Name: Art Donovan On His Dirty Style Of Football | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-09-08T22:32:35.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Art Donovan On His Dirty Style Of Football | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-09-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Art Donovan On His Dirty Style Of Football | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-09-08. Transcript available.

You know, immediately after the Super Bowl, it's not always an easy task to get
players from the game to appear on shows like this.
Most of the players, of course, are either still in California or in no
condition to appear on television.
So, to comment on Sunday's game and to talk about football in general, please
welcome one of the stars of the Baltimore Colts between the years 1950-1962, Mr.
Art Donovan, ladies and gentlemen.
What's the matter? Tell me, what position did you play for the Colts?
I was a defensive left tackle.
Uh-huh. And were you a pretty good ball player?
I don't know. Some of the people I played against thought I was lousy and
others thought I was good.
And the newspaper people, they said you were good and bad.
So, I think the only way you can really judge how good you were or how bad you
were is by your peers.
Uh-huh.
If you meet fellas and they say, well, you were a good one, then you say, okay,
thank you very much.
Yeah.
If they say lousy, I say, you don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah. How long were you in the NFL? Was this all in?
13 years.
Yeah. And all with the Colts?
Yes.
Yeah. Now, you saw the game yesterday.
Yes, I did.
And I guess the winning team, they each got $36,000 apiece.
Right.
Yeah. Now, how does that compare with the kind of money you were making?
After 13 years, my best salary was $22,000.
I started off in 1940, 1950 as a rookie, and I was making $4,500.
But there was a fellow from Muhlenberg College that played with me, and he
played both ways in 50, and he made $4,000.
So I thought I was doing very well.
Yeah.
Boy. Now, do you have any kind of feeling that maybe the football that you were
playing then or the football players you were playing with and against were
tougher than the guys playing today?
It was a different kind of a game. When I started, you were a sissy if you wore
a face mask.
Yeah.
And then after, because of my face, you didn't have to worry about, you know.
He had a good-looking face.
Well, thank you. Thank you, David. I don't know. I think you better get your
eyes examined.
No, no.
Well, anyhow, I got kicked in the face, and I got 56 stitches down here, and
then I got under here, and I lost a few teeth.
Yeah.
And so I put the mask on. I said, to hell with them. If they think I'm a sissy,
I'm a sissy.
Yeah.
So then everybody's got a mask on now, and now you can't even get your fingers
in there anymore.
Which we would never do in those days, no.
No, no. What? Now, you played both the offense and defense?
No, no. Just defense.
Just defense.
Now, did you ever do anything dirty or untoward?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And what kind of stuff? What was your skill or strategy?
My skill was, I guess, trying to get to the guy's eyes, you know.
Do a lot of little things. Like, we had a fellow named Bill Pellington, who was
a linebacker,
and a guy was blocking on us named Bob Sinclair from the 49ers, and we knocked
him down,
and Pellington says to me, okay, kick him now, kick him. You got your chance.
So I started to kick him. He said, what are you doing? I'm just trying to make
a living like you are.
Yeah.
So things like that went on all the time.
Yeah.
But you were played in the Pro Bowl several years, didn't you?
Yeah, I played five years in the Pro Bowl game, and I played on two
championship teams,
the 58 and 59 Cole football team, which I guess some of the Packers would say
that they were a better football team.
But I believe that the 57, 8 and 9 Baltimore Colt team maybe was the greatest
football team ever assembled.
Sure.
Thank you.
Somebody's from Baltimore here.
You knew Bobby Lane. You played with Bobby Lane?
Very well. I played with him, and I drank with him.
Yeah.
Now, he has that reputation as a guy who enjoyed drinking. I don't know if he
was, like, before the games or just for recreation.
Well, I would swear to the Almighty that a couple of times, on the way out of
the stadium, past him for the second half,
I figured maybe he had a few shots at halftime.
Oh, really?
