December 29, 1963: Two Old Men and a Football

George Halas and John Johnson

December 29, 1963: The NFL Championship Game is played at a frigid Wrigley Field in Chicago. As with the 1st official title game, 30 years earlier, the opposing teams were the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants.

Coached, run, and owned by the man who founded the NFL, George Halas, the Bears had a relatively ordinary offense, led by quarterback Bill Wade and running backs Willie Galimore and Ronnie Bull. But they had Mike Ditka, who practically invented the position of tight end. Only once all season did they score more than 27 points, although that was in a 52-14 clobbering of the Los Angeles Rams in Los Angeles.

It was on defense where they were truly dominant. End Doug Atkins, tackle Stan Jones and middle linebacker Bill George -- described after his death by Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly as "the meanest Bear ever," and that's saying something -- would be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. End Ed O'Bradovich, linebackers Joe Fortunato and Larry Morris, cornerback J.C. Caroline and safety Richie Petitbon were also All-Pros. Not once all season did the Bears allow more than 21 points in a game, and only twice more than 17.

They also had an unexpected advantage: Two key players from other teams in the Western Division, running back Paul Hornung of the Green Bay Packers and defensive tackle Alex Karras of the Detroit Lions, had been suspended for the season due to gambling (on sports other than football, which is why they only got one year).

As a result, it was neither the two-time defending NFL Champion Packers or the Lions, who had dealt the Packers their only loss the season before, who put any blemishes on the Bears' record. The Bears jumped out to a 5-0 start before losing 20-14 away to the San Francisco 49ers. They got up to 9-1, then faced back-to-back 17-17 ties, away to the Pittsburgh Steelers and at home to the Minnesota Vikings, before closing by avenging their loss to the 49ers and completing their sweep of the Lions.

The Bears were the NFL's founding team. But its flagship team, as is usually the case in sports, was in New York. The Giants had half of the "Million Dollar Backfield" of the 1950s San Francisco 49ers: Quarterback Yelberton Abraham (Y.A.) Tittle and running back Hugh McElhenny. The other two, Joe "the Jet" Perry and John Henry Johnson, never appeared in an NFL Championship Game, and this was one last chance for Y.A. and Hugh. All 4 would be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Y.A. Tittle

They also still had the NFL's biggest glamour boy of the 1950s, Frank Gifford, hanging on. And they still had some members of the defense, including Hall-of-Famers Andy Robustelli at defensive end and Sam Huff at middle linebacker, who allowed them to reach the Championship Game 6 times in 8 years. But they had only won in 1956, beating the Bears. They had lost to the Baltimore Colts in 1958 and '59, and, with Allie Sherman taking over from Jim Lee Howell as coach, to the Packers in '61 and '62.

Tittle was 37 years old, bald, and what little hair he had left was already gray, so he looked even older. Halas was 68, at the time the oldest head coach in NFL history. It was looking like the last chance for either of them, which it did turn out to be.

Wrigley Field is known to baseball fans for, among other things, its lack of lights until 1988, and the Chicago Cubs' continuation of scheduling as many day games as they can, so fans can sit in the bleachers and soak up the Summer sun. But this was between Christmas and New Year's, and the temperature was in the single digits, Fahrenheit. The field was frozen.

It would have been frozen at the much larger Soldier Field, but NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle asked Halas to move the game there, so the lights could be used. Halas refused. So, in order to avoid the game ending in darkness, the starting time was moved up to 12:05 PM, Central Time (1:05 Eastern).

With extra bleachers running north-to-south from left field to the right-field foul line, seating capacity was 45,801. Despite the cold, every seat was filled. Chicago fans may be divided between the Cubs and the White Sox when it comes to baseball, but the NFL's Chicago Cardinals had moved, and locals had given up on them before that. No team is more popular in Chicago than the Bears -- not the Cubs, not the White Sox, not the Bulls even in their Michael Jordan years, not the Blackhawks, not even Notre Dame. It was true then, and it is true now, despite a long title drought for "Da Bears."

Wrigley Field in its football configuration

With the kind of drive that would have pleased later coach Bill Parcells, the Giants methodically moved down the field on the game's opening drive, eating the clock, taking up the 1st half of the 1st quarter, until Tittle threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Gifford. Just before the end of the quarter, Wade tied things with a 2-yard run.

Don Chandler, later to be the kicker and punter for the Packer teams that won the 1st 2 Super Bowls, kicked a field goal in the 2nd quarter, putting the Giants up, 10-7. But on their next drive, Morris hit Tittle and reinjured a knee that had been hurt earlier in the year. Sherman took Tittle out and replaced him with Glynn Griffing, but showed so little confidence him him that he ordered a punt on a 3rd down.

Much like New York Yankees star Mickey Mantle, with whom he shared a home stadium, Tittle tried to play through his pain. He got shots of cortisone and Novocaine, and threw off his back foot, normally unwise for a quarterback, but with his collected know-how, he thought he could lead the Giants to victory.

But late in the 3rd quarter, Tittle tried a screen pass, and O'Bradovich intercepted it, setting up a Bears drive that ended with a quarterback sneak by Wade. The Bears led, 14-10. Tittle gamely trudged through the 4th quarter, trying to get one more touchdown. But with 10 seconds left, in range of the end zone, Tittle threw, and was intercepted in the end zone by Petitbon.

