Papa Bear

George S. Halas took an eternal knee on this day in 1983, dying at the age of 88. It was not a day for mourning, because the man was an ass-kicker and name-taker his whole life and there wasn't much to be done that he didn't do before he laid down for good.

Here are some things you may not have known about Papa Bear Halas:

1. Even though he went to Illinois, he played for the U.S. Navy team in 1919 because he was in the Navy. He was the MVP of the Rose Bowl that year as Navy beat Mare Island 17-0.

2. He was a great baseball player. He played minor league ball after leaving the Navy and was eventually promoted to the Yankees, where he played right field for 12 games in 1919. It's been a myth ever since that he was Babe Ruth's predecessor in right for the Bombers, which is not true. (Here are Halas's career baseball numbers in the bigs.) What I wouldn't give for a picture of Halas in a Yankees uniform. Anyone who can direct me to one, please chime in. This picture below is of his high school team, Crane Tech. Halas is second from the left in the bottom row.



3. The Bears were originally called the Decatur Staleys. Halas played for this team, owned it, coached it, and handled all the club's business and ticket sales. It was around about this time that he started having his trademark breakfast of rusty nails washed down with a cold glass of motor oil.

4. In a game in 1923, Halas stripped Jim Thorpe of the ball and returned the fumble 98 yards for a touchdown. It was an NFL record that stood until 1972, when Jack Tatum broke it with an 104-yard fumble return at Lambeau Field.

5. Halas was personally responsible for bringing two of the greatest football players of all time to the Bears - Red Grange and Sid Luckman. Below, Luckman sits to Halas's right on the bench during their NFL championship season in 1946.

Figureheads making empty gestures, vol. I

Five years ago tonight, President George Bush threw out the first pitch of Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. Only seven weeks after the September 11th attacks, it was clearly meant as some kind of a defiant act, the sort of meaningless macho bravado that has since become W's calling card ("Mission accomplished..."). I do remember that he threw a strike from the regulation pitching rubber. THAT was defiant. Any terrorists watching that shit must have had second thoughts about winning a game 7 with W on the mound. Osama was like, "if Bush starts against us we're going to have to be patient at the plate and make him waste pitches, get to their bullpen..." And look, say what you will about the 2000 election, but you know Al Gore would have rolled that thing up to Posada.

That same night, another overblown international figure was making a grandiose and otherwise useless appearance in the Big Apple. Michael Jordan kicked off his second unretirement, opening his career with the Wizards in a game against the Knicks at the Garden. There was no double nickel. There was no miracle last-second dish to Bill Wennington for the win. MJ scored 19 on 7 for 21 shooting from the field as the Wizards lost 93-91. He looked old and slow and committed two key turnovers in the final minutes before missing a buzzer-beater three for the win. His farcical third act was under way. In other words, the terrorists had already won.

October 30, 1974 - The Return of the King

"Ali bombaye! Ali bombaye!..."

Up his nose with a rubber hose

When you think of LaMarr Hoyt, you first think of that gloriously awful era of White Sox uniforms, the Carlton Fisk era, the collars and the shorts and then those weird gray ones with the red and blue stripes across the middle and the numbers on the pants.

Once you get past that, you think of '83, the year he won the Cy Young and the White Sox made the ALCS and got spanked by the Orioles, the same Orioles that went on to spank the Phils in the World Series in front of 13-year-old little Large and his mom.

After that, unless you're the type of freak who remembers things like minor league trades and the fact that Hoyt was a throw-in on the Oscar Gamble deal that brought Bucky Dent to the Yankees... unless you remember shit like that, you're pretty much tapped out on the LaMarr Hoyt front. There's nothing else to remember. Exceptin of course a boatload of cocaine.

Twenty years ago today, Hoyt suffered his third drug arrest of 1986, this one at the U.S./Mexico border. It was the third strike for LaMarr and he was out. Then-commish Peter Ueberroth banned him for all of the '87 season.

Hoyt's career had been a blow-sniffing mess since '83 anyway. The White Sox dealt him to the Pads at the end of the '84 season (and get this, among the players they got in return was a young prospect named Ozzie Guillen) and LaMarr pulled it together for a decent '85 campaign, 16-8. But in '86, all the cocaine calling cards were on the table - erratic behavior, sudden disappearances and a skyrocketing ERA. Not to mention getting arrested for cocaine a lot.

Ueberroth's season-long ban of Hoyt was eventually reduced to 60 days by an arbitrator, but it didn't help. He was a raving drug fiend and everybody knew it. The Pads had seen enough of his crap and released him. In '88, the White Sox gave him another shot but he didn't make the squad. He failed some more drug tests. His career was ruined.

Today he's clean and working for the White Sox. He probably wonders at least once a day how great he might have been if he hadn't put ten years or so up his nose. It's a thought shared by many.

Chop wounds to the head?

Tough day for sudden deaths in sports. First the news about Joe Niekro, and then this morning former heavyweight champ Trevor Berbick was found dead in his native Jamaica. The police are treating the death as a homocide, because Berbick evidently died of "chop wounds to the head."

Other than briefly holding the WBC belt, Berbick had two claims to fame - as the last man to fight Ali, and as the man who made the 20-year-old Mike Tyson the youngest heavyweight champion in history, courtesy of the devastating second-round KO Tyson laid on him in 1986.

Ex-boxing champ Berbick hacked to death in Jamaica (Bloomberg)

Joe Niekro, 1944-2006

It's funny - the name "Joe Niekro" hasn't crossed my mind in years, not until a few days ago when I wrote that "Greasiest Greasers" piece and remembered that scene with the nail file on the mound with the Twins. Now, the news comes across today that Niekro died suddenly last night of a brain aneurysm. He was 61 years old.

