October 9, 1958: The Yankees complete a 3-games-to-1 comeback – only the 2nd in World Series history, after the 1925 Pirates – by gaining revenge on the Braves, 6-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium, and take their 18th World Championship.
After being defeated by former Yankee farmhand Lew Burdette 3 times in the '57 Series, including getting shut out in Game 7, this time, the Yanks knock Burdette out of the box in Game 7. Bill "Moose" Skowron's 3-run 8th-inning homer off last year's Series nemesis puts the game on ice. Eddie Mathews strikes out for the 11th time‚ a record that will stand until 1980 when broken by Willie Wilson of the Kansas City Royals (and then again in 2009 by Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies). The Braves' 53 strikeouts are also a new Series record.
Bob Turley, about to become the Yankees' 1st Cy Young Award winner, had lost Game 2, but won Game 5 and saved Game 6, and now wins Game 7 on no rest. Mickey Mantle catches the final out in center field, the only time he was ever involved in a World Series' final play (hitting or fielding).
This is Casey Stengel's 7th World Championship‚ tying him with Joe McCarthy for the most Series won. No one would have believed it at the time, but it will be his last. It's also the 1st time that the official World Series highlight film, which had been produced since 1943, is in color.
There are 7 surviving players from the 1958 Yankees, 57 years later: Larsen, Ford, Bobby Shantz, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Art Ditmar and Zach Monroe.
The Yankees would miss the World Series in 1959, but would be back in each of the next 5 years. The Braves, on the other hand, would not return to the Fall Classic for another 33 years, and, by then, they would be in Atlanta. The City of Milwaukee would not get back for another 24 years, and then with the Brewers, and only that once since.
At the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a member of the Republican Party, was the President of the United States. In the 61 years since, the Yankees have won 9 World Series, all when the President was a member of the Democratic Party: John F. Kennedy in 1961 and 1962; Jimmy Carter in 1977 and 1978; Bill Clinton in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000; and Barack Obama in 2009. They also lost the World Series under Democratic Presidents JFK in 1963 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Under Republican Presidents, the Yankees have lost World Series in 1960 (Eisenhower), 1976 (Gerald Ford), 1981 (Ronald Reagan), 2001 (George W. Bush) and 2003 (Dubya again). Under Richard Nixon, their best performance was 2nd place in the AL East in 1970. Under the elder George Bush, they never even had a winning season. Now, Donald Trump holds the office. They lost Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS, and got knocked out in the ALDS in 2018.
I told you all to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. You should have listened to me.
Can the Yankees break The Curse of Ike? We shall see.
UPDATE: No, not in 2019, either.
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October 9, 1701: "The Collegiate School" is founded in Saybrook Colony, in what is now Old Saybrook, Connecticut. It is moved to New Haven in 1716, and in 1718 is renamed for a benefactor: Yale College.
Elihu Yale was born in 1649 in Boston, but his father soon moved the Welsh family back to London for business. Yale rose through the East India Company, trading with India and the East Indies, and was named president of their office in Madras (now named Chennai). But he was dismissed when the company learned he had made his fortune through dishonest means. He was also involved in the slave trade of the era.
Perhaps his donations to the Collegiate School that would bear his name was a way of making up for that. He died in 1721. The school was renamed Yale University in 1887, and had already begun to be vital in the development of American education and American sports.
Also in honor of Eli Yale, the University is sometimes known as "Old Eli," and its students and alumni "Yalies" or "Elis." The school newspaper is The Yale Daily News, nicknamed The Daily Yalie.
October 9, 1757: Charles Philippe d'Artois is born at the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris. A brother of Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII of France, and an uncle of the never-crowned King Louis XVII, he returned from exile as heir to the throne behind Louis XVIII, and upon Louis' death in 1824 was crowned as King Charles X.
He proved to be too conservative for the French public, and his conquest of Algeria in 1830 proved disastrous in terms both short and long. He was deposed that year in the July Revolution, and the crown passed to his cousin Louis Philippe. Charles X died in exile in London in 1836.
October 9, 1759: Daniel Frederick Bakeman is born in Schoharie, New York, outside Albany. It is not known for certain that he was the last surviving veteran of the War of the American Revolution, which was fought from 1775 to 1783. It is known that he was the last surviving recipient of a veteran's pension from that war.
A photograph of a man who served
in the War of the American Revolution. Such a thing does exist.
He and his wife, born Susan Brewer, also have, to this day, the longest registered marriage in American history: 91 years. He died on April 5, 1869, at the age of 109, at the time the longest-lived person in American history, as far as can be authenticated.
His life spanned not just his own war, but the French and Indian War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War.
Or, to put it another way: When he was born, America's commander-in-chief was King George II of Great Britain (not George III); when he died, it was Ulysses S. Grant. When he was born, "sport" was something done by the rich: Horse racing, fox hunting, things like that. When he died, baseball and soccer had been invented, boxing had become popular, and American football was a few months away -- and the 1st 3 had all been, surreptitiously, professional.
October 9, 1779: Count Casimir Pulaski, "the Father of the American Cavalry," is wounded during the Siege of Savannah, which is now doomed to failure. He dies on October 11, at age 34, and the siege is called off on October 18. The Georgia seaport city remains under British control until the Treaty of Paris of 1783 gives it back to America.
October 9, 1782: Lewis Cass is born in Exeter, New Hampshire. After the War of the American Revolution, many people from New England moved west to what was then the Northwest Territory, which explains why the States that came from it still have a strain of innate conservatism. The Cass family settled in Ohio, and Lewis was elected to Congress from that State. In 1807, he left that office when President Thomas Jefferson appointed him U.S. Marshal for the State.
He commanded a U.S. Army regiment in the War of 1812, including in the Battle of the Thames, at which the Native chief Tecumseh was killed. President James Madison appointed him Governor of the Michigan Territory in 1813, and so he is, for all intents and purposes, the founding father of the State of Michigan.
He was Governor until 1831, when President Andrew Jackson appointed him U.S. Secretary of War, holding the post until 1836, when Jackson appointed him U.S. Ambassador to France, holding that job until 1842. He was considered for the Presidency in 1844, was elected to the U.S. Senate from Michigan that year, and was nominated for President by the Democratic Party in 1848, losing to Zachary Taylor.
Unfortunately, he was an advocate of "popular sovereignty," the idea that the people of the various States -- all of them white -- should vote on whether to allow slavery within their borders when achieving Statehood. As a result of his straddling the line on slavery, in 1857 President James Buchanan appointed him U.S. Secretary of State, possibly setting him up as a successor. Buchanan's Administration was a disaster, and once it ended, Cass never held public office again. He lived until 1866, long enough to see the American Civil War won by the Union (with heavy losses from his home States of Ohio and Michigan), and slavery abolished.
October 9, 1794: A massive show of force by the U.S. Army leads the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion to back down without a fight. The rebellion, in Western Pennsylvania, had been a refusal to allow the collection of a tax on whiskey, the 1st tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly-formed federal government.
Many of the rebels had fought in the War of the American Revolution, which was, in large measure, about taxation without representation. But, as their former commanding officer, President George Washington, reminded them, this was taxation with representation.
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October 9, 1813: Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi is born in Le Roncole, outside Parma, then part of the French Empire. He is Italy's most-loved composer, known for his operas Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore (1853), La Traviata (also 1853), La Forza del Destino (1869), Aida (1871), Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). He died in 1901.
Fans of The Odd Couple will recognize the title La Forza del Destino as one that Felix gave Oscar to win a phone contest.
October 9, 1857: James Allan (no middle name) is born in Ayr, Scotland. he became a school headmaster at Sunderland in the North-East of England, and in 1879 founded what became Sunderland Association Football Club at that school, playing forward himself. In 1888, he founded another club, Sunderland Albion Football Club, but it went out of business 4 years later.
Sunderland A.F.C., on the other hand, survived, winning 4 Football League titles before Allan's death in 1911, and winning the title again in 1913 and 1936, although they have not done so since. They won the FA Cup in 1937 and 1973, but that '73 Cup remains their last major trophy.
October 9, 1864: Maud Edith Eleanor Watson is born in Harrow, West London. She won the 1st and 2nd Ladies' Singles titles at Wimbledon, in 1884 and 1885. In calendar year 1885, she went unbeaten in all her matches, losing just 1 set. But a wrist injury in 1887 led to her leaving the sport in 1889, just 25 years old, the 1st known case of a woman's tennis career ending too soon.
She worked as a nurse during World War I, received an OBE for it, and lived until 1946.
October 9, 1865: Albert Joseph Maul is born in Philadelphia. A pitcher, he debuted in 1884, at age 18, with a team in his hometown, the Philadelphia Keystones, in the Union Association, a league that played only in that season, and is rather dubiously recognized as a major league.
After a couple of seasons in the minors, "Smiling Al" caught on with another hometown team, the Philadelphia Quakers of the National League, the team that would be renamed the Phillies in 1890. He would play in another "outlaw league," the Players' League of 1890.
Statistically, his best season was 1895, with the original Washington Senators, leading the National League in ERA. Competitively, his best was in 1899, when he helped the Brooklyn Superbas (forerunners of the Dodgers) win the NL Pennant.
He closed his career with the New York Giants in 1901. He lived until 1958, at age 92, making him the last surviving player from the Union Association.
October 9, 1880: Charles Victory Faust is born in Marion, Kansas. Little is known of his life before July 1911, when he went to St. Louis and visited New York Giants manager John McGraw. Faust told him that a fortune teller said he would help the Giants win the Pennant.
McGraw didn't believe it, but, being superstitious, and having a team owner, John Brush, who would do anything McGraw asked, Faust was signed to a contract. When Faust was in uniform, the Giants were 36-2. When he wasn't, they struggled.
McGraw wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to put Faust into a game that counted. So he waited until after the Pennant was clinched, and pitched him in 2 games, both times in just the 9th inning. The Giants lost the World Series to the Philadelphia Athletics, but then, the fortune teller never said anything about the World Series, only the Pennant.
It sounds like the story of the musical Damn Yankees, and the Douglass Wallop novel on which it was based, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant: A guy nobody's ever heard of comes out of nowhere and tells a team he can win them the Pennant, and, spoiler alert, he does. The difference in that story? He's sold his soul to the Devil so that his favorite team, the Washington Senators, can win the Pennant.
It was based on a story from German legend, told in Elizabethan England by Christopher Marlowe, and in early 19th Century Germany by novelist Johann von Goethe and later in that Century in opera form by French composer Charles Gounod. The name of the story? Faust.
It was based on a story from German legend, told in Elizabethan England by Christopher Marlowe, and in early 19th Century Germany by novelist Johann von Goethe and later in that Century in opera form by French composer Charles Gounod. The name of the story? Faust.
The Giants started the 1912 season 54-11. Faust still wanted to pitch, but McGraw had enough, and he got Brush to release him. The Giants went into a slump, but still won the Pennant. And lost the World Series to the Boston Red Sox.
In 1914, Charlie Faust was committed to a mental hospital in Portland, Oregon, and diagnosed with dementia and tuberculosis. He died a year later.
October 9, 1884: Jack Manning, a right fielder for the Philadelphia Quakers (forerunners of the Phillies), hits 3 home runs against the Chicago White Stockings (forerunners of the Cubs) at Lakeshore Park in Chicago.
This 3-homer feat was not a great surprise, as Lakeshore Park had a 184-foot right field foul pole, and the White Stockings' Cap Anson and Ned Williamson had already had 3-homer games this season. What was a surprise is that the Quakers didn't even come close to winning: The White Stockings won, 19-7.
It remained the only game in baseball history where a team lost despite one of its players hitting 3 home runs, until July 7, 2018, when Wil Myers hit 3 home runs, but his San Diego Padres stll lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks 20-5.
Until the 1884 season, any ball hit over Lakeshore Park's right field wall was a ground-rule double. For this season, it was made a home run. There were so many objections, the National League ordered them to move for the 1885 season, despite their owner being Al Spalding, probably the most powerful man in baseball at that point. Maybe they shouldn't have said anything, as the White Stockings didn't win the Pennant in 1884, but won it in 1885 and 1886.
Lakeshore Park was also the site of the 1st college football game in the Midwest, on May 30, 1879. The University of Michigan met Racine College of Wisconsin, and won 1-0. (It was a field goal. Under today's rules, it would have been 3-0.) Like the later home of the New York Giants, the Polo Grounds, Lakeshore Park had a shape that made it much better suited to football than to baseball.
October 9, 1886: Richard William Marquard is born in Cleveland. Known as "Rube" because he was a lefty fireballer, similar to George "Rube" Waddell, the New York Giants signed him for $11,000, a record for the time. (About $300,000 in today's money.)
In 1914, Charlie Faust was committed to a mental hospital in Portland, Oregon, and diagnosed with dementia and tuberculosis. He died a year later.
October 9, 1884: Jack Manning, a right fielder for the Philadelphia Quakers (forerunners of the Phillies), hits 3 home runs against the Chicago White Stockings (forerunners of the Cubs) at Lakeshore Park in Chicago.
This 3-homer feat was not a great surprise, as Lakeshore Park had a 184-foot right field foul pole, and the White Stockings' Cap Anson and Ned Williamson had already had 3-homer games this season. What was a surprise is that the Quakers didn't even come close to winning: The White Stockings won, 19-7.
It remained the only game in baseball history where a team lost despite one of its players hitting 3 home runs, until July 7, 2018, when Wil Myers hit 3 home runs, but his San Diego Padres stll lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks 20-5.
Until the 1884 season, any ball hit over Lakeshore Park's right field wall was a ground-rule double. For this season, it was made a home run. There were so many objections, the National League ordered them to move for the 1885 season, despite their owner being Al Spalding, probably the most powerful man in baseball at that point. Maybe they shouldn't have said anything, as the White Stockings didn't win the Pennant in 1884, but won it in 1885 and 1886.
Lakeshore Park was also the site of the 1st college football game in the Midwest, on May 30, 1879. The University of Michigan met Racine College of Wisconsin, and won 1-0. (It was a field goal. Under today's rules, it would have been 3-0.) Like the later home of the New York Giants, the Polo Grounds, Lakeshore Park had a shape that made it much better suited to football than to baseball.
October 9, 1886: Richard William Marquard is born in Cleveland. Known as "Rube" because he was a lefty fireballer, similar to George "Rube" Waddell, the New York Giants signed him for $11,000, a record for the time. (About $300,000 in today's money.)
When he got off to a rough start in the majors, the press called him "the $11,000 Lemon." But he led the National League in strikeouts in 1911, helping the Giants win the Pennant, and he became "the $11,000 Beauty."
In 1912, he won 19 consecutive games, leading the Giants to another Pennant. They won another in 1913, and he won Pennants with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1916 and 1920 -- making him the 1st player, and one of the very few, ever to win Pennants for 2 NL teams in New York. (None ever did with either the Dodgers and the Mets, and only Willie Mays did so with the Giants and the Mets.)
But his teams went 0-5 in World Series play. He was 3rd all-time in strikeouts by a lefthander upon his retirement, trailing only Waddell and Eddie Plank, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He lived until 1980.
October 9, 1887: The St. Louis Browns (forerunners of the National League Cardinals, rather than of the American League team that became the Baltimore Orioles) end their American Association Pennant season with a 95-40 record‚ besting their 1886 record by 2 wins. This will not be topped until the adoption of the 154-game schedule.
Their left fielder, James Edward "Tip" O'Neill, batted .435 on the season, with 14 home runs and 123 RBIs. He led the AA in all 3 categories, making him the only player in the league's 10-season history to win the Triple Crown.
Because of his fame, "Tip" becomes a common nickname for men named O'Neill with 2 L's, including Thomas Phillip O'Neill Jr., the longtime Boston Congressman who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1986. He threw out the ceremonial first ball before Game 3 of the 1986 World Series at Fenway Park.
Also on this day, Guy Hecker of the Louisville Colonels, who went 52-20 pitching for the Colonels in 1884, and usually played 1st base when he wasn't pitching, becomes the first 1st baseman to play a 9-inning game with no fielding chances. The Colonels lose 2-0 to the Cincinnati Red Stockings (later to become the Reds) and finish 4th in the AA. Hecker finished his career with a .282 batting average and 175 pitching wins, and lived on until 1938, age 82.
October 9, 1890: The National League, the American Association, and the insurgent Players' League, all hit hard financially by their 3-way "war" for players and fans, reach a truce. The PL folds, and their players are welcomed back to their former teams at their former salaries.
The NL survives to this day. The AA, however, is mortally wounded, and folds after one more season. This brings a vacuum that is filled by the American League in 1901. In 1902, a new American Association will be formed, at the highest minor-league level.
Also on this day, Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy is born in Salford, Ontario. In the 1920s, under her married name of Aimee Semple McPherson, she used radio sermons to become the most popular Protestant evangelist in North America.
But her messy personal life exposed her as a predecessor to such false prophets as Billy James Hargis, Reverend Ike, Garner Ted Armstrong, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard and Jerry Falwell Jr. (although, as far as I know, not Sr.). She died in 1944.
October 9, 1898: Joseph Wheeler Sewell is born in Titus, Alabama. He was one of the earliest football heroes at the University of Alabama, but it was in baseball that he is remembered. In 1920, he was called up to the Cleveland Indians to be there shortstop after Ray Chapman was killed by being hit in the head with a pitch. He helped the Indians play through the tragedy and win their 1st World Series.
He starred with the Indians through the 1930 season. The Yankees acquired him, and he helped them win 107 games plus the World Series in 1932. He retired after the next season with a .312 lifetime batting average. In 7,132 career at-bats, he struck out 114 times, an average of once every 62.5 at-bats. Only Willie Keeler has done better, 63.1. He played in 1,103 consecutive games, 2nd all-time to Everett Scott at that point.
He later became the baseball coach at Alabama, and future Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler was one of his pitchers. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977, and lived until 1990. His brother Luke Sewell managed the St. Louis Browns to their only Pennant in 1944, and his brother Tommy Sewell played 1 game for the 1927 Chicago Cubs. Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Rip Sewell, known for his blooper that he called an "eephus pitch," was his cousin.
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October 9, 1900: Union Station opens in Nashville, to serve the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (The L&N). It provided service as far north as Chicago, as far south as Florida and New Orleans. Amtrak took over national rail passenger service in 1971, and ended its last service out of Nashville, to Florida, in 1979.
The station was converted to a hotel in 1986, and Amtrak has never returned to Tennessee's capital city.
October 9, 1903: Walter Francis O'Malley is born in The Bronx -- the location will likely be of little surprise to surviving Brooklyn Dodger fans, who still hate the Yankees. Even less surprising, he grew up (in Queens) as a fan of the New York Giants. Those of us who were around in the 1950s (myself not among them) all should have known.
Dodger fans, and the Met fans who followed them, won't be surprised by this, either: He graduated from the Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, as did George Steinbrenner.
He struggled as a lawyer in the Great Depression, but, by 1933, only 30 years old, he was the senior partner at a Midtown Manhattan law firm. He was hired by the Brooklyn Trust Company to administer mortgage foreclosures against failing businesses, thus making money off the misery of the poor during the worst economic crisis in American history. This should also surprise no one who knew of him later.
Brooklyn Trust also owned the estate of Charles Hercules Ebbets, part-owner of the Dodgers and the man who built Ebbets Field. It assigned the Dodgers' assets to O'Malley. By 1944, he had officially and fully bought out Brooklyn Trust's share of the team's ownership.
In 1950, he forced out part-owner and team president Branch Rickey and the remaining part-owners, and had full control. After the 1953 season, his criticisms led broadcaster Red Barber to quit and cross town to the Yankees. After the 1956 season, he traded Jackie Robinson to the Giants. Jackie retired instead of playing for the arch-rivals. So in a span of 6 years, O'Malley had forced out 3 of the noblest characters in the history of the game.
In other words, he would have been a filthy son of a bitch even if he hadn't moved the Dodgers. Which he did. By 1954, he suggested a domed stadium for downtown Brooklyn, because Ebbets Field was too small and had hardly any parking. The stadium would be across from the Long Island Railroad terminal, eliminating the need for new parking. But New York City, and New York State, construction czar Robert Moses wouldn't condemn the land necessary to build it. (The Barclays Center was built on the site in 2012.)
Enticed by Los Angeles, O'Malley chose the easier, and far more lucrative, way out, rather than find a way to use the City and/or State government to get around Moses. In other words, while O'Malley isn't solely to blame for the Dodgers moving, he is primarily to blame. And while the Giants were already planning to move to Minneapolis after the 1957 season (they had their top farm team there), it was O'Malley that talked them into keeping the rivalry going by moving to San Francisco.
O'Malley used his influence with the other owners to make Commissioners Ford Frick, William D. Eckert and Bowie Kuhn mere spokesmen for his desires. His money-grubbing ways hurt people in Los Angeles and kept the evil reserve clause in place until 1975. When he died of cancer in 1979, age 75, he remained the most hated man in New York, even though he had been out of New York for 22 years. His son Peter, a lookalike but a considerably nicer man, sold the Dodgers in 1998, ending the family's ownership after 54 years. (Peter is still alive, at age 78.)
Walter O'Malley has since been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Why? He was greedy, he was immoral, and, since he was far from the 1st person to suggest putting Major League Baseball in Los Angeles, he was no visionary. He was a disgrace. A baseball fan who is also a Harry Potter fan could call him "Lord Waltermort."
October 9, 1905: Having been mocked as cowards for refusing to play in the 1904 World Series, the New York Giants are ready to go this time. Christy Mathewson shuts out the Philadelphia Athletics, and the Giants win Game 1, 3-0.
October 9, 1906: Snow flies at the West Side Grounds as the 1st single-city World Series opens, with the Cubs heavy favorites over the AL's "Hitless Wonders." Neither ballpark can fully accommodate the crowds‚ so the Chicago Tribune recreates the games on mechanical boards displayed at theaters. White Sox starter Nick Altrock and Cubs starter Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown give up 4 hits each‚ but Cubs errors produce 2 unearned runs for a 2-1 White Sox victory.
There will not be another World Series game played in snow for 91 years. As you might guess, that one was also played in a Great Lakes city, Cleveland.
October 9, 1907: For the 1st, and perhaps only, time in World Series history, the hidden-ball trick is successfully tried. In Game 2 at the West Side Grounds, Detroit Tigers 3rd baseman Bill Coughlin tags out Cub center fielder Jimmy Slagle, who is leading off the base. It doesn't help: The Cubs win, 3-1.
