So, anyway, I found pages 27-28 of The Boston Globe, April 17, 1973.
Page 28 has the Red Sox accusing the umpires of bias and abusive language. Always so sensitive.
Good stuff is on page 27. Jerry Nason and Bud Collins. Back when a city’s sportswriters had some serious heat.
I’ll just give you the highlights ’cause you don’t pay me enough to transcribe it all. A few of you do, okay.
Nason opened up with
What the BAA’s 77th Marathon race yesterday boiled down to – and “boiled” is a beautiful word for the 75-degree afternoon – was:
If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!
… No finesse, no strategy, no gimmicks. On a day that would’ve been an inferno had not their backs been kissed by a persistent s’west breeze for all 26 miles from Hopkinton. Jon Anderson simply leaned his 6-2, 165 weight on the field.
… “I do not run well in hot weather,” Herr [Lutz] Philipp had said. “I am big and muscular, and I run too ‘heavy’ to do well in the heat.” Later, at the Big Pru: “Never have I felt so tired! After a race I am usually able to jog 20 minutes. Today I cannot lift my legs.”
… It had become an endurance contest, and the one guy in the race who knew a little something about heat in kitchens – he’s washed enough dishes to write a book – was in his element.
A pretty remarkable thing about Jon’s race was that, heat and all, he ran the second half of it faster than the first… that is, 1:08:46 to Wellesley Square, where he was well behind the Philipp-Fleming dog fight for the lead, and 1:07:17 from Wellesley to the finish at Big Pru.
Fleming, who ran his way out of a stomach cramp at Lower Newton Falls to finish strong (2:17:46), on the flat run down Beacon Street from Cleveland Circle, reacts favorably to the heat, as a rule.
“I’d won some races in San Juan (He’s actually beaten Lasse Viren of Munich Olympic fame), and have run well in the past in hot weather,” he said. “Until Jon went by me I thought I had a chance. I was cramping just as he made his move on me. At 20 miles it was awful.”
“But Jon Anderson, 23, and Tom Fleming, 21, had picked up the American Revolution of the Munich Olympics last August, where Frank Shorter, Kenny Moore and Jack Bachelor shocked the Europeans and Africans with 1-4-9 performance.
None of them was on hand yesterday for the big Boston race, captured by foreign runners 14 times in the past 15 years – but the junior revolutionaries took over in the Hopkinton – Boston kitchen Monday.
The Americans finished 1-2-5-6-9, the biggest Yankee Doodle performance in the race since Ol’ John Kelley, Lloyd Bairstow and Don Heinicke ran 1-2-3 … and that was 28 years ago, 1945.
Bud Collins, Continued From Page One
Just then the old champ, Nina Kuscsik ambled up to throw her arms around Hansen and add her congratulations. Nina, who is 34 and has three children, seemed elated by her second place. “The presh-shuh’s off at last,” she bubbled. “You can have that presh-shuh, Jackie. It’s been on my back since I won last year. I felt everybody was watching me – but now I can run free. No more presh-shuh.
“She passed me at the 10-mile mark,” related Kuscsik. “And I didn’t see her any more until now. Do your legs hurt, Jackie?”
“No, I’m tired, but I feel great. I’ve got one blister like always.” …
For Kuscsik, the physical ordeal was a little lighter. “Last year at the 13-mile mark I developed a case of diarrhea,” she laughed. “I was a mess. Today, same place, I got a little cramp in my left thigh. That was better. I ran that out.”
It was a marvelous day for walking 18, or maybe playing nine innings. But run 26 miles? Well, there are those who have to do it, and bless them – the last of the amateurs in a major sporting occurrence. Let the golfers or the Red Sox try to hang with them for a few hundred yards, if they dare.
As Hansen was telling a couple reporters that she aspires to be a sports writer – that remark makes you question her mentality, if running 26 miles doesn’t – Kathy Switzer came by. The Lady in Red was Switzer, a sleek, cool vision in stunning scarlet tunic. “Nice going, Jackie,” called No. 3 Kathy. “What was your time?”
“Three-oh-six-five,” replied Hansen. “I wanted to break three but it was too hot. I never thought a Southern Californian would say that in Boston. But I will break it yet. I love your costume, Kathy.”
“Thank you,” said Switzer. “The shoulder straps tie right onto the bra straps which keeps it from slipping. Real comfortable.” That’s a line I haven’t heard in the Red Sox clubhouse yet, but the day may be coming.
Will a woman ever best all the men, Jackie?… “Well, I don’t think for a long while,” she said. “The men are way ahead of us in training and tradition. My hope is that someday we’ll have a women’s marathon in the Olympics. Right now the longest event for us is the mile. My trainer – Laszlo Tabori, the third man to run a 4-minute mile – thinks there’s no reason why women can’t become excellent marathoners.” Tabori’s faith, and that of the townspeople of Granada Hills (pop. 50,000), who chipped in for expenses, got Jackie to Boston. She made the last 26 miles-385-yards herself.
Among those she beat was another who hopes to become a writer: Erich Segal. Erich appears to be over his post-Love Story depression. “Two years ago,” Segal said, “they called me a chauvinist pig along the route. Not today. I guess I’m forgiven.”
