September 19, 1934: Hank Greenberg Does Not Play On Yom Kippur

September 19, 1934, 90 years ago: The Detroit Tigers take the field at their home ballpark of Navin Field. They do so against what is, aside from themselves, the best team in the American League, the New York Yankees. What's more, they do so without their best player, 1st baseman Hank Greenberg.

The Tigers went into the game 7 1/2 games ahead of the Yankees, 8 in the loss column, with 11 games left for them and 10 left for the Yankees. No one thought in terms of a "magic number" to clinch in those days, but the Tigers' was 4: Any number of Tiger wins and Yankee losses the rest of the way, adding up to 4, and the Tigers would win the AL Pennant.

But they hadn't wrapped it up yet. There hadn't yet been a team with a significant lead in September that ended up blowing it. This was before the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers, the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies, the 1969 Chicago Cubs, the 1978 Boston Red Sox, the 1987 Toronto Blue Jays, the 1995 California Angels, and the 2007 New York Mets. (Indeed, the Jays, the Angels and the Mets didn't even exist yet.)

But the New York Giants, winners of the previous year's World Series, had led the National League by 7 games as late as September 6, and now led the St. Louis Cardinals by only 3 1/2 games, and did end up blowing it in the last 2 days of the regular season. So such a collapse was already considered possible.

And the idea that Greenberg might not play in this game worried Tiger fans. But, as a series of TV commercials for Hebrew National Kosher hot dogs would say, decades later, he answered to a higher authority.

Henry Benjamin Greenberg was born on January 1, 1911 in Manhattan. He grew up in The Bronx, attended James Monroe High School, and became the Tigers' starting 1st baseman in 1933. Henry Aaron was born on February 5, 1934, and would go on to become baseball's all-time home run leader. But his nickname, "Hammerin' Hank," was first given to Hank Greenberg.

On September 18, 1934, Greenberg hit a home run, his 25th of the season, off fellow future Hall-of-Famer Red Ruffing, and the Tigers beat the Yankees, 2-0, as Lynwood "Schoolboy" Rowe pitched a 6-hit shutout.

But, in 1934, from sunset on September 18 to sunset on September 19, was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, the conclusion of Judaism's "high holy days" that begins with the start of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

And Greenberg was Jewish. Rosh Hashanah fell on September 10 and 11 that year, and Greenberg did play on the afternoon of the 11th. (The Tigers' ballpark wouldn't get lights until 1948, making it the last in the AL to do so.) The Tigers lost that game to the Boston Red Sox, 4-3 in 11 innings, as Hall-of-Famer Lefty Grove pitched 3 innings of scoreless relief for the win, and Greenberg went 0-for-3, although he did walk twice and was driven in both times.

Some Jewish people suggested that the defeat, and Greenberg's hitless performance -- few people thought in terms of on-base percentage in those days -- was God's punishment for playing on the holy day. So, with Yom Kippur coming up, he was facing pressure from both sides: Tiger fans who wanted him to play on September 19, and Jews who didn't want him to play.

He announced that he would not play. On the morning of the 19th, he attended a service at a synagogue: Congregation Shaarey Zedek, whose name translates to "Gates of Righteousness." It was located at 2900 Chicago Avenue. Clinton Street Greater Bethlehem Temple Church occupies the site now. In 1962, Shaarey Zedek moved to their current location, is now in suburban Southfield, Michigan, at 27375 Bell Road.

And when the Tigers took the field against the Yankees, their 1st baseman was Frank Doljack. He did reach base twice, with a single and a walk. It was the Tigers' other stars who fell short that day. Between them, Greenberg, 2nd baseman Charlie Gehringer, and left fielder Leon "Goose" Goslin were known as the "G-Men," in this year that was the 1st of big publicity for the FBI, whose agents were also called that (the G standing for "Government men"). Goslin went 0-for-4. Gehringer went 0-for-3 with a walk. And Mickey Cochrane, both the Tigers' manager and their catcher, only appeared as a pinch-hitter, although he had an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

So they had 3 future Hall-of-Famers in their lineup, instead of the usual 4. That, along with their other regulars, should have been enough to help them win. Especially since the Yankees did not have Babe Ruth in this game. (It would be his last season with them.)

But the Yankees did have Lou Gehrig, on his way to becoming the 1st Yankee ever to win the Triple Crown. (In spite of this, Cochrane would be named the AL's Most Valuable Player.) Gehrig went 0-for-3. But they had another Hall-of-Famer, Tony Lazzeri, and his 2-run double in the 6th inning made the difference, and the Yankees won, 5-2.

All over America, Jews celebrated Greenberg for sacrificing an important game for the sake of his faith. Tiger fans? Their concerns faded, and a doubleheader sweep of the Chicago White Sox on September 26 gave the Tigers their 1st Pennant in 25 years. Greenberg became a hero to anyone who wasn't an anti-Semite.

The Tigers lost the World Series to the Cardinals. The next season, they won the Pennant again, with Greenberg being named AL MVP, and won the World Series against the Chicago Cubs, the 1st World Championship for a Detroit baseball team since the 1887 Wolverines, 48 years earlier.

Greenberg would have 184 RBIs in 1937, falling 1 short of Gehrig's AL record. In 1938, he hit 58 home runs, falling 2 short of Ruth's major league record. In 1940, he led the Tigers to another Pennant, having been moved from 1st base to left field, and becoming the 1st player ever to be named MVP at 2 different positions. But he got hurt in the World Series, and they lost to the Cincinnati Reds.

In 1941, he became the 1st major league player to enlist in the U.S. Army, as World War II threatened to drag America into it. He was discharged in 1945, between V-E Day and V-J Day, and returned to the Tigers to hit a grand slam on the last day of the season, to clinch their 4th Pennant with him, and beat the Cubs to win another World Series.

A bad back convinced Greenberg to retire after the 1946 season, but the Pittsburgh Pirates asked him to come back, so he could tutor their young slugger Ralph Kiner. They offered him baseball's 1st $100,000-a-year salary. (With inflation, it would be worth $1.33 million in 2022.) He took it on the condition that it be his last season. Kiner never forgot Greenberg's kindness.

Nor did Jackie Robinson, whose 1st season was Greenberg's last. Facing anti-Semitism on a greater scale than any player ever had, Greenberg was the one player who could, and did, truthfully say to modern baseball's 1st black player, "I know what you're going through."

