Miracle at the Meadowlands 2, Marshall's One-and-Done Kick to win the Nat'l Championship, and a Plane Crashes into Baltimore's Memorial Stadium - This DiSH for Dec. 19
This Day In Sports History is part of the Sports History Network - The Headquarters For Your Favorite Sport's Yesteryear.
Takeaways:
- On December 19, 2010, the Eagles staged an incredible comeback against the Giants, scoring 28 points in the final eight minutes.
- This was the Eagles' second miracle at the Meadowlands, echoing their historic 1970 game.
- The Eagles' victory in 2010 ultimately prevented the Giants from making the playoffs that season.
- In 1948, the Eagles won their first NFL championship in a blizzard, showcasing resilience and teamwork.
- A plane crashes at Memorial Stadium in 1976 could have been a disaster, but fortunately, no fans were harmed.
- Shaquille O'Neal's 2007 foul dispute led to an unprecedented replay of the final moments of a game.
Transcript
And welcome back to this day in sports history.
Host: th, and on this day in: Host:Just like the original, this was Philadelphia playing against their division rival New York Giants at the Meadowlands.
Host:When Eli Manning threw his fourth touchdown pass of the day.
Host: The score was: Host:And with less than eight minutes to play, dirt was being shoveled on the Eagles coffin.
Host:By that point, they were done.
Host:Or at least that's what everybody thought.
Host:The Giants mocked the Eagles by playing eye of the tiger over the sound system.
Host:But Michael Vick and the Eagles went to work.
Host:The comeback started with Vick hitting tight end Brent Selleck over the middle.
Host:He olayed a tackle and then took off for a 65 yard touchdown.
Host:The lead was down to 14.
Host:The Eagles recovered the ensuing onside kickoff fairly easily after the Giants inexplicably lined up five yards further from the kickoff than you would when you're expecting an obvious onside kick.
Host:Five plays later, Vick scored on a four yard run to make it a seven point game.
Host:The Eagles did not try another onside kick at this point.
Host:After two quick scores, they had some time and they still had their three timeouts.
Host:But a Giants first down caused the Eagles to burn all of those timeouts.
Host:And if not for a false start penalty on New York, they might have gotten out of the Meadowlands with a win on this night.
Host:But that false start penalty put them in a spot.
Host:They could not pick up the first down and so they punted it away with 3:01 to play.
Host:They had to go 88 yards.
Host:Vick used his feet to move it down the field to set up this play.
Host:With a minute 22 to play, here's the Eagles, Merrill Reese calling the action for Philadelphia's 94.1 WIP that day.
Commentator:Vic and the gun.
Commentator:He's back.
Commentator:He looks, he fires.
Commentator:Complete.
Commentator:It is to Mav.
Commentator:A Macklin side stepped and runs in for the dump down.
Commentator:And this place is an unsteady shock.
Commentator:This is unbelievable.
Commentator:This is the type of game where legends are made.
Host:The pat tied it with 1:16 left, so there was time for the Giants to move down the field and possibly kick the game winner.
Host:But the Eagles sacked Manning on third down to force a punt with 14 seconds left.
Host:Plenty of time for a miracle.
Host:Here's Merrill Reese again.
Commentator:Dodged the punt, gets a high snap, gets it away.
Commentator:It's a Duster.
Commentator:Jackson takes it at the 35, fumbles it, picks it up, looks for running rope.
Commentator:He's at the 40, he's at the 45.
Commentator:Midfield, he's at the 40, he's got a goal.
Commentator:Deshaun Jackson.
Commentator:I don't care if he, he jumps, dives, he's running around and he is in the end zone and there's no time and the Eagles win.
Commentator:The Eagles win.
Commentator:This is miracle of the metal number two.
Host:And that's former Eagles all time great receiver and broadcast partner of Reese's, Mike Quick.
Host:Giving it the label it deserved.
Host:The Eagles scored 28 points in the final eight minutes to stun the Giants again at the Meadowlands.
Host:The loss ultimately cost the Giants a playoff spot.
Host:Punter Matt Dodge was absolutely reamed by coach Tom Coughlin for his line drive punt to one of the most dangerous return men in the NFL, even though it was DeSean Jackson's first punt return for a touchdown that season.
