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Title: The Immaculate Election
Post by: mystery-ak on November 22, 2020, 04:31:29 pm
November 22, 2020
The Immaculate Election
By John Steinreich

Back in the days when sports were a pleasurable diversion from the grind of daily life, professional football presented some of the most exciting and unlikely turns of events that Americans could experience.  On December 23, 1972, as the clock wound down on the divisional playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Oakland Raiders, a deflected pass from Terry Bradshaw to Frenchy Fuqua wound up in the hands of Franco Harris, who galloped to the winning touchdown.  Pandemonium swept through Three Rivers Stadium, as Steelers fans celebrated not only their first ever playoff victory, but the incredible way it happened, having come about on a fourth-and-ten Hail Mary with only 22 seconds remaining on the game clock.

But controversy surrounding Harris's catch arose immediately, and this has made it one of the most famous plays in NFL history, forever known in athletic lore as the "Immaculate Reception."   It was unclear whether Fuqua illegally touched the ball before Harris grabbed it, and there is no clear camera angle showing whether Harris caught the deflection cleanly or if the ball touched the field before he gripped it.  Replay technology was not employed in those days to verify the call, and Raider Jack Tatum, who collided with Fuqua right at the time of the deflection of Bradshaw's pass, long asserted that the officials ultimately let the touchdown stand not because they were certain that Harris had caught the ball in accordance with the rules, but because they were afraid the fans might riot if the call were reversed.  Steelers faithful revel in the glory of their good fortune, while Raiders fans reject it as a fraud, with former silver and black safety George Atkinson scorning it as the "immaculate deception."  His contention was that there were at least three infractions on the play, any one of which would have invalidated the touchdown, prevented the Steelers' victory, and possibly crushed the Steelers' organizational momentum that would lead to their dynasty of the mid- to late 1970s.   

If we look at the 2020 presidential election, we can see multiple analogues to what happened so many years ago on that cold gridiron in western Pennsylvania.

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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/11/the_immaculate_election.html (https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/11/the_immaculate_election.html)