12/4/08 One Question Pro Football Quiz
Who holds the career record for yards per carry? (Over 750 attempts, that is. No one-year wonders allowed. No players who are yet to retire.)
Before you answer, some hints. It's not who you might think likely. Not Eric Dickerson, Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders or Jim Brown. Think outside the box for this one. It isn't a player from way back when, either. He played for Philadelphia, Minnesota, and Dallas. Stumped? Think of it as a trick question. He wasn't a running back.
The answer: Quarterback Randall Cunningham who had a career rushing average of 6.42 yards per carry.
I would say this is somewhat misleading. The trick in the trick question is a quarterback gets credit for rushing yards when he scrambles, but doesn't get a rushing loss when sacked. So a lot of his rushing yards weren't from rushing plays and he gets only positive yards when scrambling. This tends to inflate the average.
So then, let's rephrase our one question quiz as...
Who holds the career record for yards per carry for a running back? (Over 750 attempts, same as above.)
Again, it's not the usual suspects. This time you will have to go back a ways, though he played after World War II. He also played linebacker. Here's your last hint, he was one of the first four Black players in pro football.
The answer: Marion Motley of the Cleveland Browns who had a career rushing average of 5.7 yards per carry.
In 1946, one year before Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Motley joined the Browns of the new All-America Football Conference as a 26-year-old rookie. At 6-1 and 232 pounds, Motley was the AAFC's all-time rushing leader and also led the NFL in his initial season in the league in 1950.
He also played linebacker and was one of the best at that position as well. His coach, the legendary Paul Brown, called him the greatest football player he ever saw. Motley was elected to the Football Hall of Fame in 1968, and named in 1994 to the NFL's 75th Anniversary All-Time Team.
10/29/08 Greeks Beat Beasts
I'm talking Spartans and Wolverines. I'm talking college football. I'm talking Michigan-Michigan State. I'm talking rivalry, and not a friendly one. This year for the first time in a while Sparty got the best of Blue at the Big House in Ann Arbor. Something that hasn't happened very regularly since the days of Biggie Munn and Duffy Dougherty when MSU was top dog in the Great Lake State.
Heated rivalries are all over the country, USC-UCLA, Bama-Auburn, Harvard-Yale. Some of these rivalry games have nicknames like the Red River Shootout between Texas and Oklahoma and the Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pitt, for instance. Then there's The Big Game between Stanford and Cal which might strike an outsider as a bit of hubris. Sometimes teams play for a odd trophy like the Little Brown Jug, the Brass Spittoon or the Old Oaken Bucket.
UM and MSU play for the Paul Bunyan Trophy, which seems rather contrived. I don't remember Paul Bunyan being from around here. You can't even drink out of it. The game doesn't have a cool nickname like the Michigan Melee, the Great Lakes Grudge Match, the Rust Belt Rumble or the Peninsular War.
Yeah, this instalment is boring and pointless. I just wanted to draw a Spartan kicking a wolverine for what it's worth.
9/24/08 End of the Road
Bye-bye and good riddence to Matt Millen, Detroit Lions president. Pack up your trophies and go back to Pennsylvania. Wait a second... what trophies? OK, you have a few Super Bowl rings as a player. As a Lions' executive, not so many.
For anyone outside Detroit, you might not know how dreadful this guy was at his job. Here's all you need to know: The Lion's record during his time here was 31-84.
But not to worry, Matt, just like you characterized the Lions' 0-3 start, it's just a little bump in the road and you should stay the course. Happy landings.
9/9/08 Cannibal on Wheels
I see Lance Armstrong is un-retiring to try to better his very impressive seven Tour de France wins. Is he the best cyclist ever? You may want to consider Belgian Eddy "The Cannibal" Merckx for that title.
Just consider, in 1969, Merckx, in his first Tour de France, pulled off perhaps the greatest feat in the sport's history winning the yellow jersey, the King of the Mountains polka-dot jersey, the sprinter's green jersey and all three time trials. These days, no rider ever wins both the green and mountain polka-dot jersey in the same tour.
In his career, Merckx won the Tour de France five times and won 35 stages:
1969 - Won Tour, King of Mountains jersey and green jersey
1970 - Won Tour, King of Mountains jersey and eight stage wins
1971 - Won Tour, won green jersey
1972 - Won Tour, won green jersey
1974 - Won Tour
In 1971, Merckx won 54 of 120 races. Between 1969 and 1973, he won 250 of 650 races. During his professional career, he won 445 of the 1,582 races he entered. That's a lot of racing and an amazing win percentage. Nobody else has even come close to that.
I take nothing from Lance Armstrong, a great Tour de France racer. You can't win seven in a row without being phenomenal. Still, for my money Eddy Merckx was the best.
One thing I don't get, what is with the spelling of his last name? Merckx?
8/15/08 Olympic Fever
Have I got it? If it's the sort of fever that makes you want to crawl into bed, pull the covers over your head and go to sleep... I got that.
Frankly, the Olympic Games don't excite me much. People running and jumping around, throwing things, lifting things. Yawn. Volleyball, gymnastics, diving, team handball, soccer, wrestling. Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn. Badminton, field hockey, archery, yachting, rowing, equestrian, fencing. Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn. How about slow motion racing in water, also known as swimming? Ya-a-a-awn. Need I go on?
What about the pageantry and special "clash of nations"? The "we are the world together competing in peace and harmony?" All fine and good, I'm sure. But doesn't make the old nape hairs stand up and take notice. Doesn't make my day, float my boat, shiver me timbers, oil my squeak, or get me all atwitter in any way.
Which isn't to say I'm against it any more than I'm against knitting or anchovies. Just ain't for me.
6/5/08 Winged Wheelers Grab Hockey Grail!
