Richard Petre with Michael Gibbons: Sudden Death

The day after the Saints play in Baltimore, come on out to The Ivy to discuss the NFL season that was "an exclamation point" in the sport's golden age.

We're talking about 1965, the turning point in the war between the establishment NFL and the insurgent AFL-- and when many of the greatest players ever (like Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown, Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers), took the field.

In Sudden Death, Richard Petre tells the story of that season through the historic conference race between Green Bay and Baltimore and played against the backdrop of national unrest and war in Vietnam.

Petre will join us on the Ivy patio to tell us more, alongside Michael Gibbons, former executive director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum.

Order SUDDEN DEATH here!

Richard Petre is a retired Louisiana lawyer and the author of a legal handbook. He remembers kids wanting to be Johnny Unitas and Sandy Koufax, listening to games on faraway AM radio stations through bursts of static, and devouring box scores and tables showing league leaders in morning and evening newspapers tossed on front lawns. He turned 13 the day after the historic December 26, 1965 Western Conference playoff between the Green Bay Packers and the Baltimore Colts. This is his tribute to that time. He lives in Mandeville, Louisiana.

From 1983-2016 Mike served as executive director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum. In that capacity he worked to preserve the legacy of baseball's greatest star and also to expand the mission of the institution. Under his watch it grew to become the official museum of the Baltimore Orioles, the official archives of the Baltimore Colts, as well as representing Maryland Terrapin athletics, the Baltimore Ravens, and Marylanders including Michael Phelps, Carmelo Anthony, Kimmie Meissner and Jessical Long.

In 2005 Mike opened Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards to house the growing collection.

Mike has continued with the museum as director emeritus/historian, working to maintain the collection, produce new exhibits and coordinate public programming and public relations.

Mike serves on the boards of the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame, the Society of American Baseball Research and the Orioles Hall of Fame selection committee. He served as chair of the Greater Baltimore History Alliance in the 90's and as president of the International Sports Heritage Association from 2010-2012.

He is married has one son, an Emmy-award winning documentarian.