As a tribute, I want to take you back to one of the greatest playoff performances in possibly the greatest playoff series of all time. It's one that is near and dear to my heart - Phils/Astros NLCS, 1980. I know it doesn't have the national juice of Yankees/Red Sox, and it was in the era of the five-game NLCS, but still... FOUR of the five games went to extra innings. The Phils prevailed despite twice being two runs down and five outs away from elimination. Just about every inning of the series was excruciating. The whole thing was one long heart attack.

Even with guys like Nolan Ryan, J.R. Richard and Ken Forsch in their rotation, Houston's most reliable pitcher all season was Joe Niekro. He went 20-12, with his twentieth win being his most important, a one-game playoff between the 'Stros and the Dodgers that put Houston in the NLCS. Niekro was brilliant that day, going all nine in a 7-1 victory.

Four days later, Niekro was back on the mound on three days rest, as the NLCS went back to the Astrodome with the series knotted a game apiece. Again, Niekro and his knuckleball carried the side, as inning after inning he put runners on base and battled his way out of jams. It was a non-stop fucking Houdini routine, the kind of outing that takes balls the size of basketballs. He pitched TEN shutout innings that night, before giving way to Dave Smith, who closed it out in the eleventh. I'll never forget that game as long as I live. It was the kind of game that makes you think maybe being a sports fan isn't all its cracked up to be. I was ten years old. It was my first introduction to a fact that I've since become intimately acquainted with - sports HURT.

Both ten-inning affairs, the next two games weren't any less painful, despite the fact that the Phils won them. But they nearly killed us Philly fans, and I'm sure they did kill some Houston-ites. It's amazing the Fightins had anything left to go on and win the Series after that shit. And it was a shame for Niekro too, because he was out of his mind that year. He surely would have gone on for some Hershiser/Jack Morris-type heroics and be ennobled in Fall Classic lore forever. Instead that one-man ten-inning Alamo is lost in the playoff annals.

Not for me, though. You never respect someone so much as when you rooted against them. So today I say rest in peace Joe Niekro. By all accounts you were a real stand-up guy, and I know from first-hand evidence that you had the heart of a lion.

Happy happy

No contest on this one. It's too damn easy for all you No Mas buzzards to get your Google on. Don't worry, we'll think of some other way to give away our shit. But for now just, you know, figure out who's who and then impress your friends and neighbors. It's a pretty easy crew anyway, and I didn't try and disguise them at all. That golfer will give you a little heartache, though, unless you're a PGA freak.

Anyway, here they are, all born on October 28th, submitted for your approval...

The Real NBA Champ

I open up my new copy of Everlast magazine, thinking I might buy myself a new mouthguard or some flashy handwraps or something... and who do I see looking like the next heavyweight contender? Al Harrington. Evidently he's very into boxing. His father and his stepfather were boxers. So he trains at Gleason's in the offseason, and it seems like he really knows his shit. Look at him on the heavy bag over there. Man looks fierce.

This discovery gave us an idea. Forget Shaq/Kobe, or Ron Artest versus Detroit, or that long-awaited Kermit Washington/Rudy T. rematch. The bout we're waiting for is Al Harrington v. Carmelo Anthony. Melo boxes, works out a lot, talks a lot of smack. They're a good match sizewise - Melo is 6'8", 230, Al is 6'9", 245.

So how about it gents? Let's make this happen. You can wear headgear if you want. But think about it - twelve rounds for the heavyweight championship of the NBA on HBO PPV. Winner fights Valuev. The shit would be bigger than Johnson/Jeffries.

Where were you...

...20 years ago tonight, when the Mets finished off the Red Sox in game seven of the ’86 Series and permanently etched the name “Bill Buckner” into the wretched annals of goathood?

Me, I was on the couch in my house in Springfield, PA, a sixteen-year-old Large rooting large for the Red Sox in spite of myself. Oh those 80’s Mets, I hated them. Gary Carter’s hair. Ray Knight’s face. Keith Hernandez’s moustache. If I had known better, I would have chanted “West Village” the entire game and got some very confused looks from my parents.

I remember that at the time it seemed like the Mets winning the series, or more, the Red Sox losing it, was a foregone conclusion after the game six debacle. Which makes it even easier to forget what a rollercoaster game seven it was.

Ron Darling started for the Mets and Bruce Hurst, with two wins already in the series, went for the Sox. Boston went up 3-0 in the second with back-to-back homers from Dwight Evans and Rich Gedman and a Boggs single knocking in Hendo. The Mets didn’t answer until the sixth, when they touched up Hurst for three, Hernandez driving home two with a bases loaded single and then a Carter fielder’s choice scoring pinch-runner Wally Backman.

Then the Mets put up another threespot in the seventh off the real goat of the series, game 6 and 7 loser (and former Met) Calvin Schiraldi. And that was that, although the Sox made it interesting in the top of the 8th with two runs off Roger McDowell before Davey Johnson brought in Orosco (who was probably only like 38 years old in 1986) to shut down the side. Orosco did the job, and made it easy on the New York's collective ticker the next inning, pitching a 1-2-3 ninth.

No Mas presents a 20th anniversary tribute to Game 7 tonight at Classic Kicks, 298 Elizabeth Street (see the CI invite below). Lots of original Mets-inspired art and Reverend Vince and ’86 Series trivia and Brookyln beer and I-berg perpetrating his general retro mayhem. Yours truly will be in attendance. I’ll be the one looking glum in the corner, trying to get someone to talk to me about Bake McBride.

Game seven boxscore, 1986 World Series (retrosheet.org)

No Mas Presents: The Amazin Mess

Tomorrow, Friday October 27th will be the 20th anniversary of the Mets' Game seven victory in the 1986 Series. In honor of this momentous occasion, we will be having a small gathering at Classic Kicks on Elizabeth Street between Houston and Bleecker. We invite you to join us from seven to nine PM.

Highlights will include the unveiling of a new work by James Blagden and a special musical performance and blessing for the lost souls of '86 by the Reverend Vince Anderson.

There is also an installation up at the store featuring highlights from last fall's gallery show, James Blagden's originals from the Illustrated History of Drugs in Sports, a sneak preview of Tyson artist Mickey Duzyj's new skateboards, and a case full of artifacts from my '86 Mets collection.

