Radio Signals Have Failed Before

With the New York Jets and New York Giants scheduled to experiment with electronic devices in their helmets next Saturday, former Cleveland Browns quarterback George Ratterman recalled when Paul Brown experimented with radio signals during the 1956 exhibition season.

Ratterman told Bob Sudyk of the Hartford Courant: “We were playing the Detroit Lions when they kept screaming at me and telling their teammates, ‘Break his helmet. Hit him on the head.’

“For the rest of the game, they hammered me after every play. Twice they tore off my helmet and pounded it with their fists, trying to smash the receiver.

“It kept on working, but most of the time I couldn’t hear Brown anyway. So I just called the plays myself, and he never knew the difference.”

He added: “I wasn’t worried about Brown, anyway. My biggest worry was a gathering thunderstorm. I was scared stiff I was going to be hit by lightning.”

Add Ratterman: He said the Browns tried radio signals once more, against the Chicago Bears, but again he had trouble hearing his coach.

“I was getting calls from a Chicago taxi cab dispatcher,” he said. “The street numbers mixed in with our play numbers, and I was calling plays we didn’t have.”

Trivia Time: After abandoning the radio signals in 1956, Paul Brown went back to calling the Cleveland plays with messenger guards. Who were they? Hint: Both later became head coaches in the NFL. (Answer below.)

From Jay Johnstone’s new book titled Temporary Insanity: “My fondest memory of wearing a Yankee uniform: Outfielder Mickey Rivers, in one automobile, being chased around the parking lot of Yankee Stadium by his irate wife, who was in another. I think they partially or totally damaged 11 other cars in the lot during the chase.”

Add Johnstone: Said Tom Lasorda when told the outfielder had written a book: “Johnstone wrote a book? With what, a fire extinguisher? Shaving cream?”

Mason-Dixon Line: When they line up today in Baltimore, the opposing hurlers will be Mason and Dixon. Ken Dixon goes for the Orioles against Mike Mason of the Texas Rangers.

Fullerton High not only has produced the most baseball Hall of Famers among Southland schools, a reader called to note that it also has produced three no-hit pitchers--Walter Johnson of Washington, Steve Busby of Kansas City and Mike Warren of Oakland.

Busby did it twice, in 1973 and 1974.

Said SMU football Coach Bobby Collins last year after the signing of offensive lineman Sean Stopperich of Canon-McMillan High School in Canonsburg, Pa.: “We seem to have that type of appeal nationally that enables us to go into competitive areas and recruit the top players in the country.”

Wrote Danny Robbins of the Dallas Times Herald after the NCAA crackdown on SMU: “It was Sean Stopperich, a former high school star in the Pittsburgh area, and his family who told the NCAA of receiving $11,020 in cash from an SMU booster or boosters during an eight-month period in 1984, according to a source close to the case.”

Trivia Answer: Abe Gibron and Chuck Noll.

Quotebook

Former SMU football player Harry Crutcher, on the NCAA stripping the school of 45 scholarships over three years: “I sure hope the Lord gives us some real strong walk-ons.”