Host:So this was a pretty big day for the Eagles throughout history.
Host: happened on this day back in: Host:This was a pretty special game for several reasons.
Host:One, this was the first championship game televised by the NFL.
Host:We've talked a few times this week about the origin of the title game, and here we are, less than two decades later.
Host:The league is using the new medium of television to showcase its product.
Host: % of US households in: Host:Second, and similar to yesterday's story, this experiment ran into a bit of a problem, and once again it involved the weather.
Host:A blizzard in Philadelphia made the game between the Eagles and Chicago Cardinals a bit difficult.
Host:In fact, the snow was so deep that fans that brought snow shovels to the game and agreed to help clear the field were given free admission and the grounds crew could not remove the tarp covering the field on their own, and they had to enlist the help of players from both teams to move it.
Host:The snow continued to fall throughout the game, so much so that officials couldn't see the lines and had to estimate when a player was out of bounds and whether a player gained enough for a first down.
Host:Scoreless through the first three quarters, a Bears turnover set up Eagles running back Steve Van Buren for a five yard score and the game's only points with a little less than 14 minutes left in the game.
Host:Interesting fact that Van Buren was even at the game is a story in itself.
Host:Here's his fellow backfield mate Bosch Pritchard in a documentary talking about that day.
Steve Van Buren's teammate:The funny story is that Van Buren almost missed it.
Steve Van Buren's teammate:Steve woke up and there was this blizzard and he didn't think the game was going to be played.
Steve Van Buren's teammate:So he was at home.
Steve Van Buren's teammate:They finally called Steve and say, well, he says, you mean we're going to play?
Tom Davis:So I caught the trolley.
Tom Davis:I had to catch three trolleys and walk about six blocks to the stadium.
Host:Van Buren had 26 carries for 98 yards and the lone score in the game.
Host:Both teams combined for just five completions for a grand total of 42 yards.
Host:It was the first championship for the Eagles and as we learned about yesterday, they would come back and defend the title the next season.
Host: On this day in: Host:This was the Youngstown State Penguins vs.
Host:The Marshall Thundering Herd.
Host:The game was tied in the fourth quarter.
Host:Marshall had the football and they drove down the field to set up the potential game winning field goal.
Host:But there was a big question mark.
Host:Their normal kicker, David Marek had missed a practice during the week leading up to the National Championship game and head coach Jim Donen had suspended him.
Host:So they brought in his brother Willie, who had been the leading scorer on the Herd's soccer team but had never kicked a collegiate field goal.
Host:The stakes were pretty high after quarterback Michael Payton, the best player in one AA football that year, led the Herd down the field to the five yard line.
Host:There were five seconds left on the clock and it was time to let the untested Merrick go for the win.
Host:Here's Jim Nance who was calling the action for CBS that day for the national championship.
Commentator:Willie Merrick in his first field goal try ever from 22 yards.
Commentator:Merrick yes, can you believe it?
Host:Exactly a decade later on this day, the Herd had moved up to 1A football and found themselves in a shootout against East Carolina in the GMAC bowl in Mobile, Alabama.
Host:Well, the Herd was shooting blanks in the first half while the Pirates were firing live ammo.
Host:By the time the teams went to the locker room at halftime, ECU led 38 8.
Host:Marshall changed out firearms and put 28 points on the board in the third quarter and then tacked on another 15 in the fourth to match the Pirates additional 13 points and it was tied at 51 heading to overtime.
Host:In the second OT after ECU had kicked a field goal, Marshall's Byron Leftwich hit Josh Davis for an 8 yard TD strike to win the game 64 61.
Host:The 125 combined points is the most ever scored in a postseason bowl game.
Host: On this day in: Host:Here's coverage that day from the Colts radio broadcast on wcbm.
Tom Davis:Ladies and gentlemen, this is Tom Davis back at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore and a plane has just crashed into the upper deck.
Tom Davis:It's a private plane, it's a single engine plane.
Tom Davis:Chuck Thompson has the binoculars on it.
Tom Davis:The plane has crashed into the upper deck around section one or 41, behind home plate.
Tom Davis:The plane came inside the horseshoe of the stadium while we were out on the commercial and the plane went into the upper deck as it tried to rise and get above the stadium.
