May 12, 1985: The Fixed NBA Draft Lottery for Patrick Ewing

Left to right: David Stern, Patrick Ewing, Dave DeBusschere

May 12, 1985, 40 years ago: The NBA holds its 1st-ever Draft Lottery, at the Felt Forum, a sub-arena of Madison Square Garden in New York. It was designed to stop teams having a bad season from "going into the tank" or "tanking": Losing games on purpose so that they could finish with the league's worst record, thus guaranteeing them the 1st pick in the NBA Draft.

David Stern, in his 1st full season as Commissioner, drew envelopes containing the logos of the 7 teams, out of the 23 then in the NBA, that didn't make the Playoffs. The theory was that each non-Playoff team had an equal chance to obtain the first pick. The rest of the first-round picks were determined in reverse order of their won–loss record.

It was no secret that the player most likely to be taken with the 1st overall pick would be Patrick Ewing, a center who had led Georgetown University to the previous year's National Championship, and the NCAA Tournament Final in 3 of his 4 years. Some observers were calling the lottery the Ewing Bowl, as if it were a football contest.

The general managers of the 7 teams patiently waited for Stern to draw the envelopes. The 1st one drawn, and thus the team that got the 7th pick, was the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors and the Indiana Pacers had tied for the worst record in the NBA, 22-60. Under the old system, those two teams would face a coin flip: The winner would get the 1st pick, the loser the 2nd pick. The Warriors were thus the 1st team who looked like a loser in the lottery.

The 6th pick went to the Sacramento Kings, the 5th to the Atlanta Hawks, the 4th to the Seattle SuperSonics, and the 3rd to the Los Angeles Clippers. It came down to the Pacers, represented by GM Robert Salyers; and the New York Knicks, represented by their GM, one of their all-time greatest players, Dave DeBusschere.

When Stern opened the next envelope, and pulled out the card, it contained the Pacers' logo. That meant they would pick 2nd, and the Knicks 1st. DeBusschere pumped his fist, and the New Yorkers inside the Felt Forum roared with delight. They knew exactly who DeBusschere, who had been a defensive and rebounding specialist as a player, would pick when the actual draft was held on June 18: The similarly-controlling Ewing.

When DeBusschere got up to shake hands with Stern, he reached into the pocket of his sportscoat, and pulled out a Knicks jersey with Number 33 on it. It wasn't in honor of his teammate on the 1970 NBA Champion Knicks, University of Michigan Hall-of-Famer Cazzie Russell. DeBusschere turned the jersey around, and revealed the name on the back: "EWING."

Ever since, people outside the New York Tri-State Area -- and some inside it, who had no problem with the idea -- have suggested that the fix was in: Stern wanted the best collegiate player of his generation to play for the New York team, because the New York team winning titles would be good for the league, TV-wise, therefore money-wise.

The question became not if Ewing would lead the Knicks to a World Championship, but how many. Of course, that same question would be asked for Eric Lindros and the Philadelphia Flyers in 1992. And if you had suggested at the times of their acquisitions that, in each case, the number would turn out to be zero, you would have been laughed out of the room.

But no one foresaw that the Boston Celtics would still dominate the Eastern Conference through 1987; that the Detroit Pistons would then do so through 1990; and that the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, would then do so through 1998. With Ewing, the Knicks would reach the NBA Finals in 1994. Without him -- he was injured earlier in the Playoffs -- they reached the Finals in 1999.

It got to the point where, like Joe Namath of the 1969 New York Jets and Mark Messier of the 1994 New York Rangers, Ewing began predicting that the Knicks would win the Championship. He did become the franchise's all-time leading scorer. But the franchise still hasn't won a title since 1973, with DeBusschere, Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Earl Monroe and Jerry Lucas, Hall-of-Famers all.

So if there was a fix, it didn't work. Even so, Jordan and the Bulls did everything for the league that Stern had hoped that Ewing and the Knicks would do.

The Pacers chose Wayman Tisdale, who turned out to be a good player, but not a great one. The Clippers chose Benoit Benjamin, also a good one. The Sonics chose Xavier McDaniel, a very good player. The Hawks chose Jon Koncak, and the Kings Joe Kleine, who both turned out to be decent players.

The 7th pick that the Warriors got stuck with? They chose Chris Mullin, who, like Ewing and Jordan, would make the Hall of Fame and play on the 1992 Olympic "Dream Team." He would later play for the Pacers, and they got more out of him than they got out of Tisdale. So while the Warriors got robbed, they got more out of their pick than anybody but the Knicks got out of theirs.

There were other interesting picks. The Dallas Mavericks got Detlef Schrempf, a German star who did well for them, and later for the Pacers; Uwe Blab, also German, but not as good as Schrempf, and neither was as good for them as later German player Dirk Nowitzki; and Bill Wennington, who did little for them, but became a reserve for the Bulls' dynasty.

The Cleveland Cavaliers drafted Charles Oakley. He didn't do much for them, but he was later traded to the Knicks, and teamed with Ewing to produce the 2nd-best team in the East in the 1990s. They also drafted John "Hot Rod" Williams, who did well for them.

The Utah Jazz drafted Karl Malone, who would pair with John Stockton to form one of the greatest NBA duos. The Pistons drafted Joe Dumars, who became the defensive leader of the "Motor City Bad Boys," and later served as the general manager who built their next great team. The Pistons have reached the NBA Finals 5 times: 3 with Dumars as a player, winning 2; and 2 with Dumars as GM, winning 1.

The Los Angeles Lakers took A.C. Green, who helped them win 3 titles and set the NBA's consecutive games played record. The Portland Trail Blazers drafted Terry Porter, who helped them reach 2 NBA Finals. The Washington Bullets drafted 7-foot-6 shot-blocking specialist Manute Bol.

So the team that did the best in this draft was Detroit -- and they weren't in the Lottery. So much for the old slogan of the New York State Lottery: "You gotta be in it to win it."

Under the current rules, only the top four picks are decided by the lottery, and are chosen from the 14 teams (out of 30) that do not make the playoffs. The team with the worst record, or the team that holds the draft rights of the team with the worst record, has the best chance to obtain a higher draft pick. After the top four positions are selected (from the lottery slotting system), the remainder of the first-round draft order is in inverse order of the win–loss record for the remaining teams, or the teams who originally held the rights if they were traded. The lottery does not determine the draft order in the subsequent rounds of the draft.

Since the 2019 draft, the NBA changed the lottery odds (the bottom three teams will all have an equal 14 percent chance of winning the top pick), and increased the number of teams selected in the lottery from three to four.

Not Quite the Sack of Sacramento

The pink gloves are for Mother's Day,

to raise money for breast cancer research.

With the formerly Philadelphia, Kansas City and Oakland Athletics waiting for their Las Vegas stadium to open, the Yankees made their 1st visit to the A's stopgap home, Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, California.

In 3 games, the Yankees scored 29 runs. That should have meant a sweep. It wasn't.

On Friday night, Will Warren pitched his best game as a Yankee so far: 7 1/3rd innings, 1 run, 4 hits, 1 walk, 7 strikeouts. He did his job. The hitters did theirs, especially Jasson Domínguez, who became the youngest Yankee ever to hit 3 home runs in a game. He had 7 RBIs on the night. Paul Goldschmidt also hit a home run, and the Yankees won, 10-2.

Carlos Rodón did his part on Saturday afternoon, going, 6 innings, allowing 4 runs on 8 hits, but no walks, striking out 10. Aaron Judge hit 2 home runs, and Oswald Peraza hit one. The Yankees led 6-4 going into the 7th inning stretch. That should have been enough.

It wasn't. Fernando Cruz had nothing, allowing 3 runs in the 7th. Between them, Ian Hamilton and Tyler Matzek allowed 4 in the 8th. The A's won, 11-7.

