Heisman: The Man behind the Trophy, John M. Heisman with Mark Schlabach (2012)

On the same day Auburn played Sewanee, an event oc­curred in Atlanta that threatened the very existence of intercollegiate football. While the University of Georgia was playing Virginia at Brisbane Park on October 30, 1897, Bulldogs FB Richard Von Gammon was seriously injured in the early part of the second half. According to a report in the Atlanta Constitution on October 31, 1897, "Gammon was in the crowd and he made a lunge at the player who had the ball. He missed his tackle and was thrown violently to the ground. He fell with a thud, and the strong, heavy men tumbled over on top of him. Some say Gammon's head hit his shoe as he almost doubled when he was thrown. Others claim his head struck the hard ground. The fearful fall stunned Gammon, and he was picked up dazed and half unconscious. He quickly commenced to vomit, and it was seen by those who ran to his assistance that he was badly hurt. He turned white and the color left his features entirely."

Richard von Gammon

According to the report, a physician was summoned from the grandstand, and the doctor "injected morphine into the injured man's chest in the hope that he could be revived and saved from the pains." Von Gammon was rushed to nearby Grady Hospital, where he died at 3:45 A.M. the next day, according to the Constitution.
News of Von Gammon's death spread throughout the South quickly. Football programs at Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Mercer voluntarily disbanded, and Auburn's team did the same on November 2, 1897. Within days, the Georgia state legislature introduced a bill that would outlaw football playing in the state. A newspaper headline from the Atlanta Journal read "DEATH KNELL OF FOOTBALL," and the Atlanta Constitution reported, "the end of football playing in Georgia seems to be in sight. Its death knell has been sounded. The arch enemies of football have turned upon it, and from all sides come bitter denunciation of the game." A Georgia state representative introduced a resolution on November 1, 1897, that "the game of football should be prohibited from all schools and colleges receiving financial aid from the state"; it passed by a vote of 91-3. Several days later, the Georgia Senate passed a bill by a 31-4 vote that prohibited "the playing of football in Georgia and to provide a penalty for the violation of the same." The Senate bill needed only the signature of Georgia governor William Y. Atkinson to become law. But then Rosalind Burns Gammon, the fallen player's mother, wrote the following letter to her local state representative:

It would be the greatest favor to the family of Von Gammon if your influence could prevent his death being used for an argument detrimental to the athletic cause and its advancement at the University. His love for his college and his interest in all manly sports, without which he deemed the highest type of manhood impossible, is well known by his classmates and friends, and it would be inexpressibly sad to have the cause he held so dear injured by his sacrifice. Grant me the right to request that my boy's death should not be used to defeat the most cherished object of his life.

After hearing of Rosalind Burns Gammon's request, Atkinson, on December 7, 1897, vetoed the bill outlawing football. Auburn reassembled its team within a few weeks, but the Tigers had already been forced to cancel the rest of their games during the 1897 season, including the Thanksgiving Day game against Georgia. Heisman later recalled: "In '97 we had a great aggregation of players; but the untimely death of one of Georgia's star players in mid season led to the cancellation of the Thanksgiving Day game; and without that we could not worry through the financial end of the work, so we also had to disband."

On December 18, 1897, representatives from the schools that were charter members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association met at a hotel in Birmingham, Alabama, to discuss ideas of how to make football less violent. Some members discussed seven-men-on-line rules and the prohibition of mass play. Heisman believed he had the answer for opening up the game of football that would put less emphasis on the line of scrimmage, where rough play and serious injuries usually occurred. Heisman didn't actually invent the forward pass, the play that would change football forever, but he ended up being its biggest proponent after witnessing a pass while scouting a game between North Carolina and Georgia on October 26, 1895, in Atlanta. The play evolved because of the desperation of North Carolina FB Joel Whitaker, who threw the ball forward to teammate George Stephens while trying to punt out of his team's end zone.

John Heisman in 1890s

Instead of punting straight into the leaping bodies of these on-rushing Georgians, he ran a few mincing steps to the right. Raising the ball to his shoulder he tossed it. Luck was with the boy. The ball was caught by a North Carolinian. Now as we today know forward passes it was not much. It traveled a few yards, and laterally as well as forward. It may have appeared to the spectators that it had been knocked from that FB's hands. At any rate that lad who caught it ran 70 yards for a touchdown! Georgia was stunned, not quite realizing what had happened there beneath North Carolina's goal. But Glenn Warner, then coaching Georgia, had not missed a moment of it. And neither had I. I had been standing not more than eight yards from North Carolina's FB. I had seen the first forward pass in football. It was illegal, of course. Already Warner was storming at the referee. But the referee had not seen the North Carolina lad, goaded to desperation, toss the ball. And he refused to recall the ball. A touchdown had been made, and a touchdown it remained. [John W. Heisman, "Fast and Loose," Collier's Weekly, October 30, 1928.]

