement that I felt on that Saturday afternoon in June of 1973.
A decade after that accomplishment, Chenery became one of the first three women to be admitted as members of The Jockey Club, which is the breed registry for thoroughbred horses in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. A few years earlier she became a member of the Executive Committee of the American Horse Council, the horse industry trade association.
When the Disney movie was in the theaters seven years ago, some complained that it was more about Penny Chenery than it was about Secretariat, and there is some truth in that.
But the greater truth is that no movie could fully tell the story of Penny Chenery's remarkable life.
"The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your fears and score your points when you get the opportunity."
Frank Broyles
I've been writing my blogs for close to 10 years now, and anyone who has read them for any length of time should know that I grew up in Arkansas.
And if you grew up in Arkansas in the latter half of the 20th century, Frank Broyles was an ever–constant presence. He was the coach of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks football team from 1958 to 1976 and the school's athletic director from 1974 to 2007.
He died of Alzheimer's disease today at the age of 92.
People outside Arkansas were probably more likely to know of my home state's politicians — John McClellan, Bill Fulbright, Wilbur Mills, Orval Faubus — than Broyles. But the opposite was probably true of the people who lived in the state.
Oh, sure, most Arkansans probably knew who their governor was or who their senators were. All three were in office so long it would be hard not to know who they were.
But Broyles was different. Frank Litsky wrote in The New York Times that Broyles put Arkansas on the map. A lot of people probably think Bill Clinton did that when he became president — or maybe that Faubus did it during the Central High integration crisis in the late '50s — but it really was Broyles.
Arkansas had been playing football for more than half a century when Broyles took over as head coach but had appeared in only four bowls. In less than 20 years at the helm, Broyles took the Razorbacks to 10 bowl games and won four.
Broyles even won a national championship at Arkansas. It wasn't undisputed. He had to share it with Bear Bryant and Alabama back in the days when the polls determined the national champion, but it still counts as a national championship, and all my friends in Arkansas still speak of it as if Arkansas had been the undisputed champ.
As athletic director, Broyles knew how to hire championship–caliber coaches. He hired Lou Holtz as his successor. Holtz led the Hogs to a #3 national finish in his first season at Arkansas and went on to win a national championship at Notre Dame.
And Broyles hired Nolan Richardson to coach the basketball team. Richardson did win a national championship at Arkansas and took the Razorbacks back to the championship game the following year.
In Northwest Arkansas — around Eureka Springs, to be precise — atop a place called Magnetic Mountain there is a 65–foot statue called Christ of the Ozarks. It depicts a Christlike figure with his arms outstretched on each side. It was supposed to be part of a religious theme park — a dream that never really came to fruition — but a large amphitheater was built on the property, and it hosts performances of "The Great Passion Play" every year.
One of the truly great editorial cartoonists, George Fisher of the Arkansas Gazette, drew a cartoon with Broyles' face superimposed on a drawing of that statue. The concept of "Frank of the Ozarks" really was spot on. If ever there was a messianic figure in Arkansas, it was Frank Broyles.
Broyles is part of many fond memories for me, most involving football games (some of which ended well, some of which did not), but perhaps my fondest memory is from my days as a journalism student at the University of Arkansas. I was writing for the student newspaper, the Arkansas Traveler, and I called the athletic department one day to follow up on stories we had been hearing of the Razorbacks possibly scheduling one of their games overseas.
It turned out that there was far more rumor than fact to that story, but I soon found myself on the phone with none other than Frank Broyles himself. He was busy that day, but he took the time to speak to a campus reporter, and he did so with grace and patience.
The interview didn't last long — no more than five or 10 minutes, I guess — but what a thrill it was for me to be talking to someone I had grown up watching on TV. It was a Sunday afternoon ritual for me during football season to watch Frank Broyles going over footage from the game the day before on his coach's show (in those days, that was the only way to see most of the games so I never missed an opportunity to watch the Broyles show).
I could tell from our conversation that the Frank Broyles I had seen on TV was the genuine article. It wasn't an act.
With Frank Broyles, what you saw truly was what you got.
After graduation, I went on to work at the Arkansas Gazette and I got to meet some famous people when they came to town — but I never felt the same thrill I felt when I interviewed Frank Broyles.
Muhammad Ali himself said that when he retired from boxing. I knew at the time that he was right, but I didn't want it to be true. I wanted him to continue to box — and to win — just as I had wanted Roger Staubach to continue playing football and how, many years later, I wanted Brett Favre to continue playing.
I knew he wouldn't live forever, either, but, again, I didn't want it to be true. His death yesterday affected people everywhere, even people attending a Paul Simon performance.
Somehow, though, it seems appropriate that he should be taken from us this year of all years — when so many have already been taken. And when many more, no doubt, will be taken from us before this year is over. It seems to be that kind of year, a deviation from the norm from politics to mortality. The political process has been the same, but it has yielded two unusually unpopular nominees.
And mortality is about the same as usual, but it seems to be taking more influential prominent people than it does in an ordinary year. Actually, that probably isn't true. It just seems that way.
Muhammad Ali was a human magnet, drawing people to him more through the force of his personality than his boxing skills (although they played a role in it, too, make no mistake about that).
The thing about magnets, though, is that they repel as well as attract. And Muhammad Ali certainly repelled a lot of people. It was a divisive time in America, the late '60s. From the vantage point of half a century later — and with a black president in the Oval Office — it is easy for those who weren't there to think that the '60s were all about civil rights, but that was really only one issue that divided Americans in those days. The war in Vietnam divided people, too, and it was Ali's refusal to fight in Vietnam that exacerbated the situation.
It was often claimed that Ali said, "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger" as justification for his refusal to be conscripted into the Army, but that isn't what he said.
What he really said was, "My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother or some darker people or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger. They never lynched me. They didn't put no dogs on me. They didn't rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail."