With Sunday being another "hole in the rotation" day, the Yankees needed Ryan Yarbrough to fill that hole. He did, going 5 innings, allowing 2 runs on 6 hits and a walk. Judge went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs. We're almost one-quarter of the way through the season, and he's batting .409. Goldschmidt went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs. And Ben Rice hit a grand slam. This time, the bullpen held the A's off, and the Yankees won, 12-2.

It wasn't quite a Sack of Sacramento, but 2 out of 3 on the road is always worth taking.

*

The Yankees are 23-17, on a pace for a record of 93-69. They lead the American League Eastern Division by 2 games over the Boston Red Sox, 3 over the Toronto Blue Jays, 5 over the Tampa Bay Rans, and 7 1/2 over the Baltimore Orioles.

It's way too soon to list the Magic Number to clinch the Division.

Tonight, the Yankees continue their Pacific Coast roadtrip, against the Seattle Mariners.

May 12, 1965: The Rolling Stones Record "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

Left to right: Bill Wyman, Brian Jones,

Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards

May 12, 1965, 60 years ago: The Rolling Stones, already the next-biggest British rock and roll band behind The Beatles, record "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." It becomes their signature song, and one of the most popular songs in rock and roll history.

The Stones consisted of lead singer Mick Jagger, lead guitarist Keith Richards, rhythm guitarist Brian Jones, bass guitarist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts. Also on the recording were pianists Ian Stewart and Jack Nitzsche, although Jones could also play the piano -- and, as it later turned out, the sitar (on "Paint It, Black") and the recorder (on "Ruby Tuesday"). Andrew Loog Oldham produced the record.

Richards claimed he wrote the opening riff for the song at his apartment in St. John's Wood, North-West London. Then he recorded it on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Then he fell asleep. When he played the tape in the morning, he found it contained 2 minutes of acoustic guitar, "and then me snoring for the next 40 minutes." It became one of the most famous opening riffs in rock and roll history. He said Jagger wrote the lyrics by the pool in Clearwater, Florida, in the Tampa Bay area.

They recorded the song on May 12, 1965, at the studio of Chess Records on the South Side of Chicago, home to Richards' hero Chuck Berry, and to blues musicians such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon. The studio's address became the title of an instrumental the Stones later recorded, "2120 South Michigan Avenue."

The song was released on June 5, and was so damn catchy that, despite the bad grammar of the title, Billboard magazine listed it as the Number 1 song in America in their July 10 issue. It remains the Stones' most familiar song. As Jagger put it: 

It was the song that really made The Rolling Stones, changed us from just another band into a huge, monster band... It has a very catchy title. It has a very catchy guitar riff. It has a great guitar sound, which was original at that time. And it captures a spirit of the times, which is very important in those kinds of songs... Which was alienation.

There are 3 surviving musicians from the recording session on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction": Jagger, Richards and Wyman. Oldham is also still alive. Jones died in 1969, Stewart in 1985, Nitzsche in 2000, and Watts in 2021.

May 12, 1955: The 1st Black Pitcher to Throw a Major League No-Hitter

May 12, 1955, 70 years ago: The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Sam Jones of the Cubs pitched a no-hitter. This made him the 1st black pitcher to do so in the previously all-white major leagues.

It was far from a perfect game: He walked 7 batters. But he was also lucky. He walked Dale Long in the 2nd inning, but he was thrown out trying to steal 2nd base. He walked Toby Atwell to lead off the 3rd, but stranded him. He walked Long again to lead off the 5th, but got George Freese to ground into a double play.

The opposing pitcher, Vernon Law, nearly hit a home run to straightaway center field, but Eddie Miksis, who went 2-for-4 with an RBI on the day, caught it. He walked Long a 3rd time, leading off the 8th, and gave up another long fly to center, to Freese, by Miksis caught this one, too. Then Jones got Toby Atwell to ground into a double play.

In addition to Miksis' heroics, shortstop Ernie Banks went 3-for-5 with an RBI, and right fielder Ted Tappe went 2-for-5, with a home run and 2 RBIs. Despite being a Cub and having an unusual surname, Ted was no relation to Elvin "El" Tappe, a teammate, and later part of the Cubbies' dumb "College of Coaches" experiment. El did have a brother, Melvin -- El and Mel -- who pitched professionally.

Then came the 9th. Jones walked Freese, and threw a wild pitch that got him to 2nd base. That ended up not mattering, because he walked Preston Ward. Then he walked Tom Saffell. Bases loaded, nobody out, and the next 3 batters were Dick Groat, a rookie named Roberto Clemente, and Frank Thomas. (Not the later Chicago White Sox "Big Hurt," but a powerful slugger in his own right.) Suddenly, not just the no-hitter, but the game was in doubt: Thomas represented the tying run.

Jones buckled down, struck Groat out looking, struck Clemente out swinging, and struck Thomas out looking. It was a brilliant comeback, and he had his no-hitter.

Jones was born in 1925 in Stewartsville, Ohio, near Steubenville, and also near Wheeling, West Virginia. Because of the earlier star Yankee pitcher with the same name, he, too, was nicknamed "Sad Sam." He was also known as "Toothpick Sam": Like 1970s stars Dusty Baker and U L Washington, he was frequently seen chewing on a toothpick.

Having gotten his start in the Negro Leagues, in 1952, he pitched for the Cleveland Indians, and his catcher was a former Cleveland Buckeyes teammate, Quincy Trouppe. This made them the 1st all-black "battery" in the American League, 3 years after Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella had been the 1st in the modern major leagues, and 75 years after George Stovey had pitched to Moses "Fleet" Walker.

Jones was named to the All-Star Game in 1955 and 1959. He led the National League in strikeouts in 1955 and 1956. In 1959, with the San Francisco Giants, he led it in strikeouts, wins and earned-run average, the Triple Crown of Pitching. Had the Cy Young Award then been given out to the best pitcher in each League, he would have won it for the NL. But it was given to the best pitcher in both Leagues from its 1956 inception until 1966, and in 1959, he finished 2nd in the voting to Early Wynn of the Chicago White Sox.

He pitched for mostly struggling teams, resulting in a career record of 103-104. And his timing was bad. He pitched for the Indians in 1951 and 1952, missing their 1948 and 1954 Pennants. He pitched for the Giants from 1959 to 1961, missing their 1962 Pennant. He pitched for the Detroit Tigers in 1962, a year after their best performance since 1945, although it's hard to imagine him making an 8-game difference. He pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1963, missing their 1964 World Series win. And his last major league season was 1964, finishing just 2 games behind the Yankees for the Baltimore Orioles, 2 years before their 1966 World Series win.

He pitched beyond 1962 despite having been diagnosed with cancer in his neck. He fought it bravely until it took his life in 1971, when he was only 45 years old.

In 2007, pitcher-turned-broadcaster Jim "Mudcat" Grant included Jones in his book Black Aces, about the 13 black pitchers, including himself, who had won 20 or more games in a major league season. Newcombe was the only one to accomplish the feat before Jones. Since the book was published, 2 more have done it: CC Sabathia, the only Yankee on the list, in 2010; and David Price, with the 2012 Tigers.

May 12, 1925: Yogi Berra Is Born

May 12, 1925, 100 years ago: Lawrence Peter Berra is born in St. Louis, Missouri. We knew him as Yogi Berra.

He died on September 22, 2015, in West Caldwell, New Jersey. In the 90 years in between, he had one of the most remarkable lives in American history. As his former manager, Casey Stengel, might have said, There's a time in every man's life, and Yogi had a lot of them.

This is a repeat of what I wrote about him on his 90th birthday (as it turned out, his last), and then adapted after he died. I want to thank Yogi for making this post necessary.

*

As the man himself might have said, if he'd considered it, "I can't die, I'm havin' too much fun to live."

Yogi Berra, the only man to be a veteran of both the D-Day invasion and Major League Baseball, the only man to play in 14 World Series, the only man to win 10 World Series, the only man to win Pennants as manager of both the Yankees and the Mets, and the man only half-jokingly called "America's greatest living philosopher," is living no more.

It was announced by the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center at 2:00 this morning that he had died last night -- on the 69th anniversary of his 1st major league game. (Yogi might have called that "High-ronic.")

