Tag: Jim Murray Memorial Foundation

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1997, SPORTS

Copyright 1997/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

90 Years of Ridin’ The Range

  They called him “The Cowboy” and everybody loved him.

  He never went anywhere without a 10-gallon hat and snakeskin boots. A string tie, if it was formal. He was a legit son of the pioneers, born on the lone prairie of Tioga, Texas, where the deer and the antelope play and the skies are not cloudy all day.

  He was always a happy sort. He was a telegrapher by trade in Oklahoma in his youth and, one day, as he was sitting between wirelesses, playing his guitar, fate walked in. It was the greatest cowboy of them all, Will Rogers, and he was wiring in his daily newspaper column.

  Rogers listened to a cowboy lament sung by the young man and he said, “Son, you’re wasting your time sending copy. Go to New York and get yourself into show business.”

  So, Gene Autry did. Only he went west instead of east and became one of the most beloved show business figures in the history of the movie industry. He made 94 feature films as the original singing cowboy.

  His pictures were a staple of Saturday matinees all over the world. He never killed anybody in his pictures, just lassoed the varmints and, at the fade-out, rode off in the sunset, singing about home on the range.

  He never got an Academy Award. They usually gave that to some artiste whose picture lost a million at the box office. But the exhibitors loved him and complained that they wanted a Gene Autry picture instead of one of those costume dramas where everyone went around saying “Forsooth!”

  Everything he touched turned to platinum. He was a canny businessman whose handshake was as good as a 100-page signed contract. He went away to war, even though his producer, Herbert Yates, threatened to make Roy Rodgers a star in his stead if he went through with his enlistment.

  He wrote blockbuster songs with collaborators. ‘Back in the Saddle Again’ became almost as famous as ‘Home on the Range.’ He wrote ‘That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine’ and the whole country cried. He was grand marshal of the annual Hollywood Santa Claus parade and he wrote ‘Here Comes Santa Claus,’ which almost rivalled ‘White Christmas.’ In fact, Irving Berlin stopped him on stage one night and told him he wished he could write cowboy songs, too.

  Autry pioneered what has become country and western music. But he was not infallible. One day, they brought him a Christmas song he didn’t think had a chance and he proposed to put it on the flip side of a record he deemed better. But his late wife, Ina, protested.

  “It’s the song of the ugly duckling! It’s beautiful!” she told him.

  So Gene Autry recorded ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’ It only became the biggest-selling record of all time.

  Gene bought radio stations, TV stations, bankrolled movies. He had parlayed a guitar and a saddle into megamillions and, in 1960, when baseball was going to expand, he and his partner, the late Bob Reynolds, traveled to the winter meetings to see about a radio contract with the new expansion team in L.A.

  Instead of the contract, he got the team. Baseball was overjoyed to have such an immensely popular and impeccable character. And Gene, a lifelong baseball fan, became not only the Angels’ owner but No. 1 rooter.

  He was in the locker room as often as the trainer. In a way, Gene remained a little boy all his life. I don’t think anybody ever saw him mad. In all the years I knew him, I never even heard him curse. He never acted rich. He acted as if he had just left the bunkhouse.

  He was the first owner to move his team out of L.A. But he went only 36 miles down the road to the suburbs, Anaheim. He really just wanted to get out of Dodger Stadium, where his team was like the sister with buck teeth rooming with her beauty queen sibling.

  His baseball team didn’t break his heart. Gene didn’t deal in heartbreak. He was as optimistic as a kid on Christmas morning all his life.

  But real disappointment struck on Oct. 12, 1986. In the pennant playoff against the Boston Red Sox, the Angels, leading three games to one, had two outs and a 5-4 lead in the ninth inning — Boston had a man on base — and needed only one strike to win the ’86 pennant and get into the World Series.

  Alas! The batter, a slumping journeyman named Dave Henderson, hit a two-run homer that gave the Red Sox the lead — and ultimately the pennant.

  It was one of the few unhappy endings of Gene’s career. Even that day, his team tied the score in the bottom of the ninth and had the bases loaded and only one out. All they needed was a fly ball to bring a runner — and the pennant — home. But his last two batters couldn’t do it.

  A terrible footnote to this ill-fated afternoon was that the losing pitcher, Donnie Moore, was to take his own life less than three years later.

  Gene will be 90 on Monday. A gala fund-raising dinner will be held at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage that night. Eddy Arnold, Rosemary Clooney, Willie Nelson, Roy Clark and Glen Campbell are on the bill.

  I went out to see Gene the other day. We go way back — to the days when I was a young magazine reporter and he was the king of Gower Gulch.

  Gene is in the capable hands of his lovely wife, Jackie, who protects his sunset days.

  He and I struggled through mists of memory to recall the magical days of yore. The cast of characters of Westerns are as long gone as silent pictures. Jimmy Stewart, Hank Fonda, Duke Wayne, Tom Mix and Gary Cooper have all headed for the last roundup. Only Gene remains.

  He’s still the Angels’ Angel. Keeps 75 percent of the club but Disney runs it. He still thinks of the one pitch that got away.

  Maybe it’ll always be 1945 again and he’ll be whistling for Champion after struggling out of the bonds the rustlers put on him. Maybe it’ll be the ninth inning again and this time Doug DeCinces will hit that long fly to center with the pennant flying on it.

  Did he have any regrets? I wondered.

  “Not a one,” smiled the last cowboy. “I’d like to do it all over again!”

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

——

A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100^th birthday, 1919-2019.  

Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole.  An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.

Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.

NOVEMBER 7, 1986, SPORTS

Copyright 1986/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

College Recruiting — Hypocrisy Reigns at Hapsburg State

   Some years ago, at a clinic in Santa Barbara, the great football coach, Bear Bryant, was holding forth on the arts and mysteries of recruiting. The hour was late and the bourbon flowing, and Bear was moved to drawl:

   “Well, if you got some boys who are good students and have some ability, you send them to Cal or Stanford. But if you have some whiskey-drinking, women-chasing, pool-playing studs who are ath-a-letes, why, you just send them down to ol’ Bear to win a championship with!”

   Never was the coach’s credo more succinctly put. The message was clear: College football is not monastic. It’s not even academic. Football players were the mercenaries of our society. They were at the university but not of it.

