This is my 564th post of the calendar year, setting a new record.
Last World Series Win:
1. 2021 Atlanta Braves
2. 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers
3. 2019 Washington Nationals
4. 2018 * Boston Red Sox
5. 2017 * Houston Astros
6. 2016 Chicago Cubs
7. 2015 Kansas City Royals
8. 2014 San Francisco Giants
9. 2011 St. Louis Cardinals
10. 2009 New York Yankees
11. 2008 Philadelphia Phillies
12. 2005 Chicago White Sox
13. 2003 Miami Marlins
14. 2002 Los Angeles Angels
15. 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks
16. 1993 Toronto Blue Jays
17. 1991 Minnesota Twins
18. 1990 Cincinnati Reds
19. 1989 Oakland Athletics
20. 1986 New York Mets
21. 1984 Detroit Tigers
22. 1983 Baltimore Orioles
23. 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates
24. 1948 Cleveland Indians
25. None in 24 seasons: Tampa Bay Rays
26. None in 29 seasons: Colorado Rockies
27. None in 45 seasons: Seattle Mariners
28. None in 50 seasons: Texas Rangers
29. None in 52 seasons: Milwaukee Brewers
30. None in 53 seasons: San Diego Padres
Last Pennant:
1. 2021 Atlanta Braves
2. 2021 * Houston Astros
3. 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers
4. 2020 Tampa Bay Rays
5. 2019 Washington Nationals
6. 2018 * Boston Red Sox
7. 2016 Chicago Cubs
8. 2016 Cleveland Indians
9. 2015 Kansas City Royals
10. 2015 New York Mets
11. 2014 San Francisco Giants
12. 2013 St. Louis Cardinals
13. 2012 Detroit Tigers
14. 2011 Texas Rangers
15. 2009 New York Yankees
16. 2009 Philadelphia Phillies
17. 2007 Colorado Rockies
18. 2005 Chicago White Sox
19. 2003 Miami Marlins
20. 2002 Los Angeles Angels
21. 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks
22. 1998 San Diego Padres
23. 1993 Toronto Blue Jays
24. 1991 Minnesota Twins
25. 1990 Cincinnati Reds
26. 1990 Oakland Athletics
27. 1983 Baltimore Orioles
28. 1982 Milwaukee Brewers
29. 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates
30. None in 45 seasons: Seattle Mariners
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November 4, 1796, 225 years ago: For the 1st time in American history, a Presidential election is truly contested. President George Washington has agreed to serve only 2 terms, and his time is just about up.
The Federalist Party nominates its 1st candidate, the incumbent Vice President, John Adams. The Democratic-Republican Party nominates its 1st candidate, the 1st Secretary of State, and the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. Once great friends, the 2 titans of 1776, Adams of the North and Jefferson of the South, are now political arch-rivals.
Adams wins the States of Massachusetts (his home State), New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Delaware; and 3 of the 7 Electoral Votes in Maryland; and 1 vote each in Pennsylvania, Virginia (Jefferson's home State) and North Carolina, for a total of 71 Electoral Votes.
Jefferson wins the entire States of Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, plus 11 out of 12 Electoral Votes in North Carolina, 20 out of 21 in Virginia, 4 out of 7 in Maryland, and 14 out of 15 in Pennsylvania, for a total of 68. In other words, had "faithless electors" not abandoned Jefferson in Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania -- or had he hung onto 2 more Votes in Maryland -- he would have won. Instead, Adams becomes the 2nd President of the United States.
But the way elections worked at the time, by finishing 2nd, Jefferson becomes Vice President, setting up 4 years of partisan nastiness -- not so much by each man as by their respective supporters. There is a rematch in 1800, and Jefferson wins. Things got so bad that Adams snuck out of town in the middle of the night on Inauguration Day, March 4, 1801, and did not attend the ceremonies.
He and Jefferson never saw each other again. Eventually, Adams' wife Abigail talked him into sending a letter of reconciliation from Quincy to Charlottesville, and their friendship was restored, if not face-to-face.
They died on the same day, July 4, 1826 -- the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Knowing he was dying, Jefferson wanted to know if he would make it, and, every time he drifted back into consciousness, he would ask, "Is this the Fourth?" They kept telling him it wasn't, and he kept drifting away and drifting back and asking, until they could finally tell him the truth, that it was, and he could finally die in peace at age 83.
Long-distance communication being what it then was, Adams didn't know this. A few hours later, at age 90, he spoke his last words: "Thomas Jefferson lives. Independence forever." At this time, his son, John Quincy Adams, was the President.
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November 4, 1808: James Madison, then Secretary of State to outgoing President Thomas Jefferson, is elected the 4th President of the United States. The Father of the Constitution, and the nominee of the Democratic-Republican Party, he defeats Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who was making his 2nd run, 122 Electoral Votes to 47. Madison won 12 States to Pinckney's 5.
November 4, 1856: James Buchanan is elected the 15th President of the United States. He wins 19 States for 174 Electoral Votes. John C. Fremont, the 1st man to run for President as the nominee of the Republican Party, wins 11 States for 114 Electoral Votes. Millard Fillmore, the 13th President, in his only run for the top job, was the nominee of the American Party -- an anti-immigrant group known as "The Know-Nothings" for the way they tried to cover up their activities -- wins only Maryland, and its 8 Electoral Votes.
Fremont was a hero General of the Mexican-American War. In the early 21st Century, the History Channel series The Conquerors would call him "The Conqueror of California." He was 1 of the State's 1st 2 U.S. Senators, and, long after this election, served as Territorial Governor of Arizona. He was also the 1st major-party nominee to have facial hair, in his case a mustache and a beard.
(Abe Lincoln didn't yet have the beard in 1860, but from 1864 to 1908, every man elected President but 1, William McKinley, would have at least a mustache, and most of them had beards. But aside from the mustachioed Thomas Dewey in 1944 and 1948, no major-party nominee has had facial hair since 1916.)
Despite being the only President who never married -- legends that he was gay remain, though hardly proven -- Buchanan must have seemed like the perfect guy at the time: He had served Pennsylvania in both houses of Congress, had been Secretary of State under President James K. Polk, and had been U.S. Minister (today, we would say, "Ambassador") to both Britain and Russia.
Indeed, the fact that Buchanan was serving as Minister to Britain under President Franklin Pierce (who was now so unpopular that he couldn't possibly be re-elected), and wasn't available to speak out on the issue of slavery, meant he had offended no one.
That would change. Buchanan satisfied no one, combining a depression shortly after he was sworn in (the Panic of 1857) with an unwillingness to do anything to stop the rising tensions leading to the Civil War. He was every bit as bad as Pierce was -- the 2 worst Presidents this country has ever had. Yes, worse than Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. Until, that is, Donald Trump.
