Jimmy's Dusty Trivia

[jimmykc]

The Astro's no-hitter last night unlocked some memories, and I spent some time on Wikipedia to fill in the blanks from 1956-57, so pull up a chair. I had just moved to a new town in Kansas for my eighth-grade year and remembered Don Larsen's no hitter but did not see it. All series games were played in the daylight and unless one played hooky (which was not an option for me since my dad was a teacher) no one saw them live on tv who was in school. Didn't matter since the Yankees dominated the Dodgers and I already hated them. The NCAA football champion in 1956 was Bud Wilkenson's Oklahoma team, unbeaten for the third consecutive year.

     In March,1957, I was able to see the first "nationally televised" basketball championship on our old black and white tv (the first one our family ever owned). Five of the "network stations" were in North Carolina and one Kansas City station and Topeka comprised the majority of the 11 (yes, only eleven in the nation) stations which carried the event. I'm betting no one else on this board saw that game.  The finalists were NC and KU and the game was played in the old KC Municiple Auditorium. The other final four games were ignored by television outlets. It turned into one of the classic games of all time. KU was led by Wilt Chamberlain and NC by Len Rosenbluth. It went 3 overtimes and Rosenbluth fouled out, but Wilt played the whole game. The game even had a fight in one of the overtimes where Wilt was struck in the knee by one of the NC cheerleader's megaphones. No one got kicked out for this. NC eventually won 53-52 as guard Tommy Kearns tossed the ball toward the third tier as the horn sounded. Frank McGuire coached the Tarheels, not Dean Smith and Dick Harp was in his first year for the Jayhawks, taking over from Phog Allen. Later my college roomie had his back manipulated by Phog who became a chiropractor in Lawrence in his later years. And that is my trip down memory lane for today. Thanks for coming, folks.