The Results Speak for Themselves

October 18, 1977: The man that Sports Illustrated called a "Superduperstar" in Oakland becomes a legend in New York. He becomes "Mister October." Reggie Jackson hits 3 home runs, the last a tremendous blast into the center field bleachers at the original Yankee Stadium, blacked out as a hitter's background, and Mike Torrez goes the distance. The Yankees beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 8-4 at the original Yankee Stadium, and win Game 6 to take their 21st World Series -- but their 1st in 15 years.

We had Gabe Paul to build us a team for George Steinbrenner, an owner who said he placed winning second only to breathing.

October 18, 1998: The Yankees support Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez with 7 runs in the 1st 3 innings, and beat the San Diego Padres 9-3 to take a 2-0 lead in the World Series. They will finish the sweep in San Diego, 3 days later.

We had Gene Michael to build us a team for George Steinbrenner, an owner who said he placed winning second only to breathing.

October 18, 2021: Not so much.

We have Brian Cashman building a team designed to sell tickets and concessions for Hal Steinbrenner, the son of the previous owner.

The results speak for themselves.

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October 18, 1753: Joseph Bloomfield is born in Woodbridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey. He became a lawyer in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, and then commanded the 3rd New Jersey Regiment in the War of the American Revolution. He was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, but survived.

He was elected Clerk of the New Jersey General Assembly, then the State's Attorney General, and led New Jersey troops as part of the force that put down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. He was elected Governor twice, serving 1801-02 and 1803-12. He resigned as Governor to resume his service as a General in the War of 1812. He was elected to Congress in 1816 and 1818, and died in Burlington, Burlington County, on October 3, 1823, just short of turning 70.

In 1796, the Old First Church in Newark was named the Presbyterian Society of Bloomfield in his honor. In 1812, that part of Newark was separated from the City, and was named the Township of Bloomfield for him, although there is no evidence that he ever set foot within the Township's borders.

From September 1968 until November 1972, my parents lived in Bloomfield, at 183-B Davey Street in the Forest Hill garden apartments, which thus became my 1st home. We then moved to East Brunswick, where we have remained for 48 years.

For the 1st 18 years of my life, I figured the town was named for a field in which flowers bloomed. But upon visiting in 1988, I found a monument to the Township's founding, including General Bloomfield's name.

October 18, 1859: Abolitionist John Brown leads a raid by 22 escaped slaves on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), about 65 miles northwest of Washington. He had asked Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to join him. Both declined: Tubman was ill, and Douglass was sure that it would fail.

Douglass was right: U.S. Marines led by Lieutenant Israel Greene put the revolt down. Among their superiors were U.S. Army Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant James E.B. "Jeb" Stuart.

Brown was hanged for treason in Charles Town, (West) Virginia on December 2. He was 59 years old. In attendance were Lieutenant Thomas J. Jackson, a military instructor at Virginia Military Institute, not yet nicknamed "Stonewall"; and a 21-year-old actor who had volunteered with a militia known as the Richmond Grays, John Wilkes Booth.

Abraham Lincoln, then out of office, said, "He agreed with us thinking slavery wrong. That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed and treason." Writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, though a Northerner, wrote, "Nobody was ever more justly hanged." Lee, who took the raid more as an insult to Virginia than to slavery, said, "The result proves that the plan was the attempt of a fanatic or madman." But another Northern writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, called him "an idealist."

If the American Civil War wasn't inevitable before, it was now, and Lee, Stuart and Jackson would all become Confederate Generals. Still another Northern writer, Herman Melville, called Brown "the meteor of the war."

October 18, 1871, 150 years ago: Charles Babbage dies of kidney failure in London, at age 79. In 1822, he came up with an idea for what he called a "difference engine." The British government gave him money to develop it. He produced a working model in 1832 -- but "working" turned out to be a bit of a stretch. By 1842, the government had given up on him. Still, he is remembered as "the father of the computer."

October 18, 1873: The Toronto Argonauts play their 1st game. Under the scoring rules of the time, they defeat the Hamilton Tigers 1-0 in Toronto.

As the Tigers are the forerunners of today's Hamilton Tiger-Cats, this is not only the beginning of the longest continuously-used team name in North American professional sports (the Argonauts, or the Argos for short), but the longest-running rivalry in North American professional sports (148 years).

October 18, 1881, 140 years ago: John Bernard Lobert is born in Wilmington, Delaware. Like so many men named John of German descent, people called him by the German variant, "Hans." Or, in the case of John Peter Wagner, "Honus."