On May 17, 1947, when the Pirates played the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson laid down a bunt, and, in his effort to reach 1st base, collided with Greenberg. Neither man was hurt. Later in the game, Greenberg walked, and, as Robinson was also playing 1st that season (moving to 2nd the next year), they had a chance to talk:

Greenberg, then: "Don't pay attention to these guys who are trying to make it hard for you. Stick in there... I hope you and I can get together for a talk. There are a few things I've learned down through the years that might help you and make it easier."

Robinson, to the press after the game: "Class tells. It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg."

Despite being just short of 37 years old, due to his injury, Greenberg did indeed retire after the 1947 season. Lifetime batting average: .331. OPS+: 158. Hits: 1,628, including 379 doubles (including 63, 4 off the all-time record, in 1934) and 331 home runs (including the 58 in 1938). RBIs: 1,276 (including the 184 in 1937). All this in what amounted to just 10 full seasons. If he'd been exempt from military service and had been able to play until he was 40, he would have had about 600 home runs, might have collected 3,000 hits, and perhaps joined Ruth and Aaron, Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols as the only men with 2,000 RBIs.

In 1999, The Sporting News placed him at Number 37 on its list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, in spite of his abbreviated career. In his book Ted Williams' Hit List, Williams named his Top 20 Hitters, and he put Greenberg at Number 11. Whether he was ranked that high (ahead of Tris Speaker and Mickey Mantle) due to peak value or to their friendship, I don't know. But Ted always said Hank was a wonderful guy.

Bill Veeck, owner of the Cleveland Indians, offered him a front-office position, and together they helped make the Indians the 1948 World Champions. Greenberg tutored another young slugger, a Jewish one like himself, third baseman Al Rosen. When Veeck sold the team, the new owners kept Greenberg, promoting him to general manager, and another Pennant-winner was built in 1954. When Veeck bought the Chicago White Sox, he brought in Greenberg as a part-owner, and another Pennant-winner was built in 1959.

That was Greenberg's last job in organized baseball, although his son Steve later played in the minors, not making it to the majors due to injury. Steve later founded Classic Sports Network, bought by ESPN and turned into ESPN Classic, one of the great treasures of American broadcasting.

In one of the weirdest occurrences in baseball history, Hank Greenberg, Ralph Kiner and Al Rosen all retired sooner than they could have due to bad backs. It didn't keep Greenberg out of the Hall of Fame: He was elected in 1956. It almost kept Kiner out: He was elected in 1975, his 15th and last year of eligibility under the baseball writers' vote. It has, thus far, kept Rosen out, although he later went on to become, like Greenberg, one of baseball's finest executives, building postseason teams in New York (the 1978 World Champion Yankees), Houston (the 1986 National League Western Division Champion Astros) and San Francisco (the 1989 NL Champion Giants).

Greenberg never hesitated to speak of his admiration for his heroes, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, his teammate and manager in Detroit Mickey Cochrane, and, even though he was several years younger, Jackie Robinson. As Jackie said, class tells: Men such as Robinson, Williams, Kiner and Rosen spent the rest of their lives telling of Greenberg's hitting talent and his great decency. Greenberg died on September 4, 1986, at the age of 75.

Tigers principal owner Frank Navin died on November 19, 1935. This made Walter Briggs the team's sole owner. In the 1937-38 off-season, Briggs expanded the ballpark into what became its familiar configuration, and renamed it Briggs Stadium. He died in 1952, and his son Walter Jr., a.k.a. Spike Briggs, inherited the team. In 1956, Spike sold the Tigers to a group led by John Fetzer. In 1961, Fetzer renamed the ballpark Tiger Stadium. The Tigers remained there until the 1999 season, and then moved into their current home, Comerica Park.

In 1965, Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers, then the best pitcher in baseball, refused to start Game 1 of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. The Dodgers lost to the Minnesota Twins, and when manager Walter Alston came to take their other Hall of Fame pitcher, Don Drysdale, out of the game, Drysdale said, "I bet you wish I was Jewish, too!"

To make matters worse, Koufax lost Game 2. But the Dodgers came back, and Koufax pitched shutouts in Games 5 and 7 to win the Series. The fact that Koufax took a bigger risk, and the fact that, unlike Greenberg, a star of radio and black & white newsreels, his sacrifice took place in the era of TV and color film, made Koufax an even bigger legend than Greenberg.

But Greenberg did it first. As with anything else, the first one to do something will always be special.

September 19, 1934 was a Wednesday. Yom Kippur does not prohibit the birth of Jewish babies, and, in Liverpool, England, Brian Epstein, the man who would go on to manage The Beatles, was born on this day.

September 17, 1949: Wile E. Coyote & the Road Runner Debut

September 17, 1949, 75 years ago: Warner Brothers releases the cartoon Fast and Furry-ous, introducing the characters of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

In his book Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist, Chuck Jones claimed that he and the artists behind the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons adhered to some simple but strict rules:

1. "The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going, 'Beep-Beep!'"
2. "No outside force can harm the Coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products."
3. "The Coyote could stop anytime, if he were not a fanatic. (Repeat: 'A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.' – George Santayana)."
4. "No dialogue, ever, except 'Beep-Beep!'" (In cartoons not involving the Road Runner, the Coyote spoke. For example, telling Bugs Bunny that he was a genius. Which he was not.)
5. "The Road Runner must stay on the road, otherwise, logically, he would not be called a Road Runner."
6. "All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters, the Southwest American desert."
7. "All materials tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation."
8. "Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy." (Sometimes, something would fall on top of the Coyote. My father called that “Coyote Sandwich.”

1. "The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures."

One running gag involves the coyote trying, in vain, to shield himself with a little parasol against a great falling boulder that is about to crush him. Another involves him falling from high cliffs, after momentarily being suspended in midair, as if the fall is delayed until he realizes that there is nothing below him. (This would later be used on The Flintstones.) The rest of the scene, shot from a bird’s-eye view, shows him falling into a canyon so deep that his figure is eventually lost to sight, with only a small puff of dust indicating his impact.
 
The Coyote is notably a brilliant artist, capable of quickly painting incredibly lifelike renderings of such things as tunnels and roadside scenes, in further (and equally futile) attempts to deceive the bird. However, the Road Runner would run into this fake tunnel, as if it were real. When the Coyote tried it himself, he would crash into it with a SPLAT!
 
