March 30, 2023 • 25 mins
It’s a great time to be a sports fan in America: Baseball is back, March Madness is wrapping up, and the NHL and NBA playoffs are just around the corner. The NFL draft is also coming up in April, but the league is without one of its most famous quarterbacks: Tom Brady. He is the latest in a long line of athletes who potentially played one season too many. UNC History Professor Matthew Andrews came up with a list of athletes who stayed too long for a One Day University lecture, and he shares that list (plus some extra picks) with host Steven Schragis.
One Day University is a co-production of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans. It is a Curiosity Podcast. You can sign up at the website OneDayU.com to become a member and access over 700 full length video lectures. You can also download their app. Once you’re a member, you can watch Professor Matthew Andrews lecture, “One Season Too Many: Superstar Athletes Who Stayed Too Long.”
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Honestly, I just had a hard time watching him at
the end of his career. It just looked painful to
be shot lumbering up and down the NBA court at
that age. Welcome to One Day University Talks with the
world's most engaging and inspiring professors discussing their most popular courses.
(00:27):
This podcast is your chance to discover some of our
top rated lectures on your own schedule. I'm Steven Schragis.
Spring is a great time for sports in America. The
twenty twenty three Major League Baseball season has officially kicked off,
the NBA and NHL playoffs are just around the corner,
(00:48):
and the upcoming NFL Draft will give us a sneak
peak of the league's next generation of superstars. But while
new players are just joining the world of professional sports,
others have stayed way past their prime. Why does so
many athletes refuse to retire? Professor Matthew Andrews talked about
this phenomenon in a lecture for One Day University. It's
(01:10):
called one season too many superstar athletes who stayed too long.
Matt teaches American history at the University of North Carolina.
His courses dive into American sports and explore issues like
race relations and the American identity. Matt knew I had
one specific athlete in mind, by the way, when I
asked him to come up with this list. So you
(01:38):
asked me to give this lecture on athletes who stayed
around one season too many, and Stephen, I instantly thought, Oh,
this is because Tom Brady is suffering. Tom Brady is
having a tough time. To be a New York Jets
fan is to be a long suffering New York Jets
fan and to lose at the hands of Brady over
and over. So I immediately figured this was you with glee,
(02:00):
rubbing your hands together and saying, I'm going to have Matt,
you know, dance on the grave of Tom Brady metaphorically speaking.
And now I'll give you a chance to to gloat
and dance metaphorically on Tom Brady's grave if you'd like,
because he did very poorly in the playoffs in his
NFL career, so he says is over. I think I
think it is over, and he ended by going down
(02:22):
in flame. So I'm one happy Jets fan. So Matt,
tell me what criteria did you use to go through
the array of athletes and who you were going to
focus on. Yeah, criteria, let's use that word loosely. This
was bad science. It was the epitome of unscientificness. You know,
there was no calculus. I yeah, there are number crunchers
(02:43):
out there who will look at players and they can
they can prove to us that these players stayed around
one season too long because of how their performance waned
on the field. I tried to think of athletes who
suffered either a precipitous drop in quality of play. I
try to think of athletes who I suppose we were
kept around, or or who stayed around themselves because they
(03:08):
brought name recognition to a team. They knew that fans
would come and see them because of their name and
click the turn styles. For me, the obvious answer was
who are the athletes who damaged themselves? Who are the
athletes who damaged their bodies by playing way after they
should have? You know, is an athletes who tarnish their reputation?
Who were the athletes who were our idols and we
(03:30):
had to watch them struggle at the time. That's how
I thought about this. We might as well start with
what was at least once America's pastime and some names
everyone's going to recognize. Tell us a little bit about
how Babe Ruth and Willie Mays fit into this concept.
When we think of Babe Ruth, when we think of
(03:51):
Willie May's, you know, we don't think of Babe Ruth
with the Boston Braves. We don't think of Willie Mays
with the New York Mets, or at least I don't
I think of him, you know, catching Vic Wortz's fly
ball in the Polo Grounds in nineteen fifty four. But
there are two examples of two all time American greats
of certainly baseball greades arguably the two best players in
the history of the game. Inarguably Babe Ruth is the
(04:13):
greatest player in the history of the game. Maybe you
could make a pretty strong argument for Willie May's being second.
But you know, when you think about Babe Ruth, you
think about the New York Yankees. The New York Yankees
got a little bit tired, a little tired of Babe Ruth.
He wanted to stick around to become a manager of
the Yankees, and the Yankees ownership didn't want that to happen,
so he went to the Boston Braves, and really he
(04:33):
went to the Boston Braves less to be a player.
He was hoping to one day become manager. And in
his final season, the greatest baseball player of all time
had a very meager one eighty one. He had that
one final moment of glory in May of nineteen thirty five,
he hit three home runs in one game, the first
fair ball out of Forbes Field, or at least that's
(04:54):
what they said. That gave him the number seven hundred
and fourteen. But after that he was hitless for the
rest of his career. So the Bambino, the Sultan of Swat,
the Caliph of clout, you know, he went out with
a whimper. And then Willie Mays. That was four years
old when Willie Mays was playing baseball in nineteen seventy two,
and then five in nineteen seventy three. Willie Mays is
(05:16):
a Giant, right, He's a New York Giant. He's a
San Francisco Giant, one of the best defensive and offensive
players we've ever seen. And then the Giants got a
little tired of him, but they wanted to give Willie
one last to ross, so they sent him back to
the met send him back to New York City where
he had made a name for himself. Willie Mays was
feted as a met There's this semi annoying habit of
(05:37):
granting All Star berths to fading legends for sentiment's sake.
