December 23, 1928 - Per the On This Day .com website, the NBC Radio network set up a permanent coast to coast broadcast radio network.
December 23, 1951 - Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum - The National Football League Championship had the Los Angeles Rams hosting the Cleveland Browns in what would be the first nationally televised NFL title game from coast-to-coast per the American Football Database. The now defunct DuMont Network purchased the rights from the NFL to broadcast the game for a cool sum of $95,000. Announcers for the game were Earl Gillespie and Harry Wismer. The game was a back and forth battle as legendary quarterbacks Otto Graham of Cleveland and Norm Van Brocklin of LA led their respective offenses. The pivotal plays of the game were monumental in the outcome. In the third quarter Graham coughed up the ball on a hard hit, and LA returned it to the Cleveland two, scoring a few plays later. The back breaker though was that after the Browns tied the score when they answered back with an 8-play, 70-yard drive that ended with a 5-yard touchdown run by Ken Carpenter the Rams responded in kind. Tom Fears accepted a Van Brocklin pass in the fourth quarter and raced 73 yards for the winning touchdown as the Rams outlasted the Browns 24-17.
December 23, 1972 - Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh - The "Immaculate Reception". It may be the most talked about and most replayed single play in all of football history. This one play changed the course of the long suffering Pittsburgh franchise who after their inception in 1933 had never won in the postseason. In fact the Steelers had only played in one playoff game in 1947, in their first 38 years of existence! The game was the 1972 AFC Divisional Playoff. The Raiders were the heavy favorites coming into the game, and everyone was looking forward to Oakland going up against the powerful undefeated Miami Dolphins to see who would represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. According to the folks at the BehindtheSteelCurtain.com web site it was the upstart Steelers, for most of the game who dominated play, as the Raiders offense who boasted seven Pro Bowlers could not score for almost 59 minutes against the Pittsburgh defense. Kicker Roy Gerela had two field goals that had the Steelers up 6-0 late in the fourth quarter. Then with 1:13 left to play, Oakland’s Ken “Snake“ Stabler, who had replaced an ineffective Daryl Lamonica, scrambled left on a broken play and sprinted untouched for a 30 yard touchdown to put the Raiders up 7-6. That Ken Stabler play was the longest Oakland had all afternoon. It all came down to a play with 22 ticks of the clock remaining as the Steelers had the ball on their own 40 facing a fourth and ten with no timeouts remaining. Terry Bradshaw dropped back to pass. The Raiders sent pressure but miraculously the Blonde Bomber danced his way through it and launched a pass over the middle to running back Frenchy Fuqua who was near the Oakland 33 yard line. Raider’s legend Jack Tatum was draped on Fuqua like a winter jacket and the pair went up to make a play on the ball. The football went off of the tandem and lofted back towards the Steelers goal line. Then out of nowhere, fellow Steelers running back Franco Harris who was galloping down field to make a block reached down towards his ankles and snagged the deflected pass on the run at the Raiders 42 and turned towards the left sidelines to race for a most unexpected touchdown. The stadium went into total pandemonium! Raiders Coach John Madden and his sideline argued that Tatum never touched the ball, and per an NFL rule at the time for Harris to legally touch it after and if it hit Fuqua then a defender would have had to make contact with the ball. A second ruling needed to be made as to whether the ball touched the ground in the process of Harris catching it. The extra point attempt by the Steelers was delayed even further as Referee Fred Swearingen left the field to go into the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout and made a call to the NFL’s Supervisor of Officials, Art McNally to talk about who knows what. Some claim that McNally used replay, for the first time in NFL history, to help Swearingen determine a ruling on the play. McNally insisted that instant replay was not a factor and that all he did was encourage Swearingen to make his call. That may be but many in the know still swear that instant replay was unofficially born on that very play in the Steel City that day. Swearingen finally emerged back on to the field stuck both arms up into the air and after the Gerela kick the Steelers came back to win 13-7! Later long time Steelers announcer Myron Cope received a phone call from a fan about the play which helped him spread the coin phrase of the Immaculate Reception! Rest In Peace Franco Harris.
December 23, 1972 - #15 Arizona State outlasted Missouri, 49-35 in the second Fiesta Bowl played. According to the FiestaBowl.com webpage, the Sun Devils set a record in College Football Bowl history with the 718 yards of total offense they registered in the game. Arizona State runners had a field day against the Mizzou defense as Woody Green put up 202 yards rushing mostly outside the tackles and scored four touchdowns while backfield mate Brent McClanahan pounded the ball up the gut against the Tigers to gain 171 yards.