A 3rd baseman, Hans Lobert was a rookie and a teammate of Honus Wagner on the 1903 Pittsburgh Pirates, winning the National League Pennant, but losing the 1st World Series. His last season was with the 1917 New York Giants, again winning the Pennant but losing the World Series. In between, he batted .274 and stole 316 bases.

He later coached for the Philadelphia Phillies, and managed them in 1938, and again in 1942, with no success. Lawrence Ritter interviewed him for his book The Glory of Their Times. He died in 1968.

October 18, 1889: For the 1st time, a postseason series is played between 2 champions of baseball leagues that are both from New York.

The best-6-of-11 series between the Brooklyn Bridegrooms of the American Association (3 players on the team previously known as the Grays, and later as the Dodgers, had gotten married during the previous offseason) and the New York Giants of the National League (formerly the Gothams, manager Jim Mutrie had described them as "my big boys, my giants") opens at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan.
The Bridegrooms win, 12-10 in 8 innings. Oyster Burns is 4-for-5 with 3 RBIs‚ including the game-winning double in the bottom of the last inning.

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October 18, 1919: Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau is born in Montreal. He was Prime Minister of Canada for all but 9 months between April 1968 and February 1984. He was smart. He was suave. He was cool. His rise, "Trudeaumania," made it look like John F. Kennedy was singing lead for the Beatles in French.

The man usually listed as "Pierre Elliott Trudeau" threw out the ceremonial first balls before the 1st Montreal Expos home game at Jarry Park in 1969, the 1st Toronto Blue Jays game at Exhibition Stadium in 1977, and the 1st game the Expos played at their new home, the Olympic Stadium, also in 1977.

As a sports participant, he was a brown belt in judo, and loved to ski in Quebec's Laurentian Mountains. He died in 2000, and his son Justin Trudeau is now the Prime Minister, making the Trudeaus the 1st father & son pair to both serve in the post.

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October 18, 1921, 100 years ago: Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. is born outside Charlotte in Monroe, North Carolina. He was a reporter for The Raleigh Times, then became an executive for its television station, WRAL-Channel 5, delivering conservative editorials denouncing, as he put it, "the civil rights movement, the liberal news media, and anti-war churches."

In 1972, he switched to the Republican Party and ran for the U.S. Senate, winning 5 terms, all the while denouncing civil rights, atheists, labor unions, feminists, abortion activists and gay people. Ironically, while working at the newspaper, he had hired Armistead Maupin, who went on to become one of America's best-known gay-themed writers.

Helms became one of the most loved, and one of the most hated, politicians in America. When he ran for his 4th term in 1990, his Democratic opponent was Harvey Gantt, the black Mayor of Charlotte. Helms ran a campaign ad that showed a pair of white hands opening an envelope, then crumpling it up, as a rejection letter was read. The voice-over said that the job the man had applied to had been given to a less qualified black person, because of federal regulations.

Michael Jordan, who grew up in North Carolina and was the other most famous living citizen of the State, was asked to campaign for Gantt. He refused, saying, "Republicans buy sneakers, too." Helms won, with 52 percent of the vote. Jordan could have made a difference. Instead, he showed more loyalty to Nike than to North Carolina, or to America. In contrast, LeBron James has opposed Donald Trump.

Helms would have loved Trump's Presidency. Alas, he died in 2008, on July 4 (he might have liked that), exactly 4 months before Barack Obama was elected the nation's 1st black President -- including having won the State of North Carolina.

October 18, 1922: The British Broadcasting Corporation begins radio broadcasting. It begins television service in 1936. It becomes renowned for sports programming, including, from 1964 onward, its soccer program Match of the Day.

October 18, 1926: Charles Edward Anderson Berry is born in St. Louis. He died in 2017. He was hardly a role model, but, as John Lennon said, "If you want to give rock and roll another name, you could call it 'Chuck Berry.'"

"Maybellene." "Roll Over Beethoven." "School Day." "Reelin' & Rockin'." "Rock and Roll Music." "Sweet Little Sixteen." "Johnny B. Goode." (Those songs are listed in chronological order.) Any one of those songs would have made a man an all-time legend. He recorded them all -- between May 21, 1955 and January 6, 1958. That's 7 classics in a span of 961 days, or an average of 1 every 4 months.