I said, Bobby, are you a little? He says, well, I've got to sort of straighten
up.
Yeah.
Now, did you ever drink during a game, Art?
Oh, no. Not no, no. Heavens no. After, yes.
After, yeah.
But you would never go in the locker at halftime and maybe just get the courage
up?
Oh, no. We used to, right before the game started, the coach would give you the,
you know, the old pep talk.
Yeah.
And he'd say, okay, if you're not afraid, let's go.
Yeah.
So they'd push you out the door.
Yeah. Well, we had a coach, Reeve Eubanks, and he said we had to win this game.
And he went off about 10 minutes. Tell him what we had to do.
We had to punch and scrape and scratch and bite and kick.
And he said, let's go. He said, but for God's sake, be careful.
How many championship games did you play?
Just two.
Just two.
And this is what Art looked like when he was suited up.
This is a pretty, there you go.
Yep. That man means business.
What, you mentioned, I mentioned Bobby Lane, and you also, did you room with
Don Shuler?
Yeah, Shuler and I and a fellow named Bill Pellington and Marchetti, we had a,
we bought a home before we got married.
Not us together, you know.
We did get married to girls.
And in 1955, Shuler was a defensive back for us.
Now, he always seems like a pretty straight, even keel, normal kind of guy.
But he isn't.
No, none of us really are.
I can't tell a lot of stories on him because he'll, he'd sue me.
He, that's the type of guy he is.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
Shuler, you know, Shuler down in Miami, he walks on water.
Oh, they love him, yeah.
But yesterday, he missed a rock somewhere.
Yeah.
Well, anyhow, we're playing the Rams in Baltimore in 1955, and he was covering
Tom Fierce, who was a great ender in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was holding Fierce, and Fierce told him, Shuler, don't hold me.
About two plays later, Shuler held him again.
Dan Fierce didn't hit him in a shot with an elbow, and he broke Don's jaw.
So now, Shuler's out for the rest of the year.
And the first day he gets back from the hospital, Pellington and I, Marquette,
he, we said, well, we'll stay in and babysit him for the night.
We'll cook him his dinner.
All we could do was fry eggs real loose, you know.
He couldn't eat anything, so we got him a straw and a glass, you know, and
everything.
There's a guy who's 250, 270 pounds.
We're cooking dinner for him, the eggs, and we go to give him the eggs.
And Shuler goes, yeah, stupid.
So what's wrong?
He said, you didn't scramble him loose enough.
So go and cook your own meals, Shuler.
That's the type of guy he was.
He didn't like anything.
Yeah.
The best story about Shuler is one of his assistants' name is Carl Tassif.
He's down there with him now.
He played with us with the Colts.
And we're out playing Green Bay and Milwaukee, and, you know, getting on the
plane, they say,
who is your roommate?
You know, Spinney Donovan, okay.
They say, Shuler.
Nobody answers, no Tassif.
Here comes a cab up to the airport.
Shuler jumps out, and he's got a cab he's had on.
And in the back is Carl Tassif, and he's got a package on now.
Shuler opens the door, and Tassif paid him the fare.
Then he got on the plane.
Now, where they got the taxi from, I don't know.
You mean, you mean these guys?
He stole the cab.
Stole the taxi cab.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Boy, oh, boy.
Oh, beauty.
Did you guys go to a lot of parties together, or?
Oh, that's what made it so good.
We were always partying.
I mean, and what were those events like, Art?
Uh, um, just drinking, you know.
I can't, you know, we had a lot of good, clean fun.
Yeah.
You know.
Like some guys falling out the window or something like that.
Yeah, but they didn't really get hurt, you know, 280 pounds.
Yeah.
I think the best start is playing the Rams out on the coast.
Now, that must have been excitement for a team from the East Coast to go out to
the West Coast where it was warm and sunny.
It was warm, it was like 105 degrees on the, on the Coliseum floor, you know,
it's halfway down in the ground, anyhow.
