November 6, 1956: President Dwight D. Eisenhower Is Re-Elected

November 6, 1956, 70 years ago: President Dwight D. Eisenhower is re-elected. Despite concerns over his health (he'd had a heart attack in September 1955, and had been hospitalized again in June, possibly for another heart attack that the White House didn't want to talk about), the fitness for office of Vice President Richard Nixon, and how "Ike" had handled the recent crises in Hungary and Egypt, he wins 57 percent of the popular vote, and 457 Electoral Votes.

Former Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois fares no better in the rematch than he did in 1952, winning just 42 percent, and 73 Electoral Votes. Stevenson won only 7 States: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri. In the other 41 States, he comes close only in Tennessee.

As it turned out, it was a "personal landslide" for Ike. He was much more popular than his Republican Party, and had no "coattails" in the Congressional elections. The Republicans gained only 2 seats in the House of Representatives, and the Democrats broke even in the Senate, to hold their majorities in each house. Among the new Senators were Democrat Frank Church of Idaho and Republican Jacob Javits of New York.

Comedian Mort Sahl had said, "Eisenhower stands for gradualism. Stevenson stands for moderation. Between these 2 extremes, we the people must choose."

November 5, 1996: President Bill Clinton Is Re-Elected

November 5, 1996, 30 years ago: President Bill Clinton is re-elected, winning 379 Electoral Votes to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's 159. Clinton wins 49.2 percent of the popular vote, while Dole wins 40.7, and Reform Party candidate Ross Perot wins 8.4 percent but no Electoral Votes.

Clinton went over the necessary 270 Electoral Votes with the States that closed at 9:00 PM, Eastern Time.

After the failure of his health care initiative in 1994, Clinton saw his Democratic Party battered in the midterm elections, with the Republicans taking both houses of Congress. Dole, from Russell, Kansas -- always mentioning his hometown, not just his State -- had first been elected to Congress in 1960, and to the U.S. Senate in 1968. He was nominated for Vice President under Gerald Ford in 1976. He ran for President in 1980, but didn't get far. He became Senate Majority Leader after the election of 1984, but the Democrats regained the Senate in 1986, making him the Minority Leader.

He ran for President again in 1988, and finished 2nd in delegates to Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was elected. In 1992, Clinton beat Bush to become President-elect. The next morning, mere hours after Clinton clinched victory in a 3-man race in which Perot got 19 percent of the popular vote (but no Electoral Votes), Dole pointed out, "57 percent of Americans did not vote for Bill Clinton, and I intend to represent that majority on the floor of the U.S. Senate. If Bill Clinton has a mandate, then so do I."

Clinton was now 1-0 in Presidential elections. Dole was 0-2, 0-3 if you count 1976. Clinton got just under 45 million votes for President. Dole got 2.3 million votes in the 1988 Republican Primaries. Dole himself had just been re-elected to the Senate in 1992, with 244,000 votes. And he then represented a caucus of 43 Senators. He was in no position to claim any majority, especially against a man who had just gotten almost 45 million votes. The 57 percent of American voters who chose someone other than Clinton? As far as I know, not one of them voted for Bob Dole for President, not even as a write-in candidate.

But the '94 election restored Dole to the post of Majority Leader. And Newt Gingrich, a Pennsylvania native who moved to Georgia to teach at a college, and was first elected to Congress in 1978 and used fiery rhetoric to get into the Republican Party's leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1989, became the Speaker of the House.

Dole was considered mean, a reputation he got in his 1976 Vice Presidential debate with Walter Mondale, and deepened in his 1988 Presidential run. But, politically speaking, he was still a center-right candidate, willing to compromise for the greater good of the country. Gingrich was not: He was frequently called a "firebrand" and a "bombthrower."

Like most politicians, especially Republicans, he wanted to balance the federal budget. But his plan severely cut social services -- and also seriously cut taxes, especially on the wealthy. This didn't work when Ronald Reagan was President in the 1980s, and actually created the conditions that led to Clinton's election in 1992. As we have since seen, it didn't work in 2001, and it didn't work in 2017. It would not have worked in 1995.

