Don Nelson, 1940-2026

Don Nelson was a basketball lifer. He had an interesting career as a player, but he became more interesting as a coach.

Donald Arvid Nelson was born on May 15, 1940 in Muskegon, Michigan, right across Lake Michigan from Milwaukee. He grew up in a farm outside Sherrard, Illinois, in the Quad Cities region that straddles the Mississippi River in Illinois and Iowa. He graduated from Rock Island High School, 2 years ahead of Ken Bowman, a center who helped the Green Bay Packers win the 1st 2 Super Bowls.

Milton "Sharm" Scheuerman was the head basketball coach at the University of Iowa, and a Rock Island High graduate, and recruited Nelson. He also recruited Brooklyn high school star Connie Hawkins, but Hawkins was caught up in a gambling scandal. Despite never being charged with a crime, Hawkins was kicked out of school, and banned from the NBA, playing in the ABL, AAU ball, and the ABA before his ban was lifted.

At a time when the NCAA Tournament only invited 24 teams, and from a conference only the Champion, Iowa finished 2nd to Ohio State team of Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek in 1961, and missed the Tournament. "If Connie had stayed, we would have had a great team," Nelson said. "I feel we could have edged out Ohio State my junior and senior years." Nelson was named a 3rd-term All-America in 1962.

He was taken by the Chicago Zephyrs in the 3rd round of the 1962 NBA Draft. After 1 season, he was waived, claimed by the Los Angeles Lakers. They reached the Finals in each of his 2 seasons with them, but lost both to the Boston Celtics.

He was released, but the Celtics must have liked what they saw, because they signed him as a free agent. He helped them win the 1966, '68 and '69 NBA titles. He remained with them through their rebuilding, and helped them win the title again in 1974 and '76, at which point he retired as a player. In 1973, he was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame as a player. The Celtics retired his Number 19 in 1978.

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His son Donnie remembers the family sitting in a Maid Rite restaurant in Moline, Illinois (one of the "Quad Cities," along with Rock Island, and Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa), and Don saying he had three choices: sell cars, become an NBA referee, or accept an assistant's job under Milwaukee coach Larry Costello. They voted 5–0 for the Milwaukee job, which paid $25,000.

The Bucks got off to a 3-15 start in 1976-77, and Costello, despite having led the Bucks to the 1971 NBA Championship and the 1974 NBA Finals, which they lost to "Nellie" and the Celtics, was fired. Nelson was named head coach. At the end of the season, only 37 years old, he was also given the general manager's job. He built a team around speed, and not caring about height, often letting shorter but faster players guard taller but slower ones.

The result of "Nellie Ball" was 7 straight Division titles: 1980 in the Midwest Division; then, after an NBA realignment, 6 in the Central Division, in 1981, '82, '83, '84, '85 and '86. He was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1983 and '85. But the closest he could get to a title was reaching the Eastern Conference Finals 3 times, in 1983, '84 and '86.

In 1985, Jim Fitzgerald sold the Bucks to department store mogul and future U.S. Senator Herb Kohl. Nelson didn't get along with him, but he had gotten along with Fitzgerald. In 1986, Fitzgerald bought a different NBA team, the Golden State Warriors. After a season as a broadcaster, Nellie accepted the head coaching job with the Warriors, and even bought an ownership stake.

Again using a run-and-gun style, he coached them for 6 seasons, building an offense known as Run TMC, after the rap group Run-DMC, for Tim Hardaway Sr., Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin. He was awarded a 3rd Coach of the Year trophy in 1992. But he only won 2 Playoff series, and resigned during the 1994-95 season.

He was hired to coach the New York Knicks for 1995-96, replacing Pat Riley. But Riley had built a defense-oriented team, and Nellie Ball didn't work with them. When he recommending trading the team's marquee player, Patrick Ewing, so that enough salary cap space would be available to make an offer to Shaquille O'Neal, who was unhappy with the Orlando Magic and wanted to play in a big market, that was the last straw for Knicks management: He was canned on March 8, 1996. Shaq ended up going to the Los Angeles Lakers.

