Category: History and More

With no live sports taking place due to the pandemic, all we can do is eye a future when they return and relive great moments from their past.

ESPN has reminded us how cathartic looking back can be thanks to its “The Last Dance” mini-series documentary. And aside from that, I haven’t been shy about jumping on YouTube and finding old clashes from the North American Soccer League and United States Football League.

Sometimes when you watch these events, you realize just how many details you’ve forgotten over time.

Anyway, all this has prompted me to do a lot of thinking (and a little research) and recall the first times I saw sporting events live. Turns out it was a fun mental exercise, and I highly recommend it.

Obviously there are some that I can’t pinpoint; the first times I saw college baseball and college soccer were when I was a student at UAB, but I don’t remember specific dates. However, there are other firsts that really stand out.

So even though I don’t expect you to care about my fan milestones, maybe this will at least inspire you to take a stroll down your own lane of memories.

Here are mine – presented in chronological order:

College Football

Virginia Tech vs. Alabama (September 19, 1970, at Legion Field).

When I woke up that morning I thought my dad was taking me to see Jacksonville State vs. Samford at Seibert Stadium, which was very exciting for me since I’d never been to a college football game. In fact, the only live football games I’d seen were the ones I played in as a member of the L.M. Smith elementary school YMCA league team.

You can imagine my disappointment when he came to my room about an hour before we were supposed to leave and told me we weren’t going.

Ah, but it was a trick play.

Before I could reach the eye watering, lip trembling stage, he produced tickets to the Alabama-Virginia Tech game, set for that night at Legion Field.

Alabama won, 51-18, but I don’t remember details – just feelings. And sitting in a football cathedral with my dad made me feel like I was the luckiest kid who ever lived.

Pro football

Southern California Sun at Birmingham Americans (July 10, 1974, at Legion Field).

I was a big pro football fan and the New York Jets were my favorite team. That all changed on a hot night in Birmingham when the World Football League debuted.

Sitting between my dad and brother, I watched the Americans take an 11-7 victory over the visitors and could finally brag that I had seen a professional football game live and in person.

It also led to an obsession with the WFL that remains today.

Pro Baseball

Oakland A’s at Birmingham A’s (March 15, 1975, at Rickwood Field).

OK, I’m cheating a bit here. The American League team and defending World champions were slated to play their Southern League farm club on this night, which was to be the first time I had ever watched a live game involving a major or minor league team. But lightning knocked out a bank of lights at the stadium, and inclement weather prevented the game from being played.

But, I got second baseman Phil Garner’s autograph, watched Reggie Jackson and Billy Williams take BP, and saw Vida Blue throw some pitches, so I’m counting it.

*Technically the first pro baseball game I saw was on April 14, 1981, when the Birmingham Barons defeated the Jacksonville Suns, 6-5, at Rickwood Field.

Pro Hockey

Atlanta Flames at Birmingham Bulls (September 21, 1976, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum).

Once I found out the World Hockey Association’s Toronto franchise was relocating to Birmingham, I read anything and everything I could about ice hockey. And my, oh, my, did this game get me hooked.

Taking on the National Hockey League Flames at the brand new Civic Center, the Bulls’ Mark Napier (already a star at age 19) scored a hat trick – his last goal coming with 46 seconds left in sudden death – to give Birmingham a 7-6 victory.

It was just an exhibition game but it made me realize what a glorious sport this was.

College Basketball

Western Michigan vs. Alabama (December 28, 1976, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum).

I first got interested in college hoops when Pete Maravich played at LSU, but my exposure to the game was confined to watching it on TV.

But my brother gave me an early birthday present and took me to see undefeated and No. 4-ranked Alabama play Western Michigan in the first basketball game ever staged at the Civic Center.

I was part of a sellout crowd that watched the Crimson Tide take an 83-74 victory.

Pro Basketball

Stroh’s Roundball Classic (July 9, 1983, at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum).

Here’s another case where I’m blurring the lines. The Stroh’s Roundball Classic was basically just a summer tour of NBA players who played defense-free exhibition games across the country. The stop they made in Birmingham featured stars like Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas and Dominique Wilkins.

