Yankees Sweep Rockies, Will Commemorate 9/11 with Mets

The Colorado Rockies have the worst record in the National League, 2nd-worst in all of Major League Baseball behind the Los Angeles Angels. They came into Yankee Stadium II on Tuesday, and it seemed like a good time for the Yankee bats to get going again.

Cam Schlittler started the opener, and was brilliant, again: 7 innings, 1 run, 3 hits, no walks, 10 strikeouts. For the season, he is now 13-6, with an ERA of 2.01 and a WHIP of 0.918. If he doesn't receive the American League's Cy Young Award, it will be a travesty.

Aaron Judge returned from injury. He went 0-for-3, including 2 strikeouts, before being replaced in right field for cautionary reasons, but Heliot Ramos. The Yankees scored an unearned run due to an outfield error in the 1st inning, got an RBI double from Ryan McMahon in the 5th, and a 3-run home run from Ramos in the 8th. Tim Hill made it interesting by allowing a 2-run homer in the 9th, but the Yankees held on, and won, 5-3.

Will Warren started on Wednesday night, and he was strong as well: 6 innings, 1 run, 4 hits, 2 walks, 8 strikeouts. The bullpen allowed just 1 hit and 1 walk. The Yankees won, 6-1. Judge went 2-for-4, and the Yankees got home runs from Luis García Jr., George Lombard Jr. and Cody Bellinger. Two "Juniors" and the son of an ex-major leaguer. But not Jazz Chisholm Jr.: He was put on the Injured List, and Anthony Volpe was recalled, with the idea that, instead of shortstop, he would play 2nd base.

Manager Aaron Boone -- almost certainly, under orders from general manager Brian Cashman -- was careful with Max Fried again last night, only allowing him to throw 80 pitches. That got him through 3 1/3rd innings, so even though he allowed just 1 run on 1 hit and 2 walks, striking out 7, it felt like a "bullpen game." Michael Fulmer finished the 4th, John Schreiber got the next 4 outs, Ryan Yarbrough the next 4, Brent Headrick the last out in the 7th, and the returning Luis Gil pitched the 7th and the 8th.

García homered again, in the 1st. Two runs scored in the 2nd, 1 on a single by Volpe. The Rockies closed to within 4-2 in the top of the 7th, but the Yankees made them pay for that in the bottom of the 7th. Bellinger led off with a double, Jasson Domínguez walked, García moved the runners over with a groundout, and Spencer Jones singled them home.

Lombard popped up, but McMahon and Austin Wells walked, and then Volpe hit an opposite-field home run, getting the fans back on his side. The Yankees won, 10-3, completing the sweep. Schreiber was credited as the winning pitcher.

The Yankees are 3 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Eastern Division, with 16 games to go. They maintain the 4th seed in the AL Playoffs. Judge, Bellinger, Volpe, Cole, Fried and Gil are all back. Chisholm and Ryan Weathers could be back by September 22. Clarke Schmidt might come back to contribute in the regular season. Giancarlo Stanton and Trent Grisham are less likely to return.

*

Today marks the 25th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. There were about 3,000 people who died that day, and another 5,000 are estimated to have died due to subsequent health issues caused by the toxic air at the site. Osama bin Laden did eventually pay for that, and al-Qaeda is no longer a serious threat to anyone.

A ceremony was held at the site of the original World Trade Center. Four Mayors attended: Incumbent Zohran Mamdani, Bill de Blasio, Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani. Eric Adams, though still alive, did not attend.

The contrast between the young Mamdani and the aged Giuliani was staggering -- as was the bigotry of Giuliani, who said Mamdani shouldn't be there because he's a Muslim. Staggering, but, giving Giuliani's past, not surprising.

Also in attendance were former Presidents and First Ladies Bill and Hillary Clinton, George W. and Laura Bush, Barack and Michelle Obama, and Joe and Jill Biden. Joe is dealing with cancer, and is older than Giuliani. Bloomberg, as far as I know, is healthy, but is even older than Biden. Both of them looked better than Giuliani.

Donald Trump and whoever he currently considers to be his First Lady were not invited. Everyone else I mentioned, even Giuliani, refused to make the event about themselves. Trump wouldn't do that.

Major League Baseball did the right thing in scheduling the 1st game of a Yankees vs. Mets series for tonight at Yankee Stadium, to commemorate the event. Both teams were exceptional in handling relief efforts after it.

There will be a pregame ceremony tonight, and, presumably, both teams will wear specialized logos on their uniforms.

Sports has helped people to heal many times, and 9/11 might be the greatest example. It can do so again.

September 11, 2001: The World Trade Center Is Destroyed and the Pentagon Is Attacked

 

September 11, 2001, 25 years ago: I woke up that warm, sunny Tuesday morning, unemployed and with no reason to get up early, and, as was always the case at the time, the first thing I did was turn on the radio. It was after 10:30, so it had already all happened.

And the announcer -- a woman whose name I never learned -- on WCBS, 880 on the AM dial, said, "The World Trade Center is gone."

