April 2, 1995: Baseball's Longest Strike Ends

Jorge Posada and fellow Puerto Rican Sonia Sotomayor,

at the new Yankee Stadium in 2009,

after her confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court

April 2, 1995, 30 years ago: A federal judge grants an injunction against Major League Baseball, preventing its team owners from unilaterally implementing a new collective bargaining agreement and using replacement players. This ends the Strike of '94. MLB and the Players Association reach an agreement that will start the new season on April 25.

The Judge was a 40-year-old Yankee Fan from The Bronx. I was so grateful to her for giving me back my baseball, I was willing to marry her. (Give me a break: She was very attractive back then.) At the very least, I wanted her on the Supreme Court of the United States.

The former, obviously, didn't happen. The latter did, in 2009. Her name was Sonia Sotomayor.

The next day, April 3, I went into New York, took the Subway up to Yankee Stadium, and bought a ticket for Opening Day. Main Level Reserved, Section 2, right behind home plate. $24. (About twice that in today's money.) The gates were open -- security was different in those pre-9/11 days. And I was able to walk to my seat, and just sat there for about 15 minutes, taking it all in.

Walking out, I saw a section of the outer wall's plaster displaced. I picked up a 2-by-3-inch piece, and took it home. To this day, I have a piece of the old Yankee Stadium, even if it probably dated, at most, only to the 1973-76 renovation. There was also some graffiti on the wall. When Opening Day came on April 26, the plaster was repaired, the graffiti was painted over, both looked like there had never been anything wrong, and the Yankees won.

April 1, 1985: Villanova's Perfect Game

April 1, 1985, 40 years ago: Someone who had been following the college basketball season, but had been unable to watch the game, might have seen the final score, and thought it was an April Fool's joke. After all, this was mere days after Sports Illustrated's article "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch." But it was real, and it remains the biggest upset in the history of the NCAA's men's basketball tournament.

In Philadelphia college basketball, the "Big Five," an unofficial group, are the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, La Salle University, St. Joseph's University, and Villanova University. Temple is secular. Penn is Ivy League. La Salle and St. Joe's are Catholic. Villanova is Catholic, likes to pretend that it is Ivy.

While St. Joe's straddles the City Line and the western "Main Line" suburbs, Villanova, is 11 miles to the northwest, well into the Main Line. While the other 4 schools, especially Temple, are more racially diverse (yes, even Penn), the Wildcats are mocked as "Vanilla-nova," and with claims that half the black people on campus are on the basketball team.

One season, as the seconds ticked down in a win over St. Joe's, allowing them to clinch the best overall record in the Big 5, their fans chanted, "We own Philly!" The St. Joe's fans chanted back, "You ain't Philly!" They do seem, of the 5 student bodies, the least likely to eat a cheesesteak and then work it off by running up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum -- but then, their track and field program has been among the nation's best for decades.

In 1972, Chuck Daly, later to coach the Detroit Pistons to back-to-back NBA Championships, hired Rollie Massimino as an assistant coach. In 1973, trying to move on from the scandal that got their 1971 Final Four berth stricken from the record, Villanova needed a young man of integrity. The fact that the 38-year-old Rollie was Catholic, and had the endorsement of the admired Daly, helped a lot.

Burdened by NCAA sanctions that the previous regime had brought on, his 1st 2 seasons were bad. But in 1976, he went 16-11. In 1977, he got them into the NIT. In 1978, he got them into the NCAA Tournament.

In 1982, he won the Big East Conference, and got 'Nova to the Elite Eight. In 1983, he did that again, tying Georgetown for the title. In 1984, he finished 2nd in the Big East, to Georgetown.

The Wildcat players were believing in the man they called Daddy Mass, and they were giving him something to believe in. In other words, what happened in the 1984-85 season, while worthy of expressions of surprise, should not have been considered an outright shock.

The big rivalry in the Big East was between 2 big-city Catholic schools: St. John's in New York, and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Almost nobody was paying attention to the one in between, where Rollie had made the Wildcats big enough that the 1,500-seat Villanova Field House (shortly thereafter, renamed the Jake Nevin Field House) was woefully inadequate, and even the 6,500-seat Pavilion that was then under construction wasn't enough: 'Nova played nearly every game at the 18,000-seat Spectrum, the South Philly home of the 76ers and Flyers, 14 miles from campus.

Villanova went just 9-7 in Big East play, and were 19-10 going into the NCAA Tournament. They were seed 8th in their region, and their game against 9th seed Dayton was, uncharacteristically, on Dayton's home court. The Wildcats won anyway. Then they best 1st seed Michigan, 4th seed Maryland (with Len Bias), and 2nd seed North Carolina.

The Big East had 3 of the Final Four berths: Lou Carnsecca's St. John's, John Thompson's Georgetown, and Rollie Massimino's Villanova. Dana Kirk's Memphis State had the other one.

The Final Four was set for Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky. On spite of being named the Wildcats and wearing blue, like the venue's home team, most observers didn't give Villanova a chance. Even if they beat Memphis in the Final, the other Semifinal, between defending National Champion Georgetown and St. John's, who had split their regular-season meetings, was being considered "the real final."

But Villanova did beat Memphis, and when Georgetown beat St. John's rather easily, it seemed to set Monday, April 1, 1985 up as a coronation for the defending National Champion Hoyas.

Instead, Villanova pulled off one of the biggest upsets of all time. They shot 22-for-28 from the field, 78 percent, the highest in Final Four history. Georgetown hardly folded, but Villanova won, 66-64. It was April Fool's Day, but there was no joke in Rupp Arena.

It was the 1st NCAA men's basketball National Championship won by a Philadelphia-area team since La Salle in 1954. And, with the 9th seed in their region, the 1985 Villanova team remains the lowest seed ever to win the Tournament.

"I still never saw the Championship Game replay in its entirety," Massimino said in 2015, at a 30th Anniversary reunion. "I still think we might lose."

But they won. Hail the Champions:

Top row, left to right: Center Wyatt Maker; forward Ed Pinckney,

forward Mark Plansky, forward Howard Pressley,

head coach Rollie Massimino, forward Dwayne McClain,

forward Connally Brown, center Chuck Everson.

Bottom row: Guard Dwight Wilbur, guard DeAlvin Phillips,

guard R.C. Massimino, guard Gary McLain,

guard Brian Harrington, guard Harold Jensen, forward Steve Pinone.

Pretty much all of them went on to do good things. Ed Pinckney played 12 seasons in the NBA, mostly for the Phoenix Suns. He went back to Villanova, on Jay Wright's staff, and has been an assistant coach for 3 NBA teams. Dwayne McClain played 12 seasons of pro ball, mostly in Europe, but did have 1 season with the Indiana Pacers. He went into coaching, and now runs a financial firm in Florida.

Harold Pressley played for the Sacramento Kings, and is now a TV announcer in Sacramento. Connally Brown became an FBI Agent. And R.C. Massimino, 1 of 5 kids Rollie had with his wife, now runs a construction management company in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Rollie stayed at Villanova until 1992, when he got an offer that spoke to his integrity, and mirrored his arrival at Villanova. The University of Nevada at Las Vegas, reeling from NCAA sanctions after their failure to defend their 1990 National Championship, a 1991 Semifinal loss to Duke nearly as shocking as Georgetown's 1985 loss to Villanova (a win by Duke could still be considered a big upset then), had fired crooked head coach Jerry Tarkanian.

