Tom McMahon

The 1954 Temporary Ski Jump At Soldier Field

The 1954 Temporary Ski Jump At Soldier Field

via Neatorama

Quarterback Jim McMahon Leads BYU In The Last Four Minutes Of The 1980 Holiday Bowl: Quite Possibly The Greatest Example Of Leadership You'll Ever Read From The World Of Sports

An excerpt by GeoMak at Windy City Gridiron:

Jim was a born leader. As a sophomore at BYU, Jim McMahon replaced starter Marc Wilson who had gotten injured. As teammate Clay Brown recalled: "Jim came in with so much confidence, it was like he had been there for ten years."

Bill Ring: "I have a lot of respect for Marc Wilson and he was a terrific QB, but competitiveness was what really separated Jim from Marc."

Jim’s leadership skills were never more evident than in the 1980 Holiday Bowl, where BYU overcame a 20 point deficit against SMU with only four minutes remaining to win the game. Key play in that game? In the fourth quarter, BYU faced a 4th and two near midfield. HC LaVell Edwards sent in the punting unit and McMahon refused to come out of the game. Refused to come out!

McMahon sent the punter off the field. Edwards called a timeout. Jim told his offense to stay on the field and he then went to the sideline where he started yelling at Edwards: "What? Are you giving up? That’s BullS---!"

Edwards: "The guy was upset to no end, so I said ‘OK, go back in and we’ll go for it.’"

BYU converted the fourth down and eventually won the game on a Hail Mary pass on the games final play.

(BYU scored 21 points in the final 2 ½ minutes of that game).

Going over to yell at your HC for attempting to throw in the towel, to wave the white flag, to just give up? That’s leadership, and that’s why his teammates at BYU and in Chicago loved him. With Jim under center, his guys always felt like they were in the game. They won that game because of QB Jim McMahon and in spite of HC LaVell Edwards.

One-Eyed Baseball Player Whammy Douglas

One-Eyed Baseball Player Whammy Douglas

An excerpt from Kevin T. Czerwinski :

Perhaps the most impressive aspect surrounding what Charles "Whammy" Douglas did during the 1954 Georgia-Florida League season is the fact that he doesn't really consider it all that impressive.

Pitching for the Brunswick Pirates, Douglas set the league record with 27 victories while leading his team to a first-place finish and a berth in the circuit's championship series. What that little line in the record book doesn't tell you is that he did so with only one eye.

Douglas, whose other claim to fame was his nickname, lost his right eye as an 11-year-old yet prospered as a pitcher, often dominating older players at higher levels until he signed a professional contract with the Pirates in 1953. Douglas eventually pitched in the Major Leagues, going 3-3 in 11 games for Pittsburgh in 1957. But in a cruel twist of fate, it was his elbow and his shoulder, not his eye, that kept him from having greater success on the mound.

There have been less than 10 one-eyed players in professional baseball history.

Pro Football: Great Preparation for a Political Career

So said the late Jack Kemp:

Kemp was a 17th round 1957 NFL draft pick by the Detroit Lions, but was cut before the season began. After being released by three more NFL teams and the Canadian Football League over the next three years, he joined the American Football League's Los Angeles Chargers as a free agent in 1960. A waivers foul-up two years later would land him with the Buffalo Bills, who got him at the bargain basement price of $100.

Kemp led Buffalo to the 1964 and 1965 AFL Championships, and won the league's most valuable player award in 1965. He co-founded the AFL Players Association in 1964 and was elected president of the union for five terms. When he retired from football in 1969, Kemp had enough support in blue-collar Buffalo and its suburbs to win an open congressional seat.

In 11 seasons, he sustained a dozen concussions, two broken ankles and a crushed hand - which Kemp insisted a doctor permanently set in a passing position so that he could continue to play.

"Pro football gave me a good perspective," he was quoted as saying. "When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy."

