Thursday, October 8, 2009

The Toronto Star's McSorley shiner photo

The fight is an instant classic. Clark connects early with one of the hardest punches in hockey history. McSorley, to his credit, absorbs the shot and stays on his feet, although the punch decimated half of his face as captured in a memorable front page photo the next day...

This wasn't the first time I'd mentioned the classic McSorley photo, and it wouldn't be last. Commenters recalled it fondly. It seemed like everyone remembered that famous shot of McSorley's grotesquely swollen eye, courtesy of Wendel Clark's fist.

But nobody could find it. And memories were hazy: was it from the Star? The Sun? A Google image search came up empty. Several readers even reported searching through various newspaper archives with no luck.

Thanks to a determined DGB reader, we finally have a copy. It's grainy, black-and-white, and maybe a little crooked, but we've found it.

Here's the Toronto Star sport section's front page from May 19, 1993:

McSorley black eye

Besides the photo itself, the entire section is a gold mine of classic coverage, including:
  • Cliff Fletcher doing his best Brian Burke impression. For example: "All I'm saying is (McSorley) may try (going after Gilmour), but it won't happen again". When asked to clarify, Fletcher responds: "Ever play in the NHL? Go ask someone who has."

  • The always-classy Barry Melrose mocking Pat Burns: "I could have said 'Have another donut'. If Pat could see himself on film, he would howl."

  • Burns responding by referring to Melrose as "Billy Ray Cyrus".

  • Melrose throwing a mini-tantrum at reporters for pointing out that the Leafs had outshot the Kings 22-1 in the third period of game one, leading reporter Chris Young to speculate that Melrose wanted to talk about "more important stuff, like his hair."

  • A Rosie DiManno piece headlined "Brawny Baumgartner is brainy too" which reads pretty much exactly like you probably think it does.

  • Various other pieces of nostalgia, such as the weekly Starball standings, Bob McCown's "Vegas Line", and an ad offering a "store manager's special" of a desktop computer with a mighty 4MB of RAM and two floppy drives for the low price of $1,899.
So there you have it. And remember kids: do not make Wendel Clark angry.




28 comments:

  1. Classic all around. Kudos to whoever found that article.

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  2. This is awesome, one of my favorite moments in Leafs history!

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  3. effing beautiful.

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  4. This is indeed a great find. Didn't the Toronto Sun run the same photo on their front page with a headline of "McsOWrly!" or "McSOARly!" or something? Also, gotta love "Baumgartner Awaits Orders". Are you sure the Leafs didn't win the cup that year and I'm just remember it wrong? Please tell me I am...

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  6. My favorite quote about McSorley comes from that game. Pat Burns was asked during the post-game presser about McSorley's elbow on Doug Gilmour, and here's what he had to say:

    "If Ken Baumgartner did that to Wayne Gretzky, we would have been hung on Parliament Hill."

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  7. Beautiful work, DGB.

    Now that your life's ambition has been fulfilled, what will you do now?

    ;)

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  8. i don't know if this is good or bad, but i think if the leafs finally do win the cup, it still won't be as special as the 93 team was

    FU kerry fraser...you ruined the natural course of history

    everything has been downhill since...increased world hunger, terrorism, 3 point hockey games, etc

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  9. Now that your life's ambition has been fulfilled, what will you do now?

    Oh, there's lots of work left to do. I still haven't identified Pinky Finger, had a chance to confront Kerry Fraser, or attended Chris Durno's Maple Leaf contract signing.

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  10. 4 MB of RAM. That's fast. That's super fast. That's Jason Allison fast.

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  11. This was 7 days after i was born
    Am i Truculent?

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  12. You know DGB, if you ever want some more newspapers articles involving the Leafs I could spend sometime in the library looking through microfilm for you.

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  13. @clawson...

    I've actually got a ton of this stuff laying around somewhere. I used to save the Star's sports section whenever something interesting happened. Some day I'll crack open the vault and dig through.

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  14. I'm assuming that this was originally colour. I totally remember that they purposely didn't add in the 'red eye reduction' treatment so the swollen eye was a blood red hole.

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  15. In my basement back home, I have a stick signed by Wendel Clark that I won in a hockey tournament.

    I feel like I should put it on eBay to gouge a Leafs fan.

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  16. If you combined the best parts of Colton Orr, Garnet Exelby and Phil Kessel, you would have Wendel Clark.

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  17. And if you combined the worst parts you'd get Kyle Wellwood.

    Nice work man, I've been waiting for this for a long, long time.

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  18. Burns responding by referring to Melrose as "Billy Ray Cyrus".
    Classic

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  19. You'd have to combine the worst parts of a lot of players to create Kyle Wellwood, that takes a lot of beef.

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  20. LETS GO RANGERS@@@@@@@@@@@@@ 7-2@#@#@#@#@#

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  21. Come on DGB.....0-5-1 start I am going to need a post very soon. Something to make me laugh instead of cry. My fiance is starting to think I have a sensative side.

    The transcript of Burke talking to Chiarelli about how he was only F*cking around with that trade and would like to take it back or something........

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  22. I know, the people need a post!!!

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  23. Hey guys...

    Sorry, have a few things going on right now that are making it difficult to write. Will try to get something out today or tomorrow.

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  24. Can anyone please post a new link to the picture? Never seen this before and the link is down.

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  25. @Chris...

    Ugh, imageshack is junk. The photo will probably be back soon, if not I'll repost somewhere else.

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