Author: fartheroffthewall

Tom Hoffarth is a sports journalist in Los Angeles, born and raised (reared is the correct phrase, but it just sounds wrong) and specializing in the sports media business. A USC graduate from the School of Journalism (it still exists, somewhat) in 1984, he is also available for service at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomhoffarth/

No. 69: Chase de Leo

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This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.

The most obvious choices for No. 69:

Sebastian Joseph-Day, Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 69:

Chase De Leo, Anaheim Ducks
Al Barry, Los Angeles Chargers via USC

The most interesting story for No. 69:
Chase De Leo, Anaheim Ducks center (2023-24)
Southern California map pinpoints:
La Mirada, Norwalk, Whittier, Anaheim

The preamble

Jerry Seinfeld, who needs his sense of humor to remain a New York Mets fan as well as sticking to the idea that so many are just “rooting for laundry,” uses his 2020 book “Is This Anything?” to clear out his joke file as well as examine the evolution of material.

One of his riffs documented is about a time in our existence when, before caller ID became a thing, we had to punch in *69 — also known as Star-69 — to find out whose call we just missed with some identification, and they we decide if we wanted to call them back.

“I thought it was a little hostile to the calling party. Someone calls. They hang up. You hit that *69. ‘Nice try, creep. Oh, I know all about your little call. …’

“And 69?

“That’s the number they pick for this thing?

“So that means there isn’t one person at the phone company that went to junior high school? How did that slip through an entire organization?

“If you worked at the phone company, and you heard they were doing this … wouldn’t you walk into the meeting and go, ’69? Are you kidding me? That’s the number you guys came up for the new feature? What the hell is going on here?’

“ ‘We’re the phone company. We can pick any number we want. 68. 70.’

” ‘I can’t wait to hear what you got for 3-Way Calling’.”

In the grand scheme of nothing, what does 69 have to do with anything? It’s a callback to immature double entendre, the ding-dong-ditch in a world of too much Beavis and Butthead. The argument could be made that 69 is really a single entendre. Of, just an appetizer.

Scanning the rosters in the entire history of Southern California sports, only a handful of athletes have dared to wear No. 69. You figure enough of them actually asked for it. They just didn’t get it. On several levels.

Some have pulled it off better than others, but in the sports numbering system, there’s no real star No. 69. It’s more an asterisk. Who’s really trying to be the biggest asshat?

Continue reading “No. 69: Chase de Leo” →

No. 63: Jim Brown

fartheroffthewall

This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.

The most obvious choices for No. 63:

Booker Brown, USC football
Joe Carollo, Los Angeles Rams
Jim Brown, UCLA football

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 63:

Mike McDonald, Los Angeles Rams
Greg Horton, Los Angeles Rams
Corey Linsley, Los Angeles Chargers

The most interesting story for No. 63:
Jim Brown, UCLA football offensive lineman via L.A. Loyola High (1954 to 1955)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Los Angeles, Westwood, Glendale

Reference books on the subject:
“UCLA Football – 1954 National Champions: To Know a Man – Know His Memories,” by Jim Brown, 2006

Jim Brown helped make history, perhaps by accident, or by good fortune, as part of UCLA’s most unique 1954 national championship football team.

Decades later, Brown tackled an idea on how to preserve the team’s history, for the good fortune of those who came decades later.

A 6-foot, 204-pound right guard on an explosive line that paved the way for coach Red Sanders’ Single-Wing offense, Brown capped off a two-year run with the Bruins as an All-American in 1955. The teams he was on during his time went 18-2 and won two Pacific Coast Conference titles.

Sanders once referred to Brown as “one of the best football players we have had at UCLA. He has never played a poor game. As an all-around guard, he doesn’t back up from anyone. I haven’t seen anyone whip him yet across the scrimmage line. … In addition, you’ve never heard (Brown) complain or alibi or explain. He just goes out and gives his team the best he has.”

