Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer

by Jerry Kramer

  We had a good 727 flight to New York, playing cards all the way, but when we got to the airport, one of our chartered buses had broken down. Vince let a few of us take taxis and we rode in style to the Waldorf-Astoria, the real big time, and checked in, and I had a bed about the size of an army cot. Chandler phoned downstairs and had us moved to a larger room with larger beds. Then Don and I went out for a walk. We wandered over to Abercrombie & Fitch so that I could see their guns. I saw one I'd like to add to my collection. It was on sale for $2,950.

  About 5 o'clock we stopped back at the hotel, and in the lobby I ran into a classmate of mine from the University of Idaho. He had called me long-distance earlier in the week, had told me he was now a doctor in New York and had asked me to get him a pair of tickets for the Giant game. “I've got a girl friend here,” he had said, “and I'm really in love with her. It's the real thing. Will you phone her and tell her that you're working on the two tickets for me? I'll reimburse you for the call. It'd impress her a lot.”

  “Hell,” I'd said, “I don't want to call the girl.”

  And he'd said, “Come on. It'd be a big favor.”

  So I'd made the call for him, and I'd arranged to get him two tickets.

  Today, in the lobby, he invited Donny and me to join him and his girl friend for a drink, so we sat in the lounge for a few minutes and sipped sodas while they drank. We left them sitting there, and I told him I'd leave two tickets at the box office in his name.

  He seemed pretty happy to see me again, and I guess his girl friend was impressed.

  Then Chandler and I, Bob Skoronski and his brother, and Ray Nitschke and Carroll Dale went to dinner at Kenny's Steak Pub, right near the Waldorf, and while we were eating a few of the Giants came in—Joe Morrison, Earl Morrall, and Jim Katcavage. Kat came over and said, “Hi,” and I said, “Hi,” but we were both kind of reserved. We kept looking at each other, knowing that tomorrow we'd be trying to destroy each other. After dinner, Don and I went back to the hotel and watched the Giants' coach, Allie Sherman, on his TV show. Naturally, I found Sherman's show much inferior to mine, so I went to sleep early, feeling pretty good.

  OCTOBER 22

  Bill Quinlan, our old teammate, came roaming around the hotel this morning, searching for tickets for the game. Bill, who was a great socializer but not very good at carrying money, kept saying, “Got to have three tickets. Cash deal. Cash deal. Cash on the line.” He rushed up to Coach Lombardi and said, “Coach, Coach, I was on some television show the other day called ‘What Is Vince Lombardi Really Like?' and I told them what a great guy you were. I did a helluva job for you, Coach. I really did. I got to have three tickets.”

  Coach Lombardi couldn't help grinning and, finally, he gave Tom Miller, the assistant general manager, three tickets for Bill. “Here they are, Bill,” said Miller. “Three on the 50-yard line, for $15.” Quinlan reached into his wallet and pulled out a $5 bill and a couple of singles, then turned to me. “Hey, Jerry,” he said, “lend me $10.” So I ended up buying two of his tickets for him. Quinlan hasn't changed at all.

  On our way to the bus, Chandler, who'd paid the incidentals on our hotel bill, said to me, “I didn't know you'd signed anything at the restaurant.”

  “I didn't,” I said.

  “There was a $17 restaurant bill,” Don said.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  “I don't know,” he said, “but it had your name signed to it.”

  I got a little bit nervous about my old friend from Idaho, and to make things worse, as we were going into Yankee Stadium, I found I'd lost the two tickets I'd bought for him. So I bought two more from Fuzzy, who had a few extras, and left them at the ticket window. That made $20 I'd put out for tickets, plus a $17 restaurant bill, plus $10 for the phone call to the girl in New York, and I hadn't seen a dime back. If I don't get some money in the mail from my classmate this week, I'm going to check him out through the university.

  As soon as we settled into the locker room, Coach Lombardi came over to me and nudged me and said, “Why don't you take some of the younger boys out and show them around Yankee Stadium?” We hadn't played in New York in five years, so I walked around with Anderson and Grabo and Crutcher and a few of the rookies, showing them The House that Ruth Built, the plaques of Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio. I'm not much of a baseball fan myself, but the first time I came into Yankee Stadium, in 1959, I was really impressed. The place had so much history; so many great athletes had played in it. Andy and Grabo have been exposed to the big city, so they didn't seem too impressed, but Tommy Joe kept gaping at everything. “Boy,” he said, “this here place would sure hold a lot of hay.”