In those 2 1/2 years -- about as long as it takes singers or bands to make 1 album today -- he made music without which there would have been no Beatles (they did "Roll Over Beethoven"), no Beach Boys ("Surfin' U.S.A." is the melody and place-naming of "Sweet Little Sixteen" taken to the beach, and "Fun, Fun, Fun" uses the guitar intro to "Johnny B. Goode"), and no anybody inspired by the greatest hitmaking bands that Britain and America, respectively, have ever produced.

October 18, 1928: Keith Max Jackson is born in Roopville, Georgia -- right around the time of, as he would later put it, "the possum-huntin' moon." Whoa, Nelly, he was the greatest college football broadcaster of all time. My goodness. His homespun Southern sayings endeared him to 2 generations of fans. "You can't be pussyfootin' around like a ballerina out there, you've got to run it north-and-south." (Translation: Don't give us any fancy offensive tricks, just run the ball up the middle.)

Oddly, he went to a Northern college, Washington State University -- on the G.I. Bill after serving in the Marines in the Korean War. But this enabled him to be objective when calling so many Southeastern Conference football games. He also nicknamed the oldest bowl game, the Rose Bowl, "the Granddaddy of Them All," and Michigan Stadium, which has had a crowd of over 115,000 for a football game, "The Big House."

He also tended drag out the M in "Mmmmichigan," and the L and the last A in "Allllabamaaaaaaaa," and refer to the University of Iowa's teams, the Hawkeyes, as the "Huckeyes." When a big play got canceled by a penalty, he would say, "Hold the phone!" When there were flags from every official on a play, he'd say, "There's a ton o' laundry on the field." The line of his that every impressionist copies, aside from "Whoa, Nelly," is "Fumblllllllle!"

On Thanksgiving Day 1993, he announced Georgia vs. Georgia Tech with former Miami Dolphin quarterback Bob Griese, saying, "This is the day when the waistline takes a whoopin', and ancient rivalries are replayed." The game was 16-10 in Georgia's favor going into the 4th quarter, but then things got out of control, as Georgia ran up the score, and Tech didn't like that, and a big fight broke out, before it was a 43-10 final. Not for the 1st time, and not for the last, Keith said of a rivalry, "These two teams just... don't... like each other."

He just wasn't as good with pro football. He did Monday Night Football in its 1st season, 1970, including the 1st game, a Jets loss away to the Cleveland Browns, then went back to the college game. He was ABC's lead broadcaster for the USFL, 1983 to 1985, but, again, it just wasn't the same. He also did ABC baseball broadcasts for a few years, including Chris Chambliss' home run that won the 1976 Pennant for the Yankees, the 1978 Playoff with the Red Sox (the Bucky Dent Game), and -- on his own 49th birthday -- Reggie's 3 homers.

His last game was the 2006 Rose Bowl thriller between Southern California and Texas. He died in 2018, at age 89. He said he wouldn't write a book about his experiences until he loses his golf swing. I hope he did it anyway, and left the manuscript somewhere: I want to read that book.

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October 18, 1931, 90 years ago: Andrew Arthur Carey is born in Oakland, and grew up in adjoining Alameda, California. A 3rd baseman, Andy was a Yankee from 1952 to 1960. In 1955, he led the American League with 11 triples. He made 2 key fielding plays that helped save Don Larsen's perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series. He won World Series rings with the Yankees in 1956 and 1958, and lived until 2011.

Also on this day, Thomas Edison dies of complications of diabetes at his home/laboratory in West Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. He was 84. A 1992 New York museum exhibit hailed him as "The Man Who Invented the 20th Century." Of course, he had help, some of which was helping himself to other people's inventions and taking credit for them. He was a genius inventor and a bastard businessman.

October 18, 1933: The Philadelphia Eagles play their 1st home game, losing 25-0 at Baker Bowl, home of the Phillies, to the Portsmouth Spartans of southern Ohio, the team that will become the Detroit Lions the next season. Only 5,000 people come to the ramshackle 18,800-seat relic at Broad Street and Lehigh Avenue, across from the North Philadelphia stations of both the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroads.

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October 10, 1941, 80 years ago: Ezell Alexander Blair Jr. is born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was one of "The Greensboro Four," students at the city's all-black North Carolina A&T University who began a "sit-in" at the lunch counter at the Woolworth's store downtown, to protest racial segregation in public accommodations. This would eventually lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 1965, Blair moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, and worked with developmentally disabled people. In 1968, he converted to Islam, and changed his name to Jibreel Khazan. He is still alive, at age 79.

