And September 28 turned out to be a very significant day in the life of Ted Williams.
September 28, 1941: Ted Williams, the 23-year-old left fielder for the Boston Red Sox, enters the last day of the 1941 regular season with a batting average of .39955, which would have been rounded up to .400. Manager Joe Cronin offers to let him sit and protect his ".400 batting average." But the Splendid Splinter, all of 23 years old, understands what his place in baseball history would have really been, and insists on playing the doubleheader, against Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park.
The 1st time he comes to bat in the opener, the A's catcher, Frankie Hayes, tells him, "Ted, Mr. Mack told us to pitch to you." As in, we will try to get you out, but we won't try to stop you from getting .400 by walking you, intentionally or "not."
Ted singles to right in the 2nd inning, hits a home run leading off the 5th, singles to right in the 6th, hits an RBI single to right in the 7th, and reaches on an error in the 9th, by the A's 2nd baseman -- Lawrence Columbus "Crash" Davis of Durham, North Carolina, for whom the Kevin Costner character in the movie Bull Durham would be named. So the one time he doesn't get a hit, he gets on base anyway. Despite a 9-run A's outburst in the 5th inning, the Sox win 12-11.
Ted's batting average is now .404. Even if he goes 0-for-4 in the nightcap, he will still finish at .4004. (Going 0-for-5 would have made him .39956.) He plays anyway. He singles to right in the 2nd, doubles to center in the 4th, and flies to left in the 7th.
Because Pennsylvania had only legalized professional sporting events on Sunday in 1934, and had a 7:00 PM curfew for them on Sundays, the A's were already up 7-1, and Ted's .400 was secure, it was agreed between the umpires and the managers, Cronin and Mack, that the 1st game would end after 8 innings, thus denying Ted a 4th at-bat in the game. He finishes the season with 185 hits in 456 at-bats, for a batting average of .405701754, rounded off to .406.
Ironically, the Sox pitcher in the 2nd game was former A's star Lefty Grove. It was the last appearance of a Hall of Fame career in which he went 300-141.
Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees was awarded the American League MVP. Red Sox fans, now 3 generations removed, remain angry about this. They say Ted's .406 average was a greater achievement than DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak the same season. They forget that the award is Most Valuable Player, not Most Outstanding Player. Ted's great season did not get the Red Sox above 6th place. Joe's great season put the Yankees on a run that led to them winning the World Series.
In 1957, Ted came close to .400 again, at age 39, batting .388. In 1977, Rod Carew was over .400 for much of the season, and finished at .388. In 1980, George Brett was over .400 in September, and finished at .390. In 1994, Tony Gwynn was at .394 when the strike hit on August 12. Ted died in 2002, and since then, there have been no living human beings who have hit .400 in a season. (Bill Terry of the 1930 New York Giants, at .401, remains the last to do it in the National League.)
September 28, 1947, 70 years ago: The regular season ends, and Ted Williams has won the Triple Crown for the 2nd time: He batted .343, hit 32 home runs, and had 114 RBIs. Again, Joe DiMaggio leads the Yankees to the World Championship. Again, DiMaggio, not Williams, is named the AL MVP.
September 28, 1960: Having announced his retirement, Ted Williams plays his last game. The Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles are both way out of the American League race, which the Yankees wrapped up a few days ago. It's a Wednesday afternoon. The weather? As Ted later recalled, "Lousy day, damp." Only 10,454 fans came out to say goodbye to "the greatest hitter who ever lived."
In the bottom of the 8th, the Orioles led 4-2. with 1 out, Ted came to back against Jack Fisher, and cranked a home run to straightaway center field. He is easily the greatest player ever to hit a home run in his last career at-bat.
It was his 521st career home run -- at the time, good for 3rd all-time behind Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx -- and his 2,654th hit. It's hard to believe, until you see it in print, but, because he lost 5 years to military service, Ted Williams not only didn't get 3,000 hits, he didn't even get all that close. His lifetime batting average was .344, which remains the highest of any player whose career began after 1917. (Rogers Hornsby began that year, and batted .358.)
He rounds the bases with his head down, shakes hands with on-deck batter Jim Pagliaroni (later to become semi-famous as a 1969 Seattle Pilot as a result of Jim Bouton's book Ball Four), and walks back into the dugout. Fans were hoping that he would come out and tip his cap, something he swore he would never do after being abused by Boston fans early in his career. He did not. As John Updike wrote in his acclaimed New Yorker magazine piece about the game, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, "Gods do not answer letters."
Ted's career is over, but the game is not. Carroll Hardy replaces him in left field for the 9th inning. In the bottom of the 9th, with the O's leading 4-3, Marlan Coughtry singles, Vic Wertz (yes, the man robbed by Willie Mays 6 years minus 1 day earlier) doubles him to 3rd, Pumpsie Green (the 1st black Red Sock) walks to load the bases, and Willie Tasby grounds to 2nd, where Marv Breeding mishandles the ball, allowing Coughtry and Wertz to score, giving the Red Sox a 5-4 walkoff win.
September 28, 48 BC: Gnaeus Pompeius, a Roman general known as Pompey the Great, is assassinated in Pelusium, Egypt, to which he had fled after losing to Julius Caesar -- his rival for Roman supremacy, and his former father-in-law -- after losing the Battle of Pharsalus in central Greece a few weeks earlier. He was a day short of his 58th birthday.
His name lives on, in Portsmouth, England -- ironically, not an army but a navy town. The nautical location is known as Portsmouth Point, which was been shortened in ships' logbooks to "Po'm. P." or "Pompey." The local soccer team, Portsmouth Football Club, is also nicknamed Pompey, and "The Westminster Chimes" -- you know, "the chimes of Big Ben" -- have been rewritten as "The Pompey Chimes": The club's supporters sing, "PLAY up, POM-pey... Pom-PEY play UP!"
September 28, 1821: The Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire is drafted in the National Palace in Mexico City. Mexico becomes independent from the Spanish Empire after a long war.
Nowhere in that declaration is it written that their national soccer team won't be full of players who dive, or have fans who will avoid bigoted chants.
September 28, 1872: Franz Adolf Louis John is born in Pritzwalk, Brandenburg, Germany. A photographer and a soccer player for athletic club MTV 1879 Munich, he was among 11 players upset in 1900 that the club's steering committee wouldn't let the team join the SFV, the group that ran soccer in southern Germany at the time. So he led them to walk out, and form a new club.
They named it Munich Football Club Bayern (meaning "Of Bavaria"), and he served as its 1st president, from 1900 to 1933. Today, known as Fußball-Club Bayern München, it is the most popular (but also the most-hated) sports team in Germany, having won 26 league titles and 5 European Cup/Champions League titles.
Franz John did not see most of this. He left Munich in 1904, moved back to his hometown of Pankow near Berlin, and died in 1952. Bayern won its 1st title in 1932, then didn't win another until 1969, after the 1963 founding of the national league (the Bundesliga).
