By Bob Markus
They tell me there's more than one way to skin a cat. I've never had any desire to skin a cat and if I ever did, I doubt that I could figure out even one way to do it. Where would I start?
At the head? The tail? I imagine I'd start by calling a taxidermist. What brought about this odd musing was the news that Mark McGwire has been named batting coach by the St. Louis Cardinals. McGwire has avoided the spotlight ever since his non-testimony before Congress four years ago. He has done no interviews. Now it is going to be nearly impossible to avoid them. I'll guarantee you that on opening day of spring training next February there will be a record number of media members flying down to Florida, all wanting to know: did he or didn't he?
How McGwire responds--if he responds at all--could go a long way towards determining if he ever gets in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Because the men asking the question are the same men who vote for or against enshrinement and McGwire at the moment has a long way to go to win the 75 per cent approval he needs. In his first two years on the ballot, the former major league home run single season record holder has garnered less than 25 per cent.
There have been players in the past who have been left at the post in their early years of eligibility. The time honored way to gather support has been to go to the radio or TV booth and mingle with the electorate. It worked for Ralph Kiner; it worked for Lou Boudreau; it worked for Phil Rizzuto, all of whom were voted into the Hall of Fame after years of cozying up to the baseball beat writers. I don't mean to imply there was anything phony about their relationships with their fellow media members. It's just that, try as one might to remain objective, it's difficult to remain objective about someone you know and like.
I can't recall an example of a player gathering Hall of Fame votes by becoming a coach, but the possibility is there, just the same. McGwire will be in daily contact with many of the men who hold his fate in their hands. Whether he takes advantage of the opportunity remains to be seen. If he refuses to answer any questions about his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs, he can forget about the Hall of Fame. If he refuses to talk to reporters at all, he can forget about the Hall of Fame. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying that's the way it is. There are many voters, probably a majority, who believe that any records set while under the influence of artificial enhancement are invalid. To them, McGwire's rookie record of 49 homers for the Oakland A's back in 1987, his 70 homers in 1998 when he beat Sammy Sosa in their epic race to to erase Roger Maris' record of 61, his 583 career home runs all are tainted by his presumed use of steroids.
I personally doubt that McGwire was drugged up all the way back in 1987. There seems to be little doubt that he was using a steroid named androstenodione in '98 during the duel with Sosa. In fact, he left packages of the drug in his open locker where anyone could see them and he has admitted that he took the drug. But at the time androstenodione was neither illegal nor a banned substance in major league baseball. It wasn't until 2004, three years after McGwire had retired, that the United States government declared the drug a steroid and made it illegal.
It seems to me that McGwire's wisest course would be to tell anyone who asks that, yes, I did take androstenodione back in '98, but I didn't know it was a steroid and it wasn't a banned substance. Even if he 'fesses up, he's not going to get into the Hall of Fame within the next year or two. But eventually, if he stays around the game and gets more comfortble with the writers--and they with him--his time will come. Although their cases may all be different, there are three other players who should be watching the McGwire situation with interest. As it stands now, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro share McGwire's plight. All of them are suspected steroid abusers, none has admitted it, and Palmiero explained away his one positive test by claiming he had been given a tainted B12 injection. He passed a lie detector test and never failed another drug test before or since so there is the possibility that he told the truth when he said, "I have never knowingly used steroids. Never."
Palmeiro will be the first of the three eligible for the Hall of Fame and as it stands now, he won't make it, despite the fact he is one of only four players ever to amass 3,000 hits and 500 homers. The other three, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray, are all Hall of Famers. Next up will be Sosa with his 609 career homers balanced against his embarrassing corked bat fiasco, which muddies the water when considering whether he's telling the truth when he denies using steroids. Bonds will be the most difficult choice of all, since many consider him the greatest hitter in baseball history (I'll stick with Babe Ruth), but in the current climate the steroids issue outweighs any statistics, no matter how gaudy.
It won't be easy, but Mark McGwire has been given the opportunity to change all that. Meanwhile there are approximately 100 ball players who have yet to be outed after failing a drug test in 2003. Until we know more about them, I'm throwing the problem back in baseball's lap. As a Hall of Fame voter I don't think it's my responsiblity to determine who is or is not eligible for the Hall. That's baseball's responsibility and if baseball sees fit to put Mark McGwire's name on the ballot, I'm going to vote for him. Bonds, Sosa and Palmeiro, too.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
By Bob Markus
If the deaths of three runners in Sunday's Detroit Marathon proved anything, it might be that life is a crapshoot and sooner or later you're going to roll snake eyes. There seems to be no logical explanation for the sudden deaths of Daniel Langdon, 36, Rick Brown, 65, and Jon Fenlon, 26, all within a 16-minute span. All three were entered in the half marathon, just over 13 miles, a distance that, while daunting to your average couch potato, is not beyond the imagination of any reasonably fit runner. In my own running days I once ran 10 miles in Los Angeles' Griffith Park and felt I could go farther.
But 26.2 miles? On the face of it that has always appeared to me to be a sure sign of insanity. If it doesn't kill you, it will certainly wreak havoc on some of your body parts, in particular your knees. Actually, the chances of it killing you are minimal, statistically almost nonexistent. A marathoner is more likely to be hit by a car during a training run than drop dead during a race. But it happens. It happens to one in about 75,000 marathon runners. That doesn't include those who die during training, most notably Dr. Jim Fixx, who became a millionaire extolling the health benefits of running in three best-selling books, but succumbed to a heart attack, at 52, just after completing his daily run.
That running a Marathon may prove to be dangerous to your health was proved by the very first marathoner, a Greek named Pheidippides. Shortly before he won the Marathon gold medal at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Frank Shorter was musing about the distance, precisely 26 miles and 385 yards. "The guy who invented the marathon got the distance just right," Shorter told me, "because he knew exactly how much the human body can stand." Actually Pheidippides might have been better off walking those final 385 yards. Because after blurting the glorious news of a major military victory at Marathon to the people of Athens, the swift soldier collapsed and died on the spot.
Shorter won that gold medal in only his fifth marathon. He was basically a middle distance runner, whose finishing kick was good, but not quite good enough . But in the Marathon, he said, there is no finishing kick. "It's a question of who's decelerating the least over the last six miles."
Even for a great champion like Shorter there was a price to be paid. "Pain? Sure there's a pain factor. But there's a pain factor in every race beyond 200 meters, but each race has its own kind of pain. Actually, you can't describe it unless you've done it." But why do it? Probably for the same reason you'd climb Mt. Everest or swim the English Channel. It's a challenge, but one that is more reachable than Everest's 29,000 foot summit or the vast expanse of ocean between Dover and Calais. I'm reasonably certain there is also at least a modicum of addiction involved. I can vouch for that from personal experience.
I came late to running, not starting until I was well into my 30s. I started after a routine visit to a new doctor, Dr. Smith, who listened to my heartbeat for a few seconds and asked me: "What are you taking?" I named a drug meant to revive a comatose thyroid and he advised, "You don't need those pills. Throw them away and start exercising." Until then, I had led a mostly sedentary life except for eight weeks of Army basic training more than a decade earlier. But inspired by Dr. Smith I set a goal of running a mile in 15 minutes. Serendipitously, I was scheduled to go on a two week assignment to the Kansas City Chiefs training camp in Liberty, Mo. The Chiefs, as Super bowl champions, were preparing to play the College All-Stars in the season opening exhibition game sponsored annually by my newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. It appeared to be the perfect opportunity to get myself in shape. Accordingly, on my first morning in camp, I arose early and went to the quarter mile dirt running track and set out to run my first mile. I had just finished my first lap, however, when a short, thick-set man jumped in front of me with his arms in the air.
"What are you trying to do," he asked me. When I told him, he said, "You're going about it the wrong way. Let me help you and I guarantee you'll run that mile." For the next 10 days, Alvin Roy, the Chiefs' strength coach, worked with me every morning. His training regimen consisted of lifting weights and interval running. At no time did he let me run more than one lap until the last day, when he took out his stop watch and sent me out for my final exam. I don't remember what my time was but it was under 10 minutes and I was satisfied with that. From then on, I was hooked on running. I usually ran three miles before breakfast. Often I would run with Andy McKenna, who was on the board of the Cubs, White Sox, and Bears, with whom he had a minority ownership stake. The White Sox were up for sale at the time and rumors were flying all over town, but with my morning runs with Andy I had a pretty good grasp of what was going on. It was especially neat to find good running trails on out of town assignments. I think of all the runs I've had, the one I enjoyed the most was at a park in Syracuse, N.Y. the morning of a Syracuse-Penn State football game. The run was through a woods on a carpet of autumn leaves with a lake on my right hand side. It was an exhilerating moment.
