October 4, 1964: Baseball's Greatest Season Concludes

October 4, 1964, 60 years ago: Perhaps the greatest season in Major League Baseball history comes to a close.

Why did I choose this one as the greatest? It was well after the re-integration of the game. There were still several of the classic old ballparks left, but, as yet, no domes, and no artificial turf. There were as many all-time legends of the game active as we are ever likely to have -- on the field, and in the broadcast booth. And both Leagues' Pennant races came down to 3 teams on the last weekend.

I submit this knowing that I was not born yet, and also knowing that my team did not win the World Series that season, although it came very close.

In the American League, the New York Yankees finished 1 game ahead of the Chicago White Sox, and 2 ahead of the Baltimore Orioles. The Yankees won their 29th Pennant, all in the last 44 seasons. As it turns out, it is the last in their Dynasty.

The Yankees had clinched the day before, so it did not matter that, on this last day, they had lost to the Cleveland Indians, 2-1 at Yankee Stadium. No usual Yankee starter was in the starting lineup, although as the game went on, most appeared as pinch-hitters, but Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris got the whole day off.

The starting pitchers were Jim Bouton for New York and Luis Tiant for Cleveland, and neither got into the 7th inning. Both of them would go on to be viewed by the baseball establishment as weird, though for different reasons.

Tommy John pitched 2 innings in relief of Tiant, who had hit a home run in his own cause. Stan Williams allowed the winning run in the top of the 13th inning, on a groundout by Leon Wagner. Sam McDowell, usually a starter, pitched the 12th and the 13th, and was the winning pitcher.

This was also the last game as a Yankee broadcaster for Mel Allen, who was fired after 26 years. No reason was given. Rumors abounded: He was an alcoholic, he was a prescription drug addict, he'd had a nervous breakdown, he was gay. Most likely, none of these were true.

Apparently, though, in this era when sponsors still had an iron grip on broadcasting, the real reason was that Ballantine beer, the Yankees' sponsor and beneficiary of Mel's calling home runs "Ballantine blasts," saw their sales dropping, and they blamed Mel, the greatest salesman they ever had.

The National League race remained undecided going into this last day, thanks to the Philadelphia Phillies' nosedive, and the surges of the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Phillies bombed the Reds, 10-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Jim Bunning went the distance to finish 19-8, and NL Rookie of the Year Richie Allen -- later to insist on being called Dick Allen -- went 3-for-5 with 2 home runs and 4 RBIs. For the Reds, Frank Robinson went 2-for-4, and Pete Rose went 1-for-4.

In those pre-Internet, pre-satellite TV days, the 2 teams then joined forces, and sat in the visitors' clubhouse at Crosley, listening to a radio (which was appropriate, since longtime Reds owner Powel Crosley made his fortune selling radios), hoping that the Cardinals would lose to the New York Mets at Busch Stadium in St. Louis (the 1st of 3 ballparks to have now had that name, it was named Sportsman's Park from 1909 to 1952), which would keep both teams alive, and force a 3-way tie for the Pennant.

Since the possibility had already arisen in 1956, when the Reds, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Milwaukee Braves had a close race -- the Dodgers ended up beating the Braves by 1 game and the Reds by 2 -- a plan for such an eventuality was already in place.

It wasn't a head-to-head tiebreaker. If it had been, the Cards would have had the edge over the Phils (13-5), the Reds would have had the edge over the Phils (10-8), and the Reds and Phils would have split (9-9). Overall, the Cards would've been 21-15, the Reds 19-17, and the Phils 14-22.

NL President Warren Giles -- who would have to remain neutral, despite having once been the Reds' general manager -- would have drawn lots. The team whose name was written down on the 1st slip of paper he pulled out of a hat or box would be designated "No. 1," followed by "No. 2" and "No. 3." The schedule would have been as follows: No. 1 would have hosted No. 2, then No. 2 would have hosted No. 3, and No. 3 would have hosted No. 1. In other words, all 3 teams would have played each of the other 2 teams, and all 3 teams would have had 1 home game.

If 1 team ended up 2-0, with another 1-1 and another 0-2, the 2-0 team should have been declared the Pennant winner. Instead, the 0-2 team would have been eliminated, and Giles would have drawn another lot to determine home field for a 1-game Playoff. But if all 3 finished 1-1, they would do it all over again.

That's what would have happened over the coming days if the Mets had beaten the Cardinals on October 4, 1964.

Here's what actually did happen: The Mets took a 3-2 lead into the 5th inning‚ but the Cards scored 3 runs to regain the lead. The Mets scored once more, but the Cardinals completed their scoring with 3 in the 8th, to win 11-5. Cardinal manager Johnny Keane took no chances: When Curt Simmons was knocked out of the box, he put his best starter, Bob Gibson, into the game, and Gibson was the winning pitcher.

For St. Louis‚ it was their 1st Pennant since 1946, 18 years. For Cincinnati, it was a crushing defeat, as, even though they had won the Pennant just 3 years earlier, they wanted to win this one for their manager, Fred Hutchinson, who was dying of cancer.

For Philadelphia, which hadn't won a Pennant in 14 years, it was even more devastating: The Phils had led by 6 1/2 games with 12 to play, but went on a 10-game losing streak to blow it. The Phillie Phlop would define the franchise for a generation, and even fans who lived long enough to see the titles of 1980 and 2008 remained scarred by it.

To rub it in further, Simmons had been a star on the previous Phils Pennant team, the 1950 "Whiz Kids," but had to miss that year's World Series because his U.S. Army Reserve unit was called to serve in the Korean War just as the regular season was winding down. Now, Simmons had a Pennant, at the Phils' expense. To make it even weirder for the Phillies, the Reds' interim manager, filling in for Hutchinson, was the man whose home run against the Dodgers in the 10th inning of the last game clinched their 1950 Pennant: Dick Sisler, son of Hall-of-Famer George Sisler.

In the end, it was the closest race in NL history: 3 teams within 1 game, 4 within 3, 5 within 5. The Cards won over the Reds and the Phils by 1 game each, the Jints by 3, the Braves by 5, the Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates by 13, the Chicago Cubs by 17, the Houston Colt .45s by 27, and the Mets by 40.

In 1964, the Phillies won 92 games, and lost the Pennant, and were regarded as a failure. In 1980, the Phillies won 91 games, 1 fewer in than in 1964, but it was enough to win the NL East, and they went on to win the Pennant and the franchise's 1st World Series, and they're regarded as the greatest Phillies team ever.

Or, to put it another way: The 1967 Red Sox also won 92 games, but it was enough to win the Pennant by 1 game on the final day, and they're an iconic baseball team for good reasons. The '64 Phils remain iconic for bad reasons.