   They led lives as backward as race horses. Their every need was taken care of. They were told when to go to bed, when to get up, what to eat, how to think. Then, they were led out onto the field and expected to perform like the robots they had become.

   It was exploitive in the extreme. In ol’ Bear’s case, he even housed them in separatist dormitories. As if contact with the scholastic community of the school would contaminate them.

   In a way, their lifestyles always reminded me of that of cavalry officers in the old Hapsburg Empire. They were spoiled, catered to, revered. They had these fancy uniforms and looked beautiful in their plumed hats and epaulets. They were indulged in their alcoholic or sexual peccadilloes.

   They were Europe’s loafer class. They were held in reserve for wars. What they did between them was tolerated, winked at.

   What is different in today’s replay is that our society is shocked when the modern version of these cadets prove to be less than vicar-like in their behavior. College presidents who want victorious teams are less likely to be like the emperors of old and say, “Boys will be boys,” than they are to cluck reprovingly when their modern warrior class blows off steam in an antisocial, the law-be-damned way.

   Tracy Dodds, of this paper’s staff, traced the primrose path trod by one university, Nevada Las Vegas, in its quest of the big time in football, when it set out on the road-to-beating-Wisconsin.

   This road led, as is so often the case, through a police blotter. Some of the best varsity runs were not with a football but with stolen stereos or snatched purses.

   The University of Miami football team, No. 1 in your hearts and No. 1 in all the polls, has been alluded to in the public prints as the real “Miami Vice” by more than one chronicler.

   This is a team of whom a colleague, Edwin Pope of the Miami Herald, once wrote:

   Q. What is the first thing a Miami player hears when he gets into a three-piece suit?

   A. Will the defendant please rise?

   Of whom Sports Illustrated’s Rick Reilly wrote: “Miami may be the only squad in America that has its team picture taken from the front and from the side.”

   This is our national champion team in more than one sense.

   It is mystifying why college presidents should be so aghast at what they have wrought. They give a coach a contract for a quarter of a million, or income in that bracket, charge him with producing a winning team-and then are shocked when he picks up that team in pool halls or longshore shape-ups instead of seminaries.

   Not all coaches are of the Bear Bryant school of recruiting-and not all players are second-story men at heart.

   But whose is the hypocrisy? The coach, who knows that his charter is to win or else-else being to lose a millionaire’s style of living if he loses to State; the football player, who is taught to play the game at the homicidal level since grade school, or the academician, who wants a winning team at all costs-all costs being the enrolment of even a small percentage of semi-thugs to represent the university?

   College professors are charged with inflicting a moral code of ethics on their classrooms and are expected to turn out not only learned, but also upright members of society. But college professors are tenured. And their effectiveness is not measured each Saturday afternoon.

   If one of the school’s football coaches knew that his job was safe for a lifetime, no matter how many passes his receivers dropped or how many tackles the secondary missed, he might not be so tempted to suit up a guy whose last job was biting the heads off chickens or busting heads in a dance hall brawl.

   Frank Merriwell is dead, the way the game is played today. You get football players the same places Jesse James got his gang.

   The question is, are the nation’s best teams the nation’s best teams because they are scofflaws and hell-raisers? Or are the scofflaws and hell-raisers in the spotlight simply because they are on the nation’s best teams?

   Either way, until they start getting teams from the student body again, we won’t know. Until football coaches can be assured they’re not more than one blocked punt from going into selling insurance, they will not shrink at suiting up quasi-sociopaths or the Abominable Snowman if he can blitz.

   The defendants who should rise are the institutions themselves. The late Bear Bryant did not invent his attitude. The Bear was always good at reading defences. And figuring what the university really wanted from him. He knew he wasn’t going to get it recruiting a backfield of Rover Boys but one of Broadway Joes.

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

——

A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100^th birthday, 1919-2019.  

Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole.  An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.

Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.

From all of us at the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Today we bring you a column from 1975 when Jim Murray was honored as Irishman of the Year.

ENJOY!

——

SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 1975, SPORTS

Copyright 1975/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

‘Irish Man of the Year’

   It will come as a great surprise to all of you — to say nothing of St. Patrick, I am sure — but tomorrow night, on the natal day of all Irishmen, I am to be honored by the Masquers Club of Hollywood as the — get this! — “Irish Man of the Year.”

  I can understand their admiration. Being Irish and not making a muck of things by my age calls for a testimonial of some kind, an achievement kind of like overcoming a clubfoot.

  It grieves me they had to settle for a mere sportswriter, but that’s what’s happened to the ancestral land of poets, saints and scholars. They’ve all become harbor commissioners. You see, you have to get an Irish author young usually. Before he dies of the drink, that is. If an Irishman says he’s a writer, give him a sobriety test. If he flunks it, he’s a writer.

  They’ll be needing to know a few things about the Irish if they’re wanting to keep from making fools of themselves Monday night. An Irishman is a guy who:

   May not be sure there’s a God, but is damn sure of the infallibility of the Pope.

   Won’t eat meat on Friday but will drink gin for breakfast.

   Believes everything he can’t see and nothing he can.

   To paraphrase Cleveland Amory, is someone who’s very good at weekends, but not very good in the middle of the week.

   Is against abortion but in favor of hanging (or vice versa).

   Has such great respect for the truth he only uses it in emergencies.

   Is irrational in important things but a tower of strength in the trivial.

   Gets married for life, but not necessarily for love.

   Can argue either side of the question, often at the same time.

   Sees things not as they are but as they never will be.

   Believes in leprechauns and banshees and considers anyone who doesn’t to be a heathen.

   Can lick any man in the house he is sole occupant of.

   Cries at sad movies and cheers in battle.

   Considers funerals a festivity but weddings sad events to be put off as long as possible, preferably forever.

   Says he hates the English, but reserves his greatest cruelty for his countrymen.

   Is not afraid of dying, in fact, he might prefer it.

   Gets more Irish the farther he gets from Ireland.

   Believes that God is Irish or, at least Catholic.

   Believes in civil rights, but not in his neighborhood.

   Is against corruption, unless it’s a Democrat.

    Takes the pledge not to drink at the age of 12 — and every four years thereafter.

   Believes that to forgive is divine, therefore, doesn’t exercise it himself.

   Believes salvation can be achieved by means of a weekly envelope.

   Considers anyone who won’t come around to his point of view to be hopelessly stubborn.

