October 17, 1944: The Near-Destruction of Warsaw

October 17, 1944, 80 years ago: Having successfully put down an uprising in the Polish capital of Warsaw for the 2nd year in a row, Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler gives an order: "The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation."

Himmler's boss, Adolf Hitler, had been considering this since 1939: He wanted to tear the city down, and replace it with a modern city in the German style. He specifically said to get rid of historical monuments and the Polish national archives. Hitler didn't just want genocide, he wanted to completely wipe Poland from public memory.

By January 1945, 85 percent of the buildings that had stood in Warsaw before the initial German invasion of September 1, 1939 had been destroyed. In 2005, an estimate was made that the value of the damage was, in current U.S. dollars, $54.6 billion.

With Poland a client state after World War II -- the Eastern European version of the West's NATO was founded in 1955 as "The Warsaw Pact" -- the Soviet Union funded the rebuilding of the city, but in the Communist style. As a result, it is not considered an architectural marvel. No, if you want to see a classical Polish city, the only one left is Kraków, which was always the country's home of culture.

The 778-foot, 42-story Palace of Culture and Science was erected in 1955, a copy of the Moscow State University Building. It has nicknames of both genders: Since the State University Building is one of Moscow's "Seven Sisters," the Palace is called "The Eighth Sister"; but it's also known as "Stalin's Dick." (Also, "Stalin's Syringe.")

You've heard of Polish jokes? Here is an actual Polish joke, from Poland: Where is the best view of the city of Warsaw? From the Palace of Culture and Science. Why? Because, from there, you can't see the Palace of Culture and Science.

Much like Colonial Williamsburg in America, Warsaw's "Old Town" was reconstructed. The project was the world's first attempt to resurrect an entire historic city core, and was included on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1980. 

Today, Warsaw is a thriving national capital, a metropolis of 1.8 million people, the 8th-largest in the European Union behind Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Bucharest, Paris, Vienna and Hamburg.  

October 16, 2014: The Travis Ishikawa Game

October 16, 2014, 10 years ago: Game 5 of the National League Championship Series is played at AT&T Park (now named Oracle Park). Joe Panik and Michael Morse hit home runs for the San Francisco Giants, but the St. Louis Cardinals get homers from Matt Adams and Tony Cruz, and the game goes to the bottom of the 9th tied.

The Giants get 2 men on against Michael Wacha, the MVP of the previous year's NLCS, and then Travis Ishikawa -- with considerably less pressure, as the Giants lead the Cards 3 games to 1 -- does what Bobby Thomson did, 63 years earlier and 2,910 miles to the east: He hits a home run that means, "The Giants win the Pennant! The Giants win the Pennant! And they're going crazy! They're going crazy!"

Of course, unlike the Giant Pennant wins of 1951 with Bobby Thomson, and 1962 in far less dramatic fashion, this one was not against the Dodgers, in either New York (Manhattan vs. Brooklyn) or California (San Francisco vs. Los Angeles). But it was still dramatic.

Isikawa's father was a 3rd-generation Japanese-American. His ancestry and this home run made him the 1st player of Asian descent to hit a walkoff home run in an MLB postseason game.

There was an NFL game that night: The New England Patriots beat the New York Jets, 27-25 at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands.

The American League Championship Series was decided the night before, when the Kansas City Royals completed a sweep of the Baltimore Orioles. The Giants went on to beat the Royals in a classic World Series Game 7, and secure their 3rd World Championship in 5 seasons.

October 16, 1994: The Dumbest Football Coach Who Ever Lived

October 16, 1994, 30 years ago: The Dallas Cowboys lead the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-7, at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas. The Eagles score a touchdown in the 4th quarter to make it 24-13, and head coach Rich Kotite tells his team to attempt a 2-point conversion. It fails, and the 24-13 score holds until the end of the game.

Why go for 2 there? At that point, there was little difference between trailing by 10 and by 9: You still needed a touchdown and a field goal to make the difference. But failing at the 2-pointer meant trailing by 11, so you needed 2 touchdowns. Obviously, the right thing to do was to kick the extra point, and make it 24-14.

After the game, Kotite told the media, "The rain made the ink run and blurred the chart, so I couldn't see what was written on it to know what to do."