What? What do you mean, "gone"? The World Trade Center is gone? A pair of 110-story skyscrapers -- actually, a seven-building complex -- doesn't just disappear. Gone? What, did aliens come along and beam it up, like on Star Trek?

If it had, there would still, theoretically, have been a chance to get it back. But, no, that was not the case.

Did I hear it right? I had just gotten up. I was still half-asleep. Maybe I misunderstood. So I went to the TV, turned it on, and... nothing. Of course. Every station had its transmitter on 1 World Trade Center. Except one, WCBS, Channel 2. Theirs was, and remains, at the Empire State Building. If you didn't have cable TV, then they were the only ones broadcasting. And all that was left of the World Trade Center was a cloud of black smoke.

The planes:

* American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767, with 92 people on board, took off from Logan International Airport in Boston at 7:59 AM, meant for Los Angeles International Airport, and hit 1 World Trade Center, the North Tower, between the 93rd and 99th floors, at 8:46.

* United Airlines Flight 175, also a Boeing 767, with 65 people on board, took off from Logan at 8:14, also meant for Los Angeles, and hit 2 World Trade Center, the South Tower, between the 77th and 85th floors, at 9:03. That's when it became clear that the first one wasn't just a freak accident, like the B-25 that crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in 1945, a much smaller plane that did far less damage and killed far fewer people.

* American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757, with 58 people on board, took off from Dulles International Airport in Loudoun County, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., at 8:20, also meant for Los Angeles, was turned back toward Washington, and hit the west wall of the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, also across the Potomac River from Washington, in Arlington, at 9:37. Victims: 184.

* And United Airlines Flight 93, another Boeing 757, with 44 people on board, took off from Newark International Airport in New Jersey at 8:42, meant for San Francisco International Airport. The passengers, having heard on their cell phones about the other planes, decided to fight back, and stopped the hijackers from reaching their target, which U.S. intelligence later decided was the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington. Instead, at 10:03, the plane crashed into a field in rural Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, usually identified by its mailing address of Shanksville, about 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, and 130 miles northwest of Washington.

The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 AM. In 2003, in commemoration of the magazine's 50th Anniversary, TV Guide listed "South Tower Falls" as the most memorable televised moment ever, topping the 1st manned Moon landing in 1969. The North Tower followed at 10:29 -- mere seconds before I woke up, and the WCBS announcer said, "The World Trade Center is gone."

There's an overpass about a mile from where I was living at the time, where State Route 18 goes over the New Jersey Turnpike. It's next to the Tower Center complex, the 23-story "minor league twin towers," as I called them, where the bus takes me into Manhattan. From that overpass, on a clear day, you could see the World Trade Center. On 9/11/01, all you could see was a plume of black smoke, going south, seemingly forever.

Three days later, I stood on that overpass again, and it was a plume of white smoke. No, it didn't mean there was a new Pope, or that the Towers would be back.

My father worked at the World Trade Center, as an engineering consultant for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the complex's operator, for six months, before he decided that the commute was too long, and he quit. That was two years before the attack. It was a week before he found out that everyone he worked with got out all right.

Not so lucky were, depending whose figures you believe, and whether you count people who got sick from working the rescue and salvage jobs afterward, about 2,750 people. Eight of them were from my hometown of East Brunswick, New Jersey. As far as I know, I never met any of them.

East Brunswick's memorial

There were 1,747 who, at the time, were living in the State of New York. Of those, 1,147 lived in New York City. There were 694 from New Jersey, including 3 from my parents' hometown of Newark, and 3 from next-door Bloomfield, where they lived when I was born.

There were 92 from Massachusetts, 81 from Virginia, 65 from Connecticut, 50 from Maryland, 49 from California, 30 from Pennsylvania, 11 from the District of Columbia, 10 from New Hampshire, 9 from Illinois, 6 from Texas; 5 each from Florida and Rhode Island; 4 each from Alabama, Georgia and Maine; 3 each from Louisiana, North Carolina and Ohio; 2 each from Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Oklahoma; and 1 each from Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

There were 13 from Britain, 6 from Germany, 5 from Canada, 3 from Australia, 3 from Japan, 2 from China, and 1 each from Bermuda, El Salvador, Grenada, Ireland, Israel and Sweden.

At first, we didn't know how bad it would be. The front page of the New York Daily News on September 13 suggested 10,000 people had died. It was quickly revised to 5,000, and then, when records were checked to see who was in the Twin Towers and hadn't been found alive, and checking against duplicate entries, down to 3,000, still the worst one-day loss of life on American soil since the American Civil War.

Among the notable people who died as a result of the 9/11 attacks were television producer David Angell, conservative TV legal analyst Barbara Olson, and hockey player-turned-scout Garnet "Ace" Bailey, each of them on board one of the planes intended for Los Angeles. (Bailey was no relation to the old-time hockey star Irvine "Ace" Bailey.) Alice Trillin, a teacher and film producer, and wife of author Calvin Trillin, also died that day, but her death was separate from the attacks.

