Month: August 2022

I love researching sports history, often in the interest of finding column fodder but sometimes just to travel back in time.

Today, it allowed me to remember an old friend.

While looking for some game accounts of the New York Cosmos’ North American Soccer League championship victory on August 26, 1972, I found myself eying a newspaper dated August 27 of that year.

A completely unrelated headline that popped out at me read: “Astros fire Walker, lure back Leo.”

Houston’s National League club had parted ways with skipper Harry Walker and replaced him with Leo Durocher, who had been axed by the Chicago Cubs during the All-Star break. It would mark the end of Walker’s professional managerial career, one that also saw him guide the fortunes of the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates and finish with a 630-604 record.

That got me reminiscing about Walker, who was the UAB baseball coach during my college days (he was 211-171 while leading the Blazers during their first eight seasons) and who I got to know better when I became a frequent guest at his home in Leeds, Alabama.

It was always time well spent. The first visit was to do a piece for a newspaper I was working for at the time, and later it was just to sit and listen to him tell stories of the days when baseball was unquestionably the National Pastime.

And keep in mind, Walker was not someone who just passed through the game. He was a big league center fielder from 1940 through 1955 (eight years with the Cards plus stretches with the Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds), winning two world championships and a National League batting title in 1947.

That year he batted .363 while playing 130 games for Philadelphia and 10 with St. Louis. He and his brother, Dixie, are the only siblings to win Major League batting crowns.

Oh, and the two-time All-Star also served in the 65^th Infantry Division in 1945 and 1946, earning a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

Nicknamed “The Hat” due to his habit of adjusting his cap between pitches, he also cussed like a sailor. Or, maybe the better description would be sailors cussed like Harry Walker. Man, oh, man, every other word was a profanity.

The funny thing, though, is there was never any maliciousness behind his colorful language; that’s just the way he talked. And when it came to baseball, well, he could talk all day

“If we aren’t careful, we’re going to see baseball deteriorate,” Walker told me back when I first interviewed him in 1990. “I think everybody needs to make sure that baseball — American Legion and that sort of thing — is available to the youngsters.

“Now it seems like after Little League, people forget about baseball. That’s why baseball was so great back in the 1940s and 1950s. It brought people together. Cotton mills had teams and it didn’t matter where you went, you could find a baseball game. Wouldn’t it be great if little towns all had teams like they did in the old days?”

Walker saw professional baseball’s star fading; he understood that football had become king to a large number of American sports fans, but the game he loved was hurting itself with too many “mediocre hitters.”

“In those days if you wanted to stay in the big leagues, you had better be able to hit the ball,” Walker said. “I see guys now making millions of dollars and hitting .225, and if you hit 225 back when I played you wouldn’t be in the majors, you’d be down on the farm somewhere.”

In his later years Walker was in high demand as a hitting instructor, willing to assist everyone from local high school players to professionals in developing a better swing. It was his way of continuing to grow the game.

He died on August 8, 1999, at 80, leaving behind a legacy as one of the country’s foremost “Baseball Men.”

I wish I’d had a chance to ask him about interleague play and the universal designated hitter, topics I’m sure he’d have strong opinions that he’d be willing to share. And the steroid era and contraction of minor league teams would’ve likely set him off, too.

But when I was around Walker, I preferred letting him drive the conversation. And the fact that those conversations revolved around “the old days” was fine by me.

As a fan of sports history, what’s better than talking with someone who lived it?

The Miami Dolphins are marking the golden anniversary of their perfect season this year, and barring a team going 20-0 in 2022-23 (spoiler alert: it won’t happen) they’ll remain the lone National Football League franchise to accomplish the feat.

Don Shula’s 1972 club was impressive across the board; the Dolphins’ “No-Name Defense” registered three shutouts in a 14-game regular season, and only three opponents managed to score 20 or more points.

Offensively, running backs Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris each eclipsed the 1,000-yard rushing mark – a league first – while Paul Warfield shined when Bob Griese or Earl Morrall decided to work the skies.

Still, even the best teams need a bit of good fortune to go along with their great play. And if you take a look at Miami’s 17-game slate, you’ll find a handful of games that were a break or two away from going the other way.

