I NEVER THOUGHT I'D HEAR THEM SAY THAT

December 8, 1980 is the 30^th anniversary of former Beatle John Lennon’s death.  It was announced to America by, of all people, Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football.  Here’s that announcement:

That got me thinking about what other major news stories were announced through a sporting event.  Here are two major ones that I can think of, and I know there are probably many, many more, but let’s start with the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany.

The Games were largely overshadowed by what has come to be known as the Munich Massacre. On September 5 a group of eight Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Black September organization broke into the Olympic Village and took 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and officials hostage in their apartments. Two of the hostages who resisted were killed in the first moments of the break-in; the subsequent standoff in the Olympic Village lasted for almost 18 hours.

Late in the evening of September 5, the terrorists and their hostages were transferred by helicopter to the military airport of Fürstenfeldbruck, to board a plane bound for an undetermined Arab country.  The German authorities planned to ambush them there, but underestimated the number of terrorists and were thus undermanned.  During a botched rescue attempt, all of the Israeli hostages were killed.  Four of them were shot, then incinerated when a Palestinian detonated a grenade inside the helicopter in which the hostages were sitting.  The five remaining hostages were then machine-gunned by another terrorist.

ABC Sports was broadcasting the Olympic Games, and it was anchored by veteran broadcaster Jim McKay.  At that moment, he turned from sportscaster to newscaster as he described the horrific scene that took place in front of the world.

McKay took on the job of reporting the events live on his only scheduled day off during the Games, substituting for Chris Schenkel.  He was on air for fourteen hours without a break, during a sixteen hour broadcast.  After an unsuccessful rescue attempt of the athletes held hostage, at 3:24 a.m. German Time, McKay came on the air with this statement:

“When I was a kid my father used to say ‘Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.’  Our worst fears have been realized tonight.  They have now said there were 11 hostages; two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight.  They're all gone.”

Fast forward to the 1989 World Series in San Francisco.  On, Oct. 27, prior to Game 3 of the series between the Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck at 5:04 p.m. The game was scheduled to start at 5:35 p.m. at Candlestick Park, and thousands of people were already in the stadium when the quake occurred. Because of the coincidence of timing, it was the first major earthquake in the United States ever to be broadcast by live television. Experts credit the timing of the World Series as a lucky break that prevented massive loss of life in the city; key in reducing the loss of life was the fact that many people had left work early or were staying late to participate in after-work group viewings and parties, reducing the traffic that would otherwise have been on the collapsed freeways (initial expectations were that hundreds of people had died in the collapse of Interstate 880 in Oakland; the final death toll from that event was 42).

At the time the earthquake hit, the announcing team for ABC Sports, Tim McCarver, Al Michaels, and Jim Palmer immediately grabbed what they perceived to be the armrests; it turned out that they grabbed each others' thighs, leaving each of them with bruises; recounting this incident years later, Michaels would boldly admit his strong belief that had the earthquake lasted much longer than 15 seconds, he would have been killed.

Michaels, who spent three years in San Francisco as an announcer for the San Francisco Giants, was nominated for an Emmy Award for news broadcasting after giving an eyewitness account of the aftermath of the earthquake at Candlestick Park.