Merle Harmon's Status Symbol

From a terrific biography by Maxwell Kates:

As a high school student, Harmon sold magazines door to door to help his family during the summer. He kept $2.00 for himself, enabling him to budget a trip to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play at Sportsman's Park. Round trip train fare cost $1.00, streetcar tickets cost a dime each way, a bleacher seat was worth a quarter, and a hot dog, a soft drink, and a bag of peanuts set him back an additional 30 cents. At the end of the day, Merle was left with a quarter, just enough to purchase a team pennant and a Cardinals pencil. Returning to school in September, he remarked, "I protected that pencil with my life, making sure my friends saw it and asked me where I got it. As a poor kid in the Depression years, that pencil was my status symbol. It was proof that I had been to St. Louis to see a big league baseball game."

Mickey Vernon, The Washington Senators Star Who Gave Us The Legendary Late Philadelphia Phillies Broadcaster Harry Kalas

Mickey Vernon, The Washington Senators Star Who Gave Us The Legendary Late Philadelphia Phillies Broadcaster Harry Kalas

The story:

Harry often told the story of how Marcus Hook's Mickey Vernon was responsible for launching his interest in baseball. At his first major-league game, Kalas was sitting in the stands with his father on a rainy afternoon in Chicago. The start of the game had been delayed. By chance, Vernon peered out of the dugout and spotted the 10-year-old Kalas. Mickey waved the youngster down to the field, then picked him up and lifted him into the dugout. Vernon introduced Harry to some of the players, gave him an autographed ball, and sat and talked with him for about 10 minutes. "That really started my love for the game of baseball," Kalas recalled.

That was a good day for Kalas. But it was an equally good day for the rest of us. It paved the way for Harry to become the voice of Phillies baseball. It was a voice that we have known since 1971 - and one that we will all sorely miss.

A great compliment to Harry Kalas was this comment by Alfred Poor:

One of Harry's greatest skills was knowing how to not talk. So many sportscasters are terrified of dead air, and will say just about anything to fill in the empty spaces. Harry was so comfortable with his role that he'd sit back and let 15 or 20 seconds go by with nothing but the crowd noises in the background, and then pick it up when there was something to talk about. (He also was a master at catching up on the pitches that were missed during the commercial breaks; you never knew he had put the game on fast forward.) He will be missed, indeed.

Mickey Vernon passed away last September. From his NY Times obituary:

For his all achievements, Vernon was especially proud of his reception at baseball’s traditional opening day in Washington in 1954. President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented him with a silver bat for winning the ’53 battle title, then watched Vernon hit a game-winning homer in the 10th inning off Allie Reynolds of the Yankees.

“As I rounded third, I saw some of the players waiting at the plate to congratulate me, and there was one civilian there,” Vernon told Donald Honig in his oral history “Baseball Between the Lines.”

“As I crossed the plate, he grabbed my arm. ‘It’s O.K.,’ he said. ‘I’m a Secret Service man. The president wants to see you over at his box.’ Mr. Eisenhower was standing up with a big grin on his face and his hand outstretched. ‘Nice going,’ he said.”

The Sport of Bowling Pin Shooting

The Sport of Bowling Pin Shooting

Explained by Paul Scarlata:

Now the uninitiated among the readership may ask just what does this bowling pin shooting entail? It is very simple: you have a two-level steel table measuring 6x3 feet, situated twenty-five feet in front of the shooting line, upon which are bowling pins, the number varying according to the event. You begin with your loaded firearm in your hand, resting on a waist high wooden rail. On the signal (a blank is fired) you lift your gun and begin shooting. Whoever clears all their pins off the table first wins. It's that simple.

