Obrey Brown

April 24, 2025April 25, 2025

PART 1: “BLACK” JACK GARDNER, 1928 TERRIER GRAD: HUGE CONNECTION TO HOOPS WORLD

A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to Major League Baseball, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more top-flight tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, major college football, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. In this story, perhaps Redlands is getting its biggest headline off this brilliant basketball connection. – Obrey Brown.

That high-level basketball connected man, out of Redlands no less, could be related to NBA Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain and John Stockton, coaching up against John Wooden and Adolph Rupp, or Dean Smith and Forrest “Phog” Allen, those two McGuires, lifting Tex Winter, maybe even participating on a U.S. Olympic basketball team.

If you want to talk basketball, maybe “Black” Jack Gardner – a 1928 Redlands High alum – might be about as good for a story, or two, or three, or more of anyone from that tiny city. Also known as “The Fox,” Gardner’s departure from Redlands led him on a sensational journey in which he would eventually wind up in 11 different Halls of Fame.

Whoops. Make that a mere 10. Truth is, he’s not in his own high school’s Hall of Fame, for whatever reason. A 1910 New Mexico birth, his path began at tiny Redlands High, where he was a four-sport Terrier athlete.

Any future Redlands athletic products may not have ever reached Gardner’s highest level. One could well be football’s Brian Billick, head coach for that 2002 Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, also kicked off from Redlands High.

Billick or Gardner? Take your pick.

Jack Gardner (Photo by Commons) — *“Black” Jack Gardner, a Redlands High product of 1928, may have set a Terrier record by being part of nine different Halls of Fame. (Photo by Commons)*

In 1998, Gardner spoke by telephone with me from Salt Lake City, his living residence.

Revelations from that conversation, plus another couple of contacts, were eye-opening. Credited with discovering another Hall of Famer, Stockton, Gardner watched plenty of hoops, even in retirement. In fact, he showed up at every Final Four between 1939 and 1997.

It’s a man with quite a resume. Even today, after remarkable coaching successes from Wooden, Bobby Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Larry Brown, Jim Boeheim, Roy Williams, Rick Pitino, Rupp and Jerry Tarkanian, Gardner qualifies among collegiate basketball’s most elite coaches.

To date, he remains one of three coaches – Pitino and Williams are those others – who have twice led two different college programs to that Final Four.

Long before Kansas became a major force in collegiate basketball, especially under legendary coach Forrest “Phog” Allen, Gardner’s Kansas State regularly outplayed those Jayhawks.

“Yes,” said Gardner in our 1998 telephone chat. “Coach Allen didn’t recruit much in those years. I think I got better players because I went after players. I recruited. When (Allen) got going, boy, things got better for them.”

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Statue of Forrest “Phog” Allen, a legendary Kansas basketball coach, went up against Redlands product Jack Gardner, who coached Kansas State to some prominent times in the 1940s and 50s. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons).One name: Chamberlain! To Kansas. Yes, Gardner tried to get him. More on Wilt later.

As for Gardner, off he went to USC after his Redlands days, that 5-foot-11, 160-pounder becoming an All-American during his 1928-1932 stint as a Trojan. It was, of course, long before basketball became one of America’s iconic sports.

Gardner was All-Coast, USC’s high scorer for two seasons, Trojans’ team captain and MVP during a successful collegiate playing career. His hoops future wasn’t in a uniform. It was in a suit.

COACHING CAREER TOOK

OFF AT HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL

Alhambra High School, which went 29-11 over two seasons, was Gardner’s first coaching point – a 1934 Southern Section runner-up spot, losing to Santa Barbara, 19-14, at Whittier College. That ex-Terrier took off from there.

It was off to Modesto Junior College, posting three state California state titles over four seasons. By 1939, he became Kansas State’s coach.

There were two stints at K-State – first from 1939-42, then after World War II, from 1946-53. After posting just a miserable 20 combined wins in his first three seasons, Gardner returned to Manhattan, Kansas in 1947 and led K-State to its first winning season in 16 years with a 14-10 mark.

One season later, those Wildcats made most of their first NCAA Tournament appearance, hitting that Final Four in 1948. Runner-up Baylor University beat K-State, 60-52, in that year’s Western Regional Finals.

It was K-State’s first time to notch 20 wins en route to capturing a Big Seven crown. K-State tied for another Big Seven title in 1949-1950, a three-way deadlock with Kansas and Nebraska, each 8-4. By 1950-51, All-American Ernie Barrett led Gardner’s team to 25-4. There was more.

Gardner guided his ’Cats to arguably their greatest season, notching their third Big Seven title over four seasons.

Ranked fourth that season, K-State survived a scare from No. 12 Arizona, winning 61-59, then beat No. 11 Brigham Young University, blasting No. 2 Oklahoma State by 24 points.

It wound up K-State against Rupp’s No. 1-ranked Kentucky.

What a spot for a guy that had graduated from Redlands 23 years earlier. Could anyone during Gardner’s playing days in that old Terrier Gymnasium have predicted anything like this?

It was all Wildcats in that championship – No. 1-ranked Kentucky taking on Gardner’s K-State Wildcats. K-State led at halftime, 29-27.

Barrett, though, was injured and K-State got overwhelmed in that second half, losing 68-58. What a story that would eventually turn out, though. History revealed point shaving. Kentucky players were branded. Arrested. Jailed. Barred for life.

Kentucky’s involvement in that point-shaving mess was later uncovered when No. 1-ranked Wildcats arrived in Minneapolis in search of their third NCAA championship over four seasons. Gardner’s No. 4-ranked Kansas State, Big Seven’s champions, awaited.

Led by 7-foot junior All-America Bill Spivey and sophomore Cliff Hagan, those Cats beat Gardner’s K-Staters, 68-58. Kentucky’s celebration didn’t last long. Shortly after winning that title, a point-shaving scandal broke in New York.

Five of Kentucky’s players, including Alex Groza, Ralph Beard and Spivey were implicated. Groza and Beard, stars of USA’s 1948 Olympic basketball team and eventual professionals, were thrown out of NBA. Spivey fought those charges, but never played another game in college or pros.

Gardner, he told me, “bit his tongue” in suffering such a setback. There was, he said, “nothing he could do.” Fifteen seasons later, in 1966, was Gardner’s last in leading his team into that NCAA Tournament. It would be a memorable achievement.

All four of “Black” Jack Gardner’s trips to NCAA’s Final Four came without a national championship – 1948 and 1951 coaching at Kansas State, then 1961 and 1966 at his next stop, University of Utah. Three times his squads lost in semifinals. It was in 1951 that his team came closest.

Part 2 coming.

April 24, 2025April 25, 2025

PART 2: POINT SHAVING SCANDAL SCARRED “BLACK” JACK’S 1951 NCAA FINALE

Final Four appearances. There was 1948 and 1951 at Kansas State. Again in 1961 and 1966 at Utah.

In looking ahead to “Black” Jack Gardner’s career, consider that he coached against the likes of North Carolina’s Dean Smith and UCLA’s John Wooden, Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp and Kansas’ Forrest “Phog” Allen, plus both McGuires – South Carolina’s Frank and Al of Marquette.

Gardner’s Utah team went up against Russell’s University of San Francisco in 1955. Truth is, that wasn’t a season when he led one of his teams to a Final Four.

Adolph-Rupp-1930 (Photo by Commons) — Adolph Rupp, shown here in 1930, would eventually become one of college coaches greatest champions. Rupp’s Kentucky team took on Redlands’ Jack Gardner in the 1951 NCAA finals – a game scarred by a point-shaving scandal. (Photo by Commons.)

