In terms of the passing game, the Tecmo Legacy League 77 season has been one filled with broken records.  Earlier this season Bill Troup, of all QBs, surpassed the single game mark of 304 yards set by Dan Fouts by putting up an impressive 367 through the air.  A few weeks later Isaac Curtis clipped John McKay`s single game receiving record, and one week later Curtis broke his own mark.  There the single game receiving record sat, at 260 yards.

Along came Week 12, and a match up between the Giants and Cardinals.  In the first meeting the Giants defeated St. Louis 17-10 in a largely uneventful grind it out type game.  What a difference a second chance makes.

The Cardinals eventually outlasted the Giants, scoring a field goal with :09 left in overtime to capture a 24-21 win.  However, what happened in between the starting gun and that last notched field goal, was something special to behold.  Quarterback Jim Hart hurled the football 20 times in the game, completing nine of those for 335 yards.  On the other end was Mel Gray, the recipient of all 9 completions and all 335 yards.  What this meant was that Gray absolutely shattered the former top mark of 260 yards receiving in a game by over 70 yards.  SE-VEN-TY!  Gray`s performance was (more) than enough to earn him Week 12 offensive player of the week, and more importantly for Gray (or not) his performance helped secure the Cardinals first victory of the season.

  It appears the TLL is not the only realm in which Gray stirs up controversy, and excites on the field.  It is also the case that Gray does not discriminate as to which NFC East team he terrorizes, as a 1975 Fake NFL account tells.

St. Louis met the rival Washington Redskins in an encounter that would end up leaving one team shell-shocked and in disarray.  To offer a hint, the team left in shambles, fraught in the course of a maddening day, was the team without Mel Gray.  With the game in Washington`s grasp, leading 17-10, the Cardinals managed to move into scoring position, working feverishly against the waning clock.  From here Jim Hart threw incomplete on three consecutive downs, leaving St. Louis with a fourth down, one last shot to tie the game.  What ensued became one of the most controversial plays in Washington`s history, and a triumph for St. Louis.  On the fourth down play Hart connected with a leaping Mel Gray in the end zone.  Pat Fischer, a star cornerback, smacked into Gray as the wide receiver`s hands closed around the ball.  In the melee bodies were strewn across the end zone, and there lay the ball, in the aftermath, sitting silently and motionless on the turf.  The calm exemplified by the ball would not last.  The two officials closest to the play offered mixed verdicts- one declared the result incomplete, while the other a touchdown.    After the officials banded in a huddle (then threw some dice, flipped a coin, or perhaps consulted a pocketbook version of the I-Ching), they exited with a final declaration:  Touchdown St. Louis!  In a play with far less fame than the `Immaculate Reception`, but with a stunningly similar and contentious story arc (a last second throw for a TD, a collision, a bewildered officiating crew huddling after the event), undoubtedly Pat Fischer was this story`s Jack Tatum, and let us not forget, Fischer is also the George Atkinson.  To this day Fischer denies that Gray actually caught the ball prior to it being jarred loose. `The evidence is clear he didn’t catch it,` Fischer said. `Just as it hit his shoulder, I made contact.  I doubt if he would have ever caught it, but they said he had it that fraction in the end zone and called it a touchdown. Gray immediately knew he didn’t catch it because he put his hands on his helmet in frustration.`  Atkinson, if you recall, refuses to acknowledge the historical narrative that reveres, is mesmerized by the image of, and stands in awe of, the `Immaculate Reception`.  `We don`t call it the `Immaculate Reception`, we call it the `Immaculate DE-ception.`  Frenchie Fuqua has said of the `Immaculate Reception`, `That play.  If you`re a Steeler fan, you believe in it.  If you`re a cynic, like them damned Raiders, then you`ll never accept it.`  In the 1975 game between St. Louis and Washington, Jim Bakken would go on to kick the game winning field goal for the Cards.  It was a result that marked an irreconcilable tailspin for Washington, as the club missed the playoffs for the first time since George Allen began coaching the Redskins.  Meanwhile, St. Louis was able to capture the NFC East crown.

In the Tecmo Legacy League, the Cardinals are in no position to be catapulted into the postseason, but at least they have a luminous beacon in Mel Gray, acting as a guiding pathway for a Cardinal ship otherwise lost at sea, while simultaneously acting as a blinding light that can confound and send an opposing ship- a rival ship- aground.