He shouldn't have needed a chart to tell him what to do! But it was worse than that: He knew it was going to rain, and didn't have a plastic sheet to protect his ink and paper. I guess Yankee Fans are lucky that the dugout protected Joe Girardi's infamous binder from the rain.

Richard Edward Kotite was born on October 13, 1942 is born in Brooklyn, and grew up on Staten Island. A tight end, he played for Wagner College on Staten Island, and was a decent player for the Giants from 1967 to 1972. Among his coaching jobs were with the New York Jets, as receivers coach in 1983 and '84, and as offensive coordinator from 1985 to 1989. He got the same job with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1990, and was promoted to head coach in 1991. In 1991 and '92, he got the Eagles into the Playoffs. In 1993, 8-8 wasn't enough to get in.

In 1994, he got the Eagles off to a 4-1 start. Then came his what-the-hell moment against the Cowboys. The Eagles would get to 7-2, leading the NFC Eastern Division. Then they lost their last 7 games, including to the Giants and the Cincinnati Bengals by 3 points each, the Arizona Cardinals by 6, and the Atlanta Falcons by 7.

The Eagles finished 7-9, missing the Playoffs, and Kotite was fired. Crap like this is what makes people in Philly go up to cops and say, "Officer, I want to report a crime: The Eagles are killing me!"

On January 4, 1995, a date which lives in infamy, Jets owner Leon Hess announced that he had hired Kotite to be the team's head coach and, effectively, also its general manager. Why Kotite? Well, he was a local guy, and a blue-collar guy who could appeal to local fans. But that shouldn't have mattered. What should have mattered was that Kotite had led the Eagles to a couple of Playoff berths.

Words that Hess should have guessed would outlive him: "I'm 80 years old. I want results now!"

He got results, all right. In 1995, the Jets went 3-13. One of those losses was the 1st regular-season win in franchise history for the expansion Carolina Panthers. (While the Panthers did reach the NFC Championship Game the next season, that 1st year, they were only 4-12.)

In 1996, the Jets had the worst season in the history of New York Tri-State Area football, 1-15. The only win came in Week 9, October 27, 31-21 away to Arizona. Two days before the team's '96 finale, GM Kotite fired Coach Kotite.

Between them, Coach Kotite and GM Kotite went 3-13 and 1-15 in his 2 seasons with the Jets. In other words, from November 7, 1994 to December 22, 1996, he went 4-35 as a head coach. That's a .103 percentage, worse than the worst single seasons in the histories of MLB (the 1899 Cleveland Spiders went 20-134, or .134), the NBA (the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers went 9-73, or .110) and the NHL (the 1974-75 Washington Capitals went 8-67-5, or .131).

Owner Hess then hired Bill Parcells, and got much better results, although Hess died before Parcells could get the ultimate result for the Jets, like he did twice for the Giants.

Kotite was just 54 years old when he left Weeb Ewbank Hall, but has never again even been hired as an assistant coach. Anywhere. Not the pros, not college, not even in high school. Even the XFL -- both the laughingstock 2001 version and the new edition that started in 2020 -- haven't touched him. That's how radioactive Rich Kotite has been. However, he has been a contributor to various NFL Network broadcasts. At 80, it's unlikely he'll ever be hired by another pro team, in any capacity.

This game could be cited as part of "The Curse of Billy Penn": From 1983, when the Philadelphia 76ers won the NBA Championship, until 2008, when the Phillies won their next World Series, no Philadelphia professional sports team won a World Championship. The suggestion was that the construction of One Liberty Place in 1987, making it taller than the statue of William Penn atop City Hall, caused Penn's spirit to put a curse on the city's teams. The Eagles didn't win a Super Bowl until 2018.

October 15, 1964: The Last Day of the Old Yankee Dynasty

Bob Gibson pitching to Mickey Mantle, Sportsman's Park

October 15, 1964, 60 years ago: Game 7 of the World Series is played at Sportsman's Park – or, as Cardinals owner and Anheuser-Busch beer baron August Anheuser Busch Jr., a.k.a. "Gussie" Busch, has renamed it, Busch Stadium. The Cardinals start Bob Gibson, loser of Game 2 but winner of Game 5, on 2 days' rest. The Yankees start rookie Mel Stottlemyre, who had defeated Gibson in Game 2.