There were a lot of people in America who didn't like Ali when he refused to go to Vietnam. They derided him for what they saw as arrogance in the ring and cowardice outside of it. Some people attributed that to racism, just as some people today dismiss opposition to Barack Obama's policies as thinly veiled racism, too. I didn't buy it then because I knew many people in my small hometown in Arkansas who supported the war and spoke critically of antiwar demonstrators, too, and most of whom were white.
Race can be a convenient scapegoat, and I have no doubt it plays a role for some people but not all. For most of the people in my hometown in the late '60s and early '70s, race really had nothing to do with it. It was all about politics.
When Ali fought Joe Frazier for the first time, in what was widely called the Fight of the Century, it became more than just a fight for many people. Folks who were against the war tended to support Ali, and folks who supported the war effort tended to support Frazier.
That, too, was called racism by many people, which never made sense to me, either. How could it be racist? Both Ali and Frazier were black.
Maybe it is true what they say about time healing all wounds, though, because I have heard nothing said about that time in Ali's life and career — except for the facts that he refused to serve and was stripped of his title. Nothing more than that.
Even from people who probably would be expected to be critical of Ali for his politics.
Remarkably, considering his chosen profession, Ali was a peacemaker. At the very least, that seems odd for a professional fighter, doesn't it? In trying to resolve this contradiction, comedian George Carlin described Ali's refusal to serve this way: "That's where I draw the line. I'll beat 'em up, but I don't wanna kill 'em."
Now, at the end of his life, Ali is being remembered for his pursuit of peace after his violent career. Part of his refusal to fight in Vietnam was grounded in his recent conversion to Islam, and he maintained his core beliefs throughout his life.
Last December, after the shootings in San Bernardino, California, Ali told NBC News, "I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino or anywhere else in the world. ... True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so–called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion. ... We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda. ... They have alienated many from learning about Islam. True Muslims know or should know that it goes against our religion to try and force Islam on anybody."
There was a time when Ali was regarded as the most recognizable man in the world. Many saw him as an heroic figure.
Heroes usually need a reliable sidekick (i.e., Robin to Batman) or an arch rival (here I guess Larry Bird and Magic Johnson would fit the bill). Solitary heroes tend to have short lives in the spotlight.
In the ring, I suppose, Ali will always be remembered for his three epic fights with Frasier. As for sidekick ...
Broadcaster Howard Cosell was Ali's reliable sidekick, I suppose. He wasn't part of Ali's entourage, his traveling roadshow, but he always seemed to be ringside, providing the commentary at Ali's fights. It wasn't unusual to see the rich and the famous attending Ali's fights, but Cosell owed much of his fame and personal fortune to his association with Ali — as well as his Monday Night Football gig.
If you ever saw Cosell interviewing Ali, you could see what a symbiotic relationship they had. Ali had considerable skills and probably could have succeeded without Cosell. Cosell, though, might have found it much more difficult to succeed alone, being limited to only four months per year of Monday Night Football and Dandy Don.
Together they were an iconic pair, and now they're both gone.
It's been hard for me to decide whether to write about Meadowlark Lemon, who died on Sunday at age 83, on my sports blog or my entertainment blog.
In a sense, I suppose, all athletes are entertainers, and Meadowlark Lemon, as a member of the Harlem Globetrotters, was clearly an entertainer. But I'm including him on my sports blog because my earliest memories of him are in a sports context.
You see, I saw him play once when I was in elementary school. I grew up in a then–small town in Arkansas about 30 miles northwest of Little Rock, and the Globetrotters brought their act to Little Rock one night. I was probably 6 or 7 years old, and I don't remember now whether I asked my father to take me to see them play or if he surprised me with the tickets.
Either way, we were on hand when the Globetrotters took the court against whoever they were playing that night — the opposing team was merely a prop for the Globetrotters to make their magic, but I didn't know that. I thought it was a real game. I didn't know it was fixed.
And I was definitely entertained — when Meadowlark did his patented sky hook from midcourt. Swish! If he kept making that shot, I thought to myself, the Globetrotters would win for sure.
I began to suspect, though, that it wasn't a legitimate game when the opponents made no apparent effort to keep the Globetrotters from scoring — or doing much of anything else. And my memory is that the Globetrotters did win — handily.
As I understand it, the Globetrotters began as a somewhat legitimate basketball team in the first 15 years of their existence. They played exhibition games, sure, but the effort to win was always there. They were regulars in the World Professional Basketball Tournament, which was held from 1939 to 1948. They even won it once.
But after a fellow named Goose Tatum joined the Globetrotters, the emphasis shifted to entertainment. And no one exemplified that spirit better than Meadowlark Lemon, who was known as the "Clown Prince of Basketball."
He had been with the Globetrotters for about 12 or 14 years when I saw him play, and he was featured prominently in the advertising for the game.
I can still remember the ads in the newspaper — "Come see Meadowlark Lemon and the Harlem Globetrotters," the ads urged. Notice that Meadowlark got top billing.
To those who are unfamiliar with their history, the Globetrotters, who will be celebrating their 90th anniversary in 2016, seem to be the definition of discrepancy.
A team that calls Harlem its home actually began half a continent away in Chicago, from which all the original players came. Many went to school together. Their coach picked Harlem as their hometown to give them a truly out–of–town–sounding name. Well, also because the players were black, and Harlem was regarded at the time as the epicenter of black American culture.
The Globetrotters didn't play their first home game in Harlem until almost 40 years after the team was formed.
The Globetrotters were also sharply criticized during the civil rights movement of the '60s. Because nearly all of their players were black and their show consisted mainly of slapstick skits, they were accused of "Tomming" for the team's Jewish owner/coach. But none other than Jesse Jackson defended them, saying, "I think they've been a positive influence. ... They did not show blacks as stupid. On the contrary, they were shown as superior."
And Pope Pius XII, after granting the Globetrotters a private audience and seeing them do their "Magic Circle" ballhandling exhibition, exclaimed, "My, how clever these men are. If I had not seen this with my own eyes, I would not have believed it could be done."
The current Globetrotters have met Pope Francis. They made him an honorary Globetrotter.