That would change. Buchanan satisfied no one, combining a depression shortly after he was sworn in (the Panic of 1857) with an unwillingness to do anything to stop the rising tensions leading to the Civil War. He was every bit as bad as Pierce was -- the 2 worst Presidents this country has ever had. Yes, worse than Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. Until, that is, Donald Trump.
November 4, 1879: William Penn Adair Rogers is born in Oologah, Oklahoma Territory. Will Rogers was a stage performer, famous for his rope tricks, and a newspaper columnist, one of the nation's leading commentators and humorists in the early 20th Century, until his death in a plane crash, flying with famed aviator Wiley Post, at America's northermost point, Barrow, Alaska, on August 15, 1935.
What did he have to do with sports? As far as I know, nothing. But on January 1, 1947, the Will Rogers Bowl was played at Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City. Pepperdine beat Nebraska Wesleyan 38-13. Only 800 people paid to see it, so it was never played again.
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November 4, 1884: One of the closest and nastiest elections in American history ends. Grover Cleveland was the Democratic nominee, the Governor of New York. He had a reputation for honesty, to the point where, when he was accused of fathering a child out of wedlock, institutionalizing the mother to keep her quiet, and putting the kid up for adoption, and his advisers asked him what to do, he said, "Above all, tell the truth." So they said nothing.
In contrast, the Republican nominee was, as the song went, "Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine! The continental liar from the State of Maine!" He was a U.S. Senator, and had been Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Secretary of State under President James Garfield. Indeed, he was standing next to Garfield when he was shot. Had Charles Guiteau's aim been a little off, Garfield would likely have been running for re-election against Cleveland, and, without Blaine's many scandals (which had nothing to do with Garfield), he might have won easily.
Just before the election, Blaine had attended a dinner in New York, where one of the speakers, the Rev. Samuel Burchard, called the Democrats "the Party of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion!" In other words, they were against the movement for the Prohibition of alcohol, they had great support among Roman Catholics (and thus, it was believed, would be puppets of the Pope in a country dominated by Protestants), and supported slavery and the South during the Civil War.
That speech hit the papers. It cost Blaine the State of New York, which had a lot of Catholic and anti-Prohibition voters, and was wobbling on Cleveland even though he had been popular as Governor and as Mayor of Buffalo. And it made all the difference: By winning New York, Cleveland took the Electoral Vote 219 to 182. He won just 48.9 percent of the popular vote, to Blaine's 48.3. In fact, Cleveland ran for President 3 times, and won the popular vote all 3 times (though he lost the Electoral Vote in 1888, winning it again in 1892), but on none of those occasions did he win a majority.
When Cleveland was beaten in 1888, under dubious circumstances, his opponent, Benjamin Harrison, returned Blaine to the State Department, but he resigned due to ill health in 1892, and died just before the term ended in 1893. Had Burchard -- not related to another Republican activist by that name, a Congressman from Wisconsin -- kept his mouth shut, Blaine would have become the 22nd President of the United States, and Cleveland would only be remembered for, "Ma! Ma! Where's my pa?" Instead, the Democrats' answer was, "Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!"
So what was the truth? In 1874, between offices and in private law practice (he had been Sheriff of Erie County), Cleveland paid child support for Maria Halpin and her son, named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Maria was, apparently, mentally ill, and was indeed institutionalized, though there is no evidence that it was on Cleveland's request. The boy was adopted, was given the name James E. King Jr., and became a doctor like his adoptive father.
The thing was, in those days, long before DNA or even blood tests would have shed some light on the subject, Grover Cleveland was not the only possible father. Another possible father was Cleveland's law partner, whose name was Oscar Folsom. But of the several possible fathers, Cleveland was the only one who was not married at the time, and thus would be the one least scandalized -- or so he thought.
By today's standards, we would find what Cleveland did next to be much worse: He married Frances Folsom, the daughter of Oscar Folsom, who had died and left her guardianship to him. She was 21 when they married in 1886, making her by far the youngest First Lady ever, and their wedding the 1st ever held in the White House itself.
But as icky as their relationship sounds, it lasted for the rest of his life, until 1908. She died in 1947 -- as did Oscar Folsom Cleveland/Dr. James D. Fox Jr. Grover and Frances Cleveland had 5 children: Ruth, Esther, Marion, Richard and Francis. Ruth was not, as the legend says, the namesake of the Baby Ruth candy bar. She died of diphtheria at age 12. The rest all lived until at least 1974, and Francis lived until 1995. Rev. Burchard died in 1891, Blaine in 1893, and Harrison in 1901.
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November 4, 1916: Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. is born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He was the anchor and managing editor of The CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981, presiding over such events as the Civil Rights Movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Great Society, the Vietnam War, 2 Arab-Israeli Wars, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the 1968 Democratic Convention and the riot outside, the 1st manned Moon landing, the Kent State Massacre, President Richard Nixon's visit to China, Watergate and Nixon's resignation, the U.S. Bicentennial, the Camp David Accords, and the Iran Hostage Crisis. "And that's the way it is."
He became known as "the most trusted man in America." When he summed up his visit to Vietnam early in 1968 and said that it was time to stop fighting and find a diplomatic way out, President Lyndon Johnson said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America," and chose not to run for re-election.
His connection to sports is that he did voiceovers in ads for his alma mater, the University of Texas, that aired during college football broadcasts. He died in 2009.
His connection to sports is that he did voiceovers in ads for his alma mater, the University of Texas, that aired during college football broadcasts. He died in 2009.
November 4, 1918: Lieutenant Wilfred Owen, having already survived enough encounters with death in World War I to make most people think he was invincible, is killed in action as his unit crosses the Sambre-Oise Canal in northern France. The native of Oswestry, Shropshire in the West Midlands of England was just 25. Had he lived just 7 more days, he would have made it.
He and Siegfried Sassoon were regarded as the greatest British poets whose work was based on the events of that war. Certainly, both were better than the leading American poet killed in that war, Joyce Kilmer.
I knew Owen's name before I knew his story: He was one of the poets for whom streets were named in Greenbriar, the retirement community my grandparents moved to in Brick, Ocean County, New Jersey. (Sassoon and Kilmer were not among them, even though Kilmer was from New Jersey.)
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.
Also on this day, James Furman Bisher is born in Denton, North Carolina. Dropping his first name, Furman Bisher went to, yes, Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. But he transferred to the University of North Carolina, graduating at age 20, and then becoming editor of a local newspaper.
After editing a military newspaper and the Armed Services Radio Network while in the U.S. Navy in World War II, he became sports editor of the Charlotte News (now part of the Charlotte News & Observer). In 1949, he got the only interview Shoeless Joe Jackson ever did after his 1921 trial, and covered the 1st NASCAR race.
In 1950, he was hired by the Atlanta Constitution, also wrote for the Atlanta Journal, and finally for the combined paper. He covered every Masters from 1950 to 2008, every Kentucky Derby from 1950 to 2011, and every Super Bowl from II to XLV -- missing I. He was elected to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame, and the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. The man who succeeded Grantland Rice as the South's greatest sportswriter died in 2012.