  Right before the game, Bob Skoronski gave an emotional little speech to the team. Ski talked about his home town in Connecticut, and said that he wanted us all to look good in front of his friends. He said that he's tired of hearing about how old our offen- sive line is, how we're too old to win anymore, that all the talk makes him sick. And that's my feelings exactly. For the first time in a long time, I'd built up a real hate for our opponents. The New York writers had helped me with all their talk about the old offensive line. I was just filled with hate, the perfect attitude for a good game.

  I looked around the locker room, and I saw Bart taking his codeine, and I saw Herb Adderley, who had a torn muscle in his right biceps, getting a shot of novocaine, and I saw Ray Nitschke getting his leg taped from his ankle to his hip. We looked like a lost army getting ready for battle.

  Early in the game, we had the feeling we could do anything we wanted to do against the Giants. But even though we kept picking up good running yardage, Bart wasn't hitting his receivers too well, and at the half the Giants were leading us 14-10.

  We went into the dressing room and, as usual, I grabbed a few cups of Gatorade, which has got to be one of the greatest things ever invented for athletes. It's a drink developed in Florida. It's got everything you need in it—a solution of water, salt, and glucose—and it tastes good. We serve it between the halves and on the sidelines during a game. After I satisfied my thirst, I got together with Gilly, Fuzzy, Ski, Forrest, the whole offensive line, for about a minute, and we all agreed that none of us was having trouble with his man, that we were moving the Giants well.

  Then Ray Wietecha joined us and said, “What can you do in there? What'll work?”

  “What do you like?” I said. “Just name a play. Anything will go. Anywhere.”

  The way we always do at half-time, we picked out a few plays, and Wietecha reviewed them on the blackboard, reminded us of some basics, then went over to Coach Lombardi and the quarterbacks and told them what we'd discussed. Lombardi got the whole team together for a few seconds, told us we were playing well and sent us out for the second half.

  Every play worked in the second half, everything we tried, particularly through the left side of the Giant line, through Katcavage and Jim Moran. Kat wasn't tipping his moves anymore, but Forrest and I didn't need any help. We chewed them up. We scored 38 points in the second half and crushed the Giants 48-21. We gained 249 yards rushing, the most we'd gained in five years.

  Bart had a beautiful second half; in the last quarter, he threw his first touchdown pass of the season. Jim Grabowski and Elijah Pitts both ran for big yardage; Grabo gained 123 yards, and ZaSu scored three touchdowns. Nitschke and Adderley, ignoring their injuries, had great days; Herbie's biceps was twice its normal size after the game. And Dave Robinson, playing in front of his hometown friends from New Jersey, intercepted two passes. Everybody came up for the game, everybody put out his best effort, and everybody thoroughly enjoyed the victory. Late in the fourth quarter, Ray Wietecha asked me if I wanted to take a blow, to sit out a while, and I said, “Hell, no.” I wanted to keep playing. I was having too much fun.

  And after a lovely flight back to Green Bay, we really went out and celebrated. We had fifteen or twenty couples, the Dowlers, the Grabowskis, the Chandlers, the Starrs, the Greggs, the Nitschkes, just about half the
team, and we all went out for dinner and dancing, hitting Speed's and The Office, the hot spots of Green Bay. We were all laughing and giggling and having a good time, and Pat Chandler, Don's wife, said, “This is the happiest I've seen the Packers since I arrived in Green Bay three years ago. This is much better than the Super Bowl.” And she was right; we hadn't celebrated so hard in years. It was an indication that we were all a little more concerned about our football team than we wanted to let on, that, without saying anything, we were really beginning to wonder, beginning to doubt. The Giant game made us feel a lot better.

  OCTOBER 25

  We don't play again until Monday night in St. Louis, so we had two days off to recuperate from our victory over the Giants and from our partying. I'm still feeling the glow from the Giant game, and so are the rest of the guys. Everybody on the offensive unit watched the films today with a great deal of pleasure; for once, we don't owe our salaries to the defense.

