Super Bowl V: A Personal and Historical Memoir-part 3: Blunder Bowl or Hard Hitting Defense

Chuck Howly is the only Super Bowl MVP from a losing team. He intercepted Morrall in the endzone early in the fourth quarter

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report

Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Larry Cole attempts to swat an Earl Morrall pass in Super Bowl V

While Super Bowl V was a great memory for me personally as a Colts fan, the game itself was not seen in the same light among football historians and media people who covered it at the time. Sports Illustrated dubbed the game, “The Blunder Bowl.”

I can certainly understand why because in that game both teams combined to commit 11 turnovers. The Colts committed seven of them—which is still a Super Bowl record for  turnovers by a winning team. The Cowboys committed 10 penalties for 133 yards. It was a game that probably set offense back about 10,000t years.

That’s because both teams were among the top 10 in the NFL in defense-the Cowboys had the NFL’s fourth rated defense and had future Hall of Famers like cornerback Mel Renfro, Herb Adderly and defensive tackle Bob Lilly. The Colts, who sported the NFL’s ninth ranked defense, had guys like defensive end Bubba Smith, middle linebacker Mike Curtis (who I think should be a Hall of Famer) and the man known as the “Mad Stork” linebacker Ted Hendricks.

Cowboys middle linebacker Chuck Howly was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. He is the only player from a losing team to be the MVP of the Super Bowl. He reportedly refused to accept the award because his team didn’t win the game.

According to people like Jim O’Brien and the late Cowboys head coach Tom Landry, the game on the field was extremely phyiscal. Said Landry of that game:

“I haven’t been around many games where the players hit harder. Sometimes people watch a game and see turnovers and they talk about how sloppy the play was. The mistakes in that game weren’t invented, at least not by the people who made them. Most were forced.”

Oddly enough, the players from that 1970 Colts team did not view their victory over Dallas as something that made up for losing Super Bowl III to the New York Jets. Bubba Smith reportedly said he doesn’t wear his Super Bowl Ring because it was such a sloppy game. The Colts from that team, especially those who played against the Jets, saw the win over Dallas as a bittersweet win because the game was sloppy.

Guys like Mike Curtis and Bubba Smith say they still feel the sting of that Super Bowl III loss and not even the win in Super Bowl V was enough to ease that pain. A lot of Colts fans (myself included) have never quite gotten over that game.

NFL films guru Steve Sabol once told the story about Colts head coach Don McCafferty who was  being asked about what he wanted on the Colts Super Bowl ring. Names like excellence, pride or poise were thrown out there. However, McCafferty, the man known as Easy Rider, preferred a more truthful, honest inscription: “Thank God!”

On the other side, there were some interesting firsts in that game. It was the first Super Bowl played on artificial turf and it was the first year that Vince Lombardi’s name was inscribed on the Super Bowl trophy. It was the first time the winner of the Super Bowl did not score first. It was the slimmest margin of victory for the winning team at that time. It is one of six of the 43 Super Bowls that was decided by three points or less. You had what was then the longest touchdown pass in Super Bowl history—Unitas’s tip drill pass to tight end  John Mackey that went for 75 yards.

And last, but not least it was the first Super Bowl to end on a last-second field—something that would not happen again in a Super Bowl for 20 years in Super Bowl 25 when Buffalo’s Scott Norwood missed a 47-yard field goal to give the New York Giants a one-point win.

Super Bowl V-A Personal and Historical Memoir Part 2: 1970 Colts and Cowboys defined by Sixties Playoff Frustration

Jim O’Brien celebrates after kicking winning field goal to beat Dallas in Super Bowl V

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report

What makes Super Bowl V interesting to me from a purely historical and somewhat metaphysical viewpoint, the destinies of the Colts and Cowboys are bizarrely intertwined with one another based on their experiences in the 1960s. Both teams during that decade had a penchant for coming up spectacularly short in the big game—they both shared the same nemesis—the Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns.

As ironic as their paths were in the 1960s, it should be noted that the Colts were originally the Dallas Texans franchise (1950) that relocated to Baltimore in 1953.

Baltimore’s journey of postseason futility in the 1960s began on the cold field of Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. Winners of the NFL’s Western Conference, the Colts came in with a 12-2 record and the Browns won the Eastern Conference with a 10-3-1.

The Colts were a seven-point favorite over a Browns team with was reportedly a suspect defense. Sports Illustrated was so sure the Colts would win that they had planned to put Johnny Unitas on the cover. But the Browns came away with a shocking 27-0 upset. They broke open a scoreless game in the second half. Browns quarterback Frank Ryan hit wide receiver Gary Collins for three touchdown passes. Unitas was held to 95 yards passing.

In 1965, the Colts and the Packers finished in a tie for the Western Conference title. In the playoff game at the Lambeau Field, Baltimore, playing without an injured Unitas and backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo, started running back Tom Matte at the quarterback who had the plays taped to his wristband. He completed just five passes

The game ended in a controversial 13-10 overtime win for Green Bay. Trailing 10-7 late in the game, Packers kicker Don Chandler tied the game on a 22-yard field goal that appeared to be wide right. Photographs of the kick confirmed it. There was an Associated Press picture showing Chandler shaking his head in disapppointment, thinking he missed it.

Though the NFL would raise the uprights an additional 20 feet, it was no solace for a Colts team who saw their hopes for a title stymied again. In 1966, Green Bay won the West again and clinched the title on a muddy day in Baltimore on a play that became known as the “Million-Dollar Fumble.”

After the Packers had taken a 14-10 lead late in the game, Unitas drove Colts to the Packer 15, but fumbled the ball to Green Bay defensive end Willie Davis. The Packers went on to win the game, the division, the NFL Championship and the first Super Bowl.

The years 1967 and 1968 would be even more painful for Baltimore’s championship hopes. In what was a realignment of the NFL’s Eastern and Western Conferences because of expansion franchises the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints, the Colts were in first place in the Coastal Division of the Western Conference coming into the final game of the regular season. They were unbeaten with 11 wins and two ties. The Los Angeles Rams were on the Colts heels at 10 wins, one loss and two ties.

When the two teams met in the regular-season finale at the L.A. Coliseum,  the Rams came away with a resounding 34-10 win and won the Coastal Division title because they scored more points in the two games they playe against each other. The Colts, 11-1-2, saw another great season come to a disappointing end.

And then there was 1968, the Colts steamrolled to a 13-1 record without the services of an injured Unitas and on the wings of a little-known backup quarterback named Earl Morrall, who was the NFL’s Most Valuable Player. They easily beat the Vikings in the Western Conference playoff and exacted some vengeance from 1964 on the Cleveland Browns with a 34-0 shutout in the NFL Championship game.

Hailed at that time as one of the greatest teams in NFL history, the heavily favored Colts were foiled again as the American Football League Champion New York Jets pulled off a shocking 16-7 upset in Super Bowl III.

The Colts, experiencing the hangover of their Super Bowl loss, ended the sixties with a 8-5-1 record and a second place finish in the Coastal Division of the Western Conference.

Born of expansion in 1960, the Dallas Cowboys didn’t experience their first taste of postseason until 1965—when they finished in second place in the Eastern Conference with a 7-7 record. They played in what was the Playoff Bowl, a consolation game between the two second place teams that was played at the Orange Bowl Stadium in Miami from 1960-1969.

The Playoff Bowl was then Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s way of promoting the NFL in the face of competition from the American Football League prior to the 1966 merger between the two leagues. The Cowboys lost the Playoff Bowl to the Colts of all teams in a 35-3 rout.

Though the Playoff Bowl was an exhibition game and not included in any NFL postseason records, it is a fascinating piece of irony that the Colts and Cowboys met each other in a game for second place teams considering their collective playoff fates during the latter half of the 1960s when both teams were known for being next year’s champions.

In 1966, the Cowboys won the Eastern Conference with a 10-3-1 record and took on the Green Bay Packers for the NFL Championship and a trip to Super Bowl I. A close game ended with a 34-27 Packers win at the Cotton Bowl, then the Cowboys homefield in Dallas.

The ending of the game was even more painful for Cowboys fans. The Cowboys, looking to send the game into overtime, had driven to the Green Bay two-yard line, but got penalized for a false start, but took three downs to move the ball back to the two. On fourth down, Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith with Packers linebacker Dave Robinson hanging on his back was intercepted in the end zone by Green Bay safety Tom Brown.