From the "My Entire Childhood Was a Lie" Department: Coyotes are faster than roadrunners – and, in real life, "roadrunner" is always one word, not two like with the cartoon character. The top speed of a coyote is 43 miles per hour; of a road runner, 26.
 

From 1967 to 1974, the Western Hockey League had a team named the Phoenix Roadrunners. From 1974 to 1977, a team with that name played in the Western Hockey League. In 1997, the NHL gave Phoenix a team, which would eventually named the Arizona Coyotes. They moved to Salt Lake City this year. 

The Yankees May Have Begun Their Run

Maybe, just maybe, the Yankees have begun the run that will lead them not only into, but through, the postseason.

They began last week last Monday night, Labor Day, with a home series against the Kansas City Royals, who are probably going to the Playoffs themselves. Carlos Rodón did not have a good start, but the Yankees got home runs from Alex Verdugo and Austin Wells. Wells had 4 RBIs, and Gleyber Torres went 3-for-5 with an RBI, and has broken out of a poor season with the bat. The Yankees won, 10-4.

Marcus Stroman had a bad start on Tuesday night, but it wouldn't have mattered if he'd had a good one: Seth Lugo had a brilliant start for Kansas City, going 7 shutout innings, allowing 3 hits and no walks, striking out 10. Torres singled to lead off the 1st inning, and singled again in the 6th, and Wells singled in the 7th. That's all the baserunners the Yankees got. The Royals won, 5-0.

Wednesday night's contest felt like a must-win game. Luis Gil allowed only 1 run over the 1st 5 innings, but at 97 pitches, Aaron Boone (and Brian Cashman) didn't let him pitch any longer. Juan Soto homered in the 6th inning. But Clay Holmes, having earned his way out of the closer's role, was brought in to protect a 2-1 lead in the 7th, and couldn't. It was his 12th blown save of the season. I had to look up the record: It's 14, by Bruce Sutter, with the 1976 Chicago Cubs. And Sutter is a Hall-of-Famer. Holmes is not.

The game went to extra innings. With the stupid "ghost runner" rule, each team scored a run in the 10th. Jon Berti had been activated off the Injured List, and was the ghost runner to start the bottom of the 11th. Soto grounded out, which moved Berti over to 3rd. The next batter was Aaron Judge, and 1st base was open, and his run meant nothing. Naturally, the Royals chose to walk him intentionally.

That meant pitching to Jazz Chisholm. We'll never know if pitching to Judge would have been a mistake. Pitching to Chisholm was: He singled Berti home. Yankees 4, Royals 3. Luke Weaver was the winning pitcher, pitching to 5 batters, and getting them all out. He may now be the closer.

*

The Scum came in. For 4 games, starting on Thursday night, the Yankees would face the Boston Red Sox, proven cheaters, with their manager Alex Cora, a proven cheater with another team. Torres hit a leadoff home run in the 1st inning. That was all that Nestor Cortés needed, as he went 5 innings, allowing 1 run on 3 hits, 3 walks, 9 strikeouts.

But he threw 92 pitches, so he was removed. The bullpen held the Sox, but the Yankees couldn't get it done. After Torres' homer, for the rest of the regulation 9 innings, the Yankees got 5 singles, a double, 5 walks and a hit-by-pitch -- but no runs.

In the bottom of the 10th, with Berti again the ghost runner, Soto singled him home with the winning run. Yankees 2, Red Sox 1. Winning pitcher: Believe it or not, Holmes.

On Friday night, Clarke Schmidt pitched 5 shutout innings, but lost control in the 6th. Through the 1st 6 innings, the Yankees got 3 singles, a double, and 3 walks, but no runs, and trailed, 4-0.

Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Anthony Volpe led off the bottom of the 7th with a walk. Verdugo drew a walk. Torres singled Volpe home. And Soto drew a walk, to load the bases for Judge. Judge had gone 16 straight games without a home run. He put an end to that with a blast into the left field stands. Yankees 5, Red Sox 4. The much-maligned Mark Leiter Jr. was the winning pitcher, and Weaver got another save.

If had told me, after the 2003 World Series, blown in large part (but not in whole) by Jeff Weaver, that I would one day cheer a Yankee reliever named Weaver, I would have asked what drug you were on. Yet, here we are.

Saturday afternoon, 2 great wins over the Red Sox behind us, Gerrit Cole on the mound? I was confident. I shouldn't have been: The "ace" was great for 3 innings, then fell apart, allowing 7 runs before being removed in the 5th. Red Sox 7, Eagles 1, with Torres, again, coming through, in this case with the team's only RBI.

So the Sunday afternoon game also felt "must-win." Chisholm led off the bottom of the 2nd with a single, and Giancarlo Stanton doubled him home. Torres and Judge both homered in the 3rd, Torres with his 14th, Judge with his 53rd.

Rodón made the lead stand up, allowing 2 runs into the 6th inning. The bullpen took it from there, keeping the Sox off the board. Yankees 5, Red Sox 2, taking 3 out of 4 from The Scum.

*

For weeks, it looked like the Yankees didn't have what it takes to win the American League Eastern Division. They were reprieved by the Baltimore Orioles also being unable to take hold of the Division. Going into tonight's MLB games -- neither the Yanks nor the O's are scheduled -- the Yanks are 87-63, 3 games ahead of the O's. The Yanks' Magic Number to clinch a Playoff berth is 3; the Division, 10.

If the current standings hold to the end of the season, the Yankees would have the top seed all the way through the AL Playoffs. If they reach the World Series, the only National League teams that would have home-field advantage over them would be the Philadelphia Phillies (whom they swept in Philadelphia in July) and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The remaining regular-season schedule, with all times Eastern Time and PM:

* Away to the Seattle Mariners: Tomorrow and Wednesday at 9:40, Thursday at 4:10.

* Away to the Oakland Athletics -- for the last time, unless a miracle saves them from moving in the off-season: Friday at 9:40, Saturday at 9:07, and Sunday at 4:07.

* Home to the Baltimore Orioles: Tuesday the 24th, Wednesday the 25th, and Thursday the 26th, all 7:05. This series will likely decide the Division title.