It was the Bears' 5th interception of the day. With the country watching on CBS, seeing him limp off the field, Tittle had won the hearts of millions of fans, but the Bears had won the NFL Championship. It was their 1st since the last of the Sid Luckman titles in 1946.

Halas was ecstatic, but the players knew better than to lift the aging "Papa Bear" onto their shoulders and carry him off the field in triumph. So the defensive players picked up Halas' defensive coordinator, and carried him, and gave him the game ball in the locker room. He had been nearly as responsible for this title as Halas. His name was George Allen, and he would later coach the Rams into the Playoffs, and the Washington Redskins to the 1972 NFC Championship, and be elected to the Hall of Fame.

It was the 8th and last Championship for Halas as owner, his 6th as head coach, each a record that has never been matched. (Bill Belichick has coached 6 title winners, but he cheated.)

It also made Chicago the 1st city to win both the NFL Championship and the NCAA Basketball Tournament in the same calendar year. Loyola University had won the title in March. It's only happened once since, in 2018, with the Super Bowl by then played in February: Philadelphia did it with the Eagles and Villanova.

The following year would be a bad one for both teams, starting eras of mediocrity. During the Summer, Willie Galimore and fellow Bear running back Bo Farrington were killed in a car crash outside the team's Indiana training camp. This led them to draft Gale Sayers in 1965. They also drafted Dick Butkus, to shore up their aging defense. In spite of having 2 of the top 5 players in the game in the late 1960s, the Bears didn't reach the Playoffs again until 1977, by which point both Sayers and Butkus were retired.

And, just as the Yankees got old in a hurry in the 1964-65 off-season, so, too, did the Giants suddenly look very old in Autumn 1964. Huff had been traded to Washington, and 1964 would be the last season for both Tittle and Gifford. Hall of Fame offensive tackle Roosevelt Brown only lasted one year after that. The Giants didn't make the Playoffs again until 1981.

Halas' reasons for not moving the Bears to Soldier Field have been debated. Finally, the AFL-NFL merger of 1970 forced his hand: NFL stadiums now had to have both lights and a seating capacity of over 50,000, and Wrigley Field then had neither. In 1971, Halas moved the Bears to Soldier Field. Given his love of football, and his love of making money, he must have been very happy being able to play Monday Night Football, and the Bears did so 14 times, 7 at Soldier Field, before his death in 1983.

The Giants and the Bears have met to decide the NFL Championship 6 times, more than any other pairing. The Bears won in 1933, 1941, 1946 and 1963; the Giants, in 1934 and 1956. With the realignment of the NFL, they cannot face each other in the Super Bowl. But they have faced each other in the NFC Playoffs again in the seasons of 1985, when the Bears won; and 1990, when the Giants won. On each of those occasions, the winner did go on to win the title.

The Bears are the founding franchise of the NFL. Yet they’ve won only one title since, Super Bowl XX in the 1985-86 season. That’s just 2 titles in the last 77 years.

But consider this: The Bears won 8 World Championships in their 50 seasons playing at Wrigley Field. It took the Cubs 101 seasons playing there to win one.

In 2019, in connection with their 100th Season (not their 100th Anniversary, which was the next year), the Bears did fan balloting for their 100 Greatest Players. From this 1963 title team, they chose quarterback Billy Wade, running backs Willie Galimore, Rick Casares, receiver Johnny Morris, tight end Mike Ditka, center Mike Pyle, guard Stan Jones, tackles Herm Lee and Bob Wetoska; defensive ends Doug Atkins and Ed O'Bradovich, linebackers Joe Fortunato and Larry Morris (no relation to Johnny; cornerbacks J.C. Caroline, Roosevelt Taylor and Bennie McRae; safety Richie Petibon, and punter Bobby Joe Green.

From the period between the 1963 and 1985 titles, they chose running back Gale Sayers, linebackers Dick Butkus and Doug Buffone, receiver Dick Gordon, defensive tackles Jim Osborne and Wally Chambers, cornerback Allan Ellis and safety Doug Plank.

When The Sporting News named its 100 Greatest Football Players in 1999, George was ranked 49th, and Ditka 90th. When the NFL Network named its 100 Greatest Players in 2010, George

dropped off the list, but Ditka rose to 59th.

*

December 29, 1963 was a Sunday. Sean Payton, who would coach the New Orleans Saints to their 1st World Championship, was born.

Baseball was out of season. There were 2 games played in the NBA. The New York Knicks lost to the Cincinnati Royals, 105-99 at the Cincinnati Gardens. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 140-128 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Jerry West scored 39 points.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 6-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 2-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-0 at the Chicago Stadium.

November 20, 1960: Chuck Bednarik Knocks Frank Gifford Out

November 20, 1960: The New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles, arch-rivals since the Eagles' founding in 1933, play at Yankee Stadium. The winner was probably going to win the NFL's Eastern Division and play in the NFL Championship Game, as the Giants had in 3 of the last 4 years. Since the hosting alternated between the East and West winners in those days, the winner would also host the title game.

