Getting In a Word For Slingin' Sammy

Getting In a Word For Slingin' Sammy
December 19
Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon
"Too often the discussion of Greatest QB Ever begins with Joe Montana.

Occasionally, the pick is one of his contemporaries, John Elway. If somebody closer to 60 years old is in the room there might be some substantive examination of John Unitas. Only if there's a real student of pro football in the mix will Otto Graham's name be tossed.

Hardly ever does the discussion roll back far enough to include Slingin' Sammy Baugh, the greatest Redskin ever, without question, and almost certainly the first great passing quarterback in pro football history. That's because Baugh, who lived to the age of 94, outkicked his coverage, as the old coaches like to say. Baugh lived longer than most of the people who adequately chronicle his extraordinary career. Right now, the 1958 NFL Championship game, a.k.a "The Greatest Game Ever Played" is being celebrated as the beginning of modern professional football.

Baugh retired six years before that game was played. He retired before games were routinely broadcast on television. You have to be approaching 70 years old to have seen him play for the Washington Redskins, and it almost had to be in person.

Luckily, Baugh didn't outkick all his coverage. Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films and probably the smartest, most unbiased football historian anywhere, recalled yesterday in a telephone conversation the very first NFL game he attended.

"I was 9 years old and my father [Ed Sabol, founder of NFL Films] took me to Shibe Park in Philadelphia to see the Eagles play the Redskins. It was 1951. My dad said: 'See the man wearing Number 33? That's Sammy Baugh.' That's all he said," Steve Sabol said.

"It was like pointing out the Empire State Building, the Washington Monument or Niagara Falls. 'That's Sammy Baugh.' That's all that needed to be said to anyone who followed pro football in the 1940s and early 1950s."

Sabol isn't exaggerating one bit. The inaugural class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, in 1963, included George Halas, Bronko Nagurski, Red Grange, Jim Thorpe, Ernie Nevers, Mel Hein, Curly Lambeau and Don Hutson among 17 charter members. And only Halas and Baugh were selected unanimously. The history of pro football simply cannot be written without the story of Slingin' Sammy. "
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