And I had a weight problem.
I had to weigh in 275 every Friday.
So, I weighed 278, and we, Buebanks, who was our coach, fined me $2,000.
So, he said, but right before the game, if you guys, if you win, he says, I'll
talk to you about your money,
and I'll maybe give you the $2,000 bonus back.
Well, in the second half, we bust the game wide open.
They put a new quarterback in the Rams.
I said, well, thank God, he's going to run the clock out, and everything's
going to be okay.
This guy gets the ball, he starts running all over the field, throwing 80-yard
passes, and we're trying to catch him.
And I'm screaming at him, and I couldn't court him if he was on his knees.
That's how tired I was.
So, finally, I went in the Rams' huddle.
And I said to the quarterback, look, you stupid jerk, you can't win, run the
clock out.
And he looked at me and said, drop dead.
And I don't know what to say to him.
From our side, comes Bracey, who's our defensive end.
And he hollers, Fatso, you're in the wrong huddle.
And we got penalized five yards for me being offside.
It's like poetry, Fatso, you're in the wrong huddle.
Now, Art, tell me about Y.A. Tittle.
You played, was he always with the Giants?
No, no, he was with the Colts when I started.
He was a quarterback with the Colts.
Then he went out with the 49ers, then he came to the Giants.
Now, Tittle, you know, I have some stories.
In fact, one time, he was the only guy making any money on the team at 50.
And he and his wife invited us over for chicken dinner.
And we said, swell, but he said, you have to bring your own chicken.
They told me Tittle was tighter than a clam with lockjaw.
That's how he, he just didn't spend any money at all.
And Van Brocklin, he was a quarterback with the Rams.
And we played him one time, and they have these sophisticated defenses,
like they tell you about on television now, you know, what you do.
Sure.
So when they had to come out, we were strong left.
And Szymanski, who was the linebacker, he hollered to me, move.
And I moved, you see.
And I said, well, he's wrong.
I said, you move, and I moved back again.
So after four moves, Van Brocklin, he called timeout.
He said, now how the hell do you expect me to run a play against you guys,
and you don't even know how to line up yourself?
So, we really did foul him up pretty good.
And what about the, what did I, was talking about this afternoon,
you and Y.A. Tittle and a shower?
Well, there were about five of us.
We were staying at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and we didn't, at those days,
It's kind of a dump, isn't it, that place?
Oh, what a place.
They had a shade brush for $1,200, more than we were making.
Yeah.
So anyhow, we asked the guy if we could go swimming.
He says, yeah, if you have your bathing suit, sure.
You have members of the hotel, we didn't have any bathing suits.
So we asked him if we could go in after hours, you know, nude, just go for a
swim.
So he said, you can't do that.
But in the room, we had a big, big, a big bath, big shower store.
It must have been eight feet long, about six foot high.
So three of them got in the shower store, and we filled the water, the tub up
with water.
Then the third guy, he went over the top.
And we're in there, and we're having a great time swimming.
And somebody hit the latch, ba-da-boom, here goes all the water.
It costs us $3,000 to have the place fixed.
That's why Tittle doesn't speak to me.
He had to pay the bill.
Quickly, what did you think of the game yesterday?
Good game.
I won $5, too, like the young fella did.
I bet on Washington just because I thought Washington had a bigger, stronger
offensive line than the Dolphins' defense.
And they really deserved to win.
They made a believer out of me.
They've got a good football team.
Art, before you go, tell us what you're doing now.
You're no longer affiliated with football, right?
I'm making money.
I'm finally, after 58 years, making a little bit of money.
Good for you, Art.
How are you doing that?
My wife and I, we own a country club in Baltimore.
She and I own it and operate it.
And I have a package goods store, and it's on a fringe neighborhood.
And I think I'm going to get out of that pretty soon.
Because the other day, a guy came in, and he took out a billiard carrier, but
he had a shotgun in.
