Sammy Baugh, early Redskins great, dies

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By Dick Heller

Sammy Baugh, the greatest player in Washington Redskins history and one of the National Football League's earliest superstars, died Wednesday night. He was 94.

Mr. Baugh died at Fisher County Hospital in Rotan, Texas, after struggling with Alzheimer's and dementia for several years, his son David Baugh told the Associated Press. He said his father had been ill recently with kidney problems, low blood pressure and double pneumonia.

"It wasn't the same Sam we all knew," David Baugh told AP. "He just finally wore out."

Redskins owner Dan Snyder said: "Sammy Baugh embodied all we aspire to at the Washington Redskins. He was a competitor in everything he did and a winner. He was one of the greatest to ever play the game of football and one of the greatest the Redskins ever had. My thoughts and prayers are with his family tonight."

Mr. Baugh, a superb passer who played for the Redskins from 1937 to 1952 and helped revolutionize the quarterback position, shared a distinction as the greatest professional athlete in D.C. history with Walter Johnson, a Hall of Fame pitcher for the original Senators.

After retiring as a player, Mr. Baugh visited the District only occasionally, preferring to stay on his 7,600-acre ranch in Rotan, about 95 miles south of Lubbock.

"Most of the people I knew in Washington are probably dead," Mr. Baugh told biographer Dennis Tuttle some years ago.

During his Redskins career, Mr. Baugh was widely known as "Slingin' Sam," but the nickname actually came from his baseball skills. He was a hard-throwing infielder at Texas Christian University and in the St. Louis Cardinals' farm system, and at one time, Mr. Baugh said, "Everybody thought I was better at baseball than football."

Mr. Baugh was the last surviving member of the inaugural class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, and he was also a charter member of the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind. Before being drafted by the Redskins in 1937, he led TCU to a share of the national title in 1935, a record of 29-7-3 over three seasons and victories in the Sugar and Cotton bowls.

In college as well as his first seven seasons with the Redskins, Mr. Baugh was a tailback in the old single-wing offensive formation, as well as playing defensive back and punting in those days of limited substitutions.