Rewriting sports
history
Posted: Wed March 25,
1998
The re-evaluation of astronomers that we really
aren't going to get hit by a large asteroid on Thursday, Oct. 26,
2028, certainly was comforting to ... sports
fans.
Yes, had the asteroid hit then it would have been terrible.
Why, it would have exploded onto earth in the very middle
of the World Series—giving new meaning to the term
off
day.
But once again sports has survived. Sports, as a matter of
fact, is probably more indestructible than the rest of our
institutions. Consider how historians are now conducting
theoretical exercises in a serious form of game-playing
known as
Counter-factuals. For example, What would have happened if General
Lee's battle plan hadn't been found by Union Troops at
Antietam. Then Lee's army would have won the battle, and
England would have come to the aid of the Confederacy, and,
etc., etc., etc., until
now you'd need a passport to go see the Charlotte Hornets
play
basketball.
In sports, while it really doesn't have any effect on who
wins any particular game, there are some events that can
completely upset history. So now, let's play the first
round of Sports
Counter-factuals:
1.
If the Shah of Iran had not lost control in the
1970s, the 1984 Olympics would have gone to Tehran. All
communist and most Third World countries were prepared to
vote for Tehran over Los Angeles. The Games only went to
L.A. as a last resort after the Shah's government began to
collapse.
But had the Shah stayed in power a bit longer, the '84
Games would either have been a disastrous failure or
cancelled outright. The Olympics at that time were already
reeling from politics, terrorism and red ink. Only Peter
Ueberroth would show how to make them work in Los Angeles.
So, if the Shah hadn't been pushed out, there would be no
Olympics today. Olympic fans may thank the
Ayatollah.
2.
If Harry Frazee, the Red Sox owner, had produced another hit
on Broadway in 1919 and didn't have to sell Babe Ruth to
the
Yankees, Ruth would never have hit so many home runs, because
Fenway Park is not built for left-handers. He would
certainly never have been as prominent in Beantown as he
was in glorious Gotham. Baseball wouldn't have snapped
back so nicely from the Black Sox
scandal. Yankee Stadium would not have been built, and Lou
Gehrig would have signed with the Giants. During the
Depression, the Braves, Phillies, Browns and Senators would
have folded, leaving only six teams in each major league.
Then, after the war,
two other struggling franchises would have moved West,
becoming the San Francisco White Sox and the Los Angeles
Yankees.
3.
If George Gipp, a well-known rascal, had gone to the betting
parlor that day instead of being discovered by Knute Rockne
while punting the football around on the Notre Dame campus,
the Gipper would have never played for the Fighting Irish,
and there would never have been enough dramatic material
for Hollywood to make
Knute Rockne: All
American. Without the movie, that struggling actor, Ronald Reagan,
would not have had his desultory career revived by playing
the
Gipper.
So, after the war, desperate for work, Reagan would have
returned to play-by-play radio, as the voice of the Los
Angeles Yankees. In 1984, at the Olympics, President
Howard Baker would have saluted Reagan for his long and
distinguished Yankees radio
career.
But wait a minute—weren't the '84 Olympics in
Tehran?
Don't get cocky, sports fans. Keep an eye out for that
asteroid.
Frank Deford, one of Sports Illustrated's most renowned
writers, returned to the magazine on March 1. These
commentaries, which appear every Wednesday on National
Public Radio's Morning Edition, will be posted weekly by
CNN/SI.
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