November 2, 1949, 70 years ago: David Bruce Wohl is born in Flushing, Queens, New York City, and -- like me, 20 years later -- grows up in East Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey. A lefthanded quarterback, he led East Brunswick High School to its 1st 2 Conference Championships in football, in 1965 and 1966, also winning a share of the Central Jersey Group IV Championship in the latter year.
But his best sport was basketball. He played at the University of Pennsylvania, leading them to the Ivy League Championship in 1970 and 1971. He played the 1971-72 season for the Philadelphia 76ers, early in the 1972-73 season for the Portland Trail Blazers, a year for the Buffalo Braves, and from 1974 to 1976 with the Houston Rockets.
He played for the Nets in their 1st 2 seasons in the NBA: 1976-77, their last season at the Nassau Coliseum as the New York Nets; and 1977-78, their 1st season at the Rutgers Athletic Center as the New Jersey Nets. As the only EBHS graduate ever to play in the NBA, his Number 12 was the 1st ever retired by our basketball team.
He went into coaching, and served as an assistant with the Nets, the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Los Angeles Lakers, winning an NBA Championship ring as Pat Riley's assistant in 1985. He was hired to coach the Nets, and ran them for 3 seasons. He set up a Martin Luther King Day doubleheader for January 19, 1987. The opener was the Nets vs. the Lakers, and the nightcap was his alma mater, EBHS (I was a senior, and attended), against Perth Amboy, a good team then and the top team in the County when he played. The Nets lost, but EB won.
But his best sport was basketball. He played at the University of Pennsylvania, leading them to the Ivy League Championship in 1970 and 1971. He played the 1971-72 season for the Philadelphia 76ers, early in the 1972-73 season for the Portland Trail Blazers, a year for the Buffalo Braves, and from 1974 to 1976 with the Houston Rockets.
He played for the Nets in their 1st 2 seasons in the NBA: 1976-77, their last season at the Nassau Coliseum as the New York Nets; and 1977-78, their 1st season at the Rutgers Athletic Center as the New Jersey Nets. As the only EBHS graduate ever to play in the NBA, his Number 12 was the 1st ever retired by our basketball team.
He went into coaching, and served as an assistant with the Nets, the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Los Angeles Lakers, winning an NBA Championship ring as Pat Riley's assistant in 1985. He was hired to coach the Nets, and ran them for 3 seasons. He set up a Martin Luther King Day doubleheader for January 19, 1987. The opener was the Nets vs. the Lakers, and the nightcap was his alma mater, EBHS (I was a senior, and attended), against Perth Amboy, a good team then and the top team in the County when he played. The Nets lost, but EB won.
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November 2, 1470: Edward of York is born in Westminster, London. When his father, King Edward IV of England, died on April 9, 1483, he became, at age 12, King Edward V. But he was never crowned, because his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had him and his 9-year-old brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and declared illegitimate on June 26. Edward had reigned for 78 days, one of the briefest reigns in English/British history.
The Duke then became King Richard III, and it is believed he had "the Princes in the Tower" murdered. He was deposed and killed 2 years later, and the House of York fell, and the House of Tudor rose (if you'll pardon the pun).
November 2, 1636: Edward Colston is born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England. He followed his father as a sea merchant, trading in wine, fruit and textiles. But in 1680, he began trading slaves, as a member of the Royal African Company. He was a deputy governor of the company by 1689. From 1710 to 1713, he was a Member of Parliament. He died in 1721. He is now regarded as one of the evil figures of his time.
November 2, 1734: Daniel James Boone is born in Birdsboro, outside Reading, Pennsylvania. Famous for his exploration of Kentucky, he may have been the 1st "Wild West" man. He later led the American military effort in the area during the War of the American Revolution. He died in 1820, a legend in his own time. He may have been the basis for Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, and became the subject of songs, films and TV shows.
But Fess Parker's portrayal on NBC in the 1960s was essentially a redo of his earlier portrayal of Davy Crockett, who was a later figure and a very different man. Unlike Crockett, Boone never wore a coonskin cap. This would have been like William Shatner playing the titular up-to-date Los Angeles cop on T.J. Hooker, and then pausing to tell Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear, "You see, when man first set out to explore the stars... "
November 2, 1755: Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna Habsburg is born at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. The daughter of Francis I, the Holy Roman Emperor, she was married at age 14 to Louis-Auguste, the heir apparent to the French throne. In 1774, when his grandfather, King Louis XV, died, he became King Louis XVI, and she became Queen Marie Antoinette.
She was a lavish spender, and seemed to typify the aristocracy of France to those who hated it. But she almost certainly never responded to being told that the people had no bread by saying, "Then, let them eat cake." (The saying was around well before she was.) And even if she had said it, it would have been due to cluelessness rather than meanness.
But when the French Revolution came in 1789, she and Louis became targets. In 1792, war broke out between her new country and her old country, and she and Louis were seen as pro-Austrian. They were deposed, arrested, and executed in 1793. She was not quite 38 years old, but was said to be prematurely gray-haired because of her ordeal.
Among the actresses who've played her in movies: Norma Shearer in the 1938 Marie Antoinette, Joely Richardson in the 2001 The Affair of the Necklace, Kirsten Dunst in the 2006 Marie Antoinette, and Diane Kruger in the 2012 Farewell, My Queen.
November 2, 1769, 250 years ago: A Spanish exploration party sails into San Francisco Bay, the 1st European settlers to visit. In 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco is founded.
November 2, 1792: Voting begins in America's 2nd Presidential election. Incumbent President George Washington is essentially unopposed, and wins all 15 States for 132 Electoral Votes. Vice President John Adams is also re-elected.
November 2, 1795: James Knox Polk is born in Pineville, North Carolina, now a suburb of Charlotte. He lives most of his life in and around Columbia, Tennessee, now a suburb of Nashville. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, well before the invention of basketball. However, UNC still beats Duke: Its Presidential connection is that Richard Nixon graduated from its law school.
A member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee from 1825 to 1839, Speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839, and Governor of Tennessee from 1839 to 1841, Polk was elected President in 1844. Texas was annexed right before his Inauguration, so he doesn't get credit for adding Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. But in 1846, he launched the Mexican-American War, which was essentially won in a year and a half. Having achieved his ambitions, he kept his promise to not run for re-election, contracted cholera, and died on June 15, 1849, just 3 months after leaving office -- the shortest ex-Presidency ever.
Cities whose teams are possible because of his expansionism are San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and, now, Las Vegas.
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November 2, 1804: Thomas Jefferson is re-elected President. The Democratic-Republican defeats the Federalist Party nominee, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a hero of the War of the American Revolution and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Oddly, the only office he held under the Constitution was one previously held by Jefferson: U.S. Minister to France. (Today, we would say, "Ambassador.")
The popular vote was not counted by every State in those days, Jefferson won 162 Electoral Votes. Pinckney won just 14, carrying only 2 States, and his native South Carolina was not one of them: He won Connecticut and Delaware, which both tended to go Federalist for as long as that party existed. Pinckney would be nominated again in 1808, but lose to Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison.
November 2, 1821: William Adams Richardson is born outside Boston in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts. A lawyer and judge, he served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from March 17, 1873 to June 3, 1874, under President Ulysses S. Grant. During this time, the Panic of 1873 struck the American stock market, and he issued $26 million in paper money to meet demand. It eased the immediate emergency, but what became known as the Long Depression began, lasting 5 years.
He resigned over the Sanborn Incident, which involved favoritism and profiteering in the collection of unpaid taxes. Grant let him save face by accepting a judgeship on the U.S. Court of Claims, now part of the U.S. Court of Appeals. He became its Chief Justice in 1885, and held that post until he died in 1896.
November 2, 1832: Andrew Jackson is re-elected President, defeating his arch-rival, Henry Clay. It's a landslide: "Old Hickory" wins 54 percent of the vote and 219 Electoral Votes, to Clay's 37 percent and 49 Electoral Votes.
November 2, 1847: Charles James Sweasy is born in Newark, New Jersey. The 2nd baseman on the 1st openly professional baseball team, the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings, he later played for several teams in the National Association and the National League, including winning the NA Pennant with the 1873 Boston Red Stockings, which featured some of his former Cincinnati teammates, and were the forerunners of the Atlanta Braves. He returned to Newark, and died in 1908, age 60.
November 2, 1852: Franklin Pierce is elected the 14th President of the United States. The Democratic nominee, who had served New Hampshire in both houses of Congress, defeats the Whig Party nominee, General Winfield Scott, a hero of the recent Mexican-American War, 254 Electoral Votes to 42. Pierce took almost 51 percent of the popular vote, Scott almost 44 percent.
Scott, a.k.a. Old Fuss and Feathers, won only 4 States: Whig strongholds Massachusetts, Connecticut, Kentucky (home State of the late Whig leader Henry Clay) and Tennessee (ironically, the home State of such Democratic icons as Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, who were both dead and thus unable to campaign for Pierce).
But as the Pierce family made its way to Washington for the Inauguration, their train derailed outside Andover, Massachusetts. Franklin and his wife Jane escaped with minor injuries, but their 11-year-old son Benjamin, their only surviving child, was killed. Franklin never recovered from this loss, and his drinking got out of control, making him the 1st alcoholic President. He may also have been the worst President, taking actions that turned the Civil War from a possibility into an inevitability.
November 2, 1865: Warren Gamaliel Harding is born in Blooming Grove, now a part of North Bloomfield Township, Ohio, outside Columbus. November 2 remains the only day on the calendar to be a birthday of 2 Presidents. That will remain the case no matter who wins next Tuesday.
He lived most of his life in nearby Marion, ran a newspaper, and was elected Lieutenant Governor and then a U.S. Senator. Elected President in 1920, he died in office on August 2, 1923, as the Teapot Dome scandal began to swirl around his Administration.
He got off easy with the law (2 of his Cabinet officers went to prison), but not with history (he is generally regarded as one of the worst, and dumbest, Presidents ever, and that's before you get into his womanizing).
The Duke then became King Richard III, and it is believed he had "the Princes in the Tower" murdered. He was deposed and killed 2 years later, and the House of York fell, and the House of Tudor rose (if you'll pardon the pun).
November 2, 1636: Edward Colston is born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England. He followed his father as a sea merchant, trading in wine, fruit and textiles. But in 1680, he began trading slaves, as a member of the Royal African Company. He was a deputy governor of the company by 1689. From 1710 to 1713, he was a Member of Parliament. He died in 1721. He is now regarded as one of the evil figures of his time.
November 2, 1734: Daniel James Boone is born in Birdsboro, outside Reading, Pennsylvania. Famous for his exploration of Kentucky, he may have been the 1st "Wild West" man. He later led the American military effort in the area during the War of the American Revolution. He died in 1820, a legend in his own time. He may have been the basis for Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, and became the subject of songs, films and TV shows.
But Fess Parker's portrayal on NBC in the 1960s was essentially a redo of his earlier portrayal of Davy Crockett, who was a later figure and a very different man. Unlike Crockett, Boone never wore a coonskin cap. This would have been like William Shatner playing the titular up-to-date Los Angeles cop on T.J. Hooker, and then pausing to tell Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear, "You see, when man first set out to explore the stars... "
November 2, 1755: Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna Habsburg is born at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. The daughter of Francis I, the Holy Roman Emperor, she was married at age 14 to Louis-Auguste, the heir apparent to the French throne. In 1774, when his grandfather, King Louis XV, died, he became King Louis XVI, and she became Queen Marie Antoinette.
She was a lavish spender, and seemed to typify the aristocracy of France to those who hated it. But she almost certainly never responded to being told that the people had no bread by saying, "Then, let them eat cake." (The saying was around well before she was.) And even if she had said it, it would have been due to cluelessness rather than meanness.
But when the French Revolution came in 1789, she and Louis became targets. In 1792, war broke out between her new country and her old country, and she and Louis were seen as pro-Austrian. They were deposed, arrested, and executed in 1793. She was not quite 38 years old, but was said to be prematurely gray-haired because of her ordeal.
Among the actresses who've played her in movies: Norma Shearer in the 1938 Marie Antoinette, Joely Richardson in the 2001 The Affair of the Necklace, Kirsten Dunst in the 2006 Marie Antoinette, and Diane Kruger in the 2012 Farewell, My Queen.
November 2, 1769, 250 years ago: A Spanish exploration party sails into San Francisco Bay, the 1st European settlers to visit. In 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco is founded.
November 2, 1792: Voting begins in America's 2nd Presidential election. Incumbent President George Washington is essentially unopposed, and wins all 15 States for 132 Electoral Votes. Vice President John Adams is also re-elected.
November 2, 1795: James Knox Polk is born in Pineville, North Carolina, now a suburb of Charlotte. He lives most of his life in and around Columbia, Tennessee, now a suburb of Nashville. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, well before the invention of basketball. However, UNC still beats Duke: Its Presidential connection is that Richard Nixon graduated from its law school.
A member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee from 1825 to 1839, Speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839, and Governor of Tennessee from 1839 to 1841, Polk was elected President in 1844. Texas was annexed right before his Inauguration, so he doesn't get credit for adding Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. But in 1846, he launched the Mexican-American War, which was essentially won in a year and a half. Having achieved his ambitions, he kept his promise to not run for re-election, contracted cholera, and died on June 15, 1849, just 3 months after leaving office -- the shortest ex-Presidency ever.
Cities whose teams are possible because of his expansionism are San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and, now, Las Vegas.
*
November 2, 1804: Thomas Jefferson is re-elected President. The Democratic-Republican defeats the Federalist Party nominee, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a hero of the War of the American Revolution and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Oddly, the only office he held under the Constitution was one previously held by Jefferson: U.S. Minister to France. (Today, we would say, "Ambassador.")
The popular vote was not counted by every State in those days, Jefferson won 162 Electoral Votes. Pinckney won just 14, carrying only 2 States, and his native South Carolina was not one of them: He won Connecticut and Delaware, which both tended to go Federalist for as long as that party existed. Pinckney would be nominated again in 1808, but lose to Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison.
November 2, 1821: William Adams Richardson is born outside Boston in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts. A lawyer and judge, he served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from March 17, 1873 to June 3, 1874, under President Ulysses S. Grant. During this time, the Panic of 1873 struck the American stock market, and he issued $26 million in paper money to meet demand. It eased the immediate emergency, but what became known as the Long Depression began, lasting 5 years.
He resigned over the Sanborn Incident, which involved favoritism and profiteering in the collection of unpaid taxes. Grant let him save face by accepting a judgeship on the U.S. Court of Claims, now part of the U.S. Court of Appeals. He became its Chief Justice in 1885, and held that post until he died in 1896.
November 2, 1832: Andrew Jackson is re-elected President, defeating his arch-rival, Henry Clay. It's a landslide: "Old Hickory" wins 54 percent of the vote and 219 Electoral Votes, to Clay's 37 percent and 49 Electoral Votes.
November 2, 1847: Charles James Sweasy is born in Newark, New Jersey. The 2nd baseman on the 1st openly professional baseball team, the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings, he later played for several teams in the National Association and the National League, including winning the NA Pennant with the 1873 Boston Red Stockings, which featured some of his former Cincinnati teammates, and were the forerunners of the Atlanta Braves. He returned to Newark, and died in 1908, age 60.
November 2, 1852: Franklin Pierce is elected the 14th President of the United States. The Democratic nominee, who had served New Hampshire in both houses of Congress, defeats the Whig Party nominee, General Winfield Scott, a hero of the recent Mexican-American War, 254 Electoral Votes to 42. Pierce took almost 51 percent of the popular vote, Scott almost 44 percent.
Scott, a.k.a. Old Fuss and Feathers, won only 4 States: Whig strongholds Massachusetts, Connecticut, Kentucky (home State of the late Whig leader Henry Clay) and Tennessee (ironically, the home State of such Democratic icons as Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, who were both dead and thus unable to campaign for Pierce).
But as the Pierce family made its way to Washington for the Inauguration, their train derailed outside Andover, Massachusetts. Franklin and his wife Jane escaped with minor injuries, but their 11-year-old son Benjamin, their only surviving child, was killed. Franklin never recovered from this loss, and his drinking got out of control, making him the 1st alcoholic President. He may also have been the worst President, taking actions that turned the Civil War from a possibility into an inevitability.
November 2, 1865: Warren Gamaliel Harding is born in Blooming Grove, now a part of North Bloomfield Township, Ohio, outside Columbus. November 2 remains the only day on the calendar to be a birthday of 2 Presidents. That will remain the case no matter who wins next Tuesday.
He lived most of his life in nearby Marion, ran a newspaper, and was elected Lieutenant Governor and then a U.S. Senator. Elected President in 1920, he died in office on August 2, 1923, as the Teapot Dome scandal began to swirl around his Administration.
He got off easy with the law (2 of his Cabinet officers went to prison), but not with history (he is generally regarded as one of the worst, and dumbest, Presidents ever, and that's before you get into his womanizing).
He was a big baseball fan, and on Opening Day of the 1923 season, as the Yankees visited Washington to face the Senators, he threw out the ceremonial first ball, and shook hands with Babe Ruth.
November 2, 1870: William McKenzie Barlow is born in Montreal. In the early days of hockey, there was the position of "rover," a player who "roved" between offense and defense, what we would call today an "offensive defenseman," like Bobby Orr or Paul Coffey. Billy Barlow was a rover.
He played for the Montreal Hockey Club, of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, and was with them when they were declared the 1st winners of the Stanley Cup in 1893. In 1894, they actually had to play a series for the Cup, and Barlow scored the winning goal, against the Ottawa Hockey Club, the team that would later become known as the Silver Seven (counting the rover) and later as the original Ottawa Senators (defunct 1934).
The position of rover was eliminated when the National Hockey Association, the 1st professional league, was founded in 1910. Its successor, the NHL, did not include it upon its 1917 founding. By 1923, no league had it anymore. Barlow became a pharmaceutical salesman, and lived until 1963.
November 2, 1880: James Abram Garfield is elected the 20th President of the United States, in one of the narrowest races ever. In fact, in terms of total popular vote, it remains the closest ever. The Republican nominee, who had served Ohio in both houses of Congress, won 4,446,158 votes. The Democratic nominee, a hero General of the Civil War, Winfield Scott Hancock (named for the losing candidate of 1852), won 4,444,260 -- a margin of 1,898 votes. (Garfield had also been a General in the Civil War.)
But it's Electoral Votes that matter, although that was also rather close: Garfield won 214 to Hancock's 155. Each man won 19 States. Whether the Republicans stole the votes of any State, as they had for Rutherford B. Hayes 4 years earlier, has never been proven.
Garfield was inaugurated on March 4, 1881. On July 2, he was shot. He could have survived, but his doctors' incompetence led to an inability to find the bullet, and a subsequent infection that killed him on September 19. Only William Henry Harrison died earlier upon his Inauguration than Garfield's 200 days.
His opponent, known as Hancock the Superb and The Thunderbolt of the Army of the Potomac for his heroism at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, developed diabetes, chose not to run again in 1884, and died in 1886.
Chester Arthur, Garfield's Vice President and successor, also got sick, with kidney disease, did not run for a term of his own in 1884, and died in 1886. Samuel Tilden, cheated out of the Presidency in 1876, did not run in 1880 or 1884, and he, too, died in 1886. None of them lived to see what would have been the end of the Garfield-Arthur ticket's 2nd term -- or that of Hancock and his running mate, Congressman William H. English of Indiana. He lived until 1896.
November 2, 1881: The American Association of Professionals is founded, challenging the National League, with the motto "Liberty to All." The members are St. Louis‚ Cincinnati‚ Louisville‚ Allegheny‚ Athletic (Philadelphia)‚ and Atlantic (Brooklyn). This AA has officially, for many years, been considered by Major League Baseball to be a "major league."
He played for the Montreal Hockey Club, of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, and was with them when they were declared the 1st winners of the Stanley Cup in 1893. In 1894, they actually had to play a series for the Cup, and Barlow scored the winning goal, against the Ottawa Hockey Club, the team that would later become known as the Silver Seven (counting the rover) and later as the original Ottawa Senators (defunct 1934).
The position of rover was eliminated when the National Hockey Association, the 1st professional league, was founded in 1910. Its successor, the NHL, did not include it upon its 1917 founding. By 1923, no league had it anymore. Barlow became a pharmaceutical salesman, and lived until 1963.
November 2, 1880: James Abram Garfield is elected the 20th President of the United States, in one of the narrowest races ever. In fact, in terms of total popular vote, it remains the closest ever. The Republican nominee, who had served Ohio in both houses of Congress, won 4,446,158 votes. The Democratic nominee, a hero General of the Civil War, Winfield Scott Hancock (named for the losing candidate of 1852), won 4,444,260 -- a margin of 1,898 votes. (Garfield had also been a General in the Civil War.)
But it's Electoral Votes that matter, although that was also rather close: Garfield won 214 to Hancock's 155. Each man won 19 States. Whether the Republicans stole the votes of any State, as they had for Rutherford B. Hayes 4 years earlier, has never been proven.
Garfield was inaugurated on March 4, 1881. On July 2, he was shot. He could have survived, but his doctors' incompetence led to an inability to find the bullet, and a subsequent infection that killed him on September 19. Only William Henry Harrison died earlier upon his Inauguration than Garfield's 200 days.
His opponent, known as Hancock the Superb and The Thunderbolt of the Army of the Potomac for his heroism at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, developed diabetes, chose not to run again in 1884, and died in 1886.
Chester Arthur, Garfield's Vice President and successor, also got sick, with kidney disease, did not run for a term of his own in 1884, and died in 1886. Samuel Tilden, cheated out of the Presidency in 1876, did not run in 1880 or 1884, and he, too, died in 1886. None of them lived to see what would have been the end of the Garfield-Arthur ticket's 2nd term -- or that of Hancock and his running mate, Congressman William H. English of Indiana. He lived until 1896.
November 2, 1881: The American Association of Professionals is founded, challenging the National League, with the motto "Liberty to All." The members are St. Louis‚ Cincinnati‚ Louisville‚ Allegheny‚ Athletic (Philadelphia)‚ and Atlantic (Brooklyn). This AA has officially, for many years, been considered by Major League Baseball to be a "major league."
The AA elects H.D. McKnight as its president. It votes to honor the NL blacklist in the case of drunkenness, but not to abide by the NL reserve clause. The new league will rely on home gate receipts‚ visiting teams getting just a $65 guarantee on the road‚ as opposed to the NL's policy of giving 15 cents from each admission to the visitors. The AA will allow Sunday games‚ liquor sales‚ and 25-cent tickets (about $6.50 in today's money)‚ all prohibited by the NL (which then charged 50 cents for all games).
Six of their clubs would eventually join the National League. Two would be contracted out of existence in 1900: The Louisville Colonels and the original Baltimore Orioles. The other 4 are still in business today, albeit under other names: The St. Louis Browns (St. Louis Cardinals), the Cincinnati Red Stockings (Cincinnati Reds), the Pittsburgh Alleghenys (Pittsburgh Pirates), and the Brooklyn Grays (who replaced the Atlantics in 1884, and are known today as the Los Angeles Dodgers).