During the regular season, three games were decided by four points or less. The Fins defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 16-14, (October 1); edged the Buffalo Bills, 24-23, (October 22); and beat the New York Jets, 28-24, (November 19).

Their entire playoff run featured tight scores: 20-14 (Cleveland Browns in the AFC Divisional Playoff); 21-17 (Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game); and 14-7 (Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII).

So, how close did the perfect team come to being imperfect?

In the win over Minnesota, Miami was held scoreless over the first two quarters and then managed three Garo Yepremian field goals in the second half to cut the Vikings’ lead to 14-9. With just 1:28 remaining in the game, Griese hit Jim Mandich on a three-yard scoring toss to save the day. Although just the third week of the season, the victory was a harbinger of things to come as it left Miami as the only unbeaten team in the league.

“I’d like to get the reputation that we are a come-from-behind team,” Shula told to Associated Press following the “W” in Bloomington, Minnesota. “Of course, everybody likes to get way ahead and not get caught, but a team that can come from behind has a great advantage.”

In the one-point conquest of the Bills in Miami, the Dolphins trailed 13-7 at the half. However, a Csonka TD in the third quarter made it 14-13 and the eventual winners never trailed the rest of the way.

The score was 24-16 before Buffalo added a late TD (there was no two-point conversion option at the time, so Shula’s squad effectively had a two-score lead at that point).

The last regular season scare came against the division rival Jets. That game I remember well because I watched it with my dad on Channel 13 in Birmingham, hoping Joe Namath and company could engineer an upset. New York led 24-21 early in the fourth quarter to give me some hope, but Morris scored a 14-yard touchdown later in the frame, wrapping up the AFC East title at home for his 10-0 team.

“We’ve won 10 in a row,” Shula told AP. “We’re happy … everything’s positive. We’ve got to get this football team ready to start the playoffs.”

The Dolphins outscored their final four regular season foes 107-44, capped off by 16-0 blanking of the Baltimore Colts.

The postseason, however, would test their championship mettle.

After racing out to a 10-0 halftime lead over Cleveland in the first round of the playoffs, Miami found itself trailing, 14-13, with 8:11 left in the fourth quarter of the Christmas Eve clash in the Orange Bowl.

But the Dolphins took the ensuing kickoff and marched 80 yards in eight plays, highlighted by Jim Kiick’s eight-yard scoring run to extend the winning streak and season.

“That last drive was for all the believers in the Dolphins,” Morris told the Miami Herald.

Due to a weird (and, thankfully, now defunct) rotating playoff format, the 15-0 Fins had to travel to the 12-3 Steelers for the AFC Championship Game.

Pittsburgh used the home field to its advantage early on in the New Year’s Eve battle, taking a 7-0 lead and playing the unbeatens even at halftime, 7-7 (a fake punt by the Dolphins’ Larry Seiple set up the tying score for the visitors).

Miami took charge over the final two quarters, holding a 21-10 lead in the fourth frame before the Steelers made things interesting with a touchdown 5:11 from the finish.

Griese came off the bench to throw two touchdown passes in the conference clincher; he played in only nine games due to injury while Morrall parlayed his opportunity into an All-Pro season. Morrall was pleased with the outcome, but hardly happy about being pulled.

“We were trying to think about the Steelers,” he told reporters. “You don’t try to think about yourself, just the other team and winning. But, no, I wasn’t overjoyed about it.”

The coronation came in Los Angeles on January 14, 1973, with a 14-7 victory over Washington in the Super Bowl.

The defensive struggle is probably best remembered by a blocked field goal attempt and comical “pass-punch” by Yepremian that resulted in a 49-yard TD for the Redskins.

Miami had dominated all day and the fluke play spoiled a shutout. It also made a game that was never really in doubt look much closer than it was.

Afterwards, Shula said he didn’t want to compare his team with any other, but knew the Aqua and Orange had earned a special place in history.

“This is the greatest team I’ve ever been associated with,” he said. “It’s hard to compare it with other teams in the past. This team has gone into areas that no one has ever gone before. It went undefeated and won it at the end, and they have to be given credit for their achievement.”

In just their seventh season, the Miami Dolphins did what no other NFL club has done before or since. And while all great teams usually find a way to victory, this bunch found a way every single game.

Fifty years later, that’s a magnificent achievement still worthy of celebrating.