Joseph McNeil, who sat in with him, and rose to the rank of Major General (2 stars) in the U.S. Air Force, is 78. David Richmond was the only one of the Four to stay in Greensboro, working as a porter until he developed cancer, and died in 1990, only 49. Franklin McCain worked for a chemical company in Charlotte, and lived until 2014, age 73. In 2002, NCA&T dedicated a statue of the Four.

October 18, 1942: Lavern George Holtgrave is born outside St. Louis in Aviston, Illinois. A pitcher, Vern Holtgrave made just 1 appearance in the major leagues, on September 26, 1965. He pitched the 4th, 5th and 6th innings for the Detroit Tigers, allowing 2 runs but not figuring in the decision, in a 7-1 loss to the Cleveland Indians. He pitched 1 more season in the minor leagues, and that was it. He is still alive.

October 18, 1946, 75 years ago: Frank Mitchell Beamer is born in Mount Airy, North Carolina. He turned the football program at his alma mater, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a.k.a. Virginia Tech, from a laughingstock into training stock for the NFL.

He retired after the 2015 season, having won 238 games, including 11 bowls and 12 1st-place finishes in either his league (first the Big East, now the Atlantic Coast Conference) or his division (since the ACC split). Counting his time as the head man at Murray State, he has 280 wins, and is the winningest and longest-tenured active coach in Division I-A -- excuse me, in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). He has been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.

His son Shane, a member (along with the now-infamous Michael Vick) of his 1999 team that reached the BCS National Championship Game, became one of his assistants, and is now the head coach at the University of South Carolina.

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October 18, 1951, 70 years ago: Michael John Antonovich is born in Calumet, Minnesota. A star hockey player at the University of Minnesota, Mike was a member of the original 1982-83 New Jersey Devils, but his best years were in the 1970s in the WHA, with the Minnesota Fighting Saints (no, I’m not making that name up, they played in St. Paul and they did do a lot of fighting) and the New England Whalers. He is now a scout with the Columbus Blue Jackets

Also on this day, Pamela Dawber (no middle name) is born in Detroit, and grows up in the suburb of North Farmington, Michigan. Pam started out with Wilhelmina Models, and tried out for the role of the grown-up Tabitha Stephens in Tabitha, a spinoff of Bewitched. She didn't get it (Lisa Hartman did), but it got ABC's attention, and she was cast opposite Robin Williams in the sitcom Mork & Mindy.

The show, set in Boulder, Colorado, didn't have much to do with sports, but the last scene of the opening montage showed Mork and Mindy on the goalposts at Folsom Field, home of the University of Colorado football team. Pam later played the title role in the CBS sitcom My Sister Sam.

In 1987, she married former UCLA quarterback Mark Harmon, then wrapping up his stint on St. Elsewhere. Since My Sister Sam's cancellation in 1989 (right before her co-star, Rebecca Schaeffer, was murdered at age 19), has cut back on acting to raise her family. She recently concluded a 7-episode arc co-starring with Harmon on NCIS.

Also on this day, Terry McMillan (no middle name) is also born in Michigan, in Port Huron. The status of her groove, and whether she needs to get it back, are uncertain.

October 18, 1953: The San Francisco 49ers beat the Chicago Bears 35-28 at Wrigley Field. Bears coach George Halas is unhappy with the play of quarterback George Blanda, and so the aptly-named Willie Thrower is sent in as his replacement, thus becoming the 1st black quarterback in the NFL. He throws 8 passes, completing 3, for 27 yards, and an interception. He played only 1 more game, was released, and never played pro football again. He died in 2002.

October 18, 1954: Texas Instruments announces it has begun production of the 1st transistor radio. Baseball fans everywhere rejoice, for now they can listen to ballgames almost anywhere, from the office to the beach.

Well, they'll have to wait until April 1955 to listen to them, and until Summer 1955 to listen to them on the beach. Maybe April 1955, if they live in California and can get Pacific Coast League broadcasts.

Also on this day, Mort Walker and Dik Browne debut the comic strip Hi & Lois. Separately, Walker created Beetle Bailey (Lois Flagston was Beetle's sister), and Browne created Hagar the Horrible.

October 18, 1955: The Community War Memorial Arena opens in Rochester, New York, 63 years to the day after the opening of the Edgerton Park Arena, which it replaces. The NBA's Rochester Royals only play 2 seasons there before moving to become the Cincinnati Royals in 1957, the Kansas City Kings in 1972, and the Sacramento Kings in 1985.

