Jerry Remy, 1952-2021

In New York, Phil Rizzuto was a beloved player who became even more beloved as a broadcaster. In Philadelphia, it was Richie Ashburn. In Cleveland, Herb Score. In Cincinnati, Joe Nuxhall. In Chicago, Ron Santo. In Houston, Larry Dierker. In San Francisco, Mike Krukow.

In Boston, it's Jerry Remy.

Gerald Peter Remy was born on November 8, 1952 in the Boston suburb of Fall River, Massachusetts.  He grew up in nearby Somerset. He was drafted by the Washington Senators in 1970, but didn't sign. So he was eligible to be drafted again in 1971, and the California Angels selected him, and he did sign.

He made his major league debut on April 7, 1975, singling off Steve Busby, but was picked off. Still, the Angels beat the Royals, 3-2 at Anaheim Stadium. He played 2nd base for the Angels through the 1977 season, then was traded to his hometown Boston Red Sox for pitcher Don Aase.

The Red Sox needed a 2nd baseman to replace the light-hitting Denny Doyle. Remy fit the bill, as he got on base more, and was a better fielder. He and his double-play partner, shortstop Rick Burleson, were big reasons why the Red Sox led the American League Eastern Division most of the season. During the June 1978 games between the Red Sox and the arch-rival Yankees, it seemed as though he was always on base, and the Yankees hit grounder after grounder right at him. I got sick of him.

But the Sox collapsed, and the Yankees surged. A Playoff was needed to decide the American League Eastern Division title. In the 9th inning, with the Yankees leading 5-4, Remy hit the ball that Lou Piniella couldn't see, but managed to hold him to a single. Remy would have been the winning run had Carl Yastrzemski been able to get him and tying run Burleson home, but the Yankees hung on to win.

Remy never appeared in the postseason -- or, if you count the Bucky Dent Game, he never appeared in it again. Although he could still hit when healthy, injuries took over, and he was released after the 1985 season. With Marty Barrett at 2nd base in 1986, the Red Sox won the Pennant, and came as close as any team ever has to winning the World Series without actually winning it. Remy finished his career with a .275 batting average, 7 home runs, 329 RBIs and 208 stolen bases.

In 1988, "RemDawg" became a Red Sox broadcaster, and became more popular than ever, helping to call the games of 4 World Championship teams *. He also owned RemDawg's, a concession stand on Yawkey Way across from Fenway Park; and Jerry Remy's Sports Bar & Grill, on Boylston Street behind Fenway. The Red Sox elected him to their team Hall of Fame. In 2007, fans voted him the honorary president of "Red Sox Nation."

But in 2008, he began dealing with cancer. His fight had its ups and downs, and, for a while, it looked like he might beat it. He beat it until he no longer could, and died this past Saturday, October 30, 2021, just short of what would have been his 69th birthday.

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November 1, 1816: James Monroe, then Secretary of State, is elected the 5th President of the United States. The nominee of the Democratic-Republican Party, forerunner of today's Democratic Party, defeats Rufus King, then a Senator from New York, and the nominee of the Federalist Party, 183 Electoral Votes to 34, taking every State but Massachusetts (22 EVs right there), Connecticut and Delaware.

Popular votes were not counted in every State, so it's not clear how many votes Monroe and King got. Still, this was the last gasp of the Federalist Party.

November 1, 1820: Monroe is re-elected, almost without opposition. The Federalists did not nominate a candidate for President. This was in spite of the Panic of 1819 having hurt the country's economy.

Monroe got 228 Electoral Votes -- all but 1. William Plumer, an Elector from New Hampshire who had served that State as Senator and Governor, cast his vote for Monroe's Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. George Washington thus remained, and still does remain, the only man to be elected President by a unanimous Electoral Vote.

Contrary to legend, that was not Plumer's intent. Rather, he publicly admitted that he preferred Adams as President to Monroe. Four years later, with Monroe respecting the 2-term tradition established by Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Plumer got his wish.

