Wednesday, July 9, 2025

July 9, 1955: "Rock Around the Clock" Hits Number 1

July 9, 1955, 70 years ago: "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets is ranked as the Number 1 song in America by Billboard magazine. It is the 1st rock and roll song to achieve this. "The Rock Era" has begun.

The song was written in 1953, by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers, under the name Jimmy DeKnight. They were no kids: Freedman was 61, and had written the 1945 hit "Sioux City Sue" with Dick Thomas; while Myers was 33, and had already written Haley's 1st 2 hit songs, both of which reached the Country & Western chart: "Ten Gallon Stetson (With a Hole in the Crown)" and "Rocka-Beatin' Boogie."

It was recorded on April 12, 1954, for Decca Records, in their studio at the Pythian Temple, at 135 West 70th Street, between Columbus (9th) Avenue and Broadway, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The building is still there, but has been converted into condominiums, as "The Pythian."

William John Clifton Haley was born on July 6, 1925 in the Detroit suburb of Highland Park, Michigan, and spent his teenage years in the Philadelphia suburb of Bethel, Pennsylvania. His father was a banjo player, and gave him a love of country music. He formed a country band called The Saddlemen, which evolved into the Comets, a play on Halley's Comet.

The band members who appeared on the recording were Haley, Danny Cedrone on lead guitar, Francis "Franny" Beecher on rhythm guitar, Billy Williamson on steel guitar, Marshall Lytle on double bass, Joey Ambrose on tenor saxophone, the aptly-named Johnny Grande on piano, and Bill Gussak on drums. The producer was Milt Gabler, whose nephew was future comedy star Billy Crystal.

Danny Cedrone did not live to see the Comets become superstars. On June 17, 1954, just 66 days after the recording, he fell down the stairs at his apartment, and broke his neck, killing him at the age of 34. Beecher replaced Cedrone on lead guitar.

At first, the song didn't hit any charts, but it did sell 75,000 copies. One of those copies landed with Peter Ford, the 10-year-old son of actors Glenn Ford and Eleanor Powell. Glenn was about to star in perhaps the original "idealistic teacher tries to reform an urban school" film, Blackboard Jungle. Glenn gave the song to director Richard Brooks, who used the song over the opening credits. The film was a hit.

This, plus the success of Haley's cover of Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll" -- the 1st rock and roll song to hit Billboard's Top 10 -- convinced Decca to re-release "Rock Around the Clock" in May 1955. Two months later, it was Number 1.

There were rock and roll songs before this, but they only knocked on the door. This is the one that ripped the door off its hinges. This was the R-Bomb. This is the song that changed the world. Everything in the history of American music is either in the Rock Era, or the Pre-Rock Era. July 9, 1955 is the hinge day in the history of American music.

Because this is the song that made rock and roll big business. It might have been "Maybellene" by Chuck Berry, or "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino, or "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard. But it was "Rock Around the Clock." Of course, Haley had the advantage of being white. The next year, Elvis Presley had the advantage of being younger, thinner, and more handsome than Haley.

"Rock Around the Clock" changed the world in just 2 minutes and 8 seconds. The B-side was Haley's composition "Thirteen Women (And Only One Man In Town)." It was filler, a throwaway, and would not be remembered today if it were not the "flip side" of "Rock Around the Clock."

In September 1955, as "Rock Around the Clock" was replaced at Number 1 by The Four Aces' recording of the theme from the film Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Joey Ambrose quit the Comets. He was replaced on saxophone by Rudy Pompilli.

Haley and the Comets performed the song in 2 of the exploitation films used to boost the early popularity of rock and roll music: Rock Around the Clock in 1956 and Don't Knock the Rock in 1957. Don't bother looking them up. Just as "Rock Around the Clock" presaged the songs of Elvis Presley, these movies presaged his: The music, and the dancing that accompanied it, were what mattered, and the stories and the acting were considered incidental.

In 1957, Haley became the 1st American rock-and-roller to tour Europe, and became much more popular there than at home. But by 1958, the hits stopped coming. He continued to tour in Britain and Europe, where he was still popular.

He took advantage of the nostalgia wave for the 1950s that hit in the early 1970s, which included "Rock Around the Clock" being used in the film American Graffiti, and as the theme song for the 1st season of the sitcom Happy Days before a separate theme song was written. But his drinking problem caused the money to go away as fast as it arrived. He died of a brain tumor on February 9, 1981, in the border town of Harlingen, Texas. He was only 55 years old.

