The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - True Stories From Sports History

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

Howie Mooney does have a day job that has nothing to do with reporting on football and hockey, podcasting, or writing books. But the day job doesn't float this Ottawa native's boat like sports does. And so we thought we'd get him in here to tell us about a couple of his books: "Crazy Days & Wild Nights", and "The Consequences of Chance", where he indulges in his passion for all things sports. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's this season on Queries in Good Faith, a TVO original podcast. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Howie Mooney does have a day job that has nothing to do with reporting on football and hockey, podcasting or writing books. But the day job doesn't float this Ottawa natives boat like sports does. And so we thought we'd get him in here to tell us about a couple of his books, Crazy Days and Wild Nights and The Consequences of Chance, where he indulges in his passion for all things

sports. And with that we welcome Howie Mooney to TVO. It's great to have you in that chair. Steve, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Let's start with your day job. What is it that you normally do? I am a bus operator for the Toronto Transit Commission. Today is my 15th anniversary, actually. I'll put it there. Happy anniversary to you.

Thank you. It's been a wild 15 years, starting in 2009 and to today, coming out of a history of management jobs where I had to be in touch with a whole bunch of different things, you know, contingency plans in case people didn't show up, or if we didn't meet quotas or anything like that. Now the only person I have to manage is myself.

How tough a job is that? I think I'm a pretty low maintenance employee. Well, we'll see. How did you get into the whole sports casting, sports podcasting, sports reporting, all that stuff? That was a journey. It started off with a couple of things that I started doing in 1986.

They are sports. These are the sports trivia, sports history calendars. What camera should I show these to? Camera three. OK, right over here. So that's, how far back are we going on this one? This is 1990. This is 1990.

Oh, sorry, this one's 1990. This one's 1991. I started working on them in 86. I took about a year and a half to do the research. I went to Ottawa U. Every time I had a spare time, went through there, microfish, because that was the only way you could look at old newspapers at the time. Canadian sports.

Oh, look at this. I found a fact from each day. So every day of the year, you got a sports factoid. Yep, for Canada. And you put it in there, and you built these calendars. Yes. Now, this was the easy part. The harder part was shopping them around

and trying to get a publisher. And I spent about eight months doing that. And I remember the night of the 88 US election, my brother was at my house. I was on my typewriter typing up a letter to a company in Ottawa. And I said to my brother, this is the last one I'm doing. I don't care.

I've done about 40 of these letters. I've been getting either rejections or nothing. And I said, if I get nothing from this one, I'm forgetting the whole thing. But a week later, I got a letter back from Wyman & Sons in Ottawa. I don't think they're around anymore. But they said, we'd like to talk to you about this.

And so these were sold across Canada in 1989 for 1990 and 1990 for 1991. More than three decades ago now. It's very cool when you have your friends say, I was in the Winnipeg airport and I saw your calendar. You know, it was pretty cool. Well, let's go through. OK, those are the calendars.

But from that, I got invitations to do TV shows in Ottawa. And then from that, I got a hosting job on a sports trivia show on Rogers on Saturday evenings. What city was this? In Ottawa. This is in Ottawa, okay. And so we'd have a phone in show and I'd ask trivia questions to people

and they'd call in with their answers and if they got the answers correct There'd be certain answers that would get a prize and so we'd give out prizes for people who got correct answers from that I got to cover the Rough Riders for television in Ottawa and then got the Just we should say for the younger people watching the Rough Riders Yes, two words there's a football team in the CFL before the Renegades and before the Red Blacks. That's true. There was the Rough Riders.

That's right, and they were around for decades. And their greatest quarterback, Howie, was a guy from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, named Russ Jackson. Absolutely, as you would know. Went to the same high school as my dad. Seriously. Yes, he did.

Wow, Russ Jackson was a teacher at the high school I went to in Ottawa, Rideau High School. He taught my uncle and was my uncle's trigonometry teacher and my uncle's favorite teacher. Outstanding. Everything connects, Harry. It does connect. Everything connects. So you're into the book writing and let's tell some of the stories from the books because

we're not that far removed from an incident that happened at the Scotiabank Arena not too long ago where Ryan Reeves took what ultimately judges decided was a very nasty headshot at Darnell Nurse at the Edmonton Oilers and Reeves got suspended for five games. I set that up to say, for anybody who was disturbed by that hit, that was nothing compared to what happened at the Ottawa Civic Center in 1969 between two guys, Ted Green and Wayne Mackey.