No further details have been given, but he was living in a nursing home in West Caldwell, Essex County, New Jersey since his wife Carmen became too sick to live in their house in Montclair, also in Essex County, and eventually he became too frail to live outside it himself. She died a year and a half ago. Now, he has joined her. He was 90 years old.

I'm not surprised that he went so soon after she did. Partly because this season was the first Old-Timers' Day ceremony he did not attend since he returned from his self-imposed "exile" in 1999. And partly since they made such a great couple. As he put it, "We have a great time together, even when we're not together."

Some early reaction:

"No! Say it ain't so. He was a good man, my former manager and friend! RIP Yogi." -- Dave Winfield, Yankee Hall-of-Famer.

"My thoughts and prayers to the Berra Family!!! Yogi you were an icon and legend to us all who play this amazing game of baseball! #8 #YogiBerra" -- Shane Victorino, Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Red Sox World Champion.

"Sorry to hear of the passing of one of baseball's greatest! Words can't describe what he meant to the game and city of New York. #YogiBerra" -- Chipper Jones, Atlanta Braves legend and probable future Hall-of-Famer.

"I choose to believe that his last words were a doozy." -- Brandon McCarthy, former Yankee pitcher, now with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Yogi supposedly once said, "You can observe a lot just by watching." My life is almost exactly half as long as his, and I've been watching him for about 40 years now. This past May 12, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, I wrote down my observations of his life:

*

May 12, 1925, 90 years ago: Lawrence Peter Berra is born in St. Louis, Missouri.

He grew up in the Gateway City at the same time as 5 members of the U.S. team that shocked England at the 1950 World Cup: Goalkeeper Frank Borghi, right back Harry Keough, centre-half Charlie Colombo, inside right Gino Pariani, and outside right Frank Wallace (born Valicenti). I don't know if Berra knew any of them, but given that 4 of them were also Italian-Americans, it's very possible. Left half Walter Bahr of Philadelphia, father of Super Bowl-winning placekickers Matt and Chris, is now the last living man who played in that game, 65 years ago.

When Larry Berra was 11 years old, he played in a baseball game on a sandlot field that didn't have dugouts. So the players all sat on the ground. Larry sat there with his arms and legs folded. He and his teammates had recently seen a movie about India, and one of the characters in it was a yogi, and one of them, Jack McGuire, said, "You look like a yogi."

He's been Yogi ever since. A few years back, Bob Costas asked him what his wife Carmen calls him. He said, "She calls me Yogi. If she calls me Lawrence, I know I'm in trouble."

And, just as the makers of the Baby Ruth candy bar had to concoct a story that it wasn't named after Babe Ruth in order to avoid paying the Babe royalties for the use of his name, Hanna-Barbera Productions officially said that the cartoon character Yogi Bear wasn't named after Yogi Berra. Berra didn't take legal action, knowing that he'd get better publicity if he left the ridiculous lie alone. Because he was "smarter than the average bear."

Top 10 Yogi Berra Moments

These are in chronological order.

1. The Best Brothers Ever. Yogi said his older brothers Mike and Tony were better ballplayers than he was. On the list of things great ballplayers said (or may have said) that seem as if they can't possibly be true, it's up there with Willie Mays, a quarterback at his all-white high school outside Birmingham, Alabama who wouldn't get recruited by white colleges, saying he was better in football (or any sport) than he was in baseball.

Pietro Berra, the boys' father, was an Italian immigrant. So was Giuseppe DiMaggio of San Francisco. Giuseppe, from Sicily, forbid his boys to play baseball, saying they were going to go to work. His oldest son Vince disobeyed him, played for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League, came back, and slammed a wad of cash down on the kitchen table. Seeing more money at once than he'd ever had in his life, Giuseppe welcomed Vince back, and also let sons Joe and Dom play pro ball.

Pietro Berra, from the soccer-mad city of Milan, was a bit more intransigent. When the hometown St. Louis Cardinals were interested in Mike, he was underage, and he needed his father to sign his contract with him. The father told him, "No, you are not going to play baseball. You are going to go to work." So he did, and gave up his dream of playing in the major leagues.

A little later, the Cards were interested in Tony. At this point, Tony was underage, and needed his father to sign his contract with him. But Pietro told him, "No, you are not going to play baseball. You are going to go to work." So he did, and gave up his dream of playing in the major leagues.

A little later, the Yankees were interested in Lawrence -- or "Lawdie," as his parents called him in their accent. Again, the underage son needed the father to sign the contract with him. But Pietro told him, "No, you are not going to play baseball. You are going to go to work."

This time, Mike and Tony stepped in. At this point, both were not only working, but married, and living together -- and both were past their 21st birthday. They told their father that if he didn't co-sign Yogi's contract, they would. And that, if he threw Lawdie out of the house for this, Lawdie could come and live with them.

Pietro knew that his bluff had been called. Any power he still had over Lawdie had been canceled out. He co-signed the contract. The rest is history -- or, as Yogi's future manager Casey Stengel would say, "And you could look it up."

2. D-Day. There were 156,000 men who were in the Allied landing force in Normandy, France on June 6, 1944, arguably the pivotal day in human history. As of last night's games, according to Baseball-Reference.com (a website which is your friend, whether you know it or not), there have been 18,484 men who have played Major League Baseball. Only 1 man is in both categories: Seaman Lawrence Peter Berra, USN (United States Navy).

Yogi was a gunner's mate on the U.S.S. Bayfield, an attack transport ship. He was just past his 19th birthday, and until signing his Yankee contract to play minor-league ball -- a journey interrupted by his service in World War II -- he had never been outside St. Louis before. And there were all those Nazis, ready to kill him. You'd think he would have been terrified.

He might have been the most composed guy on either side of the English Channel. He recalled seeing the rockets being fired by both sides: "To me, it looked like the 4th of July." He got through it, and through the entire War, without a scratch.

Not so lucky was Lieutenant James Montgomery Doohan of the Canadian Royal Artillery. He killed a few Nazis on Juno Beach, and had his right middle finger shot off. I used to say that he literally gave the Nazis the finger, until I found out that he actually lost it due to "friendly fire." Still, that's why, whenever he was shown operating machinery as Scotty on Star Trek, he did so with his left hand.

3. Breaking Up the Biggest Trade. Yogi debuted in the major leagues on September 22, 1946, in the 1st game of a doubleheader with the Philadelphia Athletics at the original Yankee Stadium. Batting 8th, catching, and wearing Number 38, he went 2-for-4, including a 2-run home run off Jesse Flores, the 1st of 358 homers he would hit in the major leagues -- still a record for anyone 5-foot-8 or shorter. The Yankees won, 4-3, behind Yogi's homer and the pitching of Spurgeon "Spud" Chandler.

Legend has it that, after the season, Yankee co-owner Larry MacPhail and Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey -- who had just won his 1st American League Pennant -- got together and, as both men liked to do, got drunk.

They retained enough lucidity to realize that Joe DiMaggio, a righthanded hitter, was losing lots of hits in Yankee Stadium's left field and center field, known as "Death Valley" -- long outs that might be home runs over the high but close left field wall at Fenway Park. (The wall's advertising signs were about to come down, resulting in it being clear, with the green-painted tin seen underneath, leading to the nickname the Green Monster.) This trade would also reunited Joe with his brother Dom, who was with the Red Sox.

Likewise, Ted Williams, a lefthanded hitter, was losing lots of hits in Fenway's expansive right and center fields, hits that might be home runs to the "short porch" in right field at Yankee Stadium.

So the 2 powerful drunks wrote up the trade of all time on a cocktail napkin: They would trade Ted Williams for Joe DiMaggio. Regardless of whether the trade worked out, if that napkin had survived, how much would it be worth today?

To put it in a modern perspective: Can you imagine the Giants trading Madison Bumgarner to the Dodgers for Clayton Kershaw? Or Real Madrid swapping Cristiano Ronaldo to Barcelona for Lionel Messi? No, you can't imagine it. But I've never heard anybody deny this story.