REAL REASON FOR

KANSAS STATE’S LOSS

Gardner, upended by Rupp in ’51, nearly squared off against him in ’66 when Texas Western hit stride, inspiring that future 2006 movie “Glory Road.”

In that movie, Rupp was portrayed by Academy Award winner Jon Voight. Don Haskins, Texas Western’s coach, was played by Josh Lucas. Tons of actors portrayed various roles – reporters, rival players, boosters, racists, students, you name it. There were no roles to depict Gardner.

As for Utah, there was a consolation game in those days. After losing to third-ranked Texas Western, those unranked Utes lost to second-ranked Duke, 79-77, capping its 21-8 season. None of that was portrayed in “Glory Road.”

In 1966, after Utah beat Oregon State, 70-64, “Black” Jack’s Utes found themselves up against that rather historical team – Texas Western University, later known as Texas-El Paso. In “Glory Road,” its story focused on Haskins’ decision to lead an all-black team into that 1966 Texas Western season.

Utah’s 6-foot-6 Jerry Chambers, who scored 28.7 points that season, was selected as that year’s Final Four Most Outstanding Player despite losing, 85-78, to Rupp’s Kentucky. “Black” Jack’s role in that movie was curiously absent. Chambers? He had 38 points in Utah’s loss to Kentucky. No one took a “Glory Road” film role, either.

Chambers? Drafted by Los Angeles, then traded with guard Archie Clark and center Darrell Imhoff to Philadelphia in return for none other than Wilt Chamberlain.

Haskins, meanwhile, may have changed basketball, but Gardner’s career seemed far deeper.

“I still put Jack Gardner in the top five coaches all-time,” Haskins said years later. “He deserves everything they’re giving him.”

Five days after Haskins’ chat, Gardner was scheduled to be inducted into Western Athletic Conference’s Hall of Fame.

GARDNER TOOK ON COLLEGE HOOPS’ BIGGEST NAMES

Marquette’s legendary coach, Al McGuire, brought his team into Madison Square Garden (N.Y.) to beat “Black” Jack’s Utes by 20 at that 1970 National Invitational Tournament. Marquette capped a 24-3 season with that title. A 24-3 team? NIT? Remember, NCAA tournaments had just expanded to 32 teams a year earlier.

Gardner’s final career coaching game was a loss – by 11 points. Against rival BYU.

DeanSmithcropped2 — *Dean Smith, of North Carolina, was among coaching legends that Redlands’ Jack Gardner went up against. (Photo by Commons.)*

Speaking of North Carolina. In 1956-57, Frank McGuire’s unbeaten Tar Heels beat Utah in December 1956 by 21 points en route to their own NCAA championship a couple months later.

That was a crazy tournament in which North Carolina beat No. 11 Michigan in a semifinals showdown before knocking off Wilt Chamberlain’s Kansas team in that season’s title game – both triple overtime victories.

“I watched all those games,” Gardner recalled, chuckling. “I won’t say it. I won’t say if we could’ve beaten Kansas, Wilt’s team. I just won’t get into it.”

Utah?

Between that Salt Lake City team, plus Logan’s Utah State and Provo’s Brigham Young University, there were plenty of hotly-contested duels. That must’ve been a nice win for No. 5 Utah when it outdueled No. 8 Utah State on Feb. 27, 1960 in Logan, 77-75. Aggies’ coach Cecil Baker had a 24-5 team that season while Gardner’s squad finished 26-3.

In 1962-63, Cal-Berkley tagged Utah, 72-66, in that season opener at Berkeley’s Harmon Gym. On that Golden Bears’ team was another Redlands product, Danny Wolthers, who averaged 6.7 points that season.

In 1964, Utah knocked off Cal-Berkeley by 25 points. Wolthers averaged 17.7 points. A few years earlier when he was in high school, Wolthers played for Jerry Tarkanian while both were at Redlands High.

Tark The Shark was coaching that high school team while earning his Master’s degree at The University of Redlands.

No. There was never a collegiate matchup with “Black” Jack and “Tark The Shark,” that ex-Terrier coach who took a similar pathway to major colleges as Gardner – through junior college ranks, namely Riverside and Pasadena. Tarkanian wound up at Long Beach State during Gardner’s final years in Salt Lake City.

Jerry_Tarkanian_with_LBSU_players_in_1970-71 Photo by Long Beach State — Jerry Tarkanian, in this 1970-71 photo with three of his top Long Beach State players, including future NBA players Ed Ratleff and George Trapp, had coached Redlands High School about one decade earlier. But Tark’s teams never played against Utah teams coached by Redlands’ Jack Gardner. (Photo by Long Beach State)

Long Beach State never played Utah in that five-year span.

Tark, though, might have learned something. He eventually coached a Nevada-Las Vegas team known as the Runnin’ Rebels – fast break points, all-out running throughout 40 minutes of any game.

Did he learn that approach from “The Fox?”

In 1965-66, one in which Utah reached that season’s Final Four, the Runnin’ Utes won games 121-71 over Montana State, 113-81 over Loyola-Marymount, 108-57 against Air Force, 102-83 over Arizona State, 127-88 against Utah State, 107-103 over Wyoming, losing 115-100 in regular season finale at second place BYU, plus handfuls of other high-scoring games.

Yes, they were known as the Runnin’ Utes, a decade, or so before Tark The Shark’s Runnin’ Rebels started cracking away.

“Sure, we met … a few times,” said Gardner. “Great man, great coach. Did he pick up anything from me? It’s hard to say, but sure, I think he couldn’t wait to get into any team with speed and quickness.”

“The Fox” had quite a career. Even Sports Illustrated got into a mix on Gardner.

That magazine once wrote that “he could win with an old maid on the post and four midgets.”

A proponent of fundamental basketball, Gardner was an expert in fast break basketball. His Utah teams were accordingly known as the Runnin’ Redskins, later the Runnin’ Utes.

Part 3 next.

April 24, 2025April 25, 2025

PART 3: “BLACK” JACK PART OF 10 HALLS OF FAME

“Black” Jack Gardner’s Kansas State record, 147-81 (.645) was largely built over his final seven seasons when his mark improved greatly to 127-47 (.730). There were a pair of 20-win seasons and two Final Four appearances, including a championship game.

After helping that squad to back-to-back second-place conference finishes in 1952 and 1953, he handed reins of that program to his assistant coach, Tex Winter, in 1953.

Yes. Winter, who eventually served as Phil Jackson’s assistant coach on NBA championship teams in both Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles basketball, pioneered that eventually well-known, triple-post attack.

Tex_Winter — Long before he became a fixture in developing the Triple Post offense for Phil Jackson in 11 NBA championship seasons in both Chicago and Los Angeles, Tex Winter was an assistant coach for Redlands’ Jack Gardner at Kansas State, taking over when Gardner left for Utah (Photo by Commons).

Yes, that ex-Redlands High star from the 1920s, Gardner, coached against the greats. His Utah team, 23-3 in 1961-62, beat John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins, 88-79, at L.A.’s Sports Arena. Those were UCLA’s pre-dynasty days, in fact. In that same building a few years later, eventual NCAA champion Bruins, 28-2, posted a 30-point win over Gardner’s 17-9 Utes.

Times were changing.

Gardner had departed Manhattan, Kansas in 1953 for Salt Lake City. Over those 18 seasons, “The Fox” or “Black” Jack, led his Utes to six NCAA Tournament appearances, reaching Final Four twice. Remember, this was an era when only 23 teams reached that NCAA field – not this current 68-team tournament.