Meadowlark wasn't on hand for the meeting with Pius XII or the one with Francis. John Paul II was named an honorary Globetrotter in 2000, and Meadowlark probably missed that one, too. Only nine people have been named honorary Globetrotters, and Meadowlark probably was on hand for the first two — Henry Kissinger in 1976 and Bob Hope in 1977.
Meadowlark played a huge role in the popular success of the Globetrotters, and I am supremely grateful for the memory of seeing him play that night when I was 6 or 7.
"There's sunshine, fresh air and the team's behind us. Let's play two!"
Ernie Banks
Hall of Fame induction speech, 1977
In the hearts of baseball fans, Ernie Banks will always be a Chicago Cub. "Mister Cub," they called him.
You don't often see a professional athlete who spends his entire career with a single team, especially someone whose big–league career lasted as long as Banks' did, but he spent all 19 years of his major–league career with the Cubs. I have heard him called the greatest baseball player who never played in the postseason. (He is almost 1,000 games ahead of his nearest competition on the list of players with most games played without a postseason appearance.)
You see, the Cubs haven't been to a World Series since 1945, and they haven't won one since 1908.
The Cubs came close to getting into the playoffs in 1969 (Banks retired in 1971), but they were overtaken by the "Amazin' Mets." It would have been nice to see him play in the postseason, but it would have to have been as a Cub; after all the seasons of futility he endured with the Cubs, it is impossible to imagine Banks in any other major–league uniform.
It isn't necessary to do so, of course, just as it isn't necessary to imagine Brett Favre playing in any uniform other than his Green Bay uniform. He started his career in Atlanta and finished it in New York and Minnesota.
Banks died in Chicago yesterday. He was born right here in Dallas, Texas, on January 31, 1931, grew up here, graduated from high school here.
So we could lay equal claim to him, I suppose. But once baseball took him away, as nearly as I can tell, he never returned. Oh, he probably came back for visits, but I don't think he ever lived here again. Once he got to Chicago, he stayed there.
It's hard for a Southern boy like me to understand how someone could be attracted to a place like Chicago with its frigid winters and a wicked wind that comes howling in from Lake Michigan year 'round. But it was Banks' adopted home, and he became the city's biggest booster.
Banks "enjoyed a love affair with Wrigley Field and its fans unlike any other in baseball," wrote Chris De Luca of the Chicago Sun–Times. While such a thing would be hard to prove, I am nevertheless inclined to agree with that.
I used to be more of a baseball fan than I am today, and I was never a Cubs fan. But I was in my baseball–card–collecting phase in the last years of Banks' career, and there were certain players whose cards I always wanted to get — and became my most cherished possessions once I did get them.
Banks' card was one of them, along with guys like Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and Brooks Robinson, who was always something of an icon in central Arkansas, having been born in Little Rock. When I was a kid, central Arkansas was (and, I am sure, still is) St. Louis Cardinals territory so Lou Brock and Bob Gibson were always popular with the baseball card crowd — and Chicago Cubs were the Cardinals' rivals so few Cubs cards were regarded as valuable by the guys with whom I hung out.
Nevertheless, Banks' card transcended such team loyalty boundaries.
Ernie Banks was one of baseball's gentlemen, an eternally optimistic soul who probably started every major–league season believing it would end with him playing in the World Series.
As I say, that never happened. I suppose that kind of bad luck could leave a player feeling bitter, but as nearly as I can tell, he was always the unflagging optimist.
I guess everyone knows about the 1972 Miami Dolphins — the only team in modern pro football history to go undefeated through the regular season and the postseason.
Fewer people remember that more than half of those wins were accomplished without the Dolphins' star quarterback, Bob Griese, who went down with a broken leg and dislocated ankle in the fifth game of the season. He was replaced by backup Earl Morrall, who had recently been picked up on the waiver wire after being released by the Baltimore Colts.
Miami's coach, Don Shula, had been Morrall's coach for a time in Baltimore. They had been in Super Bowl III, which the Colts lost to the New York Jets. Shula knew precisely what he was getting when he picked up Morrall. Possibly no backup quarterback has ever stepped in as the substitute for the starter better equipped to run his coach's offense and succeed.
In fact, Morrall wound up leading the AFC in passing, just as Griese had the year before — in spite of throwing only one pass in the first four games.
He started the last nine games of the 1972 regular season and the first two games of the playoffs while Griese recovered. It wasn't always as easy as it may seem today; they struggled at times, but the Dolphins won all those games.
They hung on to beat Buffalo by a single point the week after Griese went down. They beat the Jets by four points in the 10th game, and they barely got past a mediocre Cleveland Browns team in the playoffs. Griese returned to the lineup in the second half of the AFC championship game, then led the Dolphins to the Super Bowl title.
He was on a third Super Bowl team as well. He was still on Miami's roster the next year when the Dolphins defended their title in Super Bowl VIII.
I remember having Morrall's football card and not knowing who he was. There were some players who were like that. I only knew their names because I had their cards. It wasn't until years later that I learned Morrall had been the quarterback of the Colts team that lost to Broadway Joe Namath and the Jets. I knew who Namath was, of course. Who didn't?
That was a good Colts team, too. Before facing the Jets, the Colts lost only one game. In a year when most teams were equally balanced between the run and the pass, Morrall completed more than 57% of his passes for nearly 3,000 yards.
Anyway, Morrall died Thursday at the age of 79. The news was confirmed today. From what I have heard, he had been in poor health for awhile.
He played pro football in relative obscurity for more than two decades. In those two Super Bowl seasons, with the sports world watching his every move, he led his teams to a combined record of 24–2.
He died in relative obscurity, too. I'm sure there were many young people across the country who didn't know who he was when they heard of his death.
The historian in me would like to think that someday football fans will re–discover the rich history of their sport — and Morrall's contributions to it.
But the realist in me doubts that will ever happen.
Ken Norton, who died Wednesday at the age of 70, was good enough to win the heavyweight championship in the conventional way.