What's that, you say? You do deny this story? You say the trade never happened? That's right, but it did almost happen, and nobody's ever gone out of his way to deny that. (MacPhail died in 1975, Yawkey the next year, and neither ever confirmed nor denied the story.)

In the morning, sobered up, Yawkey decided -- forgetting that the Yankee Clipper was a great fielder and a great baserunner, and that the Splendid Splinter was, by his own admission, neither -- that Ted was worth more than Joe. (Ted was 4 years younger, and was already known to be less injury-prone.) So he called MacPhail up, and demanded that he throw in a player Yawkey liked. He couldn't think of the player's name, but knew he was a decent hitter and a good left fielder, and could also catch a little. MacPhail realized that Yawkey was talking about Yogi, and put the kibosh on the deal.

The next season, when Yogi would likely have won the AL Rookie of the Year award had there been one at the time, the St. Louis Browns, desperate for attendance as always, hosted Yogi Berra Night at Sportsman's Park, welcoming the hometown hero as he came in with the Yankees. He told the crowd, "I'd like to thank everybody for making this day necessary." He meant, "...for making this day possible."

This quote, which Yogi repeated upon his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, was reported in the next day's newspapers, and is definitive proof that Yogi did not start saying weird things after listening to the similarly-quotable Stengel, as they hadn't met yet.

Perhaps Yogi should have included Tom Yawkey and his hubris among those who had made that day necessary.

4. All His Experiences. Yogi wasn't a natural behind the plate. Although, now wearing Number 35, he hit the 1st pinch-hit home run in World Series history, off Ralph Branca of the Brooklyn Dodgers, in Game 3 of the 1947 World Series -- a game the Yankees lost anyway, though they won the Series in 7 games -- the Dodgers ran rampant on him, successfully challenging his arm and his positioning. He didn't get much better in 1948, either.

So when Stengel became Yankee manager in 1949, he hired Bill Dickey as a coach. Dickey was then regarded, along with Mickey Cochrane, as 1 of the 2 greatest catchers who ever lived. Stengel told Dickey to teach Yogi everything he knew about catching. To show Yogi that he trusted him, Casey even gave Yogi Dickey's old uniform number, 8. (Dickey was given 33.)

Yogi's improvement was quick, and when asked why, he said, "Bill Dickey is learning me all his experiences."

He should have said, "Bill Dickey is teaching me everything from his experience." I suspect that Yogi may have gotten the expression from Dizzy Dean, the Cardinals pitcher who had become a broadcaster for both St. Louis teams. Diz once read, on the air, a letter from a teacher who said he shouldn't use the word "ain't" on the air, because it was bad for children to hear that. He told the teacher, "A lot o' folks who ain't sayin' 'ain't' ain't eatin'. So, teach, you learn 'em English, and I'll learn 'em baseball."

I suspect that Yogi was one of the people that Dizzy "learned baseball." Who knows, Dizzy might also be the reason Yogi ended up saying things like, "Nobody ever goes there anymore, it's too crowded," and, "Pair up in threes," and, "A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."

(Speaking of things we might "suspect," the earliest known "Yogiism" -- also written as "Yogi-ism" and "Yogism," but always pronounced "YOH-gee-IZ-im" -- is something he supposedly said when he was in school at age 12. A teacher got exasperated with him, and asked, "Don't you know anything?" And, according to the story, Lawrence/Larry/Lawdie/Yogi said, "I don't even suspect anything." I don't know if the story is true, but it's believable, because, at some point, Yogi was asked, "How did you like school?" And he said, "Closed.")

5. Five in a Row. Dickey's experiences must have worked: Yogi, along with the pitching, was the biggest reason the Yankees won the 1949 Pennant, starting a string of 5 straight World Championships. The 1953 World Series ring has a diamond inside a number 5. Whitey Ford has said that's his favorite World Series ring.

When the Yankees won 3 straight World Series in 1998, 1999 and 2000, Derek Jeter told Yogi he'd catch up with him. When the Yankees lost the Series in 2001, Yogi (who couldn't have been happy about that) told Jeter, "Now, ya gotta start over."

Jeter may have been cheated out of 3 AL Most Valuable Player awards: In 1999, 2006 and 2009. Yogi might also have been cheated out of 3: In 1949, 1952 and 1953. But he actually did win 3: In 1951, 1954 and 1955. It's been suggested that Yogi is the most valuable Yankee of all time. Certainly, he's the most underrated.

Casey once said, "I never play a game without my man." His man was Yogi.

All told, Yogi played in 14 World Series, winning 10 of them. Both are records that, well, if Jeter wasn't going to break them, it sure looks like nobody will.

6. If the World Were Perfect. Yogi once said, "If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be." Meaning that a perfect world would be boring.

One man who was definitely not boring was Don Larsen, a pitcher so off-kilter in the head he was nicknamed Gooney Bird. (Or Gooney for short.)

In Game 5 of the 1956 World Series, Larsen pitched a no-hitter against the Dodgers. Yogi caught it. Years later, he said, "It never happened before, and it still hasn't." He's right, sort of: While no longer the only no-hitter in postseason history, it's still the only one in World Series history. And it wasn't just a no-hitter, it was a perfect game. Larsen threw exactly what Yogi called, on every one of his 97 pitches, and it worked.

Two days later -- a Subway Series, so there was no need for a travel day -- Yogi hit 2 home runs, powering the Yankees to a 9-0 win in Game 7. Yogi hit 3 homers and had 10 RBIs in the Series.

7. The Businessman. Yogi looked a bit silly, and his "Yogi-isms" made him sound dumb. This was far from the case. While still active players, he and teammate Phil Rizzuto opened a clothing store and a bowling alley, both in New Jersey.

By this point, the Scooter lived in Hillside, and Yogi lived in Upper Montclair, where his next-door neighbor was naval engineer John McMullen, later a minority partner in the Yankees, majority owner of the Houston Astros, and founding owner of the New Jersey Devils.

The store, the bowling alley, other business interests, and, yes, his salary -- the most he ever made in a season was $65,000, in his last season as a player, 1963, but that was a big sum for an athlete in the early Sixties -- allowed him to buy a big house. Rizzuto called it a mansion. Yogi said, "It's just a big house with rooms." Giving directions to it, he once said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." The house was between the prongs of the fork, so this wasn't just "Yogi being Yogi."

Yogi's familiar face, lovable personality and way with words led him to being hired as a pitchman for all kinds of products. He seemed to specialize in drinks: As early as 1957, he did an ad for Florida orange juice. (Sorry, no "Yogi-isms" in this one.) He also did ads for Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink and Miller Lite beer -- or, as it was known at the time, "Lite beer from Miller." This 1987 commercial included a rather confused pre-Seinfeld Jason Alexander.

Sadly, in 1960, he did an ad for Camel cigarettes. (Cigarette advertising was banned from American TV in 1971.) He must've quit smoking at some point, because he's still alive at 90. (Then again, DiMaggio smoked until dying of lung cancer at 84.) So maybe Yogi doesn't need Aflac insurance. But, what the heck, they gave him a check -- which was just as good as money.

My favorite Yogi commercial was part of the "What's your favorite Entenmann's?" series. Yogi's favorite product of the famous bakery (which originated in Brooklyn but, like so many people from that Borough, moved out to Long Island) also happens to be mine: In a line that, like the Aflac and Miller lines, was clearly written for him in his style, he said, "That's easy: Chocolate chip cookies. You can taste how good they are just by eating 'em!" (A takeoff on his line, "You can observe a lot by watching.")

8. The Harmonica Incident. In 1959, Yogi and left fielder Elston Howard had their positions switched by Stengel. Talking about how the sun combine with the old Stadium's roof, making it difficult to see a fly ball from left field, he said, "It gets late early out there."

He was still a key figure on Pennant-winning teams. But after the 1963 season, Yogi was 38 and clearly slowing down. And, with Ralph Houk, his former backup catcher, being moved up from field manager to general manager, Yogi was offered the job of managing the Yankees.