“The Fox” concluded his Utah career at 339-154, leading Utah to seven conference titles. Between 1959 and 1962, his teams won 51 out of 56 at home. Like his days in Manhattan, where Gardner’s influence helped create those Ahearn Field House vibrations, Gardner’s Salt Lake City presence led to construction of Utah’s new basketball facility.

Against intra-state rival Brigham Young University, coached by Stan Watts, Gardner’s Utes held a narrow 19-17 mark against the Cougars in what was considered a highly intense rivalry.

Gardner, whose overall lifetime coaching mark, 486-285, was inducted into 10 separate Halls of Fame throughout his years.

Southern Utah Hall of Fame
Kansas Sports Hall of Fame
Utah All-Sports Hall of Fame
State of Utah Basketball Hall of Fame
Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
Helms Foundation Hall of Fame
Kansas State University Hall of Fame
Crimson Club (University of Utah)
Modesto (Calif.) Junior College Hall of Fame
College Basketball Hall of Fame, also a recipient of the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Golden Anniversary Award.

“Black” Jack moved on. He was a consultant for NBA’s Jazz from 1979, a year that team moved from New Orleans to Salt Lake City. Gardner is credited with discovering Stockton while working for that Jazz organization.

That part of the story? Gardner wintered in Malibu, near Pepperdine University campus. When Gonzaga (Wash.) University came to Pepperdine for a Big West Conference game, Gardner was watching. Stockton was a Zag.

498px-John_Stockton — Utah Jazz scout Jack Gardner, whose basketball life began a half-century earlier while in Redlands, was the man that recommended John Stockton by drafted by the Jazz in 1984. An eventual Hall of Famer, Stockton was part of the 1992 Olympic Dream Team (Photo by Commons).

In 1984, Stockton’s selection as NBA’s 16^th drafted player – same as Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, among others – it was Gardner’s strong recommendation that left Utah with its own eventual Hall of Famer.

That same year, 1984, is when Gardner himself was inducted into NBA’s Hall of Fame. At that point, he was in the midst of a record-setting attendance performance. Between 1939 and 1997, Gardner never missed a Final Four – whether it was coaching or attending.

Part 4 coming.

April 24, 2025April 25, 2025

PART 4: “BLACK” JACK SAYS, ‘ARE YOU SITTING DOWN, MR. BROWN?’

Redlands. USC. Alhambra. Modesto. Kansas State. Utah. U.S. Olympic team? The NBA’s Utah Jazz?

“Black” Jack Gardner’s basketball insight was apparently so keen that he was selected as 1964 tryouts coach for that U.S. Olympic team. Princeton’s Bill Bradley, North Carolina’s Larry Brown, UCLA’s Walt Hazzard and a few other future NBA players were on that gold medal-winning squad.

A few years earlier at Utah, 6-foot-9 center Billy McGill led the NCAA in scoring at 38.8 points in 1961, including a memorable 60-point game in a 106-101 rivalry win over BYU.

“Black” Jack Gardner, also known as “The Fox,” had some insight on ways to coach against basketball’s biggest names – nearly against Kansas’ Wilt Chamberlain, actually going up against University of San Francisco’s Bill Russell. If Gardner hadn’t moved on to Utah from Kansas State, he’d have had to scheme against Wilt twice a year.

Truth is, he tried to recruit Wilt while he was at Philadelphia Overbook High School. As for Russell, imagine that excitement in Utah when Gardner called Russell’s Dons “the greatest team ever assembled.”

BIll Russell (Photo by Commons)

University of San Francisco’s Bill Russell, who led the Dons to a pair of NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956, went up against Utah in one of those tournaments. Unable to stop Russell, Utah coach Jack Gardner watched his team lose, 92-77 (Photo by Wikipedia Commons).Gardner’s top player at Utah, McGill, had scrimmaged in Los Angeles summer leagues against both Russell and Chamberlain. McGill was one of L.A.’s best players when he led Jefferson High to a pair of city titles. Scrimmaging against Chamberlain? Russell?

“That was a player I had to have,” said Gardner, referring to McGill.

Bill_McGill_basketball (Photo by Commons) — Billy McGill, one of Utah’s greatest players during the era when Redlands’ Jack Gardner coached in Salt Lake City, led the NCAA with 38.8 points. He scored 60 in a narrow win over BYU as a senior. While in high school, McGill scrimmaged against the likes of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. (Photo by Wikipedia Commons).

Scheming on court duels against Chamberlain and Russell was another matter. During our 1998 phone chat, Gardner asked, “Are you sitting down, Mr. Brown?”

As a matter of fact, I was. He was about to offer insight toward background in coaching against two of basketball’s greatest icons. Sitting down? I should’ve called for some oxygen. Or sedation. This was a dream interview for a small-town reporter.

“Is it possible in anyone’s thinking out there,” mused Gardner, “that Mr. Russell and Mr. Chamberlain could be considered equals in this sport?”

Russell’s 1956 University of San Francisco squad, which took a 29-0 record into that year’s NCAA Tournament, knocked off ranked teams – John Wooden’s No. 8 UCLA, Gardner’s 18th-ranked Utah, No. 7 Southern Methodist and No. 4 Iowa – and USF beat them all by at least 11 points.

Iowa, that year’s Big Ten champ for a second straight year, came into that year’s NCAA final on a 17-game win streak of its own before losing, 83-71. Utah lost, 92-77, to USF in their West Region final.

“You had to figure a way to score against Mr. Russell,” said Gardner. “What’d we have – 77 points? It’s not bad, but their defense led them to score a lot of points.”

Hal Perry, USF’s All-Tournament player, along with future Boston Celtic guard K.C. Jones was part of the Dons’ mystique, not to mention Russell. “No one plays this game alone,” said Gardner.

“Regardless of what anyone else says, including Mr. (Red) Auerbach in Boston. It’s a team game, always has been a team game and, for the winning teams, always will be a team game.”

Include Chamberlain, he said, in that discussion.

Wilt Chamberlain (Photo by Commons link) — Wilt Chamberlain, who left Kansas one year early to play for the Harlem Globetrotters before settling in on an NBA career, played against L.A. school phenom Billy McGill in summer leagues. Redlands’ Jack Gardner recruited McGill to Utah, saying, “That was a player I had to have.” (Photo by Wikipedia Commons).

“Anytime you played a team with Mr. Chamberlain on it,” he said, “you had to draw up a defense to stop him – just like you had to devise a good offensive game plan against Mr. Russell. You see the similarity there? Practice time would’ve been vastly different.”

Playing against Russell was mythic. Gardner’s teams never had a chance to play against Wilt.

But Russell versus any other team, or Chamberlain against other teams posed remarkably similar problems, reflected Gardner. “You really have to be good at both ends,” said that Redlands-based Hall of Famer, “no matter who you were playing against.

“If you’re going to be a good team, you’ve got to be able to score and you’ve also got to be able to stop the other team. Coaches have to have defense AND offense on the court.”

He came close to coaching against Chamberlain, a Kansas sophomore, in 1957. Utah finished 16-8 overall in 1956-57. “You had to win your conference to get into the (NCAA) tournament,” he said, “which was only 32 teams then.”

Here’s his headlined story: Chamberlain, still at Philadelphia’s Overbrook High School, had been promised to Kansas back in Gardner’s coaching at Kansas State.

“Yes. I was after him,” said Gardner. “I had my ways. KU was better than Kansas. They hid him from me. I couldn’t get to him. I think you know what I mean, Mr. Brown.”

That 1957 season, though. Lost some close Mountain States Athletic Conference games – by five points to Denver, four to BYU, plus a four-point loss to Utah State.

“Turn those games around,” Gardner said, “which we should’ve won – I remember all of them – and we’d have gone up against Kansas. I can tell you that.”

