Kinda hard to explain. But there are some things in the world of sports knowledge that become an ever growing legend long before people should have forgotten the reality. And one of the greatest examples, of my lifetime at least, is Bo Jackson’s baseball career.
I was overhearing a couple guys at the next table talking sports, and they generally seemed quite knowledgeable and well informed. The the conversation turned baseball of the, and then to Bo Jackson. Or at least they kept saying the name Bo Jackson, the career they were describing was somewhere in the neighborhood of Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. It was just so out of touch with reality, it had me questioning my memory. Fortunately I was able to google and see that I hadn’t lost my mind, but damn people have a collective delusion about the dude’s career, which was only a couple decades ago.
Here’s one: The notion that the Mets won the 1986 World Series right when the ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs. Nope. There was still another game to be played.
I just looked it up — the mistaken memory I mentioned is even worse than I thought (see!). The Red Sox would not have won game 6 (and thus the series), had Bill Buckner made that easy tenth-inning out at first base. They had already blown their lead.
Scientist Stephen Jay Gould once wrote an esssy about this false memory.
Yep, it is often remembered how long Bob Beamon held it, but Powell has held on a lot longer. I’m not sure what the reasons are, but 30 ft. just seems out of reach.
1946 World Series: Enos Slaughter scored from first base on Harry Walker’s single. Actually it was a two out double.
Wilt Chamberlain’s team lost the time he scored 100 points. Wrong, they won 117.
Ernie Banks won two MVP’s playing for a last place team. Actually both teams finished tied for 5th in an 8 team league. What was unusual was
him winning for two teams with losing records.
Montreal Canadiens won so many Stanley Cups because they were allowed to draft French-Canadians exclusively. Mostly wrong. They could protect two players a year from 1937-43 from those who hadn’t signed already but none ever played a minute. With the amateur draft in the early 1960s they could select two players but the quality of players was so poor initially that none ever played until the last two years: Michel Plasse who played mostly for other teams and Rejean Houle and Marc Tardif who did play well for the Canadiens for a few years but are not Hall of Famers.
A number of people think that Babe Ruth retired immediately after hitting three home runs in a game for the Boston Braves May 25, 1935. He was tempted to but was persuaded to play 5 more games in Philadelphia and Cincinnati so they could draw more people (which really didn’t happen for the daytime weekday games). Two dreadful movies about Ruth perpetuate this myth.
The Kansas City A’s acted as a farm team for the Yankees in the late 1950s/early 60s sending their good players for flops. More complicated. Certainly they made a lot of trades and inter leaguetrades were not made for the first few years and rare after 1959. Many of the players the Yankees got where guys who had one good year and were mostly reserve guys (Bob Cerv, Duke Mass). The A’s did get some good players like Vic Power, Jerry Lumpe, Norm Siebern, Deron Johnson and Woodie Held. But the A’s were handicapped by being absolutely awful their last few years under the Mack ownership in Philadelphia , not building a farm system and not signing Black players. The cost of signing young amateur players was rising (although none had agents) sA’s ownership probably figured make some trades with a team with a deep, rich farm system.
All in all, it was probably even for both teams, although the Yankees may have won the 1964 pennant getting Roger Maris (although Siebern who was in the deal was better as a young player and Marv Throneberry did have some great home run years on the Yankee farm team in Denver. People knew the atmosphere had something to do with that but others such as Held and Siebern didn’t do as well there).
1958 championship game between New York Giants and Baltimore Colts established the NFL as a force. Well…Phil Mushnick of the New York Post wrote that one CBS executive told him the ratings went down the next two years. He felt the 1961 game between the Giants and Green Bay Packers was the key game as middle America had one of their teams to root for instead of two east coast teams. Maybe more in retrospective.
Speaking of that game there are people who wonder why the Colts went for a touchdown in overtime instead of a “chipshot field goal”. Rumors of Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom wanting to cover the spread for his gambling. While Rosenbloom may have placed a bet (illegal for an owner and he had a shady reputation) the real reason was almost assuredly that field goal kickers were a lot worse then. Steve Myhra was 4 for 10 in the regular season and 1 for 2 in the game. Bert Rechichar was 1 for 4 in the regular season and 0 for 1 in the game. This was typical for the era. Pat Summerall for the Giants was better at 12 for 23 and 1 for 1 but his previous 5 years with the Chicago Cardinals he averaged 41%. In contrast in 2017 the Colts placekicker was successful 83%.
Everybody remembers Steve Bartman in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. What was quickly forgotten was that a little later that inning, Alex Gonzalez booted a ground ball that probably should have gone for a double play, getting the Cubs out of that inning holding on to a 2 run lead. That was the point where I switched from beer to hard liquor that night…
Grover Cleveland Alexander’s striking out Tony Lazzeri in the seventh game of the 1926 World Series did *not *end the game, as people often remember. It was in the seventh inning. But it did neutralize a crucial Yankee threat, with the bases loaded and the power-hitting Lazzeri at bat.
