Army-Navy epic unforgettable

In the closing minutes of the half, Navy went 63 yards for touchdown No. 2,
with Zastrow heaving a looping 30-yard pass to end Jim Baldinger,
who clawed it away from an Army man in the end zone.

-- "The Annapolis Story," Time magazine, Dec. 11, 1950

Harry Truman was there.

No affront to ESPN's Lee Corso, but a big college football game wasn't always about wearing a giant mascot head while frat boys with painted faces and bare chests jumped up and down in the background on national television.

It was once about Army. It was once about Navy. It was always about their gigantic annual rivalry in front of more than 100,000 fans in Philadelphia.

On Dec. 2, 1950, it was about a vaunted Army team coached by Red Blaik and assisted by Vince Lombardi, a team that had won 28 consecutive games and had been scored upon by only two opponents. It was about a not-so-vaunted 2-6 Navy team. It was about President Harry S. Truman greeting the captains at midfield, smiling for the cameras, wondering how he was going to fire Gen. Douglas MacArthur, now that China had entered the war in Korea after the great field marshal had sworn there was no chance of it.

With 30 seconds to go in the first half, it was about Jim Baldinger, a tough kid from Pittsburgh with long limbs, No. 89 in your program and identified only as "End" because in those days you played on both sides of the football, roaming far down field and wondering how Bob "Zug" Zastrow, the Navy quarterback, was going to spot him with all those snarling cadets in his face. And if Zastrow did see him, could he even throw the football that far?

Navy was ahead 7-2, which would have shocked the world, had the world only known, because there was no ESPN ticker in 1950, nobody named Dave Diles reading the scores off a big board in the studio at halftime.

There was only Baldinger and an Army defensive halfback named Herb Johnson. And then there was the football, slicing through the bitter December chill like a poleaxe, headed straight for them. The two players jumped as one before crashing to the frozen turf, one on top of the other. And then there was a mighty roar.

"I got a hand on it. He got a hand on it. He was on top of me. The ball was in my gut. The next thing I know the referee's arms were in the air," Baldinger said while sitting in an easy chair in the living room of the home in southwest Las Vegas that he and Dolly, his wife of 55 years, have shared for the past 20.

"That was the touchdown that really broke their back."

It was one of the most compelling Army-Navy games ever played, a result so stunning that 60 years later Navy's 14-2 victory still is considered one of the greatest college football upsets of all time.

The crucial play at the end of the half was supposed to be a pass to the other Navy end, Ace Treadwell. (Yet another reason to love 1950 -- guys named Ace were football stars instead of pet detectives.)

Had Treadwell not gotten knocked on his keister, Baldinger never would have had the chance to outjump Johnson for the ball, and then maybe this brave old Army team comes back in the second half, and then maybe Baldinger doesn't get to witness a bunch of admirals get knocked on their keisters by wine, women and song -- but mostly wine -- at a victory party at the opulent Philadelphia Bellvue Stratford that evening, long after the Navy goat had been put to bed.

Baldinger went on to become a fighter pilot and a helicopter pilot and an inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration and a security consultant and, at age 82, continues to substitute teach in the Clark County School District.

If the name sounds familiar and you didn't bet Navy and take the 21 points, it might be because he and Dolly raised three sons, Brian, Rich and Gary, who between them spent 28 seasons in the NFL.

The Baldingers also have three daughters, Jeanne, Diane and Cheryl, who don't hit as hard, that are college graduates.

It was the boys' football that caused their parents to move for the 28th -- and final -- time. Jim had heard there was this place in Las Vegas, Caesars Palace, where they showed every NFL game, not just the Cowboys, on Sunday. And they would even bring you a free cocktail, if you were so inclined. Jim could watch Brian and Rich and Gary battle in the trenches.

Brian recently bought his mom and dad a plasma TV that is hanging on the wall in their den. Dolly says that's where she and Jim will watch the 111th Army-Navy game on Saturday.

Once again it will be about Army. It will be about Navy. It will be about an 82-year-old man and his wife, sitting on their sofa, perhaps thinking back to their youth, perhaps thinking back to a particular afternoon in 1950 when a football sliced through the December chill like a poleaxe with President Harry S. Truman watching.

It will be about a college football game that has never required a giant mascot head to be relevant.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352.