September 7, 1876: The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid

The James Brothers: Jesse (left) and Frank

September 7, 1876, 150 years ago: Jesse James, his brother, and his friends decide to rob a bank. It doesn't go so well.

Jesse James and his brother Frank were from Kearney, Missouri, outside Kansas City. During the American Civil War, when Missouri remained in the Union but had Southern sympathies, the James Brothers joined William Quantrill and his group, Quantrill's Raiders. They called themselves "bushwhackers," but, in modern terms, they were terrorists. Shortly after the war ended, Union troops shot Quantrill, who took nearly a month to die as a result of his wound.

The James brothers made it back to Missouri, and brought Cole Younger into their operations. He brought in his brothers, Bob and John. They robbed banks and trains all over what would now be called the Midwest. In modern terms, they were an organized crime family. Not Italian, but a Missouri Mafia, a Confederate Cosa Nostra.

The Younger Brothers

John Younger had already been killed in an ambush in 1874. In 1876, Bob Younger wanted to go well outside the James-Younger Gang's usual territory, to the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota, about 40 miles south of Minneapolis.

His explanation was its connection to 2 Union Generals who had become Republican politicians: Benjamin Franklin Butler, a Congressman from Massachusetts (and later its Governor), who had famously insulted the women of New Orleans during the war; and Governor Adelbert Ames of Mississippi, who supported civil rights for black people, including freed slaves.

Ames had married Butler's daughter, and his father owned the Ames Mill in Northfield. There was a rumor that the elder Mills had deposited $50,000 in cash in that bank. (About $1.56 million in 2026 dollars, a very tempting sum.)

The bank building, preserved

Cole tried to talk his brother out of the plan, thinking it too risky. But Bob refused to back down. Reluctantly, Cole agreed to go, writing to their brother Jim, then in California, to come home. Jim had never wanted anything to do with Cole's outlaw activities, but he agreed to go, out of family loyalty.

Hardware store merchant J.S. Allen saw the outlaws, figured out what was happening, and yelled, "Get your guns boys, they're robbing the bank!" That spurred Northfield men into action, arming themselves with long guns in a street shootout that lasted around 7 minutes, leaving 2 gang members dead in the street: Clell Miller and Bill Caldwell. Bob Younger's horse was killed, and Frank James murdered First National Bank acting cashier Joseph Lee Heywood. Swedish immigrant Nicolaus Gustafson was shot in the head by Cole Younger, and died of his injuries four days later. Bank teller Alonzo Bunker was shot in the shoulder as he tried to escape, but survived.

The James brothers escaped west into the Dakota Territory, while the remaining gang members were killed or taken into custody. The Younger brothers pleaded guilty on November 20, 1876, and were sentenced to life terms in prison.

Jesse James was killed by a supposed ally in 1882. Bob Younger died in prison, of tuberculosis, in 1889. Cole and Jim Younger were paroled in 1901. Jim committed suicide in 1902. Cole traveled to Missouri, where he joined a "Wild West" show with Frank James. Frank died in 1915, and Cole the following year.

The raid has been portrayed, with varying levels of accuracy, in 3 films: The True Story of Jesse James in 1957, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid in 1972, and The Long Riders in 1980.

September 6, 1946: The 1st Southern Team In the "Major Leagues"

September 6, 1946, 80 years ago: The All-America Football Conference, an early "rebel league," debuts. The Cleveland Browns, replacing the Rams, who won the NFL Championship and then moved to Los Angeles because of poor attendance, play their 1st game, at home, at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and win, 44-0.

Under head coach Paul Brown, in the 4 years that the AAFC played, the Browns went 47-4-3, and won all 4 league championships. They then were admitted into the NFL, and won the Championship in 1950, 1954 and 1955; losing the Championship Game in 1951, 1952 and 1953. Counting their 4 AAFC seasons and their 1st 6 NFL seasons, they went 58-13-1 and reached 10 league title games, winning 7.

But this post isn't about the Browns, or the AAFC. It's about the team the Browns beat in their 1st game: The Miami Seahawks.

Miami... Seahawks? I mean the Miami Dolphins, or the Seattle Seahawks, right? Nope: The Dolphins didn't debut until 1966, in the AFL; and the Seattle team didn't debut until 1976. In fact, there was a minor-league hockey team called the Seattle Sea Hawks from 1936 to 1941.