Also on this day, Arthur William Matthew Carney is born in Mount Vernon, Westchester County, New York. He was wounded on D-Day, but survived World War II to become one of the finest actors of his generation, either comedic or dramatic.
If you only know Art Carney as Ed Norton on The Honeymooners, you're missing a lot. And if you don't even know him for that, let the record show that not only was Norton the basis for every sitcom "wacky neighbor" that followed, but his entry into the Kramden apartment was obviously ripped off by Michael Richards as Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld. (The difference being, Kramer was the one coming up with get-rich-quick schemes, while Norton was always getting roped into them.)
Carney gained famed before that. His 1st film was Pot of Gold, in 1941. Jimmy Stewart once went on
The Tonight Show, and told Johnny Carson it was the last film he made before going off to The War. When he got back, he did what everybody else with money was doing at the time: He bought a television set. As he told Carson, the first thing Stewart saw on the set was a movie, and he decided it was the worst film he'd ever seen. And then he saw himself walk onto the screen, and realized it was
Pot of Gold. He'd never seen the finished version until then. And he went to his grave still believing it was a lousy movie. Carney's opinion of it is not publicly known.
Among his early roles, Carney was noted for impersonating both Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. On The Morey Amsterdam Show, he played Charlie the doorman, and popularized the catchphrase, "Ya know what I mean?" This was long before the unseen character of Carlton the doorman on Rhoda, and long before Jim Varney's Ernest P. Worrell also used the catchphrase.
In 1950, Jackie Gleason hired him for his variety show, and The Honeymooners grew out of that. In addition to sewer worker Ed Norton to Gleason's bus driver Ralph Kramden, he participated in the "Reginald Van Gleason III" sketch, as Reggie's uptight, monocle-wearing father. As a result of appearing on The Jackie Gleason Show and The Honeymooners, Carney won 6 Emmy Awards.
In 1960, he starred in the Twilight Zone episode "The Night of the Meek," playing a hard-luck department store Santa Claus who turns into the real thing. He played Santa again in the 1984 TV-movie The Night They Saved Christmas. In 1965, he debuted the role of Felix Ungar on Broadway in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, opposite Walter Matthau's Oscar Madison. (The name was spelled "Ungar" in the play and the movie. It became "Unger" on the TV show)
In 1974, he starred in Harry and Tonto, and won the Oscar for Best Actor, beating out Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Albert Finney. As Norton would have said, "Va va va voom!" In 1978, he played a key role in the Star Wars Holiday Special. In 1979, he, George Burns and Lee Strasberg played old guys looking for one last thrill, so they rob a bank, in Going In Style. (Burns was 83, Strasburg was 78, and Carney was 60 but could pass for older.)
In 1988, he made my favorite commercial of all time, and for a product I don't even like, Coca-Cola. With Brian Bonsall of Family Ties as his grandson, "Grandpa's Magic Pinecone" turns into the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. It gets me every time.
Art Carney died on November 9, 2003, just after his 85th birthday, at his home in Westbrook, Connecticut. You know the clueless middle-aged GEICO executive who starred with the Gecko in those commercials? That's Art's grandson, Brian Carney.
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Among his early roles, Carney was noted for impersonating both Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. On The Morey Amsterdam Show, he played Charlie the doorman, and popularized the catchphrase, "Ya know what I mean?" This was long before the unseen character of Carlton the doorman on Rhoda, and long before Jim Varney's Ernest P. Worrell also used the catchphrase.
In 1950, Jackie Gleason hired him for his variety show, and The Honeymooners grew out of that. In addition to sewer worker Ed Norton to Gleason's bus driver Ralph Kramden, he participated in the "Reginald Van Gleason III" sketch, as Reggie's uptight, monocle-wearing father. As a result of appearing on The Jackie Gleason Show and The Honeymooners, Carney won 6 Emmy Awards.
In 1960, he starred in the Twilight Zone episode "The Night of the Meek," playing a hard-luck department store Santa Claus who turns into the real thing. He played Santa again in the 1984 TV-movie The Night They Saved Christmas. In 1965, he debuted the role of Felix Ungar on Broadway in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, opposite Walter Matthau's Oscar Madison. (The name was spelled "Ungar" in the play and the movie. It became "Unger" on the TV show)
In 1974, he starred in Harry and Tonto, and won the Oscar for Best Actor, beating out Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Albert Finney. As Norton would have said, "Va va va voom!" In 1978, he played a key role in the Star Wars Holiday Special. In 1979, he, George Burns and Lee Strasberg played old guys looking for one last thrill, so they rob a bank, in Going In Style. (Burns was 83, Strasburg was 78, and Carney was 60 but could pass for older.)
In 1988, he made my favorite commercial of all time, and for a product I don't even like, Coca-Cola. With Brian Bonsall of Family Ties as his grandson, "Grandpa's Magic Pinecone" turns into the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. It gets me every time.
Art Carney died on November 9, 2003, just after his 85th birthday, at his home in Westbrook, Connecticut. You know the clueless middle-aged GEICO executive who starred with the Gecko in those commercials? That's Art's grandson, Brian Carney.
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November 4, 1922: The football team of the University of Alabama goes to Philadelphia, and beats the University of Pennsylvania 9-7 at Franklin Field. The stadium of that name that had stood since 1895 would soon be demolished, and replaced on the same site by the current Franklin Field.
This upset of an Ivy League school is considered a landmark day in the history of Southern football, and it helped launch 'Bama on a run of success that continued throughout the 1920s and '30s and established the school's legend, before Bear Bryant was even a player (and while he was one).
Also on this day, Edwin Frank Basinski is born in Buffalo. An infielder, he was a wartime callup for the Brooklyn Dodgers, appearing in 39 games in the 1944 season, and 108 more in 1945. He had 56 more games, all with the 1947 Pittsburgh Pirates, finishing with a "lifetime" batting average of just .244. He did, however, play in the minor leagues until 1959, including a long tenure with the Portland Beavers, which earned him a place in the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame.
At age 99, Eddie Basinski is the 2nd-oldest living former MLB player, 1 of 12 living former Brooklyn Dodgers, and the last living player whose name is mentioned in jazz singer Dave Frishberg's ode to ballplayers of his youth, "Van Lingle Mungo."
Also on this day, British archaeologist Howard Carter discovers the tomb of King Tutankhamen (reigned 1334-1325 BC) in the Valley of the Kings, about 400 miles south of the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
November 4, 1924: President Calvin Coolidge, who took the office on the death of Warren Harding the year before, is elected to a full term in his own right. The Republican, who had been Governor of Massachusetts before being Vice President, took advantage of a split in the Democratic Party that nullified a split in the Republican ranks.