Some cities, like Los Angeles and Miami, like their sports heroes to be flashy. Others, like Philadelphia and Chicago, prefer them to be tough. Blue-collar. They will accept failure, but they will not accept failure to try. They understand it if you fall, as long as you get back up. New York likes to have it both ways: Men like Joe DiMaggio, Joe Namath, Walt "Clyde" Frazier, Derek Jeter.

And one of the flashiest New York athletes was Frank Gifford, Hall of Fame running back for the Giants in the 1950s. Until 1960, it never would have occurred to anyone to call Gifford "tough." What they called this handsome devil out of Bakersfield, California and the University of Southern California was "the Golden Boy." He was already the most popular football player in New York history, so much so that, in the off-season at Yankee Stadium, he got Mickey Mantle's locker.

Chuck Bednarik was tough. How tough was he? He came out of still mill country in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and served as a waist gunner on B-24 bomber in World War II. But he was also smart: He got into the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and the Ivy League doesn't give athletic scholarships.

He was a rookie on the Eagles' NFL Championship team of 1949, and played center and linebacker for them, even after the switch to two-platoon football. He was "the last of the 60-minute men." Of course, in those days, athletes were paid so little that it was necessarily to get off-season jobs. He sold concrete, and that, rather than his toughness, that earned him the nickname "Concrete Charley."

Both teams had toughness. But the Giants embraced flashiness, while the Eagles ignored it.

The Giants led 10-0 at the half, but blew it. In the 4th quarter, the Eagles' Jimmy Carr picked up a fumble and returned it 38 yards for a touchdown, making it 17-10 Eagles.

With the clock running out, George Shaw, filling in for injured quarterback Charlie Conerly, threw a pass toward Gifford at midfield. Gifford caught the pass, but Bednarik arrived at the same time, and he flattened Gifford, who fumbled. The Eagles recovered.

On the film, this doesn't look like an especially devastating hit. I've seen much worse. What made this the most famous hit in NFL history -- aside from the fact that it was in New York, and involved a New York team, and was seen by a national TV audience -- was how Chuck reacted.

The film shows him reacting to the fumble by jumping around and clapping his hands. Then he pumped his fist, and issued what became his catchphrase: "This fucking game is over!" Which, for all intents and purposes, it was. The final score was, indeed, 17-10 Eagles.

But it was the photograph that proved devastating. It showed Bednarik standing over Gifford, pumping his fist. Gifford is lying on the ground, motionless. Bednarik spent the last 54 years of his life explaining that he didn't even realize Gifford was motionless on the ground in front of him, that he was celebrating the Eagles wrapping up a big win, not the fact that he'd knocked Gifford out. He said he didn't even realize he'd knocked Gifford out.

Legend has it that Gifford was knocked out because, despite wearing a helmet, he hit his head on the frozen grass at Yankee Stadium. This couldn't be true: According to Pro-Football-Reference.com, it was 49 degrees at gametime -- not a particularly notable temperature for mid-November New York, and hardly cold enough to freeze the field.

Gifford was taken to the Giants' locker room. Also taken to the locker room for first aid was a security guard who had a heart attack. Frank's first wife, Maxine, didn't know this, and when she went down to the locker room to see Frank, she heard someone say, "He's dead" -- meaning the security guard. When the guard was wheeled out on a stretcher, with his face covered by a sheet, reporters saw this, and thought it was Gifford.

The rumor began to spread that Bednarik had killed him. And when the photo was seen in newspapers across the country the next day, Bednarik looked like a monster, celebrating his "kill."

It got worse. Bednarik went to see Gifford in the hospital the next day, and was told Gifford couldn't receive visitors. But a new rumor circulated, that Bednarik wouldn't see Gifford. It wasn't that he wouldn't, it was that he couldn't.

Gifford missed the rest of the season, and decided to retire at age 30. But he missed playing, and returned in 1962, switching to receiver for safety reasons. He played 3 more seasons and retired again, becoming one of football's greatest broadcasters.

Gifford always said he never held it against Bednarik. Bednarik said he was tired of people remembering him mainly for one thing: "It was always, 'Oh, you're the guy! You're the guy! You're the guy that got Frank Gifford!'" He was also tired of Howard Cosell, on ABC Monday Night Football, seeing a hard hit, and turning to Gifford, and saying, "Just like Chuck Bednarik blindsided you at Yankee Stadium, Giffaroo!"

"Blindsided, my fanny! It was a clean hit," he always said. And it was: Like the infamous Denis Potvin hit on Ulf Nilsson in 1979, or Scott Stevens leveling Eric Lindros in 2000, the 2 best-known hits in the history of hockey, no penalty was called on it. (And, yes, this profane man would say, "fanny" when he told the story, not "ass." In America, "fanny" means rear end. In Britain, it means the other side, of a woman.)

Both men died in 2015. Bednarik had been dealing with dementia for a few years, almost certainly induced by all that head contact in football. Gifford's 3rd wife, entertainer Kathie Lee Gifford, had also begun to notice him slipping. He, too, was a victim of football-induced head trauma. And that would have been the case even if Bednarik had merely tackled him that day, rather than outright knocking him out.

*

November 20, 1960 was a Sunday. It was also the day that writer Norman Mailer stabbed his wife, Adele Morales, at a party he was hosting in New York. She survived, and he pretty much got away with it. I have a separate entry for this event.