The beginning of the end came one morning in Laramie, Wyo. I had just finished my morning run and sat down on the bed to take off my socks when a jolt of pain shot through my left knee and almost dropped me to the floor. Several cortisone shots and an arthroscope later the knee felt better, but that didn't last. I kept breaking down. Either my knees would get sore or my back would go out and I finally figured somebody or some thing was trying to tell me something. Today both knees are shot through with arthritis and the pain is constant, though bearable. Oddly enough, the knees don't hurt as much when I walk so that's how I get my exercise now. But I do miss running and if you were to ask me: Knowing what you know now would you do it over again, I'd reply, Damned right.
If the deaths of three runners in Sunday's Detroit Marathon proved anything, it might be that life is a crapshoot and sooner or later you're going to roll snake eyes. There seems to be no logical explanation for the sudden deaths of Daniel Langdon, 36, Rick Brown, 65, and Jon Fenlon, 26, all within a 16-minute span. All three were entered in the half marathon, just over 13 miles, a distance that, while daunting to your average couch potato, is not beyond the imagination of any reasonably fit runner. In my own running days I once ran 10 miles in Los Angeles' Griffith Park and felt I could go farther.
But 26.2 miles? On the face of it that has always appeared to me to be a sure sign of insanity. If it doesn't kill you, it will certainly wreak havoc on some of your body parts, in particular your knees. Actually, the chances of it killing you are minimal, statistically almost nonexistent. A marathoner is more likely to be hit by a car during a training run than drop dead during a race. But it happens. It happens to one in about 75,000 marathon runners. That doesn't include those who die during training, most notably Dr. Jim Fixx, who became a millionaire extolling the health benefits of running in three best-selling books, but succumbed to a heart attack, at 52, just after completing his daily run.
That running a Marathon may prove to be dangerous to your health was proved by the very first marathoner, a Greek named Pheidippides. Shortly before he won the Marathon gold medal at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Frank Shorter was musing about the distance, precisely 26 miles and 385 yards. "The guy who invented the marathon got the distance just right," Shorter told me, "because he knew exactly how much the human body can stand." Actually Pheidippides might have been better off walking those final 385 yards. Because after blurting the glorious news of a major military victory at Marathon to the people of Athens, the swift soldier collapsed and died on the spot.
Shorter won that gold medal in only his fifth marathon. He was basically a middle distance runner, whose finishing kick was good, but not quite good enough . But in the Marathon, he said, there is no finishing kick. "It's a question of who's decelerating the least over the last six miles."
Even for a great champion like Shorter there was a price to be paid. "Pain? Sure there's a pain factor. But there's a pain factor in every race beyond 200 meters, but each race has its own kind of pain. Actually, you can't describe it unless you've done it." But why do it? Probably for the same reason you'd climb Mt. Everest or swim the English Channel. It's a challenge, but one that is more reachable than Everest's 29,000 foot summit or the vast expanse of ocean between Dover and Calais. I'm reasonably certain there is also at least a modicum of addiction involved. I can vouch for that from personal experience.
I came late to running, not starting until I was well into my 30s. I started after a routine visit to a new doctor, Dr. Smith, who listened to my heartbeat for a few seconds and asked me: "What are you taking?" I named a drug meant to revive a comatose thyroid and he advised, "You don't need those pills. Throw them away and start exercising." Until then, I had led a mostly sedentary life except for eight weeks of Army basic training more than a decade earlier. But inspired by Dr. Smith I set a goal of running a mile in 15 minutes. Serendipitously, I was scheduled to go on a two week assignment to the Kansas City Chiefs training camp in Liberty, Mo. The Chiefs, as Super bowl champions, were preparing to play the College All-Stars in the season opening exhibition game sponsored annually by my newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. It appeared to be the perfect opportunity to get myself in shape. Accordingly, on my first morning in camp, I arose early and went to the quarter mile dirt running track and set out to run my first mile. I had just finished my first lap, however, when a short, thick-set man jumped in front of me with his arms in the air.
"What are you trying to do," he asked me. When I told him, he said, "You're going about it the wrong way. Let me help you and I guarantee you'll run that mile." For the next 10 days, Alvin Roy, the Chiefs' strength coach, worked with me every morning. His training regimen consisted of lifting weights and interval running. At no time did he let me run more than one lap until the last day, when he took out his stop watch and sent me out for my final exam. I don't remember what my time was but it was under 10 minutes and I was satisfied with that. From then on, I was hooked on running. I usually ran three miles before breakfast. Often I would run with Andy McKenna, who was on the board of the Cubs, White Sox, and Bears, with whom he had a minority ownership stake. The White Sox were up for sale at the time and rumors were flying all over town, but with my morning runs with Andy I had a pretty good grasp of what was going on. It was especially neat to find good running trails on out of town assignments. I think of all the runs I've had, the one I enjoyed the most was at a park in Syracuse, N.Y. the morning of a Syracuse-Penn State football game. The run was through a woods on a carpet of autumn leaves with a lake on my right hand side. It was an exhilerating moment.
The beginning of the end came one morning in Laramie, Wyo. I had just finished my morning run and sat down on the bed to take off my socks when a jolt of pain shot through my left knee and almost dropped me to the floor. Several cortisone shots and an arthroscope later the knee felt better, but that didn't last. I kept breaking down. Either my knees would get sore or my back would go out and I finally figured somebody or some thing was trying to tell me something. Today both knees are shot through with arthritis and the pain is constant, though bearable. Oddly enough, the knees don't hurt as much when I walk so that's how I get my exercise now. But I do miss running and if you were to ask me: Knowing what you know now would you do it over again, I'd reply, Damned right.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
By Bob Markus
The Oakland Raiders may have forgotten how to win, but they haven't forgotten how to handle the media--with disdain bordering on contempt. The Raiders are the most p.r. disfunctional organization in all of sports and have been so almost since their inception in 1960. Ever since Al Davis, then a 33-year-old assistant coach with the Los Angeles Chargers, became head coach and general manager of the Raiders in 1963, there has been an attitude of suspicion surrounding the team that makes Georgetown basketball's Hoya paranoia look like glasnost. The latest manifestation was on display last week, when Davis tried to keep Rich Gannon, a CBS analyst, out of his headquarters building, where the network was holding production meetings. Apparently, Gannon, who was the Raiders' quarterback the last time the team went to the Super Bowl, has been too critical of his old team. Of course, there is much to be critical about. The once potent Raiders have suffered six consecutive losing seasons since that 48-21 Super Bowl loss to Tampa Bay, a team coached by Jon Gruden, who had been Oakland's coach the three previous years. They may have reached rock bottom Sunday when they were blown away by the New York Giants, 44-7, in a game in which many of the Giant stars were given the second half off. Davis, once a superb judge of talent--there are 11 former Raider players in the Pro
Football Hall of Fame--squandered the first pick in the draft three years ago when he chose LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who has been beyond terrible. While other young quarterbacks like Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan, Mark Sanchez and Chad Henne are leading their teams to victory, Russell is leading the Raiders on the road to ruin.
There are other indications that Davis is out of touch with NFL reality. He hired Lane Kiffin, a 31-year-old assistant coach at Southern Cal, to be the Raiders' head coach in 2007. Four games into the next season, he fired Kiffin, saying he had made a huge mistake. He compounded that mistake by replacing Kiffin with Tom Cable, whose head coaching experience consists of four years at Idaho, his alma mater, where he delivered an 11-35 record. Cable will finish the season, but he could finish it in jail or a courthouse after one of his assistants accused him of breaking his jaw in a blind side attack a few months ago. "He was screaming, 'I'll f---ing kill you! I'll f. . .ing kill you,'" according to the assistant, Randy Hanson. Hanson said he thought the attack was inspired by something he had said the previous day. While Cable was in a meeting with the Raiders' underachieving defensive backs, Hanson reportedly was telling the other assistants: "You know what's going to happen. Tom's gonna come out of that meeting and say I'm the problem. I'm the one confusing them and blame it all on me." The NFL and the Napa, Cal., police department are conducting separate investigations into the incident. Good luck to them. Prying information out of the Oakland Raiders has always been as difficult as prying the first pickle out of the jar.
My first dealing with the Raiders was pretty typical. I was on the West Coast covering the Rose bowl for the Chicago Tribune and the Raiders were getting ready to play the Houston Oilers for the AFL championship and the right to go to Super bowl II. I flew up to Oakland to cover the game and get a pregame column. After checking into my hotel I called the Raiders' publicity director, Lee Grosscup, a former quarterbacik from Utah who was famous for his white shoes. I told Grosscup I was there to do a pregame column and wanted to go to practice and interview one of his players. "Who do you want to talk to?" Grosscup asked. "Billy Cannon," I replied, referring to the former Heisman trophy winning halfback from LSU, who had made the transition to all-pro tight end. "My God," Grosscup exploded, "you can't talk to Billy Cannon. Nobody can talk to Billy Cannon." I then requested George Blanda, a former Bear and winner of the first two AFL championships as quarterback and kicker for the Oilers.