The slogan was "Keep Cool with Coolidge," and the nation agreed. He won 382 Electoral Votes, and 54 percent of the popular vote. John W. Davis, a former Congressman from West Virginia and U.S. Ambassador to Britain, won 136 Electoral Votes, but his 29 percent represents the lowest popular-vote percentage in the history of the Democratic Party. Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, formerly a Republican but now the leader of the Progressive Party, won his home State for 13 Electoral Votes, and took 16 percent of the vote.
Coolidge had recently lost his 16-year-old son John to an infection that could have been easily treated had antibiotics been invented. He had also recently watched the Washington Senators win the District of Columbia's only World Series to date. He did not like baseball, but his wife Grace did.
He was known as "Silent Cal" for his reticence. Legend has it that 2 women, seeing him at a party, made a bet. So one walked up to him and said, "I made a bet with my friend that I could get you to say 3 words to me." And Coolidge said, "You lose."
Even when he decided not to run for a 2nd full term, he was brief: He told the press simply, "I do not choose to run for President in 1928," and walked away. He may have seen the Crash of 1929 coming, and didn't want to get blamed for it. He should be, but he left his successor, Herbert Hoover, holding the bag.
November 4, 1927: William Calhoun (no middle name) is born in San Francisco. A forward, Bill Calhoun is the last surviving player from the 1951 Rochester Royals, the only NBA Championship for the franchise now known as the Sacramento Kings.
Also on this day, Carl Ernest Sawatski is born in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. He played in the major leagues from 1948 to 1963, mainly as a backup catcher, including to Del Crandall on the 1957 World Champion Milwaukee Braves. His lifetime batting average was .242. He later served as general manager of the Arkansas Travelers of the Class AA Texas League, and then as President of that League. He died in 1991.
November 4, 1928: Arnold Rothstein is rubbed out. "The Brain," who led the Mob's fix of the 1919 World Series, was also the guy who figured out that Prohibition was the way to turn organized crime in America into big business, while Al Capone was still an up-and-comer.
But, like drug dealers who got hooked on their own product, the lure of his original line of work, gambling, proved too much for "The Big Bankroll." He lost $320,000 (about $4.87 million today) in a 3-day high-stakes poker game. He said (O the irony) that the game was fixed, and refused to pay up.
He was shot at the Park Central Hotel, where a man then a rising star, Albert Anastasia, would see his reign as "the Boss of All Bosses" come to a similar end in 1957. It took Rothstein 2 days to die, and he refused to rat his killer out, telling the police, "You stick to your trade, I'll stick to mine." He was 46, and he always knew he would come to such an end: A favorite saying of his was, "The odds on everything in life, including life itself, are six to five against."
A man was arrested for the murder, but was acquitted for lack of evidence, and they may have gotten the wrong guy anyway.
Rothstein was played by Robert Lowery (who played Batman in a 1949 film serial) in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond in 1960, future Fugitive star David Janssen in The Big Bankroll in 1961, Michael Lerner in Eight Men Out in 1988, F. Murray Abraham in Mobsters in 1991, and Michael Stuhlbarg on
Boardwalk Empire in the early 2010s. In the 1974 film The Godfather Part II, Mario Puzo had Hyman Suchowsky, the character based on Meyer Lansky (played by Lee Strasberg), give himself the "street name" Hyman Roth because he admired Rothstein.
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald used Rothstein as a character, giving him the name Meyer Wolfsheim, a man who managed to "play with the faith of 50 million people." The character does not appear in the 1926 and 1949 film versions, but was played by Howard Da Silva in 1974, and by Indian film superstar Amitabh Bachchan in 2013.
Also on this day, Jay Lowell Van Noy is born in Garland, Utah. He played 6 games as an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1951. He later coached at Brigham Young University, was elected to the Utah Sports Hall of Fame, and died in 2010.
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November 4, 1930: Richard Morrow Groat is born in the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsville, Pennsylvania. Dick Groat is a rare 2-sport star. He played basketball at Duke University long before that was cool, setting an NCAA record with 839 points in the 1952 season, and his Number 10 was the 1st they ever retired. He played the 1952-53 season with the Fort Wayne Pistons.
He gave up basketball because he was better at baseball. A 5-time All-Star, the shortstop won the World Series, the National League batting title, and the NL Most Valuable Player with the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. His hometown team traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals, and he won another World Series in 1964. He has since gone back to basketball, broadcasting for the University of Pittsburgh's team. He is 1 of 11 surviving '60 Pirates, and 1 of 16 surviving '64 Cards.
November 4, 1931, 90 years ago: Marie Mansfield (no middle name) is born in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. A pitcher, she played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League from the 1950 to 1954. Except for a brief time with the Battle Creek Belles in Michigan, it was all for the Rockford Peaches in Illinois.
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald used Rothstein as a character, giving him the name Meyer Wolfsheim, a man who managed to "play with the faith of 50 million people." The character does not appear in the 1926 and 1949 film versions, but was played by Howard Da Silva in 1974, and by Indian film superstar Amitabh Bachchan in 2013.
Also on this day, Jay Lowell Van Noy is born in Garland, Utah. He played 6 games as an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1951. He later coached at Brigham Young University, was elected to the Utah Sports Hall of Fame, and died in 2010.
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November 4, 1930: Richard Morrow Groat is born in the Pittsburgh suburb of Wilkinsville, Pennsylvania. Dick Groat is a rare 2-sport star. He played basketball at Duke University long before that was cool, setting an NCAA record with 839 points in the 1952 season, and his Number 10 was the 1st they ever retired. He played the 1952-53 season with the Fort Wayne Pistons.
He gave up basketball because he was better at baseball. A 5-time All-Star, the shortstop won the World Series, the National League batting title, and the NL Most Valuable Player with the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates. His hometown team traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals, and he won another World Series in 1964. He has since gone back to basketball, broadcasting for the University of Pittsburgh's team. He is 1 of 11 surviving '60 Pirates, and 1 of 16 surviving '64 Cards.
November 4, 1931, 90 years ago: Marie Mansfield (no middle name) is born in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston. A pitcher, she played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League from the 1950 to 1954. Except for a brief time with the Battle Creek Belles in Michigan, it was all for the Rockford Peaches in Illinois.
She helped them win the Pennant in 1950, and led the League in strikeouts in 1953. In 1990, under her married name of Marie Kelley, she sat with Mary Pratt and Dottie Green, fellow Boston-area natives who played in the AAGPBL, for an interview with Ken Burns for his Baseball miniseries. Dottie died in 1992, before the miniseries could air. Mary died earlier this year. Marie is still alive.
November 4, 1937: Emmette Bryant (no middle name) is born in Chicago. A guard, Em Bryant played 4 seasons for the Knicks, but they didn't win anything until after they got rid of him. His 1st season away from them, 1968-69, he won the NBA Championship with the Boston Celtics. That's how the Celtics' luck went in those days.
He later coached under his former teammate Bill Russell with the Seattle SuperSonics, and remained in Seattle, working for the State of Washington through its Department of Social and Health Services. He says, "I'm just a teacher that happened to play pro ball." He is still alive.