It's a nice gesture, but totally unfair to more deserving players.
And Willie Mays was a National League All Star in
nineteen seventy three, but he hit two eleven And there's
that famous image of him on his knees in the
World Series, begging the umpire for a call, and he
misinterpret that image usually, But I think they're both grey
(06:00):
examples of supreme athletes who deteriorated rapidly at the end
of their career. And I think it was hard for
baseball fans to see that, let's do football because you
also had two football names that some of the story
is similar, some of it is different, Johnny Unitas and honestly,
(06:22):
my personal favorite, Joe Namath. You know, there were a
lot of football names that I could have picked, and
in retrospect, I've been thinking about this. You know, for example,
there's Mike Webster of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the great center
who then ended his career on the Kansas City Chiefs
and had so much in this now we're getting serious here,
had so much head trauma from his years playing offensive line.
(06:45):
He suffered deep depression. He was homeless at the end
of his life. I mean, so, I certainly could have
talked about him. When I was talking to friends about
names of football players, A lot of them said, what
about Jerry Rice, to which I said, you shut your
mouth right now. Jerry Y is the greatest football player
of all time and my personal idol as a forty
nine Ers fan, So I don't even want to go there. Yeah,
(07:06):
so I went with two guys. Johnny Unitis with his
militaristic crew cut and black high top shoes. You know,
he was the archetype of the modern NFL quarterback. And
I grew up with San Francisco forty nine Ers fan
idolizing Joe Montana, and Johnny Unitis was the guy they
always mentioned whenever people talked about how great Montana was. Yes,
but is he as good as Unitis? Unitis was tough.
(07:30):
He started ninety two consecutive games at one point in
his career, which is remarkable when you consider as opposed
to Tom Brady, he were allowed to actually touch the
quarterback back in the nineteen fifties, in the sixties, in
the nineteen seventies, and then the Colts got tired of him,
the Baltimore Colts tired of him, and then he was
traded to the San Diego Chargers. And it wasn't just
(07:51):
that he played poorly. He played very poorly. You know.
In his first game on the Chargers, he threw for
fifty five yards with three inner options. He was sacked
eight times. You know, he clearly was a shell of himself.
But there's something about seeing Johnny Unitis in that powder
blue and yellow of the San Diego Chargers that just
(08:11):
did not compute. I'm not sure there's a more glaringly
incongruous vision in all of sports than Johnny Unitis in
that Chargers uniform. I said, maybe Willie Mayson the Mets uniform,
but at least I said New York in the front sometime.
So Uniteds had nothing left in the tank. He was
nearly immobile. He was benched in the fourth game of
the season and that was that. So this legend just
(08:32):
once again goes out with a whimper. Okay, Matt, can
you tell us about Joe Namath, who really is my
all time favorite athlete? Yeah, I want to have a
conversation about Namoth. I think you can make the argument, Stephen,
that his first season in the NFL was one season
too many for Joe Namoth for the following fact his
(08:53):
knees were shot. His knees were already severely damaged when
he entered the NFL. You know, he tore his knees
up at Alabama. Emma. There's a famous story that when
he was introduced to the New York Press and the
New York sports writer said, you know, you've got this
huge contract and suppose you don't make it. And we
got a sense of Broadway Joe right then when he
(09:14):
just smiled and looked at the reporter and said, I'll
make it. You know, Joe Namoth did not lack for
self confidence. But on that day, the Jets team doctor
took him into a bathroom stall and asked him to
pull down his pants so he could look at his knees,
and the doctor later said he was shocked. He said
he had the knees of a seventy year old man.
He had had so little cartilage in his knees that
(09:34):
he predicted Joe Namoth was going to last two years.
Two years tops. Of course, Joe Namoth lasted more than that.
I think it's it's actually his ability to play through
incredible pain. That's one of the things that endeared people
to him. You know, people wanted to dislike him because
of his long hair and his cocky attitude and his
(09:55):
white cleats. You can say all those things about him,
but that guy played through pain. Is that how you
think of Joe Namath. Well, it's funny you're asking me,
because this is the one area I can actually converse
with you, at least close to your level, because he
was my favorite player. And I've read plenty of books
(10:17):
about Joe Namath and followed him. And here's my take
on it. The too much might have been what happened
after nineteen sixty nine, Joe Namath, as you know, won
the Super Bowl. He had perhaps the greatest moment in
NFL football, and pretty much everyone remembers it. It changed
(10:41):
things every day for the rest of his life. All
anyone wanted to talk about was that day, that game
he reached the highest possible level and one Special Day,
January twelfth, nineteen sixty nine. Joe nameeth Boy his last season,
and as Yogi Berra said, you can look it up.
(11:03):
I looked it up that nineteen seventy seven season was
miserable on the Rams in his last game. I think
it's absolutely fitting Broadway, Joe ended under the bright lights
of Monday night football, lost to the Chicago Bears at
Soldiers Field. Here are his stats. He was sixteen of
forty two hundred and three yards, no touchdowns, four interceptions.
(11:25):
That's Joe Namoth at the end of his career. Well,
I gotta tell you, just the thought of Joe Namath
on the Rams makes me want to move on to
another sport. All right, let's do it basketball. You chose
Shaquille O'Neill to talk about it, and you also pointed
out his reason to continue playing maybe a little different.
