By Bob Markus
Eddie Stanky, when he managed the White Sox, had a favorite expression he used whenever an opposing pitcher threw a gem at his team. "He's another Walter Johnson," Stanky would say sarcastically. Is it only a coincidence that the newest "another Walter Johnson," pitches for Washington, as did the original.? Stephen Strasburg, of course, cannot hope to duplicate the record of The Big Train, who won 417 games for the Washington Senators in a 21-year career. He pitches in a different era, where pitch counts rule and a complete game is as rare as a Nessy sighting in Scotland. Johnson completed 531 of his 666 starts for the Senators. Strasburg has started only five games in the majors (completing none)and already is being touted as an All-Star game performer. I'll admit I'm as impressed as anyone by what I've seen of Strasburg. His debut against the Pittsburgh Pirates was quite possibly the most eagerly anticipated in major league history. The result was stunning--no walks, 14 strikeouts and a big, fat W alongside Strasburg's name in the box score.
But as a one-time Cubs fan I can't help remembering the excitement caused by Mark Prior's first major league start under circumstances amazingly similar to Strasburg's. Prior, too, had received a then-record bonus for signing with the Cubs as the over-all No. 2 draft choice out of USC. That he wasn't, like Strasburg, the No. 1 selection was largely due to the fact that the Minnesota Twins, with the first pick, felt obligated to take hometown prospect Joe Mauer, a decision that proved to be justified when Mauer became a batting champion and MVP for the Twins. Like Strasburg, Prior's first big league appearance was a much-hyped start against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and, like Strasburg, Prior proved to be the real deal. He struck out 10 in his six innings and got the win. When he dominated National League hitters the next season and led the Cubs to within five outs of their first world series berth since 1945, there wasn't a Cubs' fan in Chicago who would have traded Prior for Mauer or any other big league player. Then came the infamous Bartman affair in which a fan named Steve Bartman caught a foul fly that Cubs' outfielder Moises Alou swears was headed for his glove. I've never believed that to be true. The ball was not in the field of play and in my mind it was doubtful that Alou was going to reach far enough into the seats to make the catch. Had he done so, the Cubs would have led 3-0 with two outs and nobody on in the eighth and quite likely would have been celebrating a few minutes later. As it was, they unravelled completely and not only gave up eight runs in the inning, but got rolled over the next night with their other ace pitcher, Kerry Wood, on the mound.
Wood, too, was a can't miss phenom who, in his fifth start as a 20-year-old rookie, pitched what many consider the greatest game in baseball history. He gave up only an infield single while walking nobody and striking out 20 Houston Astros. After the blown chance in the league championship series, it was all downhill for both young pitchers. Injuries piled on injuries for both. Prior hasn't pitched a game in the majors since 2006 and only today came word that he was going to give it another try by putting his once-electric stuff on display for major league scouts in a session at Southern Cal. Wood is still pitching, but in a relief role, one in which he has had mixed success. The Cubs offered further proof that early success is no guarantee of future stardom just last week when they placed Carlos Zambrano on the restricted list after his meltdown in the dugout at White Sox Park. Zambrano was a dynamic pitcher for the Cubs until they rewarded him with a mega-million dollar contract and he rewarded them by going in the tank.
The Cubs, of course, aren't the only ones who've seen incipient super stars fire and fall back. The Detroit Tigers' Mark (the Bird) Fydrich was the talk of baseball when, as a rookie in 1976 he went 19-9 and enchanted fans everywhere with his exuberance. He was to last only four more years and win 10 more ball games in the majors. He died just this year in a freak farming accident. Then there's the largely unremembered story of Bobo Holloman, who, in his first major league start, threw a no-hitter for the St. Louis Browns. I remember it, because I was a student at the University of Missouri and heard the game on the radio in my dorm room. Holloman who apparently had mediocre stuff, had his at-'em ball working that night. It was the only complete game of his career and before the year was out he was in the minors, never to return.
