Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of one of the more famous games in Packers history, one of the more famous blocks in pro football history and the writing of one of the more successful sports books in publishing history.
Jerry Kramer was at the center of everything.
Nearing the end of his career, Kramer heeded the advice of a good friend, journalist Dick Schapp, and kept a diary of the 1967 season with the Packers and legendary coach Vince Lombardi. The timing was impeccable. The Packers, who had won the first Super Bowl the previous year, won the NFL championship by defeating Dallas in the famous "Ice Bowl" game and it was Kramer’s block on Cowboys defensive lineman Jethro Pugh that cleared a crack for Bart Starr’s game-winning quarterback sneak in the closing seconds.
The following year, Kramer’s last as a football player, released "Instant Replay," which chronicles the season with the Packers -- from grass drills and nutcracker drills of training camp through the Super Bowl -- is regarded as one of the better sports books of all-time. The book was recently re-released by Doubleday. In addition to promoting the book, Kramer, now 70, remains active in several business ventures and recently paired with several other former players in an online jersey auction designed to raise money to help cover medical bills and other expenses for former NFL players. OnMilwaukee.com caught up with Kramer in a phone interview from his home in Idaho.
OnMilwaukee.com: Your book is one of the more successful sports books of all-time. Was it a hit from the start? Did you expect it to do so well?
Jerry Kramer: It was such a surprise. Dick (Schapp) and I talked about it early on and I said ‘Dick, what does an average book do?’ He said, ‘Five thousand copies.’ I said ‘What do we have to do to do well?’ He said, ‘Thirty thousand.’ I said, ‘OK, we’re going to do well. I’ll work it and I’ll push it and I’ll do everything I can.’
We ended up selling 400,000 in hard cover and 3 million in paper, so it just was off the charts as a sports book. That’s obviously why Random House decided to republish it. I’ve been very gratified by the success my book had and the impact it had on so many lives. I’ve had some wonderful stories related to me about the impact the book has had on people’s lives, people like Regis Philbin, Tommy Lee Jones -- some fairly significant, successful folks. It’s just been a great source of joy to me over the years.
OMC: Some of your former teammates like Paul Hornung ("Golden Boy") and Ray Nitschke ("Mean on Sunday") also wrote books. Did you read those books and were you guys competitive about sales?
JK: I never even look at those books (laughs). I read Hornung’s book... I wrote half of Hornung’s book. I love Paul. I love all the guys. The other books that the guys were doing are wonderful. They’re another look, from another set of eyes, at the experience (of being with Lombardi and the Packers) and certainly their emotions, feelings and perceptions are different than mine.
OMC: Your book was released at about the same time as another seminal sports book, "Ball Four," Jim Bouton’s behind-the-scenes look at life at the 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots. Bouton was virtually banished from the game for "breaking the code" and revealing details about players’ off-field exploits. Did you get any heat about your book?
JK: I didn’t go where Bouton went. I didn’t go into the personal lives of the players and their escapades on the road and into their individual lives. I went into their performance on the field and their personalities and the coach and the team and the time and the events and everything that I thought was appropriate. But I didn’t get into the personal side of things. (Former teammate Max) McGee asked me one time 'Kramer, you should have called that book 'Half of it.' I said 'What are you talking about?' He said 'Well, hell, you only told half of it.' I didn’t want to tell the other half of it.
OMC: Did your teammates and coaches like the book?
JK: Everyone enjoyed the book. I got a wonderful comment from Marie Lombardi when I finally gave her a book. I had hesitated to give her a book because in the book I had called Coach Lombardi a short, fat Italian. I didn’t want to hear the explosion that would cause when he read it in the book so I was delaying giving her the book. I gave all the other coaches and the players. She finally came up to me one day and said 'Where is my book?'
I went and got the book and I had an inscription for the coach that I had worked on. I didn’t want to say ‘Best wishes,’ or ‘Good luck.’ This was partly to offset that short, fat Italian part, but I put in the book ‘For Coach Vincent T. Lombardi -- A man against whom all others shall forever be measured.’ I thought that would offset the short, fat Italian part. I gave her the book and she read it on the way to Milwaukee on the bus and the next morning, I step in the elevator (at the hotel) and she gets on two or three floors later and she said ‘Jerry I loved the book. I loved it. It helped me to understand.’ I said ‘What, football?’ And she said, ‘No. him (Lombardi).’
OMC: So much has changed, both in society and in the NFL, since you were making $27,500 per season. What is your take on some of the things that happen in the league today? It would seem that some of the things that happen -- the showboating and contract demands and public criticism of coaches -- wouldn’t have been tolerated when you played by either management of players.
