Because the Chargers put together for his or her season opener in opposition to the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs, 6,000 miles away in São Paulo, Brazil — a part of the NFL’s push into worldwide markets — the franchise unknowingly blazed an identical path practically 50 years in the past.
On Aug. 16, 1976, the NFL performed its first sport outdoors North America: a forgotten Week 3 preseason matchup between the then-San Diego Chargers and then-St. Louis Cardinals in Tokyo.
“It’s not a day that will live in infamy,” mentioned then-Charger quarterback Dan Fouts.
The occasion was the brainchild of an formidable Los Angeles–primarily based lettuce farmer, Frank Takahashi. Takahashi footed the invoice to stage a cross-Pacific showdown between the 2 groups, hoping someday to personal a Tokyo-based franchise — a price of a number of hundred thousand {dollars} on the time, equal to tens of millions immediately.
“If we have a sellout,” he advised the St. Louis Publish-Dispatch in 1976, “I will break even.”
Fouts, 25 on the time and making an attempt to cement himself because the Chargers’ beginning quarterback, described the journey as extra of a blur. He recalled a mixture of bewilderment, curiosity and discomfort.
“As a player, you just do what you’re told,” Fouts mentioned of the announcement of the journey. “You get on the bus, get on the plane and go.”
After leaving San Diego on a crowded 13-hour flight, with a refueling cease in Anchorage, Alaska, the Chargers landed in Tokyo and spilled towards baggage declare. Fouts wasn’t even positive they’d handed by means of customs. Towering over the locals, the gamers drew giggles and wide-eyed stares.
Like a scene ripped from a fish-out-of-water comedy, the entire expertise felt surreal, Fouts mentioned.
Whereas the Chargers and Chiefs will deal with Brazil strictly as enterprise, leaving little room for exploring, Fouts and firm — with out handlers or translators — had been lower free on the streets of Nineteen Seventies Tokyo.
Armed with a wad of money — at a time when $100 transformed to yen stretched a good distance in Japan — the gamers set out on their first quest: beer.
“Louie [Kelcher] was in charge of that, and he liked Schlitz, so that was assignment one — go and find a case of Schlitz,” Fouts mentioned.
The group quickly encountered a storekeeper who managed to bridge the language barrier. Pointing them to a merchandising machine on the road stocked with Schlitz, the storekeeper requested, “How much do you want?”
“And Louie said, ‘I want all of it.’ So for $46, we bought a case of Schlitz,” Fouts remembered.
On the Grand Palace Resort, the workforce’s lodging, every participant was handed a plastic key tag to indicate taxi drivers for the trip again. The plan usually backfired. Greater than as soon as, they had been pushed to not the lodge however to the entrance gates of the Imperial Palace, inflicting confusion and an eventual reroute.
Eating out wasn’t a lot smoother. The linemen crammed their knees underneath tiny tables, resulting in a lot desk banging. McDonald’s runs turned the fallback, the place they usually bumped into Cardinals gamers.
“There wasn’t any organized sightseeing that I remember,” Fouts mentioned. “Which, looking back, is a real shame.”
Not like immediately, the welcome on the airport was understated, devoid of the pomp and circumstance NFL gamers now obtain. There have been no media or followers. Photographers solely appeared later on the workforce’s shared apply area.
Sport day introduced its personal challenges. Korakuen Stadium, former dwelling of Nippon Skilled Baseball’s Yomiuri Giants, was chosen for its astro-turf.
“It was hard to tell what they lined the field with, if it was flour or chalk,” Fouts mentioned. “When it started raining, that substance would start to rise. It would get stuck in your cleats, almost like caulking.”
Even within the less-than-ideal circumstances, Fouts rallied the Chargers to tie the sport 10-10 with a landing move, a lot to the delight of the group. Followers shouted, “Chargers, Chargers, banzai! Banzai!” or “Cardinals, attack the ball!” based on UPI.
“The crowd loved to see the ball in the air,” Fouts mentioned. “Whether it’s a kick or a punt or a pass, they would react.”
Whereas the followers loved their first style of soccer, Fouts’ day was far much less nice.
“The thing I remember about the game is I almost got killed,” Fouts mentioned. “I fell on a fumble, it wasn’t mine, I recovered it, and a guy fell on top of me and almost split my sternum.”
After a weeklong tour within the “Land of the Rising Sun,” a flight to Honolulu adopted for a sport in opposition to the San Francisco 49ers on the newly constructed Aloha Stadium. The Chargers fell 17-16 within the preseason contest, a sport Fouts missed due to harm.
The NFL didn’t return to Tokyo till 1989, when the Rams defeated the 49ers in a preseason sport on the Tokyo Dome. The NFL held 11 preseason video games by means of 2005 (with the Chargers enjoying the Steelers in 1996).
Wanting again on the barnstorming journey, Fouts mentioned, “The fact that we played in the first game outside of North America, that is a source of pride.”
