April 28, 1966: Eight Straight NBA Championships

Russell is already smelling Auerbach's victory cigar.

April 28, 1966, 60 years ago: Game 7 of the NBA Finals is played at the Boston Garden. The Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 95-93. It was their 9th NBA Championship, and their 8th in a row. This is easily a record for North American major league sports.

Bill Russell scored 25 points, and had 32 rebounds. Sam Jones scored 22, and John Havlicek 16. For the Lakers, Jerry West scored 36, but nobody else scored more than Elgin Baylor's 18.

The '66 Celtics included 7 eventual members of the Basketball Hall of Fame: Russell, Havlicek, Sam Jones, K.C. Jones (no relation), Tom "Satch" Sanders, and 2 men whose main contributions would come later, as coaches: Don Nelson and John Thompson. Head coach and general manager Arnold "Red" Auerbach would also be elected.

This would be Auerbach's last title as head coach: He resigned to concentrate on the front office, and named Russell as the NBA's 1st black head coach. If you don't count the early NFL as being truly "major league," a legitimate argument, thus eliminating Fritz Pollard of the 1921 Akron Pros, then Russell was the 1st black head coach in North American major league sports.

The New York Yankees won 5 straight World Series from 1949 to 1953, but no team has won 6. The Montreal Canadiens won 5 straight Stanley Cups from 1956 to 1960, but no team has won 6. The Green Bay Packers won 3 straight NFL Championships, from 1929 to 1931, and again from 1965 to 1967, but no team has won 4.

Does this make the 1959-66 Celtics the greatest dynasty in North American sports? Not really: While some of the greatest basketball players ever were then active -- including Russell, Havlicek, West, Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson -- the NBA wasn't getting as big a share of great athletes as it could have.

The era's top 2 pitchers, Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson, had both gone to college on basketball scholarships. And it's not hard to imagine baseball stars Willie Mays and Lou Brock as point guards, or fearsome defensive ends Gino Marchetti and Willie Davis as power forwards. Indeed, the Celtic team that won 3 out of 6 titles in the 1980s was probably better, top-to-bottom, than the team that won 8 straight titles.

The Celtics have won 18 NBA Championships, more than any other team. The Los Angeles Lakers have won 17, but 5 of those camewhile they were in Minneapolis, from 1947 to 1960.

Auerbach was general manager for the 1st 15 of those Championships, giving up that title in 1984; and team president for the 1st 16 Championships, giving up that title in 1997. He died in 2006.

The Celtics have won the Finals over the Lakers in 1959, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1984 and 2008; the St. Louis Hawks (now the Atlanta Hawks) in 1957, 1960 and 1961; the San Francisco Warriors (now the Golden State Warriors) in 1964; the Milwaukee Bucks in 1974; the Phoenix Suns in 1976; the Houston Rockets in 1981 and 1986; and the Dallas Mavericks in 2024.

They've also lost the Finals to the Hawks in 1958; the Lakers in 1985, 1987, and 2010; and the Warriors in 2022.

Yanks Beat Cheats, North and South

Six games, three at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox, the old enemy, the cheating bastards; and three at Daikin Park (formerly Minute Maid Park, formerly Enron Field) against the Houston Astros, the new enemy, the Chicken Fried Cheats.

A Yankee Fan having watched the team from 2004 onward, and especially from 2015 onward, could be forgiven for expecting a bad run, even if the Yankees did go into this trip with a 3-game winning streak.

Giancarlo Stanton was the star on Tuesday night, leading off the top of the 2nd inning with a tremendous drive over the Green Monster, and across Lansdowne Street. It was his 456th career home run.

Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Amed Rosario and Aaron Judge walked to start the top of the 6th, and after Ben Rice struck out, Stanton doubled off the wall to get them home. A Randal Grichuk double in the 8th made it 4-0.

Luis Gil started for the Yankees, and put together a good start after coming off the Injured List with 2 bad ones. He went 6 1/3rd shutout innings, allowing 2 hits and 3 walks. Brent Headrick, Tim Hill and David Bednar completed the 4-hit shutout.

I enjoyed that game.