Brooklyn Brewery is kindly providing refreshments.

If you would like to join us, please RSVP to: [email protected]

I hope to see you there,

ci

Let them eat jodhpurs

We here at No Mas are as committed to the pursuit of the equine arts as much as any young socialite with a lot of time on her hands and a snotty little shit-eating face that you just want to shove up the nearest horse's ass. And that's why our cockles were warmed by a recent Talk of the Town piece in the New Yorker concerning Georgina Bloomberg, 23-year-old show jumping enthusiast and daughter of NYC's Mayor Mike.

Bless her bleeding heart, Georgina has taken to providing riding clothes to the less fortunate.

"My friend was talking about how expensive the riding clothes were," she says in the piece. "So I just started to think that there are all these people who have all these riding clothes that they can't use anymore, and there all these people who could use them, but no one knew how to connect the dots."

Not until a spirited little genius like Georgenius stepped in, that is.

Later on she explains that riding is not just a sport for the wealthy, saying that she has "a couple of good friends who have no money. They work at a barn to be able to get a riding lesson."

One can only imagine what having "no money" actually translates to in this context. Nevertheless, now all these barntrash mongoloids can outfit themselves in hand-me-down breeches still rank with the scent of a billionaress's crotch. Amazing that the Red Cross didn't think of it first.

Georgina's next scheme is to provide free polo mallets to impoverished schools in the ghetto. And by "ghetto" she means Darien.

Gift Horse (The New Yorker)

And at home I got a call from Tony Romo...

The FBI was tapping my telephone-o
I never live alone
I never walk alone
My posse's always ready
And they're waiting in my zone-o.

The Boy Who Threw Ice at the Wrong Motherfucker

October 26, 1997 - Charles Barkley is up inna club with a bottle-a bub and getting his mack on with a tableful of ho's at Phineas Phoggs, a disco in Orlando. It's round about closing time and holms is feeling NICE.

Then some punk throws a cup of ice on him. Just out of the blue, for no good reason, WHAM... ice.

So Charles defenestrates the motherfucker, which was well within his rights given the circumstances. Throws him through a plate glass window, which, of course, Charles planned to compensate the establishment for three times over. So, no problem, right?

Predictably, the police did not see it that way and arrested his ass.

Outside as the cops were cuffing The Round Mound, he continued to explain himself to Mr. Ice Thrower, who had now been renamed Mr Pavement Sucker. "You don't respect me?" he said. "Fine, I hope you're seriously hurt. For all I care you can lay there and die." Asked later if he regretted his actions, Charles replied, "I regret that we weren't on a higher floor."

So there you go, a lesson from history. It's like an Aesop's fable really. And the moral is... bloody obvious.

Close but no CiGar

The Carp-enator flirted with one last night, but evidently, to throw a World Series complete-game shutout in the new millennium, you have to be facing the Yankees.

The only two blank jobs since 2000 came at the expense of the Bombers - Randy Johnson for the D-Backs in game two of the 2001 Series (3 hits, 11 k's) and of course Josh Beckett in game 6 of the 2003 Series (5 hits, 9 k's), one of the great Series closeouts ever.

Both Beckett and Johnson won the Series MVP awards, although RJ shared it with mound-mate Curt Schilling. Which brings me to a painful side note - prior to Johnson, Schilling was the author of the last CGS in a World Series, but it wasn't as a D-Back. 1993, motherfucking game five. Bow your heads in silence...

The Real Deal gets a real deal

October 25, 1990 – Evander Holyfield doesn’t get the big payday, but does get the belts, knocking out a listless Buster Douglas to take the unified title that eight months beforehand Douglas had taken from Mike Tyson.

After the big Tyson upset, Buster treated himself to many a peanut buster parfait and precious little training. He came into the Holyfield fight bloated and soft, weighing close to 250 pounds. Evander, who for the past year had been anticipating a stratospheric superfight with Tyson for the heavyweight crown, was instead faced with just the shell of the man who had knocked Iron Mike on his ass. It was easy work for the Real Deal, a third-round KO.

From there, the trajectories of the two careers parted mightily. Buster retired to a life of fried food and indolence, blowing up to 300 pounds and nearly dying in a diabetic coma before getting himself together and attempting a comeback. Evander meanwhile became arguably the most dominant heavyweight of the decade, giving us a slew of epic performances – the Foreman fight, the Bowe trilogy, both Tyson fights, and then his two bouts with Lennox Lewis, after which, if the world were a perfect place, his career would have ended.

Upon further review

I watched the Floyd/Gatti and then the Baldomir/Gatti fights back-to-back on HBO last night and I must say it was an eye-opener. Neither fight was exactly as I remembered it, and the hard evidence has dampened my enthusiasm for Floyd/Baldomir quite a bit.

1. Floyd/Gatti – Jesus. It’s a horse-whipping. It’s a man fighting the heavy bag. It's a man fighting a retarded puppy. I remembered Gatti being utterly humiliated, and in fact, it's worse than that. The fact that after such a beating Arturo ever ventured back into the ring really says something about the man. But I’m not sure what.

2. Baldomir/Gatti – This was nowhere near the whupping I remembered it being. At the time I think was surprised that Baldomir won the fight so convincingly, and in my mind that translated into utter dominance. It was actually a very competitive fight right until the last, with none other than Manny Steward saying early in the ninth, "Arturo can still win this fight." Gatti took a lot of punishment, but then so did Tata. If Arturo had boxed a little more, he could have won and saved himself a lot of pain. It was probably a curse for him that the fight was in A.C.

I wish someone would show the Zab fights back-to-back, because I think Baldomir was actually more impressive over Zab than Floyd was. But still, I doubt it would change my mind at this point. Gatti was the FASTER fighter in his bout with Baldomir. Think about that. I doubt Carlos will lay a clean punch on Floyd all night. Meanwhile, he will eat countless combinations. The only thing Tata has going for him is that head of his, which seems to made of solid granite. Then again, a couple hundred of Floyd’s one-two-uppercut's could probably knock out a Rodin. I say TKO in the 8th, and not much to enjoy before that unless you’re a sadist.