September 28, 1878: Blackburn Rovers Football Club are founded in Blackburn, Lancashire -- the city later famously said to have had "four thousand holes" by John Lennon in the Beatles' song "A Day in the Life."
The soccer team famous for its two-tone shirts, blue on the right, white on the left, won the FA Cup in 1884, 1885, 1886, 1890 (and 1891 -- a dynasty. They won the Football League in 1912 and 1914. They won the Cup again in 1928. Then they went into a long decline, occasionally reviving, reaching the FA Cup Final in 1960, losing to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
In 1994, under the big spending of new owner Jack Walker, a steel magnate and a longtime fan, they modernized Ewood Park, their home since 1890, and finished 2nd to Manchester United in the new Premier League. They then went to the last day of the 1995 season with a chance to win it. They lost on the last day, but when word arrived a minute later that Man U had lost as well, they were League Champions for the 1st time in 81 years.
They've struggled since. They won the League Cup in 2002, but Walker had died 2 years earlier, and his family sold the team to an Indian company in 2010. They were relegated to the 2nd division, the Championship, in 2012, and have not been able to get back to the Premier League since.
September 28, 1889: The General Conference on Weights and Measures, meeting in the Paris suburb of Sèvres, defines the length of a meter (or "metre") as the distance between two lines on a standard bar of an alloy of platinum with 10 percent iridium, measured at the melting point of ice. In other words, 39.37 inches, or about 1.0936 yards.
This will have consequences in sports: The modern Olympic Games will start in 1896, and, deviating from what was then the English system, which had used yards, will use meters for the various races -- foot, bicycle, and boat, and eventually skiing with the introduction of the Winter Olympics in 1924.
In the 1970s, some Major League Baseball stadiums will have their home run distances marked not just in feet, but in meters. Fenway Park in Boston, despite its age, will have the foul pole on the left field wall, the Green Monster, marked as 315 feet, and 96 meters, from home plate. Eventually, it will be redesignated as 310 feet, and 94.5 meters. The Rogers Centre in Toronto, as Canada uses the metric system, marks its poles as 328 feet, or 100 meters.
September 28, 1892, 125 years ago: For the 1st time, an organized football game is played at night under artificial light. It is between 2 colleges in Northeastern Pennsylvania: Wyoming Seminary, in Kingston, about 130 miles west of Midtown Manhattan, hosted Mansfield State Normal School (now Mansfield University) in Mansfield. At halftime, with the game still scoreless, the lights gave out.
This game would be depicted in a General Electric TV commercial in 1992, 100 years later.
September 28, 1893: Foot-Ball Club do Porto is founded in Porto, the 2nd-largest city in Portugal. Eventually known by the more Portuguese-sounding name of Futebol Club do Porto, or FC Porto, they are, along with Lisbon's Benfica and Sporting, one of the country's "Big Three" soccer teams. Their rivalry with Benfica is called O Clássico (The Classic).
They have won Portugal's Primeira Liga 27 times since 1935, including 21 times in 29 seasons from 1985 to 2013. But 2013 remains their most recent title. They have won the Campeonato de Portugal and its successor the Taça de Portugal (Portuguese Cup) 20 times, most recently in 2011. They have won the Portuguese version of "The Double," the League and the Cup, 7 times: In 1956, 1988, 1998, 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2011. They won the European Cup in 1987, and its successor tournament, the UEFA Champions League, in 2004. And they won the UEFA Cup in 2003 and its successor the UEFA Europa League in 2011.
They have played in the 50,000-seat Estádio do Dragão (the club has long been known as the Dragons, nothing to do with Game of Thrones) since 2003.
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September 28, 1901: The American League's 1st season ends. The Chicago White Stockings (later renamed the White Sox) win the Pennant by 4 games over the Boston Americans (Red Sox), 8 1/2 over the Detroit Tigers, 9 over the Philadelphia Athletics, 13 1/2 over the Baltimore Orioles (the team that would fold the next year, making the franchise that became the Yankees possible), 20 1/2 over the Washington Senators, 29 over the Cleveland Bluebirds (later the Indians), and 35 1/2 over the Milwaukee Brewers (no relation to the current team of that name, this one became the St. Louis Browns the next season and the new Baltimore Orioles in 1954).
Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, 2nd baseman of the Athletics, leads the League in just about every offensive category, including batting average (.426, an AL record that still stands), home runs (14), and runs batted in (125), giving him the AL's 1st Triple Crown.
Also on this day, William Samuel Paley is born in Chicago. With his father, his brother-in-law, and some other partners, he bought a small chain of radio stations, and in 1928 he turned them into the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the 2nd major radio network in America after NBC. In 1947, again following NBC, he made it the 2nd major TV network in America. CBS Sports became a major shaper of how we view sports in America, particularly with its football broadcasts, both college and the NFL.
On the exact same day, another key CBS figure arrived: Edward Vincent Sullivan is born in the Harlem section of Upper Manhattan -- at the time, not yet America's foremost black neighborhood. In 1947, with CBS having televised the New York Daily News' Harvest Moon Ball, Paley noticed the host, then the paper's Broadway columnist, and hired him to do a Sunday night variety show, Toast of the Town. In 1955, it was renamed what everybody was calling it anyway: The Ed Sullivan Show. From then until it was canceled in 1971, it was the biggest show on television.
Ed loved vaudeville, and put vaudeville-style acts on his show, including bringing in such acts from all over the world. But he stayed current: After first insisting that he would never have Elvis Presley on his show, in 1956 he relented, and hosted Elvis 3 times. In 1963, he visited England, saw the fuss over the Beatles, signed them, and on February 9, 1964, got 73 million viewers to see them -- at the time, a record for a single network's telecast. He also signed black performers and edgier rock performers when few other variety show hosts would.
What did he have to do with sports? He was a tremendous sports fan, especially of boxing. As with great entertainers, when a great athlete was in the audience, he would interrupt the show and introduce them, and ask them to stand and wave to the audience.
On March 2, 1969, a day after Mickey Mantle announced his retirement from baseball, he invited Mickey to come onto the show, and allowed him to explain why: "Well, it got to where I couldn't hit anymore," he half-joked. On October 19 of that year, 3 days after the Mets won their "Miracle" World Series, he brought the whole team onstage to sing a song from a baseball-themed musical, ironically titled Damn Yankees: "You Gotta Have Heart." Each was identified with graphics, but by their full name, resulting in 3 of their pitches being listed as "G. Thomas Seaver," "Frank L. McGraw" and "L. Nolan Ryan."
September 28, 1907: Albert Glen Edwards is born in the inartfully-named town of Mold, Washington. A 2-way tackle, I don't know how he got the nickname "Turk," but he and Mel Hein, later the star center of the Giants, helped Washington State University reach their 1st Rose Bowl in 1931.