And I looked at the barrel of the shotgun, and it looked like you were looking
at the Lincoln Tunnel.
And I said, that's the end of my store career.
So you own a liquor store and a country club?
Yeah, right, right, right.
You don't look like a country club kind of guy, you know?
Well, how would you think you would look if you grew up in front of Mr. Goldberg's
candy store in the Bronx, just like I am?
Well, you've done a fine job.
Nice meeting you.
Art Donovan, ladies and gentlemen.
We'll be right back with Cornelia Guest.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you.

Art Donovan On His Dirty Style Of Football | Letterman

You know, immediately after the Super Bowl, it's not always an easy task to get
players from the game to appear on shows like this.
Most of the players, of course, are either still in California or in no
condition to appear on television.
So, to comment on Sunday's game and to talk about football in general, please
welcome one of the stars of the Baltimore Colts between the years 1950-1962, Mr.
Art Donovan, ladies and gentlemen.
What's the matter? Tell me, what position did you play for the Colts?
I was a defensive left tackle.
Uh-huh. And were you a pretty good ball player?
I don't know. Some of the people I played against thought I was lousy and
others thought I was good.
And the newspaper people, they said you were good and bad.
So, I think the only way you can really judge how good you were or how bad you
were is by your peers.
Uh-huh.
If you meet fellas and they say, well, you were a good one, then you say, okay,
thank you very much.
Yeah.
If they say lousy, I say, you don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah. How long were you in the NFL? Was this all in?
13 years.
Yeah. And all with the Colts?
Yes.
Yeah. Now, you saw the game yesterday.
Yes, I did.
And I guess the winning team, they each got $36,000 apiece.
Right.
Yeah. Now, how does that compare with the kind of money you were making?
After 13 years, my best salary was $22,000.
I started off in 1940, 1950 as a rookie, and I was making $4,500.
But there was a fellow from Muhlenberg College that played with me, and he
played both ways in 50, and he made $4,000.
So I thought I was doing very well.
Yeah.
Boy. Now, do you have any kind of feeling that maybe the football that you were
playing then or the football players you were playing with and against were
tougher than the guys playing today?
It was a different kind of a game. When I started, you were a sissy if you wore
a face mask.
Yeah.
And then after, because of my face, you didn't have to worry about, you know.
He had a good-looking face.
Well, thank you. Thank you, David. I don't know. I think you better get your
eyes examined.
No, no.
Well, anyhow, I got kicked in the face, and I got 56 stitches down here, and
then I got under here, and I lost a few teeth.
Yeah.
And so I put the mask on. I said, to hell with them. If they think I'm a sissy,
I'm a sissy.
Yeah.
So then everybody's got a mask on now, and now you can't even get your fingers
in there anymore.
Which we would never do in those days, no.
No, no. What? Now, you played both the offense and defense?
No, no. Just defense.
Just defense.
Now, did you ever do anything dirty or untoward?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And what kind of stuff? What was your skill or strategy?
My skill was, I guess, trying to get to the guy's eyes, you know.
Do a lot of little things. Like, we had a fellow named Bill Pellington, who was
a linebacker,
and a guy was blocking on us named Bob Sinclair from the 49ers, and we knocked
him down,
and Pellington says to me, okay, kick him now, kick him. You got your chance.
So I started to kick him. He said, what are you doing? I'm just trying to make
a living like you are.
Yeah.
So things like that went on all the time.
Yeah.
But you were played in the Pro Bowl several years, didn't you?
Yeah, I played five years in the Pro Bowl game, and I played on two
championship teams,
the 58 and 59 Cole football team, which I guess some of the Packers would say
that they were a better football team.
But I believe that the 57, 8 and 9 Baltimore Colt team maybe was the greatest
football team ever assembled.
Sure.
Thank you.
Somebody's from Baltimore here.
You knew Bobby Lane. You played with Bobby Lane?
Very well. I played with him, and I drank with him.
Yeah.