October 9, 1909, 110 years ago: Ty Cobb's steal of home is the highlight of Tigers' 7-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, that knots the World Series at 1 game apiece. The Georgia Peach swiped home plate 54 times during regular-season play in his career, a major league record. This is the only time, however, that home plate will be stolen in a World Series game for 42 years.
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October 9, 1910: The battle for the American League batting title is decided on the final day of the regular season‚ when Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers edges Nap Lajoie of the Cleveland… Naps. (Seriously, the team was named after their star 2nd baseman and manager. They would be renamed the Indians in 1915.) Cobb's final average is .385, Lajoie's is .384. Or, more precisely, Cobb's was .385069, and Lajoie's was .384095.
Cobb‚ rather than risk his average‚ sits out the last 2 games‚ the Tigers beating the White Sox in today's finale‚ 2-1. Lajoie, meanwhile, goes 8-for-8 in a doubleheader with the St. Louis Browns‚ accepting 6 gift hits on bunt singles, on which Browns rookie 3rd baseman Red Corriden is apparently purposely stationed at the edge of the outfield grass.
The prejudiced St. Louis scorer also credits the popular Nap with a "hit" on shortstop Bobby Wallace's wild throw to 1st. In Lajoie's last at-bat‚ he is safe at 1st on an error call‚ but is credited with a sacrifice bunt since a man was on, and thus is not charged with an at-bat.
The St. Louis Post is just one of the papers to be openly critical of the move against Cobb, then the best, but also the most unpopular, player in baseball: "All St. Louis is up in arms over the deplorable spectacle‚ conceived in stupidity and executed in jealousy." The Browns win the opener‚ 5-4‚ and Cleveland takes the nightcap‚ 3-0, with both managers‚ Jack O'Connor and Jim Maguire, catching in the otherwise meaningless game. O'Connor is behind the plate for just an inning‚ but Maguire goes all the way.
AL President Ban Johnson investigates, and clears everyone concerned‚ enabling Cobb to win the 3rd of 9 straight batting crowns. The embarrassed Chalmers Auto Company, which had promised a brand-new car to the winner of the batting title, awards cars to both Ty and Nap.
Ty didn't exactly cover himself with glory by sitting it out -- after all, 31 years later, Ted Williams insisted on playing both games of a last-day doubleheader that he went into at .39955, and went 6-for-8 on the day to finish at .406 -- but neither he nor Nap did anything illegal.
In 1981, The Sporting News uncovered an error, which had credited a 2-for-3 game to Cobb twice, that‚ if corrected‚ would have given the batting title to Lajoie, .384 to .383. But the Commissioner's committee voted unanimously to leave the stats changed, but not the title.
This reduced Cobb's career hit total from 4,191 to 4,189 (thus meaning that Pete Rose broke the record 3 days before we thought he did, although it was still celebrated when he reached 4,192, due to the number 4,191 being so ingrained in the public memory), and his lifetime batting average from .367 to .366 (although that's still easily a record). Lajoie finished with 3,243 hits, and his lifetime average was .339.
In case you're wondering, in that 1910 season, Cobb had a better on-base percentage than Lajoie, .456 to .445; the higher slugging percentage, .551 to .514; the higher OPS, 1.008 to .960; and the higher OPS+, 206 to 199.
Neither Detroit nor Cleveland seriously challenged the Philadelphia Athletics for the Pennant. The A's finished 14 1/2 games ahead of the 2nd-place New York Highlanders (1 of only 3 times the Yankees finished as high as 2nd before their 1st Pennant in 1921), 18 ahead of the 3rd-place Tigers, and 32 ahead of the 5th-place Naps.
So the Tigers were 14 games ahead of the Naps, meaning that, both stats-wise and standings-wise, Cobb unquestionably had a better season than Lajoie. Lajoie lived until 1959, age 84; Cobb until 1961, at 74.
The NL Pennant race had no drama in 1910, either, as the Chicago Cubs won their 4th flag in the last 5 years, beating the Giants by 13 games. The Brooklyn Superbas, forerunners of the Dodgers, finished 6th, a whopping 40 games back. So it will be A's vs. Cubs in the World Series, a matchup that will also happen in 1929, but hasn't happened since then.
Also on this day, William John Crayston is born in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, in the far North of England. A defensive midfielder, Jack Crayston was a member of the Arsenal teams that won the Football League in 1935 and 1938, and the FA Cup in 1936.
He continued to play for Arsenal on weekends while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, but a knee injury in a 1943 match ended his playing career. He became part of The Arsenal's coaching setup, and was named manager upon the death of Tom Whittaker in 1956, but managed only 2 years, not successfully. He then went back up north, managed Doncaster Rovers for 3 seasons, then left the game permanently in 1961. He died in 1992.
October 9, 1913: Game 3 of the World Series. Rookie righthander Joe Bush throws a complete game, limiting the Giants to 5 hits in the Athletics' 8-2 victory at the Polo Grounds. At the age of 20 years and 316 days, "Bullet Joe" is still, 106 years later, the youngest pitcher to start a game in the Fall Classic, 40 days sooner than Jim Palmer in 1966 and Fernando Valenzuela in 1981.
Also on this day, Jack Williamson is born in Wichita, Kansas. After playing at Wichita State University, he was a part of the U.S. team that won the 1st Olympic Gold Medal in basketball, at Berlin in 1936. He died in 1996.
Also on this day, William Donald Borders is born in Washington, Indiana. He was Archbishop of Baltimore from 1974 to 1989, a period that included 2 Pennants and a World Series win for the Orioles, but also the loss of the Colts. He died in 2010.
October 9, 1914: The Siege of Antwerp ends when the Belgian Army surrenders, and the German Army moves in. The Kaiser's troops had devastated Belgium in the early days of World War I, and, in response, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1920 Olympic Games, the 1st postwar festival, to Antwerp.
October 9, 1915: Woodrow Wilson becomes the 1st incumbent President to attend a World Series game. He and his fiancée Edith Galt come to Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, and see Boston Red Sox hurler Rube Foster limit the Phillies to just 3 hits, and single home the winning run himself in the bottom of the 9th, to win Game 2, 2-1.
It's not clear what team Wilson usually rooted for, although he did teach at Bryn Mawr University, near Philly, and attended Princeton University, taught there, and was its President, before becoming Governor of New Jersey. From 1887 onward, when the predecessor ground to Baker Bowl opened, the Phillies were the closest team to Princeton, 7 blocks closer than the Athletics.
It wasn't all a good day for the future Mr. and Mrs. Wilson: The Washington Post printed an article about a trip to a Washington theater the night before. It was, the article said, "their first appearance in public as an engaged couple." All editions after the first said, suggesting that the play wasn't especially interesting, "The President gave himself up for the time being to entertaining his fiancee." The first edition, however, said, "The President gave himself up for the time being to entering his fiancee." Whoops... (No, I'm not making that up. This was in 1915. And it was almost certainly a mistake, not an purposeful attempt to embarrass Wilson.)
This was just 50 years after Abraham Lincoln took his wife Mary to Ford's Theatre. Moral of the story: If you're the President of the United States, don't go to a theater in Washington with the woman you love.
Two months later, Wilson, widowed a year and a half earlier, married Edith, becoming the 3rd President to marry while in office, following then-widower John Tyler in 1844 and then-bachelor Grover Cleveland in 1886. (There has not been a 4th.)
In 1924 and '25, due to the Washington Senators bringing the World Series to the nation's capital, Calvin Coolidge -- who hated baseball, but his wife Grace loved it -- attended the World Series.
Herbert Hoover was cheered at Shibe Park in Philadelphia when throwing out the first ball of a 1929 Series game, but in 1930, after the Wall Street crash, with the Great Depression well underway and Prohibition still in effect, he became the first President ever booed at a baseball game, with fans also chanting, "We want beer!" Franklin Roosevelt attended Game 2 of the 1936 World Series between the Yankees and Giants at the Polo Grounds, with no trouble.
In 1956, on back-to-back days at Ebbets Field, Dwight D. Eisenhower, running for re-election, attended Game 1, while his opponent Adlai Stevenson attended Game 2. There was not be another President attending a World Series game until Jimmy Carter is at Game 7 in Baltimore in 1979 -- not quite making up for the fact that he was the 1st President after William Howard Taft started the tradition in 1910 not to attend an Opening Day game and throw out the first ball to symbolically start the season.
While Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton all attended some big games while in office, George W. Bush, in Game 3 in 2001, remains the only President in the last 40 years and 1 of only 3 in the last 83 years to attend the World Series.
Donald Trump has not attended an MLB game since he took the office, and is almost certainly not welcome, although he did attend Super Bowl LI and the 2017 and '18 Army-Navy football games. He figures that football fans, being more primitive, will cheer him; while baseball fans, being more intellectual, will boo him. This is one thing the fat fascist son of a bitch has been right about.
(UPDATE: Trump attended Game 5 of the 2019 World Series at Nationals Park in Washington. And he was booed.)
Also on this day, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York plays its 1st game at Schoellkopf Field. Cornell beats Williams College 41-0, en route to a 9-0 record which leads, eventually, to a retroactively-awarded National Championship.
The stadium was named for Henry Schoellkopf, a two-way back for Cornell in the 1900 and 1901 seasons, who coached them in 1907 and 1908, to a 15-3-1 record. He left coaching to practice law in Milwaukee, but shot and killed himself in his office 1912, only 32 years old.
Originally, Schoellkopf Field seated 9,000 people, a figure which has risen to 25,597, about average by Ivy League standards. Syracuse University, 53 miles to the northeast, played a "home game" there in 1979, while Archbold Stadium was torn down and the Carrier Dome built on the site. They played the rest of their "home games" at the Buffalo Bills' stadium.
October 9, 1916: Game 2 of the World Series is played at Braves Field in Boston, because it has a higher seating capacity than Fenway Park, and the Red Sox had previously extended the use of Fenway to the Boston Braves in the 1914 World Series, for the same reason, before Braves Field was completed.
Both starting pitchers go the distance: Sherrod "Sherry" Smith of the Brooklyn Robins (they would formally adopted the longstanding nickname "Dodgers" in 1932) and… George "Babe" Ruth of the Boston Red Sox. This was hardly unusual for the time period, but the distance turned out to be exceptionally long.
In the 1st inning, Hy Myers hits an inside-the-park home run, the only round-tripper hit off Ruth the entire season. Ruth, in most un-Ruthian fashion, ties the game with a groundout in the 3rd. The game keeps going until the bottom of the 14th, when a pinch-hit single by Del Gainer means the Red Sox finally win the game. Ruth's streak of 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings pitched is underway.
This would be the longest World Series game by innings for over a century. Game 3 in 2005 and Game 1 in 2015 also went 14 innings. The record finally fell in 2018, when Game 3 went 18 innings.
In 1986, an NLCS game went 16 innings. In 2005, 89 years later to the day (as you’ll see when you read on), an NLDS game went 18. And in 2014, we had another NLDS game go 18 innings. So far, 18 innings remains the postseason record.
Also on this day, Cameron Crockett Snyder is born in Rippon, West Virginia, and grows up in Baltimore, where he covered the Colts for the Baltimore Sun. The Pro Football Hall of Fame gave him its Dick McCann Memorial Award for sportswriters in 1982. He died in 2010.
October 9, 1918: Everette Howard Hunt Jr. is born outside Buffalo, in Hamburg, New York. A CIA Agent from 1949 to 1970, E. Howard Hunt was part of a team of men hired by the Administration of President Richard Nixon to identify government sources of information "leaks," and the team became known as the Plumbers.
He was charged with plotting the June 17, 1972 burglary that began the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon's resignation, and served nearly 3 years in prison. It may be worse than that: Hunt and one of the burglars, Frank Sturgis, have been alleged to have been involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Hunt died in 2007, having always denied involvement in the JFK assassination. Sturgis died in 1993, having never spoken about that publicly.
October 9, 1919, 100 years ago: The Cincinnati Reds defeat the Chicago White Sox, 10-5, taking Game 8 and the best-5-out-of-9 World Series. It is the 1st World Championship for Cincinnati – or, at least, the 1st since the unofficial one for the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first openly professional baseball team, in 1869, half a century earlier.
Sox pitcher Claude "Lefty" Williams gets one man out in the 1st before departing, having allowed 4 runs. The Reds go on to give Hod Eller plenty of offense. White Sox left fielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson hits the only home run of the Series. Eddie Collins’ 3 hits give him a total of 42 in Series play‚ a record broken in 1930 by Frank Frisch‚ and bettered by Lou Gehrig in 1938. A stolen base by Collins is his 14th in Series competition‚ a record tied by Lou Brock in 1968.
How could the White Sox have lost? "Everybody" said they were the superior team. Actually, while the ChiSox were more experienced – they had won the Series 2 years earlier – they had won 88 games that season, but the Reds had won more, 95. And the Reds had Hall-of-Famer Edd Roush, and several players who would have been multiple All-Stars had there been an All-Star Game at the time.
Still, everybody seemed to think the Sox were better. And yet, the betting shifted to make the Reds the favorites. What had happened?
On September 28, 1920, 8 White Sox players were indicted for conspiracy to throw the Series: Jackson, Williams, pitcher Eddie Cicotte, right fielder Oscar "Happy" Felsch, 1st baseman Arnold "Chick" Gandil, shortstop Charles "Swede" Risberg, reserve infielder Fred McMullin (only in on the fix because he overheard Felsch and Gandil talking about it), and 3rd baseman George "Buck" Weaver (who refused to take part, but was indicted because he knew about it and refused to report it).
Although all were acquitted, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned them all permanently.
For the rest of their lives, Roush, the last survivor (he lived until 1988), and the other '19 Reds insisted that, if the Series had been on the up-and-up, they would have won anyway.
Really? Here's something else to consider: Down 4 games to 1 in that best-5-out-of-9, the Sox won Games 6 and 7, playing to win because the gamblers hadn't come through with their payments, and Williams only caved in for Game 8 because his wife and children had been threatened if he did not comply. Williams was 0-3 for the Series, a record not "achieved" honestly until 1981 and George Frazier of the Yankees.
Trust me on this one: If you want to get closer to the facts of the case, see the film Eight Men Out; but if you want to see a movie that makes you feel good, see the factually-challenged but beautiful
Field of Dreams.
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October 9, 1920: Happy 34th Birthday, Rube Marquard -- in jail! Several hours before the start of Game 4 of the World Series, Marquard, a Cleveland native and now a Dodger pitcher (thus with connections to both teams)‚ is arrested when he tries to sell a ticket to an undercover cop for $350. (About $4,500 in today's money -- and you thought Yankee Stadium tickets were expensive now!) When the case goes to court, he will be found guilty, and fined a dollar and court costs ($3.80 -- $49 in today's money).
For the 1st World Series game ever played in Cleveland, 25‚734 Indians fans fill League Park, and watch their home team score 2 in the 1st and 2 in the 3rd off Leon Cadore and Al Mamaux. The Indians win, 5-1.
October 9, 1921: Game 4 of the 1st all-New York World Series. After a rainout, a Sunday crowd of 36,371 watches Carl Mays of the Yankees and Phil Douglas of the Giants square off. Among them are a group of Prohibition agents, who cause a near-riot by trying to barge their way into the game by saying they were there on "official business." When ticket takers refuse to let them in, the police are called to forcibly remove the agents from the line as angry fans look on.
Tomorrow, federal Prohibition Commissioner Roy Haynes will issue orders barring agents from using their badges to gain admission to places of amusement. This may not be the most bizarre moment in the history of the movement and execution of Prohibition, but it may be the dumbest, and was typical of the men enforcing it being every bit as corrupt as those who broke the most-broken law in American history.
Mays works 5 hitless innings, while a run-scoring triple by Wally Schang gives the not-yet-Bronx Bombers a 1–0 lead. Mays then apparently tires, and the Giants club 7 hits in the last 2 innings for 4 runs. Babe Ruth's 1st World Series homer comes in the 9th, but the Giants win 4–2.
We can say, "apparently," because, just 2 years after the Black Sox threw a Series, there would soon be accusations that Mays threw the game. Mays, the son of a Kentucky minister, was known to refuse to pitch on Sundays, and, though it was his turn in the rotation, losing on purpose, and screwing over his teammates, may have been his way of objecting.
Is that, rather than having thrown the pitch that killed Ray Chapman of the Indians the year before, the real reason he's never been elected to the Hall of Fame? He had a 209-126 record for his career, for a winning percentage of .622. He was also a member of 6 Pennant-winning teams, taking 4 World Championships (1915, '16 and '18 with the Reds Sox, 1923 with the Yankees).
Baseball-Reference.com, on their Hall of Fame Monitor where 100 indicates a "Likely HOFer," has him at 114, suggesting that he should be in. Their Hall of Fame standards, which is weighted more towards cumulative statistics, has the "Average HOFer" at 50, and they have him at 41, suggesting that he falls a bit short.
They have his 10 Most Similar Players include 3 HOFers: Stan Coveleski, Chief Bender and Jack Chesbro; a 1920s Yankee teammate who also deserves serious consideration, Urban Shocker; and a couple of other guys who warrant serious consideration, Lon Warneke and Freddie Fitzsimmons.
But his pitch that hit Chapman, his questionable 9th inning in Game 4 in 1921, and his nastiness to teammates and opponents alike have kept him out. Even a return to a Veterans' Committee ballot in 2009 did him no good: He got just 25 percent of the vote.
Here's a neat little piece of baseball trivia: Mays is the only Red Sox pitcher to pitch 2 complete-game victories on the same day. It was on August 30, 1918. That same day, the greatest player in Red Sox history, Ted Williams, was born.
Former Minnesota Twins closer Joe Mays is a distant cousin, but, being born 4 years after Carl's death in 1971, they never met. Until the day he died, over half a century after the incident, Carl still insisted that he did not hit Chapman intentionally. The best piece of evidence in his favor is that the ball rebounded back to him, and he fielded it and threw it to 1st, suggesting that, at that point, he thought Chapman had hit it.
October 9, 1924: Game 6 of the World Series. The Washington Senators beat the Giants 2-1, on the strong pitching of Tom Zachary, and force a Game 7 at home.
On the same day, for the 2nd time in the season, a current Cincinnati Reds player dies. Jake Daubert, dies from complications from an October 2 operation for gallstones and appendicitis. Daubert's teammates‚ barnstorming in West Virginia when they hear of his death‚ cancel the rest of their games.
The death is controversial: Years later‚ Daubert's son will contend that the doctors missed a spleen condition that later was common in several family members‚ including the son. The death certificate will note a secondary cause of death is due to concussion caused by a beaning on May 28. This will be enough for his widow to start a law suit against the Reds.
Daubert was 40 years old, and he was not washed-up, by any means, having batted .281. He was awarded the 1913 Chalmers Award as NL MVP, helped the Dodgers win the 1916 NL Pennant, and was a 2-time batting champion. His lifetime batting average was .303, his OPS+ 117. But in spite of playing until he was 40, he got "only" 2,326 hits -- 165 of them triples.
Baseball-Reference has him at only 70 on their HOF Monitor and 27 on their HOF Standards, and only 1 of his 10 Most Similar Players (a system which is weighted toward players of the same position), the highly questionable inclusion Lloyd Waner, is in the Hall. (Hal Chase is also in his 10, and he might have gotten elected to the Hall if he hadn't been found out to have thrown games.)
Also on this day, Municipal Grant Park Stadium opens on Chicago's lakefront. It would be renamed Soldier Field the next year. It would host many big college football games, including the annual Chicago College All-Star Game between a team of recently graduated players and the defending NFL Champions (who nearly always won) from 1934 to 1976.
Its best-known event was the 2nd fight between Heavyweight Champion Gene Tunney and the man from whom he took the title, Jack Dempsey, on September 22, 1927. In the 7th round, Dempsey knocked Tunney down, but he forgot to obey a new rule (which he, himself, had demanded): The referee would not start the count until the standing fighter retreated to a neutral corner. This gave Tunney an extra 5 seconds to regain his bearings, and he got up at the count of 9 (14), and went on to beat Dempsey in a decision.
It became known as the Long Count Fight, and, to this day, some people think Dempsey was robbed. He wasn't: The film clearly shows Tunney watching the referee's count. He could have gotten up at the count of 4, which should have been 9. Dempsey wasn't robbed. He didn't even blow it. He got beat, fair and square.
The NFL's Bears, satisfied with playing at Wrigley Field until the advent of Monday Night Football meant that, in order to get the revenue, they would need a stadium with lights, played there from 1971 until 2001. The stadium was then demolished after 87 yeasr, and a modern stadium rebuilt, keeping only the exterior Doric columns, otherwise ruining the atmosphere when it opened in 2003. (The Bears played the 2002 season at the University of Illinois.) It's now known as the Eyesore on the Lake Shore.
Also on this day, Arnold Denny Risen is born in Williamstown, Kentucky. A center, Arnie Risen helped Ohio State reach the 1946 NCAA Final Four, made 4 NBA All-Star Teams, and won NBA Championships with the 1951 Rochester Royals and the 1957 Boston Celtics. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, and died in 2012, shortly before his 88th birthday.
October 9, 1925: Thomas Arthur Giordano is born in Newark, New Jersey. Tommy "T-Bone" Giordano was a 2nd baseman who played 11 games as a September call-up with the 1953 Philadelphia Athletics. After that, he became a minor-league manager and a major-league scout.
In 1976, he was named scouting director for the Baltimore Orioles, where he helped build the team that won the 1979 AL Pennant and the 1983 World Series. He moved on to Cleveland, where he helped build the Indians team that dominated the AL Central from 1995 to 2001. He then worked with the Texas Rangers, building their 2010 and '11 Pennant teams and their current AL West Champions. He died earlier this year.
October 9, 1926: Game 6 of the World Series. Les Bell hits a home run, and the St. Louis Cardinals score 5 runs in the 8th inning, backing the great Grover Cleveland Alexander to a 10-2 win to send the Series to a Game 7.
Alexander, a midseason pickup that probably saved the Pennant for the Cards, is told by 2nd baseman-manager Rogers Hornsby to enjoy himself tonight, as, having gone the distance at age 39 today, he won't be used in Game 7 tomorrow. He does get drunk that night. But Hornsby needs him in Game 7 anyway.
Also on this day, Multnomah Civic Stadium is built in Portland, Oregon, on the site of the former ballpark, Multnomah Fileld, which had stood since 1893. (Multnomah is the name of the County that Portland is in.) It was built for both baseball (with a curved stand, in front of which a baseball diamond was placed) and football (with the 1st base stand extended straight along right field). The site has been home to Oregon sports since the Grover Cleveland years.
