Wednesday, August 17, 2011

I read a book about the Raiders and lived to talk about it

Last week, I was at my local library, cruising the sports section (what else?), looking for something Steelers/football-related, when I stumbled upon a book written by Peter Richmond entitled: BADASSES: The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, And John Madden's Oakland Raiders.

It's in my DNA to hate the Raiders, but I also really love 70's football, so I gave it a shot.

I was not disappointed.

The book chronicles the Raiders' inception in the old AFL (original name for the team was to be the Oakland Senors), their ascension to football powerhouse in the late 60's, and their many years of struggling to win the "Big One" before finally claiming their place atop the football-world with a victory over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI.

The author goes into great detail, describing things such as Al Davis's rise from assistant coach for the Chargers all the way up to eventually becoming majority owner of the Oakland Raiders.

Richmond discusses the many unique characters on those Raiders teams. People like Phil "Foo" Villapiano, Ted "The Stork" Hendricks, Jack "The Assassin" Tatum, and Ken "The Snake" Stabler are just some of the featured characters discussed in the book.

You may be enticed to know that there are plenty of stories involving the Steelers and their legendary rivalry with those Raiders teams.

To nobody's surprise, the Raiders players and coaches are still bitter about the Immaculate Reception and insist to this day that the play was illegal and should have gone in Oakland's favor.

According to the book, Frenchy Fuqua came into the Raiders' locker room after the controversial ending to say hello to an old college teammate and told the player that he did, indeed, touch the ball on the legendary play.

That's the first time I ever heard that in all these years, and who knows if it's true, but it's a fun little tidbit and only adds to the legend of that day.

Obviously, there are ample sections devoted to the Raiders many playoff battles with Pittsburgh. In particular, the Steelers/Raiders trifecta in the AFC Championship game and how Oakland's quest to defeat the Steelers in that game, after losing to the Black and Gold in '74 and '75, became an obsession. And when they finally got over the hump and knocked off Pittsburgh in '76, it was almost on par with winning the actual Super Bowl two weeks later.

I know this might be blasphemous for me to say as a Steelers fan, but reading the Raiders' struggles, and their many near-misses in the playoffs from the late 60's all the way up to Super Bowl XI, I sort of became sympathetic with their plight and couldn't wait to get to the part where they finally won it all.

Additional observations:

-Obviously, this was a very unique team that somehow managed to befriend the Hell's Angels AND The Black Panthers.

-Like a lot of teams back in the day, the Raiders somehow managed to party hard stay disciplined enough to be one of the most-consistent teams of their era.

-Things that were discussed in this book--players staying out until 3am the night before games, Skip "Dr. Death" Thomas refusing to wear a helmet in practice because he didn't want to mess his hair up and John Madden going along with it, a lineman firing his gun in the dorm room during training camp, Fred Biletnikoff chain-smoking during games and at half-time--certainly illustrates the differences between then and now. Can you imagine the fallout of these kinds of things happening today?

-The book managed to humanize this team for me, a Steelers fan, who always looked at those Raiders teams as almost demonic. I'll give you an example: John Madden was so bothered by the Jack Tatum hit on Darryl Stingley in 1978 that left him permanently paralyzed, he visited Stingley in the hospital frequently and invited his wife over for dinner on a number of occasions in the weeks after the tragic event.

If you're a fan of 70's football like me and can stomach reading about one of Steeler Nation's all-time fiercest rivals, I'd certainly give this book a try.

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