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Canadian College Football Fans Are Adorable Berserkers
Sixty years ago, LIFE magazine tapped into the joys and tortures of football fandom by traveling north of the American border, where collegians in Ontario were positively freaking out over a rare win on the gridiron. All these years later, there's something quite sweet about the pictures—a reminde...
A Total Eclipse of the Sonny: The Night 'The Greatest' Was Born
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Rumble in the Jungle. A lot has been written about that fight. Movies have been made about it. People have wept and torn their hair and rolled in the grass, beating their heels against the ground, because of that fight. It was a mighty fight. A remarkabl...
Grab Your Screwbat And Go Win, Young Man
In a sport so endearingly perverse that a hitter who fails in seven out of 10 trips to the plate is considered something of a star, there's only so much a coach can do....
Sexologists Masters And Johnson Were Cardinals Fans. Duh.
"Particularly for young people," Thomas Maier noted in a recent essay, "unaware of Masters and Johnson, it's difficult to appreciate how much has changed between the mid-'60s and today. But at the time they were becoming famous, the couples' graphs, charts and photos of human sexual response—learnin...
If Ted Kluszewski's Guns Could Speak . . .
Theodore Bernard "Big Klu" Kluszewski played in the majors for two decades, more than half of those years with the Reds. He was big — well over 6 feet and around 230 pounds, give or take — and he was strong. Like, Harmon Killebrew meets Joe Adcock by way of Josh Gibson strong. He wasn't Hall of Fame...
'Lady Skaters' And The Rough Pleasures Of Roller Derby
"It is a teeth-jarring sport for skaters who race 30 miles every night," LIFE magazine wrote of the then-young spectacle of roller derby in December 1948. The scene, LIFE noted, features "enough spills and body contact to gratify even an ice hockey fan."...
Meet April Atkins, Once The World's Strongest 7th-Grader
You might think that a huge amount of information about a 12-year-old girl once celebrated as the "world's strongest seventh-grader" would surely exist online. That's the sort of thing ARPANET was built for, wasn't it? That, and allowing mainframe computers all over the world to talk to one another....
Where Are The Tight Satin Men's Basketball Shorts Of Yesteryear, Damn It?
So much has changed since the Long Island University Blackbirds were a force to be reckoned with in men's college hoops. But surely the gear — specifically, the oh-so-short shorts, the BDSM-ready knee pads, the grimy sneakers and such — worn by the lads is way up there among the many features of the...
Dem Bums In Da Spring
These are some damn good pictures. There is energy here — a genuine playfulness and terrific personalities. But the real appeal of these George Silk photos from the Dodgers' spring training camp in 1948 is the singular glimpse they afford of baseball in post-WWII America. ...
For Some Stupid Reason, Everyone Was Shocked When Clay Beat Liston
Fifty years ago tomorrow, in Miami Beach, 22-year-old Cassius Clay beat the hell out of Sonny Liston and took the world heavyweight crown from the Big Bear. According to the great New York Times sportswriter Robert Lipsyte, "only three of 46 sportswriters covering the fight had picked Clay to win." ...
Tony Kubek Once Brought A Camera To Spring Training, Then Mantle Farted
In the 1960s, the likelihood of taking at least one photograph of Mickey Mantle ripping — or pretending to rip — a fart during spring training was, evidently, quite high. Perhaps LIFE magazine's editors weren't aware of this, because in February 1961 they handed 25-year-old shortstop Tony Kubek a pr...
Swimsuit Issue: The Butterfinger Edition
The 50th anniversary edition of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue hit newsstands this week, which (inevitably, perhaps) evokes memories of a Golden Age when a bikini-clad blonde eating a Butterfinger was the veritable emblem of hotness....
A Photog Remembers When, And Why, "Uncle Tom" Frazier Kicked Ali's Ass
Today is Muhammad Ali's 72nd birthday. Four decades ago, after three-and-a-half years away from the ring, he was half-assedly gearing up for a title fight with the reigning champ, Joe Frazier. LIFE photographer John Shearer remembers that winter well....
Faces Of The Young America League: Guts And Glory In The Rockies
Way back when, at a time when organized football for school kids was something of a rarity, LIFE's Alfred Eisenstaedt made some portraits of tough little guys playing in Colorado's Young America League in 1939. (See more Young America League photos here.)...
This Old Chinese Figure Skater Has Smooth Moves, Awesome Facial Hair
In February 1946 readers of a popular weekly magazine were introduced to exactly the sort of scene Henry Luce likely had in mind when, a decade earlier, he and poet Archibald MacLeish crafted their famous prospectus for a publication initially called "The Show-Book of the World." The still-stirring ...
At The 1960 Cotton Bowl, A Syracuse Win And A Nasty Racial Ruckus
In January 1960, an undefeated Syracuse team whipped Texas, 23-14, in the Cotton Bowl. [See rare photos from the game here.] But it wasn't especially pretty, as LIFE magazine reported in its Jan. 11, 1960, issue: ...
When Chickens Play Baseball, We All Win
"Casey Number Two, who is more temperamental than her colleagues, jumps on the playing field to peck at the first baseman, who has blocked her hit."...
75 Years Ago NFL Players Looked Like This
"Pro football is almost a different game from college football," LIFE magazine helpfully informed its readers in October 1938. In those years, the biggest pro sports in America were baseball, boxing and horse racing; professional football barely registered on most fans' radar. But pro ball was makin...
A Face Only A Hockey Puck Could Love
Once upon a time, NHL goalies played without masks. Unsurprisingly, their faces often got all fucked up. In 1966, LIFE published an article, "The Goalie Is the Goat," that not only aimed to put a human countenance on "hockey's reviled and bludgeoned fall-guys," but featured a photo of what looked li...
The Badassest Rookie Linebacker The NFL Has Ever Seen
I was never a Bears fan, although I do admire the uniform — orange, black and white together just feels football-y, somehow — and I bawled like a crazy person while reading I Am Third and again while watching Brian's Song. (Damn you, James Caan. Damn you to tearjerking hell.) But recently I came acr...