When Secretariat won what was certified to be his last race, I went down onto the track at Woodbine, and gauging where he had crossed the finish line, snatched up the last grass that perhaps the greatest thoroughbred ever had laid hooves to in his career.
Pretty sappy, I'll admit, but then it's quite a memento if only because it really is rare in sport for someone to declare that this will be the finale — the last dance — and then indeed go out a winner. Most famously, perhaps, was Ted Williams, who hit a home run in his final at bat. But as dramatic as that was, it was a meaningless game before a sparse crowd.
Perhaps the most impressive declared last game was performed by one of the least sentimental athletes, the acerbic Dutchman Norm Van Brocklin, who quarterbacked the Philadelphia Eagles to their last NFL championship in 1960.
This is, of course, what Ray Lewis, the Ravens' superb linebacker, is seeking to do with the Super Bowl. Lewis' valedictory has received exceptional attention because, like Van Brocklin, he is a controversial — even notorious — character. At least Lewis suffers the media better. When, late in his life, Van Brocklin endured brain surgery, he revealed to the press: "I got a new brain, but I demanded a sportswriter's brain because I wanted one that had never been used before."
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