But the 10,664-seat building still stands, under the name of the Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial. Since 1956, it has been the home of one of the great institutions of minor-league hockey, the American Hockey League's Rochester Americans. The Amerks have shared it with the hockey team at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and, for games too big for their on-campus arena in Olean, the basketball team at St. Bonaventure University.

Also on this day, the Winnipeg Arena opens. It was home to the Winnipeg Jets from 1972 to 1996, including their 1976, 1978 and 1979 World Hockey Association titles. It was also home to a series of minor-league teams, including the Winnipeg Warriors, the original Winnipeg Jets, and, from the NHL Jets' move to Arizona in 1996 until 2004, the Manitoba Moose.

The Moose moved into the arena now known as the Canada Life Centre in 2004, a building necessary if Winnipeg was ever to return to the NHL, which it did when the Atlanta Thrashers became the new Jets in 2011. The old arena was torn down in 2006.

October 18, 1956: Martina Šubertová (no middle name) is born in Prague, in the nation then known as Czechoslovakia. Her stepfather, Miroslav Navrátil, became her 1st tennis coach, and her name was changed to Martina Navrátilová. 

Sorry, Roger Federer and Serena Williams, but Martina remains the greatest tennis player who ever lived, of any gender, of any era, of any nationality. From 1978 to 1990, she won 9 Wimbledons, 4 U.S. Opens, 3 Australian Opens and 2 French Opens. She just missed the Grand Slam in 1983, winning all but the French. That's 18 majors.

Also on this day, Johnny Hatten Buss is born in Los Angeles. Along with each of his 5 siblings, he inherited an 11 percent ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers from their father, Dr. Jerry Buss. His sister Jeanie is the controlling owner, though.

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October 18, 1960: Yankee co-owners Dan Topping and Del Webb officially relieve Casey Stengel as manager, after 12 seasons, a record 10 American League Pennants, and a record-tying 7 World Series wins.

He gives the press a prepared statement where he announces his resignation. Then he says, "I guess this means they fired me." And "I'll never make the mistake of being 70 again." But Casey, and Mets fans, would have the last laugh.

October 18, 1961, 60 years ago: The film version of the 1957 musical West Side Story premieres. It goes on to be nominated for 11 Academy Awards (Oscars), winning 10 of them, including Best Picture.

In this corner, of various white extractions including Irish, Italian and Polish -- and one kid known by a name that would never fly today, "A-rab" -- in a gang named the Jets: Richard Beymer as Tony (replacing Larry Kert from the original Broadway production, Jimmy Bryant did his singing), Russ Tamblyn as Riff (Michael Callan), and several other guys and girls, including a young Elaine Joyce, well before she became a regular on Match Game.

And in this corner, the Puerto Ricans, calling their gang the Sharks: Natalie Wood as Maria (with her songs sung by Marni Nixon, replacing Carol Lawrence from Broadway), George Chakiris as Bernardo (replacing Ken LeRoy -- ironically, Chakiris played Riff when the musical first took the British stage in 1958), Jose DeVega as Chino, and, in an Oscar-winning performance, Rita Moreno (Chita Rivera).

And, in the only thing they seem to agree on (besides all of them being Catholic and that you gotta be tough to survive in Hell's Kitchen), hating the police, William Bramley plays Sergeant Krupke, a.k.a. Officer Krupke.

In 1969, after winning the Super Bowl with a different group of Jets, Joe Namath got his own TV talk show. The moderator was author Dick Schaap. Schaap was an Ivy Leaguer, having gone to Cornell University in New York State's Finger Lakes region. Namath barely got through the University of Alabama. At one point during the run of The Joe Namath Show, Schaap mentioned that he was going to see Romeo & Juliet as part of the Shakespeare in the Park series, and invited Namath. Namath said, "What's it about?" Schaap was shocked that Namath had never heard of it. So he said, "Did you ever see West Side Story?"

In 1972, the World Hockey Association was founded. Two of its teams were the Winnipeg Jets and the Los Angeles Sharks. And the "Jets vs. Sharks" jokes were easy. In 1979, with the Sharks long since disbanded, the Jets were among the WHA teams invited to join the NHL. In 1991, the San Jose Sharks were founded, and the jokes resumed. In 1996, the Jets moved to become the team now known as the Arizona Coyotes. In 2011, the Atlanta Thrashers moved, became the new Winnipeg Jets, and the Jets vs. Sharks jokes started all over again.