But maybe, just maybe, Vegas corrupts everyone eventually. Just 2 years later, Rollie's own integrity was impeached. It was revealed that he and UNLV President Robert Maxson cut a deal to lift Rollie's salary above the figure that was reported to the State of Nevada, violating ethics rules. He had to go.

He resurfaced in 1996, at Cleveland State University. He did not do well there, and he couldn't control his players, who were involved in substance abuse, other crimes, and academic fraud. He left in 2003.

He moved to Florida, intending to be retired. But in 2005, Northwood University, an NAIA school in West Palm Beach, started a basketball program, and the athletic director asked Rollie to be their 1st coach. He led them to 4 conference titles, getting to the NAIA Semifinal in 2011 and the Final in 2012. In 2014, Northwood was bought by a private corporation, and renamed Keiser University.

He began battling cancer, but in 2016, Villanova got back to the NCAA Final, and coach Jay Wright asked Rollie to come to the Final at NRG Stadium in Houston. He did, and met with the team. Villanova won a thriller against North Carolina, to take their 2nd National Championship. He died the following year.

Villanova won another National Championship in 2018. The Big 5's count currently stands as follows: Villanova 3, Penn 2 (if you count retroactive titles from the pre-NCAA Tournament era), La Salle 1, Temple 1 (if you count NIT titles from the era before the NCAA Tournament became the big one), St. Joseph's none.

April 1, 1950: The Death of Charles Drew

April 1, 1950, 75 years ago: Dr. Charles Drew dies as the result of a car crash in Burlington, North Carolina. He was only 45 years old.

Charles Richard Drew was born on June 3, 1904 in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts, playing football and running track. He put himself through medical school by teaching biology and chemistry, and serving as the football coach and the 1st athletic director, at Morgan College, a historically black school in Baltimore, now known as Morgan State University.

He graduated from medical school at McGill University in Montreal, going there because Howard University, in his hometown, and known as "the Black Harvard," thought he hadn't met their academic standards. But after his graduation from McGill, Howard offered him a teaching position. He accepted, but later left to earn his doctorate at Columbia University.

He researched in the field of blood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge to developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II. This allowed medics to save thousands of Allied forces' lives during the war.

As the most prominent African-American in the field, Drew protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood, as it lacked scientific foundation, and resigned his position with the American Red Cross, which maintained the policy until 1950 -- too late for him, as it turned out.

In 1939, Drew married Minnie Lenore Robbins, a professor of home economics at Spelman College in Atlanta. They had 3 daughters and a son. In 1944, the NAACP awarded him its annual Spingarn Medal, for an outstanding achievement by an African-American, for his work in supplying blood for the Allied war effort.

Beginning in 1939, Drew traveled to Tuskegee, Alabama, to attend the annual free clinic at the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital. For the 1950 Tuskegee clinic, Drew drove along with 3 other black physicians. Drew was driving around 8:00 AM on April 1. Still fatigued from spending the night before in the operating theater, he lost control of the vehicle. After careening into a field, the car somersaulted 3 times. The 3 other physicians sustained minor injuries. Drew was trapped in the car with severe wounds. His foot had become wedged beneath the brake pedal.

When reached by emergency technicians, he was in shock and barely alive, due to severe leg injuries. He was taken to Alamance General Hospital in Burlington, North Carolina. He was pronounced dead a half hour after he first received medical attention -- ironically, from massive blood loss.

A myth arose, repeated on an early episode of the TV show M*A*S*H, that he died because an all-white Southern hospital had refused him admittance because he was black. It wasn't true: The hospital's white doctors examined him, but knew there was nothing that could be done. If there had been a black hospital, or a white hospital, closer to the crash site, they couldn't have saved him, either.

Yankees Torpedo Brewers

The Yankees' 4-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium II was nice. It's not looking rather pedestrian.

Fans of other teams are already yapping about the new, unusually-shaped "torpedo bats" that 5 of the Yankees are using. Aaron Judge is not one of them.

Given how much the Major League Baseball office likes to mess with the Yankees, there is no way the organization would have let the players use the bats without first clearing it with said office. The bats meet the letter of the law, within the length, circumference and construction parameters set forth in the rules. So they're legal.

And there's nothing to stop the other 29 MLB teams from ordering the bats, to the specifications of their individual players, and using them in competitive (non-exhibition) games. So they're fair.

And, of course, we're getting whining about how the new Stadium is too easy to hit home runs in. Well, why don't the other teams take advantage of it?

It's like the old joke: A couple go on vacation. As they check out of the hotel, the husband looks at the bill, and demands too see the manager. He asks why there's an extra $75 on the bill. The manager says it's for their service for dirty movies on the TV. The husband says, "But I didn't use it!" The manager says, "It was there for you."

So the husband says, "Oh yeah? Then I'm suing you for $1 million for sleeping with my wife while she stayed here!" The manager, shocked, says, "I didn't sleep with your wife!" The husband says, "It was there for you!"

*

So, on Saturday afternoon, the Yankees played the kind of game Brian Cashman seems to have designed them for: Offsetting bad pitching by bombing the opposition out of the yard. The Yankees set a team record with 9 home runs, 1 short of the major league record.

Former Yankee Nestor Cortés started for the Brewers, and the Yankees did something no MLB team has ever done before: They hit home runs on the 1st 3 pitches of the game: Paul Goldschmidt hit his 1st home run as a Yankee, Cody Bellinger did the same, and Judge hit one. Later in the inning, Austin Wells homered off Cortés. Anthony Volpe homered off him in the 2nd.

Judge had 3 home runs: He also hit a grand slam off Connor Thomas in the 3rd, and a 2-run homer off Thomas in the 5th. He had a chance to join Lou Gehrig, in 1932, as the only Yankees to hit 4 in a game, and he came close in the 8th, but could "only" manage a double. Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit one off Connor Thomas in the 3rd, and Oswald Peraza hit one off Chad Patrick, 7th.

The Yankees' scoreline for the 1st 5 innings was 43630. That ZIP Code is not in use, but if it were, it would be in Toledo, Ohio.

Max Fried also made his Yankee debut, but he didn't get out of the 5th inning, allowing 6 runs, although only 2 were earned. In other words, the Yankees had given him 16 runs' worth of support, but he wasn't going to be the winning pitcher. Instead, it was the 1st major league win for Yoendrys Gómez, a 25-year-old righthander from Venezuela.

Final score: Yankees 20, Brewers 9.

*

Yesterday's game was doomed to be anticlimactic. And the temperature dropped: While it was unseasonably warm the day before, getting into the 80s, this game was in the high 40s.

Marcus Stroman, who might not even be in the rotation if everybody was healthy, but is now the Number 3 starter, gave up a run in the 1st inning, and 3 in the 1st 5 before being taken out -- like Fried, he stood to be the winning pitcher if he'd gotten 1 more out, but couldn't.