In 1967, the Cowboys would play Green Bay for the NFL Championship for the second straight year, but this time it would be at frigid Lambeau Field in Green Bay. In Arctic-like conditions, the game we all know as the “Ice Bowl” ended with another Packers win in the closing seconds with Bart Starr’s one-yard plunge.

The Cleveland Browns would victimize the Cowboys in the Eastern Conference Playoffs in 1968 and 1969 with a pair of convincing wins. The final game of the 1960s for the Cowboys was in the last Playoff Bowl, a humiliating 31-0 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.

Something had to Give

And of course, there was Super Bowl V. The two teams that suffered through the sixties with painful postseason losses would meet in a Super Bowl where they something had to give. In the end, Dallas would suffer another heartbreaking defeat in the final seconds of a championship game on Jim O’Brien’s late field goal.

A pair of lasting images from the ending of that game for the Cowboys was seeing Mel Renfro throw his head into his hands in frustration and Bob Lilly tossing his helmet across the field.

In a crazy game of turnovers and penalties, Cowboys players from that team maintain the turning point of the game was Duane Thomas’ fumble into the end zone on the Cowboys first drive of the second half after recovering a Baltimore fumble on the kickoff to open the third quarter.

Or was it a fumble? When the officials uncovered all the bodies, Cowboys center Dave Manders came up with the ball. Accounts of the game credited the fumble to Colts cornerback Jim Duncan, who fumbled on the second half kickoff.  The Cowboys protested, but to no avail.

 If Thomas scores on that play, the Cowboys are up 20-6 and it would have been difficult for the Colts to get back in it. As Lilly said afterward: “And there was no way if we go up two touchdowns they were going to get two touchdowns off us.” The Cowboys never came that close to scoring for the rest of the second half.

For the Colts everything seemed to go right and wrong at same time. After falling down 6-0 on a pair of Mike Clark field goals, the Colts scored the game’s first touchdown on a 75-yard touchdown pass from John Unitas to John Mackey.

The play itself was a series of lucky bounces. Unitas was trying to pass to Ed Hinton, but the ball bounced off his hands and then it caromed off Mel Renfro’s hands. From there it went into the arms of John Mackey, who raced into the endzone for the score. Dallas maintained that Renfro never touched the ball.

In those days, the rules stated that two receivers from the same team could not tip the ball to one another. But the officials ruled that Renfro touched the ball before it landed in Mackey’s hand. NFL Films Super Bowl highlight footage also confirmed the official’s ruling—noting that the spin of football accelerated after  it grazed Renfro’s hands.

But then O’Brien missed the extra point and the game was tied. After the rest of the half was a comedy of errors, injuries and blown scoring opportunities. Trailing 13-6 late in the second half, the Colts, with Morrall subbing for Unitas after he was knocked out of the game by George Andrie, moved the ball to the Dallas two, but the Colts turned the ball over on downs to end the half after the Cowboys stopped running back Norm Bulaich on three straight runs.

In the fourth quarter, the Colts drove the ball deep into Cowboys, but turned the ball over twice- an interception by Dallas middle linebacker Chuck Howley and fumble by Hinton that rolled into the end zone for a touchback.

Baltimore’s final 10 points were set up by interceptions by Rick Volk, which set up the game-tying score and a pick by Mike Curtis that set up the winning 32-yard field goal. The Colts survived a season’s worth of mistakes—they committed seven turnovers– and were lucky to win.

While his some of his teammates didn’t feel Super Bowl V made up for the loss in  Super Bowl III, Colts offensive lineman Bob Vogel said he didn’t care if people thought the Colts were lucky, especially considering all the team’s near misses during the 1960s: “So what? I’ve had luck decided against us so many times I’m sick of it. I quit being proud when we lost games we should have won. The way I look at it is we’re going to get the Super Bowl ring because we won games that counted this year. We deserve it.”

Given the frustration of the mid-to late sixties for the Colts, Vogel was right because things finally went Baltimore’s way on that Sunday afternoon in Miami after so many near misses in the sixties. Meanwhile, the Cowboys would have to wait for Super Bowl VI to exorcise the demons of their playoff past.  In that game, Dallas left no room for doubt or last second field goals  and crushed the Miami Dolphins 24-3 for their first Super Bowl title .

The perennial  bridesmaids of the 1960s–the Baltimore Colts and the Dallas Cowboys-were the first two champions of the 1970s.

Super Bowl V: A Personal and Historical Memoir of the Colts Last Championship in Baltimore Part I

The 1970 Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Colts--It would be another 30 years before Baltimore would experience a Super Bowl title.

The last headline of a Colts Championship in Baltimore

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report

For all the sporting events that I have watched since I was six-years-old or better yet, the last 42 years, there’s two dates that I will always remember for both good and bad reasons. Starting with the bad—January 12, 1969—that, of course, was the day my beloved Baltimore Colts were upset by the New York Jets.

It was a bitterly disappointing end to their very first time I followed football as a six-year-old football fan. I thought the Colts of those days were unstoppable, especially after the 34-0 butt-whuppin they had put on the Cleveland Browns in the NFL Championship game. At a very young age,  it was my first taste of how your home town can break your heart.

But the other date that I will always remember as a sports fan for happier reasons is January 17, 1971. That was the day the Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys 16-13 in Super Bowl V. Like Super Bowl III, I remember that game like it was yesterday. I remember watching the replays of John Mackey’s touchdown that came on a tip by Cowboys cornerback Mel Renfro. I can recall agonizing over Johnny Unitas fumbling and getting knocked out of the game by Cowboys lineman George Andrie.

In many ways it was a gut-renching game for me as a fan because the Colts trailed for a good portion of that game and seemed to be doing everything to give the Cowboys the game. After the Colts committed two turnovers early in the fourth quarterback—an interception of an Earl Morrall pass in the end zone by Cowboys middle linebacker Chuck Howly and a fumble into the end zone by Colts wide receiver of a Eddie Hinton, who had the ball at the 10-yard line and was about to score, but was stripped by Cowboys defensive back Cornell Green and the ball rolled out of the end zone for a touchback.

It was after that play when my mother saw the look of worry on my face and said to me, “Uh oh the Colts are losing, hope you’re not going to start crying,” referring to the tears I shed when the Jets took a 16-0 lead in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl III.

I’m not gonna cry this time, I’m little older now and besides I’m in third grade now, I thought back then. But I ain’t gonna lie, I was thinking the Colts were on the verge of losing the Super Bowl, especially after Hinton fumbled the ball in the end zone. And soon as my mother said that Colts safety Rick Volk intercepted Craig Morton and returned it to the Dallas 3. A seldom used Colts fullback Tom Nowatzke scored the game-tying touchdown on the next play.

When Jim O’Brien kicked the winning field with five seconds, I remember jumping up and down in my mother’s room where our relatively new Panasonic black and white TV was located at the time. “The Colts are the World Champs,” I screamed. To me, it made up for losing to those daggone New York Jets. I thought it was the happiest day of my life as a football fan.

I couldn’t get enough of the highlights. I watched the locker room celebration and interviews with all the players. I saw the trophy presentation with Pete Rozelle and the wife of Vince Lombardi presenting the first Lombardi Super Bowl Trophy to then-Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom and head coach Don McCafferty.

I remember my mother smirking and shaking her head disapprovingly when NBC interviewed the white wife of Colts receiver Ed Hinton. To my mother, seeing Hinton’s white wife hit her personally because my father’s new girlfriend was white. Interracial dating and marriages were still a big taboo even in those days. It was a grim reminder to me of my parents pending divorce and the fact that I hadn’t seen my father since the summer time. He wasn’t there with me to share that moment.

I was ecstatic that day and like I said earlier I couldn’t get enough of the Colts winning the Super Bowl. My mother even allowed me to stay up and watch the highlights on the 11 o’clock news. Since the game was on WBAL Channell 11, the NBC affiliate—I listened to Vince Bagli and caught the highlights againg. I flicked the channel to Channel 2 to see what WMAR sports anchor Jack Dawson had to say and then I turned it to Channel 13, my father’s former employer to see what John Kennelly had to say and see more highlights.

At Lady of Lourdes School the next day, it was a day of I-told-you sos to all my friends who thought the Colts wouldn’t win. I couldn’t concentrate in school because all I thought about was getting back home and waiting for the paper boy to deliver the Baltimore Evening Sun, so I could see all the photos.

