If the late Bob Kuechenberg wrote a column about his Hall of Fame chances ...
———
I’ve been gone going on four years now. Dead and buried. It wasn’t my idea at that time, but even worse is what’s happened since.
I’m forgotten.
That’s what stings. I’d like to think my name, Bob Kuechenberg, left a mark and not just on Baltimore Hall of Fame defensive end Bubba Smith, who I knocked out with a block, or Cincinnati’s All-Pro Mike Reid, who saw me in retirement and said, “Oh, my god, there’s the guy who hit me so hard I couldn’t fall over.”
Those were both on my favorite play, “34 Trap,” which became the name of my boat. I played 14 years and was a Pro Bowl guard six times. I was second-team Pro Bowl at tackle, too, when coach Don Shula needed help there. I played the most games ever for a Miami Dolphin upon retiring in 1984.
I then was named a Hall of Fame finalist eight times. You know how many of the 16 players who were eight-time finalists didn’t get elected to the Hall?
One.
Me.
That’s why I’m writing. I’m a Hall finalist again. The Veteran’s Committee votes on me Monday. None of these writers saw me play beyond my final year or two, even if I was a Pro Bowl player my final season in 1983. But don’t they talk to their old peers about why I’m an eight-time finalist? Isn’t some research what it’s all about?
I got stories, too. That’s what an offensive lineman needs to make the Hall. I had the marrow drilled out of my broken left arm and a steel rod hammered into it to make it strong enough to play Super Bowl 8.
I played OK that game, too. I held the NFL’s defensive player of the year, Alan Page, to one tackle. He became so frustrated he lost his cool in the fourth quarter and got ejected from the game.
For years, when friends visited my home on Star Island — hey, I had some style, too — I’d stir their drinks and tell the story of how I beat Page with that arm cast. I also watched film of Page for hours. I noticed he kept his left foot an inch back if he planned to rush to the inside.
“That little key helped Larry Csonka run for 145 yards that game and become the Super Bowl MVP,” I’d tell people, stirring their drinks.
I’d then hold up the stirrer.
“And this is the metal rod that was up my arm that game,” I’d say.
Hey, I was different. When they served beer on planes after games, I refused to drink from the cans. I poured mine into a pewter mug. I had standards in all things. What’d Jason Taylor, who became a Hall of Famer, say when I criticized another losing Dolphins season? That I need a, “hug and a hobby?”
He was probably right. Football was my life. I’d do anything to stay on the field. A broken arm one year. A torn shoulder another. I was getting a shot on the sideline to cover a troubled ankle when San Diego kicked the winning field goal in that epic playoff game in the 1981 season.
“Forget it, doc,” I said. “The seasons’ over.”
My career only ended in the 1984 training camp when my optic nerve frayed from ramming it against defensive linemen so many times that I got double vision.
“That’s it,” I said, walking off the field that day. “It’s over.”
Never playing again was one thing. But never getting my just due? Zach Thomas and I are the only Dolphins worthy of the Hall of Fame right now. He’ll get there.
Me? Monday is my best shot. The knock on me was the Dolphins already have two offensive linemen from those great 1970s teams in the Hall, Larry Little and Jim Langer. But Green Bay has three linemen from their great 1960s teams.
Minnesota’s great center, Mick Tingelhoff, was voted in by the veteran’s committee last year despite never having been a finalist in the regular process. Have I mentioned I was a finalist eight times?
I hate to lobby in this manner, but what else do I have to do with my time? Who else is around to do it, too?
Being dead and buried is one thing. Being forgotten is no way to go through eternity.
