Canto CCCLXXIV: Ready Like Earl Morrall

Gentle cabrones:

Judging by the people I know that subscribe to this newsletter, betcha most of you do Wordle every day. Or Sudoku. Or crossword puzzles. Something to make your mind WERK your memory and cognitive…sonance? Is that a word?

I digress.

Me? I do Immaculate Grid.

Premise is simple: a grid of nine squares. Three categories on the horizontal axis, three on the vertical. Match them! Seven games based on this layout every morning: professional baseball, football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, NHL, soccer, and English soccer.

Say one category is Angels and the opposite three are Dodgers, 500 home runs in a career and played for only one team — what are your guesses (Hoyt Wilhelm, Eddie Murray and Mike Trout are the ones that immediately popped into my mind)? The object of the game is to get the rarest combination possibles to get the lowest possible score (based on how many times was it guessed by fellow players).

Confusing? Not for me! I play it every morning when I walk Cosmo and am half awake, to strengthen my lizard brain and puppy’s memory (Canto CCCLXII) and thus improve my ability to do things without thinking or under duress. I don’t try to go for the rarest combos much — I just want to get all nine correct. I’m best at baseball and a big nothing in English soccer — par for the Zacatecas course #betosabe

Obviously, I love Immaculate — and for different reasons. I love the challenge of remembering players and learning stats (I knew Ted Williams never reached 3,000 hits, but he never got 200 hits in a season?!). I love noting patterns (the Houston Rockets have always had a thing for big men — Hakeem, Dwight Howard, Kevin Willis, Tracy McGrady, Yao, Otis Thorpe, Ralph Sampson and now Steven Adams. Ryan Fitzpatrick and Paul Coffey sure played on a lot of teams, although not as many as Rich Hill). Before this, I never cared much about the WNBA; now, I can tell you Candace Parker is probably the most complete player in its its history, while Courtney Williams is an underrated grinder.

Judging by the type of people I know to subscribe to this newsletter, betcha most of you don’t care for sports — so gracias for getting this far, and I promise now that the rest of this canto will apply to all!

One of the other things I love about Immaculate Grid is how I’ll remember players that I always admired but that don’t get much attention.

Which brings us to Earl Morrall.

Popped up in Immaculate Grid that I aced yesterday morning, which you’ll see below. Quarterback. Journeyman — six teams. Not in the Hall of Fame, and probably never will because his stats aren’t particularly memorable.

Not in the Hall of Fame, although he should for the ethical lesson he offers. He was one of the greatest backup quarterbacks ever, a hell of a distinction if there ever was one. A member of three Super Bowl-winning teams and a participant in four Super Bowls in six years. Guessing him correctly yesterday reminded me that his story makes him an exemplar for all.

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Earl Morrall was a Michigan boy — Muskegon, wherever the hell that is. High school prep champ in football and baseball. Led the Michigan St. Spartans to a Rose Bowl win over my UCLA Bruins. Drafted second overall in the 1956 NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers, then traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers and made the Pro Bowl in his second season. Then traded to the Detroit Lions for future Hall of Fame quarterback Bobby Layne.

Expected to be a Pro Bowler for years to come and continue the Lions’ championship run.

Didn’t happen.

He was middling with his home state team. Traded to the New York Giants after a few seasons. Middling there. Then traded to the Baltimore Colts to be a backup to all-universe quarterback Johnny Unitas, someone so famous that he came out in a Simpsons episode as someone whose crew cut “you can set your watch to.”

Earl Morrall had a crew cut. He’s never received any Simpsons love.

But that first season with the Colts? Unitas gets injured early. Morrall steps in and leads the Colts to a 13-1 record and to Super Bowl III in his 12th year in the league. MVP. Associated Press Player of the Year. And now favored against the upstart, underdogs New York Jets.

You non-sports fans might be familiar with the following:

The Jets, under Joe Namath, beat the Colts in one of the greatest upsets in pro sports history. Morrall plays so bad that he gets pulled for Unitas, who can’t pull off the comeback. A dream season, tossed to the trash.

Back to the bench for Morrall. Three years later, though, in Super Bowl V, Unitas gets injured, and Morrall steps up. Victory!

The following year, Morrall splits time with Unitas and puts up a great 7-2 record through the regular season. But for reasons Wikipedia doesn’t tell me, Unitas starts in the playoffs, and back to the bench for Morrall, and then released.

Former Colts coach Don Shula signs Morrall to back up Bob Griese at the Miami Dolphins. But four games into the regular season, Griese gets injured — and Morrall does his thing. AP Player of the Year. Comeback Player of the Year. Second in MVP race. Gets the Dolphins to the playoffs, but begins to falter. Shula pulls him for Griese; Griese takes the Dolphins the rest of the way for the only undefeated season in NFL history.

Played three more seasons. Was a member of another Super Bowl-winning team with the Dolphins. When he retired, he was the oldest quarterback to win a game, a record that would stand for over 20 years.

Morrall died in 2014, and the Los Angeles Times did an obit (by the great Sam Farmer). Here’s the KEY QUOTE from Shula about what happened when he decided to pull Morrall for Griese during their first Super Bowl run:

Damn.