He then became an original member of the NFL's Boston Braves in 1932, the team that became the Boston Redskins in 1933 and the Washington Redskins, and NFL Champions, in 1937. Unfortunately for him, his last game as a player was the 1940 NFL Championship Game, in which the Redskins lost to the Chicago Bears 73-0, the biggest blowout in NFL history.
He later coached the Redskins, and ran a sporting goods store in Seattle. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1969, and was introduced at the induction ceremony by Hein, a charter inductee in 1963, who said, "The thing I'll remember most about Turk Edwards is that he was a true sportsman, a true gentleman, and still is."
He lived until 1971. He was named to the NFL's 1930s All-Decade Team and, on the Redskins' 70th Anniversary in 2002, to the 70 Greatest Redskins.
September 28, 1911: Howard Cunningham is born, probably in Chicago. The 1975 Happy Days episode "Howard's 45th Fiasco" establishes that he shares his birthday with the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. And the show was established as having taken place 19 years in the past, making the date in the episode September 28, 1956.
In a later episode, Howard said he was living in Chicago at age 15 when he ran away from home, went to New York, and saw Babe Ruth play for the Yankees. If this date is correct, then it was in the 1926 season. The show never made it clear why he ended up in Milwaukee, where he married Marion (played by Marion Ross), and had children Richie (Ron Howard) and Joanie (Erin Moran).
Howard was written as a stereotypical late 1950s father, not always understanding the changes in the world around him, but still wanting figure out what was best for his family, his community, his country, and the world, and then trying to do it. Clearly, Arthur Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) thought "Mr. C" was cool enough for him. If he was cool enough for The Fonz, then he was cool enough for anybody.
Tom Bosley, Howard's portrayer, was born in 1927 and lived until 2010, at the age of 83. If we presume the character lived just as long, then Howard Cunningham would have died in 1994.
September 28, 1920: Eight Chicago White Sox players are suspended indefinitely for their roles in "throwing" the previous season's World Series to the Cincinnati Reds: Left fielder Joe Jackson, 1st baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil, shortstop Charles "Swede" Risberg, 3rd baseman George "Buck" Weaver, center fielder Oscar "Happy" Felsch, utility infielder Fred McMullin, and pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Claude "Lefty" Williams.
In Gandil's case, it didn't matter: He had already announced his retirement after the previous season. For the other 7, it did matter. Weaver did not take part in the fix, but he was suspended because he knew about it and didn't tell anyone. And "Shoeless" Joe Jackson was on his way to a Hall of Fame career.
At the time of the suspension, the White Sox were just half a game behind the Cleveland Indians in the American League, and the Yankees 3 back, with the Sox having 11 games left to play. When the season ended on October 3, the White Sox were actually closer, 2 games behind, and the Yankees 3. So did losing those players really hurt? Actually, yes: Not until 1957 would the White Sox get into another Pennant race, and not until 1959 would they win one.
None of the "Eight Men Out" ever played in "organized baseball" again, just in "outlaw leagues." Despite being found not guilty of fraud at their trial on August 2, 1921, the next day, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned them all permanently anyway.
Jackson was the 1st to tie, in 1951. McMullin -- who was a marginal player, and only included in the fix because he'd overheard the ringleaders, Gandil and Felsch, talking about it and demanded in on it in exchange for his silence -- followed in 1952, Weaver in 1956, Williams in 1959, Felsch in 1964, Cicotte in 1969, Gandil in 1970, and Risberg was the last survivor, living until 1975.
Also on this day, Joseph Andre Maca is born in Brussels, Belgium. A defender, he played professional soccer in his homeland before World War II, and fought in their Resistance against the Nazis.
After The War, he moved to New York, played for local club sides, and -- under the rules of the time, this was allowed -- played for his adopted country. He was the left back on the U.S. team that shocked England at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil. Later in the tournament, he took a penalty and scored against Chile. But the U.S. team did not advance to the knockout round. He lived until 1982.
September 28, 1923: Alexander Gus Spanos is born in Stockton, California. He won track and diving letters at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, then turned a food truck into a real estate empire. By 1977, he was the largest apartment builder in America.
In 1984, he bought the San Diego Chargers from Gene Klein, who was so sick of the NFL and his fellow owners, he wrote the words, "Thank you, Alex" several times in his memoir First Down and a Billion.
Since 1993, his son Dean Spanos has run the Chargers -- by necessity since 2008, as Alex has been said to have fallen into dementia. It was Dean who extorted the City of San Diego, telling them to build him a new stadium or else he'd move the team. Knowing that the Spanoses had, through their personal fortune and real estate contacts, both the money and the means to build a stadium without one penny of the people's tax dollars, the City has called their bluff, and told him to forget it.
It now appears that Dean will move the Chargers back to their original hometown of Los Angeles, leaving San Diego without an NFL team. But the Rams, having moved back from St. Louis, got a 1-year head start, and while they have been invited to share the new stadium the Rams are building in Inglewood, the Los Angeles Coliseum commission and the City of Pasadena (owners of the Rose Bowl stadium) won't let them use their stadiums as stopgap facilities.
Dean has a decision to make. But, sooner or later, he'll have to go, either by moving the team somewhere, or selling it, because, right now, he is the most hated man in San Diego County. And, if the rumors about his father's health are true, Alex has no idea about this.
September 28, 1926: Camille Oscar Van Brabant is born outside Detroit in Kingsville, Ontario, Canada. He pitched in 11 major league games, all for the Athletics, 9 in Philadelphia in 1954, and 2 in Kansas City in 1955.
He made only 2 starts, both in 1954, both against the Boston Red Sox, and lost both. At age 91, he is 1 of 16 surviving Philadelphia Athletics.
September 28, 1929: The football teams at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Los Angeles play each other for the 1st time, at both teams' home field, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It is no contest, as USC beats UCLA 76-0.
The teams play for a Victory Bell, which is painted in the winning team's colors after the game. USC leads, 48-31-7.
September 28, 1930: Albert Douglas Holden is born in Manchester, England. A right wing, Doug Holden appeared in 3 FA Cup Finals, losing with Bolton Wanderers in 1953, winning with them in 1958, and losing (though scoring a goal) with Preston North End in 1964. He later coached in both England and Australia, and is 1 of 3 surviving members of Bolton's '58 Cup winners.
September 28, 1932: Game 1 of the World Series. The Chicago Cubs score 2 runs in the 1st inning, but the Yankees outscore them 37-17 over the rest of the Series. Lou Gehrig hits a home run, and the Yankees win, 12-6.
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September 28, 1941: On the same day that Ted Williams completes his .406 season, Charles Robert Taylor is born outside Dallas in Grand Prairie, Texas. One of the earliest great football players at Arizona State University, Charley Taylor played 14 seasons with the Washington Redskins, including their 1972 NFC Championship and their appearance in Super Bowl VII.
