PFRA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the history of professional football. Formed in 1979, PFRA members include many of the game's foremost historians and writers.
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https://mail.profootballresearchers.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3500
From 1983-86, ABC had a Friday night game at the end of the season. In '86 (like in '84) it was the Rams at SF.74_75_78_79_ wrote:I believe near the end of the '86 season, there was a special Friday Night game. Don't remember who the teams were, but I'm pretty sure at halftime someone - I think it was a comedian - going over all the possible playoff scenarios; and there were a ridiculous amount as that season was concluding. Does anyone remember who both teams were and what other Friday games has there been historically?
The 1960 Cowboys game was due to the fact that the Texans had priority over dates at the Cotton Bowl and Pete Rozelle didn't want to go up against the Arkansas-TCU game in Fort Worth the following night.Mark L. Ford wrote:Looking at the list below, it's remarkable how many Friday night games the Boston Patriots played in the early 1960s-- including all but one of their home games in 1962 and 1964. I'll pose the question on this to OldeCapeCod, one of PFRA's experts who lived in New England back in that era-- would it have had something to do with a prohibition against Sunday beer sales?
Slightly less remarkable is that Dallas Cowboys game in 1960. The NFL playing Friday night football, during the high school season.... in Texas? Say it ain't so, Tom Landry...
OCC, I'm tempted to ask for your thoughts on the Baltimore 2pm vs 1pm thing just to be treated to 100 more nuggets of interesting historical information.oldecapecod11 wrote:"...pose the question on this to OldeCapeCod, one of PFRA's experts who lived in New England back in that era-- would it have had something to do with a prohibition against Sunday beer sales?.."
A better person to ask might be Ralph Hickok. It is likely he was in the area before this individual.
OCC did not move to Massachusetts until July of 1966 but, at that time, he did live in a small (4 building gated complex)
where about a dozen of the Patriots also lived: Tommy Neville, Justin Canale, Tom Fussell, Aaron Marsh, Johnny Outlaw,
and a few others whose names would have to be recalled by reading a roster.
Two of the coaches lived there as well. (Marsh and Outlaw, by the way, are cousins.)
However, from 1962 until moving, many business trips were made to Boston and the counties surrounding Suffolk.
This was true even during the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair which did not operate during most of the football season.
In the 1962-1966 and beyond period, there never seemed to be any restriction - legal or otherwise - of the sale of beer.
Many a flagon was quaffed at Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics games for the enjoyment of the beverage. With the Patriots,
it was more for the numbing effect during their troubled years.
The Friday avoidance that was practiced by most, if not the rest, of professional football did not impact metro-Boston.
Most of the colleges did not play night games because most of them did not have lights - usually a pretty good reason.
The same was true for most of the high schools. Facilities in Lowell, Lynn, and Worcester had lighted fields and, of course,
the little park near the Fenway did for sure.
The major reason for Friday games was the public outcry when threatened with something that would interfere
with New York Giants broadcasts. (Ralph alluded to this in a post that the former bored members decided to trash
when he mentioned going to a bar and the beertender refused to put on a Patriots game. Or was it vice-versa.
To bad we do not have the reference work.)
So, hardly an expert (except maybe with the consumption of a few pints of good lager) but it must be stated that beer
did not force the Patriots to Friday games - it was the long-time love and affection for the New York Football Giants
that gave the Patsies the opportunity to become legends and for home-town boy Al Carmichael to live forever
in football lore as the first player to score an AFL touchdown.
But... and there does always seem to be a but... beer WAS the cause of the Patriots being banned
from MONDAY Night Football due to the fans attempts to emulate those fools at the confluence of the Allegheny,
Monongahela, and Ohio.
It should be noted that "Cheers" patron Cliff, has an excellent explanation as to why we should drink beer.
The "Cheers" venue is the Bull and Finch Pub on Beacon Street just off the Common and the basement bar
has three more on the levels above - street-level open to the public and the others private.
The Young Republican Club often held affairs there which, of course, were crashed.
Actually 10/18/76 in a 41-7 blowout against the Jets. Nobody was "killed," but two people did die from heart attacks, 30 people needed hospital treatment and a policeman had his jaw broken, with the assailant briefly stealing his gun before being captured. All told 49 people were arrested. The most infamous part (which I think I've mentioned before) of the two deaths was that while paramedics were trying to save one of the heart attack victims, some jackass decided to start urinating on a paramedic.Mark L. Ford wrote:All interesting information, and I mean that sincerely. Thanks, OCC. I'd forgotten about the Monday Night Football disaster in Foxboro-- that was in the early 80s, I recall, and at least one person got killed outside the stadium.