This was one day that I didn’t want  to hang around after school with my friends, I wanted to jet on home to get the newspaper. I was planning to cut out the pictures and post them on my bedroom wall. On the way home, I ran into this older dude from my block  named Barry, who used to tease me by always saying that the Colts are sorry.

As I was rolling up the block, I yelled over to Barry, “Colts are the World champs, they ain’t so sorry now, huh?” Barry muttered something like, “Ahh, they got lucky.”

When I got home sometime around 3:30, I kept looking outside of our living room window for the paper boy to deliver the newspaper. In those days, we were living in Northwest Baltimore at 3809 Fernhill Avenue right near the newly-built Calloway Elementary School (at that time). My mother Carolyn was working for the Department of Social Services. I had an older brother, Ralph, who was two years older than me, my sister Melissa, who was six, and my baby sister Melanee, who was one and a half going on 25.

It was about 4:30 and close to getting dark when the paper boy finally came to our house with the Evening Sun. News of the Colts win was on the front page, but all the photos were in the sports section. I spent hours with that section, reading the stories looking at the photos.

I had absolutely no idea (no one else in Baltimore did either for that matter) that it would be the last Super Bowl title for the team we knew as the Baltimore Colts. It would be another 30 years and a new team before the city of Baltimore’s name would be inscribed on the Tiffany silver Super Bowl Trophy.

In that span of time, I would attend three high schools, three colleges, earn two degrees, experience the death of my father, get married, get divorced, win my first journalism award and see the day the Colts would no longer call Baltimore their home.

I have found over the last 40 years of my life since that game that very few, if any of my friends my age from Baltimore really remember or experienced the joy I felt watching the Colts win that game. For most of my friends born between 1960 and 1964, their remembrances of the Baltimore Colts are of the Bert Jones and Lydell Mitchell teams from about 1975 to up until the time they shipped out to Indianapolis in 1984.

The one thing that will always bother me about the Colts leaving for Indianapolis is not so much that they left, but they took the name, the history and the records. I didn’t like the idea of Art Modell taking the Browns out of Cleveland to move to Baltimore. But the one redeeming thing about Modell was that he had the decency to leave the Browns name, record and history with Cleveland.

That didn’t happen with Baltimore. Robert Irsay just took everything, except the memories. At least for some of us.

Whenever I’ve brought up Super Bowl V or even Super Bowl III to Baltimore sports fans who are the same age as me, the response is always, “man, I can’t even remember that far back.” Then there’s the classic, “aw, man you’re showing your age.”Only my friend from my college days at Maryland the late Jon Chambers (who was born in 1961) could remember both Colts Super Bowls and talk about it in the way that I could.

Over the years, I’ve haven’t said much about Super Bowl V or my memories of the last Colts championship in Baltimore for a variety reasons. I guess not many people have my long memory or have the same passion for sports as I do.

I can understand that while most six year-olds, seven-year-olds and eight year-olds back from 1968 to 1970 were into coloring books, comic books and , my super heroes were Johnny Unitas, John Mackey, Tom Matte, Bubba Smith and Mike Curtis. In baseball, there was Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and Paul Blair.

And the thing is I did all those things that normal young kids do when they’re seven and eight-years-old. I played outside-sports and non-sports like any normal kid. I wasn’t a stay-in-the -house bookworm of a kid.  Over the years, whenever I mentioned that I can remember sporting events from that far back, people have always said well you must not have gotten out much.

My love for the Colts of those days comes from my father Ralph Murray, who was working as a TV reporter for WBAL and later WJZ between 1967 and 1970. Even before my father was working in TV, he watched a lot of football and the game was always on in my house—whether it’s on the radio or TV.  Hearing then Colts play-by-play announcer Chuck Thompson’s voice blaring over the radio or TV was a regular occurence

Not only did my father love the game, but my grandfather was a big Colts fan. I remember in the basement or the living room of my grandfather’s home on Chelsea Terrace in Northwest Baltimore, seeing a framed Baltimore Sun headline of the Colts winning the 1958 Championship.

I remember the first time I saw a football game in color was in 1968 on my grandfather’s TV when the Colts played the 49ers at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Preston Pearson returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown in that game for the Colts.

The one time  I mentioned  Super Bowl V in any conversation of my adult years was at a Final Four party I attended in the D.C. area in 1992. The University of Cincinnati was playing Michigan in one half of the national semifinal.  Someone at the party asked who were some famous pro athletes outside Oscar Robertson that attended Cincinnati. There’s was only one that I could recall off the top of my head—Jim O’Brien of the Colts went to Cincinnati. He played wide receiver and kicker.

I mentioned his name and supposedly, according to one of my friends who was there, folks looked at me as if I was the “dork” of the week. Hey,someone asked, I gave the answer. But in my apparent lack of being cool and being hip, my proper social response should have been, “I don’t know.” Of course, I say that with complete, unapologetic sarcasm.

The Baltimore Ravens winning the Super Bowl in 2000 brought back that feeling that I had back in 1970 when the Colts made their run to the Super Bowl. People in my hometown were finally experiencing what I felt back then. I just hope that 30 years from now that kids in Baltimore who were as young as me back in 1970 will remember Ray Lewis and Trent Dilfer with the same fondness the way I remember Johnny U, Bubba Smith, Mike Curtis, and the 1970 Baltimore Colts.

Seeing O’Brien’s kick splitting the uprights to help the Colts to win Super Bowl V is as fresh and as exhilarating a memory for me as seeing Jamaal Lewis cross the goal line to put away the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV.

Steel City Blues: Baltimore’s Sad History of Losing Big Games to Pittsburgh

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report

It was an all-too familiar scene in the living room of my mother’s home in downtown Baltimore. I was shaking my head at yet another Baltimore loss in a big game to Pittsburgh.

In Sunday’s game, the Ravens beat themselves in a cavalcade of penalities and mistakes including a dropped pass in the end zone by veteran wide reciever Derrick Mason that would have put the Ravens ahead. Two Baltimore penalties took touchdowns off the board.

To me the Ravens 23-20 loss in a game that would have ended the defending champion Steelers playoff hopes convinces me of something that I believed for a long time—since 1971—Pittsburgh sports teams have owned Baltimore.

With few exceptions, Pittsburgh, whether you’re talking about the Pirates or the Steelers have always had Baltimore’s number in the big games—whether you’re talking about the World Series with the Orioles, the Colts in the playoffs during the mid-1970s, the Ravens in the 2000s, the result always seem to be the same—Pittsburgh wins, Baltimore loses.

The “Steel City” has been like kryptonite to “Charm City” in the athletic realm. I don’t know if it’s purely physical or metaphysical. I mean you can make all kinds of arguments that Pittsburgh teams have been better than Baltimore sports teams, which has been true more often than naught. You can say Baltimore has been unlucky in some respects.

Whatever it is or whatever one chooses to call it, Pittsburgh has a long history of sticking it to Baltimore in the big games.

Over the years, you’ve had the New York Yankees owning the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, beating them in five World Series during the 1950s. It’s a rare thing for the sports teams of one city to beat another city’s teams in one particular year. Oddly enough, Baltimore was on the losing end of that one, too.

Back in the calendar year of 1969, the New York Jets beat the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in January. In the spring of 1969, the Baltimore Bullets had the best regular season record in the NBA, but got swept by the Knicks in the first round of the playoffs. In October, the Mets beat an Orioles team that won 109 games in the 1969 World Series.

It was so bad that a comedian supposedly got on the Tonight Show that year and jokingly thanked Baltimore for New York’s great year in sports.

But Pittsburgh has had Baltimore’s number over time. The 1971 Orioles had the best record in baseball and four 20-game winners-Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson. The O’s were the defending World Series champions and rolled out to a 2-0 lead including an 11-3 win in game two of that series.

Unfortunately for the Birds, they just couldn’t stop the great Roberto Clemente, who hit safely in all seven games and batted .414. He hit a homerun in Game 7 that put the Pirates on top for good. After falling behind 2-0, Pittsburgh won four of the next five games, holding the Orioles to just seven runs.

Eight years later, the Baltimore Orioles came into the 1979 World Series with the best record in baseball with 102 wins under their belt. The Orioles had what looked to be an insurmountable 3-1 lead over the Pirates, but could not close the deal.

That’s because Wille Stargell batted .400 during the series with a record seven extra-base hits and because the Orioles scored just two runs over the final three games of that series with Eddie Murray going 0-for-21 during that stretch.

