This was the 1st season that the Broncos wore blue helmets with an orange D logo with a charging horse inside. They would wear them through the 1996 season, including 4 AFC Championships. This was also the season that the former minor-league ballpark, formerly known as Bears Stadium, was sold to the City of Denver, which renamed it Mile High Stadium, and expanded it to 50,567 seats.
This ended rumors that the Broncos, Denver's 1st major league sports team (unless you count the original Nuggets, who briefly played in the NBA's early says), might move to Chicago, Atlanta, or Birmingham.
But 1968 would not be a good season for the Broncos, as they finished 5-9 under head coach Lou Saban, who had led the Buffalo Bills to 2 AFL Championships, and would later lead them to the Playoffs again. He was also the father of college coaching superstar Nick Saban.
"Marlin the Magician" started 5 games, winning 2 of them. After the 1968 season, he was traded to the Bills, was moved to wide receiver, made the Pro Bowl at that position in 1970, won 2 Super Bowl rings with the Miami Dolphins, and played in the NFL through 1976. He then moved to Los Angeles, became a financial broker, and ran the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach, California, outside Los Angeles. He died on June 27, 2022, of pneumonia, at age 76.
He wasn't quite the 1st black quarterback in the NFL. In fact, while the NFL now counts all AFL stats as NFL stats, the 1st starting black quarterback in the NFL proper was Joe Gilliam, with the 1974 Pittsburgh Steelers, who got the job after Chuck Noll stopped trusting Terry Bradshaw. But Gilliam didn't do well, Noll went back to Bradshaw, and the rest is history.
Officially, Fritz Pollard had played the position of quarterback in the league's 1st season of 1920. The aptly-named Willie Thrower played 2 games for the Chicago Bears in 1953, coming on in relief of George Blanda, but never started.
And George Taliaferro, the 1st black man drafted by an NFL team, the Bears in 1949, was a Pro Bowl running back for the team that was the New York Yanks (not "Yankees") in 1951, the Dallas Texans in 1952, and the Baltimore Colts in 1953. He played quarterback in the NFL, but never started at the position.
Gilliam, his health ruined by a long battle with drugs, died in 2000, not quite 50. Thrower died in 2002, at 71. Pollard died in 1986, at 92. Taliaferro died in 2018, at 91.
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October 6, 1968 was a Sunday. These other games were played in the AFL:
* The Miami Dolphins beat the Houston Oilers, 24-7 at the Astrodome.
* The Oakland Raiders beat the Boston Patriots, 41-10 at the Oakland Coliseum.
* The day before, the New York Jets beat the San Diego Chargers, 23-20 at Shea Stadium; and the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills, 18-7 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.
In the NFL:
* The New York Giants beat the New Orleans Saints, 38-21 at Yankee Stadium.
* The Washington Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 17-14 at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington. The stadium would be renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium the next year. The Redskins would be renamed the Washington Commanders in 2022.
* The Baltimore Colts beat the Chicago Bears, 28-7 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.
* The Green Bay Packers beat the Atlanta Falcons, 38-7 at Atlanta Stadium (later renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium).
* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Detroit Lions, 24-10 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.
* The Dallas Cowboys beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 27-10 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.
* The Los Angeles Rams beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, 24-10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
* The day before, Cleveland Browns beat their arch-rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, 31-24 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
Also on this day, Game 4 of the World Series was played at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. In attendance are Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey, and Baseball Hall-of-Famer and reintegrator Jackie Robinson.
Before the game, Detroit's own (well, Motown Records' own, since he's actually from Washington, D.C.) Marvin Gaye sings the "The Star-Spangled Banner." An overtly sexy black man singing the National Anthem? In 1968, the year of Martin Luther King's assassination and the accompanying race riots? The man who chose Detroit's anthem singers must have had some real guts.
The man chosen to choose the anthem singers for the Tiger Stadium games had guts, all right. He was a World War II Marine. True, he never saw combat, but he was still a Marine. He was also an ordained minister. And a published songwriter. And a Tiger broadcaster, so he was qualified on any level to choose the Tigers' anthem singers. He was Ernie Harwell.
Marvin sings the Anthem straight, gets a nice hand, and no one seems to object. That will not be the case with tomorrow's singer, José Feliciano. When Marvin, in the midst of an ill-fated comeback, sings the Anthem before the 1983 NBA All-Star Game, it will be a very different performance.
As for the game: Bob Gibson of the Cardinals earns his 7th straight Series win: After losing Game 2 to the Yankees in 1964, he then won Games 5 and 7; and Games 1, 4 and 7 in 1967, before his 17-strikeout masterwork in this year's Game 1, and now this. He has lived up to the hype of his 1.12 ERA regular season.
Denny McLain of the Tigers, however, has not lived up to the hype of his 31-6 season, having now been beaten by Gibson twice. Lou Brock misses the cycle by a single, and his stolen base gives him 7 in the 1st 4 games.
Eddie Mathews, formerly the Hall of Fame 3rd baseman for the Milwaukee Braves, goes 1-for-2 with a walk for the Tigers. It is his last major league appearance.
The Cardinals win 10-1, and need 1 more win to wrap up the Series. If they can't do it in Game 5 in Detroit tomorrow, Games 6 and 7 will be at home in St. Louis. (Spoiler Alert: The Tigers took 3 straight, including the last 2 in St. Louis, to win it.)
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