*

The Wednesday night game began with Paul Goldschmidt grounding out. After Judge walked, Cody Bellinger struck out. But Stanton hit another double off the wall. This being the Green Monster, it was too close for Judge to score all the way from 1st base. No matter: Rosario hit one over the Monster for a home run, and it was 3-0 Bronx Bombers. Rosario made it 4-0 with a sacrifice fly in the 3rd.

That was plenty for Max Fried, who pitched 8 shutout innings, allowing 3 hits and 2 walks, striking out 9. Headrick allowed a run in the 9th, but it ended Yankees 4, Red Sox 1.

I enjoyed that game, too.

*

On Thursday night, the Sox actually took a lead, 1-0 in the bottom of the 2nd. But in the top of the 5th, the seriously struggling Jazz Chisholm finally hit his 1st home run of the season. The Sox took the lead back in the bottom of the 5th, 2-1, and it was beginning to look like a nice performance by Cam Schlittler was going to go to waste.

But with 1 out in the top of the 7th, Trent Grisham, Chisholm and José Caballero all singled, loading the bases. Austin Wells struck out. Then, Red Sox manager Alex Cora brought in former Yankee reliever Greg Weissert. There's a reason Weissert isn't with the Yankees anymore: He can't pitch at the major league level. Bellinger singled home Gresham and Chisholm, and Judge singled home Caballero. It was 4-2 Yankees.

And it stayed 4-2 Yankees, because Schlitt was it. Schlitt was too legit to quit. He went 8 innings, allowing 2 runs, 1 earned, 4 hits and 1 walk, striking out 5. Bednar pitched a perfect 9th.

I enjoyed this game. I enjoyed this entire series. The Yankees didn't turn Fenway into a little green pinball machine, which is not that hard to do. But they held the Red Sox 3 runs in their own house, and swept them, extending their winning streak to 6 games.

The Sox fired Cora, and his entire coaching staff -- except for Jason Varitek, who had been the captain of, and the catcher on, their World Championship teams of 2004* and 2007*. Him, they reassigned to another role in the organization. Couldn't fire him.

*

On to Houston, and the Asterisks' copycat of Fenway, with the retractable roof and the train atop the left field wall.

On Friday night, the Yankees got 3 runs from "small ball" in the 1st inning, a home run from Ryan McMahon to lead off the top of the 2nd, and another Chisholm homer in the 4th. More small ball produced 3 more runs in the 6th. In the 7th, they used small ball and the long ball, getting home runs from Rice and Caballero.

Will Warren sure didn't pitch like he was merely filling an injury-caused hole in the Yankee rotation: He went 6 innings, allowing 2 runs on 7 hits, but only 1 walk, striking out 6. Fernando Cruz ran into trouble in the 7th, but Ryan Yarbrough pitched the 8th and the 9th. Yankees 12, Astros 4.

Given the recent histories with both teams, I enjoyed this game more than I did the sweep of the Sox.

*

The Astros struck first on Saturday, leading 1-0 after the 1st and 2nd innings. Grisham homered in the 3rd to tie the game. Caballero homered in the 5th to give the Yankees the lead. The Astros tied it in the 6th, meaning that Ryan Weathers, who had pitched well until then, wouldn't be the winning pitcher.

Fernando Cruz would: He finished the 6th, while Jake Bird pitched a perfect 7th, Camilo Doval pitched a hitless 8th, and Tim Hill allowed a run in the 9th. Austin Wells homered in the 7th, and, again, as Hall of Fame Giant 2nd baseman and later broadcaster Frankie Frisch would have said, "Oh, those bases on balls!" With 1 out, Caballero singled, Grisham walked, Rice singled, and then 3 straight walks, to Judge, Bellinger and Chisholm, the last 2 each forcing in a run.

Rice added a sac fly in the 8th. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Bellinger led off the 9th with a walk. After Chisholm flew out, Rosario, Wells and McMahon all singled, producing 2 more runs. Yankees 8, Astros 3. An 8-game winning streak: 3 at home to Kansas City, 3 away to Boston, and 2 away to Houston. All teams that have pissed me off over the years.

I enjoyed that game. A lot.

*

I did not enjoy yesterday's game. Gil did not have it, allowing 6 runs in the 1st 4 innings. Having had 3 of his 4 starts be bad ones, he was sent down to Scranton after the game. Paul Blackburn allowed only 1 run over the next 3 innings, and Yarbrough pitched a perfect 9th.