"Rock Around the Clock" has also been used in the 1978 film Superman, which included Glenn Ford; and the 1988 baseball film Bull Durham.

Max Freedman died in 1962, Rudy Pompilli in 1976, Billy Gussack in 1994, Billy Williamson in 1996, Jimmy Myers in 2001, Johnny Grande and Glenn Ford in 2006, Marshall Lytle in 2013, Franny Beecher in 2014, and Johnny Ambrose was the band's last survivor, living until 2021. As of July 9, 2025, Peter Ford, the boy who saved "Rock Around the Clock," changing the world in ways we can only imagine, is still alive.

July 9, 1955 was a Saturday. Actor Jimmy Smits, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and English soccer star Steve Coppell were born.

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Yankees Survive Ugly Series vs. Mets

The Yankees came awfully close to getting swept by the Mets at Citi Field this weekend. It was ugly.

How ugly was it? Almost as ugly as Trump's Big Ugly Bill.

Friday was the 4th of July, a day game in New York after a night game in Toronto. Marcus Stroman, a Yankee-turned-Met-turned-Yankee-again, came off the Injured List, and allowed 3 runs over 5 innings. Jasson Domínguez hit 2 home runs, and Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger each added 1. The Yankees led 5-3 going to the bottom of the 6th inning.

But Ian Hamilton allowed a run in that inning. And Luke Weaver allowed a 2-run homer to Jeff McNeil in the 7th. For a while, Weaver looked like he might be the next Yankee closer. But, lately, he has looked terrible. This time, he cost the Yankees the game. The Mets won, 6-5.

Carlos Rodón had nothing on Saturday afternoon, allowing 7 runs in 5 innings. Scott Effross, another back-from-injury guy, allowed 2 runs in the 7th. Jayvien Sandridge, making his Yankee debut, allowed 2 more in the 7th. JT Brubaker allowed a run in the 8th.

You know who was just barely good enough? Frankie Montas. A lousy pitcher for the Yankees in 2022, he held the Yankees off just enough to be the winning pitcher in this game. Despite home runs by Jazz Chisholm, Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe, the Yankees lost, 12-6.

The Yankees had scored 11 runs in 2 games, and lost them both. They had lost 6 in a row, and 16 out of 22, falling out of 1st place in the American League Eastern Division.

The Yankees needed Max Fried to put up the kind of performance he had been putting up. It wasn't quite that good: 3 runs in 5 innings. This time, though, the bullpen was solid, allowing 1 run over the last 4. Judge and Wells hit home runs. A key play came in the bottom of the 7th inning. Mark Leiter Jr. began the inning by hitting Francisco Lindor with a pitch. Juan Soto, who left the Yankees and their various benefits for the Mets and Steve Cohen's money, hit a line shot to left field. Bellinger made a shoestring catch, then threw back to the infield, doubling off Lindor, who has been the Mets' best hitter since arriving in 2021, and has received "MVP!" chants from Met fans the last 4 seasons. No Met has ever been named the National League's Most Valuable Player.

Bellinger's double play was crucial, and the Yankees won, 6-4, to salvage the finale.

The Yankees are 49-41. They trail the Toronto Blue Jays by 3 1/2 games. Tonight, they begin a home series against the Seattle Mariners. This will be followed by an Interleague home series with the Chicago Cubs, and then the All-Star Break.

July 8, 2000: A Split-Stadium Doubleheader

Mets manager Bobby Valentine (left) and Yankees manager Joe Torre

July 7, 2000, 25 years ago: An Interleague weekend series begins at Shea Stadium in New York. It was supposed to be 3 games there, but a rainout forced it into 4 games, with the teams playing a doubleheader the next day, one at each stadium.

In the Friday night game, the Yankees beat the Mets 2-1. Four straight singles – by Derek Jeter, Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada – off Al Leiter in the 1st inning get Orlando (El Duque) Hernández all the runs he needs.

July 8, 2000: The Saturday split-stadium doubleheader began at Shea at 1:15 PM, U.S. Eastern Time. Bobby Jones started for the Mets, while former Met star Dwight Gooden started for the Yankees. The Yankees staked "Doctor K" to a 2-0 lead in the 1st inning. The Mets pulled a run back in the bottom of the 2nd, and tied the game in the 5th.

