Immaculate reception game ball

An article I stumbled on:

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports...s-a-lot-to-its-caretaker/stories/201211180146

 

That's a really cool story.

 

Wow... I remember that day like it was just last night.
I was nowhere near that, more up around the 50 behind the Steeler Bench.
Some of the things that I was in awe about:
1st Steeler playoff in like forever... I think 20 some years.
John Madden on one side, Chuck Noll on the other... a bitter rivalry, both became legends.
Kenny "The Snake" Stabler, Terry Bradshaw - two of my very favorites along with Namath.
Franco was the rookie.

The leadup, Snake had just ran??? for a 30-yard TD which gave them the lead.
Neither team was moving the ball that well, it was a blood bath basically.
French Fuqua and Harris were doing some damage catching passes underneath.

When the play happened, I had though Bradshaw got sacked, I was buried in melee...
I didn't see the play, it was pandemonium.
My dad, for the first time in my life I saw him show emotion like I had never seen.
The man bled Steeler colors.

The bad news was that was the Dolphins perfect season.

 

Great, great memories. I saw a piece on Baker and this story on TV just recently. 1972 was a landmark year and season in the history of my life. I was an 8 year old kid growing up in northeastern Ohio. That was the first year I had watched regular season NFL games, having become hooked on the sport watching just the playoffs the previous two years at ages 6 and 7. So the next season in 1972 I got to watch NFL games for the whole season for the first time.

Then it happened.

One Sunday afternoon, this game came on with this team in the coolest uniforms I had seen to that point. And have ever since. All black jerseys with gold trim, white numbers and gold pants. The previous two postseasons I pulled for the 49ers, because I thought their uniforms were great. But these blew those away. And every other uniform I'd seen, too. There was also this aura they gave off, as well. The team wearing them just looked tougher, meaner, bad-ass-ier. And they played that way, too. I loved it. I mean, L-O-V-E-D it. That was it. I was hooked. From that moment on. And I would never look back.

I wouldn't find out until a short time later that almost the entire area around me where I grew up hated that team. And I mean TRUE hate, too, not this "fake hate" we've had in sports for decades now. This was the real thing, watch your back, front and every angle hate or you're getting pummeled, even as a little kid. And in some cases, attacked by weapons if you weren't really careful. It was an interesting childhood being a Steelers fan in Clowns territory in the 70s. Very, very interesting.

But one nice thing about growing up where I did, while the Clowns were the primary team shown on TV each week, the Steelers were on most of the times the Clowns weren't playing at the same time. Of course you didn't have the option to see any game you wanted to then, so I didn't get to see every game, but I did get a few each season - more than any other non-Clowns team in the league. So I was glad for that.

One funny item from my inaugural Steelers season of 1972. I spent I don't remember how many weeks believing that Harris's name was Frank O'Harris. Not kidding, ha ha. But I was 8, and you didn't get all the coverage then that you get now, so all I heard was the announcers saying his name a few times each game I got to see. And that's how it sounded to me for a while. I don't remember now exactly when I found out, although I think it was from seeing a sign in the stands with his actual name spelled out. Still, I guess for a time Franco was more Irish to me than Italian.

 

It was, well, immaculate.

 

I was a punk kid who was at game but me and friends were in the tunnels goofing off when it all went down. We had no idea why the huge roar until we ran back in.

 

We had the Dolphins beat until they pulled off a fake punt late in the game. It was a gutsy call by Shula but he caught the Steelers totally unprepared for the fake.

 

I thought stuff like that on happens with Tomlin, lol

The rest of the decade turned out pretty well

 

Now, are you one of the 60,000 who was there or one of the 60,000,000 who said they were there?

Just messing with you, Karl. That is so cool…I would have loved to have been there for that.

 

612 F 18

 

I wasn't even born when this game was played, and I consider myself old.

I am enjoying the replies in this thread. They are like bed time stories to us young guys who are under 50.

 

I was only 6, and am not sure if I remember the game itself- but definitely do remember the aftermath. Franco was, like me, a NJ native, and our local paper ran a story about him and the play immediately afterwards. That, and a cool sounding name - Franco- just like my favorite canned spaghetti in those first grade days- was enough to make me a fan. 5 I vividly remember the playoff run in 1974 and seeing him set the then rushing game record in the Super Bowl against the Vikings.

After that, it's been all gravy. 50 years now. No better team for a kid to root for than the 70s Steelers.

 

Thank you for the warm fuzzy feeling I just got

 

Sucks for guys like me who grew up just after the 70s team.

Born in 76, I vaguely remember watching the Super Bowl vs the Rams in1980. Most of my childhood was spent with Mark Malone as my QB.

 

Us old facts appreciate your post!!!!!!

 

Growing up as a kid of the 70s, being a Steelers fan truly made that time "The Wonder Years" for me. I was blessed with a great family and collection of friends that made everything truly special, but having that Black and Gold to look forward to every Sunday in the Fall was the cherry on top. The greatest team to ever play the game, still to this day. 20 guys played together on all 4 Super Bowl teams and the years around those, almost doubling the next highest number of common players for any other franchise in history with at least 4 Super Bowl wins, including the 80s 49ers and the Pats of the last two decades.

And get this. As if all of that wasn't enough. During that time, my mom and dad were both Cowboys fans, my older brother was a Vikings fan, and when he got old enough to start watching seriously in the late 70s, my younger brother was a Rams fan. And those were the three teams we beat to win our 4 Super Bowls in 6 years. I'm not kidding, how magical is that? You couldn't write a better script for a kid, ha ha.