No matter. Judge hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 1st. Ben Rice hit a solo shot in the 3rd. The Yankees got 2 more runs in the 7th. They got 5 more runs in the 8th, including a 3-run homer by Chisholm.

Yankees 12, Brewers 3. The Brewers' best player in this series was Jake Bauers. He drew a walk as a pinch-hitter on Thursday. On Saturday, he had an RBI single, and, with the game out of hand, he pitched a scoreless 8th inning. And yesterday, he hit a 2-run homer, and, again, pitched a scoreless 8th inning.

*

So the Yankees start the season 3-0, which is unusual. I'm not going to start the Magic Number countdown. I'm just gonna enjoy the nice start.

Today is a day off. Tomorrow, the Arizona Diamondbacks come to town. Then the Yankees go on the road, to Pittsburgh and Detroit, before coming home.

March 31, 1975: The End of the John Wooden UCLA Dynasty

March 31, 1975. 50 years ago: The Final of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament is held at the San Diego Sports Arena. (It's now named the Pechanga Arena.)

The NCAA Tournament had varied from between 22 and 25 teams since 1953. For the 1974-75 season, due to the frustrations of teams unable to win the Conference Tournaments, and thus qualify for the NCAA Tournament, despite previously having exceptional seasons, the NCAA expanded the Tournament to 32 teams, and allowed teams that failed to win their conference in.

In the Mideast Regional Final, at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio, on March 22, Indiana, then undefeated at 31-0 and ranked Number 1 in the country, faced Number 5 Kentucky, who were 24-3, with 1 of their losses coming to Indiana in Bloomington. This time, Joe B. Hall's Wildcats beat Bobby Knight's Hoosiers, 92-90, and secure Kentucky's 1st berth in what would later be called "the Final Four" since losing the 1966 Final. This would be the only game that Indiana would lose between March 11, 1974 and December 1, 1976, a stretch over which they went 66-1.

The University of California at Los Angeles had won 7 straight titles, and 9 out of 10, under coach John Wooden, before losing in the 1974 Semifinal to North Carolina State. In 1974-75, the Bruins finished the regular season 23-3, losing only away to Stanford by 4 points, away to Notre Dame (again) by 6, and, in their only bad game of the season, away to Washington by 22.

At the time, the league then known as the Pacific-Eight Conference had no Conference Tournament, but UCLA easily won the regular-season title. The Bruins struggled in the NCAA Tournament: They needed overtime to beat Michigan, beat the University of Montana by only 3 points, beat Arizona State to get to the Final Four, and needed overtime to beat the University of Louisville, coached by Wooden's former assistant, Denny Crum.

After that Semifinal win over Louisville, Wooden announced his retirement: Win or lose, the Final against Kentucky would be his last game.

The game was tight. So were the Bruins, as if they were trying too hard to send Wooden out a winner. The lead changed hands several times in the 1st half, which ended with UCLA ahead, 43-40. Kentucky stayed close, and were within 76-75 with less than 7 minutes left.

Dave Meyers -- brother of UCLA women's star Ann Meyers -- was called for an offensive foul on a shot attempt during which he bumped into Grevey. Meyers yelled at referee Hank Nichols for this, and was assessed a technical foul. This led the normally mild-mannered Wooden to run onto the court, and call Nichols a "crook."

Maybe this shook the Wildcats up, because Kevin Grevey, their best player, missed all 3 free throws. Kentucky never recovered, and UCLA won, 92-85. Wooden and UCLA had their 10th National Championship, all within the last 12 years.

As with so many other great college coaches, Wooden cast a shadow that his successors found it difficult to get out of. The following year, Gene Bartow got UCLA back to the Final Four, but lost to Indiana, with Knight leading them to what remains the last undefeated season for an NCAA Division I men's basketball team.

In 1978, Hall led Kentucky to their 1st National Championship in 20 years, while Grevey helped the Washington Bullets win the NBA Championship. Under Larry Brown, UCLA got back to the Final in 1980, losing to Louisville and Wooden's former assistant Crum, who would win the National Championship again in 1986.

UCLA has won 1 National Championship without Wooden, in 1995, under Jim Harrick Sr. In 2006, Ben Howland took them to the Final, where they lost to Florida.

Of Wooden's '75 Bruins: Marques Johnson starred with the Milwaukee Bucks, becoming a 5-time NBA All-Star; Dave Meyers was his teammate on the Bucks; Andre McCarter played a season each with the Kansas City Kings and the Bullets; Ralph Drollinger played 1 season, the expansion season of the Dallas Mavericks, 1980-81; Brett Vroman, that same season, played 11 games with his home-State Utah Jazz, the extent of his NBA career, though he also played in Europe, mostly in Italy; Richard Washington, named the Tournament's Most Outstanding Player, played 6 seasons in the NBA, including 1 as a teammate of Johnson and Meyers, and another as a teammate of Drollinger; and Wilbert Olinde never played in the NBA, but starred in Germany's basketball league.

And then there was Gavin Smith. He transferred to the University of Hawaii, where he set the school's single-season scoring record, which still stands. He became a stuntman, an actor, and a film studio executive. In 2012, he disappeared after leaving a friend's house in the Los Angeles suburbs. Two years later, his remains were found, and a man was convicted of his murder.

John Wooden had been a star player at Purdue University in the early 1930s, before coaching at Indiana State (later the Alma Mater of Larry Bird) from 1946 to 1948, and then at UCLA until 1975. His career record was 664-162 -- including 335-22 from 1963 to 1975, for a percentage of .938.

He won National Championships in 1964, with Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich; 1965, with Goodrich; 1967 and 1968, with Lew Alcindor, who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; 1969, with Kareem and Sidney Wicks; 1970 and 1971, with Wicks; 1972 and 1973, with Bill Walton and Keith Wilkes, who later changed his name to Jamaal Wilkes; and 1975, with Marques Johnson.

It's worth noting that Wooden titled his autobiography They Call Me Coach. Even long after his retirement, his former players, even those who had gone into coaching themselves, still called him "Coach" rather than "John." It's also worth noting that Kareem only let 2 people continue to call him "Lewis": His father, Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr.; and Wooden.

It's also worth noting that Wooden was just 64 when he retired, though he looked older. To put this in perspective: Dean Smith and Gary Williams each coached their last college game at 66, Bobby Knight and Jud Heathcote 67, Don Haskins 69, Roy Williams 70, Lute Olson 72, Denny Crum 74, Mike Krzyzewski and Larry Brown 75, Jim Calhoun 79, Rollie Massimino 83. As of March 31, 2022, Jim Boeheim and Tom Izzo are still coaching at 67, Rick Pitino at 69.

He was the 1st person elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach, the former in 1960 and the latter while still coaching in 1973. His success led to UCLA building the Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion in 1965. In 2003, the school named the playing surface the Nell and John Wooden Court. John insisted that, if he were going to be so honored, his late wife's name should go first. That same year, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died in 2010, 4 months short of his 100th birthday.

March 30, 1925: The Last Non-NHL Stanley Cup Winners

March 30, 1925, 100 years ago: The Stanley Cup is awarded, but not to the Champions of the National Hockey League. That has never happened again.

