It's this day in sports history and as I say a lot at the beginning of this podcast.

I am a member of the Sports History Network and you can find more info and more podcasts@sportshistorynetwork.com but this podcast is also independently produced by me, Steve White, Thrive Suite, my one man production company is just an anagram of my name.

I research, write, voice, produce and compose the music for each episode.

There is no AI involved in that process.

It's just so what do I have for you today?

Well, it is November 16th and on this day in 1975, it was Mel Gray's Phantom touchdown.

I get it.

I'm a fan just like you are and I want every call to go my way.

Video review is great if it's making sure the other team did not get some kind of an unfair advantage or something was missed, that one of 25 cameras covering the game did not.

But there's also something nostalgic about the old days when it wasn't all about technology, when good old fashioned human error was involved and sure things were missed.

But we wouldn't have the Immaculate Reception or the Holy Roller or a lot of plays I'm going to talk about in the next few days.

Or this play that happened on this day in 1975 when the St.

Louis Cardinal football team was playing the Washington Redskins.

And yeah, if you're a Washington fan, you hate how this play turned out.

The Cardinals were down 7, but they had the ball and they drove it into the red zone.

It was fourth and goal at the seven with 25 seconds remaining.

Cardinals quarterback Jim Hart dropped straight back and he targeted his favorite receiver, Mel Gray, with the football right at the goal line.

Gray appeared to catch the ball, but then Redskin linebacker Pat Fischer stuck a right hand in and stripped the ball away as Gray fell to the turf.

The ball popped free and landed on the ground.

One official signaled touchdown.

Another called it incomplete.

Now there was a full moon in the St.

Louis sky that night and there may have been a little voodoo in the air as well.

All the officials huddled and discussed the play and of course without the benefit of video replay and after about 30 seconds the head referee signaled touchdown and after the Pat, the game was tied and headed to overtime.

Watching the video, Gray did catch it, but he didn't control it.

The ball came flying out and I have to believe that play would take about two seconds to overturn in today's NFL.

The Cardinals kicked the game winning field goal in overtime to win 2017 and they would go on to win the NFC east by a game over the Dallas Cowboys that season.

On this day in 1957, the Oklahoma Sooners lost for the first time in four years.

And unlike this year's version of The Sooners, the 1950s Sooners were nearly unbeatable.

They won their final nine games in 1953, went undefeated in 54, 55 and 56, and had won their first seven games here in the 57 season.

Coming into this one with Notre dame, they were 18 point favorites after consecutive losses to Navy and Michigan State.

The Irish were not exactly posing as a team ready to beat the Sooners, but there had been a little history.

The last team to beat Oklahoma before they started their consecutive win streak had been Notre dame back in 53.

Also before the Madden curse, there was the Sports Illustrated curse.

The current edition of Sports Illustrated, available at newsstands all over the country, blared the headline why Oklahoma is Unbeatable on the COVID The game was scoreless deep into the fourth quarter, Notre Dame started a long methodical drive at their own 20.

After a Bob Williams to Dick Royer completion for 10 yards and a Dick lynch eight yard run, the Irish faced a fourth and goal from the sooner three.

Instead of opting for the field goal, Notre Dame went for it.

The Sooners were expecting the fullback to get the call and so they stacked the line in anticipation.

But the Irish ran option, they faked it to the fullback and Williams pitched it to lynch who found the end and scored the touchdown with 3 minutes 50 seconds to play.

The Notre Dame defense, which only allowed 145 total yards that day, held up in the final minutes preserving the 7 nothing win with an interception at the goal line to snap Oklahoma's 47 game winning streak.

Notre Dame also snapped the Sooners 123 game scoring streak and both of those are still the all time collegiate records.

The loss cost Oklahoma the shot at their third straight national championship, ending the year ranked fourth in both polls.

How about this weird story from last year when the Philadelphia Eagles released a player that had not played for them for 29 years?

Bernard Williams was a first round pick for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1994.

He started all 16 games as an offensive tackle for Philly as a rookie and he was named to the all rookie team.