In 1997, he was hired as head coach and general manager of the Dallas Mavericks. It took him 4 seasons to turn them from dreadful to a Playoff team, and in 2003, the Mavs won the Midwest Division and reached the Western Conference Finals. But that was as close as he would get, and he resigned late in the 2004-05 season.

In 2006, Mullin, now the Warriors' GM, brought Nelson back to Oakland. He won 16 of their last 21 games, squeezing into the Playoffs as the 8th seed, and upset his former team, the Mavericks, in the 1st round. This was only the 3rd time an NBA 8th seed had beaten a 1st seed, and the 1st time since the 1st round went to a best 4-out-of-7.

But he never got them into the Playoffs again. On April 7, 2010, the Warriors beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 116-107 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, giving Nelson his 1,333rd career coaching win, surpassing Lenny Wilkens for the most in history. He held that record until 2022, when he was surpassed by Gregg Popovich. He retired at the end of that season, with a record of 1,335-1,063 (.557).

In all, he coached 17 members of the Basketball Hall of Fame. With the Bucks: Alex English, Bob Dandridge, Sidney Moncrief, his former Celtics teammate Dave Cowens, Nate "Tiny" Archibald, Bob Lanier and Jack Sikma. With the Warriors: Chris Mullin, Ralph Sampson, Mitch Richmond, Tim Hardaway, Šarūnas Marčiulionis and Chris Webber. With the Knicks: Patrick Ewing. With the Mavericks: Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, Dennis Rodman briefly, and Hardaway again. 

He coached 6 of the 9 players to have had their uniform numbers retired by the Bucks: 10, Dandridge; 4, Moncrief; 16, Lanier; 32, Brian Winters, 2, Junior Bridgeman; and 8, Marques Johnson. Only 1 of his Warriors players had his number retired: Mullin, 17. Ewing had his Number 33 retired by the Knicks, and Nowitzki had his Number 41 retired by the Mavs.

He was elected into the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame in 1983, the Quad City Sports Hall of Fame in 1987, the University of Iowa Athletics Hall of Fame in 1989, and the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012. In 1996, in coordination with the NBA's 50th Anniversary, he was named one of their Top 10 Coaches. In 2021, in coordination with the NBA's 75th Anniversary, he was named one of their Top 15 Coaches.

He married twice, and had 7 children and 15 grandchildren. His son, Donn Charles Nelson, known as Donnie Nelson, played basketball at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois -- making it up to a school that his father had turned down to go to Iowa. Donnie became an assistant to his father the 1st time around with the Warriors, and with the Mavericks, and in between to Dannie Ainge with the Phoenix Suns. From 2005 to 2021, he was the Mavs' GM, helping to build teams that won 3 Division titles, 2 Western Conference titles, and the 2011 NBA Championship.

In 2012, 50 years after leaving the University of Iowa, Don Nelson finally completed his degree there. He settled on a farm on the Hawaiian Island of Maui, where he grew flowers, coffee and cannabis. He hosted poker games, where he was joined by celebrities like country singer Willie Nelson and actor Woody Harrelson, who are also fond of the last of those crops.

"I know how far I've come from being a hog farmer," Nelson said. "I've come a long, long way from being some country kid. I got in the fast lane, and I've stayed there a long time. I've done pretty well."

But his health began to fail, and earlier this year, he moved back to the mainland, to the Dallas suburb of Frisco, Texas. He suffered a stroke, was admitted to hospice care, and died today, August 9, 2026, at the age of 86.

August 9, 1936: His Name Was Sohn Kee-chung

August 9, 1936, 90 years ago: Legendary journalist Lincoln Steffens died in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. He was 70 years old.

Meanwhile, the marathon race is held in the Olympics in Berlin, Nazi Germany. Officially, it was won by Kitei Son of Japan, a nation that would soon be an ally of the Nazis.

Unofficially, it was a much better story.