And I remember this, I was a kid but I remember it. Go ahead, tell the story. This was the first of a trilogy of terrible things that happened at the Civic Center, 1969. The NHL teams used OHA Barnes as their training camp facilities. Boston trained in London, St. Louis Blues trained in Ottawa.

The Ottawa fans took the Blues as their team. Boston came into Ottawa September of 1969. And people think exhibition games are useless and all this stuff, but they perform a very great service to the players that are involved because the young players want to show that they belong. The older players want to show the young players, I still belong. And so they're meaningful for these players. And Wayne Mackey was a rookie with the Blues.

He dumped the puck into Ted Green's zone. He was a defenseman with the Bruins? Yes, he was. And back then, you could hit guys from behind, into the glass, face first, no problem. Mackey did that to Green. Green took exception to that and gave Mackey a shove, from behind into the glass face first, no problem. Mackie did that to Green. Green took exception to that and gave Mackie a shove,

knocked him down. Mackie, while on his knees, speared Green in the groin. Green responded by swinging his stick at Mackie and hitting him in the shoulder and started to skate away to go and serve his two minutes for knocking him down originally. And Mackie swung his stick, probably trying to hit Green in the shoulder, but got in the temple

with the heel of his stick and fractured his skull. What happened to Green at that moment? Went into paralysis. He didn't even know it. He was trying to get up. And he's paralyzed on one side. And according to play-by-play people that were at the scene at the time,

it was one of the most horrific things they ever saw. His life was in danger. His life was in danger. They got him on a stretcher, got him out of there. And it would be crazy for us to think of it today, but they continued to play the game after. And he's on his way to the Civic Hospital screaming, this is Mackey's last game in the NHL.

This is Mackey's last game in the NHL. Meanwhile, his brain is expanding at that moment. Exactly, yeah. And about to explode out of his head. And they had to perform emergency surgery to relieve that pressure. Four years later, Wayne Mackey died. Yeah.

What happened? Over the course of that time, he became a good player with the Vancouver Canucks, wore number 11 for them, but developed a brain tumor and passed away. That number 11 was never retired by the Canucks, but it was taken out of circulation. It was worn by Marc Messier when he went and played for the Canucks for that brief period.

But he's the only guy ever to wear it since. And what happened to Ted Green after that? Ted Green lost that year, basically, trying to recuperate. He ended up playing another year with Boston, going to the WHA. He became coach with an assistant coach first with the Edmonton Oilers and later the head coach. Lasted a couple of years, got them to a Stanley Cup, didn't win, but then he was fired.

Scary, scary moment in hockey history. Absolutely. Terrifying. All right, let's move to football. Lookie, lookie, here comes Cookie. Who is Cookie Gilchrist? An amazing, amazing football player. And when I say football player,

I don't just mean ball carrier because he did that excellently. But he also was an all-star at linebacker in 1960 with the Argos. Again, for the younger people, you have to remember, players back then played offense and defense. Exactly, and he kicked field goals for them as well. So special teams as well.

He was an amazing football player, but he was a guy who wore out his welcome everywhere he went. He was with Hamilton for a couple of years, with Saskatchewan for a season, lasted three years in Toronto, was waived out of the league, went to the AFL, played in Buffalo for three years, was waived off the team. They waived him, let him go for the $100 waiver price to the Denver Broncos. And he was an MVP, I think, with the Bills. He was an all-star every year from 1956 with... What was the problem, Howie? It's funny that you mention this because yesterday I was chatting online with Upton Bell,

whose father, Burt Bell, was the commissioner of the NFL before Pete Rosell. Upton has seen everything in the NFL. He's performed every duty in football from basically ball boy up to owner. And Upton said Cookie Giltrist was an excellent football player, but he wore out his welcome everywhere he went. He got in his own way. And he was a disruptive player. The Argonauts just won the Grey Cup this year.