Old and in the way

The world’s first and oldest football club, Sheffield F.C., was formed on this day 149 years ago, October 24, 1857. It was the brainchild of two keen cricket lovers, William Prest and Nathaniel Crestwick (no, I did not randomly take those names from a Dickens novel). They were just looking to keep fit during the winter and thought a football club would turn the trick nicely.

The first order of business for the fledgling club was to elect a secretary and captain. It was decided that Creswick would occupy both of these offices, which must have cheesed ole Will Prest not a little bit. Headquarters were established in a potting shed. I imagine their meetings to have been like the 19th century British edition of Fat Albert.

The club was responsible for drawing up the distinctive Sheffield Rules, which do not penalize offsides or excessive pushing and award a free kick to any player who catches the ball, which sounds to us like a bloody good bit of rough actually.

Still going strong today, Sheffield F.C. plays in the Northern Counties East League, just a notch in the football hierarchy below the much-esteemed Northern Premier League. Or, to put it another way, they play in a glorified t-shirt league for grown men and their mommies drive them to games on Saturday afternoons.

But look, it’s a sodding old club innit and yeah cheers.

The No Mas Top Ten Greasiest Greasers

Having taken a hard line on steroids (MUCH more of a hard line in track and field than in baseball, but whatever) I know that this makes me a hypocrite, but I just don’t give that much of a shit about pitchers doctoring balls on the mound. I know it’s cheating, and cheating is cheating, but when I think of pitchers doctoring the ball, I immediately think of Gaylord Perry in the old Padres uniform, and I just start laughing. Combine that with the fact that suddenly, in one of the most remarkable career salvations I’ve literally EVER seen, Kenny Rogers seems like the coolest motherfucker on earth, and his little pine-tar-on-the-hand (or as he calls it “dirt”) incident last night just makes me dig him more. He's a cheater, he's a greaser... he's a gambler.

With that in mind, here’s the No Mas list of baseball’s all-time greatest Ball Doctors, in descending order:

10. Nels Potter – On July 20, 1944, pitching for the Browns against the Yankees, he became the first pitcher ever to earn himself a suspension from baseball for throwing the spitter. The umpire warned him about wetting his fingers. He did it anyway. Damn the torpedos. He got tossed and hit with a ten-game suspension.

9. Lew Burdette – Never admitted, but was widely known to have thrown one of the greatest spitters of all time. He would say to anyone who brought it up, “no, I never throw a spitter, but since you brought it up let me show you how to throw one.”

8. Brian Moehler – Caught with sandpaper taped to his thumb while pitching for the Devil Rays in 1999. Claimed it was dirt. What shall now be known as The Kenny Rogers Defense.

7. Kevin Gross – August 10, 1987, a day before the teenage Large’s 17th birthday, and Large and Large’s mom are at the Vet for a Phils-Cubs showdown. Kevin Gross on the mound for the Fightins. Around the fourth inning, the ump walks out to the mound and says something to Gross, and Gross responds by throwing his hands out as if to say, “who, me?” When he does that, he also throws something onto the infield grass. It's so obvious that even up in the 300 level, my mom and I are saying, “what did he just throw on the grass?” It was a move worthy of some cranked-out hick on Cops trying to ditch his meth stash. In this case, the stash was sandpaper, and K. Gross rode the pines for a ten-day stint.

6. Don Sutton – Suspended ten games in 1978 for ball-defacement. A known sandpaper artist. Once left a note in his glove for umpires – “you’re getting warm but it’s not here.”

5. Rick Honeycutt – This is a good one. He taped a thumbtack to his finger to cut the ball while pitching for the Mariners against the Royals in 1980. Willie Wilson saw the tack from second base and alerted umpires. Meanwhile, Honeycutt, who later claimed he didn't even know what to do with the tack in the first place, had managed to use it primarily to accidentally cut open his forehead while wiping away sweat. Gaylord Perry, he weren't. He got a ten-game vacation and a fine.

4. Preacher Roe – Everybody knew that wily Brooklyn Bum Preacher Roe threw a wicked spitball, and after he retired, he came clean about it in a 1955 SI article titled, “The Outlawed Spitball Was My Money Pitch.”

3. Whitey Ford – Whitey was known to cut the ball with his wedding ring, which seems like a perfectly good use for an otherwise useless piece of jewelry. He also loved to doctor the ball with mud, and a substance he called gunk, which was equal parts resin, turpentine and baby oil, and which Yogi Berra once legendarily mistook for deodorant.

2. Joe Niekro – Second only to The (Gay)Lord as the game’s most notorious ball doctor. When he was caught with an emery board AND a piece of sandpaper on the mound in a 1987 game, he claimed that as a knuckleballer he needed the emery board to keep his nails filed, and that he used the sandpaper for small blisters. He was awarded a ten-game bench sentence to better pursue his manacurial vigilance.

1. Gaylord Perry – The Thrilla, the Killa, the King of Them All. Perry is proof that no one really cares about ball-doctoring, because he never even pretended that he didn’t throw a spitter, and holms is in the Hall anyway. He was known as Gaylord the Greaser, he approached Vaseline about an endorsement deal, and he titled his autobiography “Me and the Spitter.” Over the years he was searched countless times on the mound but never nailed for ball-doctoring until his 20th season, 1982, when he was ejected while on the mound for the Mariners. He was one of the truly great characters of the game, the first pitcher ever to win the Cy Young award in both leagues, and one funny, and funny-looking, son-of-a-bitch. Look at him, the freakin James Bond of slippery baseballs. God bless the Gaylord, a true No Mas Hall-of-Famer.

