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Remembering Slingin' Sammy Baugh

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  • David Tewes •
  • Originally published January 5, 2009 at 6:56 p.m., updated January 5, 2009 at 6:56 p.m.

They called him Slingin' Sammy Baugh. He was a colorful All-American from Texas, a fleeting Hollywood star, and above all the granddaddy of today's pass-happy quarterbacks. A fixture on any list of early football greats, he died last month at 94.

Sometimes in spinning old yarns, I brag about watching Baugh as a young NFL star of the Washington Redskins before World War II. In truth, it was just one time and I was only about 7 and don't remember much of the game other than Slingin' Sammy.

We lived outside Washington, D.C. then. My dad was with the Treasury Department in those days and his duties occasionally took him to professional sports events to certify Uncle Sam's cut from gate receipts. I went along for that Redskins game.

Next time I saw Baugh - and met him briefly - must have been 20 or more years later. He came to Victoria for a speaking engagement. We probably didn't appreciate how unusual his visit was.

After retiring in 1952 to his West Texas ranch, Baugh dodged most public appearances requiring overnight travel. He disliked trains, planes and city life. It's said he never revisited Washington.

His Victoria trip might have been in 1964, the season he coached the nearby Houston Oilers in the fledgling American Football League. More successful as a player, he also briefly coached the AFL New York Titans and Hardin-Simmons College with mediocre results.

Baugh died as the last surviving member of pro football's first Hall of Fame inductees. None of those old pros created such legend as the lanky high school gunner out of Sweetwater. Some of it might be flack but his football exploits are documented.

He was genuine character, a press agent's dream. His cowboy boots, western hats, cigars and salty language were encouraged by the Redskins to burnish a wild-west image. So was his brief fling with Hollywood in a western film serial, "King of the Texas Rangers."

I was the right age yet don't remember heroic Ranger Tom King in Baugh's 1941 Saturday matinee western series. Reportedly paid $4,500 and with stunt men doubling most of the action scenes, Baugh, an accomplished horseman, didn't waste much time acting.

He was pro football's first extraordinary passer, as well as a league-leading punter and pass interceptor. (Try to imagine Tony Romo playing defensive back today.)

Baugh, a two-time All-America tailback at Texas Christian University, was recruited foremost as a baseball player. He considered University of Texas but balked at UT limiting him to baseball only. It was his strong arm as a TCU third baseman that inspired the nickname Slingin' Sammy that stuck in football.

Baugh gave baseball a whirl in the St. Louis Cardinals' farm system, learned he couldn't hit professional-caliber curve balls, and rededicated himself to football.

Sammy was his man when fabled coach Dutch Meyer, in the late 1930s, contrived variations for TCU's single-wing formation emphasizing the short pass, akin to modern spread offenses. After passing TCU to a national championship, Baugh was drafted by the Redskins in 1937.

Offered $6,000, he asked and got $8,000, unaware he was the Redskins' highest-paid player on a Depression-era team that paid three all-pros $2,700 each and most of its 23-man squad $150 to $200 per game.

Baugh was sensational as an NFL rookie tailback, completing a then unheard of 81 passes and leading Washington to the championship. When the Redskins converted to the T formation a while later, he was the readymade quarterback and his aerial revolution helped take the game far beyond its British rugby roots.

In leather helmets without face guards, Baugh and his NFL peers were a rough and tumble bunch. Off the field, too. Later in his career, the Redskins staged "Sammy Baugh Day." Grateful admirers presented him with a fancy new Packard station wagon, and the honoree responded by passing for six touchdowns. That night, the story goes, he rolled the Packard into a ditch while celebrating in Baltimore.

His highest salary probably was $30,000 and it's estimated he earned a career $300,000. True, those were mostly more meaningful 1940s dollars.

But football more than got it's money's worth from Slingin' Sammy.

Vince Reedy, now retired, is a former managing editor and associate editor of the Advocate. Leave him a message at 361-580-6301 or by e-mail at vreedy@sbcglobal.net, or comment on this column at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com.



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