The Montreal Canadiens won the Cup in 1924, led by the legendary goaltender Georges Vézina, and a pair of young stars, center Howie Morenz and left wing Aurèle Joliat, all of them early inductees into the Hockey Hall of Fame. They won Cup by winning the NHL Championship, then beating the Champions of the West Coast Hockey League, the Calgary Tigers. They won the NHL Championship again in 1925, and again prepared to face the WCHL Champions for the Cup.

Unlike the season before, the WCHL Champions would not have to qualify for the Finals by beating the Champions of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association. The PCHA folded, and 2 teams from the Province of British Columbia, the capital city's Victoria Cougars and the biggest city's Vancouver Maroons (formerly the Millionaires, 1915 Cup winners), were admitted to the WCHL. The Cougars beat the Tigers for the title, setting up the Finals against the Canadiens.

The Cougars were loaded with experience: Goaltender Harry "Hap" Holmes, center Frank Foyston and winger Jack Walker had each won the Cup with both the 1914 Toronto Blueshirts and the 1917 Seattle Metropolitans. Defenseman and Captain Clem Loughlin had won the Allan Cup, the championship of Canadian senior amateur hockey, with the 1915 Winnipeg Monarchs. Left wing Jocko Anderson had won the Allan Cup with a military team, the Winnipeg 61st Battalion.

Left wing Harry Meeking (not to be confused with later Toronto star and broadcaster Harry Meeker) had won the Cup with the 1918 Toronto Arenas. Center Frank Frederickson was a member of the Winnipeg Monarchs, the team that Canada sent to represent them in 1920, the 1st time the sport was played in the Olympics, and they won the Gold Medal. And their head coach, Lester Patrick, had won the Cup playing for the Montreal Wanderers in 1906 and 1907.

The Stanley Cup Finals were a best-3-out-of-5 series that season. Game 2 was played in the Denman Arena in Vancouver, and the rest were played at the Patrick Arena in Victoria. Both arenas had been built with funds raised by Lester Patrick and his brother Frank.

The Cougars won Game 1, 5-2. Walker and defenseman Gord Fraser each scored 2 goals. They won Game 2, 3-1, with Walker again scoring 2 goals. The Canadiens kept the series alive by winning Game 3, 4-2, with Morenz scoring a hat trick. But the Cougars ran away with Game 4, 6-1. Frederickson scored 2 goals, and the Cougars were the World Champions.

A Cougars sweater, on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame

For the 1925-26 season, the WCHL was renamed the Western Hockey League. The Cougars won the title again, but lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Montreal Maroons. The WHL folded, and the Cup became an NHL-only trophy.

That folding opened the door for expansion in the NHL, and 3 new teams were added. The owners of the Detroit franchise signed all the players from Victoria, and named their new team the Detroit Cougars. New owners renamed them the Detroit Falcons in 1930, and another change in ownership made them the Detroit Red Wings in 1932. Since the Cougars are considered a separate franchise, the Red Wings do not claim the 1925 Stanley Cup among their achievements, nor does the NHL recognize it as such.

The owners of the Chicago team signed the players from the Portland Rosebuds, forming the Chicago Blackhawks. The other new team, the New York Rangers, signed Lester Patrick as head coach and general manager, and he signed several WHL players.

The 1925 Cup remains the last one won by a team from outside the NHL. In 1954, the Cleveland Barons, winners of the Calder Cup, the Championship of the American Hockey League, reminded the NHL that the Cup was a challenge trophy, and challenged the holders, the Red Wings, for the Cup. The NHL rejected this challenge, and got away with it.

This was also, through the 2023-24 season, the last Cup won by a team from the Province of British Columbia, of which Victoria is the capital city. The Vancouver Canucks were founded in 1970, and have been to the Finals 3 times -- 1982, 1994 and 2011 -- losing all 3.

March 29, 2000: Major League Baseball In Japan

March 29, 2000, 25 years ago: For the 1st time, a Major League Baseball regular-season game is played outside of North America. The New York Mets and the Chicago Cubs play the 1st of 2 season-opening games at the Tokyo Dome in Japan.

From 1938 to 1987, the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants played at the 42,337-seat Korakuen Stadium. In 1988, they moved next-door to the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome, known as "The Big Egg" because of its shape, which included a white fabric roof, similar to the Metrodome in Minneapolis, the Silverdome outside Detroit, the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, and (formerly) BC Place in Vancouver.

As is the case with most domed stadiums, and most stadiums in Japan regardless of whether there's any kind of roof, the Dome has artificial turf. The field is symmetrical: 329 feet to the poles, 375 to the power alleys, and 400 to center. Like most domes that host baseball, it favors hitters over pitchers.

The Mets and the Cubs were chosen because of the size of their markets and their international appeal -- and also because the most obvious matchup, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, weren't willing to each give up a home game's revenue against their arch-rivals to play on the other side of the world.

Game time, local, was 7:05 PM, making it 6:05 AM in New York, and 5:05 AM in Chicago. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Eric Young Sr. led off the game by drawing a walk on Mike Hampton, who was making his Mets debut. He stole 2nd, and was singled home by Damon Buford.

In hindsight, that was a sign that the Mets were going to have a great season anyway: Buford was the son of Don Buford, the Baltimore Orioles left fielder who hit Tom Seaver's 2nd pitch of Game 1 of the 1969 World Series for a home run, and while the Orioles won that game, the Mets took the next 4 for their "Miracle."

The score remained 1-0 until the bottom of the 3rd, when a sacrifice fly by Darryl Hamilton tied it. Did I mention that walks could be deadly? In the top of the 5th, Buford led off with a single, and after a lineout by Mark Grace, Hampton walked Sammy Sosa, walked Henry Rodriguez to load the bases, and walked Shane Andrews to force home a run.

Andrews hit a home run off Dennis Cook in the 7th, making him the 1st major leaguer to homer outside North America. Grace became the 2nd, taking Rich Rodriguez deep in the 8th. The Mets tried their own spin on the walks cliché: Edgardo Alfonzo led off the bottom of the 8th with one, and Mike Piazza hit a home run.

But they could get no closer, and the Cubs won, 5-3. Jon Lieber went 7 innings to become the winning pitcher. With some irony, Rick Aguilera, a member of the last Met title team in 1986, closed it out for the Cubs.

The Mets were designated the "home team" for this game. The next day, it was the Cubs' turn to be the "home team," but it was, again, the "away team" that emerged victorious. The game was tied 1-1 in the top of the 11th inning, when the Mets loaded the bases, and got a grand slam home run. With some appropriateness, given that it was in Japan, it was hit by Benny Agbayani, their Hawaiian native who, like Hawaiian pitcher Sid Fernandez, wore Number 50 in honor of his home, the 50th State, the site of Japan's 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The games were roaring successes, in every sense of the word: Competitiveness, box office, and public relations. Knowing that any future attempts would have to be done by teams willing to stop Spring Training early, and then take a few days' break to reacclimate themselves to U.S. time, they now had the template for how to run a Japan series.

In 2004, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the Yankees 8-3 on March 30, but the Yankees, with Japan's biggest baseball star, Hideki Matsui, homering at his former home dome, came back on March 31 to win, 12-1.