Over the next several years, Heisman campaigned for the legalization of the forward pass, believing its inclusion would open the game up and eliminate many of the sport's serious injuries. Heisman wrote many times to Walter Camp, head of the football rules committee, about legalizing the forward pass, which was finally approved in 1906.

Edgar Martinez faced 14 eventual Hall of Fame pitchers during his 18-year major-league career, batting a combined .321 (70-for-218) against them. But competing against the best wasn't his biggest challenge.
For most of his life, Martinez has had strabis­mus, a rare eye disorder that prevents the eyes from working in tandem. It's so rare among pro­fessional baseball players that, to this day, former Seattle Mariners optometrist Dr. Doug Nikaitani is amazed that the newly elected Hall of Famer could pull it off. "It's a tribute to Ed­gar's dedication and work ethic to accomplish what he did."
A terrific two-strike hitter throughout his career, "Gar" was worked to a full count by the voting members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America before receiving an impressive 85.4% in his final year of eligibility in January, easily sur­passing the 75% requirement.
Martinez, a seven-time All-Star, began his career in 1982 as a slender, non-drafted free agent out of Dorado, Puerto Rico. He ended it in 2004 as the Triple Crown champion among designated hitters, leading everyone who played that position in career batting average, home runs and RBI.
He won the Outstanding Designated Hitter Award five times - and in his honor the award was renamed the "Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award" by former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig in 2004.
Martinez made his mark in the game while battling the eye disorder that he rarely talked about and never discussed for publication. "The problem wasn't my vision. My vision was 20-20. The problem was the muscles. My eyes just didn't work together."
It was during a routine physical examination prior to Spring Training the mid-1980s when Nikaitani noticed that the muscles behind Martinez's right eye were weaker than the muscles in his left eye. That caused the right eye to move and distort his sight, making it difficult to differentiate between fastballs and breaking balls - and at time even pick up the flight of the baseball.
A number of exercises were prescribed, including tracking tennis balls with a number of them jettisoned out of a mechanical pitching machine in the batting cage. Martinez also studied cards with colored dots on them prior to each game. But it remained an ongoing battle. "I would take more pitches just to track the ball," he recalled. "That's why I would never swing at the first pitch."
Opposing pitchers never knew. "There were times when I expected the pitcher to throw a fastball, but he would throw a breaking ball and I couldn't pick up the rotation."
The eye issue became so bad in 1999 that there were times when Martinez would lose sight of the ball altogether, causing him to worry about getting beaned and severely injured. At one point during that season, the Mariners considered putting him on the disabled list. Martinez even thought he might have to retire.
But a few days off and intensified eye exercises made it possible for Martinez to con­tinue his Hall of Fame career without going on the DL or undergoing risky eye sur­gery,something he put off until just three years ago.
What is mind-boggling is the way Martinez was able to cope with the disease and become one of the best hitters in the game for such a long time. He is one of just nine players in baseball history to have 300+ HRs, 500+ doubles, 1,000+ walks, a career batting average above .300, an on-base percentage above .400 and a slugging per­centage above .500. That list is limited to six fellow Hall of Famers - Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Chipper Jones, Stan Musial, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams as well as Todd Helton and Manny Ramirez.
Martinez became a fixture in the Mariners' lineup in 1990 - at age 27 - playing 3B. But a number of leg injuries limited him to 42 games in '93 and 89 in '94, prompting manager Lou Piniella to move him to DH prior to the 1995 season. It turned out to be one of the best moves the organization ever made, although Martinez was initially reluctant to make the switch.
That season Martinez became the first full-time DH to win a batting title, hitting a career-high .356. It came as part of a stretch from 1990-2001 that saw hit hit at least .300 in each season that he played at least 132 games. The apex was a monster 2000 campaign when he smashed a career-high 37 HRs and led the AL with 145 RBI, all while batting .324.
With Martinez remaining healthy in his new role, the Mariners made the playoffs four times between 1995 and 2001, capped by the '01 squad that won an American League-record 116 games.