No Mas Contest II - Come Get Some

Yo check it, this ain't no disco. Members of the motley crew below were all born today, and the first one to name them all wins No Mas merch. And look, obviously with the help of the internet, this is a doable task. But yo, without it? How many do you get? Right here I'm willing to wager that off the top of his head, I-berg only gets one. Myself I would get five, but that is because I am from Philly and I have covered both women's soccer and golf extensively (yes, yes, that's a clue). And hey, Drew, wait until late in the day to clean up, say around 6:30 or so. Let's see if we can get some other superstar up in here. Leave your entries as a comment. And may the most zardly sports zard prevail.

Vaudeville Modern

Fans booed Mike Tyson and Corey Sanders in their glorified sparring session on Friday night in Youngstown, Ohio. It was the first installment of "The Mike Tyson World Tour," the latest scheme for The Baddest Spendthrift on the Planet to try and make some money to give to the IRS.

Of course, I didn't witness the affair, but the descriptions and the photos make it look as embrassing as one would imagine - the former champ sucking wind, Sanders fatter than James Toney, both of them wearing t-shirts to cover their flab. It can't have been a pretty sight, and yet I wonder... did anyone think it was going to be? Did anyone think it was going to be anything other than exactly what it is?

Back in the golden era of boxing, fans would fork over dough just to see their heroes in the flesh, to see them hit the heavy bag or skip rope or, in the days of Dempsey and Johnson and Jeffries, just to see them say some stupid shit in a vaudeville theater. This Tyson tour reminds me of that in a way. For whatever reason you care to name, Tyson is the last heavyweight who entirely captivated the imagination of the audience. Despite the fact that he is now pathetic and fat and just a living tragedy with a tattoo on his face, people still want to see him in a pair of boxing gloves.

That's fine, almost reassuring. For me, it hearkens back to another age, when a great boxer held a power over the public that stretched far beyond the limits of his prowess in the ring. But look, if you go to see the Tyson Tour, remember - you're paying to see vaudeville and not sport, so don't boo when that's what you get. You don't boo at Burger King when they hand you fast food, do you?

Four on the floor

Four of the NBA's 50 greatest players made their professional debuts on October 22nd in history. Starting with the most recent - Robert Parish with the Warriors in 1976, Lenny Wilkens with the St. Louis Hawks in 1960 (I looked long and hard for a picture of Lenny in a Hawks jersey - if you have one, please send it along), Elgin Baylor with the Lakers in 1958, and Sam Jones with the Celtics in 1957. Give that squad a power forward and oh shit you'd have a starting five.

October 21, 1975

Don't Do It

Dear Bernard,

Please. This isn't a plea for your health. You're a cagey, wiry boxing lifer who clearly has the better half of your brain left, and what's more, you're in fitter condition than most boxers half your age. So let us be clear - we don't fear for your health, long or short-term, especially at the hands of a potato-bag like Oleg Maskaev. In all honesty, we'd be surprised if that glorified longshoreman got off one clean shot against you, no matter how much weight you put on for the fight.

It's a question of dignity. It's all the talk about your promise to your mom. It's the way you went out against Tarver, a pure fucking masterpiece, and the way you did it by throwing it back old school, talking Jersey Joe, talking Sugar Ray and Joey Maxim. In an age in which boxing seems tarnished at every turn, you've always been one guy that we could look at and say, "there's a guy who's worthy of the golden age... there's a guy who understands what it's all about."

We can accept it if you come back for a superfight, but there's no one out there who demands such a fight in your weight class. Calzaghe? Forget it. Oscar? Already had a dish of your chopped liver and onions. Roy? No no and no. And now this talk of fighting Maskaev - trust me, Ex, true boxing fans don't give a shit about that fight. You blowing up to 195 so you could give this shithead a boxing lesson on a 50 dollar pay-per-view and win a meaningless belt is not going to do a damn thing for your legacy.

So keep to your word. Your exit was flawless, you are one of the all-time greats, and no one will forget you any time soon. In the ring, you were one of the few guys that we could respect over the last decade. Be one of the few we can respect out of it.

With sincerest regards,

No Mas

Sir Climbs-A-Lot

On this day just two years ago, this here crazy motherfucker put on his Spidey suit and climbed the headquarters of a French oil company in Paris, a 32-storey building. To help him do this, he used... nothing. He just climbed the shit.

Crazy's name is Alain Robert, and he French. People call him Spider Man, for fairly obvious reasons. He climbs buildings all over the world using nothing but his innate climbing ability and his raging desire to climb stuff. He frequently gets arrested for these exploits, although I don't know why. It's hard to imagine anyone bothering to come up with a law against building-climbing.

Probably the most awesome conquest of his career is the Sears Tower, which is pretty awesome. I mean, are you getting this - MOTHERFUCKER CLIMBED THE SEARS TOWER! BY HISSELF! NO ROPE, NO PICKAXE, NO NOTHING! JUST CLIMBED ON UP TO THE TOP OF THE SEARS TOWER!

Why the FUCK have I heard the name David Blaine and yet never heard of Alain Robert until today? Holms is my new hero, straight up. Boxing, tennis, track and field... all wack. Building-climbing is the shit.

Mmm... sports

On October 18, 1924, Harold “Red” Grange gave the greatest performance ever by a football player in a single game. He led his Fighting Illini to victory over the University of Michigan by running back the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, and then breaking off touchdown runs of 67, 56 and 44 yards in the next ten minutes. In the second half, he rushed for another touchdown and then passed for one, lest anyone think he couldn’t throw. It was an outing that inspired a poem, Grantland Rice’s epic “The Galloping Ghost,” and more importantly, it was the cornerstone of a legend that allowed Grange to later become the first professional athlete to have his own candy bar.