Portland State University has used it for football since 1947. The University of Oregon and Oregon State University used it for their games against each other, and also for their games against the University of Washington, until the late 1960s, until their on-campus stadiums exceeded it in capacity. The Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League used it on and off (with other minor-league teams, including the 1973-77 Portland Mavericks, filling in the gaps) from 1956 to 2010. The Portland Storm of the World Football League used it in 1974 and '75, and the Portland Breakers of the USFL did so in 1985.
It was renamed Civic Stadium in 1966, PGE Park in 2001, Jeld-Wen Field in 2011 (Jeld-Wen is a window manufacturer, leading to the stadium's nickname becoming "The House of Pane"), and Providence Park (for a local health-care company) in 2014. Extensive renovations have made it nearly impossible to play baseball there, and the city nicknamed the Rose City and "PDX" is without a professional team. But it may be the United States' premier soccer venue.
The original version of the Portland Timbers, in the original version of the North American Soccer League, called it home from 1975 to 1982. It hosted Soccer Bowl '77, in which the New York Cosmos of Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer beat the Seattle Sounders of Mike England for the NASL tile. (I'm guessing the Trail Blazers-SuperSonics rivalry kicked in, and any Oregon natives who came were rooting against their arch-rivals from Seattle.)
More recently, a new version of the Timbers played there in minor leagues from 1985 to 1990, and another started in the A-League in 2001, getting promoted to Major League Soccer in 2011, winning the MLS Cup in 2015. The Portland Thorns entered the National Women's Soccer League in 2013. The Timbers may be the best-supported club in their league; the Thorns absolutely are in theirs.
October 9, 1928: At Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, the Yankees beat the Cardinals, 7-3, completing their 2nd consecutive sweep of the World Series. The Bronx Bombers, who win the 3rd World Championship in franchise history, live up to their name as they slug 5 homers in the game, a feat which will not be matched until 1989, when Oakland does it against San Francisco. Three of the homers are hit by Babe Ruth, who had done it at the same park 2 years earlier. This time, though, the Yankees win the Series.
In 2009, seeing Hideki Matsui collect 6 RBIs, including a home run, in Game 6, Yankee broadcaster John Sterling cited the man who was, at the time, the only other player to hit 3 homers in a Series game, and asked his listeners, "Has anybody, outside of Reggie Jackson, ever had a better Series-clinching game?" Yes, one man has. But only one. The Great Bambino. Ruth, Jackson, Matsui. The Sultan of Swat, Mr. October, and Godzilla. Pretty good company.
Shortstop Mark Koenig was the last survivor of the 1928 Yankees, living until 1993.
Also on this day, Clare James Drake is born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. He is the most successful coach in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) men's hockey history. He coached the University of Alberta to 6 University Cup titles, and also coached Team Canada at the 1980 Winter Olympics. He has also worked in the front offices of some NHL teams, and was an assistant coach for the Winnipeg Jets. He died in 2018, having lived just long enough to see his election to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
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October 9, 1930: Francis Edward Lauricella is born in Harahan, Louisana. Why he was called Hank, I don't know, but his football talents got him nicknamed "Mr. Everything."
He was the quarterback for the University of Tennessee's National Champions of 1951, and finished 2nd to Dick Kazmaier of Princeton in the voting for that year's Heisman Trophy. But his NFL experience was limited to the hapless 1952 Dallas Texans. (No connection besides name to the founding franchise of the AFL, which became the Kansas City Chiefs; or to the Houston Texans.) He was elected to the College Football, Cotton Bowl, Louisiana Sports, Tennessee Sports and National Italian-American Sports Halls of Fame.
The main reason he only lasted a year in the NFL is that he enlisted in the Army, to serve in the Korean War. He later served in both houses of the Louisiana State legislature, from 1964 to 1996, first as a Democrat, then, as many Southerners used race and religion as an excuse to leave the Party, as a Republican.
As a veteran of the Army Corps of Engineers, he worked in the legislature to build the Superdome, New Orleans' World Trade Center (New York was one of just many cities to have a complex with that name), and Louis Armstrong International Airport, and to modernize the Port of New Orleans. He died in 2014, age 83.
October 9, 1931: Homer Austin Smith is born in Omaha, Nebraska. A teammate of Kazmaier at Princeton, he was All-Ivy League as a fullback. But he became better known as a coach. In 1969, he led Davidson College of North Carolina to the Southern Conference title.
He served as the head coach at the University of the Pacific in 1970 and 1971, and from 1974 to 1978 was the head coach at Army. His only pro coaching job was as offensive coordinator with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1987, and his last job was the same one at the University of Arizona in 1996. He died in 2011.
Also on this day, Canada's 1st television station begins broadcasting. It is VE9EC in Montreal, owned by radio station CKAC and newspaper La Presse. Many early radio stations were owned by newspapers, and many early TV stations were owned by one or the other, or both.
VE9EC doesn't last. Canada's 1st permanent TV station would also be in Montreal, and it would be CBFT, Channel 2, part of the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). Two days later, Toronto's 1st TV station would follow, CBLT, also a CBC station, on Channel 9 until 1956, then 6 until 1972, then 5.
October 9, 1934: Before the proceedings began, Cardinal pitcher Jay "Dizzy" Dean said of himself and his brother and teammate, Paul "Daffy" Dean, "Me an' Paul are gonna win this here World Series." Diz was right: All 4 St. Louis wins had one of the Dean brothers as the winning pitcher. Today, the Cards pound the Detroit Tigers in Game 7, 11-0 at Navin Field.
That would have been stunning enough to make this game legend. But it's a legend for a darker reason. In the bottom of the 6th, Cardinal slugger Joe Medwick slides hard into 3rd base, and is tagged hard by the Tigers' Marv Owen. Medwick then kicks Owen; the newsreel clearly shows it. A fight results, and when Medwick goes out to left field for the bottom of the 6th, Tiger fans start throwing things at him. Wadded-up programs. Hot dogs. Pieces of fruit. This goes on for minute after minute.
Finally, Commissioner Landis asks the umpires to call Medwick over, as well as the opposing managers, both player-managers wearing Number 3: Cardinal shortstop Frankie Frisch and Tiger catcher Mickey Cochrane. Landis, a former federal Judge, asks Medwick if he kicked Owen. Medwick confesses. Landis removes him from the game, not for disciplinary reasons, he says, but "for his own safety." As far as I can tell, he was neither suspended for the regular season, nor even fined, for his kick on Owen.
Afterward, Medwick, no dummy, says, "I understood why they threw all that food at me. What I don't understand is why they brought it to the ballpark in the first place." It was the left-field bleacher section at Navin Field, later replaced by the double-decked stands that formed the Tiger Stadium we knew. Those seats were the last to be sold, and fans had lined up all morning, and had brought their breakfast and lunch to eat while they were waiting. Clearly, some of them hadn't yet eaten their lunches. (I guess they didn't sell food in that bleacher section.)
In the off-season, Cardinal general manager Branch Rickey refuses to give Medwick, his best hitter, a raise. Medwick tells the press, "Mr. Rickey thinks I can live for a year on the food that the Detroit fans threw at me."
Joe Medwick was a graduate of Carteret High School, Class of 1929, a 3-sport star. A Middlesex County Park, stretching through Carteret and the Avenel section of Woodbridge, is named in his honor. He is one of 5 people who grew up in New Jersey who have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, one of 3 born in the State, and the only one from Central Jersey, let alone from Middlesex County.
Will Medwick, Newark native Billy Hamilton, Salem native Goose Goslin, raised-in-East Orange Monte Irvin and raised-in-Paterson Larry Doby be joined by any Garden State HOFers anytime soon? Sort of: Derek Jeter, though he grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was born in Pequannock, and lived the 1st 4 years of his life in West Milford. He becomes eligible in 3 months. After Jeter, the next Jersey Boy with a legitimate shot -- unless somebody we aren't yet considering blossoms into a legend -- is Millville native Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels.
The familiar nickname "The Gashouse Gang" would not be applied to the Cardinals until the next season. It's not clear who coined the phrase, but someone said that, with their filthy uniforms due to their roughhouse style of play, they looked like "a gang from the Gas House District." In New York, that area was on the East River, between the Lower East Side and the Gramercy Park area. In 1945, it was all demolished to make way for the housing projects Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
Pitcher Clarence Heise was the last survivor of the Gashouse Gang, living until 1999.
Also on this day, Michael Sandor Sommer is born in Washington, D.C. A running back, Mike Sommer was traded from the Washington Redskins to the Baltimore Colts in 1959, "going from the outhouse to the penthouse," from one of the worst teams in the NFL to the defending NFL Champions. They won again in 1959, defeating the Giants in the Championship Game.
He played pro football until 1963, and retired because he'd graduated from medical school. He is still alive and practicing medicine, in Lewes, Delaware -- Ravens country, which means it was Colts country up until 1983. He is 1 of 9 surviving members of the '59 Colts.
October 9, 1935: John Lee White is born in Tampa. A tight end, he was a member of the 1st 2 AFL Champions, the 1960 and 1961 Houston Oilers. He died in 1988.
Also on this day, Lawrence Dean Hickman is born outside Dallas in Spring Hill, Texas. A running back, he was on the last Chicago Cardinals team in 1959, meaning he played in the 1st game between an NFL team and a Canadian Football League team. It was at the brand-new Exhibition Stadium in Toronto on August 5, 1959, and, as bad as the Cards were, they beat the Toronto Argonauts 55-26.
He played for the Green Bay Packers in 1960, but they lost the NFL Championship Game to the Philadelphia Eagles. He then returned to Canada, full-time playing for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the Montreal Alouettes, and the Argos through 1963. He lost another Championship Game, the 1961 Grey Cup with Hamilton, to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He lived until 2017.
Also on this day, Edward George Nicholas Paul Patrick Windsor is born in London. He is the Duke of Kent, a 1st cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. At the time he was born, he was 7th in line to the throne, then held by his grandfather, King George V, but he is now 37th. He is the President of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, and his wife, the Duchess of Kent, the former Katharine Worsley, handed the trophies out for many years to the Wimbledon champions and runners-up.
Also on this day, Lawrence Dean Hickman is born outside Dallas in Spring Hill, Texas. A running back, he was on the last Chicago Cardinals team in 1959, meaning he played in the 1st game between an NFL team and a Canadian Football League team. It was at the brand-new Exhibition Stadium in Toronto on August 5, 1959, and, as bad as the Cards were, they beat the Toronto Argonauts 55-26.
He played for the Green Bay Packers in 1960, but they lost the NFL Championship Game to the Philadelphia Eagles. He then returned to Canada, full-time playing for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the Montreal Alouettes, and the Argos through 1963. He lost another Championship Game, the 1961 Grey Cup with Hamilton, to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He lived until 2017.
Also on this day, Edward George Nicholas Paul Patrick Windsor is born in London. He is the Duke of Kent, a 1st cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. At the time he was born, he was 7th in line to the throne, then held by his grandfather, King George V, but he is now 37th. He is the President of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, and his wife, the Duchess of Kent, the former Katharine Worsley, handed the trophies out for many years to the Wimbledon champions and runners-up.
The Duke has also, on occasion, presented England's greatest soccer trophy, the FA Cup, to the Captain of the winning side, including at all 3 Finals that Arsenal won to win "The Double": 1971, 1998 and 2002. The Duchess is noted as the member of the Royal Family who has attended the most FA Cup Finals, and she handed the Double-winning Gunners their winner's medals on those occasions.
October 9, 1937: Carl Hubbell to the rescue. Despite giving up a home run to Lou Gehrig, he rides a 6-run 2nd inning, and pitches the Giants to a 7-3 victory over the Yankees, and the Giants avoid the 4-game sweep.
October 9, 1938: The Yankees beat the Cubs, 8-3, and complete a 4-game sweep at Yankee Stadium. It is the Yankees' 7th World Championship, and their 3rd in a row. To this day, the only franchises that have as many as 7 are the Cardinals with 11, the A's with 9 (and even then you have to combine the 5 from Philadelphia with the 4 from Oakland), and the Red Sox with 8 (with the last 3 of those tainted). And, to this day, the only franchises to have won 3 in a row are the Yankees and the 1972-74 A's.
This would be the last game as owner of the Yankees for Jacob Ruppert, who bought the team in 1915, signed manager Miller Huggins, purchased or traded for the players who made the 1st Yankee Dynasty, and provided the money that built Yankee Stadium. He oversaw the Yankees' 1st 10 Pennants and their 1st 7 World Series wins. He died on January 13, 1939.
As with the 1937, 1939 and 1941 World Champion Yankees, the last survivor of the 1938 team was Ol' Reliable himself, Tommy Henrich.
October 9, 1939, 80 years ago: Norman Michael Hershberger is born in Massillon, Ohio -- also the hometown of the aforementioned Tommy Henrich. An outfielder, Mike Hershberger was with the Chicago White Sox when they nearly beat the Yankees for the Pennant in 1964; with the Kansas City Athletics when they moved to Oakland in 1967-68, and finished Catfish Hunter's perfect game of May 8, 1968 as the A's left fielder; and was an original Milwaukee Brewer in 1970. He died in 2012.
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October 9, 1940: Joseph Anthony Pepitone is born in Brooklyn. He was a backup to Bill "Moose" Skowron at 1st base in 1962, and received a World Series ring. The Yankees thought so highly of Pepitone that they traded Moose before the 1963 season.
Pepitone helped the Yankees win the 1963 and '64 AL Pennants, and hit a grand slam in Game 6 of the '64 World Series. He made 3 All-Star Teams and won 3 Gold Gloves. He had 182 career home runs before he turned 30. Joe was a New York kid playing for the local team, and he was very good. This made him enormously popular in New York at the time.
He had a bit of a nose, and was actually balding, but you couldn't tell that while he was wearing a cap or a batting helmet. (He had 2 toupees: A small one for during games, and a bigger "Guido" hairpiece for being out on the town.) Women wanted him, men wanted to be him. He was a matinee idol, and a hero to many, not just to his fellow Italian-Americans.
But, he would later admit, his father's death left him depressed, and he looked for comfort in New York's nightlife, in drinking and women -- "wine, women and song," as the old saying goes. He still hit a few home runs, and he still, as Yankee broadcaster Frank Messer put it, "played first base like he owned it," although he switched to center field in 1967 and '68 so that Mickey Mantle, with no DH in those days, could ease the strain on his legs by playing 1st base.
But if you're going to carouse like Mantle, you'd better be able to play like Mantle. Like all but maybe 20 men who have ever played the game, Pepitone was not at that level.
It didn't help that he came into his own just as the old Yankee Dynasty was collapsing. By 1970, he would no longer be a Yankee -- and, as it turned out, he and Mel Stottlemyre were the last remaining Yankees who had played on a Pennant winner. By 1973, he would be out of the major leagues, and playing in Japan, not hitting well, and begging off games with injuries, then getting caught dancing in Tokyo's discos. In Japan, "Pepitone" became a slang term for a person who goofed off.
He would do time on Rikers Island on gun charges in 1988, although drug charges against him were dropped. And he would have continued alcohol and marriage problems, getting arrested again in 1995, when he drunkenly crashed his car inside the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
He has stayed out of trouble since then, and now lives on Long Island, getting by and then some at memorabilia shows. Still, he knows he could have been so much more, and he knows he blew it: He titled his 1975 autobiography Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud. Jim Bouton had portrayed him poorly in his own 1970 book, Ball Four, and Joe has never forgiven Jim; but Joe followed Jim by writing his own tell-all, and it is considerably more lurid, and less funny.
But the bad things Joe has done are no excuse for what Cosmo Kramer did in that episode of Seinfeld. He had no right to hit Joe with a pitch at that fantasy camp. For crying out loud, Joe was 52 years old! You don't plunk a 52-year-old man! (Seinfeld co-creator Larry David would write his name into 2 more episodes, and into 2 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. He's also been mentioned on The Golden Girls, The Sopranos, The West Wing and Rescue Me.)
Tony Conigliaro was a very similar player in Boston, but his career was curtailed by injury as much as by wasting his talent. New England fans have often suggested that, had he stayed healthy, Tony C would have been their Mantle. But now that Tony C is dead, and the Boston press no longer has to protect the popular, handsome, ethnic local boy, some less-than-savory details about his life have come out. Perhaps Sox fans should consider that Conigliaro, rather than their Mantle, could have become their Pepitone.
There was also a famous musician born on this day, in Liverpool, England, named John Winston Lennon. He would end up living in New York as well. I could swear that I once saw a picture of him wearing a Yankee cap, but I can't find it online.
Apparently, Pepitone didn't listen to Lennon, who seemed to believe that "All You Need Is Love." What Pepitone could have been, we can only "Imagine." (And, yes, I know there's a Christian rock song titled "I Can Only Imagine." I am aware of the irony of using a Christian song in connection with John Lennon.)
None of the Beatles appeared to have been much of a sports fan, except for Paul McCartney, who has expressed support for Everton. Pete Best, the drummer dumped in favor of Ringo Starr before the band hit it big, has been much more vocal in his support for Everton.
Also on this day, Jerry McMorris is born. A trucking company executive, he was the 1st majority owner of the Colorado Rockies, from their 1993 debut until 2005. He died in 2012.
Also on this day, Keith Sanderson (no middle name) is born in Hull, Yorkshire, England. A midfielder, mostly for West London club Queens Park Rangers, helping them to win their only trophy of any significance, the 1967 League Cup. He was later a pioneer in the British computer industry, and is still alive.
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October 9, 1941: Larry James Hale is born in Summerland, British Columbia. A defenseman, he was with the Philadelphia Flyers before they got good and won the 1974 and 1975 Stanley Cups. But he did play on league champions in those years, the Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association, as a teammate of Gordie, Mark and Marty Howe. He died just a few days ago, on September 27.
Also on this day, John Robert Williamson is born in El Dorado, Arkansas. A linebacker, J.R. was a member of the 1967 AFL Champion Oakland Raiders. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Jeoffrey Keith Long is born in Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Yes, that's the only time I've ever seen the name spelled "Jeoffrey." Yes, he went by "Jeoff Long," and that's the only time I've eve seen "Jeoff," too.
The outfielder was quite the minor league slugger, but didn't last too long in the major leagues. He debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1963, but they traded him in 1964 before they could win the Pennant and the World Series. Shortly after arriving with the Chicago White Sox, he wrecked his knee, and his career was pretty much over. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Chester Trent Lott is born in Grenada, Mississippi, and grows up in nearby Pascagoula. He was born the same year as Emmett Till. Yet, in 1955, Till was murdered in Mississippi because he was a black boy whistling at a white woman (and it wasn't even true), while Trent Lott (he dropped his first name) went on to become one of the most powerful men in America.
He was a senior at the University of Mississippi when President John F. Kennedy federalized the State's National Guard to allow James Meredith to become the University's 1st black student. He also led his fraternity to maintain a whites-only policy.
In 1968, he became administrative assistant to his district's Congressman, William Colmer, a segregationist Democrat who was then chairing the House Rules Committee. When Colmer retired in 1972, Lott ran for his set -- as a Republican. He won, because the white voters of that district knew where he stood on race.
He was the House Minority Whip from 1981 until 1989, when he ran for the seat of retiring Senator John Stennis, and held it until 2007. He became Senate Majority Whip with the Republicans' takeover in 1995, and Majority Leader with Bob Dole's resignation in 1996.
On December 5, 2002, at a dinner honoring the 100th birthday of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who had run for President in 1948 on a segregationist platform, launched a filibuster to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957 (he failed), and switched to the Republican Party following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lott said of his home State of Mississippi, "When Strom Thurmond ran for President, we voted for him. We're proud of it! And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either!" He was forced to resign.
Trent Lott is still alive, and still respected in the Republican Party. Emmett Till has been dead for 63 years.
October 9, 1942: Garry Lorne Peters is born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. A center, he was the kind of player whom the 6-team structure held back. Until the Great Expansion of 1967, he played 13 games for the 1964-65 Montreal Canadiens (but enough to qualify as a Stanley Cup winner), and 63 games for the 1965-66 New York Rangers, and that was it.
In 1967-68, he was an original Philadelphia Flyer. He played 2 games for the Boston Bruins in the 1971-72 regular season, but added 1 more in the Playoffs, and that got him a 2nd Stanley Cup ring. He closed his playing career in the World Hockey Association, with the franchise known in 1972-73 as the New York Raiders, and in 1973-74 as the Jersey Knights. He went into coaching, and is still alive.
He should not be confused with an Australian Rules footballer 3 years older, or a much younger current defensive back for the Canadian Football League's BC Lions, both of whom spell their names "Garry Peters." Nor should he be confused with a couple of guys named Gary Peters: A Chicago White Sox pitcher, 5 years older, who was the 1963 American League Rookie of the Year and made 2 All-Star Teams; and an English soccer defender, 12 years younger, who played for several teams from 1975 to 1990, more for Berkshire team Reading than any other.
October 9, 1943: Notre Dame, ranked Number 1 in the nation, travels to Ann Arbor to face Number 2 Michigan, and beats them 35-12. They would also beat Iowa when they were ranked Number 2, and, despite losing their last game to the team of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center (not a college team), be awarded the National Championship.
Also on this day, Jimmy Montgomery (his entire name, not "James") is born in Sunderland, Tyne-and-Wear, England. The longtime goalkeeper for his hometown Sunderland A.F.C. became a hero by helping them win the 1973 FA Cup, their last major trophy. He also played in the North American Soccer League, for the Vancouver Royals. He went into coaching, and is still alive.
October 9, 1944, 75 years ago: The only all-St. Louis World Series ever ends as Emil Verban drives in 3 runs, and the Cardinals defeat the Browns 3-1, and win in 6 games. Within 10 years, the Browns will realize that the Cardinals will always be the Number 1 team in St. Louis, and move and take up the name of several previous teams in their new home town, the Baltimore Orioles.
The 1944 Orioles won the Pennant of the International League, despite Oriole Park having burned down on the 4th of July, necessitating a move to Municipal Stadium, a football stadium a few blocks away. At the exact same time that the Cards were dusting off the Browns, a crowd of 52,833, then a record for a minor league game, sees the Orioles fall to the Louisville Colonels, 5-4 in Game 4 of the "Junior World Series." But the Orioles would win the series in 6 games.
This team, and how well it drew (it's not the fault of the teams involved, but Sportsman's Park seated only 30,804 people, so the Junior World Series brought in more fans than the senior version), raised Baltimore's profile, and made its return to the majors for the first time since 1902 possible.
