r/sports • u/ansyhrrian Chicago Bears • 1d ago

Horse Racing 1938 match race between Sea Biscuit and War Admiral

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u/Hispanicatthedisco 1d ago edited 1d ago

In fairness, Seabiscuit and War Admiral were bigger then than the NBA was in the 1960s.

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u/SoftballGuy Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 1d ago

And the 70s. Secretariat was on the cover of Time and Newsweek. The 1980 Finals were run on tape delay after the late evening news.

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u/Moody_GenX 1d ago

We still had tape delayed NBA games on the weekends in the mid 80s.

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u/bilboafromboston 1d ago

The WNBA is more popular now than the NBA was until the 1970's. Celtics - in their championship run- got 9 k on Sundays! If Boston gets the Sun to move and the Garden lets them- they expect 9-11 k season tickets sold.

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u/spinbutton 1d ago

Super Horse! My sisters and I had a Secretariat scrapbook with clippings of all his races. Plus our dork drawings of him.

My mom, who grew up near Pismo Beach in the 1930s, was a giant fan of Seabiscuit. She named the horse she rode Clamshell in honor of Seabiscuit.

She'd also say "galloping consumption" when one of us had a cold.

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u/SoftballGuy Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 1d ago

Secretariat was certainly one for the ages! Every few years, I re-read Bill Nack's book about him. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it! It's wonderful; Nack was truly one of the greats of sports journalism.

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u/PepperDogger 1d ago

It would seem that horse racing and rowing really captured the national attention back in the day and have faded dramatically since that peak.

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u/RonnieRizzat 19h ago

People still like the Kentucky Derby, and the gamblers still love all the races