But there was a time, and we're going to go back now, how many years are we going to go back? 53 years we're going to go back, how many years we're going to go back 53 years We're going to go back to a day where it rained a lot and As a result there was ignominy for a guy named Leon McQuay. It's sad. What happened? It's really sad Leon McQuay There's that's a wonderful story and it's in the book. It's in the book crazy days and wild nights Leo Cahill took the Argos from, as you said, ignominy to champions or to one of the best teams in the CFL over a period of about four years.

Getting Leon McQuay and Joe Theismann and a whole bunch of other players in the same off season. Big star American players. Big star American players. But the way he got Leon McQuay, McQuay was going into his third year in university. He was not yet draftable in the NFL. The New York Giants coveted him.

Leo Cahill flew down to Tampa. Before he met with Leon McQuay, though, he went to the bank and said, give me $10,000 cash, please. He met Leon McQuay in his dorm room, threw $10,000 on the bed. Leon said, coach, you better not put that there. I might be wanting to take it. And Leo said, I want you to take it.

And I want you to sign with us and be an Argo. Two days later, he was an Argo. He was a great player. Had legs like tree trunks. Could apparently run a 4-3-40. Was great for the Argos until he got injured late in the season in a game against Calgary. They met Calgary in the Grey Cup on a torrentially rainy day in Vancouver

on Empire Stadium on that tartan turf, which is like this floor here when it's wet, wet, wet the way it was. It's 14-11 for Calgary. Toronto's driving. They're close to getting at least a field goal, if not a touchdown. They're dying seconds of the game.

McQuay tries to get the ball into the center of the hash marks. Season opening, tries to cut, slips, falls, and back then the ground could cause a fumble. He fumbled the ball, Calgary recovered. It was game over for the Argos. And the ignominy for the Argos continued, because remember they hadn't won a Grey Cup since the 50s.

Exactly. And wouldn't for another 10 years or so. Exactly, and Leo Cahill's greatest quote was, when Leon slipped, I fell. There we go. And again, in a way, like Wayne Mackey, a premature end to his life. He died at 45. Very sad. Yeah, had cancer.

He went down to Florida, where he was from, became a mechanic, then became a minister and passed away. Back to hockey. There was a goalie who played for both the Ottawa Nationals and the Toronto Toros. This is in the old rival World Hockey Association. And his name was Gilles Greton. I'm going to do a quote from your book about Gilles because Gilles was, as they called him, Gilles was, he was different.

He was different. Okay, here we go. Sheldon, let's bring this quote up. Here's Gilles Greton saying, you win the Stanley Cup, but what does it mean? People skate around, they kiss the cup. What does it mean? It means bleep all. In the grand scheme of things, being a good person,

treating your wife and kids and other people well means far more than winning the Stanley Cup. He went on to say that his hero, Howie, was the Dalai Lama. Not Rocket Richard, which would be quite a thing for a Quebec-born hockey player to say. The Rocket was not his idol, because everybody loved the Rocket. He was a very good goalie, but he didn't like hockey.

What's the story with Joe Gratton? People say goalies are different. And I was a goalie for 40 plus years until I had my hips replaced. But he was different. He was different from different. When he was a kid, his dad wasn't around very much. His dad worked shift work, and Gilles

was left to his own devices a lot. He did a lot of thinking. When he would go to bed, he couldn't sleep. So he would play sports all day to try to tire himself out so he could sleep. He'd wake up at 3 in the morning, go sit in the kitchen, and he'd think and think and think. And all these questions would go through his head.

Existential questions, not questions like, what am I going to do tomorrow? What am I going to eat for lunch tomorrow? It's like, why am I in this body? Why am I here? And he continued to ask those questions for the rest of his life. He was good at playing hockey because that's what he did as a kid. There was an outdoor rink across the street of his life. He was good at playing hockey because that's

what he did as a kid. When there was an outdoor rink across the street from his house, one of his neighbors would come over. It was Jacques Lemaire. And he would take shots on him. Jacques Lemaire was a junior player at the time when Gilles was a Pee-wee. So Lemaire kept the pucks on the ice.