   Loves religion for its own sake, but also because it makes it so damnably inconvenient for his neighbors.

   Considers a bore to be someone who keeps constantly interrupting.

   Scorns money, but worships those who have it.

   Considers any Irishman who achieves success to be a traitor.

——————

  Well, you can see we are a very perverse, complex people. It’s what makes us lovable. We’re banking heavily that God has a sense of humor.

  I, myself, have much of the good humor of the Irish, but fortunately few of their faults, or as my grandfather preferred to call them, “inconsistencies,” and I know the Masquers will want to know that I was a) a fine altar boy who never watered the wine like Mick Kingsley to cover up his samplings; b) winner of the Latin medal in grade school over a field of three others; c) the best speller in my class on the boys’ side and 73rd overall; d) a good citizen who always co-operated with the police whenever we got caught sneaking into the Rivoli Theater, because I wanted to save my companions from a life of crime and not, as they suggested, myself from a whipping; e) a Boy Scout who would have made Eagle Scout except I flunked helping old ladies across the street, and whenever I rubbed two sticks together I got sawdust.

  And you ask, how are things in Gloccamorra?!

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

——

A dozen years ago, Linda McCoy-Murray compiled a book of Jim Murray’s columns on female athletes (1961-1998). While the book is idle waiting for an interested publisher, the JMMF thinks this is an appropriate year to get the book on the shelves, i.e., Jim Murray’s 100^th birthday, 1919-2019.  

Our mission is to empower women of all ages to succeed and prosper — in and out of sports — while entertaining the reader with Jim Murray’s wit and hyperbole.  An excellent teaching tool for Women’s Studies.

Proceeds from book sales will benefit the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization providing sports journalism scholarships at universities across the country.

THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1985, SPORTS

Copyright 1985/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

They Don’t Make Owners Like They Used To

   Well, I see where the modern-day versions of the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, the baseball owners of America, have taken up the lance and are tilting at the windmills of change again.

  Now, they’ve come up with a dandy: They want the union to tie their hands and make them stop tossing their money off balconies to the hired help like drunken sailors.

  They remind me of one of those multiple murderers who leans over the body to scrawl a sign in lipstick on the bathroom mirror, “Help me!” Or “Catch me before I kill again!”

  Can you imagine captains of industry in the United States of America having to beg unions to stop them from their own pathological over-generosity? Feature John D. Rockefeller doing that, can you? J.P. Morgan? Commodore Vanderbilt? You think that’s how Diamond Jim Brady made his millions?

  I’ll tell you, they don’t make capitalists the way they used to. You talk about ballplayers not being what they used to be. They’re throwbacks to the old models, compared to owners. Pete Rose may or may not be as good as Ty Cobb, but I have to tell you that George Steinbrenner is not a patch on Branch Rickey.

  Did you know that, in 1937, just after he had batted .346 with 46 homers and 167, repeat 167, runs batted in, Joe DiMaggio requested a raise? To $45,000?

  The owner of that day was indignant. He told DiMag that Lou Gehrig had been with the club 13 years and he didn’t make $45,000. I’ll say he didn’t. He made $33,000, it turned out.

  Those were the days when men were men, owners were owners, and ballplayers were peons. You wiped your feet and took off your hat when you went to see an owner in those days.

  Those were the days when Charles Comiskey paid his athletes such niggardly wages that some of them threw the World Series to get enough to feed their families. They got banned from baseball for life. Comiskey went on being known as “the noblest Roman of them all.” He just made sure he didn’t win any more pennants. With the wages he paid, that was easy.

  You think those guys ever had to plead with unions to save them from themselves?

  What would you guess Rickey paid the great Dizzy Dean the year the pitcher won 30 games and put Rickey’s Cardinals in the World Series and won that for them? He got $7,500. You heard me. That’s no typo.

  The attitude of management in that era is pretty much summed up in an interview that Rickey granted J. Roy Stockton, recounted in the book ‘The Dizziest Season’, put together by G.H. Fleming.

  “The average salary should be $6,500 for a star player,” says Rickey. “And he should be able to play for eight years.”

  Says Stockton: “Well, Mr. Rickey, the player gives to baseball the years which, in other businesses, he would be building up his earning capacity with prospects to continue through later life. At $6,500 a year, what would he have to show for his (baseball) labors?”

  Answers Rickey: “Well, out of $6,500, a man should be able to save $5,000. Then, after eight years, he should be able to retire with more than $40,000.”

  Now, that, you have to say is an owner. An owners’ owner. A man who not only ran the club with an iron hand but promoted thrift and frugality in his fellow man and refused to put temptation in his way. You think you needed drug tests for a guy making six grand a year and needing to save five of it? I should say not!

  No, those were owners in those days. The real article. In the same book by Fleming, columnist Dan Parker weighs in with this terse graph:

  “The dope is Jimmie Foxx signed for $16,000, only three grand more than he received last year. In which case, the dope is Jimmie Foxx.”

  Foxx had led the league the year before in homers with 48, in batting with a .346 average, and in RBI with 163. Two years previous, he had hit 58 home runs and batted .364.

  You can see how ownership as a craft has deteriorated. These guys today are not owners, they’re complicated philanthropists. It’s not night ball and artificial surfaces and air travel that are ruining baseball, it’s the owners.

  What ever happed to them? When did they turn from penny-pinching, coin-biting, dollar-hoarding plutocrats and begin to be guys emptying their vaults to banjo-hitting shortstops, .500 pitchers and over-the-hill outfielders? How did they get into the position where, today, they complain of losing $52 million a year?

  They just simply stopped behaving like owners. They began to act like fans, media hypes. They began worrying about their public images.

  They got very, very careless. They let the reserve clause slip — just because it was unconstitutional. You think the old-timers ever cared about the Constitution? They let things go to arbitration, then to court.

  Still, there was nothing in law or anywhere else that said owners had to pay a million dollars a season to mediocre pitchers, that they have to get into a price war for the services of a .230-hitting infielder, that they have to settle multimillion, multiyear contracts on guys who couldn’t make their clubs in the old days, in fact, to some who can barely make them now.

  It’s as if a fever came over them. Their eyes glazed over, they got flecks of foam at the corners of their mouths, and they began to turn on their own best interests in their zeal to get better tables in restaurants and their names in society columns.

