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The incumbent Republican President, Herbert Hoover, gets blamed for it, when it was his Republican predecessors, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, who set the table for it. Hoover shouldn't be blamed for the Depression. And he shouldn't be blamed for doing nothing: He tried a few things.
Emptied pockets, to show that you had no money, became known as Hoover flags. Newspapers used as cover by homeless people became known as Hoover blankets. Shanty towns became Hoovervilles. And hitching a horse up to your car, because you couldn't afford gasoline but you didn't dare sell your car, earned the vehicles the nickname Hoover wagons. In Canada, where Richard Bennett rode the Depression to become Prime Minister in 1930, but was turned out in 1935 because he governed more like Hoover than Roosevelt, they were known as Bennett buggies.
Did you think I was making it up?
The happy, peppy songs of the Roaring Twenties -- including a song recorded just before, but released just after, the crash, which was saved by FDR making it his campaign theme song, "Happy Days Are Here Again" -- were gone. Songs of the Depression either spoke of hardship, like "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (evoking both now-fallen industry and World War I), "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (not the Green Day song of 2005), "Gloomy Sunday," and "Remember My Forgotten Man"; or tried to defy it, like "We're In the Money" and "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries."
Movies also reflected this. Monster movies abounded, with Dracula and Frankenstein both released in 1931, and King Kong and The Invisible Man in 1933, each inspiring many imitators. Gangster movies peaked then, with James Cagney's The Public Enemy, Edward G. Robinson's Little Caesar, and the original version of Scarface, starring Paul Muni, all made in 1931, the latter not released until 1932.
At the height of the stock boom in early September 1929, America's unemployment rate was 3.2 percent. By the end of 1930, it was 8.7. 1931, 15.9. At the 1932 election, 23.6. At the depth, on March 4, 1933, when FDR was inaugurated and the banking crisis was critical, the rate was 24.9 percent. Fully 1 out of 4 Americans who wanted to work couldn't get work. Some people have suggested the rate was considerably higher than that, as much as 31 percent, or nearly 1 in 3.
FDR ended up building on some of what worked under Hoover, and in New York State under his leadership there, and put it in overdrive. Banking reforms stopped the financial bleeding, securities reforms prevented much of the abuses that had been done (stopped it, that is, until deregulation in the 1980s), and his public works and other construction programs created millions of jobs.
His New Deal had worked very well, but the problems remained vast. When he was sworn in for a 2nd term on January 20, 1937, having gotten the unemployment rate down to 14 percent (either cut by a third or a half, depending on whose figures you believe), FDR said the work was far from done: "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." And it may have been more like two-fifths, or 40 percent, because that included what we would now call "the working poor."
That year, FDR did what conservatives have always suggested for economic hardship: Cut spending. It backfired, and unemployment went from a Depression-low of 14.3 percent to 19.0 percent by the time of the 1938 elections, resulting in the Republicans' best performance between 1928 and 1946, although not enough to gain control of either house.
But 1937 was the year Social Security began handing out checks, and 1938 was the year the 1st federal minimum wage took effect. By 1941, unemployment was back under 10 percent. It still didn't get back to tolerable levels until the U.S. entered World War II, and a lot of unemployed men went into the armed forces, and a lot of employed men did as well, their stateside jobs becoming available to unemployed men -- and women.
From the dawn of the American Civil War in 1860 to 1928, the Republican Party had gone 14-4 in Presidential elections. (Okay, they may have stolen those of 1876, 1880 and 1888.) And in the 4 that the Democratic Party won -- 1884, 1892, 1912 and 1916 -- they still didn't get a majority of the popular vote in any of them, not even with the 1912 split in the Republicans that led to an Electoral Vote landslide for Woodrow Wilson. The GOP also held both houses of Congress for most of a 70-year stretch from 1860 to 1930.
But when the Great Depression began, and turned out to be worse than previous depressions -- 1837-43, 1857-59, 1873-78, 1893-98, 1920-22 -- people took their anger out on the Republicans. Herbert Hoover went from winning 21.4 million votes in 1928 to 15.7 million in 1932. He went from a popular vote percentage of 58.2 percent in 1928 to 39.6 in 1932. He went from winning 40 States to 6, and only in Maine and Vermont did he get more than 51 percent. In the Electoral Vote, he went from 444 to 59. This was not so much an embrace of FDR and his as-yet vague New Deal as it was a firing of Hoover and the Republicans.
The Democrats won 7 of the next 9 elections. The 2 the Republicans won, 1952 and 1956, were by Dwight D. Eisenhower, and "Ike" basically won them because he was the commanding General of World War II. America was embracing him, not Republican principles. Even when Richard Nixon won in 1968, it was a 3-way race, in which he got 48 percent of the vote. Aside from Ike, no Republican got at least 50 percent between Hoover in 1928 and Nixon himself in 1972.
Furthermore, in Congressional elections, the Republicans lost the House of Representatives in 1930, and held it only in 1947-48 and 1953-54, until 1994. They lost the Senate in 1932, and held it only in 1947-48, 1953-54, and 1981-86, until 1994.
Among the effects the Depression had on sports: Connie Mack lost everything he had aside from his stock in the Philadelphia Athletics, forcing him, by the end of the 1932 season, to break up his dynasty. The American Basketball League lost several teams, thus delaying pro basketball's rise to major league status until after World War II. And several NFL teams went under, putting the League's future in jeopardy.
In addition, when cartoonist Willard Mullin went to Ebbets Field , and heard a fan call his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers "you bums," he drew a bum, with a five o'clock shadow, just one tooth, and patches all over his clothes, and everyone in New York could identify with it, because they had all been seriously affected by poverty, or knew someone who had been.
But the Great Depression of which the Crash of 1929 was the chief cause (but not the only cause, as is commonly believed) also led Americans to search for heroes wherever they could find them. As they so often do, they turned to sports. Babe Ruth, still a star up to his 1935 retirement, became even more popular. So did Lou Gehrig. Dizzy Dean, Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio and Bob Feller would debut within the next 7 years, and would become legends. So would football stars Bronko Nagurski, Don Hutson and Slingin' Sammy Baugh, and the Heisman Trophy would be established.
The New York Rangers' forward line of Frank Boucher and the brothers Bill and Frederick "Bun" Cook, previously known as the A Line for the Subway line that went to Madison Square Garden (the 50th Street stop used for the old Garden is now used by the C and the E, and is bypassed by the A), became known as the Bread Line.
Left to right: Bill Cook, Frank Boucher, Bun Cook
Desperate for any paying customers, sports promoters would try anything, from the college basketball doubleheaders that began at the old Garden in 1934 to night games for outdoor events, which began in baseball's minor leagues and Negro Leagues in 1930, and in the majors in 1935.
The Depression also led, in 1933, to the repeal of Prohibition, which led to the booze industry being able to create jobs, as well as people once again legally being able to enjoy its products; and the repeal of Pennsylvania's "blue laws" prohibiting certain activities on Sunday, including sports.
That allowed for crowds that couldn't be gotten on any other day of the week, except Saturday, since there were no lighted stadiums in the big cities, which would also change soon. That may have kept the Athletics and the Philadelphia Phillies in business, and made the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Pirates (changing their name to the Steelers in 1940), both founded in 1933, economically viable.
The Great Depression left scars on people that never went away. My grandmother grew up in Queens in that era, and knew how important it was to save money. She grew up in the Depression, so, due to her pinching pennies as an adult, my mother also "grew up in the Depression." And because of that, I "grew up in the Depression." Am I saying that I'm cheap? Yes, I am cheap, but not by choice.
In 1992, during another bad recession, I stayed with my grandmother over Thanksgiving Weekend. On the Saturday, I helped her with grocery shopping. We walked out of the car, and, crossing the parking lot, I saw a penny on the ground. I knew she was superstitious, and that a penny, heads-up, was good luck, but tails-up was not. This penny was tails-up, so I left it alone.
She saw it, stopped, pointed, and said, "Aren't you going to pick that up?"
I said, "It's tails-up, it's not good luck." I figured she would accept this answer.
I was wrong. After nearly 40 years of living in New Jersey, her N'Yawk accent kicked back in, and she said, "Whaaaat? It's money!"
I picked it up.
She died in 2006. Now, every time I see a coin on the ground -- assuming my arthritis allows me to -- I pick it up, and say, "Thanks, Grandma."
But, as Mom pointed out, Grandma and her contemporaries never had a "Depression survivors group," the way war veterans have social clubs, and survivors of other forms of trauma have support groups.
The people who grew up in the Depression are now dead or very old. We cannot allow their memories to fade. Remember our forgotten men and women.
October 29, 539 BC: Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire, enters the capital of Babylon. He announces that the Jewish exile is over. After 52 years, the Jews are permitted to return to their homeland.
And those of you who are Chicago Cubs fans thought going 108 years without winning a World Series, or 71 years without a Pennant, was bad.
Babylon, the capital of Babylonia, was about 50 miles south of present-day Baghdad, Iraq.
October 29, AD 312: Constantine enters Rome after his victory the previous day at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, at the Tiber River at the northern edge of Rome, 2 days after his "Vision of the Cross" told him he would win the battle if he converted to Christianity. He stages a grand celebration in the city, and is met with popular jubilation. His enemy Maxentius' body is fished out of the Tiber, and beheaded.
And you thought the Derby della Capitale between Rome's soccer clubs, AS Roma and SS Lazio, was rough.
October 29, 1618: Sir Walter Raleigh is executed on the order of King James I of England. He was about 55 years old. (His birthdate is not certain.)
James, the 1st King of England of the House of Stuart (he was known as James VI in Scotland), did this in order to prevent a war with Spain, following Raleigh's ill-advised invasions of Spanish territories in the New World to seek El Dorado, the lost city of gold. (Supposedly, it was somewhere in the northern half of South America. It was never found, and probably never existed.)
The capital of North Carolina is named for him: Raleigh, also home of the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes and North Carolina State University. Unfortunately, so was a brand of cigarettes popular in the mid-20th Century, due to Carolina's tobacco-growing tradition.
October 29, 1822: Theodore Runyon is born in Somerville, Somerset County, New Jersey. He was a Brigadier General in the New Jersey Militia in the American Civil War, and served as Mayor of Newark from 1864 to 1866. He was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Germany in 1893, and died there in 1896.
October 29, 1855: Moses McNeil (no middle name) is born in Rhu, Scotland. In 1872, just 16 years old, he was 1 of the 4 founders of Glasgow soccer team Rangers Football Club, along with his brother Peter McNeil and their friends William McBeath and Peter Campbell. He played with them through 1882, and lived until 1938.
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October 29, 1859, 160 years ago: Charles Hercules Ebbets is born in Manhattan. In 1883, he got a job with a new baseball team, then known as the Brooklyn Grays. By 1890, he had become the majority owner. In 1912, knowing that Washington Park was insufficient for a major league team in the wake of new stadiums like Shibe Park and Forbes Field, he began building a new ballpark for his team, by then known as the Dodgers. He was told that since it was his idea, it should be called Ebbets Field. And so the Dodgers played at Ebbets Field from 1913 until 1957.
Under his guidance, the team, under various names, won Pennants in 1889 (in the American Association, thereafter in the National League), 1890, 1899, 1900, 1916 and 1920. He invented Ladies Day, with women admitted at half-price, in 1899. His experience as a bookkeeper led him to the concept that the best schedule for baseball was for the 8 NL teams to play each other 22 times a season: 22 times 7 = 154, so he created the 154-game schedule that was in place from 1904 to 1960 (and until 1961 in the NL).
In 1906, he installed a visiting team clubhouse, complete with showers, at Washington Park, eliminating the need for teams to change at their hotels and arrive in open vehicles (horse-drawn carriages, and by this point early taxis) in their uniforms, where home fans could throw things at them. He invented the rain check in 1911. As early as 1922, he suggested that players wear uniform numbers -- although his suggestion was on the cap or the sleeve, not on the back as would happen starting in 1929. He also served in the New York State Assembly and on the New York City Council, as a Democrat.
Unfortunately, his messy personal life would have consequences for baseball, and, indirectly, the entire world. He had lived with his eventual 2nd wife for 12 years before his divorce from his 1st wife became final. And, unlike later team owners Branch Rickey and Walter O'Malley, he was not a lawyer who would have known a way around this: To guarantee his alimony payments, he deposited his shares of the Dodgers with the Mechanics Bank, which was later bought by the Brooklyn Trust Company.
He died in 1925, with the team in dire financial straits. To make matters worse, it rained at his funeral, and one of his co-owners, Ed McKeever, caught a cold, which developed into the flu, and, in those pre-antibotic days, he outlived Ebbets by only 11 days.
That left Ebbets' widow Grace, his son-in-law Joseph Gilleaudeau, and Brooklyn Trust as half-owners of the Dodgers, and Ed's brother Steve McKeever as owner of the other half. When Steve died in 1938, his half-share passed to his daughter Elizabeth "Dearie" Mulvey and her husband James. But the team was still, financially, in bad shape.
So Brooklyn Trust appointed Cincinnati Reds general manager Larry MacPhail as team president. He straightened things out, until leaving to re-enter the U.S. Army in World War II. He was replaced by Rickey. In 1944, Rickey and John L. Smith bought out Mrs. Ebbets and Gilleaudeau. Rickey and Smith were now each 1/4 owners.