Every year, the federal budget takes effect on October 1. That is, "Fiscal Year 1996" ran from October 1, 1995 to September 30, 1996. If no deal between Congress and the President is in place by October 1, they can pass a "continuing resolution": For the length of the resolution, the proportions of the previous fiscal year continue.

But Clinton and the Republicans controlling Congress couldn't reach a deal by September 30. So they passed a continuing resolution that ran until November 13. But the Republicans refused to pass a new one by November 14. So, at midnight on November 13, the government shut down.

And the Republicans went before the media and said it was Clinton's fault. Except Clinton also went before the media, and pointed out that he was still willing to make a deal, and the Republicans weren't. Finally, he called Dole and Gingrich into the Oval Office. So often willing to compromise on things, seemingly desperate to get re-elected, but angering many in his own party, Clinton told them, "I don't care if I go down to 5 percent in the polls. If you want that budget signed into law, you're going to have to get somebody else behind this desk."

For once, Clinton held his ground. And polls showed that more people supported his stance than the Republicans' stance. Their approval rating plummeted. Finally, on November 19, they caved. And when the general election campaign got underway, the Democrats aired commercials showing Dole and Gingrich together so many times, it began to look like Gingrich was Dole's running mate.

Having been the Republican nominee for Vice President in 1976, and having run for the Republican nomination for President in 1980 and 1988, Dole had practically been running for President in the 1996 election since the day after the 1992 election ended. Politically-themed comedian Mark Russell, who was 10 years younger than Dole, and specialized in rewriting pre-rock-and-roll songs for political issues of the time, wrote for one of his periodic TV specials on PBS:

This old man, Robert Dole

has the White House as his goal.

For 20 years, there in his eye, a glint.

This old man can't take a hint.

And yet, Russell followed this song by saying, "I'm thinking of voting for Bob Dole. I figure it'll be the last chance to have a President who's older than I am!" He turned out to be right, living to see the Presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, all younger.

Dole officially announced his candidacy on April 10, 1995. Despite losing the New Hampshire Primary to Pat Buchanan, an archconservative journalist who had previously worked for Presidents, Nixon, Ford and Reagan, he won enough Delegates to secure the nomination on March 19, 1996.

He traveled the country on a plane he named, after his position in the Senate, Leader Ship. Then he rolled the dice, and resigned from the Senate on June 11, to show the American people he was focused only on the election: "I have nowhere to go, except the White House, or home." He changed his plane's name to Citizen Ship. (Dole was succeeded as Majority Leader by his Majority Whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi.)

At the Republican Convention, held at the San Diego Convention Center, Dole chose a real running mate: Jack Kemp, former pro quarterback, former Congressman from Buffalo, New York, a 1988 Presidential candidate like Dole, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bush. Kemp had long been the darling of the conservative tax-cut movement, and boosted Dole in the polls.

In his acceptance speech, on August 15, Dole said, "Let me be the bridge to an America that only the unknowing call myth. Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquility, faith, and confidence in action." This was a blunder: In his acceptance speech, at the United Center in Chicago, Clinton said, "We do not need to build a bridge to the past. We need to build a bridge to the future, all the way to the 21st Century!"

After that, Clinton and his running mate, Vice President Al Gore, solidified their lead, and Dole and Kemp never really got close to them. Near the end of the campaign, Dole tried to make a big deal about Clinton's "scandals," but nobody could pin anything on him. And Clinton seemed to be handling his role as Commander-in-Chief well. And, just as in 1992, the issue of "the economy, stupid" helped him: This time, he was in charge of it, and it was doing well.

Dole didn't run a bad campaign, but once Clinton won the battle over the budget, Dole never had a chance.

Comedian Mort Sahl, closing in on half of century of joking about politicians of both parties, said, "There were 4 million people in the American colonies, and we had Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. Now, we have over 200 million, and the top 2 guys are Clinton and Dole. What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong!"

What no one yet knew was that the government shutdown, at the same time that it was securing Clinton's win, was also setting the stage for the biggest internal crisis of his Presidency: Among the volunteers working in the White House during the government shutdown, and also among the young staffers welcoming him back to the White House with a hug the day after the election, was a young woman named Monica Lewinsky.

The Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics was established at the University of Kansas in 2003, on the occasion of Dole's 80th birthday. It performs some of the same functions as a Presidential Library, but it is not the same thing. Dole died in 2021, at the age of 98.

November 5, 1956: The Swans That Nearly Started World War III

A Soviet MiG-15

November 5, 1956, 70 years ago: With the Suez Crisis and the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution underway, and America electing a President the next day, there is a close call that nearly starts World War III.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) received a number of simultaneous reports, including unidentified aircraft over Turkey, Soviet MiG-15 fighters over Syria, a downed British Canberra medium bomber, and unexpected maneuvers by the Soviet Black Sea Fleet through the Dardanelles (also in Turkey) that appeared to signal a Soviet offensive.

Considering previous Soviet threats to use conventional missiles against Britain and France if they intervened in the Suez Crisis, U.S. forces believed these events could trigger a NATO nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, and went on high alert.

As it turned out, all reports of Soviet action turned out to be erroneous, misinterpreted, or exaggerated. The perceived threat was due to a coincidental combination of harmless events:

* The "unidentified aircraft over Turkey" was a flock of swans.

* The MiGs were a fighter escort for President Shukri al-Quawatli of Syria, returning from a meeting with Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow. A check with the Turkish government proved the flight to have been previously cleared with them.

* The British reported that their bomber had been brought down by mechanical issues.

* And a check of records showed that the Black Sea Fleet's exercises had been previously scheduled.

Had any one of these things, alone, happened, it probably wouldn't have concerned too many people. The fact that they all seemed to be happening at once was nerve-rattling. Over the next few days, things calmed down. The Egyptians won in the Suez, the Soviets won in Hungary, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was re-elected, no new wars -- conventional or otherwise -- got started, and the status quo was restored.

It was the closest call since the Chinese invasion during the Korean War, 6 years earlier. The next close call would be in another 6 years, over missiles in Cuba.

November 5, 1946: Rifleman 1, Backboard 0

November 5, 1946: The Boston Celtics play their 1st home game, at the Boston Garden. Only 4,329 fans attend, and it's delayed for an hour, because a Celtic player damaged a wooden backboard with a dunk during warmups. A new backboard was brought in from the Boston Arena (now Matthews Arena, home court and ice of Northeastern University). The Celtics lose 57-55 to the Chicago Stags.

The Stags, and the original NBA teams of Washington, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, would quickly fail. The Celtics might have as well, had their owner, Walter Brown, not also owned the Garden, the NHL's Bruins, and the Ice Capades. He was able to keep the team going long enough to hire Red Auerbach as head coach, and the rest is history.

Oh, the player who became the 1st NBA player to break a backboard? He was a 6-foot-5 25-year-old Brooklynite who played at New Jersey's Seton Hall University. He went on to play 1 game for his hometown Dodgers in 1949, coming to bat once as a pinch-hitter, never playing the field for them. He then got traded to the Chicago Cubs, and played 66 games at 1st base for them in the 1951 season.

The Cubs' top farm team at the time was the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. While playing in L.A., this athlete found off-season work as a stuntman, and, like John Wayne, moved from stunts to acting, mostly in Westerns. His name was Chuck Connors, famed for his portrayal of Lucas McCain, the lead character of The Rifleman; and as Jason McCord, the lead in Branded. He died in 1992, at age 71.

November 4, 2001: The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty

November 4, 2001, 25 years ago: Game 7 of the World Series, at Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field) in Phoenix. This was the latest date that a Major League Baseball game that counts has ever been played, a record surpassed on November 5, 2022.

Arizona had never won a World Championship in any sport. But then, being such a hot place, it took them a while to get untracked. While the 48th State had been a Spring Training site since the 1920s, it wasn't until the NBA expanded in 1968, with the birth of the Phoenix Suns, that they reached the major leagues. They had usually been good, and had reached the NBA Finals in 1976 and 1993, but had never won the title.

The climate -- the old joke is "but it's a dry heat" -- made Arizona an unlikely place to be home to a hockey team. There had been minor-league teams, and then, in 1974, the Phoenix Roadrunners were created for the World Hockey Association. They lasted only 3 years.

In 1988, the NFL version of the St. Louis Cardinals moved, becoming the Phoenix Cardinals, with the name changed to the Arizona Cardinals in 1993. That opened Phoenix up as a market, and in 1996, the Winnipeg Jets moved to become the Phoenix Coyotes, with the name changed to the Arizona Coyotes in 2014. It wasn't hard to notice that, in that city, the Roadrunners had been replaced by the Coyotes.

In 1995, Major League Baseball expanded, with the Arizona Diamondbacks to begin play in 1998. They won the National League Western Division in only their 2nd season. In 2001, their 4th season, they won the Pennant.

In contrast, New York was a city of championships, and the New York Yankees had won the World Series 26 times, including the last 3 seasons and 4 of the last 5. And while Arizona needed a title because they'd never had one, New York needed it to help it heal after the terrorist attack on September 11. The Yankees won their Division, then needed a stirring comeback to defeat the Oakland Athletics in the American League Division series, before dispatching the 116-win Seattle Mariners for the Pennant, setting up the 2001 World Series.

*

Game 1 in Phoenix was bad for the Yankees. They struck first, but Curt Schilling settled down. The D-backs scored a run in the 1st, 4 in the 3rd and 4 in the 4th, to knock Mike Mussina out of the box. Arizona 9, New York 1.

Game 2 was less embarrassing for the Yankees, but no better. Randy Johnson limited them to 3 hits. Andy Pettitte gave up a home run to Matt Williams, making him the 1st player to hit home runs in World Series play for 3 different teams. (He had done so for San Francisco in 1989 and Cleveland in 1997.) Arizona 4, New York 0.

Game 3, in The Bronx. It was October 30. Never before had a game that counted started this late in the year. This Series was the 3rd time one had gone to October 28. The Yankees needed to turn it around. They did. Jorge Posada hit a home run to back Roger Clemens, who allowed only 3 hits. New York 2, Arizona 1.

Game 4. It was the 1st time a Major League Baseball game that counted was played on Halloween. And, just perfect for the occasion, the Moon was in its full phase. Mark Grace, long the 1st baseman for the Chicago Cubs, who had fallen short with them in the postseason in 1989 and 1998, was now with the Diamondbacks, and was caught on TV saying, "Full Moon! You know what that means: Strange things happen!" Grace went on to collect 2,445 hits in his career, including 1,754 in the 1990s, the most of any player in that decade.

Schilling went back out for the Diamondbacks. Orlando "El Duque" Hernández started for the Yankees. Both had their good stuff. But it was 3-1 Diamondbacks going to the bottom of the 9th. Arizona manager Bob Brenly sent his closer, Korean submarine righthanded Byung-Hyun Kim, to get the last 3 outs.

But with the Yankees down to their last out, albeit with Paul O'Neill on base, Tino Martinez hit a drive toward the bleachers. The ball bounced off the outstretched hand of a fan, but still well over the fence. (This was not another "Jeffrey Maier incident.") Tie game. I've often wondered about that fan: On the one hand, you were there for a great moment in Yankee history. On the other hand -- or off it -- you had a chance to catch the ball, and not only didn't you, but you probably hurt said hand in the process!

Derek Jeter came to bat in the bottom of the 10th, with Kim still on the mound. The clock struck midnight. The scoreboard read, "WELCOME TO NOVEMBER BASEBALL." At 12:03 AM, Jeter cranked a screaming line drive to right-center. It JUST got over the fence. New York 4, Arizona 3. The old ballyard, in its 77th season of play (over 79 years, as it was renovated in 1974 and '75), was shaking.

A fan, knowing that the game could go to extra innings, and thus last beyond midnight, and knowing that somebody would be the hero, pulled out a sign he had made, reading, "MR. NOVEMBER," and held it up as Jeter rounded the bases.

Game 5. The 1st official MLB game with a date of November. Neither starting pitcher showed any ill effects: Not Mussina from his Game 1 pounding, not Miguel Batista from not having pitched in 12 days. But the game went to the bottom of the 9th, with the Diamondbacks leading 2-0.

Brenly sent Kim back out. He gave up a leadoff double to Posada, then got the next 2 outs, to bring the Yankees to their last out. The batter was Scott Brosius. The Yankees traded for him because of his glove, but he got a lot of key hits for them. He played 4 seasons for the Yankees. In all 4 seasons, the Yankees won the Pennant. In all 4 seasons, he hit at least 1 home run in the World Series. He did it again, sending the ball deep to left field. Tie ballgame. Again, the old Yankee Stadium shook, leaving some to wonder if it could survive the passion of Yankee Fans.

Kim had now given up 3 home runs, that were crushing in emotion if not quite in distance. Even Yankee Fans felt for him. Brenly took him out, and brought in Albie Lopez. The game went to the 12th inning, and Alfonso Soriano singled home Chuck Knoblauch. New York 3, Arizona 2, also the difference in games.

In the entire history of the World Series, from 1903 to 2000, only twice had a team down to its last out in the bottom of the 9th, trailing by 2 runs, come from behind to win: The 1911 New York Giants, who ended up losing the Series to the Philadelphia Athletics, anyway; and the 1929 A's, who did it to the Chicago Cubs in the clincher. Now, the Yankees had done it on back-to-back days.

The Yankees had more momentum than any team could dare ask for. All they had to do was win 1 out of 2 in Phoenix, and they would have Title 27.

They couldn't win Game 6. The Diamondbacks crushed Pettitte, and "Big Unit" Johnson slapped the Yankees down. Arizona 15, New York 2. It was the worst loss in the Yankees' postseason history.

*

November 4, 2001. Sunday night. Game 7. Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix. It started as a duel between 2 of the greatest pitchers of the era -- and, in hindsight, the era's 2 most controversial pitchers: Roger Clemens for the New York Yankees, and Curt Schilling for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Unlike other sports, especially college football, baseball has never had a media establishment that previews games as "The Game of the Century." After all, if a Series goes to 7 games, then, theoretically, the aces could face each other 3 times. But this game did have that kind of feel to it -- even if, depending on how you measure it, this was only the 1st or 2nd calendar year of the 21st Century.

Both starters lived up to the occasion and the matchup, and pitched very well: Schilling held the Yankees to 1 run on 4 hits over the 1st 7 innings, while Clemens held the Diamondbacks to 1 run on 7 hits before Yankee manager Joe Torre called on Mike Stanton to get the last 2 outs in the top of the 7th.

Diamondback manager Bob Brenly stuck with Schilling for the top of the 8th, with the game tied 1-1 It looked like a mistake, as Soriano hit a home run. It was 2-1 Yankees, and it looked like Soriano had become one of the biggest World Series heroes ever: He was now the man who had hit the 2nd-latest home run in World Series history, behind only Bill Mazeroski's bottom-of-the-9th homer to beat the Yankees for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960. (Remember: This was Game 7, and Joe Carter's Series-clinching homer of 1993 was in Game 6.)

Brenly brought Johnson, who'd already beaten the Yankees in Games 2 and 6, in to relieve. Less than one day's rest? It's Game 7: Win or lose, there's no tomorrow, and you've got until late February to rest.

Torre relieved Stanton by sending supercloser Mariano Rivera out for a 2-inning save. He'd gotten away with that 5 times in this postseason. This was the 6th time he'd tried it. It was still 2-1 Yankees in the bottom of the 9th, and Mariano needed to get just 3 more outs to give the Yankees their 4th straight World Championship, their 5th in the last 6 years, their 27th overall.

Mark Grace led off with a single to center. Brenly sent David Dellucci in to pinch-run for him. Damian Miller grounded back to Mariano, who threw to 2nd to start a double play -- and threw the ball away. Tying run on 2nd. World Series-winning run on 1st.

At this point, I already knew the game was lost. As Doris Kearns Goodwin, who grew up on Long Island as a Brooklyn Dodger fan, and then became a Boston Red Sox fan while in graduate school at Harvard University, put it, "There's always these omens in baseball." Mariano had gotten the job done so many times. He would get it done many more times to come. This time, I could see that it was not meant to be.

Brenly rolled the dice, and went for the win in this inning, sending Jay Bell up to pinch-hit for the Big Unit. Bell bunted, and Mariano threw to 3rd to get Dellucci on a force. The tying run was still on 2nd, the World Series-winning run was on 1st, but now there was 1 out. The Yankees just needed to get 2 more.

Mariano wouldn't get his next 2 outs until April 3, 2002 -- 5 months later, or 148 days.

Brenly sendt Midre Cummings in to pinch-run for Miller at 2nd. Tony Womack doubled down the right field line. Cummings scored the tying run. Bell reached 3rd with the run that could win the Series, and could score on as little as a sacrifice fly, or an error.

Craig Counsell, who had been the man who drove in the tying run and scored the winning run for the Florida Marlins in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series -- at this point, the only World Series won since 1995 by a team other than the Yankees -- came up with the chance to be the hero again. Mariano hit him with a pitch. Not known as a purpose pitcher, Mariano was, for one of the very few times in his career, rattled.

Up stepped Luis Gonzalez. A man whose seasonal home run totals had been 13 at age 23, 10 at 24, 15 at 25 (okay, he was playing his home games in the Houston Astrodome), 8 at 26 (1994, strike-shortened season), 13 at 27, 15 at 28 (the last 2 as a Chicago Cub, and remember that the wind blows in at Wrigley Field half the time), 10 at 29 (back in Houston, still in the Astrodome), and then...

He hit 23 home runs at age 30. Yes, he was now playing for the Detroit Tigers at Tiger Stadium, but this was also 1998. The year of whatever it was that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were using to hit 70 and 66 home runs, respectively. Gonzalez hit 26 at 31, and 31 at 32. Very good, but no big deal -- until you realize that those last 2 years were with the Diamondbacks, playing their home games at "The BOB," which, like the Astrodome but unlike most other indoor stadiums, is a bad ballpark for hitters.

At age 34, Gonzalez hit 28 homers. At 35, 26. At 36, 17. At 37, 24. At 38 and 39, 15 both times. He closed his career with 8 homers at age 40 in 2006. Respectable numbers -- if they were achieved honestly.

In 2001, at age 33, the year of Barry Bonds hitting 73 home runs, Luis Gonzalez hit 57 home runs. That's 26 more than he had ever hit before, and 29 more than he would ever hit again. People talk about Brady Anderson hitting 50 in 1996, when he'd only topped 16 once before, had never topped 21, and would never top 24 again nor 19 but once, and they suspected steroids.

What Luis Gonzalez did on the night of November 4, 2001 did not suggest steroids. Just as Bobby Thomson said that, 50 years earlier, he didn't need help to know that Ralph Branca was going to throw a meaty fastball. Doesn't mean Thomson didn't take advantage of the help that the Giants had been offering for the last few weeks. And it doesn't mean that Gonzalez hadn't been using steroids since 1998.

Gonzalez hit a looper into center field for a base hit. Bell scored the run that won the World Series for the Diamondbacks, in only their 4th season. Arizona 3, New York 2.

Schilling and Johnson were named Co-Most Valuable Players for the World Series. Sports Illustrated named them Sportsmen of the Year. In Schilling's case, that turned out to be retroactively problematic.

In 2010, the MLB Network listed this game at 9th on their list of MLB's 20 Greatest Games -- limited in scope, due to the availability of surviving videotape, to 1975 onward.

For the Yankees, Paul O'Neill and Scott Brosius retired, and Tino Martinez and Chuck Knoblauch were allowed to leave via free agency. In this game, O'Neill went 2-for-3, including a single in his last at-bat, in the 7th inning; Knoblauch flew out while pinch-hitting for O'Neill in the 8th; Brosius went 0-for-3; and Tino went 1-for-4. (Tino and Gonzalez, born 3 months apart in 1967 in Tampa, were teammates at that city's Thomas Jefferson High School. Tony La Russa and Fred McGriff were also Jefferson graduates.)

So 4 starters, nearly half the Yankee lineup, had to be replaced. While the Yankees did win the next 5 American League Eastern Division titles, including a glorious Pennant win in 2003, this game had a true "end of an era" feel, emphasized by Buster Olney, then of The New York Times, when he titled his book about the 1996-2001 Yankees, and especially this game, The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty.