But the poster child for caution when forecasting a brilliant pitching career undoubtedly is Herb Score. The flame-throwing left hander, whom Stanky most certainly would have called "another Lefty Grove" burst on the major league scene at 21 and for the first two years was, indeed, a potential Lefty Grove. In his first five games he recorded 50 strikeouts, a mark that still stands He led the American League in strikeouts both seasons while posting won-lost records of 16-10, and 20-9. Then came the day early in the Cleveland star's third year when the Yankees' Gil McDougland labelled a fastball "return to sender" and caved in Score's face . Score was never the same after that and eventually left the mound for the broadcast booth. There are few things in life more fragile than a pitcher's throwing arm, which is why when I was covering the White Sox, owner Jerry Reinsdorf would never give a pitcher a long term contract. So, appreciate Stephen Strasburg for what he is--a dynamic young pitcher with a world of talent and a seemingly unlimited future. But don't be calling him another Walter Johnson. There was only one Big Train. With his two big league victories, however sensationally they were achieved, Strasburg is still only a Little Caboose.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
By Bob Markus
Lets see if I've got this right. The Big 12 has 10 members. The Big 10 has 12 members. The Pac 10 has 11 members, but appears ready to make Utah the 12th member. Whose on first? I dunno. Third base! Perhaps Abbott and Costello could make some sense out of what's happening in college athletics. I sure can't. I graduated from a Big 12 school--Missouri. Only, then, it was the Big Seven. It wasn't until a half dozen years after I left school that it became the Big Eight, or, as pundits of the time called it, Oklahoma and the Seven Dwarfs.
It was about to be called "history" until Monday, when Texas came riding to the rescue, like the Lone Ranger protecting the Wells Fargo stage coach, and saved the payroll. Texas is one of the new kids on the Big 12 block, having led a mass exodus from the Southwest conference that changed the landscape of college football forever. Three other SWC schools joined Texas in the stampede, merging with the Big Eight to form the Big 12. The tradition rich Southwest conference, which had produced the likes of Sammy Baugh and Bobby Layne, Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams, was gone, vanished. Poof!
The same thing was about to happen to the Big 12. The Pac 10, spooked by rumblings from Big 10 country that the conference, already up to 11 members with the 1993 addition of Penn State, was planning to expand by as many as five schools, planned a massive preemptive strike of its own. The target of both conferences: The Big 12. The Pac 10 struck first, picking up Colorado, which boasts one of the prettiest--and most party prone--campuses in the country, but not much in the way of athletic heritage. The Big 10 then tossed out its bait in the direction of Nebraska and succeeded in reeling in the Cornhuskers, a longtime national force in football.
From a personal standpoint that shocked me. First of all, I had covered most of the Nebraska-Oklahoma shootouts of the early 1970s and regretted the fact I'd likely never see another one. But , more importantly, it left my alma mater in a potentially untenable position. Missouri had been rumored as one of the schools being considered by the Big 10. It definitely would not be one of the schools coveted by the Pac 10. Had Texas decided to put on its walking boots there would have been a domino effect, resulting in the demise of the Big 12 and Missouri would have been one of the schools looking through a window at the candy jar. The Pac 10 was poised to offer membership to four other Big 12 teams, including Oklahoma, and with Nebraska and Texas already gone, it's doubtful any of the four could or would refuse. With only six schools remaining, none of them a longterm football power, there would have been an-every-man-for-himself scramble to find a new home. Given their lack of universal appeal, the stranded six could not even go back to their original designation of The Big Six. Missouri's best option in that scenario would be to pair up with ancient rival Kansas in a package deal with either the Big 10 or Big East.