He didn't shoot at his head or anything, thankfully. But he worked through the ranks, played in Oshawa, of all places, his junior hockey. And the Bruins had his rights. But then he ended up going to the WHA when they offered a lot more money, played with the Nationals and then the Toros. Now, he had a routine when he was on the ice.

He called it his dead fish routine. Well, what was that? That was when there was a lot of pressure in their own end, and he felt his teammates needed a little bit of a break. And he'd go down pretending he had been injured. And if anybody came near him, he'd say, poisson mort, poisson mort, meaning dead fish. And that was the signal, yes.

That was the signal to say, I'm OK. I'm just giving you guys a rest. Now, perhaps not surprisingly, we are sad to report, Gil Gratton eventually had a nervous breakdown, right? What happened there? In Toronto with the Toros, Billy Harris had been his coach. Gratton responded really well. I think he was always looking for that father figure. Gus Bodner had been that in Oshawa. Billy

Harris was that in Toronto. And when Billy Harris was let go by the club and had to leave the club actually because his wife was dealing with a, his daughter was dealing with a medical issue. Grato felt like the bottom had fallen out from under him and he felt that he was unable to cope without Billy Harris there. And he had a Porsche, he had this great contract, he had all this money, but he could not summon any happiness and he felt just, as you said, a nervous breakdown. Well, let's stay with hockey for this next story here.

The entry draft, we should explain, is something where the young junior players or university or college age players are drafted by the NHL teams to replenish their rosters. And it's a very big deal nowadays. They have it in hockey arenas and people buy tickets and they go and they cheer for their teams when they get good players and so on. In 1974, the Buffalo Sabres with their 11th round pick chose a guy named Taro Tsujimoto from the Tokyo Katanas.

Tell me about Taro Tsujimoto. Well, to begin with, he was fictional. He wasn't real. The Tokyo Katanas were fictional. If anybody had checked, which nobody did at the time, they would have seen that there was a Japanese hockey league and it existed for a long time. But there was no team in Tokyo.

There was no team called the Tokyo Katanas. It all came about because Punch Imlak, who was the GM of the Sabres at the time, and his director of communications, Paul Wheeland, were sitting there bored because the draft was done in kind of a secret to prevent the WHA teams from finding out who the teams were drafting. There were no conference calls at the time, so Clarence Campbell would have to phone each team. The Commissioner? Yes.

President back then? Yes, that's right. And he'd call them and tell them who every team had drafted since the last pick was made. And he had this lawyerly drone. And so Imlak and Whelan were bored out of their trees. I think Whelan said to Imlak, or Imlak said to Whelan, what if we drafted somebody that nobody would ever

think of drafting? What if we took somebody that was totally off the board? And Whelan said, what if we draft somebody that nobody would ever think of drafting? What if we took somebody that was totally off the board? And Whelan said, what if we draft somebody that doesn't exist? And Whelan had gone to St. Bonaventure University from Buffalo and back and forth. And he passed this stand, this farm fruit stand, every time he would go back and forth. And it was the Tsujimoto farm so that was the name of the player he was going to use and for a lot of this this story I consulted with Ben Tsujimoto who was the great-grandson I

believe of the original owners of that farm and and he's a writer for the Buffalo News now and he was great he would anytime I have a question for him he would get back to me right away and we would have these wonderful for the Buffalo News now. And he was great. He would, anytime I have a question for him, he would get back to me right away. And we'd have these wonderful conversations online about his family. And he knew the story as well. Well, how long did it take for anybody

to figure out that this guy was fictitious and didn't really exist? Once training camp the following year, 74, 75, was about to begin. The Sabres made a stall with Tsujimoto's name on it, with a jersey with his name on the back. And they had to come clean. And when Clarence Campbell found out, he was livid.

He did not like this kind of tomfoolery in his little backyard. And that's what the NHL was back then. It was like a little backyard, compared to what it is today. But yeah, he was incensed. And if you look in the NHL guide and record book up to a certain date, it goes through the drafts.