Now for the hard part-the damn pins don't want to go off the table! A bowling pin is a heavy, unstable object and can only be moved off the back of the table (the tables have side walls preventing pins from rolling off sideways) with a good solid hit. A bad or glancing hit will topple it over where it will proceed to roll around knocking over other pins, preventing hit pins from moving off the table and in general screwing everything up. A pin might fall over with its top (small end) facing you which gives you a VERY tiny, difficult target. Several might end up in a pile in the corner, known as "dead wood;" wedged together in a heap that not even a .44 Magnum or 00 buckshot can dislodge. That's why pin shooting is so much fun, especially for the spectators-it is just so damned unpredictable

Golf Is Forever: Alzheimer's Patients Perk Up On the Greens

An excerpt from Matthew Futterman:

A little after 9 a.m. last week, Wardell Johnston declared he wanted to be left alone. Confused and annoyed by the activities and tasks confronting him, the 87-year-old Alzheimer's sufferer shut his door at the Silverado Senior Living home in Belmont, Calif.

Just hours later, Mr. Johnston was measuring the uphill, right-to-left break on a 12-foot putt and knocking his ball into the hole. Then the former civil engineer, who played the game regularly as a younger man, ambled over to the driving range. He grabbed a six iron and practiced chipping with the sort of easy, stress-free swing duffers half his age could learn something from.

"I quit," he said with a cocky grin after each successful shot. Then he deftly cradled another ball with his club, moving it into position for the next stroke. "I haven't played a lot lately," he added. "I should, though. I've still got all the strokes."

Anyone who has dealt with people suffering from mid- to late-stage Alzheimer's knows how difficult it can be to transport someone from fear and confusion to contentment and lucidity. But at Silverado, caregivers have stumbled onto a technique that works nearly every time -- a golf outing. They run through a series of putting drills, knocking the ball around with the wonder of small children playing the game for the first time, which is how many of them experience it each week. For those who played the game when they were younger, swinging a club often sparks a startling transformation, however fleeting, that can make them seem like regular old folks again.

Have A Great Time Watching Your NCAA Slaves Play Basketball Tonight!

From Andrew Clive:

About 19 million people are expected to watch the NCAA men's basketball championship game tonight. For the privilege of broadcasting the tournament, one of the greatest sporting events in the world, CBS has agreed to pay the National Collegiate Athletic Association $6 billion from 2002 through 2013. Each of the schools with a team in the final game will take home a cool million dollars. On top of that, each institution stands to rake in millions upon millions of dollars from sales of licensed products and contracts with sporting goods suppliers. How much of those millions will the athletes get to take home? None.

The NCAA and its member institutions practice what can best be described as a modern form of slavery. They feed, house (and ostensibly educate) young men and women in exchange for the services of their labor. It is true that these young laborers, whom the NCAA likes to call "student-athletes," could walk away at any time. But in doing so most of them would forego any chance of working their way up to professional or Olympic status in the sport of their choice. To gain the training and exposure necessary to make it to the next level, most of them must play by the NCAA's rules. And those rules require athletes to sign over to the NCAA all rights to profit financially from their athletic performances as long as they are students.

Every Other Ball, We Sign On The Bottom. That Way The Other Guy Signs On Top.

Every Other Ball, We Sign On The Bottom. That Way The Other Guy Signs On Top.

From Dave Anderson's article THE SHOT HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD; A Fastball, a Swing And Forever:

Ever since Bobby Thomson hit the fastball that Ralph Branca threw, you never think of one without thinking of the other.

And one is so different from the other, but each has had the ideal personality to endure the role that the home run created.

Now 77, Thomson, a widower and retired paper salesman who prefers to be known as Bob, remains the humble, shy Scot from Staten Island. He is still somewhat surprised that history chose him to hit that home run. He has never gloated. He always tries to deflect the spotlight.

''I hate to use the word icon,'' he said, ''but I can't believe I'm being treated like I was a DiMaggio, like I'm somebody special.''

Now 75, Branca, a longtime insurance salesman, remains upbeat, the outgoing Italian-American from Mount Vernon, just north of the Bronx border. He has never seemed haunted by that home run, never seemed disconsolate, never apologized for what he considered a good pitch.

''I threw the ball up and in,'' he said. ''That's what I wanted to do.''

More great articles here, including the terrific story on how the famous radio call came to be recorded.