Sports Archives
The Super Bowl One of the coolest things about being a Boomer is that we can recall the very roots of the game which brings the USA to a stop every February, as the entire country takes time off (whether formally or informally) to observe two teams play for the championship of the...
Bobby Fischer and the Match of the Century Many of us Boomers grew up with chess sets in the house. Many of these were cheap plastic jobs imported from Japan. Some of us had prestigious cast or carved versions. But odds are that all of us, when sitting down to take on one of our youthful opponents, fancied...
The American Football League There's an old adage in the business world: Don't get mad, get even! It was that sort of positive thinking from Texas oil millionaire Lamar Hunt that caused the formation of the most successful upstart professional sports league since MLB's American league sprang on the scene in 1901. Editorial aside:...
Roller Derby! It wasn't unusual for a Boomer kid of the 50's or 60's to have a Saturday or Sunday afternoon ritual: strolling through the living room to find dad glued to the screen while skaters went round and round a circular track whilst beating the crap out of each other. Such...
How Did Our Dads Play Golf With That Equipment? One of my dad's spare time passions, and, by extension, one of mine, was golf. His preferred course was the Miami Country Club (not a member, BTW). It was a nine hole layout that I never played. However, I did earn many a quarter (worth approximately $200 in kid bucks...
The 1972 Olympics At presstime, Michael Phelps has just picked up gold medal number eight in the 2008 Summer Olympics. This makes the nostalgic among us (like you and me, for instance) harken back to when the mark of seven was set back in 1972. The world was a different place back then....
Spanning the Globe... Roone Arledge was a man to whom any stockholder of ABC should raise a glass on a regular basis. He was single-handedly responsible for taking the perennially third-rated latecomer network and turning it into the sports powerhouse that it was during the time that we Boomer kids were growing up...
Do You Believe in Miracles? There have been some truly memorable sports calls over the years. I have sweet memories of Harry Caray hollering "It could be, it could be, it is! A home run!" during Cardinal games of the 1960's. Russ Hodges, who might have otherwise been remembered as a competent but forgettable broadcaster...
Howard Cosell There are a few individuals out there who either inspire love or hatred. No in-between. I use the Dallas Cowboys as an example. Much of America loves the team, at least an equal amount despise them. Howard Cosell was such a man. A poll in the 70's revealed that he...
When You Knew Who the Heavyweight Champ Was - Part 2 To reiterate my last column, we Boomers grew up knowing who the world heavyweight champion was. Nowadays, at press time, there are four with names I've never heard of. In 1921, the World Boxing Association was formed. It presumed to call the shots as far as who the champions were...
When You Knew Who the Heavyweight Champ Was - Part 1 Ever heard of Wladimir Klitschko? Oleg Maskaev? Ruslan Chagaev? Sultan Ibragimov? According to the FOUR different authorities who govern professional boxing, those are the names of the current heavyweight champion. What a stinking mess. What happened, anyway? Remember when the champ was Floyd Patterson, and everyone knew it? Or Joe...
Hometown Boy Makes Good Growing up in small-town America Miami, Oklahoma in the 60's was a rich experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. It was wonderful living in a community where everyone knew who you were, where you could go anywhere you wanted as long as you were home for supper, and where...
The Heidi Game The American Football League, formed in 1960, had a shaky start. It hoped to outlast other American Football Leagues which had predated it. But the first years saw teams losing boatloads of money, and a public which didn't care a whole lot about any professional football except that exhibited by...
Baseball Games on the Radio A summer evening in my home would have a few constants. One, it would be around 80 degrees in the living room. Either the temperature would be obtained via open windows, or the swamp cooler would be turned on to get the temperature to the magical digit. If the room...
The Night Hank Hit #715 At presstime, a longstanding major league baseball record stands poised to be broken. It is surrounded by dark clouds of controversy, as a player with direct ties to the abuse of steroids and other banned substances (whose name I refuse to mention), revered by some, despised by a majority, will...
Rosie Ruiz "Wins" the Boston Marathon The term "d'oh!" originated with Homer Simpson about 1990. But odds are that when Rosie Ruiz rounded that last corner at the 1980 Boston Marathon and saw a pristine tape across the finish line, she probably uttered the Spanish equivalent. Ruiz, born in Havana in 1954, wanted to gain a...
Arnie and His Army Golf, the TV sport, has lived and died by the charisma of its dominant players. When Tiger wins, everybody watches. When Billy Mayfair wins, not so much. Golf has enjoyed recent good years, TV-viewership-wise. It can be summed up in one word: TIGER. But other charismatic players have caught the...
Racing in the Pinewood Derby The year was 1967. I was in the second grade. I was in class wearing my spiffy Cub Scout uniform, along with the other classmates who were members of the local pack. We had a den meeting after school that day, and we wore our uniforms to school. But this...
Bob Beamon Sets a Record for the Ages The 1968 Summer Olympics saw some unforgettable moments. There were some controversial ones, such as the Black Power salute on the winner's pedestal. But there were also some amazing accomplishments in sport. Perhaps the greatest of all was Bob Beamon completely shattering the long jump record. Beamon was a good...
Clay Beats Liston It was the penultimate rivalry in boxing in the decade of the 60's. Motormouthed Olympic champion Cassius Clay vs. quiet Sonny Liston. Clay had won gold in the 1960 Games at Rome. Liston had become the heavyweight champ by Knocking Floyd Patterson out in the first round in 1962. The...
Baseball Cards I have the 1968 St. Louis Cardinals to thank for getting me into baseball. I grew up with dad listening to the games on KMOX every night during the summer, but I didn't start paying attention until that fateful series that the Cards lost in seven to Detroit (ah, revenge...
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A Little Extra:
I'd like to take a minute and reflect on what has happened since I woke up in the middle of the night last November with the thought "I Remember JFK! Now THAT would be a cool name for a Boomer nostalgia site!" To my delight and surprise, the domain name...
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