"No, you can't talk to Blanda," said Grosscup. "Then who can I talk to?" "Jim Otto," replied Grosscup, who added that practice started at 1:30 and gave me directions. When I arrived at 1:30 the practice field was empty and so was the locker room--except for one lone figure staring into his locker. Of course, it was Jim Otto, the Raiders' Hall of Fame center, who obviously had been told to wait for me.
That was the way the Raiders were, controlling, secretive, mistrustful. Recalls Ted Hendricks, the Hall of Fame linebacker who spent the last nine of his 15 pro seasons as a Raider: "The joke around here always used to be that if anyone was in the stands during a practice, he had to be a spy. Of course, everybody assumed Al (Davis) was using a spy, too. " Even though the Raiders usually made life difficult for me, I came to have a grudging admiration for them. In the early years of the AFL, many papers more or less ignored the upstart league, none more so than The Tribune, which was more or less in bed with the Bears' George Halas. But when I went out to cover my first Rose bowl after the 1965 season, the Buffalo Bills were playing the Chargers, who by then had moved to San Diego, in the league championship game. Except for Paul Zimmerman of the New York Post I might have been the only national writer covering that game. Zimmerman, of course, became the famous Dr. Z for Sports Illustrated, but back then he was more known for the elaborate charts he kept of each play, a system I never could understand, and for running the writers' pool at the Super Bowl. I once won it two years in a row and after the second time, Paul informed me that his pocket had been picked in the rush to the dressing room. Nevertheless he ponied up the money without much resistance. For those of you wondering where Dr. Z's predictions have gone, I'm sorry to report that Paul has suffered a series of strokes beginning last October and as far as I know he is still unable to speak. I spent many a night in his company--he was a wine connoisseur and the first one to point out to me the merits of Ridge Zinfandel. I certainly wish him well.
If you covered the AFL in those days you were bound to run into the Oakland Raiders frequently. I covered their loss to the Jets in Shea Stadium, the game in which Joe Namath threw through a biting wind to Don Maynard to send the Jets to the Super bowl. I was one of the few writers who did not expect the Baltimore Colts to blow away the Jets in the Super bowl, although I admit I wasn't brave enough to pick the Jets to win it. I covered the "Immaculate Reception" game in Pittsburgh and remember attending a late press conference the night before in which John Madden, the Raiders' coach, revealed that the team had watched the movie "Jaws" on the flight to Pittsburgh and, "Boy, I wish I could have that guy as a linebacker."
I think my favorite Raiders game was the famous "Ghost to the Post" playoff in Baltimore when Raiders tight end Dave Casper (the ghost), not only set up the tying touchdown with a 42-yard reception, but caught the game-winner in overtime. If that wasn't enough, when I got back to the football press box after doing the locker room interviews there was a small craft airplane lodged in the nearby baseball press box, the dare devil pilot having attempted to fly through the goal posts.
The Raiders in all their arrogance were fun to cover in those days. But those days are gone. Al Davis seems to have lost his way. His famous utterance: "Just win, baby," seems more like a prayerful plea than the unconditional demand it used to be.
The Oakland Raiders may have forgotten how to win, but they haven't forgotten how to handle the media--with disdain bordering on contempt. The Raiders are the most p.r. disfunctional organization in all of sports and have been so almost since their inception in 1960. Ever since Al Davis, then a 33-year-old assistant coach with the Los Angeles Chargers, became head coach and general manager of the Raiders in 1963, there has been an attitude of suspicion surrounding the team that makes Georgetown basketball's Hoya paranoia look like glasnost. The latest manifestation was on display last week, when Davis tried to keep Rich Gannon, a CBS analyst, out of his headquarters building, where the network was holding production meetings. Apparently, Gannon, who was the Raiders' quarterback the last time the team went to the Super Bowl, has been too critical of his old team. Of course, there is much to be critical about. The once potent Raiders have suffered six consecutive losing seasons since that 48-21 Super Bowl loss to Tampa Bay, a team coached by Jon Gruden, who had been Oakland's coach the three previous years. They may have reached rock bottom Sunday when they were blown away by the New York Giants, 44-7, in a game in which many of the Giant stars were given the second half off. Davis, once a superb judge of talent--there are 11 former Raider players in the Pro
Football Hall of Fame--squandered the first pick in the draft three years ago when he chose LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who has been beyond terrible. While other young quarterbacks like Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan, Mark Sanchez and Chad Henne are leading their teams to victory, Russell is leading the Raiders on the road to ruin.
There are other indications that Davis is out of touch with NFL reality. He hired Lane Kiffin, a 31-year-old assistant coach at Southern Cal, to be the Raiders' head coach in 2007. Four games into the next season, he fired Kiffin, saying he had made a huge mistake. He compounded that mistake by replacing Kiffin with Tom Cable, whose head coaching experience consists of four years at Idaho, his alma mater, where he delivered an 11-35 record. Cable will finish the season, but he could finish it in jail or a courthouse after one of his assistants accused him of breaking his jaw in a blind side attack a few months ago. "He was screaming, 'I'll f---ing kill you! I'll f. . .ing kill you,'" according to the assistant, Randy Hanson. Hanson said he thought the attack was inspired by something he had said the previous day. While Cable was in a meeting with the Raiders' underachieving defensive backs, Hanson reportedly was telling the other assistants: "You know what's going to happen. Tom's gonna come out of that meeting and say I'm the problem. I'm the one confusing them and blame it all on me." The NFL and the Napa, Cal., police department are conducting separate investigations into the incident. Good luck to them. Prying information out of the Oakland Raiders has always been as difficult as prying the first pickle out of the jar.
My first dealing with the Raiders was pretty typical. I was on the West Coast covering the Rose bowl for the Chicago Tribune and the Raiders were getting ready to play the Houston Oilers for the AFL championship and the right to go to Super bowl II. I flew up to Oakland to cover the game and get a pregame column. After checking into my hotel I called the Raiders' publicity director, Lee Grosscup, a former quarterbacik from Utah who was famous for his white shoes. I told Grosscup I was there to do a pregame column and wanted to go to practice and interview one of his players. "Who do you want to talk to?" Grosscup asked. "Billy Cannon," I replied, referring to the former Heisman trophy winning halfback from LSU, who had made the transition to all-pro tight end. "My God," Grosscup exploded, "you can't talk to Billy Cannon. Nobody can talk to Billy Cannon." I then requested George Blanda, a former Bear and winner of the first two AFL championships as quarterback and kicker for the Oilers.
"No, you can't talk to Blanda," said Grosscup. "Then who can I talk to?" "Jim Otto," replied Grosscup, who added that practice started at 1:30 and gave me directions. When I arrived at 1:30 the practice field was empty and so was the locker room--except for one lone figure staring into his locker. Of course, it was Jim Otto, the Raiders' Hall of Fame center, who obviously had been told to wait for me.
That was the way the Raiders were, controlling, secretive, mistrustful. Recalls Ted Hendricks, the Hall of Fame linebacker who spent the last nine of his 15 pro seasons as a Raider: "The joke around here always used to be that if anyone was in the stands during a practice, he had to be a spy. Of course, everybody assumed Al (Davis) was using a spy, too. " Even though the Raiders usually made life difficult for me, I came to have a grudging admiration for them. In the early years of the AFL, many papers more or less ignored the upstart league, none more so than The Tribune, which was more or less in bed with the Bears' George Halas. But when I went out to cover my first Rose bowl after the 1965 season, the Buffalo Bills were playing the Chargers, who by then had moved to San Diego, in the league championship game. Except for Paul Zimmerman of the New York Post I might have been the only national writer covering that game. Zimmerman, of course, became the famous Dr. Z for Sports Illustrated, but back then he was more known for the elaborate charts he kept of each play, a system I never could understand, and for running the writers' pool at the Super Bowl. I once won it two years in a row and after the second time, Paul informed me that his pocket had been picked in the rush to the dressing room. Nevertheless he ponied up the money without much resistance. For those of you wondering where Dr. Z's predictions have gone, I'm sorry to report that Paul has suffered a series of strokes beginning last October and as far as I know he is still unable to speak. I spent many a night in his company--he was a wine connoisseur and the first one to point out to me the merits of Ridge Zinfandel. I certainly wish him well.
