August 31, 2006: Arsenal Sell Ashley Cole to Chelsea

March 17, 1978: Elvis Costello & The Attractions release their album This Year’s Model. It included a song titled "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea."

If only Ashley Cole had listened to that song.

For the record: Costello has said he's a Liverpool F.C. fan.

*

August 31, 2006, 20 years ago: On the last day of the Summer transfer window, Arsenal F.C. sell left back Ashley Cole to Chelsea F.C., sending him from North London to West London.

They didn't have much choice.

Making his Premier League debut in 2000, Cole established himself as the best English left back of his generation. He helped Arsenal reach the FA Cup Final in 2001, win the Premier League and the FA Cup in 2002 (winning both is called "The Double"), win another Cup in 2003, produce the PL's only unbeaten season in 2004, and win another Cup in 2005. At 24, he had already won 2 League titles and 3 FA Cups, and had played for England in the 2002 World Cup and Euro 2004.

Unfortunately, like so many other great athletes, he began to confuse payment with respect. English football fans express payment in weeks, not years. He wanted £60,000 a week. With the exchange rate then in effect, this amounted to an annual salary of $3.2 million. Arsenal offered him £55,000 a week -- about $2.9 million a year.

For a team as big as Arsenal, an additional £5,000 a week shouldn't have been too much to keep the man who, at the time, was the best player at his position in the world, maybe 2nd at it to Paolo Maldini of A.C. Milan, and only 24 years old, 12 years younger than Maldini.

But Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein, responsible for such negotiations in place of manager Arsène Wenger, wouldn't pay the extra 5 grand. In his autobiography, which he appropriately titled My Defence, Cole described hearing that over the radio while driving on London's beltway, the M25. "Trembling with anger" as he put it in his autobiography, he pulled over, picked up his phone, and called his agent, Jonathan Barnett. He yelled, "They are taking the piss, Jonathan!"

The expression -- also known as "taking the mickey," which comes from Cockney rhyming slang, from "Mickey Bliss" -- is roughly equivalent to the American expressions "busting your chops" or "busting your balls." But Cole considered it a sign of tremendous disrespect.

In January 2005, Cole and Barnett met with Chelsea's manager José Mourinho and chief executive Peter Kenyon at the Royal Park Hotel in Lancaster Gate, Central London. Simply having the meeting, without having informed his current club first, was a violation of PL rules. So was negotiating a transfer without the permission of the current club. By offering a contract, of any amount, Chelsea were violating a rule as well. The process is called "tapping-up."

Word got out, and while it didn't seem to affect either team on the field as the 2004-05 season came to a close -- Chelsea won the League, and Arsenal won the Cup -- on June 1, an independent commission charged by the PL with investigating the story issued its findings. Cole was found guilty, and fined £100,000, or about 2.6 times the amount of additional money he was demanding. He would have been better of if he'd just sat there and taken it. Chelsea were found guilty, and fined £300,000. Mourinho was found guilty -- a manager should not be present at such a meeting -- and fined £200,000.

Arsenal fans turned on Cole, calling him "Cashley." Rumors abounded, some with more merit to them than others. He was married to Cheryl Tweedy, the lead singer of vocal group Girls Aloud. The joke was that she, white, had to marry him, black, to prove she wasn't a racist; that he had to marry her to prove he wasn't gay. Another rumor spread that he had a gay affair with Jermaine Jenas, a star player with Arsenal's North London arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur; and that, for reasons known only to him, he shoved a cell phone up his ass at a party.

The familiar terrace chant, "Ten men went to mow, went to mow a meadow!" became "Ten men went to bed, went to bed with Ashley!" And the rhyming of his name made another song easy: "Oh, Ashley Cole, yer a fuckin' arsehole!"

Cheryl and Ashley got together in September 2004, and married in July 2006, but divorced in September 2010, because of Ashley's infidelity. With women. In March 2006, Ashley sued the tabloids The Sun and News of the World for printing a story about a gay orgy he supposedly attended. Both papers issued retractions, and he retracted the suits.

