In 1896 a railway company created an entire town called Crush in Texas, with the express purpose of crashing two trains head-on inside it. The town was named after the general passenger agent of the railway company, William George Crush, who concocted what he assumed would be a titanic public spectacle to help publicize his company. They built the town, erected a special track to crash the trains together and then sent word out of what they were about to do. The two trains, both 4-4-0 models, toured the United States in preparation for the Crash at Crush. Since there was nothing else going on in the entire world at the time, 40,000 people showed up, making Crush, Texas the second most populated city in the state that day, September 15, specifically.
Scheduled to crash at 4 p.m., the event had to be delayed because the 40,000 people in attendance refused to move far enough away from the track to what was, presumably, viewed as a safe distance. Finally, at 5 p.m., the trains were sent on to their doom, each holding a load of railroad ties, with both crews literally jumping out of the trains as they picked up speed to smash together.
The two trains, of course, crashed as advertised but what no one apparently in 1896 could have imagined, it seems, is what would happen when the trains crashed. Both boilers exploded, sending giant pieces of debris hundreds of feet into the air and raining down on the crowd of 40,000 people who, only an hour before, scuffled with police to stand closer to the track. Three people died, hundreds were injured and the photographer in charge of shooting the event, the one who took this picture…
…got his eye blown out of his head by a flying bolt.
We nearly had a titanic spectacle of similar proportions happen this summer when it was rumored the Cleveland Browns were the top choice to be featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks. The news was met with hushed awe at the possibility of the ensuing trainwreck of epic proportions where losing an eye or being buried under a two-ton train boiler would have been the best possible outcome. As of Wednesday, it looks like it’s not going to happen.
There’s a part of you, the worst part, that’s kind of disappointed. The team met with NFL Films this week and told them they wouldn’t “volunteer” to be on the show. One of the reasons they gave, the best reason, was that it would bring unneeded attention to second-year quarterback Johnny Manziel and his return from rehab. Wednesday, the Browns let the NFL world know of their meeting with NFL Films, all but killing any possibility that they’ll wind up featured on the program.
If the Browns have their way, they want no part of Hard Knocks. #ManzielFactor » http://t.co/9TFfkrgzjf pic.twitter.com/i99Ff4tCvS
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) March 24, 2015
They were absolutely right to do so.
There’s still a chance, not a realistic one, that the Browns could be forced to do Hard Knocks. The rule the NFL has is that a team is eligible to be selected if they don’t have a new head coach and didn’t make the playoffs the previous year. Hard Knocks is kind of a punishment for sucking. This year the Browns, the Miami Dolphins, the Houston Texans, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the New York Giants, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Washington Redskins, the Minnesota Vikings, the New Orleans Saints, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the St. Louis Rams are all eligible.
NFL Films says they still would want a team to “volunteer” to do it, but ultimately the show is going to happen and one of these teams, if they don’t step up and take their medicine, will be “volunteered” for the job. It should be the Eagles. It’ll probably be the Texans.
Johnny Manziel is in a special situation. By entering rehab he has made a conscious and purposeful decision to not only save his NFL career, but also his life. There’s no way Hard Knocks would help that and, now that the Browns have made their request public, no way NFL Films will even consider it. So the chances of the Browns tire fire seeing the light of day; the QB competition between a washed up never-was and a guy on his fourth of his 12 steps, Josh Gordon, Ray Farmer’s stupidity, Mike Pettine drowning in his own ineptitude, the fact that Jimmy Haslam could be raided, cuffed and stuffed by the FBI at a moment’s notice, none of that will be filmed for posterity. Ultimately, it’s for the best.
After the two trains crashed and mauled a crowd full of onlookers in Crush, Texas on that fall day in 1896, William Crush was fired by the Katy railroad company. Because it was such a big deal with such a negative impact on the company and lives were lost, the Katy organization waited an entire day before hiring him back at the same post. Any comparison you’re making in your head right now to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is entirely warranted, proving once again that history does repeat itself.
