Armageddon in the Superdome

By James D. Atwater

If Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, then ..

It was great -while it lasted. Sixteen seconds after the first game began, Guy Lafleur scored for the National Hockey League All-Stars against the Soviets' national team in Madison Square Garden. The final score was 4-2, and the honor and heritage of Canada and the U.S. were safe. But the Soviets rallied to win the second match, 5-4, and then humiliated the N.H.L. in the rubber game, 6-0. The debacle stirred musings about future showdowns with the Soviets in which national honor would be at stake:

The Soviets had scarcely finished wiping up Madison Square Garden with the N.H.L. capitalists when Pete Rozelle, czar of all he surveyed in pro football, was on the phone to the White House. "Beat them now, Mr. President," he said, "and beat them big, or they'll be muscling in everywhere -the U.S. Tennis Open, the America's Cup, the jumping-frog contest in Calaveras County..."

"Fine," said Jimmy. "All I want is a team that is as good and honest and true j as the American people. We got one?"

"Sort of," said Rozelle, and placed a call to the Kremlin. Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev came on the line. "You guys think you're so tough," said Pete, "how about a little game of football?"

Brezhnev thought for a moment.

"This football," he said, "it is like hockey without skates, right?"

"Exactly," said Rozelle.

"What about Tuesday?" asked Brezhnev.

"Tuesday?"

"Well," said Brezhnev, "maybe we could get ready by Monday. I don't know -we've never played this football."

Rozelle explained about the problem of selling deodorant and antifreeze ads on the tube for a hundred grand or so a half minute. "And you've got to find some cheerleaders with cute belly buttons," he said. "That takes time." Brezhnev said he could see the wisdom of that. They settled on a date three months later in the Superdome. "A superduper game for the Superdome," said Rozelle. "I like it, I like it," said Brezhnev.

So the N.F.L. picked the very best players in the land and sequestered them for training in Palm Beach. Coach Tom Landry, chosen by the National Security Council, was so up for the game that he bought himself another of those little fedoras that make him look like a homicide detective, wise and tough. "The Soviets aren't ten feet tall," he said.

Then the Soviets showed up. They were ten feet tall. The blue jeans that Rozelle gave them as a welcoming present came to their knees. But the visitors just laughed and said they were looking forward to playing against Too Short Jones. Landry told newsmen that the Soviets put their pants on one leg at a time.

It turned out they put them on two legs at a time, leaping high and accomplishing the maneuver in midair. The networks sold all available time to the underarm and antifreeze boys and predicted the biggest TV audience in history. Brezhnev said let Teng put that in his cowboy hat. Learned scholars and Richard Nixon pointed out how football was a game that symbolized the essence of the American character. The Americans practiced in a veritable frenzy of patriotism. Terry Bradshaw strengthened his passing hand by squeezing the milk out of coconut shells. "No more Mr. Nice Guy," vowed Mean Joe Greene. O.J. Simpson promised he would play, gimpy leg or no, and jumped over two Avis sedans and three account executives.

On the great day, the Superdome was crammed with superpatriots. Barry Goldwater was on the 50-yard line with a flag in each hand. The Soviets' water boy put down his bucket and sang The Internationale. Rozelle retaliated massively by fielding the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to sing The Star-Spangled Banner.

The Soviets came on the field looking as though they had modeled their uniforms on pictures from the Harvard-Yale program for 1920. They had. Not only were they wearing those floppy leather helmets, but their kidney pads stuck up out of their Commie-red pants. No one had told them about huddles. The quarterback tried to draw his plays on the artificial turf with his finger. A wintry smile creased the face of Tom Landry.

The Soviets ran 60 yards for a touchdown. Then they ran for five more. Fearsome Jack Lambert of the World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers managed to tackle one Soviet back, confining him to a gain of only 30 yards. "What are you guys smoking?" he hissed.

The Soviet pressed a Marxist tract into Lambert's hand. "It is written," he said, "that winning isn't the only thing -it is everything."

Lambert uttered an indelicacy.

"Pull up your socks, big boy," said the Soviet, consulting his 1930s phrase book. "And give the glad eye to Marxist-Leninist know-how."

Midway through the second period the networks cut the disaster off the air. No one ever did learn the final score. Congress scheduled hearings on the affair. Kissinger mournfully intoned that once again the Carter Administration had not understood the use of power: we should never have given the Soviets the ball.

Carter retreated to Camp David to think. Then he called a press conference. "We will settle this thing once and for all," he smiled. "We will invite them to" -and here he picked up a shiny white object and began tossing it with one hand -"a game of baseball."

The nation prepared for Armageddon. Carter himself placed the call to Brezhnev. "How about a game of baseball?" he asked.

"Baseball?" said Brezhnev. There was a moment of silence. "That's the one with sticks like hockey, but no skates, right?"

"Right," smiled the President.

"How about Monday afternoon?"

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