Out of the blue, I asked Gardner a fairly personal question, basketball-related, of course. “You’re a USC guy. Did you ever think of coaching there?”

His quick answer? “Never had a chance,” he said. “Things didn’t work out. I was a USC guy … you’re right about that. I wouldn’t have minded chatting up coaching there.”

“Black” Jack coached against his one time Trojans – 3-8 against them, in fact.

gardner_jack (Photo by Utah Jazz) — *“Black” Jack Gardner, who started playing basketball at Redlands High School in 1928, capped his hoops career working for the NBA’s Utah Jazz in 1991. (Photo by Utah Jazz).*

A few seasons later, in 1965 at home in his Utes’ Huntsman Center, Dean Smith’s North Carolina squad got him. By five points.

In 1984, Stockton’s selection as NBA’s 16th selection – that same draft as Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley, among others – it was Gardner’s strong recommendation that left Utah with an eventual Hall of Famer.

That same year, 1984, was when Gardner himself was inducted into that National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Golden Anniversary Award. At that point, he was at a record-setting attendance performance. Between 1939 and 1997, Gardner never missed a Final Four – whether it was coaching or attending.

Gardner-at-Utah was legendary. There was another Redlands Connection. Shortly after serving his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, onetime Long Beach State recruit Jon Hansen, a 6-foot-5, sharp-shooting Redlands High alum, transferred to Utah.

For years, Hansen saw Gardner at Utah – heard stories, saw his Hall of Fame plaque on a wall, even met that man. Years after his own prep graduation, Hansen learned something new about Gardner. They were both one time Terriers. He seemed overwhelmed by such a notion. Said Hansen: “He graduated from Redlands High School?”

It was a surprising revelation about a man he’d only viewed from afar – having graduated 56 years apart from that same high school campus. It was in 2000 that Gardner died, age 90, in Salt Lake City.

There was a list of Top 100 college coaches released in 2011. Most basketball fans would know those names. Gardner was slotted in at No. 27, trailing Kansas legend Phog Allen, ahead of Don Haskins, trailing Rupp and Jerry Tarkanian but ahead of BYU’s Stan Watts in a heavily-listed coaching group that went far and lengthy.

At the top, of course, was John Wooden.

April 18, 2025April 25, 2025

REDLANDS CLASSIC WOMEN: A WHO’S WHO OF FEMALE CYCLING

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open, Wimbledon and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. Redlands is a top-flight stop for this world’s greatest female cyclists. – Obrey Brown

REDLANDS – Just take a glance at past female champions at a top event that actually began in 1985. It started at that Redlands Bicycle Classic without a single women’s race. Truth is, it took a few years of male racing before landing women for on-the-road showdowns.

Mara Abbott and Kristin Armstrong. Genevieve Jeanson and Lyne Bessette. Judith Arndt and Ino Yono Teutenberg. Don’t forget Amber Neben, Mari Holden or Ruth Winder, either. European legend Jeanne Longo was here, too.

Kristin_Armstrong_USA_(1st)_(8597990816) — A typical pose for 2016 Redlands Bicycle Classic champion Kristin Armstrong, who has three Olympic gold medals for winning the time trials (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

It’s not 40 years for women at Redlands, by the way. It wasn’t until the 1990s that female cyclists hooked up in Redlands’ event. That glance at annual Redlands Bicycle Classic championship lineups is a Hall of Fame list, a stunning one, to say the least.

Lining up in 1993 against Team Kahlua’s Linda Brenneman included Inga Thompson, Julie Young, along with eventual greats Petra Rossner of East Germany and Hughes (Canada). Throw in Rebecca Twigg, a double Olympic medal winner, plus longtime medalist Eve Stephenson.

Brenneman? She won both stages, a circuit and a criterium, while male cyclists raced in a prologue and four stages.

Name any of those racers and, chances are excellent she’s raced at Redlands.

Holden, along with Jeanson and Bessette, a pair of Canadians, are just part of that list. Multiple Olympic gold medalist Armstrong signed off on a brilliant career, winning that 2016 Redlands Classic a few months earlier.

Throw in Neben and Abbott – great climbers, racers and mountain cyclists.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — For Amber Neben, a two-time Redlands Bicycle Classic champion, she has been a multiple national and international time trials champion while showing form on a time trials bike like this (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

One could start with Jeanne Golay, who proved superior in a variety of events. Golay was a Redlands champion in 1994, winning national titles in criterium title, time trial, plus a three-time national road racing champion – with plenty of overseas success.

Until 2018, women’s purses weren’t equal to male racers at Redlands. Is it shorter races, perhaps? Ultimately, those numbers came up even.

Some of racing’s most powerful female cyclists have shown up to beat that Redlands Classic field.

Some, like Jeanson, were caught doping – and penalized. She was never disqualified from Redlands, however.

Since Redlands officials did not erase its own histories – no one seemed to test positive locally – Jeanson went down as a two-time champion. In 2001, Jeanson won four stages, beating Kimberly Bruckner with four-time Olympic gold medalist Jeanne Longo in that year’s field. A year later, Arndt, a German legend, beat Jeanson by over 10 minutes in a 1-2 finish.

Jeanson returned a year later to edge Bessette, a Canadian, by over 12 minutes. One year later, Bessette rode through that 2004 field to beat Jeanson in a 1-2 finish.

Back to that French champion, Longo.

Perhaps past her prime in showing up at Redlands, or maybe she just wasn’t on form, that remarkable Longo was a multiple world champion in both road racing and time trials. She won a few national titles as well.

As for the Olympics – second in 1996 Atlanta time trials, third at Sydney 2000, 10th in the Athens 2004 road race, fourth in the Beijing 2008 time trials – Longo had no podium finishes at Redlands.

That other European, Teutenberg, deserves prominent Redlands Bicycle Classic mention.

A two-time Olympian, who retired in 2013, racked up more than 200 triumphs over 15 racing seasons. Count Redlands, in 2009, among those victories, beating multiple Redlands champion Neben by one second.

It was that close.

Teutenberg raced for dominant Saturn Cycling from 2001 to 2003, where she and her teammates – Arndt, Rossner, Bessette and Bruckner, among others, rode together to some fairly legendary results.

As for Olympics, Redlands paid a huge price to host U.S. Olympic Trials in 2004. On that day, eventual 2005 Redlands champion Christine Thorburn won her way to Athens.

Ruth Winder, Redlands’ 2017 champion, was just 23. She was bound for European classics with a new team, Sunweb. Winder had yet scratched the surface of her cycling future.

As new cyclists head off to promising careers, older cyclists have wound down at, of all places, Redlands.

Armstrong – no relation to Lance, incidentally – for instance.

There were a few Redlands podium spots for Armstrong, a USA Olympian who won gold medals for time trials in 2008 Beijing, 2012 London and in the 2016 Brazil games.

Third overall to Bessette and Jeanson in 2008, Armstrong came to Redlands in 2016 in preparation for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Her lone Redlands stage victory turned out to be at Highland. Chasing her all the way to the end was Neben, a three-time Redlands champion, along with the remarkable Abbott.

Mara Abbott, a Redlands Bicycle Classic champion, was considered the greatest women’s climber in the world during her lengthy career (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

Armstrong beat an injured Abbott, operating in that year’s race with a broken collarbone, by 32 seconds.

A few months later in Brazil, Armstrong won her third Olympic gold medal.

That women’s Redlands participation list went on and on and on ever since.

April 17, 2025April 19, 2025

IT WAS A PRE-OLYMPIC SHOWDOWN IN REDLANDS

A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, major college football, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. Imagine an all-out Olympian track preview in a non-televised, late-night, all-out race at the University of Redlands.