* Home to the Pittsburgh Pirates: Friday the 27, at 7:05; Saturday the 28th, at 1:05; and Sunday the 29th, at 3:05.

Has the big postseason run begun? We will find out.

September 15, 1994: The Baseball Season Is Canceled

September 15, 1994, 30 years ago: A date which lives in infamy. There is no joy in Mudville, or anywhere else.

Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig, a walking conflict-of-interest as the Acting Commissioner of Major League Baseball, cancels the remainder of the regular season, and the postseason, including the World Series, following a vote of the team owners. No Commissioner, in any of the "big four" North American sports, had ever done that before.

The vote is 26-2. Oddly, the 2 who voted to go on with the season and not betray the fans were 2 of the most hated team owners of the era: Peter Angelos of the Baltimore Orioles and Marge Schott of the Cincinnati Reds.

That strike, lasting from August 12, 1994 to April 25, 1995, was rough. Although President Clinton got the Crime Bill passed, his health care initiative failed, the Republican Party won control of both houses of Congress, and began passing bills slashing social services, which Clinton had to veto. A ferry carrying passengers from Estonia to Sweden sank, killing over 800 people. The Taliban was founded. A religious cult unleashed a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, killing 13 and putting 5,000 in the hospital. Singer Selena (Quintanilla-Perez, not Gomez) was murdered. And, just before baseball started play again, a white "Christian" domestic terrorist blew up the federal government office building in Oklahoma City.

It wasn't all bad. A totalitarian government in Haiti fell. The Channel Tunnel opened, finally linking Britain with the European Continent by road. Sony released the first PlayStation. George Foreman regained the Heavyweight Championship of the World, 20 years after he lost it to Muhammad Ali, by knocking Michael Moorer out, making himself the oldest Heavyweight Champion ever, age 45.

Billy Wright, and Wilma Rudolph, and Howard Cosell died. Halsey, and Carlos Correa, and Giannis Antetokounmpo were born. 

September 13, 1994: President Bill Clinton Signs the Crime Bill

Clinton hugs Biden at the bill's signing.

Behind them, left to right: First Lady Hillary Clinton,

House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington,

Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado,

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California,

Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine,

Representative Chuck Schumer of New York,

and House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

September 13, 1994, 30 years ago: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a.k.a. simply "The Crime Bill," largely written by then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. More than anything else, it was responsible for the reduction in crime in American cities at the end of the 20th Century.

It included a ban an "assault weapons," military-style rifles that were useless for hunting, since they caused so much damage that the animal was useless as either food or a trophy. Their only purpose was to kill other human beings in a war zone. That part of the bill had been written by 2 members of the House of Representatives who would both, by 1998, be elected to the Senate: Chuck Schumer of New York, now the Majority Leader; and Dick Durbin of Illinois, now the Majority Whip and the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

But, as a concession in the hopes that some Republicans might vote for it, the assault-weapon ban was listed to last only 10 years. When it ran out in 2004, the Republican Party controlled both houses of Congress, as well as the Presidency, and, despite its success in reducing firearm deaths, there was no chance of a renewal bill getting anywhere.

Still, even with mass shootings happening nearly every day, they tend to happen in the suburbs, where police departments are less-equipped to handle them than major cities. In those cities, crime is higher than it was in 2004, but still far below what it was in 1994, when huge swaths of the urban landscape were "no-go zones."

Films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The Warriors and Fort Apache, The Bronx seemed like documentaries. (All were set in New York City, released in 1973, 1976, 1979 and 1981, respectively.) The fear that 1997 might look like the 1981 film Escape from New York, that 2019 might look like the 1982 film Blade Runner, and that "the near future" would end up looking like the 1987 film Robocop, seemed legitimate. Thanks to Schumer, Durbin, Biden and Clinton, that has never come to pass.

September 12, 1994: The Great TV Realignment

KYW-TV logo, 1980s

September 12, 1994, 30 years ago: The great TV realignment. Because CBS (for a few years, anyway) lost their NFL contract, a lot of stations switched networks. This didn’t happen in New York, but in Philadelphia, on the other side of my Central Jersey base, it did: KYW-Channel 3 went from NBC to CBS, and WCAU-Channel 10 went from CBS to NBC.

KYW-TV logo, 1995

The buying into NFL broadcast rights helped turn Fox from a distant 4th among networks, behind NBC, CBS and ABC, into a legitimate 4th network. It launched Fox Sports, which has since included Major League Baseball, college football, the NHL, and professional soccer.

And since individual stations valued NFL money more than CBS money, while some of them switched affiliates with NBC, some picked up the former "independent stations" that Fox had picked up in the 1980s, losing a lot of viewers.

Ed Kranepool, 1944-2024

When my mother was a teenager, she had a crush on Ed Kranepool, because he was the 1st player from her generation to make it to Major League Baseball, and with a local team, no less.

Yes, the '62 Mets counted as "major league."

Edward Emil Kranepool was born on November 8, 1944 in Manhattan, and grew up in The Bronx. A baseball star at James Monroe High School, the school's biggest since Hank Greenberg, and no Major League Baseball Draft then being in place, Ed Kranepool was fair game. The Bronx-based New York Yankees decided they didn't need him, so the New York Mets snapped him up.

He made his major league debut, still 17 years old, on September 22, 1962, at the Polo Grounds. In the top of the 7th inning, wearing Number 21, he replaced Gil Hodges at 1st base, and grounded out to 2nd batting against Paul Toth in the bottom of the 8th. The Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 9-2.

He played mostly right field, and some 1st base, in 1963, but he'd been brought up too soon. He was sent down to Triple-A. He still couldn't hit, and was sent all the way back down to Class D (what we would now call the Rookie League.) A banner appeared at the Polo Grounds, mocking the not-yet-19-year-old: "IS KRANEPOOL OVER THE HILL?"

On May 30, 1964, he played all 18 innings of a doubleheader with the Buffalo Bisons, when the Mets called him back up. At brand-new Shea Stadium, they played a doubleheader against the San Francisco Giants, and the nightcap went 23 innings. Ed Kranepool played 50 innings in 2 days. But he was up for good: Having been given Number 7, he made the National League All-Star Team in 1965 (only 20 years old), and was a member of the Mets' 1969 "Miracle" World Championship, managed by Hodges, and their 1973 National League Pennant, managed by Yogi Berra.