*

October 4, 1964 was a Sunday. These other baseball games were played that day:

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 14-8 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4 with a walk. For the Senators, the team that started in 1961 and became the Texas Rangers in 1972, Roy Sievers hit his 318th career home run. As it turned out, it was the last for the slugger, who had starred for the "Old Senators," who became the Minnesota Twins in 1961.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 6-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Bruce Howard pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Bill Southworth, whose father Billy had managed the Boston version of the Braves to the 1948 NL Pennant, hit his one and only major league home run, in what turned out to be his 3rd and last major league game. Joe Torre went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Neither Hank Aaron, nor Roberto Clemente, nor Willie Stargell played.

Bob Sadowski pitched 8 innings of 2-hit ball, and Warren Spahn pitched the 9th for the save, to finish the shutout. It may have been because the Braves were already trying to move to Atlanta for the 1965 season, and the team wanted Spahn, who started the 1st game at County Stadium in 1953, to pitch the last game. It also explains why Eddie Mathews, whose 1st full season was 1953, and didn't start the game, was put at 3rd base for the 9th inning.

As it turned out, an injunction forced the Braves to stay in Milwaukee for a lame-duck season, and they moved to Atlanta for 1966. Then the Brewers came in 1970, and County Stadium remained open until 2000.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-0 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. The game was called due to rain after 6 innings. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-3.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Colt .45s, 11-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. This was the last game the Houston franchise played under that name. In 1965, with the Astrodome opening, they became the Houston Astros.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 9-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Jimmy Stewart hit a home run for the Cubs. No, not the It's a Wonderful Life actor, who once played a real-life baseball player in The Stratton Story. Ernie Banks went 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs. Willie Mays hit a home run, but Gaylord Perry got knocked out of the box in the 3rd inning.

* And the Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers completed their respective schedules against each other the day before.

Since it was Sunday, there was also professional football. For New York's purposes: The NFL's New York Giants lost to the Detroit Lions, 26-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. As the Yankees would the next season, the Giants' best players seemed to get old, or get hurt, or both, all at once. They had won their Division in each of the last 3 seasons, and in 6 of the last 8, but finished this season 2-10-2.

And in the American Football League, the New York Jets and the San Diego Chargers played to a tie, 17-17 at Shea Stadium.

October 3, 1984: The Last North American Soccer League Game

October 3, 1984, 40 years ago: Soccer Bowl '84 is played at Varsity Stadium in Toronto. Playing Soccer Bowl '83 in Canada (albeit all the way across the country in Vancouver) didn't help the Toronto Blizzard the year before, and playing on their actual home field doesn't help them now, as they lose 3-2 to the Chicago Sting.

The Blizzard -- who won the North American Soccer League title in 1976, as "Toronto Metros-Croatia" -- trailed 2-0 after 70 minutes, but scored twice in 3 minutes to equalize. But Patricia "Pato" Margetic, the Argentine striker who'd scored the Sting's 2nd goal, scores in the 82nd to win it.

Attendance at the 21,739-seat Varsity Stadium is just 16,842. No one knows it yet, but this is the last game that the original NASL will ever hold.

The Sting, who had also won the title in 1981, had already announced that this would be their last season in the League, as they had already been admitted to the Major Indoor Soccer League -- which played soccer in arenas on hockey rinks covered with artificial turf, with the boards ensuring the ball wouldn't go out of bounds unless it went over the boards, resulting in higher scores. It was exciting, but it was a bastardized version of the sport, something that no one would have called "The Beautiful Game." Instead, it was called "pinball soccer." 

Clive Toye, who built the New York Cosmos' dynasty, and also the Sting's '81 champs, was now running the Blizzard, and made postgame comments that Sting coach Willy Roy and striker Karl-Heinz Granitza -- both Germans, and the latter would later honor his Chicago experience by running a bar in Berlin named State Street -- were "cheats," and that the Sting were "unworthy champions."

During the ensuing off-season, NASL President Howard Samuels died, and Toye was named interim President. Then the Cosmos folded, due to striker/part-owner Giorgio Chinaglia's mismanagement. Without the flagship franchise, the League was doomed, no matter what Toye did, and he did try.

But when the time came to prepare for a 1985 season, only 2 teams -- the Blizzard and the Minnesota (formerly Fort Lauderdale) Strikers -- were still interested in playing, and the League folded, after 17 seasons. North America was without a "first division" in soccer for 11 years, setting the sport in the United States back a generation. The damage was incalculable.

Another league named the North American Soccer League played from 2011 to 2017, but it was never more than a second division, behind Major League Soccer, founded in 1996. The Chicago Fire would win the MLS Cup in 1998; Toronto FC, in 2017.

*

There was another, much-more-watched, sporting event involving a Chicago team on October 3, 1984. The Chicago Cubs, playing in their 1st postseason series since the 1945 World Series, beat the San Diego Padres, playing in their 1st postseason series since their founding in 1969, in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series. The game, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, ended 4-2 in the Cubs' favor.

The Cubs now needed just 1 more win to win their 1st Pennant in 39 years. It would take them another 32 years to win that Pennant.

The fact that ABC got great ratings for this series in the Chicago area, but lousy ratings everywhere else, led to a decision from the new Commissioner of Baseball, Peter Ueberroth: From now on, all postseason games would have to be played at stadiums that had lights, because the team owners wanted the revenue that came from games on prime-time TV. And Wrigley was the last stadium that didn't have lights.

Ueberroth ruled that, the next time the Cubs made the Playoffs, they would have to play their "home games" at the next-closest stadium in the National League Eastern Division, which they were in. But that would have been Busch Memorial Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals, their arch-rivals. Why not Comiskey Park, home of the crosstown Chicago White Sox? Ueberroth didn't say.

So the process for putting lights up at Wrigley Field began. In 1988, the 1st night game was played there. In 1989, the next time the Cubs won the NL East, they hosted night games in the NLCS. In 1990, they hosted the All-Star Game there, which they also wouldn't have been allowed to do without lights.  Game 4 of the 1984 World Series remains the last World Series game to be played entirely in daylight.

October 2, 1949: Both Leagues' Pennants Decided On the Final Day

Left to right: Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Joe DiMaggio.

October 2, 1949, 75 years ago: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York. Regular-season finale. Winner takes the American League Pennant.