REDLANDS — Innocent Egbunike was racing Alonzo Babers in one final lap that capped a nine-hour collegiate track & field meet.

Here. In Redlands, spring 1983.

A year later, a little over an hour away, those guys would be racing in a Los Angeles Olympics championship.

Who could’ve believed that Babers, running for Air Force Academy, or Egbunike, an Nigerian running for Azusa Pacific University, would go up against each other again? Twice, in fact at those L.A. Games.

At Redlands, a meet involving an Oregon State runner, plus 17 small college programs on a dirt track surface, not a soul present could predict that 1984 Olympic 400-meter finale.

No one!

At Redlands, that 4×400 relay involved Babers getting beat to a finish line by Egbunike. A lengthy schedule of track & field events was capped by a pre-Olympic showdown.

A year later, Babers raced for the Americans, Egbunike for the Nigerians – a rematch between those two racers.

Innocent Egbunike, at far right, races to the finish against gold medal-winning Alonzo Babers at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Babers, No. 882, won the 400-meter in a race against Egbunike. The two raced against each other over a year earlier in Redlands, California.

That 1983 spring at smallish University of Redlands, an NCAA Division III member, hosted its annual Track & Field invitational. It attracted a number of small college squads, though that couple of interesting programs showed up.

Azusa Pacific, coached by top dog Terry Franson, would win that year’s NAIA team championship in June, was Redlands.

So was U.S. Air Force Academy, coached by Ernie Cunliffe.

That Redlands-based meet featured men’s and women’s events – jumping, any throws like a discus, shot put, pole vaults, or plenty of conceivable distance races, plus sprints and relays – took nine hours to complete.

When that meet-concluding relay took place, it was close to 9 p.m. Consider it was 11 a.m. when this meet began!

There they were, Azusa Pacific University squaring off against the U.S. Air Force Academy team in that 4 x 400 men’s finale.

It would be memorable, especially since 1980 Nigerian Olympian, Egbunike, would be racing APU’s anchor lap.

His opponent, Babers, a lieutenant in the USAF, still holds his school’s indoor 400 (46.86) record from 1982.

Throw this in: In that 1983 season, Babers ran 45.36, his school’s outdoor mark for years. He took fourth (45.51) at the NCAA Division I finals later that June.

Against much easier competition at the NAIA finals, Egbunike sprinted to national championship wins in the 100 (10.34), 200 (20.94) and anchored the winning 4 x 400 relay – John Shalongo, Doug Laisel and Ted Campbell, plus this Nigerian, in 3:09.77.

*****

At the Redlands Invite, Egbunike’s Azusa Pacific teammate Mike Barnett, a future Olympian, ripped off a winning 275-foot javelin mark – still the Ted Runner Stadium record – on that day.

Oregon State’s Mark Fricker, from nearby Hemet, posted a still-existing 5,000-meter record of 14:09.30 on that 1983 spring date.

USAF’s Bret Hyde, a winner at Redlands, still holds his school’s mark over a 3,000-meter steeplechase (8:31.87). Hyde, incidentally, also placed at the 1984 L.A. Olympics Games.

For good measure, APU sent discus and hammer competitor Christian Okoye, that future NFL “Nigerian Nightmare” with Kansas City. Before that, in this same Redlands stadium, Okoye terrorized that home football team.

There was even a Redlander on the USAF women’s squad, NCAA Division II All-American Laureli Mazik, who won that day and stands on the school’s indoor mile (4:53.9) all-time list at No. 9.

She’s USAF’s No. 16 outdoors (4:32.09).

All of which is a reminder how relevant this Redlands Invitational seemed at that moment.

There were loads of moments.

*****

By race time, hardly anyone remained inside at that Redlands-based Ted Runner Stadium’s grandstand.

It was late, after 9 p.m. Interest had long since waned when most events were finalized. Most participating teams had long since departed for their own Southern California campus.

A few teams remained, including Azusa Pacific and Air Force.

When those batons were exchanged for that memorable 4 x 400 anchor lap, Egbunike and Babers were in full stride. That duo raced side by side for their entire 400-meter run.

At the midway mark, Egbunike and Babers were seen slightly bumping during that classic one-on-one duel.

APU’s sprinter edged USAF’s officer, though each runner had plenty of season left – Egbunike in NAIA’s lower level ranks while Babers had top NCAA runners like Bert Cameron and Antonio McKay to square off against later that season.

It was that very season when Babers ran a third leg with Ted Holloway and Todd Scott, Rick Goddard anchoring, setting their school record (3:10.11) – currently the school’s eighth best.

Babers still holds the school mark over 500-meters, a discontinued event in which he posted a 1:01.7.

All of which was just preparation for those 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. He came up against Egbunike one more time.

At Redlands, that Nigerian Olympian, escorted to his final handoff by Shalongo, Laisel and Campbell, got his triumph over Babers. Their real race was over a year away.

*****

In fact, there were two events in L.A.

Inside that Los Angeles Coliseum, both wound up in their open 400-meter finals. There was plenty of buildup, much of the spotlight falling on Antonio McKay, that year’s NCAA champion.

Babers prevailed over McKay. Egbunike? Finished last in that seven-man finale.

As for the 4 x 400 relay, Babers needed McKay’s help. Those two were mixed in with a lineup that included Ray Armstead and Sunder Nix. The USA won a gold medal ahead of Great Britain (silver).

Third place? A bronze medal? Egbunike? Nigeria? Egbunike and his three running mates, Rotimi Peters, Moses Ugbusien and Sunday Uti showed their world class brilliance.

Unlike that Redlands finale, it was Egbunike against McKay in that final lap. Babers took a 7-meter lead after his third portion of that relay, handing off to McKay.

Beyond that bronze medal, Nigeria got another consolation – an African continental record.

Imagine those men shined at Redlands.

*****

While training for and competing in the 1984 Olympics, Babers held the rank of lieutenant. Just one month after his double-gold performance in Los Angeles, Babers reported to flight training school and began his career as a pilot. His athletic career was over. He was an active duty officer in the United States Air Force from 1983 to 1991, continuing to serve as a member of the Air Force Reserves. As of 2019, he was a 777 pilot for United Airlines.

Egbunike? As head coach of Nigeria’s 2008 Olympic team, he was assistant coach in 1996 and 2000. Egbunike appeared in the winner’s circle again, having coached gold medalist Angelo Taylor, 400-meter Olympic champion in both 2000 and 2008.

Ultimately, Egbunike took over Pasadena City College as its coach – a campus located just a few miles from those Azusa Pacific digs.

Cunliffe, Babers’ coach, chuckled a little, but sounded super serious at Redlands in that 1983 matchup, “He was a reject from football when I first met him,” he said. “I didn’t know who he was.”

Later, Cunliffe discovered exactly that athlete from Montgomery, Alabama .

Quotes at Redlands? Yes, I was there to write it up for a local newspaper. If I’d known they were each headed for Olympics a year later, I’d have stood up for post-race quotes even more.

Babers shook his head, breathing hard after his race. No real quote, except this: “I’ve got to get better.”

Egbunike, a Nigerian, said very little. Nodding, seemingly satisfied, that smallish man said, “I could get better.” I walked away thinking that, perhaps, a Nigerian might not have understood English very well. I was dead wrong.

Neither man answered questions about that minor bump halfway through that final lap in Redlands.

Me? I had no idea that both of these guys would wind up as 1984 Olympians.

Those two world-class speedsters brought an Olympic showcase to Redlands in March 1983.

