It is also the last game as a Yankee broadcaster for Mel Allen, who was fired after 26 years. No reason was given. Rumors abounded: He was an alcoholic, he was a prescription drug addict, he was gay. Apparently, though, in this era when sponsors still had an iron grip on broadcasting, the real reason was that Ballantine beer, the Yankees' sponsor and beneficiary of Mel's calling home runs "Ballantine blasts," saw their sales dropping, and they blamed Mel, the greatest salesman they ever had.
Once the 3rd-largest brewing company in America, Newark-based Ballantine sold out to Falstaff in 1972. This may have been a mistake for Falstaff, and they sold out to Pabst in 1985. Pabst still owns the rights to Ballantine's name and trademarks, including their 3-ring logo and the slogan, with a ring representing each: "Purity, Body and Flavor."
*
The National League race remains undecided going into this last day, thanks to the Philadelphia Phillies' nosedive, and the surges of the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Phillies bomb the Reds 10-0. In those pre-Internet, pre-satellite TV days, the 2 teams then join forces, and sit in the visitors' clubhouse at Crosley Field, listening to a radio (which was appropriate, since longtime Reds owner Powel Crosley made his fortune selling radios), hoping that the Cardinals lose to the Mets at Sportsman's Park (since renamed Busch Stadium, the 1st of 3 ballparks to have now had that name), which would keep both teams alive, and force a 3-way tie for the Pennant.
Since the possibility had already arisen in 1956, when the Reds, Brooklyn Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves had a close race -- the Dodgers ended up beating the Braves by 1 game and the Reds by 2 -- a plan for such an eventuality was already in place.
It wasn't a head-to-head tiebreaker. If it had been, the Cards would have had the edge over the Phils (13-5), the Reds would have had the edge over the Phils (10-8), and the Reds and Phils would have split (9-9). Overall, the Cards would've been 21-15, the Reds 19-17, and the Phils 14-22.
NL President Warren Giles -- who would have to remain neutral, despite having once been the Reds' general manager -- would have drawn lots. The team whose name was written down on the 1st slip of paper he pulled out of a hat or box would be designated "No. 1," followed by "No. 2" and "No. 3." The schedule would have been as follows: No. 1 would have hosted No. 2, then No. 2 would have hosted No. 3, and No. 3 would have hosted No. 1. In other words, all 3 teams would have played each of the other 2 teams, and all 3 teams would have had 1 home game.
If 1 team ended up 2-0, with another 1-1 and another 0-2, the 2-0 team should have been declared the Pennant winner. Instead, the 0-2 team would have been eliminated, and Giles would have drawn another lot to determine home field for a 1-game Playoff. But if all 3 finished 1-1, they would do it all over again.
That's what would have happened over the coming days if the Mets had beaten the Cardinals on October 4, 1964.
Here's what actually does happen: The Mets take a 3-2 lead into the 5th inning‚ but the Cards score 3 runs to regain the lead. The Mets score once more, but the Cardinals complete their scoring with 3 in the 8th, to win 11-5. Bob Gibson wins in relief.
For St. Louis‚ it is their 1st Pennant since 1946, 18 years. For Cincinnati, it is a crushing defeat, as, even though they had won the Pennant just 3 years earlier, they wanted to win for their manager, Fred Hutchinson, who was dying of cancer.
For Philadelphia, which hasn't won a Pennant in 14 years, it is even more devastating: The Phils had led by 6 1/2 games with 12 to play, but went on a 10-game losing streak to blow it. The Phillie Phlop would define the franchise for a generation, and even fans who lived long enough to see the titles of 1980 and 2008 remain scarred by it.
*
For 55 years, Phillies manager Gene Mauch has been blamed for the defeat, mainly due to overusing his 2 best starting pitchers, Jim Bunning and Chris Short.
Mauch was born on November 18, 1925 in Salina, Kansas. He was a barely-serviceable middle infielder in the major leagues from 1944 to 1957, managed the Phillies from 1960 to 1968, the Montreal Expos from 1969 (their 1st manager) to 1975, the Minnesota Twins from 1976 to 1980, the California Angels in 1981 and 1982, and again from 1985 to 1987. He died on August 8, 2005, at age 79.
He kept the Expos in the NL Eastern Division race most of the way in 1973, and took the Angels to the AL Western Division title in 1982 and 1986. But in 1982, he blew a 2-games-to-none lead and lost the Pennant to the Milwaukee Brewers, still the only Pennant that team has ever won.
And in 1986, he blew a 3-games-to-1 lead, including a 3-run lead in the 9th inning of Game 5 at home, and lost the Pennant to the Boston Red Sox, a team better known for being a team that blew great chances than for benefiting from teams blowing them. He is the only man to manage at least 25 seasons in the major leagues and never win a Pennant.
But is he really the person, or phenomenon, most responsible for the '64 Phillie Phlop?
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Gene Mauch for the Philadelphia Phillies Losing the 1964 National League Pennant
Before I do the top 5, let me exonerate someone else:
Richie Allen. He would later insist upon being called Dick Allen, and he has been called that from the 1970s onward. He was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1964, despite being a terrible fielder at 3rd base. So was Harmon Killebrew, and, like Killebrew, in a pre-DH era, he was moved to 1st base, where he could do the least damage. Former outfielder Dick Stuart was also moved to 1st base for this reason, but he was still so bad, he was nicknamed Dr. Strangeglove and Stonefingers. Unlike Allen and Killebrew, he didn't hit enough to overcome his fielding liabilities.
In the 1964 season, Dick Allen batted .318, had 201 hits, hit 29 home runs and 91 RBIs, had a whopping OPS+ of 162, and led the NL with 352 total bases, 13 triples, 125 runs scored... and 138 strikeouts. Some of his home runs were, and would continue to be, the longest seen at Connie Mack Stadium since Jimmie Foxx was hitting them for the Philadelphia Athletics, when the ballpark was still known as Shibe Park.
"Richie" Allen, as Dick was then known, 1964
But was he responsible for the 10-game losing streak, at all?
The streak began on September 21, and ended on September 30. Allen played every inning of every one of those games, a total of 93 innings. (One game in the streak went 12 innings.) He had 44 plate appearances, 41 official at-bats, 17 hits for a batting average of .414, plus 2 walks for an on-base percentage of .432; 4 doubles, a triple and a home run, for a slugging percentage of .634; and 5 RBIs. He got at least 1 hit in 9 of the 10 games. He did make 2 errors, 1 in the 1st game of the streak and 1 in the last.
But holding Dick Allen responsible for the Phlop, in any way, is just plain stupid: Nobody on the team played better during those 10 games than he did. If the Phillies had won the Pennant by 1 game, we'd have spent the last 55 years talking about how he carried the team on his back, the way Carl Yastrzemski did for the Red Sox 3 years later -- and Yaz was 28 at that point, whereas Dick was just 22 at this one. He might have been regarded as a hero from Day One.
The ugly incident the next season with Frank Thomas (not the later Chicago White Sox Hall-of-Famer) might not have happened. If it had, a lot more people would have taken Allen's side. The Phillies might have been able to put together another Pennant run or two. Allen probably wouldn't have been run out of town (or tried to get himself run out of town), and maybe the Phillies' return to glory in the late 1970s could have happened sooner.
Feeling more appreciated, and playing his entire career in Philadelphia, including in the hitter-friendly Veterans Stadium instead of the pitcher-friendly Comiskey Park with the Chicago White Sox from 1972 to 1974, Dick would have hit more than 351 career home runs. Could he have gotten to 400? Probably. Would that, along with whatever he would have won, have been enough to get him into the Hall of Fame? Maybe.
But you certainly can't blame Richie/Dick Allen for the Phillies phailing to win that Pennant.
So, on to the Top 5 reasons why you can't blame Gene Mauch, either:
5. Chico Ruiz. A utility infielder from Cuba, he stole home plate for a walkoff win for the Reds against the Phillies on September 21, starting the streak. Frank Robinson, one of the top sluggers of all time, was at the plate.
If Ruiz had let Robinson hit, maybe he wouldn't have driven in the winning run, and the Phillies might have won in extra innings. Or maybe Robinson would have driven it in, but it wouldn't have been nearly as shocking as a steal of home, and it might not have gotten into the Phillies' heads, and the streak wouldn't have reached 10 games.
If Ruiz had been tagged out, and the Phillies had gone on to win the game, and no other result were changed the rest of the way, the season would have ended with the Phillies and Cardinals tied for 1st, with the Reds 1 game back.
So even if the Cardinals had won the necessary best-2-out-of-3 Playoff, Ruiz would have been considered an idiot who cost the Reds a pretty good shot at the Pennant, and he'd be the biggest goat in the history of Cincinnati sports. And this entry might instead be "Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Chico Ruiz for the Cincinnati Reds Losing the 1964 National League Pennant."
Ruiz made a gamble which looked big at the time, and loomed larger as the streak grew. He was killed in a car crash in San Diego in 1972, while still an active player. He was just 33 years old.
4. No Home Field Advantage. From August 28 to 30, a race riot raged in North Philadelphia, starting at 23rd Street and Columbia (now Cecil B. Moore) Avenue, about a mile south of Connie Mack Stadium (and 6 blocks east of the site of Columbia Park, the Athletics' 1st home 1901-08). The Phillies were in Pittsburgh at the time, so it didn't result in any games being postponed.
But it scared white fans, who may already have been wary of getting mugged coming down Lehigh Avenue out of the subway, or of their cars getting vandalized if they drove in. The Phils had 15 home games left, not counting 2 rainout makeups, and the average attendance was 21,265. They really didn't have a home field advantage.
Plus, football season had begun, and, even when the Eagles are bad, they take more of the Delaware Valley's attention than even a good Phillies team does.
3. The Pitching Situation. Jim Bunning went 19-8 with a 2.63 ERA. Chris Short, 17-9, 2.20. The myth is that Mauch repeatedly used righthander Bunning and lefthander Short on, pardon the choice of words, short rest. The truth?
Dennis Bennett actually made 1 more start that season than Short did (32-31), but went just 12-14, although his ERA of 3.68, while a little high for a 1960s starting pitcher, wasn't that bad. Art Mahaffey made 29 starts, only 2 fewer than Short, and went 12-9, but his ERA was 4.52. Ray Culp made 19 starts, going 8-7, 4.13.
Bunning started on September 13, 16, 20, 24, 27 and 30, and October 4. So there were 4 games down the stretch that he started on just 2 days' rest, and 2 on 3 days' rest. Short started on September 14, 18, 22, 25 and 28, and October 2. So he started twice on 2 days' rest, and 3 times on 3. Mahaffey started on September 21 and 26. Bennett started on September 15, 19, 23 and 29. Rick Wise, only 18 and not yet the proven reliable starter he would become, started on September 17.
In other words, from September 13 to October 4, it was: Bunning, Short, Bennett, Bunning with 2 days' rest, Wise, Short with 3 days' rest, Bennett with 3, Bunning with 3, Mahaffey, Short with 3, Bennett with 3, Bunning with 3, Short with 2, Mahaffey with 4, Bunning with 2, Short with 2, Bennett with 5, Bunning with 2, a day off, Short with 3, a day off, and Bunning with 3.
What would have happened if, instead, Mauch had trusted Mahaffey and Wise more? Maybe not much. And I don't just mean because Wise was only 18. Of the 13 games the Phillies lost between September 18 and 30, 4 were blown by the bullpen. Two of those games were blown by Jack Baldschun, who led the team in saves with 21. Next-best was former Brooklyn Dodger hero Ed Roebuck with 12. Baldschun had an ERA of 3.12 and a WHIP of 1.276, both way too high for a closer then, never mind now.
Yes, the Phils had Bunning and Short, but that was about it. The Cards had Bob Gibson, Roger Craig and Ray Sadecki. And their closer was the much more reliable Barney Schultz.
Interestingly, both teams had a refugee from Philadelphia in 1950: The Phils had Athletics ace Bobby Shantz, wrapping up his career; and the Cards had Curt Simmons, who helped the Phils' "Whiz Kids" win the Pennant that year, but got drafted into the Korean War, possibly costing them the World Series against the Yankees. And, as I said, the Cards also had Barney Schultz, while the Phils' bullpen was not up to the task.
The general manager of the Phillies was John Quinn, the son of a former GM of the Dodgers and the St. Louis Browns. He would later become the father, father-in-law and grandfather of baseball executives. He had been GM of the Braves when they won Pennants in 1957 and '58, so he knew his stuff. But, despite the deep pockets of Phils' owner Bob Carpenter, Quinn did not spend nearly enough on salaries and scouting, and was rarely aggressive in the trade market.
Over the next 7 seasons, 1965 to 1971, a period that included the falling-out between the organization and "Richie" Allen, and the move from Connie Mack Stadium to Veterans Stadium, the Phils finished an average of 20 games out of 1st place in the single-division National League, and from 1969 onward in the NL's newly-created Eastern Division. Take out the 1966 season, when they got to within 8 games of the Pennant (but still in 4th place), and the average deficit rises to 22 games.
Quinn just didn't get the job done in Philadelphia, and in 1972, Carpenter handed control of the team to his son Ruly. He fired Quinn and hired Paul Owens, who turned the franchise around. He wouldn't have had to if Quinn had gotten Mauch the pitchers, both starters and relievers, that he needed. Mauch didn't play his hand well, but it was Quinn who didn't deal him the cards that would have won.
And it wasn't just the pitching. Which brings us to...
2. The Phillies Weren't That Good. They were overachieving. They shouldn't have been that close to the Pennant, pardon the choice of words, in the first place. As catcher-turned-broadcaster Joe Garagiola put it, "Baseball is a funny game."
In 1961, the last season of the 154-game NL schedule, the Phillies went 47-107. This included a 23-game losing streak, the longest in the history of Major League Baseball, with the sole exception of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, a team that was purposely sabotaged by its owners, and dropped 24 straight at one point. To put this in perspective: The expansion 1962 Mets lost a 20th Century record 120 games, but their longest losing streak was 17, 6 fewer than the '61 Phils'. When the 2003 Detroit Tigers set an American League record with 119 losses, their longest losing streak was "only" 11.
The Phillies got better in 1962, splitting the new 162-game season, 81-81. A jump of 34 wins in 1 season is astounding in baseball. In 1963, they won 87 games. A good total, but only good for 4th place, 12 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. Certainly, they were a team on the way up. But they were not among the NL favorites going into the 1964 season: The Dodgers, the Reds, the San Francisco Giants, and the Milwaukee Braves were.
The Reds and the Braves did get close. But the Dodgers were knocked out by an injury to Sandy Koufax, and the Giants had dissension between manager Alvin Dark and their Hispanic players. That opened the door for expected challengers like the Reds and the Braves, and for an unexpected challenger like the Phillies.
In the end, it was the closest race in NL history: 3 teams within 1 game, 4 within 3, 5 within 5. The Cards won over the Reds and Phils by 1 game each, the Jints by 3, the Braves by 5, the Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates by 13, the Chicago Cubs by 17, the Houston Colt .45's (they became the Astros the next year) by 27, and the Mets by 40.
In 1964, the Phillies won 92 games, and lost the Pennant, and are regarded as a failure. In 1980, the Phillies won 91 games, 1 fewer in than in 1964, but it was enough to win the NL East, and they went on to win the Pennant and the franchise's 1st World Series, and they're regarded as the greatest Phillies team ever.
Or, to put it another way: The 1967 Red Sox also won 92 games, but it was enough to win the Pennant by 1 game, and they're an iconic baseball team for good reasons. The '64 Phils remain iconic for bad reasons.
1. The Cardinals Were Better. They were only 6 games behind the Pennant-winning Dodgers in 1963, so it shouldn't have surprised anyone that they made a good run at the Pennant in 1964. Injuries meant that they didn't get close in 1965 or 1966. But, adding Orlando Cepeda (in May '66) and Roger Maris (in December '66) to their title-winning core of 1964, they won another Pennant in 1967, beating the Red Sox in the World Series; and another in 1968, losing the Series to the Detroit Tigers.
In the NL in the 1960s, the Cardinals and Dodgers each won 3 Pennants; the Pirates, Reds, Giants and Mets 1 each. The Phillies only came close the 1 time. They simply weren't as good as the Cardinals.
Or, to put it another way: At how many positions would a Cardinals fan have traded his guy that year for the Phillies' guy that year? 3rd base? Yes, the Phils had Richie Allen, but the Cards had Ken Boyer, their team Captain following the retirement of Stan Musial, and that season's NL Most Valuable Player. Right field? Yes, the Phils had Johnny Callison, but the Cards had a pretty good one in Mike Shannon.
And most of the other Phils starters weren't good hitters. Tony Taylor over Julian Javier at 2nd base? Bobby Wine over Dick Groat at shortstop? Danny Cater over Lou Brock in left field? Please. Except for Allen (in both phases of the game) and Callison, the '64 Phils were mainly a "good-field, no-hit" team. And I've already discussed the pitchers.
VERDICT: Not Guilty. If the Phillies had won the 1964 National League Pennant, it wouldn't have been as big a "miracle" as the 1969 Mets, or as "impossible" a "dream" as the 1967 Red Sox. But it would have been an upset on the scale of, to borrow other contemporary teams, the 1959 White Sox, the 1960 Pirates or the 1965 Minnesota Twins.
And Gene Mauch would have been a hero. With that experience behind him, he might have been able to steer the '82 or '86 Angels to the 1 more win they needed for a Pennant. And he might have gone to his grave on August 8, 2005, from lung cancer at the age of 79, as a member of Baseball's Hall of Fame.
Jim Bunning and Gene Mauch, at a Phillies Old-Timers' Day
Instead, he's either "the best manager never to win a Pennant," or something harsher than that. And he didn't deserve such harshness.
*
October 4, 1582: The Gregorian Calendar, ordered by Pope Gregory XIII to account for the differences in the seasons, so that religious holidays like Easter could be properly set, goes into effect in the Catholic world. In other words, tomorrow will not be October 5, but October 15, 1582.
The difference between the outdoing Julian Calendar, set by Julius Caesar in Roman times, and the Gregorian Calendar, is that years divisible by 100 will not be leap years, with a February 29, unless they are also divisible by 400. Example: 1600 and 2000 would be leap years; but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 would not.
The countries led by the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches would not adopt it immediately. Prussia would not adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1610; the rest of Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, would do so in 1700; the British Empire, including what would be the 1st 13 American States, 1752; Sweden and Finland, 1753; Japan, 1873; Egypt, until then using the Muslim calendar, 1875; Korea, 1876; China and Albania, 1912; Latvia and Lithuania, 1915; Bulgaria, 1916; the Soviet Union, 1918; Romania and Yugoslavia, 1919; Greece, 1923; and Turkey, the last holdout, 1926.
Modern international sport, including such events as the Olympic Games, the various World Cups, and so on would be very difficult to stage without a single unifying calendar.
*
October 4, 1626: Richard Cromwell is born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England. The son of Oliver Cromwell, he served with the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War of the 1640s, and was elected to Parliament in 1653. In 1657, his father named him his successor as Lord Protector, in effect the dictator of the British Isles.
On September 3, 1658, Oliver Cromwell died, leaving his son Richard, not yet 32 years old, in charge. The Army didn't like it. Nor did Parliament. Nor did he, really. On May 25, 1659, Parliament offered to pay his debts if he resigned, and he did. The son of the executed King Charles I was put on the throne as King Charles II the following year.
At that time, Richard left England for France, and did not return for 20 years. He then lived off the income of his estate until his death in 1712, at the age of 85. This made him the longest-lived head of state of England or Great Britain, until Queen Elizabeth II surpassed him in 2012.
October 4, 1669, 350 years ago: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn dies, poor and unremarked, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, at age 63. Like many other artists, he wasn't "discovered" during his lifetime. He would go on to be remembered as the foremost of the "Dutch Masters" painters.
Later Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh said, "Rembrandt goes so deep into the mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language. It is with justice that they call Rembrandt 'magician.' That's no easy occupation." And van Gogh's contemporary, French sculptor Auguste Rodin, said, "Compare me with Rembrandt! What sacrilege! With Rembrandt, the colossus of Art! We should prostrate ourselves before Rembrandt, and never compare anyone with him!"
He became especially known for his self-portraits and his paintings of Biblical events. Ironically, what had long been considered his best-known painting, The Man with the Golden Helmet, has been studied, and found to have inconsistencies with his works. Its painter remains a mystery, but is generally considered to be someone in the painters known as "the Circle of Rembrandt."
October 4, 1777: The Battle of Germantown is fought in what is now Northwest Philadelphia. Sir William Howe, the British General already known as the man who conquered New York (both Manhattan and Long Island), now conquers the American capital of Philadelphia, routing General George Washington.
All seems lost for the new country and its Continental Army, until later in the month, at Saratoga, far Upstate in New York. Meanwhile, Washington will take his men to nearby Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where a legend will be born.
This is the greatest defeat anyone calling Philadelphia home has ever suffered. And it has nothing to do with sports. Although the Phillies will have disasters of their own, including in October 1977, 200 years later.
October 4, 1810: Eliza McCardle is born in Leesburg, Tennessee, and grows up in nearby Greenville. In 1827, she married a poor younger tailor named Andrew Johnson. Having had no formal education, he credited her with teaching him how to write and perform arithmetic. They had 3 sons and 2 daughters.
In 1857, the Tennessee legislature elected him as one of its U.S. Senators. In 1864, he was elected Vice President of the United States. On April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died from his assassination, and Andrew was now the 17th President, making Eliza the First Lady. She was 16 at the time of her marriage, making her the youngest-married First Lady ever, although she was 54 when she reached the position.
But she was unable to fulfill the duties of First Lady, as she was already suffering from tuberculosis. The couple's daughter, Martha Johnson Patterson, was the de facto First Lady until the Johnsons left office on March 4, 1869. Oddly, she outlived her husband, surviving until January 15, 1876, at age 65.
October 4, 1822: Rutherford Birchard Hayes is born in Delaware, Ohio, outside Columbus. In 1876, as Governor of Ohio, a former Congressman and a Union General in the American Civil War, he was elected the 19th President of the United States, under dubious circumstances. But his actual time in office was blameless, and many people credit him with restoring the credibility of the Presidency after the scandals of Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant (who was personally honest, but made poor choices in friends and/or appointees).
As far as I know, Hayes had nothing to do with baseball, although his time in office, including the 1877, 1878, 1879 and 1880 seasons, was a time of big growth for the game.
October 4, 1830: Belgium declares its independence from the Netherlands. The small, half-French, half-Dutch country has distinguished itself in sports, particularly in soccer and bicycle racing.
October 4, 1867: At Brooklyn's Satellite Grounds‚ two black teams play a match called "the championship of colored clubs" by the Daily Union newspaper. The Philadelphia Excelsiors outscore the Brooklyn Uniques‚ 37-24‚ in a game called after 7 innings on account of darkness.
October 4, 1872: Ernest Artel Blood is born in Manchester, New Hampshire. From 1915 to 1924, he coached Passaic High School in North Jersey to 200 wins against just 1 loss. From 1919 to 1925, the "Passaic Wonder Five" won 159 consecutive games, believed to be the longest streak in American history. It did not end until after Blood left.
He left for nearby St. Benedict's Prep in Newark, coaching them until 1950, with a record of 421-128, including 5 State Championships. He died in 1955, before the Basketball Hall of Fame was established. He was elected to it in 1960.
October 4, 1876: The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas opens in College Station. In 1963, they made their nickname their official name: Texas A&M University. The "Aggies" have long had stories programs in baseball and football, producing Heisman Trophy winners John David Crow and Johnny Manziel, and producing such baseball greats as Rip Collins, Wally Moon and Chuck Konblauch.