The game did end in an equally memorable way, when Babe Ruth was thrown out trying to steal second. Many wondered why Ruth, who wasn’t as fast as he’d once been, would try such a thing. In the baseball oral history The Glory of Their Times, the Cardinals’ catcher Bob O’Farrell said one of the Yankees had later told him that it was because Alexander was pitching so sharp that day, the Yankees didn’t think they’d be able to get two hits in a row off him, so they wanted a runner in scoring position.
And Alexander did not go to a full count against Lazzeri, as portrayed in the movie The Winning Team, starring Ronald Reagan and Doris Day. The count was 1-2 when Lazzeri struck out swinging.
Don’t remember the exact game, but a Detroit Lions coach caught a huge amount of flack when he won the coin toss in overtime and decided to take the wind rather than first possession (this was when a field goal on the first possession could win the game). The opposition went down the field and got the winning field goal, which lead no less than Chris Berman to wail “The Lions WON THE TOSS and lose WITHOUT EVER GETTING POSSESSION!!”, and ever since then that coach has been lambasted as a moron for taking the wind which is always always always always a bad idea. Gah. He made a horrible decision, but it wasn’t taking the win. It was accepting a holding penalty on third down when declining would’ve almost certainly given the ball back, as a field goal was almost impossible from the spot they were at. Instead, miracle of miracles, they got the first down and got within easy range.
Dan Orlovsky running out of the end zone for a safety. How this got turned into the one iconic moment of everything that went wrong with the Lions organization is baffling. See for yourself; it’s at 6:25. Now, if he wasn’t under any pressure, that would’ve been kinda embarrassing, but as you’ll see there was a defender, completely unblocked, with a free shot on him. If he throws the ball away, that’s at best intentional grounding in the end zone, with the same result; at worst it’s a pick six. So it looks to me that the only distinction is whether Orlovsky risks leaving the field on a stretcher. Seriously, what better option did he have here? Oh, and let’s not forget that this came after the Lions defense recovered a fumble on the 1.
Robin Ventura charging Nolan Ryan. Here’s a video. Hey, you know what I see? Ventura deliberately going low, not being bothered in the slightest about being put in a sloppy headlock or getting a bunch of itty-bitty noogies, trying to throw Ryan to the ground, and succeeding (and then the usual mass shovefest afterward). You know what I don’t see? Ryan delivering anything that can, in the most charitable universe, be called anything in the ballpark of a “beating”. You know what I would have seen had Ryan made an actual effort? Walking off in incredible pain because he broke his freaking hand, which is what happens when someone punches a head too hard.
Bo Jackson’s complete ownage of Brian Bosworth. Um…Bosworth made the tackle, Jackson only got two yards, and the only reason he scored a touchdown was that he only needed two yards. Completely unremarkable play.
The 1978 Miracle at the Meadowlands was a play where the New York Giants simply had to kneel down on the football and win the game as the clock wore down. Instead, it was fumbled and Herm Edwards picked it up and ran it into the end zone for a touchdown that secured the Philadelphia Eagles their first playoff berth in 18 years.
EEEEER-----not QUITE. It was the 12th game of the season, and while the Eagles did well to make the playoffs, this win did not clinch anything. As a matter of fact they finished only 9-7 and were quickly drummed out by Atlanta 14-13 in the wildcard game about a month later.
Also, there was no kneel down in the NFL at the time— hapless Giants QB Joe Pisarcik took a bobbled snap. One more myth: after this happened teams started kneeling down with the lead late in game; actually the “victory formation” was not legalized by the NFL until 1987.
Errrr, translation please for the non Gridiron literate amongst us. And after listening to my American friends on skype during last nights FIFA WC match* something about why Seattle (I think) throwing in the Super Bowl was not a bad idea**, I already have a headache.
*Hey, skype allows is to watch the game together even if we are on different continents, its awesome.
**Which as far as I could make out, they passed the ball when they should have run with, which led the ball being intercepted by the defender, though IIRC my friends were arguing that the previious play had seen a run being blocked and the other side was anticpating it.
Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” home run did not secure the World Series for the New York Giants——rather it secured the NL Pennant for the Giants in a special best of 3 game series for it v the Brooklyn Dodgers when both teams finished with identical records.
The Giants would go on to lose the World Series to the Yankees in 6 games.
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Jana Novotna did nott have a “meltdown” to lose the 1993 Wimbledon Ladies final to Graf. The scoreline makes it seem much worse, she was 3-1 up, when Graf made her comeback, but Novotna was only up a break, and Graf broke right back to get on serve and then broke her again. Breaking an opponent’s serve is much easier in Women’s tennis. Unlie the 1997 final, where Novotna did lose the plot.
Michael Doohan was not totally dominant during his 5 World title wins in the 1990’. He actually only ran away with it in 1994 and 1997, in other years he was challenged almost to end.
Spains/Barcelona Tikki Taka destroyed teams playing with the 1990’s era 4-4-2 and replaced strikers with false 9’s, right?
Actually for most of their dominance Spain played with two Strikers (Villa and Torres), and only played in “strikerless formations” in Euro 2012, only part of the time, since Villa was imjured and Torres was on the downward trajectory. Barcelona also played with 1 or 2 strikers, typically Eto’o and later Villa. They did place Messi in a False 9 in 2010/2011, but Villa still played striker more often then not.