He was NFL Rookie of the Year in 1964, and an 8-time Pro Bowler. When he retired in 1977, he was the NFL's all-time leader with 649 receptions and 9,110 receiving yards. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the NFL's 1960s All-Decade Team, and the Washington Redskins Ring of Fame. The Redskins do not officially retire uniform numbers (except for Sammy Baugh's 33), but Taylor's 42 remains out of circulation. He has spent most of the years since his retirement in the Redskins organization, as a coach and a scout.
September 28, 1942, 75 years ago: Grant Dwight Jackson is born in Fostoria, Ohio, outside Toledo. The lefthanded pitcher was an All-Star for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1969, and won a Pennant with the Baltimore Orioles in 1971. The Yankees traded for him in 1976, and he was instrumental in winning the Pennant that year.
They traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he won the 1979 World Series with them. He nearly won another Pennant with the Montreal Expos in 1981. He retired with a career record of 86-75, plus 79 saves. He later coached with the Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds, and is still alive.
September 28, 1943: Robert Hope (no middle name) is born in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, Scotland. No relation to the English-born American entertainment legend Bob Hope, this Bobby Hope was a forward for several professional soccer teams, mostly Birmingham-area side West Bromwich Albion, whom he helped to win the 1966 League Cup and the 1968 FA Cup.
He later played in America for the Philadelphia Atoms and the Dallas Tornado. He now West Brom's chief scout.
September 28, 1947, 70 years ago: While the Yankees officially count Lou Gehrig Day, July 4, 1939, as the 1st Old-Timers' Day, the first of the annual event at Yankee Stadium is held on this day.
Among the guests are Babe Ruth, then age 52, wearing a suit and his camel-hair coat, and appearing in spite of the cancer that will take him within a year; Ty Cobb, 61, wearing a Detroit Tigers uniform, Number 25; Tris Speaker, 59 and a coach for the Cleveland Indians, wearing his uniform, Number 43; and Cy Young, 80, who pitched for both the Indians and the old National League team, the Cleveland Spiders, wearing an Indians uniform, Number 29. Cobb, Speaker and Young all retired before numbers were regularly worn.
Left to right: The Georgia Peach, the Sultan of Swat,
and the Grey Eagle. Between them, 10,579 hits.
Also on hand were Duffy Lewis and Harry Hooper, who, with Speaker, formed the great Red Sox outfield that won the 1912 and 1915 World Series, before Speaker was traded to the Indians. With Ruth as a young pitcher, Lewis and Hooper won the Series again in 1916 and 1918. Had Walter Johnson, who died of cancer the year before, still been alive, he likely would have been invited as well, as he had pitched to Ruth in a war bond drive game in 1942.
Left to right: Cy Young, Duffy Lewis, Tris Speaker,
Harry Hooper and Ty Cobb.
There's also a regular game, the last of the regular season. The Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-3. Johnny Lindell hits a home run off Lou Brissie, the war hero who has to wear a metal plate on his shin to protect his surgically-repaired leg. The winning pitcher is Bill Wight -- not to be confused with Bill White, later a fine 1st baseman, a longtime Yankee broadcaster, and a President of the National League.
In 2 days, the Yanks will face the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 1 of the World Series.
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September 28, 1952: The Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers are tied 5-5 after 12 innings at Ebbets Field, when the managers and umpires agree to stop playing. No one knows it yet, but this is the last game the Braves will play as a Boston team. The next year, during Spring Training, they will move to Milwaukee.
Their last home game had been a week earlier, on September 21, at Braves Field, an 8-2 loss to the Dodgers.
Also on this day, The Allen County War Memorial Coliseum opens in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The 10,240-seat arena was built for the NBA's Fort Wayne Pistons and minor-league hockey's Fort Wayne Komets. But Fort Wayne proved to be too small a city for a major league team, and they moved to Detroit in 1957. Now seating 13,000, it still stands, and the Komets still call it home.
September 28, 1954: Stephen Michael Largent is born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The greatest player in the history of both the University of Tulsa and the Seattle Seahawks, he broke Charley Taylor's records with 819 receptions and 13,089 receiving yards, although was surpassed in receptions by Art Monk, and in both categories by Jerry Rice.
He was a 7-time Pro Bowler, but the closest he got to a Super Bowl was getting the Seahawks to the 1983 AFC Championship Game. (They switched to the NFC in 2002.) His Number 80 was the 1st they retired. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the NFL's 1980s All-Decade Team, and the Seahawks Ring of Honor. In 1999, he was named the only Seahawk on The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players, coming in 46th.
In 1994, he was elected to Congress from a Tulsa district, as a very conservative Republican. He won 3 more terms, but resigned in 2002 to run for Governor of Oklahoma. He lost the general election by 7,000 votes. He is now a lobbyist for the telecommunications industry.
There is film footage, though. That footage shows Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers stealing home plate against the New York Yankees. Home plate umpire Bill Summers rules him safe. Yankee catcher Yogi Berra says Jackie was out, and has a fit.
To the end of his life, Yogi insisted that he wouldn't have argued that strenuously if he wasn't sure, or if Jackie was definitely safe, as Monte Irvin of the New York Giants was when he stole home on Yogi in the 1951 World Series.
Whitey Ford was pitching, and he insists to this day that Jackie was out. But Phil Rizzuto claimed that Jackie was safe, and he knew, because he was playing shortstop, and had the best view of the play.
Whitey didn't like that, so he looked it up. The steal was in the top of the 8th inning -- and in the bottom of the 6th, manager Casey Stengel had pinch-hit Eddie Robinson for the Scooter! In the top of the 7th, a new shortstop took the field: Jerry Coleman (normally a 2nd baseman). Coleman was playing short when Jackie stole home. Oops on the Scooter.
So who was right? Judge for yourself. Here's the film. It's hard to tell from there. But this photo makes it obvious: He was out! See: Yogi's mitt was between Jackie's foot and the plate.
But the Yankees did not lose the Series, or even the game, because of the steal. Indeed, the Yankees won the game, 6-5. Left fielder (and backup catcher) Elston Howard, a "rookie" at age 30, hit a home run off Don Newcombe in the 2nd inning, while 1st baseman Joe Collins hit 2 homers off Big Newk. Carl Furillo and Duke Snider hit home runs off Ford.
Like Carlton Fisk's home run in Game 6, 20 years later, Robinson's steal of home was a spectacular moment, but, ultimately, it had no effect on the result of the Series.
Still, stealing home plate has become Jackie Robinson's signature, along with his grace under more pressure than any American athlete has ever faced. He stole home plate 19 times in the regular season, plus this 1 time in the World Series -- still the last steal of home in a World Series game. (One of the many records that Ty Cobb set, and one that he still holds, is the most steals of home in a career: 54.) It even became a point of reference in Buddy Johnson's 1949 song about Jackie, with the Count Basie Orchestra having made the best-known recording:
Did you see Jackie Robinson hit that ball?
Did he hit it?
Yeah!