His real name was Sohn Kee-chung. He was born on August 29, 1912, in Sinŭiju, in what is now North Korea. Since 1910, however, Korea had been part of the Empire of Japan. And so, any athletes from Korea were forced to compete for Japan, under their flag, and with Japanese names.

Between 1933 and 1936, Sohn Kee-chung ran 12 marathons, finishing in the top 3 in each, and won 9. On November 3, 1935, in the Japanese capital of Tokyo, he set a world record with a time of 2 hours, 26 minutes and 42 seconds.

In the 1936 Olympics, Sohn tried to sign his name in its correct Korean form. But it was not his legal name, and so he was forced to write it in, and compete, as Kitei Son. Another Korean, Nam Sung-yong, entered the marathon, and had to compete under his legal Japanese name, Nan Shōryū. Sohn won the race in 2 hours, 29 minutes, 19.2 seconds, breaking the Olympic record. Nam finished 3rd, winning the Bronze Medal.

The International Olympic Committee, not recognizing Korea as a member, credited both medals to Japan's total. Sohn refused to acknowledge the Japanese national anthem while it was played at his award ceremony, and later told reporters that he was ashamed to run for Japan.

In 1945, Allied forces forced the surrender of Japan, and Korea was free. But, as part of the peace treaty, a line was drawn at the 38th parallel, and Communist forces had control over the northern part, including Sohn's hometown of Sinŭiju. The Korea War resulted, from 1950 to 1953, and the new border was a diagonal across the country, but roughly around the 38th parallel.

Sohn was named the team manager for Korea's national track & field team. In 1947, his trainee, Suh Yun-Bok, won the Boston Marathon, breaking the record that Sohn had set in Tokyo in 1935. For the Opening Ceremony for the 1948 Olympics in London, the entire Korean team chose Sohn to be their flag bearer. In 1950, another Sohn trainee, Ham Kee-Young, won the Boston Marathon.

In 1988, the Olympics were held in Seoul, the capital of the Republic of Korea (a.k.a. South Korea). The final runner in the Olympic torch relay, receiving perhaps the greatest ovation anyone has ever received in an Olympic ceremony, was 75-year-old Sohn Kee-chung. He attended the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, and saw Hwang Young-Cho win the Olympic marathon.

Sohn died on November 15, 2002. Nam Sung-young, who had worked with him at the Korean Sporting Association, had died a year earlier. On December 9, 2011, the IOC recognized Korean nationality of Sohn and Nam, and all other Korean athletes under the Empire of Japan, in their official profiles.

August 9, 1526: Slavery Comes to the Americas

A recent aerial photo of the area

August 9, 1526, 500 years ago: Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, a Spanish magistrate, around 46 years old, founds the San Miguel de Gualdape colony. It was the first European settlement, as well as the first documented occurrence of enslavement of African peoples, in what would later become the continental United States.

Ayllón had previously served as an administrator in Hispaniola, in what would become the Dominican Republic. In 1521, he visited what would become the site of his colony, kidnapped 60 Native Americans living there, and took them back to Hispaniola as slaves.

He reported back to his superiors that the land he had found was not defended militarily, and could easily be taken. He received permission to establish himself as governor there, but only after he completed an audit of Spanish officials in Puerto Rico. It took him until 1526 to do that.

He named the settlement after St. Michael the Archangel, and the local Guale tribe. However, due to the similarity of the name to that of the Spanish city of Guadalupe, it is sometimes written as "San Miguel to Guadalupe."

When he got to his new colony, with some black slaves who had been brought first to Hispaniola, he found bad soil, making it hard to grow anything. And there weren't very many natives left, making trade next to impossible. His town survived less than 3 months, with settlers enduring exhaustion, cold, hunger, disease, and troubles with the local natives. When Ayllón died on October 18, from an unnamed illness, the entire enterprise fell apart. As my father would have said, "Served him right."