In 1974, it's got Taro Tsujimoto's name up to a certain year, and then it was expunged. Because... Because he doesn't exist. Exactly. OK, here's another hockey story. It's 1982. Walter Gretzky, father of Wayne, obviously,

drives from Brantford to Ottawa to pick up one of his best friends to fly to Helsinki because they want to watch Wayne play in his only world championship tournament overseas. Pick up the story. One of Walter Gretzky's best friends was Charles Henry. Charlie Henry, for those who don't know, was the man who became the general manager of the

Hololimics once Wayne bought that team in the Quebec Major Junior League. Mr. Henry lived not far from where I live in Ottawa. Was a firefighter, but also a hockey coach for the East Ottawa Voyageurs when I was in high school. His kids, the Henry kids, the Mooney kids, the Mallette kids, all of us went to high school together. Michael Henry told me this story shortly

after Wayne's father Walter passed away a couple of years ago. Walter drove from Brantford to Ottawa to pick up Mr. Henry. Mr. Henry didn't know that Walter was coming. He was in the middle of a 24-hour shift at his fire hall. Wally comes over and says, Charlie, we got to go. We got to go to Helsinki. Wayne's playing in the world championships.

It was the only time Wayne played in the world championships. And Mr. Henry says, Wally, I can't go like this. I'm in the middle of a 24-hour shift. Walter says, it's OK. I've talked to everybody here. They're all gonna cover for you. We gotta go. And Mr. Henry says, I can't just do this. I can't just up and leave like this, Wally.

It's not right. He says, your wife packed the bag, it's in the car. We gotta get to the airport now, we gotta go. Mr. Henry's saying no, no, no. Walter's saying yes, yes, yes. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Eventually, Mr. Henry relents. They get on a plane to go to Helsinki.

It's a 10-hour flight. They get there. They get to the arena. The people at the door don't know who these people are. Neither Mr. Henry nor Walter has credentials, tickets, papers, anything that says they can get into the arena. And these guys at the door are having none of it. So Walter pulls Mr. Henry aside and says,

this is what we're going to do. I'm going to jump the turnstile. I'm going to go that way. When they chase me, you jump the turnstile, go that way. We'll meet at the bench. So you've got these two grown men running through the arena, running through the concourses of the arena, being chased by security people.

They're attracting attention to themselves. They get down to the top of the stairs. They're going down the stairs. People are turning and looking. Mark Messy is on the bench. He looks and sees who it is. And he jumps up. He grabs Mr. Henry.

He grabs Walter Gretzky, pulls them onto the bench, and he turns to the security people and says, no. They're with us. And so the mischievous Walter Gretzky wins again. Not to be tried at home. One thing for the great ones, Dad, to doky wins again. Not to be tried at home. One thing for the great ones dad to do it, but don't you try this at home. I think it was different in 1982 compared to now.

I suspect. Well, okay, let's finish up with a couple of baseball stories here. And for this first one, we want to go back 15 years. The Blue Jays at the time have a light hitting shortstop named John McDonald. You can imagine what his nickname was. Prime Minister, right?

Of course, his name is John McDonald. He was best known for his glove, and he had a great glove. We got an example of this right here. Sheldon, you want to roll this clip? Here's John McDonald playing short for the Jays. Backhanded by McDonald, and from the scene of this, Penn storms him out. How do you like that?

John McDonald. Now that's a fabulous play. Unbelievable. That is just a great play. This guy, John McDonald, might hit one home run a year. That was about it. He was not a power hitter. But he did something on Father's Day that those of us who remember it will never forget.

June of 2010, he gets word that, father had been suffering with cancer and he was starting to slip. So John leaves and goes home to be with his father. And his father says to him, when John's sitting there, and he says, John, hit your next home run for me. And John says, Dad, I'm not a home run hitter they're hard to hit you know and and I mean I think he ended up with 34 home runs or 31 home runs or something through his entire career. So his dad says hit your next home run for me. So his

father passes away John gives the eululogy at the funeral and comes back to Toronto. He gets back here on a Friday night. His teammates welcome him with open arms. Sean Markham and he were best friends. What they did was his dad was an umpire and wore number 25 when he was umpiring. So they got him a jersey, a Blue Jays jersey with number 25 on the back. They all signed it, gave it to him just to let let him know, hey, we're all with you. Friday night, he's not in the lineup.