In Game 7, the Orioles, trailing 2-1, had the bases loaded with two out in the bottom of the eighth inning and a chance to break open the game. But Murray’s long fly ball deep to right field fell harmlessly into the glove of Dave Parker.

The Pirates and their fans, just as they did in 1971, danced on the soil of Memorial Stadium in front of stunned and disappointed Baltimore fans. Pittsburgh had gotten the best of old Charm City again.

Sandwiched between the Pirates World Series triumphs over Baltimore, the Steelers were sticking it to Baltimore as well in a pair of AFC Divisional Playoff games.

In 1975, the upstart Baltimore Colts won the AFC East, but had to face defending Super Bowl champion Steelers for a berth to the AFC title game. After the Colts took a 10-7 lead in the third quarter, the Steelers surged to a 21-10 lead. The Colts looking to make a comeback in the fourth quarter, drove the ball down to the Steelers 7.

Unfortunately for Baltimore, Steelers linebacker Jack Ham hit Colts quarterback Bert Jones from behind and jarred the ball loose. Andy Russell scooped it up for a 93-yard return for a touchdown to put the final nail in the coffin.

In 1976, the Colts finished 11-3 and had one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL. More importantly, the young Colts had a year of playoff experience under their belt and the Steelers, who had to win their last nine games of the season to get into the playoffs after a 1-4 start, appeared to be a team on the decline.

With all the psychological advantages of revenge and the fact that they were playing at home in Baltimore, the Colts were still given a severe beat down by the Steelers in a 40-14 loss. The most enduring image of that loss was when airplane crashed into the upper deck of Memorial Stadium shortly after the game ended and the crowd had left the ball park.

In 2000, the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl and brought Charm City its first world championship since 1970. In 2001, the team that ended the Ravens championship reign in the AFC Divisional Playoffs—the Pittsburgh Steelers in a 27-10 win.

And then there was last season, the Steelers inexorable march to the Super Bowl included a pair of close wins over the Ravens -an overtime loss in Pittsburgh and a last second loss in Baltimore. The Ravens would see their season end with another loss to the Steelers in the AFC Championship Game.

Now don’t get me wrong, the Ravens and the Colts, when they were in Baltimore, have beaten the Steelers over the years in some meaningless regular season games here and there. But when a playoff berth or a championship is on the line, Pittsburgh has come out on top every time.

Last Sunday’s debacle in Pittsburgh in which Baltimore committed 11 penalities for 113 yards was the latest in what has become a never ending saga in which the Steel City comes out on top of the “City by the Bay.”

To quote the Talking Heads: “Same as it ever was.”

Once and For all, there needs to be a playoff in FBS (Div. 1-A) college football

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report

Now that we are in the midst of what ESPN calls its most wonderful time of the year,–its slate of relatively meaningless Bowl games or college football’s version of the NIT, I often wonder about how great this week really would be if we actually had a playoff for the national championship.

Quite frankly, I am fed up with the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in its present form and the fact that only two contestants for the national championship game are selected based on some elaborate computerized or media concocted system. Are unbeaten Alabama and Texas really the best teams in the nation—what about unbeaten Boise State or TCU.

And what of Florida—should one loss in the Southeastern Conference Championship game totally eliminate from title contention? No, it shouldn’t.

That’s why I say for the umpteenth time, let’s scrap the BCS in its current form and just have a 16-team playoff just like Div. I Football Championship Subdivision. If the NCAA, the TV networks, and the Bowl organizers were smart, they could make a lot of money and this would be as big as March Madness is to college basketball.

Why have a Bowl Championship Series without a true series? Why limit it to just two teams, go all the way and have a playoff.

Team selection

Since there are 11 conferences in what is known as the Div. I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Div. 1-A), the champions of those conferences would receive automatic bids to the playoffs. This would give the Boise State’s and the TCUs the opportunity to show how they really stack up against the bigger conferences. The other five at large spots would go to the highest ranked teams according to their ranking in the BCS standings.

Ultimately, this would mean that teams will strive harder to win their conference titles and it will convince the powerhouse teams to schedule harder non-conference opponents instead of the usual cupcakes. Instead of Florida playing McNeese State or Florida Atlantic, they might take on Southern Cal or even intrastate rival Miami.

According to the final 2009 BCS standings the highest ranked non-conference champions are No. 5 Florida, No. 10 Iowa, No. 11 Virginia Tech, No. 12 LSU, and No. 13 Penn. State—those teams would receive at-large bids.

For example if we were to have a 2009 FBS playoffs and using the current BCS standings as a guide. Your No. 1 seed would be Alabama, who would face No. 16-seed Troy-champions of the Sunbelt Conference in the first round. No. 2-seed Texas would face No. 15 seed and Mid-American Conference champion Central Michigan. Cincinnati, as the No. 3 seed, would take on Conference USA winner and No. 14 seed East Carolina.

No. 4 seed TCU would play No. 13 seeded Penn State. In a classic 5 versus 12 match up, Florida would play SEC rival LSU. No. 6 Boise State would play against no. 11 Virginia Tech.

You would have a heck of first-round match up in the 7-10 match up between Pac-10 Champion Oregon and Big 10 runnerup Iowa. No. Eight Ohio State would play Atlantic Coast Conference champion Georgia Tech who would come in as the No. 9 seed.

The winner of that 8-9 game would have a potential matchup against 1-16 winner, which would probably be Alabama. What a second round matchup that would be?

If you had a playoff this year with my format, you would have a compelling first round, especially from No. 5 on down. You might have some upsets here when you think about some of those matches.

Where would they play and what about those Bowl sponsors

With about 34 bowl games under the current situation, you can take about 16 of those locations and convert them into first round playoff sites. To please those Bowl sponsors and their need for making money, keep their names as sponors—BCS first round presented by Eagle Bank or BCS first -round sponsored by MAACO. You can do it by region, similar to the NCAA Basketball Tournament and do it by proximity. Another possibility would be to play the first round games at home field of the higher seeded team. Personally, I prefer playing all the games at a neutral site in several cities that host bowl games.

Your quarter final games could be played at places that typically host the non-BCS New Years Bowl along with one of the BCS sites. . For example, one quarterfinal game could played be at the Outback Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, or The Florida Citrus Bowl. The one BCS site that would host a quarter final game would be the site that hosted the championship game the previous year. Since the Orange Bowl hosted the championship last season, it would host one of the quarterfinal games—one scenario would be the game involving the top seed.

College football’s version of the National Semi-Finals would be played at two BCS sites with the championship game being played at another BCS site. For example, the Fiesta Bowl and the Sugar Bowl could host the two semi final games while the Rose Bowl would still host your championship game. You can play with how you would rotate the sites, but you would still include all those bowl sponsors and their big money.

By the way, the ranked teams that don’t make it to football’s version of the Big Dance, you can still play your regular bowl games and I’m sure ESPN, FOX and all the other sports networks will have enough air space to put the games on for your hardcore college football fans. After all, there is still the NIT in college basketball—there is still something to reward a team that’s gone from 5-7 to 7-5.

Timing

For all those who have traditionally said that a playoff would interfere with the student athletes final exams.. Here’s a solution. The playoffs could start the week before Christmas when most universities are finishing up their finals. Opening round games being played on Friday and Saturday of the first weekend.

If you start the tournament the week of Christmas, you would have one heck of a New Year’s Day with the quarterfinal games. If you start, the playoffs the week before Christmas, your semifinals would fall on New Years Day. For example, you could start the Rose Bowl semifinal game at 5: 00 and your Orange Bowl (or Fiesta Bowl and Sugar Bowl) as the next game 8:45 p.m.

The national championship game, of course, would be a week after New Years Day—the way it is now.

And by the way, you can start the day with those other Bowls like the Capital One or the Outback Bowl just the way it is now and people will come out and watch because that’s what football fans do on New Year’s Day anyway.

You gotta better solution. Okay, cool.

I’m sure there are about 10,001 flaws in my idea or we can’t do this because of money, school presidents, politics. For example, I know the supporters of the BCS conferences aren’t going to like the idea that we let the smaller, non-BCS conferences like the Sun Belt, the Mid-America Conference, the WAC, the Mountain West or Conference USA get automatic bids for doing something like winning their conferences.