  I think our next three games, all against teams outside our own division, are going to tell a lot about our club. We play St. Louis, Baltimore, and Cleveland; St. Louis and Cleveland are tied for first place in their division, and Baltimore, leading its division, is the only undefeated team in the National Football League. All three are good, solid football teams, and I know we'll be emotionally ready. We're really going to be giving all-out efforts, and if we win all three games, then we'll be certain we've got a strong team. If we get beat, then we'll just as certainly have cause for concern.

  OCTOBER 26

  I've got two things to worry me against St. Louis. They've got one of the better defensive tackles, Sam Silas, and they've got an unpredictable defense. They like to blitz. They'll shoot their safety, they'll shoot a halfback and they'll shoot linebackers. And they jump around a lot, moving in and out of different defensive alignments. I imagine Bart'll be calling more automatics than he usually does, changing his plays depending on the way the Cardinals line up.

  I played against Silas in an exhibition game a few years ago and I remember him well. He's hard, he's fairly quick, and he's got a few good moves. We watched the movies today of the Cardinals playing the Browns, and Gene Hickerson, the Cleveland guard, handled Silas pretty well. That won't make me overconfident. Gene's capable of handling anybody on a good day.

  During our workout today, Travis Williams, the rookie, was catching punts and catching kickoffs, and as I walked past, Coach Lombardi said, “Looks pretty good, doesn't he?”

  Just then, Travis fumbled a kickoff. “Should have kept my big mouth shut,” Lombardi said.

  “He's going to be a helluva football player,” I said. “He can really move.”

  “No question about that,” said Vince, “but what the hell can I do with him? Where can I use him?”

  It's a pretty nice problem Vince has. He figures Pitts'll be around for five more years at least and Anderson should be good for eight or nine years, and that just doesn't leave too much room for another halfback. But I don't know how we can keep Travis out of the lineup for long. He's so fast.

  We had a team meeting after practice today, and we invited the coaches to join us. Fuzzy ran the meeting. “Each year,” said Fuzzy, “it's our custom to present an award to the assistant coach we feel has contributed the most to the team's success. We'd like to make the award this year to Assistant Coach Dave Hanner.” Then Doug Hart, Steve Wright, and Allen Brown brought in a brown pig and let it loose in front of Hawg. We all had a few good laughs.

  OCTOBER 27

  Ron Kostelnik came up with a typical lineman's observation today. We linemen—offensive and defensive—spend an awful lot of time in our stance, crouching down and leaning on one hand. We're supposed to be looking forward, but most of the time, between plays, we're just staring at the ground. I was opposite Kos today, and we both got into our stances, and he looked up and said, “Jerry, how come only potato bugs live out here all year around?” Suddenly, I realized how much time we spend studying the ground. Kos had become quite a naturalist. I'd just been reading Thoreau, all about his love for the outdoors, and here I had a teammate who was just as interested in the birds and the bees and the bugs. I told Kos he ought to categorize his knowledge and take it up with the Potatomen's Association of Northern Wisconsin.

  OCTOBER 28

  Bart brought in several copies of his book, Quarterbaching, this morning and autographed them and handed them out to the guys. When he got his copy, Zeke turned around and yelled to me, “Hey, Jerry, I'm writing the Polish book of quarterbacking. By Zeke Bratkowski. It's going to be a half-page pamphlet.”

  Zeke is a funny guy. He's sort of the master of ceremonies of the sauna bath. The sauna gets a lot of use early in the week— we're not allowed to use it the last three days before a game—especially on Tuesday, when the guys are trying to sweat out Sunday and Monday nights. Zeke always stands in front of the window, pours extra water on the hot rocks and hollers, “Repent, you sinners, repent. Repent and be saved.”

  A lot of the guys are taking an interest in my book. I took some notes the other day, during the movies, and I happened to leave them lying around the locker room and Gilly picked them up and read them. He didn't seem to mind them, even a part where Lombardi was chewing him out. I guess most of the guys figure whatever I say, I can't be any rougher on them than Vince was in Look.

