His first submission to Campbell was «Rule 18,» a story that stretched the boundaries of science fiction by dealing with an interplanetary football game. The story was published in the July 1938 issue, and Cliff was paid $120.
Although the story was written before there were any awards for science fiction writing, in 2014 «Rule 18» was awarded a Retrospective Hugo, certainly an indicator that there are a number of elements in the story that could be deemed worthy of discussion. But let me focus on one thing few have likely thought about—intercollegiate American football.
It was natural, of course, that when Cliff Simak—a son of Wisconsin—needed to portray a good football player in this story, he would choose a Wisconsin player. But few today realize why, in showing that Wisconsin player’s great achievements subsequent to the climax of this story, Cliff had that player lead his team in a trouncing of the Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota. It was more than the mere fact that Cliff had become a resident of Minnesota—it was because in that era the Gophers were in the midst of an unprecedented dominance of intercollegiate football.
In 1937, as Cliff was writing the story, Minnesota’s football team was the three-time defending national champion, and it would ultimately win that championship five times during an eight-year span.
Although he became a fan of Minnesota sports, I suspect Cliff really enjoyed that little touch of Wisconsin.
—dww
Rule XVIII—Each player on the respective teams must be able to present documentary evidence that he is of pure blood of the planet upon whose team he plays for an unbroken span of at least ten generations. Verification of the aforesaid documentary evidence and approval of the players upon this point shall be the duty of the Interplanetary Athletic Control Board—From the eligibility section of the Official Rule Book for the Annual Terrestrial-Martian Football Game.
Year 2479
The mighty bowl resounded to the throaty war cry of the Druzecs, ancient tribe of the Martian Drylands. The cry seemed to blast the very dome of the sky. The purple and red of the Martian stands heaved tumultuously as the Martian visitors waved their arms and screamed their victory. The score was 19-0. For the sixty-seventh consecutive year the Martians had defeated the Earth team. And for the forty-second consecutive year the Terrestrial team had failed to score even a single point.
There had been a time when an Earth eleven occasionally did defeat the Red Warriors. But that had been years ago. It was something that oldsters, mumbling in their beards, told about as if it were a legendary tale from the ancient past. Evil days had fallen upon the Gold and Green squads.
And again this year the pick of the entire Earth, the Terrestrial crack football machine, had been trampled underfoot by the smashing forward wall of Martians, slashed to bits by the ferocious attack of the Red Planet backfield.
Not that the Earth had not tried. Every team member had fought a heart-rending game, had put forth every ounce of strength, every shred of football sense, every last trickle of stout courage. Not that the Earth team was not good. It was good. It was the pick of the entire world, an All-Terrestrial eleven, selected on its merits of the preceding year and trained for an entire year under the mentorship of August Snelling, one of the canniest coaches the game had ever known. It was neither of these. It was just that the Martian team was better.
Bands blared. The two teams were trailed off the field. The Martian victory cry continued to rend the skies, rolling in wave after successive wave from leathern throats.
The Earth stands were emptied quietly, but the Martians remained, trumpeting their prowess. When the Martians did leave the amphitheater, they took over the city of New York after the manner of football crowds since time immemorial. They paraded their mascot, the grotesque, ten-legged zimpa, through the streets. Some of them got drunk on Martian bocca, a potent liquor banned by law from sale on Earth, but always available in hundreds of speakeasies throughout the city. There were a few clashes between Martian and Earth delegations and some of the Martians were jailed. New York would be a bedlam until the Martian Special, a huge space liner chartered for the game, roared out of its cradle at midnight for the return run to Mars.
In the editorial rooms of the Evening Rocket Hap Folsworth, sports-writer extraordinary, explained it in a blur of submerged rage and admitted futility.
«They just don’t grow them big enough or strong enough on Earth anymore,» he declared. «We are living too damn easy. We’re getting soft. Each generation is just a bit softer than the last. There’s no more hard work to be done. Machines do things for us. Machines mine ores, raise crops, manufacture everything from rocket ships to safety pins. All we got to do is push levers and punch buttons. A hell of a lot of muscle you can develop punching a button.
«Where did they get the famous players of the past? Of a couple, three hundred years ago, or of a thousand years ago, if you like?» Hap blared.
«I’ll tell you where they got them! They got them out of mines and lumber camps and off the farms—places where you had to have guts and brawn to make a living.
«But we got smart. We fixed it so nobody has to work anymore. There are husky Earth lads, lots of them—in Martian mining camps and in Venus lumber camps and out on Ganymede engineering projects. But every damn one of them has got Martian or Venusian blood in his veins. And Rule Eighteen says you got to be lily-pure for ten generations. If you ask me, that’s a hell of a rule.»
Hap looked around to see how his audience was taking his talk. All of them seemed to be in agreement and he went on. What he was saying wasn’t new. It had been said thousands of times by thousands of sports-writers in thousands of different ways, but Hap recited it after each game.
He enjoyed doing it. He chewed off the end of a Venus-weed cigar and went on.
«The Martians aren’t soft. Their planet is too old and exhausted and nature-ornery for them to be soft. They got brawn and guts and their coaches somehow manage to pound some football sense into their thick heads. Why, football is just their meat—even if we did teach them the game.»
He lit his cigar and puffed contentedly.
«Say,» he asked as the others stood in respectful silence, «has anyone seen Russell today?»
They shook their heads.
The sports-writer considered the answer and then said, without emotion, «When he does show up, I’m going to boot him right smack-dab into the stratosphere. I sent him out two days ago to get an interview with Coach Snelling and he hasn’t showed up yet.»
«He’ll probably be around next week,» suggested a copyboy. «He’s probably just sleeping one off somewhere.»
«Sure, I know,» mourned Hap, «and when he does come in, he’ll drag in a story so big the chief will kiss him for remembering us.»
Coach August Snelling delivered his annual after-the-Martian-game oration to his team.
«When you went out on the field today,» he told them, «I praised you and pleaded with you to get out there and do some of the things I taught you to do. And what did you do? You went out there and you laid down on me. You laid down on the Earth. You laid down on five hundred thousand people in the stands who paid good hard cash to see a football game. You let those big dumbbells push you all over the lot. You had a dozen good plays, every one of them good for ground. And did you use them? You did not!