In the Spring of 2017, I was babysitting my niece Mackenzie, not yet a full year old. And West Side Story came on TV, with its creditless opening montage showing New York from above, including the pre-renovation original Yankee Stadium in living color. When the camera finally panned down to the finger-snapping Jets, and they started dancing to Jerome Robbins' choreography and Leonard Bernstein's score, Mackenzie was transfixed. This baby could not take her eyes off a movie that premiered nearly 55 years before she was born.

October 18, 1966: The expansion Chicago Bulls play their 1st home game. They overcome 32 points from Rick Barry with 26 by Jerry Sloan and 22 by Guy Rodgers, and beat the San Francisco Warriors 119-116 at the International Amphitheatre.

The Bulls will play only their 1st season in the stockyards arena, which became infamous 2 years later as the site of the 1968 Democratic Convention, and play at the Chicago Stadium on the West Side from 1967 until 1994, subsequently moving across the street to the United Center.

October 18, 1967: The Philadelphia Flyers play their 1st regular-season home game. They beat the St. Louis Blues 2-1 at The Spectrum.

October 18, 1968: The Phoenix Suns play the 1st game ever played by a major league team calling Arizona home. They win it, too, getting 27 points from Gail Goodrich, and defeating last year's expansion team, the Seattle SuperSonics, 116-107 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

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October 18, 1971, 50 years ago: Aryamehr Stadium opens in Tehran, the capital of Iran. The name means "Light of the Aryans." The original meaning of "Aryan" had nothing to do with Nordic peoples, as the Nazis claimed. They were the native people of land stretching from present-day Iran to India.

The stadium was built to host the 1974 Asian Games, a continental mini-Olympics. It also became the home of Iran's national soccer team, and of the 2 biggest teams in the city, and in the country: Persepolis, a.k.a. the Red Army; and Taj, meaning "Crown," a.k.a. the Loving Blues and the Giants of Asia.

Among the other changes brought about by Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, the name of the stadium was changed to Azadi Stadium (ironically, "Azadi" means "Freedom"), and the name of Taj, to rid them of its connection to the deposed Shah and his royal/imperial family, was changed to Esteghlal (meaning "Independence").

From a record crowd of 128,000 for a 1998 World Cup qualifying match between Iran and Australia, the stadium's conversion to all-seater has dropped capacity to 78,116. Still, when split down the middle between 39,000 Red Army fans and 39,000 Loving Blues fans, it is as wild a sporting venue as any in the world.

October 18, 1973: The Mets win Game 5 of the World Series, 2-0 over the Oakland Athletics at Shea Stadium, behind the 3-hit pitching of Jerry Koosman and Tug McGraw. Cleon Jones doubles in a run in the 2nd, and Don Hahn's triple scores the other run.

The Series now moves out to Oakland, and the Mets need to win only 1 of the last 2 games to win their 2nd World Series. It would take them another 13 years to get that 4th World Series game won.

October 18, 1975: Also on this day, Jose Alexander Cora is born in Caguas, Puerto Rico. The starting shortstop of the 2007 World Champion * Boston Red Sox, Alex Cora also played for the Mets, and, after a few years as an analyst for ESPN, plus coaching for the Houston Astros team that won the 2017 World Series *,took over managing the Red Sox in 2018, taking them to 108 wins and another World Series win *. But he was suspended for the 2020 season, for his role in the Astros' cheating scandal. He resumed his job as Red Sox manager, and has led them to victory over the Yankees in the AL Wild Card Game, and into the ALCS.

His brother Joey Cora is a former big-leaguer, and now an MLB Network analyst.

October 18, 1977: The Nets play their 1st game as a New Jersey team. Well, not really: They started out as the New Jersey Americans in the ABA in 1967-68, before moving to Long Island and becoming the New York Nets. And this game is on the road, at Cobo Hall in Detroit. But, officially, they play their 1st game as the New Jersey Nets.

It doesn't go so well: The Detroit Pistons beat them, 110-93. As they did the season before, their 1st in the NBA, the Nets will struggle for the 4 seasons in which they call the Rutgers Athletic Center home. (Anybody would, playing their home games in that ridiculous gym.) Once they move into the Meadowlands Arena in 1981, things will improve a bit.