(11:48):
Why don't you tell us more about that, Matt Well,
The choice of Shack was based on the comments that
I received from people, most of them nice, but a
few of them questioning my choices. And Shack is the
one that a lot of people were upset with. The
Thing with Shack is this, when you are that big,
your growing deficiencies are that much more obvious. Look at
(12:13):
photographs of Shiki. Look at photographs of any of us
in our twenties and then later in our late late
thirties or our forties, and there's a stark difference. But
look at photographs of Shack when he came into the
league compared to at the end of his career. I
asked people mental trivia question, who did Shack end his
career with? And there were so many teams. It turns
(12:33):
out it was the Boston Celtics, And in that last
year with the Celtics, he only played in thirty seven games.
He didn't even average double digits. You know, a seven
foot two, three hundred and thirty five player couldn't score
ten points a game. At his peak, Shack may have
been the most dominant physical force the game had ever seen.
Will Chamberlain is the only other person we would put
(12:54):
in that conversation, but Shack is in the conversation. I
was speculating a little bit about why he stuck around.
Shaquille O'Neill had spending habits that were as large as
he was. He spent millions of dollars in a couple
of days when he became a Los Angeles Laker, buying
multiple rolls, Royce's buying houses. When I think of the
great centers in basketball history, I think all of them
(13:16):
kind of went out on top, pretty close to the
peak of their powers. Bill Russell leading the Celtics to
their eleventh title in thirteen years. Will Chamberlain, who effect
went on to be an astounding beach volleyball player in retirement.
Even Kareem's last year playing for the Lakers, when he
was forty one, he was durable, he was dependable. That
(13:37):
sky hook of his just seemed to be ageless. Shack
just did not live up to those lofty examples. He
was big and lumbering, and honestly, I just had a
hard time watching him at the end of his career.
It just looked painful to be shock lumbering up and
down the NBA court at that age. After the break,
(13:58):
Mac tells the story of two picers that hung in
the ring for too long and how Serena Williams broke
the mold with her retirement boxing two names, Joe Lewis
(14:21):
and Muhammad Ali. Tell us a little about them. Okay, well, Steven,
this is the one where like when I was saying
with Mike Webster in football, I think it gets difficult,
it gets uncomfortable. I'm still drawn to the sport like
a moth to a flame. I am drawn to the
sport of boxing, even though I shouldn't be. And when
you stick around too long in boxing, as opposed to
(14:44):
Willie May's and Babe Ruth, you get hurt, you get damaged.
So it's just different in boxing. Joe Lewis one of
the most beloved athletes in twentieth century American history, probably
the most beloved athlete among Africa and Americans in the
twentieth century, because of the way he very silently and
powerfully did battle with the racist ideas that were out there.
(15:10):
Joe Lewis stuck around way too long. One of the
reasons that he did so is that some people, the
people who have looked at this closely, say he was
mistreated by the irs. He had raised money during the
war effort, he had donated money during World War Two
to the American government, but he was still taxed on
a lot of this money. His white managers took money
(15:31):
from him, and so Joe Lewis fought way longer than
he ever should have you know. He became heavyweight champion
of the world in nineteen thirty seven. He lost that
title in nineteen fifty thirteen years later. He never should
have been fighting. Then he lost the title to Zard
Charles and then still in debt, Joe Lewis kept at it.
(15:54):
In nineteen fifty one, when he was thirty seven years old,
he was destroyed in the ring by the new champion,
Rocky Marciano, and Marciano openly wept after the fight. Joe
Lewis had been his idol, and then it just became
so sad. At the end, he couldn't justify being in
the boxing ring anymore, so he turned to the theatrical
sport of professional wrestling, and he was flabby and he
(16:16):
was out of shape, but he needed the money and
he got hurt wrestling. In his final match in nineteen
fifty six, someone jumped on him and broke three of
Joe Lewis's ribs, gave him a cardiac contusion, making matters worse.
The match was held in Florida in an arena that
was totally segregated and did not allow black spectators, so
it was a really a very very sad end for
(16:40):
Joe Lewis, and then Ali fought way too long. Ali
should have retired in nineteen seventy seven when he lost
and then re won the heavyweight championship to Leon Spinks.
One of the few Ali fights I remember was watching
him against Larry Holmes and by the end of the bout,
Muhammad aliud and lift his hands up above his waist.
(17:02):
He was so tired in the end because well, because
he needed the money, or is it because he just
loved the limelight. Is it because he feel like he
was owed the four years that he lost when his
boxing title was stripped for refusing induction to the Armed
Services in the mid nineteen sixties. I'm not really sure,
but he fought sixty one times, He endured thousands of
(17:24):
blows to the head at the end of his career,
and then we saw how it ended. In nineteen eighty four,
he was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome. The disease stripped Ally
of his ability to speak and be heard. I'm not
sure there's a sadder. Well, it was both kind of
sad and uplifting when he lit that torch at the
(17:45):
Summer Olympics in nineteen ninety six, but seeing the incredibly
articulate athlete that he once was being more or less
silenced at the end of his life from all of
the damage he received in the ring. Those are the
two that really stood out to me. Many say you
are the foremost sports professor in the United States, So
(18:06):
I'm going to make a guess. You know, there's another
sport called hockey, So throw them a bone. Would you
sure absolutely give us at least a minute on a
hockey player? A few names come to mind. Eric Lindross
stuck around too long because of all the damage he
was doing to his head multiple concussions. For the once
(18:27):
great Eric Lindross, market Ann Brodure. He's on the shortlist
of greatest goal He's ever along with Patrick Waugh and
Jacques plant Broder. He ended his beautiful career by appearing
in just seven games for the Saint Louis Blues and
he was terrible. He was awful, and he retired mid season.