And that ain't all:
He stole home!
Yes, yes, Jackie's real gone.
"Gone" meaning "cool." Not as in "has left the vicinity" or "gone in the head." No player ever kept his head -- or had to -- as much as Jack Roosevelt Robinson of Pasadena, California (and Stamford, Connecticut).
Newcombe, Ford, Eddie Robinson, and Yankee left fielder Irv Noren are the only players from this game who are still alive, 61 years later.
This Series was a classic, and it went to 7 games. In the end, as would be said in the Brooklynese accent, the Dodgers finally dooed it. After World Series losses in 1916, 1920, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953 (the last 5 of those 7 against the Yankees), losses in Playoffs for the National League Pennant in 1946 and 1951 (the latter against the hated New York Giants), losing the Pennant on the final day of the regular season in 1942 and 1950, and finishing 2nd to the Giants in 1954 -- 10 close calls in a span of 14 years -- 1955 turned out to be the "Next Year" that Dodger fans from Williamsburg to Coney Island, from Morristown to Montauk, from Poughkeepsie to Point Pleasant, had waited for.
September 28, 1958: The Philadelphia Eagles, after 25 years of bouncing around the city, play their 1st game at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. They lose 24-14 to the Washington Redskins. But in 1960, they will reach, host, and win the NFL Championship Game at Franklin Field, beating the Green Bay Packers. They remain there until Veterans Stadium opens in 1971.
September 28, 1959: Game 1 of the National League Playoff. It was the Braves' move to Milwaukee, with is (then) modern stadium and its huge parking lot, that made Walter O'Malley want a better ballpark for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and ultimately made him move the team to Los Angeles. Now, after the Braves have won the last 2 Pennants, there is a tie for the flag, and these 2 teams, representing cities that didn't even have teams 7 seasons ago face off at Milwaukee County Stadium.
Dodger manager Walter Alston starts Danny McDevitt, who pitched a shutout in the last game at Ebbets Field, 2 years and 4 days earlier. But he doesn't get out of the 2nd inning this time, as he falls behind, 2-1. Alston brings Larry Sherry in to relieve, and he goes the rest of the way. John Roseboro hits a home run off Carlton Willey, and the Dodgers win, 3-2, to take a 1-0 lead back to L.A.
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September 28, 1962: Irving Dale Fryar is born in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey. Like Pittsburgh Steelers Hall-of-Famer Franco Harris, he is a graduate of Mount Holly's Rancocas Valley Regional High School. He played on the Nebraska team that fell 2 points short of putting together the greatest season in college football history in 1983.
A 5-time Pro Bowl receiver, he won the 1985 AFC Championship with the New England Patriots, and also played for the Miami Dolphins, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins. He caught 851 passed for 12,785 yards and 84 touchdowns. In 2009, he was named to the Patriots' 50th Anniversary Team.
He is not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and probably never will be, partly because of a couple of domestic abuse incidents, and partly because of a 2015 conviction for mortgage fraud -- and his mother was convicted along with him. He served 8 months in prison.
Also on this day, Grant Scott Fuhr is born in the Edmonton suburb of Spruce Grove, Alberta. A 6-time All-Star, he won the Stanley Cup with his hometown Edmonton Oilers in 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1990, although by 1990 he had been replaced as the starter by Bill Ranford.
In 1984, he had 14 assists, still an NHL record for a goaltender. In 1988, he was the winning goaltender for all 16 of the Oilers' postseason wins, the 1st time this had been done. In 1995-96, playing for the St. Louis Blues, he set NHL single-season records for goalies with 79 games and 76 consecutive games.
In 1998, he was ranked Number 70 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players. In 2003, he was the 1st black player elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the Oilers retired his Number 31. Wayne Gretzky, his Oiler teammate, is convinced that Grant Fuhr is the greatest goalie in hockey history.
September 28, 1965: Brian Boyer Bliss is born in the Rochester suburb of Webster, New York. Like Joe Maca, born 45 years to the day earlier, he was a defender, and played for the U.S. national team in its 1st World Cup since 1950, in 1990.
He later played for 3 German clubs, and when Major League Soccer was founded in 1996, he became an original member of the Columbus Crew. In 1997, he played for the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, the team that became the New York Red Bulls. In 1999, he was a player-manager for the New Britain-based Connecticut Wolves. He has since been an interim manager for the team now known as Sporting Kansas City, for the Columbus Crew, and for the Chicago Fire, and is back with SKC as director of player personnel.
September 28, 1968: Coming to bat against Jim Lonborg of the Boston Red Sox in the top of the 1st inning at Fenway Park, Mickey Mantle receives a nice hand from the Boston fans, who, though nothing has been made official, suspect that this is it. He hits a pop-up into short left field, where it is caught by Red Sox shortstop Rico Petrocelli.
Mickey was announced as the 1st baseman in this game, but he never takes the field for the bottom of the 1st. Andy Kosco goes out to the position. This is the next-to-last game of the season, and Mickey is not put into the lineup the next day. Thus ends Mickey's career, 3 weeks short of his 37th birthday, although he doesn't make it official until the following March 1.
He finishes with a .298 lifetime batting average, 2,415 hits including 536 home runs, 12 Pennants and 7 World Series. For perspective, in their entire history, 1901 to 2016, the Red Sox have won 13 Pennants and 8 World Series.
Also on this day, Purdue University, with the Number 1-ranked football team in the country, makes the short trip across northern Indiana from West Lafayette to South Bend to play Number 2-ranked Notre Dame. Number 1 vs. Number 2 matchups this early in the season were always rare, and, with the Bowl Championship Series and now the College Football Playoff system in effect, rankings are now no longer done until mid-October, so it can never happen this early again.
Led by head coach Jack Moellenkopf and star running back Leroy Keyes, Purdue wins, 37-22. But 2 weeks later, they will travel to Number 4 Ohio State, and lose 13-0, swinging the Number 1 ranking, the Big Ten Championship, the league's Rose Bowl bid, and a shot at the National Championship, all of them, to the Buckeyes, who would go on to win it all.
Purdue, which had tied for the Big Ten title the season before, and, with the Big Ten's no-repeat rule for their Rose Bowl berth blocking titlists Michigan State, won the Rose Bowl the season before, would also go on to lose to Minnesota, finishing 8-2. Notre Dame would finish 7-2-1, also losing to Michigan State, and being tied by Southern California, and their star running back, who would win the Heisman Trophy: O.J. Simpson.
Keyes would finish 2nd to O.J. in the Heisman voting, and go on to a brief NFL career with the Philadelphia Eagles, and an administrative career in Purdue's Athletic Department. O.J. would have a Hall of Fame pro career. At this point, though, he would probably prefer to switch lives with Keyes.
September 28, 1969: The Minnesota Vikings defeat the Baltimore Colts 52-14 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington. Johnny Unitas is the Colts' quarterback, but the passing star of the day is the Vikes' Joe Kapp, who ties the NFL record by throwing 7 touchdown passes.