On the last day of the 1948 regular season, the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees at Fenway Park in Boston, clinching at least a tie for the AL Pennant, and knocking the Yanks out of a chance for it. Ted Williams went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI doubles. Sox center fielder Dom DiMaggio went 3-for-4, including a solo home run. His brother, Yankee center fielder Joe DiMaggio, went went 4-for-5 with 2 doubles and 3 RBIs -- meaning that, between them, the DiMaggios go 7-for-9 with 3 extra-base hits and 4 RBIs. And brother Vince, who also reached the majors, wasn't even in this game! Although he was there, as were their parents.

The next day, also at Fenway, the Sox lost a playoff for the Pennant to the Cleveland Indians, 8-3, as Tribe shortstop-and-manager Lou Boudreau hit 2 home runs. They went on to beat the Boston Braves in the World Series.

In the off-season, the Yankees Bucky Harris, who had managed them to the 1947 World Series, and hired Casey Stengel, who had just won the Pacific Coast League Pennant with the Oakland Oaks, but had failed as manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves. The Sox were managed by Joe McCarthy, who had managed the Yankees from 1931 to 1946, winning 8 Pennants and 7 World Series.

Joe DiMaggio, the best player in baseball since he arrived in the major leagues in 1936, missed the 1st 2 months of the season with a heel spur. In late June, the pain vanished. In a 3-game series at Fenway on June 28, 29 and 30, he went 5-for-9, with 4 home runs and 9 RBIs. The Yankees swept, winning 5-4, 9-7 and 6-3. During the 3rd game, a fan flew a plane over Fenway, trailing a banner reading "THE GREAT DIMAGGIO." The joke was that it had to be for Joe, since Dom was only a very good DiMaggio.

The Yankees jumped out to a 12-game lead, but blew it, mainly due to injuries that kept several players out of the lineup for long stretches. They trailed the Sox by 1 game with 2 to play -- and these 2 were against the Sox at The Stadium.

For the 1st time, the Pennant would come down to the Yankees and the Red Sox. Yes, there was 1904, but that was between the New York Highlanders and the Boston Americans. Not only had the teams not yet adopted their familiar names, but the rivalry tailed off, sparked again by the Red Sox' sale of Babe Ruth and practically their entire starting rotation to the Yankees in the early 1920s.

On October 1, the Yanks held Joe DiMaggio Day, since his brother Dom played for the Sox, and thus the whole family could attend. Joe had been ill with pneumonia, but had kept playing, and says, "I'd like to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee." (I guess he didn't have an agent back in 1934.) In the game that followed, the Sox, acting like more recent Red Sox teams, blew a 4-0 lead, Johnny Lindell hit an 8th-inning homer, and the race was tied. Yankees 5, Red Sox 4.

In fact, in the 1901 to 1968 era of 2 single-division leagues, 1949 was the only season in which both leagues' races were unresolved as the final day of the regular season dawned. On the last day of the season, the Brooklyn Dodgers needed a win or a St. Louis Cardinals loss to win the National League Pennant. If they'd gotten neither, there would have been a Playoff.

They needed 10 innings, but they got their win, 9-7 over the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park (later renamed Connie Mack Stadium) in Philadelphia. Pee Wee Reese led off the inning with a single. Eddie Miksis sacrificed him to 2nd base. Duke Snider singled him home. Jackie Robinson was intentionally walked to set up the inning-ending double play. But Luis Olmo, one of the earliest Puerto Rican players in the major leagues -- and considered "white" enough to make it before Robinson desegregated the game -- singled Snider home. Jack Banta held the Phils off in the bottom of the 10th, and got the win in relief of Don Newcombe.

1949 Dodger photos. Top row, left to right: Ralph Branca,

Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella.

Bottom row, left to right: Pee Wee Reese,

Duke Snider, a 2nd photo of Hodges, Don Newcombe.

October 2, 1949, Yankee Stadium. This was for the Pennant. A crowd of 68,055 was on hand. Phil Rizzuto led off the bottom of the 1st inning with a triple to left field. Tommy Henrich grounded to 2nd, and "The Scooter" scored. It was 1-0 Yankees.

The Yanks still led 1-0 with 1 out in the top of the 8th, when McCarthy sent Tom Wright up to pinch-hit for his starting pitcher, Ellis Kinder. Big mistake. Wright drew a walk, but Dom DiMaggio grounded into a double play.

Henrich led off the bottom of the 8th with a home run off Mel Parnell, ordinarily the Boston ace. McCarthy removed him, and brought in Tex Hughson, the ace of the Sox' 1946 American League Pennant winners. Yogi Berra, who came into his own this season as both a hitter and a catcher, singled to left. Joe DiMaggio grounded into a double play. But Lindell singled to center, with Hank Bauer pinch-running for him. Billy Johnson singled to left. Hughson, unintentionally, walked Cliff Mapes to load the bases. Jerry Coleman sent a drive down the right field line, clearing the bases, although he was out trying to stretch it from a double to a triple. It was 5-0 Yankees.

Yankee starter Vic Raschi had allowed only 2 hits over the 1st 8 innings, and got the 1st out in the 9th. Then he faltered: He walked Williams, threw a wild pitch, and allowed a single to Vern Stephens. Bobby Doerr lifted a drive to center field. Joe DiMaggio, still sick, dropped an easy fly ball, scoring both runners. Normally so good out there, Joe walked off the field, taking himself out of the game for the good of the team. Stengel moved Bauer from left field to right, moved Mapes from right to center, and put Gene Woodling in left.

Raschi got Al Zarilla to fly to center, where the newly-installed Mapes caught it. But Billy Goodman singled to center, scoring Doerr. It was now 5-3, the tying runs were on, and the run that could win the Pennant was at the plate, in the person of Sox catcher George "Birdie" Tebbetts.

Berra went out to talk to Raschi. "The Springfield Rifle" angrily said, "Gimme the goddamned ball, and get the hell out of here!" Yogi did as he was told, and Raschi got the final out, as Tebbetts popped up to 1st base, where Henrich, normally a right fielder, caught it. Final score: Yankees 5, Red Sox 3. The Yankees had won their 16th American League Pennant.

The Yanks beat the Dodgers in the World Series. In the last 2 seasons, the Sox had won 192 games, and didn't even win a Pennant.

"I won one," a jubilant Stengel said in the locker room. Later, in his weird way of talking that became known as "Stengelese," he said, "I couldn't a-done it without my players."

The following season, the Yankees won it again; while the Dodgers and Phillies again needed 10 innings to settle the race, this time against each other, with no scoreboard-watching. Dick Sisler hit a home run to win it.

October 1, 1949: Red China

October 1, 1949, 75 years ago: The People's Republic of China, a Communist state, is declared by Mao Zedong. This brings the 37-year-old Republic of China, and the 22-year-old Chinese Civil War between each side's respective forces, to an end.

