Just as the Cleveland Browns have won 4 NFL Championships, but the last one came before the institution of the Super Bowl, so they don't have a Vince Lombardi Trophy, the Cleveland Indians have won 2 World Series, but they won them before the Commissioner's Trophy was created, so they don't have one. Since the Cubs beat them in the 2016 World Series, the Indians are now the only team to have won a World Series, but not a Commissioner's Trophy. (The Browns, the Detroit Lions, and the Chicago -- now Arizona -- Cardinals are the only active NFL teams to have won an NFL Championship but not a Lombardi Trophy.)
The team chose the name "Eagles" to match the Blue Eagle, the symbol of the New Deal's NRA, the National Recovery Administration. (Not to be confused with the National Rifle Administration.) The Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional in 1935, but the team's name has stayed to this day. Its blue and gold colors stayed through the 1940 season, after which they switched to green and white, which they still use, with some black and silver thrown in.
Also on this day, Barry McGuire (no middle name) is born in Oklahoma City, and grows up in California. The lead singer of the New Christy Minstrels, who had a hit with "Green, Green," in 1965 he took Phil Sloan's gloom & doom song "Eve of Destruction" to Number 1, despite most radio stations banning it.
He doesn't have much to do with sports, but there are times when I feel like sports is on the eve of destruction, and I don't mind to tell you, over and over and over again, my friend. Then again, under Trump, the song feels more pertinent than ever.
Also on this day, Carol Coombs (no middle name) is born in Toronto. At the age of 10, she played Jane Bailey, daughter of George and Mary, in It's a Wonderful Life. She later appeared in such films as The Boy with Green Hair, Knock On Any Door, Mighty Joe Young, and the 1953 version of Peter Pan.
After a few guest appearances on early TV shows, she left acting in 1958 to become a teacher. As of 2020, she is 1 of 7 surviving actors from It's a Wonderful Life.
*
October 15, 1940: The Great Dictator premieres, at a time in World War II when things are looking good for the real-life dictators. Charlie Chaplin directs, and plays 2 roles: A poor Jewish man identified only as "The Barber," for his profession, and living in the fictional European country of Tomania (a play on "ptomaine poisoning"); and that nation's dictator, Adenoid Hynkel, who physically resembles Adolf Hitler, except for having curly hair like Chaplin's silent-film era "Tramp" character.
Indeed, when Hitler first became famous, he was said to look like Chaplin, because of the small black mustache. They were born 4 days apart: Chaplin on April 16, 1889 in Walworth, South London; and Hitler on April 20, 1889 in Branau am Inn, northern Austria, on the border with Germany.
Paulette Goddard, Chaplin's real-life wife at the time, plays Hannah, the Barber's girlfriend, and would turn out to be the film's last surviving castmember, living until 1990. Jack Oakie plays Benzino Napaloni, dictator of Tomania's ally, Bacteria. He is meant to invoke Italy's Benito Mussolini, although his name is also a nod toward the chemical benzene and an earlier European dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte.
It is a "prince and the pauper" story: Through a turn of events involving an aide to Hynkel, remembering the Barber as a soldier who saved his life in the previous war, the Barber impersonates Hynkel, who is about to give a radio speech, to be broadcast all over the world (television is still in its infancy), which everyone believes will be justifying Tomania's upcoming invasion of Osterlich (based on Austria), an invasion that Bacteria supports. (Italy also borders Austria, and they've fought a few times.) But with Hynkel secretly out of the picture, the Barber, impersonating him, tells the world that he has had a change of heart, and wants peace, and human rights for all.
Chaplin, a known leftist, had continued to make silent films into the era of "talkies," and this was his 1st full-length sound film. Most people around the world had heard of him and at least seen his picture, but had never heard his voice before.
So he put it to good use.
Chaplin would not have lasted in the #MeToo era. He married 4 times, to women then ages 16, 16, 26 (Goddard) and 18 (Oona O'Neill, daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill, and together she and Charlie were grandparents of
Game of Thrones actor Oona Chaplin). And he did get a little too friendly with the Soviet Union after World War II. But he was a pioneer of one of the great arts, and should still be celebrated.
October 15, 1945: James Alvin Palmer is born in Manhattan, and grows up in Scottsdale, Arizona. Jim Palmer helped the Baltimore Orioles win the World Series in 1966, 1970 and 1983, and when I say "helped" I don't just mean he pitched very well in the regular season: He is the only pitcher to win World Series games in 3 different decades.
His 1966 win came in game 2, and he outpitched Sandy Koufax, in what turned out to be Koufax' last game. He was a 6-time All-Star, a 4-time Gold Glove, and won the AL Cy Young Award in 1973, 1975 and 1976. He finished his career with 268 wins. He is in the Hall of Fame, and the Orioles have retired his Number 22. In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 64th on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. He has gone into broadcasting.
At Scottsdale High School, he was 2 years ahead of future Vice President Dan Quayle, who was a star on their golf team.
October 15, 1946, 75 years ago: Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler's anointed deputy and successor, and thus the highest-ranking Nazi official to survive World War II and be captured -- dies in his cell at Nuremberg, Germany, where he was scheduled to be among the war criminals executed the next day. He used a cyanide pill to end his life at 53, a final act of defiance.