The Democratic-Republicans would face opposition, but not under the Federalist banner. By 1832, the dominant party was renamed the Democratic Party, and the Whig Party had replaced the Federalists as the pro-business party in America. By 1860, they'd be out as such, and the Republican Party would be in.

November 1, 1844: James Knox Polk is elected the 11th President of the United States. The Democrat, who had served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and then as Governor of Tennessee, defeated Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, who thus became the 1st man to go 0-for-3 in Presidential elections. Others have done so, but Clay is the only man to be nominated 3 times and lose all 3.

The popular vote was actually very close, since Clay, a leading figure in American politics for over 30 years, was better-known nationally than Polk: Polk won 49.5 percent of the popular vote, making him the 1st plurality President since the popular vote began being recorded from every State then in the Union (starting in 1828); while Clay won 48.1 percent. The Electoral Vote was less close, as Polk won 170-105.

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November 1, 1870: The Mutuals of New York visit the Chicago White Stockings at Dexter Park in Chicago before 6,000 people. With Chicago leading 7-5 after 8 innings, the Mutuals score 8 runs in the top of the 9th, to make it 13-7.

In the bottom of the 9th, Chicago adopts a waiting game, and the Mutuals' pitcher, Dutch-born Reinder Albertus "Rynie" Wolters, loads the bases on walks‚ and complains that the umpire is not calling strikes. A few hits and passed balls make the score 13-12 in favor of the Mutes when McAfee‚ the next batter for the Whites‚ lets a dozen balls go by without swinging. Wolters throws up his hands and walks off. The ump reverts the score to the 8th inning and the White Stockings win‚ 7-5.

Chicago has now defeated the Mutes twice since they took the Championship away from the Atlantics. The controversial ending of the game makes the Mutual club unwilling to give up the Championship.

The New York Clipper, the closest thing America had to a sports-only publication in those days, says‚ "In 1867 the Union club happened to defeat the Atlantics two games out of three of the regular series them played between them - only one series being played between clubs at that time. By this victory a precedent was established giving the championship title only to the club that defeated the existing champions two games while they were the champions. Of course this is an absurd rule but it has prevailed ever since."

November 1, 1871, 150 years ago: Stephen Crane (no middle name) is born in Newark, New Jersey. He published his 1st novel in 1893, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Its themes of poverty, including alcoholism and prostitution, made it incredibly controversial for its time. In 1895, despite having no military experience -- indeed, he was born 6 years after the end of the war depicted in it, the American Civil War -- he published The Red Badge of Courage, and made himself a legend of American letters.

He was soon hired as a foreign correspondent for William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, covering the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the Spanish-American War of 1898, and the Boer War. But he developed tuberculosis, and died from it in 1900, only 28 years old.  

November 1, 1874: The National Association season ends today, with the Boston Red Stockings being declared the Champions with a record of 43-17. Boston actually had a record of 52-18, but the Committee running the league throws out the games played by the Baltimore Canaries (not "Orioles"), because they did not complete their schedule. The Mutuals finish 2nd.

November 1, 1880: Henry Grantland Rice is born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. After playing baseball at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, he moved into journalism. There had already been some well-known men named Henry Rice, so Grantland Rice used his middle name from then onward. His friends would call him "Granny."

He became the leading sports voice in the South, at Nashville's The Tennessean, before going to the

New York Tribune, which syndicated him nationally. In 1924, he covered the Army-Notre Dame game at the Polo Grounds in New York, and gave Notre Dame's backfield its nickname: The Four Horsemen. He also helped popularize Red Grange nationally, although, contrary to popular belief, he did not come up with Grange's nickname, the Galloping Ghost. Perhaps because of these connections, when Walter Camp died in 1925, the NCAA asked Rice to take over Camp's selections of college football's All-America team.