November 2, 1888: Edward Harrison Zwilling is born in St. Louis. Like many Americans of German descent, he was nicknamed "Dutch," for the German word for the German people and the German language, "Deutsch." (In the days of the Holy Roman Empire, "High Dutch" came to mean the German people and their language, while "Low Dutch" came to mean the people and language of the Netherlands, hence their people and language are called "Dutch" today.)
Dutch Zwilling didn't last long in the major leagues, but he has some notable distinctions. He played in the same city for 3 different teams in 3 different leagues: The Chicago White Sox of the American League, the Chicago Whales of the Federal League, and the Chicago Cubs of the National League.
He played for the White Sox in their 1st year in Comiskey Park, 1910; the Whales in their 1st year, 1914, in their ballpark, Weeghman Park, which would eventually become Wrigley Field; and the Cubs in their 1st year at Wrigley, 1916. He led the FL in 1914, and in RBIs in 1915, helping the Whales win the Pennant. He lived until 1978, the last surviving member of the '15 Whales.
Finally, from his major league debut on August 14, 1910 until that of Seattle Mariners pitcher Tony Zych on September 4, 2015, Dutch Zwilling was last in alphabetical order among all players in major league history.
November 2, 1888: Edward Harrison Zwilling is born in St. Louis. Like many Americans of German descent, he was nicknamed "Dutch," for the German word for the German people and the German language, "Deutsch." (In the days of the Holy Roman Empire, "High Dutch" came to mean the German people and their language, while "Low Dutch" came to mean the people and language of the Netherlands, hence their people and language are called "Dutch" today.)
Dutch Zwilling didn't last long in the major leagues, but he has some notable distinctions. He played in the same city for 3 different teams in 3 different leagues: The Chicago White Sox of the American League, the Chicago Whales of the Federal League, and the Chicago Cubs of the National League.
He played for the White Sox in their 1st year in Comiskey Park, 1910; the Whales in their 1st year, 1914, in their ballpark, Weeghman Park, which would eventually become Wrigley Field; and the Cubs in their 1st year at Wrigley, 1916. He led the FL in 1914, and in RBIs in 1915, helping the Whales win the Pennant. He lived until 1978, the last surviving member of the '15 Whales.
Finally, from his major league debut on August 14, 1910 until that of Seattle Mariners pitcher Tony Zych on September 4, 2015, Dutch Zwilling was last in alphabetical order among all players in major league history.
November 2, 1889, 130 years ago: North Dakota is admitted to the Union as the 39th State. At the same time, South Dakota is also admitted, as the 40th State. This is the only time 2 States have been admitted on the same day, and it begins a 10-day stretch in which 4 States are added.
Neither State has any major league teams, and very few professional teams at any level, due to being so sparsely populated: Between them, they have only 1.6 million people, and aside from Mount Rushmore, which is outside Rapid City, South Dakota, they don't have much in the way of tourist attractions.
For the most part, the Dakotas are considered part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul sports "market," and most people there are Twins and Vikings fans, though western South Dakota has a noticeable presence of Denver Broncos fans.
Also on this day, Josiah Quincy IV dies in Boston at age 80. Usually listed as "Josiah Quincy Jr.," he was Mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849. His father (1823-28) and grandson (1895-99) also served as Mayor. During his time in office, "the Massachusetts game" became 1 of the 2 preferred forms of baseball in America. But in the late 1850s, it was phased out, and "the New York game" became the leading form.
November 2, 1898: Cheerleading is started at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.
Also on this day, Herman Guy Fisher is born in Unionville, Pennsylvania. He was the co-founded of the Fisher-Price toy company. He died in 1975, at which point I was 5 years old and playing with a lot of his company's toys.
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November 2, 1902: Victoriano Santos Iriarte is born in Montevideo, Uruguay. A forward for Racing Club de Montevideo, he scored the winning goal for Uruguay in the 1st World Cup Final, beating Brazil on home soil in 1930. He lived until 1968.
November 2, 1903: Travis Clayton Jackson is born in Waldo, Arkansas. The shortstop played on the New York Giants' Pennant winners of 1922, '23, '24, '33 and '36, winning the World Series in 1922 and '33.
He managed in the minor leagues from 1936 to 1960. In 1982, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in his 45th year of eligibility -- the longest any player has had to wait, and still live to see his election. He died in 1987.
Also on this day, Elvin C. Drake (I can find no record of what the C stood for) is born in Friend, Nebraska, and grows up in Fort Morgan, Colorado. Known as "Ducky" as a play on his last name, he ran cross country at UCLA, and there served as assistant track coach from 1929 to 1946, head trainer from 1942 to 1972, and head track coach from 1947 to 1964.
This made him the trainer for coach John Wooden's 10 National Championship basketball teams, but it also made him an assistant coach for brothers Mack and Jackie Robinson. Mack set a world record in the long jump, and won a Silver Medal in the event in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Jackie would also play baseball, football and basketball at UCLA, before moving on to the role that would make him a Dodger in baseball and a giant in American history.
Ducky Drake also coached the Gold and Silver Medalists in the decathlon at the 1960 Olympics in Rome: UCLA performers Rafer Johnson of the U.S., and Yang Chuan-kwang, who competed for his native Taiwan, and publicly listed as "C.K. Yang."
Drake led UCLA to the National Championship in 1956, and the program has since won it again in 1966, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1987 and 1988 -- 8 National Championships. He lived to see them all, dying later in 1988, as a member of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame. The school named its track & field facility Drake Stadium in his honor in 1973.
November 2, 1907: Florence Chambers (no middle name) is born in Boston, and lives most of her life in San Diego. She competed for the U.S. swimming team at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, but did not win a medal. She was elected to the San Diego Hall of Champions in 1970, and died in 1979.
November 2, 1912: Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy Jr. is born in Philadelphia. Like his father, he never actually legally changed his name to "Mack." But he became known as Connie Mack Jr.
By the time Connie Sr. became majority owner of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1937, Connie Jr. was managing the concessions at Shibe Park. In 1938, he was named assistant treasurer. But there was a dispute in the family: Connie's sons from his 1st marriage, Earle and Roy, believed that they would be handed control of the team when their father either died or retired, and this appears to have been Connie's plan as well; but Connie's 2nd wife Katherine and their son Connie Jr. were adamant that Connie Jr. would run the team.
In 1950, when the father's 50th Anniversary as team manager became a massive flop, as his senility had become obvious, the sons, united for one of the few times in their lives, ganged up on their father, allied themselves with the other owners, the heirs of the Shibe family, and stripped their father of his power, making him owner but nothing else.
But that was the end of their getting along. Later in 1950, Earle and Roy bought Connie Jr. out, and the financial maneuvers they needed to do so were the death knell of the A's in Philadelphia. Connie Jr. moved to Florida, ran a successful shrimp business there, and lived until 1996, long enough to see his son Connie Mack III elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Florida. His grandson, Connie Mack IV, has served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Still, while their names appeared on the ballot as "Connie Mack," legally, the family name remains McGillicuddy.
November 2, 1913: Former St. Louis Browns manager George Stovall is the 1st figure from either of the established major leagues to jump to the Federal League‚ signing to manage the Kansas City Packers.
Also on this day, Josiah Quincy IV dies in Boston at age 80. Usually listed as "Josiah Quincy Jr.," he was Mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849. His father (1823-28) and grandson (1895-99) also served as Mayor. During his time in office, "the Massachusetts game" became 1 of the 2 preferred forms of baseball in America. But in the late 1850s, it was phased out, and "the New York game" became the leading form.
November 2, 1898: Cheerleading is started at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.
Also on this day, Herman Guy Fisher is born in Unionville, Pennsylvania. He was the co-founded of the Fisher-Price toy company. He died in 1975, at which point I was 5 years old and playing with a lot of his company's toys.
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November 2, 1902: Victoriano Santos Iriarte is born in Montevideo, Uruguay. A forward for Racing Club de Montevideo, he scored the winning goal for Uruguay in the 1st World Cup Final, beating Brazil on home soil in 1930. He lived until 1968.
November 2, 1903: Travis Clayton Jackson is born in Waldo, Arkansas. The shortstop played on the New York Giants' Pennant winners of 1922, '23, '24, '33 and '36, winning the World Series in 1922 and '33.
He managed in the minor leagues from 1936 to 1960. In 1982, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in his 45th year of eligibility -- the longest any player has had to wait, and still live to see his election. He died in 1987.
Also on this day, Elvin C. Drake (I can find no record of what the C stood for) is born in Friend, Nebraska, and grows up in Fort Morgan, Colorado. Known as "Ducky" as a play on his last name, he ran cross country at UCLA, and there served as assistant track coach from 1929 to 1946, head trainer from 1942 to 1972, and head track coach from 1947 to 1964.
This made him the trainer for coach John Wooden's 10 National Championship basketball teams, but it also made him an assistant coach for brothers Mack and Jackie Robinson. Mack set a world record in the long jump, and won a Silver Medal in the event in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Jackie would also play baseball, football and basketball at UCLA, before moving on to the role that would make him a Dodger in baseball and a giant in American history.
Ducky Drake also coached the Gold and Silver Medalists in the decathlon at the 1960 Olympics in Rome: UCLA performers Rafer Johnson of the U.S., and Yang Chuan-kwang, who competed for his native Taiwan, and publicly listed as "C.K. Yang."
Drake led UCLA to the National Championship in 1956, and the program has since won it again in 1966, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1987 and 1988 -- 8 National Championships. He lived to see them all, dying later in 1988, as a member of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame. The school named its track & field facility Drake Stadium in his honor in 1973.
November 2, 1907: Florence Chambers (no middle name) is born in Boston, and lives most of her life in San Diego. She competed for the U.S. swimming team at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, but did not win a medal. She was elected to the San Diego Hall of Champions in 1970, and died in 1979.
November 2, 1912: Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy Jr. is born in Philadelphia. Like his father, he never actually legally changed his name to "Mack." But he became known as Connie Mack Jr.
By the time Connie Sr. became majority owner of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1937, Connie Jr. was managing the concessions at Shibe Park. In 1938, he was named assistant treasurer. But there was a dispute in the family: Connie's sons from his 1st marriage, Earle and Roy, believed that they would be handed control of the team when their father either died or retired, and this appears to have been Connie's plan as well; but Connie's 2nd wife Katherine and their son Connie Jr. were adamant that Connie Jr. would run the team.
In 1950, when the father's 50th Anniversary as team manager became a massive flop, as his senility had become obvious, the sons, united for one of the few times in their lives, ganged up on their father, allied themselves with the other owners, the heirs of the Shibe family, and stripped their father of his power, making him owner but nothing else.
But that was the end of their getting along. Later in 1950, Earle and Roy bought Connie Jr. out, and the financial maneuvers they needed to do so were the death knell of the A's in Philadelphia. Connie Jr. moved to Florida, ran a successful shrimp business there, and lived until 1996, long enough to see his son Connie Mack III elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Florida. His grandson, Connie Mack IV, has served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Still, while their names appeared on the ballot as "Connie Mack," legally, the family name remains McGillicuddy.
November 2, 1913: Former St. Louis Browns manager George Stovall is the 1st figure from either of the established major leagues to jump to the Federal League‚ signing to manage the Kansas City Packers.
With glib salesman Jim Gilmore as its president‚ and backed by several millionaires‚ including oil magnate Harry Sinclair and Brooklyn baker Robert Ward‚ the Feds declare open war 2 weeks later by announcing they will not honor the major leagues' reserve clause. It will prove a long‚ costly struggle‚ but with more losers than winners‚ similar to the AA's and AL's beginnings.
On this same day, Burton Stephen Lancaster is born in Manhattan. One of the most acclaimed actors of the 20th Century, one of his last roles (but not his very last) was as an old doctor who used to be a baseball player in Field of Dreams.
November 2, 1914: John Samuel Vander Meer is born in Prospect Park, Passaic, County, New Jersey, and grows up in nearby Midland Park, Bergen County. On June 11 and 15, 1938, pitching for the Cincinnati Reds, he became the 1st, and remains the only, pitcher ever to throw back-to-back no-hitters. He blanked the Boston Braves at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, and then did the same to the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, in the 1st major league night game ever played in New York City.
November 2, 1914: John Samuel Vander Meer is born in Prospect Park, Passaic, County, New Jersey, and grows up in nearby Midland Park, Bergen County. On June 11 and 15, 1938, pitching for the Cincinnati Reds, he became the 1st, and remains the only, pitcher ever to throw back-to-back no-hitters. He blanked the Boston Braves at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, and then did the same to the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, in the 1st major league night game ever played in New York City.
Many years later, Johnny Vander Meer was interviewed by a reporter for the Chicago Daily News for the anthology book My Greatest Day In Baseball. He said, "It would seem natural for me to name the second successive no-hitter I pitched in 1938 as my biggest day in baseball, and I'll have to explain why it isn't. I was still just a novelty, a kid who had done a freakish thing."
He was sick the next year and couldn't get untracked. While the Reds won the Pennant, he was not called on to pitch in the 1939 World Series, which the Reds lost to the Yankees. He got sent back to the minors in 1940. "I knew that was what I needed. At the same time it made me realize just how quickly a fellow can fall from the pedestal."
He pitched solidly for the Indianapolis Indians, then the Reds' Triple-A team, and was called back up. On September 18, 1940, he started what could have been the Pennant-clinching game for the Reds, against the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park. The game went 13 innings, and he pitched 12 innings. He batted in the top of the 13th and doubled, was sacrificed to 3rd, and Ivan Goodman hit a sacrifice fly to get him home. He was relieved by Joe Beggs for the bottom of the 13th, and the Reds won, 4-3. The Reds won the Pennant, and Vander Meer had his greatest day in baseball.
This time, he pitched in the World Series, tossing 3 scoreless innings against the Detroit Tigers in Game 5. The Reds won in 7 games, and he had his ring.
He went 16-12 in 1941, and came close to a 3rd no-hitter. He peaked at 18 wins the next year, and led the NL in strikeouts in 1941, '42 and '43. He was a 4-time All-Star, so he wasn't just a guy who caught lightning in a bottle for 5 days.
He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Although he missed the entire seasons of 1944 and '45, at ages 29 and 30, prime years, he said that pitching on a Navy team helped his control, and the statistics do back that up somewhat. He won 17 in 1948, but that was it, and after a stint with the Chicago Cubs, he last pitched in the majors in 1951 with the Cleveland Indians. In 1952, pitching for the Tulsa Oilers of the Texas League, he pitched another no-hitter, at age 37.
Much like a later no-hit hero, Don Larsen, Vander Meer was actually slightly under .500 for his career: In his case, 119-120. He had allowed so much as 1 hit in each of those 1938 games, he might be remembered today for that feat, but not nearly as well.
Instead, for 80 years, every time a pitcher has thrown a no-hitter, the name of Johnny Vander Meer has come up, with people wondering if the new no-hit hero can match his feat. None ever has -- at least, not in the major leagues. I have heard that 1 pitcher did it in the minors since 1938, but I can find no reference to this achievement.
Vander Meer became a minor league manager in the Reds' organization for 10 seasons, before retiring in 1962. He then worked for a brewing company. He was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame in 1958. He retired to Tampa, where the Reds long had their spring training complex, threw out ceremonial first balls at 6 World Series for the Reds (1961, 1970, 1972, 1975, 1976 and 1990), jsat for an interview for the Reds' 100th Anniversary team video in 1992, and lived until October 6, 1997, suffering an abdominal aneurysm. He was 82.
November 2, 1916: Alessandro Campani is born in Kos, one of the Dodecanese Islands off the coast of Turkey, then under the control of Italy. but repatriated to Greece after World War II. But his parents were ethnically Greek, and in 1923, the family moved to New York, and his parents Hellenized his name to Alexander Sebastian Campanis.
A 2nd baseman, he graduated from George Washington High School in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Although he played in the minor leagues from 1940 to 1948 (missing the 1944 and '45 seasons due to World War II), including as Jackie Robinson's double play partner on the 1946 Montreal Royals, he only played 7 games in the major leagues, all late in the 1943 season.
The Dodgers hired him as a scout, and he discovered Roberto Clemente (whom the Dodgers couldn't hang onto) and Sandy Koufax (whom they did). He moved to Los Angeles with them in 1958, and by 1968 he was named their general manager, and quickly endeared himself to owner Walter O'Malley by being willing to put sentiment aside and trade his own son, catcher Jim Campanis, to the expansion Kansas City Royals for 2 guys who never made it.
He built a team that, from 1974 to 1988, reached the Playoffs 8 times, won 7 National League Western Division titles, 5 NL Pennants, and the World Series in 1981 and 1988. He wrote 2 books: The Dodger Way to Play Baseball (in Brooklyn in 1954) and Play Ball with Roger the Dodger (in Los Angeles in 1980).
Had he died on the morning of April 6, 1987, he would have been hailed as a winner who spent a lifetime in the game. Instead, that night, he appeared on ABC News' Nightline, to discuss the 40th Anniversary of Robinson's arrival in the major leagues, and the game's long, difficult struggle to fully integrate. Anchor Ted Koppel asked him why major league teams, including the Dodgers, his own team and Robinson's, had few black men as managers or in key front office positions.
Campanis said blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager." Koppel gave him chances to dig himself out of this hole, and, each time, he dug himself in deeper. Koppel said, "That sounds a lot like the garbage we heard 40 years ago."
Afterward, Campanis said he was "wiped out" -- I'm presuming that meant "tired," which is possible, since he was at the Dodger Spring Training complex in Vero Beach, Florida, and it was close to midnight, and he was 70 years old. But if that was true, then he should have told Koppel that he wasn't feeling up to being interviewed.
He was quickly fired, and never worked in baseball again. He died in 1998, at 81, his name still tarnished.
November 2, 1917: Arthur Balfour, Foreign Secretary to Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain, writes a letter to Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader of the country's Jewish community, to give to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. It was published on November 9:
His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
Whether the British government truly did "use their best endeavours," what becomes known as the Balfour Declaration was a big step forward in the process that led to the establishment and the independence of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
November 2, 1919, 100 years ago: William Henry Mills is born in Boston. A catcher, Bill "Buster" Mills played in 5 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, in 1944, getting 1 hit, proving that he wouldn't have made it to the major leagues without the manpower drain of World War II.
Bill Mills went back to Boston, and became a high school teacher and coach. He was 1 of the last 13 surviving former Philadelphia Athletics, and 1 of the last 4 living men who played for Connie Mack. However, he didn't quite make it to his 100th birthday, dying this past August 9 in Gainesville, Florida.
He should not be confused with Billy Mills, the Native American runner who won the Gold Medal in the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Olympics.
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November 2, 1920: Richard Alan Sisler is born in St. Louis, where his father, George Sisler, is one of the greatest players in baseball, with the St. Louis Browns. Dick would go on to become a decent player himself, playing 1st base like his father, and later the outfield, batting .276 in a career that lasted from 1946 to 1953.
As a rookie with the 1946 St. Louis Cardinals, he played on a World Series winner. In 1950, he hit a 10th-inning home run on the last day of the season to give the Philadelphia Phillies their only National League Pennant between 1915 and 1980. He was an All-Star that season.
He later served as a coach, helping the Cincinnati Reds win the 1961 Pennant, and stepped in as their manager in 1964 when Fred Hutchinson was dying of cancer, nearly taking them to another Pennant. With some irony, they were battling his former Pennant-winners, the Cardinals and the Phillies, for it, and the Cards ended up beating both the Reds and the Phils by 1 game.
He managed the Reds in the 1965 season, and then never managed again, despite his managerial record being a fine 121-94, .562. But he coached for the Cardinals on their Pennant teams of 1967 (winning another World Series) and 1968, and later for the San Diego Padres under John McNamara and the Mets under Joe Torre. He later worked as a minor-league instructor with the Cardinal system, and died in 1998.
Dick's brother, Dave Sisler, would be a major league pitcher. Another brother, George Sisler Jr., wouldn't make the major leagues, but was a longtime baseball executive.
But all that was something for what was then the future. Also on this day, KDKA begins broadcasting out of Pittsburgh, the 1st commercial radio station in America. The first broadcast is the results of the Presidential election. Senator Warren Harding becomes the only person elected President of the United States on his birthday, turning 55, and defeating Governor James M. Cox of Ohio in a landslide.
The Republican candidate wins 404 Electoral Votes to the the 127 won by his fellow Ohioan, Governor James M. Cox. Harding won 60 percent of the popular vote, to Cox's 34.
A year later, KDKA will become the 1st radio station to broadcast a baseball game, and the 1st to broadcast a football game. Eventually establishing itself at 1020 on the AM dial, it was long a Westinghouse Broadcasting station, but since 1996 has been part of CBS. It broadcast Pirates games from 1955 to 2006, including the 1960, '71 and '79 World Championships.
The Democrats had won the last 2 elections. How did Cox lose so badly?
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Jim Cox for Losing the 1920 Presidential Election
Interestingly enough, Cox was the 1st divorced man to be a major-party nominee for President, and had also married another woman, but it wasn't considered an especially big issue. As with the next divorced man to be nominated, Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 (and he hadn't yet married someone else, and never would), it wouldn't have mattered if he had been happily married: He would have lost in a landslide anyway. In his case, for these reasons:
5. Demographics. The 2 largest ethnic groups in America were German and Irish. Both saw Britain as their enemy. And both saw the Democrats, led by incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, showing Britain favoritism.
That hurt Cox in the Midwest, with its strong German concentration, but he probably would have lost it anyway. It was the Irish Catholics, either staying home or, for the 1st time, voting Republican that killed Cox in States like Ohio (home State of both candidates, and Cox got just 38 percent there), Maryland (42 percent), New Jersey (28), Massachusetts (28), Pennsylvania (27), New York (27) and Illinois (25).
4. The 19th Amendment. It gave women the right to vote (except in the 4 States that already recognized it), and this was the 1st election in which it had an effect. Harding was considered good-looking -- good-looking enough, apparently, to have at least 2 mistresses. Cox was not.
3. Postwar Depression. When the men who won World War I came home, their jobs had been filled. Unemployment rose sharply. Farmers, no longer needing to sell their crops to the U.S. Department of War (known as the Department of Defense since 1947), saw their prices plummet. It might not have been a depression as long as the one that began 10 years later, but it was bad enough. As is so often the case, the economy was a huge factor in an election.
2. Wilson Fatigue. For the 1st 4 years of his Presidency, the Democratic incumbent, Woodrow Wilson, was rather popular. For the next 2 years, he was a beloved wartime leader. But his attempt to get America into the League of Nations scared people who didn't want America involved in another overseas war.
No previous President had gone from enormously popular to enormously unpopular in just 1 year -- and only one has since, Richard Nixon. Voters took their frustrations out on the Democrats, including Cox, who, as a Governor, had nothing to do with the Wilson Administration. It was unfair to Cox, but he paid the price for it, every bit as much as Democratic candidates for the House, the Senate and Governorships did that day.
1. "Return to Normalcy." After 2 years of America being in World War I, and 2 years of postwar disruption, Harding, to use a more recent expression, had his finger on the pulse of the nation. He wasn't particularly bright, but he knew what Americans wanted -- including, apparently, alliteration:
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
And enough Americans agreed with him to give him an overwhelming victory. When he died in office on August 2, 1923, just as the Teapot Dome scandal was breaking, he was still enormously popular. And the Democratic Party was divided enough that, even with the scandal, a living Harding probably would have won in 1924, anyway.
