18 December in Sports History

In this edition of the Sports Break, we cover the top events in sports history along with the players and athletes that were a part of them on December 18.  As a bonus, we place the jersey number worn at the time with the athlete as well.

Sports history is made every day of the year. We will preserve at least a small sampling from some great athletes every day based on the uniform number they wore.

7 - 9 - 12 - 3 - 77 - 6 - 8 - 42 - 10 - 1

December 18, 1956 - Ballon d'Or: Blackpool & England winger Number 7, Stanley Matthews won the inaugural award for best football player in Europe; beats Real Madrid pair Number 9, Alfredo Di Stéfano and Number 7, Raymond Kopa

December 18, 1932 - The NFL decided that a final game to determine a Champ would be played in a special Chicago at Wrigley field on December 18, 1932. The NFL Title was supposed to be given to the team with the best record. This had been the case for over a decade in the young NFL. The 1932 season ended with the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans in a virtual tie for the top record in the League.

Rumor is that George Halas challenged the Spartans to play a game to settle the tie. They wanted no part of any type of Co-Champion bologna. Thus we had the first NFL Championship! This first postseason game in NFL history had some massive twists and turns to make it a remarkable story, even though a game was going to be played to determine an NFL Champion. The first odd occurrence was that Spartans star Earl Dutch Clark, Number 12 could not play in the game because he had to work. Clark, who worked as the Head Basketball Coach at Colorado College, and his hoops team had a game on that December 18, and Dutch couldn't get off work to make the football game in Chicago. The second crazy thing that happened was that due to a freak late-fall blizzard in Chicago, the game had to be moved inside the Chicago Stadium because Wrigley was covered with deep snow and frozen with dangerous sub-zero temperatures. The playing field had to be modified to play inside, so the game was played on a field only 80 yards long and some 30 yards narrower than the normal width the teams played on all season. The last item surrounding the game happened on the contest's only touchdown. Bears Number 3, Bronko Nagurski threw a scoring jump pass to Number 77, Red Grange, but the Spartans argued that Nagurski did not meet the requirement of legal forward passes in those days of being 5 yards or more behind the line. The play stood, and the Bears won the NFL title by 9-0. The Spartans franchise would become the Lions in 1933 when they moved from Portsmouth, Ohio, to Detroit.

December 18, 1962 - Ballon d'Or: Dukler Prague midfielder Number 6, Josef Masopust won the award for best European football player; beats Benfica striker Eusébio, Number 8 and FC Köln defender Number 6, Karl-Heinz Schnellinger

December 18, 1977 - NBA Cleveland Cavaliers retire jersey Number 42, Nate Thumond

December 18, 2001 - Ballon d'Or: Liverpool forward Number 10, Michael Owen was named best football player in Europe ahead of Real Madrid striker Number 7,  Raúl and Bayern Munich goalkeeper Number 1, Oliver Kahn

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: On This Day Sports, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com.

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of Voetbal Sparta tegen Blackpool met Stanley Matthews, Bestanddeelnr circa August 1957.