If the 1920s truly were "The Golden Age of Sports," Rice's writings were a big reason why, promoting Grange and Knute Rockne's Notre Dame in football, Babe Ruth in baseball, Jack Dempsey in boxing, Bill Tilden in tennis and Bobby Jones in golf. He helped to popularize golf among the masses, through his championing of Jones and, starting in 1934, Jones' tournament in Augusta, Georgia, The Masters.

Rice died in 1954, at which point it was easy to remember his most famous writing, though everyone forgets its source, a 1908 poem titled Alumnus Football:

For when the One Great Scorer comes
to mark against your name
He writes, not that you won or lost
but how you played the Game.

In 1966, a few years after the Baseball Hall of Fame established its J.G. Taylor Spink Award, tantamount to election for sportswriters, it gave the award to Rice.

November 1, 1884: The Gaelic Athletic Association is founded at Hayes's Hotel in Thurles, County Tipperary, in what's now the Republic of Ireland. The GAA governs the traditional Irish sports such as hurling and Gaelic football -- but not Irish soccer, which is governed by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI). The Northern Ireland equivalent is the Irish Football Association (IFA).

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November 1, 1901, 120 years ago: The Colored Industrial and Agricultural School is founded in Ruston, Louisiana. Like many of what will become America's "historically black colleges and universities" (HCBUs), it is founded near an all-white school, in this case Louisiana Tech.

By the time Eddie Robinson becomes its head football coach in 1941, it is known as the Louisiana Negro and Normal Institute. (In those days, colleges for teaching teachers were known as "normal schools.") In 1946, a white sawmill owner, Judson H. Grambling, donated some land on which the school could build. As a result, the school was renamed Grambling State University, and a new town, Grambling, was created.

Robinson would coach at Grambling from 1941 until 1997, when it became clear that Alzheimer's disease had begun to affect his judgement, and he died in 2007. He became the winningest coach in the history of NCAA Division I football (although Division I-AA, now called the Football Championship Subdivision of FCS), with 408 wins against 165 losses and 15 ties. He won 17 titles in the Southwest Athletic Conference (SWAC) from 1960 to 1994, and 9 "black college national championships": 1955, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983 and 1992.

Four of his players would be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Willie Davis, Buck Buchanan, Willie Brown and Charlie Joiner. Arguably, his 1st great player also should be, Paul "Tank" Younger. He also coached Doug Williams, who became the 1st black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, and ultimately succeeded him as Grambling head coach.

His success made Grambling (the "State" is usually not referred to) perhaps America's most familiar HBCU. Its band is also renowned, and was invited to perform at Super Bowl I in 1967. The Northern Louisiana school's rivalry with formerly all-black Southern University in Baton Rouge is played every Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend at the Superdome in New Orleans, known as the Bayou Classic -- and the halftime "Battle of the Bands" is considered more important by many alumni than the actual game.

November 1, 1925: After 3 defeats, plus 5 games against non-NFL teams, the expansion New York Giants finally win a game against another NFL team, defeating the 3-time defending Champion Cleveland Bulldogs, 19-0 at the Polo Grounds.

However, the win is not as impressive as it may seem, because the champs had fallen apart due to a dispute over the rights to pro football in the Cleveland area. And only 18,000 fans came out. Still, for the Giants, a win is a win.

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November 1, 1931, 90 years ago: Henry Ford (no middle name) is born, no, not in Detroit, but outside Pittsburgh in Homestead, Pennsylvania. A quarterback and defensive back at the University of Pittsburgh, he was the 1st black quarterback at a college that wasn't what we would now call a historically black college or university (HBCU).

Naturally nicknamed "Model T," Henry was drafted by the Cleveland Browns, and was a rookie on their 1955 NFL Championship team. He is 1 of 8 surviving players from that team. He played with his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers in 1956 and 1957. But a Steeler official -- probably not team owner Art Rooney -- told him that, as a black player, he couldn't date a white woman. He quit the team, and married the white woman he was dating. They're still together.