There were those who thought that Yogi was too much of a softie to manage, especially players he'd played with. On August 20, 1964, the Yankees were in a dogfight for the Pennant with the Chicago White Sox and the Baltimore Orioles, and had just been swept by the ChiSox in 4 straight. The tension on the bus from Comiskey Park back to O'Hare Airport was so thick, it could have been cut with a knife.

(Yes, I know: In the years since the Michael Vick scandal, the word "dogfight" is touchy. But since Yogi served in World War II, where a "dogfight" was a battle between pilots of opposing air forces, I have no qualms about using it in a piece about a WWII vet.)

Reserve infielder Phil Linz pulled out a harmonica he'd begun learning how to play. Yogi, sitting at the head of the bus, heard it, and yelled back, "Whoever's playing that thing, shove it up your ass!" (Yogi was old-school even by the standards of the Sixties, but he was no prude when it came to language.) Linz didn't hear what he said, and asked Mickey Mantle what it was. Being a wisenheimer, Mickey said, "He said, 'Play it louder.'" So Linz did.

Yogi got up, walked down the aisle of the bus, saw Linz, and said, "I thought I told you to shove that thing up your ass." Linz said, "If you want it shoved up my ass, why don't you shove it there?" He flipped the instrument to Yogi... who slapped it down.

There are 2 versions of what happened next. One is that everyone saw that Yogi could mean business, and that the respect for him as a manager developed. The other, which is more believable, is included in Peter Golenbock's book Dynasty, and is backed up by the surviving '64 Yanks, all of whom said that respect for Yogi was never an issue. This version says that the slapped-down harmonica bounced off Joe Pepitone's leg. Pepi then fell into the aisle in mock agony, rolling around on the floor of the bus like a Spanish soccer player (with the bad hair to match). Everyone cracked up -- and loosened up.

With respect for Yogi restored, or the tension shattered, whichever is true, the Yankees went on a tear. They flew to Boston and lost 2 more, then won 28 of their last 39, including an 11-game winning streak from September 16 to 26, and won the Pennant, winning 99 games, beating the White Sox by 1 game and the O's by 2. Yogi had won his 1st Pennant as a manager, and he wasn't even 40.

But they lost the Series -- ironically, to Yogi's boyhood team, the Cardinals. And Yankee management fired him, which they were determined to do even if he won the Series. If he was upset, he never let on: When people would ask him about it, he'd just say, "That's baseball."

At least they told him to his face. That would not be the case the 2nd time he was fired as Yankee manager.

9. It Ain't Over. By this point, Casey was managing the expansion Mets. He hired Yogi as a coach. He even put Yogi in 4 games, where he went 2-for-9. Clearly, he was done. When Casey retired in that 1965 season, Met management kept Yogi on, as a drawing card as much as anything else.

He was still a Met coach during the 1969 "Miracle" season, under manager Gil Hodges, a Brooklyn Dodger opponent of Yogi's in 6 World Series. Asked about the Mets' World Series upset over the Baltimore Orioles, he said, "We were overwhelming underdogs." It sounds funny, but it was absolutely true. When Hodges died of a heart attack on the eve of the 1972 season, Yogi was named manager.

On August 5, 1973, the Mets were in 6th and last place in the National League Eastern Division, 11 1/2 games out. A few days earlier, a reporter asked Yogi if the Mets were out of it, and he said, "It ain't over 'til it's over."

Yogi's syntax may have been cold, but the Mets got hot, winning 34 of their last 53. On August 26, they were still in 5th place, behind the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, and even the 5th-year expansion Montreal Expos -- but were only 6 1/2 games back. From then on, they won 24 of their last 33, including a 7-game streak from September 18 to 25, and won the Division with an 82-79 record -- the worst record of any 1st-place team in baseball history (in a full season of at least 154 games, anyway), but good enough nonetheless. Then they upset the Cincinnati Reds for the Pennant.

In Game 3 of the NL Championship Series against the Cincinnati Reds, Pete Rose slid hard into Bud Harrelson to break up a double play, and then shoved the much smaller man, starting a bench-clearing brawl. When Rose went back out to left field the next inning the fans in Shea Stadium's left field stands threw garbage onto the field at Rose.

The umpires got a message to Loren Matthews, the Shea public-address announcer, who announced that if the throwing didn't stop, the game would be forfeited. The crowd didn't listen. Finally, not wanting to be members of the first MLB team ever to forfeit a postseason game (at home, no less), Yogi, ace pitcher Tom Seaver, and Willie Mays, then playing out the string with the Mets -- New York baseball icons all, even the 29-year-old Seaver by then -- went out there, and told the fans to stop, or else the game would, indeed, be forfeited to the Reds. They listened, and the Mets won the Pennant in 5 games.

They lost the Series in 7 to the Oakland Athletics, though. To this day, there are Met fans who blame Yogi for losing the Series, for starting Seaver on 3 days' rest in Game 6, instead of saving him for Game 7 on full rest. This is nonsense: If you have prime Tom Seaver, you send him out to close it out. Tom didn't get the job done that day, although a smart baseball fan would credit the A's for getting it done. (Don't forget, they had Reggie Jackson, who homered in Game 6 and Game 7, building his reputation as "Mr. October.")

Yogi and Carmen, circa 1973

If Met fans held a grudge against Yogi then, they seem to have stopped: On back-to-back Sundays in September 2008, he attended the closing ceremonies of both New York ballparks. He got a thunderous ovation at the old Yankee Stadium, and then a nice reception at Shea Stadium.

Eventually, Yogi began to tell people, "I try to say, 'It isn't over 'til it's over.'" I guess the influence that Dizzy Dean still had on him ain't goin' away.

10. The Exile and the Restoration. Mets president M. Donald Grant, right up there with Brooklyn Dodger owner/mover Walter O'Malley and Yankee owner George Steinbrenner as the most hated man in the history of New York baseball, fired Yogi as Met manager in 1975. Unlike many Met fans -- especially after Grant forced Seaver out 2 years later -- Yogi never held a grudge against him.

His Yankee teammate Billy Martin had just been hired as Yankee manager for the 1st time, and brought Yogi to his coaching staff. Through 9 managerial changes by Steinbrenner, including Billy 3 times, Yogi stayed. After George fired Billy for the 3rd time, he promoted Yogi to manager for the 1984 season. Yogi accepted, although I can certainly believe a scene in the 2007 ESPN film The Bronx Is Burning, where Joe Grifasi, playing Yogi, and John Turturro, playing Billy, are discussing George, and Billy says, "Sometimes, managing is the worst job in the world," and Yogi says, "Tell me about it."

The Detroit Tigers ran away with the AL East in 1984, en route to a title. But the Yankees won 87 games, a respectable total, especially considering Yogi hadn't managed in 9 years. Everyone was optimistic for 1985, and George publicly promised that Yogi would be given the whole season.

He wasn't: The Yankees lost 10 of their 1st 16, and George fired Yogi. In retrospect, competitively, it was the right thing to do: George brought Billy back for the 4th time, and, despite not quite having enough pitching all season long, the team ended up winning 97 games, finishing 2 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays. That wasn't the problem. George breaking his promise wasn't the problem, either.

The problem was that, unlike Houk in 1964 and Grant in 1975, George didn't call Yogi up to his office and tell him face-to-face, man-to-man. Nor did George go down to Yogi's office to tell him himself. Instead, he sent team scout Clyde King -- a former major league pitcher who had briefly been Yankee manager himself in 1982 -- to tell Yogi.

This time, Yogi held a grudge. Not against King, but against George. He swore he would never set foot in Yankee Stadium again as long as George owned the team.

As the years went by, he kept this promise. In 1988, George thought he could lure Yogi back by dedicating a Plaque for him in Monument Park. He did this for Dickey as well -- Number 8 had been jointly retired for them in 1972. Dickey was 81, in a wheelchair, and had to come from Arkansas to be there -- and he went. (I was there: It was the only time I ever saw Dickey in person.) Yogi was 63, in good health, and George could've sent limousines to pick up Yogi and his family, and they'd be at Yankee Stadium in an hour, if only he'd accept the invitation. He didn't.

