His NFL Career Got Off on Wrong Foot

Hall of Fame defensive tackle Ernie Stautner, an assistant coach for the Dallas Cowboys, told Bill Utterback of the Pittsburgh Press that he volunteered for the special teams as a rookie with the Pittsburgh Steelers and started the season as a kicker.

Of the opening kickoff, he said: “No ball was ever teed up as carefully. Then I measured off my 10 steps and stood there counting the men, to be sure we had the right number on the field. Now I took off for the ball and just as I got there the wind blew it off the tee.

“That sent me through the whole routine again--teeing up the ball, measuring my steps and counting the players. Then the kick. The divot I dug up traveled 25 yards and the ball went 10 yards. I sprained my ankle and had to be helped off the field.”

He never kicked again.

From Jack Shepard of the St. Petersburg Times: “In 1983, Jay Schroeder was tending bar in the Los Angeles hotel where the Pittsburgh Steelers stayed before their AFC playoff game against the Raiders. Five years later, he is a Raider quarterback.”

Trivia Time: Who is the only major leaguer to win most-valuable-player awards for 2 teams in the same league? (Answer below.)

Now-it-can-be-told Dept.: Dr. Sammy Lee, the Korean-American who won Olympic diving titles in 1948 and 1952, was asked in 1976 to take under his wing a talented but headstrong 16-year-old diver from San Diego named Greg Louganis.

Lee told the Christian Science Monitor: “The first day I said, ‘Go up and do that 2 1/2 somersault in the tuck position.’ Greg said, ‘I don’t do a tuck, I do a pike.’ So I told him to get up there and do the tuck in the next 15 seconds or start packing.”

Louganis did the tuck.

From the Florence newspaper, Corriere dello Sport , putting the blast on Italy’s Olympic soccer team after its 4-0 loss to Zambia at Seoul: “One player’s salary--1 player!--from the Italian team could pay the salary for all the Zambian players for the next 10 years. At least.”

77 years ago today: On Sept. 22, 1911, Cy Young of the Boston Braves, at age 44, beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1-0, for the 511th and last victory of his career.

Olympian Jim Abbott, the 1-handed pitcher drafted by the Angels, told the New York Times: “I knew I’d be drafted by an American League team. With the designated hitter, I won’t have to hit. I guess they didn’t know I hit .430 in high school with 8 home runs.”

Dave Henderson, whose bases-loaded walk gave the Oakland Athletics a win Sunday, was asked if it was the easiest run batted in of his career.

“No,” he said. “The easiest RBI I ever had was when they gave me 1 of Steve Henderson’s.”

The Hendersons were teammates at Seattle in 1984.

Boston pitcher Mike Smithson is called a special-teams player by the Red Sox because he pitches short, long and middle relief, in addition to working as a starter, but he says, “I don’t return punts.”

Trivia Answer: Jimmie Foxx. He won the award with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1932 and 1933 and with the Boston Red Sox in 1938.

Quotebook

Tim Kurkjian of the Baltimore Sun, on Baltimore Orioles Manager Frank Robinson after the team had hit into a double play in 24 straight games: “He manages Team 6-4-3.”