In July of 1995.

Williams was suspended six games after testing positive for marijuana.

In October he tested positive again and he was suspended for the remainder of the year.

He stayed on the suspended list, never applying for reinstatements to the league.

He played in the Canadian Football League along with the XFL and the Arena League before retiring from the game in 2006, but he remained on the Eagles suspended list.

The 51 year old Williams was finally removed from that list on this date last year when league officials made a push to remove old players from several reserve lists.

Speaking of unusual things happening In Philly, in 2008, the Eagles and Cincinnati Bengals played to a 1313 time.

Now that's not that unusual, even if it was the first tie in the NFL in six years.

Now what made this a bit out of the ordinary is that Philadelphia quarterback Donovan McNabb did not know that ties were a thing in the NFL.

By the end of regulation, the 18 Bengals and the 54 Eagles were tied at 13.

While Cincinnati had no shot at the playoffs, the Eagles were still in the hunt for a wild card spot.

The teams went back and forth in the overtime period, but neither team could find the end zone or even get close enough to kick a field goal.

Cincy's Shane Graham missed a 47 yarder at the end of the OT that would have won it.

McNabb was a little confused as the teams walked off the field and headed to the locker room.

He admitted in post game interviews that he was completely ignorant of the overtime rule that had been in place since 1974, saying, I've never been part of a tie.

I never even knew it was in the rule book.

I was looking forward to getting the opportunity to get out there and try to drive to win the game, but unfortunately with the rules we settled with a tie that did not quite sit well with Philly folks, both fans and media.

He was asked about it over and over and did that mean that McNabb lacked a sense of urgency in the OT at the time, the tie looked bad, dropping the Eagles into last place in the NFC east, but in the end, the tie didn't hurt them.

Philly won four of their last five games, including a blowout of Dallas in the final week to secure the wild card spot, and they went all the way to the NFC Championship Game before a loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

And on this day in 1982, the longest strike in NFL history came to an end.

The players decided to strike after the conclusion of Week 2 games.

When Green Bay beat the New York Giants on Monday night football on September 20, the players decided to strike after the conclusion of Week 2 games.

When Green Bay beat the New York Giants on Monday night football on September 20, the players were officially on strike.

It lasted for 57 days, eight weeks without football on Sundays?

Well, almost no football.

The NFL Players association actually staged 2 AFC NFC All Star games during the strike.

Those showcases were certainly not what fans wanted.

The game in Washington only drew 8,700 fans and the west coast game in Los Angeles drew only 5,300.

Washington running back John Riggins played in both of the exhibitions and he said, I guess I'll do just about anything for money.

Without games to show on Sundays, CBS resorted to showing replays of the previous super bowl, and they even sent Pat Summerall and John Madden to cover a Division 3 rivalry game between Wittenberg and Baldwin Wallace.

NBC paid for the rights to show Canadian Football League games.

The cancellation of a total of 112 NFL games ended up costing the league $240 million.

The strike ended when the players revolted against their own union leadership and came to terms on a new five year deal that, when it ended in 87, resulted in another strike.

The 82 season was shortened to nine games and a 16 team playoff schedule and time now for Today's Nothing to Do With Sports.

Did you know, and this is sort of a long one, so hang in there with me just a little bit longer.

But did you know that that yellow or orange cheese that you purchase at the grocery store is artificially colored to be that way?

This actually goes back to the 1600s when dairy farmers started skimming off milk fat to make butter.

The milk fat had most of the beta carotene that the cow or the goat or the sheep consumed when eating green grass, and that's why butter is yellow.

The resulting cheese was white, but cheese buyers preferred the yellow or orange color, so dairies began artificially coloring cheese with saffron or marigold.

That made cheese more expensive.

When annatto was discovered in South America and began to be exported to Europe.

That was then used to turn white cheese into its orange hue that we have today.

Annatto is still used to color that block of cheddar and can also be found in other products like that's gonna do it for me today.

Thanks for stopping by.

Come on back tomorrow for another edition of this Day in Sports History.

This has been an original Thrive Suite production.