Plankton
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http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/06/22/nfl-playoff-bowl-garbage-time
It was late December, 1967, and the Cleveland Browns had just been eliminated from the NFL playoffs, in the conference championship game. Their season was officially over, but not exactly . . . in two weeks, as the league mandated at the time, they had to play one more game, an exhibition in Miami. The players had about week off before the team started practicing again.
That’s when Fred Hoaglin and Ernie Kellerman got an idea. Hoaglin and Kellerman, the team’s center and strong safety, had been golfing buddies all season. They played on their Monday off days and on some Tuesdays, too, over at the Mayfield Country Club. With so much time off now, they figured they could sneak down to Florida early and play some golf. They asked a friend, the golf pro over at Mayfield, to set them up at a course, and he arranged for them to play at the famous Doral Country Club. In exchange, Hoaglin and Kellerman had to drive the golf pro’s Cadillac down to Florida, so he’d have it there when he migrated south for the winter.
Hoaglin and Kellerman made the drive—more than 1,200 miles in all—and when they finally arrived at Doral, they were told that someone was waiting for them. The person had heard that two football players were coming and wanted to play with them. They went over to the first tee and there he was: Rocky Marciano. At first, Kellerman didn’t recognize him. “You’re in movies, aren’t ya?” he said. Hoaglin was incredulous. “Ernie, that’s Rocky Marciano! He’s the undefeated heavyweight of the world!” This was decades before the internet, before the rise of sports TV, and Marciano had been retired for about 11 years. Rocky laughed.
Photo: Mark Kauffman/Sports Illustrated
Rocky Marciano (r.) in a heavyweight title bout against Ezzard Charles at Yankee Stadium in 1954.
They played a round together, and now, 50 years later, Hoaglin still remembers several details about that day. He remembers Marciano’s thick Massachusetts accent. He remembers what Marciano was wearing: a navy blue BanLon shirt and Bermuda Madras shorts. He remembers Marciano almost getting a hole-in-one on the 16th green: “It bounced about eight inches away from the hole.” He remembers them asking, Hey, Rock, who hits the hardest?
“I don’t know,” Marciano said. “Nobody hits me!”
After the round ended, it was back to reality for Hoaglin and Kellerman. They still had a week of practice for a meaningless exhibition game. “It was called the Runner-Up Game, or something like that,” Hoaglin says. The game wasn’t as memorable as the golf outing. “I don’t remember whether we won or lost the game. I really don’t.
It was late December, 1967, and the Cleveland Browns had just been eliminated from the NFL playoffs, in the conference championship game. Their season was officially over, but not exactly . . . in two weeks, as the league mandated at the time, they had to play one more game, an exhibition in Miami. The players had about week off before the team started practicing again.
That’s when Fred Hoaglin and Ernie Kellerman got an idea. Hoaglin and Kellerman, the team’s center and strong safety, had been golfing buddies all season. They played on their Monday off days and on some Tuesdays, too, over at the Mayfield Country Club. With so much time off now, they figured they could sneak down to Florida early and play some golf. They asked a friend, the golf pro over at Mayfield, to set them up at a course, and he arranged for them to play at the famous Doral Country Club. In exchange, Hoaglin and Kellerman had to drive the golf pro’s Cadillac down to Florida, so he’d have it there when he migrated south for the winter.
Hoaglin and Kellerman made the drive—more than 1,200 miles in all—and when they finally arrived at Doral, they were told that someone was waiting for them. The person had heard that two football players were coming and wanted to play with them. They went over to the first tee and there he was: Rocky Marciano. At first, Kellerman didn’t recognize him. “You’re in movies, aren’t ya?” he said. Hoaglin was incredulous. “Ernie, that’s Rocky Marciano! He’s the undefeated heavyweight of the world!” This was decades before the internet, before the rise of sports TV, and Marciano had been retired for about 11 years. Rocky laughed.
Photo: Mark Kauffman/Sports Illustrated
Rocky Marciano (r.) in a heavyweight title bout against Ezzard Charles at Yankee Stadium in 1954.
They played a round together, and now, 50 years later, Hoaglin still remembers several details about that day. He remembers Marciano’s thick Massachusetts accent. He remembers what Marciano was wearing: a navy blue BanLon shirt and Bermuda Madras shorts. He remembers Marciano almost getting a hole-in-one on the 16th green: “It bounced about eight inches away from the hole.” He remembers them asking, Hey, Rock, who hits the hardest?
“I don’t know,” Marciano said. “Nobody hits me!”
After the round ended, it was back to reality for Hoaglin and Kellerman. They still had a week of practice for a meaningless exhibition game. “It was called the Runner-Up Game, or something like that,” Hoaglin says. The game wasn’t as memorable as the golf outing. “I don’t remember whether we won or lost the game. I really don’t.