He played semi-pro ball in Arizona for 2 years, then moved back to Pittsburgh and worked in the Acme grocery store chain. In 1977, he moved to Palo Alto, California, and made a fortune on Coca-Cola's vending operations in the the San Francisco Bay Area.

November 1, 1932: Alger Joseph Arbour is born in Sudbury, Ontario. A defenseman, he won the Stanley Cup with 3 different teams: The 1954 Detroit Red Wings, the 1961 Chicago Blackhawks and the 1962 and '64 (but not '63) Toronto Maple Leafs. He also reached the Stanley Cup Finals with the 1968, '69 and '70 St. Louis Blues.

But it's as a coach that he's remembered, taking the New York Islanders from expansion team (though not as their very first head coach) to 4 straight Stanley Cups in 1980, '81, '82 and '83. His 1,500 games and 740 games won are each 2nd all-time in NHL history behind Scotty Bowman, his coach in St. Louis. He's in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the Islanders hang a banner at the Barclays Center with "1500," his wins standing in for his "retired number." He died in 2015.

November 1, 1946, 75 years ago: The right foot of Cleveland owner Bill Veeck is amputated‚ a result of a war injury in the South Pacific 2 years before. At this point, Veeck has already had a tremendous impact on promotion in a half season of ownership. A minor but typical change is the regular posting of NL scores on the Cleveland scoreboard‚ a departure from the long-standing practice of both Leagues, whose teams would only post the scores from around their own League.

Veeck doesn't let the amputation slow him down. He walks around on a prosthesis, and frequently stubs out his cigarette on it. He even says, "I'm not disabled. I'm crippled." In other words, his ability was reduced, but not eliminated. And, as long as his brain worked (however strangely at times), he had plenty of ability.

Also on this day, Richard Lee Baney is born in the Los Angeles suburb of Fullerton, California. Dick Baney pitched for the Seattle Pilots in 1969, and was mentioned a few times in Jim Bouton's book Ball Four. He also pitched for the Cincinnati Reds in 1973 and '74. He now invests in and manages real estate.

Also on this day, James Earl Kennedy is born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A middle infielder, he played 12 games in the major leagues, all for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1970, batting .125. His younger brother Junior Kennedy was a 2nd baseman in the majors from 1974 to 1983. Both are still alive.

Also on this day, William Anton Lesuk is born in Mosse Jaw, Saskatchewan. A left wing, he played 8 seasons in the NHL and 4 more in the WHA. He played 3 games for the Boston Bruins in the 1969-70 regular season, and 2 more in the Playoffs, allowing him to get his name on the Stanley Cup.

He eventually went from penthouse to outhouse, as an original 1974-75 Washington Capital, the worst team of the NHL's modern era. But he also played for the Winnipeg Jets' WHA Champions of 1976, 1978, and 1979. He is still alive.

Also on this day, Richard Roman Grech is born in Bordeaux, France, and grows up in Leicester, England. He was the bass guitarist for a progressive rock group called Family when, in 1969, he was invited to join a new "supergroup" called Blind Faith, with the other members all being far better known: Lead guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker from Cream, and keyboardist Steve Winwood from Traffic. The group recorded 1 album, toured behind it, and split up upon the comparative failure of both.

In the 1970s, Grech would record with Winwood in a revived Traffic, and with Baker in Ginger Baker's Air Force. In 1974, he formed another supergroup, KGB. He was the G, while singer Ray Kennedy was the K, and guitarist Mike Bloomfield of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band was the B. This group also had drummer Carmine Appice of Vanilla Fudge and Chicago session keyboardist Barry Goldberg.

KGB went nowhere and in 1977, Grech quit music and became a carpet salesman back in Leicester. His drug use caught up with him, and he died in 1990.