It's almost as if the whole thing was totally for show.

Cheryl kept using the name "Cheryl Cole" for legal reasons, but became simply "Cheryl" for her music releases -- as if she was Cher or Madonna. (Well, she sings better than Madonna, anyway.) In 2014, he married French restaurateur Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini, but they divorced in 2016. She then got together with former One Direction singer Liam Payne. She had a son with him in 2017, but they broke up the next year without having married.

(UPDATE: Ashley married Italian model Sharon Canu in 2023, after they'd already had 2 children together.)

Cole played the 2005-06 season with Arsenal, helping them reach the UEFA Champions League Final. On August 31, having been held out of the team's 1st 2 games of the 2006-07 PL season -- a draw against Aston Villa in the 1st competitive match at the new Emirates Stadium, and a loss away to Manchester City -- Arsenal bowed to the inevitable, and made a trade, a rarity in English football: They sent Cole to Chelsea for £5 million and centreback William Gallas.

Cole made a public statement saying he forgave Arsenal team management for their treatment of him. He... forgave them? They didn't do anything wrong. All they did was offer a great player 91 percent of what he thought he was worth.

Gallas did next to nothing for Arsenal, developed a bad attitude, and was gone within 3 years. Cole played 8 seasons for Chelsea, and, while his private behavior, legal and otherwise, remained troublesome, his on-pitch reputation only grew. Between the 2 London clubs, ended up with 5 Premier League titles, a record 7 FA Cup wins, and, with Chelsea, the 2012 Champions League title.

He played for England in the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, and, after they failed to qualify for Euro 2008, in Euro 2012. He left Chelsea for Italy's AS Roma in 2014, came to America in 2016 to play for LA Galaxy, and after 3 years there, closed his career in 2019, back in England with Derby County.

He then went into coaching. At Derby, their manager was his former Chelsea and England teammate, Frank Lampard. He made Cole the academy coach. In 2022, Lampard and Cole went to Liverpool-based team Everton.

In 2023, they left Everton together. Cole then joined Birmingham City, where their manager was his former England teammate, Manchester United start Wayne Rooney. In 2024, he began working with England's Football Association (the FA). In 2026, he became caretaker manager of Cesena, a team in Italy's Serie B, until the end of the season.

Whether Ashley Cole will ever be forgiven by Arsenal fans remains to be seen, but he set the pattern for future dodgy moves for players, including Aliaksandr Hleb in 2008, Emmanuel Adebayor in 2009, Cesc Fàbregas and Samir Nasri in 2011, Robin van Persie in 2012, and Alexis Sánchez in 2018.

So far, though, it looks like, as Billy Joel once claimed in a song, Cole would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. (Not to be confused with Southampton F.C, whose team is nicknamed the Saints.)

Golden vs. Trump

August 30, 1906, 120 years ago: George Goldberg is born in Brooklyn, and grows up in Manhattan and The Bronx. As a teenager, my grandfather would walk to the construction site of the original Yankee Stadium and watch.

Later, saw Babe Ruth play there, and then also Lou Gehrig. When he couldn't afford the price of a ticket, he could stand on the platform of the 161st Street station of what's now the Number 4 train and watch the game for a nickel, then the fare on the New York Subway.

His first great-grandchildren would be born a shade over a century later, yet he had more in common with people born 500 years earlier. In his youth, hardly anybody had a telephone or an automobile, and the airplane was a new invention. Even in the City, a lot of people got around by horseback. The Subway itself was less than 2 years old when he was born. The Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges had been built, but the Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges were still under construction. The only way to get across the Hudson River was by boat. Movies were black & white, and silent, and going to one was not a common occurrence. Radio was still being developed, and television was just an idea.

Most people had never seen the President of the United States (Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson) except in photographs, and most people had never heard his voice. Monarchies that had seemed to last forever, and were expected to continue to do so, fell. Civil rights wasn't even a dream for most people who needed them -- including for children of Jewish immigrants like himself and his siblings. There were no antibiotics, and the slightest infection could kill you -- indeed, the Spanish Flu epidemic at the end of World War I killed twice as many people as the war itself did.