As American conservatives said, 600 million people were suddenly hurled into slavery. But then, as with Cuba 9 years later, "Nationalist China," led by Chiang Kai-shek and now limited to the island of Formosa (which was renamed Taiwan), was not a particularly free country. Certainly, it was not a wealthy one.

Today, "Red China" is home to 1.4 billion people, more than any country on Earth, although India may surpass it in the next 20 years. After its "reopening" in the 1970s, it became a sports power, and moved toward becoming an economic power as well. It remains totalitarian in practice, but mostly in official name is it still Communist.

American conservatives still consider China to be a threat. They are not: They know that any overt attack on America would be national suicide, economically as well as militarily. They're not stupid.

Happy 100th Birthday, Jimmy Carter!

October 1, 1924, 100 years ago: James Earl Carter Jr. is born in Plains, Georgia. He left his family's peanut farm to enter the U.S. Naval Academy. In 1946, he graduated, and married a Plains neighbor, Rosalynn Smith. They went on to have 3 sons and a daughter. In 1953, while he was serving in the Korean War, his father died, and he left the Navy to run the farm.

In 1962, he ran for the U.S. Senate. He lost, due to some good ol'-fashioned Southern political chicanery. A recount was ordered by a court, and he won. In 1966, he ran for Governor against segregationist Lester Maddox, and lost. In 1970 he ran again, and won.

At the time, the Governor of Georgia was not allowed to serve consecutive terms, so he didn't run for re-election in 1974. What he did do that year was give the State's best-known athlete, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves, a special license plate for hitting his 715th career home run, becoming baseball's all-time leader.

Governor Carter, Henry Louis Aaron,

and Aaron's wife, Billye

In 1975, he told his mother, known to all who knew her as "Miz Lillian," "Mama, I'm running for President." Given his background -- only 4 years as Governor, and 4 years as a State Senator, a military background but not one well-known to the public, and the fact that no non-incumbent Southerner had won a Presidential election since 1848 -- her reaction was understandable: "President of what?"

He published a campaign biography, titled Why Not the Best? It attempted to explain why he was the best choice. He told audiences at his appearances, "I will never lie to you." This struck a chord with people who had lived through the last 3 Presidents: Lyndon Johnson had lied about how the Vietnam War was going, Richard Nixon had lied about pretty much everything, and Gerald Ford had pardoned Nixon, so he lied (or, at the least, miscalculated) when he said, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."

Carter won the Iowa Caucuses, making them matter for the first time. He outmaneuvered much more experienced Democrats to win the Party's nomination, taking Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota as his running mate. He had 3 debates against Ford, and handled himself very well in them. Incredibly, the 1st debate with Ford was the 1st time this former Governor of a decent-sized State had ever met a President.

Despite a strong comeback from Ford, Carter won a close election on November 2, 1976, and became the 39th President of the United States. He won a bare majority of the popular vote, 50.1 percent, to Ford's 48.0 percent. He won 23 States, with 297 Electoral Votes, to Ford's 240. He swept the South, except for Virginia, including winning 3 States that have not voted for a Democratic nominee since: Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. Former Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, who had previously run for the Democratic nomination in 1968, ran an independent campaign, and got 0.9 percent.

Carter was sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger at the Capitol on January 20, 1977. He began an Inaugural Address tradition of Presidents thanking their predecessors for their service. Despite a tough campaign, he and Ford built a friendship that lasted until Ford's death in 2006. The new President and First Lady walked up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, so the crowds could see them -- and so they could save gas on the Presidential limousine.

Carter created more jobs per year than any President between LBJ and Joe Biden. He made strides in moving America toward energy independence, although that would last, due to the actions of his successor. He appointed a more diverse Cabinet and a more diverse federal judge corps than any President before him, although he never got a chance to replace a Supreme Court Justice, making him the only President since Andrew Johnson in 1865-69 who was denied this chance. (Even James Garfield, who was only President for 6 months in 1881, got to appoint one.)

Most of all, he made the Camp David Accords happen. Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt had already made overtures of peace to each other, following wars against each other in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, all won by Israel. Carter took them to Camp David, the Presidential retreat northwest of D.C., so they could hammer out their differences. At one point, Begin and Sadat weren't speaking to each other, so Carter acted as a go-between. Finally, it was straightened out, and there was a signing ceremony on the White House lawn.

That peace holds to this day. Begin and Sadat each got the Nobel Peace Prize at that time. Carter did not.

Left to right: Sadat, Carter, Begin.

The flags are arranged differently,

because, when paired with others,

the U.S. flag is always placed to the furthest left.

But Carter did not work well with Congress, even though the Democratic Party held majorities in both houses. In his memoir, Carter admitted, "I treated them like they were the Georgia legislature, and they treated me like the Governor of Georgia."

He had special difficulty in getting along with the Speaker of the House, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill of Massachusetts. In his memoir, O'Neill said, "When it came to understanding the issues of the day, Jimmy Carter was the smartest public official I've ever known... He was always willing to listen and to learn.

"With one exception. When it came to the politics of Washington, D.C., he never really understood how the system worked. And although this was out of character for Jimmy Carter, he didn't want to learn about it, either."

And so there would be no big initiatives, no big overall program, like Franklin Roosevelt with his New Deal, Harry Truman with his Fair Deal, John F. Kennedy with his New Frontier, or LBJ with his Great Society. Carter didn't even give his Administration a theme like that.

The economy did well for his 1st 2 years, then slowed in his 3rd year. By mid-1979, all the promise of 1976 seemed to have faded away. It wasn't that he had failed, but it felt like nothing was happening. On July 15, he gave a speech from the Oval Office, where he spoke of "a crisis of confidence":

It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

Apparently, it was Hendrik Hertzberg, Carter's chief speechwriter, who wrote the "Crisis of Confidence Speech," in an interview the next day, who used the word "malaise" to describe what Carter was talking about. So it entered the American lexicon as the "Malaise Speech," and Carter's critics have saddled him with the term "malaise" ever since.

Yes, there was a malaise. But Carter sure as hell didn't cause it. It was brought about by a cumulative effect of things that happened under Presidents of both parties, including, to a degree, Carter himself: The assassination of JFK in 1963, LBJ's seeming abandonment of his Great Society principles to spend on the Vietnam War, the race riots of 1964 to 1969, the riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Nixon's actions in Vietnam and Watergate, Ford's pardon of Nixon, Ford's inability to reduce unemployment and inflation, and Carter's own inability to handle a 2nd round of inflation -- in each case, caused largely by Middle Eastern nations raising the price of oil.