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November 1, 1951, 70 years ago: Shanghai Greenland Shenhua Football Club is founded in Shanghai, China's "second city." Known as Shenua -- literally "The Flower of Shanghai" -- they won China's national league in 1961, 1962, 1995 and 2003, but were stripped of the 2003 title after it was found that they'd engaged in match-fixing. They've also won the Chinese FA Cup in 1956, 1991, 1998, 2017 and 2019.

Understandably, the rivalry big enough to be called "The China Derby" is between the biggest teams in each of the country's 2 largest cities: Shanghai Shenhua and Beijing Guoan. They also play the Shanghai Derby with Shanghai SIPG. Among their recent players have been Didier Drogba, the Ivorian forward formerly of West London's Chelsea, known for his diving; and Stephan El Shaarawy, the Italian forward of Egyptian descent who previously starred for AC Milan and AS Roma.

Also on this day, Karl-Heinz Granitza is born in Lünen, Germany. A striker, he starred in his homeland for Hertha Berlin. Then he came to America, and helped the Chicago Sting win the North American Soccer League title in 1981 and 1984 (the League's last season).

He continued to pay for Chicago teams in the Major Indoor Soccer League. When he returned to Berlin, he opened an American-themed sports bar named for a prominent Chicago thoroughfare: State Street. He is a member of America's National Soccer Hall of Fame.

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November 1, 1961, 60 years ago: Anne Theresa Donovan is born in Ridgewood, Bergen County, New Jersey. A graduate of Paramus Catholic High School, she led Norfolk's Old Dominion University to the AIAW title, the closest thing women's college basketball then had to a National Championship, in 1980. But she had to go abroad to play pro ball, and played in Japan and Italy.

She went into coaching, and was head coach at East Carolina and back home at Seton Hall. In the WNBA, she coached the Indiana Fever, the Charlotte Sting, the Seattle Storm, the New York Liberty and the Connecticut Sun.

She played for the U.S. teams that won the Olympic Gold Medal in 1984 in Los Angeles and 1988 in Seoul, Korea; and coached them to the Gold Medal in 2004 in Athens, Greece and 2008 in Beijing, China. She died of heart failure in 2018, at age 56.

Also on this day, Derek Ervin Smith is born in Hogansville, Georgia. A guard, he was a member of the University of Louisville's National Championship team of 1980, he was named the Metro Conference's Player of the Year the next season.

He played 9 seasons in the NBA, and later served as an assistant coach with the Washington Bullets. He still held that post on August 9, 1996, when, aboard the cruise ship MS Dreamward, he suffered a heart attack and died at age 35. The ship had been rented by Abe Pollin for season ticketholders of the Bullets and the NHL's Washington Capitals, both of which he owned. Smith and Bullets layer Tim Legler were holding a basketball clinic aboard the ship when Smith was stricken.

His son Nolan Smith was just 8 years old. He went to Duke, and reached the Final Four with them in 2010. He later played 2 seasons for the Portland Trail Blazers, led Cedevita Junior to the 2014 Croatian league title, and now works in Duke's athletic department.

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November 1, 1970: The 1st regular-season game between the Giants and the Jets is played. Despite having the home-field advantage in front of 63,903 fans at Shea Stadium, and being less than 2 years removed from their Super Bowl win, the Jets are defeated by the Giants, 22-10.

It was the 4th game of a 6-game winning streak for the Giants, who finished 9-5. The Jets, on the other hand, looked nothing like a recent champion, as this was the 5th game of a 6-game losing streak, and they finished 4-10.

November 1, 1971, 50 years ago: Cold Spring Harbor, the 1st album by 22-year-old Billy Joel, is released on Family Productions Records. It includes the songs "She's Got a Way" and "Everybody Loves You Now," both now thought of as among Billy's best. But the record is made at the wrong speed, and the songs don't sound right. Billy gets out of his contract, signs with Columbia Records, releases Piano Man 2 years later, and the rest is history.