No, the Miami Seahawks actually existed. And, if you consider the AAFC a "major league," then the Seahawks were the 1st major league team in the American South, the 1st major league team from a State that had seceded from the Union for the American Civil War.

Harvey Hester, a former quarterback at the University of Florida, and briefly the head coach at Wofford College in South Carolina, led a group of fellow Miami businessmen to put together an ownership team.

Their head coach was Jack Meagher, who had played at Notre Dame while Knute Rockne was an assistant coach there. He coached Rice University to an 8-4 season in 1930, Auburn to win the 1938 Orange Bowl, and the Iowa Pre-Flight Team to a 10-1 record under wartime conditions in 1944. His Auburn teams were nicknamed Meagher's Marauders.

The Iowa Pre-Flight Team, established (as were some of the other military-base teams that played college teams during World War II) near a major college campus, in this case the University of Iowa, was, due to the "flight" theme, named for a bird: The Seahawks. Meagher took their name with him, and Hester approved it for the Miami team, which made more sense in Miami than it did in Iowa City. He hadn't yet coached a pro game, but, certainly, he was qualified.

But while they got better after their opening disaster, they were never good. They lost 21-14 away to the San Francisco 4ers, and 30-14 away to the Los Angeles Dons, before playing their 1st home game, losing to the 49ers again, 34-7 at Burdine Stadium, which would be renamed the Orange Bowl in 1959.

On October 11, they got their 1st win, 17-14 over the Buffalo Bisons at Civic Stadium in Buffalo, later renamed War Memorial Stadium. But that would be the highlight of their season. They lost 28-7 to the Chicago Rockets at Soldier Field, 30-7 to the football version of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, 24-21 to the football version of the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and 20-7 at home to the Rockets.

(Note: When I say, "the football version of... " I only mean that those teams had the same names as their baseball equivalents, and it was convenient for them to play in the same stadiums. It wasn't the baseball teams moonlighting as football teams, a practice that did include Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics in a league that lasted just one year, 1902.)

The way the Seahawks' schedule worked out, 7 of their 1st 8 games were on the road, and their last 6 games were at home. On November 18, they beat the Bisons again. They lost 34-21 to the Dons, 34-0 to the Browns, and 31-0 to the Yankees. They closed on December 13, at home, beating the Dodgers, 31-20. 

The Seahawks wore orange and green,

like the University of Miami, and presaging the Dolphins.

They finished 3-11. With the Dodgers and the Bisons, the 2 teams they beat, both finishing 3-10-1, the Seahawks had the worst record in the league. They folded after the season.

Why? Several reasons. This was before the widespread use of air conditioning made life in Florida tolerable. As a result, Miami was, by far, the smallest market in the AAFC, and only Green Bay was smaller in the NFL. The stadium that would become the Orange Bowl only seated 35,000, so even if the Seahawks sold games out, it still might not have been enough to make a profit. It was soon expanded, but that didn't do the Seahawks any good.

The Browns had brought in black players Marion Motley and Bill Willis. The AAFC made it known that black players would be accepted. Despite Florida being a Southern State, there were no incidents when they played in Miami. But the Southern fans wanted no part of that, and the Seahawks simply didn't draw well. Knowing this, Hester knew he couldn't bring black players onto the team, no matter how good they were. So he was stuck with a an all-white team that went 3-11.

Even more telling, Hester needed the other members of his group to buy the team. He was the only owner, in the NFL and the AAFC combined, who was not a millionaire. Paul Brown, who was the Browns' head coach and GM, was not their owner, but stood in for the owners in league meetings until Art Modell bought the team in 1962. He noticed that Hester didn't seem to fit in, operationally or emotionally, with the other team owners, and wouldn't even play poker with them.

Meagher never coached again, and died in 1968. An Auburn fan group took the name "Meagher's Marauders," and annually award a scholarship and dedicate an award to an Auburn football legend. I can find no details of what happened to Hester after the Seahawks folded, only that he lost his life savings with the team, fell deeply into debt, and was not involved in professional sports again.

There wouldn't be another major league (or even "major league") team in a former Confederate State until 1952, when the NFL debuted the Dallas Texans. They failed after 1 season, too. In 1960, the NFL debuted the Dallas Cowboys, and the AFL debuted, with the Dallas Texans, who became the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963, and the Houston Oilers, who became the Tennessee Oilers in 1997 and the Tennessee Titans in 1999. In 1962, Major League Baseball debuted the Houston Colt .45s, who became the Houston Astros in 1965.

And the Miami Dolphins finally brought major league sports back to Florida in 1966. This would be followed by the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1976, the NBA's Miami Heat in 1988 and Orlando Magic in 1989, the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992, MLB's Miami Marlins and the NHL's Miami-area Florida Panthers in 1993, the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars in 1995, and MLB's Tampa Bay Rays in 1998. (The Rays were known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays until 2007. The Marlins were known as the Florida Marlins until 2011.)

Other Southern cities getting major league teams have included Charlotte and Raleigh in North Carolina, Atlanta in Georgia, Nashville and Memphis in Tennessee, New Orleans in Louisiana, Oklahoma City, and, in addition to Dallas and Houston in Texas, San Antonio.

If you counted the ABA as "major league," not only did Memphis have a team, but the Norfolk area had the Virginia Squires, Louisville had the Kentucky Colonels, and Miami had the Floridians. If you counted the WHA, then there were the Houston Aeros, and the Toronto Toros moved to Alabama, anglicized their name, and became the Birmingham Bulls. A Miami Screaming Eagles was planned for the WHA's start in 1972, but their ownership group fell apart, and the franchise was awarded to Philadelphia instead.

One more sports note for September 6, 1946: The New York Yankees lost to the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-3 at Shibe Park In Philadelphia. Bob Savage outpitched Clarence Marshall, whose nickname was "Cuddles." How is a team supposed to beat a Savage with Cuddles? Joe DiMaggio went 3-for-4. Sam Chapman hit a home run for the A's.

September 6-14, 1901: The Assassination and Death of William McKinley, the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt

The last known photograph of the 25th President of the United States,

William McKinley, walking into the Temple of Music, September 6, 1901.

September 6, 1901: President William McKinley is shot in Buffalo, New York. He dies 8 days later, at the age of 58.

A native of Canton, Ohio, McKinley had served in the Union Army in the American Civil War, and had served his home State in Congress and as Governor. Nominated for President by the Republican Party in 1896, with a depression going on, he ran on what his campaign chairman, Ohio political fixer Mark Hanna, called "the full dinner pail."

His Democratic opponent was Congressman William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, who said the answer to America's economic woes was the free coinage of silver, as opposed to gold. This split the party, and painted Bryan and the Democrats as people playing games with the economy.

The election was on November 3, and many bosses told their employees, "If Bryan wins on Tuesday, don't come to work on Wednesday." It was a threat that workers could be fired for voting for Bryan, but it was also a scare tactic: If Bryan wins, this company won't survive. McKinley won in a landslide, as Bryan's "Populist" message simply didn't reach enough Americans.

McKinley's reforms did end the depression that had begun with a tariff bill in 1890 -- which he, as Congressman, had written -- but really got going with the stock market's Panic of 1893. (They didn't call them "crashes" until 1929.) He also launched the Spanish-American War of 1898, which further enriched the already-rich.

Still, there was lots of discontent. Bryan thought his Populist message would work in 1900, paired with anger over the imperialism of 1898. It didn't: McKinley won in an even bigger landslide.

In 1901, Buffalo was enjoying the fruits of the Industrial Revolution, and launched the Pan-American Exposition, a world's fair. McKinley attended, and gave a speech on September 5, producing one of the earliest voice recordings of any President.

The next day, September 6, he was at the Exposition's Temple of Music, shaking hands with well-wishers. One man did not wish him well: Leon Czolgosz a 28-year-old Polish-American steelworker from Michigan, who admitted his crime, saying that it wasn't fair that one man should have so much power when most people had so little. At 4:07 PM, he shot McKinley twice in the abdomen.

Leon Czolgosz

McKinley was taken to the house of the Exposition's president, prominent Buffalo lawyer John G. Milburn. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt had been vacationing with his family in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State when he received word that McKinley was shot. He rushed by train to Buffalo, visited McKinley, and was told by the doctors that the President would recover. He took them at their word, got on a train, and went back to his family.

For 8 days, doctors tried in vain to reach the bullet. As with the assassination of President James Garfield 20 years earlier, they may have done him more harm than good. He died at 2:15 AM on September 14, 1901.

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt came to Buffalo by train, and was sworn in at the home of another major Buffalo lawyer, Ansley Wilcox, 1 mile south of where McKinley was being treated. (The Wilcox House has been preserved, and it stands at 641 Delaware Avenue. The Milburn House, at 1140 Delaware Avenue, was not, and was demolished in 1957.)

Artist's depiction of the Inauguration.

No photographs were allowed.

Roosevelt made no speech, no "Inaugural Address," aside from his statement when Hazel asked him if he was ready to take the Oath: "I will take the oath. And in this hour of deep and terrible national bereavement, I wish to state that it shall be my aim to continue, absolutely without variance, the policy of President McKinley, for the peace and honor of our beloved country."

Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1886, from McKinley's death on September 14, 1901 until the next Presidential term began on March 4, 1905, the man next in line for the Presidency was the Secretary of State, John Hay.

It took just 7 weeks to try, convict and execute Czolgosz, and even his fellow anarchists turned on him, saying he did their cause more harm than good.

The great fear of McKinley loyalists is that TR wouldn't continue McKinley's policies. Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, the political boss who did more than anyone else to turn McKinley from a failed Congressman into a popular Governor and then a beloved President, but had opposed Roosevelt's replacement of the late Garret Hobart as Vice President on the 1900 Republican ticket, said, "That damned cowboy is President now!"

TR managed to have it both ways: He continued McKinley's expansionist foreign policy, but was considerably more progressive in domestic policy, just as Hanna had feared. In many ways, he became the 1st modern President of the United States.

He hated the nickname "Teddy,"

although he didn't mind people using his initials, "TR."

Hanna despised Roosevelt, and may have put up a candidate to oppose him in the 1904 election, possibly himself. But he died early in the year, and TR rough-rode his way to a landslide win. On March 4, 1905, he got a real Inauguration, at the U.S. Capitol, and used the same Bible he used when he was sworn in as Governor of New York in 1899.

Ansley Wilcox died in 1930. His house, at 641 Delaware Avenue, has been preserved as Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. Judge John Hazel lived until 1951.

It has been suggested that Buffalo never recovered from the assassination, and that a curse was placed on its sports teams ever since. They've never had a Major League Baseball team since, unless you count the Federal League of 1914 and 1915. They lost the NBA's Braves. The NHL's Sabres have played for over 50 years, and have never won a Stanley Cup. And although the Bills won 2 AFL Championships, they've never won one in the NFL. Nor has any Buffalo-area team won an NCAA football or basketball championship. Because of COVID restrictions, the Toronto Blue Jays played "home games" at Sahlen Field in Buffalo in 2020 and 2021.

The site of the Temple of Music is now a suburban housing development. There is a historical marker at the site, at 17 Fordham Drive. This is 4 miles north of the McKinley Monument, in Niagara Square, on which City Hall stands. City Hall has statues of the 2 Presidents who called Buffalo home, Millard Fillmore (1850-53) and Grover Cleveland (1885-89 and 1893-97). 

A recent photo of the site

 

September 5, 1976: "The Muppet Show" Premieres

Top row, left to right: Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Uncle Deadly,

Waldorf, Statler, Link Hogthrob, Dr. Teeth, Beaker.

Second row: Lew Zealand, Animal, Floyd Pepper, Rowlf.

Third row: Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, Camilla.

Bottom row: Gonzo the Great, Kermit the Frog, Scooter.

September 5, 1976, 50 years ago: The Muppet Show premieres on British network ITV. Joel Grey is the guest star. In America, it aired in syndication, debuting on September 13, with the episode featuring Rita Moreno. Given that the show took place in a theater, it made sense that, either way, the 1st guest star was a Broadway legend, as well as a Hollywood star.

It surprised me, as a kid who watched Sesame Street, that the only Muppet to cross over to this show (with rare exceptions) was Kermit the Frog, who hosted. I was being introduced to a bunch of Muppets I'd never seen before, and didn't know. But I came to know them: Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo the Great, Rowlf the piano-playing dog, Kermit's nephew Robin, and the two old guys heckling from the corner box, Statler and Waldorf, named for old New York hotels.

The band was Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. Dr. Teeth played piano, a hippie chick named Janice played guitar, Floyd Pepper played bass, Zoot played saxophone, and, of course, the drummer was Animal.

Floyd wore a military jacket and was meant to evoke the Beatles' character Sgt. Pepper. I didn't notice that at the time, but I did notice that all of the Muppets, including the bandmembers, were lefthanded. Eventually, I learned that this was not simply a coincidence: The reason was that the puppeteers would use their right hands to move the faces, and their left hands to move the hands.

Regular sketches included Muppet News Flash; The Dance, with dance marathoners making dumb "quickie" jokes, clearly a lampoon of the Cocktail Party sketch on Laugh-In; The Swedish Chef, whose indecipherable recipes always went wrong; Veterinarians' Hospital, with Rowlf as a doctor assisted by Miss Piggy and Janice; Pigs In Space, with Miss Piggy serving alongside Link Hogthrob as captain ("hamming it up" while sounding like Ted Knight's Mary Tyler Moore Show character Ted Baxter) and Dr. Julius Strangepork (a German-accented homage to Dr. Strangelove and Albert Einstein); Muppet Labs, with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his beleaguered assistant Beaker; and Bear On Patrol, with Fozzie playing a cop reporting to a desk sergeant played by Link.

Jim Henson voiced Kermit, Waldorf, Rowlf, Dr. Teeth, Link, and the Newsman. Frank Oz voiced Miss Piggy, Fozzie (name derived from "F. Oz"), Animal and Sam the Eagle. Dave Goelz voiced Gonzo, Zoot and Bunsen Honeydew. Richard Hunt voiced Scooter, Statler, Janice, Beaker and Sweetums. Jerry Nelson, better known as The Count on Sesame Street, voiced Robin, Floyd, Dr. Strangepork, Gonzo's girlfriend Camilla the Chicken, mad bomber Crazy Harry, and the dragonlike Uncle Deadly (formerly known as Skrid when the Muppets appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show).

The show ran 5 seasons, and was basically what Laugh-In had set itself up as a few years earlier: The last gasp of vaudeville. Not counting guest Muppets from Sesame Street, there were 128 total guest stars in the show's history.

Three married couples appeared together as guests: Roy Rogers & Dale Evans (stayed married 'til death did they part), Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge (divorced) and mimes Robert Shields & Lorene Yarnell (divorced). One pair of siblings appeared, but not together: Country singers Loretta Lynn and her much younger sister Crystal Gayle. One parent-child pair appeared, but not together: Indeed, Candice Bergen appeared before her father Edgar and her "brother," Charlie McCarthy, did.

Since the show was taped at what is now the BBC Studio in Elstree, in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, in the northwest suburbs of London, it was more internationally-oriented than most American TV variety shows. There were 97 Americans, 21 British, 2 Canadians (Doug Henning and Anne Murray), 2 Frenchmen (Charles Aznavour and Jean-Pierre Rampal), 2 Swiss (both of them members of Mummenschanz, which also included an American), a Dane (Victor Borge), a German (Elke Sommer), a Spaniard (Señor Wences) and a Russian (Rudolf Nureyev). The only one born in Asia was Juliet Prowse, born in India while it was a British colony. She was raised in South Africa, also in the British Commonwealth at the time, making her, despite being white, the only African host.

The oldest performer was 86-year-old Señor Wences, younger than George Burns by a few months, but older than Burns was when each appeared on the show -- and Wences beat Burns in final age, 103 to 100. The youngest was a 15-year-old Brooke Shields, the next-youngest being a 28-year-old Christopher Reeve. Zero Mostel was not only the first of the show's guest stars to die, but he died before his episode could air.

There were 69 men and 59 women. There were 9 black guest hosts. In order of appearance: Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey, Harry Belafonte, Lou Rawls, Shirley Bassey, Lola Falana, Leslie Uggams, Gladys Knight and Ben Vereen. There were 4 Hispanics, not counting the Spain-born Señor Wences: Rita Moreno, Raquel (Tejeda) Welch, Joan Baez and Lynda (Cordova) Carter. There were no ethnically Asian guests. There were 5 guests who are now known to have been gay: Elton John was already out, Rudolf Nureyev didn't exactly hide it, Jim Nabors and Joel Grey came out late in life, and Liberace denied it to the end.

Although the guests came from across the spectrum of show business, no guest came from outside show business. And 9 of the guests would also appear in The Muppet Movie in 1978: Edgar Bergen, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Dom DeLuise, Bob Hope, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Steve Martin and Paul Williams. (Charles Durning, who played the film's villain Doc Hopper, was never a Muppet Show guest.)

The last episode aired on March 15, 1981, with guest host Shirley Bassey, who, of course, sang the song for which she is best known: The theme to the James Bond film Goldfinger, in front of a bank vault while Link Hogthrob led a gang robbing it.

The cancellation was Henson's own choice: He wanted to stop making the show before the writing grew stale, or the quality faded. Also, with the The Muppet Movie's success, he wanted to move into movies, and thought it better to concentrate on that instead of the show. The Great Muppet Caper was released to theaters in 1981, and was also successful.

The Kind of Rutgers Loss Schiano's Hiring Was Meant to Stop

September 23, 1995, Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, New Jersey: Penn State 59, Rutgers 34. This was the game at Giants Stadium where Joe Paterno ran up the score, and Rutgers coach Doug Graber got in his face at the end, and Penn State's jackass fans called Graber out for having no class.

November 23, 1996, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Indiana: Notre Dame 62, Rutgers 0. Live to a national audience on NBC. Losing away to the Fighting Irish was to be expected, but 62-0?

October 9, 1997, Rutgers Stadium, Piscataway, New Jersey: Syracuse 50, Rutgers 3. I was there. RU finished 0-11.

September 19, 1998, Carrier Dome, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse 70, Rutgers 14.

October 24, 1998, Rutgers Stadium: Tulane 52, Rutgers 28. Tulane hanging 52 on us? At home?

October 9, 1999, Rutgers Stadium: Virginia Tech 58, Rutgers 20. I was there, watching Michael Vick and a swarming defense led by Corey Moore destroy the Scarlet Knights. Somehow, in my mind, this got conflated with the '98 Syracuse game, which wasn't even at home, and entered my memory as, "I saw Michael Vick and Virginia Tech beat Rutgers, 70-14." The truth was bad enough. Oddly, Rutgers beat Syracuse that season, 24-21, the only win in a 1-10 season.

September 30, 2000, Rutgers Stadium: Miami 64, Rutgers 6.

September 8, 2001, Orange Bowl, Miami, Florida: Miami 61, Rutgers 0. This was the 1st game of the Greg Schiano regime, Round 1.

September 29, 2001, Rutgers Stadium: Connecticut 20, Rutgers 19. One point, but Rutgers was not supposed to be losing to UConn. In basketball, yes; in football, no.

October 13, 2001, Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple 30, Rutgers 5. Rutgers was not supposed to be losing to Temple. In basketball, yes; in football, no.

November 3, 2001, Mountaineer Field, Morgantown, West Virginia: West Virginia 80, Rutgers 7. These games run together so much, I thought I remembered being at this game, at Rutgers Stadium. Instead, it was on the road. I know I saw Rutgers get destroyed at home by the Mountaineers at some point. This season ended 2-9, but the losses were more painful than in the 0-11 and 1-10 seasons.

August 31, 2002, Rutgers Stadium: Villanova 37, Rutgers 19. Rutgers was not supposed to be losing to Villanova. In basketball, yes; in football, no.

September 7, 2002, Rutgers Stadium: University of Buffalo 34, Rutgers 11. I was there. Rutgers was not supposed to be losing to Buffalo. In any sport.

October 12, 2002, Rutgers Stadium: West Virginia 40, Rutgers 0. Maybe this was the West Virginia loss at home I was thinking of. RU finished 1-11.

November 11, 2005, L&N Stadium, Louisville, Kentucky: Louisville 56, Rutgers 5. RU seemed to have finally turned the corner under Schiano, going 7-4 and reaching a real bowl game for the first time ever. But this was a bad loss, shown nationally on ESPN2.

November 18, 2006, Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio: University of Cincinnati 30, Rutgers 11. Coming just 9 days after the epic ESPN-prime win over Number 3 Louisville, it was like RU had fumbled the best chance it would ever have. Losing this game, and to West Virginia in double overtime 2 weeks later, cost RU the Big East title and the bid that Louisville got to the Orange Bowl.

September 7, 2009, Rutgers Stadium: Cincinnati 47, Rutgers 15. I was there. The season was over by halftime of the opening game.

November 20, 2010, Nippert Stadium: Cincinnati 69, Rutgers 38. Okay, the Bearcats had a good run. But the days when teams could score a point a minute on RU should have been long over. After the season, instead of staying to "finish the job," Schiano left, to coach the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He flopped, miserably.

October 27, 2012, High Point Solutions Stadium (the first renaming of Rutgers Stadium): Kent State 35, Rutgers 23. Rutgers is not supposed to lose to Kent State. That's why the 1st game at the rebuilt stadium, on September 3, 1994, had Kent State as the opponent. RU won that, 28-9. Not this.

October 18, 2014, Ohio Stadium, Columbus: Ohio State 56, Rutgers 17. Welcome to the Big Ten Conference, Scarlet Knights.

October 1, 2016, Ohio Stadium: Ohio State 58, Rutgers 0.

October 8, 2016, High Point Solutions Stadium: Michigan 78, Rutgers 0. Ohio State were ranked Number 2 in the country. Michigan, Number 4. And RU had to play them in back-to-back games. Refresh my memory: Why was joining the Big Ten a good idea?

September 9, 2017, High Point Solutions Stadium: Eastern Michigan 16, Rutgers 13. We're losing at home to Mid-American Conference teams now? Get used to it.

September 15, 2018: David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, Lawrence, Kansas: Kansas 55, Rutgers 14. This is another opponent where losing to them in basketball is understandable, but not in football, and not by this much. The season ended 1-11, although 3 were by 7 points or less.

The name of the stadium was changed to SHI Stadium in 2019. Greg Schiano, Rutgers' Deadbeat Dad, returned in 2020. Things weren't going so well, but not too badly, until...

September 3, 2026, SHI Stadium: University of Massachusetts 37, Rutgers 21. UMass hadn't won a game all last season. And this was supposed to be 1 of 2 games for RU that was clearly winnable, the other being Howard at home.

At halftime, with the score 28-7, a reporter for the Big Ten Network asked Schiano what was happening, and he said, "We're just a little bit out of whack right now." Ya think, Greg?

This was the kind of Rutgers' loss Schiano's hiring was meant to stop. The 1st time, and the 2nd time.

Instead, it was just another embarrassment for the school that played and won the first college football game, and hasn't done much since.

September 4, 2006: The Death of Steve Irwin

September 4, 2006, 20 years ago: Steve Irwin dies in a freak accident. He was only 44 years old.

Stephen Robert Irwin was born on February 22, 1962 in Upper Ferntree Gully, Victoria, outside Melbourne. His father Bob founded the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, now known as Australia Zoo. So Steve grew up around crocodiles, snakes and other reptiles, and learned how to handle them properly. Those of you who know Steve for his TV show The Crocodile Hunter, stop laughing.

Actually, don't stop laughing: Steve knew that much of what he did seemed silly to people. But it also raised awareness of the needs of wildlife, in his own country and all over the world. He became the most famous Australian alive, surpassing Paul Hogan, the actor best known for the Crocodile Dundee movies. (No, as long as Steve was alive, he was still ahead of Hugh Jackman.)

In 2000, Steve made a commercial for Federal Express, in which he was bitten by a snake, but, "No worries, mate: Luckily, we've had the anti-venom sent from America by FedEx! In my line of work, if you're not absolutely sure, you're absolutely dead!" Then somebody whispered in his ear, and he dropped his catchphrase: "Aw, crikey! It appears we've used a different courier, who hasn't arrived yet! It's okay bec-- " And then he keeled over, pretending to be dead.

That commercial was the first time I ever saw Steve. I didn't know he was a real guy who really did this sort of thing. I thought he was an actor doing a parody of nature shows. And no one who saw it had any idea that he would die on the job -- and from a creature considered far less dangerous than venomous snakes.

He was an avid sports fan, supporting Australia's highly successful national cricket and rugby union teams; the Essendon Bombers, an Australian Rules football team in Melbourne; and the Brisbane Broncos, a rugby league team in Brisbane, the capital of the State of Queensland. (Australia Zoo is less than 50 miles north of Brisbane.)