April 12, 2025April 25, 2025

PART 1: “WILLIE … ALMOST MICKEY … AND THE DUKE”

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, NASCAR, the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. – Obrey Brown

Talkin’ baseball. Terry Cashman. His song, released in 1981, seemed to summarize a special part of baseball. A musical contribution to baseball history. It surrounded the great center fielders in three New York boroughs – the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Cashman wrote about … “Willlieeeeee … Mickey … and The Duke.”

Duke Snider came to Redlands.

Mickey Mantle came to … well, as far as anyone knows, he didn’t come to Redlands. But his longtime friend, Billy Martin, showed up here at least once.

Then there was Willie Mays. I can’t honestly say that the “Say Hey Kid” ever set foot on Redlands soil. But me, the sports editor from Redlands, took part in a rare discussion that probably never came up in baseball circles.

It would’ve made a nice little change in Cashman’s song, “Willie … Almost Mickey … and the Duke …”

Say, hey!

Willie_Mays_cropped — Willie Mays talked about a “trade” that could’ve happened regarding a Dodger pitcher named Koufax? (Wikipedia Commons photo)

It was in the early 1980s, 1983 I’m thinking. Bob Hope Desert Classic. Deep in the heart of Coachella Valley. Willie Mays, a golf lover, was playing in the celebrity Pro-Am, along with plenty of others from music, film and sports.

There we were in that VIP tent. Food was being served, middle of the day. Willie had played his round. I was covering a story, or two, taking a break. Other than a serving staff, no one else seemed to be around at Tamarisk Country Club.

Sitting at a table near him, I could just feel my chance. I grew up in the Bay Area watching Willie play during his career twilight days in the late 1960s.

What should I ask him? Finally, I came up with something out of sheer desperation.

“Willie,” I said, “tell me something about your career that didn’t get much attention.”

Honestly, I didn’t expect an answer. He responded with a single sentence, nothing more. In sports, you often run into replies like that. In a clubhouse. In a locker room. On a field or court. Willie had probably been approached by handfuls of media guys looking for something – stories, opinions, recollections, quotes, you name it.

He wouldn’t be talking – at least to me. That’s what I figured. It’s okay. I tried. No big deal.

Suddenly, out of the blue, Willie blurted, “We almost got Koufax.”

Huh? What? Say that again!

Yeah, he said it. A year, or two before Dodger southpaw Sandy Koufax really hit his Hall of Fame stride, that fireballing southpaw was stewing about how that Dodgers’ team were using him.

Translation: Or not using him.

This took place in Willie’s San Francisco presence – likely at Seals Stadium – when Koufax approached team general manager Buzzie Bavasi to request a trade.

Said Willie: “He told Bavasi, ‘you’re not using me. Why even keep me? It’s better to let me go. Trade me somewhere so I can pitch.’ ”

Willie said he jumped right into that discussion. “Trade him to the Giants,” he remembers telling Bavasi. “Trade him to us.”

Folks, Willie was telling me this story a little over 20 years later. Of all stories to pick after spending 1951 through 1973 in baseball.

There was some discussion. Wow! The Giants’ star player was discussing a trade with the GM of their chief rival, the Dodgers.

Willie said he was told by Bavasi to tell Horace Stoneham, the Giants’ owner who made all San Francisco deals.

“Did you do it?” I asked him.

He nodded. “I talked to Mr. Stoneham. Didn’t hear much about it for a while.”

Willie was chewing his food. Some guys were entering that VIP tent. Hoping that it wasn’t people looking for Willie – which would interrupt our chat – I prodded him a little.

“Any discussions take place about Koufax going to the Giants?”

Willie nodded again. He was chewing. Swallowing. Didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to answer.

“They wanted Cepeda.”

Orlando Cepeda, one of baseball’s younger star sluggers, was a San Francisco favorite. He was an established star.

Koufax had yet to reach that portion of his career that would get everyone’s attention. At that time, Cepeda-for-Koufax might not have seemed logical for San Francisco.

Cepeda was 1958 Rookie of the Year with a huge career coming.

Koufax? His earned run average was around 4.00, or higher, over his previous seasons.

Cepeda for Koufax? Straight up?

Koufax had a little success in his early years, but had yet to really hit his consistently Hall of Fame stride. In his mind, apparently, the Dodgers weren’t treating him respectfully.

Between 1961 and his final season in 1966, Koufax was unhittable, unforgettable and, evidently, untradeable.

I summarized this for Willie.

“Are you telling me that you guys almost had Sandy Koufax, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry on the same pitching staff?” Perry was still a season, or two, away from San Francisco.

Willie didn’t answer. Just kept chewing. I wasn’t all that much of an interest to him. At that moment, though, I was sitting near him to chat about this remarkable trade possibility.

“How close do you think this came to happening?”

I should mention this: During our entire chat, Willie Mays never really looked at me. Didn’t have to, though. This was more than I’d bargained for.

At that point, more people started entering the tent. Food was being served. Willie acknowledged people he’d played golf with that day. My time with him was apparently over.

It was exciting, to say the least. I was practically finished with my sandwich and potato salad. I was nursing my drink when Willie Mays got up to leave. My heart kind of sank. I’d have really liked to get more conversation with him.

I watched him shake hands with a few guys.

“Nice to see you again, Willie.”

“Thanks, Willie.”

“Let’s get together soon, Willie.”

You know, typical sendoff lines.

Willie was leaving. He’d walk right behind where I was sitting. When he walked past me, he said into my good ear (I only hear out of one ear), “Stoneham would’ve never traded Cepeda.”

One-third of the Cashman song – done.

Funny thing, though, was in 1966. Cepeda was traded to St. Louis for southpaw Ray Sadecki. Koufax would retire following that season. At least Sadecki had won 20 games a couple years earlier. He was nothing like Koufax.

Part 2 of Willie … Almost Mickey … and The Duke next week.

April 11, 2025April 25, 2025

PART 2: “WILLIE … ALMOST MICKEY … AND THE DUKE”

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, NASCAR, the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. A well-known guy surprisingly showed up. – Obrey Brown

Subbing for the Cashman part of that 1981 song, “Willie, Almost Mickey and the Duke.”

I never came close to chatting with Mickey Mantle. Known as The Mick. I’d only seen him play in person a couple times. That came in 1968, his final season, but only because the A’s had moved to Oakland. It meant the Yankees had a few stops to make out there.

About a decade later, during the 1977 season in Oakland, I got a press pass to a mid-week afternoon game with the visiting Yankees, a team managed by Billy Martin. These were the Reggie Jackson Yankees who, incidentally, wasn’t in that day’s lineup against his former team.

Billymartin1 — For some reason, Billy Martin, one of baseball’s fiercest managers, showed up in Redlands sometime in the early 1980s (Photo by Wikipedia Commons).

That day, it was Vida Blue pitching against Ron Guidry.

The world champion A’s had long since been disbanded – trades, free agency, you name it. The Yankees, meanwhile, had picked up Jackson and Catfish Hunter from three-time champion A’s.

Guidry, leading 2-0, had tamed the A’s for 8 1/3 innings before he gave up ninth inning home runs to Manny Sanguillan and Dick Allen to knot the score at 2-2. Martin replaced Guidry with Sparkly Lyle, who was the Cy Young Award winner one season earlier.

The game went 15 innings. Blue lasted 13. Finally, in the 15th, the Yankees broke through for three runs, winning, 5-2. There weren’t even 10,000 fans in Oakland’s park that weekday afternoon.

I couldn’t wait for a post-game chat in New York’s clubhouse. I wasn’t assigned to cover that day. I’d gotten a media credential through my college, Chabot. There was no difficulty getting a pass, certainly like it is these days.