Also on this day, the Toronto Sun is founded, a tabloid in both format and style, and a conservative counterpoint to the liberal broadsheet Toronto Star. Among its sports reporters have been George Gross, Jim Hunt and Ted Reeve.

November 1, 1975: The Summit opens on the west side of Houston, with a concert raising money for local hospitals, headlined by singer Andy Williams.

It was the home of the NBA's Houston Rockets from 1975 to 2003, the World Hockey Association's Houston Aeros from 1975 to 1978, a minor-league version of the Aeros from 1994 to 2003, and the Houston Comets of the WNBA from 1997 to 2003. The Rockets won NBA titles there in 1994 nd '95, while the Comets won the WNBA's 1st 4 titles, from 1997 to 2000. The Toyota Center opened in 2003, and the Rockets and Comets moved in. The Comets folded after the 2008 season, joining the Aeros in oblivion.

In 1998, the City of Houston sold the arena's naming rights, and it became the Compaq Center. In 2005, it was bought by Lakewood Church, for use as its Central Campus. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, and the megachurch's boss, the fabulously wealthy "prosperity gospel" Pastor Joel Osteen, refused to open the arena to refugees, due to severe flooding. The media proved this to be a lie: That section of Houston was not flooded. Busted, Osteen opened the building.

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November 1, 1981, 40 years ago: Evan Bradley Mathis is born in Birmingham, Alabama. A guard, he played 12 seasons in the NFL, made the 2013 and 2014 Pro Bowls, and was a member of the Denver Broncos when they won Super Bowl 50. He is now a professional poker player.

Also on this day, the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda is granted independence by Britain. They remain members of the British Commonwealth.

November 1, 1984: The Los Angeles Clippers play their 1st home game after moving up the California coast from San Diego, at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. They had played 2 away games first. Oddly enough, their 1st game under the Los Angeles name was away to the Utah Jazz, the team they beat in their last game in San Diego.

The Clips beat the Knicks, 107-105. Last season's breakout Knicks star, Bernard King, scores 25, but some players who had won NBA Championships elsewhere lead the Clips to victory: 1971 Milwaukee Buck Junior Bridgeman, 1980 and '82 Laker Norm Nixon, and, overcoming a never-ending foot injury, 1977 Portland Trail Blazer, San Diego native and UCLA star Bill Walton.

For several years, this opener stood as the highlight of Los Angeles Clipper basketball, as, much like the Nets behind the Knicks in the New York Tri-State Area, they have been stuck behind the Lakers, partly due to the older team being so well-established, successful and popular, and partly due to their own perennial losing, due to then-team owner Donald Sterling caring only about schmoozing his pals at the games rather than winning.

November 1, 1988: Masahiro Tanaka is born in Itami, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. After starring in his homeland for the Sendai-based Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, he signed with the Yankees in 2014, and became an All-Star in his rookie season.

He has helped the Yankees reach the Playoffs in 4 of the last 5 seasons, and, until Gerrit Cole was signed as his teammate, was the closest thing to a real ace that New York baseball currently has. (And I don't want to hear about any of the Mets' starting pitchers. They would get slaughtered in the American League.) He was 99-36 in Japan, and is 78-46 for the Yankees.

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November 1, 1994: ADX Florence opens, the federal “supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado. It is the new Alcatraz: Home for the worst of the worst, and no one has ever escaped from it.

Notable current residents include, in chronological order of their crimes: Theodore Kaczynski, the "Unabomber"; Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1st World Trade Center bombing in 1993; Terry Nichols, the surviving Oklahoma City bomber; Eric Rudolph, the bomber of abortion clinics and the 1996 Olympic Park in Atlanta; Zacarias Moussaoui, "the 20th Hijacker" on 9/11; Richard Reid, the "Shoe Bomber"; Robert Hansen, the FBI Agent convicted of spying for Russia; Umar Abdulmutallab, the 2009 "Underwear Bomber"; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving brother from the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Joaquin Guzman, the Mexican drug lord known as "El Chapo."

