The 1950 U.S. team was the subject of a film called "The Game of Their Lives,: which I have yet to see.
Both the New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer have quite good tributes to Bahr, and his passing was announced on U.S. Soccer's website. That site posted a tribute with numerous quotes from the soccer community the following day.
Bahr was quite a guy: 19 caps, captain of an Olympic team (in 1948), assist on the lone goal in an historical upset, husband and father, coach at Frankford High School, Temple and Penn State and member of the Soccer Hall of Fame. He came from Philadelphia soccer hotbed Kensington and played at the famous Lighthouse Boys Club there, then for local club and pro teams.
I met Bahr once although I can't recall where or the occasion, only that he was personable. I do recall him telling me that Gaetjens, who was born in Haiti but had begun the process to apply for United States citizenship, disappeared somewhere in that country. ESPN.com ran a lengthy story about Gaetjens in 2010 and describes his presumed death in 1964.
I played against Bahr's oldest son, Casey, when he was at the Naval Academy, a team we had no business playing. My senior year as a fullback he scored three goals against us as Navy beat us by, shall we say, a lot. This was before fullbacks were fast and would attack. I later met Casey when I was covering the Philadelphia Atoms of the North American Soccer League, for which he played while stationed in New Jersey. I reminded him of the game and he was very gracious.
Bahr's other two sons played in the NASL but became more famous as kickers in the NFL and kicked in the Super Bowl. His daughter, Davies Ann Desederio, was no slouch as an athlete either as she was an All American gymnast at Penn State.
Over the years I have occasionally read suggestions that Gaetjens wasn't an intentional shot but rather bounced off his head at an odd angle past the British keeper. Bahr described the play in a 2010 interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News
Ed McIlvenny threw the ball in from the sideline to me. He was my midfield playing partner. He threw the ball in about 35 yards out from the goal. I collected it, pushed it forward a bit, and took a shot from about 25 to 28 yards out.
If you took the 6-yard line and extended it out to the 18-[yard line], and then extended it out a little bit further, that’s about how far I was off the right-hand post. I took my shot and I hit it fairly well.
Bert Williams, the English goalkeeper, had to move to his right to get my shot. Which most likely he would have gotten. Somehow, on the flight of my shot, Joe Gaetjens got through traffic, and got a piece of the ball — a deflection, that’s the best word — it was a deflection that went to Bert Williams’ opposite side. He [Williams] was leaning right, and the deflection sent it back to his left and he just couldn’t react fast enough.
Bahr was the last surviving member of the 1950 U.S. team.
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