No matter what else happens I have a suggestion that I hope both conferences consider carefully. Swap names. Let the 10-school Big 12 be known as The Big 10 and the 12-team Big 10 as the Big 12. Seems reasonable to me. And it wouldn't even be breaking new ground. Back in the 1950s and 60s, there was a pair of auto racing brothers, Jim and Dick Rathmann, who enjoyed varying degrees of success. Dick made his mark in NASCAR, although he did run in nine Indianapolis 500s, once starting on the pole. Jim was the winner of the 1960 Indy 500, considered by many the greatest race ever run at the Brickyard, with Jim and Rodger Ward battling nose to tail for most of the 200 laps. One day, at a party in Indianapolis, I got to talking with one of the brothers. I think it was Dick. "You know," he told me, "I'm really Jim Rathmann. And Jim is Dick." It's true. Back at the beginning of their careers, Dick, four years younger than his brother, was too young to enter a race. So he switched names with Jim. It was only meant to be temporary, but somehow they never got around to switching back. So, now, if you talk to one of the Rathmann's you can't be sure just whom you're talking to. Hey, Abbott!
Dick Rathmann, by the way, was No.16 on my list of best drivers who never won the Indy 500. That's the list I was going to give you in the aftermath of this year's race, but didn't get around to it. So this is as good a time as any, and how do you like that segue? The top 10:
10--Alberto Ascari. The great Italian Formula One racer only ran at Indianapolis once and finished only 40 laps. But he is considered one of the all-time greats in motor racing. He was Mario Andretti's boyhood hero and inspiration. Mario virtually glowed while telling me of the time he stood in a roadside crowd and cheered each time Ascari came by.
9--Ralph Hepburn. Started as a motorcycle racing champion. Finished 2d in 1937, just 2.16 seconds behind Wilbur Shaw.
8--Jackie Stewart. Winner of three Formula one titles, he led his first of two Indy 500s with eight laps to go before retiring with a mechanical failure. He was voted Rookie of the Year over Graham Hill, who won the race.
7--Lloyd Ruby. Winner of seven champ car races, he had his best chance in 1969. He was leading the race until, on a pit stop, he pulled away too soon while the fuel hose nozzle was still attached, ripping a hole in his gas tank.
6--Tony Bettenhausen. Father of racers Gary, Merle, and Tony Jr., started 14 races with one second and two fourth place finishes. Was killed testing a car for a friend at Indianapolis in 1961.
5--Dan Gurney. An American road racing icon and car builder, he ran nine times at Indy. In his last three races he finished second, second, and third.
4--Eddie Sachs. Known as "the clown prince of auto racing," he won 8 champ car races and 2 Indy 500 poles. Finished second in 1961 and '62, died in first lap crash in 1964. Crash also took the life of rookie Dave MacDonald. Also involved: a couple of guys named Johnny Rutherford and B obby Unser.
3--Rex Mays. Finished second in 1940, 41', years in which he won the series championship. Has a race named after him at Milwaukee Mile.
2--Ted Horn. National champion in 1946, '47, '48, died in crash at DuQuoin, Il. in October of 1948. Had incredible nine-year string of top 4 finishes at Indianapolis.
1--Michael Andretti. Won 42 Indy Car races and one championship. Holds the record for most laps led without a win at Indy. Dropped out of race while leading on five different occasions.
Things I've let go by me while missing a week of blogging: Armando Galarraga loses perfect game on ump's blown call. In baseball parlance, a perfect game is often referred to as an El Perfecto. In this case, close, but no cigar.
Johnny Wooden dies at 99. I'm one of few writers who ever criticized Wooden, mainly because of his penchant for shielding stars Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton from the press. I felt it would have served both better to learn how to deal with media. I may have been wrong, since both turned out to be articulte and outspoken. I also changed my mind about Wooden after having breakfast with him one morning in the Dallas Cowboys' training camp in Thousand Oaks, Ca. He was delightful company.
Blackhawks win Stanley Cup. The Blackhawks were my final beat at the Chicago Tribune. Jeremy Roenick was the star and my go-to-guy. I wasn't surprised when he shed tears of joy after the clinching game. He always was an emotional guy and his greatest years came with the Hawks.
Some of you may have noticed I did not write a column last week. I'll probably go to an every-other-week schedule from now on. But if something strikes my fancy in the interim I'll probably give it a go. One of the advantages of writing for yourself is that you don't HAVE to publish every week.