These were the other NFL games played that day:

* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, who had been in Chicago until this season, beat the Washington Redskins, 26-14 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 14-10 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions, 28-7 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the Green Bay Packers, 33-31 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Dallas Cowboys, 26-14 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The Cowboys, a 1st-year expansion team, went 0-11-1 that 1st season. Their only non-loss was a tie against the Giants at Yankee Stadium.

* Since there were now 13 teams in the NFL, one team had to have a bye week every week. This week, it was the Baltimore Colts.

This was the 1st season of the American Football League. These were their games on the day:

* The Houston Oilers beat the Denver Broncos, 20-10 at Jeppesen Stadium in Houston.

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Los Angeles Chargers, 32-3 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The Boston Patriots, the Dallas Texans, the New York Titans and the Oakland Raiders -- the teams now known as the New England Patriots, the Kansas City Chiefs, the New York Jets and the Las Vegas Raiders -- had irregular schedules, and did not play on November 20.

There were 2 games in the NBA. The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 120-103 at the Cincinnati Gardens. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Detroit Pistons, 135-131 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Elgin Baylor scored 52 points for the Lakers.

And the entire NHL, the "Original Six," was in action. The New York Rangers lost to the Detroit Red Wings, 4-3 at the old Madison Square Garden. The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the Boston Garden. And the Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 1-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

September 21, 1970: "Monday Night Football" Premieres

September 21, 1970: Monday Night Football premieres on ABC. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and ABC Sports chairman Roone Arledge had gotten together, and brought the NFL not just to the one major network at the time that didn't have NFL broadcasts -- in this 1st season after the NFL-AFL merger, CBS had the NFC games, and NBC had the AFC -- but to prime-time television.

Anybody in the entire country who was a football fan could watch a single game, and, as Terry Bradshaw, then a rookie quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers, would later put it, "Monday Night Football was an event!" As much as anything -- the NFL's TV package overall, the replacement of the NFL Championship Game with the Super Bowl, the pace of the sport, or its violence -- MNF is what elevated the NFL above Major League Baseball as America's favorite sports league.

The 1st broadcast team was Keith Jackson, ABC's lead college football announcer; Howard Cosell, the ABC sportscaster with the huge ego and the following to match; and Don Meredith, the recently-retired quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.

Cosell, once a great newspaper columnist, and already the host of a 15-minute Sunday night wrapup show on ABC, was an easy choice for Arledge. He also wanted to pull Curt Gowdy from NBC, but failed; then tried to pull Vin Scully, also the voice of baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, from NBC, but failed; then tried to pull Jack Buck, also the voice of baseball's St. Louis Cardinals, from CBS, but Buck felt he'd been treated badly in a previous stint with ABC, and refused. So Arledge settled for Jackson, a Southern gentleman broadcaster in the mold of baseball's Red Barber and Ernie Harwell.

Arledge knew he wanted a former player for the 3-man team, and wanted former New York Giants superstar running back Frank Gifford, who had been a sideline reporter for CBS. But his contract with them was ironclad, so he suggested Meredith, who won Arledge over.

The 1st game was at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Cleveland Browns were a good team, having reached the last 2 pre-merger NFL Championship Games, and having won the Championship as recently as 1964. But they weren't an especially interesting team, nor in a major media market.

Fortunately for ABC, their opponents were the New York Jets, with the biggest name in pro football, Joe Namath, at quarterback. Namath had taken the Jets to a stunning upset victory in the Super Bowl 2 seasons earlier, and was a ratings magnet, a guarantee as sure as the one he made that the Jets would win that Super Bowl.

Municipal Stadium was jammed with 85,703 fans, and they saw Homer Jones -- who, a few years earlier, as a receiver for the New York Giants, had invented "spiking" the football upon scoring a touchdown -- return Jim Turner's 2nd-half kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown, which put the Browns up, 21-7. Jackson yelled, "He could go all the way!" That expression was not yet widely known to football fans, but it became so.

Oddly, this time, Jones didn't spike the ball: He just dropped it out of his hands, like players used to do. Or, sometimes, they would hand the ball to the closest official. Or, and this was more common in the early days of the game, they would just bend down and put the ball on the ground, which is where the word "touchdown" comes from.

Namath led a comeback, and it was 24-21 Cleveland with 47 seconds left to play, and the ball on the Jet 25. A field goal would only have tied it, and not until 1974 would the NFL have regular-season overtime. Namath threw a pass, and it was intercepted by Billy Andrews, who returned it for a touchdown. The Browns won, 31-21. An ABC camera caught Namath hanging his head, and Jackson said, "There's a depressed Joe Namath."

Not depressed in the least was ABC: They got a 33 share, meaning 1/3rd of the national TV audience was watching, a big improvement over their Monday night movies. A big feature that drew fans in was the halftime show, which featured highlights of all the preceding day's games, narrated by the often-imitated, but thankfully never-duplicated Cosell.

Keith Jackson was the greatest announcer that college football has ever had, but he never really fit in with the pro game. So, in 1971, when Gifford's CBS contract ran out, Keith went back to the campuses, and Frank was in. That was the triad that made Monday night famous: Cosell and, as he put it, Giffaroo and Dandyroo.