O'Malley was the lawyer who handled the Dodgers for Brooklyn Trust, and eventually bought the bank's shares. In 1950, he bought Rickey and Smith out, and the Mulveys pretty much did what he wanted, including approving the move of the team to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, before O'Malley bought them out in 1975.
The move not only betrayed Ebbets' vision and the Dodger fans in the New York Tri-State Area, but made Los Angeles a "major league city" in a way that even the NFL's Rams hadn't, elevating it to the status of the loftiest city in the American West.
O'Malley died in 1979. His son Peter owned the team until selling to Rupert Murdoch in 1998. Frank McCourt bought them in 2004, but, learning nothing from the example of Charlie Ebbets, had to sell them in 2012 to pay off his divorce settlement. For $2 billion, basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson became their owner, and remains so today.
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October 29, 1860: In the match for the whip-pennant‚ emblematic of the championship of the U.S.‚ the Atlantics top the Eckfords‚ 20-11. Both clubs are from Brooklyn, until 1898 a separate city from New York. With the game tied at 5-5 after 5 innings‚ the Atlantics score 6 in the 6th‚ 5 in the 7th‚ and 4 in the 8th to win.
As agreed upon‚ in order to maintain neutrality, all umpires are players from a 3rd club. The umpire chosen for this game is Asa Brainard, the star pitcher for another Brooklyn team, the Excelsior club. That he was chosen to umpire such an important game at the age of 19 shows how highly regarded he must already have been.
After the shocking death of teammate Jim Creighton in 1862, Brainard would succeed him as the best pitcher in baseball. Forced out by the arrival of Candy Cummings (not the inventor of the curveball, as some would have you believed, but a very good practitioner of it), he left for the National club of Washington, D.C. (not the forerunners of today's Washington Nationals). In 1869, he became the pitcher – not the only single pitcher, but he tossed more than 70 percent of their innings in those 1869 and '70 seasons – for the Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first openly professional team, and his name, Asa, became the source of the pitching term "Ace."
When the National Association was formed in 1871, Red Stockings founder Harry Wright took 5 of his players to Boston and formed the Boston Red Stockings, the team that would eventually become the Atlanta Braves. Brainard took the other half of the team with him back to the capital, and formed the Washington Olympics.
But he suffered from tuberculosis, and, like many such people in that era, he traveled to Denver for its dry, thin air. It did him no good: He died there in 1887, just a few weeks after the famed gunfighter and dentist John Henry "Doc" Holliday also died from tuberculosis in Colorado.
There is a bias among voters for the Baseball Hall of Fame against the true pioneers of the game. Only 8 men who played so much as 1 game before the NL's 1876 founding are in the Hall: Knickerbockers member and original rules compiler (and no less than co-writer) Alexander Cartwright, Harry and George Wright from the Cincinnati & Boston Red Stockings/Braves, Al Spalding and Cap Anson from the Chicago White Stockings/Cubs, alleged curveball inventor Candy Cummings (who didn't last long into the NL), Jim "Orator" O'Rourke (who later starred for the Giants), and James "Deacon" White (who went on to play for several teams).
Until White was elected in 2013, the last one elected was Harry Wright, all the way back in 1953. George Wright was the last survivor of these, living until 1937.
There are quite a few players from the pre-NL, or even pre-NA era, who have been overlooked. Coming to mind are Brainard and Creighton from the Excelsiors; Joe Start, Lip Pike, George Zettlein and Dickey Pearce of the Atlantics; and Bobby Matthews of the New York Mutuals, a team that also had Start and Pike at times. Brainard, for his stardom in both the amateur and the early professional era, is a particular omission that should be corrected at the next available opportunity.
October 29, 1866: The final championship match of the season is between the Irvington club of New Jersey and the host Atlantics‚ with the 2 clubs playing a rubber match to determine the champion of the 1866 season. The Atlantics break a 5-5 tie by scoring 7 in the 10th inning and winning‚ 12-6, to keep the Championship.
This is the closest that a team playing its home games in New Jersey will come to being a sport's "world champion" until the New York Giants win Super Bowl XXI, 120 years and 3 months later.
October 29, 1877: Wilfrid Rhodes (no middle name) is born in Kirhkheaton, Yorkshire, England. I don't know what makes a cricket player great, but he was the 1st Englishman to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in Test matches.
October 29, 1866: The final championship match of the season is between the Irvington club of New Jersey and the host Atlantics‚ with the 2 clubs playing a rubber match to determine the champion of the 1866 season. The Atlantics break a 5-5 tie by scoring 7 in the 10th inning and winning‚ 12-6, to keep the Championship.
This is the closest that a team playing its home games in New Jersey will come to being a sport's "world champion" until the New York Giants win Super Bowl XXI, 120 years and 3 months later.
October 29, 1877: Wilfrid Rhodes (no middle name) is born in Kirhkheaton, Yorkshire, England. I don't know what makes a cricket player great, but he was the 1st Englishman to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in Test matches.
He holds the world records both for the most appearances made in first-class cricket, 1,110; and for the most wickets taken, 4,204. He completed the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in an English cricket season a record 16 times. Rhodes played for Yorkshire and England into his fifties, and in his final Test in 1930 was, at 52 years and 165 days, the oldest player who has appeared in a Test match. He lived until 1973.
Also on this day, Nathan Bedford Forrest dies of diabetes in Memphis at age 56. Confederate supporters called him "The Wizard of the Saddle." Union General William Tecumseh Sherman called him "that devil Forrest." Historian Shelby Foote called him 1 of the 2 true geniuses produced by the American Civil War, the other being Abraham Lincoln. And both Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee confessed that his talents were insufficiently used.
"War means fighting, and fighting means killing," he said. He also said, "The way to win is to get there first with the most men." Over a century later, Philadelphia Flyers coach Fred Shero would echo this with his hockey philosophy: "Take the shortest route to the puck, and arrive in ill humor."
When Forrest is remembered today, it is for founding the Ku Klux Klan after the war. In fact, this isn't true. He was an early member, and he did rise to a place of prominence within it. But he also saw how dangerous it had become, and disbanded it. That doesn't make him a hero. After all, there is such a thing as an "evil genius." He was one. For this reason, his are among the Confederate monuments that have been targeted for removal throughout the South.
October 29, 1881: John Riegel DeWitt is born in Phillipsburg, Warren County, New Jersey, and grows up nearby in Riegelsville, Pennsylvania, which an ancestor of his had founded. A guard and kicker at Princeton University at the dawn of the 20th Century, he is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
In 1920 Walter Camp named "The Princeton Strong Boy" to his all-time All-America team. A 1919 article for a Princeton magazine called him the school's best player ever. A 2009 article by Football Foundation, choosing retroactive Heisman Trophies for 1935 and earlier, chose him for 1903.
John DeWitt was also a track & field star, specializing in throwing events, and won the Silver Medal in the hammer throw at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. He became a prominent businessman in New York, commuted into The City from a home in Connecticut, and died unexpectedly of a heart attack on his commute in 1930, only 48 years old.
October 29, 1885: George McClellan dies of a heart attack in Orange, Essex County, New Jersey at age 58. One of the most popular Generals in the U.S. Army when the Civil War broke out, he was also one of the worst. He was more interested in looking good, both in photographs and in the press, than in fighting. His refusal to take on the enemy led President Lincoln to tell some of his Generals, "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time."
Finally, on November 5, 1862, after delay after delay, and defeat after defeat when he actually did fight, Lincoln relieved him of duty, just as Harry Truman had to do with Douglas MacArthur in 1951, and Barack Obama had to do with Stanley McChrystal in 2010.
Unlike MacArthur and McChrsytal, however, McClellan was bitter enough to run against his former commander-in-chief. In 1864, McClellan was nominated by the Democratic Party on a peace-at-all-costs platform. He was still popular enough that he could have won. Then the aforementioned General Sherman took Atlanta, a major military and public relations victory, and Lincoln won in a landslide.
McClellan still had enough goodwill to be elected Governor of New Jersey in 1877. He was buried in Trenton, and a statue of him stands outside City Hall in his hometown of Philadelphia. His son, George B. McClellan Jr., was a Congressman from 1895 to 1903 and Mayor of New York from 1904 to 1909, famously driving the 1st Subway car in the City on October 27, 1904.
October 29, 1887: George Halley (no middle name) is born in Cronberry, East Ayrshire, Scotland. A right back, he starred for Scottish soccer team Kilmarnock, then led Lancashire team Burnley to the 1914 FA Cup and the 1921 Football League title. In between, he served in the British Army in World War I, seeing action in France and Iraq, before being posted to India. He died in 1941.
October 29, 1889, 130 years ago: The National League Champion New York Giants win their 2nd consecutive World Championship by taking this year's best-of-11 matchup in 9 games.
After spotting the American Association Champion Brooklyn Bridegrooms (the once-and-future Dodgers were so named because 3 of their players had gotten married in the 1887-88 off-season) 2 runs in the 1st‚ the Giants rally to win 3-2 behind Hank O'Day's pitching -- the same Hank O'Day who would be the umpire who ruled against them in the Fred Merkle Game 19 years later. Slattery scores the winning run in the 7th inning‚ coming in from second as catcher Doc Bushing misses a two-out 3rd strike.
The next season, the 'Grooms would join the NL, and win the Pennant. They would win 2 more Pennants before the Giants won another, in 1899 and 1900. But over the next 40 years, the Superbas/Robins/Dodgers would win just 2 Pennants, while the Giants would win 13. And the Yankees, not even formed yet, would win 11. Ah, but over the last 17 years of New York's 3-team availability, it would be a different story: The Yankees would win 12 Pennants, the Dodgers 7, the Giants only 2.
The last survivor of the 1889 Giants was 3rd baseman Art Whitney, who lived on until 1943.
October 29, 1891: Fania Borach is born in Manhattan. Like her fellow Lower East Siders the Marx Brothers, she was a child of a Jewish immigrant from Alsace, France. By 1910, under the name Fanny Brice, she was starring on Broadway in the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1912, she created the character of Baby Snooks, a mischievous little girl.
In 1944, she began the CBS radio program The Baby Snooks Show, even though she was already 52 years old. The show helped give comedy legend Danny Thomas his start. In 1949, she was filmed in character, clowning with the Chicago White Sox at their Spring Training complex. She died on May 29, 1951, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 59, and the show was canceled.
In 1921, she had a hit song, "Second Hand Rose." In 1964, Barbra Streisand began appearing on Broadway as Brice in the musical Funny Girl, and the song became more identified with Streisand than it ever was with Brice. The musical was filmed in 1968, and a sequel, Funny Lady, was filmed in 1975. Today, if anybody knows Fanny, they know her through Barbra Joan.
October 29, 1897: William Henry Walker is born in Wednesbury, West Midlands, England. A forward, he played for nearby club Aston Villa, winning the 1920 FA Cup. He managed Yorkshire club Sheffield Wednesday to the FA Cup in 1935, and Nottingham Forest in 1959 -- and neither Wednesday nor Forest have won it since. He died in 1964.
Also on this day, Paul Joseph Goebbels is born in Mönchengladbach, Germany. Leader of the Nazi Party in Berlin starting in 1926, Chancellor Adolf Hitler made him the Nazis' Minister of Propaganda.
Often compared to a rat due to his appearance, he, unlike many in the Nazi high command, stayed loyal to Hitler until the end. Hitler even declared him Chancellor upon his suicide, though Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide themselves 2 days later, after giving their 6 children cyanide as well.
One of the last things he wrote, which managed to survive, was a letter mentioning how the advancing Soviet Union would draw an "iron curtain" across Europe. Whether Prime Minister Winston Churchill knew that Joseph Goebbels had used the famous phrase before he did, we may never know.
October 29, 1898: Because of NL interest in curbing rowdyism on the field‚ information is provided to the newspapers of the various baseball cities, indicating that there were 62 expulsions of players from games during the season. Bill Dahlen of the Chicago Colts (soon to become the Cubs) and Patsy Tebeau of the Cleveland Spiders (soon to collapse and go out of business) tied for the lead with 6 thumbings each. Dahlen was also suspended for 3 days.
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October 29, 1901: Leon Czolgosz is executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison (now Auburn Correctional Facility) in Auburn, in the Finger Lakes Region of Central New York. The assassin of President William McKinley was 28, and had outlived his victim by 45 days.
His last words were, "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people, the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime. I am sorry I could not see my father."
October 29, 1908: Alexander Adams Wilson is born in Wishaw, Scotland. A goalkeeper, Alex Wilson helped North London soccer team Arsenal win the League title in 1934, 1935 and 1938, and kept a clean sheet in the 1936 FA Cup Final, in which Arsenal beat Yorkshire club Sheffield United.
He later served as a physiotherapist for several teams, including the 1st New England team in the old North American Soccer League, the Boston Beacons. He died in Boston in 1971.
October 29, 1909, 110 years ago: Frank Clifford Wykoff is born in Des Moines, Iowa, and grows up in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, California. He was a member of the U.S. team that won the 4x100-meter relay in 3 straight Olympics: 1928 in Amsterdam, 1932 in Los Angeles and, along with Jesse Owens, 1936 in Berlin. Like Owens, he died in 1980.
