This Maneuver Ended Browns’ Golden Age of Radio

Former Cleveland Brown quarterback George Ratterman recently revealed how Coach Paul Brown sent signals to his quarterbacks by radio during the 1956 season.

As a follow up, Jim Dent of the Dallas Times Herald revealed how the New York Giants sabotaged the system.

Brown was sending in the plays on an AM signal. Dent said an assistant coach for the Giants called the Federal Communications Commission and learned what frequency the Browns would be using.

The assistant coach stationed one of the Giant players on the bench with a radio, and the Giants managed to pirate many of the plays.

The assistant coach was Tom Landry.

Trivia Time: Joe Niekro returns to Tiger Stadium tonight to pitch for the New York Yankees. Who was his manager the last time he pitched in Tiger Stadium? (Answer in third column.)

How good a running back was Franco Harris? Says former Dallas Cowboys linebacker D.D. Lewis: “He faked me out so bad one time that I got a 15-yard penalty for grabbing my own face mask.”

Pepper Rodgers points proudly to the fact that six of his assistants at the University of Kansas in 1968 went on to become head coaches.

They are Terry Donahue (UCLA), Dave McClain (Wisconsin), John Cooper (Arizona State), Dick Tomey (Hawaii) and former coaches Doug Weaver of Kansas State and Don Fambrough of Kansas.

Question: With all that brainpower, how could the Jayhawks have blown the 1969 Orange Bowl?

Kansas, behind quarterback Bobby Douglass and fullback John Riggins, was leading, 14-13, and appeared to have the game won when Penn State missed a two-point conversion in the final seconds. But Kansas had 12 men on the field, and Penn State got another chance.

This time, the Nittany Lions made good and won, 15-14.

If a pitcher throws a knuckleball, does it help him when he’s batting against a knuckleball pitcher? Apparently it doesn’t hurt.

Joe Niekro has hit one home run in his career. It was hit May 29, 1967 and came off brother Phil Niekro. It helped the Houston Astros beat the Atlanta Braves, 4-3.

Texas A&M; Coach Jackie Sherrill wasn’t amused when ABC commentator Frank Broyles, the athletic director at Arkansas, made a reference to Sherrill’s salary on the air.

“I ought to write Frank Broyles a note,” Sherrill told The Sporting News. “I remember when I was working as a graduate assistant at Arkansas, making $100 a month, and he was out there making $10,000 a show from television. No one griped about that.”

Bruce Sutter has been having his problems this season, but he hasn’t lost his sense of humor.

Said the Atlanta reliever, when somebody suggested he had lost some weight: “You would, too, if you’d backed up third base as often as I have this year.”

Bob Verdi, in The Sporting News, on John McEnroe: “As the late Red Smith, the finest sports writer ever, might have said, ‘I have tried to appreciate John McEnroe, and I have failed.’ ”

Trivia Answer: Billy Martin. The year was 1972, and Niekro was pitching for the Detroit Tigers, who won the American League East.

Quotebook

Ron Nock of Cleveland, a longtime fan of the Indians, taking an optimistic look at the future: “We’re two or three pitchers away from being a fourth-place club.”