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September 28, 1971: The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Mets 5-2 at Shea Stadium. Steve Carlton and Nolan Ryan are the starting pitchers, and will one day be the top 2 pitchers in career strikeouts. Carlton lives up to his billing, and pitches a complete game, for his 20th win of the season.
Ryan does not: He walks the 1st 4 batters of the game: Lou Brock Ted Sizemore, Matty Alou and Joe Torre. He then gives up a 2-run single to Ted Simmons, and is relieved. Brooklyn native Bob Aspromonte grounds out to 2nd against Carlton in the 8th. Just 3,338 fans come out to Shea on a Tuesday afternoon for this game, which appears to be meaningless.
But it is far from meaningless. It is the last game that Carlton pitches for the Cardinals, as he is stupidly traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in the off-season, for Rick Wise, a good but hardly great pitcher, all because Cards owner Gussie Busch, a billionaire from his beer company, wouldn't give him an extra $10,000 for the 1972 season. (About $60,000 in today's money.)
It is also the last game that Ryan pitches for the Mets, as they make possibly an even dumber trade, sending him and his control problems to the California Angels for Jim Fregosi. And Aspromonte never plays again -- making this the last game ever played by a man who had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, 14 years after their move. Willie Mays, the last active New York Giant, is still with the Giants, although the Mets will acquire him the next season.
September 28, 1973: Brian Christopher Rafalski is born outside Detroit in Dearborn, Michigan. A 2-time NHL All-Star, he won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2000 and 2003, and with his hometown Detroit Red Wings in 2008. Not trying to re-sign him is a mistake by then-general manager Lou Lamoriello for which the Devils are still paying.
Now retired, Raffy is a member of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame, and should be considered for the main Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. He is eligible.
September 28, 1975: The New Orleans Saints play their 1st game at the Louisiana Superdome. They lose 21-0 to the Cincinnati Bengals.
It is said that the building, now named the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, was built on a burial ground, and that this has cursed the Saints. New Orleans native, jazz saxophonist and Saints fan Branford Marsalis points out that the Saints had played 7 seasons at Tulane Stadium, which wasn't built on a burial ground. "The Saints were losing before they played on a burial ground. How do you explain that?" At any rate, the Saints have since won postseason games, including Super Bowl XLIV, so if there was a curse, it's gone now.
Also on this day, the Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles 3-2. Both teams had battled the Boston Red Sox for the American League Eastern Division title, but the Sox had won it. It is the last home game the Yankees played at Shea Stadium while the original Yankee Stadium was being renovated -- and remains the last home game they've played at a ballpark not named Yankee Stadium, except for 1 in 1998 that was, in an emergency, moved to Shea.
The game has a bizarre ending. With the O's leading 2-0 going to the bottom of the 9th, Roy White leads off with a single off Mike Flanagan. Thurman Munson singles him to 3rd. Rick Dempsey, later the greatest catcher in Oriole history, draws a walk to load the bases. Oriole manager Earl Weaver removes Flanagan for Dyar Miller, who strikes out Chris Chambliss. Terry Whitfield singles home White and Munson to tie it, sending Dempsey to 3rd.
Then, with Rich Coggins the batter, Weaver orders a pickoff play to 3rd. For Dempsey. A backup catcher. Who was never fast, even at his peak. And certainly wasn't going to steal home in a meaningless game, not even for running-crazy (and just plain crazy) Yankee manager Billy Martin. Miller throws the ball away, and Dempsey calmly trots home with the winning run.
Weaver liked to say, "The Oriole Way is pitching, defense, and three-run homers." In other words, not just home runs, but homers with men on base. This time, he only got 1 homer, and it was a solo drive by Don Baylor. And, at the end, his pitching and his defense failed him, in the form of the same person at the same time.
September 28, 1978: Pope John Paul I dies of a heart attack at the Papal residence, the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City, after only 33 days on the Papal throne. The former Albino Luciani, a native of Veneto in northeast Italy (the province where Venice is located), was 65 years old.
There are conspiracy theories around his death, including that the Vatican Bank (then embroiled in scandal), the Mafia, Fascists and Communists were involved. (Obviously, not all, if any, were.)
That night, as the American League Eastern Division race was down to its last 4 days, Charles Laquidara of Boston radio station WBCN began his broadcast, "Pope dies, Sox still alive." Of course, earlier in the year, when his predecessor, Pope Paul VI, died, good Catholic Phil Rizzuto said, on the air, "Well, that puts a damper on even a Yankee win."
September 28, 1987, 30 years ago: "Encounter at Farpoint," the 2-hour premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, airs in syndication. This was a Star Trek that I could watch develop from the beginning, unlike what's become known as "The Original Series," which I watched in reruns with my father, an original Trekkie from 1966. (No, he never went to a convention or cosplayed, but he did put up Starlog magazine posters of both series' versions of the starship USS Enterprise in his home office.)
The opening shot showed a sweeping front view of the Enterprise-D, and Dad said, "I want that ship!" He would say this many times over the show's 7-year run.
Sports was rarely mentioned on the original series or TNG. Deep Space Nine would mention sports, particularly baseball, a lot, but, sadly, said that, in the Star Trek universe, baseball died out, with the clinching game of the last World Series attended by only 300 people. The lingering effects of World War III, which lasted from 2026 (just 7 years from now!) until 2053, I suppose. DS9's Captain Benjamin Sisko would be responsible for reviving baseball in the United Federation of Planets.
The 1995 DS9 episode Past Tense, which sent the characters back to 2024, said that the 1999 Yankees would be considered one of the greatest teams ever. They got that right! What they didn't get right (along with, hopefully, the "Sanctuary Districts") was an MLB team in London that, by 2015, would be another contender for the title. And, on Voyager, it would be revealed that the Yankees would win the 2032 World Series in 6 games, although their opponent was not mentioned.
September 28, 1991: Saturday Night Live premieres its 17th season. It is the debut of castmembers Ellen Cleghorne, Siobhan Fallon, and Robert Smigel, who writes the "Bob Swerski's SuperfFans" sketch. It features a TV talk show focused on Chicago sports fans and the things they like to eat and drink.
George Wendt of Cheers, not a regular cast member but a Chicago native in real life, plays the host of the show, Swerski, conducting the show from Bears coach Mike Ditka's Chicago restaurant. Smigel played Carl Wollarski, Chris Farley played Todd O'Connor, and Mike Myers played Pat Arnold.
All of them tried to resemble Ditka by wearing Bears caps (or Bulls caps, depending on the time of year), sunglasses and mustaches. They extolled "Da Bears" and "Da Bulls," spoke with exaggerated Chicago accents, and joked about heart attacks -- which got a lot less funny in retrospect after Farley's drug-induced heart attack death in 1997.