October 29, 1911: Bernard Joy (no middle name) is born in Fulham, West London. On May 9, 1936, the centreback played for England in a 3-2 loss to Belgium. To this day, he is the last amateur to play for the England senior team. Later that year, he was the Captain of the Great Britain soccer team at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. They did not win a medal.
He was soon signed by Arsenal, and helped them win the League in 1938. But World War II came right in the middle of his prime: He served in the Royal Air Force, and he never won another trophy. He retired in 1947, just before Arsenal began another title-winning season.
He became a sportswriter, writing for The Star, The Evening Standard and the Sunday Express, covering soccer and tennis. In 1952, he wrote Forward, Arsenal! It was the 1st comprehensive history of the club, but it contained many inaccuracies (presumably unintentional), including some which wouldn't be cleared up until the gentlemen at Untold Arsenal did some legwork over half a century later. Joy wrote several more soccer books, and lived until 1984.
October 29, 1913: Albert William Suomi is born in Eveleth, Minnesota. At a time when the Chicago Blackhawks were experimenting with American players, he was called up in the 1936-37 season, and played 5 games. He never appeared in the NHL again.
He became a referee, and ran a hardware store outside Chicago. He is believed to be the 1st former NHL player who lived to be 100 years old, dying at that age on September 23, 2014. Currently, the oldest living former player is Jim Conacher, 98, a center who played for the Detroit Red Wings from 1946 to 1948, the Blackhawks from then until 1951, and the New York Rangers from then until 1953. He is not related to hockey's main Conacher family.
October 29, 1918: As the Central Powers near collapse, bringing the end of what would become known as World War I ever closer, "The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs" declares its independence from the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire.
On December 1, it joined the Kingdom of Serbia, to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 1929, it would be renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After World War II, it became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. That nation began to break up in 1991, and is now 7 separate independent countries: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovnia (that's officially 1 country, not 2), Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia."
Also on this day, Jane Bradley is born in Milwaukee. The daughter of conservative businessman and philanthropist Harry Bradley, she married brewery heir David Uihlein, and later Chicago Blackhawks broadcaster Lloyd Pettit, and is usually listed as "Jane Bradley Pettit."
Together, she and Lloyd owned the Milwaukee Admirals, a minor-league hockey team, and led the funding for the building of the Bradley Center, home of the Admirals and the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks from 1988 to 2018. They also funded the building of the Pettit National Ice Center, a training facility for America's Winter Olympians, in Milwaukee. After divorcing Lloyd, she bought a minority share in the Milwaukee Brewers. She died in 2001.
Also on this day, Peggy-Jean Montgomery is born in San Diego. She was quickly discovered by the new Hollywood, and "Baby Peggy" became a film star, specializing in short films that satirized full-length features. By 1923, she was appearing in full-length features, and had her own line of endorsed items, including lookalike dolls and milk.
In 1925, her father, also her manager, had a falling-out with a film producer, and she was blackballed from movies. To make matters worse, a fire in 1926 burned the original prints of her movies, and nearly everything she ever appeared in has been lost.
Her parents took her onto the vaudeville stage, and that worked out, until the Crash of 1929 made the appearances dry up. The family went into farming, and after 1 last film appearance in 1938, she never made another movie.
She got married that year, and changed her name to Diana to distance herself from her image. She eventually became a writer, under the name Diana Serra Cary, specializing in books about Hollywood. At the age of 101, she is the last remaining lead actor in a silent film, and 1 of 8 living silent film actors. (UPDATE: She died on February 24, 2020)
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October 29, 1920: The Yankees sign Red Sox manager Ed Barrow as business manager – the job that will, in a few years, begin to be called "general manager" – completing the front office team that will build the game's most successful record. Hugh Duffy, the Boston Braves star who batted a record .438 in 1894, replaces Barrow at Fenway Park.
Barrow had managed the Red Sox to the 1918 World Series, and, regarding the hitting and pitching talents of Babe Ruth, said, "I'd be a fool to turn the best lefthanded pitcher in the game into an outfielder."
The choice had already been made for him, but he would help the Yankees win 14 Pennants and 10 World Series in his 26 seasons as Yankee GM. Shortly before his death in 1953, he was elected to the Hall of Fame. At the Yankees' next home opener, a plaque was dedicated in his memory and hung on the outfield wall near the Monuments, and would later be moved to Monument Park.
He is buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, Westchester County, New York, along with several other baseball-connected personalities: The Yankee owner who hired him, Jacob Ruppert; a Yankee slugger he signed, Lou Gehrig; the Boston owner and Broadway promoter who previously hired him, Harry Frazee; the Governor of New York who sometimes threw out the first ball at big Yankee games, Herbert Lehman; the opera singer who often sang the National Anthem at Yankee games, Robert Merrill; and the Brooklyn-born comedian who remained a Dodger fan after they moved West to his own new home of Hollywood, and was a member of the first ownership group of the Seattle Mariners, Danny Kaye.
Also on this day, William Juzda (no middle name) is born in Winnipeg. A defenseman, Bill Juzda briefly played for the New York Rangers before going into World War II, and later made 2 NHL All-Star Games and helped the Toronto Maple Leafs win the 1949 and 1951 Stanley Cups. He was named to the Manitoba Sports and Manitoba Hockey Halls of Fame, and played in old-timers' games into his 70s. He lived until 2008.
October 29, 1921: The Harvard University football team loses to Centre College of Danville, Kentucky, ending a 25-game winning streak. This is considered one of the biggest upsets in college football, as the "Praying Colonels" (no, I'm not making that mascot name up) were the 1st team from outside the old Northeast (Jim Thorpe's Pennsylvania-based Carlisle counts) to beat one of the old "Big Three" of Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
Today, Harvard, like all the Ivy League teams, is in the FCS, the Football Championship Subdivision, what used to be known as Division I-AA. Since the official founding of the Ivy League as a sports conference in 1955, Harvard has won its football championship 15 times, most recently in 2015.
Centre would prove that their 1921 win over Harvard was no fluke: On 4 consecutive Saturdays in 1924, the Colonels defeated Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Their biggest star of 1921, Bo McMillin, was a rough Texan who was one of the 1st good NFL quarterbacks, and would coach Indiana to its 1st football title in the Big Ten in 1945.
Today, however, Centre are in Division III, but have won their league 15 times, including 6 times from 1980 to 1990. Their last title was in 2014.
October 29, 1922: Benito Mussolini completes his fascist March On Rome. He ends up running Italy with an iron fist until 1943.
Like many dictators (but not all of them -- Josef Stalin couldn't have cared less), Mussolini liked using sports for propaganda purposes. He got the 1934 World Cup to be held in his country, and promised new cars to all of his players if they won. They did. (They won it again in 1938.) Of the stadiums used in that World Cup, the one in Turin was named for him, the one in Florence was named for one of his supporters, and the one in Rome was named for the Fascist Party.
October 29, 1923: The Republic of Turkey is declared, 3 months after the Kuva-yi Milliye (Nationalist Forces) pushed the Allies of World War I out of their country, ending the Turkish War of Independence. The Ottoman Empire, Islamic and autocratic, became a secular republic under the Presidency of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Unfortunately, current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become a tyrant every bit as bad as the Ottomans, and Donald Trump likes him a lot, seeing him as a "strong leader." He was the kind of man whose rise Atatürk hoped his reforms would prevent, or at least prevent from going too far.
Also on this day, John Joseph Mackinson is born in Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. A pitcher, he made 1 appearance for the 1953 Philadelphia Athletics, and 8 for the 1955 St. Louis Cardinals. He died on October 17, 1989, the day of the World Series earthquake in San Francisco.
Also on this day, George Barney Poole is born in Gloster, Mississippi. An All-America defensive end at the University of Mississippi, Barney Poole was allowed to transfer to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, helping the Army football team win the 1944 and 1945 National Championships. He was elected to the College Football and Mississippi Sports Halls of Fame.
Preceded in the NFL by his brothers Jim, a.k.a. Buster, and Ray, Barney played for 3 different professional football teams in New York: The Yankees of the All-America Football Conference in 1949, the separate New York Yanks in 1950 and '51, and the Giants in 1954. He died in 2005.
October 29, 1924: Rankin M. Smith is born in Atlanta. (I can find no record of what the M stands for.) An insurance executive, he was the founding owner of the Atlanta Falcons, from 1966 until his death in 1997, just short of his 73rd birthday. He was elected to the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.
His 2nd wife was Charlotte Topping, widow of former Yankees co-owner Dan Topping. His son, Rankin Smith Jr., sold the team to Arthur Blank in 2002.
October 29, 1927: Howard Earl Williams is born in New Ross, Indiana. A guard, he starred for the basketball team at Purdue University, and won a Gold Medal with the U.S. team at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland. He played semipro ball, on the team sponsored by the Caterpillar construction machines company, and worked for them for 35 years before retiring. He died in 2004.
Also on this day, Francis Arthur Sedgman is born in the Melbourne suburb of Mont Albert, Victoria, Australia. He won the Australian Open in 1949 and 1950, the U.S. Open in 1951, and both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1952. Only a loss in the Final of the 1952 French Open denied him a career Grand Slam.
Frank Sedgman is a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, was awarded the Order of Australia, and is still alive.
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October 29, 1931: For the 1st time under the current format, as voted by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, the Most Valuable Player awards are given. In the American League, the choice is an easy one, and is unanimous: Robert "Lefty" Grove of the Philadelphia Athletics, who had, statistically speaking, maybe the best season any pitcher has ever had, going 31-4 with a 2.08 ERA, and helping the A's win their 3rd straight Pennant. They did lose the World Series, so I can't call it "the best season any pitcher has ever had."
The 1st official NL MVP will be Frankie Frisch, 2nd baseman for the Pennant-winning Cardinals. The Fordham Flash batted .311 and led the NL in stolen bases, before leading them to victory over the A's in the World Series, avenging the previous season's defeat. He will become player-manager in 1934, and lead "the Gashouse Gang" to another World Championship, his 4th as a player, also including 1921 and 1922 with the Giants. He and Grove, who'd won the Series with the A's in 1929 and 1930, will both become easy choices for the Hall of Fame.
October 29, 1932: Faulkner Field opens on the campus of Mississippi Normal College in Hattiesburg. It was named for L.E. Faulkner, who bought the building materials, and was, as far as I can tell, no relation to Mississippi's greatest novelist, William Faulkner. The name of the school was changed to Mississippi State Teachers College in 1924, Mississippi Southern College in 1940, and the University of Southern Mississippi in 1962.
In 1976, the stadium was expanded, and renamed M.M. Roberts Stadium, after the Board of Trustees member who got it done. The playing surface is still named Faulkner Field. Its most famous player is Brett Favre, who went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Green Bay Packers.
Also on this day, John J. Clune (I can find no references as to what the middle initial stands for) is born in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey. A graduate of St. Peter's Prep High School in Jersey City, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, and served as athletic director of the U.S. Air Force Academy from 1975 to 1991.
As the school's AD, he led it into the Western Athletic Conference. He lobbied the U.S. Olympic Committee to build their national training center near the Academy in Colorado Springs, helping our athletes acclimate to the high altitude of most Winter Olympic cities. He was elected to the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. He retired from his post due to cancer, and died the following year. The Academy's arena is named for him.
October 29, 1935: Edward Hopkinson (no middle name) is born in Wheatley Hill, in County Durham, in the North-East of England. A goalkeeper, his biggest year was 1958, when he kept a clean sheet for Lancashire team Bolton Wanderers against Manchester United in the FA Cup Final, and was backup to Colin McDonald on the England team at the 1958 World Cup. He became an assistant trainer at Bolton, and briefly managed Stockport County. He lived until 2004.
October 29, 1937: Alan Peacock (no middle name) is born in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. A forward, he starred for Middlesbrough FC, and was selected for the England team in the 1962 World Cup. He helped Leeds United reach the 1965 FA Cup Final, but was not selected for the England team that won the 1966 World Cup. He retired due to injury in 1968, and is still alive, having recently retired from running a newsstand (or as "newsagent's," as they would say over there).
October 29, 1938: Wilbert McClure (as far as I can tell, his full name) is born in Toledo, Ohio. He won the Gold Medal in the light heavyweight boxing division at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, on the same U.S. boxing team as Gold Medalist Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali.
"Skeeter" McClure did not have a good pro career, notably fighting Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, later known for his celebrity-driven criminal defense, to a loss and a draw. But he became a psychologist, earning a doctorate from Wayne State University in Detroit, and served as State Boxing Commissioner in Massachusetts. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Ellen Eugenia Johnson is born in Monrovia, the capital of the African nation of Liberia. Although her marriage to James Sirleaf didn't last, she kept his name and entered politics under the name Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
She studied at Harvard University, and served as her country's Deputy Minister of Finance from 1971 to 1974. She was appointed full Minister of Finance in 1979, but fled to America the following year, after Samuel Doe's coup. She worked in the American banking industry, returned to Liberia, fought Doe's successor as dictator, Charles Taylor, finished 2nd to him in the 1997 Presidential election, and finally defeated him in 2005. This made her the 1st elected female head of state of any African nation.