When Brown was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001, it was noted that he also played rugby for the Bruins and was part of its ROTC program. Instead of signing with the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals, who drafted him in 1956, Brown went to the U.S. Army and became commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.

When Brown died at his home in Glendale in 2022 at age 87, survived by his wife of 66 years, Merrilyn, who was a UCLA song girl when they married in 1956, he took pride in having five children, 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Brown left not just his own life story, but those of his teammates from that Bruin era.

Continue reading “No. 63: Jim Brown” →

No. 35: Petros Papadakis

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This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.

The most obvious choices for No. 35:

Sidney Wicks, UCLA basketball
Bob Welch, Los Angeles Dodgers
Cody Bellinger, Los Angeles Dodgers
Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Anaheim Mighty Ducks
Christian Okoye, Azusa Pacific College football

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 35:

Tank Younger, Los Angeles Rams
Loy Vaught, Los Angeles Clippers
Rudy LaRusso, Los Angeles Lakers
Ron Settles, Long Beach State football
Mark Eaton, UCLA basketball

The most interesting story for No. 35:
Petros Papadakis, USC football tailback (1996  to 2000) via San Pedro High and Peninsula High of Palos Verdes
Southern California map pinpoints:
San Pedro, Palos Verdes, Hollywood, Los Angeles (Coliseum, Sports Arena)

Oct. 15, 1998: On USC’s third play from scrimmage in the first quarter, Trojans junior tailback Petros Papadakis finishes off a 65-yard touchdown run against Cal at the Coliseum (top, and below). Papadakis had 13 carries for 158 yards in his greatest statistical performance of his USC career in a 32-31 Week 6 loss. (Photos by Jon Soohoo/USC)

Any sort of perfunctory profile of Petros Papadakis becomes the proverbial Sisyphean pursuit. Hopefully we don’t have to Greek-splain too much here.

Sisyphus, the first king of Ephyra, found his eternal fate in Hades rolling a huge boulder endlessly up a hill, only to see it come back down at him. Every time he made progress and got on a roll, it reversed on him like a Looney Tunes cartoon. The whole thing seemed so Kafkaesque that French philosopher Albert Camus, writing “The Myth of Sisyphus” in 1942, elevated him to some absurd hero status in Greek mythology.

Something that Papadakis might find relatable.

When Papadakis gets on his own a roll, cutting it up on KLAC-AM (570)’s afternoon sports-talk drive-time “Petros and Money Show,” there is far less sports and much more drive to just being a voice for “la raza.” It’s a focus on a feeling of being in “la ciudad” with Papadakis, as familiar as he is bombastic, just the person in the passenger seat making observational conversation to it real.

He is part of USC football legacy, a linage of Cardinal and Gold athletes whose performance has been documented in Los Angeles’ grand Coliseum. Papadakis’ work ethic formed at his family’s famously iconic San Pedro Taverna, as he went from dishwasher to waiter to spending all his earnings for the night back on his guests to make sure they went home happy.

Maybe Papadakis became an accidental broadcaster, but it’s a career that likely defines him as much if not more than anything else. Once a Trojan workhorse in the USC backfield, he is the sometimes-hoarse former Trojan on the dashboard radio. A Red Bull in a china shop of hot topics. The connoisseurs of SoCal sports who enjoy conquering as much as consuming any kind of history lesson are better for it.

Fox Sports’ Petros Papadakis, left, with USC head football coach Lane Kiffin in 2011.

Back to the profile: Papadakis has provided quips along the way to make his story even more cohesive:

Continue reading “No. 35: Petros Papadakis” →

No. 46: Juan Marichal (and John Roseboro)

fartheroffthewall

This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.

