Why Rick Monday saving the American flag resonates 50 years later
There are the great moments that we saw, and then there are the great moments that we feel like we saw. We’ve heard about them, we’ve seen them, we’ve talked about them so often that we feel like we’re there, even though we might not have been alive at the time.
For generations of Dodgers fans, Vin Scully was our historian, with words so memorable that we feel like we’re living those experiences, so perfect fans still repeat them today.
In 1965, for Sandy Koufax’s perfect game: “There are 29,000 people in the stadium and a million butterflies. »
In 1988, for a Kirk Gibson home run hampered in the World Series: “In such an improbable year, the impossible happened!” »
In 1990, for no-hitter Fernando Valenzuela: “If you have a sombrero, throw it to the sky!” »
On April 25, 1976, for perhaps the only time in the 67-year career of the best broadcaster in baseball history, Vin Scully didn’t really know what to say.
“There are two,” Scully said. “All right.”
Two people rushed onto the field at Dodger Stadium in the middle of the game. This wasn’t entirely unusual in the disco era. A woman nicknamed “Morganna the Kissing Bandit” jumped fences and interrupted games to snog players.
But it was something unknown. Tension was in the air. Three seconds of silence, then Scully resumed her narration, her voice flat for the first sentence, rising to disbelief in the second and exclamation in the third: “I’m not sure what he’s doing there. He looks like he’s going to burn a flag.”
“And Rick Monday comes running in and takes it away!” »
“It happened in 10 seconds,” said Dodgers historian Mark Langill. “Fifty years later, we’re still talking about it.”
It’s the play that defined an already distinguished career. On Saturday, the 50th anniversary of the day he saved the American flag, the Dodgers will pay tribute Monday before facing the Chicago Cubs – the team he played for that day in 1976.
The flag itself — presented Monday two weeks later by Dodgers general manager Al Campanis — will be on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend, as America celebrates its 250th anniversary.
Monday, who served in the Marine Corps Reserve during his major league career, used the flag to raise money for veterans and their families, but he never loaned it out for long-term display.
Rarely a day goes by without someone coming over on Monday to say thank you or shake their hand.
“It’s nothing he’s looking for,” said Charley Steiner, a Dodgers Monday broadcast partner for 22 years. “Whether we’re at Dodger Stadium or on the road somewhere, people will just come up and say hello.
“Every now and then we’ll get a ‘Follow Me to Freedom.’ »
There was nothing flashy about the rescue. Monday leaned down, grabbed the flagstick without slowing down and handed it to pitcher Doug Rau in the dugout. He returned to his position at center court, serenaded by a standing ovation.
Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ publicist at the time and later general manager, texted the scoreboard operator to display a congratulatory message: “RICK MONDAY…YOU MADE A GREAT PLAY.” »
Former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley said, “This is one of the great moments in Dodgers history.”
This moment came thanks to a guy wearing a Cubs uniform, but Monday grew up in Santa Monica and spontaneously celebrated Flag Day in America’s bicentennial year.
“Everything fell into place,” Steiner said. “The hometown kid, coming from Chicago, doing what he did at that time in American history, it was just an incredible confluence of events.
“And then, lo and behold, he becomes a Dodger. And he’s been a Dodger ever since.”
After the 1976 season, the Dodgers traded Bill Buckner to the Cubs on Monday, who played the final eight years of his career in Los Angeles. He was the first player drafted in the first-ever baseball draft in 1965, a two-time All-Star and 1981 World Series champion who is perhaps best remembered for hitting the home run that allowed the Dodgers to overtake the Montreal Expos in the 1981 National League Championship Series.
He is better remembered, except for the saving of the flag that elevated him from baseball player to hero.
“Whether you’re a casual fan or an avid fan, you know this moment if you grew up as a fan in Los Angeles,” said Hall of Fame President Josh Rawitch.
And beyond. Steiner, who that day was news director of a radio station in Hartford, Conn., said Monday’s piece immediately made headlines on the East Coast. President Ford called Monday after the game.
In 2006, the U.S. Senate formally presented him with a Proclamation of Appreciation. Two years later, President George W. Bush invited him to the White House.
Rick Monday stands near a flag he saved from fire by protesters at Dodger Stadium during a news conference on Capitol Hill June 14, 2006 in Washington. The press conference was held on Flag Day to support the proposed flag protection amendment.
(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Monday’s award-winning flag-swiping photograph, taken by James Roark of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, was hailed by Times columnist Jim Murray as “the most famous photo of its kind since the flag-raising at Iwo Jima.”
“It’s as unique a moment as there’s been in the history of American baseball,” Rawitch said, “and I think that’s probably why people are attached to it.”
Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, but this match was on the agenda. History, yes, but no surprise. It’s the same thing when Bush threw out the first pitch at a World Series game in New York after 9/11.
The father and son who invaded the field at Dodger Stadium that day have never publicly explained why they did so. But all was not well in America in 1976, in the wake of the unpopular Vietnam War and the presidential Watergate scandal, and in the grip of soaring gasoline prices amid a crisis in the Middle East.
Today we hear echoes of these three themes. In an Ipsos poll released this month, a majority of Americans said the country’s best days were behind us and that we were “dividing ourselves” as a nation.
However, 80% said veterans reflected “America’s core values,” including service and commitment to the common good. And among a list of icons that included the Statue of Liberty and the White House, respondents most often chose the American flag as the one they most closely associated with America.
Perhaps Monday and its flag can help renew a sense of national unity, borrowing from the astonishment that permeated Scully’s voice that day in 1976, once he finally understood what was happening: “I think some guy was going to set the American flag on fire. Can you imagine that?”
After all, it turned out to be a great decision. In 2022, as soon as he learned of Scully’s death, Monday listened to Scully’s call again.
