Osler's Razor

Have you ever noticed how home-team media outlets switch from team reports to nostalgic remembrances once the home team starts losing every week? Well, I have, and I think it is a great idea.

This morning's Baylor Football Memory comes to us from Doryell Anderson, a Baylor graduate from 1931 and a beloved figure in the Baylor community.

Much of my own attention to the sport of football was due to the interest of my good friend, Thaddeus (“Tailpipe”) Laker, who was a renowned player of the time. My God, how that Tailpipe fellow could run! In 1929, he beat UT-Austin (then known as Texas Normal School for Women) singlehandedly. This was before the the days of all this sissy “equipment” the players wear now, of course. Tailpipe scored the last 37 points in a 67-32 win with no teeth left in his mouth—after the game we scavenged then up in a Bell jar and old Doc Ritter put them back in with a rivet gun on the train back to Waco. Tailpipe was the greatest yapback in SWC history, and now I hear he’s living in a van outside of either Bruceville or Eddy.

I don’t think many teams use the yapback any more—you need the exact right player. The thing was, then, that people would talk out on the field a lot. And the yapback, he would get up on the shoulders of the halfback and yell stuff at the fellows on the other side, over the head of the linemen. All kinds of stuff—about their grades and their girlfriends. About the only position like it now is the coxswain in the row-boating races. I think there would be a lot more interest in that row-boating if they let them have a little tackling now and then. That, or small arms of some type. Then they would get people out to watch!

My time at Baylor included some of the most memorable football games in the history of the institution. This would, of course, include the victory in 1929 over The Booze-Soaked New Orleans School of College University [sic] (now Tulane), and the 1930 game against A & M. During this period, Tailpipe Laker was privileged to play with one of the best quarterbacks Baylor ever had, old Fuzzy (“Richard”) Murphy, who was the qb the last half of the season of ‘30. He was about 5’1”—darn close to being one of the “little people” as they call them now. But that man could throw that bean out of the stadium... the last game of the season was against A & M (which was then still known as Childress Music Academy and Agriculture Station). The game started at 7 in late November in old Garf Stadium, where the run-down Sonics is now. I can’t remember why they had a 7 pm start—might have been a radio broadcast issue—but it was dark as black beans by the second quarter. Old Richard set out torches around the huddle to diagram plays, and had everyone run to one side of the end zone. He’d make a throwing noise, and secretly had a Western Union boy run the ball into the end zone. Worked six times in a row, and Baylor won 44-12. I think Baylor should try that play today against Nebraska!