Sonny Jurgensen

According to the NYT, former Washington Redskins’ quarterback Sonny Jurgensen died today at the age of 91. How I loved to watch Jurgensen play. Growing up a White Sox fan, I didn’t care much about a team like the Dodgers. They had pitching, we had pitching. No, it was the hitting teams that drew me, the Braves and Red Sox in particular. Oh, for a Mack Jones or a Tony Conigliaro or… It was the same thing with the Bears. This is a franchise over a century old that’s had maybe five quarterbacks of note. George Halas got ticked at Mike Ditka for wanting a raise, so he traded him in 1967 for a quarterback. Jurgensen with his laser arm? Are you kidding? Halas thought more along the lines of Jack Concannon. Jurgensen was traded from the Eagles to the Redskins for Norm Snead and Claude Crabb three years earlier, in case you were wondering. Watching Jurgensen play was a rare treat for anyone in Chicago; it was a different time, different broadcast priorities. Jurgensen threw 255 touchdown in his career, of which maybe I saw ten on TV. That’s where Strat-O-Matic came in. The game of games, which allowed me to play the likes of Jones and Conigliaro every summer, came out with a football version in 1967. I filled the air with passes from Jurgensen to Charley Taylor and Bobby Mitchell and Jerry Smith while mixing in the occasional run by A.D. Whitfield; never did a board game levitate above the table more than when I played Sonny Jurgensen in Strat-O football. George Halas wouldn’t know a quarterback if…