The surviving colonists broke into warring factions, including America's 1st slave rebellion. By mid-November, the colonists decided to give up and sail back to Hispaniola. Of the 600-700 people whom Ayllón had brought with him, only 150 survivors reached Hispaniola that winter.

Ayllón's account of the region inspired a number of later attempts by the Spanish and French governments to colonize the southeastern United States. In 1565, Spain would end all French attempts at colonizing the region, and establish St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously-occupied European settlement in what is now the U.S. England would follow with Virginia in 1607 and Massachusetts in 1620. France occupied what became Louisiana, the American Midwest, and eastern Canada.

Today, the place that Spain called San Miguel de Gualdape is called Winyah Bay, in Georgetown County, on the coast of South Carolina. Just to the south is the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, on the site of a plantation once owned by Yawkey, as had been the Boston Red Sox, who turned out to be the last team in Major League Baseball to racially integrate. NCIS fans, take note: Some things are just coincidences. 

Yanks Drop 2 of 3 to Redbirds

George Lombard Jr. (left) and Aaron Judge

The  Yankees came home from their unusual weeklong stay in Chicago, and started an Interleague series with the St. Louis Cardinals. On Monday night, Cam Schlittler had the worst start of his young career, going just 3 innings, allowing 4 runs on 4 hits and 5 walks, although he did strike out 6. The bullpen was no better.

Not that the Yankee bats didn't try. Going to the bottom of the 5th, they were down, 6-0, but a single by Ryan McMahon and back-to-back home runs by Austin Wells (trying to show the Yankees didn't need to get a catcher at the trading deadline) and Trent Grisham made it 6-3.

Then McMahon and José Caballero led off the bottom of the 7th with back-to-back homers. After a Grisham double, Luis García Jr. hit his 1st home run as a Yankee, and it was Pinstripes 7, Redbirds 6!

But, as I said, the bullpen didn't get the job done. Angel Chivilli had been fantastic up to this point, but, as C.J. would have said on The West Wing, he compwetewy impwoded, allowing 6 runs on 5 hits and a walk, including 3 home runs. Cardinals 13, Yankees 7.

On Tuesday night, one of my nieces, a former high school softball and tennis player now studying to be a medical assistant, went to her first Major League Baseball game. (Regrettably, I've never had the money necessary to take her and her sisters.) After the previous night's slugfest, she saw a dandy of a pitchers' duel between the Yanks' Ryan Weathers and the Cards' Hunter Dobbins. Weathers pitched 6 shutout innings, allowing 4 hits and a walk, striking out 6. The bullpen was on this time, finishing a 6-hit shutout. Jazz Chisholm hit one out in the 2nd, and George Lombard Jr. hit his 1st major league round-tripper in the 5th. Yankees 2, Cardinals 0.

Good thing she went that night, not the night before, or the night after. Will Warren didn't pitch badly on Wednesday, going 5 1/3rd, allowing 3 runs on 7 hits and a walk, striking out 5. And the bullpen held the Cards scoreless the rest of the way.

But the Yankees just didn't hit. They wasted an error that led to García reach base with 2 outs in the 1st inning, a leadoff double by the newly-acquired Heliot Ramos in the 2nd, a 1-out single by Wells in the 3rd, and a 1-out walk by McMahon in the 5th.

With 1 out in the 6th, Ben Rice and García walked, and Ramos was hit by a pitch to load the bases. This should have been the breakout inning. But Spencer Jones struck out, Chisholm worked a walk to force a run home, but McMahon struck out to end the inning.

And that was as close as the Yankees would get. In the 7th, Paul Goldschmidt doubled with 1 out, but Grisham popped up. Rice drew a walk, but García grounded out. With 2 outs in the 8th, Chisholm and McMahon drew back-to-back walks, bringing the great prospect Lombard to the plate as the go-ahead run, but he struck out. With 2 out in the 9th, Rice drew a walk, but Ali Sánchez struck out to end it. Cardinals 3, Yankees 1.