Lets see if I've got this right. The Big 12 has 10 members. The Big 10 has 12 members. The Pac 10 has 11 members, but appears ready to make Utah the 12th member. Whose on first? I dunno. Third base! Perhaps Abbott and Costello could make some sense out of what's happening in college athletics. I sure can't. I graduated from a Big 12 school--Missouri. Only, then, it was the Big Seven. It wasn't until a half dozen years after I left school that it became the Big Eight, or, as pundits of the time called it, Oklahoma and the Seven Dwarfs.
It was about to be called "history" until Monday, when Texas came riding to the rescue, like the Lone Ranger protecting the Wells Fargo stage coach, and saved the payroll. Texas is one of the new kids on the Big 12 block, having led a mass exodus from the Southwest conference that changed the landscape of college football forever. Three other SWC schools joined Texas in the stampede, merging with the Big Eight to form the Big 12. The tradition rich Southwest conference, which had produced the likes of Sammy Baugh and Bobby Layne, Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams, was gone, vanished. Poof!
The same thing was about to happen to the Big 12. The Pac 10, spooked by rumblings from Big 10 country that the conference, already up to 11 members with the 1993 addition of Penn State, was planning to expand by as many as five schools, planned a massive preemptive strike of its own. The target of both conferences: The Big 12. The Pac 10 struck first, picking up Colorado, which boasts one of the prettiest--and most party prone--campuses in the country, but not much in the way of athletic heritage. The Big 10 then tossed out its bait in the direction of Nebraska and succeeded in reeling in the Cornhuskers, a longtime national force in football.
From a personal standpoint that shocked me. First of all, I had covered most of the Nebraska-Oklahoma shootouts of the early 1970s and regretted the fact I'd likely never see another one. But , more importantly, it left my alma mater in a potentially untenable position. Missouri had been rumored as one of the schools being considered by the Big 10. It definitely would not be one of the schools coveted by the Pac 10. Had Texas decided to put on its walking boots there would have been a domino effect, resulting in the demise of the Big 12 and Missouri would have been one of the schools looking through a window at the candy jar. The Pac 10 was poised to offer membership to four other Big 12 teams, including Oklahoma, and with Nebraska and Texas already gone, it's doubtful any of the four could or would refuse. With only six schools remaining, none of them a longterm football power, there would have been an-every-man-for-himself scramble to find a new home. Given their lack of universal appeal, the stranded six could not even go back to their original designation of The Big Six. Missouri's best option in that scenario would be to pair up with ancient rival Kansas in a package deal with either the Big 10 or Big East.
No matter what else happens I have a suggestion that I hope both conferences consider carefully. Swap names. Let the 10-school Big 12 be known as The Big 10 and the 12-team Big 10 as the Big 12. Seems reasonable to me. And it wouldn't even be breaking new ground. Back in the 1950s and 60s, there was a pair of auto racing brothers, Jim and Dick Rathmann, who enjoyed varying degrees of success. Dick made his mark in NASCAR, although he did run in nine Indianapolis 500s, once starting on the pole. Jim was the winner of the 1960 Indy 500, considered by many the greatest race ever run at the Brickyard, with Jim and Rodger Ward battling nose to tail for most of the 200 laps. One day, at a party in Indianapolis, I got to talking with one of the brothers. I think it was Dick. "You know," he told me, "I'm really Jim Rathmann. And Jim is Dick." It's true. Back at the beginning of their careers, Dick, four years younger than his brother, was too young to enter a race. So he switched names with Jim. It was only meant to be temporary, but somehow they never got around to switching back. So, now, if you talk to one of the Rathmann's you can't be sure just whom you're talking to. Hey, Abbott!
Dick Rathmann, by the way, was No.16 on my list of best drivers who never won the Indy 500. That's the list I was going to give you in the aftermath of this year's race, but didn't get around to it. So this is as good a time as any, and how do you like that segue? The top 10:
10--Alberto Ascari. The great Italian Formula One racer only ran at Indianapolis once and finished only 40 laps. But he is considered one of the all-time greats in motor racing. He was Mario Andretti's boyhood hero and inspiration. Mario virtually glowed while telling me of the time he stood in a roadside crowd and cheered each time Ascari came by.