In 2001, smartphones were few and far between, a lot of us still hadn't really figured out the Internet, and for those of us in the New York Tri-State Area who still didn't have cable TV, Channel 2 was the only station we had left. So we had one channel, and the same damn thing on, for an entire week.

And that's all we watched: Images of the carnage, updates from police and fire department leaders, politicians making statements, pundits speculating about America's response to al-Qaeda and its allies. The parallel was made to the 4 days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. In my lifetime to that point, the only comparable event had been the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.

But distractions were few. No regular TV programming. Certainly, no sports, for an entire week, before the various leagues started up again.

Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of New York, put his municipal counter-terrorism center in 7 World Trade Center. They had to evacuate it. He and the others inside nearly died when the North Tower collapsed. He bounced back from this blunder to represent the City and its recovery before the public, and the editors of Time magazine named him their Person of the Year, a distinction (not an award) it gives to the person they think most affected the news during the calendar year, ahead of President George W. Bush -- and also ahead of Osama bin Laden, who approved and ordered the attacks.

For reasons that aren't worth getting into here, it took until May 1, 2011 for the victims to be avenged. The official memorial at the site was opened on September 11, 2011, the 10th Anniversary of the attacks. And the new One World Trade Center opened on November 3, 2014, with a height purposely set to match the year of America's independence: 1,776 feet.

A temporary memorial at the Pentagon, for the lives lost there, was dedicated on September 12, 2002. A permanent memorial was dedicated on September 11, 2008. The Flight 93 National Memorial was dedicated at the Pennsylvania field on September 10, 2011, the day before the 10th Anniversary. The names of the victims at these sites are also inscribed at the main memorial in Manhattan.

For those of us too young to remember the JFK assassination -- and maybe for those of us who are old enough -- 9/11 remains the most shocking event of our lifetimes. It shouldn't be.

After all, a foreign foe killed 3,000 of us, and our government said it would do whatever it took. And it lied. But the next government did what it took.

September 10, 2016: American Football's Biggest Crowd

September 10, 2016, 10 years ago: The biggest crowd in the history of American football, at any level, is recorded. And not at a place known for hosting the sport.

The University of Tennessee is in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a.k.a. Virginia Tech, is in Blacksburg, Virginia. Their stadiums are 237 miles apart, separated by Interstates 81 and 40. However, they are not rivals, because they are in different leagues: Tennessee are in the Southeastern Conference (the SEC), Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference (the ACC).

Perhaps the fact that they are not rivals made this neutral-site game easier to set up. Tech's Lane Stadium seats 65,632. Tennessee's Neyland Stadium seats 101,915. But they set up a game against each other at a racetrack, the Bristol Motor Speedway, in Bristol, Tennessee, 110 miles from Neyland Stadium, 138 miles from Lane Stadium, and 7 miles from the Virginia/Tennessee State Line that Bristol straddles. (Bristol, Virginia is home to 17,000 people; Bristol, Tennessee, to 26,000.)

The Speedway opened in 1961, is a regular on the NASCAR "short track" circuit, and is known as "The World's Fastest Half Mile." Officially, it seats 153,000. But when the Tennessee Volunteers and the Virginia Tech Hokies played each other there on September 10, 2016, the attendance was a new record for a game of the sport the rest of the world calls "American football": 156,990.

The current NFL record is 112,376, for an exhibition game at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City in 1994. The Houston Oilers beat the Dallas Cowboys, 6-0. The biggest crowd for a regular-season game was 105,121 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on September 20, 2009. The Cowboys lost this one, too, to the New York Giants, 33-31.

Here's what the 156,990 at "The Battle at Bristol" saw. Tech scored 2 touchdowns in the 1st quarter, for a 14-0 lead. The Volunteers took over from there, scoring 31 unanswered points: 4 touchdowns and a field goal, making it 31-14. The Hokies added a field goal to close it to within 31-17 at the end of 3 quarters.

The Vols scored 2 more touchdowns in the 4th quarter. The Hokies added a touchdown, but that would be it: Tennessee 45, Virginia Tech 24. Tech football is known for 2 things: Michael Vick and good defense. On this night, they had neither.

Tennessee went 9-4, staying at home for the postseason, winning the Music City Bowl in Nashville. Virginia Tech went 10-4, winning the Coastal Division of the ACC, losing the ACC Championship Game to Clemson, and winning the Belk Bowl (now the Duke's Mayo Bowl) in Charlotte.

September 9, 1966: "The Green Hornet" Premieres On TV

Lee, and Williams aiming the Hornet Sting,

behind the Black Beauty

September 9, 1966, 60 years ago: Riding the success of his version of Batman, ABC premieres producer William Dozier's update of the Green Hornet. While Dozier narrated every episode of Batman, he only narrates the opening montage of The Green Hornet, with Al Hirt on trumpet leading Billy May's orchestra in playing the character's established theme song, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 1900 composition "Flight of the Bumblebee."

Van Williams, one of the stars of the earlier private detective series Surfside 6, plays Britt Reid, publisher of the Daily Sentinel newspaper in an unidentified city -- updated for this version as also owning a TV station -- who embarks as a masked hero pretending to be a masked criminal, in order to sabotage rackets from within.