  They’re not hard-headed businessmen, they’re in large part practicing egomaniacs. They want the pennant for the prestige it will bring them, not the bucks. They want it for the recognition, the White House dinners it will open up for them, the media exposure.

  At free-agent time, they are like kids locked up in a candy store. They gorge themselves on things that are bad for them.

  Now they want the union to save them from themselves, to give them a salary cap so they can start behaving like owners again.

  Branch Rickey had a salary cap. He didn’t need any union to help him stop throwing his money around. Charles Comiskey’s was more than a cap, it was a ski mask.

  The Supreme Court ruled, years ago, that baseball wasn’t a business, it was a sport. Finally, that’s true.

  Baseball doesn’t need somebody who can break Ty Cobb’s record. It needs somebody who can make a run at Comiskey’s. It needs owners like it used to have.

  Alas, they don’t make ’em like that anymore.

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

This week we take you to Riviera Country Club for the 2019 Genesis Open.

The Genesis Open is a PGA Tour stop in southern California. It was first played 93 years ago in 1926. While it has gone by a few different names over the years, around here we just call it The LA Open at Riviera.

The 2019 Genesis Open runs from Monday through Sunday at The Riviera Country Club.

Today’s Jim Murray classic is from 1990 where he breaks down the daunting challenge that is Riviera Country Club.

ENJOY!

——

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1990, SPORTS

Copyright 1990/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

She Doesn’t Need the Kindness of Strangers

  Hogan won here. So did Snead, Byron Nelson. Tommy Bolt won his first tournament here, Johnny Miller almost his last.

  Nicklaus never won here. Neither did Palmer. But a Pat Fitzsimons did. So did a T.C. Chen. It was their only tour victories.

  Riviera is a grande dame of American golf courses. A golf tournament at Riviera is like a World Series in Yankee Stadium, an opera at La Scala, a waltz in Vienna, a war in the Balkans. Fitting. The way it should be.

  But the proposition before the house is, is she a fading old dowager living in the shadows of a glorious past, a scrapbook golf course? Today, they build golf courses with three-story traps, doglegs to nowhere, artificial lakes, railroad ties instead of real tees, man-made obstacle courses more suited to training a group of Marines than testing athletes, 18-hole Halls of Horror, as distorted as amusement park mirrors.

  Riviera may be the last golf course they held a U.S. Open on that they didn’t hopelessly try to trick up. In fact, it’s the reason why they began to remanufacture Open courses. When Ben Hogan and two other players broke the old Open record here, the U.S. Golf Association vowed never to let that happen again even if it had to put quicksand in the traps.

  The USGA was horrified, but the facts of the matter were, Hogan would have broken the Open record underwater that year.

  But that was then. Now, Hogan’s Riviera record (275) gets broken more often than the federal speed limit. Fitzsimons tied it in 1975. Hale Irwin broke it (272) the next year. Nine guys have broken the old Hogan mark in the past 14 years. Lanny Wadkins shot a 264 in 1985.

  So, is Riviera yesterday’s roses? Is it cowering in a corner with its hands over its head saying “Please don’t hit me anymore!” as the world’s best pros descend on it this week for the 1990 Nissan Los Angeles Open?

  Hardly. Riviera is still one of the world’s best pure tests of golf. It’s a golf course, not a booby trap.

  The test of a golf course is, if you play your shots right, you make birdie. If you don’t, you make bogey. It’s not a course, as Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial was before they ironed it out, where your scorecard reads “4-4-3-11,” or “3-4-9.” It doesn’t have blind shots, it doesn’t have any water on it. It doesn’t have unfair bounces. Its only eccentricity is a sand trap in the middle of one green. It’s like a British Open course. It can be handled. But you better bring your A-game. No lucky bounces here.

   They shoot low numbers at the Riv now because the equipment is better, the balls go farther, the competition is tougher. And the PGA is not interested in having one of its weekly tournaments look like a truck-drivers’ flight at a municipal track in Terre Haute.

  There were years when, in advance of the L.A. Open, the club would dutifully grow ankle-deep rough till the fairway driving area would be barely 22 yards wide. The members would struggle with it. Then, on the eve of play, the PGA’s Jack Tuthill would arrive, take one look at the narrowing and order “Cut it back!”

  Riviera is nobody’s pitch-and-putt patch. Lanny Wadkins shot 264 here in 1985. But he shot an 84 in a third round only a few years earlier. When the weather cooperates, Riviera can be rewarding. When the wind blows off the sea (or land), it can be as penal as Alcatraz.

  Riviera is not some parvenu in the neighborhoods of the golf world. It is not a mass of insecurities like some resort course that feels it has to be just this side of a climb on Mt. Everest to command respect. Riviera knows what it is and where it belongs. Its ego is not bruised by 63s. Like the Brits, it can say, good on ya, mate!

  They are in order:

  No. 1 — If there’s an easy hole at Riv for the pros, this is it — 501 yards to a big green from an elevated tee. You have to get your birdies here. If you don’t get birdie or eagle on the last day, forget it. In one memorable L.A. Open duel, Hale Irwin and Tom Watson both eagled this hole on the last day. You’ll hate to leave it. It’s like saying goodbye to Kathleen Turner.

  No. 2 — The golf course starts here. A 460-yard par four that the members play as a five. Weiskopf was lying four in a fairway trap here one Open when he suddenly realized he had the flu. He must have. From the look on his face, his temperature must have been 104 and his blood pressure 220/90. This hole can give you the flu. This hole can give you schizophrenia.

  No. 3 — Looks easy. So did Buster Douglas.

  No. 4 — Hogan said it was the toughest par three in America when the wind was blowing. The wind is always blowing. I asked Snead what he used here one Open. “I cut a little driver in there,” he said. “You either make two or five.”

  No. 5 — You’ll never believe it’s only 426 yards when you play it. You know how they name holes at the Masters the “Flowering Crabapple” or the “White Dogwood”? They should name this hole “Help!”

  No. 6 — It has a trap in the middle of the green. I love it! Greatest invention since the thumbscrew. I’d give a week’s pay to see Curtis Strange get in it.

  No. 7 — Hit it straight. Also, hit it left because everything slopes to the right. Don’t hit it too far left or you’ll have the ever-popular tree-root shot. Broken more clubs than Tommy Bolt.