Let’s face it, we’re dealing with the mentality from the big conferences that has a problem with Boise State (who beat the PAC-10 champion) and TCU playing in a BCS game because they believe their third place team is better than either of those teams (Yeah, SEC I’m talking about you in particular).

But to hell with their arrogance. I think my idea would be fair. If the WAC champion is taking on the second or third place team in the SEC, let’s prove it on the field in a playoff. To quote Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton, “let’s take it to the stage.”

The bottomline a national championship should be decided on the field and not by the media or the coach’s poll. If you got something better, I’d love to hear it. If you can modify what I’ve got, cool.

Still Going: 44-year-old Bernard Hopkins Not Ready to Hang up the Gloves

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report

As much as 44-year-old Bernard Hopkins dominated an overmatched opponent in Enrique Ornelas, effectively counter-punching every time the younger fighter charged in after him, I was hoping against hope that his recent fight at the Liacouras Center on Temple’s campus in North Philadelphia would be the last of an outstanding career.

But if you or I ,for that matter, thought that this was going some sort of memory book moment frozen in time, we were most definitely mistaken.

In fact, Hopkins will be back in the ring in 2010 for another big pay-day against some of the sports up and coming younger fighters like unbeaten Chad Dawson (29-0, 17 KOs), unbeaten middleweight Paul Williams (37-1, 27 KOs), International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucien Bute (25-0, 20 KO) or even World Boxing Association champion David Haye (23-1, 21 KOs).

Richard Schaeffer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, said shortly after Hopkins win that the list of people wanting to fight is actually growing.

“The list for Bernard didn’t get shorter, it actually got longer,” Schaeffer said. “Paul Williams camp reached out to us. They’re interested in a Bernard Hopkins fight. Don King reached out to us. I had conversations with Lucien Bute’s promoter today because I think a showdown between these two guys at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal would seat like 60, 000people and would be historic and I’m sure that fight would be sold out.

“Gary Shaw from Chad Dawson, they reached out to us that Chad Dawson would be interested. Kathy Duva with Tomasz Adamek threw her hat in the sweepstakes, too.”

Schaeffer said Hopkins is looking for a match of “historic significance.” He said another possibility was a fight between Hopkins and Haye, who holds one of the heavyweight titles.

Hopkins next fight was going to be against former middleweight champion Roy Jones, Jr. But that fight was apparently taken off the table when the 40-year-old Jones was knocked out by Danny Green in the first round of their International Boxing Organization bout in Australia 12 hours before Hopkins stepped into the ring against Ornelas.

Oddly enough, Schaeffer said while Jones has fallen from the top of the list of people Hopkins would fight, he has not been completely eliminated. Considering the way Jones was stopped in the first round, maybe he ought to be.

Even with the growing list of possibilities, Hopkins, who turns 45 in February,often deals with the old question of when will he retire from the sport. On numerous occasions throughout his 40s, Hopkins has said on the record this fight or that fight would be his last.

But wins over younger fighters like Antonio Tarver and Kelly Pavlik have convinced Hopkins that he’s not leaving the sport anytime soon. After the win over Ornelas, Hopkins said he will know when he’s done with boxing.

“The ring will let you know when it’s time for you to go and normally you can win and the ring can still tell you that you won, but it’s time to pack it in,” Hopkins said. “And the ring hasn’t spoke to me in any shape or form. When you start looking for things to happen, it’s going to happen. And so I feel like why I still can get up and train and have it in my heart to do what I do then why not?

“I never sit back and think about I’m 44, why I’m doing this, I know I can’t move and duck, have my reflexes. If you start thinking about that, then you start being gun shy.”

The bottom line for Hopkins is that whoever he jumps into the ring against the money has to be right and it has to be what he calls some sort of historical significance. For Hopkins, that could mean going after Haye’s WBA heavyweight title. If he’s successful, he would join Bob Fitzsimmons and Roy Jones Jr. as former middleweight champions who won heavyweight titles.

“I can’t fight just to be fighting, there has to be a meaning for who I fight,” Hopkins said. “We’ve got a lot of pieces on the table. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but Richard said he got about eight calls …That’s not a bad thing, but what that tells you is that Bernard Hopkins will be fighting next year. I don’t know who?

“Right now it is about dollars and cents. Right now, I think I’ve learned a long time ago, especially now to not take for granted what I’m doing and fight just to be fighting. If it ain’t right, you won’t see me.”

According to the boxing executives at HBO and HBO Pay-per-View, Hopkins is still a marketable, money-making commodity in boxing. Mark Taffet, senior vice president for HBO Pay-Per-View, said Hopkins has at least four or five fights that boxing fans would want to see.

“Once he focuses on where he wants to go, he’s going to have the support of television,” Taffet said. “Bernard Hopkins is one of the few pound for pound fighters in the sport of boxing period. He just happens to be 44-years-old. He is one of the top fighters in the sport today and we are always in business of televising fights with top fighters in the sport.”

Michael Vick and the Long Road to Redemption

By Chris Murray

For the Chris Murray Report

Now that Michael Vick has finally found a home with the Philadelphia Eagles, the hard part for the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback is his long, possibly tumultuous road to redemption in the face of a hostile fan base that is not so willing to forgive him for his participation in dogfighting.

Even though Vick paid his debt to society by serving 18 of a 23-month prison sentence in a federal penitentiary and losing millions of dollars in salary and endorsements, he has no illusions that fans are going to welcome him here with open arms. For him, the process of moving forward could be a long, grinding process.

A good example of that was outside the Eagles Nova Care practice facility last Friday during Vick’s press conference, protesters, including some accompanied with dogs, held signs protesting the Birds choice to sign Vick. One sign read, “Hide your beagle, Vick’s an Eagle.”

On local talk radio, the viewpoints seemed to be divided along racial lines with African-Americans saying that Vick deserves a second chance while white listeners were saying that Vick’s acts of cruelty to animals were so heinous that forgiveness is out of the question. One local radio host even suggested that Vick stay away from children.

When Vick takes the field in the Eagles third exhibition game and for that matter throughout the season, he will no doubt hear a crescendo of boos and fans will wave signs branding him as a dog killer whether he’s at Lincoln Financial Field or Fed-Ex Field in Washington. Outside of the ball parks, you will probably see groups like PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) carrying signs branding Vick as a murderer of dogs.

Vick said he understood why fans might have a hard time of getting past his crime of killing and torturing dogs. He said the only way he can prove himself to fans that he has true remorse for what he has done is by getting involved in the animal rights movement through groups like the Humane Society.

“I was wrong for what I did, everything that happened at the point in my life was wrong. It was unnecessary,” Vick said during his press conference last Friday. “For the life of me, I can’t understand to this day why I was involved in such a pointless activity and why I risked so much at the pinnacle of my career. But I figure if I can help more animals than I hurt, then I’m contributing and doing my part.”

Meanwhile, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie made it clear that Vick’s time with the Eagles will be judged by his actions off the field even more so than what he does on the field.

“Frankly, the legend of Michael Vick will be determined, as we go forward, it won’t be determined on the field of football,” Lurie said. “He will never be able to recover from what he criminally and murderously took part in, but he has an opportunity to create a legend where maybe he can be a force at stopping the horrendous cruelty to animals in dogfighting.”

Lurie said the move to bring Vick to the Eagles required a lot of soul searching on his part because he himself is a dog-lover and was appalled at Vick’s behavior. He described the move to bring the former Virginia Tech star as “counter intuitive” to what he believes in as an owner. Another way of saying it was that this move was against his better judgment.

But Lurie said he met with Vick extensively to gauge his level of remorse and said after meeting with Vick that while he was satisfied that the left-handed quarterback has shown remorse for his actions, he still has a long way to revamp his image.

“In spending the time with Michael, I think he deserves that opportunity,” Lurie said. “He’s going to have to prove it in action and not in words. I can only read his eyes so much. I can only read his emotions so much and the words. He’s going to have to prove to Philadelphia, to the United States, to the National Football League, to human beings and to animals everywhere that he’s committed as he said to me and publicly, to save more animals than he’s responsible for eliminating.”

Lurie said one of the principle people, along with head coach Andy Reid and NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell responsible for convincing him to give Vick a second chance with the Eagles was former Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy, who was Vick’s mentor and spiritual advisor throughout this process of reinstatement.

Dungy said he prepared Vick for the possibility of not only the reaction to his return, but also for the chance that he may not get the opportunity to play in the NFL at all.