The cool part for me is that I was covering the game for my college newspaper (the Kaleidoscope) and got to interview Johnson.

I can’t recall who won (not that it mattered), but the winning team scored 182 points and Wilkins had at least 20 thunderous dunks.

Pro Soccer

New Orleans Riverboat Gamblers at Birmingham Grasshoppers SC (June 6, 1993, at Birmingham-Southern College).

Birmingham fielded a team in the United States Interregional Soccer League (which evolved into what is now known as the United Soccer League) in the early 1990s, and that gave me a chance to support my hometown club.

It was composed mostly of Birmingham-Southern players and it really wasn’t professional, but since it grew into a league that is, I decided to grandfather it in and define it as “pro” soccer. In an effort to spark my nephew’s interest in the Beautiful Game, I took him to see the Gamblers and Grasshoppers mix it up on a brutally hot Sunday afternoon.

New Orleans scored a 2-1 victory.

Welp, that’s all I got. Now it’s your turn …

A case can be made that the ‘fan cave” at my house is a monument to failure, and it’s a relatively strong case.

The minute you walk into the hallway you’ll see a wall full of programs and artifacts from the original North American Soccer League, as well as the American Soccer League.

Step into the main room and there’s an entire side of it devoted to the World Football League and United States Football League, with special emphasis on the Birmingham Americans, Birmingham Vulcans and Birmingham Stallions.

Walk a little further and a World Hockey Association display is the main attraction – starring the Birmingham Bulls.

What do all these leagues and teams have in common?

Well, they’re dead.

They came, they went, and now they’re left to be judged by history.

Depressing stuff, right?

Not to me. Not at all.

In fact, my fan cave is my happy place – the room I retreat to when I want to clear my head and where I churn out many of my columns. I spent years decorating it, and now it serves as my own private sports museum and inspiration tank.

My collection of mostly Magic City sports history provides magic all its own, helping me travel back in time to some of the best times of my life.

When I look at my Americans pennant (and opening game ticket stub and homemade Ams helmet), I don’t dwell on the WFL’s financial disaster  – at the time the worst in sports history.

Instead, I think back to July 10, 1974, when a young teenager saw his very first pro football game in person, sitting at Legion Field with his dad on one side and his brother on the other as Birmingham topped Southern Cal, 11-7.

I remember a team that hung 58 points on the Memphis Southmen while one of the loudest crowds I’ve ever been a part of cheered so loudly my ears were ringing when it was all over.

And when the Ams beat the Florida Blazers in the World Bowl, I can still hear myself cheering as I watched the game through the “miracle” of cable television at my brother’s house in Center Point.

If I glance at my Vulcans car tag or Vulcans Booster Club certificate, my first thought isn’t that the league folded 12 weeks into the 1975 season.

It’s joining more than 30,000 people at the “Football Capital of the South” on a scorching July day to watch a controlled scrimmage between the Vulcans and Southmen. That was the game that featured the debut of the WFL’s most famous players – Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield.

The USFL died by its own hand when it left a spring schedule in an effort to compete with the NFL in the fall, but it lives on when I look at the Joe Cribbs’ game-used Stallions jersey I have and my three custom-made player figurines.

And that ticket stub from the 1985 Eastern Conference final against the Baltimore Stars at Legion Field might’ve been Birmingham’s last game in the USFL, but it was also a clash that helped me realize these were great teams that could’ve held their own in football’s biggest league.

I guess I should tell you that admiring my Birmingham Barracudas display – featuring a replica jersey, cap, season press pass and Legion Field parking pass – does still sting a little.

The Canadian Football League is my favorite brand of tackle football, and knowing it plays on while the Cudas played out after a one-and-done season saddens me.

But, you know the old saying: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Hey, I got to sit in the press box and watch CFL Hall of Famers Matt Dunigan and Anthony Calvillo duke it out in the first CFL game ever played in Birmingham. That’s unforgettable.

