Griffith Stadium, Washington, DC 12/07/41
There are so many hidden details in our history (and I do NOT mean “intentionally hidden” — I mean they get shuffled underneath larger events). Case in point: I was fascinated to read this reprint of a piece written by the late, VERY great Shirley Povich that appeared on page a15 of the December 7, 1991 Washington Post.
25,000 people, without cell phones or transistor radios to link them to the world outside, were in attendance on Dec 7, 1941 as the Redskins met the Eagles. Until the game was over, no one in the stands knew that Pearl Harbor had been attacked:
“”Keep it short.”
Three little words. But freighted with news that would shake a nation.
That was the message over the telegraph wire, dot-dash, to Pat O’Brien, the Associated Press’s man in the football press box at Griffith Stadium. This was eight minutes after the opening kickoff in the Redskins-Philadelphia Eagles game.
The curt command from the downtown AP office in the Washington Evening Star building left O’Brien much annoyed. He said to me, his press box neighbor, “For five years I’ve been covering these Redskin games and now some jerk is telling me how much to write.”
To his operator, O’Brien said, “Ask ‘em who’s giving me these new orders.”
This was on a certain December day in 1941, and enlightenment came speedily in a follow-up message to O’Brien:
“The Japs have just kicked off. Pearl Harbor bombed. War now.”