“We talked a lot of about the fact that he may not get a chance. It was never a given for me that he would get another chance in the NFL, so what happens if you don’t how are you going to be out in the community and proactive even if you’re not playing this year,” Dungy said. “There are going to be people that are going to be skeptical, some people aren’t going to forgive you. We’ve had a lot of those conversations.”

Dungy said he would be available to Vick throughout the course of the season and during the process of healing his image and reputation with the general public.

Even before Vick was released from prison, he had agreed to work with the Humane Society of the United States on their anti-dog fighting campaigns, which will include working on programs that prevent dogfighting and working young people who have been involved in dogfighting in urban areas. Wayne Pacelle, the president of the Humane Society met with Vick back in May while he was still in prison in Leavenworth, Kan. He said he’s willing to work with Vick and thinks he would be a powerful ally in the cause of stopping dogfighting.

“Sometimes folks who are reformed can be strong advocates,” Pacelle told the Associated Press. “We need to be creative in addressing that problem, and Mike may be able to help us. We agree he’s got to his boots and hit the issue hard and do it over a long time.”

And so now that he’s wearing an Eagles uniform and after all the rhetoric from press conferences have died down, everything will be on Vick’s shoulders from this point forward to not only make a difference on the field as a football player, but to redeem himself from an unspeakable act.

“I think my actions will speak louder than my words. To be proactive and to be involved in the community, people will see that in due time,” Vick said. “I’ve partnered up with the Humane Society and we’ve constantly been working hard to reach out to certain inner cities and certain communities to make sure that we attack the problem.”

The Mouse Attack on Black America: ESPN casts Black Athletes in a Negative Light

By Gary Norris Gray

For the Chris Murray Report

It is very sad to see the changes in television sports network programming and the way they currently report the news; with a specific reference to ESPN.

Provocative stories sell, sex catches your attention; a racially-tinged story sells; football player Adam Jones making it rain at a strip club is a story. Oh — for those who don’t know what “making it rain” means, throwing money at scantily clad women.

Michael Vick’s arrest and imprisonment for dogfigting. Michael received his first day of freedom on Monday July 20, 2009; and lastly, the murder-suicide of Steve McNair by his white 20-year-old girlfriend.

The recent reports of McNair’s blood alcohol count last week, which had nothing to do with his death, only sought to further defame McNair.

All of these men are African Americans and they were the lead stories on this network. What scares me about this kind of reporting is that other local news networks are beginning to follow suit. There is a constant droning drum beat coming from the studios of Bristol, Connecticut against African American athletes.

For those who don’t know what The Mouse means, it’s ESPN, which is owned by the American Broadcasting Company and the Walt Disney Corporation– thus “The Mouse.”

Do your homework for the next two weeks. Listen to the words of each broadcast on The Mouse, then make your own decision.

The drum beat is loud and clear.

The Mouse is fulfilling its agenda on America airwaves constantly attacking prominent African American athletes. This covert action by this network is not fair, or right. Why? It’s because Americans get most of their sports news from this network. It is not fair because there is not an objective equivalent television sports network to rival or refute The Mouse when they are incorrect.

ESPN has a monopoly in the television sports industry even to the extent that their own ABC local stations only give the scores of their local teams. Now that is complete power and complete control. Undoubtedly, there is a need for a web site similar to Black Athlete Sports Network. Writers would be unable to write an article like this and most newspapers or magazines would not print it.

In the past, race and sports were not an issue. Sports fans could enjoy watching their games without thinking about anything political, it was fun. Well, my fellow Americans “The Mouse” has drastically changed that.

Now it’s about steroids, contracts, conduct, and the way you look or what the Black athlete did after the game. Too much information, just too much information. Just report on the score of the game and the strategies of the game, please. The most recent example is Brett Favre, former quarterback for the Green Bay Packers and New York Jets. The 40-year-old Favre should have retired two years ago. This year he is trying to tender another contract with the Minnesota Vikings. This was a non-story until The Mouse created this story this spring and they praise him every week.

When the Mouse airs a story on a white athlete it’s seldom reports a negative comment. Can you imagine what The Mouse would be saying if Brett Favre were African American?

A Black Favre would be a self-centered egotistical player, A Black Favre would not be a team player, and A Black Favre would be aloof in the locker-room. Actually, Brett Favre could be called all of these things but you will never hear this from mouth of The Mouse of Bristol, Connecticut.

The current Favre story just makes many football fans frustrated. Come on now lets be honest; would a professional football team want a 40-year-oldquarterback black or white with a recurring shoulder injury, playing on artificial turf?

As John McEnroe would scream, “You cannot be serious!” Yet, Brett Favre is the little darling of The Mouse. Most knowledgeable football fans know that Tarvaris Jackson, who is Black, should be the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings this year, not Favre.

Jackson can run faster, throw farther and is much stronger than Brett. Also, Jackson carried the team to the playoffs last year while Brett Favre and the Jets stumbled into an early winter vacation.

NFL statistics state that Brett Favre is only nine games away from surpassing Jim Marshall-an African American defensive lineman who also played for the Vikings, for the most consecutive games played. Interestingly, there are probably bonuses in his contract if Favre breaks the record.

This network has not been honest.

The Mouse gave a pass to Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps  who was  caught smoking a bong this past winter. The Mouse gave a pass to WNBA Phoenix Mercury star Diana Taurasi who was  drinking and driving this past week, in addition it gave star quarterback Tom Brady of the New England Patriots a pass twice, one having a baby out of wedlock a few years ago and the other the shooting incident last summer at a wedding party in the islands.

Now think about this – if any one of the three incidents mentioned above had been committed by an African American athlete what would “The Mouse” broadcast?

The drum beat would be loud and clear.

This year before the NFL National Football Draft, The Mouse reporters were grading players. When a black player was the subject, the African American player was incompetent. These reports would state that the Black player can’t do this or he can’t do that. Or he is too selfish, too short, does not understand pro style offenses or defenses, or that he simply can’t catch the football. A lawsuit is not far behind.

The NFL teams listen to this nonsense and usually drop the African American player down in the draft to the lower rounds, costing this player hundreds of thousands of dollars. When that same player mentioned by the Mouse should have been drafted in the first round, the team drafting this player saves big money.

The constant drum beat goes on and on, Black athletes are not good enough and yet they keep playing and keep winning games.

While this phenomenon has being ongoing since ESPN’s existence, clear evidence of this came to a head in 2003 when the Mouse hired Rush Limbaugh to fill the set on “NFL Countdown” Sunday mornings. It would not be long before Limbaugh would speak his mind.

Limbaugh stated that Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles was an overrated Black quarterback and that the liberal media was babying these new Black quarterbacks and they are not good enough to start.

Rush overlooked the clear fact that McNabb took the Eagles to two consecutive NFC East titles, two straight National Conference Championships and two Pro Bowl appearances to that point in his career. So what was your point again, Rush? And The Mouse knew that he would pontificate on the issue of Back quarterbacks. The Mouse did not expect the national reaction to his comments. Limbaugh would resign a week later.

In Major League Baseball, The Mouse started this scenario seven years ago with Barry Bonds and the BALCO Steroid Scandal in the Bay Area. Bonds became the poster boy for The Mouse and steroids. The year that Bonds went for the home run record the Mouse wanted to broadcast many San Francisco Giant games to keep track of Bonds chasing Henry Aaron’s homerun mark but whenever The Mouse showed up at A.T. & T Park, Bonds was a no-show.

Let be it said that Barry Bonds did this on purpose as a silent protest of the way he was being portrayed on this network. Barry Bonds never forgot the way the media treated his father Bobby Bonds and wanted no part of this circus.

The Mouse finally got wise and stopped broadcasting Giants games resorting to network cut-ins when Barry Bonds would come to the plate. The Mouse never questioned Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig nor have they questioned the owners, trainers, or managers about their knowledge of steroid use by the players. Major League Baseball continues to pick and choose which player will be outed from the secret and confidential 104 player list.

The drum beat has been steady and constant through the years. Another example could be Harold Reynolds, a man that has earned the respect of the fans because he is a knowledgeable man; an African American male that played professional baseball.

Reynolds had been broadcasting the College World Series for The Mouse for many years. During one of the semi-final games, Reynolds made a statement that there were not many African American baseball players on college diamonds and that it troubled him. Within that same year, Reynolds was released by The Mouse because of an alleged sexual harassment complaint by a female employee.

