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Namath drank at clubs all over town, including his own place, Bachelors III, on Lexington Avenue at 62nd Street. ” That same year he was paired with his pal and fellow hard-drinker Mickey Mantle for a celebrity golf tournament in California.
He hosted a TV show, subbed for Johnny Carson, went around in a fur coat, and pitched panty hose by famously donning the stockings himself. In 1969, the year of the great upset, Namath and two pals, Tad Dowd and Tom Jones, were at a Manhattan hotspot called the Phone Booth. While out on the links, their cart picked up a tail: a pair of buxom blondes with a cache of cold beer.
Lynda arrived while Bobby and Joe were drinking with Bing Crosby at the bar.
A Secret Service man asked Namath if he could clear the tables on either side of the first daughter.
While the team’s rookie signal caller ran drills, a Hollywood icon rolled up in a powder-blue Caddy, top down so as to flutter her platinum locks.
She stepped out, shorts hugging hips, her sweater “unbuttoned down to here,” recalled a player.
The FBI even rigged up Bachelors III with a wire and sent in undercover agents after an incident involving President Lyndon Johnson’s daughter, Lynda.
The White House called with a heads-up that she was coming, and Namath’s partner, Bobby Van, reserved a big center booth.
“Every actor you ever saw, and they all came up to Joe and said, ‘I’d just like to shake your hand.
They took the real person and made Broadway Joe, sex symbol.
No one had ever seen anything like it.” He had little in common with New York’s other sports heroes, straight-laced types like Frank Gifford.
“They became groupies, going up to him and saying ‘Hey Joe! “Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day,” and asked him to sign them for her sister. “Mickey Mantle always had to pretend he was a faithful husband,” Kriegel said. Her first line in the ad was, “I’m so excited, I’m going to get creamed,” after which she lathers up Namath with a dollop of foam.
He obliged and said, “Say, Peggy, by the way, what are you doing tonight? He flashes his megawatt grin and replies, “You’ve got a great pair of hands.” It wasn’t all smooth sailing.