The Tokyo Dome hosted another series in 2012: The Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics, 3-1 on March 28; and the A's returned the favor on March 29, 4-1. In 2019, it was again the A's and the M's, with the M's sweeping, winning 9-7 on March 20, and 5-4 on March 21. The 2025 season opened on March 18 and 19, with the Los Angeles Dodgers sweeping the Chicago Cubs, 4-1 and 6-3.

The Tokyo Dome has also hosted 12 NFL games, all of them preseason exhibitions. And the Japan games also inspired MLB to schedule regular-season games in Australia and Britain.

March 29, 1985: The Curious Case of Sidd Finch

March 29, 1985, 40 years ago: A new issue of Sports Illustrated hits the newsstands. The cover is about the NCAA Final Four, which featured Louisiana State of the Southeastern Conference, and 3 teams from the Big East Conference: Georgetown, St. John's, and Villanova. Three days later, Villanova would beat Georgetown in the Final, one of the all-time greatest sports upsets.

But an even more improbable occurrence was in that issue of SI. George Plimpton, who had written so well about so many subjects, especially sports, wrote an article about a pitcher whose scouting report was shown in a photograph, and concluded with the words: "Could be the phenom of all time. Very hard to figure."

The article was titled "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch." The teaser sentence for the article said, "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga -- and his future in baseball."

The player in question was born Hayden Siddhartha Finch -- "Siddhartha" in honor of Siddhartha Gautama, the ancient Indian philosopher known as Buddha -- in England. He grew up in an orphanage there, attended Harvard University, and went to Tibet to, essentially, live up to his name. He had learned what he called "yogic mastery of mind-body," and said, "I have mastered the art of the pitch."

He showed up at the Spring Training camp of the New York Mets, then in St. Petersburg, Florida. He demonstrated his pitching, oddly dressed. Or, rather, oddly shod: His left foot, he kept bare; on his right foot, he wore a hiking boot, for balance, he said. And he wore his cap backwards, this being before it became a part of hip-hop style.

And he threw a ball faster than anyone had ever seen before. He was brought into Mets camp. Not wanting to risk All-Star catcher Gary Carter in case the experiment went haywire, pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, a former All-Star pitcher for the Yankees, had backup catcher Ronn Reynolds catch him. A radar gun was set up to see just how fast Finch could throw. Reynolds yelped in pain on the very first pitch, his catcher's mitt offering little protection. He said, "Don't tell me, Mel. I don't want to know."

Mets brass wanted to know. The radar gun read 168. Sidd Finch had thrown a baseball at one hundred and sixty-eight miles per hour. At the time, the record was 101. (The measurement is different now, and it is widely believed that 101 on the old scale would be 107 on the current one.)

Finch kept mainly to himself, reading philosophy, and playing the French horn. The article made no mention of family, other than an adoptive father who was dead. No mention was made of a wife or girlfriend, or even of Finch's age.

Finch was given uniform Number 21, most familiar to Met fans as being that of 1969 "Miracle" season outfielder Cleon Jones, although worn by Hall of Fame pitchers Warren Spahn and Bob Lemon, and the previous season's American League Rookie of the Year, Roger Clemens. Could Finch be the 1985 National League Rookie of the Year, succeeding his new Met teammate, Dwight Gooden?

For one brief, shining moment, Met fans had reason to believe they had a pitcher better than Gooden, better than Tom Seaver, better than any the Yankees they hated so much had ever had. They had reason to believe that, having gotten into their 1st Pennant race in 11 years the season before, Finch was going to help them go all the way in 1985.

The article began with the words, "The secret cannot be kept much longer. Questions are being asked, and sooner rather than later the New York Mets management will have to produce a statement."  

As it turned out, the statement the team issued, which SI covered in its next issue, was that Finch had lost his control due to the media pressure, and thus his great speed became a liability -- not just to the counting of balls and strikes, but to the lives of anyone his pitches might hit. The team said he was quitting baseball so he didn't hurt anyone.

It may have been that Major League Baseball uniform requirements meant that he had to abandon his choice (and his non-choice) of footwear, and wear standard baseball socks and cleats, and that this threw him off, rendering his great speed a danger to all and sundry. Finch said he had to quit, and would go off to play his horn.

The date on the cover for the original story was April 1, 1985. Some of us suspected that it was too good to be true, and considered the date to be a hint that some flim-flammery was going on. Some people figured out that the first letter of each word of the teaser sentence spelled out, "HAPPY APRIL FOOLS DAY -- AH, FIB."

It would one more issue before SI fessed up. The man playing Finch was Joe Berton, a junior high school art teacher in the suburbs of Chicago -- and a fan of the Chicago Cubs, who had beaten the Mets out for the NL Eastern Division title the year before. He was a friend of SI photographer Lane Stewart, who recruited him for the article.

In 1987, Plimpton expanded the article into a novel, giving Finch a girlfriend who talks him into coming back. In his 1st game, he throws 81 pitches, all strikes, for 27 outs and a perfect game. But in his 2nd game, his control starts to give, and, concerned for the safety of all, he has to give it up once again.

George Plimpton

Plimpton died in 2003. In 2015, appropriately enough on the 30th Anniversary of the hoax, ESPN aired a 30 for 30 documentary on Finch, as if the story were real. (They've also done this for the movies Rocky IV and the 1994 version of Angels in the Outfield.) That same year, the Brooklyn Cyclones, a Mets farm team, held a Sidd Finch Bobblehead Doll Night, and invited Berton, who signed autographs, under both his real name and his nom de base.

March 29, 1945: College Basketball's 1st "Game of the Century"

Cappy Lane, game timekeeper at the old Madison Square Garden,

flanked by Bob Kurland (left) and George Mikan

March 29, 1945, 80 years ago: College basketball has its 1st "Game of the Century." It's a benefit for the Red Cross at Madison Square Garden, between the 2 main claimants for the National Championship. NCAA Tournament Champion Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State), coached by Henry Iba, defeats NIT Champion DePaul, coached by Ray Meyer, 52-44. Sadly, there appears to be no surviving footage.

It's also basketball's 1st real "battle of the big men," with Oklahoma State's 7-foot-even Bob Kurland getting the better of DePaul's 6-foot-10 George Mikan. Iba and Kurland would make it back-to-back NCAA titles in 1946.

But while "Foothills" Kurland would only play semipro ball, Mikan would dominate the early NBA, winning 6 league titles in 7 years with the Minneapolis Lakers, from 1948 to 1954.

Both men were among the earliest players elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, Mikan with the 1st class of inductees in 1959, Kurland in 1961. Mikan lived until 2005, Kurland until 2013. Iba was elected to the Hall in 1969, Meyer in 1979 -- both men while still coaching at their respective schools. In fact, the year he was elected, Meyer finally got to the NCAA Final Four for the 1st time since 1941. He finally retired in 1984. Iba lived until 1993, Meyer until 2006.

March 29, 1945 was a big day in New York basketball for another reason, although it wouldn't be known for many years: New York Knicks Hall-of-Famer Walt Frazier was born.

March 29, 1875: Minor v. Happersett Denies Women the Right to Vote

Virginia Minor

March 29, 1875, 150 years ago: The Supreme Court of the United States issues a ruling in the case of Minor v. Happersett. It states that, while women are no less citizens than men are, citizenship does not, by itself, confer a right to vote; therefore, State laws barring women from voting are constitutionally valid.