But Tino Martinez hit a home run in the top of the 6th, and singled home another run in the 8th. The Yankees won, 4-2. It was the 191st win of Gooden's career, cut short by drug suspensions and injuries. He would only win 3 more, and a 194-112 record, 2,293 strikeouts, and 3 World Series rings have not been enough to gain him serious consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The 2nd game got underway at Yankee Stadium at 8:05 PM. All the scoring came in the 5th inning. Back-to-back singles by Derek Bell and Edgardo Alfonzo off Roger Clemens gave the Mets a 2-0 lead. But the Yankees came right back against Glendon Rusch: A single by David Justice, a single by Shane Spencer, a sacrifice bunt by Chris Turner, an RBI single by Scott Brosius, and a 3-run home run by Chuck Knoblauch. Yankees 4, Mets 2.

June 9, 2000: Andy Pettitte did not have his best stuff. Mike Hampton had his, going 7 innings of 6-hit shutout ball. A Todd Zeile homer in the 4th and a Melvin Mora sacrifice fly in the 7th gave the Mets a 2-0 win.

So the Yankees took 2 out of 3 in the scheduled series, 3 out of 4 overall. The way the regular season worked out, the Mets won more games, 92 to the Yankees' 87; but the Yankees' total was enough to win the American League Eastern Division by 2 1/2 games over their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox; while the Mets' total put them 1 game behind the Atlanta Braves in the National League Eastern Division.

Luck was on the Mets' side: In the NL Division Series, they beat the San Francisco Giants, while the Braves lost to the St. Louis Cardinals. The Mets then beat the Cards for their 1st Pennant in 14 years. The Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics, then the Seattle Mariners, to win their 3rd straight Pennant, their 4th in the last 5 years, and their 37th overall.

That set up the 1st Subway Series since 1956, Yankees vs. Brooklyn Dodgers. Since Interleague Play began in 1997, New York baseball fans, and the New York media, always refer to the regular-season games between the Yankees and the Mets as a "Subway Series." It's not. Nobody ever called regular-season games between the Dodgers and the New York edition of the Giants a "Subway Series." That term was reserved for a World Series between 2 New York teams. The Yankees beat the Mets in 5 games, clinching at Shea Stadium. 

Carrick Ryan On Trump

This past June 23, Carrick Ryan, a former federal agent turned blogger -- and not to be confused with Irish comedian Ryan Carrick -- wrote this on Facebook:

I must admit, there's a part of Trump that's kind of impressive.

He convinced the party of Reagan to advocate for tariffs and market intervention.

He convinced the party of law and order to celebrate the first convicted felon President, and the pardoning of violent insurrectionists.

He convinced the party of family values that it didn't matter if he cheated on his pregnant wife with a pornstar.

He convinced millions of women to vote for him even when they've heard him brag about sexually assaulting them.

He's convinced Epstein conspiracy theorists to somehow accuse anybody but him, despite mounting circumstantial evidence of his complicity.

He's convinced evangelical Christians to vote in the least religious President in U.S. history.

And now, he's convinced isolationists, who called Obama a "neocon" and cheered the "end of foreign wars," to now openly support yet another foreign war.

But he's not a salesman. A salesman actually gives you what he's selling. Trump is a con man, someone who promises big but never comes through with the goods.

What has Trump promised that he's actually delivered?

Did he build the wall? And did Mexico pay for it?

Did he "lock her up"?

Did he enact a "Muslim Ban"?

Did he repeal Obamacare?

Did he eliminate national debt? Or add to it?

Did he end the war in Ukraine or Gaza?

Did he decrease the cost of groceries?

Did he keep the U.S. out of foreign wars?

Did he make America great again? Or a global pariah?

I've done a lot of fraud investigations in my time, and there's almost always a devastating moment when someone realizes with horror they've been conned. But there's also always a few that just don't want to believe it... no matter how much evidence you show them. And the con man usually just continues to con them, until they've fleeced them of everything that they've got.

*

So when do those he's fooled -- some once, some twice, some three times -- accept that they were fooled?

In two weeks?

Monday, July 7, 2025

July 7, 2005: The London Bombings

Tavistock Square

July 7, 2005, 20 years ago: Islamist terrorists carry out 4 suicide bombings during the morning rush hour in London. They targeted Underground (what the British call their subway system) stations at Aldgate, Edgeware Road and Russell Square, and on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square.