By the end of the decade, with the full revelations of the scandal, and of his affairs, including an illegitimate daughter, his reputation was in tatters. He is still often considered one of the country's worst Presidents, along with predecessors like Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson; and successors like Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Cox? He returned to his media empire, and ran it until his death in 1957. He is largely forgotten today, even by people who know the name Cox Communications, which his descendants have grown far beyond his imagination. When he is remembered at all, it is for his connections to 2 Presidents: Harding, and his own Democratic nominee for Vice President, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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November 2, 1921: William Mosienko (no middle name) is born in Winnipeg. A 5-foot-8 right wing for the Chicago Blackhawks, he's in the Hockey Hall of Fame. On March 23, 1952, he scored 3 goals in just 21 seconds, still an NHL record, as the Hawks beat the New York Rangers 7-6 at Chicago Stadium. He died in 1994.
November 2, 1922: Douglas Colin Roy Baldwin is born in Winnipeg. A defenseman, he won 3 notable trophies in junior hockey: The Turnbull Cup, the championship of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, and the Memorial Cup, the overall championship of Canadian junior amateur hockey, both with the 1941 Winnipeg Rangers; and the Allan Cup, the overall championship of Canadian senior amateur hockey, with the 1944 Quebec Aces. And he was a member of the Omaha Knights when they won the 1947 U.S. Hockey League Championship.
But Doug Baldwin's NHL career was a bust. He played 15 games with the 1946 Toronto Maple Leafs, 4 with the 1947 Detroit Red Wings, and 5 with the 1948 Chicago Blackhawks. He was elected to the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame, and died in 2007.
Also on this day, Ria Baran -- apparently, her entire name -- is born in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. She and her husband, Paul Faulk, won the Gold Medal in pairs figure skating at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway.
Before those Olympics, there was a question of whether German athletes would compete at all. In 1948, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, the 1st Olympics to be held after World War II, both Germany and Japan were excluded. But the International Olympic Committee voted to included both the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany (a.k.a. West Germany) and the falsely-named, because Communist-dominated, German Democratic Republic (a.k.a. East Germany), as a unified team. When the East Germans declined, the West Germans competed under their own name and flag.
The couple turned professional, performed in Holiday On Ice, and were elected to the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Baran, a secretary, died in 1986. Paul, a mechanic, died in 2017.
November 2, 1923: Cesare Rubini is born in Trieste, Italy. A member of the Basketball and International Swimming Halls of Fame, he starred for Italy in both basketball and water polo. He won a Gold Medal in water polo at the 1948 Olympics in London. For basketball team Olimpia Milano, he won 5 league titles as a player and 10 as a coach. He also coached Italy to the Silver Medal at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He died in 2011.
November 2, 1924: Uruguay, which recently won the Gold Medal in soccer at the Olympics in Paris (including with the aforementioned Santos Iriarte), playing at home at Parque Central in Montevideo, plays Argentina to a 0-0 draw. That's good enough to clinch the South American Championship, the tournament now known as the Copa América.
That night, a group of Argentine fans gathered at the door of the Colón Hotel, where the Argentina delegation was staying. The fans began to sing, and the players came out to salute them. But a Uruguayan began a counterdemonstration, and, as had so often happened before in soccer fandom, and has since, the songs and insults flew. Soon, objects were being thrown. Then came the shooting, and 3 men were wounded. One of them, Pedro Demby, a 26-year-old bank clerk who had been punching Argentines, died.
He went down as the 1st man ever to die as a result of violence connected to South American soccer. He would not be the last.
Also on this day, in Britain, The Sunday Express becomes the 1st newspaper in the world to publish a crossword puzzle, complete with instructions on what one had to do.
Also on this day, David William Bauer is born in Kitchener, Ontario. The younger brother of Boston Bruins Hall-of-Famer Bobby Bauer, he starred for the hockey team at St. Michael's College School in Toronto, and entered the priesthood instead of following his brother into the professional game.
He returned to St. Michael's to teach, and won the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian junior hockey, at St. Mike's as a player in 1944 and as a coach in 1961. He also coached Team Canada in the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and in the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, winning a Bronze Medal in the latter.
He remained involved with amateur hockey in Canada until he died in 1988, and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame the next year. Arenas are named for him in Calgary and Vancouver.
November 2, 1926: Myer Upton Skoog is born in Duluth, Minnesota. Like Edward Charles Ford and Don Richard Ashburn in baseball, he had very light hair that got him nicknamed "Whitey." A guard, the basketball team at the University of Minnesota retired his Number 41.
He played for his home-State Minneapolis Lakers, and helped them win the 1952, '53 and '54 NBA Championships. He is sometimes credited as the inventor of the jump shot, although this is not certain. He later served as the head coach at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. Whitey Skoog died on April 4, 2019.
November 2, 1927: Stephen John Ditko is born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He got his start in comic books as an inker at Charlton Comics, specializing in science fiction, horror and mystery. He co-created the characters Captain Atom, the original version of the Question, the Creeper, and the duo Hawk and Dove.
In 1962, after turning down Jack Kirby's drawings, which he said were good but not matching his vision for the character, Stan Lee took his idea for Spider-Man to Ditko, who drew the now-familiar figure of Peter Parker, a wisecracking costumed crimefighter who was still a troubled teenager. Ditko also created several of Spidey's villains, including Doctor Octopus, the Sandman and the Lizard; and, with Lee, co-created the magic-based superhero Doctor Strange.
He died in 2018, having lived to see Spider-Man played on TV by Danny Seagren and Nicholas Hammond; voiced in cartoons by Paul Soles, Ted Schwartz, Dan Gilvezan, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Neil Patrick Harris, Josh Keaton and Drake Bell; and in movies by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Hammond. In the 2nd and 3rd movies starring Maguire, Peter Parker's Russian landlord, played by Elya Baskin, was named Mr. Ditkovich in his honor.
November 2, 1928: Leon Joseph Hart is born in Pittsburgh. A 2-way end, he helped Notre Dame win National Championships in 1946, 1947 and 1949, and was awarded the 1949 Heisman Trophy, denying the previous year's winner, Doak Walker of Southern Methodist, back-to-back wins.
He was drafted by the Detroit Lions, and helped them win the NFL Championship in 1952, 1953 and 1957, playing alongside fellow Heisman winners Walker and Howard "Hopalong" Cassidy of Ohio State (1955). He only made 1 Pro Bowl, in 1951. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, and died in 2002.
Also on this day, William Raymond Daniel is born in Swansea, Wales. A centreback, Ray Daniel played for North London club Arsenal in the 1952 FA Cup Final, despite having a broken arm. Walley Barnes' injury in that game forced him to leave the pitch, but Daniel played on, leaving Arsenal with essentially 9 men, 2 at the back, and they lost to Newcastle United.
But Daniel missed only 1 match in the 1952-53 season, and Arsenal edged Preston North End in the closest title race in Football League history. He then went to Sunderland (who know a thing or two about hating Newcastle), and played for both of the big clubs in Wales, Cardiff City and Swansea Town (now Swansea City). He later worked for the postal service, and lived until 1997.
Also on this day, Floyd Robert Ross is born in the Los Angeles suburb of Fullerton, California. He may have called himself Bob Ross, but he didn't do any painting, unless it was "painting the corners" of the strike zone.
A pitcher, he made 6 appearances for the Washington Senators in 1950, and 11 more for them in '51. He then missed 2 seasons due to serving in the Korean War, and did not return to the major leagues, except for 3 games for the 1956 Philadelphia Phillies. From 1945 to 1959, he went 80-85 in the minor leagues, but was just 0-2 in the majors, and threw his last professional pitch shortly before turning 31. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, the Democratic nominee for President, holds his last campaign rally, riding up Broadway in an open car, making it an unofficial ticker-tape parade.
Smith ended up getting 67 percent of the vote in The Bronx, 61 in his native Manhattan, 59 in Brooklyn, and 53 each in Queens and Staten Island. And he won Albany County, containing the State capital, and adjoining Rensselaer County. And he won the State's 2 northernmost Counties, Clinton and Franklin. But the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, won the remaining 53 Counties, and the State as a whole.
November 2, 1929, 90 years ago: Junior Lee Hedges is born in Fifty-Six, Arkansas -- not to be confused with Ninety-Six, South Carolina. He grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he was a 3-sport star in high school. He quarterbacked Louisiana State University into the 1950 Sugar Bowl. He also played 2 years of minor league baseball as an outfielder.
Lee Hedges became one of the most successful high school football coaches in Louisiana history, winning 15 State Championships, including at Woodlawn High School, where he coached future Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw. He also served as an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech, where he again coached Bradshaw, and also coached future "Duck Commander" Phil Robertson. He had also coached Bradshaw at Woodlawn High School. He is a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and is still alive.
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November 2, 1932: Guy Paul Joseph Sparrow is born in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. The guard was 2-time All-Conference at the University of Detroit (now Detroit Mercy), and played the 1957-58 and 1958-59 seasons for the Knicks, and the 1959-60 season for the Philadelphia Warriors, with rookie Wilt Chamberlain as a teammate. He is still alive.
November 2, 1934: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and several other baseball players, led by manager Connie Mack, step off the cruiseliner Empress of Japan at Yokohama, and begin a tour of Japan. This is the 1st time American major leaguers will face Japanese professionals.
The Americans won 17 out of 18 games, which surprised no one. The big surprise occurred when 17-year-old Eiji Sawamura of the Tokyo Baseball Club struck Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Charlie Gehringer out in succession in a game in Shizuoka. But Gehrig also hit a home run off him, and the Americans won 1-0.
The Tokyo BC was founded that season, and became known as the Yomiuri Giants. They have won 46 Pennants (37 of them in the Central League, including this season) and 22 Japan Series (the last in 2012). Because of this, despite bearing the name and colors of the New York (now San Francisco) team, they are known as "The Yankees of Japan."
Sawamura's career was cut short by World War II, and ended up being killed in 1944, when his ship was sunk by an American ship.
November 2, 1935: Ohio State leads Notre Dame 13-0 in the 4th quarter at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. But the Fighting Irish close to 13-12. They had a 2-way halfback named William Shakespeare. A year earlier, the Staten Island native had thrown a touchdown pass to beat Army at Yankee Stadium, and, in a pun on the William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice (and he did love puns), "the Bard of South Bend" had also been nicknamed "The Merchant of Menace."
In the last minute of the game, Shakespeare nearly threw an interception, but the Ohio State player dropped it. Given a second chance, he threw a last-second pass to future Washington Redskins Hall-of-Famer Wayne Millner for an 18-13 Irish win.
With the Notre Dame hype machine in full force, this became known as "The Game of the Century" and "The Greatest Game Ever Played." Red Barber, later to broadcast for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Yankees, broadcast it for CBS radio, and called it "the greatest college football game I ever called." I'll guarantee you that if Ohio State had hung on to win, nobody, not even Buckeye fans, would claim it as the greatest game.
Ironically, given Notre Dame's unofficial status as America's Catholic university (not to be confused with The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.), Shakespeare, like his alleged ancestor, was Protestant; and Millner was Jewish.
November 2, 1936: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is founded. It picks up Canada's favorite (or, should I say, its favourite) radio show, Hockey Night In Canada, which began in 1931. In 1952, a bit late, they began TV broadcasting, and HNIC remains the country's most popular TV show.
November 2, 1937: A benefit game -- effectively, an all-star game -- is held for the family of the late Montreal Canadiens legend Howie Morenz at the Montreal Forum. Morenz had broken his leg in a game the preceding January, and then died of a heart attack in March, often blamed on the near-party atmosphere his former teammates kept bringing to his hospital room.
The Howie Morenz Memorial Game featured a combined team of the 2 Montreal clubs, the Canadiens and the Maroons. (The Great Depression finally caught up with the Maroons, and they went out of business at the conclusion of the 1937-38 season.) Canadiens Hall-of-Famers in this game included Aurel Joliat, Toe Blake, and Babe Siebert -- who would drown in a boating accident 2 years later, and whose family would be the subject of the next NHL benefit game, also at the Forum. The Maroons included Frank "King" Clancy, at the end of the line after a Hall of Fame career with the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Montreal team played an All-Star team made up of the rest of the NHL, including Hall-of-Famers: From the Leafs, Red Horner, Charlie Conacher and Harvey "Busher" Jackson; from the New York Rangers, Frank Boucher; from the New York Americans, David "Sweeney" Schriner and Leafs legend Clarence "Hap" Day; from the Boston Bruins, Clarence "Tiny" Thompson, Eddie Shore and Aubrey "Dit" Clapper; and from the Detroit Red Wings, Ebenezer "Ebbie" Goodfellow and Marty Barry. The 2 representatives from the Chicago Black Hawks, Johnny Gottselig and Harold "Mush" March, aren't in the Hall, but should be.
The Canadiens retired Morenz's Number 7, and then the Montreal All-Stars lost to the NHL All-Stars 6-5. The attendance was 8,683, not a sellout, but $26,595 (Canadian) was raised for the Morenz family. That's about $470,420 in current Canadian dollars, or $359,387 in U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate.
Morenz's son, Howie Morenz Jr., was 10 years old at the time, and was presented with his father's jersey. He went on to play professionally, but bad eyes kept him from reaching the NHL, and he became an executive in the food supply industry, before dying in 2015, at age 88.
Howie's daughter Marlene married a later Canadiens Hall-of-Famer, Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion. Their son Dan Geoffrion played for the Canadiens, the Quebec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets. And Dan's son Blake Geoffrion played for the Nashville Predators before coming to the Canadiens, honoring his grandfather Boom-Boom (whose Number 5 is retired) and his great-grandfather the Stratford Streak (number 7) by wearing Number 57. Unfortunately, a head injury ended his playing career in 2013.
Bernie died in 2006. Dan is now a scout for the Leafs. And Blake is now an executive in the Columbus Blue Jackets' organization.
November 2, 1938: Patrick Joseph Buchanan is born in Washington, D.C., a proud descendant of Confederate veterans. Arthritis kept him from being drafted, and he became a writer for the now-defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat -- an ironic name, given that he became both an anti-gloablist and one of the people who would define the Republican Party in the last 40 years of the 20th Century.
In 1965, he became an executive assistant at the law firm run by former Vice President Richard Nixon. In 1968, when Nixon made his 2nd run for President, Buchanan was hired to do opposition research. He became a speechwriter for Nixon and his Vice President, Spiro Agnew -- if you watched The West Wing, think of William Safire as Nixon's "Toby Ziegler" (no relation to actual Nixon aide Ronald Ziegler), and of Buchanan as Nixon's "Sam Seaborn."
While Safire wrote many of Agnew's famed alliterative phrases, such as "the nattering nabobs of negativism," I suspect it was the very Catholic Buchanan, rather than the Jewish Safire, who gave Agnew the line "the vicars of vacillation."
Buchanan has never been credibly accused of any of the crimes that fell under the umbrella term "Watergate." But he remained a Nixon loyalist, staying in the Administration until the resignation, and for a little while longer under the new President, Gerald Ford.
He went back to journalism, and when fellow Nixon speechwriter John McLaughlin founded his NBC political talk show The McLaughlin Group in 1982, Buchanan was one of the original regular panelists, through 1985, and occasionally thereafter until McLaughlin's death and the show's wrapup in 2016. From 1985 to 1987, he served as President Ronald Reagan's White House Communications Director -- Reagan's "Toby."
He was a regular on CNN's 2-man version of the Group, called Crossfire. Think of The McLaughlin Group, 4 panelists and a moderator, as a political predecessor of ESPN's Around the Horn; and Crossfire, 2 panelists and no moderator, as a political predecessor of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, but with a liberal and a conservative instead of a New Yorker and a Chicagoan operating out of Washington.
Although he had never served in elected office, he challenged President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 Republican Primaries, and won 38 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Primary, seriously weakening Bush for the general election, where he lost to Bill Clinton. In 1996, Buchanan ran again, this time winning in New Hampshire, but won only 3 other States.
Charges of racial and religious bigotry hurt him in those campaigns, and dog him to this day. In 2012, he was permanently banned from NBC and its affiliates CNBC and MSNBC after he published a book with racial slurs in it. Although still alive, he has mostly been out of the public eye since; but his populism, especially on the area of trade, and his apparent white nationalism were a precursor to the political stances of Donald Trump.
Does he have a sports connection? Not really, although when the Baltimore Orioles were the closest MLB team to Washington, he had a season ticket and went regularly.
November 2, 1939, 80 years ago: Thomas Porter Thacker is born in Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio. A guard, Tom Thacker played on the University of Cincinnati's National Champions of 1962 and 1963, on the Boston Celtics' 1968 NBA Champions, and on the Indiana Pacers' 1970 ABA Champions. He remains the only man to play on NCAA, NBA and ABA Championship teams.
Having earned both bachelors' and master's degrees at Cincy, he became their 1st black head coach in any sport, with their women's basketball team, from 1974 to 1977. He became a teacher in Cincinnati Public Schools, and deputy director of the Cincinnati Urban League. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Frank Joseph Buncom Jr. is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. A linebacker, he appeared in 3 AFL Championship Games for the San Diego Chargers, winning in 1963. He was a 3-time AFL All-Star, and was named to the Chargers' team Hall of Fame.
Frank Buncom was also an original Cincinnati Bengal in 1968. But he died of a pulmonary embolism during training camp of the next season, not quite 30 years old.
Also on this day, Enrico Albertosi is born in Pontremoli, Tuscany, Italy. A goalkeeper, he helped Florence club Fiorentina win the Coppa Italia in 1961 and 1966, the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1961, and the Mitropa Cup in 1966.
He helped Sardinia club Cagliari win a miracle League title in 1970, and with AC Milan won the 1977 Coppa Italia and the 1979 League title. He played for Italy in the 1962, 1966, 1970 and 1974 World Cups, reaching the Final in 1970, and won Euro '68. He was still playing professionally at age 44, and is still alive.
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November 2, 1940: Edward Leon Budde is born outside Detroit in Highland Park, Michigan. A guard, he was an All-American at Michigan State University -- under coach Duffy Daugherty, and thus one of "Duffy's Toughies" -- and then a member of the Kansas City Chiefs team that lost Super Bowl I and won Super Bowl IV.
He was a 5-time AFL All-Star, and a 2-time Pro Bowler after the AFL-NFL merger, for a total of 7 All-Star berths. He was named to the Chiefs' team Hall of Fame and the AFL All-Time Team. He is not yet in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's 79 years old, so what are they waiting for?
His son Brad Budde was an All-American at the University of Southern California, and also played guard for the Chiefs, from 1980 to 1986. They are the only father and son to have both been drafted int he 1st round by the same NFL team.
Also on this day, James LeRoy Bakken is born in Madison, Wisconsin. He was a member of the University of Wisconsin team that played in the 1960 Rose Bowl, and led the Big Ten Conference in punting average in the 1960 and 1961 seasons.
For 17 seasons, he was the placekicker for the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals, making 4 Pro Bowls, and being named to both the 1960s' and the 1970s' NFL All-Decade Teams. He kicked for 1,380 points, and was successful on 63.1 percent of his field goals and 96.6 percent of his extra points.
On September 24, 1967, at Busch Memorial Stadium, he kicked 7 field goals against the Pittsburgh Steelers, in a 28-14 Cardinal win. He was the 1st pro kicker to achieve this feat, since achieved by 9 others, but none would surpass it until Rob Bironas kicked 8 for the Tennessee Titans in a 2007 game.
Like Ed Budde, Jim Bakken is still alive and should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but isn't.
November 2, 1943: Bertrand Raymond is born in Montreal. A longtime columnist for Le Journal de Montréal, North America's largest French-language newspaper, he was given the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award, the Hockey Hall of Fame's award for sportswriters, for his coverage of the Montreal Canadiens. He is retired, but still alive.
November 2, 1944, 75 years ago: Kevin James Hector is born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. A striker, he helped East Midlands club Derby County win England's Football League in 1972 and 1975. He later came to America, and helped the original version of the Vancouver Whitecaps win the North American Soccer League title in 1979.
He later rejoined Derby, and his 589 appearances for them remain a club record. Despite his obvious ability, England manager Alf Ramsey only selected him for the national side twice, both in 1973. Despite Ramsey's successor being Don Revie, manager of Hector's hometown team, Leeds United, Revie never selected him. England didn't qualify for the 1974 and 1978 World Cups, or for Euro 76. Maybe Hector should have been selected. He is still alive.
Also this day, Keith Noel Emerson is born in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. A talented keyboardist, he teamed with guitarist Greg Lake and drummer Carl Palmer to form a legendary band.
November 2, 1945: Lawrence Chatmon Little is born in Savannah, Georgia, and grows up in Miami. The guard helped his hometown Miami Dolphins reach Super Bowl VI, win Super Bowl VII with the NFL's only perfect season (17-0), and win Super Bowl VIII.
Larry Little played in 5 Pro Bowls, and was named to the Miami Dolphins Honor Roll (though his Number 66 has not been retired), the NFL 1970s All-Decade Team, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and, in 1999, The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players. He later coached a small-college team in North Carolina. His brother David Little played 12 years as a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, making the 1990 Pro Bowl. David died in 2005, but Larry is still alive.
November 2, 1946: The NBA's Boston Celtics play their 1st game, losing 59-53 to fellow New Englanders the Providence Steamrollers at the Rhode Island Auditorium.
The Steamrollers, named for a defunct NFL team, would only last the 1st 3 NBA seasons. The Celtics would take a few years to get untracked, but became the NBA's dominant franchise, winning 16 titles in 30 seasons from 1957 to 1986, and a 17th in 2008. They and the New York Knicks are the only original NBA franchises still playing in their original city.
November 2, 1948: Richard Norman Ley is born in Orillia, Ontario. A defenseman, he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs after their 1960s dynasty, but was a member of the 1st World Hockey Association Champions, the 1972-73 New England Whalers. He remained with the team when they joined the NHL in 1979, becoming the Hartford Whalers, lasting until 1981. He was elected to the WHA Hall of Fame.
He later served as head coach of the Whalers, and an assistant with the Leafs and the Vancouver Canucks. He is still alive. The Whalers retired his Number 2, although they moved to become the Carolina Hurricanes after the 1997 season, and the 'Canes restored the number to circulation, before retiring it for Glen Wesley.
More importantly, there is a Presidential election on this day. The most famous newspaper headline of all time? It might be the New York Daily News of October 30, 1975: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." Or it might be the one the Chicago Tribune (a proud Republican paper at the time) put up the morning after today's Presidential election.
As it turned out, despite all predictions and despite all polls, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the Republican nominee, did not defeat the incumbent Democrat, President Harry S Truman. This made Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, the patron saint of every Presidential underdog since.
The problem is, Harry was smarter than most of them. Which is why he's enjoying himself so much in the photo above: He fooled 'em all.
But Dewey was dumb to have blown what should have been a sure win. How dumb was he? Well, maybe not that dumb:
Ever since, Ol' Harry S has been the patron saint of political underdogs, of the people who are told they can't possibly win.
(There's no period on his middle initial, since it legally didn't stand for anything, as his parents couldn't agree on whether to name him after one of his grandfathers, Anderson Shippe Truman or Solomon Young. So his entire middle name was the letter S, with no period.His mother's brother was Harry Young, and the name was "Harry," not "Henry" or "Harrison." His legal name was Harry S Truman.)