But the Yankees couldn't get going until it was too late. Judge hit a home run, on his 34th birthday. It was the 378th of his career, surpassing Norm Cash and Jeff Kent, and tying Matt Williams. Next up, at 379: Orlando Cepeda and Tony Pérez.

The Yanks scored 3 in the top of the 9th, but it was nowhere near enough: Astros 7, Yankees 4. End of streak.

*

We are 17 percent of the way through the season, 1/6th. The Yankees are 18-10. They have the best record in the American League. They lead the Eastern Division by a game and a half over the Tampa Bay Rays, 5 over the Baltimore Orioles, 5 1/2 over the Toronto Blue Jays, and 7 over the Red Sox. In the all-important loss column: 1 over the Rays, 5 over the O's and the Jays, and 7 over The Scum.

They have achieved this without Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón or Clarke Schmidt being available. They have achieved this despite 4 regulars -- Wells, Chisholm, Grisham and McMahon -- having OPS+'s of 85 or lower. They have done this despite Judge batting just .230, although he has 10 home runs and 18 RBIs.

I'll take those problems, if I can also take those results.

As for the Mets and their fans, well, in the immortal words of Bono, "Well, tonight, thank God it's them, instead of you!"

The Yankees are still in Texas, albeit in the Dallas area. Tonight, they start a 3-game series away to the Texas Rangers. Then, after a travel day on Thursday, they start a 3-game home weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles.

April 26, 1986: The Chernobyl Disaster

April 26, 1986, 40 years ago: The Number 4 reactor explodes at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine. It is the biggest nuclear accident in human history.

The accident occurred during a test of the steam turbine's ability to power the emergency feedwater pumps in the event of a simultaneous loss of external power and coolant pipe rupture. Following an accidental drop in reactor power to near-zero, the operators restarted the reactor in preparation for the turbine test with a prohibited control rod configuration.

Upon successful completion of the test, the reactor was then shut down for maintenance. Due to a variety of factors, this action resulted in a power surge at the base of the reactor which brought about the rupture of reactor components and the loss of coolant. This process led to steam explosions and a meltdown, which destroyed the containment building.

This was followed by a reactor core fire which lasted until May 4, during which airborne radioactive contaminants were spread throughout the Soviet Union and Europe.

In response to the initial accident, a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius exclusion zone was created 36 hours after the accident, from which approximately 49,000 people were evacuated, primarily from Pripyat. The exclusion zone was later increased to a radius of 30 kilometers (19 miles), from which an additional 68,000 people were evacuated.

Following the reactor explosion, which killed two engineers and severely burned two more, an emergency operation to put out the fires and stabilize the surviving reactor began, during which 237 workers were hospitalized, of whom 134 exhibited symptoms of acute radiation syndrome (ARS).

A United Nations committee found that to date fewer than 100 deaths have resulted from the fallout. Model predictions of the eventual total death toll in the coming decades vary. The most widely cited study conducted by the World Health Organization in 2006 predicted 9,000 cancer-related fatalities in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

North America was lucky with Three Mile Island in 1979. Eastern Europe was not so lucky with Chernobyl in 1986.

April 26, 1726: Lord Stirling Is Born

April 26, 1726, 300 years ago: William Alexander is born in Manhattan. He held a claim to be the male heir to the Scottish title of Earl of Stirling, through Scottish lineage, being the senior male descendant of the paternal grandfather of an earlier William Alexander, the 1st Earl of Stirling, who had died in 1640, and he sought the title sometime after 1756. The goal was vast land holdings in America that the holder of the title was to enjoy.

His claim was initially granted by a Scottish court in 1759. But in 1762, Britain's House of Lords overruled the court, and denied him the title. He continued to refer to himself "Lord Stirling" regardless. Officially, the British government considers the title of Earl of Stirling to have tied out with Henry Alexander, the 5th Earl, in 1739.

He inherited a large fortune from his father, dabbled in mining and agriculture, and lived a life filled with the trappings befitting a Scottish lord. This was an expensive lifestyle, and he eventually went into debt to finance it.