The last survivor of the 1944 Cardinals was Stan "the Man" Musial, living until 2013. The last survivor of the only Browns Pennant winner was Don Gutteridge, who lived until 2008.
Also on this day, Freddie Joseph Patek (not "Frederick") is born in Oklahoma City. A shortstop, he was just 5-foot-5, the shortest player of his era, and thus was known as "The Flea." This may also have been a reference to his being very annoying.
He reached the Playoffs with the 1970 Pittsburgh Pirates. They traded him to the Kansas City Royals, and he made the All-Star Game in 1972, 1976 and 1978. In 1976, he helped the Royals win the American League Western Division, their 1st postseason appearance. He and veteran 2nd baseman Cookie Rojas celebrated by jumping into the center field fountain at Royals (now Kauffman) Stadium.
He led the AL in stolen bases in 1977, and stole 385 in his career, and led AL shortstops in double plays (involved in, if not necessarily started) 4 times, but had a lifetime batting average of just .242. The Royals elected him to their team Hall of Fame. He was later a broadcaster for NBC, and it still alive. There is more to say about him, in the 1977 entry on this list.
Also on this day, Private Edward Slovik deserts his U.S. Army unit in France. When he is caught, the 24-year-old Detroit native makes a complete confession, saying he didn't want to fight anymore. He had been in jails before, and fully expected to be sent to prison, which he considered preferable to dying in combat.
Instead, he was sentenced to death. Terrified, he wrote a letter to the Supreme Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, asking for clemency. Then came the Battle of the Bulge, and Eisenhower needed to discourage further desertions, and upheld the sentence. Slovik claimed he was being executed not for desertion, because many men had done that, but for all the petty crimes he’d committed in his youth.
In 1960, Frank Sinatra wanted to make a movie out of the story. Needing his support, but not wanting the controversy, John F. Kennedy talked him out of it. In 1974, The Executive of Private Slovik aired on NBC, but it was made without Sinatra's involvement. It starred Martin Sheen, who would go on to play JFK in an NBC miniseries 9 years later. Sheen played Slovik as terrified at his execution, reciting "The Lord's Prayer." In fact, Slovik was calm, telling the priest, “I’ll pray you don’t follow me too soon.”
Also on this day, John Alec Entwistle is born in Chiswick, West London. "The Ox" was the bass guitarist for The Who. Bill Wyman, his counterpart in the Rolling Stones, called him "the quietest man in private, but the loudest man onstage."
He died of a cocaine overdose in 2002, at a hotel outside Las Vegas, where The Who were about to begin a new tour. So his last concert was The Concert for New York City at Madison Square Garden after the previous year's 9/11 attacks. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine named him the greatest bass guitarist of all time.
October 9, 1945: Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, the biggest U.S. Navy hero of World War II, is given a ticker-tape parade in Lower Manhattan.
October 9, 1946: James Robert Qualls is born in Exeter, in the Central Valley of California. An outfielder, Jim Qualls played 4 seasons in the major leagues, debuting with the ill-fated 1969 Chicago Cubs, finishing with a weak batting average of .223.
But he will be forever remembered for his clean single to left-center that broke up Tom Seaver's perfect game and no-hitter with 2 outs to go on July 9, 1969. The Mets won the game anyway, 4-0 at Shea Stadium. Qualls is still alive.
October 9, 1947: Robert Ralph Moose Jr. is born in Export, Pennsylvania. Bob Moose would pitch for his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates, helping them reach the postseason 5 times. On the plus side, he would be a member of their 1971 World Champions. On the minus side, his wild pitch would let the winning run score for the Reds, costing the Pirates the 1972 Pennant.
October 9, 1948: Behind the solid pitching of Steve Gromek, the Indians win Game 4 of the Fall Classic, edging the Braves, 2-1, to take a 3-1 series lead. Larry Doby's home run, the 1st by a black player in World Series history, provides the difference in the Tribe’s victory.
Also on this day, Clyde Jackson Browne is born in Heidelberg, Germany, where his father was serving in the U.S. Army. He grew up in Los Angeles. And, as he sang in "Running On Empty," in '65 he was 17, and in '69 he was 21 -- for most of the year, anyway. Now, he's 71.
October 9, 1949, 70 years ago: The Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 10-6 at Ebbets Field, and win the World Series in 5 games. The 2 teams had combined to win Pennants in the only season in the history of the single-division Leagues, 1901 to 1968, that both Leagues' Pennants remained undecided on the last day of the regular season.
With Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider and Carl Furillo, rookies from 1947, and older players Pee Wee Reese and Gil Hodges, bolstered by the 1948 arrivals of Roy Campanella, Billy Cox, Preacher Roe and Carl Erskine, and 1949 arrival Don Newcombe, "the Boys of Summer" had arrived. But they were not ready to beat the Yankees. Once again, the Dodgers had to "Wait Till Next Year." The Yankees, now winners of 12 World Championships, would enjoy many "next years" to come.
With the recent death of Charlie Silvera, 3rd baseman Bobby Brown is now the only surviving member of the '49 Yankees, one of the iconic teams in Pinstripe history due to Joe DiMaggio's midseason comeback from injury and their regular-season finale against the Red Sox.
Also on this day, Stephen Michael Palermo is born in Worcester, Massachusetts. Named an American League umpire in 1977, he was regarded as one of the best in the business. His career included the 1978 American League Eastern Division Playoff (he was the 3rd base umpire, and can be seen in the video signaling "home run" for Bucky Dent's bloop), Dave Righetti's no-hitter in 1983, the 1983 World Series and the 1986 All-Star Game.
In 1991, Steve Palermo and Rich Garcia were at a Dallas restaurant after umpiring a game at the Texas Rangers' Arlington Stadium when they heard that 2 waitresses were being mugged outside. They tried to intervene, and Palermo was shot. He survived, but was told he would never walk again. He did, and was invited to throw out the ceremonial first ball before Game 1 of that year's World Series.
His umpiring career was over, but the AL designed not to reassign his Number 14, effectively retiring it, until the League's umpiring crews were merged in 2000. (Mark Wegner has it now.) He recovered from his disability enough to begin working with children with disabilities, and was also a motivational speaker. He died on May 14, 2017, from cancer. He was 67.
Also on this day, Shep Norman Messing is born in The Bronx, and grows up in Roslyn, Long Island. A goalkeeper, he played at both New York University and Harvard, before making the North American Soccer League with the New York Cosmos in 1973. He had 3 tenures with the team, including their 1977 NASL Championship season.
He later managed the Oakland Stompers, and was a player-manager with the New York Arrows, who played in the Major Indoor Soccer League at the Nassau Coliseum. He is now a broadcaster for the New York Red Bulls.
Also on this day, James P. Starlin (I can no reference to what the P stands for) is born in Detroit. He wrote for Marvel Comics, writing their version of Captain Marvel, and creating the characters Thanos, his daughter Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, and kung fu master Shang-Chi.
Jim Starlin later moved to DC Comics, including writing for Superman and the Flash. Many of his stories involved the character Darkseid. Darkseid first appeared in 1970, while Thanos did so in 1973, therefore Starlin writing for Darkseid was penance for having created an obvious ripoff. He is still alive and writing.
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October 9, 1950: George Hainsworth is killed in a car crash in Gravenhurst, Ontario. He was only 55. The member of the city council of Kitchener, near Hamilton, would go on to be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, for his service as one in a long line of great goaltenders for the Montreal Canadiens.
His 94 career shutouts trail only Martin Brodeur and Terry Sawchuk. He won the Vezina Trophy -- named for Georges Vezina, the man he succeeded as the Habs goalie -- the 1st 3 seasons it was given out, 1927, '28 and '29. He helped the Habs win the 1930 and '31 Stanley Cups. In 1934, by then with the Toronto Maple Leafs, he appeared in the Ace Bailey Benefit Game, which is now recognized as the 1st NHL All-Star Game. In 1998, The Hockey News listed him at Number 46 on their list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players.
Also on this day, Brian Jay Downing is born in Los Angeles, and grows up in Anaheim, to which the Los Angeles Angels would move in 1966, changing their name to the California Angels. A catcher for the Chicago White Sox, by 1981 he would be converted to an outfielder for the Angels. In 1979, still a catcher, he batted .326, made the AL All-Star Team, and helped the Angels reach the postseason for the 1st time, as they won the AL West.
He also helped them win the AL West in 1982 and 1986, meaning that, assuming you don’t count their 1-game Playoff loss to the Seattle Mariners in 1995, the Angels did not reach the postseason without Downing until 2002.
For a time, he was the Angels' all-time home run leader, hitting 222 of his 275 career home runs for the Anaheim club. But he’s probably best known now for being the player whose home run Dave Henderson went over in the Red Sox' incredible comeback in Game 6 of the 1986 ALCS. He remained a pretty good player into his 40s: In 1990, '91 and '92, the last 2 with the Texas Rangers, he had OPS+'s of 138, 132 and 138 -- his career OPS+ was 122. Although nowhere near Cooperstown, he is a member of the Angels Hall of Fame.
October 9, 1951: Game 5 of the World Series. The Giants score 1st, but a Gil McDougald grand slam in the 3rd and a Joe DiMaggio double in the 7th are the keys to a 13-1 demolition by the Yankees. Eddie Lopat goes the distance for the win.
This was the last World Series game the Giants would lose at the Polo Grounds. The Yankees clinched the next day at Yankee Stadium.
Also on this day, Robert Wuhl (no middle name) is born in Union Township, Union County, New Jersey. The actor has many sports connections: Pitching coach Larry Hockett in Bull Durham, Marty in Blue Chips, sportswriter Al Stump in Cobb, and sports superagent Arliss Michaels in Arli$$. But he's probably best known as Alexander Knox, reporter for The Gotham Gazette, in the 1989 film version of Batman.
October 9, 1952: According to the 1978 M*A*S*H "clip show" episode "Our Finest Hour," Clete Roberts (who had been a real-life reporter during the Korean War) did his interviews of the 4077th MASH personnel on this date.
October 9, 1954: Robert H. Jackson dies of a heart attack in Washington, at age 62. President Franklin D. Rosoevelt had appointed him Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in 1937, U.S. Solicitor General in 1938, U.S. Attorney General in 1940, and Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1941.
In 1943, Jackson wrote the majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which overturned a public school regulation making it mandatory to salute the flag, and imposing penalties of expulsion and prosecution upon students who failed to comply. Jackson's stirring language in Barnette concerning individual rights is widely quoted.
His concurring opinion in 1952's Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (forbidding President Harry Truman's seizure of steel mills during the Korean War to avert a strike), in which Jackson formulated a three-tier test for evaluating claims of Presidential power, remains one of the most widely cited opinions in Supreme Court history.
Having been in the hospital from a previous heart attack, he left on May 17, 1954, so he could be present for the reading of the unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, striking down public school segregation. It was his last major decision, and, through his death, he was the 1st of those 9 Justices to leave the Court.
Also on this day, Scott Stewart Bakula is born in St. Louis. He has played Dr. Sam Beckett on Quantum Leap, Captain Jonathan Archer on Star Trek: Enterprise, and now Special Agent Dwayne Cassius "King" Pride on NCIS: New Orleans. His real-life wife, Chelsea Field, has played Pride's occasional girlfriend, Assistant District Attorney Rita Devereaux.
October 9, 1955: Howie Fox, who pitched for the inaugural Orioles of 1954 but had been sent down, and spent the entire 1955 season with the San Antonio Missions of the Double-A Texas League, dies when 1 of the 3 men he was throwing out of a bar he had bought in San Antonio stabs him. The righthander from Oregon, who'd spent the bulk of his career with Cincinnati, was just 34 years old.
Also on this day, Stephen Michael James Ovett is born in Brighton, Sussex, England. He set world records in the 1,500 meters and the mile run. Knowing for his middle-distance rivalry with fellow Englishman Sebastian Coe, Ovett beat him for the 800 meters at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, but Coe beat him out for the 1,500-meter Gold Medal.
He now lives in Australia, and commentates on sports for the BBC’s affiliate there. His brother Nicholas competed for Great Britain in the luge at the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics. His son Freddy joined the prestigious track & field program at the University of Oregon, but got hurt, and switched to competitive cycling, now competing with a team in France.
October 9, 1956: Apparently, the perfect game pitched by Don Larsen the day before did not faze the Brooklyn Dodgers. Or maybe getting back to the cozy confines of Ebbets Field has given them a boost. Clem Labine goes the distance in Game 6, and then some. Enos Slaughter misjudges Jackie Robinson’s fly ball, and Jim Gilliam scores on the play. The Dodgers win, 1-0 in 10 innings. There will be a Game 7.
Also on this day, Jim Hughson (I have no other name for him) is born in Fort St. John, British Columbia. He broadcast for the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs, and in 2005 was named the lead broadcaster for CBC's Hockey Night In Canada. The Hockey Hall of Fame has given him its award for broadcasters, the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award. He also broadcast for both of Canada's MLB teams, the Toronto Blue Jays and the since-moved Montreal Expos.
October 9, 1957: Game 6 of the World Series. Bob Turley gives up home runs to Hank Aaron and Frank Torre -- a Hall-of-Famer, and the brother of a Hall-of-Famer -- but gets them from Yogi Berra and Hank Bauer, and the Yankees take it, 3-2. The Series goes to a Game 7 tomorrow.
Also on this day, Don Garber is born in Queens. He was a longtime official at NFL headquarters in New York (not to be confused with a game official or referee), before being appointed Commissioner of Major League Soccer in 1999. He got MLS through its troubled early years and made it bigger than ever -- but his leadership has come under sharp criticism for many reasons.
October 9, 1958: Michael Singletary (no middle name) is born in Houston. A 10-time Pro Bowler and a member of the NFL's All-Decade Team for the 1980s, Mike Singletary was the captain of the Chicago Bears that won Super Bowl XX.Singletary is also an ordained minister, like the late Reggie White, and it was Singletary who had the nickname "Minister of Defense" first, before White. Because of his intensity -- like hockey legend Maurice "the Rocket" Richard, he was known for his eyes and their "If looks could kill" glare -- he was also nicknamed "the Samurai."
He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the Bears retired his Number 50. As part of their 100th Season celebrations, the Bears named him to their 100 Greatest Players. In 2009 and '10, he was the as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. Earlier this year, he was head coach of the Memphis Express in the ill-fated Alliance of American Football.
Also on this day, Terry Alan Schroeder is born in Santa Barbara, California. You may not know his name, his face, or his voice, but you might know his body. He was the model for the male half of the nude statue in front of the east entrance of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, dedicated for the 1984 Olympics. He won a Silver Medal with the U.S. team in those Olympics, and did so again in Seoul, Korea in 1988. He is now 60, and a chiropractor in the L.A. suburbs.
The female model was Jennifer Innis, a long jumper from the South American nation of Guyana, who had competed in 1980, and did so again in 1984, but did not win a medal. The only information I have on her now is that she is 598, married, and using her married name, and that she values her privacy enough that she won't give out any additional information.
The reason that you may know their bodies, but not their faces, is that the statues have no heads. As with the fact that Master Chief, "star" of the Halo video game series, never shows his face, and is only shown from behind when he takes his helmet off, the idea is that the athletes in question could be anyone, even you or me.
Also on this day, Pope Pius XII dies of a heart attack at Castel Gandolfo, the Papal equivalent of a "Summer White House," outside of Rome. The former Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was 82, and his reign had been controversial, due to the Church's condemnation of extremism on the left, but its silence in the face of extremism on the right. While the term "Hitler's Pope" was unfair, he could have done more.
Say what you want about one of his successors, John Paul II, but the former Karol Wotyla stood up to both Nazis and Commies.
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October 9, 1960: Game 4 of the World Series. Despite losing the last 2 games by a combined 26-3, the Pirates bounce back. Vernon Law not only pitches a complete game, but doubles home a run, and the Pirates beat the Yankees 3-2, and tie up the Series.
October 9, 1961: Led by a pair of 5-run innings at Crosley Field, the Yankees win the World Series, beating the Reds in Game 5, 13-5. Johnny Blanchard, a reserve player who will collect 10 hits in 29 at-bats in 5 Fall Classics, hits 2 home runs and bats .400, en route to the Bronx Bombers' 19th World Championship.
Mickey Mantle barely played in this Series, but Roger Maris hit an unofficial 62nd home run of the season, while Whitey Ford broke the record for most consecutive scoreless innings pitched in the World Series, running his total to 30. The previous record? It was 29 2/3rds, set by a Boston Red Sox lefthander named… Babe Ruth.
Whitey would raise the record to 33 in 1962. Mariano Rivera would slightly break this record, pitching 33 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings in postseason play, but not all of it in World Series play.
There are still 10 living members of the 1961 World Champion New York Yankees: Ford, Bobby Richardson, Tony Kubek, Hector Lopez, Ralph Terry, Bud Daley, Jim Coates, Billy Gardner and Jack Reed.
October 9, 1962: Jorge Luis Burruchaga is born in Gualeguay, Argentina. A midfielder, he began his career with Arsenal de Sarandi (named for the great club of North London), and then starred for Avellenada club Independiente, helping them win the League in 1983 and the Copa Libertadores, South America's version of the UEFA Champions League, in 1984.
He moved to French club Nantes, winning Ligue 1's Foreign Player of the Year for 1985-86. He then played for Argentina in the 1986 World Cup, and was one of the 10 guys who stood around while Diego Maradona single-handedly (See what I did there?) won the tournament. Actually, that's not fair to Burruchaga: In the 84th minute of the Final against West Germany, he scored the winning goal.
He also played for Argentina in the 1990 World Cup Final, but lost, as the Germans got their revenge. He later managed, including at both Arsenal de Sarandi and Independiente. He last managed at Atletico de Rafaela in 2016.
October 9, 1963: Joseph Valachi completes his testimony, which began on September 27, before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations, chaired by Senator John McClellan of Arkansas.
Valachi was never a bigshot in the Mafia, or the Mob, or whatever one might have called them before this. He was just a low-level guy in the Genovese crime family, one of New York City's "Five Families." And not one single person was indicted directly because of anything he said.
But he was the 1st guy involved willing to testify, the 1st even willing to admit to the federal government that the American Mafia even existed. He revealed many of the secrets of the Italian branch of American organized crime, including what they called themselves, popularizing the term: Cosa Nostra, Italian for "Our Thing."
Naturally, a price was put on his head. And, of course, he was a prisoner anyway. But when he died in prison in 1971, at age 66, it was from a heart attack, not a murder or "hit." In the 1972 film The Valachi Papers, he was played by Charles Bronson.In the 1974 film The Godfather Part II, the character of Frank Pentangeli, played by Michael Gazzo, was based on Valachi.
October 9, 1965: Following losses by Don Drysdale in Game 1 and Sandy Koufax in Game 2, the World Series moves out to Los Angeles, and Claude Osteen saves the Dodgers' bacon, shutting out the Minnesota Twins, 4-0, and turning the Series around.
Osteen had previously pitched for the Washington Senators – the expansion team that became the Texas Rangers in 1972, not the established Senators who became the Twins in 1961 – and had a 5-0 career record against Minnesota coming into this game. Make it 6-0.
Also on this day, in what was a rarity for the NFL at the time, a Saturday afternoon game, the defending NFL Cleveland Browns trail their arch-rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, 19-17 with 44 seconds left at a rainy, muddy Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
But quarterback Frank Ryan finds Gary Collins in the end zone, and throws a game-winning 14-yard touchdown pass. Browns 24, Steelers 19. These were the days when the Browns found ways to win, and the Steelers found ways to lose.
Also in Ohio football on this day, Ohio State beats the University of Illinois 28-14 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. That is not particularly noteworthy. What is noteworthy is that the Ohio State University Marching Band introduces a new song into their repertoire for this game: "Hang On Sloopy."
The song was written by Bert Berns and Wes Russell. Berns had written "Twist and Shout," "Under the Boardwalk," "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" and "Here Comes the Night," and would go on to write "Piece of My Heart," dying of cancer in 1967, just before Big Brother & the Holding Company, with Janis Joplin singing lead, turned that last song into a legendary hit.
Russell had co-written (with several different songwriters) "Boys," "Come a Little Bit Closer" and "Let's Lock the Door (And Throw Away the Key)," and would later write "Come On Down to My Boat," and several songs, including the theme, for the TV show The Partridge Family.
"Hang On Sloopy" -- including its rarely-heard 2nd verse, in which the singer mentions Sloopy's red dress "as old as the hills" (presumably censored, because the dress would have been thin enough to see through) -- was recorded by The McCoys, whose lead singer, Rick Derringer, was a native of Dayton, Ohio. On this day, it was the Number 1 song in America.
"Sloopy" was just a made-up name for a girl, and didn't refer to any particular girl that Berns or Russell knew. However, a promotional film -- what would later be called a music video -- was filmed with Liz Zehringer, Rick's wife at the time (using his legal name), dancing in front of the band, wearing a tube top and very short jeans instead of an old red dress.
With that Number 1 status, and the Ohio connection, the OSUMB decided to start playing it, and OSU football crowds loved it. What OSU football coach Woody Hayes, with his love of traditional, military-style marching-band music, short hair, and personal conservatism, thought about it, I don't know, but I can guess that he didn't like it.
But in 1985 (2 years before Hayes died), the Ohio legislature passed a resolution naming it the State's official rock song. It's played at every home game of Cleveland's teams: The Browns at the end of the 3rd quarter, the Indians in the middle of the 8th inning, and the Cavaliers at least once a game, though not necessarily at the same time.
Although Cincinnati is closer to Columbus than Cleveland is, the Reds and the Bengals do not have similar traditions, nor do the University of Cincinnati and crosstown rival Xavier University. Nor does FC Cincinnati, now wrapping up its 1st season in Major League Soccer.
Also on this day, John James Fisher Jr. is born in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Jimbo Fisher played quarterback under Terry Bowden at Samford University, coached on Terry's staff at Auburn, then joined Terry on the staff of Terry's father Bobby Bowden at Florida State, becoming his offensive coordinator, and succeeding him in 2010.
He's won 3 Atlantic Coast Conference titles and the 2013 National Championship. His head coaching record currently stands at a sizzling 72-16. But the media was less likely to cover up misdeeds of FSU players under Fisher than they were under Ol' Bobby. In 2018, Jimbo left Tallahassee to take the head job, and the huge salary and benefits that go along with it, at Texas A&M University.
October 9, 1966: For the 2nd consecutive day, the Orioles win a World Series game, 1-0, at home at Memorial Stadium, in a contest decided by a home run, when Frank Robinson takes a Don Drysdale pitch deep over the left field fence in the 4th inning. The lone run being scored on a homer for only the 5th time in the history of the Fall Classic, and the complete-game shutout thrown by Dave McNally, Baltimore completes a 4-game sweep over the Dodgers.