9--Ralph Hepburn. Started as a motorcycle racing champion. Finished 2d in 1937, just 2.16 seconds behind Wilbur Shaw.
8--Jackie Stewart. Winner of three Formula one titles, he led his first of two Indy 500s with eight laps to go before retiring with a mechanical failure. He was voted Rookie of the Year over Graham Hill, who won the race.
7--Lloyd Ruby. Winner of seven champ car races, he had his best chance in 1969. He was leading the race until, on a pit stop, he pulled away too soon while the fuel hose nozzle was still attached, ripping a hole in his gas tank.
6--Tony Bettenhausen. Father of racers Gary, Merle, and Tony Jr., started 14 races with one second and two fourth place finishes. Was killed testing a car for a friend at Indianapolis in 1961.
5--Dan Gurney. An American road racing icon and car builder, he ran nine times at Indy. In his last three races he finished second, second, and third.
4--Eddie Sachs. Known as "the clown prince of auto racing," he won 8 champ car races and 2 Indy 500 poles. Finished second in 1961 and '62, died in first lap crash in 1964. Crash also took the life of rookie Dave MacDonald. Also involved: a couple of guys named Johnny Rutherford and B obby Unser.
3--Rex Mays. Finished second in 1940, 41', years in which he won the series championship. Has a race named after him at Milwaukee Mile.
2--Ted Horn. National champion in 1946, '47, '48, died in crash at DuQuoin, Il. in October of 1948. Had incredible nine-year string of top 4 finishes at Indianapolis.
1--Michael Andretti. Won 42 Indy Car races and one championship. Holds the record for most laps led without a win at Indy. Dropped out of race while leading on five different occasions.
Things I've let go by me while missing a week of blogging: Armando Galarraga loses perfect game on ump's blown call. In baseball parlance, a perfect game is often referred to as an El Perfecto. In this case, close, but no cigar.
Johnny Wooden dies at 99. I'm one of few writers who ever criticized Wooden, mainly because of his penchant for shielding stars Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton from the press. I felt it would have served both better to learn how to deal with media. I may have been wrong, since both turned out to be articulte and outspoken. I also changed my mind about Wooden after having breakfast with him one morning in the Dallas Cowboys' training camp in Thousand Oaks, Ca. He was delightful company.
Blackhawks win Stanley Cup. The Blackhawks were my final beat at the Chicago Tribune. Jeremy Roenick was the star and my go-to-guy. I wasn't surprised when he shed tears of joy after the clinching game. He always was an emotional guy and his greatest years came with the Hawks.
Some of you may have noticed I did not write a column last week. I'll probably go to an every-other-week schedule from now on. But if something strikes my fancy in the interim I'll probably give it a go. One of the advantages of writing for yourself is that you don't HAVE to publish every week.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
By Bob Markus
The Indianapolis 500 is my favorite sporting event of the year. It's the one day that I warn my wife a week in advance not to accept any social engagements. I covered 20 of them for The Chicago Tribune, including the 1988 race when I did double duty, working in Teo Fabi's pit crew and filing a story after the race. It was the most unforgettable day of my professional life. How many times in 36 years of covering sporting events did I stand for the National Anthem? A thousand? Two thousand? Three? And how many times did the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner" move me to tears? Just this once. Standing next to my team's race car just moments before the command to "start yer engines" I felt the tears begin to well up and I just let them go. The day didn't last long for our team. Just 30 laps into the race Fabi brought the Quaker State-Porsche into the pits for his first and, as it turned out, last stop. Using the long-handled stop sign assigned to me, I brought Teo to a tire-screeching halt, then picked up the fire hose with which I was supposed to wash down the fuel cell door after refueling. It was a scary moment for me because my target was located behind the driver's head and I had not been able to practice it. What if I squirted Teo instead of the fuel cell? I thought I had done the job properly, but when I turned my back to hang up the hose I heard cursing and I saw everyone's head turned to the left as in the tennis crowd shots in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train." "What happened?" I asked. "Teo crashed," came the laconic response. For a tense irrational moment I thought it was my fault, that Fabi somehow had spun the tires in the water I had laid down. When I learned that Teo had been sent out before a rear tire could be secured and had crashed just a few hundred feet down pit lane when the wheel came off, I was relieved. When two or three of my pit crew mates began pushing the car toward gasoline alley I decided to join them and so there I was, a slightly overweight man in his 50s, running nearly a half mile under a broiling sun, wondering if I was crazy or just plain stupid.