Bruce Lee, not yet widely known, plays Reid's valet Kato, thus making the character Chinese, where he had previously been Japanese and, later, due to rising tensions with Japan, Filipino on radio, and Korean in the 1940s film serials.

While Kato's mechanical genius and driving expertise had been established on the radio in 1936, and emphasized in the 1940 and '41 film serials, he had rarely been shown fighting before, and was either unknown or mainly an accessory as far as the Hornet's opponents were concerned. Lee's skills made him, and all versions of Kato who have followed, a martial arts wizard, and a familiar and indispensable partner for the hero-playing-villain.

In the radio show and the film serials, Kato had souped-up Britt's car, the Black Beauty. For the TV series, it was a 1966 Chrysler Imperial, and Kato loaded it to the point where it was a more powerful car, in terms of speed and weaponry, than Adam West's Batmobile.

As with the radio and the movies, Kato invented the Hornet's signature weapon, a gun that produced knockout gas. For the TV series, he also invented the Hornet Sting, a retractable weapon the fired sonic waves that could start fires, pick locks, and, at full power, blow down steel doors. I saw a YouTube comment that called it "The Cadillac of Weapons."

Only 2 others know the Hornet's dual identity. Britt's secretary, Lenore Case, an unknowing sympathizer in the film serials, who had found out and later married him on the radio show, here knows the secret from the beginning. Britt maintains a playboy image, and she is rather jealous, but he does give indications that he loves her, too. She is played on TV by Wende Wagner.

Also knowing is District Attorney Frank Scanlon, played by Walter Brooke (the "plastics" advisor in The Graduate), who tips Britt off to suspected rackets and helps where he can. On the radio, it had been the police commissioner who took this role, but since Batman already had Commissioner Jim Gordon, Dozier decided to change this.

The other constant character is Mike Axford, the Daily Sentinel's crime reporter and an old friend of Britt's father, the Sentinel's previous publisher. Lloyd Gough played down Axford’s previously-established stereotypical Irish accent and well-meaning bumbling, but kept the pride of an aging crimebuster and the clueless hatred of the Hornet.

The first episode is titled "The Silent Gun," and shows the Hornet and Kato already established, as the series never shows an origin story, only once alluding to Britt having taken to fighting crime due to his father having been framed for murder. (The large painting of the elder Reid in Britt's office suggests that his name was cleared, but whether this happened before he died is left hanging.)

Despite taking a serious approach – Williams said he wouldn't have done the series if it was campy like Batman -- poor ratings led ABC to try a crossover episode with Batman, suggesting that Britt Reid and Bruce Wayne were rivals since childhood (but definitely establishing that Britt lives somewhere other than Gotham City). That couldn't save the show. Nor could the sloppy "Alias the Scarf," in which the Hornet took on a villain coming out of retirement. Nor could the desperately campy 2-part season finale, "Invasion from Outer Space," which became the series finale, airing on March 17, 1967.

Lee stunningly died at age 33 in 1973. Gough died in 1984, Brooke in 1986, Dozier in 1991, Wagner in 1997, Hirt in 1999, May in 2004, Williams in 2016.

Football Under a Dome: Forfeiting the Home-Field Advantage

SoFi Stadium, Inglewood California,

home of the Los Angeles Rams and the San Diego Chargers.

Football under a dome might look good,

but it it takes away certain home-field advantages.

The Detroit Lions had a big home-field advantage playing at Tiger Stadium. In 1975, they moved into the suburban Silverdome. In 2002, they moved back into the city, but into Ford Field. People might be afraid of going into Detroit, but they're not afraid of the Lions.

The Minnesota Vikings had a big home-field advantage playing at Metropolitan Stadium. In 1982, they moved into the Metrodome, and in 2016 to U.S. Bank Stadium. Nobody's afraid of going into Minneapolis to play the Vikings.

Now, the Chicago Bears, the ultimate tough-guy team, the team of George Trafton, Bronko Nagurski, Bill George, Dick Butkus and Mike Singletary, want to build a new stadium. After 50 years at Wrigley Field, 31 seasons on the shore of Lake Michigan at the original Soldier Field, an interim season at the University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium, and this being their 24th season at the new Soldier Field -- admittedly, a weird-looking facility known as "The Eyesore on Lake Shore" -- the Bears' organization wants a dome. 

And the Cleveland Browns, who have played their entire existence on the shore of Lake Erie, first at the old Municipal Stadium, and now at a more modern stadium -- also want to build a new stadium. Their stadium is also relatively new, 27 years old.

Both the Bears and the Browns have long benefited from playing on the shore of a Great Lake, exposed to the elements, making warm-weather teams miserable, and making cold-weather teams wish they were in their own cold stadium back home. But these teams want to do what the Lions did in 1975, and what the Vikings did in 1982: Throw that tremendous home-field advantage away.