In 1924, he led Theodore Roosevelt High School, on Fordham Road in The Bronx, to the New York City basketball championship. He was the tallest player on the team. He was 5-foot-8. There wasn't much of a foul lane, and there was still a center jump after every basket. Nobody had yet thought of a shot clock. Basketball was dominated by New Yorkers and Chicagoans, mostly Irish and Jews.

In civilian life, he was a photographer, a taxi driver, and later an all-around handyman. He was a pacifist, and believed that organized religion, even his own, was the cause of too much suffering in the world.

Nevertheless, when World War II came, even though he was already too old to be drafted, he recognized the Nazi threat, and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was actually in Casablanca, in what was then the French colony of Morocco, when the film of that title premiered on Thanksgiving Day 1942. He saw no combat, though, serving as a clerk and a stenographer.

At one point, while serving in Morocco, he saw a very tall French general talking to two subordinates, and took his picture. We have no way of knowing if he knew who it was at the time, but it turned out to be Charles de Gaulle. Had he tried to take a similar picture today, he would not have gotten away with it. He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant.

Upon his discharge, he got married, and, not wanting his wife to deal with the anti-Semitism he dealt with, changed his name to George Golden. A year later, they became parents; 22 years after that, grandparents.

And yet, in spite of a lot of mistakes (ranging in scale from familial to international), people like him, most of whose names will never be known to most of us, every bit as much as those whose names we did know, who commanded them in the armed forces of the world in the 1940s, and then led the nations they raised families, into, left a much better world than they inherited. My Grandpa would never have called himself a hero, but what he and the other men and women in service to freedom did can never be forgotten.

I often say he "invented the Internet." What I mean by that is, he would have the Yankees on TV, the Brooklyn Dodgers on a radio in the same room, and the New York Giants on the radio in the bathroom, so he always knew all 3 teams' scores, as fast as was then humanly possible, without having to change a station on any device. He never used a computer, but my mother is sure that, if he'd grown up with them, he would have loved them.

He survived the Great Depression, World War II, anti-Semitism, McCarthyism, living in New York in general, and driving a cab there. He survived living with my grandmother and raising my mother, neither of which was easy. The one thing he couldn't survive was smoking. Because it sapped his strength, he never saw the renovated Yankee Stadium in person, only on television.

He made me a Yankee Fan, and of all the people in my family, I'm easily more like him than anyone else. He lived until 1984, having told me everything he could about baseball. It never occurred to me, at the time, to ask him about anything else. But most WWII veterans didn't like talking about their service, especially the rougher parts of it. He saw so much, and I heard so little of it, until my mother started telling me stories she'd heard him tell.

Grandpa would be happy to know that, on the 120th Anniversary of his birth, the Yankees had taken 3 out of 4 from the Boston Red Sox. He would not be happy to know that it was in a new Yankee Stadium, not the one he saw being built. He certainly would not be happy to know about Donald Trump. He probably never even heard the man's name. Although Grandma, who was from one neighborhood away in Queens, lived long enough to know what a fraud he was.

Grandpa would have said he fought men like that, and certainly never voted for one. He would want us to stand up to him at every opportunity.

August 29, 1966: The Beatles' Last Official Concert

August 29, 1966, 60 years ago: The Beatles conclude their World Tour at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, home of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants. It turns out to be the last time all four of them would play together before a paying audience.

The tour had been tough. It had started in June 24, in Munich, West Germany, followed by shows the next night in Essen, then in Hamburg, where they had "grown up as a band" in 1960. They went to the Far East, doing 5 shows in 3 days at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, which had become a shrine for the sport of sumo wrestling, and it led to objections that they were soiling an ancient art. The art may have been ancient, but the venue was less than 2 years old, having been built for the 1964 Olympics. As it turned out, it has become better-known for its rock concerts.

Then came 2 shows at Rizal Memorial Stadium in Manila on July 4. The night before, exhausted, the band had failed to show up for social engagement held by Imelda Marcos, wife of President Ferdinand Marcos. This led to a backlash from the President's supporters, and the group left the country under a cloud. It would be years before anybody realized how bad both halves of the Marcos couple were.