Lou Brock's 5th-inning home run triggers a 3-run frame and a 6-0 lead for Gibson. Mickey Mantle‚ Clete Boyer‚ and Phil Linz homer for New York – for Mantle, the record 18th and final Series homer of his career – and the Yanks close to within 7-5 in the 9th. But it's not enough, as an exhausted Gibson finds enough gas in his tank to finish the job, and the Cards are the World Champions.

Both Boyers‚ Ken for the Cards and Clete for the Yankees‚ homer in their last Series appearance. While they had homered in back-to-back games, Clete in Game 3 and Ken a grand slam in Game 4, this remains the only time in Series history that 2 brothers have both homered in the same game.

Although the Yankees (27) and the Cardinals (11) have each won more World Series than any other team in their respective Leagues, they have never met in another, despite both making the Playoffs in 1996, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2012 and 2015. (Both teams came close to making the Playoffs in 1974, the Cards just missed in 1981, and the Yanks just missed in 1985.)

For each manager, it is his last game at the helm. Johnny Keane had nearly been fired by Cardinal management in mid-season, and their come-from-behind run to top the Philadelphia Phillies had saved his job. But he had had enough, and he resigns.

Yogi Berra, after helping the Yankees to 14 World Series as a player and now 1 as their manager, also coming from behind, to top the Chicago White Sox, thinks he's done a good job, and expects to be offered a new contract. Instead, he gets fired, and Yankee management hires… Johnny Keane.

This will turn out to be a massive mistake. While the Cardinals will hire their former star 2nd baseman Red Schoendienst, who will lead them to the 1967 World Championship and the 1968 Pennant, Keane, already in ill health, will be a terrible fit for the Yankees, getting fired early in 1966, and he dies in 1967.

Del Webb and Dan Topping, who had owned the Yankees since 1945, had just sold the Yankees to CBS – yes, the broadcast network – and had cared little for keeping the farm system stocked. As a result, there was very little talent left to call up to the majors when the Yanks' current stars got hurt or old, and it seemed like they all got hurt or old at once.

In the 44 seasons from 1921 to 1964, the Yanks won 29 Pennants and 20 World Series, but fell to 6th place in 1965, 10th and last in '66. Despite a 2nd-place finish in '70, they were well behind the World Series-winning Orioles. They didn't get into a race where they were still in it in August until '72, to the last weekend still in the race until '74 (by which time George Steinbrenner had bought the team from CBS), to the postseason until '76 and the World Championship until '77.

In 2008, Buster Olney published The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, about the one that began in 1996, and ended at what's now called Chase Field in Phoenix on November 4, 2001. But no baseball dynasty, indeed no sports dynasty, was as, well, dynastic as the 1949-64 Yankees. Peter Golenbock's Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949-64 tells of how it was built, and how it began to fall apart; David Halberstam's October 1964 tells of how both the Yankees and the Cardinals got to this Game 7, and what happened thereafter; both books put the teams in the context of their times, at home and abroad.

There are 11 surviving players from the 1964 Cardinals, 56 years later: Catcher and future Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Uecker, shortstop Dal Maxvill, 2nd baseman Julián Javier, 1st baseman (and future Yankee broadcaster and NL President) Bill White; outfielders Carl Warwick, Bob Skinner and Charlie James; and pitchers Bob Humphreys, Gordie Richardson, Ray Washburn and Ron Taylor. Taylor was thus the only 1969 Met who had previously won a World Series.

There are 5 surviving players from the 1964 Yankees: Pitchers Rollie Sheldon, Al Downing and Pedro Ramos; shortstop and future broadcaster Tony Kubek, and 2nd baseman Bobby Richardson. (In each case, this only counts players who were on the World Series rosters.) 

None of the players on either side, those now living or those now dead, had any inkling that this was anything other than the last day of a great season, that it was The Last Day of the Yankee Dynasty.

October 15, 1899: The End of the Line

October 15, 1899, 125 years ago: The Cincinnati Reds close out the season with 16-1 and 19-3 victories at League Park in Cincinnati, over the hapless Cleveland Spiders. John "Bid" McPhee‚ usually considered the best 2nd baseman of the 19th Century‚ plays in both games‚ the last of his career, with all 18 being spent with the Reds.

