Hello, Death - Boston Marathon 1982

Salazar edges Beardsley and motorcycles but...

When you dip your big toe in the pool of writing sports, generally speaking, you don’t have to face Life’s Major Issues. Life and Death, War and Peace, Depression and Tariffs.
Fate had a little twist in store for me. Just a couple months apart. After spending four years behind the Sports Desk at the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph covering high school sports, track and wrestling and, sigh, Nashua Country Club golf, I thought it was time I hit the big time and so I applied for a credential to cover the 1982 Boston Marathon, which is renewed today, Patriots’ Day. I didn’t know a lot about running; the furthest I ever ran was almost a mile and a half (I had to stop shortly after the three-quarter turn and finished second in a race I’d led the whole damn way.)

But the Boston Marathon, 26 miles through hill and dale, up Heartbreak Hill, from Hopkinton through the Copley Square, that was a major event, certainly in the Boston area. And my credential application was approved. They were all for media coverage.

Driving down to Boston, I was excited to see the race in person. Although, in reality, I wouldn’t see much, since the race is stretched over 26 miles and I’d watch most of it on local TV, I’d definitely see the finish.

The Boston Marathon - 1982 - Hello, death...

The media center was up in the John Hancock building. There was radio coverage of every step of the race, starting out in Hopkinton, remote TV coverage on sets posted in the media center, writers from all over the world there. It was big-time, especially for a sportswriter from the little Nashua Telegraph. I wondered if there was a chuckle when they got my credential application.

The marathon, as you know, takes over two hours and since we had some local runners entered, I knew it’d be a while before they reached the finish line. So I could focus on the winner, write about that, then go down on the street and wait for our locals to finish.

And on a beautiful 60 degree day — almost a heatwave by Boston standards — a dramatic race was unfolding. A skinny guy with a white runner’s cap with a turned-up bill, sort of a painter’s hat, worn by a no-name guy called Dick Beardsley was hauling ass, leading the vaunted marathoner Alberto Salazar by a step or three.
Most of the time, marathons don’t have photo finishes. Whoever is insane enough to try to lead the race generally discourages any challengers. “You wanna go that fast, go ahead.” But this wasn’t the case and as they headed towards the final turn, they were almost literally neck and neck. It was a surprisingly warm day, both runners were soaked, I could see with my binoculars, and suddenly, with less than a half-mile to go, Salazar found a burst of energy and slid ahead. Barely.

As they made the final turn, Boston police motorcycles - SIX of them - surrounded Salazar like lineman on an end sweep, so Beardsley, just a nick behind, had to juke to get past them. The crowd was screaming, you never saw this kind of finish to the Boston Marathon. Salazar snuck a peek back, once, twice, three times to see if he was still ahead of the stubborn Beardsley.

Sure enough, two people darted out with the tape, Salazar broke through it with a heaving, sweaty, narrow chest and looked ready to fall over. It was a Boston record 2:08:52, Beardsley finished two seconds later. It couldn’t have been a more thrilling finish.

They hustled Salazar and Beardsley into the Hancock parking garage where there was water, medical attention and those shiny silver blankets they’d wrap the runners in to calm their bodies down after the incredible stress of the 26-mile duel. Then we got the word. Salazar had collapsed, his body temperature dropped to scary levels and they rushed him by ambulance to Boston City Hospital. Some in the press speculated he might not make it. What kind of story did I get myself into?

Down on the street, tracking the thousands of runners coming in, looking for familiar faces — not easy. People don’t look quite the same after running 26 miles. But all the while, I was thinking of Alberto Salazar. Did he sacrifice his life to win a friggin’ race? Turned out he was OK once they got some fluids in him. But it was scary. What would I write if he’d actually died? That’s heavy stuff.

Well, just about a month later, I found out. One of my local high school teams, Bishop Guertin, made it into the Class L baseball finals at Gill Stadium in Manchester, facing a way better Spaulding High team. Though I hoped the locals would fare well, Spaulding went through N.H. teams like a buzzsaw and sure enough, midway through the game, it looked like Guertin was overmatched. Their offense, which generally consisted of a walk, a hit batter, a bloop single, maybe with a balk mixed in to advance the runners, had stalled.

Yet they rallied. It was like a damn movie. There were walks, hits, runs. I was on the field, doing double duty as photographer AND reporter, trying to keep up with everything. Then Guertin’s cleanup guy, Michael Lochhead, who hadn’t had a hit in the entire tournament, came up, runners on and he clobbered one off the centerfield fence. Could it be? Then amid the cheers, the pandemonium in the stands, there was a disruption over by first base, something serious had happened.

It turned out the dad of one of the Guertin players, a guy who’d had serious heart problems and was advised NOT to go to the game, went anyway. His kid was playing for a state title. He wasn’t going to NOT GO. Though I was years away from having a ballplayer myself, I could understand. I would have gone, too. Well, sadly, he collapsed in all the excitement. And we found out later, he died.

So I had to drive back to Nashua, develop the film and print the photos of this magical state-title winning event AND write a story about what had just happened. That was my 1982. Welcome to the big time.