Cosell was usually the smartest man in the room, and never let anybody forget it. He frequently belittled Meredith as a Texas hick. Finally, Meredith had enough, and left, spending the 1974, '75 and '76 seasons with NBC.

In preseason games in 1974, former Kansas City Chiefs defensive back Fred "the Hammer" Williamson was tried, but proved unacceptable to his boothmates and the censors. In time for the regular season, Arledge hired former Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alex Karras, who had turned to acting, and had just played Mongo in Blazing Saddles. He proved more capable, but not much more.

ABC even reflected its trouble finding a 3rd man in the booth by airing an episode of The Odd Couple in which New York sports columnist Oscar Madison (played by Jack Klugman) was hired for a tryout game, even though the character hated Cosell (making his 2nd appearance as himself on the show), and Cosell embarrassed Oscar on the air, leading to Oscar's firing. (Gifford did not appear in the episode.)

In 1975, Johnny Pearson's song "Heavy Action" became the show's theme song, and it remains the most famous, as familiar to NFL fans as the classical marches favored by NFL Films' highlight packages. In 1989, the show debuted a new theme song, with country music star Hank Williams Jr. reworking his 1984 hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" as "All My Rowdy Friends Are Here On Monday Night." But "Heavy Action" was still used as the preview music, usually with Gifford narrating.

Meredith returned to ABC and MNF in 1977, but his contract called for him to do 14 games a year. When the NFL expanded to a 16-game schedule the next season, he chose which 2 games he wouldn't do, and ABC had to honor this. In 1979, to work around this, ABC hired recently-retired Minnesota Vikings quarterback Fran Tarkenton.

On December 9, 1974, the game was the Washington Redskins beating the Los Angeles Rams at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Cosell found out that former Beatle John Lennon and outgoing California Governor Ronald Reagan were at the game. He managed to snag interviews with both of them, and even introduced them to each other (off-camera). In spite of their wildly divergent politics, the meeting was cordial. Cosell asked Lennon, born and raised in the football (soccer)-mad city of Liverpool, England, what he thought of American football, and he said, "It makes rock concerts look like tea parties." 

Cosell was already 45 years old when The Beatles arrived in America, so he didn't particularly care; and he must have known that Lennon was sick of answering the question; but Cosell also knew that many Beatle fans were watching, and that he would be a poor journalist if he didn't ask it, so he did: "Will The Beatles ever get back together?" Lennon had usually said they wouldn't. This time, he gave fans hope by saying, "You never know."

Six years later, almost to the day, on December 8, 1980, a definitive answer came. By this point, Reagan was President-elect. This was a game with just Cosell and Gifford, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, a game the Miami Dolphins ended up winning in overtime over the New England Patriots. The announcers were handed a news bulletin saying that Lennon had been shot and killed.

Cosell, his background in straight journalism, asked whether they should announce it themselves, or wait for ABC headquarters in New York to break away to a special report. Gifford talked him into announcing it, and so, millions of people first heard about the death of John Lennon from Howard Cosell.

On September 5, 1983, MNF covered the Dallas Cowboys' win over the Washington Redskins at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Alvin Garrett of the Redskins caught a pass and ran it in for a touchdown, and Cosell said, "Look at that little monkey go!" Cosell had called other short-of-stature players a "little monkey," and even used the expression on his grandchildren. This time, though, the subject of the expression was black, and a firestorm erupted. After all the things Cosell had said and done over the years, ABC accepted that the end of the season was time for him to go.

That same year, former Buffalo Bills running back O.J. Simpson replaced Tarkenton as the fill-in for Meredith, or for Cosell when ABC had him broadcast baseball's Playoffs. Also that year, Simpson was asked by director James Cameron to star in a science fiction film, The Terminator. But the studio rejected the idea, thinking that nobody would accept O.J., enormously popular for his football playing and TV commercials, as a killer. In 1995, Cosell died, and Simpson was acquitted of a double murder.

For 1984, the broadcast trio was Gifford, Meredith and Simpson. Ironically, Meredith's performance seemed to weaken without Cosell to banter with. In 1985, Simpson was out, switching to NBC; and Gifford and Meredith were joined by Namath.

In 1986, ABC switched to a 2-man booth, with Gifford and their lead baseball announcer, Al Michaels. After a single season with that setup, former St. Louis Cardinals offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf joined them. Former Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Lynn Swann became the main sideline reporter. This setup would remain in place until 1998, when Gifford left in the wake of a sex scandal.

In 2006, The Walt Disney Company, which had bought both ABC and ESPN, shifted MNF to ESPN, and it has aired there ever since. In 2011, inappropriate comments about President Barack Obama in an interview by Hank Williams Jr. led ESPN to drop his theme song, bringing it back in 2017, once Obama was out of office.

Today, former Fox broadcast duo Joe Buck (son of Jack Buck and formerly Fox's lead baseball announcer) and Troy Aikman (like Meredith, a former Dallas Cowboy quarterback) are the lead announcers for Monday Night Football. It remains prime time TV's most popular sports program, although it will never be like it was under Howard, Frank and Dandy Don -- or even Frank and Al and Dan.

