You always remember your first time. For Charles Sampson, it happened in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, in 1972, when he was fourteen. “That one should be a good ride,” the owner said to no one in particular, and Charles–they called him Pee Wee back then–clambered up on the fence for a better…
The personification of baseball this October–the game’s patron saint–might as well be William Aloysius Bergen, late of North Brookfield, Massachusetts. For he suits the present mood. Bergen, who spent eleven seasons as a catcher with the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers right after the turn of the century, played…
Certain Christian theologians tell us that the worst thing that can happen to a person is to catch a momentary vision of heaven, then watch the big gate swing shut without getting to go inside. Even if that’s not true, it could explain what’s wrong with those thugs and vigilantes…
In any other season, a gust of wind or an act of God would have steered the visitors’ last-ditch field goal try through the uprights. In any other season, the Colorado State Rams–the Rodney Dangerfields of football on the high plains–would again have found themselves reeling off to the dressing…
Just as baseball shoots itself in the head, the man who perfectly symbolizes the game these days–all-star jiveass Deion Sanders–slips away to San Francisco to play football. Before Prime Time’s plane can land on the Day of Infamy, owner Jerry McMorris decides to reward the patience, loyalty and goodwill of…
Remember the Six Blocks of Granite? How about the Purple People Eaters? And the No-Name Defense. Care to go against the Fearsome Foursome? Hey, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. This season the Denver Broncos have (take your pick): A. The Eleven Slices of Toast B. The Chenille Curtain C. The…
If major-league baseball players and owners want to know what’s good for them–they remain stubbornly in the dark about that–both sides would do well to lay down their golf clubs and set aside their disputes this month to finish school. The professor will be Ken Burns, the ground-breaking documentary filmmaker…
When they’re not preaching the Word of God or playing General MacArthur, football coaches are usually stewing in their juices. Is it seemly for grown men to worry quite so much about the efficacy of the all-out blitz or the state of mind in the Atlanta Falcons locker room? Probably…
Big-league baseball may be on strike, but Jack Rose plays on. And on. When the University of Denver baseball team opens its 127th season of play next February, its fearless leader won’t feel many butterflies. In 33 years as DU’s head coach, Rose has piled up 743 victories (fourth among…
Early in the second round, Jesse “The Boogieman” Ferguson, all 242 1/2 pounds of him, caught Larry Holmes with a monster left hook that buckled the ex-champ like a man hit in the shins with an ax handle. Deep in the fogs of Queer Street, Larry reeled, pawed the air…
At a time when baseball fans would rather be thinking about rally caps than salary caps, the Sultans of Snit and the robber barons who grudgingly pay them are taking the game from us. This will be the eighth interruption in twenty-two years. If present-day players were as good at…
That little punch-up the other night in Barcelona meant nothing, of course. Still, there were a few surprises: No one poisoned Al Davis’s paella. Denver’s defensive backs failed to plant a bomb on the Raiders’ team plane. The Raiders didn’t burn Denver deep on the second play of the game…
Amid the current outpouring of nostalgia about those American footprints in the lunar dust, the observations of former Apollo astronaut Alan Bean seem particularly apt. Bean recently told a magazine interviewer that whenever he looks at Norman Rockwell’s painting of Neil Armstrong’s small step/giant leap, it strikes him as a…
If the beach volleyball season gets wiped out, you won’t hear a peep out of me. If the monster-truck drivers decide to walk, so be it. Even if ice dancing melts down tomorrow morning, the pro bowlers pack up ball, bag and shoes at noon, and they cancel the rest…
When Brazil booted the U.S. soccer team out of the World Cup on the Fourth of July, you could feel the blow to our national psyche for almost five minutes. “Nice try,” America murmured in one voice, then got right back to flipping burgers on the grill, choosing up sides…
First, let us dispense with the obligatory political correctitudes. 1. Beating a woman, not to mention killing her, is wrong. Always was, always will be. Feminist agenda-setters and law enforcement types are not exactly thrilled about the flap out in La La Land, but they’ve taken the opportunity to put…
The next time some genius with five or six Miller Lites in him spins around on his barstool and starts regaling you with that old business about how sports reflect the agony and ecstasy of life, tell him to go home and put his head in the sink. Sports reflect…
When baseball was the national pastime, the owners smoked two-dollar cigars and the players, even the underpaid ones, went to work with smiles on their faces. In the reserved grandstand (tickets three bucks), fans drank beer out of real bottles, and there was no need to cut them off in…
Soccer is the game nearly 83 Americans love. When the World Cup kicks off next week in nine far-flung U.S. cities, it might have trouble outpointing badminton, ice-fishing and furnace repair in the Nielsen ratings. Aside from a guy named Pele, who retired years ago, your average Yanqui imperialist cannot…
The latest wisdom among baseball pundits, most of whom have not swung a bat since Little League, holds that soon the game must produce the most appealing athlete in the country in order to regain its high perch as the national pastime, to restore the mythic dimension that faded away…
If you’d like a startling new insight into America’s strange love affair with the automobile, try standing beneath one of the underpasses at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway while 230-mile-per-hour race cars scream over the pavement above your head. The sensation is not unlike cozying up to a roomful of tornadoes…
For a time this month, your Denver Nuggets became America’s Denver Nuggets–the fulfillment of underdog dreams, the hope of every factory worker who ever fantasized about playing in the bigs, wowing the Grand Ole Opry or sailing a yacht in Monte Carlo. Hey, nice piece in Sports Illustrated. Ain’t that…