Carter's biggest "failures" were that he was not the President of Saudi Arabia, and thus had no control over the price of oil; and that he was not the President of Iran, and had no control over that nation. It underwent an Islamic Revolution early in 1979, overthrowing the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, an ally of the U.S., but running a repressive regime at home. He had not only lost his country, he was losing his life to cancer.

Two men usually identified as Republicans demanded that Carter let the Shah into America for medical treatment: Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Nixon and Ford; and David Rockefeller, head of Chase Manhattan Bank, brother of the late former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and controller of the country's largest family fortune. Closer advisors, such as White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan and Press Secretary Jody Powell, told Carter it would be a huge mistake.

He let the Shah in. Not only did it not work (the Shah was dead in a few months, anyway), but revolutionaries, with the implicit permission of the country's dictator, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, invaded the U.S. Embassy in the capital of Tehran, and took 80 hostages. That number would drop to 52 with some releases. This was soon followed by the Soviet Union, afraid of another revolution in a nation that bordered both them and Iran, invading Afghanistan.

At first, the country rallied around Carter as the nation's leader. But as time went on, and he couldn't get the hostages out, he was seen as weak. His response to the Soviet invasion was to announce that the U.S. would boycott the upcoming Olympics in Moscow. This one act did more to paint the Soviets as an "evil empire" than anything Republicans did over 40 years. But it was seen by the public an insult, not to the Soviets, but to the athletes who had trained so hard for the Olympics.

And the economy was getting worse: Unemployment, inflation and interest rates were rising. Jobs were still being created, so it wasn't officially a "recession" yet. But it felt like one.

On April 25, 1980, a failed attempt to rescue the hostages resulted in the deaths of 8 servicemen. By this point, Carter had pretty much wrapped up the Democratic nomination for re-election. So a lot of Primary voters began voting for his challenger, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, not because they believed in him, but as a protest vote against Carter. That also damaged Carter tremendously.

At the Democratic Convention, again at Madison Square Garden, Kennedy gave a fantastic speech. Two nights later, Carter's speech was not well-received. And it looked like he was chasing Kennedy around the stage, desperate to get the familiar Convention-ending image of the defeated candidates joining the nominee in an arms-raised-in-shared-victory pose. As many Republicans thought 4 years earlier, a lot of Democrats were thinking, "We've nominated the wrong guy."

For the Republicans in 1976, not happy with Ford, the right guy was Ronald Reagan, former Governor of California. He rode concerns over the economy and Carter's handling of foreign policy to a big lead. Carter started to come back, and there even seemed to be progress with the Iranian negotiations.

There was one debate, at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland, just 1 week before the election. Carter accused Reagan of wanting to cut spending on Medicare. Which he did want to do. (And did go on to do.) Reagan laughed, and lied, and said, "There you go again." And the audience applauded.

The closing statements were symbolic of each man. Carter gave a statement that read a lot better than it looked, and inspired nobody. Reagan asked what has become the defining question of every Presidential election since: "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?"

Since, for most people, the answer was, "No," Carter won only 6 States, including his native Georgia. He lost the Electoral Vote, 489-49. The popular vote wasn't close, either: Reagan got 50.7 percent, Carter 41.0, and an independent candidate, Representative John Anderson of Indiana, who had finished 3rd in the Republican Primaries and stayed in the race, got 6.6 percent, though he didn't win a single County or Congressional District. Ed Clark, the nominee of the Libertarian Party, got a shade over 1 percent of the national popular vote.

The fact that Reagan won with only a little over 50 percent against an unpopular incumbent -- as Carter had the year before -- and the fact that the men who finished 3rd and 4th in the race got nearly 8 percent of the vote between them suggested that, while this was a firing of Carter, it was not an enthusiastic embrace of Reagan and his archconservative policies. It wasn't, "Ron, you're wonderful, we have all the confidence in the world in you!" It was more like, "Okay, Ron, the last guy was lousy, let's see what you can do." As Mort Sahl, the great politically-themed comedian of the previous generation, put it, "Reagan won because he ran against Carter. Had he run unopposed, he would have lost."

Carter finally got an agreement to get the hostages home on January 20, 1981, his last day in office. But, in one final insult, the plane that would take them out of Iranian airspace was kept on the ground until after 12:00 Noon, U.S. Eastern Time, and after Reagan was sworn in, so it didn't happen while Carter was still President.

Of course, Carter proved to be better than Reagan at everything, from creating jobs to getting American hostages home from Iran without breaking any laws.

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Conservatives, desperate to keep up the image of Ronald Reagan as a great President in the wake of the successes of liberal Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and the failures of both George Bushes and Donald Trump, are determined to show that Carter was "a failed President." They endlessly described first Clinton, then Obama, and now Biden as "another Jimmy Carter." They still do to this today, even though Carter hasn't been President for 43 years.

They don't understand the irony: Carter was their kind of guy. He was a pioneer in what we now call "agribusiness." And he left the world of business to become what they like to call a "citizen legislator." Even during his own Presidential campaign, he was billed as a "Washington outsider." He created jobs and made a grand peace agreement. If a Republican had done what Carter did, today's Republicans would consider him a saint.

In 1982, Jimmy and Rosalynn established the Carter Center at Emory University in Atlanta, which also hosts his Presidential Library and Museum, which opened in 1986. The Center's goal is to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering, through election monitoring and medical efforts, having now done so in more than 80 countries.

In 2002, in recognition of a public lifetime of such efforts, not just the Camp David Accords, Carter was finally awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Given the reasons, this emphasizes that the Nobel Committee really should split the award, because many of its winners got it through humanitarian efforts, without ever taking an active role in stopping or preventing a war. Carter did both.

The Carters also began working with Habitat for Humanity International, based in Americus, Georgia, only 10 miles from their hometown of Plains. Scenes of the Carters, even into their 90s, working on building houses became more inspirational than anything Jimmy did as President. In other words, unlike Donald Trump, when Jimmy Carter built a wall, he built four of them, and a roof, and did it over and over again, and it actually helped people.

Rosalynn Carter died in 2023, at the age of 96. She trailed only Bess Truman, 98, as the longest-lived First Lady. She is laid to rest in the Carter family cemetery in Plains. This made the Carters the only Presidential couple, other than the Kennedys, for whom this opportunity was not available, not to be buried at their Presidential Library since Calvin Coolidge.

The Carters had the longest Presidential marriage ever, 77 years. To put that in perspective: Only 9 of the 1st 36 Presidents lived as long as the Carters were married. Jimmy Carter is also, by far, the longest-lasting former President, having been out of office for 43 years. He was only the 6th President to reach a 90th Birthday, after John Adams, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. he was the 1st ever to reach a 95th birthday. Today, he became the 1st President ever to reach a 100th birthday.