The bombs went off at 8:49 AM, 3:49 AM U.S. Eastern Time. Not counting the bombers themselves, 52 people were killed, and over 700 were injured.

It was the deadliest terrorist attack in London's history, in spite of the "best" efforts of the Irish Republican Army, its various offshoots, and their Unionist opponents. And no enemy force had killed so many people in London since the last airborne bombing by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe during World War II, over 60 years before.

A police investigation determined that what became known as "the 7/7 Bombings" were planned in Leeds, in Yorkshire, and raids arrested members of the terror cells involved. Like their American counterparts, the FBI, Britain's MI5 do not mess around.

Every year since, in commemoration, just before 11:30 AM -- 6:30 AM, U.S. Eastern Standard Time -- every train in the United Kingdom pulls to a stop, and its crews and passengers observe a minute's silence, the traditional British tribute for a solemn commemoration.

Sunday, July 6, 2025

July 6, 1975: The Tragedy of Ruffian

Ruffian, before an earlier race at Belmont Park

July 6, 1975, 50 years ago: Another sport has set up an equivalent to the "Battle of the Sexes" that tennis had 2 years earlier. Only this time, it didn't seem so ridiculous, mainly because the male competitor wasn't running his mouth.

He couldn't: Like his female opponent, he was a horse.

Of course, when Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs, there was a chance that Riggs, then 55 years old, could have had a heart attack and dropped dead. But he didn't.

This time, the competition did end in tragedy.

*

Every now and then, there is a racehorse about whom the sport's observers say loves to run, was born for it. Ruffian was the 1st filly about whom it was said. Foaled on April 17, 1972 at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky, she was a granddaughter of 1957 Preakness Stakes winner Bold Ruler, making her a niece to 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat. Her other grandfather was 1953 Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Native Dancer. (This was not surprising: Both grandfathers can count dozens of winning horses among their descendants.) She was large for a filly, and ran 5 races as a 2-year-old, winning them all.

As a 3-year-old, she ran 5 races, and won them all. This included the Triple Tiara, the fillies' version of colts' Triple Crown: The Acorn Stakes, at Belmont Park, just outside New York City in Elmont, Long Island, New York; the Mother Goose Stakes, also at Belmont; and the Coaching Club American Oaks, at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York State.

An "oaks" is the female version of a "derby." The Mother Goose Stakes has since been dropped from the Triple Tiara. Now, it's the Acorn Stakes, the Coaching Club, and the Alabama Stakes, which is run at Saratoga. The Kentucky Oaks, run annually the day before the Kentucky Derby, is a prestigious race for fillies, but is not part of the Triple Tiara, which is probably why Ruffian was not entered into it. And while fillies are eligible for the Triple Crown races, very few run in them: The Kentucky Derby has had just 3 female winners in 151 races, the Preakness Stakes 6 out of 150, and the Belmont Stakes 3 out of 157.

Ruffian had been working her way up in length, as young racehorses tend to have done for them. Until her 8th race, the Acorn Stakes on May 10, 1975, she had never run as long as a full mile. But in winning the Coaching Club and taking the Triple Tiara on June 22, she had run a mile and a half -- the same length as the Belmont Stakes, whose length has given it the name "the true test of champions."

It wasn't just that she was undefeated: She won big. Her 10 races were won by an average distance of 8.3 lengths. She won the Mother Goose by 13 1/2. And in every stakes race she ran, she set a new record for that race. This was the closest thing that fillies had ever had to Secretariat, who had blown away the competing colts to win the Triple Crown 2 years earlier.

The question was asked: Could the best filly in the country defeat the best colt in a match race?

Match races are rare. There had been 4 big ones in the 20th Century:

* 1920: Belmont Stakes winner Man o' War over the previous year's Triple Crown winner Sir Barton, at Kenilworth Park in Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit.

* 1923: Preakness and Belmont winner Zev over Epsom Derby winner Papyrus, at Belmont Park.

* 1938: West Coast champion Seabiscuit over the previous year's Triple Crown winner War Admiral (a son of Man o' War), at Pimlico in Baltimore.

* 1955: Preakness and Belmont winner Nashua over Kentucky Derby winner Swaps, at Washington Park in Chicago in 1955.