Even Republicans cite him as an inspiration. As Truman himself would have said, "Well, that's just political conversation." Or, as his only child, Margaret, who became a noted writer of mystery novels after a failed singing career, put it while editing one of her father's books, "My father originally used a shorter word here, but decided to change it." Truman did love him some of what I like to call "George Carlin words."
Legend has it that Harry and his wife Bess (formerly Elizabeth Wallace) toured a greenhouse, and Harry, a former farmer himself, told the owner, a woman, that she must have used some good manure." The owner pulled Bess aside and said, "Can't you get the President to say, 'Fertilizer'?" And Bess said, "It's taken me this long just to get him to say, 'manure'!"
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November 2, 1950: The Baseball Writers Association of America selects Phillies relief pitcher Jim Konstanty as the NL's Most Valuable Player. This was the 1st time either League had awarded its MVP to a relief pitcher, and, presuming you think pitchers should be eligible at all, it was totally justified. Without him, the Phils would have been in the middle of the standings; with him, they won the Pennant.
It would be another 31 years before another reliever won it, Rollie Fingers of the 1981 Milwaukee Brewers. In 1974, Mike Marshall of the Los Angeles Dodgers became the 1st reliever to win the Cy Young Award.
November 2, 1951: Jackie Robinson, who starred in football at the school, but left before receiving his degree, is named the grand marshal of UCLA's Homecoming Parade. The next day, with Robinson on hand, UCLA upsets then-Number 9-ranked California 21-7 at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
November 2, 1952: Ronald Henry Lee is born in Boston. A member of the "Kamikaze Kids" on the University of Oregon's basketball team in the mid-1970s, Ron Lee was named Pacific-8 (now Pacific-12) Conference Player of the Year in 1976.
Drafted by the Phoenix Suns, he was named to the NBA's All-Rookie First Team in 1977, and led the NBA in steals in 1978. He later played pro basketball in Italy and Sweden. His brothers Russ, Eugene and Gerald were also college basketball players.
November 2, 1953: Richard Joseph Meagher is born in Belleville, Ontario. A centre, he starred on the hockey team at Boston University, and reached the NHL in 1980 with the Montreal Canadiens, right after their 4 straight Stanley Cups ended.
He played for the Hartford Whalers from 1980 to 1982, then was traded to the New Jersey Devils -- playing for them in their 1st season, but not quite an "Original New Jersey Devil." He remained through 1985, then played for the St. Louis Blues until 1991, when injury cut his career short. In 1990, he was the Blues' Captain, and won the Frank Selke Trophy as the NHL's best defensive forward.
Also on this day, King Paul and Queen Friederike of Greece, visiting America, receive a ticker-tape parade in New York.
November 2, 1955: Robert Malcolm Tufts is born in the Boston suburb of Medford, Massachusetts. A pitcher, Bob Tufts appeared in 11 games in 1981 with the San Francisco Giants, and 10 games in 1982 and 6 in 1983 with the Kansas City Royals. His career record was 2-0, but his ERA was 4.71.
He didn't need the money from baseball. He graduated from Princeton with a degree in economics, and earned an MBA from Columbia. He worked at both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers before their collapses, and was in no way responsible for either. He made a fortune, and became a motivational speaker. He battled multiple myeloma for 10 years before dying earlier this year.
November 2, 1958: Willie Dean McGee (not "William") is born in San Francisco. The center fielder starred for the St. Louis Cardinals, winning the World Series in his rookie year of 1982, including hitting 2 home runs and making a great catch in Game 3 of the Series. He won National League batting titles in 1985 and 1990, and won 3 Gold Gloves, making 4 All-Star Games.
He reached the postseason with the Cardinals (1982 World Championship, 1985 NL Pennant, 1987 Pennant), the Oakland Athletics (1990 AL Pennant), the Boston Red Sox (1995 AL East title), and the Cardinals again (1996 NL Central title).
The Cards have named him a coach and elected him to their team Hall of Fame, and, while it is not officially retired, they have not handed out his Number 51 since he retired after the 1999 season. With a .295 batting average and 2,254 hits, he is a borderline case for the Hall of Fame.
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November 2, 1960: George Weiss‚ recently turned 66‚ resigns as general manager of the Yankees. He had seen the firing of manager Casey Stengel by co-owners Dan Topping and Del Webb, and figured he was next, so he "got out of Dodge."
He said the Yankee farm system was drying up, and no one knew that better than he did: He'd built it, and seen Topping and Webb tell him, year after year, to trade prospects for a player or two who could help them win the Pennant in a given year. He said, at the time, that he gave the Yankees 5 years before they all fell apart. In the next 4 years, they won the Pennant. In the 5th, 1965, they crashed to 6th place.
Weiss is in the Hall of Fame, for having been GM for 11 Pennants and 8 World Championships, and for having been farm system director for 8 Pennants and 7 World Championships before that. But don't expect to see him ever get a Plaque in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park: He was hated by the players for being so cheap, and was very much a racist. He's one of those "He was great at what he did, but... " figures in sports history.
He should not be confused with George David Weiss, who, in 1961, would write 2 classics of the early Rock and Roll Era: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens, and "Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley.
Also on this day, Bruce Robert Baumgartner is born in Haledon, Passaic County, New Jersey. The wrestler -- a real wrestler, not that fake WWE crap -- won a Gold Medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, a Silver Medal in 1988 at Seoul, another Gold Medal in 1992 at Barcelona, and a Bronze Medal at 1996 in Atlanta. He is now the athletic director at Edinboro University, outside Erie, Pennsylvania.
Also on this day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his Vice President and would-be successor, Richard Nixon, receive a ticker-tape parade in New York. The Republicans got one because their Democratic opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy, had also gotten one. This is the only time the major parties' nominees for President have gotten ticker-tape parades in New York. "Ike" and "Dick" hold a rally at Herald Square.
November 2, 1962: Derek Mountfield (no middle name) is born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. A centreback, he was part of the mini-dynasty at hometown soccer team Everton, winning the 1984 FA Cup, the Football League title in 1985 and 1987, and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985.
After managing in England's lower divisions and in Ireland, he is now what we would call a high school gym teacher.
November 2, 1963: The football team at the U.S. Naval Academy, ranked Number 4 in the nation, travels to South Bend, Indiana to play the University of Notre Dame. Led by quarterback Roger Staubach, about to win the Heisman Trophy on his way to a Hall of Fame career with the Dallas Cowboys (after fulfilling his service commitment in 1969), the Midshipmen beat the Fighting Irish 35-14.
Navy rise to Number 2, and win their annual get-together with Army, but lose to Number 1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl, costing them the National Championship. Not only have they never approached the national Top 10 again, but they never beat Notre Dame again until 2007, losing 43 straight seasons, an NCAA Division I-A record. Only 5 times in those 43 years did they even come within a touchdown's worth of points.
Also on this day, President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam, and his brother and adviser Ngô Đình Nhu are overthrown and executed by the country's army. Diem was 62 years old, Nhu 53. This coup further increases the country's instability, and leads to the U.S. getting deeper into the civil war between the capitalist, but hardly free, South and the Communist North.
November 2, 1964: Desmond Kevin Armstrong is born in Washington, D.C. A right back, he played in the Major Indoor Soccer League for the Cleveland Force and the Baltimore Blast. He represented the U.S. at the 1988 Olympics and the 1990 World Cup, and was a member of the 1st U.S. team to win a major tournament, the 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
He went on to become a broadcaster, including for ABC at the 1994 World Cup on home soil. He is now technical director of FC Columbus, and a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, Kevin Patrick Gogan is born outside San Francisco in Pacifica, California. A guard, he made 3 Pro Bowls, and was with the Dallas Cowboys when they won Super Bowls XXVII and Super Bowls XXVIII. He is now an assistant coach at a high school in the Seattle suburbs.
November 2, 1966: David Lawrence Schwimmer is born in Flushing, Queens, New York City, and grows up in the Beverly Hills section of Los Angeles. He is best known for playing anthropologist Dr. Ross Geller on Friends.
What does he have to do with sports? On a 1994 episode, he got hit in the nose by a flying puck at a Ranger game. On a 1996 episode, he and Courteney Cox, as Ross' sister Monica, were opposing team captains in a street football game played on Thanksgiving, a result still in dispute. On a 1998 episode, to impress his British girlfriend, Emily Waltham, played by Helen Baxendale, Ross played rugby with some of her fellow British expatriates. This was a mistake. In 2017, he played Robert Kardashian Sr., one of O.J. Simpson's lawyers, on American Crime Story.
Also on this day, the Batman TV series airs the episode "Hizzoner the Penguin." The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) opposes Gotham City's Mayor Linseed (Byron Keith), an obvious variation on New York's Mayor John Lindsay, for re-election. (They also parodied Governor Nelson Rockefeller with "Governor Stonefellow.")
Linseed knows he can't win, so he asks Batman (Adam West) to run, with himself as Deputy Mayor. Once Batman wins, he can then resign, and Linseed can legally regain the office. Despite the Penguin's dirty tricks -- the 2nd part of the 2-parter is titled "Dizzoner the Penguin" -- it works, because a majority of voters know Batman is a good guy and the Penguin a bad guy.
The "Penguin for Mayor" storyline would later be worked into the 1992 film Batman Returns (played by Danny DeVito, he loses again), and in 2016 on the TV series Gotham (played by Robin Lord Taylor, he wins, but ends up having to resign when he's charged with murder).
November 2, 1968: The Bronze Boot is first awarded to the winner of the rivalry game between Colorado State University and the University of Wyoming, a game nicknamed The Border War. Wyoming wins the game, 46-14.
Colorado State dominated the rivalry for a long time, going 35-5-5 from 1899 to 1948. But, thanks to Coach Wyatt, Wyoming took over, dominating the Rams 19-4 from 1950 to 1973. Since then, it's been much more even. Since the Boot was established in 1968, Wyoming's lead is 27-24, having made it 3 straight wins earlier this season. Overall, Colorado State leads 58-47-5.
Also on this day, it looks like President Lyndon Johnson's bombing halt in Vietnam is going to give the election to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic nominee. So former Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, tells campaign aide H.R. Haldeman, who wrote it down, to "throw a monkey wrench into it."
So he calls Anna Chennault, an official of the anti-Communist "China Lobby" and widow of Claire Chennault, beloved by the Nationalist Chinese for his role in the Army Air Force during World War II. And she calls called Bui Dai, the South Vietnamese Ambassador, to the Paris Peace Talks, and tells him, "Hold on. We are going to win." In other words, you'll get a better deal from a President Nixon than from a President Humphrey. And the peace talks stalled. And Nixon won in a squeaker.
From 1969 onward, the official count of the U.S. service dead in Vietnam is 21,264 – 36 percent of all deaths. "Madame Chennault" and Richard Nixon can be blamed for this.
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November 2, 1971: The Baltimore Orioles' Pat Dobson pitches a no-hitter against the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants‚ winning 2-0 at Korakuen Stadium. It is the 1st no-hitter in the history of exhibition games between Japanese and American teams. The Orioles compile a record of 12-2-4 on the tour.
November 2, 1972: Former Boston Red Sox shortstop Freddy Parent dies at the age of 96. Parent had been the last surviving player from the 1st modern World Series between Boston and Pittsburgh in 1903. He was also the last surviving player from the first Pennant race between the teams now known as the Yankees and the Red Sox, in 1904.
November 2, 1973: Alfred Earle "Greasy" Neale dies in Lake Worth, Florida at age 81. An outfielder, he played in the major leagues from 1916 to 1924, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds, winning the 1919 World Series.
But he became better known for football. A 2-way end who played in the Ohio League before the NFL existed, he went on to coach at the University of Virginia in the 1920s and West Virginia University in the 1930s. For a time, he was coaching on the staff of Yale University, alongside future President Gerald Ford. From 1941 to 1950, he coached the Philadelphia Eagles, leading them to the 1948 and 1949 NFL Championships.
Also on this day, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel is released as a single. The album of the same title is released 7 days later. The single was not a big hit, only reaching Number 25 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart early in 1974. But it launched Billy's career.
After the failure of his 1971 album Cold Spring Harbor, Billy stayed in Los Angeles where he'd recorded it, and got a job playing piano at the Executive Room, a bar in the Wilshire district on the West Side of Los Angeles. For legal reasons, he couldn't use his real name, so William Martin Joel became "Bill Martin." (He couldn't be "Billy Martin," because baseball.) Everybody in the song was a real person, including Billy's 1st wife, Elizabeth Weber, who also worked there: "And the waitress is practicing politics."
When legal matters were resolved, and Billy and Columbia Records were finally able to join forces, he recorded the song, and it came out at 5 minutes and 38 seconds. Just 8 years after Bob Dylan, also a Columbia performer, topped 6 minutes with "Like a Rolling Stone," Columbia (owned by CBS) cut the 2nd half of the 2nd verse and the 1st half of the 3rd verse: John the bartender's belief that he could be a movie star, Paul the real-estate novelist, and Davey who was still in the Navy didn't make the final cut.
And a promotional version of the single was cut even further. So when Billy recorded his next album, Streetlife Serenade, it included "The Entertainer," in which he sang, "It took me years to write it. They were the best years of my life. It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long. 'If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit.' So they cut it down to 3:05."
Of course, Billy sings it at every show, including the 100-plus times he's sold Madison Square Garden out. He sang it at the 1st rock concert at the old Yankee Stadium in 1990. He sang it at the last concert at Shea Stadium in 2008.
During the 2015 World Series, he sang the National Anthem before one of the Citi Field games. As they usually do, the Mets played "Piano Man" in the middle of the 8th inning, and everybody sang along, and a camera was put on Billy -- who, being a Yankee Fan, felt out of place, anyway, as in, "Man, what are you doing here?" -- and the look on his face said, "People, this is not a happy singalong song." It could be worse: The Red Sox use "Sweet Caroline."
In 2011, deciding that those people didn't deserve to be left hanging, I wrote an unofficial sequel for the song-parody website Amiright.com. Billy goes back (in real life, he can't, as the place closed years ago), and the old man is still there, and remembers that the song he couldn't quite recall was "I Only Have Eyes for You."
John now owns the bar, able to buy it because Billy made the place famous. Paul is a best-selling novelist, who leaves the real estate to his wife. Davey went to SEAL training and killed Osama bin Laden. The waitress went back home, and her political practice paid off: She was elected Mayor. The piano is still there, and it's kept in tune. The microphone, of course, still smells like a beer.
November 2, 1974: The Atlanta Braves trade Hank Aaron to the team that replaced them in Milwaukee, the Brewers, for outfielder Dave May and a minor league pitcher to be named later. Aaron will finish his major league career in Milwaukee‚ where he started it in 1954.
Later that off-season, Aaron‚ the Home Run King of American baseball‚ and Yomiuri Giants star Sadaharu Oh‚ his Japanese counterpart‚ square off for a home run hitting contest at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo. Aaron wins 10-9. Aaron finishes his major league career with 755 home runs, Oh finishes his Japanese Leagues' career with 868. How many Oh would have hit in the North American majors is a mystery.
Also on this day, the Rutgers football team loses 9-7 to Connecticut at Rutgers Stadium. They will not lose another "home game" for nearly 3 years, until Penn State beat them at the Meadowlands on September 2, 1977. They won't lose again at Rutgers Stadium for 4 years, until November 25, 1978, against Colgate University.
Also on this day, Orlando Luis Cabrera is born in Cartagena, Colombia. A shortstop, he played in the major leagues from 1997 to 2011, reaching the postseason with the Boston Red Sox, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins and the Cincinnati Reds.
He won 2 Gold Gloves, and was the starting shortstop on the 2004 World Champion * Red Sox. He was also the last out in Yankee pitcher David Cone's perfect game against the Montreal Expos on July 18, 1999.
Also on this day, Cornell Ira Haynes Jr. is born in Austin, Texas, and grows up outside St. Louis in University City, Missouri. Going by Nelly, a shortening of his first name, he formed the rap group The St. Lunatics, and became a legend in 2002 with his hit song "Hot in Herre." He sang it at the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII in Houston in 2004, but kept grabbing his crotch during the performance. A few minutes later, Justin Timberlake tore off a piece of Janet Jackson's costume, rendering Nelly's appearance all but forgotten.
Nelly wasn't the only rap star born that day. Albert Johnson (no middle name) is born in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. Known as Prodigy, he and Kejuan Muchita, stage name Havoc, formed the rap duo Mobb Deep, active from 1991 until Prodigy's death on June 20, 2017, from the long-term effects of sickle-cell anemia.
November 2, 1975: A surreal event takes place at Madison Square Garden. The New York Rangers had traded popular goaltender Eddie Giacomin to the Detroit Red Wings, sparking outrage among their fans. As it happened, the Rangers' next home game was against the Wings.
Seeing Giacomin in not the white jersey with the blue Number 1, but the red jersey with the white Number 31, the Garden crowd chanted, "Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE!" all night long, and actually booed the Rangers when they scored.
The Red Wings won, 6-4, and, for perhaps the only time in Madison Square Garden history, the home fans cheered a visiting team's victory.
It was the end of an era that had seen the Rangers rise to championship contention, but the closest they'd gotten to the Stanley Cup was the 1972 Finals, losing to the Boston Bruins in 6 games. They were knocked out of the previous season's Playoffs by a 3rd-year expansion team, the suburban Islanders.
Just 9 days after The Giacomin Game, they would trade Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. The Rangers would miss the Playoffs in 1976 and '77, before bouncing back in '78 and reaching the Finals in '79.
With new management coming in, the Rangers made peace with Eddie, and retired his Number 1 in 1990.
November 2, 1976: Former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia edges incumbent President Gerald Ford, to reclaim the White House for the Democrats. New Jersey voters approve casino gambling in Atlantic City -- which will one day have repercussions in another Presidential race, as Donald Trump will run in 2016 despite building 3 casino-hotels in A.C., and having them all go bankrupt. Some businessman he is.
Also on this day, Sidney Alton Ponson is born in Noord, Aruba, making him a citizen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He pitched in the major leagues from 198 to 2003, including brief stints with the Yankees in 2006 and 2008.
He reached the postseason with the 2003 San Francisco Giants and the 2006 Yankees, but never reached a League Championship Series. His career record was 91-113.
November 2, 1977: Arsenal acquire forward Alan Sunderland - not from Sunderland A.F.C. in England's North-East, but from Birmingham-area side Wolverhampton Wanderers, with whom he'd won the 1974 League Cup.
The Yorkshireman with the red Afro and the "Seventies porn star mustache" had his best season in 1978-79. Two days before Christmas, Arsenal played away to their North London Arch Rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, and Sunderland became only the 2nd, and remains the last, Arsenal player to score 3 goals in a game against Spurs. In the FA Cup, he knocked Wolves out with a goal in the Semifinal, and then scored the 89th minute goal that beat Manchester United in the Final at Wembley Stadium.
He is now 66, and lives in Malta, the island nation in the Mediterranean Sea. Every year, when the FA Cup Final comes around, so does a joke: Alan Sunderland never played for Sunderland, 1981 Final hero Ricky Villa never played for Aston Villa, and Danny Shittu never played for Tottenham.
*
November 2, 1980: John Amirante sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a New York Rangers game for the 1st time. The Rangers beat the Los Angels Kings 6-3.
Amirante was born and raised in the Bronx, went to Cardinal Hayes High School, and sang with the school's dance band.By night, he would sing in The Bronx and Yonkers. By day, he would work as a design engineer for a naval architecture firm owned by Dr. John J. McMullen.
McMullen was one of the "limited partners" that helped George Steinbrenner buy the Yankees in 1973, and he would later say, "There is nothing so limited as being one of George's limited partners." But on July 4, 1978, George's birthday, McMullen brought Amirante to George's birthday party, and Amirante sang for him. George liked him, and they were friends for life.
But it would be the Mets that would be the first team to have him sing the National Anthem before a game, in 1979. He sent his audition tape to the Madison Square Garden Corporation, and in 1980, they hired him to sing before 3 Ranger games and 3 Knick games. They kept him on for 37 years.
From 1981 to 1985, he also sang the Anthem at some Yankee games, usually alternating with Robert Merrill, the legendary Metropolitan Opera singer from Brooklyn. By this point, McMullen had sold his share of the Yankees, and bought the Houston Astros. He'd also bought the NHL's Colorado Rockies, moved them to the Meadowlands, and renamed them the New Jersey Devils. He asked Amirante to sing the Anthem for their 1st game, on October 5, 1982, a 3-3 tie with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
McMullen asked him to sing for the Devils full-time, but he turned it down, saying, "I gotta stay where my faith is, and that's with the Rangers." He later said, "I wanted to be in The World's Most Famous Arena."
On December 23, 1992, I attended my 1st live NHL game. I'd like to tell you that I heard John Amirante sing the National Anthem. But that wouldn't be true, because I couldn't hear him: 18,000 Ranger fans yelled and drowned him out. When they finally won the Stanley Cup after 54 years, on June 14, 1994, Ranger broadcaster Sam Rosen said he'd never heard The Garden so loud as when he sang before Game 7.
John Amirante died on April 17, 2018, at age 83.
November 2, 1981: M*A*S*H airs the episode "Identity Crisis." Joe Pantoliano plays an Irish-American soldier who masquerades as a Jewish buddy he saw killed, having taken his dogtags. This backfires when the doctors give him the blood type on the tags, which isn't his, and he nearly dies. Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) convinces him to come clean. And this is one of the less creepy roles in the career of the actor known as Joey Pants.
November 2, 1984: Brett Jackson Goode is born in Pampa, in the Texas Panhandle. A center, he was with the Green Bay Packers when they won Super Bowl XLV. After being released by the Packers due to a knee injury, he is currently a free agent, and will probably never play again.
November 2, 1985: Daniel James Amendola is born outside Houston in The Woodlands, Texas. (Always "The Woodlands," never just "Woodlands.") A receiver, he helped the New England Patriots win Super Bowls XLIX and LI. He now plays for the Detroit Lions.
November 2, 1986: The book Happy Birthday, Cookie Monster, by Felice Haus, is published earlier in the year. In the book, the Sesame Street character's birthday is mentioned as being November 2. Since this children's book was given the official sanction of the series' producers, the birthday is considered canon, although Cookie Monster's age is not mentioned, so we don't know what year he was born.
November 2, 1989, 30 years ago: Stevan Jovetić is born in Titograd, Yugoslavia -- now Podgorica, the capital of the independent nation of Montenegro. He is probably the greatest soccer player that nation has ever produced.
The forward helped Partizan Belgrade win the Double, the Serbian SuperLiga and the Serbian Cup, in 2008. He helped Manchester City win the Premier League and the League Cup (or, as I like to call it, the Baby Double) in 2014. He now plays for AS Monaco.
Also on this day, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner publishes its last edition. Media mogul William Randolph Hearst founded the Los Angeles Examiner in 1903, naming it after his flagship paper up the Pacific Coast in San Francisco.
The paper followed Hearst's personal politics: At first, liberal and pro-labor; but, by the 1930s, hard-core conservative. Its editorials against Mexican-Americans in Southern California, particularly during the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots, were very nasty.