He has already successfully dealt with cancer once, and, unusually for such patients, has been in hospice care for over a year. His grandson Jason, the family's spokesman, says that there are days when he is unconscious for an entire day, but that, when conscious, he's aware of what's going on in the world.

He says he wants to live long enough to vote one more time, for Kamala Harris, against Donald Trump. Hopefully, given his condition, his absentee ballot has already been marked, and is ready to be mailed in. He's in Georgia, one of the close States that will decide the election, and, as Trump well knows -- he's been indicted for his efforts to get them -- both Trump and Harris need all the votes there that they can get.

Incredibly, despite some achievements that make his mistakes pale in comparison, President Carter is not the most significant political figure born on this day. William Rehnquist was, serving on the Supreme Court from 1972, including as Chief Justice from 1986, until his death in 2005. He led the 5-4 ruling in Bush v. Gore, that changed American history, life and culture, and not for the better, setting the stage for even worse decisions by the Court.

Pete Rose, 1941-2024

He was a stupid man who thought he was smart, a weak man who thought he was strong, and an ill-fitting symbol of what he did who thought he was a well-fitting symbol. He was the son of a rotten guy, who became a rotten guy, and he passed that down to his own son as well. He was an old man who liked his women very young, and treated women of all ages poorly. He was fat and had bad hair. He cheated on his taxes. And he and gambling most certainly did not go together. And yet, for all the things he did wrong, he still had his defenders, people who thought he did nothing wrong; and that, even if what he did was wrong, he should still be elected.

His name was Pete Rose. And, unlike Donald Trump, for whom those things were also true, he was actually good at his chosen profession. But not as good as his fans would have you believe.

Peter Edward Rose was born on April 14, 1941 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has sometimes been listed as "Peter Edward Rose Jr.," but this incorrect: While his father was nicknamed "Pete," his legal name was Harry Francis Rose. Peter Edward starred in baseball and football at Western Hills High School in Cincinnati, and it's been suggested that he played baseball as if he didn't realize it wasn't football.

Other baseball players to come out of Western Hills include Don Zimmer, Art Mahaffey, Eddie Birnkman, Jim Frey, Russ Nixon, Herm Wehmeier, Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes. Its football players include Jack "Hacksaw" Reynolds, Jim Boyle, Mike Middleton and Rodney Heath. And singers Rosemary Clooney and Andy Williams were also graduates.

He was signed by his hometown Cincinnati Reds. After a Spring Training game against the New York Yankees, where his hard play was noticed by Whitey Ford, who gave him the nickname "Charlie Hustle," he made his major league debut on April 8, 1963. Playing 2nd base, batting 2nd, and wearing the Number 14 he would wear for the entirety of his career, batting against Earl Francis, his 1st plate appearance was a walk in the 1st inning, scoring on a Frank Robinson home run. He grounded out to 2nd base in the 2nd inning, reached on an error against Tommie Sisk in the 5th, struck out against Joe Gibbon in the 7th, going 0-for-3. Nevertheless, the Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

At the end of the season, Rose dove for a grounder hit by Stan Musial, but couldn't stop it. It was the 3,630th and last hit of Musial's career, extending his place as the National League's all-time hits leader. Rose was named NL Rookie of the Year. The next season, 1964, he would be in his 1st Pennant race, though the Reds fell 1 game short.

In 1965, he was named to his 1st All-Star Game. He was named to 17 of them, including at 5 different positions. Also in 1965, he collected at least 200 hits for the 1st of 10 times. In 1968 and 1969, he won the NL batting title. In 1969 and 1970, he was awarded a Gold Glove in left field.

*

In 1970, the Reds moved from Crosley Field to Riverfront Stadium, and hosted the All-Star Game there. The NL won, 5-4, in 10 innings, as Rose scored on a single by Jim Hickman of the Chicago Cubs, crashing into the American League's catcher, Ray Fosse of the Cleveland Indians. The crash not only scored the winning run, it separated Fosse's shoulder. In a meaningless exhibition.

To the end, Rose remained unrepentant. Actually, contrary to legend, this injury didn't curtail Fosse's career: He had a few more good years, playing on the Oakland Athletics' 1972 and 1973 World Champions, before another injury reduced his ability. So it didn't ruin Fosse.

It did, however, mark Rose as a hustler, a man who would do anything to win. That was when a majority of baseball fans liked him. Within 20 years, his reputation would be in tatters, and it would be seen as an aspect of a very mean son of a bitch who cared more about fame than about the game.

*

The Reds won the Pennant in 1970, barreling through the NL Western Division, leading it wire-to-wire, and becoming known as "The Big Red Machine." In 1972, they won it again. But they lost the World Series both times, to the Baltimore Orioles and the Oakland Athletics, respectively. Losing to the A's in '72, when Oakland's best player, Reggie Jackson, was unavailable due to injury, should have settled the "Team of the Decade" debate for all time, but it hasn't.

In 1973, Rose won another batting title, leading the Reds back into the Playoffs, and winning his only NL Most Valuable Player award. In Game 3 of the NL Championship Series, the Reds lost to the New York Mets, 9-2 at Shea Stadium in New York. The game is remembered for 5-foot-11, 200-pound Pete Rose breaking up a double play by crashing into 5-foot-11, 140-pound Bud Harrelson, and then starting a fight with the much thinner man.

With the fight broken up, Rose returned to his position in left field, where Met fans (understandably angry, but they were hardly justified in their actions) started throwing things at him. Reds manager Sparky Anderson took his team off the field, fearing for their safety.

The next day, with a banner hanging from Shea's upper deck reading, "A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME STILL STINKS" -- I guess they weren't willing to say "Sucks" in public in 1973 -- Rose made his point by winning the game and tying up the series with an extra-inning home run. But the Mets won Game 5 and the Pennant, before losing the World Series to the Oakland Athletics.

Finally, in 1975, the Reds won the World Series, defeating the Boston Red Sox in 7 games. Game 6 is considered one of the greatest in baseball history. When Rose came to bat in the top of the 11th inning, he said something to the catcher, Carlton Fisk. It's been reported as both, "Some kind of a game, isn't it?" and, "Can you believe this game?" Fisk led off the bottom of the 12th with a home run, but the Reds won Game 7.

Sports Illustrated magazine named Rose their Sportsman of the Year for 1975. To this day, he has appeared on its cover more than any other baseball figure, although those covers, and the stories they represented inside, were not always flattering.

The Reds won another Division title in 1976, and swept their way through the NLCS against the Philadelphia Phillies and the World Series against the Yankees. They remain the only team in the Divisional Play Era (1969-present0 to go through the postseason undefeated, although there have been more rounds added since.