  Max has been insisting that only a bachelor can write the full story of what it's like to be a professional football player. He says he'll give me some material that'll make the book sell like Peyton Place. If I don't use his material, he says, I've got to call the book Half of It.

  Vince gave out the blocking awards today for the Giant game, and I didn't get one. I haven't gotten one yet this year—you have to receive a grade of 65 or higher on rushing blocks and 85 or higher on passing blocks—but if I ever deserved one, I deserved it for the Giant game. I'm convinced that the coaches use the blocking grades just to psych us, and I can't pay any attention to them. I'm not embarrassed by bad grades. I know what I'm supposed to do and how I'm supposed to do it, and I know when I'm succeeding and when I'm not. I know better than the coaches do.

  OCTOBER 29

  We flew into St. Louis today, and even though there was a little drizzle, we worked out in Busch Stadium, getting the stiffness out of our muscles. We didn't wander around town at all after the practice session, but we got a glimpse of the new Gateway Arch. You can't miss it. It's really an impressive sight. It's the tallest monument in the world, I'm told, and it cost $29 million to build. I think that's more than it cost to build the whole city of Green Bay.

  Tomorrow afternoon, before the game, a fellow I know is going to take me over to the offices of the Rawlings Sporting Goods Company. I'm a fanatic for buying sports equipment—anything, guns, golf clubs, fishing rods, hunting knives—but I'm not going up there looking to buy anything. I just want to talk to the people at Rawlings to see if they'd be interested in buying the company I own part of, the American Archery Company. We've built it up pretty nicely, but, eventually, we want to sell out and show some capital gains.

  OCTOBER 30

  On the opening kickoff tonight, young Travis Williams made a vicious tackle, jarring the ball loose and forcing the Cardinals into a hole deep in their own territory. Two or three plays later, Herb Adderley intercepted a St. Louis pass and ran it back for a touchdown. We were winning 7-0 before the offense ever got on the field. The rest of the first half was miserable. I couldn't get going; Silas slipped away from me a few times. At half-time, we were leading 14-10, but we hadn't frightened anyone. The Cardinals were definitely up for us.

  I honestly think their safety, Larry Wilson, is the finest football player in the NFL, and he fired up their whole team. He blitzed. He shot. He red-dogged. He hurled himself through the air to make tackles. His enthusiasm was infectious.

  When the Cardinals went ahead 23-17 in the last quarter, I felt we were in real danger. But then they kicked off, and Travis Williams, playing on the kickoff return team for t
he first time because Adderley had bruised his hand, took the ball and headed straight up the middle. I was on the front line, nearest the Cardinals. I hit one guy with a forearm and knocked him backwards, then took about four more steps toward another guy. Suddenly, I felt Travis breeze by me, zip, zip, zip, zip, like I was standing still. He went all the way for a touchdown, 93 yards, and we were back in the lead.

  Even after we opened the gap to eight points, 31-23, with only a few seconds to play, Larry Wilson wouldn't quit. We were just running out the clock, and Larry, instead of staying back at his safety position, moved up like a linebacker and began leaping over people, throwing himself at the ballcarrier, trying to steal the ball. Two, three, maybe four times in a row, as the game came to its end, Larry made tackles at the line of scrimmage. It was a bewildering feeling, seeing a safety practically toe-to-toe with a defensive tackle. We don't have any blocking plan to cover a suicide situation like that. Wilson's all football player; I'm kind of glad that he's from Idaho.

  One of our safeties, Tommy Brown—he used to play baseball for the Washington Senators and he's still a regular reader of the averages in The Sporting News—is not known as a violent tackler, like Larry Wilson, or even as a particularly rugged ballplayer. Tommy's a quiet, almost shy guy, something of a loner. But he proved his ruggedness tonight. In the first half, he hurt his shoulder and came over to the sidelines, and, naturally, the doctor told him he was OK, which is probably what the doctor would tell you if you broke your neck during a close game. About two minutes before the half ended, the doctor took Tommy into the locker room and found out that his shoulder was dislocated and popped it back into place. Tommy went out and played the whole second half. “Some people say you're not very tough,” Coach Lombardi told Tommy after the game, “but I want to tell you: You're tough enough for me.”