The Sports Archives Greatest Moments – Baseball’s Bob Feller

Posted on December 16, 2010 by thesportsarchives

Bob Feller was a great baseball pitcher that played 18 years for the Cleveland Indians.  He was born and raised in Van Meter, Iowa and became know as “The Heater from Van Meter” for his high velocity fast ball.

He was one of “The Big Four” Indian pitchers, along with Bob Lemon, Early Wynn and Mike Garcia, to strike fear into the hearts of the batters they faced.  Feller’s fast ball was once clocked at 107.6 mph.   He threw a no-hitter on Opening Day of the 1940 season striking out 18 Detroit Tigers.

Feller grew up on a farm and his mother was a registered nurse and teacher.  On Mother’s Day in 1939, Feller was pitching against the Chicago White Sox in Chicago and his family drove from Iowa to see the game.  Mother’s Day was going well until Feller threw a pitch that was fouled off by Chicago batter Marv Owen and hit Feller’s mother breaking her glasses and cutting her face.  Feller asked for time so that he can tend to his mother.  After seeing everything was alright, he struck out Owen and went on to win the game.

Bob Feller moved on to that great baseball diamond in the sky at the age of 92.

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The Sports Archives Greatest Moments – Lanny Bassham and Mental Management

Posted on December 15, 2010 by thesportsarchives

Lanny Bassham admits that he was not a great athlete in his early school years.  In fact, one day during a discussion about the Olympics, the teacher asked the class if anyone thought that they might have a chance to participate in the Olympics.  One boy pointed out that he did not know, but he what he did know was that it would not be Lanny Bassham.

Maybe that’s what Lanny needed to hear because Bassham went on to become an Olympic Gold Medalist.  Having won Silver in the 1972 Summer Olympics for International Rifle Shooting, he blamed mental failure for not achieving the Gold.  As with any athlete, Bassham wanted to correct this shortcoming but could not find the answer he was looking for.  He went on to interview Olympic Gold Medalists with an attempt to discover what set them apart from their competitors.

After all the fact-finding, Bassham took what he learned and developed a sytem of mental control which he named Mental Management.  He then started applying the techniques himself and within 6 years, Bassham won 22 world individual and team titles, set 4 world records and took home the Olympic Gold in the 1976 Montreal games.

Now, Lanny joins the likes of many others who have taken what they have learned through their own influential experiences and are assisting others in applying the same techniques to achieve what I call that ‘positive’ edge.  Yes, there’s hope that even a poor athlete in school can grow up to be an Olympic champion!

Lanny Bassham

Lanny Bassham

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The Sports Archives Greatest Moments – The Knicks and Heat Rivalry

Posted on December 15, 2010 by thesportsarchives

It was Game 5 of the second round of the 1997 NBA playoffs featuring the New York Knicks and the Miami Heat.  It was going bad for the Knicks and the Heat had a commanding lead heading into the final moments of the game.  That’s when it got even worse for the Knicks.

Knicks coach Jeff Van Gundy had benched most of his starters because of the Knicks poor performance.  Play on the court was getting more fustrating and a fight ensued between the Knicks’ Charlie Ward and Miami’s P.J. Brown.  Van Gundy was attempting to contain the fight along with Miami Coach (and former Knick Coach) Pat Riley.  During the melee, a large number of the Knick players, including some of the starters, took steps away from the bench towards where the fight was taking place.  This was a big mistake.

After the game, league commissioner David Stern threw the book at the Knicks and suspended Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, John Starks, Larry Johnson, and Charlie Ward.  The suspensions had to be carried across games 6 and 7 so the Knicks could dress the required number of players!  Miami won the series in seven games and so it became, the first chapter of the intense rivalry between the New York Knicks and Miami Heat.

See the fight here at about the 8th minute of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryJXqm93JQ8

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The Sports Archives History Lesson – Tennis Great René “Le Crocodile” Lacoste

Posted on December 4, 2010 by thesportsarchives

René Lacoste is well-known as designer of the shirts with the little crocodile emblem.  Before Lacoste ever dreamed up the crocodile logo, he was playing tennis like a crocodile back in the 1920s and 1930s.  He was known as one of the “Four Musketeers”, one of four great Frenchmen playing pro tennis alongside Bill Tilden in that era.

How do you play like a crocodile?  According to Lacoste, you hang on in any situation and devour your opponent.  Lacoste gained the nickname “Le Crocodile” after winning a bet and an alligator-skin suitcase from the captain of the French Davis Cup team.   This led the way to a clothing company with the crocodile insignia and the rest is history.

Rene Lacoste Crocodile

Rene "Le Crocodile" Lacoste

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The Sports Archives Greatest Moments – Baseball’s Rifleman

Posted on December 3, 2010 by thesportsarchives

Do you remember the 1950’s Western series, ‘The Rifleman’?  We all remember Chuck Connors shooting that rifle like it was a six-shooter.  Did you know that Chuck Connors played professional baseball and basketball?

Born Kevin Connors, Chuck started out with the NBA’s Boston Celtics in 1946 after military discharge, but later joined Major League Baseball in 1949.  He played one game for the Brooklyn Dodgers and then a short while for the Chicago Cubs.

One interesting fact about Connors is that he was officially named the first player to break an NBA glass backboard!   It was to be Boston’s first game in the NBA, and during warm-ups, Connors’ shot bounced off the rim causing the improperly installed backboard to shatter.

Connors did not excel in professional sports so he pursued an acting career which suited him just fine.  After performing some movie parts, Connors won the role of ‘Lucas McCain’ in the Rifleman television series.  The show went on to become a major league success and made Connors a big league hitter with a rifle!

Chuck Connors

Chuck Connors - The Rifleman

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The Sports Archives Greatest Moments – Casey Stengel Comeback

Posted on November 30, 2010 by thesportsarchives

The year was 1958 and the New York Yankees were at the top once again having easily won the American League pennant early on. This did not work to their advantage however, because as the season wound down, the Yanks lost emotion and momentum.

When the World Series came around, the Milwaukee Braves jumped to a 3 games to 1 lead. Yankee’s coach Casey Stengel had his back to the wall and knew that if he didn’t do something, the Series and the year would be lost. He knew that the 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates were the only team to previously come back from a 3 to 1 deficit in the World Series to win.

Even with these odds, Casey knew he would win and the hardest task put before him was to convey this positive attitude to his players.  And that is exactly what he did!  His team played like well-oiled machines the rest of the series taking the next three games and proving once again that Casey would not bow down to defeat.

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The Sports Archives Greatest Moments – Attitude Change for Golf’s Tommy Bolt

Posted on November 23, 2010 by thesportsarchives

Tommy Bolt won the National Open Golf Championship in 1958.  Prior to that, Bolt missed the championship a couple of times allegedly due to his terrible temper.   Often called the “terrible tempered  Mr. Bolt”, he would at times, break all his clubs after missing a putt.

Although a great golfer, fans were beginning to follow him around more for entertainment than his golf skills.   Fans would yell for him to miss the putt just so that can see him throw one of his tantrums!  All this was causing Bolt to lose focus as to why he was out there in the first place.

Bolt desperately wanted to succeed, so not only did he practice hitting golf balls, he practiced changing his attitude, namely from negative and ill-tempered to positive and even-tempered.  He transformed his thinking and success came knocking!

Credit:  The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking – Norman Vincent Peale

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The Sports Archives History Lesson – Football’s Brian “B.D.” Dowling

Posted on November 22, 2010 by thesportsarchives

The character in Gary Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” comic strip that wears a football helmet and goes by the name B.D. was inspired by Trudeau’s Yale University classmate Brian Dowling.

Dowling was quarterback for Yale in the late 1960s and later for the New England Patriots in the NFL.  Dowling was 16-1-1 in his junior and senior years at Yale.  He later went on to become a sportscaster.

Brian B.D. Dowling

Brian "B.D." Dowling

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The Sports Archives Greatest Moments – Olympic Harold “Odd Job” Sakata

Posted on November 17, 2010 by thesportsarchives

We all remember the bulky, treestump-looking, James Bond villain, “Odd Job” who was bodyguard to Auric Goldfinger and notorious for decapitating people by throwing his steel brimmed top hat in the same motion as one would fling a frisbee.

“Odd Job” was portrayed by the 1948 Olympic Silver medalist, Harold Sakata who was born on Hawaii from Japanese descent.  He won silver for light-heavyweight weightlifting and went on to become a wrestler named Tosh Togo.

But, of course, his favorite role was “Odd Job” and that name stuck to him beyond the Goldfinger movie.  He went on to play in other movies and commercials.

Sakata died of cancer on July 29, 1982.

Odd Job

Harold Sakata as Odd Job

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