In 1995 and 1996, the Yankees were back in the postseason. George invited Yogi to throw out a ceremonial first ball. He refused. In 1997, the 1st Yankees-Mets Interleague series was played at Yankee Stadium. Again, George invited Yogi. Again, Yogi refused. In 1998, a Yanks-Mets Interleague series was held at Shea for the 1st time. The Mets invited Yogi. No grudge here: Wearing a Mets cap, which must have burned George up to no end (I understood, but it bothered me), Yogi, then 73 years old, threw a perfect strike of a first ball.

That same year, a group of Yogi's friends opened the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center, on the campus of Montclair State University, not far from his home. Despite the name of the school, its campus straddles Montclair in Essex County, and Little Falls in Passaic County, and the museum and the adjoining minor-league ballpark named for Yogi are in Little Falls.

This was a very big deal, as not many athletes have museums in their honor, especially while they're still alive. Interestingly, Dizzy Dean was one: A museum for him opened in his adopted hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. It's gone now, its exhibits moved to become art of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, also in the State capital of Jackson, and also adjoining a minor-league ballpark.

The next spring, DiMaggio was dying. George went to visit Joe at the hospital in Florida that now has a children's wing that bears his name, due to his donations. George asked Joe if there was anything he could do for him. Joe told him to make up with Yogi.

Not long after that, Yankee broadcaster Suzyn Waldman talked to Carmen, and Carm said her great regret was that, unlike Yogi's children, his grandchildren had never seen him at Yankee Stadium in a Yankee uniform. So Suzyn went to talk to George, and said, "I'd like to talk to you about Yogi." And George, still rattled by his visit with DiMaggio, said, "Why, what's wrong?" Suzyn said she knew, at that point, that a reconciliation was possible.

A meeting was set up at the Yogi Museum. In front of the media, George said, "I'm sorry." Yogi said the perfect thing to say in the situation: "It's over."

George invited Yogi to throw out the first ball on Opening Day, an honor usually given to DiMaggio, who had died on March 8. Later in the season, on Old-Timers' Day, Yogi wore his old Number 8 uniform for the 1st time in 14 years.

In June 1999, I visited the Museum for the 1st time. I wrote on the comment card, "I'm glad I came. If I hadn't come, I wouldn't have known what I wasn't missing." I got a nice postcard back, complimenting me on my choice of words, and advertising future events. One such event was a bus trip from the Museum to The Stadium for Yogi Berra Day on July 18, 1999.

I thought about it... and decided not to go. On the one hand, it was brutally hot that day, almost 100 degrees, and the post-renovation old Stadium didn't provide much protection from the sun.

On the other hand, I missed maybe the greatest day in Yankee history -- and as Yogi might say, I'm not just whittling Dixie.

Yogi got all kinds of gifts, and read a heartfelt speech that was totally on the level, no Yogi-isms. Then Yogi caught a ceremonial first ball from Don Larsen. Then, with Yogi and Don both watching, David Cone pitched a perfect game. Coney remarked that there was a Number 8 marked behind home plate, and he had thrown 88 pitches. It was a real "You can't make this stuff up" moment. After the game, the scoreboard put up one of Yogi's best-known lines: "It's deja vu all over again."

Yogi and Carm, at the Museum, not long before her death in 2014

*

Today, there was a party for Yogi at the Museum. There was recently a break-in at the Museum, and several priceless artifacts were stolen. The Yankees and Mets organizations both chipped in to pay for replicas, which were presented at the party; however, the originals have yet to be recovered.

Carmen got sick a few years ago, and they had to move from the Montclair house -- which was listed for $888,888, appropriately enough, and sold quickly -- to a nursing home. Soon, it was clear that advancing age had left Yogi frail enough that he was no longer living there just for her.

She died on March 6, 2014, at age 85, after 65 years of marriage. They raised 3 sons, Larry, Dale and Tim. Dale who also played in the majors, including on the Yankees under his father. Tim's sport was football: He was a receiver at the University of Massachusetts, and briefly played with the Baltimore Colts as a kick returner in 1974. No, he didn't wear Number 88: Instead, he wore 84. Tim runs the company that handles Yogi's business affairs, named LTD Enterprises for them (Larry, Tim, Dale). Yogi and Carm had 11 grandchildren.

It's hard for Yogi to get around these days. When he's introduced on Old-Timers' Day, it's always last, together with Whitey Ford, who's in a bit better shape but is still 86, on a golf cart. He looks so old, and very weak. (UPDATE: On Old-Timers Day 2015, Yogi wasn't well enough to attend.)

But he's still very much with it. According to his granddaughter, Lindsay Berra, who writes for MLB.com, she asked him about Tom Brady's "Deflategate." She said that "Gramp" said, "If you're going to cheat, it's better if you don't get caught."

A photo from last year's birthday party at the Yogi Museum.

L to R: Jorge Posada, Yogi, Reggie "Indiana" Jackson, Joe Girardi.

Why they posed in front of a copy of the Rolling Stones' album

 Sticky Fingers, I don't know.

He likes to say, "I really didn't say everything I said." Well, less important than what he's said is who he's been. He's an American treasure.

And thank God he's not yet a buried treasure. Happy Birthday, Yoag.

*

That's what I wrote on May 12. Well, he's gone now.

And the Yankees are in Toronto. I can hear him now: "They were out of the country when I died! Jeez, they were even out of the city!"

No doubt, they will take the field tonight wearing black armbands, possibly with little Number 8s over them, although it may take until they come home before they wear uniforms with the numbers.

It's not clear how many D-Day veterans are still alive. The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, which has a heavy focus on D-Day, estimates the total at 5,000 to 10,000, with about 850,000 veterans from the entire war still alive, dying at a rate of 500 a day.

With Yogi's death, 3rd baseman turned cardiologist turned former American League President Bobby Brown is now the last surviving player from the 1947 and 1949 World Champion Yankees. Ralph Branca is now the last living man who played in Game 7 of the 1947 World Series. And Don Larsen is now the only surviving player from his World Series perfect game.

Yogi was often said to be a good luck charm. Maybe, now that he's one of the "Ghosts of Yankee Stadium," he can use whatever magic he had on the Yankees' behalf. You know that, at some point in whatever remains of this season, there's going to be "WIN IT FOR YOGI" signs at the new Stadium.

After all, although his life has come to a conclusion, he'd still remind us that the battle for a 28th World Series win ain't over.

By the way, that $65,000 that Yogi made in his final season, 1963? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' CPI Inflation Calculator, that's worth about $506,000 in today's money.

Yogi Berra's worth to the Yankees these last 70 years: Priceless.

UPDATE: The "treasure" wasn't buried. He was cremated, and his remains were interred next to those of Carmen at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover, Morris County, New Jersey. This place is not to be confused with the cemetery of the same name in Hawthorne, Westchester County, New York, where Babe Ruth is buried. But, as Yogi himself might have said, "It's close enough to be a coincidence." 

May 11, 1985: The Bradford City Stadium Fire

May 11, 1985, 40 years ago: Bradford City Association Football Club, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, hosts their last home game of the season at their stadium, Valley Parade. It turns into a disaster -- and not the kind of disaster their fans would have considered a 4-0 defeat to be.

Unlike American sports teams, English "football" "clubs" tended to keep their old stadiums for as long as possible. This was a bad idea, since many of them still had wood in their construction, and fans liked to smoke, and drop their cigarettes.

On this day, at Valley Parade, which opened in 1886 and had hardly been modernized at all since, Bradford, in England's Football League Division Three, were playing Lincoln City, of Lincolnshire. This game is the most interesting thing that has ever happened to the "Imps."