In 1978, the National Football League extended its regular season from 14 to 16 games and reduced the number of exhibition games from six to four.

“One of the basic reasons teams were in favor of going to 16 games was the fact that a number of clubs have had difficulty selling the preseason game,” NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle told the Associated Press when the decision was made in March, 1977. “They felt they’d be better off making them regular season games and that the public would be more willing to accept them as regular season rather than preseason.” 

The move certainly made sense. Six exhibition games meant teams spent a month and a half playing contests that didn’t count in the standings, which seems a bit excessive.

From the standpoint of putting a team together, though, such games have merit. True, the statistics teams pile up during the preseason won’t find their way into record books. And wins and losses should be disregarded.

However, these are job interviews for young players and newcomers, and you won’t see any of them going half-speed. Practice is important, but until coaches see players in game action, they won’t know who fills their team’s needs and who doesn’t.

Of course, all these things can be determined in closed scrimmages, so it’s not necessary that dress rehearsal games have a live audience. Yet while some fans might feel cheated when they only see starters make cameo appearances in a preseason clash, there are those like me who enjoy the live audition aspect.  

It’s fun to watch rookies get their first taste of pro game action, and this year we’ve witnessed more than 50 guys from the 2022 USFL earn tryouts.

Beyond that, though, you’ll find these games can be important historical markers for fans (or at least the fan who’s writing this).

Does August 23, 1986, mean anything to you, football-wise?

It does to me.

Even though in the big buffet of gridiron competition it was little more than a burp, that date marks the first time I ever saw a live NFL game.

My then-girlfriend and I were in Atlanta that weekend, and we got together with her cousin and her cousin’s boyfriend. He and I hit it off immediately, and soon the four of us were plotting what to do while we were there.

He suggested that we spend Saturday night at Fulton County Stadium where the Falcons were hosting the Cleveland Browns in a Week Three preseason game.

I was pumped.

I’d seen plenty of World Football League clashes and was just over a year removed from watching the final (original) Birmingham Stallions game in the late, great United States Football League, but this was new territory.

At last, I’d be in the stands for a game in the greatest tackle football league of them all.

Cleveland won, 27-21, behind second-year quarterback Bernie Kosar. Kosar threw a pair of touchdown passes while Earnest Byner racked up 100 yards and scored three times.

Even though I was a New York Jets fan I cheered for the Falcons on this night, and watched quarterbacks David Archer and Turk Schonert split time behind center and account for one aerial TD each.

A bigger draw for me was running back William Andrews, who I’d last seen play live during Auburn’s 22-22 tie with Georgia in 1978 (a game that saw the Tigers break out their orange jerseys). He returned to the Falcons lineup after a two-year absence due to a knee injury.

The 33,637 fans at Fulton County Stadium saw no play or performance that was particularly memorable, and I imagine many of them quickly forgot about the whole thing when it was over.

Not me.

Once we left the stadium and headed for the car, I babbled on about the experience because I was no longer a guy who had never seen an NFL game in person. And that was kind of a big deal.

My next in-house NFL experience came two years later when Atlanta and Washington played a preseason game at Legion Field on August 27, 1988 – the first NFL appearance in Birmingham since 1970.

This time I was working at my first newspaper job and covered the game, one that saw the defending world champions defeat the Falcons, 34-17, in front of 51,400 fans. Again, it was a big deal to me.

My most vivid memory was seeing Doug Williams take a few snaps for the victors; I had cheered against him at Legion Field when his Oklahoma Outlaws were thumped by the homestanding Stallions, 41-17, in an April, 1984, USFL game. This time, he was less than seven months removed from lighting up the Denver Broncos for 340 yards and four touchdowns in Super Bowl XXII.

Don’t get me wrong … I’m not gonna run traffic lights in order to get home in time for tonight’s preseason game between the Bears and Seahawks. And anyone – especially NFL fans in an NFL city – would rather watch a showdown that affects the standings than one that has no real standing in the grand scheme of things.

But for me, there’s plenty to enjoy about preseason football. Who knows? A guy you might’ve never heard of before might be one you can’t forget in a few years.

And if the first NFL game you ever see live happens in August instead of September, don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t mean anything.

It might not count, but it still matters.