Sports, Ink

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: A not-so-perfect 10

   Nov. 21, 1971 -- The losses for the 1971 edition of the Buffalo Bills were starting to add up quickly by this point in the season. Buffalo dropped number 10 in a row, a 20-7 loss to the New York Jets. That's not so good when you've only played 10 games.

   Dennis Shaw threw a first-quarter touchdown pass to Marlin Briscoe, and then the bottom fell out. Buffalo quarterbacks threw five interceptions for the afternoon. Shaw had four of them, and James Harris contributed a fifth.

   Care to guess who the Jets' quarterback was that day? You're probably wrong. It was Bob Davis, as Joe Namath was hurt. Davis started seven games that season, the biggest such number of his career.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Perfection

   Nov. 20, 1897 -- It's not as if the 2008 University at Buffalo football team is the only one in school history to enjoy a great season. It's just that sometimes the best seasons go a little ways back.

   On this date, UB completed a perfect 7-0 season with a 28-0 win over Hobart. Other victims that year were Niagara, Syracuse and Western Reserve. The manager of the team that year was E.J. Meyer, and the coach was C.W. Dibble. It was a rapid rise to success, as the program had only started in 1894. In fact, the team needed a couple of years to get permission to play its games on UB's campus. That was better than its first home, a baseball field on East Ferry.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Beefing up the defense

   Nov. 19, 1986 -- The Buffalo Sabres were a team that was used to success. Therefore, they were in a quandry about their status a few weeks into the 1986-87 season.

   Buffalo was staring up at the rest of the NHL after the worst start in team history. It has added Clark Gillies and Wilf Paiement on waivers earlier in the season, but the roster needed reinforcements. So general manager Scott Bowman sent a second-round draft choice to Montreal for defenseman Tom Kurvers.

   The veteran was a Hobey Baker Trophy winner at Minnesota-Duluth, and he had more than two years of experience in the NHL at the time of the deal. Kurvers didn't hurt the team; he had 23 points in 55 games. However, the Sabres still finished last overall.

   The following summer, Buffalo got its reward for a terrible 1986-87 in the form of Pierre Turgeon. Kurvers was sent to New Jersey for a third-round draft choice. From there, it was on to the Maple Leafs, Canucks, Islanders and Mighty Ducks. You really know your hockey if you can name his last pro team -- Seibu in the Japanese league. Kurvers had 18 goals and 34 assists for 52 points there.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Beat Toronto

   Nov. 18, 1970-- It was a game that Punch Imlach had been waiting months to play.

   Imlach was the new coach and general manager of the Buffalo Sabres, having been fired by the Toronto Maple Leafs more than a year before that. It's fair to say he couldn't wait to go to his old stomping grounds and play the Leafs in Maple Leaf Gardens. In fact, he had a sign in his office that made the point rather nicely. It read: "Beat Toronto."

   Imlach had tuned up his roster with veterans in the days before the game. Then he went into the locker room in Toronto just before the first-ever game between the teams and said that if the team won that contest, the players wouldn't have to pay any outstanding fines. The players were delighted, and inspired.

   Imlach received a long standing ovation when he appeared behind the Buffalo bench. Then his players took to the ice and thrashed the Leafs, 7-2. By the end of the night, even Toronto's fans were cheering Buffalo goals. Roger Crozier made 40 saves to lead the Sabres And a rivalry was born.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Alive and kicking at the Aud

   Nov. 17, 1979 -- Something of a new era was about to start in Buffalo's sports history, and today marked the first sign that it was going to come to pass.

   The Buffalo Stallions were an expansion entry in the Major Indoor Soccer League. On this date, the Stallions played their first game in history, an exhbition contest against the Philadelphia Fever.

   That first Stallions team had an interesting collection of talent. Its first acquisition was Jim May, a goalie who had played outdoor soccer in Rochester. But general manager/coach Sal DeRosa headed to Yugoslavia to acquire talent for the team. He came back with Slobodan Jankovic, Iubo Petrovic and Stan Karasi. It also had Jim Sinclair, who turned out to be the rookie of the year.

    And give yourself 10 points if you recognized the title of this article as coming from the Stallions' theme song.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Bodger departs

   Nov. 16, 1995-- When the Buffalo Sabres were eliminated in ugly fashion from the playoffs in 1995 from Philadelphia, they figured to launch a rebuilding program. That meant many of the veterans who had been with the team for the previous few seasons were headed elsewhere. The most obvious sign of that was when Alexander Mogilny had gone to Vancouver for three players that summer.

   In November, another shoe dropped. Buffalo sent defenseman Doug Bodger to San Jose in a three-way deal that also involved Philadelphia. The Sabres picked up Vaclav Varada, prospect martin Spanhel, a fourth-round pick in 1996 (Mike Martone) and a first-round pick in 1996 (Erik Rasmussen).