Instead of reaping the thrill of victory I had been saddled with the agony of defeat, but what mattered most was that I had, in a small way, competed on the biggest stage in the sporting world. But I was besotted by the Indy 500 long before I ever dreamed I could play a part in it. I remember the first time I was really aware of the Indy 500 was Memorial day of 1946 when, sitting in the grand stand in Wrigley Field watching the Cubs play somebody, the P.A. announcer, Pat Pieper, came out with the news that George Robson had won the first Indianapolis 500 since the war started. After that I usually would listen to the race on the radio, never dreaming I would ever actually see a race, let alone participate in it. I was working as a reporter on The Moline (Il.) Dispatch on Memorial Day of 1955 and had gone to my room at the YMCA, which was virtually next door to the newspaper, where I heard on the radio that Bill Vukovich, winner of the two previous Indy 500s, had been killed while again leading the race. I hustled back to the office and told the city editor the news and they managed to get a few paragraphs on a page one replate. I'm not certain when the race was first televised, but I remember that in 1964 it was being shown in a local movie theater. My wife and I went to see it and that was the day that Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald were killed in a fiery wreck on the second lap. We didn't wait around for the restart almost two hours later. My only other contact with the Speedway was a telephone interview with Jim Clark from his garage in Gasoline Alley just a few days before the Scotsman won the 1965 race. So I really didn't know what to expect when I went to my first race in 1968. I fell in love with it. All of it. The Purdue band playing "On the Banks of the Wabash", Jim Nabors singing "Back Home in Indiana," "Gentlemen, start your engines," the balloons going up, the jets buzzing by and the incredible rush of adrenalin when those 33 cars scream into the first turn. I've had some bad days at the race track, none worse than in 1973 when Swede Savage, one of my favorite drivers, was fatally injured in a flaming wreck that pretty much summed up the entire month of rain and ruin. Yet, like General Patton's feelings about war, I do love it so. Still.
Obviously, it would take a lot to make me miss seeing the Indy 500. This year it almost happened. Instead of watching the start of the race from the comfort of my living room, I watched it from a hospital emergency room cubicle. Before I go any further let me assure you everyone's all right. But for a moment the Indy 500 didn't seem very important to me. My wife, who had opened a cut over her right eye brow in a fall on Saturday night, decided she'd made a mistake by refusing to go to the hospital and when she called her doctor Sunday morning, he agreed. So off we went to the emergency room where, ultimately, the doctor in charge ordered a cat scan--just in case. I waited in the room, with the TV set tuned to the race and, although I wasn't really into it, saw the start. After awhile I heard a nurse across the hall say, rather excitedly, "the patient in 37 has a cervical fracture." That pretty much went by me until I remembered, "this is room 37." When my wife was wheeled back into the room she wore a cervical collar and we both prepared to hear the worst. But a little while later the ER doctor came in and said, "You're fine. You can go home." It was nearly 3 o'clock and we hadn't had lunch, so we went to the McDonald's right in the hospital. I don't know what went on in the race during tht time, but we got it on the radio on the drive home. We had to leave the car for 10 minutes at the pharmacy, so there went another gap. But being the long-running event that it is, there was still plenty of racing to be seen when we got home. I wasn't thrilled with ABC's coverage--too much, side-by-side coverage which makes it hard to follow the action. I don't really know any of the drivers any more, but I do know all the owners. Roger Penske. Chip Ganassi. Michael Andretti. Those are the big three in Indy car racing. I like them all, but Michael is my favorite. I've known him since he was a rookie and I've known his dad Mario since he won the 1969 race. I remember a long one-on-one interview with Mario the morning after the race. He did not appear to be comfortable and he spoke with a decided accent. Since then Mario has become so fluent in English that whenever any one asks me who my favorite interview subject is, I truthfully answer: "Mario Andretti."