In the annals of athlete candy, though, the Grange bar seems almost a footnote when compared to the impact of the Reggie bar. And Reggie probably never would have gotten his bar without his heroics on October 18, 1977, game six of the Yankees/Dodgers World Series. Three pitches, three swings, three home runs, and a superstar became a stratospheric phenomenon. By opening day of the '78 season, the Reggie bar was ready for its debut, handed to fans as they entered Yankee Stadium. When Jackson hit a home run in the game, fans threw the bars on the field in celebration. Ever sensitive, Jackson later said he thought they were doing this because they didn’t like the candy.

Flower Power

Here at No Mas we are dedicated to bringing you the absolute worst recordings that sports has ever offered the world, and lately we've been on a rampage. First, Monk One hits us with "Metsmerized" and now our boy Drew has dug deep to uncover a true disco gem, Guy LaFleur's "Scoring".

In this 1979 instructional classic, over a Kraftwerkian beat, LaFleur deadpans in his goofy Canadian accent tips on how to score a lot of goals. Of course, given the trashy disco vibe, it all seems to be a big tongue-in-cheek metaphor for bagging ho's, punctuated by a Donna Summer-like chorus urging all us mere mortals to go get laid - "Yes you can do it, you know you can do it... all you gotta do is try!"

But the level of detail Guy goes into makes you wonder if he was in on the joke. I get the feeling he actually thought the whole thing was about hockey. Take this, for instance -

"To keep a shot low, close the blade.
To shoot it high, all you have to do is open the blade.
Remember that backhand shots are more difficult because of the curved stick."

Maybe I'm not being imaginative enough, but I just don't see how this advice is going to help me get more pussy.

October 16, 1968

Just a little shout-out here for whitey - the white dude is Peter Norman of Australia (no relationship to the Shark). He wore a human rights badge to participate in the protest. Despite the deeply meaningful badge, however, he, uh, don't exactly look too comfortable up there.

Mr. October

On this day exactly 940 years ago, Mr. October himself, William the Conqueror, had a hell of a day for himself, leading the Normans to a ridiculous rout of the Anglo-Saxons in the heavily hyped Battle of Hastings. It was a victory that cemented W. Conk’s legend as one of the all-time greatest conquerors ever to conquer shit.

The illegitimate son of Robert the Magnificent, William was born into the conquering game. He was knighted by the King of France at the age of 15, and by the time he was 19 he was known to be seriously fucked up. But up until Hastings, he was something of a disappointment on the conquering front. Other than marrying his younger cousin, in the early part of his career he really didn’t conquer very much.

That all changed in the 1066 season. He landed in England on September 26 and conquered the shit out of Sussex. “I now take hold of the land of England!” he said, much like his conquering hero Julius Caesar when HE conquered the shit out of Sussex. At that point, Hastings was pretty much a fait accompli. He was like Tyson going into the Berbick fight.

Especially when you consider that the Anglo-Saxons were decimated by injuries. King Harold II and the Saxons had just come off a tough win over the Vikings. They were in no condition to face a side like the Normans, particularly with William at the top of his game.

The battle was tight early, with the Saxons bluffing for a while with an “offense is the best defense” approach that kept the Normans off-balance. By the end of the day, though, the ASaxon d-line was exhausted and the Normans were moving forward at will. Their archers had an unbelievable day. King Harold got the old flaming arrow up the ass sometime around nightfall and the Saxons were done.

In the post-battle press conference, William was proud, but humble. “Oddsmakers had us 7 to 1 favorites,” he said, “and I thought that was giving them too much credit. But look, I never take the Anglo-Saxons lightly. They fought their hearts out today and I give them mad respect for that.”

There was a lot of controversy after the battle regarding the fact that someone on the Normans cut off King Harold’s dick. A lot of bad feelings ensued because of that. To give you an idea of just how hard the Anglo-Sizzos took the loss, to this day they have not lost another home game.

Daddy Met

We have already reported our findings regarding the '86 Met's Kurtis Blow-inflected single Get Metsmerized. And now, thanks to our Man Monk One and the wonderful magic of the interweb, we no longer need to discuss this seminal work in the abstract.

Here it is in all its vintage splendor.

After you have had a thorough listen and contemplated the startling fact that George Foster was already willing to disrespect the Big Red Machine before the Mets had even won anything, we would like you to consider an important musical question...


Did Rafael Santana invent reggaeton?

After the off-kilter bpm debacle of the Strawman, Teufel, Aguilera et al., Rafael comes in ridiculously on time and on tempo. His lyrics don't deviate from the unexpected "(play-ing short-stop is my game") but his flow is nasty and if you listen close, I think you will you have to recognize whose style Tego Calderon bit.

Best analysis or posted remix of this track will get blessed with the goods.

Solid Gold

On October 13th, 1982, the International Olympic Committee approved the petition for the posthumous reinstatement of Jim Thorpe’s Olympic titles. In January of 1983, two of Thorpe’s children were given commemorative medals marking their father's victory in the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics.

Half Native-American and born into the Sac and Fox nation in Oklahoma, Jim Thorpe (Indian name – Wa-Tho-Huk) was certainly the best all-around athlete of the 20th century, a superstar football player and a great lacrosse player who went on to win two gold medals at the Olympics without even trying very hard (or training) before moving on to careers in major league baseball and pro football and basketball. Which is another way of saying that Bo didn't know jack shit.

The pentathlon and decathlon were both new events at the Stockholm Olympics, and Thorpe, at that point the best college football player in the nation, was new to track and field entirely. He’d participated in one pentathlon before the Games, and the Olympic decathlon would be the first of his life.



Nevertheless, he annihilated the competition. The only event in the pentathlon that he did not win outright was the javelin throw, which he’d done maybe three times in his life. In the decathlon, he defeated the odds-on favorite, Hugo Wieslander, by more than 700 points. King Gustav of Sweden declared him “the greatest athlete in the world.” He became a huge star in the States and received a ticker tape parade on Broadway.

The next year, the Olympic Committee began enforcing strict rules concerning amateurism at the Games, stripping the medals of any athletes who had received money for participation in sport prior to their Olympic appearances. It was discovered that Thorpe had played two seasons of semi-pro baseball in 1909 and 1910, and so he lost his medals, which was some shit, because those medals were solid gold, the last of their kind. After Stockholm, Olympic medals would become the gold-plated trinkets they are today.