Later in his career, he did commercials for Gillette Foamy shaving cream. One ad began with him repeatedly striking out on black-and-white film, and the announcer, possibly Met broadcaster Bob Murphy (the ad isn't on YouTube, and I'm working on memory here), said, "From 1962 to 1970, Ed Kranepool batted .227."

The ad then shows him lathering up with Foamy; then, with some symbolism, switches the film to color, and shows him slicing a line drive down the right field line for a double: "Since 1971, Ed's batted .283! What do you think of that, Ed?"

The ad plays on ballplayers' tendency toward superstition, and shows Ed, in the dugout, in full uniform but lathered up, holding a can of Foamy, saying, "I don't know, but now, I shave every other inning."

God only knows why he really started hitting better at age 26. But the stats were a bit off: From 1962 to 1970, his batting average was actually .246; from 1971 to 1978, .281. The closing narration was, "Foamy: More than thick and rich enough for New York's heavy hitters." He was never a heavy hitter: His peaks were 16 home runs in 1966, and 58 RBIs in 1971.

He played his last game on September 30, 1979, shortly before turning 35, with a .261 lifetime batting average, and 1,418 career hits, a club record until surpassed by David Wright. He was the last remaining '62 Met, and his 1,853 games and 16 seasons in a Met uniform remain team records. He was elected to the Mets Hall of Fame, became a stockbroker, making enough money to live in tony Old Westbury, Long Island.

But he developed diabetes, and had a toe amputated. In 2019, he received a kidney transplant. It bought him 5 years, and allowed him to attend the 50th Anniversary reunion of the 1969 World Champions. He had attended the other major anniversary reunions, as well as the 2008 closing of Shea Stadium, the 2009 opening of Citi Field, and the Mets' 50th Anniversary celebration in 2012.

On May 30, 2018, on The Michael Kay Show on ESPN radio, Kay's co-host, Don La Greca, a Met fan, ripped Mets management for letting their great players get away, from Tom Seaver and Darryl Strawberry to more recent players like Jacob deGrom; and lamented on players whose careers got sidetracked by injuries, such as David Wright. He went on an epic rant, saying, "Who is your forever player? Ed Kranepool?"

Ed Kranepool died of a heart attack yesterday, September 8, 2024, in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 2 months short of his 80th birthday.

With his death, there are 8 members of the original 1962 New York Mets: Craig Anderson, Galen Cisco, Cliff Cook, John DeMerit, Rick Herrscher, Jay Hook, Félix Mantilla and Jim Marshall. And there are 15 surviving players from the 1969 World Champion New York Mets: Nolan Ryan, Jerry Koosman, Gary Gentry, Wayne Garrett, Cleon Jones, Ron Swoboda, Art Shamsky, Al Weis, Ken Boswell, Ron Taylor, Bobby Pfeil, J.C. Martin, Duffy Dyer, Rod Gaspar and Jack DiLauro.

Few Things Worth Having Are Easy

There are 3 weeks left in the Major League Baseball season. Despite all the ups and downs, we can be pretty sure who the 6 Playoff teams will be in the American League: The New York Yankees, the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Guardians, the Kansas City Royals, the Minnesota Twins and the Houston Astros.

These 6 teams are within 6 games of each other. The next-best 3 teams -- the Boston Red Sox, the Detroit Tigers and the Seattle Mariners -- are 4 games in the loss column behind the Twins, the team that currently stands to be the 6th seed. It's just a matter of where the seeds fall.

*

Last Monday, Labor Day, the Yankees began a series away to the Texas Rangers, at Globe Life Field in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Gerrit Cole pitched 6 strong innings, to outpitch Jack Leiter, son of Al Leiter, nephew of Mark Leiter Sr., and 1st cousin of current Yankee Mark Leiter Jr. Giancarlo Stanton hit a home run, Gleyber Torres went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs, and the Yankees won, 8-4.

The rest of the series was bad. How bad was it? The Tuesday night game was bad enough to stick in our minds if we end up losing the Division by 1 game. Carlos Rodón was brilliant, allowing only 1 hit in 6 innings, a home run by Josh Hung. He walked only 2, and struck out 11.

But because Brian Cashman cares more about pitch counts than winning, and Rodón had thrown 99 pitches, he was taken out. Tommy Kahnle allowed a run in the 7th. Jake Cousins was shaky in the 8th, allowed a run, and had to be bailed out by Tim Hill. The Yankees still took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the 9th, with RBIs coming on a groundout by Jose Trevino, a single by Alex Trevino, and 2 on a single by Anthony Volpe.

Cashman could have told Aaron Boone to leave Hill in to pitch the 9th. Instead, Clay Holmes, officially the closer, was brought in. He got Travis Jankowski to ground out. Then he allowed a single to Carson Kelly, walked Josh Smith, walked Marcus Semien to load the bases, and gave up a grand slam to Wyatt Langford. Rangers 7, Yankees 4.

It was Holmes' 11th blown save of the season. Right now, he is the top reason the Yankees aren't a sure bet to win the AL East.

On Wednesday night, for the 1st of 2 times in the week, the Yankees faced a pitcher that Cashman let get away. Nathan Eovaldi limited the Yankees to 2 runs over 7 innings. In contrast, Marcus Stroman didn't get out of the 4th inning. Three Rangers -- Langford, Nathaniel Lowe and Ezequiel Durán -- each got 3 hits. Juan Soto and Trent Grisham hit home runs, but the Rangers won, 10-6.

*

So the Yankees' roadtrip went on, with an Interleague series against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Luis Gil came off the Injured List, and allowed 1 hit over 6 innings on Friday afternoon. (Despite having had lights since 1988, the Cubs still play mostly day games at home.) A double by Aaron Judge and a single by Austin Wells, both in the 3rd, accounted for all the runs in the game, and the Yankees won, 3-0.

Clarke Schmidt also came off the Injured List, and he started the Saturday game. He allowed 4 hits in 4 2/3rds innings. Nestor Cortés wasn't happy about being the odd man out in the rotation, but he pitched the rest of the way, allowing only 1 walk and keeping the 4-hit shutout. The Yankees only got 4 hits themselves, but Wells had an RBI on a groundout, and another run scored on an error. Yankees 2, Cubs 0.

