October 18, 1968: Bob Beamon's Leap

October 18, 1968, 50 years ago: Bob Beamon sets a world record in the long jump at the Olympic Games at the Estadio Universitario in Mexico City.

How long is it? It's so long, it's beyond the means of the available measuring equipment. As with Mickey Mantle's home runs, but with far more need, a tape measure is found, and an accurate measurement is taken: 8.90 meters.

The crowd is stunned. But, as an American, not familiar with the metric system, Beamon doesn't know what 8.90 meters means. The old world record was 27 feet, 7¼ inches. Beamon's jump is 29 feet, 2½ inches. He has broken both the 28-foot and 29-foot barriers.

In the Olympics, where races -- on foot, in pools, on bicycles, on skis, on boats, and in various Winter sports vehicles -- are determined by hundredths of seconds, and distances by fractions of an inch, he has not only surpassed the old record by a foot and a half, he's increased it by nearly 6 percent.

He collapses into the arms of his teammate, Ralph Boston, the 1960 Gold Medalist and the 1964 Silver Medalist in the event, who ends up taking the Bronze Medal this time. Lynn Davies, the Welshman who won the 1964 Gold Medal for Great Britain, tells him, "You have destroyed this event." He does not medal at all. Nor does Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, the half-Ukranian, half-Armenian competing for the Soviet Union: After Bronze Medals in 1960 and 1964, he finishes 4th this time. The Silver Medal goes to Klaus Beer of East Germany, who jumps 26 feet, 10½ inches -- 28 inches short of the Gold.

Beamon's jump becomes known as the Leap of the Century, and stands as a world record for 23 years, before Mike Powell extends it by 2 inches in 1991. It still stands as an Olympic record.

Beamon was a native of South Jamaica, Queens, New York, the same neighborhood that produced Governor Mario Cuomo, rapper 50 Cent, and my Grandma. After that Gold Medal, he was drafted by one of the NBA's brand-new expansion teams, the Phoenix Suns. He didn't sign, staying at Long Island's Adelphi University and getting his degree. He now operates a museum in Florida. It has now been 53 years -- including 13 Olympiads -- since Beamon's jump, and, to this day, only 1 man has beaten it.

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October 18, 1968 was a Friday. Football was in midweek, so there were no games. The baseball season had ended on October 10, with the Detroit Tigers beating the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 to win the World Series. There were no games played in the ABA and the NHL. But there  were 4 NBA games played:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 114-96 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Elgin Baylor scored 36 points for the Lakers, but it wasn't enough, as Hal Greer's 35 led the Sixers to victory.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-88 at Cobo Hall in Detroit. (The building still stands, but is now named the TCF Center.)

* The Phoenix Suns, the team that Bob Beamon turned down, play the 1st game ever played by a major league team calling Arizona home. They win it, too, getting 27 points from Gail Goodrich, and defeating last year's expansion team, the Seattle SuperSonics, 116-107 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

* And the San Diego Rockets beat the San Francisco Warriors, 123-108 at the Cow Palace in the San Francisco suburb of Daly City, California. For the 1971-72 season, the Rockets moved to Houston, and the Warriors moved across San Francisco Bay to Oakland, and changed their name to the Golden State Warriors.