Domed stadiums tend to hold in noise, but, as the Green Bay Packers (in a cold-weather city but not quite on Lake Michigan), the Kansas City Chiefs (in a cold-weather city but on the Great Plains) and the Seattle Seahawks (in a cold-weather city but not quite on Lake Washington) have proven, you don't need a roof holding sound in to have a loud stadium.

What's worse, both Da Bears and the Browns want to build their new stadiums outside their cities. The Bears have narrowed their sites down to 2: In Arlington Heights, on the former city of the Arlington Park racetrack, in the northwestern suburbs of the city; or at an industrial park in Hammond, Indiana, across the State Line, but actually a little closer to downtown Chicago than the Arlington Park site. The Browns want to build in Brook Park, Ohio, southwest of Cleveland.

Each would be built close to its city's airport, but not to its downtown. Rail service is already in place to the Bears' Arlington Heights site, but only bus service is available to the Hammond site. Rail service is available to Cleveland's airport, with, presumably, a shuttle bus being provided for the stadium.

Some cold-weather teams have chosen to remain men. The Giants and the Jets did, when they chose to go in together on what became MetLife Stadium, remaining at the Meadowlands. So did the Philadelphia Eagles, who built Lincoln Financial Field at the same South Philadelphia Sports Complex where they'd previously played Veterans Stadium, and, on a few occasions before that, at Municipal/John F. Kennedy Stadium.

So did the New England Patriots, when they built Gillette Stadium next-door to Foxborough Stadium in the southern suburbs of Boston. The Buffalo Bills just built the new Highmark Stadium, to replace the old stadium with that name, formerly known as Rich Stadium, Ralph Wilson Stadium and New Era Field. It's got a roof to protect fans from rain and snow, but the cold air and the wind can still get in to provide "Bills Weather." And the Green Bay Packers chose to modernize Lambeau Field, the open-air cold-weather stadium they already had.

Why do the owners of the Bears and the Browns want to build domed stadiums? Because they want to host a Super Bowl, and make a hell of a lot of money on it.

Really? A climate-controlled Super Bowl appearance should be a reward for having survived a long season under all possible conditions. But a team shouldn't get to host a Super Bowl -- which, most likely, they won't even be playing in -- simply because its greedy owner managed to con a City, County or State government into squeezing its taxpayers to build a new stadium that the owner, most likely, can afford to build himself, a few times over.

But it's the National Football League. Built on greed and violence. The greed of the men who run it, and the violence of the men who play it, encouraged by the men who coach it and the men who run it.

Sometimes, I hate football. It's a great game when it's played well. But, sometimes, it's just not worth it.

The NFL season kicks off tonight, at 8:20, on NBC, when the Patriots visit the Seahawks in a rematch of last season's Super Bowl, won by Seattle. There will be a game tomorrow night, as the great rivalry between the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams is played on the other side of the Pacific Coast, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the foremost sporting venue in Australia. That game will only be available on Netflix.

The Jets will debut the 2026 season on Sunday, at 1:00, on CBS, away to the Tennessee Titans, who are also building a new stadium, adjacent to their current one, across the Cumberland River from downtown Nashville. I can't criticize them for throwing away a cold-weather home-field advantage, because they don't have one. The Eagles have a 4:25 kickoff, on Fox, home to the Washington Commanders. And the Giants start the season that night, at 8:20, on NBC, home to the despised Dallas Cowboys.

*

NFL teams playing home games indoors:

1932: Chicago Bears, Chicago Stadium, moved NFL Championship Game there due to a blizzard. Fixed, makeshift turf.

1968-1996: Houston Oilers, Astrodome. Fixed, artificial turf.

1971-2008: Dallas Cowboys, Texas Stadium. Fixed, artificial turf.

1975-2001: Detroit Lions, Silverdome. Fixed, artificial turf.

1975-2004, 2006-present: New Orleans Saints, Superdome. Fixed, artificial turf.

1976-1999: Seattle Seahawks, Kingdome. Fixed, artificial turf.

1982-2013: Minnesota Vikings, Metrodome. Fixed, artificial turf.

1984-2007: Indianapolis Colts, Hoosier Dome (RCA Dome). Fixed, artificial turf.

1992-2016: Atlanta Falcons, Georgia Dome. Fixed, artificial turf.

2002-present: Houston Texans, Reliant Stadium. Retractable, artificial turf.

2002-present: Detroit Lions, Ford Field. Fixed, artificial turf.

2005: New Orleans Saints, Alamodome, San Antonio, 3 games while Superdome was being repaired. Fixed, artificial turf.

2006-present: Arizona Cardinals, State Farm Stadium. Retractable, real grass.

2008-present: Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium. Retractable, artificial turf.

2009-present: Dallas Cowboys, AT&T Stadium. Retractable, artificial turf.

2016-present: Minnesota Vikings, U.S. Bank Stadium. Skylight, artificial turf.

2017-present: Atlanta Falcons, Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Retractable, artificial turf.

2020-present: Los Angeles Rams, SoFi Stadium. Skylight, artificial turf.

2020-present: Los Angeles Chargers, SoFi Stadium. Skylight, artificial turf.