Sunday was Cole's 34th birthday, and his turn in the rotation. He had a shaky 1st inning, and an error by Torres didn't help. But the story of the day was another pitcher that Cashman let get away, Jameson Taillon, who limited the Yankees to 1 run over 6 innings. Cubs 2, Yankees 1.

It was the 1st series in 10 years in which the Yankees' pitchers allowed no home runs. The 2 teams combined for 8 runs in 3 games. The wind must have been blowing in at Wrigley.

*

The Yankees are 82-61, the Orioles 81-61. So the Orioles are half a game back, but -- Cliché Alert: -- a full game back in the all-important loss column. The Boston Red Sox trail by 10 games, the Tampa Bay Rays by 11, and the Toronto Blue Jays by 14 1/2.

The Yankees have 19 games left, the Orioles 20, including 3 against each other, at Yankee Stadium II, on September 24, 25 and 26, with each team then beginning its final series of the regular season. The Magic Number is 19: Any combined number of Yankee wins and Oriole losses, the rest of the way, adding up to 19, and the Yankees win the Division.

Tonight, the Yankees come home, and begin a series against the Royals, who trail the Guardians by 2 1/2 games in the AL Central. These will not be easy games.

Few things worth having are easy.

September 9, 1994: Chicago Stadium Closes

September 9, 1994, 30 years ago: Chicago Stadium closes, with its final event being Scottie Pippen's Ameritech Classic charity basketball game. Pippen captained the Red team, and Michael Jordan scored 52 points as he captained the White team, which won, 187-150. When the game ended, Jordan knelt down and kissed the bull logo at center court.

Although not an outdoor venue, the building, as was its rival the Olympia in Detroit, was called a "stadium." It stood at 1800 Madison Street, on the West Side of Chicago. It became known as "The Madhouse On Madison."

It opened on March 28, 1929 with a boxing card. The NHL's Chicago Black Hawks played their 1st game there on December 8, 1929, beating the New York Americans, 4-2. Normie Himes of the Amerks scored the 1st goal, and Earl Miller scored the 1st for the Hawks, the 1st of a hat trick.

The Black Hawks began play in 1926, playing home games at the Chicago Coliseum. They always wrote the team's name as two words: "Black Hawks." This held until 1986, when the document containing the team's original charter was found, and it was discovered that the name was written as one word, "Blackhawks." And so that's how it's been written ever since.

The Blackhawks reached the Stanley Cup Finals 10 times while playing at Chicago Stadium; winning them in 1934, 1938 and 1961; and losing them in 1931, 1944, 1962, 1965, 1971, 1973 and 1992. Crowds of 17,317 would roar from the National Anthem to the final horn, unless they were singing along to the 3,663-pipe Barton organ, played by Al Melgard from 1930 to 1974, by White Sox organist Nancy Faust from then until 1990, and from then onward by Frank Pellico, who still plays for the Hawks today.

In 1946, the Basketball Association of America was founded, and the Chicago Stags took up residence at the Stadium. They made the Finals in the 1st season, losing to the Philadelphia Warriors. The BAA became the National Basketball Association in 1949, but the Stags lasted only the 1 more season.

The Stadium also hosted the February 19, 1948 game between the National Basketball League Champions, the Minneapolis Lakers, and the all-black Harlem Globetrotters. Before 18,000, the 'Trotters, dispensing with the comedy routines to play serious basketball, to show everyone just how good they really were, won 61-59, on a 30-foot buzzer-beater by Ermer Robinson.

The Lakers, led by George Mikan, a native of nearby Joliet, Illinois and a graduate of Chicago's DePaul University, got a rematch with the Globetrotters, but lost that, too. They played 6 more times, and the Lakers won all 6, while also entering the NBA and winning the Championship in 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953, and 1954.

The Chicago Majors played at the Stadium in the short-lived National Basketball League in the 1961-62 and 1962-63 seasons. The Chicago Bulls started in the NBA in 1966, but played their 1st season at the International Amphitheatre, on the South Side, before moving into the Stadium in 1967. They had a few good seasons before Michael Jordan arrived in 1984. It took them until 1991 to win their 1st title, but it launched a run of 6 NBA Championships in 8 years.

In 1932, the Chicago Bears and the southern Ohio-based Portsmouth Spartans finished in a tie for the NFL Championship. A Playoff was to be held in Wrigley Field on December 18, but it snowed. The game was moved indoors to the Chicago Stadium, and the field was not only narrower than normal, but only 80 yards long. Still, over 20,000 fans packed the place, which would not have been possible at Wrigley with the snow. The Bears won, 9-0.

Boxing was key to the Stadium's operation from beginning. The 2nd fight in the Middleweight Championship trilogy between Rocky Graziano and Tony Zale, the only one that Graziano won, happened on July 16, 1947.

On February 14, 1951, in a fight so brutal it was called the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, Sugar Ray Robinson defended the Welterweight title title by pounding Jake LaMotta to the point where it was stopped in the 13th round. It was the 6th time they had fought. LaMotta had won only the 2nd, and, to this point, that was the only professional fight that Robinson had lost.

On May 15, 1953, the Stadium hosted its only Heavyweight Championship fight. Eight months earlier, Rocky Marciano had won the title by knocking Jersey Joe Walcott out in the 13th round in Philadelphia. This time, Marciano knocked Walcott out in the 1st round.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans had their Convention at Chicago Stadium in 1932. Both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Alf Landon had pre-election rallies there in 1936. The Democrats had their Convention there again in 1940, and both parties had them there in 1944.

By a weird turn of events, in 1932, FDR became the 1st Presidential nominee to accept the nomination in person, something that was not previously done, as the nomination was always supposed to be seen as reluctantly accepted, lest the nominee be seen as too eager for power; and in 1944, due to his illness, he became, so far, the last nominee to not accept in person, with a radio hookup between the Stadium and the White House.

Across Madison Street from the Stadium was the original version of the Billy Goat Tavern. The owner, William "Billy Goat" Sianis, put up a sign in 1944, saying, "No Republicans allowed," which raised an incredible fuss. But it also generated him more publicity than anything he ever did -- including his stunt of bringing his bar's mascot, a goat, to Wrigley Field to the 1945 World Series, which led to them being ejected, which led to "The Curse of the Billy Goat" that supposedly prevented the Cubs from winning the Pennant until 2016. Sianis moved the Tavern to its current location, on the lower deck of Michigan Avenue, in 1963, so he could be closer to the city's newspaper offices.