Instead he was awarded the title when the champion, Leon Spinks, refused to fight Norton, the top contender, in his first title defense as mandated by the World Boxing Council after he beat Muhammad Ali in February 1978. Spinks was stripped of the WBC title, and Norton was given the title retroactively — on the basis of a fight he won the previous year.
I'm sure Norton would have preferred to win the title the old–fashioned way — in the ring. He came so close at times. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Ali, Norton's most noteworthy contemporary, did it three times.
Norton fought Ali three times and won the first one — when Ali was in his prime. The only other fighter to do that was Joe Frazier.
Like Frazier, Norton lost his next two bouts with Ali, but Ali's victories against each fighter were different. In each succeeding fight with Frazier, Ali seemed to get better but Frazier did not. Norton — competing "in what can now be viewed as a golden era of heavyweights," writes The Telegraph — maintained his level of excellence.
Norton came into his third fight with Ali supremely confident, and he was confident he had outfought Ali when the final bell rang. There were even those who thought Norton won that final bout with Ali. A victory would have given Norton the title, but he came up short, just as he did against George Foreman.
As I say, he eventually won the title, anyway — but not in the ring. I guess, for some fight fans, that diminishes the accomplishment, even though the WBC insisted it was based on a real victory in the ring. It just wasn't recognized at the time as a title fight.
Perhaps that is, to a degree, why the only Ken Norton who is recognized by many modern–day sports fans is Norton's son and namesake.
There was an embarrassment of riches in the heavyweight division in those days.
Or, as Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports writes, that was when boxing was "the most amazing sport around."
I read Doyel's piece on Norton a couple of times, and, both times, I found myself nodding in agreement when I read this: "[O]nce upon a time boxing was full of true sporting giants," one of whom was Norton.
It must have been hard to stand out among all those other giants.
As Rick Hummel observes in the St. Louis Post–Dispatch, it was the baseball fans in Brooklyn who hung the nickname "The Man" on Musial, but the folks in St. Louis eagerly embraced it.
He was retired long before I began collecting baseball cards, which was the point when I really started following baseball, but I already knew who he was, and as I matured, I became familiar with his many achievements. He was one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, clubbing 475 home runs and driving in nearly 2,000 runs. His career batting average was .331.
He was an All–star 24 times, a member of three world champion teams, a three–time MVP and a seven–time batting champion.
He was also a first–class individual.
My friend Randy, who lived in St. Louis as a child and returned as an adult, and I once posed for a photo in front of the statue of Musial that stood in front of Busch Memorial Stadium for a long time.
It is my understanding that, when the Cardinals moved into the new Busch Stadium, the statue was relocated there as well. That wouldn't surprise me. There have been many great Cardinals over the years, but none have been as revered in St. Louis as Stan the Man.
Jorge Ortiz writes in USA Today that Musial "was the perfect fit for the city that became his home and the era in which he played."
Ortiz concedes that, with his batting average, Musial would have succeeded in any major–league town in any era.
"But what set him apart from some of the game's greats was the unabashed kindness he displayed during and after his playing days," writes Ortiz, "a quality fully embraced in St. Louis."
He was the very embodiment of the middle American values I have seen in abundance on countless occasions.
And another piece of my childhood has slipped away.
There were many colorful characters in baseball when I was growing up, and I can honestly say Earl was one of them. He wasn't as flamboyant as some, but, in some ways, he was more unconventional than most.
The conventional wisdom in baseball has long been that pitching and defense win championships. But Earl Weaver didn't quite go along with that.
Sure, he went along with the "pitching and defense" part. At one time, in fact, he had probably the most feared pitching rotation in baseball with not merely one or two but three, even four, pitchers on his Baltimore Orioles roster who were capable of winning 20 games in a season.
As for defense, well, Hall of Famers like third baseman Brooks Robinson and outfielder Frank Robinson didn't make many mistakes in the field.
But he wasn't one of those managers who could ever be satisfied with scratching out a run with a bunt or a steal — even though he had speedy players on his club.
Weaver was an apostle of the "three–run homer."
Defense means different things in different sports. In a sport like basketball, for instance, a professional team that holds its opponents to an average score of 80 or less is probably regarded as a defensive juggernaut. On the college level, a great defense is probably one that holds a team to about 10–15 points below that.
But low scores have always been the norm for baseball — even a decade or two ago when juiced–up players were pounding home runs and driving in RBIs at record–shattering paces.
Things were at the opposite end of the spectrum when Earl was in charge in Baltimore. It was an era that should have favored teams that were built around pitching and defense and scratching out runs.
But Weaver managed team after team that won at least 100 games. In one memorable season, four of his pitchers won 20 games or more. For a time, the Orioles seemed to have the American League's Eastern Division under wraps.
"Earl was about winning," one of those pitchers, Jim Palmer, said earlier today. "That was what he did."
All things must come to an end, though, and so did the Orioles' dominance, but they almost always won more than they lost when Weaver was in charge. They were almost always competitive.
And, whether they were or were not, Weaver was always worth watching, but sometimes, like contemporary Billy Martin, he got into arguments with umpires and wound up being tossed out of games. He even holds the distinction of having been thrown out of both games of a doubleheader.
Weaver didn't particularly care for umpires. Neither did Martin, for that matter. And there were others, although none as notorious as those two.
Weaver's Orioles lost the 1979 World Series to a Pittsburgh Pirates team that rallied behind the song "We Are Family," but, as news of his passing spread today, his former players spoke of how they felt like a family when he was managing the team.
"His bark was worse than his bite," said Davey Johnson, who played under Weaver, "but you had to know him and kind of grow up with him, and then you loved him like a father."
During his lifetime, I sometimes heard Hector "Macho" Camacho compared to Muhammad Ali.
And I could see certain similarities. Both were dynamic and charismatic. Matt Schubel writes in the Washington Post of Camacho's "theatrical presence" in the ring.
Like Ali, he was also a gifted fighter, faster than any of his contemporaries and possessed of a style unlike any of his rivals.
Some people would even extend the comparison to include both fighters' brushes with the law — but, while the law is the law and, technically speaking, there is no real difference between a violation of one law and a violation of another, there are differences between Ali and Camacho.
