Summerall and Tony Trabert at the 1979 U.S. Open.

Summerall at the 1981 Western Open on Jack Nicklaus.

Remembering the great Pat Summerall:

NFL Network’s tribute.

Summerall signs off with John Madden for the last time after the 2002 Super Bowl telecast.

Summerall with his other great partner, Tom Brookshier.

In the last few weeks, Bill Walton is being portrayed as this goof, eccentric uncle, prone to going over the line of ridiculous. So perhaps a little reminder is in order as to what he truly represented: Basketball at its finest.

Does it get any better than his performance in the 1973 NCAA Final? Walton went 21 of 22 from the field, scoring 44 points in UCLA’s win over Memphis. As a bonus, listen to the great Curt Gowdy on the call.

Here’s a profile of Walton and UCLA

Earlier this week, I bemoaned the fact that hockey rarely gets featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated these days.

That wasn’t the case way back when. Hockey used to be front and center during the early years and even beyond for the magazine.

SI has a site that features all of its NHL covers. Here are a few from the collection.

The first NHL cover was in 1956 with the great Jean Beliveau; an artist’s rendition of Gordie Howe; Bobby Hull without his teeth; Sportsman of the Year Bobby Orr; hello and good-bye for Wayne Gretzky.

How about a starting lineup that includes Bird, Dave Cowens, Pete Maravich, and Nate Archibald? And who is that sportswriter with the bushy hair?

Check out this clip from a Boston-Detroit game in March, 1980.

I defy anyone to write a better column off Sunday’s game.

*****

First of all, are you sitting down?

Be sure who you tell this to or they’ll think you’ve been drinking.

On Sunday afternoon, the canary ate the cat. The mailman bit the police dog. The minnow chased the shark out of its waters. The missionaries swallowed the cannibals. The rowboat rammed the battleship. The mouse roared, and the lion jumped up on a chair and began to scream for help.

The first thing that’s going to surprise you about the Super Bowl game is the closeness of the score. But, hang onto your hat. If you think that’s a shocker, wait till I get to the punch line.

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

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

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

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

Once upon a time, a 30-minute tune-up sufficed for Super Sunday. This is NBC’s pregame show from Super Bowl III.

One of the quarterbacks popped off and predicted a victory. You would think Joe Namath’s comments would be the big story right at the top, right?

Guess again. Instead, Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis (great glasses) focused the first segment focused on defense.

Yes, times have changed.

If you’re feeling cold wherever you are today, here’s a reminder of what’s really cold. This is CBS’ opening to the famed Ice Bowl game between Green Bay and Dallas on Dec. 31, 1967.

Ray Scott, Jack Buck and Frank Gifford did the coldest open ever with temperatures at 15-below. “The Giffer,” though, wasn’t about the mess up his hair by wearing a hat. Vanity has no bounds.

The industry suffered a great loss this week with the passing of Richard Ben Cramer. Cramer had a long and storied Pulitzer Prize winning career as a bestselling writer and author on many topics. Thankfully, he veered into the sports realm every once in a while.

Cramer wrote the definitive biography of Joe DiMaggio, and was a contributor to Sports Illustrated, among others.

In a tribute, Joe Posnanski wrote:

After I read that piece about Cal Ripken — which includes the magical word “fotobooger” and ends with a seemingly simple story of Ripken signing autographs that gets to the heart of why he mattered so much to people — I had to read everything Richard had ever written. It was only then that I read the Esquire Ted Williams story, which I had heard about and copied but had never really read. Of course, the story was more than great. It was life altering.

Esquire posted Cramer’s piece on Williams this week. It is more than worth a few minutes of your time. Written for the June, 1986 issue, Cramer takes us along for a memorable ride as he tries to get a look deep inside the baseball legend, who was 62 at the time.

Some excerpts:

Ted Williams can hush a room just by entering. There is a force that boils up  from him and commands attention. This he has come to accept as his destiny and  his due, just as he came to accept the maddening, if respectful, way his  opponents pitched around him (he always seemed to be leading the league in bases  on balls), or the way every fan in the ball park seemed always to watch (and  comment upon) T. Williams’s every move. It was often said Ted would rather play  ball in a lab, where fans couldn’t see. But he never blamed fans for watching  him. His hate was for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t feel with him, his  effort, his exultation, pride, rage, or sorrow. If they wouldn’t share those,  then there was his scorn, and he’s make them feel that, by God. These days,  there are no crowds, but Ted is watched, and why not? What other match could  draw a kibitzer’s eye when Ted, on the near court, pounds toward the net,  slashing the air with his big racket, laughing in triumphant derision as he  scores with his killer drop shot, or smacking the ball twenty feet long and  roaring, “SYPHILITIC SON OF A BITCH!” as he hurls his racket to the clay at his  feet?

And there was this exchange:

“Ted, I think you were more serious about living life on your own terms….”

“Well, I wanted to be alone at times. It was the hustle and the bustle of the  crowd for seven months a year. So sure, I wanted a little more privacy, a little  more quiet, a little more tranquility. This is the fucking left we wanted.”

“Yeah, but it’s not just privacy, Ted. I’m not trying to make it seem  unnatural. But what you toss off as a little more privacy led you off the  continent, so far off in a corner that — ”

“Well, lemme tell you about Koufax. He got through playin’ baseball, he went  to a fuckin’ little shitty remote town in Maine, and that’s where he was for  five years. Everybody thought he was a recluse, he wasn’t very popular just  ’cause he wanted to be alone and he finally moved out. Lemme tell you about  Sterling Hayward, Hayden. HELL of an actor. And still he wanted to be ALONE, he  wanted to TRAVEL, he wanted to be on his BOAT GOIN’ TO THE SOUTH SEAS. So, see,  that’s not way outa line!….I guess I’ll take a right, that oughta do it. Eight  seventy-four, do you see 874 anyplace? Go down here till I get to Gilliam Road,  or some goddamn thing….Fuck, 874’s where I wanted to go, but looked like it  was puttin’ me back on this fuckin’ turnpike, shit. So, you know, seeking  privacy and, uh, seeking that kind of thing…what road is this?”

“We’re on Killian….So privacy, you don’t think that’s what?”

“Unusual, for Christ’s sake. Shit.”

“I don’t think it’s unusual either.”

“WELL, YOU’RE MAKIN’ A PROJECT OUT OF IT!”

And…

There are no statistics on fans, how they felt, what they took from the game.  How many of their days did Ted turn around? How many days did he turn to  occasions? And not just with hits: there was a special sound from a crowd when  Ted got his pitch, turned on the ball, whipped his bat in that perfect arc —  and missed. It was a murmurous rustle, as thousands at once let breath escape,  gathered themselves, and leaned forward again. To see Ted suffer a third  strike was an event four times more rare, and more remarkable, than seeing him  get a hit. When Ted retired, some owners feared for attendance in the league. In Boston, where millions came through the years to cheer, to  boo, to care what he did, there was an accretion of memory so bright,  bittersweet, and strong that when he left, the light was gone. And Fenway was  left with a lesser game.

And what was Ted left with? Well, there was pride. He’d done, he felt, the  hardest thing in sport: by God, he hit the ball.

Terrific stuff. Do yourself and spend some time with Richard Ben Cramer and Ted Williams, two legends of their games.