On July 29, while they were resting up for their upcoming U.S. tour, Datebook magazine published Maureen Cleave's interview with John Lennon, in which he said, "We're more popular than Jesus now." Within a week, as only Americans can do, Americans overreacted: Radio stations from coast to coast, North to South were banning Beatle records, and "Beatle bonfires" were being held.

On August 11, The Beatles arrived in Chicago, and, for the only time in his life, Lennon ate crow, and offered an apology. The tour began: August 12, 2 shows at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago; August 13, 2 shows at the Detroit Red Wings' Olympia Stadium; August 14, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, home of the Indians and the Browns; August 15, District of Columbia Stadium, then the home of the teams named the Washington Senators and the Washington Redskins, a stadium later renamed for Robert F. Kennedy; August 16, John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia; August 17, 2 shows at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, the only building they played on all 3 of their North American tours; and August 18, Suffolk Downs, a horse-racing track in Boston.

Then came August 19, and 2 shows at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. This was the Bible Belt, and lots of people were still pretty mad. The Ku Klux Klan had nailed a Beatles LP to a wooden cross and burned it. During the evening show, someone threw a firecracker onto the stage. No one was hit, but when it went off, lots of people thought it was a gunshot. All 3 of the others turned to John after the firecracker, to make sure he was all right. He was.

August 20 had been scheduled for Crosley Field, the ballpark of the Cincinnati Reds, but it rained. That gave the Fab Four a little rest, but it forced an unusual doubleheader: Two concerts in two cities in one day. They did an afternoon show at Crosley, then flew to St. Louis to play at the new Busch Memorial Stadium.

So many music historians have ripped Elvis Presley's manager, Tom Parker, for running his man ragged, and praised Beatles manager Brian Epstein for "taking care of" "the boys." With many things, he did. But he was every bit as determined to make as much money from his charges as he could as Parker was, and their 3 North American tours were always inches away from disaster. And, despite the aural damp squib that was their concert at Shea Stadium in New York the year before, people still hadn't yet figured out how to stage a rock concert in a baseball park or a football stadium.

And John kept talking. At a press conference in New York before their return to Shea on August 23, John he said the Vietnam War was "wrong." He was right, but America wasn't ready to hear that yet. The year before, they had filled all 55,000 available seats at the Flushing Meadow stadium. This time, "only" 40,000 showed up, with pickets both for and against them facing off against each other.

It was their most stressful tour ever, and George Harrison said he'd rather leave the band than ever go on another tour. They decided they wouldn't, and would be only a recording band from that point onward. George agreed to stay -- for now.

After Shea, it was off to the West coast. They did 2 shows at the Seattle Center Coliseum on August 25. After 2 days of rest, they played the 1st concert at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The next concerts there wouldn't be until 1975, with 2 by Elton John; and the next ones until 1984, with The Jacksons' Victory Tour.

The last concert on the tour was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29. They were supported by The Ronettes, The Cyrkle, Bobby Hebb, and The Remains. (The Cyrkle were also managed by Epstein's company.) Attendance: 25,000, meaning about 17,000 empty seats. (In 1971, the NFL's San Francisco 49ers joined baseball's San Francisco Giants there, leading to an expansion to 69,000 seats.)

Candlestick Park in the 1960s

As usual, they roared through their set, unable to hear themselves over the all the screaming, playing 11 songs in 33 minutes:

1. John Lennon singing Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music."

2. Paul McCartney singing his song "She's a Woman."

3. George Harrison singing his song "If I Needed Someone." (Every show would have a George song and a Ringo song, so "the other guys" wouldn't feel left out.)

4. Paul singing his song "Day Tripper."

5. John singing his song "Baby's In Black."

6. John singing his song "I Feel Fine."

7. Paul singing his song "Yesterday."

8. Ringo Starr singing Paul's song "I Wanna Be Your Man."

9. John singing his song "Nowhere Man."

10. Paul singing his song "Paperback Writer."

11. And the last song anybody would ever pay to hear The Beatles sing live, Paul singing Little Richard's song "Long Tall Sally."