If you covered the AFL in those days you were bound to run into the Oakland Raiders frequently. I covered their loss to the Jets in Shea Stadium, the game in which Joe Namath threw through a biting wind to Don Maynard to send the Jets to the Super bowl. I was one of the few writers who did not expect the Baltimore Colts to blow away the Jets in the Super bowl, although I admit I wasn't brave enough to pick the Jets to win it. I covered the "Immaculate Reception" game in Pittsburgh and remember attending a late press conference the night before in which John Madden, the Raiders' coach, revealed that the team had watched the movie "Jaws" on the flight to Pittsburgh and, "Boy, I wish I could have that guy as a linebacker."
I think my favorite Raiders game was the famous "Ghost to the Post" playoff in Baltimore when Raiders tight end Dave Casper (the ghost), not only set up the tying touchdown with a 42-yard reception, but caught the game-winner in overtime. If that wasn't enough, when I got back to the football press box after doing the locker room interviews there was a small craft airplane lodged in the nearby baseball press box, the dare devil pilot having attempted to fly through the goal posts.
The Raiders in all their arrogance were fun to cover in those days. But those days are gone. Al Davis seems to have lost his way. His famous utterance: "Just win, baby," seems more like a prayerful plea than the unconditional demand it used to be.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
By Bob Markus
Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria made his millions as an art dealer. I'm sure he can tell a Monet from a Manet and a Pollock from a Picasso. But as a baseball owner he apparently has no clue. Loria's the man who fired Joe Girardi as manager after only one season, a season in which Girardi was named National League Manager of the Year. Now come reports that Loria is considering firing Fredi Gonzalez and replacing him with Bobby Valentine. Gonzales was LAST year's N.L. Manager of the Year and this season led the Marlins to an 87-75 record and had them in playoff contention until the last week. All of this despite having the smallest payroll in major league baseball. I don't know Gonzalez, never met him, but I know his players play hard for him and in many cases overachieve.
Girardi's firing was personal. There are two versions of the reason and you can chose the one you like best. Either Girardi told Loria to shut up after the owner, seated in his box yelled at an umpire over a call or Loria chastized Girardi for not arguing the call, sparking an ongoing feud between employer and employee. If Gonzalez is fired it will be for an even dumber reason. Loria thought the Marlins should have made the playoffs. That's as unrealistic as expecting to buy Van Gogh's Starry Night for a hundred bucks. I know, I know. Early in the season, caught up in the hysteria of the Marlins' 11-1 start, I wrote that the Marlins were contenders. But that was not the prevailing opinion. Of course, they didn't make the playoffs, but the few fans who bothered to come out to support them got their money's worth. They got National league batting titlist Hanley Ramirez. They got rookie Chris Coghlan, who arrived late, but simply tore up National league pitching in the second half of the season. If Coghlan isn't N.L. Rookie of the Year it will be the biggest crime since Willie Sutton pawned his safe cracking tools. They got pitcher Josh Johnson, whose rebuilt arm provided a 15-5 record. But most of all they got a team that would not quit.
Loria appears to be one of the breed of owners who takes a hands on approach. Instead of hiring a baseball man and letting him make the decisions, they take matters into their own hands. That's not necessarily bad. Charley Finley did it and put together one of the all-time best teams in Oakland, although I never could understand how an insurance salesman could do it. George Steinbrenner did it even better, building the Yankeees' second dynasty (after the Ruth-Gehrig-DiMaggio-Mantle era winked off). In his early years, Steinbrenner changed managers as often as he changed his socks, but he knew talent when he saw it and was willing to pay for it. And when he finally found the right man, Joe Torre, he let Torre manage the team. Steinbrenner spent more money on Alex Rodriguez's contract than Loria did on the entire team he handed to Girardi. The Yankees had a general manager, but I can't remember who it was.
Baseball's not the only sport with mettlesome owners. All of them had the right to mettle, but only a few had the background. George Halas was player, coach and owner of the Chicago Bears from their inception in 1919 and remained coach for most of the period until his retirement in 1968. Even then he continued to be the puppetmaster until finally acknowledging that the game was passing him by. He had intended to pass the reins to his son Mugs, but when Mugsy died the leadership passed to Jim Finks, an established football man. The Halas family, through daughter Virginia McCaskey, still owns the Bears, but football men run the team.
Paul Brown not only was coach and part owner of the Cleveland Browns, but the team was named for him. When Brown, who built a post World War II powerhouse on the shores of Lake Erie, was fired as coach by majority owner Art Modell, he simply moved to the southern part of the state and started over with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Halas and Brown came close to overstaying their welcomes. Some men have the grace to know when it's time to go. Some men don't. Connie Mack was one such, although it hurts me to say it. Mack, after all, was baseball's Grand Old Man, managing the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years before retiring at the age of 87. Mack holds the records for most managerial wins--3,731--and losses--3,948--and nobody else is even close. Although he was a player himself, once he went to the bench he dressed in civilian clothes. I remember as a teen-ager going to Comiskey Park by myself just to see Mack. And there he was, immaculate in suit and tie, waving his scorecard to position his players. But by that time the A's, who had won nine pennants and five world series under Mack, were a pathetic team. As Wayne Huizenga was to do with the Marlins many years later, Mack sold off many of his star players after his last World Series win in 1931. Starting in 1934, after selling off the contracts of the last of his super stars, slugger Jimmie Foxx and pitcher Lefty Grove, Mack watched his beloved A's finish in the American league's second division 14 years in a row and 16 of his final 17 seasons as manager. There is one big difference between Mack and Huizenga. Mack sold his stars because he needed money. Huizenga traded his because he wanted more money.
The Marlins have gone through two owners who have dismantled World Series winning teams for the want of money and if Loria wants to know why the Marlins were last in the majors in attendance he need only look in the mirror. Fans are afraid to commit to the Marlins because they fear the Marlins won't commit to them. And they're right. Even after getting the domed stadium they had been seeking for years, the Marlins have given no indication they are about to open the purse strings. There is even speculation that Johnson will be traded before arbitration can rear its budget-busting head. If that happens, the Marlins will lose even more of its fan base. Which is a shame, because the Marlins, under Fredi Gonzalez, really are fun to watch.
My advice to Loria: Keep Gonzalez. And in the words of Joe Girardi:"Shut up."
Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria made his millions as an art dealer. I'm sure he can tell a Monet from a Manet and a Pollock from a Picasso. But as a baseball owner he apparently has no clue. Loria's the man who fired Joe Girardi as manager after only one season, a season in which Girardi was named National League Manager of the Year. Now come reports that Loria is considering firing Fredi Gonzalez and replacing him with Bobby Valentine. Gonzales was LAST year's N.L. Manager of the Year and this season led the Marlins to an 87-75 record and had them in playoff contention until the last week. All of this despite having the smallest payroll in major league baseball. I don't know Gonzalez, never met him, but I know his players play hard for him and in many cases overachieve.
Girardi's firing was personal. There are two versions of the reason and you can chose the one you like best. Either Girardi told Loria to shut up after the owner, seated in his box yelled at an umpire over a call or Loria chastized Girardi for not arguing the call, sparking an ongoing feud between employer and employee. If Gonzalez is fired it will be for an even dumber reason. Loria thought the Marlins should have made the playoffs. That's as unrealistic as expecting to buy Van Gogh's Starry Night for a hundred bucks. I know, I know. Early in the season, caught up in the hysteria of the Marlins' 11-1 start, I wrote that the Marlins were contenders. But that was not the prevailing opinion. Of course, they didn't make the playoffs, but the few fans who bothered to come out to support them got their money's worth. They got National league batting titlist Hanley Ramirez. They got rookie Chris Coghlan, who arrived late, but simply tore up National league pitching in the second half of the season. If Coghlan isn't N.L. Rookie of the Year it will be the biggest crime since Willie Sutton pawned his safe cracking tools. They got pitcher Josh Johnson, whose rebuilt arm provided a 15-5 record. But most of all they got a team that would not quit.
Loria appears to be one of the breed of owners who takes a hands on approach. Instead of hiring a baseball man and letting him make the decisions, they take matters into their own hands. That's not necessarily bad. Charley Finley did it and put together one of the all-time best teams in Oakland, although I never could understand how an insurance salesman could do it. George Steinbrenner did it even better, building the Yankeees' second dynasty (after the Ruth-Gehrig-DiMaggio-Mantle era winked off). In his early years, Steinbrenner changed managers as often as he changed his socks, but he knew talent when he saw it and was willing to pay for it. And when he finally found the right man, Joe Torre, he let Torre manage the team. Steinbrenner spent more money on Alex Rodriguez's contract than Loria did on the entire team he handed to Girardi. The Yankees had a general manager, but I can't remember who it was.