On October 15, 1872, in St. Louis County, Missouri (outside the City of St. Louis), Virginia Minor, a leader of the women's suffrage movement in Missouri, attempted to register to vote. She was refused, on the grounds that she was a woman. Her husband, Francis Minor, was a lawyer, and, together, they sued the registrar who rejected her application, Reese Happersett.

Happersett is not the villain of the story: He was just doing his job, upholding the law as it then stood. If he had registered Mrs. Minor, they would both have been arrested and put in jail.

The Minors' argument was that the provision of the Constitution of the State of Missouri that guaranteed the right to vote only to male citizens of the State was in violation of the recently-ratified 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed citizenship to all people born in the United States, saying that citizenship included voting rights. They did not argue under the grounds of the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed the right to vote to all citizens.

The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in Happersett's favor, pointing out that the intent of the 14th Amendment was to give the rights of citizenship to former slaves, and had nothing to do with voting rights or gender. The Minors appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But all 9 Justices upheld the Missouri Supreme Court ruling: Chief Justice Morrison Waite (who wrote the official opinion), Nathan Clifford, Noah Swayne, Samuel F. Miller (who should have known better, as the F stood for "Freeman"), David Davis, Stephen J. Field, William Strong, Joseph P. Bradley and Ward Hunt.

In 1876, just 1 year after the case was decided, Reese Happersett died, only 38 years old. I can find no cause, but, medicine being what it was at the time, it could have been any number of things. Virginia Minor lived until 1894, at the age of 70. Her husband, Francis Minor, had died 2 years previously. The last remaining Justice on the Court who had ruled in Minor was Stephen J. Field, who retired in 1897. The last survivor of those Justices was also Field, who lived until 1899.

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing America's female citizens age 21 and up the right to vote, was ratified in 1920, after all the participants had died. In 1971, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18.

Opening Day: That's How You Get In the Mood!

Yesterday, the day the New York Yankees opened their 123rd season of play, I listed the team's various issues, mostly key injuries, and wrote this:

Doesn't seem like there's a lot of reason for optimism, does it?

On top of that, I've had health issues this Winter. All but one are now resolved, but that one, new dentures, are a problem. And Trump has been even worse the 2nd time around.

So, put it all together, and I am not really in the mood for baseball. Today is Opening Day, but I'm not feeling it.

I'm not sure there's even going to be anything to feel.

In the back of my mind, I heard the voice of Jason Alexander, playing George Costanza, a Yankee Fan, on Seinfeld: "You tell me you're not in the mood? Well, you get in the mood!"

*

The Yankees did their part to get me into the mood. After a ceremonial first ball by Andy Pettitte, Carlos Rodón opened the game, against the Milwaukee Brewers, with the real first pitch. In so doing, he became -- by virtue of a tiebreaker over any other player on the field with one -- the 1st Yankee to have a beard in a regular-season game, following Hal's dropping of his father's restriction.

No Yankee player, and no catcher for any team, had ever led off a season with a home run. Austin Wells became the 1st to do either in the 1st inning. Anthony Volpe added a homer in the 2nd. Both were aided by the short porch and a decent wind. As George Costanza would say, "And you know what? Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care!" After all, the short porch is there for the opposition, too; and, yesterday, so was the prevailing wind. The Yankees living up to their "Bronx Bombers" nickname: That's how you get in the mood!

In the 7th, Aaron Judge came up with a rather un-Judge-like play, but it worked: He hit a bouncer down the 3rd base line, and it caromed off the base, allowing a run to score. Cody Bellinger, making his Yankee debut, added a sacrifice fly for another run. Paul Goldschmidt, also making his Yankee debut, did not reach base.

Carlos Rodón pitched 5 1/3rd innings, allowing 1 run on 4 hits and 2 walks striking out 7. The Yankees getting solid starting pitching: That's another good way to get in the mood! Tim Hill worked out of a jam in the 6th, Mark Leiter Jr. was fantastic in the 7th, and Luke Weaver worked out of a jam in the 8th.

Devin Williams, acquired to be the new closer, was sent out to face his former team. But if fans were expecting him not to be as shaky Clay Holmes, or Aroldis Chapman, or any other would-be Yankee closer since the 2013 retirement of Mariano Rivera, they were sorely mistaken. He loaded the bases, and allowed a run, putting the tying and go-ahead runs on base, before working out of it. Whew.

And so, for the 1st time since October 29, 2024, we heard those magic words after a game that counts -- over the Yankee Stadium loudspeakers, if not over the radio, as John Sterling has retired: "Ballgame over! Yankees win! Theeeeeeee Yankees win!" Yankees 4, Brewers 2.

Does this assure a successful season? Not by a long shot. Does it suggest one? Not really. Does it feel good? Oh, hell, yes. Did I need it, after last year's World Series, and the Autumn and Winter I had? You bet your sweet bippy.

The Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles won. The Toronto Blue Jays lost. And the Tampa Bay Rays did not play. So the Yankees' Magic Number to clinch the American League Eastern Division drops to 161. (That's to eliminate the BoSox, the O's and the Rays; 160 to eliminate the Jays.)

As is traditional -- in case of rainout, the home team doesn't want to lose that Opening Day revenue -- today, the day after Opening Day, has been kept open. The Yankees will face the Brewers again tomorrow, at 1:05 PM.

Let's not expect 162-0, or even a Playoff berth. Let's just enjoy 1-0. While we're in the mood.

March 28, 1950: City College's Double

March 28, 1950, 70 years ago: City College of New York defeats Bradley University, of Peoria, Illinois, 71-68 at Madison Square Garden in New York, to win the NCAA Basketball Tournament. They are the 1st team based in New York City to do so.

On March 18, also at The Garden -- "the Old Garden," at 49th Street and 8th Avenue, replaced in 1968 by "the New Garden," at 32nd Street and 7th Avenue -- they won the Final of the National Invitation Tournament, beating Bradley in that game as well, 69-61. This made them the 1st team ever to win the NCAA and the NIT in the same season.

From its founding in 1938 until 2022, the NIT was played entirely at Madison Square Garden. As a result, in the 1949-50 season, CCNY played 20 of their 29 games at The Garden, going 24-5.

CCNY was coached by Nat Holman, himself a great player in the 1920s, with one of the earliest great professional teams, the Original Celtics. Longtime St. John's University coach Joe Lapchick was a teammate. Aside from the Celtics name, the Boston team that was founded with the NBA in 1946 has no connection to them.

The leading players on the 1950 CCNY team were center Ed Roman, forwards Irwin Dambrot and Ed Warner, and guards Floyd Layne and Alvin Roth. They were a multiracial, multiethnic, multifaith team, truly representative of what was good about New York.

Unfortunately, they were also a part of the seamier side of the City. The following season, they were enmeshed in a point-shaving scandal that could have ruined college basketball, and pretty much wrecked it in New York.

As a result of the scandal, CCNY were banned from ever playing at The Garden again. And the NCAA ruled that teams could only play in the NCAA or the NIT, not both. CCNY's double will remain the only one, forever. And any pretensions the NIT still had to being the bigger of the 2 tournaments were shattered.