Reviews of the concert were not good, with the San Francisco Chronicle headlining "Bedlam at the Ball Park." Ringo was 26 years old, John 25, Paul 24 and George 23, so age wasn't an issue. But they they were physically, mentally and emotionally wiped-out, and the sound system was insufficient, and the overall atmosphere wasn't what it had been, even a year earlier, when it could still be adequately described as "Beatlemania."

They had already released Rubber Soul, and had just released Revolver on August 5. They were weary. They were examining their feelings, and expressing them on their recordings. These were no longer "The Lovable Mop Tops" who had dazzled people on The Ed Sullivan Show: When John sang "Help!" the year before, he wasn't just singing a song as a character in a story, he was being himself.

As I said, they were between 23 and 26 years old. A kid who was 13 when they first arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on February 7, 1964 would now be only 15. How many 15-year-olds were going to "get" the content of "Norwegian Wood," "She Said She Said" or "Tomorrow Never Knows"? Or even understand the grownup love stories of "Girl" and "For No One"?

A lot of people couldn't handle what the Liverpudlians were offering in 1966, and that was one reason NBC made the TV show The Monkees, to fill that void.

The gap would grow. The next time anyone saw The Beatles in public, they weren't wearing black suits. They were wearing the wild colors of Swinging London and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. They had mustaches. And they had recorded "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever," and released promotional films (what would later be called "music videos") for them, in which they looked... weird. "Tomorrow Never Knows," indeed.

While they'd decided not to tour again, even the four of them did not know that the Candlestick Park show would be their last paying concert together, ever. There would be the concert on the roof of the building where Apple Records was based, on January 30, 1969. And each of them would have notable solo gigs, with Paul and Ringo living and continuing to tour into the 2020s. But The Beatles would never have another official concert.

If, in the Summer of 1966, you had told people that the last official concert by The Beatles would be 11 years before the last one by Elvis Presley, few of them would have believed you. But it turned out to be true.

Built in 1960, Candlestick Park hosted its last event on August 14, 2014. It was a concert by 72-year-old former Beatle Paul McCartney. A crowd of 53,477 attended, and it got great reviews. The stadium's demolition began 3 months later.

You Know How It Is

This week, the Yankees began a stretch of 7 games in 6 days that could end up defining their regular season, all against the 2 teams that have cheated their way into the Yankees' heads, the former since 2015, the latter since 2003: First, 3 against the Houston Astros; then, 4 in 3 days against the Boston Red Sox.

You know how it is: Get enough runs, get bad pitching, and vice versa. Will Warren had a good start on Tuesday night, but Fernando Cruz allowed 6 runs in the 6th inning, and was later found to be injured, possibly needing Tommy John surgery. We probably won't see him for the rest of the season. And Brett Headrick allowed 3 runs in the 8th. So it didn't matter that Luis García Jr. went 4-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs, or that Cody Bellinger hit a 3-run homer. Astros 9, Yankees 7.

The Yankees needed at least 9 runs in the 1st 9 innings on Tuesday. They got them on Wednesday. García homered again. So did Ben Rice. García and Jazz Chisholm each had 3 hits. It didn't help Elmer Rodríguez, who pitched 6 strong innings as an emergency starter, because Paul Blackburn blew a 3-2 lead in the top of the 7th. But the Yankees' 4 runs in the bottom of the 7th, including RBI doubles by Bellinger and Chisholm, made Blackburn the winning pitcher. Again: I don't think a pitcher who blows a lead should be credited with the win, even if he is the "pitcher of record" when his team takes a lead it holds for the rest of the game. Anyway, Yankees 9, Astros 3.

There was a nasty storm predicted for yesterday, and it came, resulting in flooding all down the New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia corridor. But either the Yankees got lucky, or the new Yankee Stadium has a great tarp, or it has a great drainage system. Given how much money was spent on it, it better have both. Anyway, the game was played, as scheduled, on time, and to a conclusion.