Baseball's not the only sport with mettlesome owners. All of them had the right to mettle, but only a few had the background. George Halas was player, coach and owner of the Chicago Bears from their inception in 1919 and remained coach for most of the period until his retirement in 1968. Even then he continued to be the puppetmaster until finally acknowledging that the game was passing him by. He had intended to pass the reins to his son Mugs, but when Mugsy died the leadership passed to Jim Finks, an established football man. The Halas family, through daughter Virginia McCaskey, still owns the Bears, but football men run the team.
Paul Brown not only was coach and part owner of the Cleveland Browns, but the team was named for him. When Brown, who built a post World War II powerhouse on the shores of Lake Erie, was fired as coach by majority owner Art Modell, he simply moved to the southern part of the state and started over with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Halas and Brown came close to overstaying their welcomes. Some men have the grace to know when it's time to go. Some men don't. Connie Mack was one such, although it hurts me to say it. Mack, after all, was baseball's Grand Old Man, managing the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years before retiring at the age of 87. Mack holds the records for most managerial wins--3,731--and losses--3,948--and nobody else is even close. Although he was a player himself, once he went to the bench he dressed in civilian clothes. I remember as a teen-ager going to Comiskey Park by myself just to see Mack. And there he was, immaculate in suit and tie, waving his scorecard to position his players. But by that time the A's, who had won nine pennants and five world series under Mack, were a pathetic team. As Wayne Huizenga was to do with the Marlins many years later, Mack sold off many of his star players after his last World Series win in 1931. Starting in 1934, after selling off the contracts of the last of his super stars, slugger Jimmie Foxx and pitcher Lefty Grove, Mack watched his beloved A's finish in the American league's second division 14 years in a row and 16 of his final 17 seasons as manager. There is one big difference between Mack and Huizenga. Mack sold his stars because he needed money. Huizenga traded his because he wanted more money.
The Marlins have gone through two owners who have dismantled World Series winning teams for the want of money and if Loria wants to know why the Marlins were last in the majors in attendance he need only look in the mirror. Fans are afraid to commit to the Marlins because they fear the Marlins won't commit to them. And they're right. Even after getting the domed stadium they had been seeking for years, the Marlins have given no indication they are about to open the purse strings. There is even speculation that Johnson will be traded before arbitration can rear its budget-busting head. If that happens, the Marlins will lose even more of its fan base. Which is a shame, because the Marlins, under Fredi Gonzalez, really are fun to watch.
My advice to Loria: Keep Gonzalez. And in the words of Joe Girardi:"Shut up."
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
By Bob Markus
You've got to play with the small hurts. That is the athletes' mantra. Mine, too. I've always played with the small hurts. Sometimes with the big ones, too. In 36 years of writing sports for the Chicago Tribune I missed one day of work. I was in the hospital that day, undergoing what they told me was "minor surgery." Eight days later I left the hospital, having learned this important lesson. There is no minor surgery.
At the time, I was writing a column five days a week. The only column I missed was that one on the day of surgery. The next day I sat up in bed and watched the Cubs-Phillies game. Mike Schmidt hit four homers and that took care of that day's column. A few days later, Cale Yarborough, at the time the hottest driver in NASCAR's Winston Cup series, visited me in my hospital room. My roommate, who was there for a face lift, was mightily impressed. Actually, I was, too. The rest of the week I just sort of winged it, writing whatever popped into my head. Kind of like today's effort. I finally went home on Saturday and about an hour later Bill Bradley popped in. He was still playing for the New York Knicks at the time and was on the road promoting his book; "Life on the Run," I believe was the title.
When his advance publicist called to ask if I wanted to interview the basketball legend, I said, sure, but I've got a problem. No problem, said the agent, Mr. Bradley will be glad to come to your house. Bradley sat on our sofa while I occupied a matching chair and, although my politics were pretty far to the right of Bradley's, I later found myself wishing he'd become President so I could tell visitors "President Bradley once sat on that sofa."
Several years later, I was covering the White Sox in spring training in Sarasota, Fl., their winter home at the time. They played their games in a park with a rather rickety grandstand that featured a press box reachable only by a set of wooden stairs. The date was April 1, 1981, and I can tell you the date precisely because it was two days after President Ronald Reagan was shot--and Greg Luzinski was traded to the White Sox. On the day of the Luzinski trade, the White Sox were playing an exhibition game in Tampa against the Cincinnati Reds. Two of my three children were staying with me and I figured as long as we were going to be in Tampa, I might as well take the kids to Busch Gardens in the morning and then take them with me to the ball park. Everybody had a great time at the amusement park and my daughter actually wheedled me into joining her on a roller coaster ride, an adventure I would come to regret. When it was time to go, the kids suggested I leave them there and pick them up after the ball game. I actually considered it. For about three seconds. Then common sense finally took charge. In about the fifth inning there was an announcement in the press box that the Sox had just acquired Luzinski, the Chicago-born slugger, from the Phillies and "The Bull" would be available for interview within the hour--in Clearwater.
I hustled the kids into the car and drove to Clearwater, where the Bull babbled like a baby, tears streaming down his face as he recalled his glory years with the Phils. Sitting in the front row taking it all in, were Trish and Mike Markus, 13 and 10 respectively. It was while I was writing the trade story that news flashed on the TV screen in front of me that there had been an assassination attempt on The President. As I pulled in front of our rented condo in Sarasota I took a moment to reflect on what would have happened had I left the kids at Busch Gardens.
Two days later, after my usual morning run, I was sitting on the edge of a sofa taking off my running shoes when, just like that, my back went out and sent me writhing to the floor where I remained until the spasm relented long enough to allow me to get back on my feet.
Damn that roller coaster, I muttered. But you have to play with the small hurts, so I went out to the ballpark and endured a day of hell. It was a day in which the White Sox made three different trades and each time I had to struggle down those devilish stairs to the press room for an interview and back up again to write the story.
Another time I was in Laramie, Wyo., doing a feature story on the Cowboys basketball team when, again after a run, my left knee suddenly felt as if it had been hit by a bazooka. I couldn't stand on it, let alone walk, but luckily, the Wyoming trainer was able to give me some relief and I went about my business. The knee got worse and worse and I recall getting a cortizone shot on the morning of a flight to Paris. Our trip lasted three weeks and so did the shot, which lost its zip as soon as we landed back at O'Hare. Eventually it required arthroscopic surgery, but I never missed a day at work.
I could go on and tell you about the time I was covering the Blackhawks in a game in Dallas and as I walked down towards the ice during ther morning skate I got my first gout attack and hobbled around for the rest of the road trip. But I won't. I'll simply tell you that I went to my dentist a while back and he told me, essentially, "Your teeth are okay, but those gums will have to come out." I had my gum surgery this morning and I'm supposed to be resting for th4e balance of the day. But this is my day to write my blog and you have to play with the small hurts. It's now three hours after the surgery and the novocain, or whatever it was they gave me, is finally starting to wear off. I can hardly wait to find out what's going to happen next.
You've got to play with the small hurts. That is the athletes' mantra. Mine, too. I've always played with the small hurts. Sometimes with the big ones, too. In 36 years of writing sports for the Chicago Tribune I missed one day of work. I was in the hospital that day, undergoing what they told me was "minor surgery." Eight days later I left the hospital, having learned this important lesson. There is no minor surgery.
At the time, I was writing a column five days a week. The only column I missed was that one on the day of surgery. The next day I sat up in bed and watched the Cubs-Phillies game. Mike Schmidt hit four homers and that took care of that day's column. A few days later, Cale Yarborough, at the time the hottest driver in NASCAR's Winston Cup series, visited me in my hospital room. My roommate, who was there for a face lift, was mightily impressed. Actually, I was, too. The rest of the week I just sort of winged it, writing whatever popped into my head. Kind of like today's effort. I finally went home on Saturday and about an hour later Bill Bradley popped in. He was still playing for the New York Knicks at the time and was on the road promoting his book; "Life on the Run," I believe was the title.
When his advance publicist called to ask if I wanted to interview the basketball legend, I said, sure, but I've got a problem. No problem, said the agent, Mr. Bradley will be glad to come to your house. Bradley sat on our sofa while I occupied a matching chair and, although my politics were pretty far to the right of Bradley's, I later found myself wishing he'd become President so I could tell visitors "President Bradley once sat on that sofa."