By some.
“But one woman in Natick yelled, ‘you run better than you write.’ Imagine what a blow that is to my ego.”
He was smiling. He had finished the race. (“I crawl if I had to, to finish,” Hansen had said. “I’d make it somehow.”) Somebody called to Segal, “did you do anything> Where’d you finish?”
“I don’t know, but I finished,” Segal grinned. Then he said it for the entire demented herd of 1,398 starters: “Who cares where you finished? Today, anything’s a victory.”
Jackie Hansen
Between you and me, Bud Collins made up that conversation with Kathy Switzer.
We never spoke once, never met. And I would never say a thing like that (“love your costume”, is he kidding?)
I remember when Bud’s article first appeared.
I don’t even remember meeting him, but then again I was brand new to the winners’ circle, so I was overwhelmed.
I knew he made the whole thing up.You know, like when reporters have the story already set in their minds. He probably thought it was cute.
I really, really did not like it.
Nobody’s ever found a podium big enough for me to stand on, but I was in the Top 500. 3:19:40PR in my second marathon. Don’t know if that was good enough to beat the professor.
Still haven’t found page one.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2173866/worlds-most-famous-runners-bar-returns
A page of New England Runner’s Magazine was in the same envelope. A very excellent publication still after all these years.
U.S. Runners 1-2 In Marathon
Jon Anderson, Son of Oregon Mayor, Wins
‘HEAT HELPED ME’
By Jon P. Anderson
(As Told To Bill Kipouras)
The heat may have helped me. I’ve run some of my best races in oppressive conditions, including a race in Puerto Rico not long ago in which the temperature was 88 degrees. Now that I think about it, that race – I was sixth – was a good preparation for my first Boston Marathon.
Considering the heat, I was quite pleased with my time (2:16:03), and very happy to learn it’s the second best ever by an American in the Boston race. My only strategy was to be conservative.
I nearly pulled out of the race a couple of weeks ago. I only got married March 10, for one thing, and I guess I had reached a low point in training. It was getting to be a drag, a daily grind, and while I had a lot to shoot at last year (the Olympics), I just didn’t see it that way approaching this race. I guess I’m fortunate I spoke to my dad (Les Anderson, mayor of Eugene, Ore.).
My dad influenced my decision to run here, saying it would at least be a good experience, and I guess that’s an understatement now.
However, getting up at 5:30, and getting five miles in, then working (as a kitchen helper), and running again – well, it takes something out of you. You don’t get settled down until 7 o’clock, then at 9:30 you’re asleep. It simply got to be a drag, and my job situation was part of the low point.
(Ed. Note: a conscientious objector, Anderson is assigned to a Burlingame, Calif. hospital in lieu of serving in the military. He has five months left on a two-year obligation).
This was only my fourth official marathon, but I’ll be going back to the track events for a while. I think Frank Shorter and Kenny Moore have the right idea; maybe four marathons maximum a year, or at least three. My time was eight minutes better than my previous best (2:23:44 at Petaluma, Calif.) and I have to give some credit to Jeff Galloway. I followed his pace starting out because he always runs a sane race.
First of all, I wanted to finish; then, secondly, I wanted to finish as high as I could. When I passed the Finn [Olavi Soumalainen], I got emotional. That’s when the tears came. Then when I saw the Pru, I said to myself, “Wow – this is part of history, and a big part of my life. ‘This thing is unbelievable,’ I kept telling myself. I was thinking of the great tradition of the Boston race, and what it means the world over.
Still, I must admit, qualifying for the Olympic team was a bigger thrill (in the 10,000 meters). I surprised a lot of people then. The other big things I’ve achieved? Well, I won the Hep Cross Country Championship when I was at Cornell – my senior year. I had never seen this marathon course. I mean examine it. I took a train to the BC Relays over the weekend and they told me Commonwealth Ave. and Lake Street were part of the course. I really knew nothing about this course.
I also didn’t realize I was gaining on the Finn in Newton. I remember running uphill, and then, suddenly, a few feet, ten feet away, there’s the Finn. Olavi made a good recovery. He had cramped when I passed him. People have been asking me about strategy, and I had set my goal as being the first American. In this field I figured that could be anywhere between third and seventh. It’s hard to say. You have to get into the race and feel it out.
What plans can you really have for the marathon? It’s so damn long. You have to put out one hundred percent. You don’t just jog. I felt I went out pretty quick.
Maybe the German (Lutz Phillip) thought it was smart to move out like he did, but I didn’t. I know I’ll be pretty sore for a few days.
I have to get home to see my wife (in San Mateo) and I don’t know if I can get home to see my folks. I have a trip to Columbia coming up shortly. I’ll run some short distances there.
Oh, yes, I got interested in running before my senior year in high school. I come from a skiing family and wanted to get in condition. I liked cross country, and that’s how it started. But I’m not going to be one of those guys who runs a lot, like I said, and I’m very interested in the 10,000, since it could mean a trip to Russia.
I still ski. In fact, after I was married, my wife and I did ski March 10-17 on our honeymoon.
[Sounds like an excellent cardiovascular program.]