As a budding reporter, I wanted to watch New York reporters talk about the game with Martin. I wanted to experience a give and take between media and managers. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. I figured that was part of my “education.”

With Martin, the media discussed Guidry’s brilliant game, despite giving up those ninth inning HRs. There was expected second-guessing: Why didn’t you bring Lyle in to start the ninth. Martin, a little annoyed, told them he felt Guidry had “enough gas left.”

There was some discussion of Jackson not being in the lineup on his return to Oakland. He’d played the day before and struck out three times. Martin said, “We just wanted to give him a day off.”

Blue, he told reporters, looked sharp and strong.

That chat lasted around 30 minutes. It started to break up. Guys had deadlines. Martin probably had plans, too, especially since he was a Bay Area guy. I was one of about a dozen guys that circulated in this visitor’s office.

I won’t ever forget how he looked right at me, saying, “Something I can do for you, son?”

In all honesty, I had a couple questions for him. I’d hesitated to ask. After all, I was a nobody.

“That play (Graig) Nettles made in the ninth, the double play,” I said, “was unbelievable. Went to his left. Sort of a semi dive. That bailed Lyle out of a tough spot.”

It came in the ninth. Sanguillan and Allen had homered. Wayne Gross drew a one-out walk off Lyle. Earl Williams, a home-run hitting catcher, was looking to drive one out, too. But he cracked a shot into the hole toward left field. Nettles, reacting quickly, got the ball to Willie Randolph at second in a hurry.

Double play, ending the threat.

I also asked Martin about a couple of steal attempts that catcher Thurman Munson had shut down. A’s speedster Bill North was one of those. North had a dispute on that out call at second.

There were a couple other plays I wanted to ask about, but I didn’t want to press my luck.

Martin took those questions on with a full head of steam. Those N.Y. reporters ready to depart instead hung around. On Nettles and Munson, Martin rhapsodized about how “this game wouldn’t have been won without those plays. Big keys to the game.”

Was I done? He wanted to know. Yeah, I said.

“You know, we’ve got a lot of high-priced talent here from New York that didn’t even pick up on those plays,” said Martin. “You keep asking questions like that, young man, you’re going to go a long way in this business.”

Where was my Mom? My friends? A tape recorder?

I couldn’t believe this.

Billy Martin said that to me? In later years, I wondered if he was just picking away at his regular press corps.

SHOWING UP AT A REDLANDS AMERICAN LEGION

Seven or eight years later, 1984 I think, I was sitting in my Redlands newsroom office. I got a call from an area baseball-lover, Fred Long. Guy had been a scout for Montreal, maybe Kansas City or Milwaukee. Can’t remember each of Fred’s affiliations.

“O.B.,” he said, “Billy Martin’s here.”

At first I didn’t believe this. Martin was drinking beer at a local American Legion Post, Fred told me.

I asked him what the hell Billy Martin was doing in Redlands.

Apparently, Fred told me, Billy had a wife from Yucaipa. They were in this area visiting. I dropped everything. Rushed over to that legion post on foot. In those days, that American Legion spot was located a few blocks from my office. Sure enough, there was Martin, a beer in front of him, four guys sitting around him, a bartender hanging out. Talking baseball. I snuck myself into the mix, listening, hearing the chat back and forth.

Upon arrival, he was chatting about Ted Williams, that legendary Boston left fielder who could hit like crazy. Now that American League play included designated hitters, Martin made it clear that if he were managing a team with Williams, “I’d have him at DH.”

Guys told me later that Williams told them that Williams didn’t practice much as a fielder or a baserunner, “but he could really hit.”

For nearly three hours, I watched Martin down a beer, or two. He never cracked. Kept talking baseball. There was talk of Mickey Mantle, his good buddy. “No one,” said Martin, “could come close to his power … or speed.”

How he shouldn’t have lost his jobs in Minnesota or Texas or even the Yankees. He’d just gotten finished managing in Oakland, of all places – Billy Ball!

It was the off-season, I should report. Martin was in the Redlands area because he’d married a gal who had Yucaipa connections. Yucaipa was a city just east of Redlands. While she was apparently visiting friends and family, Billy visited that Redlands legion post. Talked a little about his military background. He felt comfortable.

Finally, when I felt comfortable enough, I mentioned that Yankees-A’s game in Oakland from a few years earlier. How he’d been real classy to me in his clubhouse after that game. I asked him, despite all the beer he’d downed, if he’d remembered.

He stared right at me. Took a swig of beer. He even grabbed a pretzel and stuck it into his mouth, kind of smiling as he thought. I figured he was getting ready to say he’d remembered.

“No,” he finally said, “I can’t quite remember anything like that. It’s been a few years, right?”

Oh, yeah.

Said Martin: “A lot’s happened since then.”

Part 3 of Willie, Almost Mickey and The Duke next week.

April 10, 2025April 25, 2025

PART 3: “WILLIE … ALMOST MICKEY … AND THE DUKE”

Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From the Super Bowl to the World Series, from the World Cup to golf’s U.S. Open and the Olympics, plus NCAA Final Four connections, NASCAR, the Kentucky Derby and Indianapolis 500, Tour de France cycling, major tennis, NBA and a little NHL, aquatics and quite a bit more, the sparkling little city that sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10 has its share of sports connections. “Willie, Almost Mickey and The Duke?” Here’s one that was in Redlands. – Obrey Brown

REDLANDS – That was Jordan Snider out in center field, wearing jersey No. 44. The site was The Yard, which is the home field for the University of Redlands. Snider was a senior Bulldog.

Temecula Chaparral High, located about an hour’s drive from Redlands, was where this right-handed ballplayer had come from only a few years earlier.

Batting .295 in 2008, .361 as a sophomore in 2007, .252 in his frosh season right out of the Pumas’ varsity program, where he’d hit .305 with two HRs for his Temecula prep.

Starting all 36 games as a Bulldog senior in 2009, he’d played four straight seasons with winning teams, hitting .321 with 4 homers.

So who watched him play? His grandfather.

I’d shown up to chat with University of Redlands baseball coach Scott Laverty. Game still taking place. I’d have to wait. Sitting on the first base side of the bleachers, I took a seat near an older gentleman, wearing a hat to keep the sun off his head.

Seemed to be a nice guy. You run into that occasionally at ball games. Nice guys. Friendly. Talkative. It’s always fun to talk a little baseball, right?

After the game, I approached Laverty for a little post-game chat.

We talked a little about the game. At one point, he said, “I saw you out there talking to Duke.”

Duke?

There was no need to explain. The second he said that, I knew he’d meant Duke Snider. It all came together like clockwork. Jordan Snider in center field.

“Duke.”

Something told me. I was a little tongue-tied, though. I’d been talking to a baseball Hall of Famer and didn’t even know it. I was a little ashamed.

“That’s his grandson out there in center field,” said Laverty.

Well, that adds up, doesn’t it?

It was a Snider from Temecula.

Edwin “Duke” Snider, the Duke of Flatbush, lived a little south of Temecula. The kid was all-conference one year. A good fly-chaser out in center – just like his grandpa.

There might’ve been something symbolic about Jordan wearing No. 44, especially since his grandfather wore No. 4 in Brooklyn for the Dodgers. A double tribute, most likely.

DUKE OF FLATBUSH ORIGINALLY FROM COMPTON

That Duke of Flatbush really came from Compton, Calif. At the end of his life, he lived near the San Diego County city of Fallbrook – a nice retirement area.

A couple games later, I showed up at Redlands looking for Duke. Sure enough, he was there.

“Do you have a minute?” I asked him.