Several years later, I was covering the White Sox in spring training in Sarasota, Fl., their winter home at the time. They played their games in a park with a rather rickety grandstand that featured a press box reachable only by a set of wooden stairs. The date was April 1, 1981, and I can tell you the date precisely because it was two days after President Ronald Reagan was shot--and Greg Luzinski was traded to the White Sox. On the day of the Luzinski trade, the White Sox were playing an exhibition game in Tampa against the Cincinnati Reds. Two of my three children were staying with me and I figured as long as we were going to be in Tampa, I might as well take the kids to Busch Gardens in the morning and then take them with me to the ball park. Everybody had a great time at the amusement park and my daughter actually wheedled me into joining her on a roller coaster ride, an adventure I would come to regret. When it was time to go, the kids suggested I leave them there and pick them up after the ball game. I actually considered it. For about three seconds. Then common sense finally took charge. In about the fifth inning there was an announcement in the press box that the Sox had just acquired Luzinski, the Chicago-born slugger, from the Phillies and "The Bull" would be available for interview within the hour--in Clearwater.
I hustled the kids into the car and drove to Clearwater, where the Bull babbled like a baby, tears streaming down his face as he recalled his glory years with the Phils. Sitting in the front row taking it all in, were Trish and Mike Markus, 13 and 10 respectively. It was while I was writing the trade story that news flashed on the TV screen in front of me that there had been an assassination attempt on The President. As I pulled in front of our rented condo in Sarasota I took a moment to reflect on what would have happened had I left the kids at Busch Gardens.
Two days later, after my usual morning run, I was sitting on the edge of a sofa taking off my running shoes when, just like that, my back went out and sent me writhing to the floor where I remained until the spasm relented long enough to allow me to get back on my feet.
Damn that roller coaster, I muttered. But you have to play with the small hurts, so I went out to the ballpark and endured a day of hell. It was a day in which the White Sox made three different trades and each time I had to struggle down those devilish stairs to the press room for an interview and back up again to write the story.
Another time I was in Laramie, Wyo., doing a feature story on the Cowboys basketball team when, again after a run, my left knee suddenly felt as if it had been hit by a bazooka. I couldn't stand on it, let alone walk, but luckily, the Wyoming trainer was able to give me some relief and I went about my business. The knee got worse and worse and I recall getting a cortizone shot on the morning of a flight to Paris. Our trip lasted three weeks and so did the shot, which lost its zip as soon as we landed back at O'Hare. Eventually it required arthroscopic surgery, but I never missed a day at work.
I could go on and tell you about the time I was covering the Blackhawks in a game in Dallas and as I walked down towards the ice during ther morning skate I got my first gout attack and hobbled around for the rest of the road trip. But I won't. I'll simply tell you that I went to my dentist a while back and he told me, essentially, "Your teeth are okay, but those gums will have to come out." I had my gum surgery this morning and I'm supposed to be resting for th4e balance of the day. But this is my day to write my blog and you have to play with the small hurts. It's now three hours after the surgery and the novocain, or whatever it was they gave me, is finally starting to wear off. I can hardly wait to find out what's going to happen next.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
By Bob Markus
The sweet bird of youth has revisited Mark Martin's nest and it appears to be ready to stay a spell. At the so-called golden age of 50 Martin is leading after the first of 10 races that will decide NASCAR's Sprint Cup championship. His victory Sunday in Loudon, N.H., was the 40th in his career, but he has never won either a series championship or a Daytona 500. Every geezer, including this one, has to be rooting for Martin, who came out of semi-retirement to race for Rick Hendrick on a fulltime basis this season. Already signed through 2010, Martin recently added a third year to his contract, meaning he should still be racing at 52.
The longtime lead driver for Jack Rousch racing, Martin announced his retirement after the 2005 season. But when Rousch couldn't find a suitable replacement, Martin agreed to race the full series in 2006. He ran parttime the last two seasons before joining the powerful Hendrick team, which already included Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, with seven Cup titles between them, and the popular but apparently over-rated Dale Earnhardt Jr. My most abiding memory of Martin came not at a race track, although I did once have a one-on-one with him in his trailer, but at a theater in New York.
Martin was in the Big Apple to get his slice of the Winston Cup (as it was called then) pie. It was NASCAR's version of the Oscars, although everyone already knew who the winners were. The top ten drivers and their crews were invited to New York to honor the champion and receive their own accolades. Being No. 10 in most sports is synonymous with "loser," but in NASCAR it's a big deal. And Martin, although never the top banana, was one of the bunch on a regular basis. At that time the event was held each December in the Waldorf-Astoria and as the auto racing writer for The Chicago Tribune I went to several of them. On this occasion my wife was with me and Chip Williams, then the p.r. director for Winston Cup, asked me if we would like to go to dinner and the theater with Mark Martin. I don't remember much about the dinner or the show we saw, but I do remember looking at Mark halfway through the production and seeing that he was fast asleep. It didn't surprise me too much, because the play was "The Secret Garden," a musical based on the once popular, but long forgotten children's novel, and I had trouble staying awake myself. It was Mark's first Broadway show and I'd be very surprised if it wasn't his last. Martin is a down home type of guy from Arkansas and he's all business. Long before most drivers were into physical fitness, Martin was an avid workout proponent, which could account for his long career.
Martin is just one of four drivers to win a Cup race after reaching age 50. The other three are Bobby Allison, Morgan Shepherd, and Harry Gant, who did it eight times. Four of those came in succession in September of 1991 and although he was not the champion, Gant was the most sought after interviewee at that year's banquet. Gant was the ultimate late bloomer. He not only was the oldest driver ever to win a Cup race for the first time (he was 42 when he won at Martinsville), but the oldest ever to win a Cup race, period,when he won for the last time at Michigan as a 52-year-old.
Shepherd , who was 41 before he won his first Cup race, was mostly a back marker during a long career that reached its peak when he ran for the legendry Wood Brothers from 1992 to 1995. It was sometime during that period that I talked to him and found out that, among other interesting tidbits, he was closely related to the infamous Tom Dooley of story and song--and that he was illiterate, couldn't read or write. Shepherd's Winston Cup career died a lingering death, but he's still racing at age 67. He ran his own truck racing team for awhile, but was so strapped for money that he actually was his own pit crew at times, climbing out of the truck to change tires and refuel before climbing back in and soldiering on. As long as he pitted under the yellow that wasn't too damaging--at least he didn't lose a lap, but green flag stops were another story. More recently he's run a one-car team in the Nationwide series, NASCAR's version of Triple A baseball. But once again money problems have loomed and he may not be able to finish out the season.
Bobbby Allison was a few months past his 50th birthday in 1988 when he won the Daytona 500 for the third time. His son Davey finished second and it was a spectacular day for the Allison family. It was Bobby's last victory. Later that year he was almost killed in a savage crash at Pocono and never raced again. I remember getting a phone call from Davey Allison's p.r. man several months later. He told me that Bobby for the first time was able and willing to talk about the crash and his recovery and that he could also get me hooked up with Davey. Was I interested? You bet. Davey told me of his feelings when he drove past the accident scene and saw how horrific it was, but Bobby couldn't remember much of anything about the wreck. I asked him how he now felt about the sport and he told me, "Racing's given me everything I have. Racing's good." A few years later his son Clifford was killed in a crash during practice at Michigan and a year after that Davey died in a helicopter crash en route to Talladega Speedway. It was on a Monday and I can tell you that with some assurance because I was just sitting down to dinner at the annual charity golf tournament with which I was involved when I got a phone call from the office. No dinner for me, that night.
In Formula One racing you're an old man at 30, but in other forms of racing it's not so rare to see a 50-year-old still driving competitively. A.J. Foyt ws 57 when he called it a career and Mario Andretti was 53 when he won for the last time in an Indy car. Paul Newman was still driving competitively well into his 70s. But for the ultimate in senior moments I think you have to look at Hershel McGriff, a legendary west coast driver who competed mostly in the Winston Cup West series. McGriff started racing when he was 17. That was 64 years ago. Now 81, McGriff this year entered the race at Portland, the same track on which he'd made his debut--and finished 13th. Mark Martin has some catching up to do.
The sweet bird of youth has revisited Mark Martin's nest and it appears to be ready to stay a spell. At the so-called golden age of 50 Martin is leading after the first of 10 races that will decide NASCAR's Sprint Cup championship. His victory Sunday in Loudon, N.H., was the 40th in his career, but he has never won either a series championship or a Daytona 500. Every geezer, including this one, has to be rooting for Martin, who came out of semi-retirement to race for Rick Hendrick on a fulltime basis this season. Already signed through 2010, Martin recently added a third year to his contract, meaning he should still be racing at 52.
The longtime lead driver for Jack Rousch racing, Martin announced his retirement after the 2005 season. But when Rousch couldn't find a suitable replacement, Martin agreed to race the full series in 2006. He ran parttime the last two seasons before joining the powerful Hendrick team, which already included Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, with seven Cup titles between them, and the popular but apparently over-rated Dale Earnhardt Jr. My most abiding memory of Martin came not at a race track, although I did once have a one-on-one with him in his trailer, but at a theater in New York.
