Eddie LeBaron, the Washington Redskins’ “Little General” of the 1950s who, despite his diminutive size, won over skeptics and became one of the top quarterbacks in the National Football League, died April 1 at an assisted-living facility in Stockton, Calif. He was 85.
His death was confirmed by a son, Wayne LeBaron, who said the cause had not been determined.
In his 11 years in the NFL, Mr. LeBaron never won a championship — in fact, he played on only two winning teams — but he remains one of the most remarkable players in football history. At 5-foot-7, he was tiny for a quarterback even in 1950, when he was drafted by the Redskins.
Before he stepped on the field for a regular-season game, Mr. LeBaron was called up for active duty in the Marines. As a combat officer in the Korean War, he received two Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star before returning to Washington to put on his uniform for the Redskins. He briefly wore No. 40 before switching to 14.
The team’s owner, George Preston Marshall, insisted on exaggerating Mr. LeBaron’s height at first, but one look at the 160-pound quarterback wearing No. 14 told the story.
“Oh, I was 5-foot-7,” Mr. LeBaron told ESPN in 2009. “When I got to the NFL, Marshall thought 5-7 sounded too small, so they listed me at 5-9.”
Mr. LeBaron tied with Davey O’Brien, who played with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1939 and 1940, as the shortest quarterbacks in NFL history.
Mr. LeBaron took over the starting job in 1952 from the Redskins’ aging Hall of Famer, Sammy Baugh. Facing players who outweighed him by more than 100 pounds and who were sometimes a foot taller, Mr. LeBaron became one of football’s most unlikely stars.
After a disappointing season in 1953, Mr. LeBaron headed to the Canadian Football League for a year. He returned to the Redskins and staked his claim to the quarterback job in the season’s first game, on Sept. 25, 1955, against the defending NFL champions, the Cleveland Browns. The Redskins had never beaten the Browns, and Cleveland had won their previous encounter by a score of 62-3.
In what Mr. LeBaron called the greatest game of his career, he threw for two touchdowns and set up another with a 70-yard pass.
With the Redskins holding a 20-17 lead in the fourth quarter, Mr. LeBaron guided his team to the Cleveland 13-yard line. He dropped back to pass but could not find an open receiver. Scrambling, he headed to the right sideline, then cut back through the entire Browns defense and raced into the left corner of the end zone.
“It was the little Baron,” Washington Post sportswriter Jack Walsh wrote, “who scampered an unbelievable 13 yards for the clinching touchdown in the last six minutes. Eddie ran to the right, forward, backward and, finally, to the left before going all the way.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/e ... story.html
