Rip Gino Cappelletti # 20...

[Actual Pats Fan]

One of my NFL heroes...a man's man the likes of which are few and far between THESE incredibly whiny pansy azzed days

Listening to Gino talk was always like hearing your dad. Good times, bad times, didn't matter. He made me happy to be a Pats fan. Period.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

I’ll defer to the slightly older members about this since I was too young to actually see him play, but I think a case can be made that Gino was the best Patriot performer from 1960 until Hannah came to the team, and was great to listen to on the radio for the next 50 years. A wonderful life, RIP Duke.

Gino was only one of the many great Patriots players of the sixties. We had eleven AFL All-Stars in 1963 & 1966.

Best Pats player before Hannah is probably Houston Antwine, who is on the AFL All-Time Team.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

It is an absolute sin he is not in the Pro Football HoF, further proof the AFL prejudice still isn't gone.

AFL prejudice morphed into Patriots prejudice once the merger was consummated in 1970, with Rozelle's one big family, and Davis left out as the angry drunk uncle.

RIP to a Patriot Legend ... Atrocity that he's not in the NFL HoF

fify

Gino, Houston Antwine, and also Jon Morris belong in any legitimate PFHOF.

RIP, Gino. You are sorely missed.

So, how many league scoring leaders do you think we've had?

Gino Cappelletti: 1961,1963,1964,1965,1966
John Smith: 1979,1980
Tony Franklin: 1986
Adam Vinatieri: 2004
Stephen Gostkowski: 2008,2012,2013,2014,2015
Nick Folk: 2021

No, I don't think any other team has nearly as many all time.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

The original Patriot! RIP, I agree wit RK’s statement, he belongs in the Pro Football HOF

Keeping Gino, Houston, Jon et al. out of the PFHOF helps perpetuate the false laughingstock narrative, which in turn helps keep them out reciprocally.

 

[Sam Bam Cunningham]

Gino and Babe Parilli were the face of this franchise in the 60s.
Hope he makes pro football HOF
Would mean so much to us older patriots fans.

Its corny but they do not make them like Gino anymore steel on the inside, kind on the outside

 

[Art_Vandelay421]

One of my NFL heroes...a man's man the likes of which are few and far between THESE incredibly whiny pansy azzed days

Joker, couldn’t have said it better. I say the following at wakes when someone of that generation passes, “when someone of that generation passes this country loses just a little bit of it’s soul each time.”

 

[Art_Vandelay421]

Gino was the quiet leader, the person you look up to, solid steel rebar on the inside but kind outside

Thinking of Gino, brings me back to my youth and my dad bringing me to Patriot games at Fenway Park and Harvard Stadium. I recall collecting the Coca Cola bottle caps that you put on a sheet and turned in for prizes. My dad grew up in Jamaica Plain and I believe he used to take me up to a TV repair shop that was run by Bob Dee’s brother or maybe it was Bob Dee himself.

 

[Pape]

AFL prejudice morphed into Patriots prejudice once the merger was consummated in 1970, with Rozelle's one big family, and Davis left out as the angry drunk uncle.

fify

Gino, Houston Antwine, and also Jon Morris belong in any legitimate PFHOF.

So, how many league scoring leaders do you think we've had?

Gino Cappelletti: 1961,1963,1964,1965,1966
John Smith: 1979,1980
Tony Franklin: 1986
Adam Vinatieri: 2004
Stephen Gostkowski: 2008,2012,2013,2014,2015
Nick Folk: 2021

No, I don't think any other team has nearly as many all time.

we were tied with Green Bay at 14 until last year... Folk put us over the top with 15

considering green bays points scored records stretch all the way back to the 1938 season, not too shabby

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Thank you all for this superb thread. So appropriate for Gino. He is missed.

 

[captain stone]

Johnny Peirson was awesome, for me.

John Carlson did the Whalers, BC & the Pats, with Jon Morris (who's still with us, at 80)

Don Earle was pretty darned good.

& Johnny Bucyk is still with us too! He teamed up well with Bob. Always, a welcome, friendly, reassuring voice.