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The Yankees are 64-51, a pace to go 90-72 -- almost certainly, good enough to make the Playoffs; almost certainly also not good enough to win the American League Eastern Division. The Yankees currently trail the Tampa Bay Rays in it by 4 1/2 games, with the Boston Red Sox 5 back, the Baltimore Orioles 12 1/2 back, and the Toronto Blue Jays 15 back. In the all-important loss column, the Rays lead both the slumping Yanks and the surging Sox by 5, the O's by 13, and the Jays by 16.

Carlos Rodón will begin a rehab assignment with Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Saturday. Giancarlo Stanton took some swings against him the preceding Monday. And Cody Bellinger "has been doing some outdoor running while also hitting and throwing." It sounds like those men should be back in about 2 weeks.

Aaron Judge "has been cleared to begin light activities," while Clarke Schmidt, according to Aaron Boone, was "expected" to play catch yesterday. This suggests an end-of-August return for them.

Tonight, the Yankees start a 3-game home Interleague series with the Atlanta Braves. Tonight's game is at 7. Saturday is Old-Timers Day, with the ceremony at 1 and the game at 3. The Sunday game is at 1:30. All games will be on YES.

August 6, 1966: The Beatles "Get Canceled" by America's Religious Right

The Beatles -- left to right: Ringo, Paul, John and George --

on their 1966 World Tour,

looking uneasy, maybe even shellshocked.

Which would have been understandable.

August 6, 1966, 60 years ago: What would later be called "cancel culture" hits the biggest act in world entertainment at the time: The Beatles.

On March 4, 1966, The Evening Standard, a London-based newspaper but, like many, serving Great Britain nationally, published an article titled "How Does a Beatle Live?" written by Maureen Cleave. She had interviewed all 4 group members regularly, and accompanied them on their 1st visit to America in February 1964. She is widely believed to have had an affair with John, and to have been the subject of his song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)."

In her latest interview with John Lennon, she portrayed him as restless and searching for meaning in his life. The year before, he had written the song "Help!" While most American teenagers thought it was just a great rock and roll song, it was more than that: John was physically and mentally exhausted from 2 years of nonstop Beatlemania, and all the money he'd made hadn't reduced his stress. So he really was looking for help and meaning.

He and bandmate George Harrison had been reading about religion. Unlike George, who found a connection with Eastern, especially Indian, faiths, John found no comfort in it, or in any other religion. Cleave quoted him as saying:

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

People in Britain barely noticed: The article provoked no controversy there. Church attendance there was in decline, and Christian churches were attempting to transform their image, to make themselves more "relevant to modern times."

At first, that was also the case in America. Later in March, Newsweek printed the quote. In May, Detroit magazine printed the interview. On July 3, The New York Times Magazine printed it. Still, there was no reaction worth mentioning.

On July 29, Datebook magazine published the interview, and also Cleave's most recent interview with Paul McCartney, in its September 1966 "Shout-Out" issue, which was dedicated to controversial youth-orientated themes, including recreational drugs, sex, long hair, and the Vietnam War.

Although only Paul was shown on the cover, Art Unger, the magazine's editor, put a quote from Lennon's interview on the cover: "I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity!" In author Robert Rodriguez's description, the editor had chosen what he thought would be Lennon's "most damning comment" for maximum effect.

Except, while it probably should have been, that wasn't the quote that upset people: It was the line, "We're more popular than Jesus now."

And he was right. Granted, 2,000 years from now, if human civilization survives, there will likely be more Bibles sold than Beatle albums. But, at the time, kids were more interested in 4 young men from current Liverpool than in 1 young man from ancient Israel and his 12 disciples.

The people that freaked out over John's remarks shouldn't have asked, "How dare he say that?" They should have asked, "What can we do to make Jesus, once again, more popular than The Beatles?" (Disclaimer: I don't have an answer now, and I probably wouldn't have had an answer had I been around then.)

