Chapter 3: What sports did you like most as a child? Why?

Originally written Jan. 4, 2021

I’ve never been a big sports fan. As a child in the early ‘60s I rooted for the New York Yankees, mainly because Mickey Mantle, like me, was from Oklahoma. I got to see the Yanks play once at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, which at the time also was home to the Los Angeles Angels. (And at that game I saw Yogi Berra knock a homer right out of Chavez Ravine.) I also followed the Oklahoma City 89ers, our local minor league team.

But in my world, there was no sport more noble than professional wrestling. My young fantasy life was populated by classic movie monsters, early Marvel Comics, rock ‘n’ roll, of course, and the wrestlers who performed every Friday night at Stockyards Coliseum and Saturday nights on WKY TV’s live wrestling show. Decades later I even lifted, for my own radio show, a catchphrase from announcer Danny Williams:

“Watch out for flying chairs!”

Wrestling was not only my favorite “sport,” it also was one of my favorite family activities. Almost every Friday night my mom, grandmother and often my grandfather would take me and my siblings down to what we called “Packin’ Town” (the meat-packing district), have dinner at the Cattleman Cafe (which was still in business last time I went to OKC), then over to the coliseum to watch the ‘rasslin’. In later years, it mainly was just my grandfather, my brother and me.

My grandfather was friends with an old man named Jerry, who wore an American Legion hat and was the guy who rang the bell at the start and the end of each match. Jerry agreed to take my brother and me back to the dressing room and meet some of the wrestlers. To my surprise, the dressing room was integrated. I’m not talking race. I mean there were both good guys and bad guys, sitting around talking and smoking cigarettes, like the old friends they undoubtedly were. They were all polite to us, even the bad guys. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed by that. It would have seemed far cooler had one of the masked maniacs taken a chair and bashed the skull of one of the heroes while we were back there.

Most my friends were into the heroes: “Irish” Mike Clancy, “Big” Bill Watts and, of course Danny Hodge, a former collegiate wrestling champion from Perry, Okla. Hodge, the Junior Heavyweight Champion of the World, died this past Christmas Eve at the age of 88.

But I liked the villains the best. The Great Bolo, Hiro Matsuda (known as “The Great Matsuda”), “Crazy” Chuck Carbo, “Tough” Tony Borne. Other kids would flock to the heroes’ corner before a match to get the hero’s autograph. But, as I said, I liked the villains more. Getting their autographs seemed so much cooler — not to mention the fact I hardly ever had to wait for 20 other kids in line for autographs.

Here’s a true story I’ve told many times: Of all the villains, by far the most villainous was Sputnik Monroe. As an adult I’d learn that Sputnik was something of a Civil Rights hero in Memphis. In the late 1950s, Sputnik, who was hated by his white audience but loved by black wrestling fans, helped integrate Ellis Auditorium in Memphis. He refused to wrestle unless black people — who previously could only watch from the balcony “Colored Section” — could buy a ticket for any section in the house. (Check out NPR’s story about this from 2001.)

I was unaware of Sputnik’s career as a social-justice warrior when I’d see him wrestle in the ‘60s. All I knew is that he just seemed cooler than just about any other wrestler out there. His character supposedly was from outer space. And he looked like some scowling mutant, with a silver stripe in his black hair. Often during a match, Sputnik would be losing when suddenly he’d get a strange look in his eye. If it was a TV show, Danny Williams would start saying, “He’s in a trance, folks, he’s in a trance!” The hero would start backing off and Sputnik would seem to gain strength from his Martian masters or whatever power was there for him in the sky. He’d start mopping up the mat with his unfortunate opponent.

So one night I decided it was time to get Sputnik’s autograph. I was the only fan in his corner when he entered the arena for his match to a chorus of loud Okie boos. After jumping up to the ring, Sputnik looked down on me and gave me a smile. He seemed to like that some kid wanted his autograph. He reached down and took my autograph book into his beefy hands.

Then, apparently some evil idea took hold in his head. Sputnik held my autograph book over his head, like Donald Trump holding a Bible over clouds of tear gas. The boos grew louder as The Heavenly Body from Outer Space dramatically waved my book.

And then suddenly, he tore it to shreds!

I was horrified and I probably cried as a the crowd went into a frenzy of jeers and catcalls, the pages that held the signatures of nearly everyone I ever saw wrestle falling onto the filthy floor of Stockyards Coliseum.

I was sad and angry, but in a strange way, I admired him. I always wanted to meet him as an adult and remind him of this incident. Alas Sputnik died in 2006 at the age of 77.

Singer-songwriter Otis Gibbs apparently also was a Sputnik fan. Check out his song celebrating his legacy:

A publicity shot of Sputnik Monroe, the Heavenly Body from Outer Space, the Body that Men Fear and Women Love!