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Darryl Stingley being attended to after the hit by Jack Tatum.
In this edition of P2bNL, Jesse and Matt talk about Jack Tatum's hit on the late Darryl Stingley and the slow starts of the Phillies and Reds. If you don't like sports, there's a funny piece about Fergie you can read, pussy.
Jack Tatum's Hit on Darryl Stingley Last Thursday Darryl Stingley died at the age of 55. A former receiver for the New England Patiots, Stingley was best remembered as the man on the receiving end of one of the most infamous hits in NFL history- a hit that knocked Stingley out football and into a wheelchair. The man on the giving end of the hit was Oakland Raiders star Jack Tatum. There has never been much debate about the legality of the hit (it was legal at the time), but Tatum's seemingly complete lack of remorse has always been a point of conversation whenever either player is talked about.
Jesse's Take: There are ways to deliberately injure another player on the football field. Charles Martin doing a Suplex on Jim MacMahon ten seconds after the play was an attempt to deliberately injure. So was Turkey Joe Jones doing a Pile-driver on Terry Bradshaw. Going right for the cartilage in the knee is easy enough. That wasn't what Jack Tatum did when he made the shot that crippled Darryl Stingley for life. The injury was an awful, fluke-ish denouement to a hit the Raider safety and former Ohio State All-American had levied countless times throughout the course of his career.
Think of the two most historically notable plays Tatum was directly involved in: the Stingley play and the Immaculate Reception during the 1972 Playoffs. In both cases, quarterbacks made poor passes directly into the middle of the field, leaving the intended receivers- Stingley and Frenchy Fuqua- extremely vulnerable to contact. In both cases, Tatum, in his own words, had a chance to make a play on the ball but made a conscious choice to go for the big hit instead. He delivered a strikingly similar hit on both plays- a straight-on, helmet-to-helmet shot. The only fundamental differences between the two are the attitude of Fuqua's and Stingley's bodies and the location of the passes; factors which are, of course, related. One hit led to the most famous fluke touchdown in the history of the NFL. The other led to the most severe on-field injury in the history of the NFL. In each case, the play led to a result Jack Tatum didn't intend.
Another Tatum tour de force, his near-decapitation of Minnesota's Sammy White in the third quarter of Super Bowl XI, was an almost-identical shot as those on Stingley and Fuqua. Incredibly, White held onto the ball, although he lost his bonnet and his senses.
That kind of hit was pretty common throughout the league in those days. One of my NFL Films Super Bowl DVDs- 1970 and Super Bowl V ("That One Vintage Year") has a montage of big hits, any one of which could have resulted in a paralyzing injury- guys leading with their helmets to the small of the back, guys getting flipped in the air and landing on their heads, quarterbacks being pile-driven, you name it. A couple of years after the Stingley injury, Thom Darden of the Browns hit Pat McInally of the Bengals with such a vicious helmet-to-helmet shot- a straight-up blast not so different from Tatum's- that McInally swallowed his tongue and had to have it dislodged from his air passage right on the Riverfront Stadium field. It was a rougher game back then.
Yes, it would have been nice for Tatum to show a little more compassion, or empathy, or... something. Not even saying it's his fault; that he was trying to accomplish what ended up happening- but just show some human feeling for the man. There's no sign that Tatum took any particular interest in the immediate aftermath of the hit, when Stingley was lying there on the field. He just walked away. It was his job to punish any receiver who strayed into the middle of the field. He'd done his job, and that was it. If a guy got hurt, oh well. I saw Jack Tatum give this bit of advice to receivers during an NFL Films feature on those '70s Raider secondaries:
"If a quarterback hangs you out to dry, don't even go for the ball, cause you're gonna get killed."
That's Jack Tatum. You may not like the man and his attitude, and you may be right not to. But the hit he laid on Darryl Stingley the evening of August 12, 1978, was clean, legal, and commonplace.
One more thing:
As a guy who played a little bit of scout-team receiver in high school, I'm compelled to bring up Steve Grogan's horrible, overthrown pass on the fateful play. Grogan called his own plays, which wasn't uncommon back then. He called for a slant pattern, a hazardous route directly into the heart of the roughest secondary in the NFL, and he overthrew the football- badly. A well-thrown pass and Stingley catches it upright, gets clocked by Tatum, then gets up and walks back to the huddle shaking out the cobwebs. Grogan says he probably wouldn't shake Jack Tatum's hand. Fair enough. Wonder if he thinks about how he hung his receiver out to dry?
