I Wouldn't Mind It If...

I wouldn't mind the Yankees being 8-7 if they hadn't started the season 7-1. But they've lost 5 straight, by a combined 7 runs, and fallen into a tie for 1st place in the American League Eastern Division.

Last Tuesday, they started a home series with the Sacramento Athletics. Cam Schlittler started, and had the worst start of his career, allowing 3 runs over 5 innings. Fortunately, Amed Rosario hit 2 home runs, including a 3-run shot in the 8th, and the Yankees won, 5-3. Fernando Cruz was the winning pitcher.

Since then, though, the Yankees' hits and runs have been few and far between. Will Warren started against former Yankee Luis Severino on Wednesday night, and neither of them got past the 5th inning. The Yankees got 2 runs in the 1st, and that was it: The rest of the way, the got just 1 hit and 5 walks. The A's tied the game in the 4th, and in the 9th, David Bednar allowed a single, a double, and a sacrifice fly, and the Yankees lost 3-2.

The Thursday afternoon game was even more frustrating. Ryan Weathers, who has thus far been little more than a plug in a hole in the rotation, pitched his best game as a Yankee, going 8 innings, allowing 1 run on 7 hits and no walks, striking out 7. But A's starter Jeffrey Springs didn't allow a hit until Ben Rice singled in the 7th. The Yankees lost, 1-0.

Online, Met fans were joking about the Yankees losing 2 out of 3 at home to the "homeless" A's, who left Oakland and are playing the 2nd of what they hope will be 3 seasons in Sacramento, in the hope that their dome in Las Vegas will be ready in 2028. Then the A's went across town to Citi Field, and swept the Mets in 3 straight: 4-0, 11-6 and 1-0.

Not so easy, is it, you Flushing morons?

*

Then the Yankees went down to play the Tampa Bay Rays, at the restored dome of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, after a year of repairs while they played at the Yankees' Spring Training home in Tampa, Steinbrenner Field.

Luis Gil came off the Injured List to make his 1st start of the season. He wasn't ready, going 4 innings, and allowing 3 runs on 3 hits. Rice hit a home run, but the Yankees only got 4 other hits, and lost, 5-3.

Max Fried started on Saturday night. He went 8 innings, so it should have been enough to save the bullpen. Except the Yankees struggled again, with Austin Wells hitting a home run, but getting only 3 other hits in the 1st 7 innings.

The game went to extra innings. José Caballero singled home "ghost runner" Randal Grichuk in the top of the 10th. In the bottom of the 10th, Bednar blew it again, allowing single, single, intentional walk, getting a strikeout, and a fielder's choice allowed the winning run: Rays 5, Yankees 4.

Schlittler started again on Sunday, allowing 3 runs on 5 innings. But the Yankees got only 1 hit in the 1st 6 innings. Aaron Judge hit a home run in the 9th, but it wasn't enough: Again, Rays 5, Yankees 4.

*

As of this writing, the Yankees, the Rays, and the Baltimore Orioles are all tied atop the AL East at 8-7. The Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays are both 6-9, 2 games back. The Yankees' great start has been wiped out.

On the other hand, there have been times since Title 27 in 2009 when an 8-7 start would have been considered a big improvement. So I can't complain that much. But the Yankees currently have a team batting average of .202, an on-base percentage of .308, a slugging percentage of .345, and an average of 4.3 runs scored per game. That's not only unacceptable, it's ridiculous. Aristophanes-level ridiculous. So I can complain.

Tonight, they are back home, to start a 4-game series against the Los Angeles Angels, followed by 3 at home against the Kansas City Royals. Then it's off to Boston to face The Scum.

April 13, 1996: The MetroStars (Red Bulls) Debut

April 13, 1996, 30 years ago: The sports rivalry between the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, dormant in soccer since the Los Angeles Aztecs folded after the 1980 North American Soccer League season, resumes, as each area's 1st team in Major League Soccer began play, against each other.

At the Rose Bowl in suburban Pasadena, California, the Los Angeles Galaxy played the New York/New Jersey MetroStars. A crowd of 69,225 attended, and the game was broadcast nationally on ABC.