Of the 26 teams in existence in 1970, the last team not to have appeared on Monday Night Football was the Buffalo Bills, on October 29, 1973, a 23-14 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

Of the 28 teams in existence in 1976, the Dallas Cowboys have appeared the most, 93 times, going 54-39; the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have appeared the least, 27 times, although they have a winning record on Monday night, 15-12; the Cowboys have won the most, although their 54 wins are followed close behind by the San Francisco 49ers with 53 and the Pittsburgh Steelers with 52; the New York Giants have lost the most, going 25-46-1, although the Washington Redskins/Commanders are right behind, at 32-45, and so are the Miami Dolphins, at 45-44; the Seattle Seahawks have the best winning percentage, .705, 31-13; and the Cincinnati Bengals are just behind the Giants with the worst winning percentage, their 13-26 giving them a .333 to the Giants' .354. 

The most common matchup: The Raiders and the Denver Broncos have faced each other 20 times, with the Broncos leading 10-9-1.

*

September 21, 1970 was, of course, a Monday. The Browns-Jets game was the only NFL game played that day. These 9 Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 5-2 at Yankee Stadium. Jim Lyttle hit a home run in support of Fritz Peterson.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. The Sox runs scored on solo homers by Carl Yastrzemski and Rico Petrocelli.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Mark Belanger, one of the best-fielding shortstops ever, but also one of the worst hitters in the game, went against type, and singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning. Boog Powell hit a home run off Joe Niekro. Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson each went 1-for-4.

For the Tigers, Al Kaline went 2-for-6 with an RBI. Kaline was a Baltimore native, and, in 1974, playing in his hometown, collected his 3,000th career hit.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 2-0 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Don Gullett (5 innings), Clay Carroll (2) and Wayne Granger (2) combined on a 4-hit shutout. This willingness to pull pitchers quickly and make full use of his bullpen gave Sparky Anderson, a rookie manager for the Reds at age 36 but already with white hair, the nickname "Captain Hook." But it also helped him become a Pennant-winning manager in his rookie year, as the Reds reached the World Series, losing it to the Orioles.

* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Juan Marichal pitched a 6-hit shutout. Willie Mays went 3-for-4 with a home run and 4 RBIs. It was his 2,690th game played in center field, setting a new major league record, which still stands. I have a separate entry for this event.

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the opener, 8-4. The Kansas City Royals won the nightcap, 8-2.

* The California Angels beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-6 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Vida Blue pitched a no-hitter, missing a perfect game only through a 4th-inning walk of Harmon Killebrew, and outpitching Jim Perry. Bert Campaneris hit a home run, and Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3 with a walk.

Blue was just getting warmed up: From September 11, 1970 to August 15, 1971, he was as good as any pitcher in the post-1920 Lively Ball Era, going 24-4 with an ERA of 1.66. For the 1971 season, he went 24-8, and was named the American League Most Valuable Player. But he held out at the start of the 1972 season, and for a man playing for a team owned by Charlie Finley, that was a huge mistake. He was often good after that, but was never great again.

September 8, 1974: Evel Knievel at the Snake River Canyon

September 8, 1974: Evel Knievel tries to jump over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho, on a "sky-cycle."

For people too young to remember Knievel (pronounced Keh-NEE-vil), he was the kind of figure who defies description. He was a 1970s phenomenon, a proper coming together of man and moment, hero and hype level. He was the King of the Daredevils, wearing star-spangled jumpsuits, big collars, big belts with big buckles, and making a fool of himself in Las Vegas. Which makes him sound like the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, except Elvis also had some great shows in Vegas.

Robert Craig Knievel was born on October 17, 1938 in Butte, Montana. Of German descent, he claimed he'd adopted the stage name "Evel Knievel" after being arrested for, no joke, reckless driving, and sharing a cell with a man known as William "Awful" Knofel. He made it "Evel" instead of "Evil," and wore white instead of black, because he didn't want anyone to think he was associated with motorcycle gangs like the Hell's Angels.

He participated in rodeos, ski jumping events, and served in the U.S. Army before marrying Linda Joan Bork and starting a semi-pro hockey team. To support his family, Knievel started the Sur-Kill Guide Service, and later worked as an insurance salesman. That's right: Evel Knievel was an insurance salesman.

Eventually, he opened a Honda motorcycle dealership in Washington, D.C., but faced difficulties promoting Japanese imports. After the dealership closed, Knievel worked at a motorcycle shop where he learned motocross stunts that would later contribute to his daredevil career.

He put together a show featuring other bikers, and called it Evel Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils. He gradually increased the number of cars he could jump over, until June 19, 1966, in Missoula, in his home State of Montana: He tried to jump 12 cars and a cargo van, but his back wheel hit the top of the van, he fell, and he ended up with a broken arm and several broken ribs. But he survived, and that began his legend.

On March 25, 1967, he cleared 15 cars at Ascot Park in Gardena, California. He tried that again on July 28, 1967, in Graham, Washington. He landed his cycle on the last vehicle, a panel truck, was thrown from his bike, and suffered a serious concussion. He went back there on August 18, and his injuries were more serious.

He recovered and, on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1967, the same day that CBS broadcast the NFL Championship Game -- the Ice Bowl in Green Bay -- Knievel tried to jump 140 feet, over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He wanted it broadcast live on ABC Wide World of Sports. ABC said no: They told him to film it, and, if they thought it worthwhile, they would buy it, and would broadcast it later. So Knievel got two friends to film it: Actor-director John Derek, and Derek's then-wife, actress Linda Evans.