The most obvious choices for No. 46:

Burt Hooten: Los Angeles Dodgers
Todd Christensen: Los Angeles Raiders

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 46:

Don Aase: California Angels
Dan Petry: California Angels
Jerry Shipkey: USC and UCLA football

The most interesting story for No. 46:
Juan Marichal, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher (1975)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Dodger Stadium

Reference books on the subject:
“The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal And John Roseboro Turned Baseball’s Ugliest Brawl Into A Story Of Forgiveness And Redemption,” by John Rosengren, 2014
“Glory Days with the Dodgers, and Other Days with Others,” by John Roseboro with Bill Libby, 1978

Juan Marichal’s matriarchal Baseball Hall of Fame plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y., seems to have one dandy of a typo.

After all he accomplished for the San Francisco Giants in a 16-year MLB life, the last line of his career ledger reads: “Los Angeles N.L., 1975”

When The Associated Press posted a story explaining how the nastiest of the rival Giants had accepted a one-year, $60,000 contract with the intent of actually trying to help the Dodgers win games in 1975, the lede read: “Baseball, like politics, apparently makes strange bedfellows.”

The Los Angeles Times’ Jim Murray launched into his own interpretation: “There’s a new game in town today. It begins, ‘Juan Marichal, playing for the Dodgers, is like …’ And you supply your own punch line.” Murray offered his own suggestions: “Like King Faisal at a bar mitzvah … like Brezhnev at a White House prayer meeting … In the view of most Dodger fans, Juan Marichal belongs in the Nuremberg trials, not in Dodger Blue.”

Long Beach Press-Telegram columnist Bud Tucker lamentated: “It wouldn’t matter if the guy could win 25 games. Adolph Hitler is Adolph Hitler and Juan Marichal is Juan Marichal.”

Marichal’s decades-long existence as L.A.’s Public Enemy No. 1 is chapter and verse part of the Dodgers-Giants historic and on-going rivalry. As Herald-Examiner columnist Melvin Durslag once wrote: “If all the Dodger hitters that Marichal has put in the dirt were laid end-to-end, they would stretch from Chavez Ravine to Santo Domingo.”

A book published in 1964 about the history of this rivalry by Lee Allen called “The Giants & The Dodgers: The Fabulous Story of Baseball’s Fiercest Feud” included a cover illustration shows a Brooklyn Bum mascot chasing after a Giants player with a baseball bat.

Marichal flipped the script during a game at Candlestick Park in 1965. He would be forever linked for assaulting Dodgers catcher John Roseboro.

And when the dust settled, years later, they used that moment as something teachable. That forgiveness, friendship and the foundation of sports can heal. Even if L.A. never saw Marichal as anything more than a heel.

Continue reading “No. 46: Juan Marichal (and John Roseboro)” →

No. 37: Tom Seaver (and Bill Bordley)

fartheroffthewall

This post is part of a media project called SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number, and consider the list of athletes attached to it. Who wore it best? Or, what’s the most compelling story linked to it? Any person, place or thing is in play with Southern California connections. Star power, transformational achievement, longevity, notoriety and quirkiness all factor in. Whatever leads to a lively discussion and interpretation.

The most obvious choices for No. 37:

Donnie Moore: California Angels
Lester Hayes: Los Angeles Raiders
Ron Artest/Metta World Peace: Los Angeles Lakers
Kermit Johnson: UCLA football, Southern California Sun, out of Blair High of Pasadena

The not-so-obvious choices for No. 37:

Bobby Castillo: Los Angeles Dodgers
Ron Washington: Los Angeles Angels manager
Tom Seaver: USC baseball
Ken McBride: Los Angeles Angels

The most interesting story for No. 37:
Tom Seaver: USC baseball pitcher (1965)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Twentynine Palms, Los Angeles (USC), Manhattan Beach

Reference books on the subject:
“Tom Seaver: A Terrific Live,” by Bill Madden, 2020
“Tom Seaver and Me,” by Pat Jordan, 2020
“Baseball Is My Life,” by Tom Seaver with Steve Jacobson, 1973
“Pitching With Tom Seaver,” by Tom Seaver with Steve Jacobson, 1973

Tom Seaver was a stellar bridge player. And bridge can be a tricky card game.