It is the 1st World Championship won by a Baltimore baseball team in 70 years, since the original version of the Orioles won the 1896 National League Pennant. For the Dodgers, 33 consecutive innings without scoring a run is a Series record for futility. Their streak would run to 38 innings before they scored in the 5th inning of Game 1 of the 1974 World Series, and remains a record.
There are 7 players still alive from the '66 O's World Series roster, 53 years later: Hall of Fame 3rd baseman Brooks Robinson, Hall of Fame right fielder Frank Robinson, Hall of Fame shortstop Luis Aparicio (the only ring the White Sox legend ever won), Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer (the only man on all 3 Oriole World Champions: '66, '70 & '83), 1st baseman John "Boog" Powell, 2nd baseman Davey Johnson (later the manager of the '86 Mets), outfielder Russ Snyder and pitcher Wally Bunker. Catcher Andy Etchebarren died this past Saturday, at the age of
Also on this day, David William Donald Cameron is born in Marylebone, West London. He became Leader of Britain's Conservative Party in 2005, and Prime Minister in 2010. He was lucky that, despite his bastardly leadership of the country, the opposition to him is was so divided that the rival Labour Party couldn't defeat him in an election.
But his political luck ran out in 2016, as he staged a vote to make Britain leave the European Union, known as "Brexit." It was a close election, but the "Leave" side won with about 52 percent of the vote. In a matter of hours, the British pound went from having a value of $1.49 to $1.32, sending 1/8th of the British economy right down the loo at once. It has now fallen to $1.23, meaning that fully 1 out of every 5 parts of the United Kingdom's economy has vanished.
As a result, Cameron had to resign, not just the big job but his seat in Parliament, and Theresa May is now the Prime Minister. He was Party Leader at 38, Prime Minister at 43... and his career was in ashes before his 50th birthday. Jolly good, old chap. Not that his successors, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, have been any better.
He has also been unlucky in that his favorite soccer team, Birmingham-based Aston Villa, has gone from a miracle run to the 2015 FA Cup Final, to relegation to the 2nd division at the end of the 2015-16 season, to being in legitimate danger of relegation to the 3rd division in 2016-17, before rebounding and finishing 13th. They were promoted back to the Premier League this year.
Not that long ago, Villa were a team reliably in the top half of the Premier League. Now, they have struggled as much as, well, the pound. Not that Cameron can be blamed for Villa's struggles.
October 9, 1967: Game 5 of the World Series. In a must-win game for the Red Sox, Jim Lonborg goes the distance, tiring in the 9th inning and giving up a home run to Roger Maris, but hanging on for a 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
Steve Carlton had pitched well in defeat for the Cards. In 1976, '77 and '78, Carlton and Lonborg would be teammates on the National League Eastern Division Champion Philadelphia Phillies.
Also on this day, Gheorghe Popescu is born in Calafat, Romania. A centreback, he won both Romania's league and its national cup (the Double) with Steaua București in 1988. With PSV Eindhoven, he won the Eredivisie (the Dutch league) in 1991 and 1992. With Barcelona, he won the Copa del Rey (Spain's national cup) and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1997. With Istanbul club Galatasaray, he won Turkey's league in 1998, 1999 and 2000; the Turkish Cup in 1999 and 2000; and the 2000 UEFA Cup (the competition now known as the UEFA Europa League), beating Arsenal in the Final.
"Gică" Popescu played for Romania in the World Cups of 1990, 1994 (reaching the Quarterfinals before losing to Sweden on penalties, the country's best performance ever) and 1998. If he is not the greatest Romanian player ever, his brother-in-law Gheorghe Hagi is. They were teammates with Steaua in 1987-88, Barça in 1995-96, and Gala from 1997 to 2001.
On March 4, 2014, Popescu was sentenced to 3 years in prison for money laundering and tax evasion, in connection with the transfer of soccer players from Romania to other countries. He served a year and a half, and was released on November 4, 2015, halfway through his sentence. He has not returned to work in the sport.
October 9, 1968: Game 6 of the World Series. After winning 31 games in the regular season, but losing Games 1 and 4 in this Series, Denny McLain finally puts up a winning performance on the mound, holding the Cardinals to 1 run on 9 hits at Busch Memorial Stadium.
He didn't need to be great, though: The Tigers pound out 12 hits, including home runs by Al Kaline and Jim Northrup (a grand slam), and the Tigers win 13-1. After being down 3 games to 1, with a potential Game 6 and Game 7, the Tigers have now forced that Game 7.
But they will have to face Bob Gibson, who's won 7 straight Series decisions. Mickey Lolich will start for the Tigers, on just 2 days' rest.
October 9, 1969, 50 years ago: Don Hoak dies of a heart attack in Pittsburgh. He was only 41 years old, and had managed the Pirates' Triple-A farm team, the Columbus Jets. He thought he would be promoted to manage the big club, but former manager Danny Murtaugh was brought back. His wife, singer Jill Corey, said he died of a broken heart for being passed over.
Nicknamed Tiger, he played 11 seasons as a major league 3rd baseman, winning the World Series with the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and, under Murtaugh's management, the 1960 Pirates. He was an All-Star with the Cincinnati Reds in 1957. Unfortunately, his playing career ended with the ill-fated 1964 Philadelphia Phillies. The 1991 movie City Slickers reminded people of his 1960 role.
Also on this day, Matsutarō Shōriki dies in Atami, Shiuoka, Japan. "The Father of Japanese Professional Baseball" was 84. A judo master, he owned Japan's largest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, sponsor of the country's most successful baseball team, the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants. In this capacity, he organized the 1934 tour by Babe Ruth and other American players in Japan.
In 1949, he became the 1st commissioner of the organization overseeing Japan's 2 "major leagues," the Central League and the Pacific League, and thus founded the annual Japan Series between the leagues' champions. He also founded the country's 1st commercial television station, Nippon Television Network Corporation, and was elected to both houses of Japan's national legislature. He died not having seen his dream of a true world series happen. It still hasn't.
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October 9, 1970: Just 2 years to the day after his return to form gave the Tigers a win in Game 6, the Michigan club trades the great but undisciplined pitcher Denny McLain to the Washington Senators in an 8-player deal that also sees outfielder Elliott Maddox‚ 3rd baseman Aurelio Rodriguez‚ and pitcher Joe Coleman change teams.
This ranks as one of Detroit's best trades ever, as McLain will continue to be a pain in the ass to his managers and team management, and a shoulder injury will end his career 2 years later. Coleman would be a key to the Tigers' 1972 AL East title, as would Rodriguez, who became one of the best-fielding 3rd basemen ever.
Maddox, who grew up in Union, New Jersey, wouldn't do much for his new team, before or after the Senators moved to become the Texas Rangers. The Yankees bought him in 1974, and he had a good year, batting .303, playing sparkling defense in center field, and finishing 8th in the AL MVP voting.
But the next year, he slipped on the wet grass at Shea Stadium (where the Yankees were playing while Yankee Stadium was being renovated), and he was never the same player. He sued the Yankees, the Mets, and the City of New York, which owned Shea and operated it through its Parks Department (and would do so with Yankee Stadium as well). But since he knew the risk of playing on grass he knew to be wet, the court ruled against him. Just before the '77 season, the Yanks traded him to the Orioles for Paul Blair. Ironically, he would conclude his career with the Mets, playing 3 seasons at Shea before retiring in 1980, only 32.
Also on this day, the Vancouver Canucks make their NHL debut, at home at the Pacific Coliseum. NHL President Clarence Campbell, the Stanley Cup and Fred "Cyclone" Taylor, of the 1915 Cup-winning Vancouver Millionaires, are on hand. Barry Wilkins scores the Canucks' 1st goal, but the Los Angeles Kings spoil the festivities, 3-1, with Bob Berry scoring twice.
To this day, 50 years later, the Canucks have never won the Cup. They're 0-for-3 in the Finals, and Vancouver hasn't won the Cup in 104 years, since those 1915 Millionaires.
Also on this day, Kenneth Anderson (no middle name) is born in Queens. Raised in the LeFrak City housing project and a graduate of the famed Archbishop Molloy High School, he went to Georgia Tech for 1 year before going pro.
Kenny came to the New Jersey Nets, and looked like he was going to be a superstar, until a clothesline tackle by John Starks of the Knicks caused him to crash to the floor and break his wrist. He was never the same: Not only did his play suffer, but his personality became surly. He was reduced to journeyman status, playing in the NBA until 2005.
He has 7 children by 5 different women, one of them Dee Dee "Spinderella" Roper of Salt-n-Pepa. He is now married for the 3rd time, and has completed a degree at St. Thomas University in Miami. But earlier this year, he suffered a stroke. It's not clear how much he has recovered.
Also on this day, Annika Sörenstam (no middle name) is born in the Stockholm suburb of Bro, Sweden. She won 72 official LPGA tournaments including 10 majors between 1995 and 2006. She now runs a clothing line and a winery.
October 9, 1971: The defending Stanley Cup Champion Montreal Canadiens open a new season by retiring the Number 4 of their recently retired Captain, Jean Béliveau. They play the New York Rangers to a 4-4 tie at the Montreal Forum.
Also on this day, the film The French Connection premieres. It is a dramatization of the New York Police Department's 1961 breaking of the drug-trafficking scheme that ran from Istanbul, Turkey across the Mediterranean Sea to Marseille, France, and finally to New York.
The breakers were Detectives Sonny Grosso and Eddie Egan. Robin Moore turned it into a book, and William Friedkin turned it into the film. The lead character of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, based on Egan, was played by Gene Hackman. Egan himself became an actor, and died of cancer in 1995. Grosso was fictionalized as Buddy Russo, played by Roy Scheider. Grosso is now 86 years old.
The iconic car chase happens in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, where Hackman's Doyle drives a 1971 Pontiac LeMans (ironically, a car with a French name) under the BMT West End Line, now the D Train, from 86th Street to 62nd Street.
In 1972, the Buffalo Sabres acquired right wing Rene Robert, and put him on a forward line with center Gilbert Perreault and left wing Rick Martin, also French-Canadians. The line became known as The French Connection, and would remain together through 1979, including a berth in the 1975 Stanley Cup Finals and a defeat of the Soviet Red Army team on their 1976 tour of North America.
October 9, 1972: Dave Bancroft dies at age 81 in Superior, Wisconsin. A shortstop, "Beauty" Bancroft won a Pennant in his rookie year, with the 1915 Philadelphia Phillies, and 3 more with the 1921, '22 and '23 New York Giants, winning the World Series in 1921 and '22.
He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, and is widely believed to have been one of the dubious selections pushed on the Veterans Committee by his Giants teammates, Committee and Hall members Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry. He is one of "The Frisch Five," ex-Giants and ex-Cardinals that "The Fordham Flash" pushed, the others being Ross Youngs, Jesse Haines, Chick Hafey and George "Highpockets" Kelly. After Frisch's death in 1973, Terry continued the push for ex-teammates of himself and Frisch, resulting in the elections of Fred Lindstrom and Jim Bottomley.
That said, Frank Graham, one of the top sportswriters of the 1920s, called Bancroft "the greatest shortstop the Giants ever had and one of the greatest that ever lived."
Also on this day, Roman Oben (no middle name) is born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, and comes to America with his family at the age of 4, growing up in Washington, D.C. He set a high school discus throwing record, but his best sport would be football. He played for the Giants from 1996 to 1999, and was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they won Super Bowl XXXVII. He now works with the NFL as its Director of Health & Safety.
Also, October 9 is the date assigned by Sesame Workshop, formerly the Children's Television Workshop, to be the birthday of the Sesame Street character Count von Count, who debuted on November 27, 1972. Jerry Nelson voiced and operated The Count until his death in 2012, and Matt Vogel has since.
What does The Count have to do with sports? Nothing, that I know of, but he'd make a great statistician! That's 1! Von vonderful joke! Ah ah ah ah!
October 9, 1973: Pete Rose rebounds from the previous day's fight, and the hatred of the Met fans -- a banner in left field at Shea Stadium reads, "A Rose by any other name still stinks" -- and homers in the top of the 12th, to give the Cincinnati Reds a 2-1 win over the Mets, and the NLCS will go to a 5th and deciding game.
Also on this day, Bert Campaneris hits a walkoff homer in the 11th, and the Oakland Athletics defeat the Orioles 2-1, which is also now the A's' lead in the ALCS.
Also on this day, the Capital Bullets debut, having been the Baltimore Bullets for the preceding 10 years. They don't quite move into the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., instead opening the new saddle-roofed Capital Centre in the suburb of Landover, Maryland, just 33 miles from the Baltimore Civic Center.
To put that in perspective: The San Francisco 49ers' Levi's Stadium is 46 miles from downtown San Francisco, and only 9 miles from downtown San Jose, but they have kept the "San Francisco" name.
The Bullets play their 1st game on the road, against the Atlanta Hawks at the Omni, and lose 128-114. Mike Riordan leads the Bullets with 26 points, but Super Lou Hudson scores for 41 for the hosts.
They will reach the NBA Finals 3 times before the decade is out, winning the NBA title in 1978. They will change their name to the Washington Bullets the next season, and in 1997 to the Washington Wizards, to help offset the District of Columbia's image as "the murder capital of America." That same year, they will leave the suburbs for the District, opening the arena now known as the Verizon Center. The Cap Centre was demolished in 2002, and was replaced with a mall.
Amazingly, the Baltimore Civic Center still stands, under the name Royal Farms Arena. The city is finally working on a plan to replace it with a more modern arena, in the hopes of attracting an NBA or NHL team.
On the same day, William Thomas Pulsipher is born at Fort Benning, Georgia. He moved around with his family, as his father served in the U.S. Army, graduating from Fairfax High School outside Washington, as his father was stationed at the Pentagon.
In 1995, he, Jason Isringhausen and Paul Wilson were "Generation K," the pitchers who were going to lift the Mets to glory in the closing years of the 20th Century and the opening years of the 21st. It didn't work out that way, because all 3 of them got hurt.
Bill Pulsipher bounced around, closing his career with the Cardinals in 2005. His career record was 13-19, his ERA 5.15. He kept trying a comeback, but after being turned down by one of his former teams, the independent-league Long Island Ducks, he has hung up his spikes, working for an asphalt company and as a pitching instructor at a baseball school, both on Long Island.
He has 2 sons, Liam Hayden Pulsipher and Leyton Hale Pulsipher -- each with the initials LHP, for "Left-Handed Pitcher." Liam is now on the baseball team at Long Island's Stony Brook University.
Also on this day, Dexter Keith McCleon is born in Meridian, Mississippi. A safety, he was with the St. Louis Rams when they won Super Bowl XXXIV. He has since gone back to Meridian, as a high school coach.
October 9, 1974: The NHL's 2 new expansion teams both make their debut on this day. The Washington Capitals, like the Bullets making their home at the suburban Cap Centre, get pounded by the New York Rangers 6-3. Jim Hryculk scored the Caps' 1st goal.
The Caps' 1st season was historically bad, including not winning a single game on the road until their last, after which they skated around the ice with a garbage can as if it were the Stanley Cup. They would seem snakebit, losing Playoff series they should have, including the 4-overtime "Easter Epic" Game 7 against the New York Islanders in 1987.
Moving to the MCI Center in downtown D.C. in 1997 seemed to help, as they went on to make their 1st Stanley Cup Finals in their 1st season there. But they got swept in 4 straight, and continued to fall short, as the name of the arena was changed to the Verizon Center. But last season, with the name changed again to the Capital One Arena, they finally got back to the Finals in 2018, and won their 1st Cup.
Also on this day, the Kansas City Scouts are no luckier than were the Caps. They lose their debut 6-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens. After 2 bankrupt years, they move to Denver in 1976, becoming the Colorado Rockies. They are not appreciably better, and in 1982 they move again... becoming the New Jersey Devils.
The Devils now hang Scouts and Rockies jerseys in a display case at their current home, the Prudential Center in Newark. These are pretty much the only nods they make to their pre-Jersey history. While the NHL would return to Denver in 1995, and both the Islanders and the Pittsburgh Penguins would threaten to move to Kansas City's new Sprint Center arena as bargaining chips to get their own new arenas, the NHL has never gone back to K.C.
Also on this day, Congressman Wilbur Mills pulled over by U.S. Park Police at the Tidal Basin in D.C. His headlights were off. He was drunk. A woman got out of the car and jumped into the Basin. She was taken to St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital. The woman was not Polly Mills, the Congressman's wife. She was Annabelle Battistella, a stripper from Argentina, who went by the stage name Fanne Foxe.
As Chairman of the House of Representatives' Committee on Ways and Means, which handles tax legislation, Mills was considered one of the most powerful politicians in America. And he had done so well by his constituents in Central Arkansas that, along with the Democratic tide following Watergate, he was overwhelmingly re-elected the next month anyway. But it all turned Mills from a man respected but in relative obscurity, and Foxe from someone unknown outside D.C., into national celebrities and comedians' fodder.
A 2nd drunken incident after the election forced Mills to resign as Chairman. He chose to check himself into rehab, and did not run for re-election in 1976. He became an activist for substance abuse treatment, and lived until 1992, at age 82. Fanne Foxe disappeared from public view, and about all I know about her now is that she is still alive, at 83.
October 9, 1975: Mark Anthony Viduka is born in Melbourne, Australia. The forward won Australia's old National Soccer League (since replaced by the A-League) with hometown club Melbourne Knights in 1995. He went to Dinamo Zagreb in his father's homeland of Croatia, and won 3 straight League and Cup doubles in 1996, '97 and '98.
The man known as "V-Bomber" and "Big Dukes" also played for Celtic, Leeds United and Middlesbrough, before wrapping up his career with Newcastle United in 2009. He captained Australia at the 2006 World Cup. Upon retirement, he moved into the front office of newly-formed club Melbourne Heart, renamed Melbourne City since the company that runs Manchester City in England bought it out. He remains there.
October 9, 1976: For the 1st time, the New York Yankees play an American League Championship Series game. For the 1st time, a Kansas City team plays a postseason game in Major League Baseball. The experience is far better for New York, as 2 1st-inning errors by the Royals’ best player, 3rd baseman George Brett, helps Catfish Hunter go the distance in a 4-1 Yankee win at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium).
Philadelphia plays its 1st postseason game in 26 years, but in spite of ace Steve Carlton being on the mound -- usually described by the Phillies as "Win Day" -- Don Gullett retires 21 of his last 22 batters to outduel the legendary Lefty, and the Cincinnati Reds defeat the Phillies, 6-3.
But the Royals and Phillies still have a better day than Bob Moose. The Pirates pitcher was driving to a golf course owned by former teammate Bill Mazeroski in Martin's Ferry, Ohio -- also the home town of the Niekro brothers -- when his car crashes, killing him. To make matters worse, it's his birthday. He was 36.
Also on this day, the Rutgers football team beats the University of Connecticut 38-0, at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey. The undefeated season continues.
Also on this day, Florida State beats Boston College 28-9. Going in, BC was ranked Number 13 in the nation, and FSU had been terrible the last few years, so this is a major upset, the 1st significant victory for new Seminoles head coach Bobby Bowden.
Bowden revives a tradition that hadn't been necessary for 6 years: When Florida State wins an away game against a team ranked, or (if they're also ranked) ranked higher, or away to the University of Florida, or in a bowl game, a piece of the playing surface is cut out, taken back to Tallahassee, and "buried" in a "Sod Cemetery" at FSU's practice field. A small section of artificial turf is cut out of BC's Alumni Stadium, and taken back, the 1st artificial turf in the Sod Cemetery.
As of the 2017 Independence Bowl, the most recent such win, the Cemetery now includes 102 pieces of sod, from 42 different stadiums (the University of Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium the most frequent victim, with 12), against 39 different opponents (Florida the most often, 13), in 20 States (Florida easily the most with 44, Louisiana next with 8), in 10 different bowl games.
Also on this day, Arsenal host a testimonial match at Highbury for Peter Simpson, who had played for the team since 1964, and was a starting centreback on their 1971 League and FA Cup "Double" team. The opponent is their North London arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur. Despite a goal from Malcolm Macdonald, the recent big purchase from Newcastle United known as "Supermac," Spurs win 2-1.
This match was also the first-team debut of midfielder Steve Gatting, just 17 years old, who comes on as a substitute. He will be a member of the Arsenal team that wins the 1979 FA Cup, but spends most of his career with Brighton & Hove Albion.
Simpson would remain with the team through 1978. Having previously been loaned to the Boston Beacons of the old North American Soccer League in 1968, he would return to Boston (or, at least, Foxboro) with the New England Tea Men. He is now 74 years old, while Gatting is 60.
Also on this day, Stephen Matthew Neal is born in San Diego. He won back-to-back NCAA wrestling National Championships at California State University at Bakersfield in 1998 and 1999, and a World Championship and the Gold Medal at the Pan American Games in 1999. But he didn't make the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team, losing at the Olympic Trials, and there's no major professional wrestling league in America -- at least, not real wrestling.
(To put all of this in perspective: The wrestler that Stephen Neal beat in the 1999 NCAA Final won in 2000. He was at the University of Minnesota. His name was Brock Lesnar.)
So he turned to his other sport, football. A guard, he played 10 seasons with the New England Patriots, winning Super Bowls XXXVI, XXXVIII and XXXIX and losing Super Bowl XLII.
October 9, 1977: The Yankees come back from deficits of 1-game-to-none, 2-games-to-1, and 3-0 down in the 8th inning of Game 5, to defeat the Kansas City Royals, 5-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium), to win their 31st American League Pennant.
The Royals had won 102 games, still a record for any Kansas City team (the A's never got close to a Pennant race in their K.C. years), and with the home-field advantage in Games 3, 4 and 5, and with lefthanded pitching from Paul Splittorff and Larry Gura that they could use to neutralize Yankee sluggers like Reggie Jackson, Graig Nettles and Chris Chambliss, they were sure they were the better team. They were wrong. The Yankees go on to face the Dodgers in the World Series for the 9th time.
Indeed, this series was the source of the long-since-debunked, but still popular, idea of "The Yankees can't hit lefthanded pitching, especially in the postseason." Reggie just couldn't hit Splittorff or Gura, and Billy Martin benched him for the deciding Game 5 -- sending Reggie's best friend on the team, backup catcher Fran Healy, to tell him, because Billy was too much of a coward to do it himself.