October 4, 1880: At a special National League meeting in Rochester‚ the League prohibits its members from renting their grounds for use on Sundays and from selling alcoholic beverages on the premises. These rules are aimed at the Cincinnati club‚ which has sold beer and rented out the park to amateur teams for Sundays.
This led directly to the formation, with the Cincinnati Reds as founding member, of the American Association in 1882. They became known as the Beer and Whiskey League.
Also on this day, Alfred Damon Runyon is born in Manhattan, Kansas. But it would be Manhattan Island in New York City where he would make his name -- but first, he dropped his first name. Damon Runyon became an icon, associated with the more raffish side of New York, full of gamblers, con men, cops on the take, men on the make.
His stories would be adapted for the film Little Miss Marker and the musical Guys and Dolls. Even today, 72 years after his death, when you call someone or something "Runyonesque," people know exactly what you're talking about.
October 4, 1887: Ray Lyle Fisher is born in Middlebury, Vermont. He pitched for the Yankees from 1910 to 1917, and helped the Cincinnati Reds win the 1919 World Series. From 1921 to 1958, he was the head coach at the University of Michigan, and their baseball stadium is named for him.
In 1982, having discovered that he was now the oldest living ex-Yankee, the Yankees invited him to Old-Timers' Day. He had pitched for the Highlanders/Yankees at Hilltop Park and the Polo Grounds, but this was the 1st time he had ever been to Yankee Stadium. He died later that year, at age 95.
October 4, 1888: The New York Giants win their 1st National League Pennant, defeating the Chicago White Stockings (forerunners of the Cubs) 1-0 at the original Polo Grounds, at 111th Street & 5th Avenue.
There were 6 players on this team who would end up in the Baseball Hall of Fame: Slugging 1st baseman Roger Connor, shortstop John Montgomery "Monte" Ward, outfielder Jim "Orator" O'Rourke, catcher William "Buck" Ewing, and pitchers Tim Keefe and Michael "Smilin' Mickey" Welch.
Not in the Hall of Fame is manager Jim Mutrie. He managed the 1st team known as the New York Metropolitans -- and, yes, they were called the Mets for short -- to New York City's 1st professional Pennant, in the American Association in 1884. He was then hired away by the New York Gothams, but, in 1886, proud of his player, he publicly called them "my big boys, my giants." And Giants they have been, in New York (from 1886 to 1957) and San Francisco (since 1958), ever since.
Also on this day, Joseph Taylor dies at age 37. I can't find a cause, but, given the state of medicine in the late Victorian Age, it could have been any of several things curable (or at least treatable) today.
A fullback, he was one of the founders of Glasgow soccer team Queen's Park (aside from name, they have no connection to West London team Queens Park Rangers), and helped them with the Scottish Cup in 1874, 1875 and 1876. He and his Queen's Park team formed the Scotland team that played England in the 1st international football match, at the West of Scotland Cricket Club in Glasgow, which ended in a scoreless draw.
October 4, 1889, 130 years ago: John Brendan Kelly is born in Philadelphia. He made a fortune in the construction industry, then served in the U.S. Army during World War I. He entered the armed forces' boxing tournament, and was 12-0 before he had to drop out with an injury. The tournament was won by a Marine, Gene Tunney, who went on to become Heavyweight Champion of the World. Jack Kelly told Tunney, "Aren't you lucky I broke my ankle?"
He played pro football for the Holmesburg Athletic Club in Northeast Philadelphia, leading them to the 1919 and 1920 City Championships. But his best sport was rowing, having practiced on the Schuylkill River in his hometown. He won Olympic Gold Medals in 1920 in Antwerp, Belgium (2 of them) and in 1924 in Paris.
He married Margaret Majer, who became the 1st women's sports coach at the University of Pennsylvania. Their children included Jack Kelly Jr., who followed his father into rowing, won the Sullivan Award as America's top amateur athlete in 1947, won a Bronze Medal in Melbourne in 1956, and was elected President of the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1985, right before he died of a heart attack at age 57.
They also included Grace Kelly, who became one of America's top actresses, but left Hollywood in 1956 to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco; their son is now that country's monarch, Prince Albert II. He and his wife Charlene have also been Olympic athletes. But Grace, too, would die young, in a car crash in 1982, just 52. Jack Kelly Sr. was 70 when he died of cancer in 1960.
Jack Kelly Sr. was the basis for the character of George Kittredge, played by John Howard, in the 1940 film The Philadelphia Story. When it was made into a musical in 1956, as High Society, Grace Kelly played George's fiancee, Tracy Lord.
October 4, 1890: James "Deacon" White plays his last professional game, in a career that began in 1868. The 1st batter in the 1st game in the 1st professional league, the National Association, in 1871, he plays 3rd base (having spent the 1st half of his career as a catcher) for the Buffalo Bisons in the Players League, losing 5-0 to the team known as Brooklyn Ward's Wonders, at Olympic Park in Buffalo.
A 2-time National League RBI champion and its 1877 batting champion, he died in 1939, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2013 -- the 123-year gap between his last game and his election being a record for any sport through 2018.
October 4, 1891: On the final day of the American Association season, Ted Breitenstein of the St. Louis Browns (the team soon to be known as the Cardinals) throws a no-hitter against the Louisville Colonels in an 8–0 win. It is Breitenstein's 1st major league start. He faced the minimum amount of batters, 27, allowing just one base on balls.
It was also the last no-hitter thrown in the AA, as the league folded following the season.
The next season, the pitching distance will be extended from 50 feet to 60 feet, 6 inches, making achievements in pitching durability a lot harder. Many star pitchers of the time will never be the same, although Rusie will remain successful through the rest of the 1890s. However, it is the speedy pitching of Rusie, the Indiana native known as "the Hoosier Thunderbolt," that lead the NL to believe that a longer pitching distance would be safer for hitters.
October 4, 1895: The 1st U.S. Open golf tournament is held, at the Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. Horace Rawlins, a 21-year-old Englishman, won it.
Gary Woodland won this year's tournament, at the Pebble Beach Golf Links, outside Monterey, California. It was his 1st major. Willie Anderson, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus hold the record for the most U.S. Open victories, with 4 each.
Hale Irwin was the oldest winner, at 45 in 1990. The youngest winner was John McDermott, in 1911: He would still be a teenager for a few more weeks. With the death in 2016 of Arnold Palmer, Gene Littler, in 1961, is the earliest surviving former winner. The 2018 tournament will be held from June 14 to 17, at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Shinnecock Hills, Suffolk County, on New York's Long Island.
Also on this day, Joseph Frank Keaton is born in Piqua, Kansas. He didn't grow up in any one place, as his parents were traveling vaudeville performers. A fall at the age of 18 months led a friend of the family to say, "That was a real buster!" The friend was Harry Houdini, and the boy was Buster Keaton for the rest of his life.
Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle gave him his start in silent films, and he built a career as perhaps the greatest silent comedian after Charlie Chaplin. Orson Welles called his 1926 Civil War film The General "perhaps the greatest film ever made."
He developed a drinking problem, but recovered from it, and made the transition to talking pictures. Among his last roles were as a time traveler on a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone, and in the 1963 cast-of-thousands comedy epic It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
October 4, 1898: Harold Wadsworth (no middle name) is born in Liverpool. A centreback, he moved up through local soccer teams Bootle St. Matthews and Tranmere Rovers, before joining his older brother Walter Wadsworth at Liverpool FC.
Together, the brothers helped Liverpool win the 1922 and 1923 Football League titles. Harold lived until 1975, Walter only until 1951.
*
October 4, 1900: Robert Shaen Dawe is born in Yonkers, Westchester Country, New York. We knew him as Robert Shayne. The actor was best known for playing Inspector Bill Henderson on The Adventures of Superman in the 1950s. He died in 1992.
October 4, 1902: The University of Kansas and Kansas State University play each other in football for the 1st time. The Kansas Jayhawks beat the Kansas State Wildcats 16-0, on the Jayhawks' campus in Lawrence. The Jayhawks lead the all-time series, 64-45-5.
October 4, 1904: Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Göteborg is founded in Sweden. IFK Göteborg won the Swedish Championship in 1908, 1918 and 1918, then the national league, the Allsvenskan, 13 times from 1935 to 2007, for a total of 18 titles. They've won the Svenska Cupen (Swedish Cup) 7 times since 1979, most recently in 2015.
They are also the only Swedish team ever to win a major European trophy, having won the UEFA Cup (now the UEFA Europa League) in 1982 and 1987. Their closest call in the European Cup/UEFA Champions League is the Semifinals in 1986 and 1993.
Also on this day, Samuel Joachim (no middle name) is born in Newark, New Jersey. Better known as Jimmy Ritz, he and his brothers Al and Harry formed the legendary Ritz Brothers comedy team. Al lived until 1965, Jimmy until 1985, and Harry until 1986.
October 4, 1905: Just 1 point apart in the batting race on the final day of the season, Cincinnati Reds center fielder Cy Seymour and Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Honus Wagner played against each other in a doubleheader. Seymour entered the last day with a league-leading .365 average, and Wagner was in 2nd place, batting .364. A very good day at the plate for Honus combined with a poor one for Cy would have reversed their positions.
Seymour had 4 hits in 7 attempts to end up with the NL batting title (.377), while Wagner collected 2-for-7 to end up in 2nd place (.363). Don't weep for Honus, though: He won 8 batting titles.
A newspaper account of the day stated "…10,000 were more interested in the batting achievements of Wagner and Seymour than the games…cheer upon cheers greeted the mighty batsmen upon each appearance at the plate…"
October 4, 1906: The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-0, and notch their 116th win of the season. It remains a major league record, although it was tied in 2001 by the Seattle Mariners. But the Cubs' winning percentage of .763 remains a record for either of the current major leagues. Both the 1906 Cubs and the 2001 M's found out that it doesn't mean a whole lot if you don't win the World Series.
October 4, 1909, 110 years ago: Thomas McCall Smith is born in Fenwick, Scotland. On April 9, 1938, he was 1 of 5 players for Lancashire club Preston North End who played in Scotland's stunning 1-0 win over England at Wembley Stadium in London. Three weeks later, those players returned to Wembley, and led Preston to win the 1938 FA Cup.
Tom Smith had previously played for Kilmarnock in Scotland, and later served as their manager. He lived until 1998.
*
October 4, 1910: Frank Peter Joseph Crosetti is born in San Francisco. "The Crow" played for the Yankees from 1932 to 1948, and coached for them from 1949 to 1968. No other uniformed man has been a part of as much baseball title-winning as he has: 23 Pennants and 17 World Championships. (That's 8 Pennants and 7 World Championships as a player, 15 Pennants and 10 World Championships as Yankee 3rd base coach.) He was also a 2-time All-Star
The shortstop was a good fielder, but not much of a hitter, batting .245 lifetime. He did hit a home run off Dizzy Dean, who was running out the string with the Cubs, in Game 2 of the 1938 World Series. He was also the last survivor of the Yankees' 1936 World Series win.
In 1969, wanting to be closer to home on the Pacific Coast -- he'd moved to Stockton, California -- he accepted the 3rd base coach's job with the expansion Seattle Pilots, who included former Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton. Frankie didn't think much of Jim, and the feeling was mutual. A segment in Bouton's book Ball Four suggests that Crosetti holds the record for "slaps on the ass" given by 3rd base coaches to home run hitters rounding the bases. It's estimated that he waved 16,000 runners home.
When the Pilots moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers in 1970, Crosetti didn't go with them, coaching with the Minnesota Twins in 1970 and '71, before finally calling it quits. He and the Yankees had a bit of a strained relationship: He never returned to Old-Timers' Day, usually saying he didn't want to fly across the country; and he was the only member of the 1932 Yankees to publicly say that he thought Babe Ruth did not "call his shot" in that year's World Series. He was not the last survivor of the '32 Yanks, though: He died in 2002, and pitcher Charlie Devens outlived him by a year.
October 4, 1913: Washington Senators manager Clark Griffith uses 8 pitchers -- unheard-of in that era -- in an end-of-season farce game with the Boston Red Sox‚ including 5 in the 9th inning. At age 43‚ the former Chicago Cubs hurler pitches an inning himself. Coach John Ryan‚ also 43‚ catches. Griffith also plays right field, where he plays one off his head and misplays Hal Janvrin's liner into an inside-the-park homer.
On the other end of the scale‚ 17-year-old Merito Acosta, a white Cuban who was one of the 1st Hispanic players in the American major leagues, plays left field alongside Walter Johnson in center field. Johnson then comes in for the 8th inning to lob pitches to 2 hitters. Both batters‚ Clyde Engel and Steve Yerkes, lace hits to send Johnson back to center. Then‚ in relief‚ Nats catcher Eddie Ainsmith‚ in his only major league pitching appearance‚ gives up 2 triples to allow the baserunners to score.
The Sox score in the 9th on Hal Janvrin's 2nd inside-the-park homer of the game. Joe Gideon‚ in his only pitching appearance, retires the last 2 batters as Washington wins‚ 10-9‚ beating Fred Anderson who goes the distance.
The 2 runs "allowed" by the Big Train will have historical repercussions: His ERA for the season goes from 1.09 to 1.14‚ and Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA in 1968 will put Johnson's ERA in 2nd place on the all-time list (in the post-1893 60-feet-6-inches era, anyway). The 8 pitchers sets a MLB record that won't be matched until the Dodgers do it on September 25‚ 1946.
October 4, 1914: Bruce Adams Sloan is born in McAlester, Oklahoma. A right fielder, he played for the New York Giants in the 1944, one of the players who wouldn't have made the major leagues if not for the manpower drain of World War II. But he has the distinction of having played in the "Tricornered Game" against the Yankees and the Dodgers, to raise war bonds. He lived until 1973.
October 4, 1917: Marvel Keith Harshman is born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. His parents named him "Marvel Keith"? That's harsh, man.
Okay, atrocious pun aside, Marv Harshman was a great athlete, winning 13 varsity letters at Pacific Lutheran University in Parkland, Washington, and being drafted by the NFL's Chicago Cardinals. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy instead.
After World War II, he went into coaching, running the baseball, football and basketball programs at Pacific Lutheran, then basketball at Washington State, and then from 1971 to 1985 at the University of Washington. He won 637 games as a college basketball coach, and won the 1984 and 1985 Pacific-10 Conference titles at UW. He died in 2013.
Also on this day, Clarence Bowden Wyatt is born in Kingston, Tennessee. "Clarence Bowden"? Why, it's (Wyatt's) not as bad as "Marvel Keith," but he dropped his first name, and went by "Bowden Wyatt." He was a 2-way end on the University of Tennessee's 1938 National Championship team. He later served as head coach at Wyoming and Arkansas, before returning to Tennessee, including winning a share of the National Championship in 1956. His career record was 99-56-5. He died in 1969, only 51 years old.
There are 4 men who have been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame twice, as both a player and a coach. Two of them were coached by General Bob Neyland at the University of Tennessee: Bobby Dodd and Bowden Wyatt. There other 2 are Amos Alonzo Stagg and Steve Spurrier.
Also on this day, Ruen Young Bussey is born in Timpson, Texas, and grows up in Houston, where he becomes a high school classmate of future CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite and noted heart surgeon Denton Cooley. He and Ken Kavanaugh starred in football at Louisiana State University, and both went on to play for the Chicago Bears.
Kavanaugh played 2-way end for the Bears, and helped them win the 1940, '41 and '46 NFL Championships. Young Bussey (he dropped his first name) wasn't so lucky. He played the 1940 season for the minor-league Newark Bears (a Chicago farm team), before playing the 1941 season in Chicago, and winning the title as backup quarterback to Sid Luckman.
That would be his only season in the NFL, as coach-general manager-owner was committed to keeping Luckman as starting quarterback. So Bussey enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in World War II. Lieutenant Bussey was commended for his actions at the Battle of Guam, but on January 7, 1945, he was killed during the invasion of Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines. He was 27.
October 4, 1918: At 7:36 PM, the T.A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant, making munitions for the U.S. effort in World War I, explodes on Cheesequake Creek in the Morgan section of Sayreville, Middlesex County, New Jersey.
One explosion led to another, and they went on all night. The fires started by the explosions could be seen for miles, including across the Arthur Kill in Staten Island, New York. Over 300 buildings were destroyed, including the one containing the company's records. For this reason, it's not known for sure how many people died, but the number is believed to be over 100.
I've lived my whole life in Middlesex County, and this is the greatest tragedy ever to befall Central Jersey. Today, the Morgan Marina and a housing development called the Highland House Apartments are on the site. It's a gated community, so it might be difficult to visit. As you might guess, it was pounded again by Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012.
A cemetery, where some of the victims -- just pieces, so they don't even know how many, but they think it's between 14 and 18 -- are buried under a large monument, is on Ernston Road, on the municipal border between Sayreville and Old Bridge. I used to pass it on the way to a job at a building on Ernston, next to U.S. Route 9.
It was particularly poignant on April 15, 2009, the 20th Anniversary of the Hillsborough Disaster in England, at an FA Cup Semifinal at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, Yorkshire, at which a similar number of people died, 96. Having to walk up Ernston from my bus stop in order to be on time for work at 10:30 AM, I passed the cemetery at 10:06 -- 3:06 PM British time, the time the match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest was stopped due to the referee realizing what was happening in the stands.
Also on this day, George David Munger is born in Houston. A pitcher, Red Munger was a 3-time All-Star, and helped the St. Louis Cardinals win 3 Pennants. He was a member of their 1944 World Champions, and pitched a complete-game victory in Game 4 of the 1946 World Series, which the Cardinals won in 7 games. He finished 77-56 for his career, and died in 1996.
October 4, 1919, 100 years ago: Game 4 of the World Series. Eddie Cicotte, in on the fix, didn't want to look as bad as he had in Game 1, to throw off suspicion. He and Jimmy Ring traded goose eggs for 4 innings. But in the 5th, Cicotte made a bad throw. Shoeless Joe Jackson made a run-allowing error on the next play. The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago White Sox 3-1, and take a 2-1 lead in the Series.
After the game, Joseph J. "Sport" Sullivan, the Boston bookmaker who helped put the fix together, gave $20,000 to Arnold "Chick" Gandil, who split it equally among the 2 men who'd led the fix from the players' side, Charles "Swede" Risberg, Oscar "Happy" Felsch; and the next day's starter, Claude "Lefty Williams.
*
October 4, 1922: Game 1 of the World Series. The Yankees lead the Giants 1-0 in the bottom of the 8th, but the Giants rally off Bullet Joe Bush, and make a 3-1 winner out of Rosy Ryan.
Also on this day, Donald Eugene Lenhardt is born. He was a utility player who was with the St. Louis Browns when they moved to become the Baltimore Orioles in 1953-54. He served as the 1st base coach for the Red Sox from 1970 to 1973, and then as one of their scouts until 2004. He died in 2014.
October 4, 1923: Nathan M. Ohrbach opens a department store on Union Square in Manhattan. Ohrbach's would boom in the post-World War II economy, including opening a store at the Woodbridge Center Mall in Middlesex County, New Jersey in 1971.
But around that time, things started going downhill. In 1987, losing money, they sold out to Steinbach, which converted all Ohrbach's locations to Steinbach's. They didn't last much longer, either, going out of business in 1999. Today, the Ohrbach's wing of Woodbridge Center is anchored by a Boscov's.
Also on this day, John Charles Carter is born in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette, Illinois. We knew him as Charlton Heston -- and as historical figures Moses, Marc Antony (in 3 different films), John the Baptist, El Cid, Michelangelo, King Henry VIII, Cardinal Richelieu, William Clark (of Lewis & Clark), Andrew Jackson (in 2 films), General Henry Hooker, Buffalo Bill Cody and General Charles "Chinese" Gordon; and fictional characters Judah Ben-Hur, Peer Gynt and Robert Neville.
He played Ron Catlan, an aging quarterback, in the 1969 film Number One. In 2010, with the demolition of the original Yankee Stadium complete, I knew -- especially in a city still hurting from the 9/11 attacks -- it would have been wrong, but I wanted to yell his line as Colonel George Taylor, at the end of Planet of the Apes: "Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We really, finally did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
Despite his real name, and showing no aversion to science fiction (as Taylor, as Neville in The Omega Man, and as Detective Frank Thorn in Soylent Green), Charlton Heston never played John Carter of Mars.
He was dedicated to civil rights, even attending the March On Washington in 1963. But he was a conservative on other issues, and proudly delivered the National Rifle Association's catchphrase when he spoke at its conventions: "The only way you're going to get my gun is to pry it from my cold, dead hands!"
His hands, and the rest of him, became cold and dead in 2008. The status of his gun collection is unknown, but it was likely left to family members.
October 4, 1924: Game 1 of the World Series, the 1st Series game ever to be played in the Nation's Capital. President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace Coolidge attend. She loves baseball. He doesn't.
Walter Johnson, of course, starts for the Washington Senators. But the postseason experience of the New York Giants, who've won their 4th straight Pennant, shows as they tie the game in the 9th and win it in the 12th, 4-3.
Also on this day, 3 legendary football stadiums open. Grant Park Municipal Stadium opens on the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago. Austin Community Academy High School plays football against Louisville Male High School. Today, we think of Chicago as a football city and Louisville as a basketball city, but Louisville wins 26-0. In 1925, the huge stadium would be renamed Soldier Field.
Also, Michie Stadium (pronounced MIKE-ey) opens at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, Orange County, New York. Named for Captain Dennis Michie, who organized the 1st Army football team in 1890, and was killed in the Spanish-American War in 1898, its 1st game is a 17-0 Army win over St. Louis University.
It seats 38,000, and sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, surrounded by trees, giving it, especially with the leaves changing in mid-season, one of the greatest settings in college football. The playing surface, which has sadly been artificial turf since 1977, has been named Red Blaik Field since 1999, in memory of the man who coached Army to the 1944 and '45 National Championships.
Also opening on this day is Memorial Stadium at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "The Brick House" opens with a 14-0 home win over the University of North Dakota. The Golden Gophers will play there until 1981, then move into the Metrodome, across the Mississippi River and well across town from campus.
The old stadium was demolished in 1992, and the McNamara Alumni Center was built on the site. In 2009, TCF Bank Stadium was built a block away.
October 4, 1925: The baseball regular season ends, and Rogers Hornsby of the St. Louis Cardinals has won the National League Triple Crown, with a .403 batting average, 39 home runs and 143 RBIs. He is the 1st player to win it twice, and only Ted Williams has matched that.
October 4, 1928: Game 1 of the World Series. Bob Meusel hits a home run to make a winner out of Waite Hoyt, and the Yankees beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1.
Also on this day, Eldon John Repulski is born in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota. With a name like "Eldon John," you might have expected his nickname to be Rocket Man, or maybe Captain Fantastic. But with a name like "Repulski," his nickname was Rip.
An outfielder, Rip Repulski played in the major leagues from 1953 to 1961, earning an All-Star Game berth with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1956, and a World Series ring with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1959. They traded him to the Boston Red Sox in 1960, and he wrapped up his career the next year -- making him a a teammate of Stan Musial, Sandy Koufax, Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski. He batted .269 lifetime, and died in 1993.
Also on this day, Thomas Lynch Raymond dies in Newark, New Jersey at age 53. He is the only Mayor of that city to have died in office. He served in 1915 and 1916, and got Port Newark built. He had been elected again in 1925, and began the process of building a new rail terminal to replace the city's Pennsylvania Railroad station with a new Penn Station. It opened in 1935, and the area around it is named Raymond Plaza, with the street to the north named Raymond Boulevard.
