Wasn’t That a Time
New York had Joe Dimaggio. Boston had Ted Williams.
And Washington, D.C.? Well, we had Sammy Baugh, the greatest football player ever to pull on a jersey.
In 1943, Baugh led the NFL in pass completions, punting and interceptions as a defensive back with 11, calling forth the tribute of legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice, "Sammy Baugh is just about the most valuable player of all time, according to most pro coaches I've talked to."
To those of us in grade school in Washington in the 1940s, Sammy Baugh was already a living legend.
A first-string all-American at Texas Christian, the lanky 6 foot, 2 inch Texan had led his team to a national championship and back-to-back victories in the Cotton and Sugar Bowls, then led the College-All Stars to a 6-0 victory over the Green Bay Packers in that time when the best of the college boys could beat the pros.
In 1937, George Preston Marshall, who had moved his team from Boston and renamed it the Redskins, picked Baugh as his first-round draft choice. As Washington Post writers Joe Holley and Bart Barnes relate in their splendid eulogy, when Baugh arrived at his first practice, coach Ray Flaherty said to him, "They tell me you're quite a passer."
"I reckon I can throw," said Baugh.
"Lets see it," said Flaherty, pointing to a player running down the field, "Hit that receiver in the eye."
"Which eye?" Baugh replied.
In his rookie year, Baugh led the Redskins to an 8-3 record, the division title and the NFL championship game against George Halas' Chicago Bears, the "Monsters of the Midway."
So icy and frozen was the turf in Wrigley Field, with a wind chill of 6 below, both teams wore rubber-soled shoes and only 15,000 fans, 3,000 of whom had taken the train out from Washington, showed up in the stands.
Led by "Bronko" Nagurski, fullback and linebacker, who would be one of only a dozen players inducted into Football's Hall of Fame charter class in 1963, the Bears were bigger, faster, stronger, more experienced and heavily favored.
Baugh took over the Redskin offense on his own five-yard line. In those days, when the ground game was the game, it was expected that Baugh would punt it out from his end zone.
Baugh went into punt formation, but, from deep in his end zone, he threw a completion to Cliff Battles, who carried the ball to midfield. Baugh then fired a short pass to Notre Dame All American and future Hall of Famer Wayne Milner, who carried it all the way for the score.
As he picked the Bears' defense to pieces, Baugh, when tackled, would be piled on by Bears players stepping on his hand and twisting his leg to stop him. Nagurski was instructed to knock him out of the game and chased Baugh even after the whistle had blown. On defense, Baugh was often the last man between Nagurski and the goal line. He played in a leather helmet with no facemask and far fewer pads than today.
On that frozen turf that day, Baugh threw for 335 yards and three touchdowns of 35, 55 and 78 yards, leading the Redskins, in their first season, to the NFL title, changing the game of football forever.
"When they call the roll of football heroes, the name of Samuel Adrian Baugh will be hovering near the top." wrote The Washington Post's Shirley Povich, who would himself become one of the legendary names of that Silver Age of American sports.
Soon the slogs in the mud for which Halas' Bears were famous would give way to the air wars conducted by Unitas, Namath, Montana, Elway, Marino, Bradshaw, Brady and Favre. But, as Holley and Barnes write, Sammy Baugh was "The First of the Gunslingers."
Amazingly, given the change in the game, many of Baugh's team and NFL records stand. He led the league in passing six times. Twice, he threw for six touchdowns in a game. His NFL record for punts, a 51.3 yard average in 1940, has never been equaled. In one game, Baugh both threw for four touchdowns and intercepted four passes. And he played for 16 seasons.
He led his team to five division titles and two NFL championships. His No. 33 has been retired. When the Football Hall of Fame was opened in Canton, Ohio, in 1963, only a dozen players joined "Papa Bear" Halas and Marshall in the charter class. Among them: Nagurski; "Red" Grange, the "Galloping Ghost"; Jim Thorpe, decathlon champion of the 1912 Olympics; and Sammy Baugh.
In 1949, Baugh came out to Chevy Chase Playground to visit the Blessed Sacrament CYO championship team. Standing in a raincoat, he fired off a pass that hit my oldest brother Bill in the numbers. Bill held onto the football. A memorable moment in family lore, thanks to a most memorable man, Sammy Baugh, dead at 94 this Christmas.
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Among other things, PB is a sports historian extraordinaire.
I LIKE THE NEW ONLINE LAYOUT OF CHRONICLES
I would prefer it if the articles was centred or alligned to the the left of the page and the headline to the article Recent Comments are posted in.