  No. 8 — Looks boring. So did Lizzie Borden. Gary Player looked at it for the first time and said, “Where is the fairway?” There isn’t any, Gary. It’s all trees. Call this hole “Tarzan.”

  No. 9 — You can spray off the tee. If your second shot is short, kiss your act goodbye. Uphill all the way and no green to speak of.

  No. 10 — Looks like a long par three (306 yards). It’s evil. Try frontal assault and you can go back and forth across peninsula green till the sun sets. Lew Worsham did in the ’48 Open, and he was defending champion.

  No. 11 — At least it’s a par five. If you can drive the ball through a keyhole, you’re all right. Green is about the size of Rickey Henderson’s strike zone. And you know what that is.

  No. 12 — Bogart used to sit under the tree that guards the left side of this green with a thermos full of something nourishing. It’s like sitting next to a flooded-out railroad trestle and waiting for the trains to come. Ghoulish.

  No. 13 — Tom Watson hit two balls out of bounds here when he was leading one year. Call this hole “Jail.” Hit it in the trees on the left and you’ll need a court order to get out.

  No. 14 — A par three, it says here. Any more sand and you’d need a camel. Better make two here.

  No. 15 — This hole has the soul of a serial killer. It’s long (450 yards), doglegs right and has more cleavage in the green than Dolly Parton. It’s like putting in a bathtub where the hole is on the side.

  No. 16 — I once made a hole-in-one here. This hole should be ashamed of itself.

  No. 17 — Long, downwind, and you can play drivers off the fairway. But Fuzzy Zoeller once four-putted himself out of the tournament on this hole. You can be aggressive with this hole. You can kick a sleeping lion, too.

  No. 18 — Ah! The Enforcer! The keeper of the keys, defender of the faith. If Jack Nicklaus could have just parred this hole four days, he would have won two tournaments — including the PGA. It’s a fortress. The fairway sits above the tee 50 yards. If you need a three here to win, bring a rosary.

  Well, that’s Riviera as it looks from here. Shoot to kill. The old girl hates to be patronized.

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1988, SPORTS

Copyright 1988/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

He Forgets His Sock but Still Gives a Boot

   He’s the most devastating offensive force in the history of the Rams. A regular juggernaut. Care to identify him?

   Eric Dickerson? Naw. Eric would have needed 37 more touchdowns to catch this guy. Crazy Legs Hirsch? No contest.

   Bob Waterfield? Well, you’re warm. In fact, this guy just passed old Buckets on Sunday, becoming the most prolific scorer in Rams history.

   They didn’t stop the game, bronze the ball. Nobody made any speeches. No standing ovations. Not even much of a sitting one. The ref just threw his hands up in the air, as usual, to signify that mighty Mike Lansford had scored again. Just tee it up and let’s get on with the game.

   You look at his statistics and you figure Mike Lansford is somewhere between 6-6 and 9-feet tall, that he weighs in the neighborhood of 255, with sprinter’s speed and answers to the nickname of Iron Neck, or Magic or maybe even Bronco.

   Well, Mike Lansford might just be 6 feet or a little over, he weighs just about 180 and he has never carried, caught or even fallen on a football in a league game in his career. He has never touched a football with anything but his bare foot in years. He can run just faster than junk mail and has all the moves of a cable car.

   He has the perfect set of muscles for his job — none. He buys his shoes one at a time. He doesn’t have to wear pads. He not only doesn’t need cleats, he doesn’t even need shoes. He’s the only guy on the team who hopes somebody runs into him as he is scoring. It means he gets another chance in case he misses.

   You know how some guys spend their lives working out with weights, on exercise cycles? They have to watch their diets, too. But Mike could be eating a hot fudge sundae or a chili dog on the sidelines and it wouldn’t make any difference. No one cares what he runs the 40 in. His longest run of the day is to the sidelines.

   The Rams couldn’t win without him. They have scored 369 points this season and Lansford has scored 109 of them. Often they were the most important 109. With an offense that seems to get vapor lock in the heat of the opposition goal line, the Rams need their regular scoring machine.

   The Rams have scored 27 touchdowns passing, 15 running and one on an interception, but the season would be over if it weren’t for the four field goals Lansford kicked in the Super Dome to beat New Orleans, 12-10, on Oct. 30. Last season, his 3-pointer beat the St. Louis Cardinals on the last play of the game. Five of his field goals this year and 27 in his career have been longer than 40 yards and four have been more than 50.

   Yet, he’s the only guy on the team who makes the fan wince when he goes in the game. This is because Lansford belongs to that hardy breed who go in the game shoeless and sockless.

   “It looks as if it had to hurt like hell,” admits Lansford.

   It looks as if it would demolish toenails, followed by toes and the arches and the rest of the bottom of the leg.

   Actually, kicking barefoot is good for the sole, Lansford explains. First of all, you kick the ball with your instep, not your toe. A bare foot has less chance of introducing a variable into the impact, a lace, a sock, a scuff.

   You have to keep your foot dry. You also have to keep it warm. You can wear leg-warmers, like a ballet dancer, in sub-zero sidelines, but you have to hope the snap is quick when you’re standing on a pile of tundra in Green Bay or Cleveland in December or January.

   This modern-day Shoeless Joe went to this impractical tactic for the most practical of reasons: accuracy.

   “In college (where he once made 73 consecutive extra points for Washington), I was kicking off a 3-inch tee. When I got to the pros (where the tee is not allowed), I was kicking the ball right into the backside of my center. I knew I had to get some trajectory. Or get a truck.”

   Taking off a shoe was a small price to pay. Mike Lansford would have taken off the rest of his uniform for an NFL contract.

   “I kick for the mortgage,” he explains succinctly.

   He was also, as it turns out, kicking for the Rams record book.

   You would think, given its importance, that teams would pick kickers as carefully as they do quarterbacks and linebackers. The rest of the Rams specialists cost the front office a bundle in cash, trades, draft choices. Mike Lansford cost them bus fare.

   Cut after tryouts with the New York Giants, Raiders and San Francisco 49ers, this barefoot boy came walking onto the Rams practice field with his shoe in his hand and has delivered 574 points to the team to date, one more than the heretofore all-time leader, Bob Waterfield.