(18:48):
So just if he just could have ended as a
New Jersey devil, I don't think he would be on
this list. And then how about this guy Chris Chelios.
Chris Chelios, who had a remarkable career, certainly with the
Detroit Red Wings. Chris Chelios, who's obviously a sports junkie.
You know, he tried to make the US bob sled
team for the Winter Olympics one year. Chris Chelios was
(19:12):
playing minor league hockey at one point in his late forties.
He seems so addicted to the sport. But go google
Chris Chelios Atlanta Thrashers. The image of Chelios in that
Thrashers blue. He played seven games for them at age
forty eight. Some people say it was a publicity stunt
for the Thrashers, trying to bring people into the stance.
(19:34):
If it was a publicity stunt, it was a bad
one and it was a blight on an otherwise sterling career.
I would argue, there we go, how about those names?
That was pretty good. You do know about hockey, so
I'm going to push you a little more. A few
people asked about golf, but then it occurred to me,
see what you think of this. Golf's a little different
(19:55):
because players go to a certain age. Obvious, they lose
some of their skills at that age, but then there's
another league for them. They can keep playing against people
their own age, not against twenty five year olds. That's
a phenomenon doesn't exist in any other major sports, so
it so to changes the equation of playing too long.
(20:19):
On the other hand, there may be players who lost
their skills regardless of age and shouldn't have kept teeing
it up. Any thoughts on that, Well, my first thought
is you're right. Golf is different. Golf is not boxing,
that's for sure. So I actually don't have any problem
with golfers sticking around as long as they can. I
(20:40):
remember when Jack Nicholas won the Masters in nineteen eighty six,
Steve and he was forty six years old, and it
was just such a great moment, and they went bonkers
for him at Augusta and forty six seems quite plausible now,
but back then, in nineteen eighty six, that was shocking.
There were people who were telling Jack Nicholas he was
(21:01):
playing one season too many, that he was sticking around
too long, and we would have been denied that amazing
moment of him winning. People say Arnold Palmer stuck around
too long, But boy, my grandparents, who were card caring
members of Arnie's army, they didn't think he stuck around
too long. They went down and watched him play at
Pebble Beach every year. They wanted to see him keep
(21:24):
on going, and of course Arnold Palmer was able to
monetize that longevity. So yeah, I think golf is different.
You don't get hurt playing golf, So I personally have
a hard time thinking any of these guys stuck around
too long. One more question, then we're going to close
with a sport. I know you're interested in tennis. And
(21:44):
Serena Williams her retirement very interesting situation. In your talk,
you said she literally rewrote the retirement script, which is
an interesting phrase. What did you mean by that? Well,
as opposed to Johnny Unitis and Joe Namath and Willie
(22:04):
May's and Babe Ruth, you know, athletes who weren't able
to monetize themselves in the way that I think in
our modern day we feel like they should have been
able to. You know, Serena's different, So Babe Ruth and
Willie May's they were all subject to the reserve rule
and they could never become free agents and go on
the open market athletes, even great ones like Unitis. And
(22:29):
while Namith was starting to change the script and tap
into this idea, that athletes could be corporate spokespeople, and
certainly Babe Ruth did this too, but none of these
people made hundreds of millions of dollars like Serena has.
Serena has maximized her name, image and likeness as we
(22:50):
as we call it now when we talk about about
college athletes, and so she was able to walk away
on her terms. You know, she made the announcement in
a Vogue magazine cover story are complete with these super
glamorous photos of her on the beach, some of them
with her daughter, Olympia. I was disappointed when she retired.
I wanted her to stick it out and get to
(23:11):
Margaret Court's record. I think it's very possible she would
have done that, but I guess she felt. Look, she
is undeniably the greatest women's tennis player of all times.
She's playing in a much different era than Margaret Court.
Even though Margaret Court has one more Grand Slam title
than Serena. Serena is the best women's tennis player certainly.
But yeah, the word she used, Stephen was I'm evolving
(23:34):
out of tennis. You know, she's got that brand. Serena
is gonna be okay. Serena's going to be around. Serena
is not going to fade away like Johnny. You did
you know after his days with the San Diego Chargers.
We're going to see a lot of Serena moving forward,
a lot of Roger federerre moving forward. I hate to
break it to you, Steven, We're gonna see a lot
of Tom Brady moving forward. You're gonna have a hard
time watching football without having Tom Brady telling you what's
(23:56):
going on on the field. Although I just checked he's
still retired. Matt, thank you so much for doing this.
I love talking sports with you. Thanks again for doing this.
Thank you, Stephen. Thanks for joining us here at One
Day University. Sign up at our website one dayu dot
com to become a member and access over seven hundred
(24:17):
full length video lectures from the world's finest professors. You
can also download our app. There you can learn more
about today's episode and watch UNC professor Matt Andrews lecture
on Athletes that Stayed two law, as well as his
talks on the Olympics, the future of sports, and more.
