A Different Game -- Sammy Baugh

It's odd and a little unsettling when, after a long absence, a household name suddenly pops up, though only for the last time.

Sammy Baugh was one of the biggest names in D.C. during my adolescence. He was the quarterback of the Washington Redskins football team and legendary even in those times, from the late '30's up into the early '50's. "Slinging Sammy Baugh" I think he was fondly called. This was in those sadly long bygone -- and also odiously segregated -- days when, however, there were far fewer people around to behave so poorly. This meant that, purely on the spur of the moment, even I, who never said devotions at the football altar even then, could show up at the ticket window in Griffith Stadium on a Sunday afternoon and be able to see that day's game up close and in person -- a sheer impossibility in this present era of season tickets, those abominations that have become precious legacies and expressions of (often drunken) privilege that are passed along with great reverence and appreciation from one generation to another, as happened in my own family.

It's pretty weird in today's terms to say that at various times S. Baugh led the then modestly-sized NFL not only in passing but also in defensive play and in punting. In one game he threw four touchdown passes and also intercepted four passes. Incredible in terms of now but not far out of the ordinary in those days of something called "all-around players." Specialties are okay, I guess, but I can't help thinking that in today's game something interesting is still missing, for bad.

As the late, great commedienne, Moms Mabley, said with mixed dismay and wonder, "People are dying today that ain't never died before!" Now it's Sammy Baugh, sacked permanently, though not before, in life as well, he had racked up an unusually fair amount of yardage, at age 94.