JK: There is just such an attitude among the players. I’ve got to believe it’s the money, the notoriety, the fame --- the whole thing in one package. There is kind of a gas that money gives off. In other times, it might have been called an ‘ether.’ If you’ve got large sums of money, you go just a little bit crazy. Large sums of money have never been associated with a stupid person. When these young ballplayers, who have never been out of the garage, all of a sudden get a huge chunk of money and they get fame and fortune and notoriety and a whole bunch of folks wanting to visit with them and kids wanting their autograph, then that ether overtakes them and makes them go nuts for awhile. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.
OMC: You were always regarded as an intelligent, articulate person in a sport that celebrates the more primitive aspects of the culture. Was being labeled "a thinker" seen as something of a negative during that time?
JK: There always has been a stigma with being large. There is a lot of prejudice in the world, not only racial prejudice there is prejudice against the ugly, there is prejudice against the beautiful blonde. She’s got to be stupid, because she’s so beautiful. There is prejudice against the big guy. I didn’t understand this very well. I always have trouble with a guy about 5-foot-7 who would get up in my face and yap at me like a chihuahua -- ‘Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap...’ And, I’m going ‘Leave me alone. Get away from me. What do you want?’ I tried to figure out what the guy was doing and I decided that maybe it was because I was physically superior that he had to be mentally superior in order to be equal. He was trying to equalize things.
That was kind of my theory, until I met (basketball legend) Wilt Chamberlain. (Packers teammate) Willie Davis and I were having dinner out in Los Angeles one night and Wilt walked into the restaurant and Willie waved to him, so he came over and he ended up sitting down and having dinner and we spent the evening with him, going up to his home and having a wonderful time with him. When I stood up to say hello, I looked up at 7-foot-2 and this massive, giant of a man and my subconscious said 'He must be stupid.'
OMC: How has your jersey auction, which can be viewed at www.jerrykramer.com, been received?
JK: We’re getting some nice participation. I just got a call from a fan who said 'I’m a big Packer fan and I’ve got a lot of Packers stuff, Vikings stuff, Bears stuff and a lot of autographed stuff, and I’m having an auction and I’d like to turn over the proceeds of my auction for your auction.' If we can get the fans involved in that kind of a project, I’m pretty excited about it. .
We’re coming. It’s going to take us awhile to get us all organized and running smoothly. We might do this project for a couple years. I’m pretty excited about it.
Jerry Kramer was at the center of everything.
Nearing the end of his career, Kramer heeded the advice of a good friend, journalist Dick Schapp, and kept a diary of the 1967 season with the Packers and legendary coach Vince Lombardi. The timing was impeccable. The Packers, who had won the first Super Bowl the previous year, won the NFL championship by defeating Dallas in the famous "Ice Bowl" game and it was Kramer’s block on Cowboys defensive lineman Jethro Pugh that cleared a crack for Bart Starr’s game-winning quarterback sneak in the closing seconds.
The following year, Kramer’s last as a football player, released "Instant Replay," which chronicles the season with the Packers -- from grass drills and nutcracker drills of training camp through the Super Bowl -- is regarded as one of the better sports books of all-time. The book was recently re-released by Doubleday. In addition to promoting the book, Kramer, now 70, remains active in several business ventures and recently paired with several other former players in an online jersey auction designed to raise money to help cover medical bills and other expenses for former NFL players. OnMilwaukee.com caught up with Kramer in a phone interview from his home in Idaho.
OnMilwaukee.com: Your book is one of the more successful sports books of all-time. Was it a hit from the start? Did you expect it to do so well?
Jerry Kramer: It was such a surprise. Dick (Schapp) and I talked about it early on and I said ‘Dick, what does an average book do?’ He said, ‘Five thousand copies.’ I said ‘What do we have to do to do well?’ He said, ‘Thirty thousand.’ I said, ‘OK, we’re going to do well. I’ll work it and I’ll push it and I’ll do everything I can.’
We ended up selling 400,000 in hard cover and 3 million in paper, so it just was off the charts as a sports book. That’s obviously why Random House decided to republish it. I’ve been very gratified by the success my book had and the impact it had on so many lives. I’ve had some wonderful stories related to me about the impact the book has had on people’s lives, people like Regis Philbin, Tommy Lee Jones -- some fairly significant, successful folks. It’s just been a great source of joy to me over the years.
OMC: Some of your former teammates like Paul Hornung ("Golden Boy") and Ray Nitschke ("Mean on Sunday") also wrote books. Did you read those books and were you guys competitive about sales?
JK: I never even look at those books (laughs). I read Hornung’s book... I wrote half of Hornung’s book. I love Paul. I love all the guys. The other books that the guys were doing are wonderful. They’re another look, from another set of eyes, at the experience (of being with Lombardi and the Packers) and certainly their emotions, feelings and perceptions are different than mine.