But when Splittorff tired, and was replaced by righthander Doug Bird, Billy sent Reggie up to pinch-hit for righthanded DH Cliff Johnson. It was a most un-Reggie-like hit, but it got the job done: A looper, nearly but not quite caught by center fielder Amos Otis, got home a run to cut the deficit to 3-2, before the Yankees won it in the 9th.
The game ended when the aforementioned Freddie Patek grounded into a double play. It was Patek's 33rd birthday. Veteran 2nd baseman Cookie Rojas, who had also been a member of the collapsing 1964 Phillies, had announced his retirement, and Patek, with whom Rojas had jumped into the Royals Stadium fountains after they clinched the Division last year, was shown by the NBC camera crying in the dugout, because Rojas would never play in a World Series. Cookie didn't crumble, but Freddie did. Yeah, sometimes, there is crying in baseball.
Patek's rotten luck would continue. He would lose the ALCS to the Yankees with the Royals again i 1978, then miss the Playoffs in 1979 when the California Angels won the AL West. After the season, he was traded to the Angels. But the next 2 seasons, the Angels didn't make the Playoffs with him, while the Royals made the Playoffs without him, including winning their 1st Pennant in 1980, beating the Yankees. He retired after the 1981 season... and the Angels won the AL West in 1982.
Also on this day, Brian Michael Roberts is born in Durham, North Carolina, home of Duke University. He grows up in nearby Chapel Hill, where his father, Mike Roberts, was head baseball coach at the University of North Carolina. An All-Star 2nd baseman with the Orioles in 2005 and '07, he led the AL in stolen bases in 2007. In 2012, he helped the O's reach the AL Wild Card, losing to the Yankees in the ALDS.
He always seemed to play well against the Yankees, and after his Baltimore contract ran out in 2013, the Yankees signed him. But he batted just .237 in 91 games, was released, and retired. He has admitted to using steroids one time, in 2003.
October 8, 1978: Juan Dixon (no middle name) is born in Baltimore. The All-American guard led the University of Maryland to its 1st National Championship in 2002. His pro career would be a bit of a bust, including 2 tours with the Washington Wizards (UMd is close to Baltimore, but actually inside D.C.'s Capital Beltway), and is now the head coach at Coppin State University in his hometown.
October 9, 1979, 40 years ago: Superman is born. Well, Superman Returns star Brandon Routh is, anyway, in Norwalk, Iowa. His career hasn't gone well since his one and only appearance in the cape. "Curse of Superman"?
At least, for the moment, he's still alive. He plays another superhero, scientist Ray Palmer, a.k.a. The Atom, on The CW's series Arrow, starring Steven Amell as industrialist Oliver Queen, a.k.a. Green Arrow. With The CW's "Arrowverse" about to air its version of DC Comics' epic 1985-86 Crisis On Infinite Earths, he will also return to playing Superman, albeit a version that hadn't been created by that point, the older, disillusioned one featured in DC's 1996 out-of-continuity series Kingdom Come.
*
October 9, 1980: This is one October 9 that did not work out well for the Yankees. In Game 2 of the ALCS, with the Yankees trailing the Royals 3-2 with 2 outs in the top of the 8th inning, George Steinbrenner is caught on live national television jumping out of his seat and shouting what appears to be profanities when Willie Randolph is tagged out at home on a relay throw by George Brett.
The Boss wants 3rd base coach Mike Ferraro fired on the spot, but manager Dick Howser refuses, and the skipper will lose his job when the team is swept in 3 games by the Royals, despite a 1st place finish in the American League East, compiling a 103-59 record, best in the majors that season.
Also on this day, the Calgary Flames make their debut, at home at the Stampede Corral. Having spent the previous 8 seasons as the Atlanta Flames, they play the Quebec Nordiques to a 5-5 tie. Calgary had previously had teams in the old West Coast Hockey League of the 1920s, and the World Hockey Association of the 1970s, but this was the city's 1st NHL game.
In 1983, they moved from the Corral, at 6,450 seats the smallest arena in NHL history, to the Saddledome, built for the 1988 Winter Olympics. They reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1986, won the Cup in 1989, and reached the Finals again in 2004. Their "Battle of Alberta" rivalry with the Edmonton Oilers is as intense as any in the sport.
Now the NHL's 2nd-oldest arena, behind Madison Square Garden, a plan is in place for the Saddledome's replacement, to the north in the Victoria Park area, to begin construction in 2021, for a 2023-24 season opening, and the dome's subsequent demolition.
Also on this day, Henrik Zetterberg (no middle name) is born in Njurunda, Sweden. The left wing starred for the Detroit Red Wings, having made 2 All-Star Teams, and won the 2008 Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP. He also won a Gold Medal with Sweden at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
In 2015, he was awarded the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, named for the 1920s Ottawa Senator and 1930s Toronto Maple Leaf defense legend, and awarded to the player "who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and who has made a significant humanitarian contribution to his community." He has just retired due to a back injury, having been the Wings' Captain since 2013.
October 9, 1981: The Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 4-1 at the Oakland Coliseum, and complete a 3-game sweep of the strike-forced Division Series for the AL West title. Dave McKay, later to coach on 3 Pennant winners each with the A's and the St. Louis Cardinals under Tony La Russa, hits a home run.
Either the A's or the Royals had won the AL West in every season since 1971, except for 1979 when it was the California Angels. But that included the A's 1977 crash and their 1980 rebuild.
October 9, 1983: Stephen Michael Gionta is born in Rochester, New York. The younger brother of former New Jersey Devils star Brian Gionta, Stephen is also just 5-foot-7, but came up big as a left wing and a defensive forward for the Mulberry Street Marauders from 2011 to 2016. He last played in 2017 for the New York Islanders, and is currently a scout for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Also on this day, Michael Lee Matthews is born in the Los Angeles suburb of West Covina, California. A tight end, he was with the Giants when they won Super Bowl XLII.
October 9, 1984: For the 1st time, a World Series game is played in San Diego. It doesn't go so well for the host Padres: Larry Herndon hits a 2-run homer, and Jack Morris goes the distances, as the Tigers win Game 1 3-2 at Jack Murphy Stadium.
October 9, 1986: Game 2 of the NLCS. The Mets rebound from yesterday's loss to Mike Scott with a fine performance by Bob Ojeda, and beat the Houston Astros 5-1. The series goes back to New York tied.
Also on this day, Derek Lane Holland is born in Newark, Ohio. A pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, he helped the Texas Rangers reach 5 postseasons, including their 1st 2 Pennants, in 2010 and '11. He nearly returned to the postseason this year, with the Cubs, and his career record stands at 78-78.
Also on this day, The Cosby Show airs the episode "Golden Anniversary." As he did the year before, Dr. Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) honors his parents Russell (Earle Hyman) and Anna (Clarice Taylor) with a lip-synch, this time to "Mom's favorite singer, James Brown."
The song is the 1968 hit "I Got the Feelin'," and while their older granddaughters mime the Famous Flames' horn swings, grandson Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) does James' famous moves, including his sweat-mopping. During the breaks, youngest granddaughter Rudy (Keshia Knight Pulliam) walks in, mouthing the "Baby, baby, baby... " part.
It has become painful to realize that Cosby, who made so many people laugh so much for so long, and did so much good for so many people, was, in private life, a monster. It has been suggested that, when the allegations against him first "went viral" in 2014, "Cliff Huxtable died" -- the character was said to be the same age as Cosby, 77 at the time -- leaving us with his tainted creator.
Also on this day, Fox officially becomes the 4th U.S. television network. Its 1st show is a late-night talk show, The Late Show with Joan Rivers. Told she would not be Johnny Carson's successor on NBC's The Tonight Show as she had been led to believe, she felt betrayed, and gladly took Fox's opportunity, airwaves and money. Up against Carson, the show bombed, and Joan was gone in 6 months.
*
October 9, 1988: Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at Shea Stadium. The Mets lead the Los Angeles Dodgers 2 games to 1. This is the 1st time the Mets have entered postseason play against either of the former National League teams from New York, either the former Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York-turned-San Francisco Giants, whose move to California after the 1957 season made the Mets' creation desirable for so many (if not really necessary.)
He always seemed to play well against the Yankees, and after his Baltimore contract ran out in 2013, the Yankees signed him. But he batted just .237 in 91 games, was released, and retired. He has admitted to using steroids one time, in 2003.
October 8, 1978: Juan Dixon (no middle name) is born in Baltimore. The All-American guard led the University of Maryland to its 1st National Championship in 2002. His pro career would be a bit of a bust, including 2 tours with the Washington Wizards (UMd is close to Baltimore, but actually inside D.C.'s Capital Beltway), and is now the head coach at Coppin State University in his hometown.
October 9, 1979, 40 years ago: Superman is born. Well, Superman Returns star Brandon Routh is, anyway, in Norwalk, Iowa. His career hasn't gone well since his one and only appearance in the cape. "Curse of Superman"?
At least, for the moment, he's still alive. He plays another superhero, scientist Ray Palmer, a.k.a. The Atom, on The CW's series Arrow, starring Steven Amell as industrialist Oliver Queen, a.k.a. Green Arrow. With The CW's "Arrowverse" about to air its version of DC Comics' epic 1985-86 Crisis On Infinite Earths, he will also return to playing Superman, albeit a version that hadn't been created by that point, the older, disillusioned one featured in DC's 1996 out-of-continuity series Kingdom Come.
*
October 9, 1980: This is one October 9 that did not work out well for the Yankees. In Game 2 of the ALCS, with the Yankees trailing the Royals 3-2 with 2 outs in the top of the 8th inning, George Steinbrenner is caught on live national television jumping out of his seat and shouting what appears to be profanities when Willie Randolph is tagged out at home on a relay throw by George Brett.
The Boss wants 3rd base coach Mike Ferraro fired on the spot, but manager Dick Howser refuses, and the skipper will lose his job when the team is swept in 3 games by the Royals, despite a 1st place finish in the American League East, compiling a 103-59 record, best in the majors that season.
Also on this day, the Calgary Flames make their debut, at home at the Stampede Corral. Having spent the previous 8 seasons as the Atlanta Flames, they play the Quebec Nordiques to a 5-5 tie. Calgary had previously had teams in the old West Coast Hockey League of the 1920s, and the World Hockey Association of the 1970s, but this was the city's 1st NHL game.
In 1983, they moved from the Corral, at 6,450 seats the smallest arena in NHL history, to the Saddledome, built for the 1988 Winter Olympics. They reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 1986, won the Cup in 1989, and reached the Finals again in 2004. Their "Battle of Alberta" rivalry with the Edmonton Oilers is as intense as any in the sport.
Now the NHL's 2nd-oldest arena, behind Madison Square Garden, a plan is in place for the Saddledome's replacement, to the north in the Victoria Park area, to begin construction in 2021, for a 2023-24 season opening, and the dome's subsequent demolition.
Also on this day, Henrik Zetterberg (no middle name) is born in Njurunda, Sweden. The left wing starred for the Detroit Red Wings, having made 2 All-Star Teams, and won the 2008 Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP. He also won a Gold Medal with Sweden at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
In 2015, he was awarded the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, named for the 1920s Ottawa Senator and 1930s Toronto Maple Leaf defense legend, and awarded to the player "who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and who has made a significant humanitarian contribution to his community." He has just retired due to a back injury, having been the Wings' Captain since 2013.
October 9, 1981: The Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 4-1 at the Oakland Coliseum, and complete a 3-game sweep of the strike-forced Division Series for the AL West title. Dave McKay, later to coach on 3 Pennant winners each with the A's and the St. Louis Cardinals under Tony La Russa, hits a home run.
Either the A's or the Royals had won the AL West in every season since 1971, except for 1979 when it was the California Angels. But that included the A's 1977 crash and their 1980 rebuild.
October 9, 1983: Stephen Michael Gionta is born in Rochester, New York. The younger brother of former New Jersey Devils star Brian Gionta, Stephen is also just 5-foot-7, but came up big as a left wing and a defensive forward for the Mulberry Street Marauders from 2011 to 2016. He last played in 2017 for the New York Islanders, and is currently a scout for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Also on this day, Michael Lee Matthews is born in the Los Angeles suburb of West Covina, California. A tight end, he was with the Giants when they won Super Bowl XLII.
October 9, 1984: For the 1st time, a World Series game is played in San Diego. It doesn't go so well for the host Padres: Larry Herndon hits a 2-run homer, and Jack Morris goes the distances, as the Tigers win Game 1 3-2 at Jack Murphy Stadium.
October 9, 1986: Game 2 of the NLCS. The Mets rebound from yesterday's loss to Mike Scott with a fine performance by Bob Ojeda, and beat the Houston Astros 5-1. The series goes back to New York tied.
Also on this day, Derek Lane Holland is born in Newark, Ohio. A pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, he helped the Texas Rangers reach 5 postseasons, including their 1st 2 Pennants, in 2010 and '11. He nearly returned to the postseason this year, with the Cubs, and his career record stands at 78-78.
Also on this day, The Cosby Show airs the episode "Golden Anniversary." As he did the year before, Dr. Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby) honors his parents Russell (Earle Hyman) and Anna (Clarice Taylor) with a lip-synch, this time to "Mom's favorite singer, James Brown."
The song is the 1968 hit "I Got the Feelin'," and while their older granddaughters mime the Famous Flames' horn swings, grandson Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) does James' famous moves, including his sweat-mopping. During the breaks, youngest granddaughter Rudy (Keshia Knight Pulliam) walks in, mouthing the "Baby, baby, baby... " part.
It has become painful to realize that Cosby, who made so many people laugh so much for so long, and did so much good for so many people, was, in private life, a monster. It has been suggested that, when the allegations against him first "went viral" in 2014, "Cliff Huxtable died" -- the character was said to be the same age as Cosby, 77 at the time -- leaving us with his tainted creator.
Also on this day, Fox officially becomes the 4th U.S. television network. Its 1st show is a late-night talk show, The Late Show with Joan Rivers. Told she would not be Johnny Carson's successor on NBC's The Tonight Show as she had been led to believe, she felt betrayed, and gladly took Fox's opportunity, airwaves and money. Up against Carson, the show bombed, and Joan was gone in 6 months.
*
October 9, 1988: Game 4 of the National League Championship Series at Shea Stadium. The Mets lead the Los Angeles Dodgers 2 games to 1. This is the 1st time the Mets have entered postseason play against either of the former National League teams from New York, either the former Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York-turned-San Francisco Giants, whose move to California after the 1957 season made the Mets' creation desirable for so many (if not really necessary.)
Dwight Gooden is one out away from giving the Mets a win in Game 4 of the NLCS. If Gooden had simply gotten through the inning allowing less than 2 runs, the Mets would have won, and been up 3 games to 1. They could have won the Pennant without having to go back to Los Angeles. And if the weak-hitting Dodgers could beat the Oakland Athletics in the World Series, surely the Mets could have. (The A's completed a 4-game sweep over the Boston Red Sox the same day, winning the American League Pennant.)
It would have been the Mets' 2nd World Championship in 3 years, and deepened their status as New York's Number 1 team. Keep in mind, the Yankees hadn't won a Pennant in 7 years and a World Series in 10 years -- by their standards, an eternity.
Maybe that hypothetical glorious Mets team would have been kept together. Maybe Gooden and Strawberry don't fall back into drug problems. (Humor me here.) Maybe the Mets find suitable replacements for Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter, both 34 years old, the glue of their 1986 World Champions. Maybe things change so much that the Mets never give the hearts and minds of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans back to the Yankees, and the Yankees never get into position to take them back.
But here's what actually happened. Gooden fulfilled the cliche that walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. He walked John Shelby to lead off the top of the 9th. The next batter was Mike Scioscia, a very good catcher, but not known for his hitting. He hit a home run to tie the game.
The game went to extra innings. Roger McDowell spit the bit (I'm sorry, but the joke was too good to not use), giving up a home run to Kirk Gibson in the 12th inning. Gibson was 1-for-16 in the postseason up until that moment.
Jesse Orosco, who got the clinching outs for the 1986 Pennant and World Series for the Mets, had been traded to the Dodgers, but nearly blew it in the 12th. Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda called Hershiser, who'd won Game 1 and then, given an extra day because of a rainout, pitched 7 innings in Game 3 the day before this, out of the bullpen, to get the last out. He did.
Dodgers 4, Mets 2. Series tied. The Dodgers won the series in Game 7 in Los Angeles.
This was the hinge day in Met history, when it all started to go wrong. It was the 1st major instance of what I've come to call "The Curse of Kevin Mitchell." Maybe, maybe, maybe? Since Scioscia's homer 30 years ago, "maybes" are pretty much all the Mets have had.
The Mets have frequently used the slogan "The Magic Is Back." October 9, 1988 was the day the magic died.
Also on this day, Jackie Milburn dies of lung cancer in his hometown of Ashington, Nothumberland, England. He was 64. The forward remains the most beloved player in the history of English soccer team Newcastle United, having helped them win the FA Cup in 1951, 1952 and 1955 -- and they haven't won it since.
He also served as player-manager for Belfast club Linfield, winning Northern Ireland's league in 1959, and both the Irish League and the Irish Cup in 1960.
October 9, 1989, 30 years ago: Televising Game 5 of the NLCS, a 3-2 Giants victory over the Cubs from Candlestick Park, NBC broadcasts its final edition of The Game of the Week. This is the 1st Pennant for the Giants in 27 years.
The next season, CBS's sporadic and less frequent coverage of a regular season weekly game led many to believe the network was really only interested in airing the All-Star Game and post-season contests.
*
October 9, 1990: Kevin Kampl is born in Solingen, Germany. The midfielder helped Red Bull Salzburg -- owned by the Austrian soft drink maker, and the parent club of our own New York Red Bulls and German club Red Bull Leipzig -- win the Austrian Bundesliga and the Austrian Cup in 2014, the Double. He now plays in his homeland, for RB Leipzig. However, he plays his international football for his parents' homeland, Slovenia.
October 9, 1992: Samantha Mewis is born in the Boston suburb of Weymouth, Massachusetts. A midfielder, Sam Mewis plays for the Raleigh-based North Carolina Courage, and helped them win this year's National Women's Soccer League title
Despite being a member of the U.S. team that won the Women's Under-20 World Cup in 2012, she was not selected for the U.S. team that won the 2015 Women's World Cup, but played in 6 out of 7 games in the 2019 Women's World Cup, including the entire knockout stage.
October 9, 1993: The expansion Florida Panthers, representing the Miami region, play their cross-State rivals, the Tampa Bay Lightning, for the 1st time. The Panthers win 2-0 at the ThunderDome (now Tropicana Field) in Tampa.
The attendance is 27,227, then a record for an NHL game. It would stand for 10 years, before the rise of "Heritage Classics," "Stadium Series" and "Winter Classics," but it remains the record for an indoor game. Currently, the record for any NHL game is 105,491, at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, for the 2014 NHL Winter Classic, a 3-2 win for the Toronto Maple Leafs over the host Detroit Red Wings.
Also on this day, George Krieger Kittle is born in Madison, Wisconsin. In spite of his hometown being the seat of the University of Wisconsin, he went to the University of Iowa. He was a Pro Bowler with the San Francisco 49ers last season, setting a new record for receiving yards by a tight end, 1,377 on 88 catches.
Also on this day, Jay Mohr and Sarah Silverman make their debuts on Saturday Night Live. Although Silverman appeared only in this season, and Mohr only for 1 more, they both go on to bigger and better things.
In his memoir, Gasping for Airtime, Mohr wrote that he had panic attacks while on SNL, and says that Silverman ended up saving his life by guiding him to treatment.
October 9, 1994, 25 years ago: Raich Carter dies in Willerby, East Yorkshire, England at the age of 80. A relic of the days when one could play "first class cricket" in the Summer and "first division football" (soccer) the rest of the calendar year, he played for Derbyshire County Cricket Club, and for his hometown team, Sunderland, helping them win the 1936 Football League title and the 1937 FA Cup.
October 9, 1995: Chuba Amechi Akpom is born in Canning Town, East London. A forward, he made his first-team debut with North London club Arsenal since 2012, but never broke through, playing just 8 games for the first team, scoring 3 goals. Finally, in 2018, Arsenal sold him to PAOK of Thessaloniki, Greece.
*
October 9, 1996: Game 1 of the American League Championship Series is held at the original Yankee Stadium. The Yankees trail the Baltimore Orioles 4-3 in the bottom of the 8th. The big, scowling, fearsome Armando Benitez is on the mound for the Orioles. He does not yet have a reputation as a pitcher who chokes in the clutch. He is about to get one.
He pitches to Derek Jeter, the Yankees' rookie shortstop. Jeter, as later fans might guess, uses an inside-out swing to send the ball to right-center field. Oriole right fielder Tony Tarasco goes back, stands at the fence, and holds up his glove.
Tarasco is a fool. Take a look at the tape: His glove wasn't lined up right. He played it totally wrong. Instead of falling into his glove, it would have hit the fence above him and to his right -- or from the view of the TV fan, "back and to the left." It's baseball's "Zapruder Film." The ball would have gone for at least a double, possibly a triple, putting the tying run in scoring position.
Except that’s not what happened. Jeffrey Maier, a 12-year-old fan from Old Tappan, Bergen County, New Jersey, ran over, and reached out with his glove. The ball hit his glove, and as he tried to pull it into the stands, he lost control of it. That's right: He didn't even get the ball.
Umpire Rich Garcia ruled it a home run, tying the game. Tarasco was furious. Oriole manager Davey Johnson -- at that moment, still the last man to manage a New York team to a Pennant, the 1986 Mets -- runs out to protest. To no avail.
In the bottom of the 11th, Randy Myers, who had pitched for Johnson on the '86 Mets and had won a World Series under Lou Piniella for the 1990 Cincinnati Reds, pitched to Bernie Williams, the star of the Yanks' AL Division Series win over the Texas Rangers. On radio station WABC, John Sterling said this:
Theeee pitch, swung, and it's driven to deep left! It is high! It is far! Iiiiiiiit… is gone! Yankees win! Theeeeeeeeeeee Yankees win!
It wasn't the first time Sterling had used the line, but it was the first time I'd heard him drag it out that much.
Yankees 5, Orioles 4. After the game, the media asked Yankee manager Joe Torre about the fan-assisted Jeter home run. Without missing a beat, or changing his expression, The Man of One Face said, "Did anybody see Bernie's home run? That wasn't bad." Laughter in the press room.