In 1931, the Los Angeles Evening Herald and the Los Angeles Evening Express -- not to be confused with a later pro football team, the USFL's Los Angeles Express -- merged to form the Los Angeles Herald-Express. In 1962, it merged the with the Examiner to form the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, becoming an afternoon-only newspaper, hoping to better compete with the Los Angeles Times, the morning paper that was, and remains, the biggest newspaper in the American West.
In 1967, employees went on strike. Flying in the face of what his father had founded the paper as, William Randolph Hearst Jr. tried running the paper with "scab" employees. He tried this for a little over 9 years, and when he finally caved in, circulation had dropped from 721,000 to less than half that, 350,000.
In the 1970s, actor Charles Nelson Reilly could sometimes be seen reading the Herald Examiner on the set of Match Game (sometimes, it would be the Hollywood trade paper Variety), and host Gene Rayburn would ask him, "What's in the paper, Charles?" And Charles would say there was an article about something that happened during the broadcast, generating laughs from the "fickle bunch" that made up the show's studio audience.
A 1978 shakeup of management and reordering of various features, including a shift-toward blue-collar-style reporting in its sports section, gave the paper a brief renaissance. But its 1982 shift to morning-only, to directly compete with the Times, was the fatal mistake, and when Rupert Murdoch changed his mind and decided not to let his News Corporation buy the paper in 1989, it was all over.
*
November 2, 1990: Jesse Williams (no middle name) is born on Thursday Island, Queensland, at the northern tip of Australia, closer to Papua New Guinea and Indonesia than Australia's major cities. Raised in Brisbane, at the opposite end of the State of Queensland, Williams is an indigenous Australian (they no longer accept the term "Aborigine") who made the transition from rugby league to American-style football at age 14.
A defensive tackle, he became the 1st of his people to win an American college football scholarship, to the University of Hawaii. But a technicality prevented him from accepting it, so he attended Arizona Western College, a junior college in Yuma. (Colleges in Arizona had long been accepting of Pacific Islanders, especially Samoans, so this was a natural progression.)
While there, he got the attention of the University of Alabama. He transferred there, and helped them win the 2011 and 2012 National Championships. He became known as the Monstar, a combination of "Monster" and "Star."
He was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, but never played a down in the NFL: Injuries cost him the entire 2013 and 2014 seasons (though he was given a ring from the team's Super Bowl XLVIII win, making him the 1st Australian to receive one at any level), and he developed kidney cancer, which, though he recovered from it, cost him the 2015 season. He was waived before the 2016 season, and has become a strength and conditioning coach.
November 2, 1991: James Richard Garoppolo is born in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois. "Jimmy G" backed up Tom Brady on the New England Patriots, winning rings despite not taking a snap in either Super Bowl XLIX or LI. He is now the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, and, right now, they are looking like they might be the Pats' best challengers out of the NFC.
He was injured for much of 2019, finishing 2-2, ERA 4.55, WHIP 1.484. If he's going to help make the difference for the Yankees in 2020 and beyond, his control and his health will need to improve.
Also on this day, Corey Joel Clement is born in Glassboro, Gloucester County, New Jersey. A running back for his "hometown" team, the Philadelphia Eagles, he was a rookie on their team that won Super Bowl LII, catching a touchdown pass in the game.
Also on this day, Jordan Reginald Howard is born in the Birmingham suburb of Gardendale, Alabama. a running back, he made the Pro Bowl with the Chicago Bears in 2016, his rookie season. He is now Clement's teammate on the Eagles.
November 2, 1995: The Yankees name Joe Torre as their new manager‚ replacing Buck Showalter.
Torre had been a good catcher in the 1960s, a decent 1st baseman in the early 1970s, and a very good hitter throughout his playing career. His managing was another matter. He managed the Mets in the late 1970s, and he didn't have much to work with. He managed the Atlanta Braves in the early 1980s, and got them to a Division title in 1982 and almost to another in 1983, but that was it. He managed the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1990s, and didn't get too far.
The Cardinals fired him in 1995, and he thought he'd never manage again. "I'd run out of teams," he said, noting that he'd played for 3 teams, and managed all of them. He'd been a broadcaster between his Braves and Cardinals jobs, and figured he'd go back into the broadcast booth, and that's how he'd finish out his days in baseball.
Then George Steinbrenner called to offer him the Yankee managing job. Joe had never played in the American League, let alone managed in it. But George thought he was the guy. The New York Daily News didn't think so: Citing his lackluster managerial record up until then, and also the circus that tended to surround Steinbrenner, especially where managers were concerned, they printed the headline "CLUELESS JOE."
You know the rest of the story. World Champions in his 1st season, 1996. Wild Card in 1997. World Champions in 1998, winning more games than any team ever had in a regular season and postseason combined, 125, including a 4-game sweep in the World Series. World Champions in 1999, including the best postseason record of the 1995-present Division Series era, 11-1. World Champions in 2000, beating the Mets in the World Series. American League Champions in 2001, missing another title by 1 run. Division Champions in 2002. AL Champions in 2003, with the dramatic AL Championship Series win over the Boston Red Sox.
Then, of course, the downturn, the kind of things that the Daily News probably expected when it printed the headline. A shocking ALCS loss in 2004. Pathetic performances in the AL Division Series in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Joe got lowballed by George's heirs, of both the family and the business variety: His sons Hank and Hal, Yankee brass Randy Levine and Lonn Trost, and general manager Brian Cashman. He walked out, and managed the Los Angeles Dodgers to a pair of Division titles, before taking a job in Major League Baseball's office.
Joe and the House of Steinbrenner made up. He's been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and is honored in Monument Park at the new Yankee Stadium.
The Daily News called him "CLUELESS JOE." They get reminded of that more than they do of "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."
November 2, 1995 was also the day Seinfeld aired the episode "The Soup Nazi." Happy Anniversary, Schmoopie!
November 2, 1996: Toni Stone dies in the Oakland suburb of Alameda, California at age 75. Born Marcenia Lyle Stone in Bluefield, West Virginia, she was the 1st woman to play in the Negro Leagues, playing 2nd base for the Indianapolis Clowns in 1953. She also played for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1954.
Her replacement as the Clowns' 2nd baseman was also a woman, Connie Morgan, who lasted until 1955. She also lived until 1996. One other woman played in the Negro Leagues, Mamie Belton (later known by her married name, Mamie Johnson), who pitched for the Clowns from 1953 to 1955, and lived until 2017.
Also on this day, Saturday Night Live debuts the sketch "The Culps." Will Ferrell plays balding, bearded Marty Culp, and Ana Gasteyer plays his wife Bobbi Mohan-Culp, middle school music teachers who are hopelessly unhip. The sketch runs for 6 years, and it never becomes good. The Will Ferrell era really was the worst of SNL.
November 2, 1999, 20 years ago: The Texas Rangers trade outfielder Juan Gonzalez‚ pitcher Danny Patterson and catcher Gregg Zaun to the Detroit Tigers for pitchers Justin Thompson‚ Alan Webb and Francisco Cordero‚ outfielder Gabe Kapler‚ catcher Bill Haselman‚ and infielder Frank Catalanotto. The trade of "Juan Gone" is the beginning of the breakup of the Rangers' 1st postseason team, winners of 3 of the last 4 AL West titles.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners announce that superstar Ken Griffey Jr. is requesting a trade, to a team closer to his home. The Mariners agree to try to trade him during the off-season. The superstar outfielder will get his wish in February when Seattle trades him to the Reds for Mike Cameron, Antonio Perez and Brett Tomko, and minor leager Jake Meyer.
Of course, Cincinnati, where his father Ken Griffey Sr. once played, isn't all that close to Junior's adopted hometown of Orlando, Florida.
*
November 2, 2001: A statue of head coach Joe Paterno is dedicated outside the east stand of Beaver Stadium on the campus of Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. It calls him "Joseph Vincent Paterno: Educator, Coach, Humanitarian."
On July 22, 2012, 6 months after his death, and 8 months after the scandal that forever tarnished his name, the statue was removed, since it was being called a roadblock in the healing process.
November 2, 2004: A groundskeeper finds a grenade in the Wrigley Field turf. Police bomb and arson investigators are called to evaluate the right field discovery. The rusty, hollowed-out shell turns out to be harmless, and its origins remain a mystery.
Also on this day, George W. Bush achieves -- due to shenanigans in Ohio, I won't say "wins" -- a 2nd term as President, defeating the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. Although Kerry was a rich liberal Catholic from Massachusetts with the initials JFK, and as a young man had met President John F. Kennedy, he was no Jack Kennedy.
During the campaign, Bush ran as the man who was fighting to avenge the 9/11 attacks, while his fellow Republicans mocked Kerry for saying that Democratic leadership could "reduce terrorism to the level of a nuisance."
By 2016, after 8 years of Barack Obama as President, 4 years of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and 4 years of Kerry himself as Secretary of State, Kerry had been proven correct: They have reduced terrorism, at least against American targets, at home and abroad, to the level of a nuisance.
November 2, 2005: Andrew Bynum, a native of Plainsboro, Mercer County, New Jersey, plays 6 minutes for the Los Angeles Lakers in their season opener, against the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center, becoming the youngest NBA player ever: 18 years and 6 days old. The Lakers won, 99-97.
Ironically, but appropriately, the center had been personally instructed in the preseason by Laker legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had once been thought to have been the NBA's oldest player ever. Kareem was 42 when he bowed out after the 1989 Finals, but later research showed that Pat Hickey, who played with the Providence Steamrollers in the league's 1st 2 seasons, was just short of 46 when he last played in 1948.
Bynum is now 32, but his record still stands. He won NBA Championships with the Lakers in 2009 and '10, and was an NBA All-Star in 2012. But injuries have rendered his career apparently over, well before it should have been. But then, he does have 2 titles, and I don't think we'll be seeing any more 18-year-olds playing in the NBA -- certainly not for a team with a pedigree anywhere near the Lakers'.
November 2, 2009, 10 years ago: Game 5 of the World Series. Trying to stave off elimination at home at the hands of the Yankees, the defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies back Cliff Lee with a 6-1 lead after 3 innings, thanks to 2 home runs by Chase Utley (a future Met villain) and another by Raul Ibanez (a future Yankee hero). Utley's shots tie him with Reggie Jackson for the record for most home runs in a single World Series: 5.
The Phillies lead 8-2 after 7, but the Yankees come storming back, and close to within 8-6 with the tying runs on in the 9th. As the Fox cameras panned Citizens Bank Park, I could see the looks on the faces of Phillies fans. They weren't thinking of how they'd won the Series the year before, or in 1980. Most of them remembered the Series defeat of 1993. Many remembered the Playoff disaster of 1977. Some remembered September "Phillie Phlop" of 1964. They all at least knew of the earlier team disasters. They all seemed to be saying, "Oh, no, it's happening again!"
But Ryan Madson gets the final out for the save, and the Phillies would play Game 6 in New York 2 nights later.
*
November 2, 2010: Clyde King dies in his hometown of Goldsboro, North Carolina. He was 86. A mediocre major league pitcher, he won Pennants with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and 1952, being in their minor-league system during the Pennant season of 1949 and traded to the Cincinnati Reds before their 1953 Pennant.
He managed the San Francisco Giants in 1969-70, the Atlanta Braves in 1974-75, and the Yankees for the last 2 months of the turbulent 1982 season. He was also Yankee general manager in 1985 and '86. From 1976 until 1990, he worked in various capacities for the Yankees, as one of what George Steinbrenner called "my baseball people."
Unfortunately, most Yankee fans will forever remember him for being the guy George sent to Yogi Berra's office to fire him as manager early in the 1985 season, because George was too cowardly to do his own dirty work. Yogi never blamed Clyde for doing George's job at that moment, and wouldn't have blamed George if he had done it himself. But George wouldn't do it himself, and it It took 14 years to heal the breach between them.
November 2, 2013: The Vancouver Canucks retire the Number 10 of Pavel Bure, and beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-0 at the Rogers Arena.
On the same day, the Colorado Avalanche retire the Number 52 of Adam Foote, and beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 at the Pepsi Center.
On the same day, Walt Bellamy dies in the Atlanta suburb of College Park, Georgia at age 74. The Basketball Hall-of-Famer starred at Indiana University while Bobby Knight was an opponent, at Ohio State. He was a member of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
"Bells" was an original 1961-62 member of the Chicago Packers -- yes, NFL fans, that was a real name -- and won the NBA Rookie of the Year with them that season. He moved with them in 1963 to become the Baltimore Bullets. It is now known as the Washington Wizards. He became a Knick in 1965, and in 1968 was traded to the Detroit Pistons for Dave DeBusschere, the most important trade in Knick history. A 4-time All-Star, he played out his career with the Atlanta Hawks and the expansion New Orleans Jazz in 1974.
November 2, 2014: Herman Sarkowsky dies in Seattle at age 89. Fleeing Nazi Germany with his Jewish family, he became the largest housebuilder in the Pacific Northwest. In 1970, he founded the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, selling them in 1975. In 1976, he and the Nordstrom family of department-store fame founded the NFL's Seattle Seahawks. He sold his stake in 1988.
November 2, 2016: To paraphrase Shirley Povich of The Washington Post, when the Brooklyn Dodgers finally did it 61 years earlier...
Please don't interrupt, because, unless you are over the age of 110, you have not heard this one before: The Chicago Cubs are the world champions of baseball.
Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, played at Progressive Field in Cleveland, was not a great game. Indeed, it was very sloppy. But it was great theater. Dexter Fowler, Javier Baez and David Ross hit home runs for the Cubs, and Rajai Davis hit one for the Cleveland Indians. But the Cubs made 3 errors, the Indians 1. The Cubs blew leads of 1-0 in the 3rd inning, and 6-3 in the 8th, and their fans must have thought that it was never going to happen, even though they had already come back from being 3 games to 1 down.
The game went to extra innings, and then it rained. So each of these seemingly cursed teams -- the Cubs hadn't won a World Series since 1908, the Indians since 1948 -- had, at least in theory, an equal chance.
Kyle Schwarber led off the top of the 10th with a single, and was replaced by pinch-runner Albert Almora. Kris Bryant flew out to center, but Almora got gutsy, and tagged up and got to 2nd. Anthony Rizzo was walked intentionally to set up the double play, but the strategy didn't work: Ben Zobrist hit an RBI double into the left field corner, the biggest hit in the Cubs' 142-season history. Addison Russell was walked intentionally, and Miguel Montero singled him home to make it 8-6. Cub fans could feel it finally happening after 108 years.
But the Indians weren't going down without a fight. In the bottom of the 10th, after Carl Edwards Jr. pitched the Cubs to within 1 out of glory, he walked Brandon Guyer, who took 2nd on defensive indifference.
Davis singled him home to make it 8-7, and Cub fans were staring at the choke to end all chokes, the Billy Goatiest Curse of the Billy Goat ever. But manager Joe Maddon brought Mike Montgomery on to relieve, and he got Michael Martinez to ground to 3rd, and Bryant threw him out to end it.
Thankfully, I have yet to see any evidence that Cub fans have followed up the end to their drought by acting like bastards, the way Red Sox fans did after 2004 and New York Ranger fans did after 1994.
November 2, 2042, only 23 years from today: According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
episode "If Wishes Were Horses," this was the day that baseball died.
It was Game 7 of the World Series, and only 300 people attended, perhaps a side effect of World War III having gone on since 2026 (only 7 years from now), in the Star Trek chronology. Buck Bokai hit a home run, and the London Kings won.
I am a devoted Trekkie. Not so much that I dress up (or "cosplay") and go to conventions, but enough that I dismiss the J.J. Abrams films of 2009-16 and the current CBS series Star Trek: Discovery as "alternate timelines" and "non-canon." But one big problem I have with Star Trek is their account of the death of baseball, at a time when I could well still be alive. (I would be 72 years old.)
In contrast, another science-fiction series of the 1990s, Space Precinct, showed the 42,000-seat Tokyo Dome jammed with spectators for Game 1 of the 2040 World Series between the Yankees and the Yomiuri Giants. I'd much prefer that scenario.
He pitched solidly for the Indianapolis Indians, then the Reds' Triple-A team, and was called back up. On September 18, 1940, he started what could have been the Pennant-clinching game for the Reds, against the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park. The game went 13 innings, and he pitched 12 innings. He batted in the top of the 13th and doubled, was sacrificed to 3rd, and Ivan Goodman hit a sacrifice fly to get him home. He was relieved by Joe Beggs for the bottom of the 13th, and the Reds won, 4-3. The Reds won the Pennant, and Vander Meer had his greatest day in baseball.
This time, he pitched in the World Series, tossing 3 scoreless innings against the Detroit Tigers in Game 5. The Reds won in 7 games, and he had his ring.
He went 16-12 in 1941, and came close to a 3rd no-hitter. He peaked at 18 wins the next year, and led the NL in strikeouts in 1941, '42 and '43. He was a 4-time All-Star, so he wasn't just a guy who caught lightning in a bottle for 5 days.
He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Although he missed the entire seasons of 1944 and '45, at ages 29 and 30, prime years, he said that pitching on a Navy team helped his control, and the statistics do back that up somewhat. He won 17 in 1948, but that was it, and after a stint with the Chicago Cubs, he last pitched in the majors in 1951 with the Cleveland Indians. In 1952, pitching for the Tulsa Oilers of the Texas League, he pitched another no-hitter, at age 37.
Much like a later no-hit hero, Don Larsen, Vander Meer was actually slightly under .500 for his career: In his case, 119-120. He had allowed so much as 1 hit in each of those 1938 games, he might be remembered today for that feat, but not nearly as well.
Instead, for 80 years, every time a pitcher has thrown a no-hitter, the name of Johnny Vander Meer has come up, with people wondering if the new no-hit hero can match his feat. None ever has -- at least, not in the major leagues. I have heard that 1 pitcher did it in the minors since 1938, but I can find no reference to this achievement.
Vander Meer became a minor league manager in the Reds' organization for 10 seasons, before retiring in 1962. He then worked for a brewing company. He was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame in 1958. He retired to Tampa, where the Reds long had their spring training complex, threw out ceremonial first balls at 6 World Series for the Reds (1961, 1970, 1972, 1975, 1976 and 1990), jsat for an interview for the Reds' 100th Anniversary team video in 1992, and lived until October 6, 1997, suffering an abdominal aneurysm. He was 82.
November 2, 1916: Alessandro Campani is born in Kos, one of the Dodecanese Islands off the coast of Turkey, then under the control of Italy. but repatriated to Greece after World War II. But his parents were ethnically Greek, and in 1923, the family moved to New York, and his parents Hellenized his name to Alexander Sebastian Campanis.
A 2nd baseman, he graduated from George Washington High School in Washington Heights, Manhattan, and signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Although he played in the minor leagues from 1940 to 1948 (missing the 1944 and '45 seasons due to World War II), including as Jackie Robinson's double play partner on the 1946 Montreal Royals, he only played 7 games in the major leagues, all late in the 1943 season.
The Dodgers hired him as a scout, and he discovered Roberto Clemente (whom the Dodgers couldn't hang onto) and Sandy Koufax (whom they did). He moved to Los Angeles with them in 1958, and by 1968 he was named their general manager, and quickly endeared himself to owner Walter O'Malley by being willing to put sentiment aside and trade his own son, catcher Jim Campanis, to the expansion Kansas City Royals for 2 guys who never made it.
He built a team that, from 1974 to 1988, reached the Playoffs 8 times, won 7 National League Western Division titles, 5 NL Pennants, and the World Series in 1981 and 1988. He wrote 2 books: The Dodger Way to Play Baseball (in Brooklyn in 1954) and Play Ball with Roger the Dodger (in Los Angeles in 1980).
Had he died on the morning of April 6, 1987, he would have been hailed as a winner who spent a lifetime in the game. Instead, that night, he appeared on ABC News' Nightline, to discuss the 40th Anniversary of Robinson's arrival in the major leagues, and the game's long, difficult struggle to fully integrate. Anchor Ted Koppel asked him why major league teams, including the Dodgers, his own team and Robinson's, had few black men as managers or in key front office positions.
Campanis said blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager." Koppel gave him chances to dig himself out of this hole, and, each time, he dug himself in deeper. Koppel said, "That sounds a lot like the garbage we heard 40 years ago."
Afterward, Campanis said he was "wiped out" -- I'm presuming that meant "tired," which is possible, since he was at the Dodger Spring Training complex in Vero Beach, Florida, and it was close to midnight, and he was 70 years old. But if that was true, then he should have told Koppel that he wasn't feeling up to being interviewed.
He was quickly fired, and never worked in baseball again. He died in 1998, at 81, his name still tarnished.
November 2, 1917: Arthur Balfour, Foreign Secretary to Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain, writes a letter to Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader of the country's Jewish community, to give to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. It was published on November 9:
His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
Whether the British government truly did "use their best endeavours," what becomes known as the Balfour Declaration was a big step forward in the process that led to the establishment and the independence of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
November 2, 1919, 100 years ago: William Henry Mills is born in Boston. A catcher, Bill "Buster" Mills played in 5 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, in 1944, getting 1 hit, proving that he wouldn't have made it to the major leagues without the manpower drain of World War II.
Bill Mills went back to Boston, and became a high school teacher and coach. He was 1 of the last 13 surviving former Philadelphia Athletics, and 1 of the last 4 living men who played for Connie Mack. However, he didn't quite make it to his 100th birthday, dying this past August 9 in Gainesville, Florida.
He should not be confused with Billy Mills, the Native American runner who won the Gold Medal in the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Olympics.
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November 2, 1920: Richard Alan Sisler is born in St. Louis, where his father, George Sisler, is one of the greatest players in baseball, with the St. Louis Browns. Dick would go on to become a decent player himself, playing 1st base like his father, and later the outfield, batting .276 in a career that lasted from 1946 to 1953.
As a rookie with the 1946 St. Louis Cardinals, he played on a World Series winner. In 1950, he hit a 10th-inning home run on the last day of the season to give the Philadelphia Phillies their only National League Pennant between 1915 and 1980. He was an All-Star that season.
He later served as a coach, helping the Cincinnati Reds win the 1961 Pennant, and stepped in as their manager in 1964 when Fred Hutchinson was dying of cancer, nearly taking them to another Pennant. With some irony, they were battling his former Pennant-winners, the Cardinals and the Phillies, for it, and the Cards ended up beating both the Reds and the Phils by 1 game.
He managed the Reds in the 1965 season, and then never managed again, despite his managerial record being a fine 121-94, .562. But he coached for the Cardinals on their Pennant teams of 1967 (winning another World Series) and 1968, and later for the San Diego Padres under John McNamara and the Mets under Joe Torre. He later worked as a minor-league instructor with the Cardinal system, and died in 1998.
Dick's brother, Dave Sisler, would be a major league pitcher. Another brother, George Sisler Jr., wouldn't make the major leagues, but was a longtime baseball executive.
But all that was something for what was then the future. Also on this day, KDKA begins broadcasting out of Pittsburgh, the 1st commercial radio station in America. The first broadcast is the results of the Presidential election. Senator Warren Harding becomes the only person elected President of the United States on his birthday, turning 55, and defeating Governor James M. Cox of Ohio in a landslide.