Bradford, the "Bantams," should be so lucky: They had won Division Three that season, earning promotion to Division Two, and nobody outside Bradford remembers that. And their only major trophy is the 1911 FA Cup, and that's so far back that nobody remembers that, either.

The stand before the fire

The match was covered by British network ITV, so the key moments survive without a film crew arriving in mid-disaster. At 3:40 PM, ITV commentator John Helm remarked upon a small fire in the main stand. In less than 4 minutes, with the windy conditions, the fire had engulfed the whole stand, trapping some people in their seats.

In the panic that ensued, fleeing crowds escaped on to the pitch, but others at the back of the stand tried to break down locked exit doors to escape. Many were burned to death at the turnstile gates, which had also been locked after the match had begun. A total of 56 people died, making it the biggest disaster in the history of English football to that point.

(This was topped in Scotland by the 66 who died at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow in 1971, and would be surpassed by the 97 deaths that have now been attributed to the Hillsborough Disaster in Sheffield in 1989.)

Helm reported that he could feel the heat, from all the way across the stadium. As he put it, "Quite extraordinary scenes at Valley Parade. This was supposed to be a day of utter joy, triumph and celebration. It's turning into a nightmare."

There were many cases of heroism, with more than 50 people later receiving police awards or commendations for bravery.

Nevertheless, a bad year for English soccer -- which had already seen several notorious incidents of hooliganism, including a riot of Millwall fans at Luton Town 2 months earlier -- got even worse. On the same day as the Valley Parade fire, Birmingham City's promotion from the Second Division was marred by a riot by Leeds United fans, in which a 14-year-old spectator was crushed to death by a collapsing wall.

Both clubs were then known for their infamous hooligan firms: Leeds had the Leeds Service Crew, while Birmingham City had the Zulu Army -- named in tribute to the 1964 film that launched Michael Caine to stardom, but also because it was the first widely-known hooligan firm to have been racially integrated.

And there was more to come, in Brussels, Belgium, as the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Italian team Juventus resulted in 39 deaths, with severe repercussions for the English game.

Bradford City played home games at other grounds in West Yorkshire for 19 months, while Valley Parade was rebuilt, opening on December 14, 1986, just in time to get it in for the 100th Anniversary of the original stadium. Today, it is a modern all-seater stadium, holding 25,136 spectators, with a memorial to the victims at its north end.

The disaster led to rigid new safety standards in British stadiums, including the banning of new wooden grandstands. It was also a catalyst for the substantial redevelopment and modernization of many British football grounds in the years to come. 

Bradford City continues to support the burn unit at the University of Bradford hospital as its official charity.

Yankees Ride the Devin Williams Rollercoaster

The Yankees began a home Interleague series with the San Diego Padres on Monday night. Carlos Rodón started, and took a 3-hit shutout into the 7th inning. Fernando Cruz finished the inning, and the Yankees had a 3-0 lead, including a home run by Trent Grisham.

Manager Aaron Boone has stopped trusting Devin Williams as the closer. In this game, he trusted Williams to hold a 3-run lead in the 8th inning. He couldn't, putting the tying runs on base, before Luke Weaver, who appears to now be the closer, actually allowed the runs. The Padres won, 4-3.

Williams' ERA went up to 10.03.

The Tuesday game looked similar. Clarke Schmidt, injured to start the season, pitched 6 innings, allowing 2 runs. But Tim Hill allowed a run in the 7th, and the Padres led, 3-2, including a home run by Aaron Judge.

The Yankees scored 10 runs in the bottom of the 7th. This included a grand slam and an RBI single by Austin Wells (that's 5 RBIs in 1 inning), a 2-RBI double by Ben Rice, RBI singles by Cody Bellinger and Anthony Volpe, and a bases-loaded walk by Grisham.

Of those 10 runs, 6 were allowed by former Yankee Wandy Peralta. Boy, am I glad he's a former Yankee.

The Yankees won, 12-3, with Cruz as the winning pitcher.

The Yankees' story the last few years has been winning when they score a lot of runs, and losing when they don't. Could they win on Wednesday night without scoring 12? Could they win without scoring 5?

At first, it looked like the answer would be, "No." New acquisition Max Fried was terrific again, going 7 innings, allowing 1 run on 5 hits and no walks, striking out 8. But the Yankees went into the 7th-inning stretch trailing, 1-0. That's when Bellinger hit a home run to tie it. In the 8th, Ian Hamilton and then Weaver were both a bit shaky, and it was 3-1 Padres.

Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Oswaldo Cabrera was walked to lead off the bottom of the 8th, and Grisham hit a game-tying home run.

The game went to extra innings, and Boone trusted Williams to pitch the 10th. That's with the stupid rule authorizing the "ghost runner": Tie game, man on 2nd, nobody out. Gulp. And he walked a batter, and hit another, loading the bases with 2 out, before he got out of it.

In the bottom of the 10th, Cabrera bunted ghost runner Jasson Domínguez over to 3rd, and J.C. Escarra hit a sacrifice fly to left field, bringing Domínguez home. Yankees 4, Padres 3.

Winning pitcher: Devin Williams. Like Aroldis Chapman before him, the man is a rollercoaster.

Going into this weekend, the Yankees lead the American League Eastern Division by 2 games over the Boston Red Sox, 4 over the Toronto Blue Jays, 5 over the Tampa Bay Rays, and 7 1/2 over the Baltimore Orioles. In the loss column, it's 3 over the Sox, 4 over the Jays, 5 over the Rays, and 7 over the O's.

Tonight, the Yankees will do something they have never done before: Play a regular-season game in Sacramento, California. Well, actually, Sutter Health Park is across the river from downtown, in West Sacramento. They will play 3 against the team now known officially as "The Athletics," formerly in Philadelphia (1901-1954), Kansas City (1955-1967) and Oakland (1968-2024), temporarily as an official Sacramento team, and, they hope, in Las Vegas starting in 2028.

May 8, 1945: V-E Day

I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. It was quite a week:

April 28, 1945: Former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was executed.

April 29, 1945: Mussolini's corpse is hanged in Milan. Seeing this, Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany, knows he doesn't want the advancing Soviet Red Army to get their hands on him.

And U.S. troops liberate the Dachau concentration camp, outside Munich. It is believed that 32,000 people died there. Among those imprisoned were psychologist Bruno Bettelheim and the Rev. Martin Niemoller ("First they came for... ").

April 30, 1945: Hitler kills himself in his bunker in Berlin.

May 1, 1945: Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels follows with his own suicide in the bunker.

May 2, 1945: Nazi Generals Hans Krebs and Wilhelm Burgdorf commit suicide in the bunker. Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, tries to escape, but doesn't get far, and also kills himself.

It's all over. Berlin has fallen. The Soviet Red Army raises the Red Flag over the Reichstag, the home of the German national legislature. It's just a matter of what remains of the Nazi government surrendering. What Hitler called "The Thousand-Year Reich" was dead after 12 years.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had seen the photograph of the U.S. Marines raising the American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, and wanted a similar picture of the Soviet red banner with the yellow hammer and sickle over Berlin. He got it. The photographer was Yevgeny Khaldei. The soldier was 18-year-old Aleksei Kovalov -- no relation to the later hockey player of the same name. He later became a fireman in Kiev. Both men were Ukrainians, and both lived until 1997.

In late 1941, the Soviets were, perhaps, a mile away from losing the Eastern Front of the European Theater of World War II. Now, they had won what they called The Great Patriotic War.

May 3, 1945: The Nazis had their own version of the Titanic. And guess what: It sank. Unlike the original, it wasn't just due to incompetence. It had "help."

The SS Cap Arcona was launched in 1927. It was named after Cape Arkona on Rügen, Germany's largest island, on the Baltic Sea. It weighed 27,561 tons, compared to the 46,329 of the original RMS Titanic. It was 679 feet long, compared to the original's 889 feet. Cruising speed was close, 23 miles per hour to Titanic's 24. In other words, it was big, but not as big as the Titanic, the world's largest cruise liner when it first and last sailed in 1912.