So I was hoping one of Michael's drivers would win the race, although they had all looked so bad in qualifying that it didn't seem likely. But both Tony Kanaan and Michael's son Marco put on enough of a charge to make it interesting at the end and even Danica Patrick stopped complaining long enough to motor to a respectable sixth place finish. Under the circumstances it was a good day for Michael's team. Ganassi had the race winner, Dario Franchitti, and Penske would win the World 600 in Charlotte that night, so everyone should have been happy. I know I was.
-0-
Note to my readers: I've always had a strange method of writing a column--or blog if you insist. I don't always know how a story is going to come out. That's why when I used to go into the sports editor's office and he'd ask me what I was going to write about, I'd have to say, "I don't know." Today's is an extreme example. I did three hours of research for a blog that I had intended to be about the ten greatest race drivers who never won the Indianapolis 500. But I never quite got rolling in that direction. So I'm thinking of doing it next week. Or next year. See you then.
The Indianapolis 500 is my favorite sporting event of the year. It's the one day that I warn my wife a week in advance not to accept any social engagements. I covered 20 of them for The Chicago Tribune, including the 1988 race when I did double duty, working in Teo Fabi's pit crew and filing a story after the race. It was the most unforgettable day of my professional life. How many times in 36 years of covering sporting events did I stand for the National Anthem? A thousand? Two thousand? Three? And how many times did the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner" move me to tears? Just this once. Standing next to my team's race car just moments before the command to "start yer engines" I felt the tears begin to well up and I just let them go. The day didn't last long for our team. Just 30 laps into the race Fabi brought the Quaker State-Porsche into the pits for his first and, as it turned out, last stop. Using the long-handled stop sign assigned to me, I brought Teo to a tire-screeching halt, then picked up the fire hose with which I was supposed to wash down the fuel cell door after refueling. It was a scary moment for me because my target was located behind the driver's head and I had not been able to practice it. What if I squirted Teo instead of the fuel cell? I thought I had done the job properly, but when I turned my back to hang up the hose I heard cursing and I saw everyone's head turned to the left as in the tennis crowd shots in Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train." "What happened?" I asked. "Teo crashed," came the laconic response. For a tense irrational moment I thought it was my fault, that Fabi somehow had spun the tires in the water I had laid down. When I learned that Teo had been sent out before a rear tire could be secured and had crashed just a few hundred feet down pit lane when the wheel came off, I was relieved. When two or three of my pit crew mates began pushing the car toward gasoline alley I decided to join them and so there I was, a slightly overweight man in his 50s, running nearly a half mile under a broiling sun, wondering if I was crazy or just plain stupid.