*
October 15, 1951, 70 years ago: Mitchell Otis Page is born in Los Angeles. An outfielder, he was one of the young players that Oakland Athletics owner Charlie Finley chose to build around, rather than keeping his veterans in-house by singing them to big free-agent contracts.
This didn't work. Page had a respectable rookie season in left field in 1977, and had a good one in 1978. But in Spring Training in 1979, he refused to play in exhibition games, because Finley was refusing to pay the players for them. Finley suspended him, and when he returned, became injury-prone, and was never the same player. When the A's got good again in 1980, Page was barely a factor, and he was left off the postseason roster in 1981.
The A's released him in 1984, and he closed his career that season with 12 at-bats for the Pittsburgh Pirates, with a .266 lifetime batting average. He later coached for the Kansas City Royals, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Washington Nationals, but frequently had to step away to enter rehab for alcoholism. His drinking contributed to his death in 2011, only 59 years old.
Also on this day, Leonard Roscoe Tanner III is born on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, and grows up outside Chattanooga in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. From 1978 until 2004, he had the fastest serve ever timed in tennis, 153 miles per hour.
This didn't help him much, thought: He won the 1977 Australian Open, but the closest he came to winning any other major was losing to Bjorn Borg in 5 sets in the 1979 Wimbledon Final. He was, however, a member of the U.S. team that won the 1981 Davis Cup.
He is still alive, and has become a successful tennis coach, but has had a number of legal issues, including failure to pay child support and writing bad checks.
Also on this day, the pilot episode of I Love Lucy airs on CBS. The title explains the plot: "The Girls Want to Go to a Nightclub." Fred (William Frawley) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) are celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary, and Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) want to do something nice for, and with, them. Lucy and Ethel, as the title suggests, want to go to a nightclub, but Ricky and Fred want to go to a fight card at Madison Square Garden.
They come to an agreement. A stupid agreement. They set each other up with dates. Except all of Lucy's old boyfriends are married or otherwise busy, and Ricky, upon Lucy's claim that it was an American tradition, had long ago burned his "little black book." They end up calling the same woman, an old friend who "has connections to all the women in town." Since Ricky called her first, this friend tells Lucy, and so the couples are set up with... each other. Except Lucy and Ethel are in disguise. And Ricky and Fred don't recognize them at first. But Lucy gives them away, and she and Ethel get dragged to The Garden.
Not yet 3 years old, Tony Thomas must have seen this episode (and others) at some point, and, when he became a TV producer like his father Danny and his sister Marlo, and based half the episodes of Three's Company on it (and those others).
October 15, 1953: Joseph Edward Klecko is born outside Philadelphia in Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The greatest football player in Temple University history, he played 11 seasons with the New York Jets, forming the "New York Sack Exchange" defensive line with fellow end Mark Gastineau and tackles Marty Lyons and Abdul Salaam from 1979 to 1983.
Ironically, the Jets' best season between 1968 and 1998 would be 1982, when Klecko hurt his knee 2 games in. He did return for the Playoffs, but the Jets lost the AFC Championship Game to the Miami Dolphins.
The next year, he moved to defensive tackle, and made 4 Pro Bowls at the position. The Jets have retired his Number 73 and inducted him into their Ring of Honor. But he is not yet in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Should he be?
Some offensive linemen who are already in, and had to block him, say he should. Dolphin center Dwight Stephenson: "He's one of the two best interior linemen I have ever faced." Buffalo Bills guard Joe DeLamielleure: "I had to block Joe Greene and Merlin Olsen when I was playing, and, believe me, Joe Klecko was equal to those two guys." Cincinnati Bengals tackle Anthony Muñoz: "Joe was the strongest guy I ever faced. He had perfect technique."
His son Dan Klecko, a defensive tackle, was named Big East Conference Defensive Player of the Year with Boston College in 2002, and won 3 Super Bowl rings: XXXVIII and XXXIX with the New England Patriots, and LI with the Indianapolis Colts.
*
October 15, 1961, 60 years ago: Buffalo Stadium in Houston, which opened as the home of the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1928, closes with an unofficial all-star game sponsored by the Houston Professional Baseball Players Association. The Buffaloes are replaced the next Spring by a National League expansion team, the Houston Colt .45s.
The Colts considered expanding the 14,000-seat ballpark to 30,000 seats, as a temporary home until the Astrodome opened in 1965 (at which point, the team was renamed the Astros). Instead, they built the temporary 32,000-seat Colt Stadium net-door to the Astrodome site, and Buffalo Stadium was demolished in 1963.
October 15, 1964: Game 7 of the World Series at Sportsman's Park – or, as Cardinals owner and Anheuser-Busch beer baron August Anheuser Busch Jr., a.k.a. "Gussie" Busch, has renamed it, Busch Stadium. The Cardinals start Bob Gibson, loser of Game 2 but winner of Game 5, on 2 days' rest. The Yankees start rookie Mel Stottlemyre, who had defeated Gibson in Game 2.