2020-present: Las Vegas Raiders, Allegiant Stadium. Skylight, real grass.

MLB teams playing home games indoors:

1965-1999: Houston Astros, Astrodome. Fixed, artificial turf.

1977-1999: Seattle Mariners, Kingdome. Fixed, artificial turf.

1977-2004: Montreal Expos, Olympic Stadium: Fixed, artificial turf.

1982-2009: Minnesota Twins, Metrodome. Fixed, artificial turf.

1989-present: Toronto Blue Jays, SkyDome/Rogers Centre. Retractable, artificial turf.

1998-present: Arizona Diamondbacks, Bank One Ballpark/Chase Field. Retractable, artificial turf.

1998-2024, 2026-present: Tampa Bay Rays, Tropicana Field. Retractable, artificial turf.

1999-present: Seattle Mariners: Safeco Field/T-Mobile Park. Retractable, real grass.

2001-present: Milwaukee Brewers, Miller Park/American Family Field. Retractable, real grass.

2012-present: Miami Marlins, LoanDeport Park. Retractable, artificial turf.

2020-present: Texas Rangers, Globe Life Field. Retractable, artificial turf.

September 8, 1986: "The Oprah Winfrey Show" Premieres

It was the mid-1980s. It might have been the only time

that Oprah was guaranteed to have the best hair in the room.

September 8, 1986, 40 years ago: The Oprah Winfrey Show premieres in syndication, mostly (but not entirely) on ABC affiliates. It runs for 25 years, and remains the highest-rated daytime talk show in history.

Winfrey, then 32 years old, had been a newscaster in Nashville and Baltimore -- the latter also including Maria Shriver, giving her later interview access to the Kennedy family -- before coming to Chicago, and had been hired to host A.M. Chicago on the city's ABC affiliate, WLS-Channel 7. Two years later, following her Academy Award nomination for her role in The Color Purple, it became The Oprah Winfrey Show, and was nationally syndicated.

The show made her an icon, the kind of person known only by her first name. And the show and its spinoff ventures, including Harpo productions ("HARPO" is "OPRAH" spelled backwards) made her the 1st black billionaire in America, the richest black person of the 20th Century.

It also helped to boost the 2008 Presidential candidacy of fellow black Chicagoan Barack Obama. The sight of Oprah and Jesse Jackson, standing and crying together at Grant Park in Chicago as Obama took the stage for his Election Night victory rally, has stayed with me and many other people.

Unfortunately, it also introduced America to a pair of regular guests who have been revealed as selfish charlatans: Psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw and heart surgeon turned Trump Administration official Dr. Mehmet Oz.

The show was taped at Harpo Studios in Chicago. In 2016, the building was demolished, and the new corporate headquarters for McDonald's opened on the site.

In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, comedian Nikki Jenkins, a.k.a. November Christine, played Oprah, against comedian Lauren Flans, who played Ellen DeGeneres.

September 8, 1966: "Star Trek" Premieres

Back row, left to right: James Doohan as Scotty, Walter Koenig as Chekov,

Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel, Nichelle Nichols as Uhura,

and George Takei as Sulu. Front row: DeForest Kelley as McCoy,

William Shatner as Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy as Spock.

September 8, 1966, 60 years ago: The TV series Star Trek first airs on NBC, with the episode "The Man Trap" -- a.k.a. "The Space Vampire."

NOTE: This is an adaptation of a post I wrote for the 50th Anniversary, in 2016.

The show was created by Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), who had previously been a combat pilot in World War II and a Los Angeles police officer. He pitched it to the network as "Wagon Train to the stars," in essence a Western in space. But with his ship's Captain, he was inspired by C.S. Forester's novels about Captain Horatio Hornblower, and he liked to call his adventures "Hornblower in space."

The show had a pilot filmed in December 1964, titled "The Cage." NBC passed on the story, but approved the concept, and asked for a 2nd pilot. Except for Leonard Nimoy as Spock, it was a completely new cast that filmed "Where No Man Has Gone Before" in July 1965. The show was picked up, although that 2nd pilot didn't air until September 22, 1966, the 3rd episode to air.

As for the pilot, here's the affiliates you could have watched it on, if you were in what would now be considered a "major league" city (note that not all of these are still NBC affiliates, or operating under the same call letters as there were using in 1966):

* Channel 2: WGRZ, Buffalo; WSB, Atlanta; KPRC, Houston; KUTV, Salt Lake City.

* Channel 3: KYW, Philadelphia; WKYC, Cleveland; KSNV, Las Vegas; KCRA, Sacramento.

* Channel 4: WNBC, New York; WRC, Washington; WBZ, Boston; WDIV, Detroit; WTMJ, Milwaukee; WSMV, Nashville; WDAF, Kansas City, KFOR, Oklahoma City; WOAI, San Antonio; KCNC, Denver; KNBC, Los Angeles; KRON, San Francisco.

* Channel 5: WLTW, Cincinnati; WMC, Memphis; WMAQ, Chicago; KSDK, St. Louis; KXAS, Dallas; KING, Seattle.

* Channel 6: WFBM, Indianapolis; WDSU, New Orleans.

* Channel 7: WSVN, Miami.

* Channel 8: WFLA, Tampa; KGW, Portland, Oregon.

* Channel 9: WSOC, Charlotte.

* Channel 10: KGTV, San Diego.

* Channel 11: WBAL, Baltimore; WIIC, Pittsburgh, WTVD, Raleigh.

* Channel 12: WTLV, Jacksonville; KPNX, Phoenix.

The series depicted the USS Enterprise, a starship with a crew of 430, representing the Starfleet (one word) of the United Federation of Planets, a galactic version of the United Nations, headquartered on Earth, at some unspecified point in the future.

Since they didn't want to be locked into an exact time, they obscured this with the clever use of "Stardates." Despite at least 2 episodes suggesting that the series took place around 200 years later, later series would definitively place it 300 years in the future -- i.e., the 1st episode took place in the year 2266.

The ship's mission, partly invoking the late President John F. Kennedy's "New Frontier," was written by  Roddenberry, and recited near the start of each episode by William Shatner:

Space: The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!

The show ran for 3 years, and led to a brief animated series and 6 movies. It has spun off several connected TV series.

Of the main cast, pictured above:

* DeForest Kelley, who played the Chief Medical Officer, Lieutenant Commander Leonard H. McCoy, a.k.a. "Bones," died on June 11, 1999, at the age of 79.

* James Doohan, who played the Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, a.k.a. "Scotty," died on July 20, 2005, at 85.

* Majel Barrett, Roddenberry's wife, who played Nurse Christine Chapel (her rank was never stated on the original series), and also voiced the computers on every starship in every show for as long as she lived, died on December 18, 2008, at 76.

* Leonard Nimoy, who played the ship's half-human and half-Vulcan First Officer and Science Officer, Commander Spock, died on February 27, 2015, at 83.

* Nichelle Nichols, who played the Communications Officer, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, died on July 30, 2022, at 90.

* George Takei, who played the Chief Helmsman, Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, is 89.

* Walter Koenig, who played a navigator, Ensign Pavel Chekov, turns 90 next week. His character was created when the Soviet Union objected to the fact that, despite their pioneering status in spaceflight, there were no Russians in the Enterprise crew, and Roddenberry admitted they had a point. Koenig said, "When they thought I was Russian, 22 and single, I got more mail than anybody except Leonard (Nimoy). When they found out I was American, 31 and married, the mail dried up."

* And William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk, is 95, and, by all appearances, still going strong.

(By the end of their movies' run in 1994, Kirk had been promoted to Admiral, and demoted back down to Captain; Spock, Scotty and Sulu had been promoted to Captain; and McCoy, Uhura, Chekov and Chapel to Commander.)

In a 2011 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Captain Kirk, although his impersonation sounded more like one of Shatner's exaggerated acting. In non-speaking guest roles, Omar Garaibeh played Spock, and Jon Na played Sulu. Both were ERB crew members. Kirk's opponent was Christopher Columbus, played by "Nice" Peter Shukoff.

September 8, 1966 was a Thursday. The next day, the science fiction series The Time Tunnel and the superhero show The Green Hornet debuted.

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The show had a cult following. Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson were all known to be fans of what's now come to be known to fans of "The Original Series" or "TOS." (There is no account of any of the individual Beatles being Trek fans. Nor is it known if President Lyndon B. Johnson, despite his strong support of the real-life space program, ever watched the show.) Sinatra later admitted to preferring The Next Generation. His cognitive decline was already underway when James Darren began playing holodeck-inspired Las Vegas lounge singer Vic Fontaine, practically an homage to Sinatra, on Deep Space Nine, so his thoughts on that are unknown.

The most famous story of a celebrity connection with the show came in early 1967, although it wasn't revealed for many years thereafter: Nichelle Nichols didn't like the shooting schedule, or the way she was being treated, and thought she could be treated better and make more money with her nightclub singing act, which was ongoing. At one point, she met Dr. Martin Luther King, and told her she was thinking of quitting the show.

He told her she couldn't quit. He admitted that he and his family were fans of the show, and that her presence, as both a black person and a woman on the command level of such a vessel, was of great symbolic value, and that she should stay because of that. She did.

But the show didn't get past its core support, and the ratings were never good. NBC was ready to cancel it after 2 seasons, but a fans' write-in campaign saved it. For its 3rd season, the show's budget was slashed, and it was put in a bad time slot. The ratings got worse, and nothing could save it to allow it to complete the ship's "five-year mission."

"We all thought it was over," Shatner said. And while Nimoy immediately went to another Paramount Pictures show, Mission: Impossible -- taking the master-of-disguise role played by Martin Landau, who was allegedly the studio's first choice to play Spock, but Roddenberry put his foot down and wanted Nimoy -- the other castmembers weren't so lucky. They were typecast. With his Southern accent, Kelley was often cast in Westerns, but that genre was in decline by 1969. Doohan got roles in 2 1970s Saturday-morning-kid-show sci-fi adventures. Nichols went on singing.