October 4, 1929, 90 years ago: Visiting New York, Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald of Britain receives a ticker-tape parade. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 1924 to 1935. On January 22, 1924, he became the 1st Leader of that Party to become Prime Minister, but his government fell apart and he served for only 10 months. He regained the office on June 5, 1929, and held it until 1935. He died in 1937.
Also on this day, Leo Sanford (no middle name) is born in Dallas. A linebacker, he was elected to Louisiana Tech's Athletic Hall of Fame, and is 1 of 11 surviving members of the 1958 NFL Champion Baltimore Colts. He was not still with the team when they won the 1959 NFL Championship, of which there are 13 survivors.
A receiver and defensive back -- the CFL hung onto single-platoon football a lot longer than the NFL did -- he starred at the University of Kansas and was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1954, but the Montreal Alouettes offered more money. He was an 11-time All-Star, and was named the CFL's Most Outstanding Player in 1956, setting several League records (most since broken), including 88 catches, and was the 1st CFL player to gain 2,000 yards from scrimmage.
He was controversially traded to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and led them to the 1961 and 1967 Grey Cups. In 2006, TSN (The Sports Network, Canada's version of ESPN) named him one of the CFL's 50 Greatest Players, and in 2008 the Alouettes retired his Number 75. He lived to see both of these honors, dying in 2011.
October 4, 1934: Robert Lee Huff is born in Edna Gas, West Virginia -- a company town, I'm presuming, and it's now named Farmington. I can find no record of why he was called Sam. He starred at linebacker for West Virginia University, and along with basketball star Jerry West still ranks as 1 of their 2 greatest athletes. He was a regular All-American and an Academic All-American.
He was a 5-time All-Pro with the New York Giants, the cornerstone of the 1st great NFL defense of the 2-platoon era. He helped the Giants reach 6 NFL Championship Games, although they only won the 1st, in 1956.
In 1960, CBS News' The Twentieth Century did a feature on him, "The Violent World of Sam Huff," a precursor to NFL Films in that, for the 1st time, non-players got to hear what playing football really sounds like. To put it another way: He was Lawrence Taylor (without the sex and drug scandals) before Lawrence Taylor was even born.
In 1964, he was traded to the Washington Redskins, and has been with them ever since, first as a linebacker, then an assistant coach, and then as a broadcaster, teaming with ex-teammate Sonny Jurgensen until Sam retired in 2012. He was named to the NFL 1950s All-Decade Team, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the New York Giants Ring of Honor and the Washington Redskins' Ring of Fame.
He is still alive, 1 of 4 surviving players from the 1956 NFL Champions. The others are Rosey Grier, Harland Svare and Henry Moore.
October 4, 1935: Game 3 of the World Series is a wild one. Chicago Cubs manager Charlie Grimm and 2 of his players, 3rd baseman Woody English and outfielder Tuck Stainback, are thrown out of the game for bench-jockeying. Coach Del Baker of the Detroit Tigers is also thrown out, for arguing a pickoff play at 3rd base. That's 4 uniformed men thrown out of 1 World Series game -- and none was actually playing in the game!
The game goes to 11 innings, and is won 6-5 by the Tigers, on Jo-Jo White's single scoring Marv Owen.
Also on this day, James Edward Orr Jr. is born in Seneca, South Carolina. A 2-time Pro Bowler, the receiver was the 1958 NFL Rookie of the Year, helping the Baltimore Colts win the 1st of back-to-back NFL Championships. He was still with the team in the 1970 season, when they won Super Bowl V. He finished his career with an even 400 catches for 7,914 yards and 66 touchdowns.
But he is probably remembered for a catch he had no chance at. In the middle of Super Bowl III, he was wide open in the 2nd quarter, and could have scored a potential game-tying touchdown. But quarterback Earl Morrall didn't see him, and instead threw elsewhere, resulting in a rally-killing interception. The Colts lost to the New York Jets 16-7. Orr was among the Colts who were redeemed 2 years later, and is still alive.
October 4, 1936: Game 4 of the World Series. Carl Hubbell was in the middle of a 24-game regular season winning streak, and Time magazine called this Series "a personal struggle between Hubbell and Gehrig."
Well, Hubbell had won Game 1, but Lou Gehrig homers off him in this Game 4, and the Yankees win, 5-2. Monte Pearson is the winning pitcher, and now the Yankees are 1 win away from taking the Series.
Also on this day, London's police and anti-fascist demonstrators clash with members of the British Union of Fascists in the East End. It was known as the Battle of Cable Street, and it was Britain's 1st message that it would not put up with far-right tyranny. Sadly, in 1938, its government did. Thankfully, in 1939, it stopped.
Also on this day, Charles John Hurley is born in Cork, Ireland. A centreback, in the 1950s, Charlie Hurley starred for South London soccer team Millwall, and was later elected to their team hall of fame. In the 1960s, he starred for North-East club Sunderland, and closed his career with Bolton Wanderers.
While still playing for Sunderland, he managed the Ireland national team, and later managed Berkshire club Reading. In 2007, Millwall fans, who had nicknamed him "The King," voted him their best player ever. In 1979, on the occasion of the club's 100th Anniversary, Sunderland fans -- apparently having already forgotten the team's 1930s glory -- voted him their Player of the Century. He is still alive.
October 4, 1937: The St. Louis Cardinals trade shortstop Leo Durocher to the Brooklyn Dodgers for Johnny Cooney‚ Joe Stripp‚ Jim Bucher‚ and Roy Henshaw. Durocher, first as shortstop, then as manager, will become the face of the Dodgers for the next 10 years. Then, he will jump to the New York Giants, and become the face that Dodger fans love to hate.
October 4, 1938: Gerald Bernard Odrowski is born in Trout Creek, Ontario. A defenseman nicknamed "Snowy" and "The Hook," Gerry Odrowski reached the Stanley Cup Finals with the Detroit Red Wings as a rookie in 1961, was an original member of the Oakland (later California Golden) Seals in 1967, and helped the Winnipeg Jets win the 1976 WHA Championship. He is still alive.
October 4, 1939, 80 years ago: Game 1 of the World Series. Red Ruffing of the Yankees and Paul Derringer of the Reds are tied 1-1 at Yankee Stadium, going into the bottom of the 9th. Charlie Keller triples with 1 out. Reds manager Bill McKechnie orders Joe DiMaggio intentionally walked to set up the double play.
But that brings up Bill Dickey, not merely the de facto Yankee Captain in the wake of Lou Gehrig's forced retirement, but the best-hitting catcher who has ever lived. (Shut up, Met fans: Even with steroids, Mike Piazza couldn't carry his jock.) Dickey singles Keller home, and the Yankees win, 2-1. McKechnie's move essentially decides the Series.
*
On the official World Series highlight film, it's not clear how bad the injury is. Fitzsimmons is shown limping off the field under his own power -- probably a good thing, since he would have been pretty hard to carry off with all that weight, It turns out that the kneecap is broken.
Once an All-Star for the Giants, who seemed to specialize in beating the Dodgers, he had crossed town to be welcomed by the Flatbush Faithful, and they wouldn't have won the 1941 Pennant without him. But, at age 41, he will pitch in just 1 game in 1942, before accepting his injury and retiring to the coaching ranks and running a Brooklyn bowling alley that was popular with Dodger fans for many years.
Also on this day, Jerrel Douglas Wilson is born in New Orleans. A punter, he helped the Kansas City Chiefs win the 1966 and 1969 AFL Championships and Super Bowl IV. He made 3 Pro Bowls, and closed his career helping the New England Patriots win the 1978 AFC Eastern Division title. He was named to the AFL All-Time Team, the NFL's 1970s All-Decade Team and the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame. He died in 2005.
Also on this day, Elizabeth Ann Eckford is born in Little Rock, Arkansas. One of the Little Rock Nine, who racially integrated that city's Central High School in September 1957, she is the most familiar of them, because she was shown in the famous photograph of a white female classmate screaming at her.
Of the Nine: Eckford is 78 today; Thelma Mothershed-Wair, Minnijean Brown-Tricky and Ernest Green are already 78; Melba Pattillo Beals, Gloria Ray Karlmark and Terrence Roberts are 77, Carlotta Walls LaNier is 76, and Jefferson Thomas was the 1st to die, in 2010, at 67.
October 4, 1942: Game 4 of the World Series. Charlie Keller homers, but the Cardinals continue to surprise the Yankees in The Bronx, winning 9-6. The Cards can wrap up the Series tomorrow.
Also on this day, Terence John Seely is born in Camden Town, North London. His father, a native of Ireland, dies when he was 7. When his mother remarried, she changed his name to that of his Italian stepfather, and he was Terry Mancini from then on.
A centreback, he played from 1961 to 1978, more for East London team Leyton Orient than any other. He played for North London's Arsenal in the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons, without much distinction. In 1977, he played in the old North American Soccer League, with the Los Angeles Aztecs. He played internationally for the Republic of Ireland. He is still alive.
October 4, 1943: James Francis Williams is born in the Santa Barbara suburb of Santa Maria, California. Spelling his nickname as "Jimy" instead of the more traditional "Jimmy," he was a middle infielder who appeared in 14 games for the Cardinals in 1966 and 1967, and did not get a World Series ring when the Cards won the '67 World Series.
In 1989, he managed the Toronto Blue Jays to the American League Eastern Division title. In 1995, as a coach under Bobby Cox, he won a ring with the Atlanta Braves. He managed the Boston Red Sox to the AL Wild Card in 1998 and '99, infamously complaining about the umpiring when the Yankees beat the Sox in the AL Championship Series. He managed the Houston Astros to the National League Wild Card in 2004. In 2008, as a coach under Charlie Manuel, he won a ring with the Philadelphia Phillies, then resigned after the season. For whatever reason, he has not worked in baseball since.
His son Brady Williams is the manager of the Durham Bulls, the Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. His son Shawn Williams is the manager of the Reading Fightin's, the Double-A affiliate of the Phillies.
Also on this day, Karl-Gustav Kaisla is born, despite his German given name, in Helsinki, Finland. He was the referee for the "Miracle On Ice" game between America and the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics. He later served as his homeland's supervisor of hockey referees, and died in 2012.
It is the 1st Series in which all the games are played west of the Mississippi River. There will not be another until 1965, and not another until 1974. The Series is dubbed the Streetcar Series (as opposed to a Subway Series), and is played with no days off.
It's also a great day for music. The already-legendary songwriter Johnny Mercer, one of the few writers who then tended to record his own material, records, with music by Harold Arlen, "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive," backed by The Pied Pipers vocal group and the Paul Weston Orchestra, in New York. It becomes one of the anthems of post-World War II America.
Also on this day, Donald Eugene Lenhardt is born. He was a utility player who was with the St. Louis Browns when they moved to become the Baltimore Orioles in 1953-54. He served as the 1st base coach for the Red Sox from 1970 to 1973, and then as one of their scouts until 2004. He died in 2014.
October 4, 1923: Nathan M. Ohrbach opens a department store on Union Square in Manhattan. Ohrbach's would boom in the post-World War II economy, including opening a store at the Woodbridge Center Mall in Middlesex County, New Jersey in 1971.
But around that time, things started going downhill. In 1987, losing money, they sold out to Steinbach, which converted all Ohrbach's locations to Steinbach's. They didn't last much longer, either, going out of business in 1999. Today, the Ohrbach's wing of Woodbridge Center is anchored by a Boscov's.
Also on this day, John Charles Carter is born in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette, Illinois. We knew him as Charlton Heston -- and as historical figures Moses, Marc Antony (in 3 different films), John the Baptist, El Cid, Michelangelo, King Henry VIII, Cardinal Richelieu, William Clark (of Lewis & Clark), Andrew Jackson (in 2 films), General Henry Hooker, Buffalo Bill Cody and General Charles "Chinese" Gordon; and fictional characters Judah Ben-Hur, Peer Gynt and Robert Neville.
He played Ron Catlan, an aging quarterback, in the 1969 film Number One. In 2010, with the demolition of the original Yankee Stadium complete, I knew -- especially in a city still hurting from the 9/11 attacks -- it would have been wrong, but I wanted to yell his line as Colonel George Taylor, at the end of Planet of the Apes: "Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We really, finally did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
Despite his real name, and showing no aversion to science fiction (as Taylor, as Neville in The Omega Man, and as Detective Frank Thorn in Soylent Green), Charlton Heston never played John Carter of Mars.
He was dedicated to civil rights, even attending the March On Washington in 1963. But he was a conservative on other issues, and proudly delivered the National Rifle Association's catchphrase when he spoke at its conventions: "The only way you're going to get my gun is to pry it from my cold, dead hands!"
His hands, and the rest of him, became cold and dead in 2008. The status of his gun collection is unknown, but it was likely left to family members.
October 4, 1924: Game 1 of the World Series, the 1st Series game ever to be played in the Nation's Capital. President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace Coolidge attend. She loves baseball. He doesn't.
Walter Johnson, of course, starts for the Washington Senators. But the postseason experience of the New York Giants, who've won their 4th straight Pennant, shows as they tie the game in the 9th and win it in the 12th, 4-3.
Also on this day, 3 legendary football stadiums open. Grant Park Municipal Stadium opens on the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago. Austin Community Academy High School plays football against Louisville Male High School. Today, we think of Chicago as a football city and Louisville as a basketball city, but Louisville wins 26-0. In 1925, the huge stadium would be renamed Soldier Field.
Also, Michie Stadium (pronounced MIKE-ey) opens at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, Orange County, New York. Named for Captain Dennis Michie, who organized the 1st Army football team in 1890, and was killed in the Spanish-American War in 1898, its 1st game is a 17-0 Army win over St. Louis University.
It seats 38,000, and sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, surrounded by trees, giving it, especially with the leaves changing in mid-season, one of the greatest settings in college football. The playing surface, which has sadly been artificial turf since 1977, has been named Red Blaik Field since 1999, in memory of the man who coached Army to the 1944 and '45 National Championships.
Also opening on this day is Memorial Stadium at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "The Brick House" opens with a 14-0 home win over the University of North Dakota. The Golden Gophers will play there until 1981, then move into the Metrodome, across the Mississippi River and well across town from campus.
The old stadium was demolished in 1992, and the McNamara Alumni Center was built on the site. In 2009, TCF Bank Stadium was built a block away.
October 4, 1925: The baseball regular season ends, and Rogers Hornsby of the St. Louis Cardinals has won the National League Triple Crown, with a .403 batting average, 39 home runs and 143 RBIs. He is the 1st player to win it twice, and only Ted Williams has matched that.
October 4, 1928: Game 1 of the World Series. Bob Meusel hits a home run to make a winner out of Waite Hoyt, and the Yankees beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1.
Also on this day, Eldon John Repulski is born in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota. With a name like "Eldon John," you might have expected his nickname to be Rocket Man, or maybe Captain Fantastic. But with a name like "Repulski," his nickname was Rip.
An outfielder, Rip Repulski played in the major leagues from 1953 to 1961, earning an All-Star Game berth with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1956, and a World Series ring with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1959. They traded him to the Boston Red Sox in 1960, and he wrapped up his career the next year -- making him a a teammate of Stan Musial, Sandy Koufax, Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski. He batted .269 lifetime, and died in 1993.
Also on this day, Thomas Lynch Raymond dies in Newark, New Jersey at age 53. He is the only Mayor of that city to have died in office. He served in 1915 and 1916, and got Port Newark built. He had been elected again in 1925, and began the process of building a new rail terminal to replace the city's Pennsylvania Railroad station with a new Penn Station. It opened in 1935, and the area around it is named Raymond Plaza, with the street to the north named Raymond Boulevard.
October 4, 1929, 90 years ago: Visiting New York, Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald of Britain receives a ticker-tape parade. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 1924 to 1935. On January 22, 1924, he became the 1st Leader of that Party to become Prime Minister, but his government fell apart and he served for only 10 months. He regained the office on June 5, 1929, and held it until 1935. He died in 1937.
Also on this day, Leo Sanford (no middle name) is born in Dallas. A linebacker, he was elected to Louisiana Tech's Athletic Hall of Fame, and is 1 of 11 surviving members of the 1958 NFL Champion Baltimore Colts. He was not still with the team when they won the 1959 NFL Championship, of which there are 13 survivors.
*
October 4, 1930: Notre Dame Stadium, the house that Knute Rockne built, opens on the school's campus in South Bend, Indiana. The 1st game is against Southern Methodist University of Dallas. Final score: Catholics 20, Protestants 14.
Notre Dame went undefeated that season, 10-0, and aside from SMU, only Army seriously challenged them, losing 7-6 in front of 110,000 at Soldier Field in Chicago. Years later, Notre Dame was retroactively recognized as National Champions for the 1930 season.
The season finale, a 27-0 win over USC at the Los Angeles Coliseum on December 6, would turn out to be the last game Rockne ever coached, as he was killed in a plane crash in Kansas on March 31, 1931.
Also on this day, Rosalind Wiener (no middle name) is born in Los Angeles. In 1953, having gotten several of her University of Southern California classmates to register to vote, she won election to Los Angeles' version of a city council, the Board of Supervisors. She was only the 2nd woman ever elected to it, and the youngest person of either gender.
She got married the next year, and became known as Roz Wyman. In 1957, she was the last undecided vote on the Board on the question of whether to give Chavez Ravine to Walter O'Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, so he could build a stadium there, moving the Dodgers to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the interim. She voted yes. She was re-elected in 1957 and 1961, but was defeated in 1965, and a bid to win her seat back in 1975 failed.
One big reason she lost in 1965 was her feud with Mayor Sam Yorty, a much more conservative Democrat than she was. In 1969, Yorty beat Supervisor and former hero policeman Tom Bradley to be re-elected, but Bradley beat Yorty in 1973, and put Wyman on his staff. She has also chaired the Senate campaigns of Dianne Feinstein. She is still alive.
So, if you wonder why the Dodgers were taken out of Brooklyn, well, there are many reasons why, and she's an important one. To paraphrase Jimmy Buffett, "Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but I know... it's O'Malley's fault."
October 4, 1931: Basil Lewis D'Oliveira is born in Cape Town, South Africa. He became one of his country's greatest cricket players. But, being a member of his homeland's "Cape Coloured" community, he was ineligible to play for its renowned national team.
So he moved to England in 1960, and played "county cricket" for Central Lancashire and Worcestershire. In 1966, having become a British citizen 2 years earlier, "Dolly" was selected for England for the 1st time.
The England team was supposed to tour South Africa in 1968. Prime Minister B.J. Vorster announced that D'Oliveira playing in the series was unacceptable under the country's apartheid laws. As a result of "The D'Oliveira Affair," the tour was canceled, South Africa was excluded from Test cricket for 22 years (until Nelson Mandela was released from prison), and it made the nation a pariah on the world stage, and not just in sports.
He continued to play until 1980. In 2000, despite never having played for his homeland, the now-democratic country named him one of 10 South African Cricketers of the Century. In 2004, the Basil D'Oliveira Trophy was dedicated, and is given to the winner of each Test series between England and South Africa. In 2005, a stand at Worcester's New Road stadium was named for him.
He developed Parkinson's disease, and died in 2011, the year his grandson Brett D'Oliveira made his debut for Worcestershire. His son Damian D'Oliveira had also played for Worcestershire.
Also on this day, the comic strip Dick Tracy, drawn by Chester Gould, debuts in newspapers. With his plainclothes policing, his gadgets, and his exaggerated villains, Tracy preceded Ian Fleming's James Bond in print by over 20 years. Unlike Bond, however, Tracy has yet to receive a good movie treatment.
October 4, 1932: Harold Edward Patterson is born in Garden City, Kansas. He might be the greatest football player you've never heard of. This is because he starred in the Canadian Football League.
October 4, 1930: Notre Dame Stadium, the house that Knute Rockne built, opens on the school's campus in South Bend, Indiana. The 1st game is against Southern Methodist University of Dallas. Final score: Catholics 20, Protestants 14.
Notre Dame went undefeated that season, 10-0, and aside from SMU, only Army seriously challenged them, losing 7-6 in front of 110,000 at Soldier Field in Chicago. Years later, Notre Dame was retroactively recognized as National Champions for the 1930 season.
The season finale, a 27-0 win over USC at the Los Angeles Coliseum on December 6, would turn out to be the last game Rockne ever coached, as he was killed in a plane crash in Kansas on March 31, 1931.
Also on this day, Rosalind Wiener (no middle name) is born in Los Angeles. In 1953, having gotten several of her University of Southern California classmates to register to vote, she won election to Los Angeles' version of a city council, the Board of Supervisors. She was only the 2nd woman ever elected to it, and the youngest person of either gender.
She got married the next year, and became known as Roz Wyman. In 1957, she was the last undecided vote on the Board on the question of whether to give Chavez Ravine to Walter O'Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, so he could build a stadium there, moving the Dodgers to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the interim. She voted yes. She was re-elected in 1957 and 1961, but was defeated in 1965, and a bid to win her seat back in 1975 failed.
One big reason she lost in 1965 was her feud with Mayor Sam Yorty, a much more conservative Democrat than she was. In 1969, Yorty beat Supervisor and former hero policeman Tom Bradley to be re-elected, but Bradley beat Yorty in 1973, and put Wyman on his staff. She has also chaired the Senate campaigns of Dianne Feinstein. She is still alive.
So, if you wonder why the Dodgers were taken out of Brooklyn, well, there are many reasons why, and she's an important one. To paraphrase Jimmy Buffett, "Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but I know... it's O'Malley's fault."
October 4, 1931: Basil Lewis D'Oliveira is born in Cape Town, South Africa. He became one of his country's greatest cricket players. But, being a member of his homeland's "Cape Coloured" community, he was ineligible to play for its renowned national team.
So he moved to England in 1960, and played "county cricket" for Central Lancashire and Worcestershire. In 1966, having become a British citizen 2 years earlier, "Dolly" was selected for England for the 1st time.
The England team was supposed to tour South Africa in 1968. Prime Minister B.J. Vorster announced that D'Oliveira playing in the series was unacceptable under the country's apartheid laws. As a result of "The D'Oliveira Affair," the tour was canceled, South Africa was excluded from Test cricket for 22 years (until Nelson Mandela was released from prison), and it made the nation a pariah on the world stage, and not just in sports.
He continued to play until 1980. In 2000, despite never having played for his homeland, the now-democratic country named him one of 10 South African Cricketers of the Century. In 2004, the Basil D'Oliveira Trophy was dedicated, and is given to the winner of each Test series between England and South Africa. In 2005, a stand at Worcester's New Road stadium was named for him.
He developed Parkinson's disease, and died in 2011, the year his grandson Brett D'Oliveira made his debut for Worcestershire. His son Damian D'Oliveira had also played for Worcestershire.
Also on this day, the comic strip Dick Tracy, drawn by Chester Gould, debuts in newspapers. With his plainclothes policing, his gadgets, and his exaggerated villains, Tracy preceded Ian Fleming's James Bond in print by over 20 years. Unlike Bond, however, Tracy has yet to receive a good movie treatment.
October 4, 1932: Harold Edward Patterson is born in Garden City, Kansas. He might be the greatest football player you've never heard of. This is because he starred in the Canadian Football League.
A receiver and defensive back -- the CFL hung onto single-platoon football a lot longer than the NFL did -- he starred at the University of Kansas and was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1954, but the Montreal Alouettes offered more money. He was an 11-time All-Star, and was named the CFL's Most Outstanding Player in 1956, setting several League records (most since broken), including 88 catches, and was the 1st CFL player to gain 2,000 yards from scrimmage.
He was controversially traded to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and led them to the 1961 and 1967 Grey Cups. In 2006, TSN (The Sports Network, Canada's version of ESPN) named him one of the CFL's 50 Greatest Players, and in 2008 the Alouettes retired his Number 75. He lived to see both of these honors, dying in 2011.
October 4, 1934: Robert Lee Huff is born in Edna Gas, West Virginia -- a company town, I'm presuming, and it's now named Farmington. I can find no record of why he was called Sam. He starred at linebacker for West Virginia University, and along with basketball star Jerry West still ranks as 1 of their 2 greatest athletes. He was a regular All-American and an Academic All-American.
He was a 5-time All-Pro with the New York Giants, the cornerstone of the 1st great NFL defense of the 2-platoon era. He helped the Giants reach 6 NFL Championship Games, although they only won the 1st, in 1956.
In 1960, CBS News' The Twentieth Century did a feature on him, "The Violent World of Sam Huff," a precursor to NFL Films in that, for the 1st time, non-players got to hear what playing football really sounds like. To put it another way: He was Lawrence Taylor (without the sex and drug scandals) before Lawrence Taylor was even born.
In 1964, he was traded to the Washington Redskins, and has been with them ever since, first as a linebacker, then an assistant coach, and then as a broadcaster, teaming with ex-teammate Sonny Jurgensen until Sam retired in 2012. He was named to the NFL 1950s All-Decade Team, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the New York Giants Ring of Honor and the Washington Redskins' Ring of Fame.
He is still alive, 1 of 4 surviving players from the 1956 NFL Champions. The others are Rosey Grier, Harland Svare and Henry Moore.
October 4, 1935: Game 3 of the World Series is a wild one. Chicago Cubs manager Charlie Grimm and 2 of his players, 3rd baseman Woody English and outfielder Tuck Stainback, are thrown out of the game for bench-jockeying. Coach Del Baker of the Detroit Tigers is also thrown out, for arguing a pickoff play at 3rd base. That's 4 uniformed men thrown out of 1 World Series game -- and none was actually playing in the game!
The game goes to 11 innings, and is won 6-5 by the Tigers, on Jo-Jo White's single scoring Marv Owen.
Also on this day, James Edward Orr Jr. is born in Seneca, South Carolina. A 2-time Pro Bowler, the receiver was the 1958 NFL Rookie of the Year, helping the Baltimore Colts win the 1st of back-to-back NFL Championships. He was still with the team in the 1970 season, when they won Super Bowl V. He finished his career with an even 400 catches for 7,914 yards and 66 touchdowns.
But he is probably remembered for a catch he had no chance at. In the middle of Super Bowl III, he was wide open in the 2nd quarter, and could have scored a potential game-tying touchdown. But quarterback Earl Morrall didn't see him, and instead threw elsewhere, resulting in a rally-killing interception. The Colts lost to the New York Jets 16-7. Orr was among the Colts who were redeemed 2 years later, and is still alive.
October 4, 1936: Game 4 of the World Series. Carl Hubbell was in the middle of a 24-game regular season winning streak, and Time magazine called this Series "a personal struggle between Hubbell and Gehrig."
Well, Hubbell had won Game 1, but Lou Gehrig homers off him in this Game 4, and the Yankees win, 5-2. Monte Pearson is the winning pitcher, and now the Yankees are 1 win away from taking the Series.
Also on this day, London's police and anti-fascist demonstrators clash with members of the British Union of Fascists in the East End. It was known as the Battle of Cable Street, and it was Britain's 1st message that it would not put up with far-right tyranny. Sadly, in 1938, its government did. Thankfully, in 1939, it stopped.
Also on this day, Charles John Hurley is born in Cork, Ireland. A centreback, in the 1950s, Charlie Hurley starred for South London soccer team Millwall, and was later elected to their team hall of fame. In the 1960s, he starred for North-East club Sunderland, and closed his career with Bolton Wanderers.
While still playing for Sunderland, he managed the Ireland national team, and later managed Berkshire club Reading. In 2007, Millwall fans, who had nicknamed him "The King," voted him their best player ever. In 1979, on the occasion of the club's 100th Anniversary, Sunderland fans -- apparently having already forgotten the team's 1930s glory -- voted him their Player of the Century. He is still alive.
October 4, 1937: The St. Louis Cardinals trade shortstop Leo Durocher to the Brooklyn Dodgers for Johnny Cooney‚ Joe Stripp‚ Jim Bucher‚ and Roy Henshaw. Durocher, first as shortstop, then as manager, will become the face of the Dodgers for the next 10 years. Then, he will jump to the New York Giants, and become the face that Dodger fans love to hate.
October 4, 1938: Gerald Bernard Odrowski is born in Trout Creek, Ontario. A defenseman nicknamed "Snowy" and "The Hook," Gerry Odrowski reached the Stanley Cup Finals with the Detroit Red Wings as a rookie in 1961, was an original member of the Oakland (later California Golden) Seals in 1967, and helped the Winnipeg Jets win the 1976 WHA Championship. He is still alive.
October 4, 1939, 80 years ago: Game 1 of the World Series. Red Ruffing of the Yankees and Paul Derringer of the Reds are tied 1-1 at Yankee Stadium, going into the bottom of the 9th. Charlie Keller triples with 1 out. Reds manager Bill McKechnie orders Joe DiMaggio intentionally walked to set up the double play.
But that brings up Bill Dickey, not merely the de facto Yankee Captain in the wake of Lou Gehrig's forced retirement, but the best-hitting catcher who has ever lived. (Shut up, Met fans: Even with steroids, Mike Piazza couldn't carry his jock.) Dickey singles Keller home, and the Yankees win, 2-1. McKechnie's move essentially decides the Series.
*
October 4, 1940: Ten years to the day after Notre Dame Stadium opens, the film Knute Rockne, All-American premieres. Pat O'Brien plays Rockne, and Ronald Reagan plays George Gipp. At 29, Reagan was already too old to play the role.
It wasn't the biggest lie of the movie, though. The film depicts the story Rockne made up for the 1928 Army-Notre Dame game at Yankee Stadium: That of Gipp's 1920 deathbed request to "Win just one for the Gipper."
It made Reagan forever identified with the role, and he was called "The Gipper" all through his political career. Even now, when the Republican Party, for whom he is the greatest icon (Abraham Lincoln being embarrassingly pro-black and anti-Southern), needs a victory, either for a bill or for an election, campaigners say they want to "win it for the Gipper," meaning Reagan.
People who don't know their football history, or who have never heard of George Gipp -- and don't know that he was a bum, if one very talented at football -- use the expression. Had the truth about Gipp, an alcoholic, womanizing, compulsive gambler who rarely attended classes or Mass, been known in 1940, the movie never would have been made -- and Reagan might never have been elected Governor of California in 1966 or President in 1980.
Also on this day, Victor Edward Hadfield is born in the Toronto suburb of Oakville, Ontario. Vic was born 1 day after his future New York Ranger linemate, Jean Ratelle. Together with Rod Gilbert, they formed the GAG Line (Goal-a-Game), reaching the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals.
It wasn't the biggest lie of the movie, though. The film depicts the story Rockne made up for the 1928 Army-Notre Dame game at Yankee Stadium: That of Gipp's 1920 deathbed request to "Win just one for the Gipper."
It made Reagan forever identified with the role, and he was called "The Gipper" all through his political career. Even now, when the Republican Party, for whom he is the greatest icon (Abraham Lincoln being embarrassingly pro-black and anti-Southern), needs a victory, either for a bill or for an election, campaigners say they want to "win it for the Gipper," meaning Reagan.
People who don't know their football history, or who have never heard of George Gipp -- and don't know that he was a bum, if one very talented at football -- use the expression. Had the truth about Gipp, an alcoholic, womanizing, compulsive gambler who rarely attended classes or Mass, been known in 1940, the movie never would have been made -- and Reagan might never have been elected Governor of California in 1966 or President in 1980.
Also on this day, Victor Edward Hadfield is born in the Toronto suburb of Oakville, Ontario. Vic was born 1 day after his future New York Ranger linemate, Jean Ratelle. Together with Rod Gilbert, they formed the GAG Line (Goal-a-Game), reaching the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals.
Vic scored 323 goals in an NHL career that lasted from 1961 to 1976. He has not yet joined his linemates Gilbert and Ratelle in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but a 2009 book named him Number 20 on a list of 100 Ranger Greats. He now runs a golf driving range. His Number 11, having already been retired for Mark Messier, has now been retired by the Rangers for him as well.
Also on this day, Silvio Marzolini (no middle name) is born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A centreback, he led hometown club Boca Juniors to 5 league titles from 1962 to 1970, including a "Double" with the Copa Argentina in 1969. He managed them to a league title in 1981. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Silvio Marzolini (no middle name) is born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A centreback, he led hometown club Boca Juniors to 5 league titles from 1962 to 1970, including a "Double" with the Copa Argentina in 1969. He managed them to a league title in 1981. He is still alive.
October 4, 1941: Game 3 of the World Series. In the 7th inning of a scoreless tie‚ Yankees pitcher Marius Russo bats against Dodger pitcher Fred Fitzsimmons, and launches a line drive off Fat Freddie's kneecap. The ball caroms to shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who throws him out to end the inning. The Yankees score 2 in the 8th off reliever Hugh Casey to win 2-1.
On the official World Series highlight film, it's not clear how bad the injury is. Fitzsimmons is shown limping off the field under his own power -- probably a good thing, since he would have been pretty hard to carry off with all that weight, It turns out that the kneecap is broken.
Once an All-Star for the Giants, who seemed to specialize in beating the Dodgers, he had crossed town to be welcomed by the Flatbush Faithful, and they wouldn't have won the 1941 Pennant without him. But, at age 41, he will pitch in just 1 game in 1942, before accepting his injury and retiring to the coaching ranks and running a Brooklyn bowling alley that was popular with Dodger fans for many years.
Also on this day, Jerrel Douglas Wilson is born in New Orleans. A punter, he helped the Kansas City Chiefs win the 1966 and 1969 AFL Championships and Super Bowl IV. He made 3 Pro Bowls, and closed his career helping the New England Patriots win the 1978 AFC Eastern Division title. He was named to the AFL All-Time Team, the NFL's 1970s All-Decade Team and the Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Fame. He died in 2005.
Also on this day, 2 very different American writers are born. Roy Alton Blount Jr. is born in Indianapolis, and grows up in Decatur, Georgia. Essentially a humorist, he is tied to sports as a result of his first book, a look at the 1973 Pittsburgh Steelers, a team on the verge of a dynasty, but not quite there: About Three Bricks Shy of a Load.
On the same day, Howard Allen Frances O'Brien is born in New Orleans. Her mother named her Howard after her husband. After she got married, she began using the name Anne Rice, and her books have been published under that name.
She is known for her Vampire Chronicles, featuring the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt. She is a New Orleans Saints fan, and gave an interview to NFL Films in which she discusses the legend that the Saints are cursed because the Superdome was built over a cemetery.
Also on this day, Elizabeth Ann Eckford is born in Little Rock, Arkansas. One of the Little Rock Nine, who racially integrated that city's Central High School in September 1957, she is the most familiar of them, because she was shown in the famous photograph of a white female classmate screaming at her.
Of the Nine: Eckford is 78 today; Thelma Mothershed-Wair, Minnijean Brown-Tricky and Ernest Green are already 78; Melba Pattillo Beals, Gloria Ray Karlmark and Terrence Roberts are 77, Carlotta Walls LaNier is 76, and Jefferson Thomas was the 1st to die, in 2010, at 67.
October 4, 1942: Game 4 of the World Series. Charlie Keller homers, but the Cardinals continue to surprise the Yankees in The Bronx, winning 9-6. The Cards can wrap up the Series tomorrow.
Also on this day, Terence John Seely is born in Camden Town, North London. His father, a native of Ireland, dies when he was 7. When his mother remarried, she changed his name to that of his Italian stepfather, and he was Terry Mancini from then on.
A centreback, he played from 1961 to 1978, more for East London team Leyton Orient than any other. He played for North London's Arsenal in the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons, without much distinction. In 1977, he played in the old North American Soccer League, with the Los Angeles Aztecs. He played internationally for the Republic of Ireland. He is still alive.
October 4, 1943: James Francis Williams is born in the Santa Barbara suburb of Santa Maria, California. Spelling his nickname as "Jimy" instead of the more traditional "Jimmy," he was a middle infielder who appeared in 14 games for the Cardinals in 1966 and 1967, and did not get a World Series ring when the Cards won the '67 World Series.
In 1989, he managed the Toronto Blue Jays to the American League Eastern Division title. In 1995, as a coach under Bobby Cox, he won a ring with the Atlanta Braves. He managed the Boston Red Sox to the AL Wild Card in 1998 and '99, infamously complaining about the umpiring when the Yankees beat the Sox in the AL Championship Series. He managed the Houston Astros to the National League Wild Card in 2004. In 2008, as a coach under Charlie Manuel, he won a ring with the Philadelphia Phillies, then resigned after the season. For whatever reason, he has not worked in baseball since.
His son Brady Williams is the manager of the Durham Bulls, the Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. His son Shawn Williams is the manager of the Reading Fightin's, the Double-A affiliate of the Phillies.
Also on this day, Karl-Gustav Kaisla is born, despite his German given name, in Helsinki, Finland. He was the referee for the "Miracle On Ice" game between America and the Soviet Union at the 1980 Winter Olympics. He later served as his homeland's supervisor of hockey referees, and died in 2012.
October 4, 1944, 75 years ago: The 1st all-St. Louis World Series (and the only one, as it turned out) opens with the Browns‚ as the official visiting team (both teams play at Sportsman's Park)‚ beating the Cardinals 2-1 on George McQuinn's homer. Denny Galehouse is the winning pitcher, while Mort Cooper loses despite allowing just 2 hits.
On the same day, Alfred E. Smith dies of a heart attack -- some would say a broken heart, as his wife had died a few months earlier. He was 70. Governor of New York from 1919 to 1921, and again from 1923 to 1929, he threw out the ceremonial first ball before the 1st game at the original Yankee Stadium in 1923.
He ran for President in 1924, and was nominated by the Democratic Party in 1928, but his Catholicism, his opposition to Prohibition, and the general prosperity under Republican leadership meant he was doomed to lose big to Herbert Hoover. He ran again in 1932, but lost to the man who succeeded him as Governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The 2 men, once allies, became bitter rivals. Al went on to run the company that built the Empire State Building, and the film of the dedication ceremony shows Governor Roosevelt enjoying the festivities, but ex-Governor Smith looks like he'd like to jump off.
Today, FDR is remembered as the man who saved the country in the 1930s, and the world in the 1940s. Al Smith is remembered as... the namesake of the Al Smith Dinner, a charity fundraiser run by the Archdiocese of New York every October. In Presidential election years, the nominees of both major parties are invited, and to miss attending is a major faux pas.
On the same day, Anthony La Russa Jr. is born in Tampa. Tony was an inconsequential infielder in the major leagues from 1963 to 1973, but became a very consequential manager. From 1979 to 2011, he won 2,728 games, 15 Division titles (1983 with the Chicago White Sox; 1988, '89, '90 and '92 with the Oakland Athletics, all in the AL West; 1996, 2000, '01, '02, '04, '05, '06, '09, '13 and '14 with the St. Louis Cardinals, all in the NL Central), 6 Pennants (3 in each League), and 3 World Series (1989 with the A's, 2006 and 2011 with the Cards, making him only the 2nd manager after Sparky Anderson to win them in both Leagues.
On the same day, Anthony La Russa Jr. is born in Tampa. Tony was an inconsequential infielder in the major leagues from 1963 to 1973, but became a very consequential manager. From 1979 to 2011, he won 2,728 games, 15 Division titles (1983 with the Chicago White Sox; 1988, '89, '90 and '92 with the Oakland Athletics, all in the AL West; 1996, 2000, '01, '02, '04, '05, '06, '09, '13 and '14 with the St. Louis Cardinals, all in the NL Central), 6 Pennants (3 in each League), and 3 World Series (1989 with the A's, 2006 and 2011 with the Cards, making him only the 2nd manager after Sparky Anderson to win them in both Leagues.
Unfortunately, his legacy may be a negative one. Not only did he pioneer the use of computers to study baseball statistics, thus leading to constant pitching changes, but he also pioneered, through Dennis Eckersley, using your closer for just the 9th inning.
He is now an executive with the Arizona Diamondbacks. He is in the Hall of Fame, and the Cardinals have retired his Number 10 and elected him to their team Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, David Duvall Orr is born in Chicago. He was elected to the Chicago City Council in 1979. In 1987, when Mayor Harold Washington died, he was Vice Mayor, and so he served as Acting Mayor from November 25 to December 2, before the Council chose a permanent Mayor to serve out the term, who turned out to be Eugene Sawyer. Orr ran for Clerk of Cook County in 1990, and won, holding that powerful position until his retirement in 2018. He is still alive.
Also on this day, David Duvall Orr is born in Chicago. He was elected to the Chicago City Council in 1979. In 1987, when Mayor Harold Washington died, he was Vice Mayor, and so he served as Acting Mayor from November 25 to December 2, before the Council chose a permanent Mayor to serve out the term, who turned out to be Eugene Sawyer. Orr ran for Clerk of Cook County in 1990, and won, holding that powerful position until his retirement in 2018. He is still alive.
It's also a great day for music. The already-legendary songwriter Johnny Mercer, one of the few writers who then tended to record his own material, records, with music by Harold Arlen, "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive," backed by The Pied Pipers vocal group and the Paul Weston Orchestra, in New York. It becomes one of the anthems of post-World War II America.
Also on this day, John Alec Entwistle is born in Chiswick, West London. He was the bass guitarist for The Who from their founding in 1964 until his death in 2002.
Also on this day, Nona Hendryx (as far as I know, that's her full name) is born in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey. A distant cousin of Jimi Hendrix, she was a member of LaBelle, led by Patti LaBelle, and has had some solo hits as well.
Also on this day, Winston Hubert McIntosh is born in Grange Hill, Jamaica. We knew him as reggae singer Peter Tosh, who got his start with Bob Marley's Wailers. He was murdered in 1987.
October 4, 1945: Jugoslovensko sportsko društvo Partizan, commonly abbreviated as JSD Partizan, is founded in Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, now the capital of Serbia. It runs several sports teams, the best-known of which is the soccer team known to most of the world as Partizan Belgrade. Their rivalry with cross-town Red Star is one of the most vicious on the planet, in any sport, in any country.
Also on this day, Nona Hendryx (as far as I know, that's her full name) is born in Trenton, Mercer County, New Jersey. A distant cousin of Jimi Hendrix, she was a member of LaBelle, led by Patti LaBelle, and has had some solo hits as well.
Also on this day, Winston Hubert McIntosh is born in Grange Hill, Jamaica. We knew him as reggae singer Peter Tosh, who got his start with Bob Marley's Wailers. He was murdered in 1987.
October 4, 1945: Jugoslovensko sportsko društvo Partizan, commonly abbreviated as JSD Partizan, is founded in Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, now the capital of Serbia. It runs several sports teams, the best-known of which is the soccer team known to most of the world as Partizan Belgrade. Their rivalry with cross-town Red Star is one of the most vicious on the planet, in any sport, in any country.
They have won a country-leading 27 national championships in soccer, most recently in 2017, and have won the last 3 Serbian Cups; a country-leading 21 titles in men's basketball, plus the 1992 Euroleague title; a country-leading 7 titles in women's basketball; and a country-leading 20 titles in hockey, including the last 11 in a row.
October 4, 1946: Barney Oldfield dies of a heart attack in Beverly Hills, California. He was 68. He was the 1st great auto racer, and the 1st man recorded as having driven 60 miles per hour -- a mile a minute. He was 1 of the 10 charter inductees in the Auto Racing Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, Gifford Pinchot dies of leukemia in New York, at age 81. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him the 1st Chief of the United States Forest Service. He served as Governor of Pennsylvania from 1923 to 1927, and again from 1931 to 1935.
His terms included the 1923 opening of the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field and the construction of their Palestra arena, the 1925 World Series and the 1927 National League Pennant won by the Pittsburgh Pirates, the 1926 NFL Championship won by the Philadelphia-based Frankford Yellow Jackets, the 1931 American League Pennant won by the Philadelphia Athletics, the 1933 construction of 30th Street Station, the 1933 establishments of the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the 1933 law striking down the ban on Sunday sports in Pennsylvania, making the Eagles' and Steelers' franchises viable and probably saving the A's and the Philadelphia Phillies from outright bankruptcy.
Also on this day, Susan Abigail Tomalin is born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City, and grows up in nearby Edison, Middlesex County, New Jersey. We know her as Susan Sarandon. Her ex-husband Chris Sarandon, ex-partner Louis Malle, ex-partner Franco Amurri, ex-partner Tim Robbins (with whom she hooked up on the set of the baseball-themed film Bull Durham), daughter Eva Amurri and son Jack Henry Robbins are all either actors or directors (or both). Another son, Miles Robbins, has yet to enter the family business.
I used to love Susan Sarandon. She was, like me, a baseball fan from Central Jersey. And she was a redhead, which I liked. And she was a bombshell -- at 73, she still looks great. But she's a Mets and Rangers fan. That's 2 strikes right there. And while I didn't mind her support for Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic Primaries, her refusal to support Hillary Clinton -- there has never been a Presidential nominee more like Susan, ever -- is strike 3.
But, like Annie Savoy, her character in Bull Durham, she still believes in the Church of Baseball. Then again... "Makin' love is like hittin' a baseball: You just gotta relax and concentrate." Relax and
concentrate? That's contradictory!
She won an Oscar for playing Sister Helen Prejean, the real-life nun and anti-death penalty activist, in Dead Man Walking. Susan Sarandon winning an Oscar is not a shock. Susan Sarandon playing a nun? That is a shock! That's like casting Harvey Fierstein to play JFK!
Also on this day, Michael Glen Mullen is born in Los Angeles. He began his service in the U.S. Navy at the height of the Vietnam War, rose to become the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, the George Washington Carrier Battle Group, the U.S. Second Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations. From 2007 to 2011, Admiral Mullen was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is now retired.
October 4, 1947: Game 5 of the World Series. It was said of Dodger pitcher Rex Barney that he would be the best pitcher in the world if the plate were high and outside. On this day, he walks 9 Yankees in less than 5 innings -- 1 more than Bill Bevens in 9 innings the day before -- and a Joe DiMaggio homer in the 5th makes the difference, as the Yankees win, 2-1. They can wrap it up tomorrow.
October 4, 1948: In a 1-game playoff for the AL Pennant at Fenway Park‚ the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox 8-3, behind 30-year-old rookie knuckleballer Gene Bearden, who wins his 20th game. It was the year of a lifetime for Bearden: He had never been that good before, and he never would be again.
Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy, who had won so much with the Yankees, ignores the well-rested rotation pitchers Ellis Kinder and Mel Parnell to go with journeyman Denny Galehouse, who was 36 years old, and was only 8-7 that season. But it wasn't a totally crazy pick: Galehouse had helped the St. Louis Browns win the 1944 Pennant, so he was used to clutch pitching, and 8-7 isn't a terrible record.
But with the score 1-1 in the 4th‚ Ken Keltner hits a 3-run home run over the left-field fence. Indians shortstop-manager Lou Boudreau gets 4 hits‚ including a pair of homers‚ and finishes the year with just 9 strikeouts.
Who is still alive from this game, 71 years later? Only Eddie Robinson, who pinch-hit, and then took over at 1st base, for Allie Clark, the next-to-last survivor of the '48 Indians, who died in 2012. Clark was a South Amboy, New Jersey native whom the Yankees had traded with Joe Gordon to get Allie Reynolds. For the Red Sox, Bobby Doerr was the last survivor.
That same day, in St. Louis‚ Taylor Spink‚ publisher of The Sporting News, writes in a Baltimore newspaper that Baltimore will have an AL team within two years: "You can put a clothespin in this: Baltimore will be in the American League‚ if not next year‚ then surely in 1950."
In spite of his deep knowledge of the way the game had been working, including no franchises moving to a different city since 1902, he was wrong -- but he turned out to be off by only 4 years. It was his hometown Browns who became the new major-league version of the Baltimore Orioles, following previous major- and minor-league teams with those names. Spink and the NL's Cardinals were tight, and he didn't particularly care whether the Browns moved.
On this same day, Lewis Robert "Hack" Wilson was discovered unconscious after a fall in his Baltimore home. He was suffering from pneumonia and internal hemorrhaging, brought on by years of serious alcohol abuse. He died on November 23. He was only 48 years old.
A star slugger with the Chicago Cubs, in 1930 he had set the National League record of 56 home runs, and the major league record that still stands of 191 runs batted in. He led the NL in home runs 4 times. He had won Pennants with the New York Giants in 1923 and '24, and with the Cubs in 1929. His lifetime batting average was .307. But he couldn't run or field. It was said that he was "shaped like a beer barrel, and not unfamiliar with its contents." He last played in the majors at age 34, with 244 home runs. He should have had a lot more.
He was once the highest-paid player in the NL, with only Babe Ruth in the AL making more money. But because of his drinking and his final illness, he died without a penny to his name. His son Robert refused to claim the body. Ford Frick, then President of the NL, covered the funeral expenses.
Between his fall and his death, he gave an interview to CBS radio, which was reprinted in the newspapers after his death. Charlie Grimm, the Cubs' manager at the time, posted a framed excerpt from that interview in the Cub clubhouse. It is still there:
Talent isn't enough. You need common sense and good advice. If anyone tries to tell you different, tell them the story of Hack Wilson... Kids in and out of baseball who think because they have talent, they have the world by the tail. It isn't so. Kids, don't be too big to accept advice. Don't let what happened to me happen to you.
Also on this day, Cedrick Ward Hardman is born in Houston. A defensive end, he was a linemate of Mean Joe Greene at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas). He played 10 seasons for the San Francisco 49ers, was twice named to the Pro Bowl, and remains the franchise's all-time leader with 107 sacks. He then crossed San Francisco Bay, winning Super Bowl XV with the Oakland Raiders, and closed his career in 1983 as a player-coach with the USFL's Oakland Invaders.
He became an actor, appearing in episodes of Police Woman and The Fall Guy, and the films The Candidate, Stir Crazy and House Party. He died on March 8, 2019.
Also on this day, Thomas Ronald Webster is born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. A right wing, he played 2 games for the Boston Bruins in 1970, but did not make their Playoff roster, and thus cannot be considered a Stanley Cup Champion. However, he was with the New England Whalers in the 1st season of the World Hockey Association, 1972-73, and helped them win the title. He helped them get back into the Finals in 1978.
He later served as head coach of the New York Rangers and the Los Angeles Kings. In 1991, he guided the Kings to what remains their only regular-season Division title. He later served as a scout for the Calgary Flames, and is still alive. (UPDATE: He died on April 10, 2020.)
Also on this day, Heikki Riihiranta is born in Helsinki, Finland. A defenseman, "Hexi" starred for hometown team HIFK, winning league titles in 1969, 1970 and 1974. He then became one of the earliest Finnish players to play in North America, and was a teammate of Gerry Odrowski, and a few other Scandinavians, on the 1976 WHA Champion Winnipeg Jets.
He then returned to HIFK, and was their Captain until 1983. He later managed the Finland national team, leading them to the 1995 World Championship, and to Bronze Medals at the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics. He is still alive, and a member of the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, Roy Quentin Echlin Evans is born in Liverpool. A left back, he was signed to hometown soccer team Liverpool F.C., but made only 9 appearances from 1965 to 1974. Mixed in there, though, was a loan to the Philadelphia Atoms in 1973, helping them win the North American Soccer League title -- Philly's only major league soccer championship, upper- or lower-case.
He returned to Liverpool, and joined "the backroom staff," and rose to become the manager. He led them to the 1995 League Cup, beating Bolton Wanderers in the Final; and the 1996 FA Cup Final, losing to Manchester United. He is now a broadcaster with the club.
October 4, 1949, 70 years ago: New York City gives a ticker-tape parade to participants in the American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps National Championship.
Also on this day, Michael David Adamle is born outside Cleveland in Euclid, Ohio. (I won't call it a "suburb.") The son of Cleveland Browns running back Tony Adamle, Mike Adamle also became a running back, helping Northwestern University finish 2nd in the Big Ten in 1970, a rare achievement for them at the time. He was named Big Ten Most Valuable Player that season. He played in the NFL from 1971 to 1976, for the Kansas City Chiefs, the Jets, and the Chicago Bears, making him a teammate of Len Dawson, Joe Namath and Walter Payton.
He then became a broadcaster, calling college football games on ABC and anchoring the sports at their Chicago affiliate, WLS-Channel 7, from 1983 to 1989, and then competing the circuit by holding the same post at NBC's WMAQ-Channel 5 from 1998 to 2001 and at CBS' WBBM-Channel 2 from 2001 to 2004, before going back to WMAQ until 2017.
He also hosted American Gladiators and was an announcer for World Wrestling Entertainment (which is more "entertainment" than "wrestling"). In 2017, he had to retire from an on-camera role, as he has become one of many former football players diagnosed with CTE, the dementia so common to ex-players.
Also on this day, Armand Anthony Assante is born in Manhattan. His 1st film was The Lords of Flatbush in 1974, which also helped to launch Henry Winkler and Sylvester Stallone to stardom. NCIS fans know him as René Benoit, alias La Grenouille ("The Frog"), the French arms dealer who was a major antagonist on the show in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons.
He has played Greek mythological hero Odysseus (a.k.a. Ulysses), Napoleon Bonaparte, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche; organized crime legends Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Carmine Tramunti and John Gotti; and Riccardo Scicolone, Sophia's father, in the film Sophia Loren: Her Own Story.
*
October 4, 1950: With his ace Robin Roberts exhausted, and his Number 2 starter Curt Simmons having been drafted into the Korean War, Philadelphia Phillies manager Eddie Sawyer rolls the dice and starts Jim Konstanty in Game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees at Shibe Park.
Sawyer tells the press that it's not quite the gamble that it seems, because Konstanty had pitched long relief during the season, including one game where he went 9 innings. He was about to become the 1st relief pitcher ever to be named either League's Most Valuable Player,
It wasn't Konstanty's fault that the gamble didn't quite pay off: He was fantastic, pitching 8 innings, allowing only 1 run, on a double by Bobby Brown and 2 sacrifice flies, on 4 hits and 4 walks. But Vic Raschi of the Yankees was even better, tossing a shutout with 2 hits and 1 walk, and the Yankees win, 1-0.
The next day, Sawyer starts Roberts on 3 days' rest, and he, too, is magnificent in defeat. The Phils lose the 1st 3 games of the Series, all by 1 run.
October 4, 1951: The Giants have no time to really celebrate their amazing Pennant won the day before, as the World Series gets underway. But momentum is on their side. Monte Irvin steals home in the 1st inning (and, unlike Jackie Robinson 4 years later, the film definitively shows that he was safe) and collects 4 hits. The Giants defeat Allie Reynolds and the Yankees 5-1, with Dave Koslo going all the way at Yankee Stadium.
With Don Mueller missing the World Series due to the ankle he broke in the climactic inning the day before‚ home run hero Bobby Thomson switches to 3rd base, and the Giants field the 1st all-black outfield in a World Series: Irvin in left, soon-to-be Rookie of the Year Willie Mays in center, and Hank Thompson in right. Thompson and Irvin had been the 1st black players for the Giants, both debuting on July 8, 1949: Thompson as a starter, Irvin as a pinch-hitter.
Also on this day, mobster Willie Moretti is whacked while having lunch at Joe's Elbow Room, a restaurant in Cliffside Park, Bergen County, New Jersey. He had previously been much admired in Mob circles, due to his associations with bosses Vito Genovese in New York and Longy Zwillman in New Jersey.
He was allegedly the source for a story in The Godfather: In 1942, he asked bandleader Tommy Dorsey to let his big young singer, Frank Sinatra, out of his contract so he could go solo, in exchange for Dorsey receiving a tidy sum. Knowing how good Sinatra was, Dorsey refused. So Moretti put a gun to Dorsey's head, and the result was that Dorsey signed a release, for considerably less money than he would have gotten had he played ball. In the novel and the film, Moretti became Luca Brasi, Sinatra became Johnny Fontaine, and the bandleader's name was never mentioned.
But Moretti had willingly testified before the Senate Rackets Committee earlier in the year, and was seen as a liability. The excuse given by the Mob was that he was losing his mind. They embellished this, under their breath, by saying that was due to syphilis. Anyway, it was a mark of respect that they did so before he totally "lost his mind," and that they shot him in the face, instead of in the back. He was 57.
October 4, 1952: Game 4 of the World Series. Allie Reynolds pitches a 4-hit shutout, to top Joe Black, who also allows just 4 hits. Johnny Mize, just 3 months short of his 40th birthday, hits a home run. The Yankees win, 2-0, and tie up the Series.
October 4, 1953: Game 5 of the World Series at Ebbets Field. Mickey Mantle hits a 3rd inning grand slam off Russ Meyer in the 3rd inning‚ and the Yanks hold on to win 11-7 in a game that features 25 hits and 47 total bases.
*
October 4, 1955: For the 1st time, the Brooklyn Dodgers win a World Series. They had been 0-7 in the competition, 0-5 of that against the Yankees. This time, Dem Bums dooed it, and against the Yanks, at Yankee Stadium, to boot.
After losing the World Series to Boston in 1916, to Cleveland in 1920, and to the Yankees in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953; blowing Playoffs for the National League Pennant to St. Louis in 1946 and to the New York Giants in 1951; and blowing Pennants on the last weekend of the season to St. Louis in 1942 and Philadelphia in 1950, the Dodgers had finally won their 1st undisputed World Championship in 55 years, since they finished the 1900 season as National League Champions, with no postseason series available.
But in 1955, it all seemed to come together. True, the Dodgers had traded away 2 of the beloved players who would later be known, in the title of the book that Roger Kahn wrote in remembrance of his days covering them for the New York Herald Tribune, as "The Boys of Summer": Pitcher Elwyn "Preacher" Roe and 3rd baseman Billy Cox.
The team was in transition: Jackie Robinson was still a factor, but his replacements had arrived in Jim "Junior" Gilliam and Don Zimmer. Ralph Branca, the goat of the 1951 Playoff, had retired, but the Dodgers still had Don Newcombe and Carl Erskine, and they were joined by a hotshot lefty named Johnny Podres. The Dodgers won their first 13 games of the '55 season, and finished 13 games ahead of the preseason favorites, the Milwaukee Braves.
But the Yankees took the first 2 games of the World Series, despite Robinson's steal of home plate in Game 1. But the Dodgers took the next 3 at Ebbets Field. Then the Yankees tied it up. In fact, the home team won each of the first 6 home games. Bad news for the Dodgers, since Game 7 would be at Yankee Stadium. A team with the kind of luck they'd had didn't need no bad omens.
The Boys of Summer were getting old. The younger Dodgers didn’t quite seem ready. The team was in transition, and it did seem like it had been a seamless one; but for veterans like shortstop Pee Wee Reese, 1st baseman Gil Hodges, center fielder Duke Snider and catcher Roy Campanella — along with Robinson, all but Hodges are in the Hall of Fame, and he damn well should be — it seemed like it was now or never.
Podres was the choice of manager Walter Alston, having won Game 3. Yankee manager Casey Stengel, with ace Whitey Ford having pitched brilliantly in Game 6, had to go with Tommy Byrne, a lefty who was occasionally wild, but had come up big for Stengel in several big games.
The Dodgers scored a run in the 4th and another in the 6th, to take a 2-0 lead. But the Yankees got 2 men on in the bottom of the 6th. And Yogi Berra, as much a "Mr. October"” as the Yankees have ever had, was coming up. Yogi had delighted in hitting Series homers off the Dodgers, and would again. To hell with the lefty-on-lefty matchup: Yogi had no fear. And, despite usually being a pull hitter, Yogi hooked the ball down the left-field line, into the corner.
Left field had long been a troublesome position for the Dodgers. Gene Hermanski. Cal Abrams. George "Shotgun" Shuba and Andy Pafko had played it well, but, for whatever reasons, none of them seemed to stick, although Shuba was still on the roster. (In fact, he became the last surviving Dodger from this game.) Now Zimmer was the usual left fielder, though he was a natural infielder.
But Alston had pinch-hit Gilliam for Zimmer, and put Gilliam in at 2nd, replacing the righty-throwing Zimmer in left with lefty-throwing Sandy Amoros, a Cuban whose English was halting but whose play, on this day, changed baseball history.
A righthanded fielder, like Zimmer, never could have caught this ball, no matter how fast he was. But Amoros was fast and lefthanded, and he stuck out his right hand and caught the ball. Then he wheeled it back to the infield. Reese relayed it to Hodges, and Gil McDougald was unable to get back to 1st base in time. Double play end of threat. Just 9 outs to go.
At the time, Doris Kearns was a 12-year-old girl living in Rockville Centre, Long Island, 18 miles east of Ebbets Field. Nearly 40 years later, interviewed for Ken Burns' Baseball miniseries, award-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin would cite Amoros' robbery of Berra and the ensuing rally-killing double play as a sign that the Dodgers would win. "There's always these omens in baseball," she said. Translation: If the Dodgers could get Yogi out in a key situation, then that was it: The Yankees' luck had run out, and they would not threaten again.
Bottom of the 9th. Two out. Podres has pitched a stomach-churning game: Eight hits, but no runs. The last batter is Elston Howard. Six months earlier, Howard had become the 1st black man to play in a regular-season game for the Yankees, and was now the left fielder and Yogi's backup at catcher. In 1959, they would switch positions, and Ellie would become one of the game's best catchers. In 1955, he was a 26-year-old "rookie,"” having played in the Negro Leagues for a while.
Howard grounded to short. It was so appropriate that it went to Harold Henry Reese, the Dodgers' Captain and senior player. Pee Wee threw it to Gil Hodges, and Hodges, perhaps the best-fielding 1st baseman of his era, had to trap it on the ground to keep it from being an error and bringing the tying run to the plate. But he got it.
Ballgame over. World Series over. With Red Barber having been chased out of Brooklyn by team owner Walter O'Malley after the 1953 season, it was Vin Scully who got to make the announcement over the airwaves: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the World Champions of baseball."
Simple, and correct, with no embellishments or histrionics. Not exactly how Mel Allen, Phil Rizzuto or John Sterling would have described it.
It had been 55 years — or 52 years if you count only from the 1st World Series forward. All the near-misses, all the heartbreak, all the taunts from fans of the Giants and the Yankees? Those things no longer mattered.
"Please don't interrupt," Shirley Povich wrote for the next day's Washington Post, "because you haven't heard this one before: The Brooklyn Dodgers are World Champions of baseball." (Povich wrote for the Post from 1924, when Walter Johnson finally pitched them to the World Series, until his death in 1998. His son is the TV journalist Maury Povich.)
And they did it at Yankee Stadium, no less. They never clinched a World Championship at Ebbets Field -- although the Yankees had, in 1941, 1949 and 1952, and would again in 1956. Not until 1963 would the Dodger franchise clinch a World Series win on their home field.
The party in Brooklyn was the biggest since V-J Day ended World War II 10 years earlier, and hasn't been matched since. Scully told the story for Ken Burns' Baseball: "When we were riding through Manhattan, it was fall. Football was in the air. We came out the other end of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and it was New Orleans chaos!"
No more "Wait 'Til Next Year," as the Brooklyn Eagle -- which had, sadly, gone out of business a few months too soon to report on the Dodgers' title -- had first blared in a headline after the 1941 Series. This was Next Year. So said the back page of the next day's New York Daily News: "THIS IS NEXT YEAR!". The front page of the next day's Daily News was even more demonstrative: "WHO'S A BUM!" Willard Mullin, who had drawn the original version of the "Dodger Bum" cartoon character, drew him again, a big nearly-toothless smile, for that front page, consisting only of that headline and that drawing.
Two personnel notes should be made. One is that Mickey Mantle was injured and unable to play in Game 7 for the Yankees. Does that mean the one and only World Series won by the Brooklyn Dodgers should have an asterisk? No: There's no guarantee that Mickey would have made the difference, even though he had hit the Dodgers hard in the '52 and '53 Series, and would again in '56. Although he was one of the true Mr. Octobers, he didn't always have a good Series, and in fact went only 2-for-10 in the 3 Series games he did get into in '55, even if one of those hits was a homer off Podres in Game 3.
The other personnel note is that Jackie Robinson was not put into the lineup in Game 7. The noblest character in the history of baseball was deemed unworthy of this moment by his manager. Alston was not a Jackie Robinson fan. Neither was owner O'Malley. But on the highlight film, you can see Number 42 running onto the field. After all he’d been through, at 36 he still had enough energy to be one of the first men into the celebratory pile, if not enough energy to persuade his manager to put him into the lineup. But can we really argue with the decision? After all, it worked.
There are still 4 living members of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers: Carl Erskine, Roger Craig, and 2 lefthanded pitchers worth mentioning. One was a chunky guy from outside Philadelphia who had starred for the Dodgers' Triple-A farm team, the Montreal Royals, but his entire big-league career consisted of 4 games for Brooklyn in both the '54 and '55 seasons, then 18 more the next season for the Kansas City Athletics. Despite his pitching for that team, he never got on the Kansas City/Bronx shuttle. Maybe it was because, in '56, he got into a fight with Yankee 2nd baseman Billy Martin.
In the middle of the '55 season, he was told by Dodger general manager Emil "Buzzie" Bavasi that he was being sent back down to Montreal. He objected. Bavasi said, "If not you, who should we send down?" The portly portsider said to send down the other lefty, because he had no control. Bavasi told him that the other lefty couldn't be sent down, because he was a "bonus baby," and under the rules of the time, he had to stay on the major league roster for 2 full seasons, no matter what. This rule was designed to discourage teams from just throwing big (for the time) sums of money at prospects.
The bonus baby was a local boy, a Brooklyn kid who had made his major league debut that season, appearing in 12 games, but hadn't shown anything remarkable yet. He wanted to be an architect, and had so studied at the University of Cincinnati. He also preferred basketball to baseball.
The fat lefty insisted that he was a better pitcher than the bonus baby -- and, 62 years later, he still insists that, at the time, he was better.
Eventually, the bonus baby would get his pitching straightened out, and become one of the very best men ever to mount a pitcher's mound. His name was Sandy Koufax.
The hefty lefty? His name was Tommy Lasorda. In 1977, he and his former antagonist Billy were shaking hands in World Series pregame ceremonies, as fellow, mutually-admiring, Pennant-winning Italian-American managers.
Ironically, it was Lasorda's Dodgers who went back to his old stomping grounds of Montreal and ended the one and only postseason run ever made by the Royals' National League successors, the Expos.
There are 4 living members of the 1955 New York Yankees. Bob Cerv, who died this past April 6, was the last man alive who played in Game 7, on either side. Also on the roster were Ford, Don Larsen (still a year away from his moment in time), Irv Noren and Tom Carroll (a Queens native who was a defensive replacement in 2 games and only played 64 games in the majors, kept on the roster because he was a bonus baby).
October 4, 1955, 3:43 PM Brooklyn Standard Time. Dem Bums had finally dooed it. Two years later, it would all be over. And only one man had imagined such a blasphemy. Unfortunately, the blasphemer was the caretaker of the faith, Walter Francis O'Malley.
In 1962, the Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York — that was the original corporate name of the team we know as the Mets — did something that had previously been done only by hatred of the Yankees: They united the fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the fans of the New York Giants. Until 1996, including even the Yankees' quasi-dynasty of 1976-81, the Mets were New York's most popular team.
That is no longer the case, and a person would have to be nearly at least 65 years old to have any memory of the previous National League teams of New York; more like 70 to remember such events as the '55 win and Willie Mays' catch in '54, nearly 75 to accurately remember Bobby Thomson's homer in '51, at least 75 to remember Jackie Robinson’s debut season in '47, about 80 to remember the '41 season that began the Dodgers' renaissance, and at least 85 to remember the Giant teams that won 3 Pennants in the 1930s.
Long time passing.
Also on the day that Brooklyn wins the World Series, Jorge Alberto Francisco Valdano Castellanos is born in Las Parejas, Argentina. A forward in soccer, he won his homeland's league with Newell's Old Boys of Rosario in 1974, and moved on to Spain in 1979. After 5 seasons with Real Zaragoza, he was signed by Real Madrid, Spain's premier club. They won the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League) in 1985 and 1986, and La Liga in 1986 and 1987. In 1986, he scored a goal in Argentina's win in the World Cup Final. Later, he managed Real Madrid to the 1995 La Liga title.
He is one of those people who believes that the main purpose of sport is not to win, but to play well. In May 2007, he was quoted in Marca, Spain's biggest football-themed newspaper, saying that soccer (or "football") was headed for a bad place. In particular, he cited the UEFA Champions League Semifinal between English clubs Chelsea and Liverpool, both known for roughhouse tactics and "diving" in the penalty area to falsely win a penalty kick. He was particularly prophetic in mentioning Didier Drogba, the big forward from the Ivory Coast who became one of the biggest winners, but also one of the biggest cheats, in the game:
Chelsea and Liverpool are the clearest, most exaggerated example of the way football is going: Very intense, very collective, very tactical, very physical, and very direct. But, a short pass? Noooo. A feint? Noooo. A change of pace? Noooo. A one-two? A nutmeg? A backheel? Don't be ridiculous. None of that. The extreme control and seriousness with which both teams played the semi-final neutralised any creative license, any moments of exquisite skill.
If Didier Drogba was the best player in the first match, it was purely because he was the one who ran the fastest, jumped the highest and crashed into people the hardest. Such extreme intensity wipes away talent, even leaving a player of Joe Cole's class disoriented. If football is going the way Chelsea and Liverpool are taking it, we had better be ready to wave goodbye to any expression of the cleverness and talent we have enjoyed for a century.
Valdano was Real Madrid's general manager when the club, over his objections, hired Jose Mourinho, manager of that Chelsea team, as its field manager. In 2011, he said, basically, either he goes or I go. Not long thereafter, they were both out of a job. Valdano hasn't worked for a team since, and now broadcasts in Spain for BeIN Sports.
*
October 4, 1956: Johannes Franciscus van Breukelen is born in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This is a reminder that the Dutch were the 1st European settlers of what's now New York, that they named a village "Breukelen," the English renamed it "Brooklyn," and that one of its neighborhoods became "New Utrecht."
Hans van Breukelen was the goalkeeper on the PSV Eindhoven team that dominated Dutch soccer in the 1980s, winning 6 straightEredivisie (Dutch league) titles from 1986 to 1992, winning 3 straight KNVB Beker (Dutch Cup) titles from 1988 to 1990, and, in 1988, winning a European Treble: The league, the cup, and the European Cup. Only one other Dutch team has done that: Ajax Amsterdam in 1972.
But he didn't stop with the club season. In 1988, he was the goalie for the Dutch team that won Euro 1988, the only major tournament that the Netherlands have ever won. He recently served as a member of PSV's board of directors, and is now technical director of the KNBV (the Dutch football association).
October 4, 1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the world's 1st artificial satellite. This terrifies Americans into thinking, not so much that the Communists are ahead of us in any prestigious "space race," but that, soon, they will be able to attack us from space. Well, it's been 62 years, and they've never attacked us from anywhere. (Spy-on-spy crime excepted, of course.)
*
October 4, 1956: Johannes Franciscus van Breukelen is born in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This is a reminder that the Dutch were the 1st European settlers of what's now New York, that they named a village "Breukelen," the English renamed it "Brooklyn," and that one of its neighborhoods became "New Utrecht."
Hans van Breukelen was the goalkeeper on the PSV Eindhoven team that dominated Dutch soccer in the 1980s, winning 6 straightEredivisie (Dutch league) titles from 1986 to 1992, winning 3 straight KNVB Beker (Dutch Cup) titles from 1988 to 1990, and, in 1988, winning a European Treble: The league, the cup, and the European Cup. Only one other Dutch team has done that: Ajax Amsterdam in 1972.
But he didn't stop with the club season. In 1988, he was the goalie for the Dutch team that won Euro 1988, the only major tournament that the Netherlands have ever won. He recently served as a member of PSV's board of directors, and is now technical director of the KNBV (the Dutch football association).
October 4, 1957: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the world's 1st artificial satellite. This terrifies Americans into thinking, not so much that the Communists are ahead of us in any prestigious "space race," but that, soon, they will be able to attack us from space. Well, it's been 62 years, and they've never attacked us from anywhere. (Spy-on-spy crime excepted, of course.)
The Space Age has begun. Particularly related to this is satellite technology that allows us to see sporting events from anywhere in the world. Today, if you so chose, you could have watched UEFA Champions League soccer, and the American League Wild Card game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays.
Also on this day, Leave It to Beaver premieres on ABC. Somebody once pointed out that the show was a lot less naive than it first appeared, and that the worries of Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, played by Jerry Mathers, mirrored those of the times; that the show premiered on the day Sputnik 1 was launched, and aired its last episode on June 20, 1963, right after President John F. Kennedy stared down George Wallace over integration at the University of Alabama and proposed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 2 months before Martin Luther King spoke at the March On Washington, and 5 months before Kennedy was assassinated.
Also on this day, Leave It to Beaver premieres on ABC. Somebody once pointed out that the show was a lot less naive than it first appeared, and that the worries of Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, played by Jerry Mathers, mirrored those of the times; that the show premiered on the day Sputnik 1 was launched, and aired its last episode on June 20, 1963, right after President John F. Kennedy stared down George Wallace over integration at the University of Alabama and proposed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, 2 months before Martin Luther King spoke at the March On Washington, and 5 months before Kennedy was assassinated.
Also on this day, William Mark Fagerbakke is born in Fontana, California. After appearing as assistant coach Michael "Dauber" Dybinski on the football-themed ABC sitcom Coach, he appeared on How I Met Your Mother as Marvin Eriksen, Marshall's father -- both fictional natives of Minnesota. Actually, he's best known by millions of kids (and stoners) who know his voice, but not his face: He plays Patrick Star on SpongeBob SquarePants.
October 4, 1958: Game 3 of the World Series. Not for the 1st time, Don Larsen comes through for the Yankees with a shutout when they need a win badly. He allows 6 hits, and a Hank Bauer home run gives him a 4-0 victory over the Milwaukee Braves. The Yankees now trail the Series 2 games to 1.
Also on this day, Sun Devil Stadium opens on the campus of Arizona State University, in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe. Arizona State beats West Texas State College (now known as West Texas A&M University), 16-13.
It has hosted Arizona State football ever since, and was also home to the Fiesta Bowl from 1971 to 2006, the USFL's Arizona Wranglers/Outlaws from 1983 to 1985, and the NFL's Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals from 1988 to 2005. Originally holding 30,450 people, it would rise to a peak capacity of 74,865 in 1989.
It is currently undergoing a renovation, being entirely rebuilt stand-by-stand, a modernization that will be less costly than building a new stadium from scratch. Capacity has been reduced to 56,232. The Cactus Bowl, which Sun Devil Stadium hosted from 2006 to 2005, is being held at Chase Field, home of baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks, until the renovation is completed in time for the 2019 season.
Also on this day, Tommy McDonald of the Philadelphia Eagles, having played without a facemask and gotten his jaw broken on a hit the week before, not only plays, with his jaw wired shot, but scores 4 touchdowns at Franklin Field: 3 receiving, 1 on a punt return. He personally outscores the New York Giants, as the Eagles beat them 49-21.
*
October 4, 1960: Joseph Martin Boever is born in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood, Missouri. Nicknamed "Boever the Saver" (it rhymes), the relief pitcher appeared in the 1985 World Series as a rookie for his hometown Cardinals, and was then a journeyman, remaining in the major leagues until 1996.
October 4, 1961: Game 1 of the World Series. Whitey Ford continues his shutout streak, Elston Howard and Bill "Moose" Skowron hit home runs, and the Yankees beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-0.
Also on this day, The Alvin Show premieres on CBS. It is the 1st TV show about David Seville's Chipmunks.
October 4, 1962: Game 1 of the World Series is played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the 1st World Series game played in Northern California. The Yankees beat the Giants, 6-2. Whitey Ford is the winning pitcher for a record 10th time in Series play, but it will be for the last time, and his record streak of 33 2/3 scoreless World Series innings is stopped.
Also on this day, Issiac Holt III (no middle name, and that's how his first name is spelled, not "Isaac") is born in Birmingham, Alabama. A cornerback, he was with the Dallas Cowboys when they won Super Bowl XXVII. But in the following off-season, he told head coach Jimmy Johnson he shouldn't have so many "voluntary" workouts, and Johnson cut him. He never played in the NFL again.
October 4, 1963: The Twilight Zone airs the episode "Steel," based on a 1956 short story by Richard Matheson. Airing 7 months after former Featherweight Champion Davey Moore died as a result of a fight with Sugar Ramos, and a year and a half after Emile Griffith reclaimed the Welterweight Championship and killed Benny "the Kid" Paret in the process, it takes place in 1974, and posits that robots replaced human boxers after the sport was banned for safety reasons in 1968.
Lee Marvin plays Steel Kelly, a former boxer who manages a robot named Battling Maxo, who breaks down right before a fight. Since he and his trainer can't afford to fix Maxo, Kelly takes his place in the ring, and gets pounded by the robotic opponent.
Also on this day, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, visiting America, is given a ticker-tape parade in New York.
Also on this day, A.C. Green Jr. is born in Portland, Oregon. Like his father, his initials are just that, and don't stand for anything. A 1990 NBA All-Star, the forward won NBA titles with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1987 and 1988, played for the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks, and came back to the Lakers to win another title in 2000.
His streak of 1,192 consecutive games played, from November 19, 1986 to April 18, 2001, is easily the longest in NBA history. It did not end due to injury or being cut: At age 37, he simply retired. He now runs a youth foundation.
October 4, 1964: Sam Cowan dies of a heart attack while refereeing a charity soccer game in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England. He was 63. A centreback, he had been the Captain of the Manchester City team that won the 1934 FA Cup. As Captain, he was handed the Cup by King George V.
October 4, 1965: For the 1st time, a Pope delivers a Mass in the Western Hemisphere. Pope Paul VI does so at Yankee Stadium in New York. A crowd of 90,000 attends. It is the only sellout at Yankee Stadium all year long.
I looked it up: No, the Yankees couldn't sell The Stadium out that season. Not on Opening Day, not on Old-Timers' Day, not even in the preceding month on the 1st Mickey Mantle Day. They held their 1st promotion that season, Bat Day, and couldn't sell it out then, either. Nor could the NFL's Giants sell The Stadium out in 1965.
On the same trip, the Pope addresses the United Nations. The theme of both of his speeches is peace: "No more war. Never again, war. Peace. It is peace that must guide the destinies of people and of all mankind."
The New York branch of the Catholic advocacy group the Knights of Columbus dedicates a plaque in honor of the event, which is hung on the center field wall at The Stadium. It is moved to Monument Park in 1976, and to the new Yankee Stadium in 2009, along with plaques for later Masses delivered by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. While Pope Francis came to New York last October, and delivered Mass at Madison Square Garden (as John Paul II did in 1979, and also at both ballparks), the Yankees still playing home games made a Mass at the new Yankee Stadium logistically impossible.
In 1972, Paul Owens was hired as Phillies general manager. The man who built the Phils' quasi-dynasty of 1976-1983, including their 1980 World Championship and their 1983 Pennant (the latter of which he managed) was nicknamed "The Pope," not just because his name was Paul, but because he looked a bit like Pope Paul VI.
On this same day, Steven Robert Olin is born in Portland, Oregon. A righthanded pitcher with a sidearm delivery, he pitched for the Cleveland Indians, and at the close of the 1992 season, had a record of 16-19, but 48 saves, and had become one of the best relievers in the game.
On March 22, 1993, he was invited by Tim Crews and Bob Ojeda, pitchers the Indians had just acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers, on a boat that Crews owned near his home, on an off day in Spring Training. The lake was Little Lake Nellie, near Orlando, and as it got dark, Crews, piloting the boat, didn't see a jetty that was sticking out into the lake. Olin was killed instantly (he was only 27 years old), Crews died the next day (he was about to turn 32), and Ojeda missed most of the season with injuries.
On this same day, John Alfred Roper is born in Houston. A linebacker, he was with the Dallas Cowboys when they won Super Bowl XXVIII.
On this same day, George Michael Ward Jr. is born in Lowell, Massachusetts. "Irish Micky Ward" won some minor titles in the light welterweight division, and his known for his 3 fights with Arturo "Thunder" Gatti. The 1st was at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasille, Connecticut. The last 2 were at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Each was a frequent venue for both fighters. Ward won only the 1st, which was named Fight of the Year for 2002 by The Ring magazine. The 3rd, which turned out to be Ward's last professional fight, was named Fight of the Year for 2003.
He now manages a gym in Lowell. Boston native Mark Wahlberg played him in the 2010 film The Fighter.
On this same day, Steven Robert Olin is born in Portland, Oregon. A righthanded pitcher with a sidearm delivery, he pitched for the Cleveland Indians, and at the close of the 1992 season, had a record of 16-19, but 48 saves, and had become one of the best relievers in the game.
On March 22, 1993, he was invited by Tim Crews and Bob Ojeda, pitchers the Indians had just acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers, on a boat that Crews owned near his home, on an off day in Spring Training. The lake was Little Lake Nellie, near Orlando, and as it got dark, Crews, piloting the boat, didn't see a jetty that was sticking out into the lake. Olin was killed instantly (he was only 27 years old), Crews died the next day (he was about to turn 32), and Ojeda missed most of the season with injuries.
On this same day, John Alfred Roper is born in Houston. A linebacker, he was with the Dallas Cowboys when they won Super Bowl XXVIII.
On this same day, George Michael Ward Jr. is born in Lowell, Massachusetts. "Irish Micky Ward" won some minor titles in the light welterweight division, and his known for his 3 fights with Arturo "Thunder" Gatti. The 1st was at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasille, Connecticut. The last 2 were at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Each was a frequent venue for both fighters. Ward won only the 1st, which was named Fight of the Year for 2002 by The Ring magazine. The 3rd, which turned out to be Ward's last professional fight, was named Fight of the Year for 2003.
He now manages a gym in Lowell. Boston native Mark Wahlberg played him in the 2010 film The Fighter.
October 4, 1967: Game 1 of the World Series. Jose Santiago starts for the Boston Red Sox, and hits a home run off Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 3rd inning. But that's the only run Gibson allows, and the Cardinals win 2-1.
Also on this day, Victoria Andrea Bullett is born in Martinsburg, in the Panhandle, the part of West Virginia that's closer to Baltimore and Washington, rather than to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. (MARC, MAryland Rail Commuter, even has a Martinsburg Line to Washington's Union Station.) A forward, she led the women's basketball team at the University of Maryland to 3 Atlantic Coast Conference Championships and the 1989 NCAA Women's Final Four. She also won a Gold Medal with the U.S. team at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea.
Vicky Bullett played professionally in Italy until the WNBA was founded, and became an All-Star with the Charlotte Sting. She went into coaching, and is now the head coach at West Virginia Wesleyan University.
October 4, 1968: Star Trek airs the episode "The Paradise Syndrome." Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is stranded with amnesia on a planet populated by a tribe resembling Native Americans. They confuse him for a god, which his memory loss prevents him from authoritatively denying, and his subsequent saving of a boy's life reinforces the belief. This allows him to marry Miramanee (Sabrina Scharf), the daughter of the chief.
Her ex-boyfriend, medicine man Salish (Rudy Solari), doesn't like it, and takes a knife to him, and cuts his hand, and issues one of the cheesiest lines in Star Trek history: "You bleed! Behold: A god who bleeds!"
For reasons too wonky to get into here, it takes 2 months for the crew of the USS Enterprise to save him, but they can't save Miramanee when the tribe turn on husband and wife when the "god" can't stop the "storm."
October 4, 1969, 50 years ago: The 1st League Championship Series games are played in Atlanta and Baltimore. The Mets survive homers by Hank Aaron and Tony Gonzalez off Tom Seaver, and score 5 runs off Phil Niekro in the 8th to coast home 9-5. Paul Blair's 12th-inning squeeze bunt gives the Orioles a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Twins.
Also on this day, the Universities of Alabama and Mississippi played each other at Legion Field in Birmingham. At this time, college football games on national prime-time television were rare. But both teams were ranked: "Bama" was Number 15, and "Ole Miss" was Number 20. There was star power in this game: Bama had running back Johnny Musso, and Ole Miss had quarterback Archie Manning.
The game went back and forth, and Manning set Southeastern Conference single-game records for passing attempts (52), completions (33) and yards (436) and most total yards (540). But Bama won the game, 33-32.
Like future Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White of Colorado against Rice in the 1938 Cotton Bowl, Jim Brown of Syracuse against Texas Christian in the 1957 Cotton Bowl, and Joe Namath of Alabama against Texas in the 1965 Orange Bowl, Archie Manning had his greatest college football game in defeat. He went on to become an All-Pro for the New Orleans Saints, and his sons Peyton and Eli each won 2 Super Bowls as quarterbacks. Archie is now 69.
And Musso? Like Archie, he would be elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, and played in 3 different pro leagues: With the BC Lions of the CFL, the Birmingham Vulcans of the WFL, and the Chicago Bears of the NFL, where he was Walter Payton's backup until a knee injury ended his career in 1978. Perhaps the 1st athlete to be known as "The Italian Stallion," he is now 68.
Also on this day, Victoria Andrea Bullett is born in Martinsburg, in the Panhandle, the part of West Virginia that's closer to Baltimore and Washington, rather than to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. (MARC, MAryland Rail Commuter, even has a Martinsburg Line to Washington's Union Station.) A forward, she led the women's basketball team at the University of Maryland to 3 Atlantic Coast Conference Championships and the 1989 NCAA Women's Final Four. She also won a Gold Medal with the U.S. team at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea.
Vicky Bullett played professionally in Italy until the WNBA was founded, and became an All-Star with the Charlotte Sting. She went into coaching, and is now the head coach at West Virginia Wesleyan University.
October 4, 1968: Star Trek airs the episode "The Paradise Syndrome." Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is stranded with amnesia on a planet populated by a tribe resembling Native Americans. They confuse him for a god, which his memory loss prevents him from authoritatively denying, and his subsequent saving of a boy's life reinforces the belief. This allows him to marry Miramanee (Sabrina Scharf), the daughter of the chief.
Her ex-boyfriend, medicine man Salish (Rudy Solari), doesn't like it, and takes a knife to him, and cuts his hand, and issues one of the cheesiest lines in Star Trek history: "You bleed! Behold: A god who bleeds!"
For reasons too wonky to get into here, it takes 2 months for the crew of the USS Enterprise to save him, but they can't save Miramanee when the tribe turn on husband and wife when the "god" can't stop the "storm."
October 4, 1969, 50 years ago: The 1st League Championship Series games are played in Atlanta and Baltimore. The Mets survive homers by Hank Aaron and Tony Gonzalez off Tom Seaver, and score 5 runs off Phil Niekro in the 8th to coast home 9-5. Paul Blair's 12th-inning squeeze bunt gives the Orioles a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Twins.
Also on this day, the Universities of Alabama and Mississippi played each other at Legion Field in Birmingham. At this time, college football games on national prime-time television were rare. But both teams were ranked: "Bama" was Number 15, and "Ole Miss" was Number 20. There was star power in this game: Bama had running back Johnny Musso, and Ole Miss had quarterback Archie Manning.
The game went back and forth, and Manning set Southeastern Conference single-game records for passing attempts (52), completions (33) and yards (436) and most total yards (540). But Bama won the game, 33-32.
Like future Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White of Colorado against Rice in the 1938 Cotton Bowl, Jim Brown of Syracuse against Texas Christian in the 1957 Cotton Bowl, and Joe Namath of Alabama against Texas in the 1965 Orange Bowl, Archie Manning had his greatest college football game in defeat. He went on to become an All-Pro for the New Orleans Saints, and his sons Peyton and Eli each won 2 Super Bowls as quarterbacks. Archie is now 69.
And Musso? Like Archie, he would be elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, and played in 3 different pro leagues: With the BC Lions of the CFL, the Birmingham Vulcans of the WFL, and the Chicago Bears of the NFL, where he was Walter Payton's backup until a knee injury ended his career in 1978. Perhaps the 1st athlete to be known as "The Italian Stallion," he is now 68.
*
October 4, 1970: Janis Joplin dies of a heroin overdose in Los Angeles. She was only 27. Just 16 days earlier, Jimi Hendrix had died of a heroin overdose in London. He was 27. Asked about Jimi's death, Janis said, "There but for the grace of God go I."
Jim Morrison, the lead singer of The Doors, heard about Hendrix' death, and started asking people, "Do you believe in omens?" (In spite of what Doris Kearns Goodwin said, I can find no evidence that Morrison was interested in baseball, although he did attend UCLA's Film School at the time John Wooden began winning basketball's National Championship there.) After Joplin died, Morrison would tell friends, "Believe it or not, you're drinking with number three."
Actually, he was wrong: He was in line to be number four. Alan Wilson, the lead singer of Canned Heat, wasn't as big a star, but he and his band had played at Woodstock. He had died of a barbiturate overdose on September 3. "Blind Owl" was, you guessed it, 27. On July 3, 1971, Jim Morrison died of a drug-and-booze-fueled heart attack at the apart!ent he was renting in Paris. He was 27.
None of this would seem to have anything to do with sports. But drugs would ravage the sports world in the 1970s and '80s. I guess nobody learned from what it had already done to music in the 1950s and '60s.
October 4, 1972: Ted Williams wears a Major League Baseball uniform in an official competitive capacity for the last time. He manages the Texas Rangers, who lose to the Kansas City Royals 4-0. Although he will be a spring training instructor for the Red Sox until age and infirmity makes this impossible, the Splendid Splinter will never be involved in regular-season baseball again.
It is also the last game as Royals manager for Bob Lemon, and the last game played at K.C.'s Municipal Stadium. Previously known as Muehlebach Field, Ruppert Stadium and Blues Stadium, it opened as a minor league park in 1923, and hosted several minor-league and Negro League Pennants, and the Kansas City Chiefs, who won the 1966 and '69 AFL Championships and Super Bowl IV while playing there.
But, seating just 35,000 for baseball and 47,000 for football, it is too small. Arrowhead Stadium had already opened and the Chiefs had moved in. Royals Stadium, now Kauffman Stadium, opened the following spring. Municipal Stadium was demolished in 1976.
But, seating just 35,000 for baseball and 47,000 for football, it is too small. Arrowhead Stadium had already opened and the Chiefs had moved in. Royals Stadium, now Kauffman Stadium, opened the following spring. Municipal Stadium was demolished in 1976.
Lemon, who will join Williams in the Baseball Hall of Fame by being elected in 1976 (for his pitching with the Indians), will be replaced by Jack McKeon. Williams will be replaced by Whitey Herzog. In 1975, McKeon will be replaced as Royals manager by Herzog, who will lose 3 straight ALCS to the Yankees, managed by the man who replaced McKeon as Rangers manager, Billy Martin. Herzog would finally win 3 Pennants and a World Series with the Cardinals in the 1980s.
Also on this day, Arsenal sign centreback Jeff Blockley from Coventry City. With manager Bertie Mee and team Captain Frank McLintock falling out, just a year and a half after the club's "Double," Mee viewed Blockley as a potential replacement. But he wasn't anywhere near good enough, and the fans let him know it. By 1975, he was gone -- ironically, sold to the team from whence McLintock came, Leicester City.
Also on this day, Arsenal sign centreback Jeff Blockley from Coventry City. With manager Bertie Mee and team Captain Frank McLintock falling out, just a year and a half after the club's "Double," Mee viewed Blockley as a potential replacement. But he wasn't anywhere near good enough, and the fans let him know it. By 1975, he was gone -- ironically, sold to the team from whence McLintock came, Leicester City.
Also on this day, Kurt Vincent Thomas is born in Dallas. The basketball forward was the 1995 NCAA scoring leader and its rebounding leader, with Texas Christian University. He also played on both sides of the nasty New York Knicks/Miami Heat rivalry of the late 1990s, playing in the Game 5 brawl in their 1997 Playoff series, but was with the Dallas Mavericks and thus not involved in the Game 4 brawl in their 1998 Playoff series.
He came to the Knicks, and was a member of their 1999 Eastern Conference Champions. He should not be confused with the German composer or the American gymnast-turned-"actor" of the same name.
October 4, 1975: Game 1 is played in both Leagues' Championship Series. The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 8-3 at Riverfront Stadium, and the Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics 7-1 at Fenway Park. The winning pitchers are Don Gullett and Luis Tiant.
But it is a sad day in baseball. Indeed, it is a sad week. Just 5 days after the death of Casey Stengel, Joan Whitney Payson, founding owner of the Mets, dies in New York, at the age of 72. This was the worst thing that could happen to the team, as her daughter, Lorinda de Roulet, inherited the team, and let team president M. Donald Grant run it into the ground.
Mrs. Payson, a member of the old-money Whitney family (you may have visited the museum they founded), and also of the old-money Hay family, and a breeder of champion racehorses, was a member of the New York Giants' board of directors. With Grant acting as her proxy, she was the only boardmember to vote against them moving to San Francisco in 1957.
This made her the ideal person for the group trying to establish a new National League team in New York, led by high-profile lawyer William A. Shea, to approach to be the majority owner -- the 1st woman in such a role in baseball history who did not inherit the team from someone else.
This made her the ideal person for the group trying to establish a new National League team in New York, led by high-profile lawyer William A. Shea, to approach to be the majority owner -- the 1st woman in such a role in baseball history who did not inherit the team from someone else.
It was her idea to hire former Yankee manager Casey Stengel as the Mets' 1st manager. It was also her idea to trade for Willie Mays in 1972, bringing the Giants' legend back to New York. These were great moves in terms of public relations. In terms of on-the-field success, not so much. It was also her idea that no Met should ever again wear Mays' Number 24; with a few brief exceptions, this edict has held, although it hasn't been officially retired.
Grant was already doing pretty much as he pleased as Mrs. Payson became old and ill, breaking up the team that won the 1969 World Series and the 1973 Pennant. He had already traded away Bud Harrelson, Cleon Jones and Tug McGraw. Within weeks of her death, he would trade away Rusty Staub, and would also trade away Jerry Koosman, and, most infamously, Tom Seaver. Shea Stadium's attendance dwindled so much, the Flushing Meadow amphitheatre became known as Grant's Tomb.
Mrs. de Roulet wasn't nearly as quick on the uptake as her mother, but, finally, she had enough, and fired Grant. In 1980, she sold the team to Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon, who rebuilt the team in to the one that won the 1986 World Series. In 1981, they established the New York Mets Hall of Fame. Mrs. Payson and Stengel were the 1st inductees.
In 2003, Bob Murphy, original Met broadcaster, retired. A ceremony was held at the last home game of the season. Mrs. Payson's name was cheered, and huge ovations went up for Seaver and members of the '86 Mets. Only 2 of the guests were booed: Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Mrs. de Roulet (who is still alive today, at age 85). I was at this game, and sat close enough to see the look on her face. She looked bewildered: She still didn't understand why Met fans hated her. It was because she cared so little about the team. Her mother, the original "Lady Met," was loved because she cared so much.
Also on this day, East Brunswick High School in Middlesex County, New Jersey, destined to become my high school, loses 19-13 to Madison Central High School, the newly-renamed school that had been Madison Township, but, that year, had changed its name when the town, tired of being confused with Madison Borough in Morris County, changed its name to Old Bridge. So why didn't the school change its name to Old Bridge?
EB had actually gone to Madison in back-to-back weeks, since the other school in Old Bridge, Cedar Ridge, did not have its own stadium. Cedar Ridge had also beaten EB, 22-14. This made 1975 the only year in the 2 Old Bridge schools' collective existence, 1969 to 1993, that they both beat us in football. They would be reconsolidated under the name Old Bridge High School in 1994.
Also on this day, Cristiano Lucarelli (no middle name) is born in Livorno, Tuscany, Italy. A forward, he helped Spanish club Valencia win the Copa del Rey (King's Cup) in 1999, Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk win a league and cup "Double" in 2008, and Naples-based Napoli win the Coppa Italia in 2012.
For all the years he played in Italy, he never won Serie A, their national league, but he did lead it in scoring in 2005. He recently managed Livorno, in Tuscany, formerly a Serie A fixture, but now stuck in Italy's 2nd division.
October 4, 1976: Alicia Silverstone (no middle name) is born in San Francisco, and grows up in nearby Hillsborough, California. She once played a Batgirl, but that had nothing to do with baseball. Her best-known film is titled Clueless, but it had nothing to do with the general manager's style of Brian Cashman.
Also on this day, Mauro Germán Camoranesi Serra is born in Tandil, Argentina. Italians are the largest ethnic group in Argentina other than Spaniards, and it is not unusual for Argentines of Italian descent to be signed by Italian soccer teams and to become Italian citizens, and even to play for the Italian national team.
Mauro Camoranesi is one of them. A winner, he helped Turin-based Juventus win Serie A in 2003, and also got them to the UEFA Champions League Final that year. He was a member of the Italy team that won the 2006 World Cup, and also played for them in Euro 2004, Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup. He has since managed teams back in his homeland, although he is currently without a club.
October 4, 1977: Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. Don Gullett hurts his shoulder, has to leave the game early, and the Yankees lose 7-2 to the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium. Although the Yankees will rebound and win the Pennant, and Gullett will start Games 1 (winning) and 5 (losing) of the World Series, he will never be the same, and what looked like a great career is ruined.
Two years earlier, Sparky Anderson chose Gullett to start Game 7 of the World Series for the Cincinnati Reds, and said, "No matter what happens in this game, my starting pitcher's going to the Hall of Fame." Instead, Gullett finished his career with a record of 109-50 -- a very good one, but it should have been much more. He is the only pitcher to win 3 straight World Series while having changed teams: 1975 and '76 with Cincinnati, and '77 with the Yankees.
Also on this day, a young James Cromwell guest-stars on the M*A*S*H episode "The Last Laugh," as an old buddy of B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), who takes the practical jokes too far.
Also on this day, East Brunswick High School in Middlesex County, New Jersey, destined to become my high school, loses 19-13 to Madison Central High School, the newly-renamed school that had been Madison Township, but, that year, had changed its name when the town, tired of being confused with Madison Borough in Morris County, changed its name to Old Bridge. So why didn't the school change its name to Old Bridge?
EB had actually gone to Madison in back-to-back weeks, since the other school in Old Bridge, Cedar Ridge, did not have its own stadium. Cedar Ridge had also beaten EB, 22-14. This made 1975 the only year in the 2 Old Bridge schools' collective existence, 1969 to 1993, that they both beat us in football. They would be reconsolidated under the name Old Bridge High School in 1994.
Also on this day, Cristiano Lucarelli (no middle name) is born in Livorno, Tuscany, Italy. A forward, he helped Spanish club Valencia win the Copa del Rey (King's Cup) in 1999, Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk win a league and cup "Double" in 2008, and Naples-based Napoli win the Coppa Italia in 2012.
For all the years he played in Italy, he never won Serie A, their national league, but he did lead it in scoring in 2005. He recently managed Livorno, in Tuscany, formerly a Serie A fixture, but now stuck in Italy's 2nd division.
October 4, 1976: Alicia Silverstone (no middle name) is born in San Francisco, and grows up in nearby Hillsborough, California. She once played a Batgirl, but that had nothing to do with baseball. Her best-known film is titled Clueless, but it had nothing to do with the general manager's style of Brian Cashman.
Also on this day, Mauro Germán Camoranesi Serra is born in Tandil, Argentina. Italians are the largest ethnic group in Argentina other than Spaniards, and it is not unusual for Argentines of Italian descent to be signed by Italian soccer teams and to become Italian citizens, and even to play for the Italian national team.
Mauro Camoranesi is one of them. A winner, he helped Turin-based Juventus win Serie A in 2003, and also got them to the UEFA Champions League Final that year. He was a member of the Italy team that won the 2006 World Cup, and also played for them in Euro 2004, Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup. He has since managed teams back in his homeland, although he is currently without a club.
October 4, 1977: Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. Don Gullett hurts his shoulder, has to leave the game early, and the Yankees lose 7-2 to the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium. Although the Yankees will rebound and win the Pennant, and Gullett will start Games 1 (winning) and 5 (losing) of the World Series, he will never be the same, and what looked like a great career is ruined.
Two years earlier, Sparky Anderson chose Gullett to start Game 7 of the World Series for the Cincinnati Reds, and said, "No matter what happens in this game, my starting pitcher's going to the Hall of Fame." Instead, Gullett finished his career with a record of 109-50 -- a very good one, but it should have been much more. He is the only pitcher to win 3 straight World Series while having changed teams: 1975 and '76 with Cincinnati, and '77 with the Yankees.
Also on this day, a young James Cromwell guest-stars on the M*A*S*H episode "The Last Laugh," as an old buddy of B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), who takes the practical jokes too far.
October 4, 1978: , Sparky Lyle: The Yankees lose to the Kansas City Royals 10-4, in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium). This turns out to be the only game the Royals win in the series.
Sparky Lyle pitches the last inning and a 3rd of this game, allowing 2 runs, doesdn't pitch in the rest of the ALCS, does not appear in the World Series, and is traded to the Texas Rangers after the season. As Graig Nettles said, "Sparky went from Cy Young to Sayonara."
Also on this day, Kyle Matthew Lohse (pronounced "Lowsh," rhymes with "gauche") is born in Chico, California. He was one of the few non-Hispanic players of Native American ancestry to have played in the major leagues.
Sparky Lyle pitches the last inning and a 3rd of this game, allowing 2 runs, doesdn't pitch in the rest of the ALCS, does not appear in the World Series, and is traded to the Texas Rangers after the season. As Graig Nettles said, "Sparky went from Cy Young to Sayonara."
Also on this day, Kyle Matthew Lohse (pronounced "Lowsh," rhymes with "gauche") is born in Chico, California. He was one of the few non-Hispanic players of Native American ancestry to have played in the major leagues.
On June 26, 2015, pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers, he beat the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, making him the 14th pitcher to have beaten all 30 MLB franchises. He reached the postseason with the Minnesota Twins in 2002, '03, '04 and '06; the Phillies in 2007; and the Cardinals in 2011 (winning the World Series) and '12. He closed his career with a career record of 147-143, including 16-3 with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012, leading the NL with an .842 winning percentage.
October 4, 1979, 40 years ago: Match Game has the following panelists: Robert Pine, Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dick Martin and Betty White. One of the contestants is an interior designer from Wichita, Kansas, who wins 2 games and $6,000 -- about $20,500 in today's money. She also appeared as a contestant on Password Plus the next year, then began to get acting roles. It was Kirstie Alley.
October 4, 1979, 40 years ago: Match Game has the following panelists: Robert Pine, Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dick Martin and Betty White. One of the contestants is an interior designer from Wichita, Kansas, who wins 2 games and $6,000 -- about $20,500 in today's money. She also appeared as a contestant on Password Plus the next year, then began to get acting roles. It was Kirstie Alley.
*
October 4, 1980: Mike Schmidt's 2-run home run in the top of the 11th inning gives the Phillies a 6-4 win over the Montreal Expos‚ clinching the NL East title.
The home run is Schmidt’s 48th of the season‚ breaking Eddie Mathews's single-season record for 3rd basemen set in 1953. Alex Rodriguez would break that record, and Ryan Howard would break Schmidt's franchise record for homers in a season.
On the same day, the Yankees clinch their 4th AL East title in 5 seasons‚ beating Detroit 5-2 in the 1st game of a doubleheader. Reggie Jackson hits his 41st home run of the season, and will share the AL home run crown with Ben Oglivie of the Milwaukee Brewers.
In a 17-1 rout of the Minnesota Twins‚ Willie Wilson of the Kansas City Royals becomes the 1st major league player ever to be credited with 700 at-bats in a season. He goes on to post 705 at-bats‚ which remained the highest in the 20th Century. He also sets the AL record for singles in a season with 184‚ eclipsing the mark Sam Rice set in 1925.
Wilson also becomes only the 2nd player in history to collect 100 hits from each side of the plate‚ matching the feat accomplished by Garry Templeton of the St. Louis Cardinals the year before. The loss ends Minnesota's club-record 12-game winning streak.
The Los Angeles Dodgers break a 1-1 tie on a 4th inning home run from Steve Garvey to beat the Houston Astros 2-1. Jerry Reuss outpitches Nolan Ryan. Houston now leads by 1 game with 1 to play.
LaMarr Hoyt pitches the Chicago White Sox to a win over the California Angels‚ 4-2 at Comiskey Park. But the big attraction is designated hitter Minnie Miñoso‚ about to turn 57 (a later source incorrectly suggested 54). Facing Frank Tanana for the 2nd time in 5 years‚ Minnie goes 0-for-2. His appearance‚ thanks to Bill Veeck‚ puts him in with Nick Altrock as a 5-decade man in the major leagues. His next appearance will be for the 1993 St. Paul Saints, run by Bill's son, Mike Veeck.
Also on this day, James Andrew Jones is born in Miami, and grows up in nearby Hialeah, Florida. A forward, James Jones won the NBA Three-Point Shootout in 2011, and won NBA Championships with the Miami Heat in 2012 and 2013, and with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016. He served as the secretary-treasurer of the players' union, the National Basketball Players Association, and is now the executive vice president of the Phoenix Suns.
Also on this day, Tomáš Rosický (no middle name) is born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Known as "the Little Mozart," the attacking midfielder starred for hometown club Sparta Prague, helping them win the Czech First League title in 1999 and 2000.
He moved on to German club Borussia Dortmund, leading them to the Bundesliga title in 2002. Playing for the Czech Republic, he scored 2 goals in a game against the U.S. at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, and served as Captain toward the end of his career.
He was then sold to North London club Arsenal, upholding the tradition of great players wearing Number 7 for the "Gunners" as Joe Hulme, Freddie Cox, George Armstrong, Liam Brady, David Rocastle, David Platt and Robert Pires.
For years, he struggled with injury, including missing big chunks of the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons. He scored a goal to give Arsenal a 1-0 win over North London arch-rivals Tottenham in a 2013 game, and helped them win the 2014 and 2015 FA Cups. He has since retired, and recently had a testimonial match in Prague. He is now sport director for Sparta Prague.
Also on this day, Joseph Patrick Kennedy III is born in Boston. The son of former Congressman Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and grandnephew of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy, he was elected to Congress (from Barney Frank's district, not his father's district, which is next-door) in 2012, and was immediately hailed as one of the major players in the next generation of Democratic politics.
Unfortunately, he is, as you might guess, a huge fan of Boston's sports teams. He has announced that he is challenging incumbent Senator Ed Markey in the 2020 Democratic Primary.
October 4, 1981: The Mets fire manager Joe Torre and his entire coaching staff. You can't win without the horses, and, at the time, the Mets did not have the horses.
Also on this day, Freddie Lindstrom dies in Chicago, shortly before his 76th birthday. As a Giants rookie in 1924, a grounder by Earl McNeely hit a pebble and soared over his head, making him an unfair goat in the Washington Senators' 4-3 12th inning victory in Game 7 of the World Series.
Lindstrom made up for it, though, batting .311 in a 13-season career that would see him elected to the Hall of Fame. He won another Pennant with the 1935 Chicago Cubs. Ironically, the Chicago native grew up a White Sox fan. He later managed in the minor leagues, coached the baseball team at Northwestern University in Evanston, and became the postmaster in that town just north of Chicago.
His son Chuck Lindstrom played only 1 major league game, on September 28, 1958, an end-of-season meaningless game for the White Sox. Meaningless for everyone but him, through: He made 2 plate appearances, an RBI triple, and a walk and a run.
Now 83 years old, and a former college baseball head coach like his father, he still holds the records (though unofficial, due to an insufficient number of at-bats over a career) for the highest slugging percentage (3.000) and OPS (4.000) in major league history over and "entire" career. Along with John Paciorek, who went 3-for-3 in an end-of-season game for the 1963 Houston Colt .45's (they became the Astros in 1965), he has the distinction of having had one of the best one-game careers in the history of baseball.
Also on this day, Justin Williams (no middle name) is born in Coubourg, Ontario. A right wing, and the grandnephew of former NHL players Zellio Toppazzini and Jerry Toppazzini -- Zellio played for the Rangers, and both played for the Boston Bruins -- he won Stanley Cups with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, and the Los Angeles Kings in 2012 and 2014, winning the 2014 Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP. He is now back with the Hurricanes, as their Captain.
The home run is Schmidt’s 48th of the season‚ breaking Eddie Mathews's single-season record for 3rd basemen set in 1953. Alex Rodriguez would break that record, and Ryan Howard would break Schmidt's franchise record for homers in a season.
On the same day, the Yankees clinch their 4th AL East title in 5 seasons‚ beating Detroit 5-2 in the 1st game of a doubleheader. Reggie Jackson hits his 41st home run of the season, and will share the AL home run crown with Ben Oglivie of the Milwaukee Brewers.
In a 17-1 rout of the Minnesota Twins‚ Willie Wilson of the Kansas City Royals becomes the 1st major league player ever to be credited with 700 at-bats in a season. He goes on to post 705 at-bats‚ which remained the highest in the 20th Century. He also sets the AL record for singles in a season with 184‚ eclipsing the mark Sam Rice set in 1925.
Wilson also becomes only the 2nd player in history to collect 100 hits from each side of the plate‚ matching the feat accomplished by Garry Templeton of the St. Louis Cardinals the year before. The loss ends Minnesota's club-record 12-game winning streak.
The Los Angeles Dodgers break a 1-1 tie on a 4th inning home run from Steve Garvey to beat the Houston Astros 2-1. Jerry Reuss outpitches Nolan Ryan. Houston now leads by 1 game with 1 to play.
LaMarr Hoyt pitches the Chicago White Sox to a win over the California Angels‚ 4-2 at Comiskey Park. But the big attraction is designated hitter Minnie Miñoso‚ about to turn 57 (a later source incorrectly suggested 54). Facing Frank Tanana for the 2nd time in 5 years‚ Minnie goes 0-for-2. His appearance‚ thanks to Bill Veeck‚ puts him in with Nick Altrock as a 5-decade man in the major leagues. His next appearance will be for the 1993 St. Paul Saints, run by Bill's son, Mike Veeck.
Also on this day, James Andrew Jones is born in Miami, and grows up in nearby Hialeah, Florida. A forward, James Jones won the NBA Three-Point Shootout in 2011, and won NBA Championships with the Miami Heat in 2012 and 2013, and with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016. He served as the secretary-treasurer of the players' union, the National Basketball Players Association, and is now the executive vice president of the Phoenix Suns.
Also on this day, Tomáš Rosický (no middle name) is born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Known as "the Little Mozart," the attacking midfielder starred for hometown club Sparta Prague, helping them win the Czech First League title in 1999 and 2000.
He moved on to German club Borussia Dortmund, leading them to the Bundesliga title in 2002. Playing for the Czech Republic, he scored 2 goals in a game against the U.S. at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, and served as Captain toward the end of his career.
He was then sold to North London club Arsenal, upholding the tradition of great players wearing Number 7 for the "Gunners" as Joe Hulme, Freddie Cox, George Armstrong, Liam Brady, David Rocastle, David Platt and Robert Pires.
For years, he struggled with injury, including missing big chunks of the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons. He scored a goal to give Arsenal a 1-0 win over North London arch-rivals Tottenham in a 2013 game, and helped them win the 2014 and 2015 FA Cups. He has since retired, and recently had a testimonial match in Prague. He is now sport director for Sparta Prague.
Also on this day, Joseph Patrick Kennedy III is born in Boston. The son of former Congressman Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and grandnephew of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy, he was elected to Congress (from Barney Frank's district, not his father's district, which is next-door) in 2012, and was immediately hailed as one of the major players in the next generation of Democratic politics.
Unfortunately, he is, as you might guess, a huge fan of Boston's sports teams. He has announced that he is challenging incumbent Senator Ed Markey in the 2020 Democratic Primary.
October 4, 1981: The Mets fire manager Joe Torre and his entire coaching staff. You can't win without the horses, and, at the time, the Mets did not have the horses.
Also on this day, Freddie Lindstrom dies in Chicago, shortly before his 76th birthday. As a Giants rookie in 1924, a grounder by Earl McNeely hit a pebble and soared over his head, making him an unfair goat in the Washington Senators' 4-3 12th inning victory in Game 7 of the World Series.
Lindstrom made up for it, though, batting .311 in a 13-season career that would see him elected to the Hall of Fame. He won another Pennant with the 1935 Chicago Cubs. Ironically, the Chicago native grew up a White Sox fan. He later managed in the minor leagues, coached the baseball team at Northwestern University in Evanston, and became the postmaster in that town just north of Chicago.
His son Chuck Lindstrom played only 1 major league game, on September 28, 1958, an end-of-season meaningless game for the White Sox. Meaningless for everyone but him, through: He made 2 plate appearances, an RBI triple, and a walk and a run.
Now 83 years old, and a former college baseball head coach like his father, he still holds the records (though unofficial, due to an insufficient number of at-bats over a career) for the highest slugging percentage (3.000) and OPS (4.000) in major league history over and "entire" career. Along with John Paciorek, who went 3-for-3 in an end-of-season game for the 1963 Houston Colt .45's (they became the Astros in 1965), he has the distinction of having had one of the best one-game careers in the history of baseball.
Also on this day, Justin Williams (no middle name) is born in Coubourg, Ontario. A right wing, and the grandnephew of former NHL players Zellio Toppazzini and Jerry Toppazzini -- Zellio played for the Rangers, and both played for the Boston Bruins -- he won Stanley Cups with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, and the Los Angeles Kings in 2012 and 2014, winning the 2014 Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP. He is now back with the Hurricanes, as their Captain.
October 4, 1982: Two future MLB players are born outside Los Angeles, although both are related to better-known players.
Anthony Keith Gwynn Jr. is born in Long Beach, California, and grows up in the San Diego suburb of Poway. The son of San Diego Padres legend Tony Gwynn, he debuted as an outfielder with the 2006 Milwaukee Brewers. He played for the Padres, Dodgers and Phillies, and is now the host of the pregame show on Dodgers radio broadcasts. His lifetime batting average was .238, well short of his dad's, but he did play in the postseason with the Brewers in 2008. He is now a broadcaster for the Padres.
Also on this day, Jered David Weaver is born in Northridge, California, and grows up in Simi Valley. He won the Golden Spikes Award, one of the college player of the year awards (along with the Dick Howser Trophy), with Long Beach State in 2004. He has pitched for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim since 2006, reaching the postseason in 2007, '08, '09 and '14.
A 3-time All-Star, he led both Leagues in strikeouts in 2010. On May 2, 2012, he pitched a no-hitter against the Minnesota Twins. He retired in 2017 with a career record of 150-98. But, to me, he'll always be the younger brother of Jeff Weaver. I hate Jeff Weaver.
Also on this day, Ilhan Abdullahi Omar is born in Mogadishu, the capital of the East African nation of Somalia. She moved with her family to America in 1992, as her country fell into chaos. Settling in Minneapolis, she worked on political campaigns, and was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives as a Democrat in 2016.
In 2018, she became the 1st Somali-American, and the 1st naturalized citizen from any country in Africa, to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan became the 1st 2 Muslim women to serve in Congress. Omar, Tlaib, and fellow freshwomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts formed an informal group of progressive Congresswomen that became known as "The Squad."
October 4, 1983: Kurtis Kiyoshi Suzuki is born in Wailuki, Hawaii. A catcher, Kurt Suzuki was a 2014 All-Star, has reached the postseason with the Washington Nationals in 2012, the Atlanta Braves in 2017 and '18, and the Nats again this year.
Also on this day, Chansi V. Stuckey -- I can't find a reference to what the V stands for -- is born in Warner Robins, Georgia. The receiver was All-Conference at Clemson University, and played for the Jets in 2007 and 2008. He last played in 2011, with the Arizona Cardinals. He has since become an actor.
October 4, 1984: Cheers airs the episode "The Rebound." Sam Malone (Ted Danson) has started drinking again after Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) broke up with him in the previous season's finale. Still worried about him, she brings her new boyfriend to help him. He's a psychiatrist, Dr. Frasier Crane. Kelsey Grammer makes his debut in the character that he will play for 20 years over 2 sitcoms.
Noticeable is how much thinner Ernie Pantusso, a.k.a. "Coach," is this season, as Nicholas Colasanto was dealing with heart disease. He filmed his last full episode the next month, and died on February 12, 1985. The character was announced in the next season's premiere as having died a few weeks earlier.
October 4, 1985: The Mets beat the Montreal Expos 9-4, but it's no use, as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-2, and are now 2 games up in the National League East with 3 to play.
The Yankees begin their biggest regular-season series in 5 years, at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. If they can sweep this 3-game series against the Blue Jays, they will win the American League East. If they lose any of them, it's over.
Jimmy Key, later a Yankee star that many fans have forgotten, starts for the Jays. Ed Whitson, a pitcher many Yankee Fans would like to forget, starts for the Yanks. Neither figures in the decision, and the Jays lead 3-2 going into the 9th inning.
But Butch Wynegar ties it with a 9th inning home run off Toronto closer Tom Henke, a.k.a. "The Exterminator." It sails over the right field fence and bounces on the artificial turf of the football field past the pathetic little high school-style scoreboard the Big X had. Watching on WPIX-Channel 11, I let out a scream that can be heard all the way in Toronto.
A Bobby Meacham single, a Rickey Henderson walk, and an error on a Don Mattingly grounder gives the Yankees a 4-3 win. Rod Scurry is the winning pitcher for the Yankees.
"The Butch Wynegar Game" is set up to be one of my favorite games ever -- if, that is, the Yankees can win the next 2.
October 4, 1986: On the next-to-last day of the season‚ Dave Righetti saves both ends of the Yankees' doubleheader sweep of the Red Sox, 5-3 and 3-1, to give him a major league record 46 saves. Bruce Sutter and Dan Quisenberry had shared the record with 45.
The record is now 62 by Francisco Rodriguez in 2008. For a lefthander, it's 53 by Randy Myers in 1993, and for a Yankee it's 53 by Mariano Rivera in 2004.
Also on this day, the Texas Rangers lose 2-0 to the California Angels at Arlington Stadium. Ranger 2nd baseman Toby Harrah goes 0-for-4. A 4-time All-Star, as recently as 1982, he plays his last game, and is thus the last active member of the Washington Senators, who moved to the Dallas area and became the Rangers in 1972.
Also on this day, Arsenal defeat Everton 1-0 at Goodison Park in Liverpool. The goal is scored by Steve Williams. This game starts an 18-match unbeaten run, lasting until January 24, 1987.
Also on this day, CBS News anchor Dan Rather is attacked while walking on Park Avenue to his apartment. The man punching him yelled, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?" but was chased off by the building's doorman.
It remained a curiosity, with rock band R.E.M. recording a song titled "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" In 1997, the mystery was solved when a writer for the New York Daily News noticed a similarity between the police sketch based on Rather's description and William Tager, who had been imprisoned for killing Campbell Montgomery, an NBC stagehand, at Rockefeller Center in 1994. Seeing Tager's photo, Rather confirmed the theory.
Tager was interviewed, and he said he thought television networks were beaming signals into his brain. He was paroled in 2010, and there have been no incidents with him since.
October 4, 1987: Reggie Jackson plays his last major league game, for the Oakland Athletics against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park in Chicago. He had already announced that this would be his last season.
He doubles home Jose Canseco off Floyd Bannister in the 1st inning, draws a walk against Bannister in the 4th, flies out to center field against Bill Long in the 6th, and then, with 2 out in the top of the 8th, he takes his last at-bat, against Bobby Thigpen. It is not the kind of result you would expect from Reggie Jackson, but it worked: He strokes a single up the middle, breaking his bat in the process.
He finishes the day 1-for-3 with an RBI, and closes his career with 2,584 hits, including 563 home runs, making him the leading home-run hitter of his generation. But the White Sox win this game, 5-2, thanks to home runs by Ron Hassey and Carlton Fisk.
Also on this last day of the regular season‚ the Detroit Tigers beat the 2nd-place Blue Jays 1-0 at Tiger Stadium, to win the AL East title. The Tigers were one game behind the Jays entering their 3-game season-ending showdown‚ and won each game by a single run: 4-3‚ 3-2‚ and 1-0. Frank Tanana outduels Jimmy Key in the finale‚ and Larry Herndon's 2nd-inning home run provides the game's only run.
The Jays had been up by 4 with 7 to go, and blew it. This collapse, on top of their choke in the 1985 ALCS, gives them the nickname "Blow Jays," and they will take until 1992 to get rid of it.
Also on this day, Charlie Hough of the Texas Rangers makes his 40th start of the season. No pitcher has been allowed to accomplish this since, not even a knuckleballer like Hough. The Rangers lose to the Seattle Mariners, 7-4 at Arlington Stadium.
Also on this day, Justin Morrow (no middle name) is born in Cleveland. A right back, in 2012, he helped the San Jose Earthquakes win the MLS Supporters' Shield, and was named to the MLS All-Star Team. In 2016, he helped Toronto FC win the Canadian Championship (Canada's version of the FA Cup) and reach the MLS Cup Final. In 2017, he helped them win both. In 2018, he helped them win the Canadian Championship again.
October 4, 1988: Game 1 of the NLCS. Finally, after 31 seasons, the half (I'm being charitable here) of New York that wanted revenge on the O'Malley family for moving the Dodgers to Los Angeles has its chance.
The Dodgers lead the Mets 2-0 going into the 9th inning. But rookie Gregg Jefferies leads off with a single, advances to 2nd on a groundout, and Darryl Strawberry doubles off Orel Hershiser to score him.
Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda brings in closer Jay Howell, who walks Kevin McReynolds, strikes out Howard Johnson, and gives up a game-tying single to Gary Carter. McReynolds also tries to score, and knocks the ball away from Mike Scioscia to score the winning run. Mets 3, Dodgers 2.
After the game, David Cone, in a postseason diary he's been hired to write for the New York Daily News, unfavorably compares Howell to both Met closer Randy Myers and high school pitchers. The Dodgers get mad when they see it the next day... and Cone is the Mets' starter for Game 2.
Also on this day, Derrick Martell Rose is born in Chicago. He played for his hometown Bulls starting in 2008, the 1st pick in that year's NBA Draft, and was NBA Most Valuable Player in 2011. That season, he got the Bulls to the Eastern Conference Finals for the 1st time since 1998 -- the 1st time without Michael Jordan since 1975.
But D-Rose has he's been plagued by injury ever since. The Knicks traded for him in 2016, but it was a public-relations nightmare. He was the subject of a rape investigation, but was cleared. He injured his knee again, leading to his 4th surgery in 9 seasons. He feuded with team management. And he flew to Chicago to be with his mother -- without telling Knick management, leading to a few hours of social-media panic over Rose having "disappeared."
The Knicks did not re-sign him, and he signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers, where he was supposed to play the 2017-18 season with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. But injuries did him in again, and he was traded to the Utah Jazz before he could reach the NBA Finals with the Cavs. He was waived 2 days later, but was picked up by the Minnesota Timberwolves for a season. He is now with the Detroit Pistons.
Also on this day, Melissa Marie Benoist is born in Houston. She played Marley Rose on Glee, and now she plays the title role on Supergirl, Superman's cousin Kara Zor-El, a.k.a. Linda Danvers. In between flights in the cape, she went on Broadway and debuted the role of the title songwriter in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
October 4, 1989, 30 years ago: Secretariat dies of laminitis, a disease that affects the feet of hooved animals such as horses and cows, at Claiborne Farm in Paris, Kentucky. The greatest racehorse of all time, winner of the 1973 Triple Crown, was 19.
On the same day, Dakota Mayi Johnson is born in Austin, Texas. Granddaughter of Tippi Hedren, and daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, she recently starred in a film about a woman who accepts a masochistic relationship. I think it was titled Fifty Shades of Ivy: A Cub Fan's Lament.
Also on this day, Graham Chapman dies of cancer in Maidstone, Kent, England. At 48, he was the 1st member of Monty Python's Flying Circus to die. The rest are still alive.
He was one of the earliest celebrities to take advantage of the gay rights movement that began with the Stonewall Riot of 1969 and publicly come out. This did not stop him from playing both God and King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or from being hailed for his performance.
*
October 4, 1990: Barkevious Levon Mingo is born in the Miami suburb of Belle Glade, Florida. A linebacker, Keke Mingo was with the New England Patriots when they won Super Bowl LI. He now plays for the Houston Texans.
October 4, 1991: The expansion San Jose Sharks play their 1st regular-season game, the 1st by a NHL team from the San Francisco Bay Area since April 4, 1976 (a 5-2 win by the Oakland-based California Golden Seals over the Los Angeles Kings). California native Craig Cox scores the franchise's 1st regulation goal, but they lose to the Vancouver Canucks, 4-3 at the Pacific Coliseum.
Also on this day, the Delta Center opens in downtown Salt Lake City. After the airline's naming rights expired, it would be renamed the EnergySolutions Arena in 2006, and the Vivint Smart Home Arena in 2015. It became, and remains, the home of the NBA's Utah Jazz. It has also been, but is no longer, the home of minor-league hockey teams the Salt Lake Golden Eagles and the Utah Grizzlies, the WNBA's Utah Starzz, and Arena Football's Utah Blaze.
Also on this day, Brett Murphy (no middle name) is born in Worcester, Massachusetts, making it fairly easy for him to play a Boston Red Sox fan, Ryan, in the U.S. version of Fever Pitch. He has since gone into journalism.
October 4, 1992: Willie Randolph plays his last major league game -- not for the Yankees, for whom he was a World Champion 2nd baseman, but for the Mets, the team he grew up rooting for in Brooklyn. He goes 0-for-3 as the Mets lose 2-0 to the Pittsburgh Pirates at Shea Stadium.
Also on this day, Bert Blyleven plays his last major league game. As with Toby Harrah, it's the Rangers against the Angels, only this one is at Anaheim Stadium. Blyleven had been a Ranger, but he finishes his career with the Angels, is knocked out of the box in the 5th inning, and takes the loss at Texas prevails, 9-5.
Despite pitching mostly for weak teams, Bert won 287 games in the major leagues, and his 3,701 strikeouts were then 3rd all-time behind Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton. He also won World Series pitching for teams in both Leagues: The 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates and the 1987 Minnesota Twins. But it took until 2011 to elect him to the Hall of Fame.
October 4, 1993: Abby Smith (her full name) is born in Portland, Oregon, and grows up in the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas. She is the starting goalkeeper for the National Women's Soccer League's Utah Royals, and is considered a key to the U.S. Women's National Team's future.
It is the 1st postseason walkoff at Yankee Stadium since Chris Chambliss won the Pennant 19 years earlier. The Yankees lead the M's 2 games to 0, and need just 1 win in Seattle to take the series. But they won't get it.
Also on this day, The Drew Carey Show airs the episode "Nature Abhors a Vacuum." In it, Drew (playing a fictionalized version of himself) remarks on the Cleveland Indians' reaching their 1st postseason in 41 years, "Finally, it's everyone else's team that sucks!"
Also on this day, Jabrill Ahmad Peppers is born in East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey. A graduate of the prestigious Don Bosco Preparatory High School in Ramsey, Bergen County, the safety played college football at Michigan, and was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, a rarity for defensive players, in 2016.
He was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft, and played 2 seasons for them, before being sent to the Giants in the Odell Beckham Jr. trade. Although very talented, he appears not to be related to 9-time Pro Bowl defensive end Julius Peppers.
October 4, 1996: Game 3 of the ALDS is the 1st home postseason game in Texas Rangers history. The Yankees, as usual showing no respect for baseball history other than their own, spoil the occasion at what is then known as The Ballpark in Arlington. Juan Gonzalez hits his 4th home run of the series, but Bernie Williams hits the 1st homer of what will become an epic postseason for him, and the Yankees win, 3-2, to take a 2-1 lead.
October 4, 1997: Lennox Lewis, recognized by some organizations as the Heavyweight Champion of the World, defends his share of the title at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, knocking Andrew Golota out in the 1st round. Golota had done well at the building formerly known as Convention Hall, but not on this night.
Also on this day, on Saturday Night Live, Tim Meadows debuts his character Leon Phelps, a sex therapist who hosts a talk show titled The Ladies Man.
October 4, 1999, 20 years ago: The Mets whitewash the Reds‚ 5-0 at Riverfront Stadium (by this point, renamed Cinergy Field)‚ to become the NL's Wild Card team. Al Leiter hurls a complete game 2-hitter for the win. Rey Ordonez plays his 100th consecutive errorless game, a record for shortstops.
Also on this day, the Sydney Super Dome opens in Australia, in preparation for the 2000 Olympics. At 18,200 seats, with floor seating making it a possible 21,032, it is the largest indoor sports venue in the country.
In 2006, the naming rights were sold, and it was Acer Arena until 2011, Allphones Arena until 2016, and now Qudos Bank Arena. It's the home of the Sydney Kings of Australia's National Basketball League. Wearing purple and gold like the Los Angeles Lakers, they won NBL titles in 2003, '04 and '05.
*
October 4, 2000: The West Wing airs its 2nd season premiere, "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen." It picks up from the previous season's cliffhanger, with an assassination attempt against President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen). As it turns out, Bartlet is wounded, but the doctors get him out of danger quickly. Not as lucky is White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman (Bradley Whitford), who is shot in the heart, and whose life hangs in the balance for the entire 2-hour (later broken into a 2-part) episode.
The episode also serves as a flashback, showing how the team came together, led by Leo McGarry (John Spencer), Bartlet's best friend, a former Congressman from Illinois and a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, unhappy with the Democratic candidates having already announced for the election in question.
Leo recruits Josh, who leaves the campaign of Senate Minority Leader John Hoynes of Texas (Tim Matheson), who is later brought onto the ticket as Vice President; and Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff). Josh recruits Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe), and Toby recruits Claudia Jean "C.J." Cregg (Allison Janney). Sam and C.J. had both, like Toby, been unsuccessful political operatives. Unlike Toby, both had left the business, Sam to go back to practicing law, C.J. to advertising.
Hinting that Michael Dukakis, the real-life Democratic nominee for President in 1988, or someone like him, had been nominated for President in the show's recent alternate history, Josh tells Leo, "The Party's not gonna nominate another academic intellectual Governor from New England. I mean, we're dumb, but we're not that dumb." And Leo says, "Nah, I think we're exactly that dumb." And he was right.
October 4, 2001: Rickey Henderson hits a home run for the San Diego Padres, allowing him to score his 2,246th career run, passing Ty Cobb as baseball's all-time leader. The Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-3 at Jack Murphy Stadium.
On the same day, Tim Raines Sr. plays left field for the Baltimore Orioles, while Tim Raines Jr. plays center field for them. It is only the 2nd time, and there has never been a 3rd, that a father and son have played in the same major league game. The 1st was Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. in 1990. The Orioles lose to the Red Sox, 5-4 at Camden Yards.
Also on this day, the Boston Bruins open the new NHL season at the FleetCenter (now known as the TD Garden) with the retirement of the Number 77 of the recently retired Ray Bourque. They beat the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim 4-2.
Also on this day, Blaise Alexander is killed in a crash during the EasyCare 100 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. He was 25, and should have been early in his career; he'd only had 1 Top 10 finish to that point. Like former Yankee pitcher Mike Mussina, he was a native of Mountoursville, Pennsylvania.
October 4, 2002: The Yankees blow a 6-1 lead as the Angels bounce back for a 9-6 victory, and a 2-games-to-1 lead in their ALDS. Tim Salmon and Adam Kennedy homer for Anaheim, and Francisco Rodriguez again gets the win in relief.
Also on this day, Edgar Munzel dies at age 95. "The Mouse" wrote for the Chicago Herald-Examiner and the Chicago Sun-Times from 1929 to 1973, and was honored with the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, tantamount to election to the Baseball Hall of Fame for sportswriters.
October 4, 2003: For the 1st time in 95 years, the Chicago Cubs win a postseason series. They beat the Atlanta Braves 5-1 at Turner Field, and win their NL Division Series in 5 games.
On the same day, at Pro Player (now Hard Rock) Stadium in the Miami suburbs, Jeff Conine fields Jeffrey Hammonds' single, and throws to Ivan Rodriguez, who survives a collision with J.T. Snow, for the final out of the Florida Marlins' 7-6 win over the San Francisco Giants, winning their NLDS in 4 games.
The Red Sox beat the A's 3-1 on Trot Nixon's walkoff homer in the 11th inning at Fenway Park. This forces a 5th game in their ALCS.
October 4, 2008: Saturday Night Live parodies the Vice Presidential Debate between Senator Joe Biden of Delaware (an unconvincing Jason Sudeikis) and Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska (an uncanny Tina Fey). It also marks the debut of Fred Armisen as Lawrence Welk, showing alleged "lost episodes" of The Lawrence Welk Show -- and showing why they were "lost."
October 4, 2009, 10 years ago: Future Hall-of-Famer Randy Johnson makes his last big-league appearance, at Petco Park in San Diego. At 46, the Big Unit comes in to pitch the 7th inning for the San Francisco Giants, but blows the lead. The Giants beat the San Diego Padres anyway, 4-3, on a 10th inning home run by Pablo Sandoval.
Also on this day, Shayne Graham kicks a 31-yard field goal in overtime, and the Cincinnati Bengals defeat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 23-20 at what's now named FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland.
Also on this day, Arsenal defeat Blackburn Rovers 6-2 at the Emirates Stadium. As far as I know, this is the only time in the team's 133-year history that they had 6 different goalscorers. In order: Belgian centreback Thomas Vermaelen, Dutch forward Robin van Persie, Russian midfielder Andrey Arshavin, Spanish midfielder Cesc Fabregas, English forward Theo Walcott, and Danish forward Nicklas Bendtner.
*
October 4, 2010: The Mets fire field manager Jerry Manuel and general manager Omar Minaya. Firing Minaya was something they should have done at least 2 years earlier.
October 4, 2011: Game 3 of the NLDS at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Ben Francisco hits a home run to give the Phillies a 3-0 lead in the top of the 7th. But in the bottom of the 7th, a squirrel appears in the outfield, causing a delay in play. The Cardinals score a run in the inning, and another in the 9th, but get no closer, and lose 3-2. The Phillies lead the series 2-1, but the squirrel isn't done.
Also on this day, for the 3rd time in a row in Premier League play, Rafael van der Vaart scores in a North London Derby for Tottenham Hotspur against Arsenal. This time, however, he blatantly cheats, deflecting the ball with his left arm, letting it drop to his feet, and scoring. "Spurs" take a 2-1 win at White Hart Lane, and Rafael becomes known in Arsenal lore as "Hand der Vaart."
October 4, 2012: At the conclusion of their worst season in 47 years, the Red Sox fire Bobby Valentine as manager. He had restored his reputation by managing in Japan, but had ruined it again with the Red Sox.
He soon started over again, becoming the athletic director at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, not far from his hometown of Stanford. Their athletic program has significantly improved since. However, I don't think he'll ever get hired to manage another team… at least, not on this continent.
October 4, 2013: Võ Nguyên Giáp dies at the age of 102. He won the Vietnam War -- twice, over the country's former colonial occupier, France, from 1945 to 1954; and over America, as it tried to drive Communist forces out of the country, from 1959 to 1975.
He was North Vietnam's Minister of Defense from 1946 to 1975, and held that post in the united nation until 1980. He was his country's Deputy Prime Minister from 1955 to 1991. Ho Chi Minh is considered the father of modern Vietnam, but General Giáp is really its "George Washington."
October 4, 2014: Game 2 of the NLDS between the San Francisco Giants and the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park is the longest game in postseason history by time: 6 hours and 23 minutes. It also ties the record for longest game by innings, as Brandon Belt hits a home run in the top of the 18th, giving the Giants a 2-1 victory.
Also on this day, the University of California defeats Washington State 60-59 at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Washington. A year after setting NCAA records with 89 passes and 58 completions in a 62-38 loss to Oregon, WSU quarterback Connor Halliday goes 49-for-70 with a record 734 yards. This record will be tied by Pat Mahomes of Texas Tech in a loss to Oklahoma 2 years later. Halliday throws 6 touchdown passes, but it's not quite enough, as Jared Goff throws for 527 yards and 5 touchdowns to lead the Golden Bears over the Cougars.
Halliday was not selected in the 2015 NFL draft. The Washington Redskins signed him on May 2, but he was released on May 15. On October 6, he was signed by the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League, but was released on October 8. The CFL's Montreal Alouettes signed him on September 30, 2016, but released him on October 17. They signed him again on April 17, 2017, but he was released again on April 19. To this day, he has never appeared in a professional football game -- not even in the preseason.
Also on this day, Fyodor Cherenkov dies in Moscow, as a result of complications from a head injury sustained in a fall. He was only 55 years old. The midfielder had helped Moscow soccer team Spartak win the Soviet Top League in 1979, 1987 and 1989, and the Russian Premier League in 1993 and the Russian Cup in 1994. "Fedya" was named Soviet Footballer of the Year in 1983 and 1989. He was coaching the Spartak youth teams at the time of his death.
Because of the decline of Soviet football from its 1960s heights (winning the 1st European Championship in 1960 and finishing 3rd at the 1966 World Cup), Cherenkov never played in a World Cup. But English fans noticed him because he led Spartak to defeat Arsenal at Highbury in 1982 and Aston Villa at Villa Park in 1983, both in UEFA Cup matches.
In his book Spartak: A History of the People's Team in the Workers' State, Robert Edelman described him as "the longest-serving and most beloved of all Spartakovsky":
Navigating between midfield and forward, he played with an originality and eccentricity that endeared him to the public. Cherenkov was an enigmatic and fragile personality whose capacity for unexpected improvisation fit the Spartak image of the player as romantic artist. A true original, he was the embodiment of what many of Spartak's male Moscow supporters liked to believe about themselves. Lacking great speed but quick on his feet, small of stature but possessed of great guile, Cherenkov seemed to practice a new kind of masculinity, that of the urban trickster. By the time his Spartak career was over, he was the leading point producer (goal plus pass) in the team's history.
Michael Yokhin, a Russian who writes on soccer for ESPN, eulogized him on their web page:
Fyodor Cherenkov was the ultimate Russian legend, the most idolized player of all time, and the greatest artist imaginable. He was a ray of light in a ruthless and cynical world, a source of pure joy, and a reminder how people should behave. His death at the age of 55 is a great loss.
Cherenkov was loved by everyone, which is surprising, considering he was a Spartak Moscow hero. They are the most popular team in Russia, and thus, naturally, one of the most hated.
Usually, their players are loathed by Dynamo Kiev, CSKA (Moscow) and Zenit (St. Petersburg) fans, but not Cherenkov. He was universally admired, and Spartak away games were celebrated all over the country as people just wanted to go and watch him play.
A statue of Cherenkov has been erected at the team's new Otkrytie Stadium, and one of its stands bears his name.
October 4, 2015: Arsenal play Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium, and within the 1st 19 minutes, Alexis Sanchez scores twice, and Mesut Ozil once. Arsenal fans imagine that they are about to gain revenge for a game played 4 years earlier, when, at United's Old Trafford, under dubious circumstances, they were shellacked 8-2. But that would be it for the scoring, as the 3-0 score held.
October 4, 2016: The American League Wild Card Game is held. As the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays had identical 89-73 records, but the Jays had won the season series 10-9, the Jays hosted the game at the Rogers Centre. For the 1st time, the retractable roof at the building formerly known as the SkyDome is open for a postseason game, making it the Jays' 1st outdoor postseason home game since October 16, 1985.
The game goes to the bottom of the 11th inning, when Edwin Encarnación hits a walkoff 3-run home run off Ubaldo Jiménez. For reasons known only to him, Orioles manager William Nathaniel Showalter III did not bring his All-Star closer, Zach Britton, into the game. (Buck had previously let David Cone throw 147 pitches in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS, refusing to bring in Mariano Rivera, and costing the Yankees the series.)
Encarnación joins Bill Mazeroski in the 1960 World Series, Chris Chambliss in the 1976 AL Championship Series, and Aaron Boone in the 2003 ALCS as players who have won a postseason-series deciding game with a home run.
October 4, 2017: The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Colorado Rockies in the NL Wild Card Game, 11-8 at Chase Field in Phoenix. The D-backs jumped out to a 6-0 lead after 2 innings, but the Rox made it interesting with 4 runs in the 3rd.
They made it 6-5 in the top of the 7th, but the D-backs made it 8-5. The Rox closed to 8-7 in the 8th, but the D-backs put it away, 11-7. Or so they thought, as the Rox launched one last rally in the top of the 9th, but it fell short. Daniel Descalso and Paul Goldschmidt hit home runs for Arizona, while Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story hit them for Colorado.
October 4, 2018: Hyun-jin Ryu pitches 7 scoreless innings, and is backed by home runs from Joc Pederson, Max Muncy and Kiké Hernández, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 6-0 at Dodger Stadium, to open the NLDS.
No comments:
Post a Comment