Muhammad Ali, 1942-2016

Muhammad Ali died seven days ago.

The rebuilding of his career following the time when he was barred from the ring for draft evasion was completed in 1974.

The Louisville Lip's 1971 loss to Joe Frazier when both were undefeated stuck with him. The rematch at Madison Square Garden January 28 could be seen only on closed-circuit television, but anyone with an antenna could see the buildup on ABC, culminating in a bit of a scuffle on Wide World of Sports. Smokin' Joe tried to prevent Ali from getting into his head, and it seemed to be working before their encounter in the studio.

The full tale of the tape can be found in newspapers of January 27, and the full results in papers of the 29th. BoxRec shows that the twelve-round fight was closer in referee Tony Perez's mind than in those of the judges. He saw Ali as the winner of six rounds and Frazier as the winner of five, the other one being a draw. Tony Castellano had Ali down as the 7-4-1 winner, and Jack Gordon's score was 8-4.

Later that year, Ali had his match with unbeaten champion George Foreman, victor over both men who'd beaten Ali. The bout was a big break for Don King, who coined the famous name for it. The combatants trained in what was then known as Zaire, and Ali charmed the locals into supporting him for the bout that began October 30, 4 a.m. local time.

It was thought to be a cinch for the younger and stronger of the two men, so the guys in Big George's corner figured what he had was going to be enough for a quick win. After eight rounds of fast punches, Ali won the fight of his life and the world championship.

Those fights were important to an outstanding career that for years had a place in the ESPN Sports Almanac. What's more, they cemented Ali's place in popular culture and sports history.

EDIT 2/4/2023 9:22 a.m. EST: Link to BoxRec changed

MLB First-timers of 1974

With the MLB Draft beginning tonight, now's the time to post something I noticed a while back.

Exactly half of the players who made their major league debuts in 1974 played in the '80s.

Of the 72 who made it past the decade line, 43 were still playing in 1985. Of the 72 whose careers are confined to the '70s, 42 didn't even make it to 1977, when two expansion teams surfaced.

When it comes to rookie seasons (teams with which players made MLB debuts are listed along with most common positions in careers):

• Twenty-seven (including Brewers SS Robin Yount, Rangers C Jim Sundberg, and Rangers 1B Mike Hargrove) went on to be 1974 rookies.
• Forty-two (including Expos C Gary Carter, Cards 1B Keith Hernandez, Bosox LF Fred Lynn, and Bosox DH Jim Rice) were 1975 rookies.
• Twenty-two (including Cards LF Jerry Mumphrey and Cards CF Larry Herndon) were 1976 rookies.
• Nine (including Expos LF Warren Cromartie) were 1977 rookies.
• Six (including Reds 3B Ray Knight) were 1978 rookies.
• Two (Mets LF Benny Ayala and Mets C Ike Hampton) passed the rookie requirements in 1979.
• One (Chisox RHP Jim Otten) finally met the rookie standards in 1980.
• Thirty-five would still be rookies if they suited up today.

The players just getting their cups of coffee were Erskine Thomason, a 26-year-old righthander who pitched the ninth inning for the Phillies September 18, and Rex Hudson, a 20-year-old righthander who put in two innings of mop-up work for the Dodgers July 27.

Yount was the youngest of the 144 and the one whose career lasted the longest; he played for 20 years.

Hernandez, a 42nd-round pick in the 1971 draft, made his debut with the Cardinals August 30, 1974, and played until the middle of 1990, while the Mets' Rich Puig, a fellow infielder and a first-round pick in the same draft, lasted less than two weeks in September.

All of those whose careers ended in 1980 are pitchers; middle infielder Stan Papi, an April call-up for the Cardinals, outlasted Sergio Ferrer -- a fellow middle infielder born just days before Papi and making his debut with the Twins six days earlier -- by two years (Ferrer's last season was '79, Papi's was '81).

Oscar Zamora, the Cuban righthander from Miami whom the Indians signed in 1965, began his career with the Cubs at 29 on June 18 and continued for 4 years. Jesus Hernaiz, the Puerto Rican righthander whom the Cubs signed in 1967, got called up to the Phillies when he was 29 and made his first appearance June 14, but was finished in the majors that year.

The top seven career home run hitters (Rice, Carter, Lynn, Expos C Larry Parrish, Yount, A's RF Claudell Washington, Hernandez) made All-Star teams at least once, as did the top eight in hits (Yount, Rice, Hernandez, Carter, Lynn, C.Washington, Parrish, Hargrove).

Twenty-five of these players made All-Star teams a combined 71 times. Carter, Rice, and Yount are the Hall of Famers in this group of 144, making up 2.1 percent of it (the group of 144, that is, not the Hall of Fame).

Feel free to start here and draw your own conclusions.

I'll have a look at the draft picks of June 1974, regardless of when (or even whether) they made their MLB debuts, sometime very soon.

Ken Stabler, 1945-2015 (Belated Tribute)

The following was prepared July 10, soon after Stabler's death. I thought I had posted it, but I didn't. I am very sorry.