Justice is supposed to be blind. In that sense, all laws are created equal.
But not all crimes are created equal.
With the exception of claiming conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War, Ali has — to my knowledge — observed the laws of his homeland, even those with which he may have disagreed.
He became a cultural lightning rod with his refusal to fight in Vietnam, and there are still those who berate him for it. He served no time in prison, but he was stripped of his title and did not fight for nearly four years — a boxer's prime years — until the matter had been resolved in court.
No court ruling could restore to Ali what had been taken from him, but he went on to become the first three–time heavyweight champion, anyway.
Camacho, on the other hand, "was continually shadowed by drug problems and legal entanglements," writes Schubel. That may well have been what brought about the end of his life.
Camacho was shot in the face Tuesday while he sat in a car in Puerto Rico and was taken off life support yesterday. A companion also was killed in what was an apparent ambush, and cocaine reportedly was found on the scene.
He embraced the persona of the "Macho Man" with the same relish that Ali boasted that he was "The Greatest," but there was a difference between them.
When he was growing up, Camacho was always getting into trouble of some kind. He claimed to have been expelled from half a dozen schools by the time he was 15. He had served time in jail by the time he was 17, and the self–professed "gutter kid" brought the behavior he had learned to the ring.
He was often criticized for using dirty tricks in the ring, but he was also capable of extraordinary things — like the time Julio Cesar Chavez won a brutal decision over him 20 years ago. Chavez was on a mission to knock out Camacho, but Camacho took everything that was thrown at him and was still standing at the end — "snarling through the blood," wrote Sports Illustrated's Pat Putnam.
Ironically, street crime did play a role in Ali's decision to take up boxing. At the age of 12, Ali had a brand–new bicycle, which was stolen when he left it unattended, prompting him to rant about what he would do to the thief if he caught him.
There were many giants in college football when I was growing up, and Darrell Royal was one of the largest figures.
He wasn't physically imposing — he always looked rather ordinary to me — but he was still intimidating. Maybe it was his reputation as a winner.
Or maybe it was his way with words.
"You dance with who brung ya."
He was an honorable man, and he remained a beloved figure in Texas long after he left coaching.
My grandmother lived in Dallas most of her life, and there was a little Mexican restaurant about three blocks from her home. It was just a little family owned restaurant, not a franchise or anything like that, and the walls were filled with photos of Royal, many of which had been signed by him. Most of them said something like "To my friend [whatever his name was]. I always love to eat at your place when I'm in Dallas. Darrell Royal"
(I don't know if the owner and Royal really were friends or not. I once asked the cashier if the signatures were authentic, and she said they were, but I was never sure she understood my question. Her English wasn't very good, and the extent of my Spanish is that I can count to 10.)
His death today at the age of 88 truly marked the end of an era for me, even though it has been more than 30 years since he walked the sidelines — and even though he was my greatest nemesis when I was growing up.
One by one, the familiar faces from those days have been disappearing over the years, but Royal's death may be the biggest one yet from these parts. As Kirk Bohls writes in the Austin American–Statesman, Royal "became the biggest college football icon in a state that worships the sport."
Actually, a case could be made that Royal was the biggest football icon in Texas — period. Tom Landry may have surpassed him in popularity when he took the Dallas Cowboys to five Super Bowls in the 1970s, but in the 1960s, while Royal was winning national championships on the college level, people around here were talking about how Landry couldn't win "the big one" in the NFL.
I grew up in Arkansas, where the Razorbacks rule, and you just couldn't be an Arkansas fan without hating Texas. The annual football game between the schools was an event — even though it usually didn't end too well for Razorback fans. (I can count on one hand the number of Arkansas victories over Texas in the first 20 years of my life.)
As a result, there was a certain amount of resentment directed toward Royal. It seemed he always had the upper hand.
Arkansas fans knew Texas didn't have a better coach. Arkansas had Frank Broyles, who is justifiably regarded as a legend in the sport as well, but he might have been the most dominant coach in the Southwest Conference had it not been for Royal.
They had both won national championships in the 1960s. But when they met in 1969's "Great Shootout," Texas fans were strutting with confidence about the success of the wishbone offense that Royal had pioneered with assistant coach Emory Bellard. Any thought Arkansas fans had of beating it, Texas fans said, was nothing more than dreaming the impossible dream.
Texas was to Arkansas what Muhammad Ali was to Joe Frazier or what Secretariat was to Sham — the ever–constant barrier to greater things.
And, for that, many Razorback fans could never forgive him.
I didn't know if I should write about him on my sports blog or my arts/entertainment blog.
After all, Neiman produced paintings and prints of musicians and other celebrities, too.
And he did it well.
He brought their personalities to the canvas in colorfully descriptive ways — but he also did that with sports topics.
And, as someone who worked for several years as a sports copy editor, I have an abiding appreciation for the magic that photographers make with the topics they are assigned to cover.
Many of the most exciting, most dramatic photos I have ever seen were of sports events. Neiman simply did with a brush what photographers once did with film.
They used to call the great Secretariat Big Red. Well, I guess I'm using the word they a bit loosely. Secretariat's owner, Penny Chenery Tweedy, called him that — but the rest of the world called him Secretariat.
In his portrait of Secretariat, Neiman emphasized the red in his coloring (which was never that obvious to me when he was running — that may have been the quality of the color in our TV set, but he always looked chestnut brown to me). I guess you could say he exaggerated it, much as a cartoonist would exaggerate an unusual physical characteristic of a human subject.
I first became acquainted with Neiman's work in magazines like Sports Illustrated, which often showcased his paintings of memorable moments, like Dwight Clark's reception in the January 1982 NFC championship game.
Or great Olympic performances. Or golf tournaments.
Mostly, though, I associate Neiman's artwork with Muhammad Ali. Neiman often did a painting following a big fight, and his work was always in great demand whenever Ali fought another big–name boxer, like George Foreman or Joe Frazier.