November 1, 1996, 25 years ago: The Philadelphia 76ers play their 1st game at their new arena, then named the CoreStates Center, losing 111-103 to the Milwaukee Bucks. The arena is now known as the Wells Fargo Center, and the 76ers have reached the NBA Finals only once since moving in, in 2001.

Also on this day, Fox Sports Net makes its debut.

November 1, 1997: The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum opens in its new home in Kansas City‚ Missouri. It had been occupying a temporary site there for 4 years.

November 1, 1999: Chicago Bears legend Walter Payton dies of a rare liver disease in the Chicago suburb of South Barrington, Illinois. The NFL's former all-time leading rusher, and one of the real good guys of sports history, was only 45. As part of their 100th Season celebrations, the Bears named him 1st on their list of their 100 Greatest Players.

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November 1, 2001, 20 years ago: Game 5 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. Steve Finley and Rod Barajas hit solo home runs for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 5th inning, and those remain the only runs of the game going into the bottom of the 9th.

In the top of the 8th, with the rumor going around that Paul O'Neill will retire after the Series (which turned out to be true), and, knowing that, win or lose, this was his last game at Yankee Stadium, Yankee Fans start chanting his name. It was a rare moment when Yankee Fans decided that there was something more important than winning: In this case, saying, "Thank you" to a team legend.

In an amazing case of history repeating itself‚ the Yankees again come from 2 runs down with 2 outs in the 9th inning, to win 3-2 in 12 innings. Byung-Hyun Kim is again victimized‚ this time by Scott Brosius' 2-run HR in the 9th. Alfonso Soriano's single wins it in the 12th. Steve Finley and Rod Barajas homer in the 5th for Arizona's runs.

In 97 previous years of World Series play, only twice had teams come from 2 or more runs down in the bottom of the 9th to win a game. The Yankees had now done it on back-to-back nights -- albeit in different months (October 31 & November 1).

Also on this day, the Memphis Grizzlies play their 1st game, after 6 seasons in Vancouver. But they get torched by 34 points from Jerry Stackhouse, and lose 90-80 to the Detroit Pistons, at the arena then named the Great American Pyramid.

November 1, 2009: Game 4 of the World Series at Citizens Bank Park. Yankee manager Joe Girardi starts CC Sabathia, the ALCS MVP but the loser of this Series' Game 1, on 3 days' rest. It seems to work, as the Yankees lead the Philadelphia Phillies 4-2 going into the bottom of the 7th.

One of the Phils' runs shouldn't have counted, because Ryan Howard didn't touch the plate. This could have been an epic controversy. And it might have been, because Chase Utley hits a home run off CC in the 7th, and Pedro Feliz hits one off Joba Chamberlain in the 8th to tie it.

But in the 9th, Johnny Damon fouls off pitch after pitch from Brad Lidge before singling with 2 outs. Mark Teixeira was up, and the Phils go into their lefthanders' switch. This is an echo of the shift used by the Cardinals on Ted Williams of the Red Sox in the 1946 World Series. But Damon realizes that, if he steals 2nd, he could steal 3rd, too, because no one would be covering. He goes for it, bringing up memories of another factor of the '46 Series, Enos Slaughter's "Mad Dash" that won Game 7 for the Cardinals.

Unnerved, Lidge accidentally hits Teix, and Alex Rodriguez gets the biggest hit of his career (and it remained so), a double to score Damon. Jorge Posada singles home Teix and A-Rod, and Mariano Rivera shuts the Phils down it the bottom of the 9th, securing a 7-4 Yankee victory, stunning the defending World Champions in their own raucous, not strangely silent, house. The Yanks can wrap it up tomorrow night.