Some Yankee Fans were heartbroken. Not me. I was drained, and terribly disappointed. But not crushed. The Yankees had given me countless memories to treasure since the start of the 1996 season, including in Games 4 and 5 of this World Series. And there were a lot of really good players on that Diamondback team who had played for a long time, some with awful teams, and had struggled to get to this point, and (I thought) really deserved it. Grace with the Cubs. Johnson with the Mariners. Schilling with the Philadelphia Phillies. Gonzalez with the Astros. Bell and Womack with the Pirates. Matt Williams with the San Francisco Giants and the Cleveland Indians.

I was over it fairly quickly, and by Opening Day 2002, I was really optimistic again.

Over the next few years, things would change, and make this defeat something to get really angry about. Williams would be revealed as a caught steroid user. Gonzalez would call a press conference and angrily deny that he had used them, after a newspaper article danced around the question of whether he did. Although never publicly revealed to have been caught, people have often wondered about Johnson and Schilling.

And, of course, accusations have also been leveled at some of the Yankees from this Series, including Clemens (the proof has still never been publicly revealed), Knoblauch (who admitted taking human-growth hormone, or HGH, but also said that it hurt more than it helped, which doesn't take him completely off the hook, but hardly makes him a cheater on the level of, say, David Ortiz), and Andy Pettitte (the one thing that can be proven was a brief moment the next season, which didn't help the Yankees win a Pennant).

But no one suggests the D-backs' win was "tainted." Indeed, until the non-steroid cheating scandals of the 2017 Houston Astros and the 2018 Boston Red Sox (linked by the presence of Alex Cora), the only team whose World Series wins or Pennants are usually said to not be fairly won are the Yankees.

Take out all suspected cheaters, and declare their World Series wins vacant, and, between 1996 and 2013, you've got the '02 Angels, the '05 White Sox, the '06 and '11 Cardinals, the '08 Phillies, and the '10 and '12 Giants. That's it: 7 out of 18. Extend it to 2018, and there go the '18 Red Sox, so it becomes 10 out of 23.

Unless you're prepared to vacate the titles won by the Diamondbacks in 2001; the Marlins in 1997 (Gary Sheffield) and 2003 (Ivan Rodriguez); and the Red Sox in 2004, 2007 and 2013 (David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez for the 1st 2), then don't tell me the Yankees cheated.

Luis Gonzalez now broadcasts, and runs a social-networking site for Arizona State University, outside Phoenix. In a small bit of irony, Jay Bell later worked in the Yankees' organization. He managed the Tampa Yankees of the Class A Florida State League in 2017, the Trenton Thunder of the Class AA Eastern League in 2018, and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees of the Class AAA International League in 2019. He now manages in Baseball United, a league that began play in 2023, featuring teams in India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates.

November 4, 1956: The Hungarian Revolution Is Crushed

Time with a collective "Man of the Year" for 1956.

Note the Communist seal cut out of the flag.

November 4, 1956, 70 years ago: Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian Revolution that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter of a million people leave the country. (Today, the population of Hungary is about 10 million.)

Cardinal József Mindszenty, the leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary, having previously been imprisoned by the Nazis, was arrested in 1949, and imprisoned and tortured for his anti-Communist activities. He was freed during the Revolution, and given asylum in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest. He became a hero of the movement, remained there until 1971, and died in 1975.

József Mindszenty

The city of New Brunswick, New Jersey once had a large Hungarian community, and their St. Ladislaus Roman Catholic Church has a memorial to the Revolution and a statue of Mindszenty out front.

Imre Nagy, Chairman of the Council of Ministers (effectively, the Prime Minister) from July 4, 1953 to April 18, 1955, wasn't so lucky. He was forced out of office by hardliner András Hegedüs, who was himself forced out by the Revolution on October 24, fleeing to the Soviet Union. Nagy was reappointed, dissolved the secret police (ÁVH), and withdrew Hungary from the Warsaw Pact on November 1.

Imre Nagy

When the Soviet tanks rolled in, he fled to the Yugoslavian Embassy, hoping that country's leader, Josip Broz Tito, a fellow anti-Moscow Communist, could protect him. He was lured out of the embassy under false promises on November 22, was arrested, and was deported to Romania. On June 16, 1958, Nagy was tried and executed for treason alongside his closest allies, and his body was buried in an unmarked grave. His remains would be repatriated to Hungary after the 1989 revolution. (Hegedüs returned to Hungary thereafter, but taught at a university rather than return to governing, and lived until 1999.)