The Republican candidate wins 404 Electoral Votes to the the 127 won by his fellow Ohioan, Governor James M. Cox. Harding won 60 percent of the popular vote, to Cox's 34.
A year later, KDKA will become the 1st radio station to broadcast a baseball game, and the 1st to broadcast a football game. Eventually establishing itself at 1020 on the AM dial, it was long a Westinghouse Broadcasting station, but since 1996 has been part of CBS. It broadcast Pirates games from 1955 to 2006, including the 1960, '71 and '79 World Championships.
The Democrats had won the last 2 elections. How did Cox lose so badly?
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Jim Cox for Losing the 1920 Presidential Election
Interestingly enough, Cox was the 1st divorced man to be a major-party nominee for President, and had also married another woman, but it wasn't considered an especially big issue. As with the next divorced man to be nominated, Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956 (and he hadn't yet married someone else, and never would), it wouldn't have mattered if he had been happily married: He would have lost in a landslide anyway. In his case, for these reasons:
5. Demographics. The 2 largest ethnic groups in America were German and Irish. Both saw Britain as their enemy. And both saw the Democrats, led by incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, showing Britain favoritism.
That hurt Cox in the Midwest, with its strong German concentration, but he probably would have lost it anyway. It was the Irish Catholics, either staying home or, for the 1st time, voting Republican that killed Cox in States like Ohio (home State of both candidates, and Cox got just 38 percent there), Maryland (42 percent), New Jersey (28), Massachusetts (28), Pennsylvania (27), New York (27) and Illinois (25).
4. The 19th Amendment. It gave women the right to vote (except in the 4 States that already recognized it), and this was the 1st election in which it had an effect. Harding was considered good-looking -- good-looking enough, apparently, to have at least 2 mistresses. Cox was not.
3. Postwar Depression. When the men who won World War I came home, their jobs had been filled. Unemployment rose sharply. Farmers, no longer needing to sell their crops to the U.S. Department of War (known as the Department of Defense since 1947), saw their prices plummet. It might not have been a depression as long as the one that began 10 years later, but it was bad enough. As is so often the case, the economy was a huge factor in an election.
2. Wilson Fatigue. For the 1st 4 years of his Presidency, the Democratic incumbent, Woodrow Wilson, was rather popular. For the next 2 years, he was a beloved wartime leader. But his attempt to get America into the League of Nations scared people who didn't want America involved in another overseas war.
No previous President had gone from enormously popular to enormously unpopular in just 1 year -- and only one has since, Richard Nixon. Voters took their frustrations out on the Democrats, including Cox, who, as a Governor, had nothing to do with the Wilson Administration. It was unfair to Cox, but he paid the price for it, every bit as much as Democratic candidates for the House, the Senate and Governorships did that day.
1. "Return to Normalcy." After 2 years of America being in World War I, and 2 years of postwar disruption, Harding, to use a more recent expression, had his finger on the pulse of the nation. He wasn't particularly bright, but he knew what Americans wanted -- including, apparently, alliteration:
America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
And enough Americans agreed with him to give him an overwhelming victory. When he died in office on August 2, 1923, just as the Teapot Dome scandal was breaking, he was still enormously popular. And the Democratic Party was divided enough that, even with the scandal, a living Harding probably would have won in 1924, anyway.
By the end of the decade, with the full revelations of the scandal, and of his affairs, including an illegitimate daughter, his reputation was in tatters. He is still often considered one of the country's worst Presidents, along with predecessors like Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson; and successors like Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Cox? He returned to his media empire, and ran it until his death in 1957. He is largely forgotten today, even by people who know the name Cox Communications, which his descendants have grown far beyond his imagination. When he is remembered at all, it is for his connections to 2 Presidents: Harding, and his own Democratic nominee for Vice President, then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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November 2, 1921: William Mosienko (no middle name) is born in Winnipeg. A 5-foot-8 right wing for the Chicago Blackhawks, he's in the Hockey Hall of Fame. On March 23, 1952, he scored 3 goals in just 21 seconds, still an NHL record, as the Hawks beat the New York Rangers 7-6 at Chicago Stadium. He died in 1994.
November 2, 1922: Douglas Colin Roy Baldwin is born in Winnipeg. A defenseman, he won 3 notable trophies in junior hockey: The Turnbull Cup, the championship of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, and the Memorial Cup, the overall championship of Canadian junior amateur hockey, both with the 1941 Winnipeg Rangers; and the Allan Cup, the overall championship of Canadian senior amateur hockey, with the 1944 Quebec Aces. And he was a member of the Omaha Knights when they won the 1947 U.S. Hockey League Championship.
But Doug Baldwin's NHL career was a bust. He played 15 games with the 1946 Toronto Maple Leafs, 4 with the 1947 Detroit Red Wings, and 5 with the 1948 Chicago Blackhawks. He was elected to the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame, and died in 2007.
Also on this day, Ria Baran -- apparently, her entire name -- is born in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. She and her husband, Paul Faulk, won the Gold Medal in pairs figure skating at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway.
Before those Olympics, there was a question of whether German athletes would compete at all. In 1948, in St. Moritz, Switzerland, the 1st Olympics to be held after World War II, both Germany and Japan were excluded. But the International Olympic Committee voted to included both the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany (a.k.a. West Germany) and the falsely-named, because Communist-dominated, German Democratic Republic (a.k.a. East Germany), as a unified team. When the East Germans declined, the West Germans competed under their own name and flag.
The couple turned professional, performed in Holiday On Ice, and were elected to the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. Baran, a secretary, died in 1986. Paul, a mechanic, died in 2017.
November 2, 1923: Cesare Rubini is born in Trieste, Italy. A member of the Basketball and International Swimming Halls of Fame, he starred for Italy in both basketball and water polo. He won a Gold Medal in water polo at the 1948 Olympics in London. For basketball team Olimpia Milano, he won 5 league titles as a player and 10 as a coach. He also coached Italy to the Silver Medal at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He died in 2011.
November 2, 1924: Uruguay, which recently won the Gold Medal in soccer at the Olympics in Paris (including with the aforementioned Santos Iriarte), playing at home at Parque Central in Montevideo, plays Argentina to a 0-0 draw. That's good enough to clinch the South American Championship, the tournament now known as the Copa América.
That night, a group of Argentine fans gathered at the door of the Colón Hotel, where the Argentina delegation was staying. The fans began to sing, and the players came out to salute them. But a Uruguayan began a counterdemonstration, and, as had so often happened before in soccer fandom, and has since, the songs and insults flew. Soon, objects were being thrown. Then came the shooting, and 3 men were wounded. One of them, Pedro Demby, a 26-year-old bank clerk who had been punching Argentines, died.
He went down as the 1st man ever to die as a result of violence connected to South American soccer. He would not be the last.
Also on this day, in Britain, The Sunday Express becomes the 1st newspaper in the world to publish a crossword puzzle, complete with instructions on what one had to do.
Also on this day, David William Bauer is born in Kitchener, Ontario. The younger brother of Boston Bruins Hall-of-Famer Bobby Bauer, he starred for the hockey team at St. Michael's College School in Toronto, and entered the priesthood instead of following his brother into the professional game.
He returned to St. Michael's to teach, and won the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian junior hockey, at St. Mike's as a player in 1944 and as a coach in 1961. He also coached Team Canada in the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and in the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, winning a Bronze Medal in the latter.
He remained involved with amateur hockey in Canada until he died in 1988, and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame the next year. Arenas are named for him in Calgary and Vancouver.
November 2, 1926: Myer Upton Skoog is born in Duluth, Minnesota. Like Edward Charles Ford and Don Richard Ashburn in baseball, he had very light hair that got him nicknamed "Whitey." A guard, the basketball team at the University of Minnesota retired his Number 41.
He played for his home-State Minneapolis Lakers, and helped them win the 1952, '53 and '54 NBA Championships. He is sometimes credited as the inventor of the jump shot, although this is not certain. He later served as the head coach at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. Whitey Skoog died on April 4, 2019.
November 2, 1927: Stephen John Ditko is born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He got his start in comic books as an inker at Charlton Comics, specializing in science fiction, horror and mystery. He co-created the characters Captain Atom, the original version of the Question, the Creeper, and the duo Hawk and Dove.
In 1962, after turning down Jack Kirby's drawings, which he said were good but not matching his vision for the character, Stan Lee took his idea for Spider-Man to Ditko, who drew the now-familiar figure of Peter Parker, a wisecracking costumed crimefighter who was still a troubled teenager. Ditko also created several of Spidey's villains, including Doctor Octopus, the Sandman and the Lizard; and, with Lee, co-created the magic-based superhero Doctor Strange.
He died in 2018, having lived to see Spider-Man played on TV by Danny Seagren and Nicholas Hammond; voiced in cartoons by Paul Soles, Ted Schwartz, Dan Gilvezan, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Neil Patrick Harris, Josh Keaton and Drake Bell; and in movies by Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Hammond. In the 2nd and 3rd movies starring Maguire, Peter Parker's Russian landlord, played by Elya Baskin, was named Mr. Ditkovich in his honor.
November 2, 1928: Leon Joseph Hart is born in Pittsburgh. A 2-way end, he helped Notre Dame win National Championships in 1946, 1947 and 1949, and was awarded the 1949 Heisman Trophy, denying the previous year's winner, Doak Walker of Southern Methodist, back-to-back wins.
He was drafted by the Detroit Lions, and helped them win the NFL Championship in 1952, 1953 and 1957, playing alongside fellow Heisman winners Walker and Howard "Hopalong" Cassidy of Ohio State (1955). He only made 1 Pro Bowl, in 1951. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, and died in 2002.
Also on this day, William Raymond Daniel is born in Swansea, Wales. A centreback, Ray Daniel played for North London club Arsenal in the 1952 FA Cup Final, despite having a broken arm. Walley Barnes' injury in that game forced him to leave the pitch, but Daniel played on, leaving Arsenal with essentially 9 men, 2 at the back, and they lost to Newcastle United.
But Daniel missed only 1 match in the 1952-53 season, and Arsenal edged Preston North End in the closest title race in Football League history. He then went to Sunderland (who know a thing or two about hating Newcastle), and played for both of the big clubs in Wales, Cardiff City and Swansea Town (now Swansea City). He later worked for the postal service, and lived until 1997.
Also on this day, Floyd Robert Ross is born in the Los Angeles suburb of Fullerton, California. He may have called himself Bob Ross, but he didn't do any painting, unless it was "painting the corners" of the strike zone.
A pitcher, he made 6 appearances for the Washington Senators in 1950, and 11 more for them in '51. He then missed 2 seasons due to serving in the Korean War, and did not return to the major leagues, except for 3 games for the 1956 Philadelphia Phillies. From 1945 to 1959, he went 80-85 in the minor leagues, but was just 0-2 in the majors, and threw his last professional pitch shortly before turning 31. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, the Democratic nominee for President, holds his last campaign rally, riding up Broadway in an open car, making it an unofficial ticker-tape parade.
Smith ended up getting 67 percent of the vote in The Bronx, 61 in his native Manhattan, 59 in Brooklyn, and 53 each in Queens and Staten Island. And he won Albany County, containing the State capital, and adjoining Rensselaer County. And he won the State's 2 northernmost Counties, Clinton and Franklin. But the Republican nominee, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, won the remaining 53 Counties, and the State as a whole.
November 2, 1929, 90 years ago: Junior Lee Hedges is born in Fifty-Six, Arkansas -- not to be confused with Ninety-Six, South Carolina. He grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he was a 3-sport star in high school. He quarterbacked Louisiana State University into the 1950 Sugar Bowl. He also played 2 years of minor league baseball as an outfielder.
Lee Hedges became one of the most successful high school football coaches in Louisiana history, winning 15 State Championships, including at Woodlawn High School, where he coached future Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw. He also served as an assistant coach at Louisiana Tech, where he again coached Bradshaw, and also coached future "Duck Commander" Phil Robertson. He had also coached Bradshaw at Woodlawn High School. He is a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, and is still alive.
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November 2, 1932: Guy Paul Joseph Sparrow is born in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. The guard was 2-time All-Conference at the University of Detroit (now Detroit Mercy), and played the 1957-58 and 1958-59 seasons for the Knicks, and the 1959-60 season for the Philadelphia Warriors, with rookie Wilt Chamberlain as a teammate. He is still alive.
November 2, 1934: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and several other baseball players, led by manager Connie Mack, step off the cruiseliner Empress of Japan at Yokohama, and begin a tour of Japan. This is the 1st time American major leaguers will face Japanese professionals.
The Americans won 17 out of 18 games, which surprised no one. The big surprise occurred when 17-year-old Eiji Sawamura of the Tokyo Baseball Club struck Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Charlie Gehringer out in succession in a game in Shizuoka. But Gehrig also hit a home run off him, and the Americans won 1-0.
The Tokyo BC was founded that season, and became known as the Yomiuri Giants. They have won 46 Pennants (37 of them in the Central League, including this season) and 22 Japan Series (the last in 2012). Because of this, despite bearing the name and colors of the New York (now San Francisco) team, they are known as "The Yankees of Japan."
Sawamura's career was cut short by World War II, and ended up being killed in 1944, when his ship was sunk by an American ship.
November 2, 1935: Ohio State leads Notre Dame 13-0 in the 4th quarter at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. But the Fighting Irish close to 13-12. They had a 2-way halfback named William Shakespeare. A year earlier, the Staten Island native had thrown a touchdown pass to beat Army at Yankee Stadium, and, in a pun on the William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice (and he did love puns), "the Bard of South Bend" had also been nicknamed "The Merchant of Menace."
In the last minute of the game, Shakespeare nearly threw an interception, but the Ohio State player dropped it. Given a second chance, he threw a last-second pass to future Washington Redskins Hall-of-Famer Wayne Millner for an 18-13 Irish win.
With the Notre Dame hype machine in full force, this became known as "The Game of the Century" and "The Greatest Game Ever Played." Red Barber, later to broadcast for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Yankees, broadcast it for CBS radio, and called it "the greatest college football game I ever called." I'll guarantee you that if Ohio State had hung on to win, nobody, not even Buckeye fans, would claim it as the greatest game.
Ironically, given Notre Dame's unofficial status as America's Catholic university (not to be confused with The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.), Shakespeare, like his alleged ancestor, was Protestant; and Millner was Jewish.
November 2, 1936: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is founded. It picks up Canada's favorite (or, should I say, its favourite) radio show, Hockey Night In Canada, which began in 1931. In 1952, a bit late, they began TV broadcasting, and HNIC remains the country's most popular TV show.
On the same day, the British Broadcasting Corporation begins the BBC Television Service, inventing what we would now call "network television." In 1964, it is renamed BBC1.
"The Beeb" beat America to network by 11 years. Oddly, they would be behind the curve when it came to "colour" TV: While nearly every U.S. TV show that had not already switched to broadcasting in color would do so by the start of the 1965-66 season, the CBC the next season, and the U.K.'s BBC and ITV wouldn't do so until 1969.
"The Beeb" beat America to network by 11 years. Oddly, they would be behind the curve when it came to "colour" TV: While nearly every U.S. TV show that had not already switched to broadcasting in color would do so by the start of the 1965-66 season, the CBC the next season, and the U.K.'s BBC and ITV wouldn't do so until 1969.
November 2, 1937: A benefit game -- effectively, an all-star game -- is held for the family of the late Montreal Canadiens legend Howie Morenz at the Montreal Forum. Morenz had broken his leg in a game the preceding January, and then died of a heart attack in March, often blamed on the near-party atmosphere his former teammates kept bringing to his hospital room.
The Howie Morenz Memorial Game featured a combined team of the 2 Montreal clubs, the Canadiens and the Maroons. (The Great Depression finally caught up with the Maroons, and they went out of business at the conclusion of the 1937-38 season.) Canadiens Hall-of-Famers in this game included Aurel Joliat, Toe Blake, and Babe Siebert -- who would drown in a boating accident 2 years later, and whose family would be the subject of the next NHL benefit game, also at the Forum. The Maroons included Frank "King" Clancy, at the end of the line after a Hall of Fame career with the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Montreal team played an All-Star team made up of the rest of the NHL, including Hall-of-Famers: From the Leafs, Red Horner, Charlie Conacher and Harvey "Busher" Jackson; from the New York Rangers, Frank Boucher; from the New York Americans, David "Sweeney" Schriner and Leafs legend Clarence "Hap" Day; from the Boston Bruins, Clarence "Tiny" Thompson, Eddie Shore and Aubrey "Dit" Clapper; and from the Detroit Red Wings, Ebenezer "Ebbie" Goodfellow and Marty Barry. The 2 representatives from the Chicago Black Hawks, Johnny Gottselig and Harold "Mush" March, aren't in the Hall, but should be.
The Canadiens retired Morenz's Number 7, and then the Montreal All-Stars lost to the NHL All-Stars 6-5. The attendance was 8,683, not a sellout, but $26,595 (Canadian) was raised for the Morenz family. That's about $470,420 in current Canadian dollars, or $359,387 in U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate.
Morenz's son, Howie Morenz Jr., was 10 years old at the time, and was presented with his father's jersey. He went on to play professionally, but bad eyes kept him from reaching the NHL, and he became an executive in the food supply industry, before dying in 2015, at age 88.
Howie's daughter Marlene married a later Canadiens Hall-of-Famer, Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion. Their son Dan Geoffrion played for the Canadiens, the Quebec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets. And Dan's son Blake Geoffrion played for the Nashville Predators before coming to the Canadiens, honoring his grandfather Boom-Boom (whose Number 5 is retired) and his great-grandfather the Stratford Streak (number 7) by wearing Number 57. Unfortunately, a head injury ended his playing career in 2013.
Bernie died in 2006. Dan is now a scout for the Leafs. And Blake is now an executive in the Columbus Blue Jackets' organization.
November 2, 1938: Patrick Joseph Buchanan is born in Washington, D.C., a proud descendant of Confederate veterans. Arthritis kept him from being drafted, and he became a writer for the now-defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat -- an ironic name, given that he became both an anti-gloablist and one of the people who would define the Republican Party in the last 40 years of the 20th Century.
In 1965, he became an executive assistant at the law firm run by former Vice President Richard Nixon. In 1968, when Nixon made his 2nd run for President, Buchanan was hired to do opposition research. He became a speechwriter for Nixon and his Vice President, Spiro Agnew -- if you watched The West Wing, think of William Safire as Nixon's "Toby Ziegler" (no relation to actual Nixon aide Ronald Ziegler), and of Buchanan as Nixon's "Sam Seaborn."
While Safire wrote many of Agnew's famed alliterative phrases, such as "the nattering nabobs of negativism," I suspect it was the very Catholic Buchanan, rather than the Jewish Safire, who gave Agnew the line "the vicars of vacillation."
Buchanan has never been credibly accused of any of the crimes that fell under the umbrella term "Watergate." But he remained a Nixon loyalist, staying in the Administration until the resignation, and for a little while longer under the new President, Gerald Ford.
He went back to journalism, and when fellow Nixon speechwriter John McLaughlin founded his NBC political talk show The McLaughlin Group in 1982, Buchanan was one of the original regular panelists, through 1985, and occasionally thereafter until McLaughlin's death and the show's wrapup in 2016. From 1985 to 1987, he served as President Ronald Reagan's White House Communications Director -- Reagan's "Toby."
He was a regular on CNN's 2-man version of the Group, called Crossfire. Think of The McLaughlin Group, 4 panelists and a moderator, as a political predecessor of ESPN's Around the Horn; and Crossfire, 2 panelists and no moderator, as a political predecessor of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, but with a liberal and a conservative instead of a New Yorker and a Chicagoan operating out of Washington.
Although he had never served in elected office, he challenged President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 Republican Primaries, and won 38 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Primary, seriously weakening Bush for the general election, where he lost to Bill Clinton. In 1996, Buchanan ran again, this time winning in New Hampshire, but won only 3 other States.
Charges of racial and religious bigotry hurt him in those campaigns, and dog him to this day. In 2012, he was permanently banned from NBC and its affiliates CNBC and MSNBC after he published a book with racial slurs in it. Although still alive, he has mostly been out of the public eye since; but his populism, especially on the area of trade, and his apparent white nationalism were a precursor to the political stances of Donald Trump.
Does he have a sports connection? Not really, although when the Baltimore Orioles were the closest MLB team to Washington, he had a season ticket and went regularly.
November 2, 1939, 80 years ago: Thomas Porter Thacker is born in Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, Ohio. A guard, Tom Thacker played on the University of Cincinnati's National Champions of 1962 and 1963, on the Boston Celtics' 1968 NBA Champions, and on the Indiana Pacers' 1970 ABA Champions. He remains the only man to play on NCAA, NBA and ABA Championship teams.
Having earned both bachelors' and master's degrees at Cincy, he became their 1st black head coach in any sport, with their women's basketball team, from 1974 to 1977. He became a teacher in Cincinnati Public Schools, and deputy director of the Cincinnati Urban League. He is still alive.
Also on this day, Frank Joseph Buncom Jr. is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. A linebacker, he appeared in 3 AFL Championship Games for the San Diego Chargers, winning in 1963. He was a 3-time AFL All-Star, and was named to the Chargers' team Hall of Fame.
Frank Buncom was also an original Cincinnati Bengal in 1968. But he died of a pulmonary embolism during training camp of the next season, not quite 30 years old.
Also on this day, Enrico Albertosi is born in Pontremoli, Tuscany, Italy. A goalkeeper, he helped Florence club Fiorentina win the Coppa Italia in 1961 and 1966, the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1961, and the Mitropa Cup in 1966.
He helped Sardinia club Cagliari win a miracle League title in 1970, and with AC Milan won the 1977 Coppa Italia and the 1979 League title. He played for Italy in the 1962, 1966, 1970 and 1974 World Cups, reaching the Final in 1970, and won Euro '68. He was still playing professionally at age 44, and is still alive.
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November 2, 1940: Edward Leon Budde is born outside Detroit in Highland Park, Michigan. A guard, he was an All-American at Michigan State University -- under coach Duffy Daugherty, and thus one of "Duffy's Toughies" -- and then a member of the Kansas City Chiefs team that lost Super Bowl I and won Super Bowl IV.
He was a 5-time AFL All-Star, and a 2-time Pro Bowler after the AFL-NFL merger, for a total of 7 All-Star berths. He was named to the Chiefs' team Hall of Fame and the AFL All-Time Team. He is not yet in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's 79 years old, so what are they waiting for?
His son Brad Budde was an All-American at the University of Southern California, and also played guard for the Chiefs, from 1980 to 1986. They are the only father and son to have both been drafted int he 1st round by the same NFL team.
Also on this day, James LeRoy Bakken is born in Madison, Wisconsin. He was a member of the University of Wisconsin team that played in the 1960 Rose Bowl, and led the Big Ten Conference in punting average in the 1960 and 1961 seasons.
For 17 seasons, he was the placekicker for the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals, making 4 Pro Bowls, and being named to both the 1960s' and the 1970s' NFL All-Decade Teams. He kicked for 1,380 points, and was successful on 63.1 percent of his field goals and 96.6 percent of his extra points.
On September 24, 1967, at Busch Memorial Stadium, he kicked 7 field goals against the Pittsburgh Steelers, in a 28-14 Cardinal win. He was the 1st pro kicker to achieve this feat, since achieved by 9 others, but none would surpass it until Rob Bironas kicked 8 for the Tennessee Titans in a 2007 game.