Cobi Jones opened the scoring for the Galaxy, in the game's 37th minute. Arash Noamouz scored another in the 56th minute. Giovanni Savarese pulled one back for the MetroStars in the 77th, but that was as close as they would get: L.A. won, 2-1.

The "Gals" have gone on to win 5 MLS Cups. The MetroStars, or "Metro" for short, became the New York Red Bulls in 2005, but they and the New England Revolution are the only original MLS teams that have not yet won an MLS Cup.

Despite having had such stars as Savarese, Peter Vermes, Tony Meola, Tab Ramos, Clint Mathis, Lothar Matthäus, Eddie Pope, Juan Pablo Ángel, Thierry Henry, Dax McCarty, Tim Cahill, Sacha Kljestan, and the brothers Shawn and Bradley Wright-Phillips, the Red Bulls haven't gone all the way. They've won the Supporters' Shield, the overall regular-season title, in 2013, '15 and '18; and also finished 1st overall in the Eastern Conference in 2000, '10 and '16. They've reached the MLS Cup Final in 2008 and 2024, but never won it. They've also reached the Final of the U.S. Open Cup in 2003 and '17, but never won that, either.

April 12, 1966: Atlanta: "The City Too Busy to Hate"

Atlanta, 1966

April 12, 1966, 60 years ago: The Braves play their 1st game in Atlanta. Joe Torre hits the 1st major league home run in Atlanta Stadium, but the Pittsburgh Pirates spoil the festivities in 13 innings, 3-1, on a home run by Willie Stargell. (The stadium was renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1975.)

The Braves announced their move to Atlanta in 1965. That year was the high-water mark of the Civil Rights Movement. The Voting Rights Act was signed into law. The Selma-to-Montgomery March had just happened. The Civil Rights Act had been signed into law the year before. The lunch-counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the integrations of the universities of Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama had all taken place, with mixed success in some cases and total success in others. All this had happened within the last 5 years. And Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the current holder of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. King was from Atlanta. The Mayor at the time was Ivan Allen Jr. He ran his father's office-supply company, and took it to new heights, making himself one of the South's richest men. He lived long enough to get an offer he couldn't refuse: Staples bought him out in 1999.

In 1961, Allen ran for Mayor against segregationist Lester Maddox, who would later be elected Governor of Georgia. Allen won, and began to build on the work of his predecessor, William Hartsfield, for whom the city's famous airport is named.

As a businessman, Allen understood that he had the chance to change the image of his city. More than that, he had the chance to help change perceptions of the State of Georgia and of the South itself. The city underwent its greatest construction phase since after its burning in the Civil War 100 years earlier. He built the Memorial (now the Woodruff) Arts Center, in effect Atlanta's version of New York's Lincoln Center. He created MARTA, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, which reworked the city's bus system, and, after he left office, built its subway. He also got Interstate 285, a beltway, a.k.a. "The Perimeter" and "The O Around the A," built.

He got Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium) built and, although it wouldn't open until after he left office, he got the Omni Coliseum approved. This enabled the city to go from no major league teams when he took office on January 1, 1962 to 3 of them when he left on January 1, 1970.

Allen posing inside the stadium his Administration was building, 1964.

It opened in 1965, and hosted the Beatles

before it hosted the Braves or the Falcons.

More low-income housing was built in his 8 years in office than in the previous 30. He needed to do this to alleviate the concerns of local black leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., that he wasn't doing enough for the poor and was focusing too much on business, especially downtown -- a criticism since leveled at many urban mayors, black and white alike (including Newark's Sharpe James in the 1980s and '90s).

"It is wonderful to be idealistic and to speak about human values," Allen said, "but you are not going to be able to do one thing about them if you are not economically strong. If there is any one slogan I lived by as Mayor of Atlanta, that would be it."

So, with the concerns of both business and civil rights in mind, he brought the 2 concepts together. The day he was sworn in, he ordered all "WHITE" and "COLORED" signs removed from City Hall, and personally desegregated the City Hall cafeteria by dining with local black activists. He desegregated municipal hiring. He hired the city's first black firemen. He let it be known that black Atlanta policemen would be allowed to arrest white criminals. He desegregated the city's pools. By January 1964, 6 months before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, 14 Atlanta hotels had already desegregated themselves.

