Until last March, the numerical shorthand for annus horribilis was 1968. That year saw not only a bitterly contested presidential election, racial unrest in the streets and athletes being ostracized for publicly protesting injustice, but also the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and an escalation of the war in Vietnam.
Through it all, sports persevered, giving weary citizens something to take their minds off the awful events unfolding around them on what seemed like a daily basis. “I always turn to the sports section first,” Chief Justice Earl Warren said that summer.