Join us next time when we talk about the unbreakable
(24:39):
bond between humans and dogs, The one that surprises me
is that ninety four percent of dog owners consider their
dog apart of the family. I'm like, who are the
six percent of people who do not consider their dog
a part of their family. One Day University is a
production of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans. If you're
enjoying the show, leave a review in your favorite podcast act.
(25:03):
You can also check out other Curiosity podcasts to learn
about history, pop culture, true crime, and more. School of
Humans
Honestly, I just had a hard time watching him at
the end of his career. It just looked painful to
be shot lumbering up and down the NBA court at
that age. Welcome to One Day University Talks with the
world's most engaging and inspiring professors discussing their most popular courses.
(00:27):
This podcast is your chance to discover some of our
top rated lectures on your own schedule. I'm Steven Schragis.
Spring is a great time for sports in America. The
twenty twenty three Major League Baseball season has officially kicked off,
the NBA and NHL playoffs are just around the corner,
(00:48):
and the upcoming NFL Draft will give us a sneak
peak of the league's next generation of superstars. But while
new players are just joining the world of professional sports,
others have stayed way past their prime. Why does so
many athletes refuse to retire? Professor Matthew Andrews talked about
this phenomenon in a lecture for One Day University. It's
(01:10):
called one season too many superstar athletes who stayed too long.
Matt teaches American history at the University of North Carolina.
His courses dive into American sports and explore issues like
race relations and the American identity. Matt knew I had
one specific athlete in mind, by the way, when I
asked him to come up with this list. So you
(01:38):
asked me to give this lecture on athletes who stayed
around one season too many, and Stephen, I instantly thought, Oh,
this is because Tom Brady is suffering. Tom Brady is
having a tough time. To be a New York Jets
fan is to be a long suffering New York Jets
fan and to lose at the hands of Brady over
and over. So I immediately figured this was you with glee,
(02:00):
rubbing your hands together and saying, I'm going to have Matt,
you know, dance on the grave of Tom Brady metaphorically speaking.
And now I'll give you a chance to to gloat
and dance metaphorically on Tom Brady's grave if you'd like,
because he did very poorly in the playoffs in his
NFL career, so he says is over. I think I
think it is over, and he ended by going down
(02:22):
in flame. So I'm one happy Jets fan. So Matt,
tell me what criteria did you use to go through
the array of athletes and who you were going to
focus on. Yeah, criteria, let's use that word loosely. This
was bad science. It was the epitome of unscientificness. You know,
there was no calculus. I yeah, there are number crunchers
(02:43):
out there who will look at players and they can
they can prove to us that these players stayed around
one season too long because of how their performance waned
on the field. I tried to think of athletes who
suffered either a precipitous drop in quality of play. I
try to think of athletes who I suppose we were
kept around, or or who stayed around themselves because they
(03:08):
brought name recognition to a team. They knew that fans
would come and see them because of their name and
click the turn styles. For me, the obvious answer was
who are the athletes who damaged themselves? Who are the
athletes who damaged their bodies by playing way after they
should have? You know, is an athletes who tarnish their reputation?
Who were the athletes who were our idols and we
(03:30):
had to watch them struggle at the time. That's how
I thought about this. We might as well start with
what was at least once America's pastime and some names
everyone's going to recognize. Tell us a little bit about
how Babe Ruth and Willie Mays fit into this concept.
When we think of Babe Ruth, when we think of
(03:51):
Willie May's, you know, we don't think of Babe Ruth
with the Boston Braves. We don't think of Willie Mays
with the New York Mets, or at least I don't
I think of him, you know, catching Vic Wortz's fly
ball in the Polo Grounds in nineteen fifty four. But
there are two examples of two all time American greats
of certainly baseball greades arguably the two best players in
the history of the game. Inarguably Babe Ruth is the
(04:13):
greatest player in the history of the game. Maybe you
could make a pretty strong argument for Willie May's being second.
But you know, when you think about Babe Ruth, you
think about the New York Yankees. The New York Yankees
got a little bit tired, a little tired of Babe Ruth.
He wanted to stick around to become a manager of
the Yankees, and the Yankees ownership didn't want that to happen,
so he went to the Boston Braves, and really he
(04:33):
went to the Boston Braves less to be a player.
He was hoping to one day become manager. And in
his final season, the greatest baseball player of all time
had a very meager one eighty one. He had that
one final moment of glory in May of nineteen thirty five,
he hit three home runs in one game, the first
fair ball out of Forbes Field, or at least that's
(04:54):
what they said. That gave him the number seven hundred
and fourteen. But after that he was hitless for the
rest of his career. So the Bambino, the Sultan of Swat,
the Caliph of clout, you know, he went out with
a whimper. And then Willie Mays. That was four years
old when Willie Mays was playing baseball in nineteen seventy two,
and then five in nineteen seventy three. Willie Mays is
(05:16):
a Giant, right, He's a New York Giant. He's a
San Francisco Giant, one of the best defensive and offensive
players we've ever seen. And then the Giants got a
little tired of him, but they wanted to give Willie
one last to ross, so they sent him back to
the met send him back to New York City where
he had made a name for himself. Willie Mays was
feted as a met There's this semi annoying habit of
(05:37):
granting All Star berths to fading legends for sentiment's sake.
It's a nice gesture, but totally unfair to more deserving players.