He did the jump, but he couldn't stick the landing, and was thrown over the handlebars. This was his worst set of injuries yet. But he didn't die. He lived to jump again, and was doing so by March 25, 1968. ABC refused to buy the Caesars film. As his legend grew, his production company rented the film to ABC, which would, eventually, broadcast it -- many times.

On January 7 and 8, 1971, he sold out the Astrodome in Houston on back-to-back days. On the following February 28, he jumped 19 cars at the Ontario Motor Speedway in the Los Angeles suburb of Ontario, California. Doug Senecal was then 10 years old and living in Massachusetts, and was fascinated. In 2015, using the name Doug Danger, he wore the same costume and drove the same cycle that Knievel used in the Ontario jump, and set a new record, jumping 22 cars in Sturgis, South Dakota, whose annual rally has made it the motorcycle capital of America.

On March 3, 1972, at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco, Knievel made a successful jump, but, because of a short landing area, tried to stop short, and got hurt. He didn't get back to jumping until November 10, 1973. It was on this occasion that ABC finally agreed to put him on Wide World live, for what would be the 1st of 6 such appearances. There were 50 cars stacked at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and he got over them successfully, and landed successfully.

As far back as 1968, Knievel told the media that his dream was to jump from one side of the Grand Canyon in Arizona to the other. But the Canyon is included in the National Park system, controlled by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which denied him every time he asked, no matter what safety precautions he suggested. In 1971, while flying from one stunt to another, he was over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho, and he was struck by its natural beauty. Since the federal government had no control over that, that's what he set his mind on.

ABC refused to broadcast this one, fearing that he was finally going to be killed. Of course, they were already set to broadcast the Heavyweight Championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, which had people thinking that Foreman might actually kill Ali in the ring. (Instead, Ali knocked Foreman out.) And Wide World of Sports broadcast all kinds of dangerous events, from cliff diving in Mexico to all kinds of auto races: The Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Formula 1 and Grand Prix in Europe and South America. So who was kidding who?

So Knievel hired boxing promoter Bob Arum's company, Top Rank Productions, to put the event on closed-circuit television, and broadcast it to movie theaters, as if it were a major prizefight.

By this point, Knievel had learned that you couldn't just guess, or do it "by feel." He had accepted that he had to embrace the science of it -- which meant hiring people smarter than himself to figure it out. An ordinary motorcycle wasn't going to be able to do it. He hired aeronautical engineers Doug Malewicki and Robert Truax to build him a rocket-powered vehicle to jump across the Snake River.

On September 8, 1974, at 3:36 PM Mountain Time -- 5:36 Eastern -- the Skycycle was launched at the south rim of the Snake River Canyon, west of Shoshone Falls, Idaho. But the launch caused the drogue parachute to prematurely deploy, resulting in too much drag. The vehicle did reach a point over the north rim, but the wind caught the parachute, and blew it back to the south side of the canyon. The Skycycle crashed into the rock wall, and viewers were sure that Knievel had been killed.

Instead, at that point, crashing into the rock wall was the better option. He survived with only minor injuries. But he couldn't get out of the vehicle himself: His harness had malfunctioned. Had he landed in the water, he would have drowned before the rescue crew could get to him.

He had failed. But he had lived. The spectacle mattered more than the result. And, with Watergate reaching a climax that day with President Ford pardoning former President Nixon, America needed this kind of distraction. Evel Knievel had become the biggest thing in America.

On May 26, 1975, Wide World of Sports broadcast his attempt to jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London. These were not the "double-decker buses" that London is known for, but they were certainly taller than the kind of cars he was used to jumping. Frank Gifford, who was part of CBS' broadcast crew for the Ice Bowl, and wasn't there at Caesars, had since come to ABC, and had become friends with Knievel, and was the lead broadcaster for this event.

Over 90,000 people saw Knievel take off with not enough speed, and he hit the landing ramp with his front wheel, causing the bike to "trampoline" up, throwing him. His landing would have been bad enough, but the bike, with its wheels still spinning, kept going, and landed on top of him. The spinning of the front wheel burned through his jumpsuit, extending his injuries.

He never lost consciousness. Gifford was among those who rushed to help him. They got him to a standing position, and he took a microphone, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen of this wonderful country, I've got to tell you that you are the last people in the world who will ever see me jump. Because I will never, ever, ever jump again. I'm through."

Gifford begged him to get on a stretcher for his ride to the hospital. Despite knowing his injuries included a broken pelvis -- because he'd done that before -- he said, "I came in walking, I went out walking!"

Like a great boxer, of course he couldn't stay retired. Just 5 months later, on October 25, he jumped 14 Greyhound buses at the Kings Island amusement part outside Cincinnati. At 133 feet, it was his longest successful jump. And it was Wide World of Sports' highest-rated broadcast ever. Again, he retired. Again, he lied, and came back, with a successful jump at Seattle's new Kingdome on Halloween, October 31, 1976.

Inspired by the film Jaws, he wanted to jump a tank full of live sharks. On January 31, 1977, he rehearsed the jump at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. He lost control of the motorcycle, and hit a cameraman, Thomas Geren, and a wall. He broke both of his arms, but heard that Geren had sustained a permanent eye injury.