Other than that I like the layout of the website.
Can't comment on sports as apart for major boxing events like Tyson vs Holyfield or the soccer World Cup which is more due to the atmosphere than the event itself.
Sports are just booorrrriinnngggg!
Correction I ment to say alligned to the RIGHT of the Page.
The Ice Bowl was the last true NFL Championship. Rozelle's "Super Bowl" has given us Janet Jackson and the excreable Justin Timberlake, halftime Madison Ave. boondoggles by and for the lavender mafia in many respects, and pre game cocaine and fleshly debauchery from the 1988 Bengals to Eugene Robinson to Barrett Robbins. At least Max McGee delivered on the field after what were in all likliehood just a firehose of martinis.
Though I will concede that Kenny Houston's goal line stick on Walt Garrison from the early days of MNF was a singuraly worthy athletic achievement, perhaps one that even Dr. Fleming's Spartans would have been obliged to respect.
Just as interesting is that Sammy Baugh never returned to visit the imperial city of Washington. And think of what he missed. Desegregation of DC schools in '54 followed by white flight. The Martin Luther King riots of 1968 and block after block of destruction. The amusing antics of Mayor Marion Barry. Suburban sprawl from West Virginia to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The slow death of the Chesapeake Bay. A football franchise that pays maudlin tribute to a thug star player gunned down in his prime. No, I don't think Sammy Baugh regretted never going back to the artificial city of Washington, DC.
"Sports are just booorrrriinnngggg!"
I sure hope that this guy is a VIP at TRI, because many have been banned for uttering lesser profanities. And in this case, I urge minimal leniency.
@phil e
I just don't understand why people like sports.
Does anyone remember the XFL?
Maybe they should give that another try.
The only annoything thing about the layout is the left-alignment of the articles. Most sites and forums place info boxes to the left, with leaving the article right-aligned. It makes for easier visual scanning.
David Maraniss's book on Lombardi is well worth reading even for those who are not football fans. One nugget: Coach Lombardi tried to get the 7am daily Mass at Saint Matthew's Cathedral moved back so he could start breaking down film at his preferred hour. The Monsignor, perhaps he was a closet Eagles or Giants fan, would not oblige.
And go Cardinals whose QB Kurt Warner, whether you approve of his evangelical faith or not, is an honorable man of devout faith even if he does play for a gypsy franchise that broke the hearts of South Side fans when they pulled up stakes for St. Louis a few years before Mr. Buchanan took up the ink stained trade by day there haunting the jazz clubs by night. I'm sure Larry Wilson picked off Slingin' Sammy at least once at the old Sportman's Park. Even the uniform were better looking back then, as were the cars and the women.
Let me second Virgil Caine's endorsement of David Maraniss' biography of Vince Lombardi. The life of Vince Lombardi is a signpost in the decline of modern America when you compare him and his quarterback, Bart Starr, to morally squalid footballers of the current era like Tom Brady, T.O. Owens and Nick Saban.
Regarding No9, Sammy Baugh's last season was 1952. Larry Wilson's first year with rhe Cardinals was 1960.
@ David N.
Indeed Larry Wilson never suited up for the Cards when they still played in Comiskey. I can't blame that mistake on fading memory because it was before my time.
Take Mr. Leaberry's word on Marraniss's book about Lombardi even if I don't know my Larry Wilson's from my Emlen Tunnells.
Still, number 8, Larry Wilson was quite a player. I am sorry to say that I never got to watch Wilson and the equally gritty Pat Fischer play in the same defensive backfield for the St. Louis Cardinals. they were two tough defensive backs. Here in Washington, we were fortunate to watch Fischer play his last eight years or so for the Redskins. He was 165 pounds of gristle on the field but a gentleman off it, a stark contrast with the modern football player.
Great story about a great man. I wish I could have seen him play.
All his other qualities added together do not match Sammy Baugh's punting record. I have coached punters and placekickers for over thirty years, and have seen that, like golf scores, nothing much has changed except the equipment. In this case, "the equipment" means indoor stadiums and artificial turf. Baugh, punting always outside, in every kind of weather, could not only hit the ball high and far, but put it where he wanted it to go. He also did not have a new ball every time he kicked, or long-snappers who do nothing else but put the ball at the punter's belt buckle in .70 seconds. His punting record is very much like Ruth's 60 home runs, Ted Williams's .406 (I know, not the best, but the last), and Byron Nelson's eleven straight PGA Tour victories.