Saturday afternoon, he's not in the lineup. Sunday, it's a series, a series ending game against San Francisco. And Sunday is? Father's Day. Father's Day. He's not in the lineup. But in the ninth inning, he gets to pinch hit.

And they're losing, I think it was 7 to 1 at the time. And lo and behold, he tags one. And it goes over the left field wall. And he gets a home run. He's running around the bases and just gets to the dugout. And I mean, we've all seen the footage of him sitting in the dugout. And he breaks down and runs into the tunnel

because he doesn't want anyone to see him crying. After the game, I mean the Jays lose but after the game everybody goes to John McDonald's stall and one of the reporters says what were you thinking of when you when you were rounding the bases and this part always gets to me he says I won't be able to call my dad after the game. And that's the game and That's that's that's the story and just

It's it's it's tremendously sad, but you know it's just it's it's one of those wonderful wonderful things that We all get goosebumps when we think about it or we when we saw it But to do the research and and to read about it or read about it before I wrote about it, it was one of those things that just took my heart and tore it apart. When I was doing my editing, when I was going through this chapter, I'd always start tearing up. Okay, one more story here, and this is also baseball, and all of our stories are basically made in Ontario stories so far.

I'm going to use my moderator's prerogative here to make one exception. Because this next story happened in Fenway Park, Boston. It's 1982. The Hall of Famer Jim Rice is playing left field for the Red Sox. And something which I don't think had ever happened before, and certainly has not happened since, something incredible happens. What? There was a man in New Hampshire who was given three tickets. And he had two little boys, three tickets for a Red Sox

game on a Saturday afternoon. It was on the game of the week on NBC. They're sitting right next to the dugout. It turned out it was, I think it was the Yockeys seats. They're the owners of the great stocks at the time. Yes. I'm going by memory here, so it's, but, they were all thrilled to be so close, to be so close. And about the fourth inning,

a screaming foul ball line drive comes, and the father thought the ball hit the side of the dugout because it sounded like it hit cement. But it hit his son's head. And this is in the days before they put the netting up to protect everybody. Oh, long before, long before. Jim Rice had been standing at the top of the stairs.

He came up and looked and saw the little boy just bleeding and thinking he may be in danger. Seeing where the boy was, seeing that access by emergency personnel was probably very difficult, he scooped the boy up. And he saw Dr. Pappas, who was the team doctor, at the far end of the dugout. They nodded to each other and Jim Rice carried him into the medical room behind the Red Sox clubhouse. Arthur Pappas did what he could at that time to

relieve any pressure on the boy's brain and did what he could until a medical team, an ambulance could arrive and take him to the hospital. The hospital wasn't far from Fenway and in that part of town, if you've been in that part of town, but it's very, very tight in terms of streets and everything like that. But Dr. Pappas was able to keep the boy stable, keep the boy alive. They got him to hospital. But it was Jim Rice's quick thinking that saved the boy's life.

And he went on to work in IT. And he's never forgotten the actions of Jim Rice. And to him, it was just something that he'll never forget. Jim Rice will never forget it either. And Jim Rice has said, of all the things I've ever done on the field, this was like the greatest thing I've ever done.

That's the main thing. Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame because he was a great hitter and good on defense as well. And he led his team to a World Series in 1975. Spectacular ballplayer. But he should be in the Hall of Fame for what he did that day, because he saved a life on that day. Just incredible. The quick thinking, the wonderful gesture, everything,

the way it all happened, he and Dr. Papp is locking eyes across the dugout together, going back to the medical room, doing all of that, and saving the boy's life. It was something. Howie, we've been talking about doing this interview for a very long time. We finally got you here. You have lots of stories about these and others

called Crazy Days and Wild Nights in one book, The Consequences of Chance in another book, and more Crazy Days and Wild Nights in a third book. And keep going. Keep writing. It's lots of fun. You get the books on Amazon. The last books, Consequences of Chance,

is 17 stories, 17 chapters. If you have prime, it'll get to your house in a day and a half. That's the best way to do it. Good stuff, Howie. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Steve. Thanks for everything.