Also on this day, Loretta Jane Swit is born in Passaic, Passaic County, New Jersey. For 11 seasons, 1972 to 1983, she played Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, the head nurse of a U.S. Army hospital in the Korean War, on M*A*S*H. Sally Kellerman played the role in the 1970 film version. The actresses didn't look much like each other then, but bear a stronger resemblance to each other now.
Swit was also the 1st actress to play New York Police Detective Christine Cagney, in the 1981 TV-movie Cagney & Lacey, also on CBS. But when it was picked up as a series, her M*A*S*H
commitment prevented her from playing the role, which made a star out of Sharon Gless, along with Tyne Daly as Detective Mary Beth Lacey. Swit retired from acting in 1998.
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November 4, 1943: Charles Bishop Scarborough III is born in Pittsburgh. Probably the 2nd-most famous graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, behind Brett Favre, and a U.S. Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War who still holds a pilot's license, Chuck Scarborough has been the news anchor at WNBC-Channel 4 in New York since 1974. No one has done New York local news longer. In 2017, he cut back, and now anchors only the 6:00 PM broadcast.
From 1980 to 2012, he and Sue Simmons -- who, I was surprised to find out, is actually a year older -- anchored the news program together, first as NewsCenter 4, then as News 4 New York. At 32 years, it remains the longest anchor pairing in New York history.
November 4, 1944: President Franklin D. Roosevelt has what turns out to be his last campaign rally, at Fenway Park in Boston. Orson Welles introduces him. While FDR speaks, Welles sits next to Frank Sinatra on the stage. FDR says:
Today, in this war, our fine boys are fighting magnificently all over the world. And among those boys are the Murphys and the Kellys, the Smiths and the Joneses, the Cohens, the Carusos, the Kowalskis, the Schultzes, the Olsens, the Swobodas, and, right in with all the rest of them, the Cabots and the Lowells.
All of these people, and others like them, are the life-blood of America. They are the hope of the world. It is our duty to them to make sure that, big as this country is, there is no room in it for racial or religious intolerance, and that there is no room for snobbery.
Boy, did FDR know his audience. A year later, he was dead, but Sinatra starred in The House I Live In, a 10-minute film in which he stops a group of boys from abusing a Jewish kid, and sings the inclusive title song: "That looks like America to me."
In his 1966 song "That's Life," Sinatra would sing, "I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, and pawn and a king." As metaphors go, it was accurate. Both FDR and Welles could have said the same.
November 4, 1946, 75 years ago: Danny Ray Godby is born in Logan, West Virginia. An outfielder, he played 13 games in the major leagues, all for the St. Louis Cardinals late in the 1974 season. He returned to his home State and became a high school coach, and is still alive.
In his 1966 song "That's Life," Sinatra would sing, "I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, and pawn and a king." As metaphors go, it was accurate. Both FDR and Welles could have said the same.
November 4, 1946, 75 years ago: Danny Ray Godby is born in Logan, West Virginia. An outfielder, he played 13 games in the major leagues, all for the St. Louis Cardinals late in the 1974 season. He returned to his home State and became a high school coach, and is still alive.
Also on this day, Laura Lane Welch is born in Midland, Texas. In 1977, she married George W. Bush, which made her the First Lady of Texas from 1995 to 2000, and First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009.
It's always struck me as odd that, while her husband seemed to revel in his lack of intellectualism, not seeming to mind that people thought him stupid and/or ignorant, she was a librarian.
Also on this day, UNESCO is founded: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Based in Paris (not in New York, like the UN's General Assembly), its purpose is "to contribute to promoting international collaboration in education, sciences, and culture in order to increase universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the United Nations Charter."
It has selected 1,121 "World Heritage Sites" for having cultural, historical, scientific or other form of significance, and they are thus legally protected by international treaties. There are 24 of them in America. None are officially in my home State of New Jersey: The the Statue of Liberty is officially within the State of New York, but it is closer to land in New Jersey.
Independence Hall in Philadelphia is the only other such site in the Northeastern U.S., although there are 4 others that have been nominated for consideration: The Moravian Church Settlements in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and, in New York, Ellis Island (which might be included in an extension of the Statue of Liberty's site), the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park.
It's always struck me as odd that, while her husband seemed to revel in his lack of intellectualism, not seeming to mind that people thought him stupid and/or ignorant, she was a librarian.
Also on this day, UNESCO is founded: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Based in Paris (not in New York, like the UN's General Assembly), its purpose is "to contribute to promoting international collaboration in education, sciences, and culture in order to increase universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the United Nations Charter."
It has selected 1,121 "World Heritage Sites" for having cultural, historical, scientific or other form of significance, and they are thus legally protected by international treaties. There are 24 of them in America. None are officially in my home State of New Jersey: The the Statue of Liberty is officially within the State of New York, but it is closer to land in New Jersey.
Independence Hall in Philadelphia is the only other such site in the Northeastern U.S., although there are 4 others that have been nominated for consideration: The Moravian Church Settlements in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and, in New York, Ellis Island (which might be included in an extension of the Statue of Liberty's site), the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park.
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November 4, 1950: Grover Cleveland Alexander dies on his farm in his hometown of St. Paul, Nebraska, after years of drinking and epilepsy wrecking his health. He was 63. He won Pennants with the 1915 Philadelphia Phillies, the 1918 Chicago Cubs, and the 1926 and 1928 St. Louis Cardinals. He won 373 games, sharing the all-time NL lead with Christy Mathewson, and 3rd all-time behind Cy Young (split over both leagues) and Walter Johnson (American League). He pitched 90 shutouts, 2nd only to Johnson.
He will forever be best remembered for pitching the most famous strikeout in baseball history, to Tony Lazzeri of the Yankees with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th inning, with the Cards up 3-2. What everybody -- including the 1952 film The Winning Team, starring Ronald Reagan as Alex -- tends to forget is that it didn't end the game.
After Mathewson, Johnson and Young, he was only the 4th pitcher elected to the Hall of Fame. In 1999, The Sporting News listed him 12th on their 100 Greatest Baseball Players, trailing only Johnson (4th) and Mathewson (7th) among pitchers. Since he played before uniform numbers were worn, the Phillies honor him with a "P" stanchion with their retired numbers.
Also on this day, Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton, the 1st black player to sign with an NBA team, makes his debut, 4 days after Earl Lloyd of the Washington Capitols became the 1st black player to play in an NBA game. He scores only 4 points, but has 9 assists, and helps the Knicks to defeat the defending NBA Champions, the Minneapolis Lakers, 71-69.
November 4, 1952: General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the great American hero of World War II, is overwhelmingly elected President. The Republican nominee won 442 Electoral Votes, while the Democratic nominee, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, won only 9 States for 89 Electoral Votes. "Ike" won the popular vote, 55 to 44 percent, ending 20 years of Democratic governance in the White House. The Republicans also win both houses of Congress.