   Waterfield did it the hard way —13 touchdowns rushing besides the 315 points after touchdown and 60 field goals. Waterfield also threw 99 touchdown passes, whose points were ascribed to receivers. Lansford has 217 extra points and 119 field goals for 574 points, one more than Waterfield.

   At 30, though, the Rams’ barefoot boy is at the bare beginnings, so to speak, of his career. Running backs, even quarterbacks, are on the back nine at that point in their careers. Kickers are only at the third or fourth tee. They don’t have to worry about knee or neck or shoulder injuries. Their worst occupational hazard is an occasional blood blister on the instep or the danger from infection.

   “Sometimes, sand on the field can get between the ball and your foot and can scrape the skin,” Lansford says.

   Lansford’s ambition would be to kick in a domed arena, as does New Orleans’ Morten Andersen.

   “There’s no wind and no grass to interfere with the (holder’s) ball plant,” he says.

   Also, your foot doesn’t turn blue.

   Youngsters growing up in football usually have idols such as running backs, wide receivers, passers, even linebackers, guys nicknamed Slingin’ Sammy, or the Jet, or Mean Joe. Lansford’s idol was a guy named Bruce, kicker Bruce Gossett, whose record strictly for kicking — 571 points —  Lansford also broke Sunday.

   Mike knew who Waterfield was, all right. But Bob’s trouble probably was, he broke the kickers’ code. He got his uniform dirty.

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1980, SPORTS

Copyright 1980/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

A Ram of Yesteryear

   COSTA MESA – So the Rams are in the Super Bowl? That’s Page 1 stuff. No way to keep it secret.

   Still, it would be nice if you could keep it private and not noise it about in certain sections of the community. I mean, I wonder if you could keep it from Merlin Olsen if at all possible? By all means, don’t talk about it in front of Deacon Jones. Lamar Lundy. Rosey Grier. Don’t even tell Charlie Cowan.

   I think Roman Gabriel, John Hadl, Ron Jaworski, even, would just as soon not know anything about it.

   Try not to let George Allen in on it, either. I think Tom Mack and Joe Scibelli would be better off in the dark. Apologize to Chuck Knox while you’re at it, Jack Pardee, Maxie Baughan. See if you can make it up to Ken Iman for all those nosebleeds he took without making it to a Super Bowl.

   All those years when the Rams were a great football team and were 12-2, 10-3-1, 11-3, 12-2, and they never made it to the Super Bowl! I mean, those were the years of the “Fearsome Foursome,” the “Secretary of Defense.” Those were days when we used to beat the Lombardi Packers on a blocked punt and still couldn’t get to the Super Bowl. Those were the days when 13 of 22 starters on the team went directly to the Pro Bowl. But they couldn’t go to the Super Bowl.

   A blocked field goal on the 30-inch line, a movement in the line when the Rams had third and a yard to go for victory, a rainstorm which turned the Coliseum into a tar pit. The Fates invented ways to keep the Rams out of the Super Bowl.

   Now, they’re going there with a bunch of kids who don’t know how tough it is. The 9-7 Rams are going to the summit of all football where 12-2 teams couldn’t tread. Guys who have been on the Rams only three years talk of the “frustration” of not going to the Super Bowl. Sure, it took Jack Youngblood eight years. But he did make it. George Allen won 49 games. Chuck Knox won 54. They always ended up in mud, snow, sleet, or zero-degree games, a touchdown or a field goal short. Ray Malavasi got there on his 21st victory. In the sunshine at Tampa Bay. Deacon Jones didn’t even know Tampa Bay was in the league. 

   It has always been considered a crime that Sam Snead never won an Open, and Ernie Banks never played in the World Series. But that’s practically a carriage of justice compared to Merlin Olsen’s never playing in a Super Bowl.

   There’ll be no No. 74 at all for the Rams in the Super Bowl. That number has been retired. But there’ll be a man in his old spot at defensive tackle.

This will be no beardless youth who thinks Super Bowls come down the chimney on Christmas night, or are hung on the fireplace, or hidden under a bush by the Easter Bunny.

   Michael LaVern Fanning knows all about Super Bowl frustrations. He hasn’t played in 208 games (108 of them consecutively) for the Rams as has Merlin Olsen. But, when Mike Fanning joined the club in 1975, a fine broth of a boy out of Notre Dame, 6-6, 248 pounds, he had a Super Bowl of his own going. All he had to beat out for a job was Merlin Olsen, or Larry Brooks, or Cody Jones, or Jack Youngblood, or Fred Dryer if he wanted to play end — which he didn’t.

   He broke his leg in preseason. And he had just as much chance of cracking that lineup after he broke it as before. 

   Although he had been all-everything at Notre Dame, including collegiate wrestling champion, Fanning was just another rookie candidate for the suicide squads. That line was harder to get into than the Kremlin. The Rams No.1 draft choice spent his afternoons blocking for field-goal kickers, breaking the wedge on kickoffs, the football equivalent of a penalty killer in hockey, or the guy with the dynamite in a bank heist.

   “I got to rush the passer some,” he recalls. But if there was to be any ambiguity in the play, any chance of other than a straight drop-back pass forming, Fanning was not to be trusted. 

   Mike felt like a 23rd vice-president who must wait for the other 22 to die or retire. His only chance of cracking the lineup was a calamity. He started no games in 1975 or ’76 or ’77 and only two in ’78.

   Mike Fanning played in every game this year (after Cody Jones ripped an Achilles tendon in a preseason game). Mike totalled 38 tackles with 13 assists, eight sacks (downing the quarterback in the act of passing) and recovered a fumble.

   Mike had always been an outstanding pass rusher. But the run in the pro game had him struggling. “I got trapped, suckered, influenced, fooled and doubled,” he admits.

   Of course, a pass rush is a good thing to have if you only have one thing. It has always been a Ram hallmark. “Ain’t nobody gonna beat us with the run,” Deacon Jones used to boast. “They got to beat our pass rush to win and they know it.” Fanning is thus in the great tradition of wily, swift Rams quarterback pass-rushers. “Anybody can throw the ball if he can sit back there all day and not worry about going down under the rush,” Fanning agrees.

   Fanning is less worried anyway by the Pittsburgh Steelers trappers than he is by their tailors. “You see, the biggest move the pass rusher has is, grab the offensive linemen. Now, what they do, is they take their jerseys and tailor ‘em down so they’re skintight. Then they take some two-carpet tape and tape them down. So there’s nothing to grab. It’s like trying to grab somebody by the tattoo.”