Did I say the Yankees got lucky? They did not. Certainly, Gerrit Cole deserved a better fate: He went 6 innings, allowing 3 runs on 6 hits and 1 walk, striking out 5. But Yerry de los Santos, who'd been pitching pretty well up until this point, gave up a home run in the 7th.

Justin Topa, a 35-year-old native of Binghamton, New York, and a former mop-up man in Milwaukee, Seattle and Minnesota, made his Yankee debut in the 8th, and was betrayed by his defense: For a Yankee record 6th game in a row, George Lombard Jr. made an error at shortstop. And he was doing so well before that. And he is still hitting. But now, he's fielding like Anthony Volpe was. His error allowed the Astros another run.

Bellinger got a run home on a sacrifice fly in the 6th. Other than that, the Yankee bats were pretty much useless. Astros 5, Yankees 1.

*

There are 29 games to go in the regular season. The Tampa Bay Rays lead the Yankees by 4 games in the American League Eastern Division, and the surging Red Sox by 6. If the current standing hold until the end, the Yankees would have the 4th seed in the AL Playoffs, and the Sox the 5th -- meaning they would face each other in the 1st Round, as they did last year, when the Yankees beat The Scum in the postseason for the 1st time in 22 years.

You know how it is: The Yankees frequently go into a series with the Red Sox -- especially at Fenway, although this series is at home -- scoring a lot of runs, and giving us hope, only to "run out of runs," and come up small. This time, the last game of the Astro series makes it look like we were saving runs up. But the 1st 2 games of the series, which we were only able to split, makes it look like we ran out of runs already.

Here are the projected pitching matchups:

* Tonight, 7:15 PM, on Apple TV: Cam Schlittler vs. Patrick Sandoval.

* Saturday, 1:05, on YES: Carlos Rodón vs. Jake Bennett.

* Saturday, 7:15, on Fox, the makeup of an earlier rainout: Both teams are currently undecided. For the Yankees, the current rumor is that Max Fried will be activated to make this start.

* Sunday, 1:35, on YES: Will Warren vs. Ranger Suarez. Say it with me, Devils fans: Rangers suck!

Come on you Pinstripes! Beat The Scum!

August 25, 2001: Aaliyah Is Killed In a Plane Crash

You might be cool, but you probably won't be

cool enough to wear a T-shirt with

your own face on it and get away with it.

August 25, 2001, 25 years ago: Aaliyah Dana Houghton, the hip-hop-influenced singer known professionally by just her first name, is killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas.

Aaliyah was born on January 16, 1979 in Brooklyn, and grew up in Detroit. She was related by marriage to singer Gladys Knight, and saw her in concert many times. In 1989, she appeared on the talent show Star Search, singing "My Funny Valentine." She graduated from The Detroit School of Arts with a 4.0 grade point average.

In 1994, she released her 1st album, titled Age Ain't Nothing But a Number. It was successful, but the title proved problematic. It was eventually revealed that, on August 31, 1994, Aaliyah had married Chicago-based singer Robert Kelly, a.k.a. R. Kelly. He was 27. On the marriage certificate, she listed her age as 18. She was actually 15.

Both denied the marriage, but it was discovered, and annulled due to her being underage. There was a rumor of pregnancy, including the alleged fact that he only married her because of it, but no child was born, nor is there any known record of an abortion. She later described him as "a bad man," and the marriage was used as evidence in his later trial for statutory rape.

She released the albums One in a Million in 1996, and Aaliyah in 2001. In 2000, she began an acting career, starring in Romeo Must Die. Her song from that film, "Try Again," hit Number 1 in 2001. She had just finished filming the title role in Queen of the Damned, based on the vampire novel in Anne Rice's Lestat series. She was widely believed to have been dating record executive Damon Dash.