She was re-elected in 2011, and received the Nobel Peace Prize that year. She served out her 2nd term and didn't run for a 3rd. In 2017, she supported soccer legend George Weah in his campaign for the office, and may have been crucial in his victory.
October 29, 1939, 80 years ago: The Babe Siebert Memorial Game is played at the Montreal Forum. It raised $15,000 for his family -- about $275,000 in today's money.
Charles Albert Siebert was a left wing who won Stanley Cups with the 1926 Montreal Maroons and the 1933 New York Rangers. With Nels Stewart and Hooley Smith, he formed one of the first named forward lines in hockey, the S-Line. In 1934, playing for the Boston Bruins, he played in the 1st All-Star benefit game for an NHL player, Ace Bailey of the Toronto Maple Leafs, whose career was ended by a vicious check by Bruin defenseman Eddie Shore.
But Siebert and Shore couldn't get along, and, in 1936, the Bruins traded him to the Montreal Canadiens. He was immediately named Captain, and won the 1937 Hart Trophy as NHL MVP. The following fall, he played in another All-Star benefit game, this time for Canadiens superstar Howie Morenz, who had died in March from complications from leg surgery.
In 1939, 35 years old and plagued with injuries, he retired. He was immediately offered the Canadiens' head coaching position, and accepted. But he never got the chance to coach a game. On August 25, 1939, while vacationing with his family and swimming with his daughters Judy and Joan, then just 11 and 10 years old, at a family cottage on the shore of Lake Huron, he drowned attempting to retrieve an inflatable tire they were playing with.
The league organized an all-star benefit game to aid Siebert's widow (who was paralyzed and had mounting medical bills) and daughters. The Canadiens faced an all-star team composed of the best players from the remaining teams. The All-Stars won, 5-2. Though only about 6,000 fans showed up, the organizers met their target of $15,000.
Also on this day, Peter Gerard Richert is born in Floral Park, Long Island, New York. A pitcher, Pete Richert was a 2-time All-Star, and won the World Series with the 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers (for whom he is 1 of 12 surviving players) and the 1970 Baltimore Orioles (for whom he is 1 of 11 surviving players). He went 80-73 for his career.
Also on this day, Michael Francis Shanahan is born outside St. Louis in University City, Missouri. A defender, he helped Saint Louis University win college soccer's National Championship in 1959 and 1960. He got rich as the head of an engineering company.
In 1986, when the NHL's St. Louis Blues were losing too much money, and were in danger of being moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, someone suggested to him that he buy the team. He did, saved them, got their new arena (now known as the Enterprise Center) built, and sold them in 1995.
He was named to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and the Saint Louis University Billikens Hall of Fame. He died in 2018, at age 78, 17 months too soon to see the Blues finally win the Stanley Cup. He was not related to the Mike Shanahan who coached the Denver Broncos to 2 Super Bowl wins.
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October 29, 1940: For the 1st time in American history, a military draft is held in peacetime. President Franklin D. Roosevelt risked this, only 1 week before he had to face the voters in pursuit of an unprecedented 3rd term, because he knew that America would have to face the Nazis sometime in that term.
Athletes were not exempt. The 1st one to be drafted was Hugh Mulcahy, on March 8, 1941. He had pitched well enough to make the 1940 All-Star Game, but pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies, who were then so bad (How bad were they?), Mulcahy's career record ended up being 45-89. His name appeared in the box score as "Losing Pitcher" so many times, that became his nickname. In contrast, he survived World War II without so much as a scratch.
October 29, 1941: Harvey Hendrick shoots and kills himself at his farm in Covington, Tennessee. He was only 43. A star football player at Vanderbilt University, he was a rookie 1st baseman and outfielder on the Yankees' 1st World Championship team in 1923, and, after Lou Gehrig, was the 2nd man to have played on that team to die. His baseball career ended in 1934, with a .308 lifetime batting average (though as mainly a reserve player), and I guess his farm wasn't working out well.
Judging by the reaction when active Yankee Cory Lidle was killed in a plane crash just after the 2006 regular season, I can imagine that, today, if a former Yankee player committed suicide, the story would soak the news (in blood) for days.
But Hendrick has been just about forgotten. The Yankees did not wear black armbands or any kind of memorial patch during the 1942 season -- just the red, white & blue "HEALTH" shield that all teams wore in that 1st full year of World War II for the U.S. And there is no mention of him in Monument Park, or anywhere else in Yankee Stadium.
Also on this day, the Kaunas Massacre takes place in Lithuania. The Nazis' SS shot and killed 9,200 Jews. It was the largest single-day execution in Nazi history.
October 29, 1942: Robert Norman Ross is born in Dayton Beach, Florida. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at age 18, serving among the mountains in Alaska, which would later inspire his painting. He also decided that, having had to be mean as a First Sergeant, once he was discharged, he would never scream again. The persona of Bob Ross was born.
From 1983 to 1994, his program The Joy of Painting appeared on PBS. Like Julia Child, Fred (Mr.) Rogers and Carl Sagan, he used his appearances on that network to show himself as a kindly person who not only knew his stuff, but wanted you to know it, too, and explained it in ways that would be understood, but never insulting your intelligence.
His show stopped only because he developed lymphoma, and died in 1995. His legacy goes on, which his portrayal by "Nice Peter" Shukoff against "Epic Lloyd" Ahlquist as Pablo Picasso on Epic Rap Battles of History, and Target Stores having released the board game "Bob Ross: The Art of Chill." It should sell well: After all, as the man himself said, "I don't believe in mistakes."
October 29, 1943: Norman Hunter (no middle name) is born in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England, 6 years to the day after his Leeds United teammate Alan Peacock. The centreback was the archetype of the "dirty" footballer for Leeds in the Don Revie years.
A banner at the 1972 FA Cup Final at the old Wembley Stadium read "NORMAN BITES YER LEGS." He was "Bites Yer Legs Hunter" from then on. It got to the point where, when he got his own leg broken in a match, when told, "Hunter has broken a leg," club trainer Les Cocker asked, "Whose is it?"
But he wasn't totally without class. When Leeds won that 1972 Final, beating Arsenal on a diving header by Allan Clarke, Hunter climbed the famous steps to the Royal Box twice: Once to collect his own winner's medal, and then again to help Mick Jones up the steps, as Jones had injured his elbow and was being treated during the initial presentation.
Hunter helped Leeds win the League title in 1969 and 1974, the FA Cup in 1972, the League Cup in 1968, and the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (the tournament now known as the Europa League) in 1968 and 1971.
He was also a part of the 1974-75 Leeds team that chased out manager Brian Clough -- the former Derby County manager who'd done so much to enhance the "Dirty Leeds" reputation in his interviews -- after 44 days, and then reached the European Cup Final under new manager Jimmy Bloomfield, losing to Bayern Munich under controversial circumstances.
Like his Leeds central-defense partner, Jack Charlton, he was a member of the England team that won the 1966 World Cup. But the presence of Bobby Moore of West Ham United as England Captain meant that he never got into a game. He did play in the 1970 World Cup.
He briefly managed 3 teams, including Leeds for 3 games as a caretaker in 1988, and now works in youth football. He doesn't teach dirty football, but has embraced his image enough to have titled his memoir Biting Talk.
October 29, 1944, 75 years ago: Claude Brochu (no middle name) is born in Quebec City. An executive at Seagram's, he was named President of the Montreal Expos in 1986. In 1991, he led a group that bought the team to prevent it from being moved to Phoenix, and on August 12, 1994, the Expos had the best record in baseball, and looked like it had a good shot at the World Series. So far, so good.
Then it all came crashing down. The players went on strike, and, forced to use his own money to keep the team going when his partners refused to do the same, Brochu had to sell off several key players: He traded John Wetteland, Moises Alou, Marquis Grissom and Ken Hill, and let Larry Walker get away via free agency, getting nothing in return for him.
He practically begged the Montreal municipal and Quebec provincial governments to build him a new baseball-only stadium that would be more profitable than staying in the Olympic Stadium, but they turned him down.
In 1998, having no other alternative and no other buyer, he sold the Expos to Jeffrey Loria, and, despite Loria's public pronouncements about being committed to Montreal, the team's fate was sealed. Brochu is still alive, but the Expos are not: After the 2004 season, they became the Washington Nationals.
Also on this day, the Soviets' Red Army wins the Battle of Debrecen in Ukraine, a major victory against the Nazis on the Eastern Front.
October 29, 1945: Charles Irving Leigh is born in Halifax, Virginia, and grows up in Albany, New York. A star in football and basketball at Albany High School, the Pittsburgh Steelers appealed to NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, and got permission to sign him as a free agent, making him the only player in NFL history to have been signed right out of high school.
A running back, but not yet 20 years old, Charlie Leigh did not make the Steelers out of their 1965 training camp. He played for the Orlando Panthers of the Continental Football League for 3 seasons, until the Cleveland Browns signed him around his 23rd birthday. He also played for the San Francisco 49ers, the Canadian Football League's Ottawa Rough Riders, and the Miami Dolphins. Although it was next to impossible to get playing time in a backfield that had Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris, he won 2 Super Bowl rings with the Dolphins.
After his playing career, he returned to Albany, worked in construction, and died of cancer in 2006, 3 days before his 61st birthday.
October 29, 1947: Frances Preston dies in Princeton, New Jersey at age 83. Her 2nd husband, Thomas J. Preston Jr., survived her by 8 years. Her 1st husband was Grover Cleveland, President of the United States from 1885 to 1889, and again from 1893 to 1897.
When they got married, the 1st Presidential couple to do so in the White House itself, Grover was a 49-year-old bachelor, and she was 21, the youngest First Lady ever. At 50 years, no former First Lady has ever lived longer after leaving the White House; at 39 years, only Sarah Polk has outlived a Presidential husband longer. She and Grover retired to Princeton, and were buried at Princeton Cemetery, the only President and First Lady laid to rest in New Jersey.
October 29, 1948: Lucy Kate Jackson is born in Birmingham, Alabama. After starring in the police drama The Rookies, Kate (she dropped her middle name) again teamed with that show's producers, Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, who wanted to do a show about female secret agents, titled The Alley Cats. Spelling told Jackson ABC wanted the title changed. She saw a picture on a wall in Spelling's office, showing 3 female angels, and suggested Charlie's Angels.
The show premiered in 1976, starring Jackson as Sabrina Duncan, Jaclyn Smith as Kelly Garrett, and making a legend of Farrah Fawcett as Jill Monroe. Jackson left after 3 seasons, because Spelling told her he couldn't work its shooting schedule around Jackson's newly-acquired role in the film Kramer vs. Kramer. She had to drop out of the role, and it helped build Meryl Streep's legend.
She later starred in Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and stepped away from acting after a 2007 appearance on Criminal Minds. She is still alive.
October 29, 1949, 70 years ago: Paul Perlette Orndorff Jr. is born in the Tampa suburb of Brandon, Florida. A running back at the University of Tampa, he was drafted by the New Orleans Saints in 1973, but failed to pass their physical. He also flunked a physical with the Kansas City Chiefs. In 1975, he played for the Jacksonville Sharks of the World Football League, but after the WFL folded, no NFL team would take him.
For the next 20 years, he was a professional wrestler. Rowdy Roddy Piper and gave him the stage name "Mr. Wonderful." The feud between Piper, Orndorff and manager Cowboy Bob Orton on one side, and Hulk Hogan, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka and actor Lawrence "Mr. T" Tureaud on the other, essentially led to the creation of the 1st WrestleMania in 1985. Hogan pinned Orndorff, thanks to a mistake in interference by Orton, which led to a rift between Orndorff and Piper and eventually a teamup between Hogan and Orndorff. This didn't last, as Mr. Wonderful and the Hulkster started feuding again.
Orndorff retired due to an arm injury in 1995, and patched things up with Hogan and Piper. (Those two, prior to Piper's death in 2015, most definitely did not patch things up with each other.) He now lives in the Atlanta suburbs, remains married to his high school girlfriend, has grown sons Paul III and Travis, and has beaten cancer.
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October 29, 1950: King Gustav V of Sweden dies of flu complications at age 92. As the host of the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, he presented decathlon and pentathlon champion Jim Thorpe with a laurel wreath and, according to legend, said, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world,"coining a phrase that has become an unofficial title for the Olympic decathlon champ. Thorpe's response is said to have been, "Thanks, King." Gustav V was the great-grandfather of the current monarch, King Carl XVI Gustaf.
October 29, 1951: New York City gives a ticker-tape parade to servicemen from all United Nations wounded in the Korean War.
October 29, 1953: Denis Charles Potvin is born in Hull, Quebec, across the Ottawa river from the Canadian capital of Ottawa, Ontario. One of the greatest defensemen in hockey history, he was the Captain of the New York Islanders' 4 straight Stanley Cups of 1980 to 1983.
Arguably the team's greatest player ever, and certainly its most important, his Number 5 has been retired, and he was the first Isles player elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. His brother Jean Potvin also played for the Isles for a time, and his cousin Marc Potvin also played in the NHL.
However, his name is best remembered for an incident in the Ranger-Islander rivalry. On February 25, 1979, the teams played at Madison Square Garden, and Potvin checked Ranger All-Star Ulf Nilsson into the boards, breaking Nilsson's ankle.