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November 1, 2010: The Giants win their 1st World Series since moving to San Francisco. Edgar Renteria, who drove in the winning run for the Florida Marlins against the Cleveland Indians in the 11th inning during Game 7 of the 1997 Fall Classic, joins Yankees legends Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra as only the 4th player in baseball history to collect two World Series-winning hits. (He had also made the last out for the St. Louis Cardinals as the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series *.)

The Series MVP's 3-run homer off Cliff Lee in the 7th inning leads to San Francisco's 3-1 victory over the Rangers, and brings an end to 56 seasons of what some Giants fans had been, in recent days, describing as "torture." (Clearly, they'd never been truly tortured.)

November 1, 2013: The Brooklyn Nets play their home opener at the Barclays Center, and retire the Number 5 of Jason Kidd. Although he was then their head coach, and remains the only player to lead the team to the NBA Finals (in New Jersey in 2002 and 2003), Kidd never played for the Brooklyn edition of the team. They beat the defending Eastern Conference Champion Miami Heat of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, 101-100.

November 1, 2015: Game 5 of the World Series at Citi Field. Curtis Granderson hits a home run in the bottom of the 1st inning, giving the Mets a 1-0 lead over the Kansas City Royals. The Mets make it 2-0 in the 6th, and Matt Harvey holds that lead into the top of the 9th.

But the Mets pull off a unique feat: They blow leads in every single game of a World Series. (Including in Game 3, which they came back to win anyway.) Only the Mets, right?

Harvey convinces manager Terry Collins to leave him in, and he walks the leadoff hitter, Lorenzo Cain. Eric Hosmer doubles Cain home, and Collins now pulls Harvey for Jeurys Familia. A groundout gets Hosmer to 3rd, and a fielding blunder by the Mets (surprise, surprise) results in the tying run coming home. Familia's 8 blown saves in a single postseason ties the record set by Robb Nen of the 2002 San Francisco Giants -- who, unlike Familia, does have a World Series ring, with the 1997 Florida Marlins.

The game goes to the 12th inning. Royals catcher Salvador Pérez singles off Addison Reed. Royals manager Ned Yost sends Jarrod Dyson in to pinch-run for him. Christian Colón singles him home, and then the unrelated Bartolo Colón is brought in, and he melts down. It remains the worst extra-inning performance in the 116-year history of the World Series. The Royals win the game 7-2, and win their 2nd World Series, their 1st in 30 years.

The Royals proved what the Yankees had proven in the regular season, what Chase Utley proved in the NL Division Series, and what nobody else, not the other Dodgers, nor the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS, seemed willing to prove: Stand up to the Mets, and they will fold. This pattern held in 2016, as the Mets reached the NL Wild Card game, but losing it.

In the 1995 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Past Tense, Part II," partly set in the year 2024, Captain Benjamin Sisko, a baseball fan despite living in the 24th Century, gave his opinion that the greatest baseball team of all time was the 2015 London Kings, pointing out that it was the rookie season of Japanese-American shortstop Harmon "Buck" Bokai. This suggests that the Kings won the 2015 World Series. Another person in the scene says the greatest team ever was the 1999 Yankees.

The scene came closer to getting it right than anyone could have expected: The Yankees did go on to win the World Series in 1999, going 11-1 in the postseason, following their 114-48 regular season and 11-2 postseason of the year before; and the 2015 World Series was won by a team with a regal name. 

Other Trek episodes had the Yankees beating the London Kings in the World Series in 2032, and losing to them in 2042, after which -- possibly due to World War III being fought in the show's stimeline -- baseball had so badly dropped in popularity that it was stopped, a major problem I have with Star Trek.

However, despite the Yankees' real-life 2 regular-season games with the Boston Red Sox in London in 2019, I seriously doubt that MLB will put a team in London by 2032, or even 2042. But at least the sport should remain popular well beyond then.  

November 1, 2019: The movie Blade Runner, which came out in 1982, takes place in November 2019. In real life at that time, things weren't that bad, certainly not compared to what happened in the real-life 2020 -- but not for a lack of trying by Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell.