NHL Quiz: 1) Who won the Stanley Cup last year? Well…
2) What team holds the record for the longest regular season
winning streak? [Hint: Post-1980 team] 3) What two players,
post-1960, scored 6 goals in a single game? 4) Who is 2nd on the
all-time list for games played next to Gordie Howe (regular
season only). If you get this, you”re goood. Answers below.
Alfred Rascon…Medal of Honor Recipient
Last week, President Clinton awarded the highest honor for a
serviceman to Rascon. Joseph Galloway is an editor at U.S.
News & World Report, as well as a best-selling author. In a
recent issue of that publication, Galloway wrote of Rascon”s
exploits on March 16, 1966 in Vietnam.
Rascon”s platoon was rushing to the aid of a trapped battalion of
paratroopers when it came under attack.
“Hearing cries of ”Medic,” Rascon ignored orders and raced
forward. He found Pfc. William Thompson, a machine gunner,
wounded on the trail. Rascon crawled atop Thompson to shield
him and was hit by shrapnel from a grenade and took a bullet in
his hip. He dragged Thompson off the trail only to discover he
had died. He heard Pfc. Larry Gibson yelling that he was out of
ammunition and he retrieved Thompson”s bandoleers for him.
Two more grenades exploded in Rascon”s face. ”Oh my God, my
face is gone,” Rascon thought. He saw Pfc. Neil Haffey get hit
just as several enemy grenades landed beside him; Rascon
dropped on top of him and took the blast. By now Rascon had
lost his hearing and was bleeding badly from multiple wounds.
Sgt. Ray Compton ordered the doc to the rear but was ignored.
Rascon could see enemy soldiers edging toward Thompson”s
machine gun and two boxes of ammo still in the trail. Haffey saw
a blur run by. It was Rascon, dragging the machine gun and
ammo to another soldier. That gun turned the tide. Compton put
Rascon in for the Medal of Honor, but the paperwork
disappeared.” Rascon, who was born in Mexico, gave his all for
America and his buddies.
Galloway and Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) wrote perhaps the
greatest war book of all time, “We Were Soldiers Once…And
Young,” the story of Ia Drang, the first major battle of the
Vietnam War. It is truly gut-wrenching and I heartily recommend it.
[If you like that kind of thing.] Herewith is a brief passage:
“Bob Edwards could not raise Lieutenant Kroger or Lieutenant
Geoghegan on his radio because the two platoon leaders and their
men were fighting for their lives, blazing away at the onrushing
enemy. Sergeant Jemison says Geoghegan”s troops were in two-
man, foot-deep holes spaced about ten yards apart, in which they
could lie prone. Jemison says, ”The enemy was wearing helmets
with nets on them and grass stuck in the netting. They looked
like little trees. There were over a hundred of them, hitting our
right flank hard and over in the 1st platoon. Geoghegan”s foxhole
and mine were in about the center of our position. They hit us
once, then fell back; then they split into two groups. One began
trying to flank us on the left but [James] Comer”s machine gun
stopped them. The other kept hitting the right. One of the first
men to get hit was Sergeant Cohen to my right; then other people
got wounded.”
“Pfc. Willie Godboldt, twenty-four, of Jacksonville, Florida, was
hit while firing from his position twenty yards to Sergeant
Jemison”s right. Jemison remembers, ”Godboldt was hollering:
“Somebody help me!” I yelled, “I”ll go get him.” Lieutenant
Geoghegan yelled back: “No, I will!” Geoghegan moved out of
his position in the foxhole to help Godboldt and was shot…
Struck in the back and the head, Lieutenant John Lance
Geoghegan was killed instantly. The man he was trying to save,
Pfc. Godboldt, died of his wounds shortly afterward.”
[After I read Galloway and Moore”s book, I couldn”t stop
thinking about it for a long time. I had a bracelet made with
Geoghegan”s name on it. I haven”t worn it in quite awhile, but I
look at it from time to time.]
Bob Gibson
Who better to discuss during Black History month than Bob
Gibson, the greatest pitcher I ever watched as I was growing up.
[Tom Seaver was my favorite, but I thought Gibson was
awesome. I also have to add that I started really following
baseball closely in 1967, too late for Koufax.]
Gibson was born in 1935 in the slums of Omaha, Nebraska. He
spent his youth sick and poverty-stricken. He suffered from
rickets, asthma, and a rheumatic heart. Said his mother, “He was
born sick and got sicker.” At 3 he was taken to the hospital
with pneumonia. According to the book, “Crossing the Line,” by
Larry Moffi and Jonathan Kronstadt, Gibson looked up at his
older brother Josh and asked if he was going to die. “You”ll
make it,” Josh replied. “And when you come home I”ll get you a
baseball glove and bat.”
Gibson was pushed around as a kid, growing up in his tough
neighborhood. He became an outstanding athlete and won a
basketball scholarship to Creighton University, later playing a bit
with the Harlem Globetrotters. After graduating he signed with
the St. Louis Cardinals for $4,000. When he got to the team
hotel for his first spring training, he got a rude welcome. Wrote
Moffi and Kronstadt, “He was hustled out the side door, put in a
cab and driven to a house where the other black players stayed.”
It was a tremendous disappointment to Gibson. He had still not
escaped the ghetto.
Gibson struggled early on, particularly his first two years in the
majors. The manager was Solly Hemus. Once Hemus mistook
Gibson for shortstop Julio Gotay and told him what a great job he
was doing at shortstop. He nearly destroyed his locker.
Hemus was replaced by Johnny Keane midway through the 1961
season and Gibson was finally given a real opportunity to show
his stuff.
Gibson kept a mental notebook containing every hitter he ever
faced.and every injustice he ever suffered. He was the most
intimidating pitcher of his era. His demeanor was legendary.
Even his teammates knew enough to stay out of his way on days
he pitched. Catcher Tim McCarver dreaded going out to the
mound with Gibby pitching. “Keep your ass away from me while
I”m working,” Gibson would yell at him. “The only thing you
know about pitching is that you can”t hit it.”
And once you were no longer his teammate, all bets were off.
Bill White was his roommate when they were with the Cardinals,
but the first time White faced him after being traded to the
Phillies, Gibson hit him in the arm with a pitch. He never asked
to be adored, or even liked by the fans. But he demanded
respect. “I owe the fans 100 percent on the field and I give them
exactly that. Anything else I give is completely up to me.”
Gibson was a 20-game winner five times and finished his career
with a 251-174 record, a 2.91 ERA and 3,117 strikeouts. He also
won 9 Gold Gloves, 2 Cy Young Awards, one MVP and hit 24
career home runs. Needless to say he is a Hall of Famer. But he
is perhaps best known for the phenomenal 1.12 ERA he
registered in 1968 as well as his 7-2 record (completing all 9
starts) in 3 World Series, including the 1968 Series opener against
31-game winner Denny McLain of the Tigers. All Gibson did
then was toss a shutout, striking out 17.
There is no doubt that Gibson often acted like he had a chip on
his shoulder and he lived by his own rules. “It doesn”t excite me
when I go into a restaurant and they give me the glad hand
because I”m Bob Gibson the ballplayer,” he wrote in his
autobiography. “They might throw the next Negro out.”
Top 3 songs for the week of 2/14/70: #1 “Thank You
(Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)/Everybody Is A Star”
(Sly & The Family Stone) #2 “I Want You Back”
(The Jackson 5) #3 “Raindrops Keep Fallin” On My Head”
(B.J. Thomas).
Quiz Answers: 1) Dallas.I forgot this myself.sorry.
2) Pittsburgh Penguins, 17, 1993. 3) Red Berenson,
St. Louis,1968; Darryl Sittler, Toronto, 1976 [This was the same
game that Sittler set the all-time record for most points in a single
game, 10] 4) Alex Delvecchio, 1549. Howe is first with 1767,
John Bucyk third, with 1540. Just writing Delvecchio and Bucyk
reminds me of my favorite era for hockey, the late 60s-early 70s.
Frank Mahovlich, Jean Beliveau, Norm Ullman and my favorite to
pronounce…Yvan Cournoyer…also the fastest skater I ever saw.
Next Bar Chat, Monday…Presidential trivia and a story you just
won”t believe. The car salesman who pretended to be a MD.