The Stadium hosted shows from the beginning. In 1946, Roy Rogers, "King of the Cowboys," proposed to Dale Evans, "Queen of the West," backstage at a rodeo. But they were slow to allow rock and roll concerts. The first rocker to play the place? Elvis Presley. But it wasn't in 1956 or 1957. It was on June 16 and 17, 1972.

Other notable shows there: Bob Dylan, Elton John and George Harrison in separate shows in 1974; The Rolling Stones, The Who and Led Zeppelin in separate shows in 1975; the Beach Boys and Chicago together in 1975; Frank Sinatra on a New Year's show, 1975-76; Paul McCartney's Wings Across America tour in 1976; the Beach Boys and Billy Joel together in 1976; Elvis again on October 15, 1976; Led Zeppelin again on there last tour in 1977; Elvis on his last tour on May 1 and 2, 1977; Queen on their Day at the Races and News of the World Tours in 1977; The Jacksons in 1979 and 1981; and, in the Stadium's last show, March 10, 1994, Pearl Jam.

In 1992, Chicago Stadium hosted both the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals, but only the Bulls won. But there was only so much that an arena built in 1992 could do. Even with standing room, the Stadium only seated 18,472 for hockey, and 18,676 for basketball. And it was built before the NHL standardized rink size at 200 feet long by 85 feet wide. The Stadium's was 185 by 85.

So Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf and Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz got together to build a new arena, the United Center, across the street at 1901 West Madison Street. The Hawks' last game was Game 6 of the Western Conference Quarterfinals, on April 28, 1994, a 1-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Mike Gartner scored the last goal.

The Bulls' last game was Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, on May 20, 1994. They beat the New York Knicks, 93-79, but lost Game 7 at Madison Square Garden. 

The Stadium was demolished in 1995, and the site now serves as parking for the 23,129-seat (for basketball, 22,428 for hockey) United Center. A statue honoring the Stadium stands outside, with the words "REMEMBER THE ROAR" inscribed on the base.

The console of the Barton organ was saved, bought by Phil Maloof, and installed in his house in Las Vegas. (Ironically, he owns a different NBA team, the Sacramento Kings.) And Jordan preserved the Bulls floor at his mansion in North Carolina. 

September 8, 1974: Evel Knievel at the Snake River Canyon

September 8, 1974, 50 years ago: Evel Knievel tries to jump over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho, on a "sky-cycle."

For people too young to remember Knievel (pronounced Keh-NEE-vil), he was the kind of figure who defies description. He was a 1970s phenomenon, a proper coming together of man and moment, hero and hype level. He was the King of the Daredevils, wearing star-spangled jumpsuits, big collars, big belts with big buckles, and making a fool of himself in Las Vegas. Which makes him sound like the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, except Elvis also had some great shows in Vegas.

Robert Craig Knievel was born on October 17, 1938 in Butte, Montana. He claimed he'd adopted the stage name "Evel Knievel" after being arrested for, no joke, reckless driving, and sharing a cell with a man known as William "Awful" Knofel. He made it "Evel" instead of "Evil," and wore white instead of black, because he didn't want anyone to think he was associated with motorcycle gangs like the Hell's Angels.

He participated in rodeos, ski jumping events, and served in the U.S. Army before marrying Linda Joan Bork and starting a semi-pro hockey team. To support his family, Knievel started the Sur-Kill Guide Service, and later worked as an insurance salesman.

Eventually, he opened a Honda motorcycle dealership in Washington, D.C., but faced difficulties promoting Japanese imports. After the dealership closed, Knievel worked at a motorcycle shop where he learned motocross stunts that would later contribute to his daredevil career.

He put together a show featuring other bikers, and called it Evel Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils. He gradually increased the number of cars he could jump over, until June 19, 1966, in Missoula, in his home State of Montana: He tried to jump 12 cars and a cargo van, but his back wheel hit the top of the van, he fell, and he ended up with a broken arm and several broke ribs. But he survived, and that began his legend.

On March 25, 1967, he cleared 15 cars at Ascot Park in Gardena, California. He tried that again on July 28, 1967, in Graham, Washington. He landed his cycle on the last vehicle, a panel truck, was thrown from his bike, and suffered a serious concussion. He went back there on August 18, and his injuries were more serious.

He recovered and, on New Year's Eve, December 31, 1967, the same day that CBS broadcast the NFL Championship Game -- the Ice Bowl in Green Bay -- Knievel tried to jump 140 feet, over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He wanted it broadcast live on ABC Wide World of Sports. ABC said no: They told him to film it, and, if they thought it worthwhile, they would buy it, would broadcast it later. So Knievel got two friends to film it: Actor-director John Derek, and Derek's then-wife Linda Evans.

He did the jump, but he couldn't stick the landing, and was thrown over the handlebars. This was his worst set of injuries yet. But he didn't die. He lived to jump again, and was doing so by March 25, 1968. ABC refused to buy the Caesars film. As his legend grew, his production company rented the film to ABC, which would, eventually broadcast it -- many times.

On January 7 and 8, 1971, he sold out the Astrodome in Houston on back-to-back days. On the following February 28, he jumped 19 cars at the Ontario Motor Speedway in the Los Angeles suburb of Ontario, California. Doug Senecal was then 10 years old and living in Massachusetts, and was fascinated. In 2015, using the name Doug Danger, he wore the same costume and drove the same cycle that Knievel used in the Ontario jump, and set a new record, jumping 22 cars in Sturgis, South Dakota.

On March 3, 1972, at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco, Knievel made a successful jump, but, because of a short landing area, tried to stop short, and got hurt. He didn't get back to jumping until November 10, 1973. It was on this occasion that ABC finally agreed to put him on Wide World live, for what would be the 1st of 6 such appearances. There were 50 cars stacked at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and he got over them successfully, and landed successfully.

As far back as 1968, Knievel told the media that his dream was to jump from one side of the Grand Canyon in Arizona to the other. But the Canyon is included in the National Park system, controlled by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which denied him every time he asked, no matter what safety precautions he suggested. In 1971, while flying from one stunt to another, he was over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho, and he was struck by its natural beauty. Since the federal government had no control over that, that's what he set his mind on.