On August 25, 2001, she completed filming a video for "Rock the Boat," a song off Aaliyah -- not to be confused with the song of the same name, a Number 1 hit for The Hues Corporation in 1974 -- in The Bahamas. She got on board a Cessna 402, a propeller-driven plane. In 2001. She was 22, but still should have been aware enough to say, "A propeller-driven plane? Who's piloting this thing, Charles Lindbergh? Oh, hell, no, I ain't getting on that thing!" But she got on, and, shortly after takeoff, it crashed into Marsh Harbour. All 9 people on board were killed.

Tributes soon followed, including at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. At the end of the calendar year, the U.S. Social Security Administration ranked the name Aaliyah as one of the 100 most popular names for newborn girls.

August 25, 1936: Stalin's Show Trials

Lev Kamenev

August 25, 1936, 90 years ago: Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev are executed, ending the first of what became known as the Moscow Show Trials, designed to consolidate the power of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin formed a ruling triumvirate in 1923, after Vladimir Lenin, founder and dictator of the Soviet Union, had become incapacitated from a stroke. He died in 1924, enabling the triumvirate to effect the marginalization of the People's Commissar, Leon Trotsky. But as Stalin took more and more power for himself, Zinoviev and Kamenev sided with Trotsky. Stalin expelled Trotsky from the country in 1929, and his allies, including Zinoviev and Kamenev, were marginalized.

In 1934, Stalin ally Sergei Kirov was assassinated. No one has ever proven who did it, or ordered it. Both Kamenev and Zinoviev had been secretly tried for it in 1935, but it appears that Stalin decided that, with suitable confessions, their fate could be used for propaganda purposes.

On August 19, 1936, the first of the Moscow Show Trials began, conducted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, and presided over by Vasiliy Ulrikh, who would preside over most of the trials to come. Russian historian Anton Antonov-Ovseenko would eventually describe him as "a uniformed toad with watery eyes."

He looks like he would have fit in more

in Germany at the time.

And those trials, including those of Zinoviev and Kamenev, were pure bred sivoy kobyly. That's Russian for "bullshit." All the "evidence was lies." The verdict was preordained. Zinoviev and Kamenev were convicted on August 24. The next day, Kamenev was executed by firing squad. Zinoviev begged for his life, and resisted being taken to where he was to be shot, until the guards finally got tired of him, dumped him in an open cell, and shot him. Both men were 53 years old.

Grigori Zinoviev

More trials were to come in 1937 and 1938, all with the aim of making Stalin look good and making Trotsky look bad. In 1940, Stalin sent an agent to Mexico City, where Trotsky was living in exile, and had him assassinated. In 1941, Stalin's purges continued, trying and executing generals he thought were disloyal.

Then Adolf Hitler broke the Non-Aggression Pact their countries had signed 2 years earlier. Stalin could have used some of those generals in the Eastern European phase of World War II, known in Russia and the other former Soviet "republics" as "The Great Patriotic War." That war began because Stalin was a shortsighted paranoid egomaniac who thought he knew more than his generals did. It ended because all of those things were true of Hitler as well.

Vasiliy Ulrikh died in 1951, of natural causes, unlike most of those over whose trials he presided.

One final note: I'm not saying that all of the people Stalin had executed, including the 47 former Party officials convicted in the Show Trials of 1936, '37 and '38, were good people. As dedicated Communists, they probably led to the deaths of innocent people themselves. But they were almost certainly not guilty of the specific charges that Stalin saw to it were leveled against them. Even the guilty deserve a fair trial.

Yanks Take 2 of 3 From Jays, Injury Status Still Bad

Since their foundation in 1977, the Toronto Blue Jays have given the Yankees trouble. Regardless of how good each team is, the Jays always seem to get in the way. They ruined the 1st live major league sporting event I ever saw, a 1978 Memorial Day Weekend game, despite being a 2nd-year expansion team while the Yankees were the defending World Champions. They ruined the best Yankee season between 1981 and 1995 by winning just 1 game of a regular-season-ending weekend series in 1985. They surged past the Yankees to win the American League Eastern Division title in 1987, the Summer after my high school graduation. They beat the Yankees for the Division title again in 1993. And they beat the Yankees in last year's AL Division Series. For this reason, I call them "the pesky Blue Jays" -- sometimes "those pesky Blue Jays," or even just "the Peskies" for short.