Allen billed Atlanta as "The City Too Busy to Hate." That made the sports establishments stand up and take notice. Atlanta also offered a bigger stadium, if not necessarily a better one, than Milwaukee County Stadium: 52,000 to 44,000. (Milwaukee County Stadium would later expand to 53,000.) Today, the Braves' team museum is named for Allen.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was a multipurpose facility, designed to host both baseball and football, and it didn't do a good job with either one, so much so that, by 1997, both the Braves and the Falcons had gotten new stadiums and their 1st home was demolished. That process was repeated in 2017, as both teams abandoned their still relatively new stadiums for brand-new ones, the Falcons with a retractable-roof stadium next-door, the Braves for a "ballpark village" in the city's northwest suburbs.

Just another oversized concrete ashtray.

At least it had real grass, not artificial turf.

But Atlanta has seen little success. From 1966 to 1990, the Braves won just 2 Division titles and no Pennants. Then, they won their Division in every completed season from 1991 to 2005, and won 5 Pennants, but just 1 World Series. They eventually won another in 2021. The Falcons have been to just 2 Super Bowls, and lost both ignominiously.

The NBA's Hawks should be so lucky: They reached the Conference Finals their 1st 2 seasons after moving from St. Louis, 1968-69 and 1969-70; then didn't make the Conference Finals again until 2015, and again in 2021. They haven't made the NBA Finals since 1961, or won them since 1958, both times in St. Louis.

And the city has failed with 2 NHL teams: The Flames arrived in 1972 and moved to Calgary in 1980, and the Thrashers arrived in 1999 and moved to Winnipeg in 2011. A Sun Belt city that lost 2 teams to Canada: This is NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's nightmare.

The city has had decent success with soccer. The Atlanta Chiefs won the North American Soccer League title in 1968, and reached the Final again in 1969. Atlanta United debuted in 2017, won the MLS Cup the next season, and won the U.S. Open Cup the year after that.

The Braves have a team Hall of Fame. Their inductees from their Atlanta years are: Players Hank Aaron, Rico Carty, Phil Niekro, Ralph Garr, Dale Murphy, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, David Justice, Terry Pendleton, Javy López, Greg Maddux, Larry "Chipper" Jones, Andruw Jones (no relation) and Tim Hudson; plus managers Joe Torre and Bobby Cox, and coach Leo Mazzone; team owners Bill Bartholomay and Ted Turner; executives Bill Lucas, Paul Snyder and John Schuerholz; trainer Dave Pursley; and broadcasters Ernie Johnson Sr., Pete Van Wieren, Skip Caray, Don Sutton and Joe Simpson.

The Falcons have a Ring of Honor. Their inductees are: Tommy Nobis, Claude Humphrey, Jeff Van Note, Steve Bartkowski, Mike Kenn, William Andrews, Gerald Riggs, Jessie Tuggle, Deion Sanders, Todd McClure, Warrick Dunn, Roddy White, Matt Ryan, and team owner Arthur Blank.

The Hawks don't have a team Hall of Fame, but they do retire numbers: 9, for Bob Pettit from their St. Louis years; 21, Dominique Wilkins; 23, Lou Hudson; 44, Pete Maravich; and 55, Dikembe Mutombo. They have also witheld 40 from circulation since Jason Collier died as an active player. They also have banners honoring former owner Ted Turner and former Mayor Kasim Reed, who was involved in keeping the team from moving.

There is also a Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, in Macon. It honors State natives who excelled in sports, stars from colleges such as the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, and these major league stars:

* Braves: Aaron, Nierko, Murphy, Smoltz, Glavine, both Joneses, Tim Hudson, Cox, Mazzone, Bartholomay, Turner, Lucas, Schuerholz, Johnson, Van Wieren, Caray, Bob Horner, Brian Jordan, Jeff Treadway (more for being a Georgia native than for being a Brave), Marquis Grissom, and executive Stan Kasten.