And Willie Mays was a National League All Star in
nineteen seventy three, but he hit two eleven And there's
that famous image of him on his knees in the
World Series, begging the umpire for a call, and he
misinterpret that image usually, But I think they're both grey
(06:00):
examples of supreme athletes who deteriorated rapidly at the end
of their career. And I think it was hard for
baseball fans to see that, let's do football because you
also had two football names that some of the story
is similar, some of it is different, Johnny Unitas and honestly,
(06:22):
my personal favorite, Joe Namath. You know, there were a
lot of football names that I could have picked, and
in retrospect, I've been thinking about this. You know, for example,
there's Mike Webster of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the great center
who then ended his career on the Kansas City Chiefs
and had so much in this now we're getting serious here,
had so much head trauma from his years playing offensive line.
(06:45):
He suffered deep depression. He was homeless at the end
of his life. I mean, so, I certainly could have
talked about him. When I was talking to friends about
names of football players, A lot of them said, what
about Jerry Rice, to which I said, you shut your
mouth right now. Jerry Y is the greatest football player
of all time and my personal idol as a forty
nine Ers fan, So I don't even want to go there. Yeah,
(07:06):
so I went with two guys. Johnny Unitis with his
militaristic crew cut and black high top shoes. You know,
he was the archetype of the modern NFL quarterback. And
I grew up with San Francisco forty nine Ers fan
idolizing Joe Montana, and Johnny Unitis was the guy they
always mentioned whenever people talked about how great Montana was. Yes,
but is he as good as Unitis? Unitis was tough.
(07:30):
He started ninety two consecutive games at one point in
his career, which is remarkable when you consider as opposed
to Tom Brady, he were allowed to actually touch the
quarterback back in the nineteen fifties, in the sixties, in
the nineteen seventies, and then the Colts got tired of him,
the Baltimore Colts tired of him, and then he was
traded to the San Diego Chargers. And it wasn't just
(07:51):
that he played poorly. He played very poorly. You know.
In his first game on the Chargers, he threw for
fifty five yards with three inner options. He was sacked
eight times. You know, he clearly was a shell of himself.
But there's something about seeing Johnny Unitis in that powder
blue and yellow of the San Diego Chargers that just
(08:11):
did not compute. I'm not sure there's a more glaringly
incongruous vision in all of sports than Johnny Unitis in
that Chargers uniform. I said, maybe Willie Mayson the Mets uniform,
but at least I said New York in the front sometime.
So Uniteds had nothing left in the tank. He was
nearly immobile. He was benched in the fourth game of
the season and that was that. So this legend just
(08:32):
once again goes out with a whimper. Okay, Matt, can
you tell us about Joe Namath, who really is my
all time favorite athlete? Yeah, I want to have a
conversation about Namoth. I think you can make the argument, Stephen,
that his first season in the NFL was one season
too many for Joe Namoth for the following fact his
(08:53):
knees were shot. His knees were already severely damaged when
he entered the NFL. You know, he tore his knees
up at Alabama. Emma. There's a famous story that when
he was introduced to the New York Press and the
New York sports writer said, you know, you've got this
huge contract and suppose you don't make it. And we
got a sense of Broadway Joe right then when he
(09:14):
just smiled and looked at the reporter and said, I'll
make it. You know, Joe Namoth did not lack for
self confidence. But on that day, the Jets team doctor
took him into a bathroom stall and asked him to
pull down his pants so he could look at his knees,
and the doctor later said he was shocked. He said
he had the knees of a seventy year old man.
He had had so little cartilage in his knees that
(09:34):
he predicted Joe Namoth was going to last two years.
Two years tops. Of course, Joe Namoth lasted more than that.
I think it's it's actually his ability to play through
incredible pain. That's one of the things that endeared people
to him. You know, people wanted to dislike him because
of his long hair and his cocky attitude and his
(09:55):
white cleats. You can say all those things about him,
but that guy played through pain. Is that how you
think of Joe Namath. Well, it's funny you're asking me,
because this is the one area I can actually converse
with you, at least close to your level, because he
was my favorite player. And I've read plenty of books
(10:17):
about Joe Namath and followed him. And here's my take
on it. The too much might have been what happened
after nineteen sixty nine, Joe Namath, as you know, won
the Super Bowl. He had perhaps the greatest moment in
NFL football, and pretty much everyone remembers it. It changed
(10:41):
things every day for the rest of his life. All
anyone wanted to talk about was that day, that game
he reached the highest possible level and one Special Day,
January twelfth, nineteen sixty nine. Joe nameeth Boy his last season,
and as Yogi Berra said, you can look it up.
(11:03):
I looked it up that nineteen seventy seven season was
miserable on the Rams in his last game. I think
it's absolutely fitting Broadway, Joe ended under the bright lights
of Monday night football, lost to the Chicago Bears at
Soldiers Field. Here are his stats. He was sixteen of
forty two hundred and three yards, no touchdowns, four interceptions.
(11:25):
That's Joe Namoth at the end of his career. Well,
I gotta tell you, just the thought of Joe Namath
on the Rams makes me want to move on to
another sport. All right, let's do it basketball. You chose
Shaquille O'Neill to talk about it, and you also pointed
out his reason to continue playing maybe a little different.