Everybody else got whatever they could get. Shatner, at one point, was so broke, he was homeless, living out of his car. He and Nimoy both played killers caught by the title character on Columbo.

But the fans wouldn't give up. Star Trek fan conventions began in 1972. And the show caught on in syndicated reruns. In 1973, Filmation decided to do an animated Star Trek series. They were going to pay Shatner and Nimoy starring amounts, but not the others. Nimoy put his foot down, and said he wouldn't do it unless the others got the same pay. They did, with the exception of Koenig, although he did write an episode. Star Trek: The Animated Series (TAS) ran on NBC for 22 episodes in 1973 and '74.

Paramount decided there was enough demand to form a 4th major TV network, and they wanted its flagship show to be a sequel series, titled Star Trek: Phase II. But the network fell apart, and they shifted to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Premiering in 1979, it was directed by Roddenberry himself, and that was a bad choice: All the criticisms leveled at "The Cage" back in 1965 came back: It was long, too cerebral, not enough action.

It became known as "The Motionless Picture." It was compared to another dragged-out 1979 film, and was nicknamed "A Spock-alypse Now." And the story's similarity to the episode "The Changeling" got it nicknamed "Where Nomad Has Gone Before." While it was visually spectacular, it was a very expensive flop. And it almost killed the franchise.

In 1982, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan premiered. Nicholas Meyer directed, and it saved the franchise. It was a sequel to the TOS episode "Space Seed," with Ricardo Montalban, returning as Khan Noonien Singh. While Trek has had villainous species, including the Klingons, the Romulans, the Borg, the Dominion, and the Xindi, Khan remains the greatest single villain in its history.

Nimoy was tired of playing Spock, so the character was killed. This was a terrible shock to Trek fans, including myself, 12 years old at the time. And yet, in hindsight, it is one of the greatest sacrifices, one of the greatest death scenes, and is followed by one of the greatest funerals in film history.

What Nimoy really wanted to do was direct, and so, when TWOK was a hit, they let him direct Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. As traumatic as Spock's death was, and as weird as it was to see the opening credits go directly from Shatner to Kelley without mentioning Nimoy (except as director), deep down, we all knew he would be restored to life.

Except... we didn't know that the Enterprise was going to be destroyed. And by Christopher Lloyd? Reverend Jim from Taxi? Are you kidding? Well, Lloyd put on a spectacular performance as Klingon Commander Kruge, and it probably got him the role of Doc Brown in Back to the Future, which is how he's now remembered.

The trilogy was completed with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Nimoy directed again, and the Enterprise Seven (or "The Magnificent Seven") are forced to travel back to the present day, 1986, to save Earth in their time. It's not the best Trek film, but it is the most fun, and the funniest. My grandmother, 62 years old when it was released, was not a science fiction fan, but even she liked "the one with the whales."

After 2 Nimoy-directed films, Shatner, who had done some directing, wanted to direct one. The result was Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, where the crew met Spock's brother, and "God." It tanked, and Shatner never directed within Trek again, although many other Trek actors and Trek-connected people have directed episodes, including Leonard's son, Adam Nimoy.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, reflecting the end of the Cold War by showing the beginning of peace with the Klingons, may have been the best overall film in the franchise, and it was a fitting sendoff for the original crew -- or so we thought. Indeed, it was the last Trek film appearance for Kelley, Nichols and Takei.

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The success of ST IV led to Paramount launching Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, taking place 100 years after TOS, in the 24th Century. This would result in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations, where Shatner, Doohan and Koenig were on hand to "pass the torch" to the TNG crew, although it was only Shatner's Kirk who was transported to the time of the USS Enterprise-D, resulting in a death that should have been more heroic.

TNG ran until 1994, and produced 4 movies from 1994 to 2002; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from 1993 to 1999; Star Trek: Voyager, 1995 to 2001; the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise from 2001 to 2005. Then came the 3 horrible J.J. Abrams "Bad Reboot" movies from 2009 to 2016. And "legit Trek" didn't to much better. The prequel series Star Trek: Discovery (2017-24) and its sequel series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (starting this year and getting cut off next year) were ripped by fans. And it wasn't just because it wasn't "their Trek": They were genuinely bad.

Star Trek: Picard had 2 bad seasons, starting in 2020, though the 3rd, in 2023, gave enough fan service" to make most TNG fans think that the crew of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) had a proper conclusion to their stories.

The franchise won a lot of fans back with the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020-24) and Star Trek: Prodigy (2021-24), and the prequel series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (starting in 2022 and set to conclude as planned in 2027, showing the Enterprise under Anson Mount's Captain Christopher Pike as it transitions to Kirk, now played by Paul Wesley).

On its 60th Anniversary, Star Trek remains as popular as ever. As Gene Roddenberry liked to say, "The human adventure is just beginning."

But as David Gerrold, who's written for Star Trek and other science fiction, has said, "The final frontier is not space. The final frontier is the human soul. Space is merely the place where we are most likely to meet the challenge."