   If the Steelers could be persuaded to play in floppy overcoats, or the kind of oversize sweaters worn by pipe-smoking college professors, the defensive linemen could toss the blockers around like dock stevedores with cargo. “Either that or just give us hooks,” Fanning suggests.

   Football teams come out today in the kind of figure-hugging costumes Olympics swimmers or Vegas chorines favor. It’s not to show off their physiques, it’s to get the claws of 260-pound linemen to slip and slide. Soon they’ll come out greased like channel swimmers. 

   Fanning will be one of the new breed of Rams who succeeded where all the old pictures on the wall failed for 14 years, the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed youngsters who think making the Super Bowl is a snap. I mean, all you have to do is beat Tampa Bay, right? Not Minnesota in the snow and ice, not Dallas in Texas with the shotguns and the flexes. Tampa is younger and greener than you are — and the temperature is the same as Pasadena.

   If Mike Fanning can’t get through the skin-tight uniforms to get at Terry Bradshaw, he has a safer way. He can always go back to polo. Mike keeps a string of polo ponies near his Oklahoma home and it’s the kind of sport you can play until you’re 50. The horse does all the work, including the blocking. There’s free substitution, and horses don’t resort to sucker plays or influence traps. Horses are straightforward characters, unlike Pittsburgh Steelers who are like corner pitchmen by comparison.

   The Rams will be quarterbacked Sunday by a guy starting his sixth pro game. One running back will be starting his 13th pro game ever. A rookie will start at guard. In his 10th game. 

   So, No.79, Mike Fanning is almost the only one out there who knows what Merlin Olsen looked like. But Merlin, Deacon, Cowan, Scibelli, Mack and all the old crowd must see they went about it the wrong way. It never occurred to them the way to the Super Bowl was to lose seven games. They thought you fired the coach when that happened. That’s what happened the only time they did it.

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

   History repeats itself, as it always does. The Los Angeles Times hired Arash Markazi, a 2002 USC Murray Scholar, on Jan. 15, 58 years after Jim Murray, then age 42, penned his first column (Feb. 12, 1961) as the lead sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

   “When I was growing up, we got the Los Angeles Times every morning. As much as I loved watching the Lakers and Dodgers, I looked forward to reading what Jim Murray and Allan Malamud had written about the teams, just as much.”

— Arash Markazi

——

February 12, 1961, SPORTS

Copyright 1961/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

In This Corner, With the Pen, is the New Guy

   I have been urged by my friends — all of whom mean well — to begin writing in this space without introducing myself, as if I have been standing here all the while only you haven’t noticed. But I don’t think I’ll do that. I think I’ll start off by telling you a little about myself and what I believe in. That way, we can start to fight right away.

  First off, I am against the bunt in baseball — unless they start bunting against the ball John McCraw batted against. The last time the bunt won a game, Frank Chance was a rookie.

  I think the eight-point touchdown has had it. It’s added nothing to the game unless, of course, you count the extra bookkeeping.

  I’m glad the Rams traded Billy Wade. I won’t say Billy was clumsy, but on the way back from the line of scrimmage with the ball he bumped into more people than a New York pickpocket. I have seen blockers make ball carriers look bad. Wade was the only ball carrier I ever saw make the blockers look bad. Those poor guys were getting cross-eyed trying to look for him out of both corners of their eyes. They never knew which way he went.

  The play usually ended up with some mastodon of a defensive end holding Billy upside down by the heels and shaking him. Like a father with a kid who’s just swallowed a quarter. Billy gave up more ground, faster, than Mussolini at the end of the war. The Chicago Bears better put his shoes on backward or he’ll dance right out of that little ballpark of theirs. I expect him to be the only quarterback ever tackled for a loss in the seats.

  I think Jim Brosnan is the best writer in baseball. I think Cincinnati would be gladder if he were the best pitcher.

  I know what’s wrong with Eisenhower’s golf swing, but I’ll be cussed if I can figure out what to do with that spasm of mine. (Ike lifts his left leg; I think I leave my feet altogether.).

  I’d like once more (if Jimmy Cannon will pardon me) to see Elroy Hirsch and Tommy Fears going out on a pass pattern and looking back for a Waterfield pass. Throw in Jimmy David on defense and I’ll pay double. David was the only guy I ever saw who could maim a guy while pretending to help him up.

  I hope Steve Bilko has lost weight. The last time I saw him in the Coliseum, the front of him got to the batter’s box full seconds before the rest of him. If he were batting left-handed, part of him would be halfway to first base before the pitch came in. Even then, the umpire could beat him down there.

  I don’t think anyone should be surprised at the disappointing showing of our Olympians in the ’60 Games. There is an old adage, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” So our boys did. The coaches didn’t like it, but the girls did.

  I think almost every pitcher in the big leagues has a good spitball but I prefer to see Lew Burdette load one up for the batter in a tight situation and then make believe he’s only wiping his chin. The only way you can be sure the ball is wet is if the ump calls for it and Lew rolls it to him.

  I think the Washington Huskies football players were more enterprising than a bunch of Dead-End Kids in an empty candy store. But I still think the guys who are beating Minnesota over the head for claiming (correctly) that it had an edge in the second half in the Rose Bowl are the same guys who would be crying “Washington was robbed” if the roles were reversed in that game.

  I have been held up to you as somewhat of a joke athletically, but I want you to know I had one superlative as a college freshman baseball player. I was the most nervous right fielder our team ever had. Our coach, Ralph Erickson, had only four fingers on his right hand and the prevailing theory was he had the regulation five until he saw us and started biting his nails. I caught a fly once and got so carried away I almost decapitated our first baseman on the throw-in. As I remember the first baseman, it wouldn’t have affected his play much. He didn’t use his head a great deal.

  I won’t say the kids today are softies but I’d like to see them learn to play Little League with the ball I had to play with. This was a “dime rocket,” the cover of which came off after the first solid hit and it had to be wrapped in thick friction tape. I’d like to see Duke Snider throw it out of the Coliseum. In fact, I’d like to see him hit it past the pitcher’s mound on the fly. I have bowled with lighter balls.