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October 18, 1981, 40 years ago: Gregory Robert Warren is born in Mount Olive, North Carolina. A center and the long snapper for the Pittsburgh Steelers, he has appeared in 3 Super Bowls, winning 2 (XL and XLIII). He retired due to injury in 2007.

Also on this day, Nathan Michael Hauritz is born in Wondai, Queensland, Australia. One of the top cricketers of the 2000s, he played in 3 Cricket World Cups, helping Australia win in 2003.

October 18, 1982: The New Jersey Devils play the Philadelphia Flyers for the 1st time. The Devils win, 3-1 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford.

Also on this day, Bess Truman dies of heart failure in her hometown of Independence, Missouri. The widow of President Harry S Truman (served 1945 to 1953) was 97. She remains the longest-lived First Lady.

October 18, 1986: Maybe the Mets' World Series win this year isn't "inevitable" after all. The Boston Red Sox win Game 1, 1-0 at Shea, when Tim Teufel botches Rich Gedman's routine grounder in the 7th inning‚ allowing Jim Rice to score the game's only run. Bruce Hurst and Calvin Schiraldi combine on a 4-hitter for the Red Sox.

Also on this day, Saturday Night Live debuts the sketch "The Sweeney Sisters." Candy (Jan Hooks) and Liz (Nora Dunn) sing cover medleys of pop standards, usually including "The Trolley Song" from Meet Me In St. Louis. In their 10th and final appearance, on March 25, 1989, it  was revealed that there was a 3rd sister who split with them due to creative differences, Audrey, played by Mary Tyler Moore.

Also on this day, NFL playing and broadcasting legend Frank Gifford marries actress, singer and TV show host Kathie Lee Johnson. It's his 3rd marriage, her 2nd. They would have 2 children, and, despite an indiscretion on his part, they would remain together until death did they part, 28 years later.

October 18, 1988: Mark McGwire's home run off Jay Howell in the bottom of the 9th gives Oakland a 2-1 win in Game 3 of the World Series. This is the 1st time, and it remains the only time, that 2 games of a single World Series end with walkoff homers. However, this will be the only game in the Series that the A's will win.

October 18, 1997: For the 1st time, a World Series game is played in the State of Florida. The Marlins take Game 1‚ 7-4 over the Cleveland Indians at Joe Robbie Stadium‚ behind rookie Cuban pitcher Livan Hernandez. Moises Alou's 3-run homer in the 4th inning is the big blow for the Marlins‚ who are outhit by the Indians‚ 11-7.

October 18, 1998: The Yankees strike early in Game 2 of the World Series‚ scoring 3 runs in each of the 1st 2 innings. They go on to cruise to a 9-3 win in Game 2 behind Orlando Hernandez, brother of Livan and nicknamed "El Duque" (the Duke). Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada connect for homers.

October 18, 1999: Yankees 6, Red Sox 1, in Game 5 of the ALCS. The Yankees clinch a Pennant at Fenway Park. El Duque wins the clincher and is named series MVP. Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada homer for the Yanks.

This was the 6th Pennant the Yankees clinched at Fenway. The 1st 5 happened when Pennants could still be clinched in the regular season: 1922, 1937, 1941, 1950 and 1955. They've also clinched Division titles at Fenway in 1978 (the Bucky Dent Game), 1998 and 2005; and, this year a Wild Card berth at Fenway, although that was by backing in: Losing on a night when the team they needed to lose also did so. 

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October 18, 2002: The SBC Center opens in San Antonio, with a San Antonio Spurs exhibition game. The Spurs won the NBA Championship in their 1st season there, in addition to the 1999 title won at their former home, the HemisFair Arena. They added titles in 2005, 2007 and 2014. The building's name was changed to the AT&T Center in 2006.

October 18, 2003: The 100th Anniversary World Series gets underway at Yankee Stadium. I had a feeling that, physically and emotionally drained after their intense ALCS against the Red Sox, there was no way the Yankees would win Game 1.

Sure enough: Bernie Williams hits a home run, but Brad Penny, Dontrelle Willis and Ugeth Urbina otherwise shut them down, and the Florida Marlins beat them, 3-2.

October 18, 2004: The Red Sox outlast the Yankees‚ 5-4‚ in 14 innings to force a Game 6 of their ALCS. David Ortiz again is the hero (cough-with a sidekick named "Steroids"-cough)‚ driving home the winning run with a bloop single. Ortiz also homers‚ as does Bernie Williams for the Yanks.

