It Paid Off That Cefalo Got in Way of History

When Miami Dolphin receiver Jimmy Cefalo lined up at the four-yard line of the then-L.A. Raiders in a 1984 game, he didn’t expect much from quarterback Dan Marino.

“I hadn’t caught a touchdown pass in over a year,” Cefalo told The Times. “And we were in a pass pattern I had been running for seven years without the ball once coming to my side.”

It did that time. Catching Cefalo by surprise, Marino, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, Sunday, hit the receiver in the end zone.

Literally hit him. Because Cefalo was too surprised to get his hands up in time, the ball smashed into the receiver’s helmet and stuck in Cefalo’s face mask. Didn’t matter. It was still six points and Marino’s 37th touchdown pass of the season.

“Never has somebody done so little to break a record,” said Cefalo, “as I did on that play.”

Trivia time: What record was broken with that touchdown pass?

History lesson: At Saturday’s Hall of Fame luncheon, Art Shell recalled learning in a 1979 visit to Canton that Fritz Pollard was the NFL’s first black coach, wrote Ira Miller in the San Francisco Chronicle. Shell, a Hall of Fame offensive lineman, would emulate Pollard a decade later when he became coach of the Raiders.

History Lesson No. 2: Midway through his second season with the Raiders, defensive lineman Chester McGlockton stopped by Shell, his coach, as McGlockton trotted off the field after practice.

“Hey,” he said to Shell, “someone told me you used to play.”

Trivia answer: Marino’s 37th touchdown pass broke a tie with Y.A. Tittle for the most in an NFL season. George Blanda also had 36, but his record came in the AFL before it merged with the NFL.

Marino would extend his record to 48 by season’s end, a mark that stood until last season when Peyton Manning threw 49 touchdown passes.

Excuse No. 1: It has been a week since Rafael Palmeiro was suspended for testing positive for steroids, but the hits keep coming for the Baltimore Oriole slugger.

Hits directed at Palmeiro’s claim that he somehow took the steroids inadvertently.

Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post has written three possible explanations for Palmeiro to present to a doubting public: “There is no excuse for the sort of behavior that I don’t engage in. But let me say that I’ve been reading the ingredients on the back of my shampoo bottle, and I don’t know what half that stuff is. I’m not saying a banned compound entered my body via my hair, but I’m not not saying it, either.”

Excuse No. 2: “I will point out that not long ago I rented a limo that had been previously used by a guy I won’t mention, Jose Canseco, the night before, and I may have sat on a discarded needle in the back seat.”

And finally: Excuse No. 3: “I don’t like to call attention to the work I do with our troops. But like all Americans, I honor their service. Recently, I shook hands with one outside a club [in Baltimore]. Maybe that was it. Everyone knows Saddam was working with some bad stuff over there.”