In Birmingham, Alabama, WAQY disc jockey Tommy Charles said, on the air, "That does it for me. I am not going to play The Beatles anymore." He destroyed their records on the air. Local UPI reporter Al Benn filed a news report in New York City, culminating in a major story in The New York Times on August 5. Radio stations all over the country, including in supposedly liberal cities like New York and Boston, announced that they would no longer play Beatle songs.

On August 6 came the kind of event that one would have expected in Nazi Germany: In Reno, Nevada, station KCBN announced a public bonfire for that night, where the band's albums would be burned.

Many stations in Southern cities followed. Paul compared it to what the Nazis did with books they didn't like, and called it "hysterical low-grade American thinking."

Brian Epstein, the group's manager, who was Jewish, shrugged it off at first, saying, "If they burn Beatles records, they've got to buy them first." But then the press office at the Vatican -- though not Pope Paul VI himself -- weighed in, issuing this statement: "Some subjects must not be dealt with profanely, not even in the world of beatniks." Now, it wasn't just a bunch of ignorant, bigoted, archconservative Southern Baptists that were angry at the Fab Four: It was, officially, the Roman Catholic Church.

What's more, there were death threats. Now, John was scared: He had put his bandmates, and even their loved ones -- by this point, all but Paul were married, John and Ringo Starr each had one son, and George had a sister and her children living in St. Louis -- at physical risk.

And so, for what turned out to be the only time in his public life, John Lennon ate crow, and apologized for something he'd said or done.

On August 11, the Beatles flew from London to Chicago, where the North American leg of their World Tour was to begin. That night, at the Astor Tower Hotel, at a press conference in front of TV cameras, John said, "I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have got away with it. I'm sorry I opened my mouth. I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I was not knocking it. I was not saying we are greater or better."

He stressed that he had been remarking on how other people viewed and popularized the band. He described his own view of God by quoting the Bishop of Woolwich, "not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us."

He was adamant that he was not comparing himself with Christ, but attempting to explain the decline of Christianity in the UK. He closed with what could be considered a halfhearted apology: "If you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then, okay, I'm sorry." (Shades of more recent "I'm sorry if I offended anyone" statements.)

Most American journalists accepted this. A New York Times editorial said that the matter was over. Even the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano (The Roman Observer), decided that the apology was sufficient.

But it wasn't over. On August 13, in South Carolina, the Ku Klux Klan "crucified" a Beatles record on a large wooden cross, which they burned. On the same night, radio station KLUE in Longview, Texas held a Beatles bonfire. The next day, a lightning bolt struck its transmission tower, briefly knocking it off the air. Maybe this was God confirming that He had accepted John's apology as well.

It still wasn't over. On August 15, The Beatles played District of Columbia Stadium (later renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium), in Washington, which was still considered a semi-Southern city at that point, and the KKK picketed the concert. On August 19, The Beatles played their only scheduled concert in the South, at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. The Klan picketed this show, too. During the concert, a spectator threw a firecracker onstage, and all 4 members later said that they thought someone had fired a gun.

(Memphis was, of course, the hometown of Elvis Presley. If anyone asked Elvis for his thoughts on the matter, they've never been made public.) 

To make matters worse, John couldn't keep his mouth shut. On August 17, before their concert at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, he gave his approval to Americans fleeing to Canada to avoid the military draft. At a press conference in New York before their concert at Shea Stadium on August 22, John said the Vietnam War was "wrong." The year before, they had filled all 55,000 available seats at the Flushing Meadow stadium. This time, "only" 40,000 showed up, with pickets both for and against them facing off against each other. (There was no fight between these factions.)

It was their most stressful tour ever, and George said he'd rather leave the band than ever go on another tour. They decided they wouldn't, and would be only a recording band from that point onward, although they did not publicly announce it yet. George agreed to stay -- for now.

The last concert on the tour was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29. They were supported by The Ronettes, The Cyrkle, Bobby Hebb, and The Remains. (The Cyrkle were also managed by Epstein's company.) Attendance: 25,000, meaning about 17,000 empty seats. (In 1971, the NFL's San Francisco 49ers joined baseball's San Francisco Giants there, leading to an expansion to 69,000 seats.)

