December 7, 1941: The Japanese Bomb Pearl Harbor

December 7, 1941, 80 years ago: As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the next day, asking Congress for a Declaration of War against the Empire of Japan, and getting it, it is "a date which will live in infamy." Japanese planes attack the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii.

American casualties and losses: 2 battleships totally lost, 2 battleships sunk and recovered, 3 battleships damaged, 1 battleship grounded, 2 other ships sunk, 3 cruisers damaged, 3 destroyers damaged, 3 other ships damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed, 159 aircraft damaged, 2,403 people killed, 1,178 wounded.

To put that in perspective: In 1941, the U.S. had about 130 million people, and we lost 2,400 in Honolulu that day. In 2001, we had about 300 million, and lost 3,000 on 9/11. Proportionately, we lost about twice as many people at Pearl Harbor as we did at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon combined 60 years later.

About 18,000 people were stationed at Pearl Harbor at the time. In 2013, 2,000 to 2,500 survivors were thought to be still alive, according to Eileen Martinez, chief of interpretation for the USS Arizona Memorial. But I can find no definitive number of how many people who were there who are still alive, only that there are believed to be 3 still alive who served on the Arizona.

Of the 16,112,566 people who served in the armed forces of the United States of America from December 7, 1941 to August 14, 1945, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says that 325,574 are still alive, 76 to 80 years later -- a shade over 2 percent.

This was during Major League Baseball's offseason, so none of their games were played. This was 5 years before the founding of the NBA, so none of their games were played.

It was a Sunday, and 3 games were played in the National Football League. The most notable was at the Polo Grounds in New York, between 2 teams that were named for established baseball teams: The New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The Giants had won the NFL's Eastern Division title, as they had previously done in 1933, 1934, 1935, 1938 and 1939, winning the NFL Championship Game in 1934 and 1938 -- Super Bowl -XXXIII and Super Bowl -XXIX, if you prefer. But before they could face the Chicago Bears in the 1941 edition (having beaten them in 1934 and lost to them in 1933), they had to face the football Dodgers, who, like their baseball namesakes, played home games at Ebbets Field.

It was Tuffy Leemans Day at the Polo Grounds. Alphonse Emil Leemans (1912-1979) was a native of Superior, Wisconsin, and had been an All-American back (offensive and defensive) at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Giants would later retire his Number 4, and he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Dodgers didn't care. They were going for a season sweep of the Giants, and they got it, winning 21-7. The Giants may have been the official Division Champions, but the Dodgers were the unofficial City Champions.

The Brooklyn Eagle, December 8, 1941

The attack started at 7:48 AM Hawaii time, which was 1:48 PM East Coast time. During the 2nd half, word got to the press box, and announcements began to come over the public address system. In those days, it was rare for someone to get paged at a sporting event. Usually, it was a doctor, who had to go and attend to a medical emergency.

This time, with the draft already in place, and enlistments already well underway as well, military officers attending the game were paged, and told to report to their various bases in and around New York City.

At Comiskey Park in Chicago, home to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center on Lake Michigan, another crosstown battle was held. The Bears beat the host Cardinals 34-24. And at Griffith Stadium in Washington, in the capital so the number of government officials and military officers present was considerably larger than in New York and Chicago, the host Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles 20-14.

When the game in New York ended, Dodger fans could not openly celebrate, and Giant fans didn't care, either, because it was then announced to the crowd that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

The NFL Championship Game was played as scheduled, at Wrigley Field in Chicago on December 21, and, despite a 9-9 deadlock in the 3rd quarter, the Bears went on to beat the Giants 37-9.

Not until October 24, 1945 would an NHL game be played with all wartime conditions removed. For MLB, April 16, 1946. For the NFL, not until September 29, 1946.