So a match race between Ruffian and a leading colt would be the first major match race will full television coverage.

Her trainer, Frank Whiteley, had preferred to take her up to Saratoga, and run her against colts in the Travers Stakes, America's leading Summer thoroughbred race. "Prove the point one time, and that'll be it," he said. But her owners, Stuart and Barbara Janney, overruled him, because the money from a match race against the top colt in the country was too good to pass up. Stuart did insist that it take place on her usual home track, Belmont.

So it was set up for Sunday, July 6: Ruffian, wearing Number 2, would take on Foolish Pleasure, wearing Number 1. Foolish Pleasure, bred, foaled and trained in Florida, was a first cousin of Ruffian: Each was a grandchild of Bold Ruler.

Foolish Pleasure won the Kentucky Derby by making a late charge to beat Avatar, finished 2nd to the not-quite-aptly-named Master Derby in the Preakness, and finished 2nd to Avatar in the Belmont. Given this record, he was probably the best 3-year-old thoroughbred colt in the country, but it was hardly definitive.
Foolish Pleasure

There was another issue: Both horses had the same jockey, Jacinto Vásquez, a 31-year-old native of Panama. He had to make a choice, and he chose Ruffian, which spoke volumes. After all, he probably knew each horse as well as its owners and trainers, and he was certainly the only person who knew the tendencies, and the emotional makeups, of both horses.

So Braulio Baeza, 35 and also from Panama, was hired to ride Foolish Pleasure. He had won the 1961 Belmont Stakes aboard Sherluck, both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont in 1963 aboard Chateaugay, and the 1969 Belmont aboard Arts and Letters. So he was certainly familiar with Belmont, its track and its atmosphere. His win aboard Chateaugay made him the 1st Hispanic jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. If he wasn't the best possible choice, he was certainly a very good one.

Belmont Park, which originally opened in 1905, had been rebuilt, and reopened in 1968 with a 33,000-seat grandstand, and, with infield seating, necessary for the Belmont Stakes, could seat over 100,000 people. The infield seating was needed again, as over 50,000 people came to see "The Great Match." Another 20 million watched on ABC, obliterating the record for TV viewership of a horse race set at the 1973 Belmont Stakes won by Secretariat.

The odds on Ruffian were 20-1. Horse racing oddsmakers are usually older men, and they seemed sure that there was no way any filly could beat a champion colt. But Vásquez knew better than anyone, because he had ridden both horses, and he chose Ruffian because he genuinely believed she was the better horse. The winner-take-all prize: $350,000. (About $2.08 million in 2022 money.)

The horses broke from the starting gate. But Ruffian did not do so straight, bumping her shoulder on the gate before straightening out. If that had been the worst of it, it would have been a footnote: Even if she had run the race to its conclusion and lost, that probably wouldn't have been considered the reason.

The 1st quarter-mile was run in 22 1/5th seconds, and Ruffian was ahead by a nose. A furlong later, she had a lead of half a length. It was too soon to tell if she would hold the lead the whole way.

Just then, both jockeys heard a sound that they described as a crack. A bird had flown across the infield, distracting Ruffian, and she took a bad step. She had broken both of the sesamoid bones in her right foreleg.

Vásquez, not possessed of X-ray vision, didn't know exactly what was wrong, but he knew horses well enough to know that this was a devastating injury. He tried to pull her up, to get her to stop. But this horse that loved to run, apparently not yet feeling the pain, kept going. This further damaged the leg's bones, and tore its ligaments. Vásquez finally got her to stop, and Baeza guided Foolish Pleasure to a win in what amounted to a walkover.

Ruffian was loaded onto an ambulance, and taken to Belmont Park's veterinary clinic. Surgery on her leg took 12 hours, and she had to be revived twice. The next day's first edition of the New York Daily News, sent to press while Ruffian was still alive, printed a hopeful, if tasteless, secondary headline.
But in her padded recovery stall, she kept flailing her legs, knocking the plaster cast against the wall, until it came loose. Her continued flailing undid all the surgery. The doctors concluded that she could not survive another operation. She was euthanized in the middle of the night. Later editions of newspapers had to print the awful truth. 
This was something relatively new in American sports. There had been deaths on the field of play before, but most of them happened before television came along (as with baseball player Ray Chapman in 1920), or had only happened on local TV, with the footage not preserved due to the high cost of videotape (such as happened to hockey player Bill Masterton in 1968, and a few football players in the 1960s and early '70s). Ruffian didn't die during the race, but she died as a result of it, and the announcers let the audience know that it could happen.