Cleveland finished with 20 wins and 134 losses‚ 84 games behind the Pennant-winning Brooklyn Superbas, and in the cellar, 12th place, by 35 games behind the next-worst team, the Washington Senators. They have a "winning percentage" of .149. And on their last day, they lost by an aggregate score of 35-4. They couldn't even die with dignity.

They also conclude a 36-game road trip (1-35) after setting a mark earlier this year with a 50-game road trip. They lost 24 straight at one point (the 2nd-worst ever, behind the 26 of the 1889 Louisville Colonels, the worst since being the 1961 Phillies with 23), and 40 out of their last 41. 

The reason for the Spiders' futility is that they were bought by the owners of the St. Louis team that would soon be renamed the Cardinals. This system, known as "syndicate baseball," was legal at the time. And, as St. Louis natives, the owners brought all of the good Cleveland players, including pitcher Cy Young – but not Louis Sockalexis, the once-powerful but now injured and alcoholic Penobscot tribesman who has been called "the original Cleveland Indian" – to St. Louis.

The result is a Cleveland team that may not even have been, by today's standards, Triple-A quality. True, the 2024 Chicago White Sox may have finished 41-121, with the most losses since the 1899 Spiders, and a winning percentage of .253, the lowest since the 1962 New York Mets finished 40-120 for .250. But they were not as bad as the Spiders.

*

On the same day, The Louisville Colonels beat the Chicago Orphans, 9-5 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. The former Chicago White Stockings got this name because their longtime 1st baseman and manager, Adrian Anson, known as "Cap" (for "Captain") when he was younger and "Pop" as he got older, had retired, and "they missed their Pop."

The Orphans actually played 2 games against 2 different teams on this day. They also beat the St. Louis Perfectos, 7-0 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. The Perfectos became the Cardinals in 1900, and the Orphans became the Cubs in 1903.

The Colonels' win over Chicago would be the last game they ever played, as they were absorbed by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Led by manager and left fielder Fred Clarke, and shortstop John "Honus" Wagner, they ended the season on this day in 9th place, at 75-77.

As part of the deal, Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss negotiated the transfer of the best Louisville players, namely Wagner (himself a Pittsburgh native), Clarke, center fielder Tommy Leach, and pitchers Charles "Deacon" Phillippe and George "Rube" Waddell, to the Pirates.

Honus Wagner

The Colonels, the Spiders, the Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals were contracted out of the National League within weeks, though this made the American League, and its franchises in Cleveland, Washington and, at least for two years, Baltimore, possible.

In their 13-season history, the Spiders were 827-938, a percentage of .4685. Minus that last season, they were 807-804, .5003. They deserved a better fate: They had on their roster, at one time or another, Hall-of-Famers Cy Young, John Clarkson, Buck Ewing, Bobby Wallace, George Davis and Jesse Burkett, plus Cupid Childs, Chief Zimmer, Patsy Tebeau, Lave Cross, Louis Sockalexis, Lou Criger, Kid Carsey and Jack O'Connor, any one of whom would have been an All-Star had there been an All-Star Game in the 1880s or 1890s.

They never won a Pennant, but finished 2nd in the NL in 1892, 1895 and 1896, and were 81-68 (5th out of 12) in 1898 before the syndicate broke them up. They were not a failed franchise: They got sabotaged.

The last surviving 1899 Cleveland Spider appears to have been right fielder Lewis "Sport" McAllister, who lived until 1962. I say, "appears to have been," because no date of death is known for pitcher Frank Bates, who went 3-19 that season, losing his last 14 decisions. The last record anyone has of him is his World War I draft registration form from 1918, showing him living in Cincinnati. He would have been 85 years old when McAllister died, so it is possible that he was the last survivor. But he does not appear in the 1920 Census. Since he is not listed among those killed in action in the war, he was likely a victim of the 1918-19 Spanish Flu epidemic.

No major league team, in any sport, has been called the Spiders since. The highest-ranking teams with the name, that I can think of, are those of the University of Richmond in Virginia. I don't even know of any soccer (football) teams in other countries with the nickname. With the Washington Football Team having dropped the name "Redskins," the Cleveland Indians announced that they would follow for the 2022 season. The hope was that they would call themselves the Cleveland Spiders. Instead, they chose to become the Cleveland Guardians.