The Top 5 Reasons You Can’t Blame Jeffrey Maier for the Baltimore Orioles losing the 1996 American League Pennant
5. Tony Tarasco. He blew the play. If he had tracked the ball properly, he would have gotten under it and jumped for it. Jeffrey Maier probably saved him from being the biggest goat in the history of Baltimore sports. Tarasco still owes Maier a steak dinner, in my opinion. At the very least, now that Maier is about to turn 35, he could buy him a beer.
4. Bernie Williams. He not only hit the Game 1 winner, but torched the O's in Games 3 and 4 in Baltimore as well.
3. The Bullpens. The Yankees had Graeme Lloyd, Jeff Nelson and a rookie named Mariano Rivera setting up John Wetteland. The Orioles had Benitez setting up Myers.
2. The Managers. Joe Torre kept his cool. Davey Johnson lost his cool. He got so upset over the call that his anger spread to his team. He could have calmed them down afterward and said, "Aw, forget it. We got screwed, but it's just one game. If we win Game 2 here tomorrow, we can come home with a tie, and we'll be in great shape to take this thing. Put it out of your minds and win tomorrow." He didn't.
This wasn't the first such example in postseason history, and it hasn't been the last. Frankly, I think the Mets won that 1986 in spite of Johnson, not because of any leadership he provided. A better manager, and the Mets might have won the Pennant in 1988, too, and at least won the National League East in 1985, 1987 and 1990.
1. The Yankees Were Better. Yes, they were. They did win the Division (the Orioles had won the Wild Card), they didn't need steroids (the Orioles had Rafael Palmeiro, who was caught, and Brady Anderson, who has never been publicly outed but whose season and career fit the profile), and they won all 3 games at Camden Yards.
The next season, the Cleveland Indians would win 2 of the 3 ALCS games in Baltimore. The Orioles have a record of 1-5 in ALCS games played at Camden Yards.
From their 1st postseason home game, Game 3 of the 1966 World Series, to Game 6 of the 1971 World Series, they were 13-2 in home postseason games. From Game 7 of the 1971 World Series to today, the Orioles' home record in postseason play is 14-18. At home.
Or, to put it another way, they have won just 1 home game in ALCS play in the last 33 years. And you can't say, "Curse of Camden Yards," because they were playing at Memorial Stadium for some of that. If you can't defend your home field in the Playoffs, you have no right to blame a kid in the stands at an away game.
The Yankees proved they were better going on to win that Pennant, a stretch of 6 Pennants and 4 World Championships in 8 years. The O's? Still looking for their 1st Pennant since Ronald Reagan's 1st term.
Jeffrey Maier went on to play baseball at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he became the school's all-time hits leader. He served as an extra and assisted with baseball skills training for the actors in ESPN’s miniseries about the 1977 Yankees, The Bronx is Burning.
He now works with Internet LeagueApps in Manchester, New Hampshire. Yes, Jeffrey Maier (who now prefers to be called Jeff) lives and works in "Red Sox Nation." Beyond that, his wife Andrea is a Sox fan. He says, "I've been able to look past that flaw in her character." They have 2 children.
Game 1 of the ALCS was scheduled for a 4:00 start, so it wouldn't go on in prime time against the Vice Presidential debate, in St. Petersburg, Florida, between the Democratic incumbent, Vice President Al Gore, and the Republican nominee, Jack Kemp, a former Congressman representing Buffalo, and President George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Housing & Urban Development. Gore was running with President Bill Clinton, Kemp with former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.
Jack French Kemp -- sometimes called "The Republican JFK," and a darling of the anti-tax wing of the conservative movement -- had also been a quarterback, leading the Buffalo Bills to their only titles, the 1964 and 1965 American Football League Championships. He would often say, "I got 11 concussions in my football career. Nothing left to do, but go into politics!" It was considered funny then. It's not so funny now.
Gore begins the debate by offering Kemp a deal: "If you won't use any football stories, I won't tell any of my warm and humorous stories about chloroflorocarbon abatement." Kemp: "It's a deal. I can't even pronounce it!"
Kemp had a great sense of humor, based on his reputation as a know-it-all who talked too much. Later in the debate, told he had 90 seconds to answer, he said, "Ninety seconds? I can't even clear my throat in ninety seconds!" He also liked to say (but didn't on this occasion), "People say I'm arrogant, but I know better!"
Most observers felt that Kemp did all right, but that Gore "won," simply by not losing. Clinton and Gore won the election, and Kemp, whom many people were sure would become President one day -- he did run in 1988, but finished 3rd in Republican delegates -- never tried again, and died of cancer in 2009. Although he was 12 years younger, Kemp has now been survived by Dole by 7 years.
Pepperdine University in Malibu, California has established the Jack F. Kemp Institute of Political Economy -- not quite a Presidential Library, but a legacy of which he would probably approve. Oddly, while he did come from Los Angeles and did go to an L.A.-area school, it wasn't Pepperdine. It was Occidental College, which did produce a President -- Barack Obama, before he transferred to Columbia, graduated from there, and then from Harvard Law. Kemp was on both the football and track teams at "Oxy," and, like a later quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, was an excellent javelin thrower.
Also on this day, Isabella Khair Hadid is born in Washington, D.C., and grows up in Los Angeles. Like her mother Yolanda and her sister Gigi, Bella Hadid is a major fashion model.
October 9, 1998: The Cleveland Indians beat the Yankees, 6-1, in Game 3 of the ALCS at Jacobs Field. Jim Thome homers twice, Manny Ramirez and Mark Whiten once each. The Indians lead 2 games to 1.
Suddenly, after 114 wins -- 118 wins if the postseason thus far is counted -- the 1998 New York Yankees, already being hailed as one of the greatest teams in history, are in serious, serious trouble of not even making it to the World Series.
The Yankees will not lose a game that counts again until April 5, 1999.
October 9, 1999, 20 years ago: The Mets win a postseason series. Stop laughing. They defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks‚ 4-3‚ on backup catcher Todd Pratt's 10th inning homer. Pratt is in the game for starter Mike Piazza‚ who is unable to play because of a thumb injury. John Franco gets the victory in relief for the Mets.
On the same day, the Yankees defeat the Texas Rangers‚ 3-0‚ to sweep the ALDS. Roger Clemens hurls 7 shutout innings for the win‚ as Darryl Strawberry’s 3-run homer in the 1st provides all the runs in the game. This is the 1st time the Yankees and the Mets have both clinched anything on the same day, so it's kind of appropriate that one of the heroes is Darryl, who played for both teams.
On the same day, the Braves score 5 runs in the 6th inning, and beat the Houston Astros 7-5. The Braves win the NLDS 3-1. It is the last major sporting event at the Astrodome, as the Astros are moving into what's now Minute Maid Park next April, the Oilers left for Tennessee in 1997, and the Texans' approval by the NFL was dependent on a new stadium, which was built next-door to the Astrodome, and is now named NRG Stadium.
A plate to renovate the Astrodome and turn it into a public park is currently on hold.
Also on this day, the football team from Virginia Tech comes to Rutgers with their much-hyped lefthanded-throwing, crazy-running quarterback Michael Vick. He lights RU's defense up like a pinball machine.
My father and I were at this game at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey, and I was more impressed with the defense that head coach Frank Beamer built, led by defensive end Corey Moore. I'd never seen an amateur defense that was so fast.
Tech won 58-20, and took the Number 5 ranking they had in that game and got it up to Number 2 and a date with Number 1 Florida State in the Sugar Bowl for the National Championship -- but the Seminoles gave them a taste of their own medicine, winning 46-29.
Moore ended up not playing much in the NFL, only for the Buffalo Bills in 2000. Vick would become a pro sensation, getting the Atlanta Falcons to the 2003 NFC Championship Game, before his life took a turn for the worse.
*
October 9, 2002: While the Number 99 of Wayne Gretzky had been retired throughout the NHL, the Los Angeles Kings had not yet had an official ceremony for it. On this night, at the Staples Center, they do, prior to their season opener. They beat the Phoenix coyotes 4-1.
October 9, 2003: Game 2 of the ALCS. The Yankees ride the pitching of Andy Pettitte and a home run by Nick Johnson to beat the Red Sox 6-2. The series goes to Fenway Park tied.
Games 1 and 2 were not particularly memorable. That will not be the case with Game 3, which remains the ugliest game in the 116-season history of this rivalry.
Also on this day, the Edmonton Oilers retire the Number 31 of Grant Fuhr, prior to their season opener at the Northlands Coliseum. They beat the San Jose Sharks 5-2.
October 9, 2004: The Yankees finish off the Twins with a come-from-behind 6-5 win in 11 innings at the Metrodome, and win their Division Series. Ruben Sierra's 3-run homer ties the game in the 8th inning, and Alex Rodriguez scores the winning run on a wild pitch.
And yet, it will take the Yankees 5 years to win another postseason series. When they do, that one, too, will be against the Twins.
October 9, 2005: At Minute Maid Park, Chris Burke's 18th-inning homer ends the longest postseason game in baseball history, as the Astros defeat the Braves, 7-6, to advance to the NLCS. Atlanta's 5-run lead late in the game is erased with an 8th inning grand slam by Lance Berkman and a 2-out 9th inning solo shot by Brad Ausmus, which barely clears Gold Glove center fielder Andruw Jones' outstretched hand.
When this game ended, I called my grandmother. Sure enough, she likened it to that 16-inning game in Houston in the 1986 NLCS, the Mets winning the Pennant over the Astros in the Astrodome, her favorite game of all time. She would watch the 2005 LCS and World Series and enjoy them. They would be the last baseball games she would ever see.
On this same day, the Yankees down the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim‚ 3-2 in Game 4‚ to even their Division Series. Al Leiter gets the win for New York in relief of Shawn Chacon. It is Leiter's 1st postseason win in 12 years, since he won a game for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1993 World Series. Counting postseason wins, it is the 164th win of his career. It will be the last.
He also helped the Florida Marlins win the World Series in 1997, and the team he grew up rooting for, the Mets, win a Pennant in 2000, before losing the World Series to the Yankees, for whom he started his career, and would later broadcast on the YES Network. He now works for YES and the MLB Network.
It is also the last game for Tino Martinez, who had been reacquired by the Yankees after 3 years away. He comes in as a defensive replacement in the top of the 8th, and, in his last at-bat, pops up to short in the bottom of the inning. He does not play Game 5 in Anaheim, the Yankees are eliminated, and he retires with 339 career home runs, 192 of them as a Yankee.
Also on this day, Tom Cheek dies of cancer in the Tampa suburb of Oldsmar, Florida. He was 66. He had broadcast for the Toronto Blue Jays from their 1977 inception until his illness caught up with him in 2004. He had broadcast 4,306 consecutive games for the Jays, and that number now stands in for a "retired number" for his notation on the Jays' "Level of Excellence" at the Rogers Centre. In 2013, the Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously gave him its Ford Frick Award, tantamount to election for broadcasters.
October 9, 2008: Rio Tinto Stadium opens in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. "The RioT" becomes the home of soccer team Real Salt Lake, and in their 1st full season there, 2009, they win the MLS Cup.
Also on this day, the Crash of 2008 continues, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 687 points. After 8 years of George W. Bush's tax cuts, it is now clear: When liberals win, everybody wins, including conservatives; but when conservatives win, everybody loses, including, eventually, conservatives.
October 9, 2009, 10 years ago: Game 2 of the ALDS. The Yankees trail the Twins 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th, when Alex Rodriguez hits an opposite-field home run to send the game to extra innings -- easily the biggest hit he's ever gotten for the Yankees, or anyone else, to this point.
In the bottom of the 11th, Mark Teixeira, who had never hit a postseason home run before, sends a line drive down the left-field line. It is just barely fair, and just barely over the fence. Yankee broadcaster John Sterling doesn't even have time to go into his usual, "It is high! It is far! It is... " before, as surprised as anyone else, he realizes it's... "Gone! Gone!" Yankees 4, Twins 3. The Yankees take a 2-games-to-none lead in the series as it heads to the Metrodome.
Also on this day, The Damned United premieres, based on the novel by David Peace. It is a dramatization of the rivalry between soccer managers Brian Clough, played by Michael Sheen, and Don Revie, played by Star Trek actor Colm Meaney.
Clough was a native of Middlesbrough, in England's North-East, and had starred as a striker for the hometown soccer team. Revie was also a Middlesbrough native, and had also starred as a striker, for Manchester City. Both men subsequently played for Sunderland, obstensibly Middlesbrough's arch-rivals.
Both went into management at a young age, Revie due to declining skills, Clough due to a nasty injury that probably would have been easily fixable today. Both took long-dormant teams out of the 2nd division of English football and into the 1st: Revie at age 33 with Yorkshire team Leeds United in 1964, Clough at 34 with East Midlands team Derby County in 1969, the year Revie's Leeds won the 1st division for the 1st time.
But there were significant differences. Revie was 8 years older: For him, the defining experience of his childhood was the Great Depression, and the result was that he did whatever he had to do to survive, even if that meant cheating; for Clough, it was World War II, and the result was a basic sense of fairness, which meant that not only did he not accept cheating, but he publicly condemned those whose who did, including Revie, his gifts to referees (the press called them "Don Readies"), the diving of Captain Billy Bremner, and the rough play of Johnny Giles and Norman Hunter.
In 1972, Derby won the League -- at 37, 5 years younger than Revie was for his 1st title -- and Leeds won the FA Cup. In 1973, a dispute with management led Clough to quit Derby. In 1974, having failed to qualify for the World Cup, the FA hired Revie as England manager. Leeds management hired Clough. Both moves seemed like no-brainers on the surface.
Both moves were disasters. England did not qualify for Euro 76, and before qualifying for the 1978 World Cup could be completed, Revie quit to take a coaching job in the United Arab Emirates, abandoning his country for money, shattering whatever reputation he had.
Clough tried to manage Leeds his way, but the players not only missed Revie, but chafed against Clough's way and his previous comments about them being cheats. He lasted only 44 days before being fired. Nobody came out of it looking good.
But, as stated in the film's epilogue, he was soon hired by Derby's East Midlands arch-rivals, Nottingham Forest. He got them promoted, won the League with them in 1978, and then did something neither he nor Revie had yet done: Won the European Cup, in 1979, and again in 1980. Forest are the only team in Europe to win the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League more than they've won their national league.
Clough became known as "the greatest manager England never had." Why did the national team, despite all its struggles since the 1966 World Cup win, never hire him? He knew damn well why: "I'm sure the England selectors thought, if they took me on and gave me the job, I'd want to run the show. They were shrewd, because that's exactly what I would have done." In other words, the guys running the FA wouldn't have been running the show, and they wouldn't have been able to handle that.
Leeds United still dedicated a statue of Revie outside their Elland Road stadium after his death in 1989. But Clough, who lived until 2004, has 3 statues: In central Middlesbrough, and outside Derby's new stadium, Pride Park, and Forest's City Ground.
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October 9, 2010: The Yankees beat the Twins 6-2, and complete a 3-game sweep of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium II.
October 9, 2011: The new Winnipeg Jets, previously the Atlanta Thrashers, end the Manitoba capital's 15-year exile from the NHL, playing their inaugural game at the new MTS Centre (now named Bell MTS Place). Nik Antropov scores their 1st goal, but that's all they get, and the Montreal Canadiens beat them, 5-1.
October 9, 2012: Budd Lynch dies at age 95, at the dawn of what would have been his 66th season with the Detroit Red Wings. Frank Joseph James Lynch had been born in 1917 in Windsor, Ontario, and lost his right arm serving with the Essex Scottish Regiment of the Canadian Army in World War II.
He returned home to become the radio announcer for the Windsor Spitfires hockey team. Across the Detroit River, and across the U.S.-Canadian border, the Wings took notice, and in 1949, they hired him as the team's 1st TV announcer. In 1960, he switched to radio, and retired in 1975. But he was talked into staying on as director of publicity. He tried to retire again in 1985, but was talked into becoming the team's public address announcer. That same year, the Hockey Hall of Fame gave him the Foster Hewitt Award, tantamount to election to the Hall for broadcasters.
He saw the Wings win 8 Stanley Cups in 14 trips to the Finals, watched 37 Hall-of-Famers play for the Wings (Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Niklas Kronwall could well make it 40), and was as identified with the team as anyone, including Gordie Howe and Steve Yzerman. Just as Derek Jeter always wanted to be introduced by a recording of longtime Yankee Stadium PA announcer Bob Sheppard, the Wings still use a recording of Lynch to say, "Last minute of play in this period."
Also on this day, Kenny Rollins dies at the age of 89. A point guard, he had won the National Championship with the University of Kentucky in 1948. UK has retired his Number 26. He also played on the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the Olympics in London that year. His pro career didn't last long, only 5 seasons, until 1953. His brother Phil Rollins also played in the NBA.
Dale Barnstable and Walter Hirsch, both banned from the NBA due to their role in the college basketball point-shaving scandals of the early 1950s, are the last survivors of Kentucky's 1948 "Fabulous Five." Rollins was not implicated in the scandal.
Robert Jackson Robinson, a 92-year-old Baptist minister from Fort Worth, and now retired and living in Georgia, is the only survivor of the 1948 U.S. Olympic team. Interestingly enough, he has, from the moment he first became famous, been known as Jackie Robinson. However, as a pre-Civil Rights Movement graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, he is white. As far as I know, he and the
Jackie Robinson never met.
October 9, 2015: The Mets open their Division Series with the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Daniel Murphy continues his torrid hitting with a home run, to back up the fine pitching of Jacob deGrom, and Clayton Kershaw continues his path as the Alex Rodriguez of pitchers: Great in the regular season, completely untrustworthy in the postseason. The Mets win, 3-1.
Also on this day, for the 1st time, the Chicago Cubs and their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, meet in a postseason game. It's no contest, as John Lackey takes a no-hitter into the 7th inning, Thomas Pham and Stephen Piscotty hit home runs, and the Cards win, 4-0 at Busch Stadium.
After the season, the Cards did not sign Lackey to a new contract. The Cubs did, and he made them glad they did.
October 9, 2018: For the 1st time, I attended a major league postseason game. My sister's company has "behind the moat" seats at the new Yankee Stadium, and when the guy who was going to use them for Game 4 of the ALDS against the hate Red Sox had to back out, her boss, who knew she was a nominal Yankee Fan and her brother was a sick, twisted, demented Yankee Fan, offered them to her.
She couldn't go, so she offered them both to me. I mentioned it on Facebook, and took the first yes, a London native turned Brooklyn resident that I met through watching Arsenal games. My sister and mother thought this could have been something, as it was a woman around my age, but no, she's been married before, and says she's "one and done."
The Yankees had to win to force a Game 5 at Fenway Park. Bucky Dent, the against-the-Sox hero of 40 years before, threw out the ceremonial first ball. But that was a bad sign, because he'd also done so before Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, and it didn't work, and it was the end of the Curse of the Bambino.
CC Sabathia gave up 3 runs in the top of the 3rd. The Sox scored another run in the 4th. The Yankees got a run back in the 5th, but it was still 4-1 Boston going to the bottom of the 9th. Aaron Judge led off with a walk against Craig Kimbrel, and Didi Gregorius singled. The good news: The tying run was at the plate. The bad news: It was Giancarlo Stanton. He had 16 runners on base in this series, and he moved a grand total of 3 of them over -- 2 of them on groundouts. He completed his failed series by striking out.
Kimbrel walked Luke Voit to load the bases, and then forced in a run by hitting Neil Walker with a pitch -- probably uninentionally, but with the Red Sox, you never know. Gary Sanchez made it 4-3 with a sacrifice fly. The batter was rookie sensation Gleyber Torres. He grounded to 3rd, but the play at 1st base was close enough for a video review. He was, correctly, ruled out, and the Sox had eliminated the Yankees.
It was a great experience and a great game, with a lousy ending. The Yankees had won 100 games, but walked away with nothing, and were eliminated on their home field by their arch-rivals, who went on to win the World Series. A disgrace.
Manager Aaron Boone was allowed to keep his job, because it was only his 1st season, and by that standard, he had done well. General manager Brian Cashman, who had now failed for the 17th time in 18 seasons, was also allowed to keep his job, because he had sold a lot of tickets and kept the Yankees under the luxury tax threshold. I'm beginning to wonder if the only thing that would get him fired would be, to borrow a saying from politics, getting caught with a dead girl or a live boy.
October 9, 2042: As he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, this is the earliest date on which disgraced former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky can be released. He would be 98 years old.
October 9, 2270: If we accept the custom of taking the last 3 digits, plus the decimal point, of the "Stardates" on Star Trek as a percentage of the year thus far gone, then "The Counter-Clock Incident," Stardate 6770.3, takes place on this date. It is probably the most celebrated episode of the 1973-74 Star Trek: The Animated Series -- although it turned out to be the last, airing on October 12, 1974.
A diplomatic conference is taking place on the planet Babel, referred to in the Original Series episode "Journey to Babel," and among the guests are Commodore Robert April (voiced by James Doohan, a.k.a. Scotty) and his wife Sarah (Nichelle Nichols, a.k.a. Uhura). The USS Enterprise is escorting them, because April was the ship's 1st commanding officer when it was launched in 2245, and Sarah was his chief medical officer. (A non-canon story would eventually have Captain Kirk's father George serving as April's First Officer.)
But the ship gets trapped in a part of space where time flows backwards, and everyone starts getting younger. The main crew is reduced to children, who not only can't remember being taught how to operate the ship, because they're at ages where they hadn't yet been, but it wouldn't matter if they did know, because they can't reach the controls. Commodore April, now appearing to be in his 30s, must save his old ship one last time. With his wife's help, he does.
He pitches to Derek Jeter, the Yankees' rookie shortstop. Jeter, as later fans might guess, uses an inside-out swing to send the ball to right-center field. Oriole right fielder Tony Tarasco goes back, stands at the fence, and holds up his glove.
Tarasco is a fool. Take a look at the tape: His glove wasn't lined up right. He played it totally wrong. Instead of falling into his glove, it would have hit the fence above him and to his right -- or from the view of the TV fan, "back and to the left." It's baseball's "Zapruder Film." The ball would have gone for at least a double, possibly a triple, putting the tying run in scoring position.
See? Back, and to the left.
Except that’s not what happened. Jeffrey Maier, a 12-year-old fan from Old Tappan, Bergen County, New Jersey, ran over, and reached out with his glove. The ball hit his glove, and as he tried to pull it into the stands, he lost control of it. That's right: He didn't even get the ball.
Umpire Rich Garcia ruled it a home run, tying the game. Tarasco was furious. Oriole manager Davey Johnson -- at that moment, still the last man to manage a New York team to a Pennant, the 1986 Mets -- runs out to protest. To no avail.