The rules concerning amateurism had not been in place prior to the Stockholm Games, and thus were completely bogus. Thorpe died in 1953, penniless and largely forgotten. In 1982, his surviving children established the Jim Thorpe Foundation to reinstate Thorpe’s Olympic victories, and on this day 24 years ago, they got their wish. Sadly, they did not receive his original medals. Those suckers, worth their weight in gold, had long since disappeared. They got a couple of cheapass replicas instead, which is typical.

The Falcon and the Snowman

Two straight-up gangstas, born on this day in 1977. Separated at birth.

King Steagle

Bert Bell died on this day 47 years ago – October 11, 1959. That's him up there on the right with Davey O'Brien, his first-round pick for the Eagles in 1939. Bell is a big name in the PA sports universe, having once been sole owner of the Eagles and part owner, with Art Rooney, of the Steelers. He also presided over the merger of the two teams in 1943, when because of the war they were forced to join forces and play as the “Pennsylvania Steagles,” a dark dark time that both Eagles and Steelers fans have collectively decided to pretend never happened.

Perhaps Bell's most lasting contribution to the NFL is the college draft, which was his idea, and which first occurred in 1936. Bell also founded the Maxwell Football Club in 1937. That year, the club first awarded the Maxwell Award to college football’s top player – Yale’s Clinton E. Frank was the inaugural winner. In 1959, the club began awarding the Bert Bell award for the MVP of the NFL – John Unitas was the first man to win that honor.

In 1946, Bell was elected as the commissioner of the NFL, a post he would hold until his death 13 years later. He died of a heart attack while watching an Eagles/Steelers game at old Franklin Field, which has to be one of the cruelest cases of sporting patricide on record. He was inducted into Canton in 1963.

Discovering Japan

The opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics was held on this day in 1964. The choice of a final torchbearer in Tokyo was a moving one, Yoshinori Sakai, a Japanese track athlete born on August 6th, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was detonated on Hiroshima.

The Tokyo Olympics would become known as the TV Games, because of the enormous effort that Japan put into televising live events in color. It was the first television program to be broadcast across the Pacific Ocean to the U.S.

The most amazing feat at the Games probably belongs to Russian gymnast Larissa Latynina. Competing in her third Olympics, she won two gold medals and four medals total, bringing her career medal total to 18, an Olympic record that still stands today.

The big star for the U.S. was swimmer Don Schollander, who won four gold medals, the first American to win four golds since Jesse Owens in 1936. On the women’s side, Aussie Dawn Fraser won the 100m free for the third straight Olympics. From having been at the Sydney Games, I can tell you that Dawn Fraser is still a huge icon down under, gets like a Ted Williams kind of ovation whenever they trot her out, which tells you something about how the Aussies feel about swimming. Imagine what kind of ovation Don Schollander would get if he got announced at the Garden some night. Mothafuckas would be like “Don Tollefson is here… who cares if Don Tollefson is here?”

Other big names from the Tokyo Games include Bullet Bob Hayes, who won the men’s 100 with a world record 9.99, a record subsequently disallowed because it was wind aided. American Billy Mills surprised everyone by winning the 10,000m, the only U.S. runner in history ever to win that race in the Olympics. Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila became the first man to win the Olympic marathon twice. He first won it at the 1960 Games in Rome, shocking audiences by running barefoot, and becoming the first black African to win an Olympic gold medal.

Last but certainly not least, I close this missive on a most No Masian note. The U.S. only won one gold medal in boxing at the Tokyo Games. Smokin’ Joe Frazier, all of 20 years old, decimated the heavyweight division, just four years after a certain someone had won the light heavyweight gold in Rome.

The Real French Connection Had Nothing to Do with Popeye Doyle

You have probably surmised by now, No Masians, that Large is not a big hockey guy. But that has not always been the case. When Large was a little Large, he was fiercely into hockey. There was a two-year period – ’77-’78 – when it may have been his favorite sport. I date the beginning of my hockey malaise back to the Darryl Sittler era of the Flyers. I just couldn’t get my head around that one.

I was really into hockey cards. My dad and I used to play this game, the rules of which were never entirely clear. It involved arranging hockey cards on the floor like actual teams and then making line changes and moving them around and calling out things that we decided had happened. My dad rarely let me win this game, and when it came to the makeups of our teams, he was ruthless, particularly in the trades he orchestrated. He knew my weak spots and he exploited them shamelessly. He knew that I would give up pretty much anything, including any money I had on me, to have Guy LaFleur’s All-Star card. He also knew that I had to have the French Connection on my team or I wouldn’t play. This trading philosophy frequently left me with one line, a right wing and precious little else on the ice. But my team was VERY French. I was a terrible GM.

Basically I loved the French Connection because all of their names were so cool, particularly Gilbert Perreault. Also that their line had such a cool name like “The French Connection.” They sounded like such a gang, so dark and sinister. I’d never even heard of Popeye Doyle.

What prompted this spate of hockey reminiscences is pretty weak – on October 9th, 1986, Gilbert Perreault scored his 500th goal, one of only 12 men at the time to have done so. Now there’s 34, to give you an idea of how scoring has gone in the past couple decades. Must be the roids.

Today is a simply BRAWLTASTIC day...

...in postseason baseball history. Let's go to the video tape:

October 8, 1972 – Bert Campaneris leads off the 7th at the Oakland Coliseum in Game 2 of the A’s ALCS against the Tigers. The A’s are up a game in the series, and winning the second game 5-0. Tigers reliever Lerrin LeGrow beans Campy on the ankle, and without missing a beat, Campy hurls his bat at LeGrow (I have to admit I’ve always wondered why people don’t do this more often). All hell predictably breaks loose. True to form, Billy Martin, the Tigers’ manager at the time, is the first to reach Campy with a murderous sprint. Both benches clear and mayhem ensues for a while, although the brawl is not a Grade A brawltastic affair. Any brawl is at least 50% brawltastic though when it starts with a bat-throwing.