As a result of the Pittsburgh-Louisville deal, the Pirates won 4 of the next 10 NL Pennants, and were at least in the race for most of the rest. With Wagner becoming the best player in baseball, the Pirates reached but lost the 1st World Series in 1903, and won the World Series in 1909.

The Colonels began in the American Association in 1882, won the Pennant in 1890, and transferred to the NL with the AA's demise after the 1891 season. But most ballparks at the time were made of wood, and their home field, Eclipse Park, burned down on September 27, 1892. It was rebuilt, but burned down again on August 12, 1899, while the team was on the road, and they finished the season on the road.

Given the team's struggles on the field since entering the NL, and the fact that the NL was determined to contract -- the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Spiders and the Washington Senators were also eliminated -- it made more sense for the Colonels to be one of the teams that gave up.

Louisville has since been one of the top minor-league cities of the last 120 years, in terms of both competitiveness and attendance. But it has never returned to the major leagues, nor is it likely to, since the Louisville metropolitan area is home to only 1.4 million people, and the city is just 82 miles from Cincinnati, itself one of MLB's smallest markets. Louisville has been denied a team in every MLB expansion: 1961-62, 1969, 1977, 1993 and 1998.

In a new, Class AAA league called the American Association, the Louisville Colonels won Pennants in 1909, 1916, 1921, 1925, 1926, 1930, 1939, 1940, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1954, 1960, 1961 and 1962. That team was moved, due to stadium issues. A new Louisville Colonels played in the Class AAA International League from 1967 to 1972, winning no Pennants.

On January 6, 1964, Charlie Finley signed a 2-year pact to move the Athletics from Kansas City to Louisville, pending American League approval. He is later denied that approval, and the A's stay put in Kansas City until after the 1967 season, when they moved to Oakland. 

In 1982, the Louisville Redbirds began play in the IL, and won Pennants in 1984, 1985 and 1995. They were renamed the Louisville RiverBats in 1999, and won the Pennant in 2001. The name was shortened to the Louisville Bats in 2002, and, through the 2022 season, they have not won another Pennant, although they have won their Division as recently as 2010.

The name "Kentucky Colonels" was used by the Louisville-based team in the American Basketball Association. They were the only team to make the Playoffs in all 9 seasons of the ABA, losing the Finals in 1971 and 1973, before winning the title in 1975. They were not one of the teams absorbed into the NBA in 1976.

Charlie Emig, a lefthanded pitcher from Cincinnati, who started 1 game for the Colonels in 1896, was not only the club's last surviving player, but also the last surviving man who had played a Major League Baseball (as we would now call it) game in the 19th Century. He died on October 2, 1975, age 100.

October 14, 1964: The Fall of Walter Jenkins -- and of Nikita Khrushchev

October 14, 1964, 60 years ago: Walter Jenkins, unofficially the White House Chief of Staff (officially, the office was vacant) to President Lyndon B. Johnson, resigns his post under pressure, following an arrest on what would once have been quaintly called a "morals charge."

He began working for Johnson, then a Congressman from Texas, in 1939, and remained with him through serving in the House of Representatives, the Senate (including LBJ's tenures as Minority Leader and Majority Leader), the Vice Presidency, and finally the Presidency.

He became a close friend to both Johnson and his wife, Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson. Another LBJ aide, Bill Moyers, later a journalist, said, "If Lyndon Johnson owed everything to one human being other than Lady Bird, he owed it to Walter Jenkins."

But on October 7, Jenkins and another man are arrested in the men's room of a YMCA in Washington, for what was officially labeled "disorderly conduct." In spite of Jenkins being a married Catholic with 6 children, this was code for saying that he had been caught in a homosexual act.

It was difficult to keep the story quiet, especially when reporters found out he had previously been arrested on such a charge in 1959. That made it much harder to explain away as the result of overwork or, as one journalist wrote, "combat fatigue."

On October 14, The Washington Star called the White House for comment. His hand forced, LBJ told White House Press Secretary George Reedy to make a statement that the Administration was coming clean about the story -- 20 days before the Presidential election.