CCNY, and their arch-rivals, New York University (NYU, also based in Manhattan), cancelled their programs, only to come back later as NCAA Division III teams. Long Island University (LIU, in Downtown Brooklyn) and Fordham (The Bronx) came back to Division I, but have never really been the same. St. John's (Jamaica, Queens) took about a decade to recover, before Lapchick put together one more good team in the mid-1960s, and Lou Carnesecca brought them back to the national spotlight in the 1980s.

NYU made what would now be called the Final Four in 1960, and St. John's in 1985. These remain, through 2022, the last 2 Final Four berths by New York City teams. From the New York side of New Jersey, Princeton made it in 1965, Rutgers in 1976, and Seton Hall in 1989.

For the record, the following schools have won the NCAA and the NIT, but not in the same season:

* Utah: NCAA 1944; NIT 1947.

* Kentucky: NIT 1946, 1976; NCAA 1948, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1978, 1996, 1998, 2012.

* Holy Cross: NCAA 1947, NIT 1954.

* La Salle: NIT 1952; NCAA 1954.

* University of San Francisco: NIT 1949; NCAA 1955, 1956.

* North Carolina: NCAA 1957, 1982, 1993, 2005, 2009, 2017; NIT 1971.

* Indiana: NCAA 1940, 1953, 1976, 1981, 1987; NIT 1979.

* Louisville: NIT 1956; NCAA 1980, 1986, 2013.

* UCLA: NCAA 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1995; NIT 1985.

* Ohio State: NCAA 1960; NIT 1986, 2008.

* Michigan: NIT 1984, 1997, 2004; NCAA 1989.

* Stanford: NCAA 1942; NIT 1991, 2012, 2015.

* Villanova: NCAA 1985, 2016, 2018; NCAA 1994.

* Connecticut: NIT 1988; NCAA 1999, 2004, 2011, 2014.

* Maryland: NIT 1972; NCAA 2002.

* Virginia: NIT 1980, 1992; NCAA 2019.

* Baylor: NIT 2013; NCAA 2021.

Holman called Dambrot "the greatest player I ever coached." But Dambrot was 1 of 7 players caught up in the scandal in 1951, all pleading guilty to misdemeanor conspiracy charges, and all (including Dambrot) except one receiving suspended sentences.

Dambrot became a dentist, and most of the guilty players also went on to careers that provided some sort of service to their communities, which speaks to the true measure of their character, as well as to Holman's teaching. As of March 28, 2022, Layne and Ron Nadell are still alive. (UPDATE: Layne died in 2024, leaving Nadell as the last survivor.)

An interesting postscript: In 1954, Bradley got back into the NCAA Final, but lost to La Salle University. So now, they had lost to the first team from New York and the first team from Philadelphia to win the NCAA title.

One more note: Later in 1950, the New York Yankees won the World Series. This made New York the 1st city to win the NCAA Tournament and a major league championship in the same calendar year.

It's Opening Day, and I'm Not Feeling It

Today is Opening Day of the 2025 Major League Baseball season, except for the 2 games played last week in Tokyo, Japan by the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. (The Dodgers won both.)

The New York Yankees will open the season at home, at Yankee Stadium II, against the Milwaukee Brewers. The game will be on ESPN, rather than the YES Network. First pitch is set for 3:05 PM.

The Brewers were fellow members of the American League from 1970 to 1997, and fellow members of the AL's Eastern Division from 1972 to 1993. So, while this matchup has been Interleague since the 1998 season, it's an opponent familiar to those of us who have been Yankee Fans since before the Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera era.

Carlos Rodón will be the Yankees' starting pitcher. The reason for this is that their 3 pitchers from last season's starting rotation are injured.

The annual injury crisis is already well underway -- in order of believed return from injury, not in order of importance:

* Clarke Schmidt. Expected to be part of the starting rotation, he was diagnosed with fatigue in his right (pitching) shoulder. He starts the season on the Injured List "to build stamina," and is expected to return in April.

* Ian Hamilton. Expected to be a key reliever, he was diagnosed with an infection. As with Schmidt, he will start the season on the Injured list "to build stamina," and is expected to return in April.

* Jake Cousins. The righthanded reliever has a right forearm strain. He's expected back in April. Not something to get excited about.

* Tyler Matzek. The Yankees signed this lefthanded reliever as free agent on February 11. And, already, he has a strained right oblique. Formerly with the Colorado Rockies and the Atlanta Braves, he missed the entire 2023 season due to injury, and pitched only 11 games in 2024, mostly without effectiveness. He's 34. He's expected to return in April, but I wouldn't count on him being a key figure in a successful season.

* Jonathan Loáisiga. The righthanded reliever was supposed to be key last season, made one appearance, and needed Tommy John surgery. Had he been available in last year's World Series, who knows? He has been throwing off a mound since March 4. For the moment, the Yankees are thinking he might be back in late April or early May.

* DJ LeMahieu. The infielder has a left calf strain. He's expected back in early May. He'll be approaching his 37th birthday.

* Giancarlo Stanton. A heavy hitter when healthy, he has torn tendons in both elbows, and is also dealing with what's being called "a minor calf issue." (To paraphrase the late basketball legend Bill Walton, a minor issue is what happens to somebody else.) He is expected back sometime in May. He is 35.

* JT Brubaker. The Yankees got the righthanded starting pitcher from the Pittsburgh Pirates in last year's Spring Training. Due to various injuries, he has not appeared in a regular-season game since October 4, 2022. That's the last 2 whole seasons that he's missed. He pitched in a Spring Training game on February 21, tried to dodge a comebacker, and broke 3 ribs. He's 31. He might be back in May, but, to channel the spirit of Yogi Berra, even when he could pitch, he couldn't pitch.

* Luis Gil. Last season's AL Rookie of the Year was expected again, to be a big part of the starting rotation. He was diagnosed with a right (throwing) latissimus strain, and is not expected back before June. In other words, the Yankees will be without their ace from last season all this season, and without their top 2 pitchers from last season for at least the 1st 1/3rd of this season.

* Scott Effross. Much has the righthanded reliever been hyped. But injuries have meant that he's made just 3 regular-season major league appearances since October 3, 2022. He was diagnosed with a left hamstring strain after leaving a Spring Training game on February 25, after throwing one pitch. All we know is what manager Aaron Boone told us: "It's going to take some time." He's 31. Anybody who was ever counting on him has been kidding themselves.

* Clayton Beeter. The righthanded reliever reached the major leagues last season, making 3 appearances for the Yankees. He's 26. General manager Brian Cashman says only, "It's going to be a while." Sounds like someone we shouldn't be counting on, anyway.

* Gerrit Cole. The Yankees' starting ace had Tommy John surgery on his right (pitching) elbow on March 11. He is definitely out for the entire 2025 season, and may miss time in 2026 as well. For a team that reached, but lost, the World Series last year, and hoped to win it this year, this is a devastating blow. What's more, when he comes back, Cole will be approaching his 36th birthday. He may never be ace-level quality again.