* Falcons: Nobis, Humphrey, Van Note, Bartkowski, Tuggle, Blank, Alfred Jenkins, Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, founding owner Rankin Smith, coach Mario Campbell, and coach Dan Reeves, elected more for being a Georgia native and a UGa player than for coaching the Falcons into their 1st Super Bowl.

* Hawks: Wilkins, Lou Hudson, Wayne "Tree" Rollins, and Shareef Abdur-Rahim.

* Through 2025, no Flames, Thrashers, Chiefs or Atlanta United have been honored.

April 11, 1951: President Harry Truman Fires General Douglas MacArthur

April 11, 1951, 75 years ago: President Harry S Truman fires General of the Army Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander of United Nations forces in the Korean War.

MacArthur's offense: Insubordination. Truman had given him orders not to further engage the Chinese forces in Korea. MacArthur had sent a letter to Representative Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts, the Republican Party's leader in the U.S. House of Representatives -- he had been Speaker in the 1947-48 session, and would be again in that of 1953-54 -- objecting to Truman's orders.

Had Martin not mentioned this letter to the media of the time, MacArthur probably would have gotten away with it. But Truman was incensed, and decided to give MacArthur, a 5-star General and perhaps the most popular living military man in America, a lesson that every American needs to learn: One of the guiding principles of the country is civilian control of the military.

But America did not accept this at first. MacArthur returned home, and was treated as a hero. The City of New York gave him the biggest ticker-tape parade in its history, breaking the record set for Charles Lindbergh in 1927, and lasting until the Mets won the 1969 World Series.

Martin talked his opposite number in the Democratic Party, Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, into letting MacArthur speak before a Joint Session of Congress on April 19. There was nothing Truman could do: He did not control Congress, and had already sent Mac into forced retirement. (Mac shouldn't still have been on active duty, anyway: He was 71 years old.)

He reminisced about his time as a young soldier, and quoted "one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day, which proclaimed, most proudly, that 'Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.' And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty, as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good Bye."

For the record, the line is, "Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away."

MacArthur was more popular than ever, and people began to speculate that he would run for the Republican Party's nomination for President in 1952 -- and that he would win, easily.

He refused to campaign for that nomination, figuring he didn't need to work for it, because a popular groundswell would lead to his nomination. He was wrong: It was the man he had once called "the best clerk I ever had," Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was nominated due to a popular groundswell, the closest thing to a "draft" any Presidential candidate has ever had.

Truman could have run for what would have amounted to a 3rd term -- due to the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution having been ratified a few weeks earlier, he was the last President who could have done so -- but he chose not to. He would have lost badly, as Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, who turned out to be the Democratic nominee, did.

MacArthur lived until 1964. By that point, Truman's reputation, in the dumps when he left office, had recovered. He lived until 1972.

April 11, 1936: Detroit's Sports Treble

April 11, 1936, 90 years ago: The Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup for the 1st time. It completes an incredible stretch in which they became "The City of Champions," winning the titles in all 3 major league sports then offered in North America.

The Detroit Tigers won the American League Pennant in 1934, but lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. They won the Pennant again in 1935, and, this time, won the World Series, by beating the Chicago Cubs on October 7. This was followed by the Detroit Lions, who had arrived in 1934, beating the New York Giants to win the 1935 NFL Championship Game on December 15.

The team that became the Red Wings was founded in 1926, along with the New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks. This became possible with the collapse of the Western Hockey League, as players in that league came east. One of those teams was the Victoria Cougars, who had won the Stanley Cup in 1925, the last non-NHL team to do so.

The new Detroit team took the Cougars name, then became the Falcons in 1930, and the Red Wings in 1932. James E. Norris bought the team that year, and, remembering that Detroit was already known as the Motor City, and remembering the 1st Stanley Cup winners, the Montreal Hockey Club of the 1890s, adapted their "winged wheel" logo for his renamed Red Wings. The local fans picked up on it quickly, and, in 1934, they cheered the Wings on to their 1st trip to the Stanley Cup Finals, losing to the Black Hawks.