Jenkins had to resign, and the Republican Party wanted to make hay out of this. They knew LBJ was soundly beating their nominee for President, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, at the polls. Goldwater refused to go along with it, and told them to back off. In his memoir, he said, "It was a sad time for Jenkins' wife and children, and I was not about to add to their private sorrow."

Jenkins had bad luck. But Johnson had good luck: The same day that Jenkins' resignation was announced, Nikita Khrushchev was ousted as Soviet leader. Apparently, he had become too liberalizing for the Supreme Soviet. They allowed him to live at his dacha, and he was able to get his memoir smuggled out of the country. But he died in 1971, officially disgraced by the country that, 10 years earlier, he had raised to its greatest height.

He once said, "If you feed the people with slogans, they will be with you today, and they will be with you tomorrow, and they may be with you the day after tomorrow. But the next day, they will say, 'To Hell with you.'"

The day after the Jenkins resignation and the Khrushchev ouster, Britain had a previously-scheduled national election. It changed the party of government: The Labour Party beat the Conservative Party, so Alec Douglas-Home was out as Prime Minister, and Harold Wilson was in. That same day, Game 7 of the World Series was played.

The next day, October 16, China announced it had The Bomb. Two days after that, Johnson gave a televised Oval Office speech, addressing the world situation; and comedian Jackie Mason appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, bombed, and was banned from the show by Sullivan, who accused Mason of giving him the middle finger onstage. That became a big story. And two days after that, on October 20, former President Herbert Hoover died, and both Johnson and Goldwater suspended their campaigns until after his funeral.

Between the media's reluctance to divulge details of a sex scandal, particularly what would later be called a gay sex scandal, and the preponderance of other news over the next few days, the Jenkins story couldn't gain any traction. On November 3, LBJ won 44 States.

Jenkins returned to his hometown of Austin, Texas, and worked as an accountant until his death in 1985. Moyers got Jenkins' job, but proved to be less skillful at it, and some historians believe that not having Jenkins to talk to may have hurt LBJ in his full term in office. Like many other former White House officials, Moyers later became a prominent journalist.

*

October 14, 1964 was a Wednesday. Game 6 of the World Series was played at Busch Stadium (formerly Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis. Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle hit home runs on back-to-back pitches from Curt Simmons‚ and Joe Pepitone belted Gordie Richardson for a grand slam. The Yankees won, 8-3, and sent the World Series to a deciding Game 7. With all the home runs that Mickey and Roger hit, this is the only time they hit back-to-back homers in a postseason game.

That same day, a future Yankee catcher, manager and broadcaster, Joe Girardi, was born.

The Cardinals won that Game 7, 7-5, with Bob Gibson, on 2 days' rest, hanging on for the win, despite Mantle hitting another home run, his 18th in World Series play, which is still, far and away, a record.

October 10, 1924: The Washington Senators Win the World Series

October 10, 1924, 100 years ago: With the score tied at 3-3 and one out in the bottom of the 12th in Game 7 of the World Series at Griffith Stadium in Washington, Muddy Ruel, catcher for the Washington Senators, lifts a high catchable foul pop-up, which New York Giants catcher Hank Gowdy misses when he stumbles over his own mask.

Given a second chance, Ruel doubles. Earl McNeely then hits a grounder that strikes a pebble, and soars over the head of rookie Giant 3rd baseman Freddie Lindstrom, and drives home Ruel with the winning run making the Senators World Champions.

Walter Johnson, who had brilliantly toiled 18 seasons for a team known as "Washington: First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League," and had lost Games 1 and 4, pitched the 9th through 12th innings in relief, and not only had finally won a World Series game, but had won a World Series.

President Calvin Coolidge, running for a term in office in his own right after succeeding the late Warren Harding the year before, and his wife Grace were in attendance. He didn't like baseball, but Grace did.

The Senators had their 1st World Championship in 24 years of trying. Outfielder George "Showboat" Fisher was the last survivor of the 1924 Senators, living until 1994, age 95. It took 95 years for another Washington baseball team has won another postseason series, but Nationals, having squandered National League Eastern Division titles in 2012, '14, '16 and '17, won the 2019 World Series.

In 1981, baseball historian John Thorn published Baseball's 10 Greatest Games. He included this game as one of them.