Soccer team Budapest Honvéd FC was out of the country at the time of the Revolution, playing Athletic Bilbao, of the Basque Country in Spain, in the European Cup. Eliminated, the Honvéd players managed to get their families out of the country. Their stars, the bulk of the "Magnificent Magyars" team that won the 1952 Olympics, embarrassed England at Wembley Stadium in 1953, and reached the 1954 World Cup Final, went elsewhere, including some staying in Spain: Ferenc Puskás to Real Madrid, and Sándor Kocsis and Zoltán Czibor to FC Barcelona. 

Since that year's Summer Olympics were given to Melbourne, Australia, in the Southern Hemisphere, they began on November 22, so the weather would be warm. Throughout the Olympics, Hungarian athletes were cheered by fans from the host nation and other countries. Many of them gathered in the boxing arena when László Papp won a Gold Medal.

A few days later, the crowd was with the highly successful Hungarian water polo team in its match against the Soviet Union, which became known as "the Blood In the Water Match." The game became rough and, when a Hungarian player, Ervin Zádor, was forced to leave the pool with blood streaming from a cut over his eye, a riot almost broke out. But police restored order, and the game was called early, with Hungary leading 4–0. The Hungarians went on to win the Gold Medal.

At the end of the calendar year, Time magazine named the Hungarian Freedom Fighters their Men of the Year. This was before they made the distinction "Person (or People) of the Year," although women had been recognized as such before.

At the same time as the Hungarian Revolution, the "Polish October" was taking place. President

Bolesław Bierut, a Stalinist dictator, had died on March 12. On June 28, a demonstration by workers in Poznań was crushed, leading to at least 57 and possibly more than 100 deaths. In October, a reform faction took over, led by Władysław Gomułka. However, Gomulka's administration ended up getting more and more repressive until his removal in 1970. As Hungary, Poland, and the rest of Eastern Europe found out, post-Stalin Communism was only a slight improvement over Stalinist Communism.

November 3, 1996: Jerry Rice's 1,000th Catch

November 3, 1996, 30 years ago: The San Francisco 49ers beat the New Orleans Saints, 24-14 at the Superdome in New Orleans. In the 2nd quarter, Steve Young threw a 36-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Rice. And with about 12 minutes left in regulation, Rice catches a pass from Young for 9 yards. These are the 999th and 1,000th receptions of Rice's NFL career. He becomes the 1st NFL player to catch 1,000 passes.

At age 34, at which most players relying on speed -- especially receivers, running back, and defensive backs -- tend to slow down, Rice caught just 3 passes on the day, but 108 for the season, leading the NFL. The previous 2 seasons, he had caught 112 and 122 passes, but neither total led the League. It was a golden age for receivers, but he was ahead of all of them.

Jerry Rice played for the 49ers from 1985 to 2000, then for the Oakland Raiders until 2004, and closed his career with 11 games for the Seattle Seahawks in the 2004 season. He finished his career with 1,549 receptions, 22,895 receiving yards, 23,546 all-purpose yards, 197 receiving touchdowns, and 208 overall touchdowns, all still records.

It must be pointed out that Montana and Young both made Rice better. It must also be pointed out that he did the same for them. Montana and Rice won Super Bowls XXIII and XXIV together. Young and Rice won Super Bowl XXIX together.

In 1999, while Rice was still with the 49ers, The Sporting News ranked him Number 2 on their list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. Jim Brown was Number 1. At Number 3 was the 49ers quarterback who helped launch Rice's career, Joe Montana. The next-highest-ranked receiver was Don Hutson, Green Bay Packers star of the 1930s and '40s, at 6, who set most of the NFL receiving records before Rice's generation. At Number 63 was Young.

In 2010, the year Rice was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the NFL Network ranked the 100 Greatest Players. Rice was ranked Number 1, Brown Number 2, 1980s New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor Number 3, Montana Number 4, 1960s San Diego Chargers star Lance Alworth the next-highest receiver at Number 38, Minnesota Vikings star Randy Moss as the best receiver since Rice at Number 65, and Young at Number 81.

A case can be made that Jerry Rice is the greatest player in the history of American football.