Like Ed Budde, Jim Bakken is still alive and should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but isn't.
November 2, 1943: Bertrand Raymond is born in Montreal. A longtime columnist for Le Journal de Montréal, North America's largest French-language newspaper, he was given the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award, the Hockey Hall of Fame's award for sportswriters, for his coverage of the Montreal Canadiens. He is retired, but still alive.
November 2, 1944, 75 years ago: Kevin James Hector is born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. A striker, he helped East Midlands club Derby County win England's Football League in 1972 and 1975. He later came to America, and helped the original version of the Vancouver Whitecaps win the North American Soccer League title in 1979.
He later rejoined Derby, and his 589 appearances for them remain a club record. Despite his obvious ability, England manager Alf Ramsey only selected him for the national side twice, both in 1973. Despite Ramsey's successor being Don Revie, manager of Hector's hometown team, Leeds United, Revie never selected him. England didn't qualify for the 1974 and 1978 World Cups, or for Euro 76. Maybe Hector should have been selected. He is still alive.
Also this day, Keith Noel Emerson is born in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. A talented keyboardist, he teamed with guitarist Greg Lake and drummer Carl Palmer to form a legendary band.
But he suffered from arthritis for most of his adult life. By 2016, he was also suffering from depression, heart disease and colon cancer, and he took his own life, at age 71.
Lake also had cancer, and died later in the year, not by his own hand. He was 69. Palmer is still alive and performing at 69.
November 2, 1945: Lawrence Chatmon Little is born in Savannah, Georgia, and grows up in Miami. The guard helped his hometown Miami Dolphins reach Super Bowl VI, win Super Bowl VII with the NFL's only perfect season (17-0), and win Super Bowl VIII.
Larry Little played in 5 Pro Bowls, and was named to the Miami Dolphins Honor Roll (though his Number 66 has not been retired), the NFL 1970s All-Decade Team, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and, in 1999, The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players. He later coached a small-college team in North Carolina. His brother David Little played 12 years as a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, making the 1990 Pro Bowl. David died in 2005, but Larry is still alive.
November 2, 1946: The NBA's Boston Celtics play their 1st game, losing 59-53 to fellow New Englanders the Providence Steamrollers at the Rhode Island Auditorium.
The Steamrollers, named for a defunct NFL team, would only last the 1st 3 NBA seasons. The Celtics would take a few years to get untracked, but became the NBA's dominant franchise, winning 16 titles in 30 seasons from 1957 to 1986, and a 17th in 2008. They and the New York Knicks are the only original NBA franchises still playing in their original city.
November 2, 1948: Richard Norman Ley is born in Orillia, Ontario. A defenseman, he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs after their 1960s dynasty, but was a member of the 1st World Hockey Association Champions, the 1972-73 New England Whalers. He remained with the team when they joined the NHL in 1979, becoming the Hartford Whalers, lasting until 1981. He was elected to the WHA Hall of Fame.
He later served as head coach of the Whalers, and an assistant with the Leafs and the Vancouver Canucks. He is still alive. The Whalers retired his Number 2, although they moved to become the Carolina Hurricanes after the 1997 season, and the 'Canes restored the number to circulation, before retiring it for Glen Wesley.
More importantly, there is a Presidential election on this day. The most famous newspaper headline of all time? It might be the New York Daily News of October 30, 1975: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." Or it might be the one the Chicago Tribune (a proud Republican paper at the time) put up the morning after today's Presidential election.
The problem is, Harry was smarter than most of them. Which is why he's enjoying himself so much in the photo above: He fooled 'em all.
But Dewey was dumb to have blown what should have been a sure win. How dumb was he? Well, maybe not that dumb:
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Thomas Dewey for Losing the 1948 Presidential Election
5. Republican Complacency. They didn't give him the support he needed, because they presumed he wouldn't need it.
4. The Cold War. It was supposed to be Dewey's winning issue. Instead, it was Truman's, with the Truman Doctrine protecting Greece and Turkey from Communist takeover, the Marshall Plan aiding Western Europe before the Soviet Union could, and the Berlin Airlift preventing the Soviets from starving West Berlin into capitulation.
3. The Curse of Herbert Hoover. After 16 years, voters still didn't trust Republicans with the economy. Truman never mentioned Hoover by name, because they were on good terms (whereas Hoover was definitely not on good terms with FDR -- or with his own Republican predecessor, Calvin Coolidge), so he blamed the Republicans in general for the Depression of the 1930s, and it worked.
3. The Curse of Herbert Hoover. After 16 years, voters still didn't trust Republicans with the economy. Truman never mentioned Hoover by name, because they were on good terms (whereas Hoover was definitely not on good terms with FDR -- or with his own Republican predecessor, Calvin Coolidge), so he blamed the Republicans in general for the Depression of the 1930s, and it worked.
2. The Ghost of FDR. From their days as fellow members of the U.S. Senate, Truman was good friends with Alben Barkley, the Kentuckian who was the Democrats' Senate Leader, and had no problem accepting him as the nominee for Vice President.
But he hitched his wagon to Franklin Roosevelt's legacy, effectively making the New Deal his platform (his 1949 State of the Union Address would update it for the times as the Fair Deal), and FDR's ghost his running mate.
1. Harry Truman. He knew he could win, and he knew how he could do it: By going to the people themselves, in what the GOP derisively called "a whistle-stop campaign," a phrase Truman ran with, and explaining the truth to people where they were, and in terms they could understand -- without talking down to them, as Donald Trump does today. He connected with people the same way FDR did, even though they were very different men.
But he hitched his wagon to Franklin Roosevelt's legacy, effectively making the New Deal his platform (his 1949 State of the Union Address would update it for the times as the Fair Deal), and FDR's ghost his running mate.
1. Harry Truman. He knew he could win, and he knew how he could do it: By going to the people themselves, in what the GOP derisively called "a whistle-stop campaign," a phrase Truman ran with, and explaining the truth to people where they were, and in terms they could understand -- without talking down to them, as Donald Trump does today. He connected with people the same way FDR did, even though they were very different men.
Ever since, Ol' Harry S has been the patron saint of political underdogs, of the people who are told they can't possibly win.
(There's no period on his middle initial, since it legally didn't stand for anything, as his parents couldn't agree on whether to name him after one of his grandfathers, Anderson Shippe Truman or Solomon Young. So his entire middle name was the letter S, with no period.His mother's brother was Harry Young, and the name was "Harry," not "Henry" or "Harrison." His legal name was Harry S Truman.)
Even Republicans cite him as an inspiration. As Truman himself would have said, "Well, that's just political conversation." Or, as his only child, Margaret, who became a noted writer of mystery novels after a failed singing career, put it while editing one of her father's books, "My father originally used a shorter word here, but decided to change it." Truman did love him some of what I like to call "George Carlin words."
Legend has it that Harry and his wife Bess (formerly Elizabeth Wallace) toured a greenhouse, and Harry, a former farmer himself, told the owner, a woman, that she must have used some good manure." The owner pulled Bess aside and said, "Can't you get the President to say, 'Fertilizer'?" And Bess said, "It's taken me this long just to get him to say, 'manure'!"
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November 2, 1950: The Baseball Writers Association of America selects Phillies relief pitcher Jim Konstanty as the NL's Most Valuable Player. This was the 1st time either League had awarded its MVP to a relief pitcher, and, presuming you think pitchers should be eligible at all, it was totally justified. Without him, the Phils would have been in the middle of the standings; with him, they won the Pennant.
It would be another 31 years before another reliever won it, Rollie Fingers of the 1981 Milwaukee Brewers. In 1974, Mike Marshall of the Los Angeles Dodgers became the 1st reliever to win the Cy Young Award.
November 2, 1951: Jackie Robinson, who starred in football at the school, but left before receiving his degree, is named the grand marshal of UCLA's Homecoming Parade. The next day, with Robinson on hand, UCLA upsets then-Number 9-ranked California 21-7 at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
November 2, 1952: Ronald Henry Lee is born in Boston. A member of the "Kamikaze Kids" on the University of Oregon's basketball team in the mid-1970s, Ron Lee was named Pacific-8 (now Pacific-12) Conference Player of the Year in 1976.
Drafted by the Phoenix Suns, he was named to the NBA's All-Rookie First Team in 1977, and led the NBA in steals in 1978. He later played pro basketball in Italy and Sweden. His brothers Russ, Eugene and Gerald were also college basketball players.
November 2, 1953: Richard Joseph Meagher is born in Belleville, Ontario. A centre, he starred on the hockey team at Boston University, and reached the NHL in 1980 with the Montreal Canadiens, right after their 4 straight Stanley Cups ended.
He played for the Hartford Whalers from 1980 to 1982, then was traded to the New Jersey Devils -- playing for them in their 1st season, but not quite an "Original New Jersey Devil." He remained through 1985, then played for the St. Louis Blues until 1991, when injury cut his career short. In 1990, he was the Blues' Captain, and won the Frank Selke Trophy as the NHL's best defensive forward.
Also on this day, King Paul and Queen Friederike of Greece, visiting America, receive a ticker-tape parade in New York.
November 2, 1955: Robert Malcolm Tufts is born in the Boston suburb of Medford, Massachusetts. A pitcher, Bob Tufts appeared in 11 games in 1981 with the San Francisco Giants, and 10 games in 1982 and 6 in 1983 with the Kansas City Royals. His career record was 2-0, but his ERA was 4.71.
He didn't need the money from baseball. He graduated from Princeton with a degree in economics, and earned an MBA from Columbia. He worked at both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers before their collapses, and was in no way responsible for either. He made a fortune, and became a motivational speaker. He battled multiple myeloma for 10 years before dying earlier this year.
November 2, 1958: Willie Dean McGee (not "William") is born in San Francisco. The center fielder starred for the St. Louis Cardinals, winning the World Series in his rookie year of 1982, including hitting 2 home runs and making a great catch in Game 3 of the Series. He won National League batting titles in 1985 and 1990, and won 3 Gold Gloves, making 4 All-Star Games.
He reached the postseason with the Cardinals (1982 World Championship, 1985 NL Pennant, 1987 Pennant), the Oakland Athletics (1990 AL Pennant), the Boston Red Sox (1995 AL East title), and the Cardinals again (1996 NL Central title).
The Cards have named him a coach and elected him to their team Hall of Fame, and, while it is not officially retired, they have not handed out his Number 51 since he retired after the 1999 season. With a .295 batting average and 2,254 hits, he is a borderline case for the Hall of Fame.
November
2, 1959, 60 years ago: The 1st section of the M1 Motorway opens
between Watford in Hertfordshire and Crick in Northamptonshire. It would take until 1999 for England's premier freeway to reach its full 193-mile length, from the North Circular Road in Northwest London to Leeds in Yorkshire.
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November 2, 1960: George Weiss‚ recently turned 66‚ resigns as general manager of the Yankees. He had seen the firing of manager Casey Stengel by co-owners Dan Topping and Del Webb, and figured he was next, so he "got out of Dodge."
He said the Yankee farm system was drying up, and no one knew that better than he did: He'd built it, and seen Topping and Webb tell him, year after year, to trade prospects for a player or two who could help them win the Pennant in a given year. He said, at the time, that he gave the Yankees 5 years before they all fell apart. In the next 4 years, they won the Pennant. In the 5th, 1965, they crashed to 6th place.
Weiss is in the Hall of Fame, for having been GM for 11 Pennants and 8 World Championships, and for having been farm system director for 8 Pennants and 7 World Championships before that. But don't expect to see him ever get a Plaque in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park: He was hated by the players for being so cheap, and was very much a racist. He's one of those "He was great at what he did, but... " figures in sports history.
He should not be confused with George David Weiss, who, in 1961, would write 2 classics of the early Rock and Roll Era: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens, and "Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley.
Also on this day, Bruce Robert Baumgartner is born in Haledon, Passaic County, New Jersey. The wrestler -- a real wrestler, not that fake WWE crap -- won a Gold Medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, a Silver Medal in 1988 at Seoul, another Gold Medal in 1992 at Barcelona, and a Bronze Medal at 1996 in Atlanta. He is now the athletic director at Edinboro University, outside Erie, Pennsylvania.
Also on this day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and his Vice President and would-be successor, Richard Nixon, receive a ticker-tape parade in New York. The Republicans got one because their Democratic opponent, Senator John F. Kennedy, had also gotten one. This is the only time the major parties' nominees for President have gotten ticker-tape parades in New York. "Ike" and "Dick" hold a rally at Herald Square.
November 2, 1962: Derek Mountfield (no middle name) is born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. A centreback, he was part of the mini-dynasty at hometown soccer team Everton, winning the 1984 FA Cup, the Football League title in 1985 and 1987, and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985.
After managing in England's lower divisions and in Ireland, he is now what we would call a high school gym teacher.
November 2, 1963: The football team at the U.S. Naval Academy, ranked Number 4 in the nation, travels to South Bend, Indiana to play the University of Notre Dame. Led by quarterback Roger Staubach, about to win the Heisman Trophy on his way to a Hall of Fame career with the Dallas Cowboys (after fulfilling his service commitment in 1969), the Midshipmen beat the Fighting Irish 35-14.
Navy rise to Number 2, and win their annual get-together with Army, but lose to Number 1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl, costing them the National Championship. Not only have they never approached the national Top 10 again, but they never beat Notre Dame again until 2007, losing 43 straight seasons, an NCAA Division I-A record. Only 5 times in those 43 years did they even come within a touchdown's worth of points.
Also on this day, President Ngô Đình Diệm of South Vietnam, and his brother and adviser Ngô Đình Nhu are overthrown and executed by the country's army. Diem was 62 years old, Nhu 53. This coup further increases the country's instability, and leads to the U.S. getting deeper into the civil war between the capitalist, but hardly free, South and the Communist North.
November 2, 1964: Desmond Kevin Armstrong is born in Washington, D.C. A right back, he played in the Major Indoor Soccer League for the Cleveland Force and the Baltimore Blast. He represented the U.S. at the 1988 Olympics and the 1990 World Cup, and was a member of the 1st U.S. team to win a major tournament, the 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
He went on to become a broadcaster, including for ABC at the 1994 World Cup on home soil. He is now technical director of FC Columbus, and a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
Also on this day, Kevin Patrick Gogan is born outside San Francisco in Pacifica, California. A guard, he made 3 Pro Bowls, and was with the Dallas Cowboys when they won Super Bowls XXVII and Super Bowls XXVIII. He is now an assistant coach at a high school in the Seattle suburbs.
November 2, 1966: David Lawrence Schwimmer is born in Flushing, Queens, New York City, and grows up in the Beverly Hills section of Los Angeles. He is best known for playing anthropologist Dr. Ross Geller on Friends.
What does he have to do with sports? On a 1994 episode, he got hit in the nose by a flying puck at a Ranger game. On a 1996 episode, he and Courteney Cox, as Ross' sister Monica, were opposing team captains in a street football game played on Thanksgiving, a result still in dispute. On a 1998 episode, to impress his British girlfriend, Emily Waltham, played by Helen Baxendale, Ross played rugby with some of her fellow British expatriates. This was a mistake. In 2017, he played Robert Kardashian Sr., one of O.J. Simpson's lawyers, on American Crime Story.
Also on this day, the Batman TV series airs the episode "Hizzoner the Penguin." The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) opposes Gotham City's Mayor Linseed (Byron Keith), an obvious variation on New York's Mayor John Lindsay, for re-election. (They also parodied Governor Nelson Rockefeller with "Governor Stonefellow.")
Linseed knows he can't win, so he asks Batman (Adam West) to run, with himself as Deputy Mayor. Once Batman wins, he can then resign, and Linseed can legally regain the office. Despite the Penguin's dirty tricks -- the 2nd part of the 2-parter is titled "Dizzoner the Penguin" -- it works, because a majority of voters know Batman is a good guy and the Penguin a bad guy.
The "Penguin for Mayor" storyline would later be worked into the 1992 film Batman Returns (played by Danny DeVito, he loses again), and in 2016 on the TV series Gotham (played by Robin Lord Taylor, he wins, but ends up having to resign when he's charged with murder).
November 2, 1968: The Bronze Boot is first awarded to the winner of the rivalry game between Colorado State University and the University of Wyoming, a game nicknamed The Border War. Wyoming wins the game, 46-14.
Colorado State dominated the rivalry for a long time, going 35-5-5 from 1899 to 1948. But, thanks to Coach Wyatt, Wyoming took over, dominating the Rams 19-4 from 1950 to 1973. Since then, it's been much more even. Since the Boot was established in 1968, Wyoming's lead is 27-24, having made it 3 straight wins earlier this season. Overall, Colorado State leads 58-47-5.
Also on this day, it looks like President Lyndon Johnson's bombing halt in Vietnam is going to give the election to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic nominee. So former Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, tells campaign aide H.R. Haldeman, who wrote it down, to "throw a monkey wrench into it."
So he calls Anna Chennault, an official of the anti-Communist "China Lobby" and widow of Claire Chennault, beloved by the Nationalist Chinese for his role in the Army Air Force during World War II. And she calls called Bui Dai, the South Vietnamese Ambassador, to the Paris Peace Talks, and tells him, "Hold on. We are going to win." In other words, you'll get a better deal from a President Nixon than from a President Humphrey. And the peace talks stalled. And Nixon won in a squeaker.
From 1969 onward, the official count of the U.S. service dead in Vietnam is 21,264 – 36 percent of all deaths. "Madame Chennault" and Richard Nixon can be blamed for this.
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November 2, 1971: The Baltimore Orioles' Pat Dobson pitches a no-hitter against the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants‚ winning 2-0 at Korakuen Stadium. It is the 1st no-hitter in the history of exhibition games between Japanese and American teams. The Orioles compile a record of 12-2-4 on the tour.
November 2, 1972: Former Boston Red Sox shortstop Freddy Parent dies at the age of 96. Parent had been the last surviving player from the 1st modern World Series between Boston and Pittsburgh in 1903. He was also the last surviving player from the first Pennant race between the teams now known as the Yankees and the Red Sox, in 1904.
November 2, 1973: Alfred Earle "Greasy" Neale dies in Lake Worth, Florida at age 81. An outfielder, he played in the major leagues from 1916 to 1924, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds, winning the 1919 World Series.
But he became better known for football. A 2-way end who played in the Ohio League before the NFL existed, he went on to coach at the University of Virginia in the 1920s and West Virginia University in the 1930s. For a time, he was coaching on the staff of Yale University, alongside future President Gerald Ford. From 1941 to 1950, he coached the Philadelphia Eagles, leading them to the 1948 and 1949 NFL Championships.
Also on this day, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel is released as a single. The album of the same title is released 7 days later. The single was not a big hit, only reaching Number 25 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart early in 1974. But it launched Billy's career.
After the failure of his 1971 album Cold Spring Harbor, Billy stayed in Los Angeles where he'd recorded it, and got a job playing piano at the Executive Room, a bar in the Wilshire district on the West Side of Los Angeles. For legal reasons, he couldn't use his real name, so William Martin Joel became "Bill Martin." (He couldn't be "Billy Martin," because baseball.) Everybody in the song was a real person, including Billy's 1st wife, Elizabeth Weber, who also worked there: "And the waitress is practicing politics."
When legal matters were resolved, and Billy and Columbia Records were finally able to join forces, he recorded the song, and it came out at 5 minutes and 38 seconds. Just 8 years after Bob Dylan, also a Columbia performer, topped 6 minutes with "Like a Rolling Stone," Columbia (owned by CBS) cut the 2nd half of the 2nd verse and the 1st half of the 3rd verse: John the bartender's belief that he could be a movie star, Paul the real-estate novelist, and Davey who was still in the Navy didn't make the final cut.
And a promotional version of the single was cut even further. So when Billy recorded his next album, Streetlife Serenade, it included "The Entertainer," in which he sang, "It took me years to write it. They were the best years of my life. It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long. 'If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit.' So they cut it down to 3:05."
Of course, Billy sings it at every show, including the 100-plus times he's sold Madison Square Garden out. He sang it at the 1st rock concert at the old Yankee Stadium in 1990. He sang it at the last concert at Shea Stadium in 2008.
During the 2015 World Series, he sang the National Anthem before one of the Citi Field games. As they usually do, the Mets played "Piano Man" in the middle of the 8th inning, and everybody sang along, and a camera was put on Billy -- who, being a Yankee Fan, felt out of place, anyway, as in, "Man, what are you doing here?" -- and the look on his face said, "People, this is not a happy singalong song." It could be worse: The Red Sox use "Sweet Caroline."
In 2011, deciding that those people didn't deserve to be left hanging, I wrote an unofficial sequel for the song-parody website Amiright.com. Billy goes back (in real life, he can't, as the place closed years ago), and the old man is still there, and remembers that the song he couldn't quite recall was "I Only Have Eyes for You."
John now owns the bar, able to buy it because Billy made the place famous. Paul is a best-selling novelist, who leaves the real estate to his wife. Davey went to SEAL training and killed Osama bin Laden. The waitress went back home, and her political practice paid off: She was elected Mayor. The piano is still there, and it's kept in tune. The microphone, of course, still smells like a beer.
November 2, 1974: The Atlanta Braves trade Hank Aaron to the team that replaced them in Milwaukee, the Brewers, for outfielder Dave May and a minor league pitcher to be named later. Aaron will finish his major league career in Milwaukee‚ where he started it in 1954.
Later that off-season, Aaron‚ the Home Run King of American baseball‚ and Yomiuri Giants star Sadaharu Oh‚ his Japanese counterpart‚ square off for a home run hitting contest at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo. Aaron wins 10-9. Aaron finishes his major league career with 755 home runs, Oh finishes his Japanese Leagues' career with 868. How many Oh would have hit in the North American majors is a mystery.
Also on this day, the Rutgers football team loses 9-7 to Connecticut at Rutgers Stadium. They will not lose another "home game" for nearly 3 years, until Penn State beat them at the Meadowlands on September 2, 1977. They won't lose again at Rutgers Stadium for 4 years, until November 25, 1978, against Colgate University.
Also on this day, Orlando Luis Cabrera is born in Cartagena, Colombia. A shortstop, he played in the major leagues from 1997 to 2011, reaching the postseason with the Boston Red Sox, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins and the Cincinnati Reds.
He won 2 Gold Gloves, and was the starting shortstop on the 2004 World Champion * Red Sox. He was also the last out in Yankee pitcher David Cone's perfect game against the Montreal Expos on July 18, 1999.
Also on this day, Cornell Ira Haynes Jr. is born in Austin, Texas, and grows up outside St. Louis in University City, Missouri. Going by Nelly, a shortening of his first name, he formed the rap group The St. Lunatics, and became a legend in 2002 with his hit song "Hot in Herre." He sang it at the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII in Houston in 2004, but kept grabbing his crotch during the performance. A few minutes later, Justin Timberlake tore off a piece of Janet Jackson's costume, rendering Nelly's appearance all but forgotten.
Nelly wasn't the only rap star born that day. Albert Johnson (no middle name) is born in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. Known as Prodigy, he and Kejuan Muchita, stage name Havoc, formed the rap duo Mobb Deep, active from 1991 until Prodigy's death on June 20, 2017, from the long-term effects of sickle-cell anemia.