I thought Pierson was better in the studio when he had more time to break down plays... There were no in-play graphics back then, so it seemed to me that he had to spend too much time between face-offs (and there were a Lot more face-offs back then too!) repeating the score & time remaining;

I also though that Don Earle was too much of a homer in his broadcasts; and this is coming from someone who along with his brother bought the album Goal: Bruins! as one of their very first purchases with their own money... Every Bs goal was fireworks, but every opponent goal was a funeral... He then went to the Flyers after the heartbreak (a recurring theme with this franchise) of 1970-71, so he doesn't make the cut with me.

Forgot to mention the Chief, John Bucyk, and that is absolutely my bad... 14 seasons, not long after his retirement up to the strike season... Both he & Bob Wilson left the booth for good after that, a really bad period in the team's overall history... The Chief is to the Bruins what Gino was to the Pats, John Pesky was to the Red Sox, and Tom Heinsohn was to the Celtics: a living reminder of everything that is good about those respective franchises, and a comfort to us during the many bad times, when we know for a fact that they also did - and in the Chief's case, still do - feel our pain.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Part of Peter King's column today was on Gino:

6. I think the death of Gino Cappelletti at 89 deserves more than an RIP, Gino. Five reasons why:

• He was one of the last true versatile players in football history. In 1960, with the first-year Boston Patriots of the American Football League, he played defensive back and kicker. Then he switched to wide receiver in 1961. He returned kicks, played briefly in the backfield, caught 292 passes in his career, and led the AFL in scoring five times, more than any player.

• He scored the first points in AFL history—a 35-yard field goal against Denver on a September Friday night on the campus of Boston University—and he is one of three men (George Blanda and Jim Otto) to play every game for his team in the AFL’s 10-year history.

• Some of his games … wow. In 1960, as a DB, Cappelletti intercepted three passes in a game against Oakland at Kezar Stadium. In 1961, against Houston, in his second month as a receiver, he caught six passes for 131 yards and a go-ahead TD in the fourth quarter—and kicked four PATs and a field goal. In a 1964 game at Denver, Cappelletti kicked six field goals in six tries. In 1965, at Fenway Park, he caught five passes for 151 yards (including 26- and 57-yard TD passes) and was four-for-four in field goals against Houston.

• Cappelletti was the AFL MVP in 1964, beating out Charley Hennigan, who had the first 100-catch season in football history (101 catches, 1,546 yards).

• Christened “Mr. Patriot,” Cappelletti did color on the Patriots radio broadcasts for 28 years. If asked their all-time favorite Patriot, many of a certain age in the six-state New England region would say Cappelletti, even today.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

There were no in-play graphics back then, so it seemed to me that he had to spend too much time between face-offs (and there were a Lot more face-offs back then too!)

We called them simply, The Big Line.

Esposito, Hodge, Cashman.

In '74 the top four scorers in the NHL were Bobby & The Big Line.

It seemed like every shift, the play would either be an offside, or a goal.

 

[captain stone]

We called them simply, The Big Line.

Esposito, Hodge, Cashman.

In '74 the top four scorers in the NHL were Bobby & The Big Line.

It seemed like every shift, the play would either be an offside, or a goal.
View attachment 43085

And because there were so many more stoppages in play than there are now, the players had more time to rest and therefore could return to the ice more often, and for longer shifts... The fourth line (the Black Aces) was used only during blowouts; and even the third pairing on defense didn't play Nearly as much as the top two pairs...

I miss those days... The game was so much easier to follow; and the players so much more recognizable.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

And because there were so many more stoppages in play than there are now, the players had more time to rest and therefore could return to the ice more often, and for longer shifts... The fourth line (the Black Aces) was used only during blowouts; and even the third pairing on defense didn't play Nearly as much as the top two pairs...

I miss those days... The game was so much easier to follow; and the players so much more recognizable.

Helmets became a necessity when the game sped up

but I'm still not happy about it

 

[captain stone]

Helmets became a necessity when the game sped up

but I'm still not happy about it

And neither was Bob Wilson; and for good reason.

 

[1960Pats]

RIP Gino, the all-time great Patriot.