As usual, they roared through their set, playing 11 songs in 33 minutes, unable to hear themselves over all the screaming, partly due to the fact that, in spite of having a year pass since their first round of stadium concerts, no one had yet figured out how to stage a rock concert in a ballpark. (By the 1970s, that problem would be solved.) The last song they played was a cover of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally," sung by Paul.

While they'd decided not to tour again, even the four of them did not know that this would be their last paying concert together, ever. There would be the concert on the roof of the building where Apple Records was based, on January 30, 1969. And each of them would have notable solo gigs, with Paul and Ringo living and continuing to tour into the 2020s. But The Beatles would never have another official concert.

In 1970, for his solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, John recorded a song titled "God," in which he rattled off things and people he didn't believe in: Magic, the I-Ching, the Bible, tarot cards, Adolf Hitler, Jesus, John F. Kennedy, Buddha, mantras, Gita, yoga, kings, Elvis, Zimmerman (meaning Bob Dylan), and, finally, The Beatles. He said, "I just believe in me. Yoko and me. And that's reality." In 1971, for his album Imagine, he recorded a song of the same title, asking people to imagine there's no Heaven or Hell, "and no religion, too."

In contrast, in 1970, for his solo album All Things Must Pass, George recorded "My Sweet Lord," in which he seemed to want to get to know God better -- but the background singers, after chanting, "Hallelujah," began chanting, "Hare Krishna," and moved on to chanting the names of the Hindu gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Maureen Cleave, who wrote the original article, died in 2021, at the age of 87.

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August 5, 1936: The Helene Mayer Story

August 5, 1936, 90 years ago: Helene Mayer wins a Silver Medal at the Olympics. Ordinarily, an athlete finishing 2nd in an Olympic event wouldn't be a big deal. This time, it is.

At 17, she won a Gold Medal in foil fencing at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, and was a national hero in Weimar Germany. She competed again in 1932 in Los Angeles, but just before a match, she was told that her boyfriend had died in a military training exercise. This was only a year after losing her father. Shaken, she only finished 5th.

She stayed in America to attend college as an exchange student. But when Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, her membership at her native fencing club was terminated, because she was Jewish. She taught at California colleges, and then in 1935 her German citizenship was canceled with the Nuremberg Laws.

There was a movement to boycott the 1936 Olympics, scheduled for Berlin. To avoid this, Nazi authorities chose her as the token Jew on the German Olympic team. She won a Silver Medal, and, on the podium, in an effort to protect her family, gave a Nazi salute.

She went back to America, and won the U.S. women's foil championship 8 times in 13 years from 1934 to 1946. In 1952, with World War II over and freedom back in place, but perhaps knowing she was dying, she returned to her homeland, and got married, spending her last months in happiness. She was posthumously elected to the U.S. Fencing Association Hall of Fame.

Helen Mayer died on October 10, 1953, of breast cancer, in Munich, Germany. She was only 42 years old.

Yanks Escape Chicago, Make Important Trades at Deadline

New Yankee Luis García Jr.

Seven days in Chicago, seven games for the Yankees. They split four with the White Sox, their fellow American Leaguers. Now, it was time for three with the National League's Cubs.

And the Thursday afternoon finale with the South Siders was followed by a Friday afternoon game on the North Side, at Wrigley Field.

The Yankees got solo home runs by Amed Rosario in the 4th inning and Spencer Jones in the 5th -- and that was it. Fortunately, they also got a fantastic start by Will Warren: 6 2/3rds innings, no runs, 4 hits, no walks, and 7 strikeouts. Paul Blackburn finished the 7th and pitched the 8th, and David Bednar finished a 5-hit shutout. Yankees 2, Cubs 0.

The Yankees would not be so fortunate on Saturday night. They got an RBI single by José Caballero in the 5th, and another Homer by Jones in the 7th. (Not to be confused with the late Homer Jones, the New York Giants receiver who invented spiking the football in the 1960s, or the character in Jerry Reed's 1971 country classic "When You're Hot, You're Hot.")