Instead of reaping the thrill of victory I had been saddled with the agony of defeat, but what mattered most was that I had, in a small way, competed on the biggest stage in the sporting world. But I was besotted by the Indy 500 long before I ever dreamed I could play a part in it. I remember the first time I was really aware of the Indy 500 was Memorial day of 1946 when, sitting in the grand stand in Wrigley Field watching the Cubs play somebody, the P.A. announcer, Pat Pieper, came out with the news that George Robson had won the first Indianapolis 500 since the war started. After that I usually would listen to the race on the radio, never dreaming I would ever actually see a race, let alone participate in it. I was working as a reporter on The Moline (Il.) Dispatch on Memorial Day of 1955 and had gone to my room at the YMCA, which was virtually next door to the newspaper, where I heard on the radio that Bill Vukovich, winner of the two previous Indy 500s, had been killed while again leading the race. I hustled back to the office and told the city editor the news and they managed to get a few paragraphs on a page one replate. I'm not certain when the race was first televised, but I remember that in 1964 it was being shown in a local movie theater. My wife and I went to see it and that was the day that Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald were killed in a fiery wreck on the second lap. We didn't wait around for the restart almost two hours later. My only other contact with the Speedway was a telephone interview with Jim Clark from his garage in Gasoline Alley just a few days before the Scotsman won the 1965 race. So I really didn't know what to expect when I went to my first race in 1968. I fell in love with it. All of it. The Purdue band playing "On the Banks of the Wabash", Jim Nabors singing "Back Home in Indiana," "Gentlemen, start your engines," the balloons going up, the jets buzzing by and the incredible rush of adrenalin when those 33 cars scream into the first turn. I've had some bad days at the race track, none worse than in 1973 when Swede Savage, one of my favorite drivers, was fatally injured in a flaming wreck that pretty much summed up the entire month of rain and ruin. Yet, like General Patton's feelings about war, I do love it so. Still.
Obviously, it would take a lot to make me miss seeing the Indy 500. This year it almost happened. Instead of watching the start of the race from the comfort of my living room, I watched it from a hospital emergency room cubicle. Before I go any further let me assure you everyone's all right. But for a moment the Indy 500 didn't seem very important to me. My wife, who had opened a cut over her right eye brow in a fall on Saturday night, decided she'd made a mistake by refusing to go to the hospital and when she called her doctor Sunday morning, he agreed. So off we went to the emergency room where, ultimately, the doctor in charge ordered a cat scan--just in case. I waited in the room, with the TV set tuned to the race and, although I wasn't really into it, saw the start. After awhile I heard a nurse across the hall say, rather excitedly, "the patient in 37 has a cervical fracture." That pretty much went by me until I remembered, "this is room 37." When my wife was wheeled back into the room she wore a cervical collar and we both prepared to hear the worst. But a little while later the ER doctor came in and said, "You're fine. You can go home." It was nearly 3 o'clock and we hadn't had lunch, so we went to the McDonald's right in the hospital. I don't know what went on in the race during tht time, but we got it on the radio on the drive home. We had to leave the car for 10 minutes at the pharmacy, so there went another gap. But being the long-running event that it is, there was still plenty of racing to be seen when we got home. I wasn't thrilled with ABC's coverage--too much, side-by-side coverage which makes it hard to follow the action. I don't really know any of the drivers any more, but I do know all the owners. Roger Penske. Chip Ganassi. Michael Andretti. Those are the big three in Indy car racing. I like them all, but Michael is my favorite. I've known him since he was a rookie and I've known his dad Mario since he won the 1969 race. I remember a long one-on-one interview with Mario the morning after the race. He did not appear to be comfortable and he spoke with a decided accent. Since then Mario has become so fluent in English that whenever any one asks me who my favorite interview subject is, I truthfully answer: "Mario Andretti."
So I was hoping one of Michael's drivers would win the race, although they had all looked so bad in qualifying that it didn't seem likely. But both Tony Kanaan and Michael's son Marco put on enough of a charge to make it interesting at the end and even Danica Patrick stopped complaining long enough to motor to a respectable sixth place finish. Under the circumstances it was a good day for Michael's team. Ganassi had the race winner, Dario Franchitti, and Penske would win the World 600 in Charlotte that night, so everyone should have been happy. I know I was.
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Note to my readers: I've always had a strange method of writing a column--or blog if you insist. I don't always know how a story is going to come out. That's why when I used to go into the sports editor's office and he'd ask me what I was going to write about, I'd have to say, "I don't know." Today's is an extreme example. I did three hours of research for a blog that I had intended to be about the ten greatest race drivers who never won the Indianapolis 500. But I never quite got rolling in that direction. So I'm thinking of doing it next week. Or next year. See you then.
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