This drum beat continues. On ESPN2’s First Take, columnist Skip Bayless makes outlandish statements to get a response from the guest panelist. If the guest is Black and gives a logical, intelligent and forthright answer to the question, he would not be seen on the show again, but if he played the game with Skip Bayless would be invited to return. Bayless continues to disrespect LeBron James by calling him prince instead of king which he is known. Bayless does not like Kobe Bryant, calling him a selfish and self-centered player. Kobe has won four NBA Championships. Bayless has called Shaquille O’ Neal lazy and Shaq is the only center in the NBA that has stayed healthy for the most of his career. Shaq also has four championship rings, Mr. Bayless.

Bayless has been critical of Donavan McNabb, and Terrell Owens. The last time I checked neither player has played on a losing team.

Bayless has also criticized Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Tejada, and Sammy Sosa for steroids use; all of these men are of color. When was the last time Mr. Bayless criticized Mr. Mark McGwire? Didn’t Mark also take a performance-enhancing drug? The drum beat continues with the show called “Around the Horn” A show of competitive banter with four guests from different newspapers across the country. Anyone who watches the show one can decipher a pattern. The African-American guest wins showdowns only on Thursday or Friday. For 14 weeks, this has happened with a few exceptions.

The drum beat marches on with “Pardon the Interruption” or “PTI” hosted by Michael Wilbon an African American. During the 2009 Wimbledon Championships in London, England, Mr. Wilbon stated that he would not watch the remainder of the Women’s Finals after Russian blonde, blue-eyed bombshell Maria Sharapova lost in the quarterfinals.

Hold up, Wait a second – didn’t African Americans Venus and Serena Williams play in the finals and didn’t the the Williams Sisters win the Doubles Championship for the fifth time? How very discouraging hearing this from an African American man. There was a void of praise for his African American sisters of great talent.  It is incomprehensible how self hatred is imposed on Blacks by Blacks. The Mouse exploits this with their Black reporters.

The drum beat continued last week with the airing of the 1979 Disco Demolition Night at Old Comiskey Park, Chicago. When will this nonsense end? How can The Mouse continue to insult the intelligence of African Americans, as well as other American sports fans?

My question to the Mouse and the American Public is: why did the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Police Department never pressed charges against station WLUP, the disc-jockey, or the participants for the destruction of property back ? What if African-Americans had an anti-soft rock or hard rock night at any ball park that promoted the destruction of records by Aerosmith, Abba, Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, etc? There would have been tear gas in the Chicago air. Baton swinging men in blue hitting anything human that moved. Chicago jails would have been filled with Black people. White Middle America would have been furious.

There is an obvious double standard in this country and there always will be because we don’t respect each other. Americans dishonor each individuals’ talent or special skills. The Mouse uses this wedge to their advantage as they advance their hidden racial agenda; all to gain ratings as they play to the basest of stereotypes.

On Sunday July 19, 2009, the Mouse maybe called a temporary truce by airing a feel-good story about recent nominee to the Hall of Fame Jim Rice, of the Boston Red Sox. Rice is an African American. Rice saved the life of a nine-year-old boy’s life after he was struck by a line-drive foul ball.

Rice jumped into the stands, grabbed the boy and took him to the Red Sox’s training room where the team doctor examined him and treated him for a fractured skull. The young Red Sox fan was then transported to the local hospital for a speedy recovery. Rice’s actions saved the youngster’s life.

These are the kinds of stories the Mouse should be broadcasting. Don’t hold your breath because this was a once in a life time moment. It is so easier to trash somebody or trash a culture. America loves a train wreck no-matter how bad it looks, no doubt the continuous Drum Beat will return Monday morning.

Broadcasting the ESPY’s Sunday night July 19, 2009 with Black host Samuel Jackson does not give you a pass because within 24 hours it will be business as usual.

Just as expected The Mouse’s slow drum roll started again on Tuesday afternoon July 21, 2009. This Network spent a half hour on the aspects of dog fighting and the life after jail with Michael Vick. However, The Mouse did not spend a second on the latest breaking story of the day the alleged rape charge of Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback Big Ben Roethlisburger in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

This past Wednesday afternoon reporter Lloyd Vance stated that ESPN sent an email to all sports news agencies to crush this story. Can Janet Jackson sing “CONTROL”? Thursday morning, three days later the smoke had cleared The Mouse decided to mention it.

This was after the report that Lake Tahoe Police would not be pressing charges. Again, if Big Ben were African American it would have been the lead story all week long instead they (The Mouse) crush the story not knowing the outcome.

Like my parents stated many years ago you can’t change a dog’s spots(pun intended) and The Mouse will always play this nasty game with African American athletes.

ESPN please stop the hidden racial hype, you maybe gaining ratings,  but you are distorting and destroying young African American lives with this antic.

Sotomayor’s Truth Speaks Volumes

By Wendell P. Simpson
For the Chris Murray Report

I have to wonder when the truth stops being subordinate to politics.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court should have been a cakewalk, but it wasn’t. That’s because (surprise) conservative Republican members of the Senate selection committee had some misgivings about Sotomayor’s ability to adjudicate based on the law and not on her personal, subjective views (read ‘liberal bias’).

Let’s ignore, for a second, the utter absurdity of Republicans castigating anyone else for having a biased agenda, or the fact that there was no basis in the record of her decisions that justified their enmity. The inquisitors based their concerns mostly on a 2001 statement the esteemed jurist made that suggested a wise Hispanic woman’s experiences might enable her to make better jurisprudential decisions in some cases than a white man.

I guess that left the congress of poor, disadvantaged white men feeling a little marginalized, and Sotomayor was oh-so-delicately denounced as a reverse racist and an activist jurist.

The Republicans, in trying to censure Sotomayor, took the kindler and gentler approach. They knew they had to walk on eggshells—they certainly didn’t want to further distance a Hispanic constituency that had already flagged them for Obama.

But Sotomayor hedged anyway, cautiously distancing herself from the remark, calling it a “rhetorical flourish”.

Now we all know that people of color are always forced to make concessions to the truth, but that was one sister Sotomayor did not have to make, because here’s the pragmatic truth: in an America that’s 30 % non-white, 35% non-Christian, 6% gay, and 54% female, there are a whole lot of ‘truths’, and a whole lot of experiences white men aren’t going to know a whole lot about.

Sotomayor knows something about those perilous, uneasy corners of America that don’t show up in travel brochures, tourists’ maps or real estate brokers’ handbooks. She’s experienced an America where there are no manicured lawns, no three-car garages, no Rotary Club, no champagne liberals, no country club, Polo shirt-wearing scion of social privilege wiling away their off-hours on the golf course, and no soccer moms in sparkling new hybrid mini-vans transporting their brood to and from the neighborhood’s state-of-art recreation center.

She knows something about the jungle, all concrete, broken glass and instinct, where mother wit is often the only line of protection between you and an inglorious demise; where poor Puerto Rican, Dominican and African-American mothers are forced to make something out of nothing; where a bag of rice, a satchel of beans, a half pound of day old ground beef and a box of Hamburger Helper become a family’s feast; where everyday, women of color fend off poverty’s disrepair with a screwdriver, a wrench and a ‘don’t-f*ck-with-me’ attitude and mend the egregious harm visited by an indifferent world with a box of Band-Aids, a mother’s kiss and a prayer.

She knows that her man is often the last one hired and the first one fired, or denied promotion because of the color of his skin, and that the only thing standing between succor and an explosion of long-repressed rage is her tender touch and her knowing, understanding, tempering whisper.

She’s heard the awful wail of sirens announcing to the neighborhood that one of its own has fallen by violence or drugs or police brutality; she knows that a job—any job—is the difference between survival one week and homelessness the next; she knows that for far too many people, there no bootstraps, only tenacity and determination. She knows all of the things that Clarence Thomas has either forgotten or chosen to run away from.

But more importantly, she knows that justice sometimes turns, one way of the other, on an accent, a name, gender, or belief in an ‘alien’, unpopular religion. She knows that Obama’s remarkable ascension has not spelled the end of discrimination or inequality, and she knows, in her gut, in her heart and in her mind, that the law isn’t inflexible, intransigent or inexorable, but moved by the zeitgeist, the popular whim, and the jurisprudence of sages with the courage and the wisdom to do the right thing.

That’s why we’ve seen in our history Supreme Court decisions as varied and polar opposite as Dred Scott v. Sanford and Brown v. Board of Education.