I kind of got the impression at the time that Ali was one of Neiman's favorite subjects. Perhaps he was. Artists are human, after all, and they certainly have their preferences, just like anyone else.
But I don't know that for certain. If Neiman ever spoke in an interview about preferring to paint Ali more than anyone else, I never read or heard it.
Perhaps William Grimes of the New York Times put it best when he wrote that Neiman "cast himself in the mold of French Impressionists ... chroniclers of public life who found rich social material at racetracks, dance halls and cafes."
Neiman may have been sort of like Red Smith, who once said that he believed that people went to sports events to have fun, then they picked up the newspaper the next day to read about it and have fun all over again.
Perhaps Neiman's way of having fun was to re–create great sports moments on his canvas.
His work is, in its way, iconic — moreso, I think, than Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell's soup cans because at least it captures the color of life. It isn't merely a painter's version of the negative of a still life.
I will miss Neiman every time a memorable moment occurs in sports.
Unless you follow boxing, you may not know who Bert Sugar was.
Bert Sugar was a sports journalist. I prefer that term to sports writer because sports writer sounds like the writer in question could have written about anything but settled for sports — or was forced to do so by circumstances.
Sugar may have chosen to write about sports, but he didn't settle, and he wasn't forced into it. I always felt he was born to write about sports, particularly boxing. It was his passion, the way it is some sports journalists' passion to write about horse racing.
I'm tempted to compare him to Red Smith, but Smith was a true sports journalist, writing about every sport with equal enthusiasm — whereas Sugar really was more of a specialist.
Sugar wrote more than 80 books, but most of them dealt with boxing. He was a boxing historian. Some of his books were about baseball — one was even about early 20th century escape artist Harry Houdini — but most were about boxing — the great fights, the great fighters — filled with nuggets that most casual observers would never know otherwise.
I read some of his books. I saw him on TV more frequently, commenting on the sport, offering insights no one else could. He was always easy to spot with his tradmark fedora hat. He was kind of an amiable, informal version of Tom Landry, I suppose.
He was afflicted with lung cancer — no doubt an outcome of his long cigar habit — and that, apparently, was what finally took his life.
He will be missed, especially whenever a significant fight comes along.
I wasn't one of Carter's fans. Just the opposite, as a matter of fact. He played most of his career for teams other than the Dodgers — who have been my personal favorites since I was a kid.
Twenty years ago, as his 19–year career was nearing its end, he spent a season with the Dodgers. But he spent most of his career being a thorn in their sides.
In 1981, when a strike wiped out about one–third of the season, Montreal faced Los Angeles in the National League Championship Series (which the Dodgers won, three games to two). Carter hit a blistering .438 for the Expos in that series.
But, while there were many highlights in his career (which included 11 All–Star Game appearances and three Gold Gloves), Carter probably will be remembered most for the role he played in his only World Series, the 1986 Fall Classic against the Boston Red Sox.
The Mets went on to win the seventh game — and the Series — but that 10th–inning rally in the sixth game shifted the momentum irreversibly in New York's direction, and Carter was responsible for that.
There are still some Red Sox fans who will complain — loudly and at length — about Bill Buckner's infamous error, But if Boston had gotten Carter out, that error never would have happened, and Red Sox fans would not have been forced to endure 18 more seasons without a World Series title.
Any ballplayer can catch lightning in a bottle, of course, even on a stage as big and in a spotlight as bright as the World Series, and I would never suggest that Carter was the best player — or even the best catcher — I ever saw play the game.
But in just a few hours since I heard of his death, the thing I have heard mentioned the most about Carter — more often than the '86 Series or his All–Star selections or anything else — by sports writers and athletes alike was his infectious, ever–present smile.
"I cannot conjure a single image of Gary Carter with anything but a smile on his face," writes Tom Verducci for Sports Illustrated, and I must agree.
I did a little informal research and looked back at all the photos I could find of Gary Carter, both on the baseball field and off, and that smile was always there. It was contagious, in a way, capable of bringing a smile to the sternest of visages.
I think that was because Carter never came across as being insincere. He had been known as "The Kid" since, well, since he was a kid, and he always seemed to have that youthful zeal and exuberance.
"He was as genuine a person and as tough a ballplayer as you would ever want to come across," Verducci writes, and that certainly is true. He was a competitor. You don't spend nearly two decades playing catcher in the majors if you aren't.
They're remembering Carter with great fondness in New York, as you might expect. Mike Lupica writes in the New York Daily News that Carter is "dead much too young, the old Met they knew and we knew as Kid, the one who played the game with talent and joy and a smile."
And the New York Times, which has raised obituary writing to an art form, observes that "Carter's exuberance complemented his prowess at the plate." Considering that the Times is also mourning the loss of Anthony Shadid, its Pulitzer Prize–winning foreign correspondent, I think that's pretty generous.
In what may be the most impressive tribute paid to Carter, though, the writers in Red Sox country are being generous, too.
Ben Walker writes in the Boston Globe that "[h]is smile, bubbly personality and eagerness to excel on a ballfield made him a joy to watch at the plate and behind it."
In seven weeks, the 2012 major league baseball season will begin, and baseball fans will see every player who takes the field showing the kind of excitement that Carter showed every day of his playing career, even when his legs began to slow and his bat lost its pop. The enthusiasm fades for most ballplayers as the season progresses, but, for Carter, it never did.
Every day was like Opening Day for Carter. It was his default position.
I've heard it said — by more than one person — that Muhammad Ali never would have become who he was if not for trainer Angelo Dundee.
I guess Dundee, who died yesterday at the age of 90, will always be remembered as the man who was in Ali's corner in all but two of his fights, but, in fact, Dundee worked with many noteworthy fighters, including Sugar Ray Leonard and George Foreman.
He left his fingerprints all over the sport of boxing. While his name probably will always be linked to Ali's, he was really so much more than that. He was even more than a man who trained more than a dozen champions.
Did you happen to see "Cinderella Man," the movie about the life of James J. Braddock starring Russell Crowe? Dundee was too young to have trained Braddock — but he was hired to train Crowe to portray Braddock in the film.