McCoy's Tatum Rebuttal: Darryl Stingley died less than two weeks ago. He did so a quadriplegic. Stingley spent the nearly thirty years subsequent to being on the receiving end of Tatum's helmet-to-helmet spear on August 12, 1978 in a wheelchair. As far as the sports-consuming public is aware, he never blamed Jack Tatum for the wretched hand he was dealt. He understood the risks inherent to the game he loved and played so well. And he also understood that at the time it happened, Tatum's hit was legal.
The telling and stark dichotomy between the two men forever intertwined by that fateful August football collision may be best exampled in the respective books they penned:
Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum by Jack Tatum with Bill Kushner
Happy to be Alive, a memoir by Darryl Stingley with Mark Mulvoy
Jack Tatum is a douche bag. Darryl Stingley is an inspiration.
In the time between Stingley's motionless fall onto the turf and the moment he lay lifeless in a coffin, Tatum never once apologized to the man. Not for the hit, nor to express sympathy for its tragic result.
Should Tatum have apologized for the hit? Personally, I don't think so. But should he have expressed regret for the traumatic repercussions of it on Stingley? Yer goddamn right he should have. Where's the humanity, the compassion, the fraternal bond that supposedly ties athletes who've gone into battle together? It's quite clear to me that by never "manning up," Tatum neither respects himself, the game from which he continues to profit, nor his fellow human beings in general.
His coach at the time, John Madden, rushed to the hospital to visit Stingley after the game. He expressed remorse for what happened and the two became friends. But not Tatum. His only overture came while he was writing his autobiography and apparently, once Stingley learned of the title, refused to meet with "The Assassin." Can't blame him, as it was clearly a shallow and thinly veiled publicity stunt.
Compare this regrettable moment in sports history to another one: the Los Angeles Lakers' Kermit Washington's haymaker and subsequent rearranging of the Houston Rockets' Rudy Tomjanovich's face. "The Punch," as it's been monikered by sportswriter John Feinstein, is not an apples to apples comparison with Tatum's hit on Stingley. Washington threw a punch during an NBA game. This was not a legal "hit." But after he dislodged Tomjanovich's jaw from his skull, causing him to leak spinal fluid, Kermit made multiple attempts to get in touch with his victim, express remorse and inquire as to how he was doing. It doesn't exonerate him from his actions, but it certainly lessens the douchebaggery factor in comparison to Tatum.
As for Grogan, Jesse's just pissed because he used to get lit up like Rudiger when he played. (This would've happened no matter where his QB threw the ball.) Sure, Grogan left Stingley high and dry, but that shit happens all the time. It's human error and simply part of the game. When the play came into the huddle calling for him to run across the middle, knowing that Grogan was a better rusher than he was thrower, maybe Stingley should've requested an audible.
Posts: 38 Rank: 89 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
Boston, MA
Posted: 4/18/2007 9:12:28 AM
Jack Tatum injured Darryl Stingley with a completely legal hit in a bullshit preseason game. Jack Tatum did not break an NFL rule. But boy, did Karma throw a flag on this a-hole. In a "what goes around comes around" for the ages, Jack "Call me Assasin" Tatum now has no feet and only half a leg and couldn't cover Stephen Hawking out of the backfield. And Stingley's chair was nicer. I only hope that some old lady in a Rascal tips him over at the supermarket executing a "totally legal" turn into the frozen foods aisle.
As for Grogan and what happened, it warrants mentioning that this occured in the 6th preseason game. 6 preseason games!! Now you know why everyone hates those stupid things and the next time someone says either "We're 4-0 in preseason, yeah!!" or "Oh no, we're 0-4 in preseason." punch them Kermit style.
Posts: 1069 Rank: 20 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
two up two down, VA
Posted: 4/18/2007 9:13:27 AM
is usually the end of the season for the reds. the reds need a marquee pitcher and a aging bro-yo isnt the answer. homer bailey maybe? they've got the same haircut. i guess thats a start... it'd be nice if we could get some more base running from adam "dough boy" dunn. 7 SB? really? thats like getting a 400 on your SAT for putting your name down. jesus. i will resist the dh debate but facing the guys who are on the field during the other half of the inning is more exiting to watch for me than watching some breathing pension plan strike out or go yard every at-bat.