In the bottom of the 11th, Randy Myers, who had pitched for Johnson on the '86 Mets and had won a World Series under Lou Piniella for the 1990 Cincinnati Reds, pitched to Bernie Williams, the star of the Yanks' AL Division Series win over the Texas Rangers. On radio station WABC, John Sterling said this:
Theeee pitch, swung, and it's driven to deep left! It is high! It is far! Iiiiiiiit… is gone! Yankees win! Theeeeeeeeeeee Yankees win!
It wasn't the first time Sterling had used the line, but it was the first time I'd heard him drag it out that much.
Yankees 5, Orioles 4. After the game, the media asked Yankee manager Joe Torre about the fan-assisted Jeter home run. Without missing a beat, or changing his expression, The Man of One Face said, "Did anybody see Bernie's home run? That wasn't bad." Laughter in the press room.
The Top 5 Reasons You Can’t Blame Jeffrey Maier for the Baltimore Orioles losing the 1996 American League Pennant
5. Tony Tarasco. He blew the play. If he had tracked the ball properly, he would have gotten under it and jumped for it. Jeffrey Maier probably saved him from being the biggest goat in the history of Baltimore sports. Tarasco still owes Maier a steak dinner, in my opinion. At the very least, now that Maier is about to turn 35, he could buy him a beer.
4. Bernie Williams. He not only hit the Game 1 winner, but torched the O's in Games 3 and 4 in Baltimore as well.
3. The Bullpens. The Yankees had Graeme Lloyd, Jeff Nelson and a rookie named Mariano Rivera setting up John Wetteland. The Orioles had Benitez setting up Myers.
2. The Managers. Joe Torre kept his cool. Davey Johnson lost his cool. He got so upset over the call that his anger spread to his team. He could have calmed them down afterward and said, "Aw, forget it. We got screwed, but it's just one game. If we win Game 2 here tomorrow, we can come home with a tie, and we'll be in great shape to take this thing. Put it out of your minds and win tomorrow." He didn't.
This wasn't the first such example in postseason history, and it hasn't been the last. Frankly, I think the Mets won that 1986 in spite of Johnson, not because of any leadership he provided. A better manager, and the Mets might have won the Pennant in 1988, too, and at least won the National League East in 1985, 1987 and 1990.
1. The Yankees Were Better. Yes, they were. They did win the Division (the Orioles had won the Wild Card), they didn't need steroids (the Orioles had Rafael Palmeiro, who was caught, and Brady Anderson, who has never been publicly outed but whose season and career fit the profile), and they won all 3 games at Camden Yards.
The next season, the Cleveland Indians would win 2 of the 3 ALCS games in Baltimore. The Orioles have a record of 1-5 in ALCS games played at Camden Yards.
From their 1st postseason home game, Game 3 of the 1966 World Series, to Game 6 of the 1971 World Series, they were 13-2 in home postseason games. From Game 7 of the 1971 World Series to today, the Orioles' home record in postseason play is 14-18. At home.
Or, to put it another way, they have won just 1 home game in ALCS play in the last 33 years. And you can't say, "Curse of Camden Yards," because they were playing at Memorial Stadium for some of that. If you can't defend your home field in the Playoffs, you have no right to blame a kid in the stands at an away game.
The Yankees proved they were better going on to win that Pennant, a stretch of 6 Pennants and 4 World Championships in 8 years. The O's? Still looking for their 1st Pennant since Ronald Reagan's 1st term.
Jeffrey Maier went on to play baseball at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he became the school's all-time hits leader. He served as an extra and assisted with baseball skills training for the actors in ESPN’s miniseries about the 1977 Yankees, The Bronx is Burning.
He now works with Internet LeagueApps in Manchester, New Hampshire. Yes, Jeffrey Maier (who now prefers to be called Jeff) lives and works in "Red Sox Nation." Beyond that, his wife Andrea is a Sox fan. He says, "I've been able to look past that flaw in her character." They have 2 children.
Game 1 of the ALCS was scheduled for a 4:00 start, so it wouldn't go on in prime time against the Vice Presidential debate, in St. Petersburg, Florida, between the Democratic incumbent, Vice President Al Gore, and the Republican nominee, Jack Kemp, a former Congressman representing Buffalo, and President George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Housing & Urban Development. Gore was running with President Bill Clinton, Kemp with former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.
Jack French Kemp -- sometimes called "The Republican JFK," and a darling of the anti-tax wing of the conservative movement -- had also been a quarterback, leading the Buffalo Bills to their only titles, the 1964 and 1965 American Football League Championships. He would often say, "I got 11 concussions in my football career. Nothing left to do, but go into politics!" It was considered funny then. It's not so funny now.
Gore begins the debate by offering Kemp a deal: "If you won't use any football stories, I won't tell any of my warm and humorous stories about chloroflorocarbon abatement." Kemp: "It's a deal. I can't even pronounce it!"
Kemp had a great sense of humor, based on his reputation as a know-it-all who talked too much. Later in the debate, told he had 90 seconds to answer, he said, "Ninety seconds? I can't even clear my throat in ninety seconds!" He also liked to say (but didn't on this occasion), "People say I'm arrogant, but I know better!"
Most observers felt that Kemp did all right, but that Gore "won," simply by not losing. Clinton and Gore won the election, and Kemp, whom many people were sure would become President one day -- he did run in 1988, but finished 3rd in Republican delegates -- never tried again, and died of cancer in 2009. Although he was 12 years younger, Kemp has now been survived by Dole by 7 years.
Pepperdine University in Malibu, California has established the Jack F. Kemp Institute of Political Economy -- not quite a Presidential Library, but a legacy of which he would probably approve. Oddly, while he did come from Los Angeles and did go to an L.A.-area school, it wasn't Pepperdine. It was Occidental College, which did produce a President -- Barack Obama, before he transferred to Columbia, graduated from there, and then from Harvard Law. Kemp was on both the football and track teams at "Oxy," and, like a later quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, was an excellent javelin thrower.
Also on this day, Isabella Khair Hadid is born in Washington, D.C., and grows up in Los Angeles. Like her mother Yolanda and her sister Gigi, Bella Hadid is a major fashion model.
October 9, 1998: The Cleveland Indians beat the Yankees, 6-1, in Game 3 of the ALCS at Jacobs Field. Jim Thome homers twice, Manny Ramirez and Mark Whiten once each. The Indians lead 2 games to 1.
Suddenly, after 114 wins -- 118 wins if the postseason thus far is counted -- the 1998 New York Yankees, already being hailed as one of the greatest teams in history, are in serious, serious trouble of not even making it to the World Series.
The Yankees will not lose a game that counts again until April 5, 1999.
October 9, 1999, 20 years ago: The Mets win a postseason series. Stop laughing. They defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks‚ 4-3‚ on backup catcher Todd Pratt's 10th inning homer. Pratt is in the game for starter Mike Piazza‚ who is unable to play because of a thumb injury. John Franco gets the victory in relief for the Mets.
On the same day, the Yankees defeat the Texas Rangers‚ 3-0‚ to sweep the ALDS. Roger Clemens hurls 7 shutout innings for the win‚ as Darryl Strawberry’s 3-run homer in the 1st provides all the runs in the game. This is the 1st time the Yankees and the Mets have both clinched anything on the same day, so it's kind of appropriate that one of the heroes is Darryl, who played for both teams.
On the same day, the Braves score 5 runs in the 6th inning, and beat the Houston Astros 7-5. The Braves win the NLDS 3-1. It is the last major sporting event at the Astrodome, as the Astros are moving into what's now Minute Maid Park next April, the Oilers left for Tennessee in 1997, and the Texans' approval by the NFL was dependent on a new stadium, which was built next-door to the Astrodome, and is now named NRG Stadium.
A plate to renovate the Astrodome and turn it into a public park is currently on hold.
Also on this day, the football team from Virginia Tech comes to Rutgers with their much-hyped lefthanded-throwing, crazy-running quarterback Michael Vick. He lights RU's defense up like a pinball machine.
My father and I were at this game at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey, and I was more impressed with the defense that head coach Frank Beamer built, led by defensive end Corey Moore. I'd never seen an amateur defense that was so fast.
Tech won 58-20, and took the Number 5 ranking they had in that game and got it up to Number 2 and a date with Number 1 Florida State in the Sugar Bowl for the National Championship -- but the Seminoles gave them a taste of their own medicine, winning 46-29.
Moore ended up not playing much in the NFL, only for the Buffalo Bills in 2000. Vick would become a pro sensation, getting the Atlanta Falcons to the 2003 NFC Championship Game, before his life took a turn for the worse.
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October 9, 2002: While the Number 99 of Wayne Gretzky had been retired throughout the NHL, the Los Angeles Kings had not yet had an official ceremony for it. On this night, at the Staples Center, they do, prior to their season opener. They beat the Phoenix coyotes 4-1.
October 9, 2003: Game 2 of the ALCS. The Yankees ride the pitching of Andy Pettitte and a home run by Nick Johnson to beat the Red Sox 6-2. The series goes to Fenway Park tied.
Games 1 and 2 were not particularly memorable. That will not be the case with Game 3, which remains the ugliest game in the 116-season history of this rivalry.
Also on this day, the Edmonton Oilers retire the Number 31 of Grant Fuhr, prior to their season opener at the Northlands Coliseum. They beat the San Jose Sharks 5-2.
October 9, 2004: The Yankees finish off the Twins with a come-from-behind 6-5 win in 11 innings at the Metrodome, and win their Division Series. Ruben Sierra's 3-run homer ties the game in the 8th inning, and Alex Rodriguez scores the winning run on a wild pitch.
And yet, it will take the Yankees 5 years to win another postseason series. When they do, that one, too, will be against the Twins.
October 9, 2005: At Minute Maid Park, Chris Burke's 18th-inning homer ends the longest postseason game in baseball history, as the Astros defeat the Braves, 7-6, to advance to the NLCS. Atlanta's 5-run lead late in the game is erased with an 8th inning grand slam by Lance Berkman and a 2-out 9th inning solo shot by Brad Ausmus, which barely clears Gold Glove center fielder Andruw Jones' outstretched hand.
When this game ended, I called my grandmother. Sure enough, she likened it to that 16-inning game in Houston in the 1986 NLCS, the Mets winning the Pennant over the Astros in the Astrodome, her favorite game of all time. She would watch the 2005 LCS and World Series and enjoy them. They would be the last baseball games she would ever see.
On this same day, the Yankees down the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim‚ 3-2 in Game 4‚ to even their Division Series. Al Leiter gets the win for New York in relief of Shawn Chacon. It is Leiter's 1st postseason win in 12 years, since he won a game for the Toronto Blue Jays in the 1993 World Series. Counting postseason wins, it is the 164th win of his career. It will be the last.
He also helped the Florida Marlins win the World Series in 1997, and the team he grew up rooting for, the Mets, win a Pennant in 2000, before losing the World Series to the Yankees, for whom he started his career, and would later broadcast on the YES Network. He now works for YES and the MLB Network.
It is also the last game for Tino Martinez, who had been reacquired by the Yankees after 3 years away. He comes in as a defensive replacement in the top of the 8th, and, in his last at-bat, pops up to short in the bottom of the inning. He does not play Game 5 in Anaheim, the Yankees are eliminated, and he retires with 339 career home runs, 192 of them as a Yankee.
Also on this day, Tom Cheek dies of cancer in the Tampa suburb of Oldsmar, Florida. He was 66. He had broadcast for the Toronto Blue Jays from their 1977 inception until his illness caught up with him in 2004. He had broadcast 4,306 consecutive games for the Jays, and that number now stands in for a "retired number" for his notation on the Jays' "Level of Excellence" at the Rogers Centre. In 2013, the Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously gave him its Ford Frick Award, tantamount to election for broadcasters.
October 9, 2008: Rio Tinto Stadium opens in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. "The RioT" becomes the home of soccer team Real Salt Lake, and in their 1st full season there, 2009, they win the MLS Cup.
Also on this day, the Crash of 2008 continues, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 687 points. After 8 years of George W. Bush's tax cuts, it is now clear: When liberals win, everybody wins, including conservatives; but when conservatives win, everybody loses, including, eventually, conservatives.
October 9, 2009, 10 years ago: Game 2 of the ALDS. The Yankees trail the Twins 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th, when Alex Rodriguez hits an opposite-field home run to send the game to extra innings -- easily the biggest hit he's ever gotten for the Yankees, or anyone else, to this point.
In the bottom of the 11th, Mark Teixeira, who had never hit a postseason home run before, sends a line drive down the left-field line. It is just barely fair, and just barely over the fence. Yankee broadcaster John Sterling doesn't even have time to go into his usual, "It is high! It is far! It is... " before, as surprised as anyone else, he realizes it's... "Gone! Gone!" Yankees 4, Twins 3. The Yankees take a 2-games-to-none lead in the series as it heads to the Metrodome.
Also on this day, The Damned United premieres, based on the novel by David Peace. It is a dramatization of the rivalry between soccer managers Brian Clough, played by Michael Sheen, and Don Revie, played by Star Trek actor Colm Meaney.
Clough was a native of Middlesbrough, in England's North-East, and had starred as a striker for the hometown soccer team. Revie was also a Middlesbrough native, and had also starred as a striker, for Manchester City. Both men subsequently played for Sunderland, obstensibly Middlesbrough's arch-rivals.
Both went into management at a young age, Revie due to declining skills, Clough due to a nasty injury that probably would have been easily fixable today. Both took long-dormant teams out of the 2nd division of English football and into the 1st: Revie at age 33 with Yorkshire team Leeds United in 1964, Clough at 34 with East Midlands team Derby County in 1969, the year Revie's Leeds won the 1st division for the 1st time.
But there were significant differences. Revie was 8 years older: For him, the defining experience of his childhood was the Great Depression, and the result was that he did whatever he had to do to survive, even if that meant cheating; for Clough, it was World War II, and the result was a basic sense of fairness, which meant that not only did he not accept cheating, but he publicly condemned those whose who did, including Revie, his gifts to referees (the press called them "Don Readies"), the diving of Captain Billy Bremner, and the rough play of Johnny Giles and Norman Hunter.
In 1972, Derby won the League -- at 37, 5 years younger than Revie was for his 1st title -- and Leeds won the FA Cup. In 1973, a dispute with management led Clough to quit Derby. In 1974, having failed to qualify for the World Cup, the FA hired Revie as England manager. Leeds management hired Clough. Both moves seemed like no-brainers on the surface.
Both moves were disasters. England did not qualify for Euro 76, and before qualifying for the 1978 World Cup could be completed, Revie quit to take a coaching job in the United Arab Emirates, abandoning his country for money, shattering whatever reputation he had.
Clough tried to manage Leeds his way, but the players not only missed Revie, but chafed against Clough's way and his previous comments about them being cheats. He lasted only 44 days before being fired. Nobody came out of it looking good.
But, as stated in the film's epilogue, he was soon hired by Derby's East Midlands arch-rivals, Nottingham Forest. He got them promoted, won the League with them in 1978, and then did something neither he nor Revie had yet done: Won the European Cup, in 1979, and again in 1980. Forest are the only team in Europe to win the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League more than they've won their national league.
Clough became known as "the greatest manager England never had." Why did the national team, despite all its struggles since the 1966 World Cup win, never hire him? He knew damn well why: "I'm sure the England selectors thought, if they took me on and gave me the job, I'd want to run the show. They were shrewd, because that's exactly what I would have done." In other words, the guys running the FA wouldn't have been running the show, and they wouldn't have been able to handle that.
Leeds United still dedicated a statue of Revie outside their Elland Road stadium after his death in 1989. But Clough, who lived until 2004, has 3 statues: In central Middlesbrough, and outside Derby's new stadium, Pride Park, and Forest's City Ground.
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October 9, 2010: The Yankees beat the Twins 6-2, and complete a 3-game sweep of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium II.
October 9, 2011: The new Winnipeg Jets, previously the Atlanta Thrashers, end the Manitoba capital's 15-year exile from the NHL, playing their inaugural game at the new MTS Centre (now named Bell MTS Place). Nik Antropov scores their 1st goal, but that's all they get, and the Montreal Canadiens beat them, 5-1.
October 9, 2012: Budd Lynch dies at age 95, at the dawn of what would have been his 66th season with the Detroit Red Wings. Frank Joseph James Lynch had been born in 1917 in Windsor, Ontario, and lost his right arm serving with the Essex Scottish Regiment of the Canadian Army in World War II.
He returned home to become the radio announcer for the Windsor Spitfires hockey team. Across the Detroit River, and across the U.S.-Canadian border, the Wings took notice, and in 1949, they hired him as the team's 1st TV announcer. In 1960, he switched to radio, and retired in 1975. But he was talked into staying on as director of publicity. He tried to retire again in 1985, but was talked into becoming the team's public address announcer. That same year, the Hockey Hall of Fame gave him the Foster Hewitt Award, tantamount to election to the Hall for broadcasters.
He saw the Wings win 8 Stanley Cups in 14 trips to the Finals, watched 37 Hall-of-Famers play for the Wings (Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and Niklas Kronwall could well make it 40), and was as identified with the team as anyone, including Gordie Howe and Steve Yzerman. Just as Derek Jeter always wanted to be introduced by a recording of longtime Yankee Stadium PA announcer Bob Sheppard, the Wings still use a recording of Lynch to say, "Last minute of play in this period."
Also on this day, Kenny Rollins dies at the age of 89. A point guard, he had won the National Championship with the University of Kentucky in 1948. UK has retired his Number 26. He also played on the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the Olympics in London that year. His pro career didn't last long, only 5 seasons, until 1953. His brother Phil Rollins also played in the NBA.
Dale Barnstable and Walter Hirsch, both banned from the NBA due to their role in the college basketball point-shaving scandals of the early 1950s, are the last survivors of Kentucky's 1948 "Fabulous Five." Rollins was not implicated in the scandal.
Robert Jackson Robinson, a 92-year-old Baptist minister from Fort Worth, and now retired and living in Georgia, is the only survivor of the 1948 U.S. Olympic team. Interestingly enough, he has, from the moment he first became famous, been known as Jackie Robinson. However, as a pre-Civil Rights Movement graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, he is white. As far as I know, he and the
Jackie Robinson never met.
October 9, 2015: The Mets open their Division Series with the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. Daniel Murphy continues his torrid hitting with a home run, to back up the fine pitching of Jacob deGrom, and Clayton Kershaw continues his path as the Alex Rodriguez of pitchers: Great in the regular season, completely untrustworthy in the postseason. The Mets win, 3-1.
Also on this day, for the 1st time, the Chicago Cubs and their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, meet in a postseason game. It's no contest, as John Lackey takes a no-hitter into the 7th inning, Thomas Pham and Stephen Piscotty hit home runs, and the Cards win, 4-0 at Busch Stadium.
After the season, the Cards did not sign Lackey to a new contract. The Cubs did, and he made them glad they did.
October 9, 2018: For the 1st time, I attended a major league postseason game. My sister's company has "behind the moat" seats at the new Yankee Stadium, and when the guy who was going to use them for Game 4 of the ALDS against the hate Red Sox had to back out, her boss, who knew she was a nominal Yankee Fan and her brother was a sick, twisted, demented Yankee Fan, offered them to her.
She couldn't go, so she offered them both to me. I mentioned it on Facebook, and took the first yes, a London native turned Brooklyn resident that I met through watching Arsenal games. My sister and mother thought this could have been something, as it was a woman around my age, but no, she's been married before, and says she's "one and done."
The Yankees had to win to force a Game 5 at Fenway Park. Bucky Dent, the against-the-Sox hero of 40 years before, threw out the ceremonial first ball. But that was a bad sign, because he'd also done so before Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, and it didn't work, and it was the end of the Curse of the Bambino.
CC Sabathia gave up 3 runs in the top of the 3rd. The Sox scored another run in the 4th. The Yankees got a run back in the 5th, but it was still 4-1 Boston going to the bottom of the 9th. Aaron Judge led off with a walk against Craig Kimbrel, and Didi Gregorius singled. The good news: The tying run was at the plate. The bad news: It was Giancarlo Stanton. He had 16 runners on base in this series, and he moved a grand total of 3 of them over -- 2 of them on groundouts. He completed his failed series by striking out.
Kimbrel walked Luke Voit to load the bases, and then forced in a run by hitting Neil Walker with a pitch -- probably uninentionally, but with the Red Sox, you never know. Gary Sanchez made it 4-3 with a sacrifice fly. The batter was rookie sensation Gleyber Torres. He grounded to 3rd, but the play at 1st base was close enough for a video review. He was, correctly, ruled out, and the Sox had eliminated the Yankees.
It was a great experience and a great game, with a lousy ending. The Yankees had won 100 games, but walked away with nothing, and were eliminated on their home field by their arch-rivals, who went on to win the World Series. A disgrace.
Manager Aaron Boone was allowed to keep his job, because it was only his 1st season, and by that standard, he had done well. General manager Brian Cashman, who had now failed for the 17th time in 18 seasons, was also allowed to keep his job, because he had sold a lot of tickets and kept the Yankees under the luxury tax threshold. I'm beginning to wonder if the only thing that would get him fired would be, to borrow a saying from politics, getting caught with a dead girl or a live boy.
October 9, 2042: As he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, this is the earliest date on which disgraced former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky can be released. He would be 98 years old.
October 9, 2270: If we accept the custom of taking the last 3 digits, plus the decimal point, of the "Stardates" on Star Trek as a percentage of the year thus far gone, then "The Counter-Clock Incident," Stardate 6770.3, takes place on this date. It is probably the most celebrated episode of the 1973-74 Star Trek: The Animated Series -- although it turned out to be the last, airing on October 12, 1974.
A diplomatic conference is taking place on the planet Babel, referred to in the Original Series episode "Journey to Babel," and among the guests are Commodore Robert April (voiced by James Doohan, a.k.a. Scotty) and his wife Sarah (Nichelle Nichols, a.k.a. Uhura). The USS Enterprise is escorting them, because April was the ship's 1st commanding officer when it was launched in 2245, and Sarah was his chief medical officer. (A non-canon story would eventually have Captain Kirk's father George serving as April's First Officer.)
But the ship gets trapped in a part of space where time flows backwards, and everyone starts getting younger. The main crew is reduced to children, who not only can't remember being taught how to operate the ship, because they're at ages where they hadn't yet been, but it wouldn't matter if they did know, because they can't reach the controls. Commodore April, now appearing to be in his 30s, must save his old ship one last time. With his wife's help, he does.
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