Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Labor Day weekend of course means scrimmages and pre-season games all over America, which got me and an old friend, Prof. Jeffrey Hart at Dartmouth, exchanging emails about two of our favorite subjects, football and sports writing.
Jeff sent along the opening paragraph of Grantland Rice's report iof the Notre Dame-Army game of October 18, 1924. Jeff's note: "The greatest lead in the history of sports writing." Jeff's right. From the New York Herald Tribune:
Outlined against a blue gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreyer, Miller, Crowley and Leyden.
Playing at the Polo Grounds in New York City, the four horsemen carried Notre Dame to victory, 13-7.
(If you have some favorite football writing of your own, by all means post it. Prose and sports--two of the highest of all pleasures.)
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Jan '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Bill Lyon and Ray Didinger were local Philly writers, and I always enjoyed reading them.
Real Clear has a sports section, and you can occasionally find a good article. Personally, I can't stand ESPN's writing. The articles are too insider-ish, too self-referential. It's like watching a Catskills comedian whose punchlines are in Yiddish.
I normally like Sal Palantonio, but I bought his book How Football Explains America, and as a conservative, I was disappointed. It had a great setup, especially how the game evolved and responded to the times, but then the payoff - how football explained racial integration - was filled with cliches.
Jun '10
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Peter, posting the Maureen Dowd picture was bad. But posting the Four Horsemen pix after Notre Dame's abysmal performance yesterday is inexcusable. The pain is too raw.
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
"I think the grass at Tiger Stadium taste best." LSU Head Coach Les Miles
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
I would have only one quibble: That lead is one of the greatest in all newspaper history, not just for sports. That said, methinks StickerShock will agree that after yesterday's performance in South Bend by both players and coach -- where the game was twice interrupted because of lightning -- even the great Grantland Rice would be rendered mute.
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
The lightning? A display of divine wrath, surely. You may be in a position to confirm this, Bill, but I've heard it said that the Almighty Himself always puts a few dollars on Notre Dame.
May '10
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
The legendary NBC sportscaster Bill Stern was also legendarily casual with the facts. At one Notre Dame game Stern announced that a player Jack Zilly was off on an 80-yard run. As the ball carrier passed the five-yard line, Stern realized that the ball carriers was actually Emil Sitko. Stern cried: "Zilly's just thrown a lateral to Sitko!"
At the end of another legendary career Clem McCarthy called the wrong horse as the winner of the 1947 Preakness. Stern publicly chided him for it. McCarthy growled at Stern, "Sorry, Bill, but you can't lateral a f'ing horse!"
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
P.S. Not to rub it in, Bill, but yesterday, playing its first game under new head coach David Shaw--beneath, be it noted, cloudless skies--Stanford won, 57-3.
Nov '10
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Stanford has a pretty darned good program "born and bred" by Jim Harbaugh.
Looking forward to JH's accomplishments this fall with the 49ers.
Feb '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Peter, I agree that prose and sports are two of the highest pleasures; and I would like to take this opportunity to combine the two and remind everyone of a game that wrote it's own amazing prose. From SI
"When it was over, even Hollywood couldn't have scripted a more dramatic ending. This was the ultimate underdog story of a team that believed from the start, refused to give up even when it looked bleak and pulled off the improbable. It's one thing for a Cinderella team to upset a heavily favored opponent, but c'mon, this was ridiculous.
A desperation fourth-down hook-and-lateral touchdown pass to tie the game at the end of regulation? A fourth-down receiver option touchdown pass to tie it in overtime? A do-or-die Statue of Liberty two-point conversion run to win the game? The star player proposing to the captain of the cheerleading squad after crossing the goal line?"
2007 Fiesta Bowl
*Full disclosure, I am an alumnus of Boise State.
Edited on Sep 4, 2011 at 4:55pmJan '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Of course, it's no wonder Stuhldreyer, Miller, Crowley and Leyden won the game. They were apparently riding horses.
I used to play football. I know I wouldn't have wanted to tackle a horse.
May '10
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal. Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
- George F. Will
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
EJHill: Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal. Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
- George F. Will · Sep 4 at 7:19pm
George Carlin made a decent comparison as well.
Mar '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
The aforementioned Grantland Rice generated the greatest nickname in all of sports for Harold 'Red' Grange, previously the Wheaton Iceman but now immortalized as "The Galloping Ghost."
A streak of fire, a breath of flame
Eluding all who reach and clutch;
A gray ghost thrown into the game
That rival hands may never touch;
A rubber bounding, blasting soul
Whose destination is the goal. -
Red Grange of Illinois!
Mar '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Dave Carter
George Carlin made a decent comparison as well. · Sep 4 at 7:36pm
Interesting. Carlin says that football is hard, warlike, with unyeilding rules and harsh penalties for mistakes... which sounds like, oh, real life. Meanwhile, he says that baseball is light, airy, ("the object is to be safe!"), and the opposite of football.
Does this mean that football is conservative, and baseball is liberal? Boy, wouldn't that tear at George Will.
May '10
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Except that nothing is certain in this world than the fact that football will always change its rules. Usually to protect the elites, aka the quarterbacks. NFL schedules are produced with "parity" (aka, fairness) in mind. Except that just means that last years scrubs get an easier time of it, through scheduling affirmative action. Post a winning record and next year they will punish you for your success and let the big boys beat you back down into a 6-10 record. Oh, no... football is definitely designed and run by liberals.
Mar '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
EJHill
Except that nothing is certain in this world than the fact that football will always change its rules. Usually to protect the elites, aka the quarterbacks.
Um, designated hitter, anyone? And baseball has changed plenty of rules over the years in the name of safety and fairness. It used to be legal, after all, to cover the ball in whatever you wanted. But you DO have a point that in football there's a too-constant attempt to fine tune things.
May '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Yeah, being in Afghanistan makes it much easier to miss the painful events on your Saturday afternoons.
I need a new team to root for, Notre Dame has been breaking my heart for too many seasons and I don't think I can take it anymore.
Notre Dame, '85
Apr '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
My votes for best football writing: Friday Night Lights (Buzz Bissinger) and The Blind Side (Michael Lewis). These two books, and the Green Bay Packers, are responsible for my conversion from baseball to football.
I cannot wait for this Thursday night. And not because of Barack Obama.
Apr '11
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Joe Posnanski, anyone? I think he's a brilliant writer, although I dispute his view that sports matter as much to women as to men.
Jun '10
Re: Football Season, Back at Last, Back at Last
Sports matter as much to women as men ??? On what planet does this Posnanski live?
Edited on Sep 5, 2011 at 5:05am