Posts: 1453 Rank: 14 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
Buffalo, NY
Posted: 4/18/2007 9:33:18 AM
Deuce did you really go to the DH card? NL baseball sucks because if a team starts to rally in an inning you have the pitcher to ruin it. I got a meeting i'm not done with this!
Posts: 5386 Rank: 1 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
Philadelphia, PA
Posted: 4/18/2007 9:34:42 AM
But I still read it. Good job guys. I know nothing about the legality of hits, but if I crippled someone, I would be sucking their dick for the rest of my life. They would have to make a special attachment on that dudes wheelchair to accompany my mouth.
And does anyone else share my love for Bill? He hasn't said anything that hasn't changed my life in some way.
Posts: 3005 Rank: 6 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
New York, NY
Posted: 4/18/2007 10:22:07 AM
I have nothing new to add to the Tatum/Stingley section, but just to agree. I can't believe Tatum never even showed any kind of sympathy to Stingley. It's weird because these days any pro athlete will stage a tearful press conference and enter rehab just for getting a DUI. Weird...
The Phillies don't have enough pitching to get past the Mets. Sorry.
I could see the Reds ahnging in there in the Central though. If Carpenter has naggin injuries for the Csards this year that division is ripe for the taking. I like Saarloos and as an A's fan I was very sorry to lose him.
Posts: 425 Rank: 28 Joined:
12/11/2006
Location:
Washington, DC
Posted: 4/18/2007 10:32:10 AM
Exactly. Tatum was hardcore, but he should have shown remorse. It is a reflection on the differences in the culture today and the old days everything was hardcore back then (can you believe that kids wear helmets while riding bikes, what pussys)
Just ask the Phreemen how hardcore it was back then.
Posts: 1453 Rank: 14 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
Buffalo, NY
Posted: 4/18/2007 10:41:49 AM
I told you i wasn't done with my DH rant...every pitcher that has ever spent his career or the majority of it in the NL has artificially inflated Ks because he's facing a fucking pitcher at least twice per game even if he is blowing it and pulled early. I'm done, i could go on with this shit all day, Go Yankees. I think yesterday AB was refering to the Red Sox when he mentioned 8 guys sucking off 9 guys.
Posts: 1476 Rank: 17 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
savannah, GA
Posted: 4/18/2007 11:22:07 AM
i can't blame jack tatum for his lack of remorse. i think he took himself a little too seriously, i mean, he was just some asshole playing a game, but, there is many a man whom does worse than cripple his enemy, and you can bet your ass that there is no remorse for it. why should tatum be looked at differently? if he was begging for someone to buy him a million-dollar man leg right now, i would feel differently. if you don't ask for pity, you have the right to forget compassion.
the braves are going to suck balls all season. again. thats my prediction.
Posts: 915 Rank: 7 Joined:
12/7/2006
Location:
Rock Hill (sucks), SC
Posted: 4/18/2007 12:00:20 PM
The braves are gonna be awful; just as it should be.
Otherwise bignick, you're a retard. The NL is pure, beautiful, and perfect; just like a horny 17 year old virgin.
The AL with the DH, on the other hand, started out as a bad idea (that's why the NL didn't use it after thinking it up in 1928) and the first DH was a worthless underachiever in the epitome of suck: a yankees game at fenway in 1973.
I love baseball, hate every team except the Astros (though i tolerate the Rocks), but can't fucking stand the AL.
for the first page. Then they stopped talking about sports. There's a reason it's called the national passtime, because it passes time, just like watching paint dry. Has anyone else noticed that watching golf is more exciting. If you watch one minute of a baseball game, you are lucky to see a single pitch and maybe even a swing. If you watch a minute of golf, you see at least three guys take their shot. Maybe the MLB should take a page from golf and have all the games on at the same time, then cut from one to the other only when something is gonna happen. I don't like watching dudes in tight pants stand around on a field generally doing nothing, occasionally scratching themselves, and generaly taking themselves way too fucking seriously.
Tatum = Ivan Drago - "if he lives, he lives, if he dies, he dies." Not exactly the kind of guy you want to be friends with, not a decent human being, but that doesn't take away from his skill as an athlete.
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