I first visited Chicago on September 13, 1990, 4 months before the sketch's debut on January 12, 1991. When I got back, I was asked if I noted any distinctive accent. I thought about it, and realized that I didn't. Once I saw the sketch, I realized why: The Chicago accent, with its "dis, dat, dese, dose" and stretched-out vowels is so similar to the accents of New York City and North Jersey that I didn't notice it. Between that, and the neighborhood around Wrigley Field resembling the North Jersey neighborhoods of my parents, I felt right at home! I love Chicago.
September 28, 1994: Ken Burns' PBS miniseries Baseball concludes with its segment "Ninth Inning: Home," covering the years 1970 to 1992. Its coverage of the struggles of black baseball players and battles between players and management was the most in-depth that baseball fans had ever seen. And its film footage, going as far back as a 1906 clip of Christy Mathewson pitching for the New York Giants, was stunning. It was a great medicine for those of us sickened by the cancellation of that year's postseason.
Four years earlier, from September 23 to 27, 1990, PBS had aired Burns' miniseries The Civil War. That war began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861. The order for the Union Army to return fire was given by the fort's second-in-command, Major Abner Doubleday. So Doubleday was present at the start of an important American phenomenon that would later be covered by Ken Burns -- but it wasn't baseball.
September 28, 1995: Albert Johanneson dies of meningitis in Leeds, England. He was only 55. One of the 1st black South Africans to make it big in soccer, the left winger took to English pitches at a time when there weren't many black players in the country at all, and faced terrible discrimination, although not as much as did Jackie Robinson, in his sport and in his own country, a generation earlier.
Nevertheless, he helped Yorkshire club Leeds United gain promotion to the Football League Division One in 1964, finish runners-up in both the League and the FA Cup in 1965, and win the League in 1969.
September 28, 1996: At their home ground of Highbury in North London, Arsenal defeat North-East club Sunderland 2-0. They leave it late, with John Hartson scoring the winner in the 73rd minute, and Ray Parlour adding an insurance goal in the 88th.
This is the last game for Pat Rice, the Captain of Arsenal's 1979 FA Cup-winners, as "caretaker" manager. After the firing of Bruce Rioch in the Summer, Arsenal were waiting until the former winner of the French league at AS Monaco could see out his contract with Japanese team Nagoya Grampus. Two days later, they were able to introduce him. His name was Arsène Wenger.
Also on this day, Saturday Night Live premieres the "Saturday TV Funhouse" animated sketch "The Ambiguously Gay Duo," designed to look like a 1970s-style Saturday morning cartoon, and playing with the idea that Batman and Robin are a gay couple.
Ace, voiced by Stephen Colbert, is the "Batman," the alpha male. Gary -- A and G, as in "Ambiguously Gay" -- voiced by Steve Carell, is the "Robin," the less experienced, younger, shorter, not quite as power-arrayed, but equally-muscled sidekick. While they can both fly, they tend to get around in a suspiciously-shaped "Duocar." Their main adversary is a villain named Bighead, voiced by the series' creator, Robert Smigel, a.k.a. Carl from the Chicago Superfans (Da Bears) sketch.
The sketch appeared 4 times in the 1996-97 season, and occasionally thereafter. Both allies and enemies spend much of the episodes wondering if the Duo are gay. The evidence that they are is plentiful, but not definitive. As far as I know, gay activist groups have never protested the sketch.
September 28, 1998: The Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants, having finished in a tie for the NL's Wild Card berth, face each other in a Playoff game at a raucous Wrigley Field. Former Minnesota Twins World Series winner Gary Gaetti hits a home run, and Rod Beck holds off his former team to save a fine performance by Steve Traschel, and the Cubs win, 5-3.
Sammy Sosa goes 2-for-4 for the Cubbies, and scores 2 runs. Barry Bonds goes 0-for-4 for the Jints. I guess Sammy's steroids were working that night, and Barry's weren't.
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September 28, 2000: The last game is played at Milwaukee County Stadium. The Milwaukee Brewers lose 8-1 to the Cincinnati Reds. Juan Castro and Sean Casey hit home runs for the visitors. A postgame ceremony is held, with many greats of the Braves (1953-65) and Brewers (1970-2000).
September 28, 2002: Hartland Molson dies in Montreal at age 95. A member of the Molson brewing family, he attended the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario, Canada's "West Point," where he was on the hockey, football, track and boxing teams. He flew 62 missions with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Battle of Britain.
He was on the board of directors of Molson Breweries, Sun Life Assurance and the Bank of Montreal, was a major donor to medical schools and institutes, and served in Canada's Senate from 1955 to 1993. In 1957, he and his brother Thomas bought a controlling interest in the Montreal Canadiens, and he sold his interest in 1968, following 6 Stanley Cup wins. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1973.
September 28, 2003: Two of the stadiums of the expansion era, necessary to keep their teams in town, but also past their useful life, close. The Philadelphia Phillies play the last game at Veterans Stadium, and lose 8-3 to the Atlanta Braves. The Eagles had already moved across the street to the south, to Lincoln Financial Field, and the Phillies were preparing to move across the street to the east, to Citizens Bank Park.
The closing ceremony features several former Phillies, including most of the 1980 World Champions. After the introductions, Steve Carlton walks out to the mound and pretends to throw one last pitch. Then Mike Schmidt swings a bat and takes one more trip around the bases. And Tug McGraw, dying of cancer (he didn't live long enough to see the new ballpark's opening) and his catcher Bob Boone reenact the stadium's greatest moment, the strikeout that ended the 1980 World Series. It ends with Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas saying The Vet "is... outta here!" It was demolished the following March.
The San Diego Padres ended up no better at the finale for San Diego/Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium, losing 10-8 to the Colorado Rockies. Tony Gwynn, not yet eligible for the Hall of Fame but "Mr. Padre," involved in both their 1984 and their 1998 Pennant, throws out a ceremonial last pitch to Bruce Bochy, a former big-league catcher who managed their 1998 Pennant winners.
September 28, 2008: An emotional day for both New York teams. The Yankees, having closed the old Yankee Stadium a week earlier with a 7-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles, and a star-laden pregame ceremony and a postgame lap of honor, but eliminated from postseason eligibility for the 1st time in 15 years in their next game, beat the American League Eastern Division Champion Boston Red Sox 6-2 at Fenway Park.
Xavier Nady hits a home run off Daisuke Matsuzaka, who came into the game 18-2. But the big story is Mike Mussina, who has announced his retirement, and this is his last game. He wins his 20th game of the season, the only time he ever did that. No Yankee has won 20 in a season since. It is the 270th win of Moose's career.
But at Shea Stadium, the Mets endure "Groundhog Day." Having blown a September Division lead and lost to the Florida Marlins at home on the last day of the season to miss the Playoffs completely last season, it happens again. They lose the last scheduled game at Shea, 6-2 to the Marlins.