(11:48):
Why don't you tell us more about that, Matt Well,
The choice of Shack was based on the comments that
I received from people, most of them nice, but a
few of them questioning my choices. And Shack is the
one that a lot of people were upset with. The
Thing with Shack is this, when you are that big,
your growing deficiencies are that much more obvious. Look at
(12:13):
photographs of Shiki. Look at photographs of any of us
in our twenties and then later in our late late
thirties or our forties, and there's a stark difference. But
look at photographs of Shack when he came into the
league compared to at the end of his career. I
asked people mental trivia question, who did Shack end his
career with? And there were so many teams. It turns
(12:33):
out it was the Boston Celtics, And in that last
year with the Celtics, he only played in thirty seven games.
He didn't even average double digits. You know, a seven
foot two, three hundred and thirty five player couldn't score
ten points a game. At his peak, Shack may have
been the most dominant physical force the game had ever seen.
Will Chamberlain is the only other person we would put
(12:54):
in that conversation, but Shack is in the conversation. I
was speculating a little bit about why he stuck around.
Shaquille O'Neill had spending habits that were as large as
he was. He spent millions of dollars in a couple
of days when he became a Los Angeles Laker, buying
multiple rolls, Royce's buying houses. When I think of the
great centers in basketball history, I think all of them
(13:16):
kind of went out on top, pretty close to the
peak of their powers. Bill Russell leading the Celtics to
their eleventh title in thirteen years. Will Chamberlain, who effect
went on to be an astounding beach volleyball player in retirement.
Even Kareem's last year playing for the Lakers, when he
was forty one, he was durable, he was dependable. That
(13:37):
sky hook of his just seemed to be ageless. Shack
just did not live up to those lofty examples. He
was big and lumbering, and honestly, I just had a
hard time watching him at the end of his career.
It just looked painful to be shock lumbering up and
down the NBA court at that age. After the break,
(13:58):
Mac tells the story of two picers that hung in
the ring for too long and how Serena Williams broke
the mold with her retirement boxing two names, Joe Lewis
(14:21):
and Muhammad Ali. Tell us a little about them. Okay, well, Steven,
this is the one where like when I was saying
with Mike Webster in football, I think it gets difficult,
it gets uncomfortable. I'm still drawn to the sport like
a moth to a flame. I am drawn to the
sport of boxing, even though I shouldn't be. And when
you stick around too long in boxing, as opposed to
(14:44):
Willie May's and Babe Ruth, you get hurt, you get damaged.
So it's just different in boxing. Joe Lewis one of
the most beloved athletes in twentieth century American history, probably
the most beloved athlete among Africa and Americans in the
twentieth century, because of the way he very silently and
powerfully did battle with the racist ideas that were out there.
(15:10):
Joe Lewis stuck around way too long. One of the
reasons that he did so is that some people, the
people who have looked at this closely, say he was
mistreated by the irs. He had raised money during the
war effort, he had donated money during World War Two
to the American government, but he was still taxed on
a lot of this money. His white managers took money
(15:31):
from him, and so Joe Lewis fought way longer than
he ever should have you know. He became heavyweight champion
of the world in nineteen thirty seven. He lost that
title in nineteen fifty thirteen years later. He never should
have been fighting. Then he lost the title to Zard
Charles and then still in debt, Joe Lewis kept at it.
(15:54):
In nineteen fifty one, when he was thirty seven years old,
he was destroyed in the ring by the new champion,
Rocky Marciano, and Marciano openly wept after the fight. Joe
Lewis had been his idol, and then it just became
so sad. At the end, he couldn't justify being in
the boxing ring anymore, so he turned to the theatrical
sport of professional wrestling, and he was flabby and he
(16:16):
was out of shape, but he needed the money and
he got hurt wrestling. In his final match in nineteen
fifty six, someone jumped on him and broke three of
Joe Lewis's ribs, gave him a cardiac contusion, making matters worse.
The match was held in Florida in an arena that
was totally segregated and did not allow black spectators, so
it was a really a very very sad end for
(16:40):
Joe Lewis, and then Ali fought way too long. Ali
should have retired in nineteen seventy seven when he lost
and then re won the heavyweight championship to Leon Spinks.
One of the few Ali fights I remember was watching
him against Larry Holmes and by the end of the bout,
Muhammad aliud and lift his hands up above his waist.
(17:02):
He was so tired in the end because well, because
he needed the money, or is it because he just
loved the limelight. Is it because he feel like he
was owed the four years that he lost when his
boxing title was stripped for refusing induction to the Armed
Services in the mid nineteen sixties. I'm not really sure,
but he fought sixty one times, He endured thousands of
(17:24):
blows to the head at the end of his career,
and then we saw how it ended. In nineteen eighty four,
he was diagnosed with Parkinson's syndrome. The disease stripped Ally
of his ability to speak and be heard. I'm not
sure there's a sadder. Well, it was both kind of
sad and uplifting when he lit that torch at the
(17:45):
Summer Olympics in nineteen ninety six, but seeing the incredibly
articulate athlete that he once was being more or less
silenced at the end of his life from all of
the damage he received in the ring. Those are the
two that really stood out to me. Many say you
are the foremost sports professor in the United States, So
(18:06):
I'm going to make a guess. You know, there's another
sport called hockey, So throw them a bone. Would you
sure absolutely give us at least a minute on a
hockey player? A few names come to mind. Eric Lindross
stuck around too long because of all the damage he
was doing to his head multiple concussions. For the once
(18:27):
great Eric Lindross, market Ann Brodure. He's on the shortlist
of greatest goal He's ever along with Patrick Waugh and
Jacques plant Broder. He ended his beautiful career by appearing
in just seven games for the Saint Louis Blues and
he was terrible. He was awful, and he retired mid season.