Some of the 20 million people watching on TV were women who had never watched a horse race before, not even with Secretariat, but were watching because Ruffian was a girl going up against the best of the boys. Many of the viewers, men and women alike, swore they would never watch another horse race.

Sure enough, in spite of 2 more Triple Crown winners in the decade -- Seattle Slew in 1977 and Affirmed in 1978, and the dramatic story of the 1980 Kentucky Derby (more about that in a moment), TV viewership of horse racing severely declined. So did live attendance, as the growth of cable TV led to more sports viewing opportunities without having to leave your house.

Up until the dawn of the TV era, horse racing was the 3rd-most popular sport in America, behind baseball and boxing. Even in 1975, with football having surpassed everything, horse racing was still more popular than basketball and hockey. Now, despite 2 Triple Crown winners in the 2010s, it might not even be one of the top 10 sports.

Ruffian was buried in the infield at Belmont, with her nose pointing toward the finish line. She is the only horse laid to rest there. The following year, the Ruffian Handicap was founded, and was run annually at Belmont until 2009. In 2010, it was moved to Saratoga. In 2014, it was moved back to Belmont. The veterinary clinic at Belmont, where Ruffian died, is now named Cornell Ruffian Equine Specialists, run by Weill Cornell Medicine, of Cornell University.

Foolish Pleasure, forever to be remembered for a race that, officially, never took place, raced as a 4-year-old, and was retired to stud. He died of a stomach ailment at a ranch in Wyoming in 1994.

In 1980, Jacinto Vásquez accomplished something that he hadn't done even with Ruffian: He won the Kentucky Derby aboard a filly, Genuine Risk. The 2 Kentucky Derbies he won would be the only Triple Crown races he won.

In 1976, Baeza rode Honest Pleasure, another first cousin of Foolish Pleasure, to a 2nd-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. After finishing 5th in the Preakness with Honest Pleasure, he finished the season, and retired with 3,140 wins.

That year, he was elected to the National Racing Hall of Fame. So was Ruffian. Vásquez kept racing until 1996 -- racing into one's 50s is not unusual for a jockey -- and retired with 5,231 wins. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998. As of July 6, 2025, Baeza is 85, and Vásquez is 81.

The racing magazine The Blood-Horse ranked Ruffian as the top female thoroughbred racehorse of the 20th Century -- but only 35th overall on their list of the top 100 thoroughbreds. Foolish Pleasure was ranked 97th.

A film titled Ruffian was made in 2007. Sam Shepard played Whiteley, Nicholas Pryor played Stuart Janney, Christine Belford played Barbara Janney, Vladimir Diaz played Vásquez, Francisco Torres played Baeza, Frank Whaley played Sports Illustrated racing writer William Nack, and original track announcer Dave Johnson, needing only to provide a repeat of his announcing, not needing to show his older face, played himself.

There would not be another match race in America until July 23, 1988, at Ak-Sar-Ben Racetrack in Omaha, Nebraska. (Ak-Sar-Ben, also the name of an adjacent sports arena, is "Nebraska" spelled backwards. Both the arena and the track have since been demolished.) Again, it was a "Battle of the Sexes," but neither horse had won any Triple Crown races. The colt Who Doctor Who beat the filly Explosive Girl by 3 1/2 lengths.

Friday, July 4, 2025

For July 4: Donald, Jackie, Colin, Bill and Me

Donald Trump doesn't really care about the specifics of what he calls "The One Big, Beautiful Bill." He just wanted a win, something he could sign on the 4th of July, as a show.

I'm reminded of the 1st Rocky movie, where Duke Evers (Tony Burton) tells his fighter, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) that Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) "doesn't know it's a damn show! He thinks it's a damn fight!"

It's all a show to Trump. As long as he can keep the show going, he can stay in power.

He doesn't care about the specifics, but he also doesn't care about how many people in the "United States of America" -- including those who voted for him, but in this case especially in rural areas -- will be hurt, and even die, as a result of the Big Ugly Bill's Medicaid cuts, all so he and his fellow filthy rich guys can have the biggest tax cut of all time.

He never cared about the people who bought his MAGA lies. He only wanted one thing from them: Their votes.