Cap Arcona was the flagship of the Hamburg-South America line, and sailed between Hamburg, Germany's 2nd-largest city and largest port, and the east coast of South America. In 1940, the Kriegsmarine, the Nazi navy, took it over. In 1943, it was "cast" in the title role in Titanic, a Nazi propaganda film, designed to show that the British were incompetent because they built the "unsinkable," ill-fated Titanic. It had 3 smokestacks, instead of the 4 that Titanic had. But it was still big enough to be plausible.

In 1945, Cap Arcona became a prison ship, as the Nazis, aware that they were losing the war, and that the Allies had begun to liberate the concentration camps, began to evacuate their camps in occupied Norway and Denmark. On May 3, Cap Arcona was sunk off the coast of Neustadt -- fittingly, by Britain's Air Force -- and over 5,000 prisoners were killed. Compare that to the 1,500 who died on the real Titanic.

Same day: Ezra Pound, often called one of America's greatest poets, was arrested for treason. He was born in 1885 in Idaho. By 1908, he was already living in Italy, teaching there, and a published poet. He moved to London, and worked as foreign editor of American literary magazines. He introduced the world to Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway wrote in 1932 that, for poets born in the late 19th or early 20th century, not to be influenced by Pound would be "like passing through a great blizzard and not feeling its cold."

He blamed the horrors of World War I on international bankers, and moved to Italy, where he became a supporter of Mussolini, and later of Hitler and the leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley.

During World War II, Pound recorded hundreds of paid radio propaganda broadcasts for the Italian government, allied with the Nazis in the Axis. In these broadcasts, he attacked the U.S. government, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in particular; the British government; international finance, Jews in general, and the Jewish influence on international finance; and munitions makers and arms dealers, accusing them of prolonging the war. Keeping with the Fascist theme, he used his broadcast to support the Holocaust, and to support eugenics, and urged U.S. soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender.

On May 3, 1945, Pound was arrested by the Italian Resistance, and was handed over to the U.S. Army. Ruled mentally unfit to stand trial, he was held at St. Elizabeths Hospital, a famed psychiatric facility in Washington, where he was diagnosed as a narcissist and a psychopath.

Despite being held there, his poetry collection The Pisan Cantos was published in 1948. He would continue work on the project, published in full in 1962 as The Cantos of Ezra Pound. Norman Mailer, a leftist author who despised Fascism, once said that he would rather read Pound than any of the Communist screenwriters known as the Hollywood Ten, because, he said, Pound was a better writer.

He was released in 1958, and, knowing he was not particularly welcome in America, returned to Italy, called America "an insane asylum," and gave a Fascist salute for the press. He died in Venice in 1972.

And another thing that happened on May 3, 1945: German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his brother Magnus surrender to American troops at Oberammergau, Bavaria.

Wernher von Braun had been a member of both the Nazi Party and the SS, and he designed the V-2 rocket that had killed thousands in raids on London. And yet, without him, America would not have gotten to the Moon – had the Soviets gotten him, the entire history of the world could have been changed.

Few have been so villainous and so heroic -- on the few occasions when one has been both, it has tended to go in the other direction. He died in 1977.

In 1960, Curd Jürgens, later to play a James Bond villain in The Spy Who Loved Me, played von Braun in I Aim at the Stars. Satirists Mort Sahl said the title should be extended to "...But Sometimes I Hit London."

In 1965, another satirist, Tom Lehrer, wrong a song titled "Wernher von Braun":

"Once the rockets go up

who cares where they come down?
That's not my department!"

says Wernher von Braun.

May 4, 1945: British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery accepts the unconditional surrender of German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark, northwest Germany including all islands and all naval ships in those areas, at Lüneburg Heath, outside Hamburg.

May 5, 1945: The Mauthausen concentration camp, outside Linz, Austria, is liberated by the U.S. 11th Armored Division. Over 320,000 people were killed there. Among the survivors is Simon Wiesenthal, who goes on to become the world's foremost Nazi-hunter.

Canadian troops liberate Amsterdam. Today, the Dutch capital is home to 935,000 people, with a metropolitan area of 2.5 million, and is renowned as a center of art, culture, stylish soccer, and, well, naughtiness.

Also on this day: For all that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan did to their various enemies in World War II, they could only hurt America from afar. Their respective saboteurs in America had a rather pathetic record. But there was one attack on the U.S. mainland that had, by any definition, some success.

"Balloon bombs" had been postulated as early as 1792 in France, but had never been considered practical until 1849, when the Austrian Empire used them on Venice, with some success, in the First War of Italian Independence.

Britain had used them on Nazi Germany in World War II. Japan had also tried them, as the only thing they could launch that could reach the U.S. mainland without getting shot down. On May 5, 1945, 6  civilians were killed near Bly, Oregon, when they discovered one of the balloon bombs (in Japanese, "Fu-Go") in Fremont National Forest, becoming the only fatalities from Axis action in the continental U.S. during the war.

A Fu-Go "balloon bomb"

Reverend Archie Mitchell (then age 27) and his pregnant wife Elsie (age 26) drove up Gearhart Mountain that day with 5 of their Sunday school students for a picnic. While Archie was parking the car, Elsie and the children discovered a balloon and carriage, loaded with an anti-personnel bomb, on the ground. A large explosion occurred, and the 4 boys -- Edward Engen (13), Jay Gifford (13), Dick Patzke (14) and Sherman Shoemaker (11) were killed instantly; while Elsie and Joan Patzke (13) died from their wounds shortly afterwards.

An Army investigation concluded that the bomb had likely been kicked or dropped, and that it had lain undisturbed for about 1 month before the incident. The U.S. press blackout was lifted on May 22 so the public could be warned of the balloon threat.

This would not be Rev. Mitchell's last experience in war. He served as a missionary to South Vietnam, and, along with 2 others, was taken captive by the Vietcong on May 30, 1962. None of them have been seen since.

A memorial, the Mitchell Monument, was built in 1950 at the site of the explosion. In 1987, a group of Japanese women involved in Fu-Go production as schoolgirls delivered 1,000 paper cranes to the victims' families as a symbol of peace and healing, and 6 cherry trees were planted at the site on the incident's 50th Anniversary in 1995.

May 7, 1945: Nazi Germany's surrender was authorized by Adolf Hitler's appointed successor as head of state, Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz, an Admiral. His administration was known as the Flensburg Government.

The act of military surrender was first signed at 2:41 AM on May 7 in SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) headquarters in Reims, France. A slightly modified document, considered the definitive German Instrument of Surrender, was signed on May 8 in Karlshorst, Berlin, at 10:43 PM local time. It read as follows:

The German High Command will at once issue orders to all German military, naval and air authorities and to all forces under German control to cease active operations at 23.01 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945.

In other words, 6:01 PM, U.S. East Coast time.

May 8, 1945: President Harry S Truman makes the announcement: It is Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day.

Russia and some countries formerly in the Soviet Union celebrate V-E Day on May 9, as Germany's unconditional surrender entered into force at 11:01 PM on May 8, Central European Summer Time (6:01 PM, U.S. Eastern Time), and this corresponded with 12:01 AM on May 9, Moscow Time.

In Britain, though Winston Churchill ran the government as Prime Minister, crowds in London rushed to Buckingham Palace, chanting "We want the King!" Hearing it, King George VI, exhausted and aged by the war well beyond his 49 years, said, "The King wants his dinner." But he soon appeared on the balcony, in his Royal Navy uniform, with his wife Queen Elizabeth, and their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Churchill soon appeared with them, with Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin leading the crowd in a singing of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."

(In Britain, the refrain to that chant is, "And so say all of us!" In America, it's "Which nobody can deny!")

In the United States, the event coincided with Truman's 61st birthday. He dedicated the victory to the memory of his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died 26 days earlier. American flags remained at half-staff for the remainder of the 30-day mourning period. Great celebrations took place in many American cities, especially in New York's Times Square.

World War II would continue for another 3 months, until the Empire of Japan surrendered on August 14, which became known as V-J Day.