You always hesitate when asking someone – a Hall of Famer, celebrity, well-known name, you know – if they’d mind an interview. He was there to watch his grandson who, at that moment, was playing in the same part of a ballfield he’d played in 45 years earlier.

“For crying out loud,” I could just hear anyone say, “I’m here to watch my grandson play. Maybe later.”

But he didn’t say that.

Brooklyn, L.A., New York Mets and, finally, the Giants in San Francisco. Those are teams he played.

I’ve got to say it. There was nothing all that special about the interview. My questions would’ve been stale and useless. What do you ask a guy like that? Nothing that hasn’t been asked a hundred times before, right?

I settled on an angle about how he finished his career in a Giants’ uniform, 1964. Sold to San Francisco by the Mets. I tried to have a conversation rather than an interview.

“I can’t say I was all that upset at the trade,” he said at Redlands’ The Yard with a few people listening to our chat. “I was friends with a lot of those guys, anyway, Willie (Mays), Al Dark (Giants’ manager), Don Larsen …”

Besides, he said, “I lived out here on the West Coast.”

Oh, man – Don Larsen! The guy who’d pitched a perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series?

How many times must he’d have been asked about Larsen? Snider went 0-for-3 in that game.

I skipped that topic.

Did he remember his last home run?

“I do,” he said. “Candlestick Park. San Francisco. Jim Bunning, a very good pitcher. Yeah, that was my last one. Only hit four that year. Fourth of July game. I never hit another one.”

That was his 407th. It was a first-inning homer, a two-run shot. “Jimmy beat us that day.”

You play much center field?

Duke laughed. “For the Giants? Not quite. Somebody named Willie Mays was already playing there.”

Though he was mostly a pinch-hitter, he said, “I played either left or right.

“I remember being in the lineup one day … can’t remember where we were playing, though. Dark had me leading off. Mays was second. McCovey was third and Cepeda was hitting clean-up. What’s that? A couple thousand home runs between us, or something like that?”

Mays at 660, McCovey’s 521, Duke’s 407 and Cepeda’s 379 equals 1,967 lifetime bombs. There may not have ever been another quartet in major league baseball hitting back-to-back like that with those kinds of impressive numbers.

Said Snider: “I can’t remember anything about that game, though – who won, nothing.”

Upon reflection, I should’ve asked him about Jackie Robinson.

Or Leo Durocher. Roy Campanella. Gil Hodges. Don Newcombe. Sandy Koufax, mystery man who rarely does media interviews.

Or playing in six World Series, winning twice.

That would’ve been a nice tack. What was it like to have Koufax on the Dodgers for those six or seven years before he started blazing away?

Never got another chance, either.

A few years later, the Duke died in Escondido.

We’d talked baseball in Redlands.

April 7, 2025April 23, 2025

JIM SLOAN ‘SHOT’ BEN HOGAN

A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, major college football, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. A Redlands original who used a camera left that city to take a photo of a legendary golfer. – Obrey Brown

Anyone ever heard of Ben Hogan?

There was a Redlands guy, Jim Sloan, who did. Sloan took photos, never really pushing his photos onto anyone. In that growing media business, whether it’s on large metropolitan dailies or a mid-size, there are also small town dailies that attract a group of contributors ranging from writing correspondents to photographers. Sloan was a true professional. Don’t get me started on telling about him. I don’t know enough.

That guy hustled, figured on angles, brandished his gear, fed film into canisters, throwing his heart in art-lengthy shots before modern technology – aka digital – was available.

Sloan, who specialized in Boy Scout photography for years, had presented his local newspaper with a lengthy list of photos over years. On back of those mostly black-and-white glossies was a familiar hand stamp – “Photo by James Sloan.”

There were photos of President Eisenhower, especially during that time when the World War II general was living out his final years in the Coachella Valley. Sloan caught the ex-president in a variety of poses, mostly on the golf course.

Fellow photographer Ansel Adams, musician Stan Kenton and politician Ted Kennedy were among the celebrity shots. Plenty of stories could be written about his photography connections with those famous faces. In his own way, Sloan, himself, was a celebrity photographer.

One of his photos, however, stood out. I remember when he brought it into my office. “I got this,” he said, pulling the 2 x 4 black-and-white out a small white envelope, “when I was down in Texas. I got him to pose for this.”

I looked at the mug shot. Smiling, handsome, almost stylishly posing, was a familiar face of golf legend Ben Hogan.

459px-Ben_Hogan_Walking

This isn’t the photo that Jim Sloan provided to me during my days as a sports editor in Redlands. That photo, if it even still exists, is in possession of the newspaper. The Ice Man? This wasn’t that shot of golfing legend Ben Hogan taken by Redlands photographer Jim Sloan, but it will have to do (photo by Wikipedia Commons).

Sloan’s photo was apparently opposite of such a philosophy. Was it a lie? Did Hogan occasionally shed that image? Was Sloan a personal friend? No way. Couldn’t be. Ben Hogan, who had captured every major championship – four U.S. Opens, a British Open in his lone attempt, two Masters and two PGA titles – while overcoming that infamous 1949 car collision with a bus that nearly killed him.

All of which is a well-known story by now, part of history – along with that picturesque swing, the calmness, ice water in his veins, the famous comeback, that movie that depicted his life around the crash, Follow the Sun: The Ben Hogan Story. No sense in reciting all that here. This story is A Redlands Connection between a local photographer and a golfing icon that breathed immortality.

It was hard to trust Jim; I didn’t know him all that well, but I had to trust him. In a way, Jim was far more worthy than I was on a local front. A trick? A way to claim some kind of connection to a legend? A little self-indulgence? Redlands was a golf community, its country club often playing host to a variety of legendary connections. Wouldn’t it be great to fabricate a story with those golf partisans? A story connecting Jim Sloan to Ben Hogan would be a good one.

Golf had plenty of prominent connections to Redlands.

Club manufacturer Mario Cesario, whose son Greg was an All-American golfer at Arizona State, made golf clubs for Tom Watson, Nancy Lopez, Gene Littler and others – in Redlands. Watson himself even journeyed to Mario’s local shop for consultation.

Tiger Woods came to Redlands as a well-known five-year-old.

Phillips Finlay, younger brother of Madison Finlay, once took on Bobby Jones in the Roaring 20’s. Or was it twice? Maybe three times?

Dave Stockton, who famously outdueled Arnold Palmer at that 1970 PGA Championship, hailed from San Bernardino – but moved to Redlands.

Here, though, was a photo print of that Ice Man, Hogan’s historical nickname, that bore all of Sloan’s photographic trademarks. Remember my cynicism. That started melting away. I believed Jim was telling a large truth.

First question that came into my head: “Did you shoot this photo in Redlands?”

Excuse my excitement. Jim, of course, had already told me that he was in Texas when he took it. Texas was Hogan’s home, somewhere near Dallas. I was excited to think that, somehow, Hogan might’ve traveled to Redlands.

I wish I could recreate that total conversation I had with Jim about his Hogan photo – but he was always in a hurry. There was no real conversation. Any time he showed up, it was always a quick-hitting visit. Sloan, in my memory, only showed up a few times for talk, presenting photos, or discussing some sports-related shot he’d taken. Something about that guy, always on the move, seemingly like he was late for something.

“I’ll give you this,” he said, noting that Hogan photo, “to use when he dies. Keep it in your obit file.”

And Jim disappeared. A few years later, Jim died. He was an heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco dynasty. Hogan outlived him by a few years. By the way, when Hogan passed away in July 1997, out came his photo from my desk for use in that Redlands newspaper.

Yes, credit was given toward Jim Sloan.