* Chase Hampton. The righthanded starter made 7 appearances last season, topping out with the Class AA Somerset Patriots. He has never thrown a pitch even as high as in Class AAA. He had Tommy John surgery. They're talking about May 2026 as his earliest return. He'll be 25, and will probably spend whatever time he's active back at AA. I'm not sure why he's even mentioned on this list.

This is the projected Yankee starting lineup until LeMahieu and Stanton can come back -- presuming, that is, no other new injuries:

1. Catcher: Austin Wells.

2. Right Field: Aaron Judge. The best player in baseball, at least in the regular season. And yet, Cashman is still ordering Judge to bat his best slugger in the 2 spot in the order. This has been established as monumentally stupid. He moves from center field back to his natural position because right fielder Juan Soto crossed town and turned coat, signing with the New York Mets.

3. Center Field: Cody Bellinger. Fills the center field gap caused by Judge moving back to right. He's already won a Rookie of the Year, a Most Valuable Player award, and a Gold Glove. He's a 2-time All-Star. However, he also has an injury history. He will never again be the 47-homer, 115-RBI player he was with the 2019 Dodgers. And, like several other Yankees, but current and recent, he strikes out too much. But if he can put up the 26 homers and 97 RBIs that he put up with the 2023 Cubs, I will gladly take it. He is the son of Clay Bellinger, a reserve on the Yankees' 1999 and 2000 World Champions.

4. First Base: Paul Goldschmidt. He's a 7-time All-Star, a 4-time Gold Glove, and a former MVP (with 3 other top-3 finishes), with 362 career home runs and a 139 career OPS+. So, he's an upgrade on LeMahieu, anyway. The downside: He's 37, and, over the last 3 seasons, his on-base percentage has dropped from .404 to .362 to .303.

5. Second Base: Jazz Chisholm Jr. The reason we will not miss Gleyber Torres. That, and the fact that Torres no longer has a million-dollar bat, but still has a buck-ninety-five glove and a five-cent head.

6. Shortstop: Anthony Volpe. He came into his own last season. He's ready to be a championship-level shortstop.

7. Left Field: Jasson Domínguez. He can hit the ball a long way, but he's had a lot of fielding woes, and is already injury-prone.

8. Designated Hitter: Ben Rice. He has been hitting very well in Spring Training. He is also Wells' main backup as catcher.

9. Third Base: Oswaldo Cabrera. Good fielder, not a good hitter, and LeMahieu's return might not mean he goes back to 3rd base, anyway.

Last season, Soto had 41 home runs; Bellinger and Goldschmidt, combined, had 40. Soto had 109 RBIs; Bellinger and Goldschmidt, combined, had 143. So making up what he produced might not be that hard. But, again, both men have declined a bit the last 2 seasons.

The starting rotation: Carlos Rodón, Max Fried, Marcus Stroman, Will Warren and Carlos Carrasco. Rodón and Fried are lefthanded, the rest are righthanded. The Yankees signed Fried as a free agent. In 8 seasons with the Braves, he went 73-36 with a 3.07 ERA and a 1.164 ERA. Sounds great. Except he only appeared in 7 games in 2020 (about half as many as he should have in that COVID-shortened season), and only 14 in 2023. He's 31. Sounds like a classic, "Yes, but... " situation.

The Yankees acquired Devin Williams from the Milwaukee Brewers, in a package that included Nestor Cortés. In other words, Rodón and the terribly inconsistent Stroman are the only regular starters from last season who are ready to go this Opening Day. But Williams is intended as the new closer. The bullpen will also have, in decreasing order of my confidence in them, Luke Weaver, Mark Leiter and Tim Hill.

Boone is still the field boss. Cashman is still the roster manager. Hal Steinbrenner, who, unlike his father, values profit over winning, is still the controlling owner. Doesn't seem like there's a lot of reason for optimism, does it?

On top of that, I've had health issues this Winter. All but one are now resolved, but that one, new dentures, are a problem. And Trump has been even worse the 2nd time around.

So, put it all together, and I am not really in the mood for baseball. Today is Opening Day, but I'm not feeling it.

I'm not sure there's even going to be anything to feel.

*

I haven't done a countdown in 4 months. Here goes:

Hours until the Yankees open the 2025 regular season: 8.

Days until the next New York Red Bulls match: 2, this Saturday afternoon, at 2:30 PM, vs. the New England Revolution, at Gillette Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Days until the Red Bulls again play a nearby rival: See the previous answer.

Days until the next Arsenal match: 5, on Tuesday, at 2;45 PM New York Eastern Time, home to West London team Fulham.

Days until the New Jersey Devils again play a local rival: 9, at 12:30 PM on Saturday, April 5, against the New York Rangers, a matinee at the Prudential Center.

Days until the Yankees' next series against the Boston Red Sox begins: 71, on Friday night, June 6, 2025, at Yankee Stadium. Just 10 weeks.

Days until the next game of the U.S. National Soccer Team: 72, on Saturday, June 7, at 3:30 PM, vs. Turkey, at Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Connecticut. The team looked very bad in the recent CONCACAF Nations League, under their new manager, former Tottenham and Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino.

Days until the new Superman movie premieres: 106, on July 11. Just 15 weeks.

Days until the next North London Derby: Unknown, as Arsenal and Tottenham have already played both Premier League games against each other this season. The next season begins on August 16, and the opening weekend almost never features major rivalries, so we're looking at no earlier than August 23. That's 149 days, or under 5 months.

Days until the next Rutgers University football game: 154, on Thursday night, August 28, home to Ohio University. Just 5 months. That's Ohio University. Not to be confused with "The... Ohio State University." Unfortunately, Rutgers has to play the defending National Champions away. A week after playing Ohio University, Rutgers will host Miami University of Ohio, not to be confused with the University of Miami in Florida.

Days until the next East Brunswick High School football game: Unknown. The 2024 season began earlier, and ended earlier, than ever before, as we went 2-8. If the schedule works out the same way as this season, then the opener will be on Friday night, August 29, 2025. That's 155 days.

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge Game: Unknown. If the 2025 schedule is a reverse of the 2024 edition, with the teams flipping to the other's home field, it will be at home on September 26, 2025. That's 183 days, or just under 6 months.

Days until the next elections for Governor of New Jersey and Mayor of New York City: 222, on Tuesday, November 4, 2025. A little over 7 months.

Days until the next Rutgers-Penn State football game: 247, on Saturday, November 29, in Piscataway, at what's currently named SHI Stadium. (The naming rights could be sold to someone else by then.) 

Days until the next Winter Olympics open in Milan, Italy: 316, on Friday, February 6, 2026. Under a year.

Days until the next World Cup opens: 438, on Monday, June 8, 2026. Under a year and a half, or under 15 months. I wonder what team Trump will be rooting for: Ours, or Russia's.

Days until the World Cup Final in New Jersey: 479, on Sunday, July 19, 2026. Under a year and a half, or under 16 months.

Days until the next Summer Olympic Games: 1,205, on Friday, July 14, 2028, in Los Angeles. Under 3 1/2 years, and under 40 months. What shape America will be in at the time, God only knows.

Days until the next Presidential election: 1,321, on Tuesday, November 7, 2028. A little over 3 1/2 years, under 44 months. This, of course, presumes that the Trump Administration doesn't suspend the Constitution of the United States and cancel all future Presidential elections.