In 1747, he married Sarah Livingston (1725–1805), daughter of Philip Livingston and sister of Governor William Livingston. They had a son, William; and 2 daughters, Mary and Catherine.

The elder William began building a grand estate in the Basking Ridge section of Bernards Township, Somerset County, New Jersey. Upon its completion, sold his house in New York and moved there. George Washington was a guest there on several occasions during the War of the American Revolution, and gave away Catherine at her wedding to Continental Congressman William Duer.

He was commissioned a Major General in the Continental Army, and commanded a brigade at the Battle of Long Island in Brooklyn, where his rearguard action resulted in his capture, but allowed the main body of the army to escape. He was later returned by prisoner exchange, received a promotion, and continued to serve with distinction throughout the war. Trusted by Washington, in 1778 he commanded troops at the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse in Manalapan, New Jersey, and exposed the Conway Cabal. He was with Washington when he accepted the British surrender at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.

By that point, he was suffering from gout and rheumatism, and his heavy drinking didn't help. He died on January 15, 1783 in Albany, New York, and did not live to see the official end of the war, with the Treaty of Paris.

His grandson, William Alexander Duer, served as President of Columbia University, which was built on land owned by the Livingston family. He was also an ancestor of General Philip Kearny Sr. and General Philip Kearny Jr.

Stirling Township in Somerset County, near his home in Basking Ridge, and Sterling, Massachusetts were named for him. So were a middle school built on land once occupied by the Long Island battlefield, in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn; and an elementary school in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he had once been stationed.

April 25, 1976: Rick Monday Saves an American Flag from Being Burned

April 25, 1976, 50 years ago: Rick Monday, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps in the Vietnam War era, is playing center field for the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. He notices two people in left-centerfield, preparing to burn the American flag. He ran over and grabbed the flag from them.

"I was angry when I saw them start to do something like that to the flag," he said.

Later in 1976, Dodgers executive Al Campanis gave the flag to Monday. He still has it. "I know the people were very pleased to see Monday take the flag away from those guys," Manny Mota, who played with Monday, said. "I know Rick has done a lot of good things as a player and as a person. But what he did for his country, he will be remembered for the rest of his life as an American hero."

The actual flag has faded. The story has not.

Rick Monday didn't do a damn thing for his country by saving that flag. If anything, he interfered with two people who, however misguided and offensive, were exercising their constitutional rights. It was, literally, the least American thing he could have done.

This was 20 days after the event that became known as "the Soiling of Old Glory," in which a racist taunted a black man with a flag at City Hall in Boston. Has anybody ever asked Monday about that?

As for the game: The Dodgers beat the Cubs, 5-4. Ron Cey singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

The Dodgers acquired Monday before the next season, fitting in with their heavily-promoted All-American image. Actually, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the quintessential American sports team: They abandoned the people from whence they came, not for a better life but for more money, and stole land from the people who were already at their destination.

Then they issued lies and platitudes about themselves, all the while hiding some great evils. Sure, their Brooklyn forebears had ended baseball's segregation, but Campanis himself exposed his own racial bigotry, and manager Tommy Lasorda was exposed as homophobic. And then there was their paragon of virtue, Steve Garvey... 

A 2-time All-Star, Monday reached the postseason with the Oakland Athletics before being traded to the Cubs, and won the 1981 World Series with the Dodgers, having hit a Pennant-clinching home run in the National League Championship Series against the Montreal Expos. He retired after the 1984 season, with a .264 lifetime batting average and 241 home runs.

He became a broadcaster for the Dodgers, and still has the flag. He claims he has been offered $1 million for it, but won't sell it. 

A Fenway Sweep, Yankees On a 6-Game Streak

The fear: The Yankees would go into their 1st Fenway Park series of the season having scored too many runs in the series right before it that they wouldn't score enough in the little green pinball machine in the Back Bay, and the Red Sox would capitalize on this.

The reality: The Yankees' pitching dominated The Scum, and we got just enough runs.

On Tuesday night, Luis Gil shook off his 1st 2 poor starts of the season coming off the Injured List, and took a 2-hit shutout into the 7th inning. Brent Hendrick finished the 7th, Tim Hill pitched the 8th, and David Bednar pitched the 9th. It shouldn't take 4 men to pitch a 4-hit shutout, not even in Boston. But I'll take it.

I'll also take a 4-0 win, with Giancarlo Stanton hitting a tremendous solo home run in the 2nd inning, and a double off the wall for 2 more in the 6th.

On Wednesday night, Amed Rosario hit a home run to get the Yankees out to a 3-0 lead before the Sox could even come to bat. He drove in another run with a sacrifice fly in the 3rd inning. Max Fried pitched 8 innings of 3-hit shutout ball. Hendrick allowed a run in the 9th. Yankees 4, Red Sox 1.

Of course, the New York media wasn't talking about the Yankees shutting their arch-rivals down in their little Back Bay bandbox. They were talking first about the Mets having a 12-game losing streak, their worst in 24 years; then, on this night, breaking it by beating the Minnesota Twins at Citi Field.

Last night, Sox starter Payton Tolle struck out the 1st 5 Yankee batters. Not a good sign. And the Sox took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 2nd. It turned out to be a sign of nothing: Jazz Chisholm led off the top of the 5th with his 1st home run of the season. The Sox took the lead back in the bottom of the 5th, but in the 7th, the Yankees got singles from Trent Grisham, Chisholm, José Caballero, Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge -- his only RBI of the series, surprisingly -- to tak a 4-2 lead.

Cam Schlittler, a native of Weymouth, Massachusetts and a graduate of Boston University, showed where his loyalties lie by pitching 8 innings, allowing 2 runs on 4 hits and 1 walk, striking out 5. Bednar pitched a perfect 9th. Yankees 4, Red Sox 2.

A sweep of The Scum at Fenway, and a 6-game winning streak. The Yankees lead the American League Eastern Division by 2 1/2 games over the Tampa Bay Rays, 4 over the Baltimore Orioles, 5 1/2 over the Toronto Blue Jays, and 7 over the Sox.

On to Houston, to play the Astros, the Chicken Fried Cheats, the Red Sox South. Bring 'em on. We'll muss 'em up. We'll show those idiot Met fans what "a little league park" really looks like.

Well, maybe not. We only scored 12 runs in 3 games at Fenway. But it was enough.

April 24, 25 and 26, 1901: The American League's 1st Games

April 24, 1901, 125 years ago: The American League plays its 1st games. The National League had been playing this season's regular-season games since April 18, but the AL was now making its debut.

The AL had offered the NL a deal: Accept us as a full major league, and we will respect your contracts, and not take any of your players. The NL refused to accept them, and so, the AL "declared war." On January 27, Hugh Duffy "jumped" from the Boston Beaneaters to the Milwaukee Brewers. On February 8, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, Charles "Chick" Fraser and Bill Bernhard jumped from the Philadelphia Phillies to the Philadelphia Athletics.

On March 2, Jimmy Collins jumped from the Beaneaters to the Boston Americans. Sometime before March 11, John McGraw signed to manage, and play 3rd base, for an AL team with the same name as his now-defunct former NL team, the Baltimore Orioles. On March 19, Cy Young jumped from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Americans.

(Baseball-Reference.com says McGraw signed with the AL Orioles "Before 1901 Season." Nor does Wikipedia provide a definitive date. The reason we know it was before March 11, 1901 is that it has been established that, on that date, he signed Charlie Grant, a black player, and attempted to pass him off as a Cherokee Indian named Charlie Tokohoma. But, that day, the Orioles played a Spring Training game against the Chicago White Sox, whose owner, Charlie Comiskey, the AL's co-founder with League President Ban Johnson, and a former star 1st baseman for the team that became the Cardinals, recognized Grant, and told McGraw that he'd blow the whistle on him if he didn't dump Grant. McGraw guessed that Comiskey wasn't bluffing, which was probably true, and released Grant.)

The 1st AL game was played at South Side Park, at 38th Street and Princeton Avenue, in Chicago, about 4 blocks south of where the home team from that game would play for most of the 20th Century, and about 3 blocks south of where it plays now. The Chicago White Sox defeated the Cleveland Blues, 8-2. Attendance was listed as 9,000, at a ballpark that seated about 15,000.

The White Sox were managed by Clark Griffith, who was still an active pitcher. He had been an ace for the previous team known as the Chicago White Stockings, in the NL.

According to the account written many years later, in the visiting team's hometown newspaper, The Plain Dealer: 

The date was April 24, in Chicago's White Sox park, when Ollie Pickering stepped to the plate for the Cleveland Blues. Pickering, an outfielder, hit the second pitch from Chicago White Sox right-hander Roy Patterson to center field. William Hoy, a deaf-mute who was cruelly nicknamed Dummy, caught the routine fly, and with that the American League was officially underway.

Hoy, whose batting, baserunning and fielding skills have led later observers to suggest that he should be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, was long erroneously credited with being the source for umpires using their left hands to call balls and their right hands to call strikes, because he couldn't hear their verbal calls. Pickering is correctly credited with coining the term "Texas leaguer," a looping hit that falls between the infielders and the outfielders.

The White Sox scored 2 runs in the 1st inning, and 5 in the 2nd, and coasted the rest of the way, and won the game on this Wednesday, 8-2.

The next day, the White Sox beat the Blues again, 7-3. Erve Beck of the Blues hit the AL's 1st home run. In 1902, the Blues acquired star 2nd baseman Napoleon Lajoie, and named him their manager. For the 1903 season, they changed their name to honor him: The Cleveland Naps.

He left after the 1914 season, when the World Series was won by the Boston Braves. They'd used the Native American nickname for only 3 seasons. So the Naps then changed their name to the Cleveland Indians, and used that name until 2021, then becoming the Cleveland Guardians. The stories that they'd been named the Indians after tribesmen living on the shore of Lake Erie, and that they'd been named after the 1st Native American player in the majors, former Cleveland Spiders star Louis Sockalexis, have been proven incorrect.

One other game was played on Thursday, April 25: The Detroit Tigers beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 14-13 at Bennett Park in Detroit. The Brewers led 7-0 after just 3 innings, and 13-4 going into the bottom of the 9th. But the Tigers scored 10 runs to win it. And they did it without the benefit of a home run. (This was the Dead Ball Era.)

In 1912, a new ballpark would open on the site of Bennett Park, named Navin Field. It would be expanded and renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, and renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.

The Brewers would move after just 1 season, becoming the St. Louis Browns in 1902, and later the new major league version of the Baltimore Orioles in 1954. A new minor-league team would take up the Brewers name, before making way for the Boston Braves to become the Milwaukee Braves in 1953. They moved to Atlanta in 1966, making possible a new AL Milwaukee Brewers in 1970.

On Friday, April 26:

* The Washington Senators beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-1 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. The Senators became the Minnesota Twins in 1961. They were replaced by an expansion team with the Senators name that year, but that team also moved, becoming the Texas Rangers in 1972. The Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955, to Oakland in 1968, and to Sacramento in 2025, and hope to move to Las Vegas in 2028.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Americans, 10-6 at Oriole Park in Baltimore. The Americans would change their name to the Boston Red Sox in 1908. The Orioles would break up in 1902, and a new franchise was created in its place for the 1903 season: The New York Highlanders, who, in 1913, officially changed their name to what people had been calling them for a few years already: The New York Yankees. (Research by Yankee historian Marty Appel has proven that the New York franchise of 1903 onward is not the Baltimore franchise of 1901 and '02.) A new minor-league team would take up the Orioles name.

* The Tigers beat the Brewers, 6-5 at Bennett Park.

And there were 3 games played in the National League that day: The New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Superbas, 5-3 at the Polo Grounds in New York; the Boston Beaneaters beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia; and the Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Orphans, 8-7 in 12 innings at West Side Park in Chicago.

The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911, changed their name to the Robins in honor of new manager Wilbert Robinson in 1914, and became the Dodgers again in 1932 after he was fired. They moved to Los Angeles in 1958. At the same time, the Giants moved to San Francisco.

The Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912, and, as I said, moved to Milwaukee in 1953, and to Atlanta in 1966. The former Chicago White Stockings had long been led by Adrian Constantine Anson, known as "Cap" for "captain," and "Pop" as he got older, and after his 1897 retirement, were known as "the Orphans, because they missed their Pop." They became the Cubs in 1903.