But a great start by Max Fried was wasted: 5 1/3rd innings (remember, he's still being worked back up after his injury), 1 run, 2 hits, 1 walk and 7 strikeouts. But Fernando Cruz blew the game in the 7th inning. Cubs 5, Yankees 2.

So the Sunday afternoon game felt like a must-win. Gerrit Cole sure pitched like it, going 5 1/3rd innings, allowing 1 run on 4 hits and 3 walks, with 5 strikeouts. This time, the bullpen held, allowing no runs, no hits and 3 walks the rest of the way.

Ryan McMahon led off the top of the 3rd eith a single, and Caballero hit a home run. That was all the Yankees got, but, with that pitching, that was all they would need, beating the Cubs, 2-1.

So they won 2 out of 3 at Wrigley, despite scoring only 6 runs. I guess the famous wind there was blowing in, except when they needed it to blow out.

They won 5 of 7 in Chicago. Counting the earlier series in Philadelphia, they won 6 of 10 on the long roadtrip. Considering that Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger are all injured, that's not bad.

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So here's how things stand as we come into August: The Yankees are 63-49, 2 1/2 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Eastern Division, 3 in (Cliché Alert) the all-important loss column. The Boston Red Sox are 5 games back, the Baltimore Orioles 11 1/2, and the Toronto Blue Jays 13 1/2.

Today was the trading deadline. Brian Cashman did some good: He got rid of relief pitchers Camilo Doval, Jake Bird and Yovanny Cruz. Cliché Alert: Great trades, who did we get?

For Doval, they got catcher-1st baseman Omar Alfonzo and outfielder Luis Cruz (no relation to Yovanny). Those two are at Somerset now, so they won't help this season. I'm just glad to be rid of Bird and, to a lesser extent, Cruz. To fill a bullpen spot, they called Kervin Castro up from Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Then, today, Cashman really filled a need, for a big bat. He got Luis García Jr., the 26-year-old 1st baseman for the Washington Nationals, who was leading the National League in slugging percentage, for Yovanny Cruz; Bird; Jack Cebert, a starting pitcher, who was at Class AA Somerset and looked like he wasn't going to make it; and Ben Grable, a reliever, who was also at Somerset, and had a better chance, but was unlikely to help this season. That is an absolute steal. Outfielder Max Schuemann was sent down to even out the roster slots. Cruz was given the Number 26, last worn on the team by DJ LeMahieu.

Also today, the Yankees made a trade with the San Francisco Giants, sending pitcher Henry Lalane and shortstop Kaeden Kent, both of them at Class A, for Heliot Ramos, a 26-year-old Puerto Rican left fielder with righthanded power. That should also help.

But there were other notable trades. The Los Angeles Dodgers got Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers, one of the best pitchers in the game, for next to nothing. That won't affect the Yankees much, but at least he didn't go to the Rays, the Red Sox, or the Houston Astros.

But the Red Sox did get Adley Rutschman, All-Star catcher, from the Orioles. That's going to hurt, as the Sox are on a tear. It's almost as if their new way to cheat has kicked in. The Astros got All-Star center fielder Daulton Varsho from the Jays. 

The Rays? They got Freddy Peralta from the Mets. Peralta was supposed to be the ace that was going to help the Mets get off the deck and back into the postseason. It didn't work out that way. Now, with him in their rotation, suddenly, the Rays look like less of a favorite to win the Division.

The Mets also traded former Yankee Clay Holmes to the Cubs. Cliché Alert: They may well be blowing it all up and starting over.

The Cleveland Guardians, another contender for the AL Pennant, also made a deal with the Nationals, getting pitcher Foster Griffin. And the Phillies got 3-time batting champion Luis Arraez from the Giants. Whether either will help remains to be seen.

There are 50 games left in the regular season. The Yankees start them at home, with an Interleague series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Come on you Pinstripes!