It’s election day, so let’s lighten up a bit while we wait to see if Local 42 of the International Association of Fire Fighters slips another turd (a quarter-cent sales tax increase) past a citizenry that is preoccupied with a pandemic, a recession and angry demonstrations in the streets.
…If you’ll recall, the comments board “lit up” on May 24, after I wrote about Star sports columnist Sam Mellinger’s flawed ranking of the “50 most influential people in KC sports history.”
The 41-(or so)year-old columnist failed to include such pivotal figures as Dick Howser, who managed the 1985 World Champion Royals, and Jack Steadman, the iron-fisted president of the Chiefs under owner Lamar Hunt.
More recently, the sports desk has been doing another “best of all time” series, this one the biggest plays in Kansas City sports history.
The team of Pete Grathoff, the laziest sports reporter at The Star, and Blair Kerkhoff, one of the most industrious, has been doing these stories in blocks of five plays at a time. I haven’t paid close attention to all 25, but I read with interest in Monday’s print edition the duo’s story on plays Numbers 1 to 5.
And I’ve gotta say, they nailed it.
No. 1. Who can forget the spine-tingling 65 Toss Power Trap, called by chiefs’ Coach Hank Stram in Super Bowl IV, Jan. 11, 1970, when the Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings? The play almost immediately catapulted into the annals of pro football because of NFL Films, which had wired Stram for sound.
When inspiration struck, Stram grabbed Chiefs’ wide receiver Glocester Richardson and said, “Glocester tell (Len Dawson) 65 Toss Power Trap. It might pop wide open.”
“The Mentor,” calling 65 Toss Power Trap in Super Bowl IV
Grathoff and Kerkhoff wrote, “The trap caught so many Vikings players out of position (Mike) Garrett could have walked into the end zone.”
Stram is then seen and heard cackling and exulting and saying, “Was that there, baby?”
If the world is around 100 years from now, that video will still be sending chills down people’s spines.
No. 2. Fast forward to the Chiefs’ next Super Bowl victory, an even 50 years later, when Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes asked offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, “Do we have time to run ‘Wasp?’ ”
Next thing you know Chiefs’ running back Tyreek Hill was wide open 44 yards down the sideline, and Mahomes’ high, floating dropped out of the sky and into his clutching arms…And the Chiefs were on their way to beating the San Francisco 49ers 31 to 20.
No. 3. On Oct. 27, 2015, when it looked like the New York Mets were on their way to winning Game 1 of the World Series here in Kansas City, Royals’ outfielder Alex Gordon stepped to the plate against the Mets’ dominating closer Jeurys Familia.
Gordon watches his homer head toward the center field wall.
I think just about everybody thought Familia was going to get Gordon out. But with Royals trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth and the count 1-1 on Gordon, Familia took an abbreviated windup and tried to quick-pitch him. Having watched Familia quick-pitch the previous batter, Gordon was ready. He crushed the pitch, and the ball headed deep toward straightaway center field. When the ball disappeared over the wall, the crowd went crazy. The Royals, of course, went on to win the game and the series. It was the most important home run in Royals’ history.
No. 4. In the 2008 NCAA Tournament Finals, Memphis led KU by three points with 10 seconds remaining. Point guard Sherron Collins dribbled to the three-point line and handed the ball off to the other guard, Mario Chalmers, who swished a three-pointer with 2.1 seconds remaining. That sent the game into overtime, when the Jayhawks pulled away to a 75-68 victory.
No. 5. This was another incredible Royals’ play, almost more astounding than Gordon’s homer off Familia. In the bottom of the 12th inning of the American League Wild Card Game on Sept. 30, 2014, the Royals and the Oakland A’s were tied 8-8 at Kauffman Stadium.
With the potential winning run on second base in the person of Christian Colon, Royals’ catcher Salvador Perez was battling A’s reliever Jason Hammel. With the count 2-2, Hammel threw the right-handed-hitting Perez a pitch way outside the strike zone. Perez, a notorious sucker for bad pitches, bent way over, reached out and managed to get the bat on the ball. Somehow, Perez pulled the pitch to his left, down toward third base. A’s third baseman Josh Donaldson dove to his left but just missed the ball, and Colon sped home with the winning run.
The team went on to the World Series that year but lost, memorably, to the San Francisco Giants in Game 7.
…Ah, great stuff.
Hats off to the “-hoff” team, Grat and Kerk.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Good morning! A couple of comments:
1. Check for a critical typo in paragraph 6 above. Normally I wouldn’t comment on it, but this one is a doozy!
2. I thought that this article from a few weeks ago by Pete Grathoff added some nice additional color to the Gordo dinger referenced in story #3 above. https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/for-petes-sake/article242764416.html#:~:text=After%20Gordon%20arrived%20in%20Kansas,of%20the%202015%20World%20Series.
Keep up the good work!
Hah! Great catch, Maneesh, and thanks for not announcing exactly what the typo was…From here, the readers will have to go back and guess what word was misspelled!
I appreciate the editing and the comment…
From the reactions, has to be annals.
Anals/annals…what the hell?
Jim, I will deal with a couple of things I noticed in your column in a private email, but I would make this observation. Hits in baseball, such as Gordon’s home run in the World Series and Salvy’s single in the wild card game, really don’t constitute plays per se, although in both instances, of course, the ball was put into play. Football is full of planned plays, of course, but baseball, which begins with the defense in control of the ball, basketball, hockey and soccer less so. On the subject of soccer, which is probably my favorite sport, I will long remember the goal the Danish striker scored that enabled the Kansas City Wizards to win the MLS Cup in 2000 after two disastrous seasons on the pitch in 1998 and 1999, and I will long remember the header goal the big defender scored in the 2013 MLS Cup that tied the score for KC en route to a victory by way of penalty kicks, which I hate as a way to decide a match. Good stuff to discuss and “argue” about here when we’re not watching the demonstrations or our naked Emperor on TV.