Exactly one year later to the day, some full-on 100 proof brawliciousness is achieved in Game 3 of the NLCS between the Mets and the Reds. It was the top of the fifth inning and New York was routing Cincy 9-2 at Shea – Le Grande Orange had already stroked two dingers for the Mets. Ole Born-to-Brawl himself, Pete Rose, was on first when Joe Morgan hit a grounder up the middle. Met shortstop made the force at second and crossed the bag for the turn to first and Rose took him out hard. Harrelson landed on top of Rose, gave him a little extra, Rose took exception, and the next thing you know things got all UFC. Benches cleared, lots of action, the high point being when Reds’ reliever Pedro Borbon found a Mets cap on the ground and proceeded to rip it apart with his teeth (a decision for which he is currently awaiting induction into the No Mas Hall of Fame). Then when Rose went out to left in the bottom of the inning, the fans at Shea pelted him debris and beer bottles and Sparky Anderson had to take the Big Red Machine off the field. Only a major show of force from New York's finest got the game back on, and Rose was lucky to get out of there with his life (although, knowing Rose, he was ready to fight every one of those sons of bitches and then buy 'em a beer afterward). Really a top-notch brawl on the whole, certainly in the top five all-time.

Jim Brown Speaks Out

On October 7th, 1984, Walter Payton passed Jim Brown and became the NFL's all-time leading rusher. Here's what Jim Brown has to say on the matter:

"Look here, first of all Jim Brown don’t like NO man taking nothing from Jim Brown. Motherfucker steals a hubcap from Jim Brown, Jim Brown will FIND that motherfucker, you hear?

Second of all, Jim Brown don’t like no sissy-type nicknames like Sweetness. What the fuck is that shit? Jim Brown thinks a nickname should scare motherfuckers and make them shit themselves, like “Scrotum Squasher” or “Intestine Snorter” or “Old Eats Your Spleen in Front of Your Face.” Or my nickname, which is “Jim Brown.”

But all that said, I’m cool with Walter. On the Jim Brown scale of badass-osity, in which Franco Harris is a one and Jim Brown is an eleven, Walter was a 7.6. And that’s really saying something, when you consider the fact that no man besides Jim Brown is above an eight.

Emmitt Smith, on the other hand – fuck that runt. Jim Brown played 118 total games in his majestic career. Emmitt Smith played 226. You know how many yards Jim Brown would have had if he’d played that many games. I’ll tell you how many. Approximately 78,000 yards."

Panic in Detroit

It looked a lot like Kenny Rogers, if you were in the stands
But he kept the Yanks in such delusion, he was a different man
And now the Bronx is falling quickly to the Motor City Gang...
Panic in Detroit, don’t ask for an autograph
They wished they had stayed home, but now they're on their own
PANIC IN DETROIT! (ooh ooh ooh ahhhhh…)

Yankee Nation

With the Bombers poised on the precipice of disaster, and the ARod suicide watch soon to begin, it seems fitting to make this an all-Yankee day in history to soothe the anxious souls of the Bronx.

We start on October, 6, 1936, when the Yanks polished off the Giants 13-5 to win the World Series in six. The Bombers were led by their superstar rookie, Joe DiMaggio, who went 3 for 6 on the day and notched a run and an RBI, and left-fielder Jake Powell, who was 3 for 5 with 4 RBI’s. Lefty Gomez got the win. (The picture above is Babe Ruth at the '36 Series with none other than Kate Smith - the Babe had retired from baseball the year before.)

Five years later to the day, the Yanks won another championship, beating the Brooklyn Dodgers 3-1 in game five to end the series. The real star of that afternoon was Yankee pitcher Tiny Bonham, who hurled a complete game and yielded only four hits to the Bums from Brooklyn.

Another six years and the Bombers were at it again on October 6th, and again with the Dodgers, winning game seven of the World Series over the Brooklynites 5-2. The Scooter had a big day for the Yanks, 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored. This game came just a day after the renowned game six and the great catch of Al Gionfriddo, which you may have read about somewhere.

Alas, it had to happen eventually that the Bronx curse on October 6th would be broken, and so it was in 1963, when Yankee black magic came up against its master, a Jewish fireballer with icewater in his veins. Sandy Koufax pitched a complete game against the Yanks, and the Dodgers, now in L.A., completed a four-game sweep of the World Series. Koufax allowed only one run on the day, a home run by Mickey Mantle. In the Dodgers' game one victory, Koufax had also gone nine, and for his efforts he was named the Series MVP.

Al Gionfrizzle

I know, I know, another Brooklyn Dodgers' post? Well, screw you. I'm feeling a little nostalgic for the borough on the whole, as I write from ever sunny Davis, Cailfornia.

On this day in 1947 Al Gionfriddo made one of the most famous catches in World Series history, robbing Joe DiMaggio of a game-tying three-run home run in game six at Yankee Stadium.

The Bums had come back from a 5-4 deficit and taken the lead 8-5 going into the bottom of the sixth, at which point, Gionfriddo, a light-hitting utility outfielder, was inserted into left field as a defensive replacement. With two on and two out, the Yankee Clipper came to the plate to face Dodgers' reliever Joe Hatton. DiMaggio ripped Hatton's first pitch deep into left. Dodger radio announcer Red Barber said, "back, back, BACK..." and Giofriddo leaped and stabbed the ball with a miraculous one-handed catch, a ball that surely would have cleared the low metal left-field gate. In maybe the only show of emotion in his entire career on the baseball field, Dimaggio kicked the dirt as he reached second base.

The Bums held on to win 8-6, but lost game seven and the second of six World Series they would lose to the Bombers before moving to L.A.

As for Gionfrizzle, the 1947 World Series was his last hurrah. He would never play another game, one of those minor players remember