" I think I would have to go so far as to say Russell is Jim Braddock," Dundee said. "I'm amazed the way Russell picked up his mannerisms, his smoothness, the legs, the way he slides, that slip, slide, block, slide, jab — boom! Like Jim, he has just about the greatest left hook I've ever seen. He's got the speed, the rhythm, the determination and especially the will. Best of all, he has learned to think like a fighter. One thing about Braddock is that he was a smart fighter, and Russell uses his noodle just like Braddock did. I do think if he wasn't an actor, Russell could have been a great fighter."
Dundee was generous with his praise, but he just might have been able to train anyone.
A decade ago, he was portrayed on the silver screen by Ron Silver in the 2001 biopic "Ali."
Ali was certainly the most high–profile fighter with whom Dundee worked, but he might never have become the figure he became if not for Dundee.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Steve Springer describes the scene: "At the end of the fourth round of a 1963 fight against Henry Cooper, Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, was surprised by a left–hand punch that floored him and left him dazed. Fortunately for Clay, it was the end of the round, allowing him to stagger back to his corner.
"It was there that Dundee, trying to buy time until his fighter's head cleared, stuck his finger in a slight split in the seams of one of Clay's gloves, causing a slightly bigger split. That allowed Dundee to ask the referee for another pair of gloves. None were available, but the incident added valuable seconds to Clay's rest time, allowing him to recover and go on to win on a fifth–round technical knockout.
"His next fight, against heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, might not have occurred if Clay had lost to Cooper."
Springer goes on to observe that Dundee applied more creativity when Ali fought Sonny Liston for the title in 1964.
After the child sex scandal that engulfed Penn State only a few months ago, there simply was no way that Joe Paterno's obituary — when the time for it came — would not mention Jerry Sandusky.
In fact, I remember saying that very thing to some people right after Paterno was fired. I just didn't realize Paterno's obituary would be written so soon.
But, like Richard Nixon, who lived nearly 20 years after he resigned the presidency but whose obituary still mentioned Watergate in the first paragraph, it was inevitable that, at the time of his passing, Paterno would be remembered, at least in part, for the scandal that ended his coaching career.
Paterno was a "a legend, lion and tainted leader," wrote Rana Cash for The Sporting News.
The first paragraph of ESPN's obituary observed that Paterno "won more games than anyone in major college football but was fired amid a child sex abuse scandal that scarred his reputation for winning with integrity."
Paterno was an "Ivy League–educated coach who transformed sleepy Penn State University into a national football power ... only to see his career end abruptly and his legacy tarnished," wrote Chris Dufresne in the Los Angeles Times.
The New York Times has long had the reputation for writing the best and most thorough obituaries in the print business, but Richard Goldstein, nevertheless, could not avoid mentioning the scandal in his summation of Paterno's life.
Try as they might, no obituary — at least, none that I have seen today — has been able to avoid mentioning the scandal.
And some really have tried.
John Canzano, writing in The Oregonian last night when rumors were swirling that Paterno was dead, spoke of the "sad irony" that JoePa's life had become.
"[N]o discussion about Paterno will ever be complete without noting that Penn State's Board of Trustees fired him Nov. 9 in the aftermath of the child sex abuse charges against former assistant and close Paterno friend Jerry Sandusky," Canzano wrote — anticipating by a matter of hours the challenge facing those who would write Paterno's obituary.
Perhaps Jack McCallum of Sports Illustrated did the best job of balancing the good and the bad.
"For so long," McCallum wrote, "Joe Paterno seemed indestructible, more icon than man ... But when the end came, it came with such breathtaking suddenness that even non–believers must pause ... to wonder if it wasn't part of some cosmic script."
In the end, I suppose, we are left with our contradictory thoughts and feelings about this man who did so much good but whose memory will be forever linked to so much bad.
If you were a sports fan in the 1970s, there were certain athletes, certain teams, certain events that will remain in your memory forever — Muhammad Ali, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the tragedy of the 1972 Summer Olympics, the list goes on and on.
You can't think of those Olympic Games without seeing, in your mind's eye, hooded terrorists and a somber Jim McKay telling viewers that the Israeli athletes had been killed.
You can't think of the Steelers of that time and not think of the team they beat in two classic Super Bowls, the Dallas Cowboys.
And you can't think of Ali without thinking of his three epic fights with Joe Frazier.
He was an intense battler in the ring, a great champion in his own right, but he will always be remembered for those three fights he had with Ali. Smokin' Joe actually won the first one, much to the delight of right–wing boxing fans who felt Ali should have gone to Vietnam, and survived their grueling finale in the Philippines, dubbed "the Thrilla in Manila."
I suppose it's that first Ali–Frazier fight that people think of the most when they think of Frazier — and that is ironic, I guess, because, as I say, that is the only fight of the three that Frazier won. But it was the third fight that Ali said was the closest he ever came to death.
I always felt that first fight was too mired in politics. The two men became political symbols, whether that was what they desired or not. Supporters of the Vietnam War gravitated to Frazier, opponents gravitated to Ali. Very few seemed to be interested in the fight from a purely athletic perspective, and, consequently, relatively few recognized it for its boxing brilliance. It was called the "Fight of the Century," and many fights have been called that, but that first Ali–Frazier duel really lived up to it.
Frazier took a lot of abuse from Ali in public, and he resented it for much of his life. But those who should know say that he forgave Ali for everything in recent years, and the two apparently became friends.
Much will be said about Joe Frazier in the days ahead, and he deserves all the accolades he will receive. I'm sure some of the warmest will come from Ali, who is forever linked to Frazier — like Affirmed and Alydar, they were thoroughbreds whose legends would have been incomplete without the other.
Hearing the news today that Bubba Smith is dead brought back a childhood memory.
And it isn't a memory of his role in the "Police Academy" movies — which, actually, came along after I graduated from college.
The Associated Press quoted authorities as saying the death did not appear to be suspicious, but the cause is not yet known. Smith was 66.