OMC: Your book was released at about the same time as another seminal sports book, "Ball Four," Jim Bouton’s behind-the-scenes look at life at the 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots. Bouton was virtually banished from the game for "breaking the code" and revealing details about players’ off-field exploits. Did you get any heat about your book?
JK: I didn’t go where Bouton went. I didn’t go into the personal lives of the players and their escapades on the road and into their individual lives. I went into their performance on the field and their personalities and the coach and the team and the time and the events and everything that I thought was appropriate. But I didn’t get into the personal side of things. (Former teammate Max) McGee asked me one time 'Kramer, you should have called that book 'Half of it.' I said 'What are you talking about?' He said 'Well, hell, you only told half of it.' I didn’t want to tell the other half of it.
OMC: Did your teammates and coaches like the book?
JK: Everyone enjoyed the book. I got a wonderful comment from Marie Lombardi when I finally gave her a book. I had hesitated to give her a book because in the book I had called Coach Lombardi a short, fat Italian. I didn’t want to hear the explosion that would cause when he read it in the book so I was delaying giving her the book. I gave all the other coaches and the players. She finally came up to me one day and said 'Where is my book?'
I went and got the book and I had an inscription for the coach that I had worked on. I didn’t want to say ‘Best wishes,’ or ‘Good luck.’ This was partly to offset that short, fat Italian part, but I put in the book ‘For Coach Vincent T. Lombardi -- A man against whom all others shall forever be measured.’ I thought that would offset the short, fat Italian part. I gave her the book and she read it on the way to Milwaukee on the bus and the next morning, I step in the elevator (at the hotel) and she gets on two or three floors later and she said ‘Jerry I loved the book. I loved it. It helped me to understand.’ I said ‘What, football?’ And she said, ‘No. him (Lombardi).’
JK: There is just such an attitude among the players. I’ve got to believe it’s the money, the notoriety, the fame --- the whole thing in one package. There is kind of a gas that money gives off. In other times, it might have been called an ‘ether.’ If you’ve got large sums of money, you go just a little bit crazy. Large sums of money have never been associated with a stupid person. When these young ballplayers, who have never been out of the garage, all of a sudden get a huge chunk of money and they get fame and fortune and notoriety and a whole bunch of folks wanting to visit with them and kids wanting their autograph, then that ether overtakes them and makes them go nuts for awhile. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.
OMC: You were always regarded as an intelligent, articulate person in a sport that celebrates the more primitive aspects of the culture. Was being labeled "a thinker" seen as something of a negative during that time?
JK: There always has been a stigma with being large. There is a lot of prejudice in the world, not only racial prejudice there is prejudice against the ugly, there is prejudice against the beautiful blonde. She’s got to be stupid, because she’s so beautiful. There is prejudice against the big guy. I didn’t understand this very well. I always have trouble with a guy about 5-foot-7 who would get up in my face and yap at me like a chihuahua -- ‘Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap...’ And, I’m going ‘Leave me alone. Get away from me. What do you want?’ I tried to figure out what the guy was doing and I decided that maybe it was because I was physically superior that he had to be mentally superior in order to be equal. He was trying to equalize things.
That was kind of my theory, until I met (basketball legend) Wilt Chamberlain. (Packers teammate) Willie Davis and I were having dinner out in Los Angeles one night and Wilt walked into the restaurant and Willie waved to him, so he came over and he ended up sitting down and having dinner and we spent the evening with him, going up to his home and having a wonderful time with him. When I stood up to say hello, I looked up at 7-foot-2 and this massive, giant of a man and my subconscious said 'He must be stupid.'
OMC: How has your jersey auction, which can be viewed at www.jerrykramer.com, been received?
JK: We’re getting some nice participation. I just got a call from a fan who said 'I’m a big Packer fan and I’ve got a lot of Packers stuff, Vikings stuff, Bears stuff and a lot of autographed stuff, and I’m having an auction and I’d like to turn over the proceeds of my auction for your auction.' If we can get the fans involved in that kind of a project, I’m pretty excited about it. .
We’re coming. It’s going to take us awhile to get us all organized and running smoothly. We might do this project for a couple years. I’m pretty excited about it.
Host of “The Drew Olson Show,” which airs 1-3 p.m. weekdays on The Big 902. Sidekick on “The Mike Heller Show,” airing weekdays on The Big 920 and a statewide network including stations in Madison, Appleton and Wausau. Co-author of Bill Schroeder’s “If These Walls Could Talk: Milwaukee Brewers” on Triumph Books. Co-host of “Big 12 Sports Saturday,” which airs Saturdays during football season on WISN-12. Former senior editor at OnMilwaukee.com. Former reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
