Dravecky returns to a media mob
Here’s a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1989
Aug. 17: Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky returned to the Bay Area last night, astonished to find that he owns the most famous broken left arm in America. Dravecky was met at San Francisco airport by a media mob worthy of a presidential stopover. There were no fewer than 16 videotape cameras, a pushing, shoving crowd of newspaper photographers, a dozen radio stations and a collection of print journalists from as far away as Philadelphia.
Dravecky’s misfortune, and the gruesome videotape replay of the accident, led newscasts around the country. Yesterday alone he held press conferences in three cities and two countries. By the time he reached the Bay Area he looked wrung-out. Although he is steadied by his devout religious belief, when asked if it scared him when he heard his arm snap, he does not pretend that his inner calm never cracked.
“Yes it did,” he says. “It felt like my left arm had left my body. I’ve never felt anything like it in my life.”
Like everyone else, he has seen the graphic slow-motion replay, and grimaced like the rest of us.
“I saw it once,” he said. “It looked like a sniper got me. That’s how it felt, too. It felt like someone hit me in the shoulder with a meat ax.”
— C.W. Nevius
1964
Aug. 13: What is most appealing about “A Hard Day’s Night,” the film starring the Beatles which opened yesterday at the Royal Mission and Geneva Drive-In, is the performers’ cheerful acceptance of their own mediocrity. The young British singers are a quartet of amiable gargoyles: one, Ringo Starr, resembling an apprehensive anteater; another (Paul McCartney), plumper and less rebellious, looking like a rodent who has just consumed the turnips in Farmer Brown’s garden; and the remaining pair, George Harrison and John Lennon, are non-descript. But all four can easily be identified from the rest of the cast by their extraordinary lack of haircuts.
Most of the time they appear to be eavesdropping under a thatched roof. It is endearing that they all regard the whole business as a lark. They are neither singers, musicians nor clowns, but they are popular and pretty much unimpressed by the fools who grow hysterical in their presence. The picture was screened for critics and 20 presidents of Beatle fan clubs. At odd moments, the latter shrieked with the agony of unfulfilled motherhood at the sight of a foot keeping time, a hand strumming a guitar, at the face of any Beatle when shown.
— Paine Knickerbocker
1939
Aug. 12: National Commander Stephen Chadwick of the American Legion planted his stocky frame in a chair at an Oakland hotel and unburdened himself on a number of topics. Visiting the bay region to attend American Legion Day on Treasure Island today, Chadwick outlined the Legion’s stand on the controversial questions as follows:
“The Legion’s position on neutrality is that neutrality policy is more important than specific neutrality laws. Keep America well armed and preserve its course of peace. We have found we cannot change the kinds of foreigners by the use of the bayonet.”
His views on communism: “We of the American Legion endeavor to protect America from enemies from both within and without. We can make a go of our democracy without the assistance of kings or dictators.”
He reiterated previously expressed beliefs that Harry Bridges, West Coast CIO leader, should be deported.
“On what meat does this modern Caesar feed that he can arrogate to himself not only the rights of an American citizen which he does not yet possess, but that he can go farther, and like a dictator, tell free men what they shall and shall not do?” he inquired. “How long must we tolerate termite sabotage in our citadel of liberty and freedom by those who are, and for nearly 20 years have elected to be, aliens among us?”
1914
Aug. 15: Steaming slowly in order to conserve her meager fuel supply, the German cruiser Leipsic is still snooping along the coast within a safe distance of the Golden Gate, which she can enter if the immediate replenishing of her bunkers makes it necessary. The German started on a northerly cruise Thursday evening, loafing along the regular coastwise shipping track as far as the Mendocino shores. Shipping men are still of the opinion that the three-funneled war dog will soon have to come in here for fuel unless it overhauls a British collier or a British vessel with well-filled bunkers. The Leipsic might possibly happen across the course of at least one British steamer, which is due here. This is the steamer Cloughton, laden with 400 tons of corn, which left San Pedro yesterday for the Golden Gate. The steamer is being piloted by Captain Hall, who has instructions to keep well within the 3-mile limit, prohibiting seizure by a hostile man-o’-war.