The Yankees hosted the Jays this weekend, and, while the defending AL East Champions are not doing well this season, they still had to be taken seriously.

Cam Schlittler put on an acelike performance on Friday night, going 6 innings, allowing 1 run on 6 hits and 3 walks, striking out 4. Three relievers each allowed 1 hit, but nothing more. The Yankees got only 4 hits themselves, but 1 was a 2-run home run by Spencer Jones in the bottom of the 2nd inning, and the Yankees went on to win, 3-1.

But on Saturday afternoon, Ryan Weathers only lasted 3 1/3rd innings, allowing 2 runs on 8 hits, but no walks. He went on the Injured List after the game. The bullpen did fairly well. But it didn't matter: Again, the Yankees only got 4 hits, with Dylan Cease taking a no-hitter into the 7th inning. They almost came back, with Luis García Jr. hitting a home run in the 8th. Jazz Chisholm led off the bottom of the 9th with a double, but he was stranded. Blue Jays 4, Yankees 3.

Cody Bellinger was activated from the IL before yesterday afternoon's game. George Lombard Jr. led off the 2nd inning with a single, Jones doubled him home, and, after a Chisholm groundout, Austin Wells doubled Jones home.

Tied at 2-2, the Yankees began the 6th with 3 straight singles, by Lombard, Jones and Chisholm. Wells struck out, and José Caballero flew to center, and Lombard was unable to score on the fly. But Trent Grisham drew a walk to force Lombard in, and Ben Rice singled Jones and Chisholm home. Bellinger led off the 7th with a single, and scored on a Chisholm homer. Grisham added a homer in the 8th.

Carlos Rodón made his 2nd start since coming off the IL, and he only went 4 innings, 76 pitches. He allowed 2 runs, 1 of them earned, on 2 hits and 2 walks. Paul Blackburn pitched 2 perfect innings, with Ryan Yarbrough allowing a run in the 8th and Brent Headrick finishing the job. The Yankees won, 8-3.

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With 32 games to, the Yankees trail the Tampa Bay Rays by 3 games in the AL East. They still hold the 4th spot in the AL Playoffs.

Bellinger and Rodón are off the Injured List. But the news on that front remains rough:

* Max Fried has a bone bruise on his left elbow. They're optimistic that he could return as soon as this coming weekend.

* Ryan McMahon has a sprained left thumb. He could be back at the start of September.

* Clarke Schmidt is in the latter stages of recovery from Tommy John surgery. Tomorrow, he will throw a live batting practice session at The Stadium. If it goes well, he'll go to minor-league rehab, with the aim of putting him in the bullpen in early September, where we still need help.

* Aaron Judge is still recovering from the stress fracture of a right-side rib. He started hitting off a tee last week. He could be back in September. His return in time to be back to full capacity before the postseason is vital.

* Ryan Weathers has a flexor strain in his left forearm. And he was already a hole-filler for the starting rotation. He is expected back in late September.

* Giancarlo Stanton was nearing recovery from a right calf strain, when he strained his left calf. Seriously. Aaron Boone says he doesn't expect him to return this season. We may have seen the last of Stanton as a Yankee -- maybe even the last of him as an active player. He has 456 career home runs. With his other career stats, he may have lost his chance at the Baseball Hall of Fame: He's the kind of player where, if he reaches 500 homers, he would get in; but if he only makes it to 499, he wouldn't.

* Angel Chivilli has a bone spur in his right elbow. There is no timetable for his recovery. I wouldn't expect him back this season, but he could be key to the bullpen next season.

The Yankees have tonight off, and then start a rough stretch. We have 3 at home to the Chicken Fried Cheats, the Houston Astros; then, without a day off, 4 in 3 days, forced by an earlier-in-the-season rainout, at home to the Chowder Cheats, the Boston Red Sox. Then, the next week, it's off to the Pacific Coast, for 3 against the Los Angeles Angels, then 3 Interleague games with the San Diego Padres.

The last month or so of the regular season will be dramatic, if nothing else.