Now, he has that reputation as a guy who enjoyed drinking. I don't know if he
was, like, before the games or just for recreation.
Well, I would swear to the Almighty that a couple of times, on the way out of
the stadium, past him for the second half,
I figured maybe he had a few shots at halftime.
Oh, really?
I said, Bobby, are you a little? He says, well, I've got to sort of straighten
up.
Yeah.
Now, did you ever drink during a game, Art?
Oh, no. Not no, no. Heavens no. After, yes.
After, yeah.
But you would never go in the locker at halftime and maybe just get the courage
up?
Oh, no. We used to, right before the game started, the coach would give you the,
you know, the old pep talk.
Yeah.
And he'd say, okay, if you're not afraid, let's go.
Yeah.
So they'd push you out the door.
Yeah. Well, we had a coach, Reeve Eubanks, and he said we had to win this game.
And he went off about 10 minutes. Tell him what we had to do.
We had to punch and scrape and scratch and bite and kick.
And he said, let's go. He said, but for God's sake, be careful.
How many championship games did you play?
Just two.
Just two.
And this is what Art looked like when he was suited up.
This is a pretty, there you go.
Yep. That man means business.
What, you mentioned, I mentioned Bobby Lane, and you also, did you room with
Don Shuler?
Yeah, Shuler and I and a fellow named Bill Pellington and Marchetti, we had a,
we bought a home before we got married.
Not us together, you know.
We did get married to girls.
And in 1955, Shuler was a defensive back for us.
Now, he always seems like a pretty straight, even keel, normal kind of guy.
But he isn't.
No, none of us really are.
I can't tell a lot of stories on him because he'll, he'd sue me.
He, that's the type of guy he is.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
Shuler, you know, Shuler down in Miami, he walks on water.
Oh, they love him, yeah.
But yesterday, he missed a rock somewhere.
Yeah.
Well, anyhow, we're playing the Rams in Baltimore in 1955, and he was covering
Tom Fierce, who was a great ender in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was holding Fierce, and Fierce told him, Shuler, don't hold me.
About two plays later, Shuler held him again.
Dan Fierce didn't hit him in a shot with an elbow, and he broke Don's jaw.
So now, Shuler's out for the rest of the year.
And the first day he gets back from the hospital, Pellington and I, Marquette,
he, we said, well, we'll stay in and babysit him for the night.
We'll cook him his dinner.
All we could do was fry eggs real loose, you know.
He couldn't eat anything, so we got him a straw and a glass, you know, and
everything.
There's a guy who's 250, 270 pounds.
We're cooking dinner for him, the eggs, and we go to give him the eggs.
And Shuler goes, yeah, stupid.
So what's wrong?
He said, you didn't scramble him loose enough.
So go and cook your own meals, Shuler.
That's the type of guy he was.
He didn't like anything.
Yeah.
The best story about Shuler is one of his assistants' name is Carl Tassif.
He's down there with him now.
He played with us with the Colts.
And we're out playing Green Bay and Milwaukee, and, you know, getting on the
plane, they say,
who is your roommate?
You know, Spinney Donovan, okay.
They say, Shuler.
Nobody answers, no Tassif.
Here comes a cab up to the airport.
Shuler jumps out, and he's got a cab he's had on.
And in the back is Carl Tassif, and he's got a package on now.
Shuler opens the door, and Tassif paid him the fare.
Then he got on the plane.
Now, where they got the taxi from, I don't know.
You mean, you mean these guys?
He stole the cab.
Stole the taxi cab.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Boy, oh, boy.
Oh, beauty.
Did you guys go to a lot of parties together, or?
Oh, that's what made it so good.
We were always partying.
I mean, and what were those events like, Art?
Uh, um, just drinking, you know.
I can't, you know, we had a lot of good, clean fun.
Yeah.
You know.
Like some guys falling out the window or something like that.
Yeah, but they didn't really get hurt, you know, 280 pounds.