There was no reason for Sotomayor to be remotely apologetic about the truth as she sees it, because, in the end, justice is about empathy—and a wise Hispanic woman who knows all those things will be able to deliver lawful and just respite to those who occupy the forgotten places where less astute white men, for far too long, have dared not tread—or even bothered to notice.

Dios bendiga al pueblo y Dios bendiga hermana Sonia Sotomayor!

In his own words: A Conversation with Negro League legend Buck O’Neil

By Chris Murray

Editor-in-Chief of  the Chris Murray Report

When I was a sportswriter/columnist with the Philadelphia Tribune back in 2005, I wrote a series of articles on the plight of African-Americans in baseball. One of the stories that I wrote focused on the impact that former Negro League players had on Major League Baseball once the game was integrated. One of the people that I interviewed for this series for this series was legendary Negro League manager the late John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil (born:November 13 1911-died: October 6, 2006).

O’Neil was Satchel Paige’s roommate on the road during the course of their barnstorming throughout the country. He shared the stories of Paige’s exploits in a number of documentaries including Ken Burns acclaimed PBS series, “Baseball.”

Among baseball historians and well-wishers, he was the unofficial ambassador of the Negro Leagues. O’Neil was the griot of the Negro Leagues who regaled Americans, regardless of races, with the tales of Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, and “Cool Papa Bell. Even beyond Negro League Baseball, O’Neil was a student, if not a professor, of baseball history in general.

And by the way, O’Neil wasn’t bad as a player either. In the 1942 Negro League World Series against the Homestead Grays, he batted .353 as the Monarchs came away with a four-game sweep. He played in three East-West All-Star Classics. He also won the All-Star game four times as a manager. O’Neil also won four league titles as a manager of the Monarchs.

In 1956, O’Neil was hired by the Chicago Cubs as a scout. Two of the three his prized pupils—Ernie Banks and Lou Brock became legends and Hall of Famers. Joe Carter, another O’Neil recruit, hit the decisive home run to help the Toronto Blue Jays win the 1993 World Series. O’Neil was also the first African-American coach in the major leagues.

I had the pleasure of meeting O’Neil back in 2004 at a Black Tie dinner to raise money for a Negro League monument in West Philadelphia. During that dinner, O’Neil showed the people gathered at that event his ability to bridge the gap between by having them hold hands while he led everyone in song. During the course of that discussion, he had nothing but good things to say about his experiences in the old Negro Leagues.

My interview with O’Neil took place on August 15, 2005 for the Tribune’s Blacks in Baseball supplement. We talked about the impact Negro League players had on baseball once the game was integrated, but we talked about other subjects as well.

In the craft of journalism, we like to write glowing prose about interesting people we interview. But there are also times when it is necessary for us to get out of the way and allow our sources to have the floor. And so to quote the Staple Singers, let us get out the way and let the gentleman do his thing. Buck O’Neil in his own words:

What Jackie Robinson and other Negro League players brought to Major League Baseball:

“Actually, Jackie Robinson took Negro League baseball to the Major Leagues. It was a different brand of baseball. Babe Ruth came, Babe Ruth hit the homerun. That changed baseball altogether, everybody was waiting for somebody to hit the ball out of the ball park. But in the Negro Leagues, you hit and run. You bunt and run. You stole the bases. You did these things and so this is what Jackie took the major leagues. Yeah, see they hadn’t seen anything like Jackie Robinson. Uh-huh. Jackie changed the way they played baseball. I remember the time before Jackie Robinson, a guy was on third base, the pitcher was going to wind up and pitch. But after Jackie, they had to come to the set (stretch) position because Jackie would steal home and would catch them winding up there. That changed baseball.”

On the intensity that Negro League ball players brought to the game

“They sure did. Didn’t nobody want Jackie to beat them and so they had to change the way they had been doing things. They used stand back, way back in deep shortstop. Uh huh…deep second base, third base, first place. Jackie came and the Negro League ball players came and you had to take a couple steps in because we brought quickness to baseball, that we brought to basketball, we brought to football ….uh huh. We brought a quickness that hadn’t been known in baseball.

“Negro League ball players going into the major leagues, he had to be better. If he wasn’t better, there ain’t no way for him to take a white boy’s job. You (MLB) were taking the cream of crop. You’re going to take the cream and that’s just what was happening. You were picking the best athletes in the world.”

“The Black ball player was accustomed to hustle. They wanted to be and they had to be the best that they could be to compete at this level because the whole country put their arm around say a Lou Gehrig. But that wasn’t the same thing with a Jackie Robinson, or a Frank Robinson and a Larry Doby.”

African-American ball players and the importance of education and historically Black colleges:

“The Negro League Ball Player…this was an intelligent man. In the major leagues, during my tenure, one percent of major league baseball players were college men. The major leagues wanted them right out of high school. Soon as the they got of high school, they put them in the minor leagues. In the Negro Leagues, 40 percent of Negro Leaguers were college men, man. We always spring trained in Black college towns. That’s who we played in spring training. We played the college ball club. When the college season was over, they would come and play baseball in the Negro Leagues. When the season was over, they’d go back to school, go back to teaching. Oh man, that was the Negro League Ball player.”

Why the American League was slow at bringing in Black baseball players:

“The Yankees didn’t need no Black ball players, Boston didn’t need no Black ball players, they were filling up the ball parks. They filling up the ball parks. … They were slow in doing it, the American League was drawing the people. If you think about it now, before integration the American League was winning the majority of the All-Star games, but when they come and put that Black power in there in the National League, (American League) couldn’t beat them.”

Jackie Robinson, Philadelphia and Southern players: “Of course, you had a lot of Southern players on that Philadelphia ball club. When you think about it, the majority of the baseball players at that time were from the South. These are white guys and they were strictly segregationists. …

We’re (Kansas City Monarchs) playing in Yankee Stadium and Branch Rickey called me and said ‘Buck come out—[this is Jackie's first year]– and bring the team to see Jackie.’ During batting practice, I went down on the field. I’m talking to Pee Wee Reese and the second baseman and I said, ‘is Jackie going to make it? And they said, ‘we’re going to see that he makes it.’And these are Southern boys. You know down there in Cincinnati they’re booing Jackie and that’s when Pee Wee came and put his arm around Jackie’s shoulder. That stopped the booing and he’s a Southern boy.”

On Robinson congratulating the 1950 Phillies for winning the National League Pennant after their harsh treatment of him:

“Jackie was so much bigger than many of those people. Another thing, too. What you got to realize and a lot of people don’t realize…the people that was booing Jackie wasn’t baseball fans. This was the Klan. This was the haters who might not have gone to a ball games in their life. That’s what they came to do—Hate. But the real baseball fans, can you play?”

His concern about the lack of Africans-Americans in baseball and his view of how it happened:

“Of course, but we’re changing that now because of the RBI (Reviving Baseball in the Inner City) program and they’re bringing baseball back in the inner city. They moved baseball out of the inner city to the suburbs. When I came along, all of the churches had baseball teams and baseball leagues. In the inner city, all the kids played baseball. They played baseball and baseball was actually a way out for the Black kids. What happened was the Black kid started taking over basketball, taking over football, so they wanted a spot for the white kid, so they moved baseball out of the inner city and they put up basketball courts in the inner city so kids can shoot the baskets and they can shoot baskets all night long if they wanted to. It kind of backfired on them because now the Latin kids are taking over baseball and the kids from foreign countries are taking over baseball. I remember the times when the middle infielders were white kids—5-foot-10, 170 pounds. The middle infielder, the centerfielder—that’s the Latin kid now because he brings that quickness and that strong arm to baseball. That little white boy was good, but what he’s doing now he’s going to soccer and things like that. When you look at ball clubs now, the winning ball clubs, you see these Latin players on the team.

“Right here in Kansas City, we’ve got 400 kids playing baseball and softball in the inner city. They got 1,000 kids in New York City doing that, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, St. Louis. Wait until about 10 years from now, you’re going to see a lot of Black kids back into Major League baseball.”

The hostility that young Black players faced in the minors in the South during the early years of integration:

“It was terrible, it was terrible. Jackie played in Montreal. That was a different story than playing in Savannah, Georgia. What these guys had to put up with was tough. But we had the same spirit that our forefathers had when they got out of slavery. You know what I mean. This was baseball. We are the greatest survivors that ever lived. They learned to survive even before they integrated baseball.”