November 4, 1955: Cy Young dies in Newcomerstown, Ohio. Belying his name, he was 88. The next season, Major League Baseball instituted the Cy Young Award, for the most valuable pitcher in baseball. In 1967, they began handing them out for the most valuable pitcher in each League.
His 511 wins -- and 313 losses -- will never be approached under the current rules and thought processes of baseball. In 1999, 88 years after he pitched his last game, he was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team, and The Sporting News named him Number 14 on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, behind only Johnson, Mathewson and Alexander among pitchers.
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November 4, 1960: The Twilight Zone airs the episode "The Howling Man." Chaim Winant, credited as H.M. Wynant, plays a man who, in 1925, was fooled into releasing the Devil from a castle's dungeon, and finally manages to track him down and imprison him again. John Carradine plays the castle's keeper, and Robin Hughes plays the eponymous howling man.
Wynant is still alive at age 94, and acted as recently as 2018. Carradine, founder of one of the great acting families that includes David, Keith, Robert and Ever, died in 1988. Hughes died in 1989.
Also on this day, Kathleen Mary Griffin is born in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois. A member of the Chicago-based comedy troupe The Groundlings, her 1st TV appearance was in a commercial promoting the Chicago White Sox.
Kathy Griffin played restaurant critic Vicki Groener on the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan, hosted several comedy specials, and starred in Bravo's reality series Kathy Griffin: My Life On the D-List. In 2008, her 1st ablum, For Your Consideration, made her the 1st female comedian to debut at the top of Billboard magazine's Top Comedy Albums chart. In 2014, her album Calm Down Gurrl won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
From 2009 to 2016, she co-hosted New Year's Eve Live on CNN with Anderson Cooper. She was fired from broadcast after her May 30, 2017 video of herself holding up a Donald Trump mask that made it look like she was holding up his bloody severed head. Her career has never recovered, but, while she apologized for the video, she has not let up on her criticism of Trump.
She is now dealing with lung cancer, and had half of a lung removed. It would be terribly ironic if she died before Trump. But she's a lot likelier than he is to get into Heaven.
November 4, 1961, 60 years ago: East Brunswick High School, in its 1st season of varsity football, plays South River for the 1st time. South River, the school to which East Brunswick sent its students until EBHS opened in 1958, wins, 26-0. The schools would play 15 times, with an even split, 7-7-1. However, South River would deal EB their only loss in 2 State Championship seasons, 1966 and 1972.
November 4, 1967: Tampa Stadium opens, adjacent to Tampa's minor-league ballpark, Al Lopez Field. At first, it seated 46,481 people. A 1975 expansion raised capacity to 74,301. Its unusual shape led to its nickname, The Big Sombrero.
It became home to the football team at the University of Tampa, but they dropped their program after the 1974 season. It was home to the Tampa Bay Rowdies from 1975 to 1993, and they won the Tampa Bay area's 1st league championship, the North American Soccer League title, in 1975.
The NFL's expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers moved in for 1976, and lost their 1st 26 games. They managed Division titles in 1979 and 1981, but were mostly awful. Indeed, the Tampa Bay Bandits may have been -- along with the Philadelphia Stars -- the only United States Football League team better-run than the NFL team in the same market.
Tampa Stadium hosted Super Bowl XVIII in 1984 (Los Angeles Raiders over Washington Redskins) and Super Bowl XXV in 1991 (Giants over Buffalo Bills). It hosted the Outback Bowl from 1986 to 1998, and the Tampa Bay Mutiny of Major League Soccer from 1996 to 1998. In 1997, the University of South Florida entered Division I and played there for that season.
In 1996, restaurant chain Houlihan's bought the naming rights, and until its replacement by the adjacent Raymond James Stadium in 1998 and its demolition the next year, it was known as Houlihan's Stadium.
November 4, 1969: John Lindsay, denied renomination by the Republican Party, and running as the nominee of the Liberal Party, is re-elected Mayor of New York. The opposition to him had fragmented: The Democratic nominee was Mario Procaccino, a conservative serving as City Comptroller and widely viewed as a racist; while the nominee of the Republican and Conservative Parties was John Marchi, a State Senator from Staten Island who was so conservative he made Barry Goldwater look like Bobby Kennedy.
When Lindsay was denied renomination, he looked finished. The fact that he had presided over race riots and municipal strikes while calling New York "Fun City" didn't help. He may have been the 1st major politician to run having used the expression "Mistakes were made" -- used many times by many people since, without specifically saying, "I have made mistakes" -- and used an expression that would later be used by some of his successors, calling the job of Mayor of New York "the second-toughest job in America."
On this day, Lindsay got 41 percent of the vote -- not a majority, but a plurality, and over the 40 percent threshold for a runoff -- while Procaccino got 34 percent and Marchi got 22 percent.
What saved Lindsay? It wasn't just liberals and minorities, afraid of what Procaccino or Marchi would do. It was the Mets. Their run to a World Series win allowed him to identify with them, and he was in the locker room when they won the Series at Shea Stadium on October 16, 19 days before the election. He then gave them a ticker-tape parade and a big ceremony at City Hall. (He gave the Super Bowl-winning Jets a ceremony, too, but not a parade.)
Lindsay's 1st term was hard. His 2nd term was a bit more peaceful in terms of civil strife, but harder in terms of holding the City's government and economy together. He might have wished he had lost. He did not run for a 3rd term in 1973 -- he wouldn't have had a chance -- and he died in 2000.
Also on this day, William T. Cahill, a Republican Congressman representing Camden County, is elected Governor of New Jersey. After 16 years of Democratic Governors, under Robert Meyner and, since a Governor of New Jersey can't serve 3 consecutive terms, Richard J. Hughes, people wanted something different, and when Meyner was nominated to regain the office, he couldn't get any traction.
Cahill got the State legislature to pass the bill creating the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which built the Meadowlands Sports Complex. But he raised taxes, and 3 major Republican officials were convicted of crimes. He was denied renomination by his own Party in 1973. He went on to teach at Princeton University, and died in 1996.
Also on this day, The Allman Brothers Band release their self-titled debut album. It includes the song "Whipping Post."
Lead guitarist Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle crash in Macon, Georgia in 1971. Bass guitarist Berry Oakley was also killed in a motorcycle crash, just a year later and only 3 blocks from the site of Duane’s crash. Both died before the band's biggest hit, the next year: "Ramblin' Man." Lead singer and organist Greg Allman and drummer Butch Trucks died in 2017. Guitarist Dickey Betts is about to turn 77. Drummer Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson is 76.
Also on this day, Matthew McConaughey (no middle name) is born in Uvalde, Texas. Admit it: After playing a stoner in Dazed and Confused, a lawyer in A Time to Kill, winning an Oscar as an AIDS patient in Dallas Buyers Club, and apparently playing another stoner in some Cadillac commercials, you forgot he was in a baseball movie, playing left fielder Ben Williams in the 1994 remake of Angels In the Outfield.