In 1992, he married Terri Raines, a veterinarian from Eugene, Oregon, whom he met the year before, when she was touring wildlife preserves all over the world. They had a daughter, Bindi, and a son, Robert.

Sadly, Steve would not live to see Bindi get married and present him with his 1st grandchild. On September 4, 2006, while filming a documentary off Batt Reef near Port Douglas, Queensland, with Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, Steve was pierced in the chest by a short-tail stingray. He bled out, and there was nothing anyone could do.

Today, Terri, Bindi, Robert, and Bindi's husband, Chandler Powell, run Australia Zoo, while Steve is remembered fondly all over the world. In 2015, Bindi, only 17 years old, won the U.S. version of Dancing with the Stars. In 2025, Bob won Dancing with the Stars, making him and Bindi the 1st relatives to both win it.

In 2019, the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History did an episode with "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing Steve, and "Nice" Peter Shukoff playing Jacques Cousteau. It was one of their funnier episodes.

Yanks Edge Angels, and Are Getting Healthier

Having taken 3 out of 4 from the Red Sox at home, the Yankees went out to the West Coast, to play the Los Angeles Angels and the San Diego Padres.

On Sunday afternoon, at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees played their best game of the season, beating the Sox, 16-1. On Monday night, at Angel Stadium of Anaheim, they followed it with their worst game of the season. Starting pitcher Elmer Rodríguez didn't get out of the 4th inning, and the Yankees committed 3 errors -- officially. Unofficially, there might have been an additional 3 plays that were scored hits for the Angels but could have been called errors. Aside from Spencer Jones' solo home run in the 5th, it was an awful night, with the Angels winning, 10-1.

On Tuesday night, the Yankees got back-to-back home runs from Jones and Jazz Chisholm in the 1st, giving Gerrit Cole a 3-0 lead before he even took the mound. But he wasn't a whole lot better than Rodríguez, not making it through the 6th inning. Fortunately, the bullpen held. The Yankees added some late runs, and won, 7-3.

The Wednesday night game was a pitcher's duel. Amed Rosario's ground-rule double scored Cody Bellinger in the top of the 4th, and that was the only run that Reid Detmers gave up through 7 innings. Cam Schlittler allowed only 1 baserunner, a single by Vaughn Grissom in the 2nd, until there were 2 outs in the 7th, when Grissom got a 2nd hit, a home run.

I don't like games on the West Coast, starting at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. And I don't like games going to extra innings: If you're gonna lose, do it in the regulation 9. I really hate when a late start goes to extra innings. But, after 9, this one was 1-1. It was "ghost runner" time.

Rosario was the Yankee runner. Jones struck out. José Caballero singled, but it wasn't deep enough to score Rosario. Chisholm drew a walk. Luis García Jr. popped up, and I was sure it was going to be a 2-1 Angels win.

Then came 4 straight singles, by Austin Wells, Bellinger, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice. It was 6-1 Yankees, and it seemed like the win was in the bag.

It wasn't. Michael Fulmer, signed as a free agent the preceding Saturday, had pitched 3 games for the Angels this season. He got Grissom out, then gave up a home run to Moisés Ballesteros. The game was once again in doubt. But he got Christian Moore to ground out, and struck out Jose Siri.

Siri, what was the final score? "Yankees 6, Angels 3." The Yankees took the series.

*

The Yankees trail the Tampa Bay Rays by 3 games in the American League Eastern Division. They have 22 games left: Tonight, tomorrow and Sunday, away to the San Diego Padres; September 8, 9 and 10, home to the Colorado Rockies; September 11, 12 and 13, home to the Mets; September 14, 15 and 16, away to the Minnesota Twins; September 18, 19 and 20, away to the Arizona Diamondbacks; a doubleheader on September 22, and single games on September 23 and 24, home to the Rays; and September 25, 26 and 27, home to the Baltimore Orioles.

If the Yankees take 2 out of each 3-game series, and split the 4 against the Rays, that will give them a record of 94-68. To top that, the Rays would have to evenly split their other 18 remaining games.

There is talk that Aaron Judge might be back for the Colorado series. I would love to see him tee off on the Mets. George Lombard Jr. and Clarke Schmidt also might return soon. Ryan Weathers and Angel Chivilli might be back before the end of the regular season; Giancarlo Stanton and Fernando Cruz almost certainly will not.