June 07, 2009 02:14 am
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There used to be a television program on called “Fact or Fiction.”
They would show a story, most of the time an outlandish one and, when it was over, the viewer was asked if the story was fact or fiction. It was often a hard call to make and sometimes you were very surprised.
I’ve many times likened the premise of “Fact or Fiction” to some of our sports heroes. Like the giant fish tale, sometimes the stories get bigger (better?) with time.
That’s even more true for local sports legends, whose stories have been told so many times — most of the time not even by them — that they become bigger than life, if sometimes at least stretching the truth.
When interviewing Bobby Lynch, this summer’s Elks Sports Day honoree about a week ago, there were a few things I’d heard that I wanted to get correct with him.
I’ll tell the stories, you decide if they are “Fact or Fiction.”
1.Bobby Lynch once threw a baseball from home plate onto Carter Avenue at Central Park’s main diamond.
“We were playing softball, a few years after I was back from college,” Lynch said. “For whatever reason, after one of the games, somebody asked me if I thought I could throw a ball from home plate over the fence. I said ‘Yeah, I think I could probably do that.’ The first one I threw over the fence, through the trees, and it bounced off the street into the yard (across the street). The second one I threw to Tim Huff, who was standing on the other side of the fence in center field.”
Fact.
2. Bobby Lynch outdueled Don Gullett 1-0 in the famous regional tournament championship game at Central Park.
“I get credit for that one all the time, but it wasn’t me,” Lynch said. “I was in Tuscaloosa when that game was played. That was all Timmy (Huff).”
It was Huff who outdueled Gullett in the regional tournament semifinals in Morehead. It came during the 1969 season, a year after Lynch had graduated from Ashland and was going to college at Alabama. He was nowhere near Ashland or Morehead.
Fiction.
3.On a trip to Eau Claire, Wis., to play in a national-level Babe Ruth All-Star tournament, the team bus twice left players behind and had to go back and pick them up.
Back then, there was only one age-level Babe Ruth All-Star team and Lynch had made the 13-15 year-old team as a 13-year-old. Ashland lost twice and began making the long drive home.
“Coming back, we stopped at a restaurant built over the highway real early, at like 6 in the morning, for breakfast,” Lynch said. “We all piled back in the bus and didn’t take a head count. It was like ‘Everybody here?’ ‘Yeah, we’re all here. Let’s go!’”
But when the bus got a mile down the road, the players noticed Duke Morrison wasn’t with them.
“Duke was one of those guys who was shaving when he was 10 or 11,” Lynch said. “He had a 5 o’clock shadow when he pitched in Little League, and he could throw it hard, too. But Duke never grew any after that time.”
The bus driver pulled over in the emergency lane and backed the bus down the highway and nearly in the same parking place he had left, Lynch said.
“Duke comes out of the restaurant with his shaving kit,” Lynch said. “He’s wiping his face, getting on the bus, and everybody is laughing. He’s like ‘What’s the matter?’ Then we told him the story.”
At another spot, the team stopped for gas and another of the players, Bobby Stanley, was left behind. “Bobby was a quiet guy and nobody had missed him,” Lynch said.
Then all of a sudden, the players look out the window and Stanley was leaning out of a car window waving and screaming, telling the bus to pull over.
“Bobby swears he doesn’t remember this, but it happened,” Lynch said. “He was so mad. He was a red-headed kid. He just sat down and crossed his arms over.”
Fact.
4.When Bobby Lynch played softball in the outfield with his brother Bill, one of the hardest-throwing left-handers in Ashland history, he often had to make the throw in for him.
“Jim Speaks used to play in the outfield with us and Jim couldn’t throw it anymore either,” Lynch said. “Whenever the ball was hit, if it was hit over their heads, I would run halfway between where they were and the infield. Both of their arms were just done.”
Fact.
5.Bobby Lynch also played baseball at Alabama.
As a freshman, he stepped onto the baseball field for one season and finished 3-3. He said his first game came against LSU.
“I got started off late,” he said. “I was home one day my freshman year because during spring break I was playing baseball. I stayed at Bryant Hall and it was for basketball and football players. I was the only athlete in Bryant Hall (that spring).”
Lynch was also in love with soon-to-be wife Jo Etta, who was attending Anderson College in Indiana.
“I didn’t play (baseball) after my freshman season,” he said.
Fact.
6.Bobby Lynch started all three (varsity) years at Alabama.
During his senior season, Lynch lost his starting position and never regained it although he was still a co-captain for coach C.M. Newton. The talent level changed while he was at Bama, although he averaged 10 points per game both as a sophomore and junior starting guard.
Lynch was at school when Alabama signed its first black scholarship player, Wendall Hudson
“It just didn’t seem like it was that earth-shattering at the time,” Lynch said. “We played against black players all the time, so that wasn’t a big deal. I don’t know if that was part of C.M.’s plan to bring in players familiar with playing with or against them. Wendell Hudson was a fantastic guy.”
Fiction.
7.Bobby Lynch had his best college game against Kentucky.
Lynch scored 34 points on the Wildcats, who were ranked No. 2 in the country at the time. The Tide lost 86-71 but Lynch was on fire, making 14-of-26 shots in Memorial Coliseum.
“Jim Fannin, who is the Sports Day speaker, talks about being in the zone,” Lynch said. “I was in the zone. I did not have very many games in the zone but that was one of them. I actually have it on disk. The first half I shot three or four air balls. All my kids looked at it and said ‘You must have had a good second half.’ Actually, I did.”
The 34 points was his high-point game at Alabama, although he usually played well against Kentucky. He scored 14 and 16 in two other games against the Wildcats.
Fact.
8.Bobby Lynch guarded Pete Maravich not once but twice in his college career.
Lynch was part of the “defense” that held the high-scoring Maravich to an NCAA record 69 points in one meeting, which Alabama won. Earlier in his career, Maravich had 55 points against the Crimson Tide’s defense, which Lynch was part of as well.
“The amazing part about Maravich was the fact that he never stopped and he always had the ball,” Lynch said. “His ballhandling skills were off the charts. His body-type was perfectly suited, long arms and long legs.”
Lynch was stunned when learning about Maravich’s death from a heart defect.
Lynch said Maravich’s game when he scored 69 came in Alabama before a full house, which was unusual for basketball. “Him coming to town made it like a football ticket — they were hard to come by,” he said.
Fact.
Hopefully these “Fact or Fiction” stories give you a better idea of who Bobby Lynch is and what a truly worthy Sports Day honoree he is as well.
Fact.
MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.
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