I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY- SPORTS HEADLINES FROM TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4, 1969- MADDEN TO COACH RAIDERS/ BOWIE KUHN NAMED BASEBALL COMMISSIONER

· by · in 1969, Baseball, Entertainment, Football, NFL, Sports. ·

I read the news today, Oh boy- A couple big sports items in the news on Tuesday February 4, 1969- 50 years ago today.

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  • Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis on this date named Raiders assistant coach John Madden the new head coach- at the age of 32 Madden became the youngest head coach in professional football history- at that time. Madden replaces John Rauch who resigned to take over as head coach of the Buffalo Bills. John Madden would coach the Raiders for ten years- leading the Raiders to the playoffs in eight of those years and winning the Super Bowl in January 1977. His record as head coach 103-32-7 in the regular season and 9-7 in the post -season. I think at first many thought Madden was just a stooge for Al Davis- thinking Davis was really calling all the shots- but Madden proved himself an excellent coach- and a great handler of men. He had a zany zoo crew of players on those Raider teams and was able to keep them focused. The nickname the players had for Madden was ‘Pinky” because of how his face would turn red when something went wrong. He retired at the age of 42. He went on to a career a career doing commentary for NFL games- in which he was excellent. A lot of  young fans today may know his name best for the Madden Football video games.
  • below is an attachment of a Pat Toomay story from a series he wrote about his time with the Raiders- this chapter is about Madden
  • . http://www.espn.com/page2/s/toomay-maddeninfull.html

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  • While John Madden was nobody’s stooge- Bowie Kuhn surely proved to be. On this date 50 years ago- baseball’s owners after firing commissioner General William “Spike”Eckert after three years on the job- hired Bowie Kuhn to replace him. Before being named commissioner Kuhn had been legal counsel for major league owners for twenty years. His term as commissioner would last until the September 1984-and he certainly was a stooge for baseball’s ownership all those years. He never came across as being too bright. Of course he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008- they take care of their own.

2 responses to “I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY- SPORTS HEADLINES FROM TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4, 1969- MADDEN TO COACH RAIDERS/ BOWIE KUHN NAMED BASEBALL COMMISSIONER”

  1. That Pat Toomay article is excellent and entertaining…I read that a while back.

    Madden was a perfect coach for that team. The players Davis would get would not work under a strict by the book coach.

    • I think they all respected Madden-the whole story with Darryl Stingley- says a whole lot about him- after Stingley suffering that horrific injury going over all the time to visit him. He didn’t have to do that but he did.

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