September 13, 1976 | Volume 45, Issue 11

The worst thing about traveling abroad is missing the obituaries back home. Thus it was not until a couple of months after the sad event that I learned, on returning from an overseas junket, that...

Observations apropos of the opening of the gridiron season:

BOATING—JOEL HALPERN of Bronxville, N.Y. won the Marina Del Rey (Calif.) Offshore Powerboat Classic to clinch the national powerboat points championship. Driving a 38-foot Cobra with twin 428-inch...

TRINA JARISHCOSTA MESA, CALIF.Flying solo in a Beech-craft A-36, 34-year-old Jarish won the 29th All-Woman Transcontinental Air Race (the Powder Puff Derby). She covered the 2,926-mile course in...

13—Drawing by Arnold Roth18, 19—Heinz Kluetmeier20-21—Heinz Kluetmeier, John G. Zimmerman31, 32—Heinz Kluetmeier52-72—illustrations by John Huehnergarth52, 53—Heinz Kluetmeier, AP54—AP57—Sheedy...

The Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Canada to Mexico, is generally regarded as the Western equivalent of the Appalachian Trail, which extends from Maine to Georgia, although the former is...

COSTLY FREE AGENTSir:No player is a better example of today's artificial superstar than SI cover figure Reggie Jackson (He's Free at Last, Aug. 30). Not that Jackson isn't a good ballplayer—he is...

RANCOR IN THE RANKS

•Dave Bristol, Atlanta manager, when obliged to replace Andy Messersmith in the seventh inning of a 2-2 tie because of a blister: "He'd rather have eaten green flies than come out of that game."

Every time someone invents a tournament that might someday be ranked as a major championship, Jack Nicklaus decides he had better win it, as he did the new World Series of Golf in Akron, pocketing...

In an age when even spelling bees offer big money, there is something charming about a game whose reward is a headline—and maybe not that—in a local newspaper. Indeed, it was not the lure of...

Billy Haughton wanted to scratch Steve Lobell from the fourth heat of The Hambletonian, and he was both wrong and right: the colt took the trotting classic and $131,762 in 90° weather but, as...

Biting the dust of the Har-Tru at Forest Hills, some of the big names of tennis—Ashe, Panatta, Wade, Navratilova—disappeared early from the U.S. Open. Curry Kirkpatrick records the deeds of the...

The race is only 6.8 miles long, but its 2,000 runners go up a stairway, down gullies, through rain forests. Some finish, bloodied and bowed

BAZOOKA: Blitz by three linebackers.

Looking like the cast of The Mummy's Revenge, NFL players wind themselves each season in enough adhesive tape to stretch from Maine to California. Moleskin and fiber glass, Masonite and pliable...

Tape, lowly tape. What would the world do without it? Ever since the ancient Egyptians first began soaking strips of linen in balsam sap some 5,000 years ago, then wrapping their dead pharaohs...

QUARTERBACKS

When the Houston Oilers acquired Curley Culp from Kansas City in '74, they had their usual 1-5 record. Since Culp's arrival, Houston has won 16 games and lost only six. At 6'1" and 265 pounds....

Archie Griffin does not stand out in a crowd. In fact, the 5'7½" Griffin is often hidden by the kids besieging him for autographs. But Cincinnati has big plans for the little man; the Bengals...

QUARTERBACKS

Oakland's talent at other skilled positions would be wasted but for the coolness under a rush and the left-handed accuracy of Quarterback Ken (Snake) Stabler. "It's essential that we have a guy in...

Since he is a football fundamentalist, John McKay will not devastate Tampa Bay's foes with esoteric plays, weird formations or other assorted razzle. Nor will he deliver any miracles. What he will...

QUARTERBACKS

The big rap against Bert Jones in his first two Colt seasons was that he bailed out of the pocket too quickly. "What pocket?" Jones asks. "When you don't have any protection, you don't stay in...

Richard Todd has long idolized Joe Namath. Like Namath. Todd is a quarterback. Like Namath, he played for Bear Bryant at Alabama. Like Namath, he is single. Like Namath. he has Jimmy Walsh for a...

QUARTERBACKS

Last season the records fell like saplings in a hurricane, but Francis Asbury Tarkenton pays little notice to records. Up to now he has attempted more passes (5,225), completed more (2,931) and...

"If the Packers are looking for miracles, they've chosen the wrong person," says I Lynn Dickey. "No one player can turn this or any other team around." He stops and smiles. "Not even me." Dickey...

QUARTERBACKS

Monte Clark mortgaged San Francisco's future to bring Jim Plunkett home to California. The price: two 1976 first-round draft choices, a first and second next year and backup Quarterback Tom Owen....

Chuck Muncie, a 6'3", 220-pound All-America at California, has the size, speed and hands to overcome a New Orleans offensive line ' that opens seams instead of holes. Muncie signed a seven-year....

QUARTERBACKS

The Cardinals call Terry Metcalf "The Franchise," showing sound logic. Despite sitting out one game last season, Metcalf set an NFL record by producing 2,462 net yards. He scored nine touchdowns...

"The run was a little out of balance here last year," observes Larry Csonka in a tactful bit of understatement. "And that's where I figure in." The figure that lured Csonka to the Giants was $1.5...

It seems fitting that the Guinness folks would pick New York City's Empire State Building for their new World Records Exhibit Hall, because that oldtime skyscraper held the record as the world's...

These are the times that try baseball announcers' larynxes. And imaginations. And honesty. As September and football rolled around, the races in all four major league divisions had been yawners...

MET STARTING PITCHERS KOOSMAN, LOLICH, MATLACK AND SEAVER ARE THE BEST, BUT BECAUSE OF DINKY HITTING AND FIELDING, THEIR RECORDS DON'T SHOW IT

NL EAST

JOHN CANDELARIA: Pittsburgh's surge got a boost when the 6'7" lefty, who was 4-4 in early June, ran his record to 14-5 by holding San Francisco to five hits as he won 3-2 in 11 innings and by...

GIVEN THAT MAN WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO RUN—OR SWIM—AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT, HOW FAST CAN HE ULTIMATELY GO? ASK DR. JOKL, HE'S GOT NOTHING TO HIDE