Martin was in the Big Apple to get his slice of the Winston Cup (as it was called then) pie. It was NASCAR's version of the Oscars, although everyone already knew who the winners were. The top ten drivers and their crews were invited to New York to honor the champion and receive their own accolades. Being No. 10 in most sports is synonymous with "loser," but in NASCAR it's a big deal. And Martin, although never the top banana, was one of the bunch on a regular basis. At that time the event was held each December in the Waldorf-Astoria and as the auto racing writer for The Chicago Tribune I went to several of them. On this occasion my wife was with me and Chip Williams, then the p.r. director for Winston Cup, asked me if we would like to go to dinner and the theater with Mark Martin. I don't remember much about the dinner or the show we saw, but I do remember looking at Mark halfway through the production and seeing that he was fast asleep. It didn't surprise me too much, because the play was "The Secret Garden," a musical based on the once popular, but long forgotten children's novel, and I had trouble staying awake myself. It was Mark's first Broadway show and I'd be very surprised if it wasn't his last. Martin is a down home type of guy from Arkansas and he's all business. Long before most drivers were into physical fitness, Martin was an avid workout proponent, which could account for his long career.
Martin is just one of four drivers to win a Cup race after reaching age 50. The other three are Bobby Allison, Morgan Shepherd, and Harry Gant, who did it eight times. Four of those came in succession in September of 1991 and although he was not the champion, Gant was the most sought after interviewee at that year's banquet. Gant was the ultimate late bloomer. He not only was the oldest driver ever to win a Cup race for the first time (he was 42 when he won at Martinsville), but the oldest ever to win a Cup race, period,when he won for the last time at Michigan as a 52-year-old.
Shepherd , who was 41 before he won his first Cup race, was mostly a back marker during a long career that reached its peak when he ran for the legendry Wood Brothers from 1992 to 1995. It was sometime during that period that I talked to him and found out that, among other interesting tidbits, he was closely related to the infamous Tom Dooley of story and song--and that he was illiterate, couldn't read or write. Shepherd's Winston Cup career died a lingering death, but he's still racing at age 67. He ran his own truck racing team for awhile, but was so strapped for money that he actually was his own pit crew at times, climbing out of the truck to change tires and refuel before climbing back in and soldiering on. As long as he pitted under the yellow that wasn't too damaging--at least he didn't lose a lap, but green flag stops were another story. More recently he's run a one-car team in the Nationwide series, NASCAR's version of Triple A baseball. But once again money problems have loomed and he may not be able to finish out the season.
Bobbby Allison was a few months past his 50th birthday in 1988 when he won the Daytona 500 for the third time. His son Davey finished second and it was a spectacular day for the Allison family. It was Bobby's last victory. Later that year he was almost killed in a savage crash at Pocono and never raced again. I remember getting a phone call from Davey Allison's p.r. man several months later. He told me that Bobby for the first time was able and willing to talk about the crash and his recovery and that he could also get me hooked up with Davey. Was I interested? You bet. Davey told me of his feelings when he drove past the accident scene and saw how horrific it was, but Bobby couldn't remember much of anything about the wreck. I asked him how he now felt about the sport and he told me, "Racing's given me everything I have. Racing's good." A few years later his son Clifford was killed in a crash during practice at Michigan and a year after that Davey died in a helicopter crash en route to Talladega Speedway. It was on a Monday and I can tell you that with some assurance because I was just sitting down to dinner at the annual charity golf tournament with which I was involved when I got a phone call from the office. No dinner for me, that night.
In Formula One racing you're an old man at 30, but in other forms of racing it's not so rare to see a 50-year-old still driving competitively. A.J. Foyt ws 57 when he called it a career and Mario Andretti was 53 when he won for the last time in an Indy car. Paul Newman was still driving competitively well into his 70s. But for the ultimate in senior moments I think you have to look at Hershel McGriff, a legendary west coast driver who competed mostly in the Winston Cup West series. McGriff started racing when he was 17. That was 64 years ago. Now 81, McGriff this year entered the race at Portland, the same track on which he'd made his debut--and finished 13th. Mark Martin has some catching up to do.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
By Bob Markus
Through the years, the Chicago Bears have been primarily known for two things--Hall of Fame linebackers and Hall-of-Shame quarterbacks. Oh, you can throw in an occasional Gale Sayers or Walter Payton, but by and large the Bears have been defined by the stellar play of, especially, their middle linebackers and the cellar play of the myriad of mopes who have taken center snaps. This was the year that would change all that, or at least half of that. Brian Urlacher would continue on as the latest in the long orange and blue line of dynamic middle linebackers, a line that stretches all the way back to Bulldog Turner, who strictly speaking was not a middle linebacker--the position had yet to be invented--but a center and middle guard. Turner handed the mantle to Bill George, who DID invent the position of middle linebacker and from there it passed through the brutish hands of Dick Butkus to the fierce-eyed Mike Singletary to Urlacher, who seems almost certain to join his predecessors in the Hall of Fame.
But, no longer would Bears fans have to watch in despair as their rag-armed quarterbacks threw more passes into the dirt or, worse, into the arms of opposing defensive backs than they did to their own receivers. Riding to the rescue like El Cid, to right all of history's wrongs was Jay Cutler, who bore the impressive label "franchise quarterback." Unfortunately, what we got was not El Cid, but Sancho Panza. He even looks a bit like the popular conception of Don Quixote's sidekick, moonfaced with a slightly rounded body.
I don't know what I expected from Cutler's debut as a Bears quarterback, but certainly not this. Not four interceptions, two of which contributed directly to the Green Bay Packers' 21-15 opening night victory. Most of the picks were about as close to the intended receiver as Rush Limbaugh is to Barack Obama. If you could even figure out just who was the intended receiver. There was less communication between Cutler and his wideouts than there was between King Kong and Fay Wray.
But Cutler's performance was not the worst thing that happened to the Bears Monday night. Perhaps it was an anomaly and Cutler would come back next week to carve up the Pittsburgh Steelers. Wait a minute. Did I just say the Pittsburgh Steelers? Aren't they the Super bowl champions? Doesn't matter. Even if Cutler were the second coming of Sid Luckman the Bears aren't going anywhere without Urlacher. And Urlacher isn't going anywhere near a football field for the rest of this season after surgery for a dislocated wrist. Speaking of Luckman, Sid was one of only three quarterbacks who have led the Bears to a championship in the modern era, which he himself inaugurated in 1940 as the NFL's first T-formation quarterback. Luckman won four titles with the Bears, Bill Wade and Jim McMahon one apiece. Wade, like Cutler, went to Vanderbilt, so perhaps there is an omen there. But if Cutler can't cut it, perhaps the Bears could draft BYU's Max Hall next year. After all, McMahon is a BYU product. I doubt there will be any help forthcoming from Columbia, Luckman's alma mater.
There has been an endless string of Bears quarterbacks between Luckman and Cutler, most of them easily forgettable. But not all. There were the three B's--Ed Brown, George Blanda and Zeke Bratkowski. Brown led the Bears into the 1956 title game, Blanda became one of the game's alltime leading kickers and, in his football dotage, the starting quarterback for an Oakland Raiders team that nearly got to the Super Bowl. There were the three L's--Luckman, Bobby Layne, and Johnny Lujack. Luckman you already know about, although you might not know he was one of the nicest men who ever lived. I once asked him for an interview for a free lance piece I was working on. He invited me to his downtown Chicago apartment for breakfast, gave me a great interview and then thanked me for coming. Unaware of what he had in Layne, George Halas traded him and watched the eccentric Texan become a Hall of Famer for the Detroit Lions. Lujack, a two-way player, gave the Bears three decent years and then retired.
Later there were the likes of Jack Concannon, Bobby Douglass, Virgil Carter, and Bob Avellini. The first three were key figures in the most bizarre locker room scene I have ever witnessed. The Bears were nearing the end of their most disastrous season ever, a season in which they would go 1-13 and Brian Piccolo would be diagnosed with cancer. Carter, a record-setting passer at Brigham Young had been given his first start of the season, but at halftime, with the Bears down 3-0 to the Packers, Coach Jim Dooley replaced Carter with Douglass, then a rookie. I don't remember the score, but the Packers won easily enough and the Bears locker room was like a three-ringed circus. In one corner sat Douglass, telling anyone who would listen that he was the quarterback of the future. In another corner sat Concannon, who had not played, laughing and goading Carter, who was standing in the center of the room in a white hot rage and insisting he had played his last game as a Bear and would play out his option. "What if Halas won't let you do that?" I asked him. "I hope he won't be chickenshit enough to do that," Virgil responded in what became infamous as "the chicken bleep speech." Halas fined him a substantial amount and when I asked why, the owner-coach responded, "because he called me chickenshit." I pointed out that what Carter had said was he hoped Halas wouldn't be chickenshit, but the fine stood. Carter went on to lead the Cincinnati Bengals to the playoffs the next season and later returned to Chicago as the quarterback of the short-lived Chicago Fire.. My wife and I were socially acquainted with Virgil and his wife, Judy. We always thought they were the perfect couple, he the star quarterback, she a cheerleader at BYU. So we were stunned a few years later when we heard that the two were divorced. I lost track of him after that, but finally decided to find out what had become of him. I called Lavell Edwards, his coach at BYU, and Lavell said that the last he'd heard, Virgil had become part of a motorcycle gang. He gave me a phone number where Carter could sometimes be reached, but I never tried to call him.