As head coach and general manager, Norris hired Jack Adams, who would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player, even though his greatest contributions were in management. This was also true for the Rangers' Lester Patrick and the Boston Bruins' Art Ross. Like Patrick, Norris, and Toronto Maple Leafs' GM and head coach Conn Smythe, Adams would one day have a division of the NHL named for him. And, like all of these men, Adams would have an NHL trophy named for him: Coach of the Year.

Jack Adams

The Wings finished 1st in the NHL's American Division in 1935-36, and beat the Montreal Maroons in the Stanley Cup Semifinals. They faced the Maple Leafs in the Finals, which was then a best-3-out-of-5 contest. Games 1 and 2 were held at Detroit's Olympia Stadium, and the Wings won them both, 3-1 and 9-4. Wilfred "Bucko" McDonald, John Sorrell and Gord Pettinger each scored 2 goals in Game 2.

The series moved to Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, and the Leafs won Game 3, 4-3, when Frank "Buzz" Boll scored 30 seconds into overtime. But that would be the Leafs' last gasp: Pete Kelly (no relation to later Wings and Leafs star Leonard "Red" Kelly) scored 9:45 into the 3rd period of Game 4, to give the Wings a 3-2 win, and the Cup. The city had now won World Championships in all 3 sports then available, and done it within a span of 187 days -- a shade over 6 months.

Norris, Adams, center Marty Barry, left wings Syd Howe (no relation to later Wings star Gordie) and Herbie Lewis, and defenseman Ebenezer "Ebbie" Goodfellow would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. As yet unelected are right wing Larry Aurie, defenseman and Captain Doug Young, center Wally Kilrea and his brother, left wing Hector Kilrea.

Larry Aurie

Aurie and Lewis had represented the Wings at the Ace Bailey Benefit Game in 1934, now regarded as the 1st NHL All-Star Game. But a broken leg in 1937 curtailed Aurie's career, and he retired in 1939. Norris announced that his Number 6 would be the first uniform number retired by the team. It has been issued only once since, with his blessing, to his cousin, Cumming "Cummy" Burton in 1956.

But when Mike Ilitch bought the Red Wings in 1982, he hung the Red Wings' retired numbers from the rafters at Joe Louis Arena, but Aurie's 6 was not among them. Pretty much every reference that mentioned NHL retired numbers included it, but the team itself did not. In 1997, team vice president Jimmy Devellano said the team refused to hang the number because Aurie is not in the Hall of Fame. Each of the Wings' other retired number honorees is: 1, 1950s and '60s goaltender Terry Sawchuk; 4, 1950s defenseman Red Kelly; 5, 1990s and 2000s defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom; 7, 1940s and '50s left wing Ted Lindsay; 9, 1950s and '60s right wing Gordie Howe; 10, 1950s and '60s center Alex Delvecchio; 12, 1940s center Sid Abel; and 19, 1980s and '90s center Steve Yzerman.

(On the 1936 and '37 Wings, goaltender Normie Smith wore 1, Herbie Lewis 4, Ebbie Goodfellow 5, Marty Barry 7, Wally Kilrea 9, John Sorrell 10, Hec Kilrea 12. Unlike the Canadiens and Rangers, the Wings do not do dual retirements.)

For 178 days, from April 11 to October 6, 1936, when the New York Yankees won the next World Series, Detroit held the championships of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League, all at the same time. This "treble" had only been accomplished once before, by New York, with the Yankees winning the 1927 World Series, the Giants winning the 1927 NFL Championship, and the Rangers winning the 1928 Stanley Cup. It hasn't been done since: Even with the founding of the NBA in 1946 making winning in 4 sports possible, and in 3 of them more possible, it hasn't happened again.

In 1937, the Wings would make it back-to-back Cups, and Joe Louis, born and raised in Alabama but trained to fight in Detroit, became the Heavyweight Champion of the World. In 1938, the Tigers' Hank Greenberg hit 58 home runs, making a serious run at the single-season home run record. In 1940, the Tigers won another Pennant, losing the World Series; and another in 1945, winning it. The Wings reached the Finals again in 1941, '42, '43 and '45, but won only in 1943.