Rose got his 3,000th career hit off Steve Rogers of the Montreal Expos at Riverfront Stadium on May 5, 1978. That season, he tied Willie Keeler's NL record with a 44-game hitting streak, but got no closer to the record of 56, set by Joe DiMaggio in 1941.

Rose's contract ran out after the 1978 season, and the unthinkable happened: He left Cincinnati, signing with the Phillies. He helped them win the World Series for the 1st time in franchise history, in 1980. In 1983, they won another Pennant, as Rose was reunited with former Cincinnati teammates Joe Morgan and Tony Pérez. But they lost the World Series to the Orioles.

When baseball resumed after the Strike of '81, Rose got his 3,631st hit, to pass Musial. Ahead of him now were only Hank Aaron with 3,771 and Ty Cobb with 4,191. Actually, it was during the Strike that a researcher discovered that one of Cobb's 1910 games was mistakenly counted twice, including 2 hits he'd gotten. So that lowered his career hit total to 4,189, and his record lifetime batting average from .367 to .366. However, Rose would still be celebrated for breaking the record when he got to 4,192, not 4,190.

His contract with the Phillies ran out after the 1983 World Series. He was signed by the Montreal Expos, where he got his 4,000th career hit -- in a rarity for the switch-hitter, while batting righthanded. On August 16, 1984, the Reds fired manager Vern Rapp, and sent utility player Tom Lawless to the Expos for the 43-year-old Rose, naming him manager. The fact that the other player's name was Lawless didn't seem to mean much at the time.

The fact that Rose was named player-manager was, as he remains the last one in Major League Baseball history. It was whispered that he was only still playing so he could get Cobb's record, and inserting himself into games for that selfish reason. And yet, he batted .286 in 1984, and .264 in 1985, at 44. On September 11, 1985, he officially broke Cobb's record, with a single to left (opposite field) off Eric Show of the San Diego Padres, for career hit Number 4,192.

He played his last game on August 17, 1986, although he never made an official retirement announcement. He finished with 4,256 hits. He and Cobb are the only ones with at least 4,000. He still holds the major league career records for games played (3,562), plate appearances (15,890), at-bats (14,053), and hits... and also outs (9,797).

*

But Rose was a bad manager. He got the Reds to 4 straight 2nd place finishes from 1985 to 1988, but couldn't get them into the Playoffs -- no Wild Cards at the time. In 1988, following a disputed call by umpire Dave Pallone, Rose shoved him. Commissioner A. Bartlett "Bart" Giamatti suspended Rose for 30 days, which remains the longest suspension ever given to a manager for an on-field incident.

And then it was discovered that Rose had bet on baseball, including on games involving the Reds. He would later admit to betting on them to win. It's important to note that any game in which he did not bet on them to win was tantamount to admitting that he thought they would lose, which was also a sign to gamblers. Which was as bad as losing a game on purpose to win money gambling.

For so many people in my generation, too young to remember Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente and Sandy Koufax as active players, Rose was a symbol of baseball in our generation. He represented "the right way to play." "Charlie Hustle." He was a winner. He led what some of us called the greatest team we'd ever seen, the 1970s Big Red Machine. Hell, he'd even helped the Phillies win a World Series. The Phillies! Who does that? Pete Rose did that. (With a lot of help. The real reason they won is that manager Dallas Green told a bunch of prima donnas, including Rose, to get their act in gear.)

Rose may not have played for our team, but he was one of our favorite players not on our team. He was one of our guys. We didn't want to believe the allegations against him. Thomas Boswell, the great baseball writer for The Washington Post, spoke for so many us when he said, when his interview with Ken Burns for his Baseball miniseries got to the subject of Rose, "Fooled me completely."

The case against Rose, put together by former U.S. Department of Justice official John Dowd, was air-tight: Rose had violated "Rule 21 Misconduct, (d) Betting on Ball Games, Any player, umpire, or club, or league official, or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible."

(At the beginning of this post, I compared Rose and Trump. There is a connection between them: From June 2017 to March 2018, Dowd was a personal lawyer to Trump, resigning because Trump refused to 

accept his advice in regards to the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.)

"Permanently." Not a "lifetime" ban: As with Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other 7 "Black Sox" of 1919, the ineligibility was not to end with death. Only with reinstatement, for which Rose could have reapplied, and eventually did.

On August 24, 1989, Giamatti banned Rose from any active role in professional baseball, permanently. Just 7 days later, Giamatti died of a heart attack. That was the worst thing that could have happened to either man: Most likely, Rose's chance to make a deal for reinstatement died with Giamatti. As Rose himself pointed out, Giamatti's successor, Francis T. "Fay" Vincent, was Giamatti's best friend; and when the team owners fired Vincent in 1992, the new Commissioner was Allan H. "Bud" Selig, one of their own (owner of the Milwaukee Brewers), and the owners have never given the players a break unless forced to by a court of law.

Indeed, Vincent was out before he could act on Rose's appeal for reinstatement. He appealed again in 1998, but Selig never acted on it. He appealed again in 2015, when Selig retired as Commissioner, and was replaced by Rob Manfred. Manfred did issue a decision: Absolutely not.

In 1991, the year before Rose would have become eligible for election had he done nothing wrong, the Baseball Hall of Fame passed a rule stating that no person on MLB's list of permanently ineligible people would be placed on a Hall of Fame ballot. In other words, Rose was banned from the Hall, too.

Rose's defenders say that what he did wrong was as a manager, not a player, and it shouldn't affect his eligibility as a player. The problem is, it doesn't matter when he committed the acts that got him banned: He still committed them, and he's still ineligible.

And Rule 21(d) is in place for a reason: Betting on games, or losing them on purpose, is fraud, and harms the integrity of the sport. It was one of the reasons the National League was founded as the 1st professional league in 1876, to better officiate against gambling. The fact that the case involving Rose is the only one since 1919-21 that has resulted in a guilty verdict, shows just how seriously MLB takes gambling: Most people, given the opportunity, don't do it, because they know the consequences.

It's important to note that, even if Rose were reinstated from Major League Baseball's "permanently ineligible" list, it wouldn't guarantee his election to the Hall. Nor would the Hall deciding to change the rule and make Rose eligible anyway: While there would be nothing that MLB could do about it, there would still be voters refusing to accept him. The recent revelation about a teenage girlfriend in the 1970s doesn't help Rose's chances.

