Raider Fans and Howie Long HOF induction (1 Viewer)

[Jackal King]

Bradshaw just said he was glad the Raiders were struggling because of the way they treated Howie Long at his Hall of Fame induction.

I guess I missed it. What was the deal?

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

Long says claim 'out of left field'Hall of Fame defensive end Howie Long said he was befuddled by the auction of what is described as a game-used jersey of his with "metal pebbles" sewn underneath the jersey numbers.

After being alerted about the auction and reading the description, Long said the idea that he had something under his numbers was "so out of left field. It's just bizarre."

The auction house, Heritage Auctions, in its description of a jersey that will be sold at 11 p.m. ET Friday, wrote that Long or the Raiders could have customized the jersey "to rough up the fingers of opposing offensive linemen."

"We will suggest that Howie Long may have broke the rules a bit in this instance," the description read.

"It's just all so ridiculous," Long responded, adding skepticism to the story and the alleged custom tailoring by asking why, if something was sharp under the jersey, the jersey itself wasn't torn.

"I've authenticated more than 10,000 jerseys, and I've never seen anything like this," said Troy Kinunen, president, chief executive and lead authenticator for Mears, a bat and jersey authentication company that backed the validity of the jersey.

The auction company says the jersey, believed to have been worn during Long's rookie season in 1981, is from the collection of the late John Kindler. Kindler, whose son Ian consigned the jerseys for the auction, obtained them from the 1970s and '80s by befriending equipment managers as well as team and school officials.

Kinunen said his company is confident that not only is this Long's jersey and that it was game-used, but the wear suggests that it was used for at least one season. Kinunen also said that the company made sure that 75 was the only number ever sewn into that particular jersey, as forgers frequently try to take random jerseys from a time period and replace the number with the number of the most valuable player. Kinunen also said the jersey showed no sign of after-the-fact tampering, that the insertion of the objects was part of the original fabrication of the jersey by the equipment managers.

The Raiders did not make Bob Romanski, the current equipment manager who was working under his father, ****, at the time with the team, available for comment.

As of 2 p.m. ET Friday, the top bid for the Long jersey was $3,000.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11837140/howie-long-says-notion-metal-pebbles-were-sewn-jersey-bizarre

 

[Fariq]

This guy was a bigger cheater than Barroid.

 

[Stompin' Tom Connors]

1) Not sure what a doctored jersey auction has to do with an HOF induction, am I missing something here? I think I do remember people booing Al Davis, which is ridiculous.

2) "that the insertion of the objects was part of the original fabrication of the jersey by the equipment managers." This threw the whole story out the window for me. If you are trying to sell me on the idea that these pebbles were sewn in by some equipment manager onsite at the factory, or some 10 year old Indonesian boy at the plant during the actual manufacturing of the jersey, I ain't buying it.

3) @ Fariq -- c'mon man. You can troll less obviously than that. And much smarter, too.

I mean, if you are going to bring up steroids, why even go out of the NFL when you have guys like Cushing expanding like Bruce Banner with an itch he can't scratch, and then winning the ROY -- after testing positive for steroids. Shawn Merriman anyone? Forgetting just about roids, you couldn't take more time to make a more clever football connection to, I don't know, Belichick?

You were too lazy to even compare him to another Raider like Biletnikoff, whose hands literally dripped stickum?

Poor showing, chap. I expect better leading into a football weekend.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

1) Not sure what a doctored jersey auction has to do with an HOF induction, am I missing something here? I think I do remember people booing Al Davis, which is ridiculous.

2) "that the insertion of the objects was part of the original fabrication of the jersey by the equipment managers." This threw the whole story out the window for me. If you are trying to sell me on the idea that these pebbles were sewn in by some equipment manager onsite at the factory, or some 10 year old Indonesian boy at the plant during the actual manufacturing of the jersey, I ain't buying it.

...

Well it ain't easy finding a Howie Long thread. Though whether he pulled tricks on the way to a HOF career is related I think.

Also, I think what they were saying is the Raiders' equipment manager put these "metal pebbles" in for Howie or at his request to give him an advantage, that is that they weren't put in there by the factory (duh) or later by some collector.

Sounds kind of true to me, but just out of curiosity, what would have been the advantage to this for Long? The rules were different then so maybe o-linemen were jabbing their fists into the chest or maybe grabbing the jersey, so maybe sharp pebbles kept the linemen from blocking or holding?

Also seems like it would have ripped the jersey eventually. Odd story.

 

[BustedKnuckles]

My man from MILFORD ,MA

 

[Boston]

Isn't something like this part of what the Raiders were all about..."just win baby"...doesn't bother me either if it's true...guys were always trying to get an edge and the issue now with many fans is it seems to be gamesmanship if their guy does it and cheating if another team does it...