October 18, 2005: Arsenal travel to the Czech Republic for a UEFA Champions League match, and defeat Sparta Prague 2-0 at Stadion Letná. Both goals are scored by Thierry Henry, including his 186th for Arsenal, breaking the club record set by Ian Wright. He will finish his Arsenal career with 228 goals, and remains the team's all-time leader.

October 18, 2007: On national TV on a Thursday night, Rutgers plays the University of South Florida, then ranked Number 2 in the country, 30-27 in front of a full house of 44,267 at Rutgers Stadium. USF -- misnamed, since their home region of Tampa Bay is in Central Florida -- becomes the highest-ranking opponent RU has ever beaten.

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October 18, 2010: Game 3 of the ALCS. This wasn't the most damaging late-season or postseason bullpen screwup by Yankee manager Joe Girardi. But it was the ugliest.

Cliff Lee (there must be a reason why he kept changing teams, despite apparently being so good) shuts the Yankees out on 3 hits over the 1st 8 innings. But it's still only 2-0 in favor of the Texas Rangers, after Josh Hamilton hit a home run off Andy Pettitte back in the 1st. The Yankees could still win it.

Instead, Girardi takes Kerry Wood out after he'd pitched a scoreless 8th, and brings in Boone Logan, because he's a lefthanded pitcher, to pitch to Hamilton. What the Yankee skipper forgets is, A, Logan can't fucking pitch; and, B, Hamilton can hit the ball 400 feet without even thinking about it (possibly with pharmaceutical help).

Hamilton hits another homer, and before Logan, David Robertson and Sergio Mitre can finally stop the bleeding, the Rangers have taken an 8-0 lead. That's the final, and the Rangers lead the series 2-1.

October 18, 2012: The Tigers win their 2nd Pennant in 7 years when they beat the Yankees, 8-1, at Comerica Park to complete a 4-game sweep. Delmon Young is named series MVP.

The last time the Bronx Bombers had failed to win a game in a postseason series was in 1980, after the Royals beat them 3 straight in the best 3-of-5 ALCS.

Did I say "Bombers"?  Derek Jeter broke his ankle in Game 1, missed the rest of the series, and, really, was never the same again. Even so, in this series, as in the ALDS against the Baltimore Orioles, the Yankees just weren't hitting: Curtis Granderson went 0-for-11, Brett Gardner 0-for-8, Eric Chavez 0-for-8, Robinson Cano 1-for-18, Alex Rodriguez 1-for-9 (2009 was already beginning to look like a long time ago), Russell Martin 2-for-14, Mark Teixeira 3-for-15, Raul Ibanez 3-for-13, Nick Swisher 3-for-12.

The Yankees scored 4 runs in the bottom of the 9th to send Game 1 to extra innings. Other than that, in 38 innings in this series, they scored 2 runs, and had an on-base percentage of .224. Pathetic.

It took the Yankees 5 years to reach another Division Series, let alone another LCS. We're still looking for our 1st Pennant, never mind World Series win, in 11 years. Because of this, Joe Grardi no longer has his job. Why does Brian Cashman still have his?

October 18, 2017: After 29 seasons at the Palace in suburban Auburn Hills, Michigan, and 10 years before that at the Silverdome in suburban Pontiac, the Detroit Pistons play their 1st game back in the City of Detroit since Cobo Hall in 1978, at the new Little Caesars Arena. They beat the Charlotte Hornets 102-90.

Also on this night, the Yankees win Game 5 of the ALCS, beating the Houston Astros 5-0, on a shutout by Masahiro Tanaka and a home run by Gary Sánchez. They need to win just 1 of the potential 2 in Houston to take the Pennant.

They don't.

October 18, 2019: Game 5 of the ALCS. The Yankees do not want to have the Astros clinch at Yankee Stadium. But when James Paxton allows a run in the top of the 1st, it doesn't look good.

But the Yankees score 4 times in the bottom of the 1st, thanks to home runs  by DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Hicks. Paxton takes this cushion and settles down, and there is no further scoring -- the 1st time in MLB postseason history that both teams score in the 1st inning and neither does thereafter.

In regular-season play, for Detroit and Houston, Justin Verlander closed the 2020 season with a record of 226-129. In Division Series play, he's 8-1. In LCS play, this game dropped him to 6-4. But in World Series play, he is 0-6. (He was injured, and did not pitch for the Astros in the 2020 postseason, or at all in 2021.)