Tom Davis:Luckily there was no spectators around when it happened and the there are some spectators up there trying to get the person out that was flying the plane.
Tom Davis:The plane crashed into the upper deck and luckily no fans were hurt.
Tom Davis:Now evidently the driver of the plane is hurt and there are fans up there now trying to free whoever was driving the plane before he came in.
Commentator:I saw that guy come around once before and I said to Donald Bracey, I said this a guy buzzing the.
Commentator:Buzzing the stadium.
Commentator:Here he came in again.
Tom Davis:Chuck, you want to put the mic on?
Tom Davis:You got.
Host:The Steelers had just beaten the Colts 40 to 14 in an AFC playoff game when the plane flown by 33 year old Donald Kroner flew into the bowl of the stadium and as he was trying to pull it out, crashed into the upper deck.
Host:Kroner and two police officers were the only ones to receive injuries.
Host:But it could have been a lot worse.
Host:If the game had been a close one or the Colts had won this one, fans would have still been in the seats.
Host:Croner had actually had his license revoked by the FAA four years earlier due to mental instability.
Host:But he'd been reinstated two months prior to the accident.
Host:On this day he received a two year sentence but only spent three months in jail.
Host:Has there ever been a foul committed in the NBA that a player has readily admitted to?
Host:The shaggy, it wasn't me defense is a pretty standard protest.
Host: Well, on this day in: Host:The Miami Heat were on the road at Atlanta and the game went to overtime with 51 seconds left in OT, Shaq was called for a foul.
Host:The official scorer at the table told officials it was the Diesel's sixth foul, but the Heat believed it was only his fifth.
Host:The game finished and the Hawks won 117.
Host:111.
Host:The Heat protested the error, and after review, the league office determined that Miami was correct.
Host:It was only Shaq's fifth foul.
Host:Now, if this had been a few years before, the NBA folks may have simply apologized to the Heat and let it pass.
Host:But there was something else at play.
Host:The Tim Donaghy game fixing scandal had just wrapped up in August, with Donaghy pleading guilty to two federal charges.
Host:The NBA had adopted a more transparent approach and felt if they let this pass that a cloud of suspicion would seep back in.
Host:So the NBA ordered a replay of the final 51 seconds, and that did not happen until March 8th the following spring.
Host:After the final seconds were replayed, the Hawks still won by a slightly different score of114.111.
Host: And on this day in: Host:It didn't appear he'd lost any of his skills in the time he'd been away.
Host:After the New Orleans Pelicans built a 24 point lead, Morant led the Grizzlies back.
Host:And then he hit the game winner.
Commentator:With a chance to win it in his return.
Commentator:Here goes Morant.
Commentator:He spins, Morant scores and the primer expires.
Commentator:Count the basket and John Morant wins it for the Grizzlies.
Host:And time now for today's that Ain't Got Nothing to Do with Sports Fun Facts say whaaaat?
Commentator:What you talking about, Willis?
Host:What did you say?
Host:Surely by this point even the grumpiest of Scrooges has pulled out the Christmas music or is listening to it non stop on some streaming platform.
Host:Well, if you have Josh Groban's Christmas album titled Noelle, then you should know that international supermodel Gigi Hadid is a backup singer on a few of those songs.
Host:She provides backing vocals on Little Drummer Boy and I'll Be Home for Christmas.
Host:Foreign this is Steve White, the host of this Day in Sports History.
Host:Thanks for listening to this episode.
Host:One quick thing.
Host:I'm up for an award.
Host: e best sports Talk podcast in: Host:Now, there's not much hope for me winning this category against those guys, but if you're a fan of the show, then you may know that one of my favorite sports movies is Will Ferrell's Semi Pro, and one of the things in that movie is his effort to get his team to finish in fourth place.
Host:So I've kind of poached that idea and would love for you to help me finish in fourth place.
Host:I put a link in the show Notes that will take you to the page where you can vote.
Host:You can only vote once in the category, so if you would cast your vote for my podcast, that would be awesome.
Host:Appreciate it.
Host:Have a great day.
Host:I'll be back tomorrow.
Host:This has been an original Thrive Suite production.