November 2, 1975: A surreal event takes place at Madison Square Garden. The New York Rangers had traded popular goaltender Eddie Giacomin to the Detroit Red Wings, sparking outrage among their fans. As it happened, the Rangers' next home game was against the Wings.
Seeing Giacomin in not the white jersey with the blue Number 1, but the red jersey with the white Number 31, the Garden crowd chanted, "Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE!" all night long, and actually booed the Rangers when they scored.
The Red Wings won, 6-4, and, for perhaps the only time in Madison Square Garden history, the home fans cheered a visiting team's victory.
It was the end of an era that had seen the Rangers rise to championship contention, but the closest they'd gotten to the Stanley Cup was the 1972 Finals, losing to the Boston Bruins in 6 games. They were knocked out of the previous season's Playoffs by a 3rd-year expansion team, the suburban Islanders.
Just 9 days after The Giacomin Game, they would trade Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. The Rangers would miss the Playoffs in 1976 and '77, before bouncing back in '78 and reaching the Finals in '79.
With new management coming in, the Rangers made peace with Eddie, and retired his Number 1 in 1990.
November 2, 1976: Former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia edges incumbent President Gerald Ford, to reclaim the White House for the Democrats. New Jersey voters approve casino gambling in Atlantic City -- which will one day have repercussions in another Presidential race, as Donald Trump will run in 2016 despite building 3 casino-hotels in A.C., and having them all go bankrupt. Some businessman he is.
Also on this day, Sidney Alton Ponson is born in Noord, Aruba, making him a citizen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He pitched in the major leagues from 198 to 2003, including brief stints with the Yankees in 2006 and 2008.
He reached the postseason with the 2003 San Francisco Giants and the 2006 Yankees, but never reached a League Championship Series. His career record was 91-113.
November 2, 1977: Arsenal acquire forward Alan Sunderland - not from Sunderland A.F.C. in England's North-East, but from Birmingham-area side Wolverhampton Wanderers, with whom he'd won the 1974 League Cup.
The Yorkshireman with the red Afro and the "Seventies porn star mustache" had his best season in 1978-79. Two days before Christmas, Arsenal played away to their North London Arch Rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, and Sunderland became only the 2nd, and remains the last, Arsenal player to score 3 goals in a game against Spurs. In the FA Cup, he knocked Wolves out with a goal in the Semifinal, and then scored the 89th minute goal that beat Manchester United in the Final at Wembley Stadium.
He is now 66, and lives in Malta, the island nation in the Mediterranean Sea. Every year, when the FA Cup Final comes around, so does a joke: Alan Sunderland never played for Sunderland, 1981 Final hero Ricky Villa never played for Aston Villa, and Danny Shittu never played for Tottenham.
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November 2, 1980: John Amirante sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a New York Rangers game for the 1st time. The Rangers beat the Los Angels Kings 6-3.
Amirante was born and raised in the Bronx, went to Cardinal Hayes High School, and sang with the school's dance band.By night, he would sing in The Bronx and Yonkers. By day, he would work as a design engineer for a naval architecture firm owned by Dr. John J. McMullen.
McMullen was one of the "limited partners" that helped George Steinbrenner buy the Yankees in 1973, and he would later say, "There is nothing so limited as being one of George's limited partners." But on July 4, 1978, George's birthday, McMullen brought Amirante to George's birthday party, and Amirante sang for him. George liked him, and they were friends for life.
But it would be the Mets that would be the first team to have him sing the National Anthem before a game, in 1979. He sent his audition tape to the Madison Square Garden Corporation, and in 1980, they hired him to sing before 3 Ranger games and 3 Knick games. They kept him on for 37 years.
From 1981 to 1985, he also sang the Anthem at some Yankee games, usually alternating with Robert Merrill, the legendary Metropolitan Opera singer from Brooklyn. By this point, McMullen had sold his share of the Yankees, and bought the Houston Astros. He'd also bought the NHL's Colorado Rockies, moved them to the Meadowlands, and renamed them the New Jersey Devils. He asked Amirante to sing the Anthem for their 1st game, on October 5, 1982, a 3-3 tie with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
McMullen asked him to sing for the Devils full-time, but he turned it down, saying, "I gotta stay where my faith is, and that's with the Rangers." He later said, "I wanted to be in The World's Most Famous Arena."
On December 23, 1992, I attended my 1st live NHL game. I'd like to tell you that I heard John Amirante sing the National Anthem. But that wouldn't be true, because I couldn't hear him: 18,000 Ranger fans yelled and drowned him out. When they finally won the Stanley Cup after 54 years, on June 14, 1994, Ranger broadcaster Sam Rosen said he'd never heard The Garden so loud as when he sang before Game 7.
John Amirante died on April 17, 2018, at age 83.
November 2, 1981: M*A*S*H airs the episode "Identity Crisis." Joe Pantoliano plays an Irish-American soldier who masquerades as a Jewish buddy he saw killed, having taken his dogtags. This backfires when the doctors give him the blood type on the tags, which isn't his, and he nearly dies. Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) convinces him to come clean. And this is one of the less creepy roles in the career of the actor known as Joey Pants.
November 2, 1984: Brett Jackson Goode is born in Pampa, in the Texas Panhandle. A center, he was with the Green Bay Packers when they won Super Bowl XLV. After being released by the Packers due to a knee injury, he is currently a free agent, and will probably never play again.
November 2, 1985: Daniel James Amendola is born outside Houston in The Woodlands, Texas. (Always "The Woodlands," never just "Woodlands.") A receiver, he helped the New England Patriots win Super Bowls XLIX and LI. He now plays for the Detroit Lions.
November 2, 1986: The book Happy Birthday, Cookie Monster, by Felice Haus, is published earlier in the year. In the book, the Sesame Street character's birthday is mentioned as being November 2. Since this children's book was given the official sanction of the series' producers, the birthday is considered canon, although Cookie Monster's age is not mentioned, so we don't know what year he was born.
November 2, 1989, 30 years ago: Stevan Jovetić is born in Titograd, Yugoslavia -- now Podgorica, the capital of the independent nation of Montenegro. He is probably the greatest soccer player that nation has ever produced.
The forward helped Partizan Belgrade win the Double, the Serbian SuperLiga and the Serbian Cup, in 2008. He helped Manchester City win the Premier League and the League Cup (or, as I like to call it, the Baby Double) in 2014. He now plays for AS Monaco.
Also on this day, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner publishes its last edition. Media mogul William Randolph Hearst founded the Los Angeles Examiner in 1903, naming it after his flagship paper up the Pacific Coast in San Francisco.
The paper followed Hearst's personal politics: At first, liberal and pro-labor; but, by the 1930s, hard-core conservative. Its editorials against Mexican-Americans in Southern California, particularly during the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots, were very nasty.
In 1931, the Los Angeles Evening Herald and the Los Angeles Evening Express -- not to be confused with a later pro football team, the USFL's Los Angeles Express -- merged to form the Los Angeles Herald-Express. In 1962, it merged the with the Examiner to form the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, becoming an afternoon-only newspaper, hoping to better compete with the Los Angeles Times, the morning paper that was, and remains, the biggest newspaper in the American West.
In 1967, employees went on strike. Flying in the face of what his father had founded the paper as, William Randolph Hearst Jr. tried running the paper with "scab" employees. He tried this for a little over 9 years, and when he finally caved in, circulation had dropped from 721,000 to less than half that, 350,000.
In the 1970s, actor Charles Nelson Reilly could sometimes be seen reading the Herald Examiner on the set of Match Game (sometimes, it would be the Hollywood trade paper Variety), and host Gene Rayburn would ask him, "What's in the paper, Charles?" And Charles would say there was an article about something that happened during the broadcast, generating laughs from the "fickle bunch" that made up the show's studio audience.
A 1978 shakeup of management and reordering of various features, including a shift-toward blue-collar-style reporting in its sports section, gave the paper a brief renaissance. But its 1982 shift to morning-only, to directly compete with the Times, was the fatal mistake, and when Rupert Murdoch changed his mind and decided not to let his News Corporation buy the paper in 1989, it was all over.
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November 2, 1990: Jesse Williams (no middle name) is born on Thursday Island, Queensland, at the northern tip of Australia, closer to Papua New Guinea and Indonesia than Australia's major cities. Raised in Brisbane, at the opposite end of the State of Queensland, Williams is an indigenous Australian (they no longer accept the term "Aborigine") who made the transition from rugby league to American-style football at age 14.
A defensive tackle, he became the 1st of his people to win an American college football scholarship, to the University of Hawaii. But a technicality prevented him from accepting it, so he attended Arizona Western College, a junior college in Yuma. (Colleges in Arizona had long been accepting of Pacific Islanders, especially Samoans, so this was a natural progression.)
While there, he got the attention of the University of Alabama. He transferred there, and helped them win the 2011 and 2012 National Championships. He became known as the Monstar, a combination of "Monster" and "Star."
He was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, but never played a down in the NFL: Injuries cost him the entire 2013 and 2014 seasons (though he was given a ring from the team's Super Bowl XLVIII win, making him the 1st Australian to receive one at any level), and he developed kidney cancer, which, though he recovered from it, cost him the 2015 season. He was waived before the 2016 season, and has become a strength and conditioning coach.
November 2, 1991: James Richard Garoppolo is born in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois. "Jimmy G" backed up Tom Brady on the New England Patriots, winning rings despite not taking a snap in either Super Bowl XLIX or LI. He is now the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, and, right now, they are looking like they might be the Pats' best challengers out of the NFC.
November 2, 1992: Ufomba Kamalu (no middle name) is born outside Atlanta in Fayetteville, Georgia. A defensive end for the Baltimore Ravens, he was with the New England Patriots last season, when they won Super Bowl LIII.
November 2, 1994, 25 years ago: Jonathan Stanley Loáisiga Estrada is born in Managua, Nicaragua. Known professionally as Jonathan Loaisiga, and nicknamed "Lasagna," the righthanded pitcher made his major league debut with the Yankees in the 2018 season, making 9 appearances, including 4 starts. He went 2-0, but his ERA was 5.11 and his WHIP 1.541.
He was injured for much of 2019, finishing 2-2, ERA 4.55, WHIP 1.484. If he's going to help make the difference for the Yankees in 2020 and beyond, his control and his health will need to improve.
Also on this day, Corey Joel Clement is born in Glassboro, Gloucester County, New Jersey. A running back for his "hometown" team, the Philadelphia Eagles, he was a rookie on their team that won Super Bowl LII, catching a touchdown pass in the game.
Also on this day, Jordan Reginald Howard is born in the Birmingham suburb of Gardendale, Alabama. a running back, he made the Pro Bowl with the Chicago Bears in 2016, his rookie season. He is now Clement's teammate on the Eagles.
November 2, 1995: The Yankees name Joe Torre as their new manager‚ replacing Buck Showalter.
Torre had been a good catcher in the 1960s, a decent 1st baseman in the early 1970s, and a very good hitter throughout his playing career. His managing was another matter. He managed the Mets in the late 1970s, and he didn't have much to work with. He managed the Atlanta Braves in the early 1980s, and got them to a Division title in 1982 and almost to another in 1983, but that was it. He managed the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1990s, and didn't get too far.
The Cardinals fired him in 1995, and he thought he'd never manage again. "I'd run out of teams," he said, noting that he'd played for 3 teams, and managed all of them. He'd been a broadcaster between his Braves and Cardinals jobs, and figured he'd go back into the broadcast booth, and that's how he'd finish out his days in baseball.
Then George Steinbrenner called to offer him the Yankee managing job. Joe had never played in the American League, let alone managed in it. But George thought he was the guy. The New York Daily News didn't think so: Citing his lackluster managerial record up until then, and also the circus that tended to surround Steinbrenner, especially where managers were concerned, they printed the headline "CLUELESS JOE."
You know the rest of the story. World Champions in his 1st season, 1996. Wild Card in 1997. World Champions in 1998, winning more games than any team ever had in a regular season and postseason combined, 125, including a 4-game sweep in the World Series. World Champions in 1999, including the best postseason record of the 1995-present Division Series era, 11-1. World Champions in 2000, beating the Mets in the World Series. American League Champions in 2001, missing another title by 1 run. Division Champions in 2002. AL Champions in 2003, with the dramatic AL Championship Series win over the Boston Red Sox.
Then, of course, the downturn, the kind of things that the Daily News probably expected when it printed the headline. A shocking ALCS loss in 2004. Pathetic performances in the AL Division Series in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Joe got lowballed by George's heirs, of both the family and the business variety: His sons Hank and Hal, Yankee brass Randy Levine and Lonn Trost, and general manager Brian Cashman. He walked out, and managed the Los Angeles Dodgers to a pair of Division titles, before taking a job in Major League Baseball's office.
Joe and the House of Steinbrenner made up. He's been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and is honored in Monument Park at the new Yankee Stadium.
The Daily News called him "CLUELESS JOE." They get reminded of that more than they do of "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."
November 2, 1995 was also the day Seinfeld aired the episode "The Soup Nazi." Happy Anniversary, Schmoopie!
November 2, 1996: Toni Stone dies in the Oakland suburb of Alameda, California at age 75. Born Marcenia Lyle Stone in Bluefield, West Virginia, she was the 1st woman to play in the Negro Leagues, playing 2nd base for the Indianapolis Clowns in 1953. She also played for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1954.
Her replacement as the Clowns' 2nd baseman was also a woman, Connie Morgan, who lasted until 1955. She also lived until 1996. One other woman played in the Negro Leagues, Mamie Belton (later known by her married name, Mamie Johnson), who pitched for the Clowns from 1953 to 1955, and lived until 2017.
Also on this day, Saturday Night Live debuts the sketch "The Culps." Will Ferrell plays balding, bearded Marty Culp, and Ana Gasteyer plays his wife Bobbi Mohan-Culp, middle school music teachers who are hopelessly unhip. The sketch runs for 6 years, and it never becomes good. The Will Ferrell era really was the worst of SNL.
November 2, 1999, 20 years ago: The Texas Rangers trade outfielder Juan Gonzalez‚ pitcher Danny Patterson and catcher Gregg Zaun to the Detroit Tigers for pitchers Justin Thompson‚ Alan Webb and Francisco Cordero‚ outfielder Gabe Kapler‚ catcher Bill Haselman‚ and infielder Frank Catalanotto. The trade of "Juan Gone" is the beginning of the breakup of the Rangers' 1st postseason team, winners of 3 of the last 4 AL West titles.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners announce that superstar Ken Griffey Jr. is requesting a trade, to a team closer to his home. The Mariners agree to try to trade him during the off-season. The superstar outfielder will get his wish in February when Seattle trades him to the Reds for Mike Cameron, Antonio Perez and Brett Tomko, and minor leager Jake Meyer.
Of course, Cincinnati, where his father Ken Griffey Sr. once played, isn't all that close to Junior's adopted hometown of Orlando, Florida.
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November 2, 2001: A statue of head coach Joe Paterno is dedicated outside the east stand of Beaver Stadium on the campus of Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. It calls him "Joseph Vincent Paterno: Educator, Coach, Humanitarian."
On July 22, 2012, 6 months after his death, and 8 months after the scandal that forever tarnished his name, the statue was removed, since it was being called a roadblock in the healing process.
November 2, 2004: A groundskeeper finds a grenade in the Wrigley Field turf. Police bomb and arson investigators are called to evaluate the right field discovery. The rusty, hollowed-out shell turns out to be harmless, and its origins remain a mystery.
Also on this day, George W. Bush achieves -- due to shenanigans in Ohio, I won't say "wins" -- a 2nd term as President, defeating the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. Although Kerry was a rich liberal Catholic from Massachusetts with the initials JFK, and as a young man had met President John F. Kennedy, he was no Jack Kennedy.
During the campaign, Bush ran as the man who was fighting to avenge the 9/11 attacks, while his fellow Republicans mocked Kerry for saying that Democratic leadership could "reduce terrorism to the level of a nuisance."
By 2016, after 8 years of Barack Obama as President, 4 years of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and 4 years of Kerry himself as Secretary of State, Kerry had been proven correct: They have reduced terrorism, at least against American targets, at home and abroad, to the level of a nuisance.
November 2, 2005: Andrew Bynum, a native of Plainsboro, Mercer County, New Jersey, plays 6 minutes for the Los Angeles Lakers in their season opener, against the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center, becoming the youngest NBA player ever: 18 years and 6 days old. The Lakers won, 99-97.
Ironically, but appropriately, the center had been personally instructed in the preseason by Laker legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had once been thought to have been the NBA's oldest player ever. Kareem was 42 when he bowed out after the 1989 Finals, but later research showed that Pat Hickey, who played with the Providence Steamrollers in the league's 1st 2 seasons, was just short of 46 when he last played in 1948.
Bynum is now 32, but his record still stands. He won NBA Championships with the Lakers in 2009 and '10, and was an NBA All-Star in 2012. But injuries have rendered his career apparently over, well before it should have been. But then, he does have 2 titles, and I don't think we'll be seeing any more 18-year-olds playing in the NBA -- certainly not for a team with a pedigree anywhere near the Lakers'.
November 2, 2009, 10 years ago: Game 5 of the World Series. Trying to stave off elimination at home at the hands of the Yankees, the defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies back Cliff Lee with a 6-1 lead after 3 innings, thanks to 2 home runs by Chase Utley (a future Met villain) and another by Raul Ibanez (a future Yankee hero). Utley's shots tie him with Reggie Jackson for the record for most home runs in a single World Series: 5.
The Phillies lead 8-2 after 7, but the Yankees come storming back, and close to within 8-6 with the tying runs on in the 9th. As the Fox cameras panned Citizens Bank Park, I could see the looks on the faces of Phillies fans. They weren't thinking of how they'd won the Series the year before, or in 1980. Most of them remembered the Series defeat of 1993. Many remembered the Playoff disaster of 1977. Some remembered September "Phillie Phlop" of 1964. They all at least knew of the earlier team disasters. They all seemed to be saying, "Oh, no, it's happening again!"
But Ryan Madson gets the final out for the save, and the Phillies would play Game 6 in New York 2 nights later.
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November 2, 2010: Clyde King dies in his hometown of Goldsboro, North Carolina. He was 86. A mediocre major league pitcher, he won Pennants with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and 1952, being in their minor-league system during the Pennant season of 1949 and traded to the Cincinnati Reds before their 1953 Pennant.
He managed the San Francisco Giants in 1969-70, the Atlanta Braves in 1974-75, and the Yankees for the last 2 months of the turbulent 1982 season. He was also Yankee general manager in 1985 and '86. From 1976 until 1990, he worked in various capacities for the Yankees, as one of what George Steinbrenner called "my baseball people."
Unfortunately, most Yankee fans will forever remember him for being the guy George sent to Yogi Berra's office to fire him as manager early in the 1985 season, because George was too cowardly to do his own dirty work. Yogi never blamed Clyde for doing George's job at that moment, and wouldn't have blamed George if he had done it himself. But George wouldn't do it himself, and it It took 14 years to heal the breach between them.
November 2, 2013: The Vancouver Canucks retire the Number 10 of Pavel Bure, and beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-0 at the Rogers Arena.
On the same day, the Colorado Avalanche retire the Number 52 of Adam Foote, and beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 at the Pepsi Center.
On the same day, Walt Bellamy dies in the Atlanta suburb of College Park, Georgia at age 74. The Basketball Hall-of-Famer starred at Indiana University while Bobby Knight was an opponent, at Ohio State. He was a member of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
"Bells" was an original 1961-62 member of the Chicago Packers -- yes, NFL fans, that was a real name -- and won the NBA Rookie of the Year with them that season. He moved with them in 1963 to become the Baltimore Bullets. It is now known as the Washington Wizards. He became a Knick in 1965, and in 1968 was traded to the Detroit Pistons for Dave DeBusschere, the most important trade in Knick history. A 4-time All-Star, he played out his career with the Atlanta Hawks and the expansion New Orleans Jazz in 1974.
November 2, 2014: Herman Sarkowsky dies in Seattle at age 89. Fleeing Nazi Germany with his Jewish family, he became the largest housebuilder in the Pacific Northwest. In 1970, he founded the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, selling them in 1975. In 1976, he and the Nordstrom family of department-store fame founded the NFL's Seattle Seahawks. He sold his stake in 1988.
November 2, 2016: To paraphrase Shirley Povich of The Washington Post, when the Brooklyn Dodgers finally did it 61 years earlier...
Please don't interrupt, because, unless you are over the age of 110, you have not heard this one before: The Chicago Cubs are the world champions of baseball.
Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, played at Progressive Field in Cleveland, was not a great game. Indeed, it was very sloppy. But it was great theater. Dexter Fowler, Javier Baez and David Ross hit home runs for the Cubs, and Rajai Davis hit one for the Cleveland Indians. But the Cubs made 3 errors, the Indians 1. The Cubs blew leads of 1-0 in the 3rd inning, and 6-3 in the 8th, and their fans must have thought that it was never going to happen, even though they had already come back from being 3 games to 1 down.
The game went to extra innings, and then it rained. So each of these seemingly cursed teams -- the Cubs hadn't won a World Series since 1908, the Indians since 1948 -- had, at least in theory, an equal chance.
Kyle Schwarber led off the top of the 10th with a single, and was replaced by pinch-runner Albert Almora. Kris Bryant flew out to center, but Almora got gutsy, and tagged up and got to 2nd. Anthony Rizzo was walked intentionally to set up the double play, but the strategy didn't work: Ben Zobrist hit an RBI double into the left field corner, the biggest hit in the Cubs' 142-season history. Addison Russell was walked intentionally, and Miguel Montero singled him home to make it 8-6. Cub fans could feel it finally happening after 108 years.
But the Indians weren't going down without a fight. In the bottom of the 10th, after Carl Edwards Jr. pitched the Cubs to within 1 out of glory, he walked Brandon Guyer, who took 2nd on defensive indifference.
Davis singled him home to make it 8-7, and Cub fans were staring at the choke to end all chokes, the Billy Goatiest Curse of the Billy Goat ever. But manager Joe Maddon brought Mike Montgomery on to relieve, and he got Michael Martinez to ground to 3rd, and Bryant threw him out to end it.
Thankfully, I have yet to see any evidence that Cub fans have followed up the end to their drought by acting like bastards, the way Red Sox fans did after 2004 and New York Ranger fans did after 1994.
November 2, 2042, only 23 years from today: According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
episode "If Wishes Were Horses," this was the day that baseball died.
It was Game 7 of the World Series, and only 300 people attended, perhaps a side effect of World War III having gone on since 2026 (only 7 years from now), in the Star Trek chronology. Buck Bokai hit a home run, and the London Kings won.
I am a devoted Trekkie. Not so much that I dress up (or "cosplay") and go to conventions, but enough that I dismiss the J.J. Abrams films of 2009-16 and the current CBS series Star Trek: Discovery as "alternate timelines" and "non-canon." But one big problem I have with Star Trek is their account of the death of baseball, at a time when I could well still be alive. (I would be 72 years old.)
In contrast, another science-fiction series of the 1990s, Space Precinct, showed the 42,000-seat Tokyo Dome jammed with spectators for Game 1 of the 2040 World Series between the Yankees and the Yomiuri Giants. I'd much prefer that scenario.
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