The Phillies didn't wait until the last day to clinch the National League East this time, although they do beat the Washington Nationals 8-3. And when the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Chicago Cubs 3-1, they clinch the NL Wild Card, and eliminate the Mets. There will be no more games at Shea, with Citi Field nearing completion beyond center field.
A postgame ceremony is held, with Mets going back to the first team in 1962, prior to Shea's opening in 1964, coming onto the field, including most of the 1969 and 1986 World Champions. Despite his Yankee connections, 1973 Pennant-winner manager Yogi Berra gets a nice hand. So does Dave Kingman, a slugger known for his long home runs, but also for his strikeouts, bad fielding and moodiness. So does Willie Mays, even though he wasn't a Met for very long.
The close has the greatest of all Mets, Tom Seaver, take the mound, and throw a last pitch to Mike Piazza. But it's a bad pitch, bouncing in front of the plate. (Seaver threw a strike to Piazza for the ceremonial first pitch at Citi Field the following April.) Then, to the tune of "In My Life," not one of the songs the Beatles playing in their 1965 and 1966 concerts at Shea, Seaver and Piazza walk across the field, give one last wave to the fans at the center field gate, and walk out.
Why Seaver and Piazza? Why not representatives of both World Series teams, who were both already in the Hall of Fame? Why not Seaver and Gary Carter, who was still alive and well? If they wanted representatives of all the Mets' Pennant-winners, why not Seaver (1969 and 1973), Piazza (2000) and Carter (1986)? If they wanted representatives of all the Mets' Playoff teams, why not Seaver (1969 and 1973), Piazza (1999 and 2000), David Wright (2006) and Carter (1986 and 1988) -- making a "Met Mount Rushmore"? The organization had little control over the game, but they had absolute control over the closing ceremonies. Yet another error on the Mets.
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September 28, 2010: On the 16th anniversary of the conclusion of Baseball, PBS airs the 1st part of Ken Burns' sequel: Baseball: The Tenth Inning. It covers the years 1993 to 2009, and includes the steroid controversy and the Boston Red Sox' 2004 World Series victory -- but, being a Red Sox fan himself (though born in Brooklyn, he's lived his adult life in New Hampshire), Burns does not point out that the two phenomena are linked.
He did cover the Yankees' return to glory with proper respect. He also covered the Strike of '94, Cal Ripken breaking Lou Gehrig's "Iron Man" record, baseball's response to the 9/11 attacks, and the dominant role that Hispanic players have taken in baseball.
September 28, 2011: One of the most remarkable days in the history of regular season baseball. The Yankees have won the American League East, with help from the Red Sox, who went 7-20 in September, a month they began by leading the Division by 1 game and the Wild Card by 9.
But the Baltimore Orioles come from 3-2 down in the bottom of the 9th at Camden Yards, as Robert Andino singles off Jonathan Papelbon to give the O's a 4-3 win. This gives the Yankees the Division title. The Sox can still win the Wild Card, but the Rays complete a sweep of the Yankees, coming from 7-0 down to win 8-7 in the 12th inning on Evan Longoria's 2nd home run of the game.
Yankee Fans have a good laugh, though: The Sox become the 1st team ever to miss the Playoffs completely after having a 9-game lead for any berth in September. The Sox may have won the World Series twice in the last 8 years, but this night adds to their long list of chokes.
The Atlanta Braves also choke, having led the St. Louis Cardinals by 10 1/2 games for the NL Wild Card on August 25, but going 11-20 since, while the Cards went 23-9. On the final day, the Cards beat the Houston Astros 8-0 as Chris Carpenter pitches a 2-hit shutout, while the Braves lose to the Phillies, 4-3 in 13 innings. The Braves are out.
Also on this day, the Florida Marlins play their last game under that name, and their last game at the Miami Dolphins' stadium. They lose 3-1 to the Washington Nationals, ending 19 years of play in the suburb of Miami Gardens. The next season, they will be named the Miami Marlins, and move to the new, garish, retractable-roof Marlins Park, built on the Little Havana site of the Orange Bowl.
It is also the last game for Ivan Rodriguez, playing out the string for the Marlins, whom he and his steroids helped win the 2003 World Series.
September 28, 2012: The Barclays Center opens in Brooklyn, across from the Long Island Rail Road's Flatbush Avenue Terminal, on the site that Walter O'Malley originally wanted for his new Dodger Stadium. Designed by Frank Gehry, it is the strangest-looking sports venue in North America.
The 1st event is a concert by Brooklyn native rapper Jay-Z. The NBA's Nets, finally getting to rebrand themselves as "Brooklyn" after playing their last 8 seasons in New Jersey as a lame duck franchise, have to delay their entry even further, as Hurricane Katrina postpones their opener. The New York Islanders move in for the 2015-16 season.
September 28, 2013: The Yankees beat the Houston Astros 2-1. It is Andy Pettitte's last major league game, and the Yankee pitcher, who had a 3-year (2004-06) sabbatical with the Astros, the team he grew up rooting for in the Houston suburbs, pitches a complete-game victory in his hometown. It is the 256th win of his career, his 219th for the Yankees. Only Whitey Ford (236) and Red Ruffing (231) have won more for the Yankees.
Right, Joe Girardi let his starter pitch a complete game, after the Yankees were eliminated from the Playoffs, and the game no longer means anything to anybody but Pettitte.
September 28, 2014: The Yankees beat the Red Sox 9-5 at Fenway Park. Michael Pineda outpitches Clay Buchholz. With the game scoreless in the top of the 3rd, Francisco Cervelli leads off with a walk. Chris Young strikes out, but Jose Pirela singles, and Buchholz moves the runners over with a wild pitch. Ichiro Suzuki triples the runners home.
Derek Jeter, the designated hitter on this day -- Stephen Drew is the shortstop -- hits a ground ball to 3rd base. Garin Cecchini fields it, but Jeter beats the throw, and Ichiro scores, to make it 3-0 Yankees.
It is Jeter's 3,465th career hit. Only Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Tris Speaker have more -- meaning Jeter has more hits than all but 2 living people, and more hits than anyone born after April 14, 1941.
Girardi sends Brian McCann -- perhaps the slowest runner on the team, but whose bat will fill the DH slot -- in to pinch-run, and the Fenway crowd, which despises the Yankees and has long maintained that Jeter and his teammates "suck," gives him a standing ovation as he leaves a major league field for the last time.
September 28, 2016: Shimon Peres dies from the effects of a stroke. He was 93 years old, the last surviving founding father of Israel from 1948. He was a member of their Parliament, the Knesset, from 1959 to 2007; and was Prime Minister 3 times: Briefly in 1977, from 1984 to 1986, and again in 1995-96, following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
He once said, "Sometimes people ask me, 'What is the greatest achievement you have reached in your lifetime?' So I reply that there was a great painter named Mordecai Ardon, who was asked which picture was the most beautiful he had ever painted. Ardon replied, 'The picture I will paint tomorrow.' That is also my answer."
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