Also on this day, Sean John Combs is born in Manhattan, and grows up in nearby Mount Vernon, Westchester County, New York. The rapper, music producer, and fashion designer is known by many names: Sean John, Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy, or just Diddy. Personally, I will always think of him as The Guy Who Got Jennifer Lopez Arrested.
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November 4, 1980: Sadaharu Oh retires after 22 seasons with the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants. The 1st baseman had a .301 lifetime batting average, 2,786 hits, and 868 home runs, still over 100 more than any player in the North American major leagues has hit. He won the Central League's Most Valuable Player 9 times, and 11 Japan Series in 13 years between 1961 and 1973.
As a manager, he took the Giants to the 1987 Pennant, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks to Japan Series titles in 1999 and 2003, and the Japan team to victory in the 1st World Baseball Classic in 2006. He is still alive, age 78.
November 4, 1981, 40 years ago: The Cincinnati Reds trade outfielder Ken Griffey Sr. to the Yankees for pitching prospects Freddie Toliver and Brian Ryder. Ryder had been one of the Yankees' top prospects, but gets hurt, and never reaches the majors, throwing his last professional pitch at age 23. Toliver makes the majors, but is never effective, and last plays in 1993 with a career record of 10-16.
Griffey plays fairly well for the Yankees for 5 years, but the most notable effect of his Bronx tenure is that it made his son Ken Griffey Jr. refuse to ever to play for the Yankees. So when his contract with the Seattle Mariners ran out in 1999, he went "home" to the Reds.
Also on this day, Dallas Green resigns as Phillies manager, to become the general manager of the Cubs. He will use his Philly connections to fleece his former team, including getting Ryne Sandberg. Pat Corrales is named Phillies manager, but is fired in 1983, and replaced by GM Paul Owens, who then leads them to a Pennant -- the 1st of 2 they won while Sandberg was in Chicago, who won none. So maybe it wasn't so bad a trade.
Also on this day, Vincent Lamar Wilfork is born in the Miami suburb of Boynton Beach, Florida. A defensive tackle, he helped the University of Miami win the 2001 National Championship. He made 5 Pro Bowls, and helped the New England Patriots win Super Bowls XXXIX and XLIX. He was named to their 50th Anniversary Team. He will be eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021.
November 4, 1982: Devin Devorris Hester is born in the Miami suburb of Riviera Beach, Florida. The 4-time Pro Bowler is pro football's ultimate return man. In the 2006 season, as a rookie, he helped the Chicago Bears reach Super Bowl XLI, and became the 1st player, and is still the only one, ever to return the opening kickoff of a Super Bowl for a touchdown. The Bears lost to the Indianapolis Colts anyway.
He finished his career in 2016 with 255 receptions, 3,311 receving yards, 16 touchdowns, 11,028 return yards, and the following NFL records: 20 career kick return touchdowns, 14 career punt return touchdowns, and 6 kick return touchdowns in a season. He was named to the NFL's 2000s All-Decade Team, and will be eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022. As part of their 100th Season celebrations, the Bears named him to their 100 Greatest Players.
November 4, 1984: Dustin James Brown is born in Ithaca, New York. He captained the Los Angeles Kings to the 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cups. He is still with them, but is no longer their Captain.
November 4, 1988: The expansion Charlotte Hornets make their NBA debut. It doesn't go so well: They got clobbered, 133-93 by the Cleveland Cavaliers at the Charlotte Coliseum. Laker legend Kurt Rambis and Bloomfield, New Jersey native Kelly Tripucka each put up 16 points for the Hornets, but the Cavs get 22 points from Ron Harper and 20 from Brad Daugherty.
Also on this day, the film They Live premieres. John Carpenter cast pro wrestler Roddy Piper as a common laborer who becomes a rather uncommon hero, uncovering an alien conspiracy. All along, we thought Hulk Hogan was a good guy and "Rowdy Roddy" was a jerk. In real life, it was the other way around all along.
Most alien invasion movies are about the successful attempt to stop the invasion, or about the rebellion to reverse the invasion after it's taken over. They Live was different: It was about an invasion that had succeeded, and the world didn't even know it.
I was working in a theater when it came out, and loved it -- ironically, to the point where it became one of the reasons I quit that lousy job.
Piper gave one of the classic lines in film history: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.
Also on this day, Desmond Demond Bryant is born in Galveston, Texas. A 3-time Pro Bowler in 8 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, Dez Bryant has caught 531 passes for 7,459 yards and 73 touchdowns. But they released him after last season. He was signed by the New Orleans Saints, but got hurt in practice, and never played for them. He now layed for the Baltimore Ravens.
November 4, 1989: The expansion Orlando Magic -- named for nearby Walt Disney World, "The Magic Kingdom" -- make their NBA debut, at the now-demolished Orlando Arena (a.k.a. the O-Arena). The New Jersey Nets spoil the party, winning 111-106. Dennis Hopson scored 24 points for the visitors, while the Magic's Terry Catledge led all scorers with 25.
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November 4, 1991, 30 years ago: Star Trek: The Next Generation airs the episode "Unification, Part I." Leonard Nimoy plays Ambassador Spock, now 138 years old, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and the crew of the USS Enterprise-D must determine whether the unthinkable has happened: The United Federation of Planets' greatest living diplomat has defected to the Romulan Star Empire, warlike offshoots of Spock's people, the Vulcans.
The next week's Part II explains what has happened: Spock saw an opportunity at what 20th Century Earth would call détente, and possible reunification between the Vulcan and Romulan peoples. It was a setup: Spock was not a defector, but a patsy. But the unification movement, while not yet reaching the level of the Romulan government, is real, and Picard agrees with Spock's decision to stay behind.
Part I also features the death of Spock's father, Ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard). Part II ends with Spock's mind-meld with Picard, who had previously mind-melded with Sarek, finally resolving the lifelong conflict between father and son.
November 4, 1996, 25 years ago: Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers becomes the 1st NFL player to catch 1,000 passes. He catches another for a touchdown, and the 49ers beat the New Orleans Saints, 24-14 at the Superdome in New Orleans.
Easily the greatest receiver ever, and possibly the greatest player, he finished his career with 1,549 receptions, 22,895 receiving yards, 23,546 all-purpose yards, 197 receiving touchdowns, and 208 overall touchdowns, all still records.
Also on this day, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine airs the episode "Trials and Tribble-ations," Paramount Pictures' official tribute to the 30th Anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. It was written by David Gerrold, who had written the Original Series' most popular episode, "The Trouble With Tribbles." Sets were recreated, and computer-generated imagery (CGI) was combined with these new sets to create the illusion that DS9's characters were involved in the original episode.
Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and the crew of the USS Defiant are sent 104 years into their past by Arne Darvin (Charlie Brill, reprising his earlier role), seeking revenge for his arrest and exile from the Klingon Empire for the failure of his mission of that time, to stop the Federation's attempt to acquire the border world known as Sherman's Planet.