Yeah.
I think the best start is playing the Rams out on the coast.
Now, that must have been excitement for a team from the East Coast to go out to
the West Coast where it was warm and sunny.
It was warm, it was like 105 degrees on the, on the Coliseum floor, you know,
it's halfway down in the ground, anyhow.
And I had a weight problem.
I had to weigh in 275 every Friday.
So, I weighed 278, and we, Buebanks, who was our coach, fined me $2,000.
So, he said, but right before the game, if you guys, if you win, he says, I'll
talk to you about your money,
and I'll maybe give you the $2,000 bonus back.
Well, in the second half, we bust the game wide open.
They put a new quarterback in the Rams.
I said, well, thank God, he's going to run the clock out, and everything's
going to be okay.
This guy gets the ball, he starts running all over the field, throwing 80-yard
passes, and we're trying to catch him.
And I'm screaming at him, and I couldn't court him if he was on his knees.
That's how tired I was.
So, finally, I went in the Rams' huddle.
And I said to the quarterback, look, you stupid jerk, you can't win, run the
clock out.
And he looked at me and said, drop dead.
And I don't know what to say to him.
From our side, comes Bracey, who's our defensive end.
And he hollers, Fatso, you're in the wrong huddle.
And we got penalized five yards for me being offside.
It's like poetry, Fatso, you're in the wrong huddle.
Now, Art, tell me about Y.A. Tittle.
You played, was he always with the Giants?
No, no, he was with the Colts when I started.
He was a quarterback with the Colts.
Then he went out with the 49ers, then he came to the Giants.
Now, Tittle, you know, I have some stories.
In fact, one time, he was the only guy making any money on the team at 50.
And he and his wife invited us over for chicken dinner.
And we said, swell, but he said, you have to bring your own chicken.
They told me Tittle was tighter than a clam with lockjaw.
That's how he, he just didn't spend any money at all.
And Van Brocklin, he was a quarterback with the Rams.
And we played him one time, and they have these sophisticated defenses,
like they tell you about on television now, you know, what you do.
Sure.
So when they had to come out, we were strong left.
And Szymanski, who was the linebacker, he hollered to me, move.
And I moved, you see.
And I said, well, he's wrong.
I said, you move, and I moved back again.
So after four moves, Van Brocklin, he called timeout.
He said, now how the hell do you expect me to run a play against you guys,
and you don't even know how to line up yourself?
So, we really did foul him up pretty good.
And what about the, what did I, was talking about this afternoon,
you and Y.A. Tittle and a shower?
Well, there were about five of us.
We were staying at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and we didn't, at those days,
It's kind of a dump, isn't it, that place?
Oh, what a place.
They had a shade brush for $1,200, more than we were making.
Yeah.
So anyhow, we asked the guy if we could go swimming.
He says, yeah, if you have your bathing suit, sure.
You have members of the hotel, we didn't have any bathing suits.
So we asked him if we could go in after hours, you know, nude, just go for a
swim.
So he said, you can't do that.
But in the room, we had a big, big, a big bath, big shower store.
It must have been eight feet long, about six foot high.
So three of them got in the shower store, and we filled the water, the tub up
with water.
Then the third guy, he went over the top.
And we're in there, and we're having a great time swimming.
And somebody hit the latch, ba-da-boom, here goes all the water.
It costs us $3,000 to have the place fixed.
That's why Tittle doesn't speak to me.
He had to pay the bill.
Quickly, what did you think of the game yesterday?
Good game.
I won $5, too, like the young fella did.
I bet on Washington just because I thought Washington had a bigger, stronger
offensive line than the Dolphins' defense.
And they really deserved to win.
They made a believer out of me.
They've got a good football team.
Art, before you go, tell us what you're doing now.
You're no longer affiliated with football, right?
I'm making money.
I'm finally, after 58 years, making a little bit of money.
Good for you, Art.
How are you doing that?
My wife and 