There are also physical reminders of the Birmingham Fire (World League of American Football), Birmingham Steeldogs (Arena football 2), Birmingham Thunderbolts (XFL) and Birmingham Iron (Alliance of American Football), and even a good deal of gridiron memorabilia that has nothing to do with Birmingham at all – it’s just stuff I collected and enjoy.

And of course my shrine to the Bulls isn’t merely a tribute to the WHA and stars such as Frank Mahovlich and Mark Napier, but a reminder of when hockey became my favorite sport.

Going to the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum and rooting for the Bulls – even though they usually sat near the bottom of the WHA standings – made for some of the best times I ever had.

So sure, you can visit my fan cave and think it’s a room full of bittersweet memories and broken dreams. I won’t argue with you because in a technical sense, you’re right.

For me, though, it’s far more sweet than bitter. It represents days gone by, but they’re days that – in my mind – will last as long as I live.

NBC televised Monday night baseball games off and on starting in 1966, but it wasn’t always “must-see TV” for me. My first vivid memories of sports date back to around 1967, and they almost exclusively center on tackle football (and mostly the New York Jets).

There were notable exceptions, of course. I rooted for the New York Yankees (pinstripes are cool) and Chicago Cubs (loved that baby bear logo), so I was more engaged when they were on. If Pop (my dad) was watching them, I’d usually join him.

And I always wanted to see games featuring Willie Mays and Hank Aaron because they were my favorite players when I was a kid growing up in Birmingham, Alabama.

That leads me to the NBC Monday Night Baseball game I remember best, played on April 8, 1974.

The Atlanta Braves hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers, which under normal circumstances would be just a run-of-the-mill early season clash between two National League West rivals. On this night however, Aaron – the Atlanta legend – was sharing Babe Ruth’s crown as baseball’s home run king but poised to take solo possession of the throne.

I was well aware of the historical implications. Everybody knew who Ruth was, and his 714 career home runs seemed like a record that would stand forever. But when Aaron blasted his 714^th on April 4 at Cincinnati, it was apparent that forever would last only until the spring of 1974.

Making the chase even more remarkable was that the Braves right fielder was closing in on one of the most coveted records in sports while having to deal with hate mail and death threats from racists – vitriol that increased dramatically the closer he got to the milestone.

While Pop had been a huge fan of the Braves ever since the franchise relocated from Milwaukee, the team itself didn’t interest me nearly as much as Aaron himself.

He was piling up Hall of Fame-level hitting numbers even without the homers, and that impressed a young stat geek like me. What was most important, though, was that he and I were from the same state; I took great pride in Alabama stars, and in my world the ones who played sports shone the brightest.

Mays was a Birmingham native and former Birmingham Black Baron, thus I gravitated to him immediately and followed him closely until he retired in 1973. Aaron was born and raised in Mobile, and since I had relatives who lived there, that made him seem even more like a local hero.

So with Pop in his easy chair and me plopped on the couch, I watched every pitch to every batter just for the privilege of seeing “Hammerin’ Hank” come to the dish.

He drew a leadoff walk in the second inning and later scored his 2,063^rd run, breaking a tie with Mays for most in National League history. That feat secured his 20^th Major League Baseball and/or NL record overall.

In the fourth inning (at 8:07 p.m., CDT), Aaron delivered the big one.

With a 1-0 count and L.A. lefty Al Downing dealing, the 40-year old slugger smacked a fastball over the left field fence, prompting me to leap off the couch and thrust both arms in the air. I had just seen history made, and it was made by a man from my home state.

Pop was happy, too – but even happier five innings later after the Braves secured a 7-4 victory and handed the Dodgers their first loss of the young season. He supported Atlanta’s big league team through thick and thin, and there was so much thin back in the day, any win was extra special.

Now at this point you might expect me to tell you how that game turned me into a serious baseball fan, but that’s not exactly the case. As happy as I was for Aaron – and proud – it was really the early 1980s before I grew passionate about the sport.

Yet if I’m gonna mark significant memories in my journey as a fan, April 8, 1974, ranks right up there. I never let the date pass without acknowledging the most historic NBC Monday Night Baseball game ever played.