In his autobiography, which he titled I Never Had It Made, and didn't have published until after his death, Jackie Robinson, the 1st black player in modern baseball, brought to the Brooklyn Dodgers by team president Branch Rickey, looked back on what he considered the highlight of his career: Standing on the foul line with his teammates, hearing the National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," at Yankee Stadium before Game 1 of the 1947 World Series. They had made it, and they had done it together.

But there's a big difference between having made it, and having it made. He compared that moment to his thoughts at his present time, 20 years later, after events showed him that America had not yet become the country his 1947 efforts suggested it could become, and after he had come to accept that the Republican Party, to which he belonged, no longer seemed to want him:

There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people. The air was sparkling. The sunlight was warm. The band struck up the National Anthem. The flag billowed in the wind. It should have been a glorious moment for me as the stirring words of the national anthem poured from the stands.

Perhaps, it was, but then again, perhaps, the anthem could be called the theme song for a drama called The Noble Experiment. Today, as I look back on that opening game of my first World Series, I must tell you that it was Mr. Rickey's drama and that I was only a principal actor.

As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the Anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.

After the 2016 backlash against his kneeling during the Anthem before games, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, soon to be blacklisted (though never officially banned) from the NFL,  shared a similar sentiment:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street, and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wrote of a parallel world for the episode "The Omega Glory," one in which a planet developed the same way Earth did, until a nuclear war. According to Spock (Leonard Nimoy), the evidence shows that "the Asiatics won." But, in a world rendered primitive again, these "Koms," descendants of Communists, had finally, perhaps over 1,000 years later, had the tables turned, and the "Yangs," descendants of Americans or "Yankees," had won.

The Yangs had a ragged old Stars-and-Stripes flag, and a copy of the Constitution of the United States. But time had dulled their words: "We the People" had become "E pleb nista," and they no longer knew what "the holy words" meant. Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner, a Jewish man from Canada, showed them.
Bill Shatner (left) as Kirk, and Roy Jenson as Cloud William.
Jenson was also Canadian.

On this Independence Day, let us recall that our "best words" were written for everyone, and their protections and responsibilities must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing. If Bill Shatner, a Jewish Canadian actor of the 20th Century, playing a 23rd Century starship captain from Iowa, can figure it out, then nearly all of us can.

But can we? Trump has divided us. Indeed, "E pleb nista" doesn't sound like "We the People," but it is reminiscent of "E pluribus unum," one of the nation's mottos. Translated from Latin, it means, "Out of many, one." Trump has turned us into a nation of about 340 million unums (unii?), with precious little pluribus.

For the last few years, the tradition in our family is to go from our hometown of East Brunswick, New Jersey to see the 4th of July Parade in neighboring Milltown in the morning, and then return to Milltown in the evening for the fireworks.

I won't be doing that this time. As of this writing, I have already "missed" the Parade. I will not be attending the fireworks. I cannot stand and sing the Anthem. And I have not recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag since the Summer of 1988, when a previous Republican demagogue, George H.W. Bush, made it a club to use over the head of his Presidential election opponent, Michael Dukakis.

Through his efforts to end birthright citizenship, through his denunciations of anybody who doesn't support him, Donald Trump has divided America into patriots and MAGAs. And you cannot be both. You either love America, or you love Trump.

Three things have kept America free, and Trump has perverted all of them:

* The right to vote. If not for voter suppression in 2016 and 2024 -- and an attempt in 2020, which failed -- Trump would not have come out on top.

* Civilian control of the military: Trump has forced out the Generals who have told him what he cannot do, and he is giving unconstitutional orders.

* Separation of church and state: Trump has seen to it that there is one God, and he is it.

News flash, one you won't see in any major American media outlet: Trump is no god. And he is President in name only. He holds the office and its powers, but he does not represent America.

In 2026, the year of the 250th Anniversary of our independence, we must elect a Congress that will hold him accountable. In 2028, we must elect a President and a Congress that will undo the damage he has done.

Until then, I can only echo what Jackie Robinson said. I know that I am a patriot in a MAGA-ruled country. In 2025, in 1988, at my birth in 1969, I know that I never had it made.

Those words in the Constitution: "They must apply to everyone! Or they mean nothing! Do you understand?"

Donald Trump does not understand, and would not if he could.

Do you?

I can't answer that question for you.