Man, what it must have been like to see Slingin’ Sammy Baugh on the football field. To watch the guy considered to be the best all-around player the game has ever known must have been something akin to a religious experience.
Baugh, whose language was peppered with cuss words - although never around women or children and not in an offensive way - once said of his mindset on the field: “You have to believe you’re the best sumbitch there is.”
And that he was.
These days, it’s difficult to find a person who can vouch first-hand for what it was like to see him play. He was the last living member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s inaugural class when he died Wednesday at age 94, so those who played alongside him or watched him in action are few and far between.
There are, however, some of us native West Texans who knew a man simply called Sam - an 80-something-year-old energetic character who loved playing golf and chewing tobacco and could tell stories like no other.
Always courteous and willing to talk with just about anyone, Sam could spin yarn like a Himalayan outfitter - churning away hour after hour.
For years, autograph seekers would send items addressed as only “Sammy Baugh, Rotan, Texas.” The mail arrived in droves, stacking up until a daughter or daughter-in-law would help him sort it. Almost everything was signed and returned.
He was polite to a fault. The kids who worked the pro shop at his home course on the campus of Western Texas College in Snyder often were treated to supper, albeit at about 4 p.m.
That’s because Sam always wanted to be home by dark. It was a good thing seeing as how he drove his Cadillac like A.J. Foyt in late May, never peeking at the speedometer.
When a group of us that included former NFL quarterbacks Ty and Koy Detmer decided to head from the ranch to the Dairy Queen in Rotan for a hamburger, only the Detmers took up Sam’s offer to drive.
By the time our vehicles were just pulling away, Sam and the Detmers were a speck of dust on the horizon. They had arrived, ordered and were seated when we walked in and saw Ty and Koy sitting there, looking paler than a fish’s belly.
Never wanting to venture far from the ranch, Sam declined numerous offers to attend annual enshrinement ceremonies in Canton, Ohio. And when he was told of his induction into the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame, he said he’d send a friend to represent him.
The Cotton Bowl people tried to lure Sam by detailing the luxury hotel and championship golf courses that would be at his disposal. It didn’t work.
“That fancy stuff don’t do nothing for me,” he had said. “I like my routine the way it is. They’re talking about TPC courses and stuff. I’d rather play WTC than the TPC.”
He wasn’t being rude. He just liked things simple. In fact, if it weren’t for the stories he could tell, he was more Average Joe than Slingin’ Sammy.
What trophies and memorabilia he kept were contained in one small area of his house, where he always claimed his most prized award of all was a certificate acknowledging his hole in one.
But the stories were his key to the past and link to the present, and they always were accentuated with lively gestures and punctuated - usually before he even got to the end - by him slapping his knee and bursting into a forever memorable laugh.
He was opinionated but his easy-going nature never let him approach anything close to pushy.
As for some of his thoughts:
- On declining monetary offers from major memorabilia dealers: “I don’t trust any sumbitch who’s going to pay me a bunch of money to sign my name,” he stated.
- On his Washington Redskins’ 73-0 loss to the Chicago Bears in the 1940 NFL title game - still the most lopsided championship defeat in league history: “I was sitting on the bench for a little while when it was 28-0 and I told Dick Todd, ‘The way this sumbitch is going, we’ll get beat 40-0,’” he said before breaking into a laugh. “I bet it wasn’t 5 minutes later it was 42-0.”
- On playing against Ted Williams while Baugh was in the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system: “Williams was a big kid. He played right field and I’d never seen anything like it,” he recalled. “When they were in the field, Williams would take off his glove and put it in his back pocket. He’d turn his back to the infield and do exercises. That sumbitch would do that when the batter was walking to the plate, just to kind of taunt him.
“But man, could that kid hit. He hit line drives you could hang clothes on.”
- On a Texas Christian basketball season opener in which the Horned Frogs were still in football mode following a victory in the 1936 Sugar Bowl: “Our old gym had cracks in the corners that were big enough to actually let the breeze in,” he said. “Well, we weren’t ready to play basketball and Dutch Meyer, who coached all of our sports back then, told me to go to midcourt before the game and be a captain.
“I had never been a basketball captain before. I didn’t know what to do so I turned and asked Dutch, ‘Which goal do you want us to defend?’ And Dutch hollered back, ‘Goal to defend? Hell son, take the wind.’”
But one of Sam’s favorite stories - one that no matter how many times he told it he couldn’t keep himself from laughing - involved teammate Willie Wilkin (an offensive tackle sarcastically nicknamed Wee Willie), Redskins coach Ray Flaherty and the 1942 NFL all-star game at snowy Shibe Park in Philadelphia.
Wee Willie, a notorious drinker, was a no-show the morning of the game. Baugh said there was a rumor that Wilkin didn’t get back to the hotel until 2:30 that morning, then left again at 4 a.m.
Just before the all-star team headed to the field for warm-ups, Wilkin arrived drunk and carrying his coat.
“Somebody finally told him where his locker was and we all just sat and watched him,” Sam said. “He slowly took one shoe off and put on one of his cleats. But he hadn’t taken off his pants yet, so he had to start over again.”
About that time, Flaherty poked his head out of the office to see if the tackle had arrived and spotted Wilkin sitting on a bench with one leg in his pants and the other out.
“You could just see the coach’s face turning red and he walks over to where Willie is sitting,” Sam described. “Neither one of them says a word. Then all of the sudden, that coach just reared back and knocked the fire out of Wee Willie. Kaboom! He knocked him right off that bench and Wee Willie started crying.
“He’s laying there with one leg in his pants and the other on the bench, and while he’s crying he says, ‘Aw coach, I was going to play a hell of a game for you, but you done broke my spirit.”
Sam would then burst out laughing.
“Broke my spirit. That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “The sumbitch is still crying and coach yells at him, ‘I’m going to start you and leave you in the game until you die!”
Sam could tell that story because he never would have been in Wee Willie’s shoes. The consummate gentleman, he did far more favors for people than he did publicity appearances after his playing days.
So if tomorrow or 10 years from now somebody asks what you know about Sammy Baugh and all you tell them about is the records he set and the way he revolutionized the game, then you’re not telling the whole story about the best sumbitch there was.
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
