Walking down Jefferson Street to recall the great Joe Gilliam

I grew up in western Pennsylvania in an era of labor unrest — bricks dropped from overpasses as “scab” truck drivers drove by and balloons filled with skunk oil tossed into the worship services of steel executives. But I was far too young to have much sense of that tense labor situation in the NFL during the summer of 1974. Up to that point, there had never been a season in any of the four major sports leagues diminished by labor unrest. Since that time, while salaries have skyrocketed across all four leagues (albeit at different rates) we’ve since then suffered through “replacement players,” “replacement refs,” sundry shortened seasons and even a blank space on Lord Stanley’s Cup.