   Bodger was an interesting case. He came up to the NHL in 1984 as an 18-year-old defenseman and displayed a maturity well beyond his years. Bodger had some offensive skills but still wasn't too bad at all in his own end. He came to the Sabres in the Tom Barrasso deal, and seemed to plateau a bit.

   By 1995, Bodger's play had started to decline a little, and the Sabres did well to get such a large package for him. Varada proved to be a good pest for a few years on the checking line, but Rasmussen never did live up to his supposed potential.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Unbeaten no more

   Nov. 15, 1964 -- Any hopes the 9-0 Buffalo Bills might have had about an undefeated season
came to an end in War Memorial Stadium on this date. The Bills were outscored, 15-0, by the
Patriots in the final quarter as Boston recorded a 36-28 victory.

   It was a see-saw game, which saw the Bills hold leads of 10-0 and 28-14. Gino Cappelletti caught three touchdown passes and kicked four extra points for the Patriots. Ed Rutkowski caught six passes for the Bills.

   It was a big win for the Patriots, who had defeated the Bills in a playoff game for the AFL East title the previous season and stayed within hailing distance of Buffalo (Boston was 7-2-1, Buffalo 9-1) in the division race with the win in '64.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: A knockout performance

   Nov. 14, 1944 -- Joe Louis fought in public only once between 1942 and 1946. You guessed it -- it was in Memorial Auditorium.

   Louis had a non-title fight at the Aud against Johnny Davis. If he was looking for a little work, he didn't get it. Davis only lasted 53 seconds before losing on a TKO.

   Louis held the heavyweight boxing championship from 1937 to 1949, serving in the Army from 1942 to 1945 because of World War II.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: Shea goodbye

   November 13, 1983 -- The Buffalo Bills played in Shea Stadium at least once a year for 20 years. Their last visit to play the New York Jets was a successful one.

   The Bills cut it close but defeated the Jets, 24-17, in their farewell to Shea. Joe Ferguson and Joe Cribbs were the heroes for Buffalo. Ferguson threw a 33-yard touchdown pass to Cribbs with 22 seconds left to play. That was the difference in the game.

   Ferguson was 24 of 41 for 262 yards through the air that day. He threw touchdown passes to Mike Mosley and Byron Franklin. By the way, the teams combined for 233 penalty yards.

   The Jets played their last game in Shea in December, which turned out to be Terry Bradshaw's last NFL game as well.

--- Budd Bailey

This Day in Buffalo Sports History: A big win for Levy

   Nov. 12, 1995 -- Sometimes the big victories in life aren't posted on a scoreboard.

   Yes, the Bills defeated the Atlanta Falcons on this date to grab the AFC East lead. But more importantly, it was the first game back for coach Marv Levy, who had been out a few weeks because of surgery for prostate cancer. Vic Carucci mentioned both victories in his story for The News:

   The scoreboard flashed opportunity to the Buffalo Bills with two minutes left in Sunday's game against the Atlanta Falcons.

    After Steve Christie kicked the field goal that gave the Bills a six-point lead, several Buffalo players -- having heard a sudden roar from the Rich Stadium crowd -- looked up to see that New England was upsetting Miami."I said, 'Man, if they (the Falcons) score here, what a wasted opportunity,' " center Kent Hull recalled.

    The Falcons certainly made it interesting, using only two pass completions to drive from their 36 to the Bills' 20. But with 52 seconds left, free safety Kurt Schulz -- who has emerged as one of the bigger play-makers on the Bills' defense -- intercepted a pass from quarterback Jeff George in the end zone to preserve the 23-17 triumph. A crowd of 62,690, the second-smallest turnout of the year, saw the game at wind-swept Rich.

    At 7-3, the Bills are in sole possession of first in the AFC East, just as they were before going 1-2 in their three-game divisional road stretch that preceded Sunday's win. They also put themselves in position to secure a playoff spot by winning at least half of their remaining six regular-season games, three of which are at home.

    "It's nice," quarterback Jim Kelly said of the Bills' one-game lead over Miami and two-game edge over Indianapolis. "But we're not even three-quarters of the way through the season. It matters if we're in first place at the end of 16 weeks."

    Still, the Bills were feeling fortunate to be on top Sunday. And coach Marv Levy, back on the sidelines after missing the last three games while recovering from prostate surgery, was feeling particularly fortunate.

    "When you're at home, all you can do is give it a little body English," Levy said. "Today I had to make decisions about whether we should go for it or not. At home I had to make a decision between potato chips and popcorn."

--- Budd Bailey