We should all be like Earl Morrall. Ready to step up when needed, ready to sit down when asked. Ready to bear the brunt of unfulfilled promise, yet still push yourself to reach it when need be. Ready to come back from a dispiriting loss. Ready to succeed, ready to replace — and ready to accept the fact that no matter how good you are, you’re never going to be the star people thought you would.

Humility. Failure. Pride. Brilliance. Crew cut. Ready. Ready? Ready!

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: Sign at Laguna Hills Nursery, which is actually in SanTana. You know the plants are good when you need seven language to tell your regulars what’s up!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I do feel God when I’m singing. (A social worker in England) told me there was this 6-year-old boy, he was autistic and they couldn’t do anything with him. The only thing that would soothe him was to put headphones on his ears and he would hear my voice. When I heard that, I thought, ‘Well, it must be the God in me touching the God in him.’” — Aaron Neville

LISTENING: “Amédé Two Step,” Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band. The shrill drone of a Cajun accordion is one of my favorite musical sounds, and in an instrumental? Fais do do, ma chère amie-o. Great band that plays this one, and quick thought: the reason swamp pop bleeds so much into the red, production-wise, is because it mimics the Cajun accordion — BOOM.

READING: “Brigid, Ireland’s Antiestablishment Saint”: You know about Patrick; now, meet the real-life woman whom non-Catholics have tried to reimagine as a pagan goddess while the Church hierarchy tried to downplay her radical actions. Kinda reminds me of how Guadalupe has been reinterpreted. Great reporting!

BUY MY NEW CO-BOOK! People’s Guide to Orange County tells an alternative history of OC through the scholarship and reporting of myself, Elaine Lewinnek, and Thuy Vo Dang. There’ll be signings all year — in meanwhile, buy your copy TODAY. And, yes: I’ll autograph it!

Gustavo Events  

Feb. 22, 11 a.m.: I get to moderate a panel on immigration with two Macarthur genius winners (la profe comadre Natalia Molina and Jason de León) and one of the best magazine writers EVER about L.A. (Jesse Katz) for the Culver City Book Festival at the Wende Museum, 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City. Event is FREE

Feb. 23, noon: I will be the grand marshal at the reenactment of the signing of the Articles of Capitulation — the formal agreement that ended the Mexican-American War in California — at the Campo de Cahuenga Historical Site, 3919 Lankershim Blvd. Studio City. What does that mean? I get to give a short speech! Come see this important part of California history for FREE.

CONFIDENTIAL TO: The guy who said what’s up to me when I was eating at Heritage Barbecue in San Juan Capistrano this week. Didn’t catch your name, but gracias for saying what’s up! Hit me up for a gift of appreciation for subscribing!

GUTI’S FOOKIN’ INGRATE BOOK CLUB!

Due to a request by the Real Gs, I’m starting a book club! Totally free to join, and we’ll discuss it via Zoom, with maybe a yearly in-person gathering or something! Respond to this email if you’re interested, and I’ll sign you up! Only time I’m going to plug this, until we actually start Guti’s Fookin’ Ingrate Book Club and then I’ll plug it again to let people know what they’re missing out on. We’ll start reading in March — and no, I won’t tell you what book’s gonna be the first one, although one of YOU wrote it!

Gustavo in the News

“10 Burrito Styles You Need To Try”: My Mexican food knowledge gets called up.

“Latinx Files: The battle over immigration ramps up”: A Los Angeles Times newsletter you should subscribe to plugs a columna of mine.

“What we know about Edison and the Eaton fire”: Another Los Angeles Times newsletter you should subscribe to plugs a columna of mine.

“Can the Central Valley’s agriculture industry survive the Trump administration?”: Yet another Los Angeles Times newsletter you should subscribe to plugs a columna of mine.

“Part 153: The End of Human Trafficking? Governmental and Nonprofit Response”: Legendary whistleblower Zachary Ellison mentions me in a story of his.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“What do Trump immigration crackdowns mean for OC?”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary talks about what the headline says.

“Ask a Californian: Driving in the Rain to Texas”: My latest “Ask a Californian” Alta Journal co-columna debunks the myth that Californians drive wacko in the rain, among other things. KEY QUOTE: “So spare us your “genuine” concern and give us a downpour of Ginuwine instead.”

“Did a famous grave in the Altadena hills survive the fires?”: My latest L.A. Times columna finds me hiking to the grave of abolitionist Owen Brown with filmmaker Pablo Miralles, who was finishing up a documentary on Brown before the Eaton fire destroyed his family’s home. KEY QUOTE: “We eventually got to the base of Little Round Top, named after a famous Civil War battle, and looked down at a devastated Altadena of blackened trees and leveled properties.”

“Orange County once was an anti-immigrant hotbed. What changed?”: My next latest L.A. Times columna talks about the crazy changes in my beloved hellhole of a homeland. KEY QUOTE: “If you’re against mass deportations and want to see some sort of amnesty, it’s easy to feel deflated and even easier to curse Orange County for its past.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!