(18:48):
So just if he just could have ended as a
New Jersey devil, I don't think he would be on
this list. And then how about this guy Chris Chelios.
Chris Chelios, who had a remarkable career, certainly with the
Detroit Red Wings. Chris Chelios, who's obviously a sports junkie.
You know, he tried to make the US bob sled
team for the Winter Olympics one year. Chris Chelios was
(19:12):
playing minor league hockey at one point in his late forties.
He seems so addicted to the sport. But go google
Chris Chelios Atlanta Thrashers. The image of Chelios in that
Thrashers blue. He played seven games for them at age
forty eight. Some people say it was a publicity stunt
for the Thrashers, trying to bring people into the stance.
(19:34):
If it was a publicity stunt, it was a bad
one and it was a blight on an otherwise sterling career.
I would argue, there we go, how about those names?
That was pretty good. You do know about hockey, so
I'm going to push you a little more. A few
people asked about golf, but then it occurred to me,
see what you think of this. Golf's a little different
(19:55):
because players go to a certain age. Obvious, they lose
some of their skills at that age, but then there's
another league for them. They can keep playing against people
their own age, not against twenty five year olds. That's
a phenomenon doesn't exist in any other major sports, so
it so to changes the equation of playing too long.
(20:19):
On the other hand, there may be players who lost
their skills regardless of age and shouldn't have kept teeing
it up. Any thoughts on that, Well, my first thought
is you're right. Golf is different. Golf is not boxing,
that's for sure. So I actually don't have any problem
with golfers sticking around as long as they can. I
(20:40):
remember when Jack Nicholas won the Masters in nineteen eighty six,
Steve and he was forty six years old, and it
was just such a great moment, and they went bonkers
for him at Augusta and forty six seems quite plausible now,
but back then, in nineteen eighty six, that was shocking.
There were people who were telling Jack Nicholas he was
(21:01):
playing one season too many, that he was sticking around
too long, and we would have been denied that amazing
moment of him winning. People say Arnold Palmer stuck around
too long, But boy, my grandparents, who were card caring
members of Arnie's army, they didn't think he stuck around
too long. They went down and watched him play at
Pebble Beach every year. They wanted to see him keep
(21:24):
on going, and of course Arnold Palmer was able to
monetize that longevity. So yeah, I think golf is different.
You don't get hurt playing golf, So I personally have
a hard time thinking any of these guys stuck around
too long. One more question, then we're going to close
with a sport. I know you're interested in tennis. And
(21:44):
Serena Williams her retirement very interesting situation. In your talk,
you said she literally rewrote the retirement script, which is
an interesting phrase. What did you mean by that? Well,
as opposed to Johnny Unitis and Joe Namath and Willie
(22:04):
May's and Babe Ruth, you know, athletes who weren't able
to monetize themselves in the way that I think in
our modern day we feel like they should have been
able to. You know, Serena's different, So Babe Ruth and
Willie May's they were all subject to the reserve rule
and they could never become free agents and go on
the open market athletes, even great ones like Unitis. And
(22:29):
while Namith was starting to change the script and tap
into this idea, that athletes could be corporate spokespeople, and
certainly Babe Ruth did this too, but none of these
people made hundreds of millions of dollars like Serena has.
Serena has maximized her name, image and likeness as we
(22:50):
as we call it now when we talk about about
college athletes, and so she was able to walk away
on her terms. You know, she made the announcement in
a Vogue magazine cover story are complete with these super
glamorous photos of her on the beach, some of them
with her daughter, Olympia. I was disappointed when she retired.
I wanted her to stick it out and get to
(23:11):
Margaret Court's record. I think it's very possible she would
have done that, but I guess she felt. Look, she
is undeniably the greatest women's tennis player of all times.
She's playing in a much different era than Margaret Court.
Even though Margaret Court has one more Grand Slam title
than Serena. Serena is the best women's tennis player certainly.
But yeah, the word she used, Stephen was I'm evolving
(23:34):
out of tennis. You know, she's got that brand. Serena
is gonna be okay. Serena's going to be around. Serena
is not going to fade away like Johnny. You did
you know after his days with the San Diego Chargers.
We're going to see a lot of Serena moving forward,
a lot of Roger federerre moving forward. I hate to
break it to you, Steven, We're gonna see a lot
of Tom Brady moving forward. You're gonna have a hard
time watching football without having Tom Brady telling you what's
(23:56):
going on on the field. Although I just checked he's
still retired. Matt, thank you so much for doing this.
I love talking sports with you. Thanks again for doing this.
Thank you, Stephen. Thanks for joining us here at One
Day University. Sign up at our website one dayu dot
com to become a member and access over seven hundred
(24:17):
full length video lectures from the world's finest professors. You
can also download our app. There you can learn more
about today's episode and watch UNC professor Matt Andrews lecture
on Athletes that Stayed two law, as well as his
talks on the Olympics, the future of sports, and more.
Join us next time when we talk about the unbreakable
(24:39):
bond between humans and dogs, The one that surprises me
is that ninety four percent of dog owners consider their
dog apart of the family. I'm like, who are the
six percent of people who do not consider their dog
a part of their family. One Day University is a
production of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans. If you're
enjoying the show, leave a review in your favorite podcast act.
(25:03):
You can also check out other Curiosity podcasts to learn
about history, pop culture, true crime, and more. School of
Humans
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com