In the original episode, Darvin had poisoned a grain shipment, intending to kill the people on the planet, but the tribbles had eaten it, killing them, leading to his being discovered by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Constitution-class USS Enterprise.
Now, Darvin's plan uses he Defiant and a Bajoran artifact it had found to go back in time. He planted a bomb in a fake tribble, with the intention of blowing up the space station in orbit around the planet, thus killing Kirk, and making him a hero of the Empire. Using the Defiant's replicators to create 23rd Century Starfleet uniforms and equipment, Sisko and his officers board the station to try to find the bomb.
In the process, Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) and Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) end up in the famous scene where Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) starts a fight by punching out Lieutenant Korax (Michael Pataki), a Klingon officer who had first said that the Enterprise, Scotty's pride and joy, should be hauling garbage; then, when Scotty insisted that he rephrase that, said that the ship should be hauled away as garbage. O'Brien replaces the original actor who was asked by Kirk who started the fight, using the same line, "I don't know, sir." Which, in the new version, unlike the old one, is true.
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November 4, 2002: Around the Horn premieres on ESPN, sort of a McLaughlin Group for sports. Max Kellerman hosts until January 30, 2004. Tony Reali has been the host and moderator since February 2, 2004.
Current regular panelists include: Woody Paige of the Colorado Springs Gazette, formerly the Denver Post; Bob Ryan and Jackie MacMullan, both formerly of The Boston Globe; Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times; Tim Cowlishaw of The Dallas Morning News; Kevin Blackistone of Fanhouse.com, formerly of The Dallas Morning News; Israel Gutierrez, formerly of The Miami Herald; Frank Isola of the New York Daily News; Sarah Spain and Jorge Sedano of ESPN; Pablo S. Torre and Mina Kimes of ESPN The Magazine; Bomani Jones, who co-hosts Highly Questionable on ESPN with Miami Herald columnist Dan Le Batard; Jon Weiner, a.k.a. "Stugotz," who co-hosts Le Batard's radio show; Justin Tinsley of ESPN's The Undefeated; Domonique Foxworth, a former NFL cornerback who now hosts an ESPN radio show; Dianna Russini, a correspondent for ESPN's NFL Live!; and Ramona Shelbourne, Clinton Yates, Elle Duncan, David Jacoby, Malika Andrews, Emily Kaplan, Joon Lee and Harry Lyles Jr. of ESPN.com.
Notable former panelists: J.A. Adande and T.J. Simers, formerly of the Los Angeles Times; Charlie Pierce, Michael Holley and Michael Smith, formerly of The Boston Globe; Richard Justice, formerly of the Houston Chronicle; Jemele Hill, formerly of the Detroit Free Press; Kate Fagan, formerly of ESPN; and, most controversially, Jay Mariotti of Fanhouse.com, formerly of the Chicago Sun-Times, on nearly every episode until 2011, when he was fired following a domestic violence scandal.
As of this weekend, Paige is the all-time leader in appearances, with 2,810, and in wins, with 635. Kimes holds the record for highest winning percentage, with a minimum of 100 appearances: 30.7 percent.
Other win totals: Cowlishaw 503, Plaschke 401, Mariotti 329 (until his firing, he and Paige were neck-and-neck for the all-time lead for a few years), Blackistone 323, Adande 320, MacMullan 258, Ryan 206, Guiterrez 175, Jones 159, Isola 145, Smith 136, Spain 105, Torre 103, Yates 92, Kimes 58, Shelburne 42, Fagan 41, Hill 22, Sedano 20, Kaplan 19, Duncan 9, Tinsley 8, McNutt 6, Lee 5, Stugotz 4, Foxworth 3, Jacoby 3, Lyles 2, Russini 1 and Andrews 1. Simers won the pilot episode, but only won 10 until he drifted away.
November 4, 2004: With the original Charlotte Hornets having been moved to New Orleans 2 years earlier, the expansion Charlotte Bobcats make their NBA debut, 16 years to the day after the original Hornets did.
This game was also played at the now-demolished Charlotte Coliseum, but it didn't go much better: The Washington Wizards beat the 'Cats, 103-96. Emeka Okafor scored 19 for the hosts, but Antawn Jamison (a North Carolina graduate) dropped 24 on them for the Wiz.
When the Hornets changed their name to the New Orleans Pelicans, the Bobcats were given the Charlotte Hornets name and records (1988-2002), and have added them to the Bobcats' history (not that it was much).
November 4, 2007: The Minnesota Vikings beat the San Diego Chargers 35-17 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Adrian Peterson rushes for 296 yards, an NFL record that still stands, and 3 touchdowns.
November 4, 2009: Game 6 of the World Series. The Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3 at the new Yankee Stadium, and clinched their 27th World Championship, 8 years to the day after they should have.
Andy Pettitte started and won. Mariano Rivera got the save. Hideki Matsui, in what turned out to be his last game with the Yankees, drove in 6 runs, including hitting a home run, a blast, off a "blast from the past," Pedro Martinez. I don't think any Yankee homer -- not by Chris Chambliss, Reggie Jackson, Bucky Dent, Don Mattingly, Jim Leyritz, Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius, Derek Jeter, even Aaron Boone -- has ever made me feel better, because of what Pedro the Punk represents.
Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte and Jorge Posada, the holdovers from 2001, got their rings, Posada his 4th (his 5th title, though I don't think he got a ring for 1996), the others their 5th. For Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia, their 1st. And Pedro never appeared in another major league game.
The slates had been wiped clean. As Hank Steinbrenner requested, the universe had been restored to order.
Let's hope that no future baseball season will ever have to wait until November 4 to be resolved. We need scheduling reform.
Yes, the Yankees had taken Title 27. They have not taken Title 28. They have not even won a Pennant. Since then, they have lost in the AL Championship Series in 2010, 2012, 2017 and 2019; in the AL Division Series in 2011, 2018 and 2020; in the AL Wild Card Game in 2015 and 2020; and missed the Playoffs completely in 2013, 2014 and 2016.
Explain to me why Cashman still has a job.
November 4, 2011, 10 years ago: The Jerry Sandusky scandal breaks, on an off-week for the Penn State football team. Not surprisingly, the Nittany Lions lose 3 of their last 4 games (and barely win the other). Very surprisingly, after this date, Joe Paterno is removed from power, proving to him that he is not, as he believed, the most powerful person in the Pennsylvania State University system, and he never coaches another game.
The fact that Paterno was already dying of cancer was not widely known, but it meant that he wouldn't have coached in 2012 and beyond anyway. But it should not generate sympathy for him. His tolerance of Sandusky's indefensible actions is his greatest crime, but hardly his only one. For decades, his supporters said he "ran a clean program." Even before November 4, 2011, this had been revealed as a lie. But we had no idea just how big the lie was.