When I was a child, Smith may have been the most feared defensive player in football. At 6'7" and 265 pounds, he was often the example that was cited whenever someone wanted to make the most extreme comparison someone could make regarding size (i.e., "He's as big as Bubba Smith").
Those are impressive numbers today, but even a casual football fan could probably name, off the top of his head, several current players who are both taller and heavier. Size and talent do not always go hand in hand, and not all of them would be All–Pro players, but Smith was.
Don't get me wrong. Size has always been important in football, but before Smith came along, teams actively sought more of a balance between athleticism and size in their linemen.
Smith played in something of a transitional period. He was a blend of immovable object and irresistible force when more and more linemen — on both sides of the ball — were content simply to be immovable objects.
My childhood memory is of something of an offhand joke that my father made when I was in my football card collector period. One afternoon, I had purchased a couple of packs of football cards (I guess I would have been about 9 or 10).
I opened them in the car on the way home, and a card of Bubba Smith was in one of them. I told my father.
"I got Bubba Smith!" I exclaimed (or something similar).
"Do you get two cards for him?" my father asked and chuckled at his own joke.
You had to be crafty to play the line in those days. You couldn't just get away with being big. You had to be clever. And you had to have a lot of confidence in yourself.
I was reminded today of a great story about Smith from back in the days when the college all–stars played the defending Super Bowl champs in the game that kicked off the NFL's preseason schedule.
As an All–American at Michigan State, Smith played against Bart Starr and the Green Bay Packers in that exhibition game on Aug. 4, 1967. Early in the game, he burst through the line and tackled Starr in the backfield (I'm not sure if they were calling that a "sack" yet).
When the play was over, Smith said to Starr, "All night long, old man, all night long. Big Bubba's gonna be right here on top of you all night long."
Actually, Green Bay offensive lineman Jerry Kramer recalled in his account of the 1967 NFL season, Smith never got to Starr again. Kramer wrote that he was impressed with Smith's quickness but said he had trouble using his hands and, once Kramer adjusted, Smith posed no problems for him.
Smith was just a college player at the time, though, and it wasn't long before, as a member of an astonishingly talented Baltimore Colts team, he played in the Super Bowl himself, losing to Joe Namath and the New York Jets.
Two years later, he was a member of the Colts' only Super Bowl–winning team in the 20th century, but he refused to wear the ring he received for participating in Super Bowl V. The game was so sloppy (nearly a dozen turnovers) that he felt embarrassed to wear it.
(It is ironic, I suppose, that, on the 40th anniversary of that game last January, I wondered on this blog if Smith's survivors would put the ring on his finger before he was buried. Maybe the only way we will know is if the ring surfaces on Ebay or something like that.)
Smith is enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame, but he is not in Pro Football's Hall of Fame. Perhaps one day he will be.
One of his teammates on those Baltimore Colts teams, tight end John Mackey, was inducted into the Hall of Fame nearly 20 years ago and, ironically, died just last month.
There aren't many tight ends in the Hall of Fame, but one, Shannon Sharpe, will be inducted this weekend.
In all, seven individuals will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Some of them, like Sharpe, will be quite familiar to modern fans; others (Les Richter and Chris Hanburger) are remembered by few. At least one (filmmaker Ed Sabol) never played the game.
Bubba Smith will not be one of the inductees — but, if there is any justice, one day (perhaps one day soon) he will be.
If you go to the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, you will see more than 250 players, coaches and owners who are enshrined there.
But only eight of those individuals were tight ends.
In fact, it was a quarter of a century after the Hall of Fame opened its doors that the first tight end was inducted.
John Mackey, who died yesterday at the age of 69, was the second tight end to be inducted — in 1992, 30 years after the Hall of Fame's inaugural class.
His playing days were mostly in the 1960s — from 1963 to 1972 — and most of them were spent with the Colts, back when they were based in Baltimore.
Nearly half of the tight ends in the Hall of Fame never played in a Super Bowl, but Mackey did. He played in two of the first five Super Bowls, winning one and losing one.
The legendary Don Shula, who coached Mackey from 1963 to 1969, said he revolutionized the role of a tight end, and it is hard to argue with that. He played in five Pro Bowls, and he was named to the All–Decade team for the 1960s. Only two of his Baltimore teammates — quarterback Johnny Unitas and cornerback Bobby Boyd — were also named to the team.
There were many things that made John Mackey unique.
For one thing, in Super Bowl V, he set a record for the longest reception for anyone, not just tight ends, in a Super Bowl — his 75–yard TD reception.
(Unfortunately, that game is probably remembered more for other things — like the sloppy play [nearly a dozen turnovers by the two teams combined] and the, in hindsight, rather ordinary field goal that won the game in its closing seconds.)
For another, he missed only one game in a 10–year pro career. Few players at any position can say that.
Ironically, injuries probably forced him to retire earlier than he would have chosen — and injuries, perhaps unrecognized at the time, may have played a role in his death. Mackey suffered from dementia and was forced to move to an assisted–living facility four years ago.
An NFL Players Association president after his playing days were over, Mackey's most important contribution to pro football may well have been the one he made in his last years.
At first, the NFLPA wasn't going to pay disability income because a link between brain injury and pro football had not been proven, but, thanks to the efforts of Mackey and his wife, the policy was changed (emerging medical evidence probably played something of a role in that, too). The NFL and the NFLPA came up with the "88 plan," which provides up to $88,000 annually for nursing home care and $50,000 annually for adult day care.
The figure of 88 originated from the jersey number that Mackey wore. Hopefully, it will be a lasting tribute to a special man.
A "tomato can" is a fighter who is believed to be past his prime and an "easy" or "guaranteed" win for an up-and-coming fighter who wants to pad his record.
Sometimes, though, the "tomato can" doesn't cooperate. For example, in 1990, undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson lost the title to a 42-to-1 underdog named Buster Douglas.
Another heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, almost lost his title to lightly regarded Chuck Wepner in 1975. Wepner nearly went the distance against Ali and inspired the original "Rocky" movie.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