  I was gratified by the reaction to the announcement Jim Murray was to write a sports column, an immediate and interested “Who??!” Mel Durslag did throw a bouquet, though. I’ll read the card as soon as I take the brick out.

  I came to Los Angeles in 1944 (the smog and I hit town together and neither one of us has been run out, despite the best efforts of public-spirited citizens) and my biggest sports disappointment was the 1955 Swaps-Nashua race, which I helped arrange. I have never believed Bill Shoemaker was property tied on his mount that day when they sprang the barrier. But I will ask Bill — and believe what he says because his next lie will be his first.

  I really don’t understand why the Angels haven’t signed up Bob Kelley to do their broadcasts. He’s the only guy in town who can prevent Vin Scully from throwing a shutout.

  I hope Bill Hartack, the jockey, continues to take himself off sore horses. I know it irks the stewards but I’d rather have them sore than the horses — especially if I’m betting on the race because if there’s one sore horse in the field, I’m usually on him, handicapping it all the way.

  I couldn’t tell from that letter of Billy Wade’s whether Don Paul wanted Waterfield’s job or just wanted him to eat in his restaurant.

  Every sportswriter is expected to make a prediction and because I would like to leave the game ahead, I will predict the Angels will not win the pennant — this year, anyway. On the other hand, the way they have been messing around with baseball, they just might change the game to loball. Then, the Angels would be a threat. Just my luck.

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

———

What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

Like us on Facebook, and visit the JMMF website, www.jimmurrayfoundation.org.

JANUARY 13, 1969, SPORTS

Copyright 1969/THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY

JIM MURRAY

Don’t Look Now . . . but the Funny Little League is No. 1

   MIAMI — First of all, are you sitting down? Be sure who you tell this to or they’ll think you’ve been drinking. 

  On Sunday afternoon, the canary ate the cat. The mailman bit the police dog. The minnow chased the shark out of its waters. The missionaries swallowed the cannibals. The rowboat rammed the battleship. The mouse roared, and the lion jumped up on a chair and began to scream for help. The first thing that’s going to surprise you about the Super Bowl game is the closeness of the score. But, hang onto your hat. If you think THAT’S a shocker, wait till I get to the punchline.

  Then — come closer and let me whisper this — the NEW YORK JETS are the Super Champions of football! Cross my heart! That funny little team from that funny little league they left on pro football’s doorstep a few years back. You know the one — the team whose checks bounced and so did their quarterbacks.

  And you know that smart-alecky quarterback they got for $400,000 and the NFL sat down and like to have busted laughing? Well, turns out he was a bargain. You know, they called him ‘Broadway Joe’ and he went around wearing women’s fur coats and he closed up more bars that Carrie Nation? A sleep-to-noon guy who had been a model youth. He didn’t smoke till he started kindergarten and he never drank in high school till the sun went down. And when someone said the Jets had a “Boozer” in the backfield, someone that it was a description instead of a name.

  They said (Normal Van Brocklin did) that Broadway Joe would be playing in his first professional game in the Super Bowl. Well, he likes it better than that game they play over in that other league. He got beat three times over in that league.

  They said the Jets were the third-best team in their own league. If so, it’s a good thing they didn’t send the best. Everybody would have switched over to Heidi.

  I would say, on the basis of what we saw Super Sunday, the NFL is a couple of years away. I mean they have INDIVIDUAL performers, but the AFL appears to be better in teams.

  Joe Namath said that the Colts’ Earl Morrall would be third string on the Jets, but he may have overestimated him. Of the nine passes Morrall completed before his coach invited him to spend the rest of the game resting up for next season, only six went to his own team. He has a good arm, but they might want to check his color perception.

  It could be said to be a contest only if you consider a public hanging a contest. As usual, if you want the executioner, you have to give points. But the funny thing in this game was, the books put their expert eyes on this match and said you could have the Jets and 17½ points and there was no limit to what you could bet. If you wanted Baltimore, you had to come up with 18 points. And they wouldn’t take a check. Bookmakers are perched on ledges all over America today. For them, the score of the game at the payoff window was Jets 33½, Colts, 7.

  I would say the Colts were terrible, but that would be an overstatement. They weren’t that good. It’s hard to believe this team went through 30 NFL games and only lost two in the past two years.

  The Colts started the game as if the other guys hadn’t showed up yet. The first three plays gained 36 yards. It looked as if the only thing that might happen to them is that they might get bored to death, or have trouble staying awake. Then, they gradually lost their poise, their tempers, and, finally, the game. Namath picked them apart as though they were a safe he had memorized the combination to. The right side of the Baltimore line was as wide open as a Yukon saloon on a Saturday night. Jet halfbacks were fighting to get to run through it or by it.

  The Jets’ locker room was awash with the heady bubble of gloat. The Jets wear their names on their backs like most of the teams in the AFL. The other league grudgingly wears numbers. They figure anybody who doesn’t know who they are must be as out of touch as Judge Crater.

  “Where was their defense? Didn’t it show up?” an ex-nobody in the Jets dressing room named Earl Christy demanded. Larry Grantham, who has been in the league on this team since the days when it wasn’t even safe to take cash (without biting on it), was trumpeting, “Let them have the College All-Star game.”

  “$15,000 apiece!” glowed Gerry Philbin.

  Five years ago, you could have bought the franchise for that — maybe the league.

  It was like the turkey having the farmer for dinner, the rabbit shooting the hunter, the dove pulling the feathers out of the eagle.

  The worm had not only turned, it was chasing the early bird right down the street and up a tree. And Broadway Joe can be singing the old Jimmy Durante tune, “You Know Darn Well I Can Do Without Broadway, But Can Broadway Do Without Me?”

  Even at 400 grand, he may be the biggest bargain in Manhattan since they gave those Indians all those beads and started to put in subways. As for the NFL, it will have to start building to catch up.

Reprinted with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 60753, Pasadena, CA 91116

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What is the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation? 

  The Jim Murray Memorial Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, established in 1999 to perpetuate the Jim Murray legacy, and his love for and dedication to his extraordinary career in journalism. Since 1999, JMMF has granted 104 $5,000 scholarships to outstanding journalism students. Success of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation’s efforts depends heavily on the contributions from generous individuals, organizations, corporations, and volunteers who align themselves with the mission and values of the JMMF.

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