Douglass was totally miscast as a quarterback. He had an arm like a bazooka and was a powerful runner. He could have become another Paul Horning had he been switched to tailback, but it never happened. After his football career ended, Douglass tried to become a baseball pitcher and was given a tryout by the White Sox's Iowa farm team. I went to Des Moines to cover the event. All I remember about it was that Bobby was wild and I had a nice conversation with the Iowa manager, a guy named Tony LaRussa.
The quarterbacks came and went. Mike Phipps, Vince Evans, Avellini, then, finally, McMahon. But the euphoria that McMahon helped bring to Chicago didn't last long, and the qbs kept coming. Doug Flutie and Mike Tomczak and Jim Harbaugh and Erik Kramer, and Steve Walsh and Shane Matthews and Cade McCown and on and on and on. Finally there was Rex Grossman, who got credit for getting the Bears to the Super Bowl a few years back, although it was the defense and Devin Hester who really were responsible.
Jay Cutler may be a cut above many of the signal callers who passed through Chcicago over the past 50 years, but he sure didn't show it in the opener. Now, with Urlacher down, the very heart of the Bears' defense ripped out, it might take more than the second coming of Sid Luckman to save the Bears' season. It would take the second coming of you know who to do that.
Through the years, the Chicago Bears have been primarily known for two things--Hall of Fame linebackers and Hall-of-Shame quarterbacks. Oh, you can throw in an occasional Gale Sayers or Walter Payton, but by and large the Bears have been defined by the stellar play of, especially, their middle linebackers and the cellar play of the myriad of mopes who have taken center snaps. This was the year that would change all that, or at least half of that. Brian Urlacher would continue on as the latest in the long orange and blue line of dynamic middle linebackers, a line that stretches all the way back to Bulldog Turner, who strictly speaking was not a middle linebacker--the position had yet to be invented--but a center and middle guard. Turner handed the mantle to Bill George, who DID invent the position of middle linebacker and from there it passed through the brutish hands of Dick Butkus to the fierce-eyed Mike Singletary to Urlacher, who seems almost certain to join his predecessors in the Hall of Fame.
But, no longer would Bears fans have to watch in despair as their rag-armed quarterbacks threw more passes into the dirt or, worse, into the arms of opposing defensive backs than they did to their own receivers. Riding to the rescue like El Cid, to right all of history's wrongs was Jay Cutler, who bore the impressive label "franchise quarterback." Unfortunately, what we got was not El Cid, but Sancho Panza. He even looks a bit like the popular conception of Don Quixote's sidekick, moonfaced with a slightly rounded body.
I don't know what I expected from Cutler's debut as a Bears quarterback, but certainly not this. Not four interceptions, two of which contributed directly to the Green Bay Packers' 21-15 opening night victory. Most of the picks were about as close to the intended receiver as Rush Limbaugh is to Barack Obama. If you could even figure out just who was the intended receiver. There was less communication between Cutler and his wideouts than there was between King Kong and Fay Wray.
But Cutler's performance was not the worst thing that happened to the Bears Monday night. Perhaps it was an anomaly and Cutler would come back next week to carve up the Pittsburgh Steelers. Wait a minute. Did I just say the Pittsburgh Steelers? Aren't they the Super bowl champions? Doesn't matter. Even if Cutler were the second coming of Sid Luckman the Bears aren't going anywhere without Urlacher. And Urlacher isn't going anywhere near a football field for the rest of this season after surgery for a dislocated wrist. Speaking of Luckman, Sid was one of only three quarterbacks who have led the Bears to a championship in the modern era, which he himself inaugurated in 1940 as the NFL's first T-formation quarterback. Luckman won four titles with the Bears, Bill Wade and Jim McMahon one apiece. Wade, like Cutler, went to Vanderbilt, so perhaps there is an omen there. But if Cutler can't cut it, perhaps the Bears could draft BYU's Max Hall next year. After all, McMahon is a BYU product. I doubt there will be any help forthcoming from Columbia, Luckman's alma mater.
There has been an endless string of Bears quarterbacks between Luckman and Cutler, most of them easily forgettable. But not all. There were the three B's--Ed Brown, George Blanda and Zeke Bratkowski. Brown led the Bears into the 1956 title game, Blanda became one of the game's alltime leading kickers and, in his football dotage, the starting quarterback for an Oakland Raiders team that nearly got to the Super Bowl. There were the three L's--Luckman, Bobby Layne, and Johnny Lujack. Luckman you already know about, although you might not know he was one of the nicest men who ever lived. I once asked him for an interview for a free lance piece I was working on. He invited me to his downtown Chicago apartment for breakfast, gave me a great interview and then thanked me for coming. Unaware of what he had in Layne, George Halas traded him and watched the eccentric Texan become a Hall of Famer for the Detroit Lions. Lujack, a two-way player, gave the Bears three decent years and then retired.
Later there were the likes of Jack Concannon, Bobby Douglass, Virgil Carter, and Bob Avellini. The first three were key figures in the most bizarre locker room scene I have ever witnessed. The Bears were nearing the end of their most disastrous season ever, a season in which they would go 1-13 and Brian Piccolo would be diagnosed with cancer. Carter, a record-setting passer at Brigham Young had been given his first start of the season, but at halftime, with the Bears down 3-0 to the Packers, Coach Jim Dooley replaced Carter with Douglass, then a rookie. I don't remember the score, but the Packers won easily enough and the Bears locker room was like a three-ringed circus. In one corner sat Douglass, telling anyone who would listen that he was the quarterback of the future. In another corner sat Concannon, who had not played, laughing and goading Carter, who was standing in the center of the room in a white hot rage and insisting he had played his last game as a Bear and would play out his option. "What if Halas won't let you do that?" I asked him. "I hope he won't be chickenshit enough to do that," Virgil responded in what became infamous as "the chicken bleep speech." Halas fined him a substantial amount and when I asked why, the owner-coach responded, "because he called me chickenshit." I pointed out that what Carter had said was he hoped Halas wouldn't be chickenshit, but the fine stood. Carter went on to lead the Cincinnati Bengals to the playoffs the next season and later returned to Chicago as the quarterback of the short-lived Chicago Fire.. My wife and I were socially acquainted with Virgil and his wife, Judy. We always thought they were the perfect couple, he the star quarterback, she a cheerleader at BYU. So we were stunned a few years later when we heard that the two were divorced. I lost track of him after that, but finally decided to find out what had become of him. I called Lavell Edwards, his coach at BYU, and Lavell said that the last he'd heard, Virgil had become part of a motorcycle gang. He gave me a phone number where Carter could sometimes be reached, but I never tried to call him.
Douglass was totally miscast as a quarterback. He had an arm like a bazooka and was a powerful runner. He could have become another Paul Horning had he been switched to tailback, but it never happened. After his football career ended, Douglass tried to become a baseball pitcher and was given a tryout by the White Sox's Iowa farm team. I went to Des Moines to cover the event. All I remember about it was that Bobby was wild and I had a nice conversation with the Iowa manager, a guy named Tony LaRussa.
The quarterbacks came and went. Mike Phipps, Vince Evans, Avellini, then, finally, McMahon. But the euphoria that McMahon helped bring to Chicago didn't last long, and the qbs kept coming. Doug Flutie and Mike Tomczak and Jim Harbaugh and Erik Kramer, and Steve Walsh and Shane Matthews and Cade McCown and on and on and on. Finally there was Rex Grossman, who got credit for getting the Bears to the Super Bowl a few years back, although it was the defense and Devin Hester who really were responsible.
Jay Cutler may be a cut above many of the signal callers who passed through Chcicago over the past 50 years, but he sure didn't show it in the opener. Now, with Urlacher down, the very heart of the Bears' defense ripped out, it might take more than the second coming of Sid Luckman to save the Bears' season. It would take the second coming of you know who to do that.
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