The trick is to gather the fewest the number of tricks bid by those playing together as partners at a four-person table. The rules seem simple, but mastering the strategy and complexity takes time. Intelligence and patience are rewarded.

That’s Tom Seaver, USC student.

USC pitcher Tom Seaver, 1965.

As pre-denistry major — he sensed he might need a fallback career — Seaver often found himself with a group of friends at the popular 901 Club on Jefferson Blvd., famous for its hamburgers and beer. It’s been called the “9-0” since the late 1940s.

This gave Seaver a place to bridge build a career as a deep thinker.

In the abridged version of how Seaver slithered his way out of USC, could have build a bridge to becoming a Los Angeles Dodger, but crafted a Hall of Fame career as a player elsewhere speaks more to his way of playing cards close to the uniform.

A fantastic 2020 book by acclaimed author and former minor leaguer Pat Jordan reveals how Seaver knew and believed in himself enough to where he didn’t bluff when it came to his own contract demands. His poker face worked.

Because of that, both USC and the Dodgers lost.

Tom Seaver, pitching at USC, 1965.

Tom Seaver was already concerned about where he future would take him when the Vietnam War came onto his radar in 1962.

He wasn’t keen on being drafted for the military out of Fresno High, where he just finished his senior baseball season with a modest 6-5 record, making the Fresno Bee All-City team. There were no pro offers to field. No college interest.

Seaver’s idea to instead enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves in 1962 and ’63 led to bootcamp at Twentynine Palms, in the heart of Mojave Desert. He had to gain extra weight and strength. As it turned out, that would help him throw a more effective fastball and slider.

“The best thing that happened to me was a strenuous summer job in which I had to lift heavy crates that brought raisins in from the fields,” he explained in his 1973 book, “Pitching with Tom Seaver.” “A machine emptied the raisins but somebody had to get the empty boxes off and they were heavy. They were called ‘sweat boxes,’ which was exactly right. I was actually smaller than almost everybody in high school but that job and the six months I spent in the Marine Corps build up my whole body.”

Rod Dedeaux.

Seaver pitched one freshman season at Fresno City College and sported an 11-2 record. USC, the perennial NCAA title team under Rod Dedeaux (see SoCal Sports History 101 bio for No. 1), led to the coach calling Seaver the “phee-nom from San Joaquin.”

The Dodgers’ interests might have got in the way, too. Reports vary, but they were said to be ready to give Seaver a $2,000 deal — maybe $3,000 — in 1964. This would be the final year before the MLB Draft and teams were free to negotiate at will.

Seaver declined. He went panning for gold elsewhere.

Dedeaux’s deal was to give him one of his USC baseball full scholarships if he first pitched in Alaska Summer League of ’64. Dedeaux worked out a deal for Seaver to join the Alaska Goldpanners. Seaver, then 19, experienced his first Midnight Sun Game in Anchorage — the 10:30 p.m. start on June 21 for the summer solstice that has become part of baseball lore.

In 19 games, with five starts, Seaver struck out 70 in 58 2/3 innings, posting a 6-2 mark with one save and 4.70 ERA. Later that summer, he played for the Wichita Glassmen in the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kansas. That’s when he hit a grand slam in a game where he had been called in as a relief pitcher. Seaver called it one of his baseball career highlights.

USC had Seaver slotted as its No. 3 starter on a staff that included junior Bob Selleck, the 6-foot-6 older brother of eventual USC basketball, baseball and volleyball player (and actor) Tom Selleck (see Selleck’s bio for No. 42).

When USC started practices in March of ’65, it was said that some of Seaver’s teammates suggested he start lifting weights to increase his upper body strength, which matched up to his already impressive leg mechanics. That was said to be the starting point of Seaver’s ultra-effective drop-and-drive delivery. His fastball went up from 85 mph to the mid-90s in that time.

Continue reading “No. 37: Tom Seaver (and Bill Bordley)” →