An unrivaled rivalry...
You might be thinking #1 USC against cross-town rival UCLA or maybe hated rivals, the Giants and Cowboys battling for 1st place in the NFC East and you would be wrong and wrong again. No sports fans, this rivalry is being referred to as "First to 50" because the team that wins Saturday's game will have a 50-49 edge in victories in a series that goes back to this date in 1890...
The first Army-Navy football game was played at West Point and was won by the midshipmen of Navy 24-0. Touchdowns were worth 4 points back then and Charles "Red" Emerich scored 4 of them that day at the Point as Navy rolled over the Cadets. It's been a long time, how about 40 years since both teams entered this contest with winning records. This year under Bobby Ross, Army is 4-6 while Navy is 6-4. Since 1899 most of the games have been played in Philadelphia, the site of this year's game on Saturday...
Throw out team records in this game, the competition and rivalry between the 2 military academies makes this a hard-hitting, closely fought contest every year with this year being no exception. Going into Saturday's game, both Army and Navy have won 49 times and tied 7 in the 105 total games played. There were 10 years when the game was not played due to wars or conflicts...
Kickoff for the "First to 50" game is 2:30pm (est) on CBS-TV...
More November 29 Memories...
1929) Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd makes the 1st airplane flight over the South Pole...
1934) The Detroit Lions begin an annual NFL Thanksgiving Day tradition, losing to the Chicago Bears 19-16 (the game was noteworthy as being the 1st NFL game on national radio on the NBC Radio Network with Graham McNamee doing play-by-play)...
1948) The children's show, "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" debuts on the NBC-TV Network (the show began locally in Chicago and after being cancelled on the network in 1957, PBS revived the series from 1969 to 1971)...
1953) American Airlines begins the 1st regular commercial NY-LA air service...
1959) Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" wins record of the year, Frank Sinatra's "Come Dance With Me" is album of the year at the Grammies...
1963) LBJ names a commission headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of JFK...
1964) "Ringo" tops the charts, not that Ringo, "Ringo" by Lorne Greene...
1969) The Beatles' "Come Together/Something" is #1...
1972) "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone" tops the charts for the Temptations...
1975) Bill Gates names the company he and Paul Allen started as Microsoft (which was formed to write the BASIC computer language for the Altair)...
1976) Jerry Lee Lewis almost lives up to his nickname, "The Killer" when he accidentally shoots his bass player twice in the chest while aiming at a soda bottle (Lewis is charged with shooting a firearm within city limits---no comment necessary)...
1976) The player who will self-proclaim himself "the straw that stirs the drink", free agent Reggie Jackson signs a 5-year deal with the Yankees...
1980) Georgia ends the season unbeaten and untied following a 38-20 win over Georgia Tech and Herschel Walker breaks a freshman record with 1,616 rushing yards (#1 Georgia will beat #2 Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl and Walker will win the Heisman Trophy 2 years later)...
1981) Actress Natalie Wood drowns in a boating accident off Santa Catalina Island at the age of 43 and the question remains, were husband RJ and Christopher Walken doing enough to save Natalie who could not swim ???
1986) Actor Cary Grant dies at 82...
1992) The Jets' Dennis Byrd is paralyzed after a neck injury in a game against Kansas City...
2001) The Beatles' George Harrison loses his battle with cancer at 58...
Happy Birthday To...
1927) The best baseball play-by-play man in the business Vin Scully...
1940) Chuck Mangione...
1941) Denny Doherty...
1944) Felix Cavaliere...
1946) Suzy ("Chapstick") Chaffee...
1949) Gary Shandling...
1955) Howie Mandel...
1968) The Mets' Pedro Martinez...
1969) The Yankees' Mariano Rivera...
Commentary...
With thoughts of Army-Navy in mind, do yourself a favor and visit both academies. Navy is located in Annapolis, Maryland and Army is at West Point, New York. Both academies are rich in tradition and history and offer tours...
I've been to both and highly recommend them...
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