ABC refused to broadcast this one, fearing that he was finally going to be killed. Of course, they were already set to broadcast the Heavyweight Championship fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, which had people thinking that Foreman might actually kill Ali in the ring. (Instead, Ali knocked Foreman out.) And Wide World of Sports broadcast all kinds of dangerous events, from cliff diving in Mexico to all kinds of auto races: The Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Formula 1 and Grand Prix in Europe and South America. So who was kidding who?

So Knievel hired boxing promoter Bob Arum's company, Top Rank Productions, to put the event on closed-circuit television, and broadcast it to movie theaters, as if it were a major prizefight.

By this point, Knievel had learned that you couldn't just guess, or do it "by feel." He had accepted that he had to embrace the science of it -- which meant hiring people smarter than himself to figure it out. An ordinary motorcycle wasn't going to be able to do it. He hired aeronautical engineers Doug Malewicki and Robert Truax to build him a rocket-powered vehicle to jump across the Snake River.

On September 8, 1974, at 3:36 PM Mountain Time -- 5:36 Eastern -- the Skycycle was launched at the south rim of the Snake River Canyon, west of Shoshone Falls, Idaho. But the launch caused the drogue parachute to prematurely deploy, resulting in too much drag. The vehicle did reach a point over the north rim, but the wind caught the parachute, and blew it back to the south side of the canyon. The Skycycle crashed into the rock wall, and viewers were sure that Knievel had been killed.

Instead, at that point, crashing into the rock wall was the better option. He survived with only minor injuries. But he couldn't get out of the vehicle himself: His harness had malfunctioned. Had he landed in the water, he would have drowned before the rescue crew could get to him.

He had failed. But he had lived. The spectacle mattered more than the result. And, with Watergate reaching a climax that day with President Ford pardoning former President Nixon, America needed this kind of distraction. Evel Knievel had become the biggest thing in America.

On May 26, 1975, Wide World of Sports broadcast his attempt to jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London. These were not the "double-decker buses" that London is known for, but they were certainly taller than the kind of cars he was used to jumping. Frank Gifford, who was part of CBS' broadcast crew for the Ice Bowl, and wasn't there at Caesars, had since come to ABC, and had become friends with Knievel, and was the lead broadcaster for this event.

Over 90,000 people saw Knievel take off with not enough speed, and he hit the landing ramp with his front wheel, causing the bike to "trampoline" up, throwing him. His landing would have been bad enough, but the bike, with its wheels still spinning, kept going, and landed on top of him. The spinning of the wheel burned through his jumpsuit, extending his injuries.

He never lost consciousness. Gifford was among those who rushed to help him. They got him to a standing position, and he took a microphone, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen of this wonderful country, I've got to tell you that you are the last people in the world who will ever see me jump. Because I will never, ever, ever jump again. I'm through."

Gifford begged him to get on a stretcher for his ride to the hospital. Despite knowing his injuries included a broken pelvis -- because he'd done that before -- he said, "I came in walking, I went out walking!"

Like a great boxer, of course he couldn't stay retired. Just 5 months later, on October 25, he jumped 14 Greyhound buses at the Kings Island amusement part outside Cincinnati. At 133 feet, it was his longest successful jump. And it was Wide World of Sports' highest-rated broadcast ever. Again, he retired. Again, he lied, and came back, with a successful jump at Seattle's new Kingdome.

Inspired by the film Jaws, he wanted to jump a tank full of live sharks. On January 31, 1977, he rehearsed the jump at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. He lost control of the motorcycle, and hit a cameraman, Thomas Geren, and a wall. He broke both of his arms, but heard that Geren had sustained a permanent eye injury. That was it: He was willing to risk his own life and limb, but not someone else's. He never jumped again. As it turned out, though, Geren regained his full vision. Though relieved, this time, Knievel kept his word, and never jumped again.

The Guinness Book of World Records listed him as having suffered 433 separate breakings of bones. He said he had broken 35 different bones over his career. It all left him in terrible pain, especially in his back.

He turned to painting, a much calmer pastime -- and one he shared with another famous Wide World of Sports crasher, Slovenian ski jumper Vinko Bogataj, victim of the 1970 "agony of defeat" fall. He supported his son Robbie Knievel's daredevil career, addressing the crowds at Robbie's events. He did safety-themed commercials, telling kids to wear helmets while riding their bicycles, to stay away from drugs, and one on radio for the New York City Transit Authority, telling people not to try "stunts" on Subway trains or buses: "Take it from a daredevil, me, Evel Knievel: Some stunts are just plain stupid."

But his health declined. His many surgeries required blood transfusions that led to Hepatitis C, and needed a liver transplant. It looked like he wouldn't get one, and, in 1999, he was told that he only had a few days to live. He decided to leave the hospital, and die at his home. On the car ride home, he got a call that a liver was available. Take a wild guess as to how the donor died: In a motorcycle accident. (On the NBC hospital drama ER, the characters called motorcycles "donorcycles.")

In 2005, to raise relief funds for Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, he worked with Harley-Davidson, makers of all his motorcycles, to lead a group of cyclists on a fundraising ride around Harley's hometown of Milwaukee. But he suffered a stroke shortly before the event, and had to limit his effort to an autograph-signing session.

Evel Knievel may have been on ABC Wide World of Sports 6 times, but what he did was not a sport. He died on November 30, 2007, outside Tampa in Clearwater, Florida -- not due to the effects of any or all of his crashes, but due to lung disease and diabetes.

Maxim, a magazine geared toward men, always with a scantily clad woman on the cover, printed his last interview. He said, "You can't ask a guy like me why I performed. I really wanted to fly through the air. I was a daredevil, a performer. I loved the thrill, the money, the whole macho thing. All those things made me Evel Knievel. Sure, I was scared. You gotta be an ass not to be scared. But I beat the hell out of death."

In 1999, Robbie Knievel jumped a portion of the Grand Canyon owned by the Hualapai Indian Reservation, out of the federal government's jurisdiction. In 2016, stuntman Eddie Braun, working with Evel's son Kelly and Ronald Truax's son Scott, successfully piloted a replica of the 1974 Skycycle over the Snake River Canyon. Braun idolized Evel, and had insisted that the jump would have worked if the parachute hadn't deployed too soon. He proved himself right.

It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There were too many ridiculous distractions from the rotten things going on in the world; and, at the same time, not enough of them.