Recently I was reading a suspense novel, and the main character said something like this:

"I went to sleep in the softest T-shirt in the world. My grandmother thought that when the Immaculate Reception was made by Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers that it was a miracle, and she gave me a
T-shirt with his number on it for protection."

I showed that statement to the DH and asked, 'Do you know what this is about? I've heard of an interception in football, but not a reception.' He laughed and said, 'You must be the only person in the world that hasn't heard of that!'

We argued playfully for a while, and then I said, 'You can probably see a video of that on YouTube.' Well, his eyes got rounder and rounder, and he said 'Really? I'd like to see that.' (And he thinks I'M unworldly.)

Yes, if you go to YouTube.com and search for 'Franco Harris' or maybe for 'Immaculate Reception,' you can see this play in blurry film from 1972.

In American football, the goal is to kick, throw, hand-off, carry or pretend to carry the ball down the field and into the colored area called the endzone. If you get there, it's called a touchdown and you score 6 points. The other side does everything it can to prevent that and get the ball away. When the ball touches the ground, play stops. The action seems brutal, but there are rules. You can't grab a guy's facemask, and you can't carry a gun.

In the footage, we see Steeler A make a terrific throw to Steeler B, who fails to catch it because an opponent is all over him. The ball (which is spinning and has a lot of KE) bounces off his helmet and heads back upstream, where it is caught (received) by Steeler C, Franco Harris, inches from the ground. This is the Immaculate Reception.

Harris makes an 180-turn with obvious effort, probably because unseen opponents are hanging onto his legs. He gets free and races down the field at terrific speed with only one opponent after him. He carries the ball into the endzone to win the game in the last 73 seconds of the game. Jubilation ensues.

Now what I want to know is, how many Catters have heard of this? Am I really the only person in the world who had never heard of the Immaculate Reception?