Who, what? You know, that other team in the NHL finals that didn't have Sydney Crosby. The Detroit red Wings, 2008 Stanley Cup Champions. Being from Detroit and an on and off fan since the days of Gordie Howe in his prime, I thought this deserves a mention. The Stanley Cup may not be the biggest or most important trophy in sports, but it might be the most famous by name. Quick, can you name the World Series trophy? How about the NBA trophy?
Another thing interesting about the cup, there's only one. You don't get to keep your version of it after another team wins it. Nobody has one on permenent display in their trophy case. What other trophy engraves the name of every player on the team for all prosperity? Which means the thing is now 35 pounds and in another 80 years... who knows.
I'll give away my age here by telling you I've been watching hockey since the days of the original six. Can you younger fans imagine a league with six teams? Sounds like it might be repetitive seeing the same five opponents over and over, but it meant every other team was a rivalry. Now-a-days we only see some teams once a year. In fact the finals was the first time Pittsburgh played in Detroit this season.
Congrats to the champs. Fourth cup in 11 years and 11th cup in 80 years. Maybe only third best behind Les Canadiens and the Maple Leafs but still pretty good. Especially if you lived through the long dreadful days of the Dead Things when they were a joking matter. Which makes these the good old days.
5/20/08 Going for Stanley
The Red Wings finished off the Dallas Stars and are going to the Stanley Cup finals. I can only hope they fare better than the last two Detroit teams in the finals. The Tigers in the '06 World Series and the Pistons last showing. Hey, it's good to get there, but nobody is satisfied with that. Just ask the fans of the Minnesota Vikings and the Buffalo Bills. Pray they don't get their bobble-heads handed to them by Sid the Kid and company.
Speaking of bobble-heads, how did they become so popular? It's not like they're anything new. I remember bobble-heads from when I was a lad going to games at Tiger Stadium in the 60s. They were all generic back then, no characters. All of them with a cutesy-pie, child-like face sporting a silly grin. Every one of them Caucasian, if I recall correctly. Now I guess they're campy and cool. Fads come and go and come back and go round and up and down.
I imagine this is a match-up that pleases the Hockey powers, and maybe broadcasters. You have the Penguins and Sidney Crosby who they've been promoting as hockey's version of Michael Jordan, against the Red Wings who are one of the brand names of hockey with a wide following. The down side, no Chicago or New York or Boston which the establishment media love, and no Canadian team. Will the nation care or watch? Stay tuned. And may the octopus be with us.
3/14/08 Gone Fishin'
As far as I'm concerned right about now is the doldrums of the sports season. The sports fan in me is lost at sea without a breeze or clear direction home. Football is over and the NBA and NHL playoffs are still a bit off. The post-season seedings are still up in the air, but their regular seasons are a yawner compared to football. Could be because, in a way, the entire NFL season is one big playoffs.
Consider, hockey playoffs are four rounds of seven games or 16 to 28 games. Similarly the NBA playoffs are 14 to 26 games. The entire NFL season including playoffs is 20 games max. This means just about every game, every week of the season is important and can make or break in football. Plus there's no do-over rematch in the playoffs. One bad game and you're gone fishin'.
I'm not saying football is better than basketball or hockey, but there is some aspect of attention economics here. Supply and demand and the law of diminishing returns or something. You get 82 regular season games a year in hockey. That's plenty of supply, a whole lot of fish in the sea. No wonder my attention diminishes. Landing a rare fish is simply a better trophy.
Baseball is something else again. There is one unique aspect to baseball, the starting pitcher rotation. Since pitching is such a big part of the game, in a way it's like your team is different and the opponent's team is different every game. So what might seem like 162 games of monotony, actually isn't.
Maybe.
1/23/08 Superman-nings?
The Super Bowl tilt is set, the New York Giants against the New England Patriots. I imagine this pleases the NY dominated east coast media. It also gives us several story lines which seem to interest sports writers if not fans themselves.
First we have the usual fodder for many a sports tale, the big underdog versus the overwhelming favorite. A story dating back to ancient times and the Bible, David and Goliath and all that. This is rather unexceptional, happens all the time. I can't get too excited over that.
More interesting, to my way of thinking at any rate, is the possible undefeated season of the Patriots. 19-0 with a win in the big game. This is rather rare. Happened only once before in my lifetime, the Miami Dolphins did it in the 70s. Though in two fewer games as they finished 17-0.
Another storyline is the possibility of the two Manning brothers each quarterbacking their teams to consecutive Super Bowl wins. What are the chances of that happening? Don't remember ever hearing of such a thing. Brothers may have played in consecutive championships before, maybe even faced each other. But not at quarterback, the glory position of football.
In either case they're bound to be trivia questions in the years to come. Though perhaps the Manning brothers feat would be more in the trivial vein. I would say if Eli can pull it off, it will be more surprising than what Payton did. The Giants over the Patriots? We'll see.
1/15/08 Snowbowl redux?
It'll be the New York (football) Giants versus the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game at Lambeau Field. Who'd have predicted that at the start of the season? Granted, this ain't Vince Lombardi's Packers nor Eweb Eubanks' Giants, but it seems like the 1950s all over again. Eli Manning as Y. A. Tittle? Maybe they should broadcast the game in black and white. I think it'd be cool if they wore their throwback uniforms, too.
It's funny how some people still say the New York football Giants as if the New York baseball Giants haven't been long gone to San Francisco for over 50 years now. Maybe that's a New York thing, or a Howard Cosell thing if I rightly remember him always using that wording.
It's also funny how a city the size of Green Bay can support an NFL franchise, but Los Angeles doesn't have one. And hasn't for a while. LA has had three different teams: the Rams who moved from Cleveland and moved away to St. Louis; the Raiders who moved from Oakland and then went back; and the Chargers who moved to San Diego.