All this was a great relief for the people of Detroit, a city wracked by the Great Depression and labor strife in the 1930s, following by war and a race riot in the early 1940s.

Through the 2020-21 season, the Red Wings have won 11 Stanley Cups, more than any other U.S.-based team. In the entire NHL, only the Montreal Canadiens (24) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (13) have won more.

But Detroit's success in sports has been very sporadic. The Wings went from 1955 to 1997 without winning any Cups. The Tigers have won only 4 World Series in their 121 seasons of play, the last in 1984. The Lions have won 4 NFL Championships, but none since 1957, including the entire Super Bowl era. The Pistons have won 3 NBA Championships, the last in 2004. And not since 1954, with the Wings and the Lions, have 2 Detroit teams made their sports' finals in the same calendar year.

Other cities have used the "City of Champions" name since: Pittsburgh in 1979, with the Pirates and Steelers, and again in 2009 with the Steelers and Penguins; and Boston, with the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins all winning titles between 2007 and 2011.

Tampa Bay used it as the Lightning won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and '21, the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl in 2021, the Rays won a Pennant in 2020, and the Rowdies won the United Soccer League title in 2021. But the USL is the 2nd division of American soccer, not the 1st; the Rays lost the World Series; and, except for the Lightning's '21 Cup, each of these was won under COVID-influenced conditions.

April 10, 1956: Nat King Cole Is Assaulted Onstage In Birmingham

April 10, 1956, 70 years ago: Nat King Cole, one of the most popular singers in America, is assaulted in mid-concert.

America's favorite black singer -- white adults weren't ready to accept Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard yet -- was playing piano and singing with the Ted Heath Orchestra at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama.

Cole sat at his piano before 4,000 people -- all white, as State law required separate concerts for white and black audiences. Three songs in, three white men rushed the stage and attacked him. He fell backward. His suit was torn, and his body was bruised. The audience screamed as police flooded the stage in chaos. Behind the curtain, the orchestra played "God Save the Queen," a desperate attempt to restore order while one of the greatest voices in America lay shaken backstage.

When Cole finally returned to the microphone, the crowd rose as one. They applauded for 10 straight minutes. Many were crying. Quietly, calmly, he said, "I just came here to entertain you. That was what I thought you wanted. I was born in Alabama."

He couldn't finish the show. But later that night -- injured, shaken, and still sore -- Nat King Cole kept his promise: He returned to the theater, and performed for the black audience waiting for their edition of the segregated concert.

The next day, reporters asked how he felt. "I didn’t think I had an enemy in Alabama," he said. "I''m not mad at a soul."

That grace unsettled people. Some civil rights leaders wanted anger. They wanted fire. They wanted confrontation. Cole chose something else.

Six months later, he made history: On November 5, 1956, The Nat King Cole Show premiered on NBC. It was the first national television program hosted by a Black American. He performed alongside legends like Ella Fitzgerald and Harry Belafonte. He sang. He played. He smiled with dignity in living rooms that had never imagined a Black man at their center. The ratings were strong. The reviews were glowing.

And still, not one major advertiser would sponsor the show. Corporations feared backlash. Executives worried about Southern customers. So for 13 months, NBC paid for the program alone, hoping sponsors would eventually step forward. They never did.

When the show ended in December 1957, Cole finally named the truth: "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."

In 1965, Nat King Cole died of lung cancer, at only 45 years old. He had lived long enough to see the March On Washington and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but not the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

He understood exactly what he had done: "For thirteen months, I was the Jackie Robinson of television."

The Municipal Auditorium, built in 1924, still stands, at 1930 Reverend Abraham Woods Jr. Boulevard, formerly 8th Avenue, facing Linn Park, and across Interstate 20/59 from the city's main arena, the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center.

It was renamed the Boutwell Auditorium, in memory of Albert Boutwell, elected Mayor in 1963 as a rejection of racist Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor. He had previously been Lieutenant Governor and a State Senator. He was defeated for re-election in 1967, and died in 1978.

*

That same night, April 10, 1956, the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup, beating the team that had beaten them in the last 2 Stanley Cup Finals, the Detroit Red Wings. The Habs won, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum, to win Game 5 and take the 1st of what turned out to be 5 straight Stanley Cups.