That was it: He was willing to risk his own life and limb, but not someone else's. He never jumped again. As it turned out, though, Geren regained his full vision. Though relieved, this time, Knievel kept his word, and never jumped again.

The Guinness Book of World Records listed him as having suffered 433 separate breakings of bones. He said he had broken 35 different bones over his career. It all left him in terrible pain, especially in his back.

He turned to painting, a much calmer pastime -- and one he shared with another famous Wide World of Sports crasher, Slovenian ski jumper Vinko Bogataj, victim of the 1970 "agony of defeat" fall. He supported his son Robbie Knievel's daredevil career, addressing the crowds at Robbie's events. On April 14, 1989, Robbie did what Evel couldn't do in 1967: He successfully jumped over the fountains at Caesars Palace. In 1998, also in Vegas, Robbie jumped over 30 limousines at the Tropicana Hotel.

He did safety-themed commercials, telling kids to wear helmets while riding their bicycles, to stay away from drugs, and one on radio for the New York City Transit Authority, telling people not to try "stunts" on Subway trains or buses: "Take it from a daredevil, me, Evel Knievel: Some stunts are just plain stupid."

But his health declined. His many surgeries required blood transfusions that led to Hepatitis C, and he needed a liver transplant. It looked like he wouldn't get one, and, in 1999, he was told that he only had a few days to live. He decided to leave the hospital, and die at his home. On the car ride home, he got a call that a liver was available. Take a wild guess as to how the donor died: In a motorcycle accident. (On the NBC hospital drama ER, the characters called motorcycles "donorcycles.")

In 2005, to raise relief funds for Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, he worked with Harley-Davidson, makers of all his motorcycles, to lead a group of cyclists on a fundraising ride around Harley's hometown of Milwaukee. But he suffered a stroke shortly before the event, and had to limit his effort to an autograph-signing session.

Evel Knievel may have been on ABC Wide World of Sports 6 times, but what he did was not a sport. He died on November 30, 2007, outside Tampa in Clearwater, Florida -- not due to the effects of any or all of his crashes, but due to lung disease and diabetes.

Maxim, a magazine geared toward men, always with a scantily clad woman on the cover, printed his last interview. He said, "You can't ask a guy like me why I performed. I really wanted to fly through the air. I was a daredevil, a performer. I loved the thrill, the money, the whole macho thing. All those things made me Evel Knievel. Sure, I was scared. You gotta be an ass not to be scared. But I beat the hell out of death."

In 1999, Robbie Knievel jumped a portion of the Grand Canyon owned by the Hualapai Indian Reservation, out of the federal government's jurisdiction. In 2016, stuntman Eddie Braun, working with Evel's son Kelly and Ronald Truax's son Scott, successfully piloted a replica of the 1974 Skycycle over the Snake River Canyon. Braun idolized Evel, and had insisted that the original jump would have worked if the parachute hadn't deployed too soon. He proved himself right.

UPDATE: It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There were too many ridiculous distractions from the rotten things going on in the world; and, at the same time, not enough of them.

In a 2026 episode of Epic Rap Battles of History, "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Evel Knievel, against Evan Ferrante, a professional Tom Cruise impersonator, as Cruise.

*

September 8, 1974 was a Sunday. As I said, this was also the day that President Gerald Ford issued a pardon for former President Richard Nixon. I have a separate entry for that event.

These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 11-3 at Shea Stadium, where they were played while the original Yankee Stadium was being renovated. Al Kaline, in his last few weeks as an active player, went 2-for-3 with a walk and 3 RBIs. He collected his 3,000th career hit 16 days later.

* The New York Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Tom Seaver went the distance for the win. Lou Brock went 0-for-3, but was hit by a pitch and grounded into a force play, and stole 2nd base both times. That gave him 103 stolen bases for the season, 1 short of what was then the major league record set by Maury Willis in 1962. He would raise the record to 118.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 8-6 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4. Rookie Robin Yount only appeared as a late defensive replacement.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-3 at Atlanta Stadium. (It was renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium the next season.) Hank Aaron went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Expos, 8-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell went 2-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 7-4 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-4.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-4 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Pete Rose, Tony Pérez and Dan Driessen hit home runs for the Reds, but it wasn't enough. Johnny Bench went 0-for-4.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 11-10 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Willie Montañez went 3-for-5 with 4 RBIs. Mike Schmidt went 2-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Bob Boone went 2-for-5 with 3 RBIs. For the Cubs, Jerry Morales hit a grand slam.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-4 at Royals Stadium (later Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Harmon Killebrew did not play. Rod Carew went 1-for-5. George Brett went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the California Angels, 1-0 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Jim Kaat (6 2/3rds innings) and Terry Forster combined on a 7-hit shutout. Frank Robinson appeared as a pinch-hitter for the Angels, but did not reach base. Four days later, he was traded to Cleveland. After the season, he was named their player-manager, the 1st black manager in Major League Baseball.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4.

The NFL opened its season the following Sunday. One college football game was played: Notre Dame, then ranked Number 3 in the country, beat Georgia Tech, 31-7 at Grant Field in Atlanta.