Ken Stabler, whom the AP named the NFL's MVP in 1974, died Thursday.

Forty-one years ago, he quarterbacked the Oakland Raiders to a nine-game winning streak, going 11-2 overall (missing the next-to-last game) with a win and a loss in the playoffs. All those losses were close except the one December 29 against Pittsburgh.

That year, his fifth season in the NFL, he passed for a league-leading 26 touchdowns, and two years later he beat that mark by one. He had three fourth-quarter comebacks and three game-winning drives, the two sets containing the exact same games (Oct. 13 at San Diego, Oct. 20 vs. Cincinnati, and Dec. 21 vs. Miami). And this was the only season in which he was a consensus First-Team All-Pro.

His Approximate Value on Pro Football Reference is the team's second-highest. The Raiders had the second-highest Offensive SRS figure in the NFL (highest being that of the 7-7 Patriots), as well as the sixth-best Defensive SRS figure (down quite a bit from the year before). They rushed a lot more than they passed (#3 in rushing attempts, #23 in passing attempts), but got the most net yards per pass attempt and the most passing TDs. Stabler had two really good receivers in Cliff Branch and Hall of Famer Fred Biletnikoff, which is a luxury for some QBs and even better for someone having such a good season. Branch led the league in receiving TDs with 13.

It was because of good performances from him and others that two years later the Raiders won the Super Bowl for the first time. He might be on a level of quarterbacks not with Bradshaw and Namath but with Ron Jaworski and Roman Gabriel, but the Raiders were fortunate to get even that kind of quarterback. And to think, like a few other QBs, he could've been a baseball player.

[EDIT 11/30/2023: Introducing the "football" label]

Yogi Berra, 1925-2015

Yogi Berra, baseball great, died two weeks ago Tuesday.

He managed the NL All-Stars in 1974, being the manager of the senior circuit's reigning champs, the New York Mets. He got to be in the same dugout as Johnny Bench, a man with whom he's associated because there might be some debate over which one was the best catcher of all time. Also in that dugout was Hank Aaron, whose Braves were the Mets' opponents in Berra's final game as a player and the Yankees' opponents in two World Series. Another one of his former opponents calling him skipper for the day was Pete Rose, not far away from the action when Yogi pinch-hit against the Reds in '65. Aaron and Rose were the first position players on the NL side to be subbed.

Berra's five pitchers in that game were new to being All-Stars. In fact, seven of the eight pitchers were first-timers. The one who wasn't, Steve Carlton, didn't even take the mound that night. Berra gave the Pirates' Ken Brett his only Midsummer Classic moment in the sun in the fourth inning, and even though Brett didn't strike anyone out, he was good in those two frames, allowing just one hit. Brett ended up being the winning pitcher as he and four others held Reggie Jackson hitless and kept Bert Campaneris and Brooks Robinson from getting on base. Reportedly, Berra said of the 7-2 win, "We had the better team."

Moses Malone, 1955-2015

In 1974, Petersburg High School beat West Springfield 50-48 to remain basketball champions of the Commonwealth of Virginia. That season, Moses Eugene Malone, a Petersburg senior, scored 896 points to set a 12th-grade record that stood for almost forty years.¹ Then, twenty-one years before Kevin Garnett started the wave, the ABA's Utah Stars selected Malone in the third round, at a time when no other team was willing to have anyone make that jump.^2 3

He had 1,209 rebounds, including a league-leading 455 offensive, his mark of 128 blocks was among the league's top ten, and his .571 field goal percentage was third-best in the league. His play was good for an All-Star Game appearance and a place on the All-Rookie Team.

The next season, after the team folded, he played with the Spirits of St. Louis, but due to his injury and his contract holdout, he took the court nearly halfway through.

He made his NBA debut with the Buffalo Braves, Portland having claimed him in the dispersal draft. After two games, he was traded to Houston. Each team got draft picks for Malone; Portland drafted Rick Robey, while Buffalo drafted Wesley Cox and Micheal Ray Richardson. The latter ended up being dealt to the Knicks and started a solid career.

As for Moses, you don't need me to tell you what happened next. I could just throw a bunch of numbers, many pertaining to his rebound totals, but here's the nitty-gritty. Over the course of 19 seasons, he was a three-time MVP, a 12-time All-Star, and Most Valuable Player of the '82-83 NBA Finals. His jersey number, 24, is retired in Houston. In Philadelphia, his #2 should be. He was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in 1996 and gained a place in the Hall of Fame five years later.

Here's to the career that began in the year of '74.

<sup>1. [Andrew Rowsey of the 2013 Rockbridge County Wildcats now holds that record.]↩
2. [The next year, by the way, NBA teams drafted two guys out of high school. And also, he's not the first player to make it to the pros without going to college, as I've heard at least once today; I remember from an old sports almanac that a few guys did so in the '40s (namely Kappen, Simmons, and Graboski).]↩
3. [His Topps NBA cards are unusual in that a simple "NO" follows the colon after "DRAFTED." He was drafted, just not by an NBA team at first.]↩</sup>