Rose did not go to prison for fraud. Nor for gambling. Nor for inappropriate conduct with a minor. He did, however, go to prison for income tax evasion, pleading guilty to 2 charges of filing false income tax returns, not showing income he received from selling autographs and memorabilia, and from winnings on horse races. On July 19, 1990, he was sentenced to 5 months in federal prison -- with some irony, in Marion, Illinois, hometown of Ray Fosse. He was released on January 7, 1991, having paid what he owed.

In 1999, MLB worked with MasterCard to provide fan balloting for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Fans elected Rose, leading to a delicate issue: Should the man banned from baseball be allowed to participate in the ceremony honoring those players, set for before Game 2 of the World Series? Selig decided he should, and Rose got a standing ovation.

The game and the ceremony were broadcast on NBC, and after the ceremony, reporter Jim Gray asked Rose if he was now ready to admit that he bet on baseball. He said he wasn't, and lied, saying he hadn't done that. He wouldn't admit it until 2004, when he published a book, My Prison Without Bars. The fact that he lied about it for 15 years is another thing held against him by those who say he shouldn't be elected to the Hall of Fame.

His supporters have said that what he did wasn't as bad as what was done by users of drugs, either the illegal kind or the prescription kind. They are wrong: It's worse. They say it's wrong that baseball's all-time hit leader isn't in the Hall, just as Barry Bonds' defenders say it's wrong for the all-time home run leader to not be in. Bonds has not been formally banned: Unlike Rose, the voters have had the chance to punish him by refusing to elect him, and, thus far, they have.

It's worth noting that opinion isn't just split among fans. For his achievements, Rose had been considered a contender, following the death of Mays earlier this year, for the title of baseball's greatest living player. Another contender for that title, his former Phillies teammate Mike Schmidt, believes he should be allowed into the Hall. But another contender for that title, his former Reds teammate Johnny Bench, says he still loves Rose as a friend, but doesn't want him in the Hall.

And while many have picked up Rose's nickname for himself, the Hit King, a few have called him "the greatest hitter of all time." In spite of all his hits, his lifetime batting average is .303. His OPS+ is 118, meaning he was 18 percent better at producing runs than the average player in his time. His 4,256 hits include 746 doubles, 2nd all-time behind Tris Speaker's 792; 135 triples, and 160 home runs, an average of 7 per season.

Because he usually batted leadoff, his 1,314 RBIs works out to about 60 per season. He topped out at a .348 batting average, 16 homers and 82 RBIs, in each case in 1969. (He also hit 16 homers in 1966.) And for all his hustle on the basepaths, including his trademark head-first slides, he only stole 198 bases in his long career, getting caught stealing 146 times.

The Reds renamed Riverside Drive outside Riverfront Stadium, and now Great American Ballpark, Pete Rose Way. They retired his Number 14. Previously, they'd given it to only 1 player: Pete Rose Jr., a September callup with the Reds in 1997. Career major league hits: 2.

The Phillies, having already retired his Number 14 for a previous player, Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning, were prepared to elect him to their team Hall of Fame in 2017, when the story of his affair with the teenager came out. They canceled the ceremony.

Also not helping matters: Rose had been living in Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world. He died yesterday, at his home there, at the age of 83. The night before, he had attended a partial reunion of the Big Red Machine in a suburb of Nashville.

When the news came over the wire last night, I spent about an hour reminding some very stupid people of the difference between "lifetime" and "permanent." The thought of many has been that MLB would never allow his reinstatement while he was still alive. What makes them think he'll be reinstated now that he's dead? What he did still happened. 

October 1, 1944: The St. Louis Browns Win Their Only Pennant

October 1, 1944, 80 years ago: The St. Louis Browns beat the New York Yankees, 5-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. This, combined with the Detroit Tigers' 4-1 loss to the Washington Senators at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, enables the Browns to clinch the American League Pennant. It is their first. They are the last of Major League Baseball's "Original 16" teams (a term not used back then) to do so.

Had the Tigers won, or had both they and the Browns lost, a 1-game Playoff for the Pennant would have been held between them. Sportsman's Park was renamed Busch Stadium in 1953, and Briggs Stadium was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.

This was only the 2nd time a team had beaten the Yankees to clinch a Pennant. It had previously happened in 1904, when the team that would become known as the Boston Red Sox did it. It would not happen again until the Kansas City Royals did it in the 1980 AL Championship Series. (It has since been done by the Red Sox in 2004, the Texas Rangers in 2010, the Detroit Tigers in 2012, and the Houston Astros in 2017 and 2019.)

Sigmund "Sig" Jakucki outpitches Mel Queen, despite falling behind 2-0 in the 3rd inning. Mike Kreevich led off the bottom of the 4th with a single, followed by a game-tying home run from Chet Laabs. In the 5th, same combination: Single by Kreevich, homer by Laabs. Vern Stephens added a homer in the 8th.

Managed by Luke Sewell, brother of Cleveland Indians Hall-of-Famer Joe Sewell, the Browns finished the season 89-65, finishing 1 game ahead of the Detroit Tigers and 6 ahead of the defending World Champion Yankees. They had previously come the closest to a Pennant in 1922, when, with what was almost certainly a better team, they went 93-61 but finished a game behind the Yankees.

For most of their history, they were terrible, losing 107 games in back-to-back seasons, 1910 and 1911; 108 in 1937; and 111 in 1939. Noting that St. Louis was the center of America's leather industry and the home of several breweries, someone countered the insult of the Washington Senators -- "Washington: First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League" -- with "St. Louis: First in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League."

In contrast, the St. Louis Cardinals had won National League Pennants in 1926, '28, '30, '31, '34, '42 and '43, and did so again in '44. The Browns were the landlords at Sportsman's Park, the Cards the tenants, but the tenants were more successful.

And it just so happened that the Cards stood in the Browns' way in their 1st World Series. The Browns won Games 1 and 3, bringing them 2 wins from a World Championship. But this would be the high-water mark of the team, as the Cards took the next 3 games for the title.

When World War II ended, and everybody's players came back from the service, the Browns fell back into a condition where mediocrity would have been an improvement. After the 1953 season, they were moved to become the Baltimore Orioles. They did not win another until Pennant, and did not win the franchise's 1st World Championship, until 1966.

The Browns/Orioles franchise and the Cardinals have never played each other in another World Series. Both teams made the Playoffs in the seasons of 1996, 2012 and 2014, but neither team won its respective Pennant in the years in question.

After 1944, there would not be another team winning their 1st Pennant until September 23, 1957, when the Milwaukee Braves do it -- or, if you don't count moved teams, until October 6, 1969, when the Mets pull off their "Miracle."

The last survivor of the 1944 Browns was 2nd baseman Don Gutteridge -- who, ironically, started his career with the St. Louis Cardinals. He lived until 2008, age 96.