Three days earlier, on April 7, the Philadelphia Warriors won Game 5 of the NBA Finals, beating the Fort Wayne Pistons, to win the NBA Championship.

April 8, 1966: Time Magazine's "Is God Dead?" Cover

April 8, 1966, 60 years ago: Time magazine prints its most famous cover, asking a big question: "Is God Dead?"

Why did the question come up? The question was already steeped in German philosophy in the 19th Century. In 1797, German writer Jean Paul wrote Siebenkäs (Sevencheese), in which a character says, "'The Dead Christ Proclaims That There Is No God." Philipp Mainländer and George Hegel had also written on the subject. In 1862, French writer Victor Hugo had his character Gerard de Nerval say, "God is dead, perhaps" in Les Misérables.

In his 1882 book The Gay Science (sometimes translated as "The Joyful Science," it has nothing to do with homosexuality), Friedrich Nietzsche came right out and said it: "Gott ist tot." He said, "The belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable," adding that everything that was "built upon this faith, propped up by it, grown into it," including "the whole of European morality," is bound to "collapse." He repeated the line "God is dead" in his next and most-known book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

The World Wars of the 20th Century, in which both Germany as aggressor and the nations defending themselves used God as justification, would likely have convinced him that he was right, at least about the collapse part.

What's more, Nietzsche believed it was a good thing: He often wrote of an "overman" who was "beyond good and evil," superseding established concepts of what was moral and what was not. And that was part of the problem: After his death in 1900, this belief in an Übermensch was twisted into the official beliefs of the aggressors of the World Wars, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

It was an American of German descent, Otto Fuerbringer, who, as editor of Time, released that cover, the magazine's first without a photograph in its 43 years of publishing to that point. But the issue did not attempt to answer the question. In more recent terms, the cover was "clickbait."

Otto Fuerbringer

The article accompanying the magazine cover, titled "Toward a Hidden God" and written by the magazine's religion editor, John T. Elson, mentioned the so-called "God Is Dead" movement only briefly in its introduction. In a footnote, it identified the leaders of the movement, and explained how those theologians had been trying to construct a theology without God.

The article pointed out that, while this movement had roots in the philosophy of Nietzsche, it also drew on a broader range of thinkers, who had expressed concerns about the role of God in an increasingly secularized world. The immediate reality did not indicate a death of God, or a death of religion, and the article pointed out that the recent Second Vatican Council had done much to revitalize Christianity, and the Roman Catholic Church in particular.

The article cited a poll in which 97 percent of Americans declared a belief in God, but only 27 percent called themselves "deeply religious."

Time received around 3,500 letters to the editor, still the largest number of responses to any one story in the history of the magazine. In its issue of December 26, 1969, Time ran a follow-up cover story asking, "Is God Coming Back to Life"?

A month before the controversial cover, John Lennon of The Beatles gave an interview in which he said, "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." When it was published in the American magazine Datebook on July 29, evangelical Americans lost their minds, and convinced radio stations to ban the Beatles, and even held record burnings, as if it was Nazi Germany. Lennon had to apologize.

On November 29, 1993, Time did a cover story on psychology, discussing how people were moving away from the teachings of Sigmund Freud. Freud had died in 1939, and was famously atheist: He wouldn't have said God was dead, he would have said God never existed in the first place. But the 1993 cover showed a painting of Freud, with his head coming apart like pieces of a puzzle, asking, "Is Freud Dead?"

And on April 3, 2017, with Donald Trump having become President, despite so many of his statements having been proven to be lies, Time printed this cover.

Trump was defeated in 2020, so the answer became, "No, but it sure was sick for a while." Trump was returned to the Presidency in 2024, so truth remains seriously ill.

Otto Fuerbringer died in 2008; John T. Elson, the following year.

April 8, 1966 was a Friday -- indeed, it was Good Friday, the traditional date of the Crucifixion of Jesus, with Easter to follow on Sunday. Actresses Cynthia Nixon and Robin Wright were born on this day.