In spite of the fact that no penalty was called, and the fact that Nilsson himself has always maintained that it was a clean hit, and that fact that then-Ranger coach Fred Shero also said it was a clean hit, the moron Ranger fans have spent almost 40 years chanting, "Potvin sucks!" – against all opponents, not just the Islanders. This led to some confusion, years later, when Felix Potvin (no relation) would tend goal for various teams, including the Islanders for a time.
In retaliation, Islander fans have done a "Rangers suck!" chant for every home game, regardless of opponent, and New Jersey Devils fans do the same. Ranger fans also had a chant of "Beat your wife, Potvin, beat your wife!" Denis Potvin, who has never been charged with beating his wife, usually beat the Rangers instead.
Part of Ranger mythology is that Potvin's hit knocked Nilsson out for the season, and that's why they lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Montreal Canadiens. In fact, Nilsson returned in time for those Finals, in which the Rangers won Game 1 at the Montreal Forum, but then dropped the next 4, including all 3 at the Garden.
Also on this day, Harold Olsen dies at age 58, of a long illness, in his home town of Rice Lake, Wisconsin. "Oley" was an early basketball star at the University of Wisconsin, and coached Ohio State to 5 Big Ten titles and 4 trips to what we would now call the Final Four. This included the 1st NCAA Final in 1939, losing to Oregon State.
He became the 1st head coach of an NBA team in Chicago, and led the Chicago Stags to the 1st NBA Finals in 1947, losing to the Philadelphia Warriors. So he lost the 1st Finals of both the NCAA and the NBA. When the Stags folded, he coached Northwestern University, until resigned due to his ill health.
October 29, 1955: The Honeymooners airs what creator and star Jackie Gleason called his favorite episode: "A Matter of Life and Death." A mixup leads Gleason's character, Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden, to believe he has just 6 months to live. With nothing to leave wife Alice (Audrey Meadows), he sells his story to a magazine for $5,000 -- about $47,700 in today's money.
When Ralph discovers the truth, he realizes that the magazine could sue him for fraud, however unintentional it might have been. So he decides to pull an actual fraud: He talks his best friend and upstairs neighbor, sewer worker Ed Norton (Art Carney), into posing as the one doctor in the country who has a treatment that can cure his rare condition. The ruse doesn't work, as the magazine's editor accuses Ed of being the fraud, and, to save his friend, Ralph comes clean.
The magazine lets him keep the money, because the real story is funny: Alice had taken her mother's dog to the vet, at the same time that Ralph had taken his company physical. Since Ralph hates both Alice's mother and the dog (and the feeling from each is mutual), Alice asked the vet to send the results by telegram, to be received only by her. But since Ralph was the only one home to receive it, and he's also waiting for word from a doctor, he jumps to conclusions. Since the viewer knows what Ralph doesn't yet know, the symptoms and the treatment are funny.
For the record, there is no such disease as arterial monochromia. Literally, it means that the blood is a single color. So everybody has it.
October 29, 1956: Wilfredo Gómez Rivera is born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wilfredo Gómez was WBC Super Bantamweight Champion from May 21, 1977 to April 23, 1983, WBC Featherweight Champion from March 31 to December 8, 1984, and WBA Junior Lightweight Champion from May 19, 1985 to May 24, 1986. Also known as Bazooka, he had 17 straight knockout wins as champion, a record for all weight classes that has been equaled, but never broken.
His career record was 44-3-1, with 42 of those 44 wins coming by knockout or technical knockout (TKO). He is still alive, and a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, Egypt closes the Suez Canal, triggering a crisis that could have blown up into World War III. However, President Dwight D. Eisenhower refuses to take sides, hoping that isolating Britain and France will prevent war, and also prevent the crisis from affecting Israel. "Ike" turns out to be right, and this is often seen as the end of Britain and France as true world powers.
But stuff like this is why the rest of the Middle East doesn't trust Israel. To this day, even though it is on the continent of Asia, Israel must compete in European tournaments rather than Asian ones, because Muslim countries in Asia refuse to allow Israeli athletes onto their soil.
Also on this day, NBC debuts its new evening news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report. With the Suez Crisis beginning that day, and the Soviet invasion of Hungary and a Presidential election campaign ongoing, the timing was excellent.
NBC decided that Chet Huntley and David Brinkley worked so well together at the recent Democratic and Republican Conventions, that they should work together on the evening news. Except they don't actually work together: Huntley reports from the NBC studios at the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center in New York, also used by WNBC-Channel 4; while Brinkley reports from the NBC studios in Northwest Washington, also used by WRC-Channel 4.
Brinkley said he and Huntley both hated their signoff: "Good night, David." "Good night, Chet." Brinkley said, "Two grown men saying good night to each other on the air struck me as rather dubious." It became a national joke, though both men were highly respected. They remained together until 1970, when Huntley's health began to fail (he died in 1974), and the current NBC Nightly News format began.
Also on this day, Walter Edge dies in Manhattan at age 82. He had served in both houses of the New Jersey legislature, was elected Governor in 1916, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1918 and 1924, was appointed U.S. Ambassador to France in 1929, and was returned to the Governorship in 1943.
October 29, 1958: An athlete named Charlie Brown is born. No, not the Peanuts character who couldn't pitch and always had the football pulled away from him when he tried to kick it.
This Charles Brown (apparently, his full name) was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He became one of the Washington Redskins' receiving corps known as "The Fun Bunch," known for their touchdown celebrations, winning Super Bowl XVII with them. He made 2 Pro Bowls, and has since returned to South Carolina, as a high school coach.
October 29, 1959, 60 years ago: The Greensboro Coliseum opens in Greensboro, North Carolina, as a memorial to the city's fallen from World Wars I and II and the Korean War. The opening event is Holiday On Ice.
The complex includes an arena, an amphitheater, an aquatic center, a banquet hall, a convention center, a museum, a theater, and an indoor pavilion. The arena, which is what people usually mean when they say "the Greensboro Coliseum," opened with 7,100 seats, was expanded to 15,000 in 1972, and had a 3rd tier added in 1993 to push capacity to 23,000.
It has hosted 23 of the last 52 Atlantic Coast Conference men's basketball tournaments, and 12 of the last 19 ACC women's tournaments. In 1974, it hosted the NCAA Final Four, featuring David Thompson and North Carolina State ending UCLA's dynasty in the Semifinal before beating Marquette in the Final. On March 23, 1976, Rutgers University had the greatest moment in its sports history at the Coliseum, defeating Virginia Military Institute (VMI) 91-75, to advance to the NCAA Final Four with an undefeated record. (Indiana beat them in the Semifinal.)
Since 2009, it has been home court for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. From 1959 to 1989, it hosted some home games for Wake Forest University for which the Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum would have been too small, prior to the building of the on-campus Joel Coliseum. The Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association played there from 1969 to 1974. In minor-league basketball, it has hosted the Greensboro City Gators (1991-92) and the Greensboro Swarm (since 2016).
When the Hartford Whalers moved to become the Carolina Hurricanes in 1997, they played 2 seasons at the Greensboro Coliseum, until their new arena is Raleigh was ready. Since the locals knew this was a temporary setup, the 'Canes' attendance was even worse in Greensboro. In minor-league hockey, the Coliseum hosted the Greensboro Generals (1959-77, and again 1999-2004), and the Greensboro Monarchs (1989-97). In arena football, it hosted the Greensboro Prowlers (2000-03), the Greensboro Revolution (2006-07) and the Carolina Cobras (debuting this year).
Elvis Presley sang at the Greensboro Coliseum on April 14, 1972, and again on April 21, 1977, on what turned out to be his final tour.
Also on this day, Jesse Lee Barfield is born in Joliet, Illinois, outside Chicago. Possessor of one of the best right field arms ever, he also hit 241 home runs in the major leagues. He was an All-Star in 1986, leading the American League in home runs, and a Gold Glove winner in 1986 and 1987.
But his luck was bad in terms of postseason play. He was a member of the Toronto Blue Jays' 1st AL Eastern Division Champions in 1985, but was traded to the Yankees for Al Leiter in 1989, missing the Jays' 1989 and '91 Division titles and their 1992 and '93 World Championships.
And his arrival with the Yankees coincided with their collapse from a near-miss run from 1985 to 1988, when they really could have used someone like him -- especially in the 2nd half of 1987, when Dave Winfield, also with one of the great outfield arms of the era, got hurt. Had Barfield played on the Yankees when he was with the Jays, and vice versa, he could have gone from All-Star to true baseball legend.
Injuries led him to retire at age 34, with 241 home runs. He is now a Blue Jays broadcaster. His sons Josh and Jeremy also played pro baseball, with Josh playing a season for the Baltimore Orioles and 3 for the Cleveland Indians.
Also on this day, Michael Alfred Gartner is born in Ottawa. Mike Gartner was a right wing who starred for several hockey teams, including the Washington Capitals, who retired his Number 11. But he never appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals, being traded by the Rangers at the trading deadline in 1994, in a trade that helped them win the Cup, to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who made it to the Western Conference Finals before losing.
Among players who have never won a Cup, he is 2nd to Phil Housley in games played, and 2nd to Marcel Dionne in goals, with 708. In 2017, he was named to the NHL's 100th Anniversary 100 Greatest Players. He and former Caps teammate Wes Jarvis run a string of ice rinks in the Toronto area.
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October 29, 1960: Cassius Clay, coming off his Olympic Gold Medal in Rome, has his 1st professional fight, in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. He fights Tunney Hunsaker, the fight goes the maximum 6 rounds, and Clay wins a unanimous decision. He later admitted that he wasn't prepared to face a professional fighter, and that Hunsaker gave him one of the hardest body blows he would ever receive.
Not an especially interesting beginning for the man who will become Muhammad Ali, one of the most interesting people who has ever lived. Hunsaker, a U.S. Air Force veteran, returned to his native West Virginia, and was named a police chief at age 27, serving for 38 years. He and Ali stayed in touch and became friends. Hunsaker disagreed with Ali's decision to refuse being drafted, but he respected Ali's dedication to principle. Hunsaker died in 2005.
Also on this day, a C-46 plane crashes during takeoff near Toledo, Ohio, killing 22 people, including 16 players for the football team at California Polytechnic State University of San Luis Obispo. (The school known as "Cal Poly" should not be confused with the California Institute of Technology, a.k.a. "Caltech," in Pasadena.)
They had just lost 50-6 to a Bowling Green team that featured future actor Bernie Casey. An investigation revealed that the plane was overloaded, weighing over 2,000 pounds more than it should have. Fog was also a factor: It was so bad that the City of Toledo suspended taxi service for the night.
Amazingly, 26 people on board survived, including quarterback Ted Tollner, who went on to coach USC from 1983 to 1986. "I was the cutoff for who lived and died," Tollner said in a 2006 interview. "Everyone in front of me died. Everyone behind me survived." I can find no record of how many of the survivors are still alive, only a reference that 13 of the 26 attended a 50th Anniversary memorial service in 2010.
Cal Poly, then an NCAA Division II school, was 1-5, and it canceled the rest of its season. They would bounce back in 1961, going 5-3. As recently as 1957 and '58, they had gone 17-2, with a team that included an offensive tackle who would make his mark in pro football, not as a player, but as a coach, broadcaster and video game impresario: John Madden.
The school won the Division II National Championship in 1980, and is now in the FCS, formerly known as Division I-AA, having most recently made the Playoffs in 2016.
Also on this day, Michael D'Andrea Carter is born in Dallas. A shot-putter, he was named national high school athlete of the year by Track and Field News in 1979. But he went to Dallas' Southern Methodist University, and was on the defense that accompanied the "Pony Express" offense of Eric Dickerson and Craig James that got SMU to a 11-0-1 record and a Number 2 ranking (it should have been Number 1) in the 1982 season.
A defensive tackle, Michael Carter reached 3 Pro Bowls and 3 Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers, winning Super Bowls XIX, XXIII and XXIV. His daughter Michelle Carter also became a shot-putter, winning the women's Gold Medal in the event at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
October 29, 1961: Joel Stuart Otto is born in Elk River, Minnesota. The center won a Stanley Cup with the Calgary Flames in 1989. He scored 195 goals in a career that lasted from 1985 to 1998. He has returned to Calgary, as an assistant coach for the minor-league Calgary Hitmen.
October 29, 1964: Ground is broken for the current Madison Square Garden, on top of Penn Station at 32nd Street & 7th Avenue.
October 29, 1965: Bill McKechnie dies in Bradenton, Florida at age 79. An ordinary 3rd baseman, his 1st managing job, while still a player, came in the Federal League in 1915, with the only New Jersey-based team in major league history, the Newark Peppers.
He later won Pennants as manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates (winning the 1925 World Series), the St. Louis Cardinals (losing the 1928 World Series) and the Cincinnati Reds (losing the World Series in 1939 but winning it in 1940). In 1935, with the Boston Braves, he was Babe Ruth's last manager. In 1948, he won another World Series as a coach with the Cleveland Indians.
He lived long enough to see his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Pirates' Spring Training stadium, in his adopted hometown of Bradenton, is named McKechnie Field in his memory.
October 29, 1966: Drew Jordan Rosenhaus is born in South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey, and grows up in North Miami. Calling himself "The NFL's Most Ruthless Agent," he has represented many players, including troublesome ones, like Warren Sapp, Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson, LeSean McCoy, and former Giant Super Bowl hero turned gun mishap victim Plaxico Burress.
He famously showed himself and injured college star Willis McGahee on cell phones, fooling people into thinking NFL teams were contacting them, thus conning the Buffalo Bills into drafting McGahee. It worked out for everybody: Despite recurring injuries, McGahee rushed for over 8,400 career yards and reached 2 Pro Bowls.
When Terrell Owens infamously feuded with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005, Rosenhaus stood with T.O. in a press conference in T.O.'s driveway in the ritzy Philadelphia suburb of Moorestown, Burlington County, New Jersey. To practically every question, Rosenhaus answered for T.O., "Next question."
In 2016, Rosenhaus began to represent Johnny Manziel on the condition that he seek treatment for substance abuse. That representation ended after a matter of weeks, because "Johnny Football" didn't get treatment. Face it: When you're too radioactive for Drew Rosenhaus to represent you, you've got a problem.
He now represents Antonio Brown, whose mental health has been called into question this season. Drew, don't you get tried of representing head cases? "Next question!"
Also on this day, Detective Comics #359 is published, with a date of January 1967. The title of the story is "The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!" Batgirl is Barbara Gordon, a librarian, and the daughter of Jim Gordon, the Police Commissioner of Gotham City. In the following TV season, she is written into the Batman TV series on ABC, played by Yvonne Craig. In comics, October 29 is retconned in as her birthday.
On TV, Batman's butler, Alfred Pennyworth, discovers her dual identity, but keeps it a secret even from Batman and Robin -- and he keeps theirs, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, respectively, from her. In the comics, though, Bruce and Dick find out, and eventually her father does as well. (Whether the Commissioner knows the identities of Batman and the various Robins has been debated, but not established in canon.)
In the 1988 graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke, an uncostumed Barbara was shot and paralyzed by the Joker. Though confined to a wheelchair, she adopted a new nom de guerre, Oracle, and became a computer hacker and information broker for crimefighters. In the 2011 "New 52" reboot, the paralysis was retconned as not having happened, and she was once again Batgirl.
In the 1997 film Batman and Robin, Batgirl was rewritten as Barbara Wilson, Alfred's niece, played by Alicia Silverstone. In the 2002 Fox TV series Birds of Prey, Dina Meyer played Barbara Gordon, as Oracle, with flashbacks showing her in the Batgirl costume. In 2019, a young Barbara was played by Jeté Laurence on the Fox TV series Gotham.
While she has been apparently referenced on The CW's Arrow and mentioned (as Barbara, not either of her crimefighting identities) on the DC Universe network's Titans, she has not yet been shown on Titans or in "The Arrowverse."
October 29, 1967: Expo 67 closes in Montreal, a spectacular success. The following year, Montreal would receive a National League expansion team. It is named in honor of the World's Fair: The Montreal Expos.
Also on this day, Narciso Chicho Delgado Elvira is born in Tlalixcoyan, Veracruz, Mexico. A pitcher, he appeared in 4 games with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1990. He staged a comeback in Japan, and pitched a no-hitter for the Osaka-based Kintetsu Buffaloes in 2000. (UPDATE: On January 28, 2020, Elvira and his son were shot and killed in Veracruz city, the capital of their home State.)
Also on this day, Joely Fisher (no middle name) is born in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, California, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Connie Stevens. She played Paige Clark on Ellen and Joy Stark on 'Til Death -- which, despite its title, was also a sitcom.
October 29, 1968: Johan Olav Koss is born in Drammen, Norway. The speed skater won a Gold Medal at the Winter Olympics in 1992 in Albertville, France, and 3 more at the 1994 edition in his homeland, in Lillehamer. He and American speed skater Bonnie Blair were named Sportspeople of the Year by Sports Illustrated in 1994.
October 29, 1969, 50 years ago: The 1st-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, thus making this a possible birthdate for the Internet.
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October 29, 1970: A pair of Dutch soccer legends are born. Edwin van der Sar is born in Voorhout, South Holland, the Netherlands. The goalkeeper starred in his native land for Ajax Amsterdam (winning 4 League titles, 3 Dutch Cups, the domestic "Double" in 1998 and the Champions League in 1995), in Italy for Juventus (where he was the 1st non-Italian to be their starting goalie) and in England for Fulham, before going to Manchester United (where he backstopped them to 4 Premiership titles and the 2008 Champions League).
The most-capped player in the history of the Dutch national team, he is now back at Ajax, as chief executive officer.
Also on this day, Phillip John-William Cocu is born in Eindhoven, South Brabant, the Netherlands. The midfielder led hometown club PSV Eindhoven to the League title in 1997, 2005, 2006 and 2007, and the Dutch Cup in 1996 and 2005 (the latter making for a League & Cup "Double"). In between his stints at PSV, he helped Barcelona win a League title in 1999.
He played for the Netherlands at the 1998 and 2006 World Cups, and is now PSV's manager, having taken them the 2012 Dutch Cup, and the League title in 2015, 2016 and 2018. He now manages Derby County in England's East Midlands.
October 29, 1971: Winona Laura Horowitz is born in Winona, Minnesota. Her hippie parents named her for her birthplace. Sometimes, that works, as with Italian-born Florence Nightingale. Sometimes it doesn't, as with David and Victoria Beckham's son Brooklyn.
She renamed herself Winona Ryder, after 1960s rocker Mitch Ryder. She is bets known for playing Veronica Sawyer in Heathers. You don't like that? "Lick it up, baby, lick it up!"
What does she have to do with sports? As far as I know, nothing. I just like her.
Also on this day, Matthew Lawrence Hayden is born in Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia. A longtime star for the Queensland state cricket team, he was a member of the Australia teams that won the 2003 and 2007 Cricket World Cups. He was named in a poll as the best opener in the national team's history. He now works for the Queensland state tourist board.
Also on this day, Duane Allman is killed in a motorcycle accident in his native Georgia. He was only 24 years old, and, in spite of his hard-living image, was not under the influence of alcohol or any other drug. A truck had to make a sudden stop, and he couldn't avoid it.
He had already made himself a legend, recording "Whipping Post" (with his brother Gregg singing lead and playing keyboards) for The Allman Brothers Band, and doing a dueling guitar solo with Eric Clapton on "Layla" by Derek & the Dominoes. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine named him 2nd on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, behind Jimi Hendrix.
A little more than a year after Duane's crash, just 3 blocks away from the site, Allman Brothers bass guitarist Berry Oakley was killed in a motorcycle crash, slamming into a stopped bus. They are buried next to each other in Macon.
October 29, 1972: Gabrielle Monique Union is born in Omaha, Nebraska. She played Alice Kramden to Cedric the Entertainer's Ralph in the 2005 film version of The Honeymooners. She was formerly married to Michigan and Jacksonville Jaguars running back Chris Howard, and was one of several actresses who had been linked to Derek Jeter. She is married to basketball star Dwyane Wade.
Also on this day, Tracee Joy Silberstein is born in Los Angeles. The daughter of singer Diana Ross (and half-sister of actress Rhonda Ross Kendrick), she acts under the name Tracee Ellis Ross. She starred as Joan Clayton on the Fox sitcom Girlfriends, and now stars as Dr. Rainbow "Bow" Johnson on the ABC sitcom Blackish.
Girlfriends has often been compared to a sitcom of the previous decade, Living Single, with Joan compared to Queen Latifah's character Khadijah James, not least because both characters' fathers were played by basketball player-turned-actor Michael Warren (Officer Bobby Hill on Hill Street Blues).
October 29, 1973: Robert Emmanuel Pirès is born in Reims, France, the son of a Portuguese father and a Spanish mother. A midfielder, "Super Rob" was a member of France's World Cup winners in 1998, and the Arsenal champions of 1998 (League and FA Cup "Double"), 2002 (another Double) and 2004 (undefeated League season). He is now on the Arsenal coaching staff.
Also on this day, Vonetta Jeffery (no middle name) is born in Birmingham, Alabama. Under her married name of Vonetta Flowers, she and Jill Bakken won Gold Medals in the two-woman bobsled at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Bakken was the driver, Flowers the brakewoman. This made the former University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) sprinter the 1st black person, of any country, of either gender, to win a Gold Medal in the Winter Olympics.
Also on this day, Éric Messier is born in Drummondville, Quebec. The left wing played for the Colorado Avalanche from 1997 to 2003, winning the Stanley Cup in 2001. He is no relation to ol' Lex Luthor, a.k.a. the man who's not only the Hair Club Team Captain, but he's also a client.
Also on this day, and this has nothing to do with sports, Match Game 73 aired this exchange on CBS:
Gene Rayburn, host, reading a card with a clue: "Bertha was so fat!"
Bert Convy, host of other game shows, and one of the panelists, interrupts: "How fat was she, Gene?"
Gene: "I'll tell you how fat Bertha was: They had to use (blank) to get her through the revolving door. That's how fat Bertha was."
Richard Voelsing, contestant: "Grease."
Bert: "I'm in the family. I said, 'Lard.'" Ironically, given how fat she apparently was. The show's judges counted it as a match.
Brett Somers, actress and Match Game regular: "I didn't say, 'Lard," I didn't say, 'Grease,' I said, 'Pushers!'"
Jack Carter, comedian: "You should see what pushers are selling nowadays! Well, I know Bertha's sister. She's so fat, she needs a bookmark to find her chins! She used, 'Suction!'"
Fannie Flagg, actress and writer, previously known for her work on Candid Camera, making her 1st appearance on the show before becoming a regular panelist: "This man and I are thinking alike: I said, 'Axle grease.'" It was counted as a match. Only, due to her dyslexia, she unleashed the 1st of her many Match Game misspellings: "Axil grease." Spelling didn't count on that show, much to the relief of Fannie and, later on, Hungarian-born actress Eva Gabor, who said on a 1977 installment, "Darling, I speak 4 languages, but I can't spell in any of them!"
Richard Dawson, actor, and later host of the game show Family Feud: "'Grease!'"
Ann Elder, comedy-show writer, who had been on Laugh-In with Dawson a couple of years earlier: "Well, I wrote a word that was near and dear to my heart as I tried to think of an answer. I wrote, 'Pressure.'" So, 3 matches.
A little later, Gene read, rolling his eyes, "The Vanderwinkles' guest bathtub is soooo huge... " And Convy took the hint and went along with it, asking, "How huge is it, Gene?" And Gene said, "They put up a sign saying, 'No (blank)ing!'" The answer was, "No swimming."
Johnny Carson released a record album, Here's Johnny.... Magic Moments From The Tonight Show, in 1974, and there's a "How hot was it?" line on it. I can find no reference to when that show was broadcast. It could have been before October 29, 1973, but I can't prove it. So this Match Game
episode is the earliest example I have yet found of the old "How (adjective) is/was (pronoun)?" bit on TV.
But on a 1975 Match Game episode, somebody yelled out a response from the audience, and Brett asked, "What is he, Ed McMahon?" This suggests that McMahon, Carson's announcer and sidekick, was the 1st to do the routine -- or, at least, that Brett thought he was.
In October 1974, DC Comics released Action Comics #442, a story titled "The Midnight Murder Show!" Their analogue to Johnny Carson was Johnny Nevada, since the capital of Nevada is Carson City. Like Carson, Nevada had a habit of going on vacation and needing a guest host. This time, it was Steve Lombard, quarterback-turned-sportscaster, who said, "It was so hot in Metropolis today!" The audience yelled, "How hot was it?" Steve said, "It was so hot, I saw the Flash chasing the Mirror Master, and they were both walking!" So, at least by then, the routine was familiar enough that even kids who bought comic books, who might be in school when Match Game aired and in bed when The Tonight Show did, would know it.
I have no way of knowing about the contestants on that Match Game installment, but Convy died in 1991, Rayburn in 1999, Somers in 2007 (shortly before fellow regular panelist Charles Nelson Reilly did), Dawson in 2012, Carter in 2015, and Flagg and Elder are still alive.
October 29, 1974: Robert Allen Dickey is born in Nashville, Tennessee. It's bad enough that he has the name "Dickey," but instead of "Bob," "Bobby" or "Rob," he prefers to call himself "R.A." In baseball, "R.A." is a longtime slang term, short for "Red Ass," meaning a player who's always angry.
Baseball has never truly trusted knuckleball pitchers, and Dickey didn't make his major league debut until 2001, with the Texas Rangers. As late as the dawn of the 2010 season, when he signed with the Mets, he was a 35-year-old journeyman from whom little was expected. But pitching in the spacious confines of Citi Field helped him, and in 2012 he won 20 games, had the best season by a Met pitcher since David Cone in 1988, and won the Cy Young Award. He became a superstar.
And what did the Mets do with this superstar? They immediately traded him, of course, to the Toronto Blue Jays, along with 2 other players, for 4 players, including Travis d'Arnaud, whom they thought would be their catcher of the future.
Well, the trade worked out for both teams: Dickey has gotten the Jays to the Playoffs in 2015 and '16, and d'Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard, a surprise from the trade, helped the Mets win the 2015 Pennant. He retired after pitching for the Atlanta Braves in the 2017 season.
Dickey's career record was 120-118. He was really no better than an average pitcher who had 1 incredible season and made the most of it. But he makes for a great story.
Also on this day, Michael Paul Vaughan is born in Eccles, Greater Manchester, England. A star for Yorkshire County Cricket Club, in 2005 he captained the England team that beat Australia, and thus regained the trophy known as The Ashes, for the 1st time in 18 years. He is now a pundit for the BBC.
October 29, 1975: Gustavo Karim García Aguayo is born in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. He debuted in the major leagues with the 1995 Los Angeles Dodgers, although he was called up too late to be included on their postseason roster. He was the starting right fielder in the 1st game played by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1998. He reached the postseason with the Cleveland Indians in 2001, and the Yankees in 2002 and 2003.
In Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, Pedro Martinez of the Boston Red Sox, as he so often did to Yankee batters, threw a pitch at his head. García ducked, and was only hit in the back. This started a series of events that led to Martinez threatening to murder Jorge Posada, and actually attempting to murder Don Zimmer. The Yankees won the game and the Pennant anyway, taking Game 7 on the Aaron Boone home run.
His contract having run out, he stayed in New York signing with the Mets for 2004, but they traded him to the Baltimore Orioles in mid-season. That was his last season in the major leagues. And yet, along with David Ortiz of the Red Sox, Karim García was 1 of the last 2 men who played in the Aaron Boone Game who is still playing professional baseball: He went to Japan, and last played in 2013 in his native Mexico.
October 29, 1977: Gilda Radner debuts the character of Roseanne Rosannadanna on Saturday Night Live. Her signature close was, "It's always something." Gilda used that as the title of her memoir, published after her death from cancer in 1989. She apparently based the name on New York's WABC-Channel 7 reporter Rose Anne Scamardella. (She's now 71 and retired from broadcast journalism.)
In 2015, Emma Stone played Roseanne Rosannadanna on SNL's 40th Anniversary special, and it was well-received.
October 29, 1978: Kelly Jayne Smith is born in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. A forward, she came to New Jersey to attend Seton Hall University. She played as a forward for the New Jersey Lady Stallions, a soccer team based in Wayne, Passaic County, and the New Jersey Wildcats, based in West Windsor, Mercer County. She also played for the Philadelphia Rage and the Boston Breakers -- the National Women's Soccer League team, not the 1983 USFL franchise of the same name.
She has also starred for Arsenal Ladies, winning 5 League titles and 6 FA Women's Cups, and played for England at the 2007 and 2011 Women's World Cups and Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics. Now retired, she is the all-time leading scorer for the England women's team, with 46 goals. She is now a commentator in the sport, and worked at the 2018 World Cup.
Also on this day, Travis Deion Henry is born in the Orlando suburb of Frostproof, Florida. He was an All-Pro running back for the Buffalo Bills in 2002, and rushed for over 6,000 yards. But he's had 11 children by 10 different women, and in order to make his child support payments, he sold drugs. He got caught, and served 3 years in prison. He has never worked in football again.
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October 29, 1980: Miguel Ángel Cotto Vázquez is born in Providence, Rhode Island. But his parents took him back to their hometown of Caguas, Puerto Rico when he was 2 years old. He has held several boxing titles, starting with the WBO Light Welterweight Championship on September 11, 2004, and, most recently, the WBO Light Middleweight Championship on December 2, 2017.
October 29, 1981: Bill Giles‚ the Philadelphia Phillies' vice president for the past 11 years‚ heads a group of investors which purchases the club for just over $30 million‚ the highest price paid to date for an MLB club.
Giles is the son of longtime National League President Warren Giles. He turned over day-to-day operation of the club to David Montgomery in 1997, and since 2000 has been NL President himself, although this is a powerless, purely ceremonial role, pretty much limited to awarding the trophy named for his father to the NL's Pennant winner.
Also on this day, Amanda Ray Beard is born in Newport Beach, California. The swimmer won Gold Medals at the 1996 and 2004 Olympics.
Also on this day, Jonathan Brown (no middle name) is born in Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia. Now retired from Australian Rules Football, he was the Captain of the Brisbane Lions. He was a 3-time league player of the year, and won 3 league titles with the Lions.
October 29, 1983: At Villa Park in Birmingham, West Midlands, Arsenal defeat host Aston Villa 6-2. Tony Woodcock scored 5 within the game's 1st 48 minutes. Woodcock, who had starred on the trophy-winner Nottingham Forest teams of the late 1970s, scored 56 goals in 4 seasons for Arsenal, but injuries prevented him from fulfilling his promise of stardom.
Also on this day, Maurice Edward Clarett is born in Youngstown, Ohio. As a freshman, the running back helped Ohio State win the 2002 National Championship. Then, figuring freshmen are allowed to come out for the NBA Draft, he tried to make himself eligible early for the NFL Draft, and racked up over $1 million in legal fees.
When he was finally drafted, in 2005 by the Denver Broncos, he was released before ever stepping onto the field, even in an exhibition game, and remained in debt. In 2006, he was arrested for armed robbery, and plea-bargained.
Released from prison in 2010, his only pro playing experience has been in 2010 and '11 for the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League. He has become an advocate for mental health, citing his own issues with it, and a motivational speaker. He has also repaired his relationship with Ohio State, and hosts a podcast titled Business and Biceps. Although it is incredibly unlikely that he'll ever again be involved with pro football, unless it's in a coaching or advisory role, he seems to be okay now.
Also on this day, Dana James Eveland is born in Olympia, Washington. He pitched for the Mets in 2014, and last pitched in 2016 for the Tampa Bay Rays. He has a career record of 20-28.
Also on this day, Jérémy Mathieu (no middle name) is born in Luxeuil-les-Bains, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (Burgundy), France. A defender, he helped FC Barcelona win Spain's La Liga and its FA Cup, the Copa del Rey, in 2015, 2016 and 2017; and the 2015 Champions League. He now plays in Lisbon for Sporting Clube de Portugal.
October 29, 1984: Eric Craig Staal is born in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The All-Star center for the Minnesota Wild was once the Captain of the Carolina Hurricanes, with whom he won the 2006 Stanley Cup. In May 2009, he scored the winning goal with 31 seconds left in regulation in Game 7 to give the 'Canes a 1st-round Playoff series win against the New Jersey Devils. For this, I hate his guts.
He has 3 brothers who play pro hockey: Jordan, who won the 2009 Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and is now Captain of the 'Canes; Jared, a former Hurricane now coaching at the junior level; and Marc of the New York Rangers (therefore someone who sucks). Marc is the only one who has never played for the 'Canes.
October 29, 1987: Andrew Gregory Dalton is born in the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas. He quarterbacked Texas Christian University to victory in the 2011 Rose Bowl, and is a 3-time Pro Bowler with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Also on this day, José Francisco Torres Mezzell is born in Longview, Texas. Despite his Mexican heritage and his long tenure in Liga MX with clubs Pachuca and Tigres UANL, José Francisco Torres plays his international soccer for the U.S., having helped us win the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
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October 29, 1991: Lawrence Godfrey Burton is born in Venice, Florida, outside Sarasota. A tight end, "Trey" Burton won Super Bowl LII with last season's Philadelphia Eagles. He now plays for the Chicago Bears.
October 29, 1994, 25 years ago: The football team at East Brunswick High School, my alma mater, travels to neighboring Sayreville, and plays one of the most intense games in EBHS history. The Bears lead the Bombers 7-0 at the end of the 1st half. But with Sayreville having a 1st and goal, EB stops them cold, including on 4th and 1. Fired up by this defensive stand, they go on to a 14-7 victory.
EB had dominated Sayreville from 1961 (EB's 1st season of football) until 1990, but Sayreville has dominated the rivalry ever since. This win led EB into the State Playoffs. When Piscataway was forced to forfeit 2 wins, that, combined with this win, made EB the Champions of the Greater Middlesex Conference Red Division.
Also on this day, had the 1994 baseball season been allowed to reach a conclusion, this would have been the day Game 6 of the World Series was played, at the National League Champions' home park.
But there was a baseball championship on this day, and it was in a Game 6, of the Japan Series. The Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants beat the Tokorozawa-based Seibu Lions, 3-1 at Seibu Lions Stadium, now the MetLife Dome. Henry Cotto, an outfielder who had reached the Playoffs with the 1984 Chicago Cubs, played for the Yankees from 1985 to 1987, and was an original 1993 Florida Marlin, hits a home run in what turns out to be his last professional game.
Despite being named for the old New York Giants, and having their colors of black and orange, Yomiuri is the Yankees of Japan: This was their 18th win in the Japan Series, and they now have 22. They have won 37 Central League Pennants.
But this is the only season in which they could legitimately have claimed to be "the World Champions of Baseball." They do not claim this, but they could. It's not like the Pacific Coast League Champion Albuquerque Dukes, or the Governor's Cup-winning Richmond Braves could.
October 29, 1995: Matt Stover kicks a field goal in overtime, and the Cleveland Browns defeat their cross-State rivals, the Cincinnati Bengals, 26-23 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Because the Browns are moved to Baltimore after the season, and not restored until 1999, this will be their last win in the "Battle of Ohio" until September 10, 2000.
October 29, 1996: The Yankees have their 1st ticker-tape parade in 18 years.
On this same day, the NBA announces its 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players:
* 18 Guards, in alphabetical order: Nate "Tiny" Archibald, Dave Bing, Bob Cousy, Clyde "the Glide" Drexler, Walt "Clyde" Frazier, George "Iceman" Gervin, Hal Greer, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Sam Jones, Michael "Air" Jordan, "Pistol" Pete Maravich, Earl "the Pearl" Monroe, Oscar "the Big O" Robertson, Bill Sharman, John Stockton, Isiah Thomas, Jerry "Mr. Clutch" West and Lenny Wilkens.
* 16 Forwards: "Pitchin'" Paul Arizin, "Sir" Charles Barkley, Rick Barry, Elgin Baylor, Larry Bird, Billy Cunningham, Dave DeBusschere, Julius "Dr. J" Erving, John "Hondo" Havlicek, Elvin "Big E" Hayes, Jerry Lucas, Karl "the Mailman" Malone, Kevin McHale, Bob Pettit, Scottie Pippen, Dolph Schayes, and "Big Game" James Worthy.
* 15 Centers: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt "the Stilt" Chamberlain, Dave Cowens, Patrick Ewing, George Mikan, Moses Malone, Hakeem "the Dream" Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal, Robert Parish, Willis Reed, David "the Admiral" Robinson, Bill Russell, Nate Thurmond, Wes Unseld and "the Roaring Redhead" Bill Walton.
Only Maravich was already dead, in 1988. He has been followed into the Great Gym In the Sky by Chamberlain in 1999, DeBusschere in 2003, Mikan in 2005, Arizin in 2006, Sharman in 2013, Moses Malone and Schayes in 2015, Thurmond in 2016, Greer in 2018 and Havlicek in 2019. So, 39 of the 50 are still alive. Shaq, in 2011, was the last one still active.
Also on this day, Vince Dunn (apparently, his entire name) is born outside Toronto is Missisauga, Ontario. A defenseman, he plays for the St. Louis Blues, having helped them win this year's Stanley Cup.
October 29, 1999, 20 years ago: The Yankees have their 1st ticker-tape parade in 365 days.
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October 29, 2003: LeBron James, the most-hyped high school basketball player ever, makes his professional debut, 2 months before his 19th birthday. At the ARCO (now Sleep Train) Arena in Sacramento, he plays 42 minutes, scores 25 points, and doesn't make a difference, as his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers lose to the Sacramento Kings, 106-92.
October 29, 2005: Rutgers beats Navy in football, 31-21, at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, Middlesex County, New Jersey. I was there, although I was not one of the people who rushed the field after the final whistle.
Rutgers advanced to 6-2 on the season, although it was only the 5th win over a Division I-A opponent. Still, given that they only needed to win 1 more game to qualify for the 1st real bowl berth in the program's history -- nobody really counted the now-defunct Garden State Bowl of 1978 -- this was a big, big win.
As it turned out, RU lost to South Florida and got blown out by Louisville, before throttling Cincinnati on Thanksgiving weekend to clinch the berth. RU was invited to the Insight Bowl in Phoenix, losing to Arizona State.
Also on this day, cycling superstar Lance Armstrong is the guest host on Saturday Night Live. He's not the only athlete who appears: Scott Podsednik, one of the heroes of the recently-crowned World Champion Chicago White Sox, appears as a correspondent on the "Weekend Update" sketch. The musical guest is Sheryl Crow, then engaged to Armstrong.
They would break up. Later, of course, Armstrong would be revealed as a cheat, so bad his own foundation disavowed him.
October 29, 2006: Silas Simmons passes away at the Westminster Suncoast retirement community in St. Petersburg, Florida. The 111-year old native of Middletown, Delaware was a southpaw hurler in the Negro Leagues from 1913 to 1929, playing for the Homestead Grays, New York Lincoln Giants, and Cuban All-Stars.
He is believed to be the oldest professional baseball player who ever lived. The longest-lived major leaguer was Chester "Red" Hoff, who pitched in the 1910s and lived to be 107. (The oldest living former major leaguer now is Eddie Carnett, an outfielder for the 1941 Boston Braves, 1944 Chicago White Sox and 1945 Cleveland Indians, who just turned 100.)
October 29, 2008: After a 2-day delay for rain, Game 5 of the World Series is resumed at Citizens Bank Park. It begins in the bottom of the 6th, with the game tied 2-2. Geoff Jenkins doubles, is bunted to 3rd by Jimmy Rollins, and is driven in by a Jayson Werth single. Rocco Baldelli ties the game with a home run in the 7th. Later in the inning, Utley takes a grounder, fakes a throw to 1st, then throws Jason Bartlett out at home for the 3rd out in a play later described as having saved the Series for the Phillies.
In the bottom of the 7th, Pat Burrell leads off with a double. Eric Bruntlett, pinch-running for Burrell, scores on a single by Pedro Feliz to put the Phillies up by a run again, 4–3.
In the top of the 9th, Brad Lidge gives up a single and a stolen base, but faces Eric Hinske with the chance to give the city its 1st World Series win since 1980, and its 1st World Championship in any sport since the 1983 76ers. Harry Kalas, the Hall of Fame voice of the Phils, had the call:
One strike away, nothing-and-two to Hinske. Fans on their feet. Brad Lidge stretches. The 0–2 pitch! Swing and a miss! Struck him out! The Philadelphia Phillies are 2008 World Champions of baseball!
Brad Lidge does it again, and stays perfect for the 2008 season, 48-for-48 in save opportunities! And let the city celebrate! Don't let the 48-hour wait diminish the euphoria of this moment and celebration! Twenty-five years in this city that a team has enjoyed a World Championship, and the fans are ready to celebrate. What a night! Phils winning, 4–3, Brad Lidge gets the job done once again!
Harry would die early the next season. He deserved that title.
Also on this day, the Oklahoma City Thunder, who for the previous 41 years had been the Seattle SuperSonics, make their debut. Kevin Durant is not yet the superstar he would become, and scores only 12 points. Richard Jefferson, Charlie Villanueva and Michael Redd each score 20 points, and the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Thunder, 98-87 at the Ford Center (now the Chesapeake Energy Arena).
Also on this day, a North London Derby is played at the Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal. Their arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, take an early 1-0 lead. David Bentley, a member of Arsenal's 2003-04 "Invincibles" who never quite panned out, scores against them for Tottenham. But Arsenal come back, and, on goals by Mikael Silvestre, William Gallas, Emmanuel Adebayor and Robin van Persie (the first 2 considerably more surprising as scorers than the second 2), lead 4-2 in the 88th minute. Darren Bent, always a problem for Arsenal, scored the other goal for "Spurs," but Arsenal are in command.
And they blow it. Jermaine Jenas scores in the 89th, and, with more stoppage time given than necessary, Aaron Lennon scores in the 94th. It's a 4-4 draw.
Within 12 hours, before the last chorus of "Four-two, and you fucked it up!" can stop ringing around North London, Tottenham release a DVD of this match. That's right, they released a video of a draw. True, Arsenal celebrated a draw at White Hart Lane in 2004, but that draw gave them the 1 point they needed to clinch the League title away to their arch-rivals. What did "Spurs" get out of this draw? Not bragging rights: They still hadn't won a League game against Arsenal in 9 years. (That streak would end in 2010.)
Because they're both young black Englishmen who play on the right wing, Lennon (from Leeds in West Yorkshire) and Arsenal's Theo Walcott (from the Stanmore section of Northwest London) often got compared to each other. Tottenham fans call Walcott "a shit Aaron Lennon." No, Aaron Lennon is a shit Aaron Lennon. (That refers only to his performance. He is regarded by all as a man of fine character.)
October 29, 2009, 10 years ago: Game 2 of the World Series. The Yankees' finest season in 6 years is in trouble after losing Game 1, the 1st Series game played at the new Yankee Stadium. While the Phillies -- wearing "HK" memorial patches for Kalas -- are the defending champs, that shouldn't matter: The Yankees have to step it up. Especially considering that the starting pitcher for the Phillies is, perhaps, the most despised pitcher in the history of Yankee opponents, Pedro Martinez.
With a pregame ceremony that includes native New Yorkers Jay-Z and Alicia Keys singing "Empire State of Mind," the Yankees do, indeed, step it up. Mark Teixeira takes Pedro over the wall in the 4th inning, and Hideki Matsui does the same in the 6th, reminding him that the Yankees are his "daddy." A.J. Burnett allowed a run in the 2nd inning, but cruises after that. With tomorrow being a travel day, using Mariano Rivera for 2 innings is no problem, and he shuts the Phils down. Yankees 3, Phils 1. The Series goes to Philadelphia tied.
Also on this day, noted Texas lawyer John O'Quinn is killed in a car crash in Houston, at the age of 68. He was a medical malpractice attorney, taking on hospitals, breast implant manufacturers, and tobacco companies. The crash is officially considered suspicious, but the authorities have yet to be able to prove anything.
The playing surface at the stadium at his alma mater, the University of Houston, was named for him, first at Robertson Stadium, and then at its successor, TDECU Stadium.
*
October 29, 2011: A rare October snowstorm hits the New York Tri-State Area. Eric LeGrand, paralyzed from the neck down during a Rutgers football game the year before, returns to High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey, and, in his wheelchair, leads the Rutgers team onto the field. The photo of him doing so while large snowflakes fell around him was voted "Sports Moment of the Year" by Sports Illustrated readers on the magazine's website.
Unfortunately, as is so often the case for Rutgers when something nice happens, they actually had to play a game. The opponent was West Virginia, then ranked Number 24 in the country. Rutgers lost, 41-31.
Also on this day, Arsenal cross London to play away to Chelsea, whose Stamford Bridge has been a difficult place to play for the better part of a decade. But 3 goals from van Persie, and goals from Walcott and the much-maligned left back Andre Santos, give Arsenal a stunning 5-3 win. It was the 3rd straight win for the Gunners in a streak that would eventually reach 8.
Also on this day, Robert C. "R.C." Pitts dies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at age 92. A guard, he starred on the basketball team at the University of Arkansas, and played for the top amateur team of the era, the Phillips 66ers, a team made up of "ringers" who had nominal jobs with Phillips Petroleum, since pro basketball was not yet big business. He was a member of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the 1948 Olympics in London.
October 29, 2012: Hurricane Sandy hits the New York Tri-State Area, causing devastation all over the Jersey Shore, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, and causing flooding in Lower Manhattan. In some places, power was out for a week. It was a Monday, and power wasn't restored to my residence until the following Monday.
In terms of damage, it was the 2nd-worst hurricane in American history, behind Katrina, which nearly destroyed New Orleans in 2005. In terms of lives lost, there are 286 that were blamed either directly or indirectly on the "superstorm."
In sports terms, the main effect around here was that the Nets' 1st game as a Brooklyn team, scheduled for November 1 against the Knicks at the Barclays Center, was postponed, and was instead played on November 3, the regularly-scheduled 2nd game against the Toronto Raptors. The Nets won, 107-100. The New York City Marathon was also canceled, for what remains the only time in its history.
Today, some parts of the Shore, Queens and Long Island have still not recovered, due to Republican members of Congress not authorizing funds for States that vote Democratic, as New York and New Jersey tend to do.
Even Republican officials like Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York (until he left office at the end of 2013) and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey (until he left office near early in 2018) were unable to sway those lawmakers, some of whom come from Republican-voting States since devastated by hurricanes: North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
Late in 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, and Texas lawmakers demanded relief from the federal government. But when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico -- which, though not a State, is part of the United States of America, and its people citizens thereof -- they did nothing.
Donald Trump ignored his duty as President, and refused to help. The death toll? It depends on who you ask. The federal government said it was 66. Funeral directors on the island have gotten together, and said that they have processed the remains of over 3,000 people -- about as many as were killed on September 11, 2001.
Donald Trump loves Russian dictators so much, he even covers up the effects of disasters like one. Look up how casualties were reported in World War II, the 1982 Luzhniki Stadium disaster, and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown.
Previous Presidents have handled hurricanes fairly well: Franklin Roosevelt got aid to the Northeast after the Hurricane of 1938 (they began to be named for women in 1955, and for men in 1975), Richard Nixon to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Camille in 1969 and the Northeast after Hurricane Agnes in 1972, Jimmy Carter to Florida and the Northeast after Hurricane David in 1979, George H.W. Bush to the Carolinas after Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Florida after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and, of course, President Barack Obama after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
In contrast, George W. Bush screwed up after Hurricane Katrina wrecked New Orleans in 2005, and now Trump, rather than screwing up (making mistakes), has willfully ignored the suffering after Hurricane Maria. What does he care? The people of Puerto Rico legally could not vote for him even if they liked him. They sure don't now.
*
October 29, 2014: For only the 2nd time since Bud Selig -- now, thankfully, overseeing his final game as Commissioner -- declared in 2003 that the League that wins the All-Star Game would have home-field advantage for the World Series, a Series goes to a Game 7. That means that the Kansas City Royals will host it at Kauffman Stadium.
And the 1st time was in 2011, and the St. Louis Cardinals won Games 6 and 7 to beat the Texas Rangers. And the last time the road team has won a Game 7 in the World Series was the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, 35 years earlier. And that means that, despite most of the San Francisco Giants having at least 1 ring (2012) and many of them 2 rings (2010 and 2012), and the Royals are in their 1st World Series in 29 years, the Giants have no chance, right?
Wrong. The teams trade blocks of 2 runs in the 2nd inning, and in the top of the 4th, Pablo Sandoval reaches on an infield single, and advances to 3rd on a single by Hunter Pence. Michael Morse singles him home to give the Giants the lead.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy gambles, sending Madison Bumgarner out to pitch the 5th on 2 days' rest. "MadBum" gave up a hit, but, in a display that wouldn't have seemed so courageous as recently as the 1970s, didn't allow another baserunner until the 9th, retiring 14 batters in a row.
With 1 out to go, Alex Gordon hits a liner that rolls to the wall, and he gets to 3rd. Salvador Perez had already gotten the game-winning hit in the AL Wild Card game. But Bumgarner induces a foul popup that is caught by Sandoval, completing the longest save in World Series history: 5 full innings.
The Giants win, 3-2, and take their 3rd World Championship in the last 5 years -- their 8th World Series win, counting their New York period. The Royals would have to wait at least 1 more year. Gordon would have to wait 1 more World Series game to become a baseball legend.
Also on this day, the Charlotte Hornets name is officially revived. The original Hornets, who played from 1988 to 2002, moved to New Orleans, but were enticed to give the name up in 2013, and take the name of a former minor-league baseball team, the New Orleans Pelicans. The Charlotte Bobcats, created as an expansion team in 2004, are officially allowed to take the Charlotte Hornets name.
Like the Oklahoma City Thunder, the new Hornets play their 1st game at home against the Milwaukee Bucks. Unlike the Thunder, the Hornets win, 108-106 at Time Warner Cable Arena (now the Spectrum Center). Kemba Walker leads all scorers with 26 points.
Also on this day, Rainer Hasler dies at age 56. The right back was the greatest player his country has ever produced. His country is Liechtenstein, a tiny nation in the Alps, home to 37,000 people -- in other words, he occasionally played in stadiums containing more people than his country. He led Geneva-based Servette to the Swiss Cup in 1984 and the Swiss League the next season.
His son Nicholas Hasler later played for FC Vaduz (the club in the national capital, for whom his father also once played) and the Liechtenstein national team, which didn't even exist until after his father retired.
October 29, 2015: Ranko Žeravica dies of long-term heart trouble, in Belgrade at age 85. With a career in basketball that spanned over 50 years, he is most noted for his work with the Yugoslav national team. In particular, Žeravica's single biggest achievement is guiding the country to its 1st-ever major competition win: The Gold Medal on home soil at the 1970 FIBA World Championship. The huge growth in basketball in Yugoslavia, and in the nations that once belonged to it (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia) is due more to him than to any other person.
October 29, 2016: Game 4 of the World Series. The Cleveland Indians get home runs from Carlos Santana and Jason Kipnis, and a fine start from Corey Kluber, and beat the Chicago Cubs 7-2 at Wrigley Field. The Tribe are now 1 win away from their 1st World Championship since 1948.
Three years later, they're still looking for that 1 more win.
October 29, 2017: Game 5 of the World Series. With Clayton Kershaw starting for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dallas Keuchel for the Houston Astros, it is expected to be a pitchers' duel. Expectations were shattered.
The Dodgers scored 3 runs in the top of the 1st, and led 4-0 going to the bottom of the 4th. The Astros tied it up that inning. Each team scored 3 runs in the 5th. The Dodgers took an 8-7 lead in the top of the 7th, but the Astros subsequently made it 11-8. The Astros thus become the 2nd team, after the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays in Game 4, to make 2 comebacks from 3 runs down in a single Series game. The Astros took a 12-9 lead into the 9th, and blew it.
The game went to extra innings, following home runs in regulation by Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig of the Dodgers; and Astros Yuli Gurriel, Jose Altuve, George Springer, Carlos Correa and Brian McCann.
With 2 outs in the bottom of the 10th, Kenly Jansen hit McCann with a pitch (presumably, unintentionally), then walked Springer. Derek Fisher (not the basketball player) was sent in to pinch-run for McCann, who is rather slow. Alex Bregman then singled Fisher home, giving the Astros a 13-12 win, and a 3-2 lead in the Series.
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