Lou Brock's 5th-inning home run triggers a 3-run frame and a 6-0 lead for Gibson. Mickey Mantle‚ Clete Boyer‚ and Phil Linz homer for New York – for Mantle, the record 18th and final Series homer of his career – and the Yanks close to within 7-5 in the 9th. But it's not enough, as an exhausted Gibson finds enough gas in his tank to finish the job, and the Cards are the World Champions.
Both Boyers‚ Ken for the Cards and Clete for the Yankees‚ homer in their last Series appearance. While they had homered in back-to-back games, Clete in Game 3 and Ken a grand slam in Game 4, this remains the only time in Series history that 2 brothers have both homered in the same game.
Although the Yankees (27) and the Cardinals (11) have each won more World Series than any other team in their respective Leagues, they have never met in another, despite both making the Playoffs in 1996, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2011, 2012 and 2015. (Both teams came close to making the Playoffs in 1974, the Cards just missed in 1981, and the Yanks just missed in 1985.)
For each manager, it is his last game at the helm. Johnny Keane had nearly been fired by Cardinal management in mid-season, and their come-from-behind run to top the Philadelphia Phillies had saved his job. But he had had enough, and he resigns.Yogi Berra, after helping the Yankees to 14 World Series as a player and now 1 as their manager, also coming from behind, to top the Chicago White Sox, thinks he's done a good job, and expects to be offered a new contract. Instead, he gets fired, and Yankee management hires… Johnny Keane.
This will turn out to be a massive mistake. While the Cardinals will hire their former star 2nd baseman Red Schoendienst, who will lead them to the 1967 World Championship and the 1968 Pennant, Keane, already in ill health, will be a terrible fit for the Yankees, getting fired early in 1966, and he dies in 1967.
Del Webb and Dan Topping, who had owned the Yankees since 1945, had just sold the Yankees to CBS – yes, the broadcast network – and had cared little for keeping the farm system stocked. As a result, there was very little talent left to call up to the majors when the Yanks' current stars got hurt or old, and it seemed like they all got hurt or old at once.
In the 44 seasons from 1921 to 1964, the Yanks won 29 Pennants and 20 World Series, but fell to 6th place in 1965, 10th and last in '66. Despite a 2nd-place finish in '70, they were well behind the World Series-winning Orioles. They didn't get into a race where they were still in it in August until '72, to the last weekend still in the race until '74 (by which time George Steinbrenner had bought the team from CBS), to the postseason until '76 and the World Championship until '77.
In 2008, Buster Olney published
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, about the one that began in 1996, and ended at what's now called Chase Field in Phoenix on November 4, 2001. But no baseball dynasty, indeed no sports dynasty, was as, well, dynastic as the 1949-64 Yankees. Peter Golenbock's
Dynasty: The New York Yankees 1949-64 tells of how it was built, and how it began to fall apart; David Halberstam's
October 1964 tells of how both the Yankees and the Cardinals got to this Game 7, and what happened thereafter; both books put the teams in the context of their times, at home and abroad.
There are 16 surviving players from the 1964 Cardinals, 57 years later: Catchers Tim McCarver and future Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Uecker, shortstops Dick Groat and Dal Maxvill, 2nd baseman Julián Javier, 1st baseman (and future Yankee broadcaster and NL President) Bill White; outfielders Mike Shannon, Carl Warwick, Bob Skinner and Charlie James; and pitchers Roger Craig, Curt Simmons, Bob Humphreys, Gordie Richardson, Ray Washburn and Ron Taylor. Taylor was thus the only 1969 Met who had previously won a World Series.
There are 8 surviving players from the 1964 Yankees: Pitchers Ralph Terry, Rollie Sheldon, Al Downing and Pedro Ramos; shortstop Tony Kubek, 2nd baseman Bobby Richardson, outfielder Hector López and 1st baseman Joe Pepitone. (In each case, this only counts players who were on the World Series rosters.)
None of them had any inkling that this was anything other than the last day of a great season, that it was The Last Day of the Yankee Dynasty.
*
October 15, 1966: The Boston Celtics open the NBA season by defeating the San Francisco Warriors, 121-113 at the Boston Garden. Rick Barry scores 41 points for the Warriors, but, as usual, the Celtics have a more balanced team, led by 29 points from Sam Jones.
Bill Russell scores only 8 points, but he had other things on his mind. Namely, he was now a player-coach, the 1st black coach in NBA history, and, unless you count Fritz Polland of the 1st NFL Champions, the 1920 Akron Pros (and the NFL was hardly a major league at that point), the 1st black coach in the history of North American major league sports. That this happens on the birthday of Willie O'Ree, and in the building he also called home with the Bruins, is interesting, but not especially relevant to Russell's story.
The Celtics would fall to the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference Finals this season, but Russell would lead them to the NBA title in 1968 and 1969 -- making him the most recent player-coach to lead a team to a World Championship.
Alas, while Bill Russell is still one of the Top 10 players in NBA history, he didn't do so well as a coach when he didn't have Bill Russell as a player: With himself playing, his coaching record is 162-83, for a winning percentage of .661; otherwise, with the 1974-77 Seattle SuperSonics and the 1987-88 Sacramento Kings, he's 100-122, .450; overall, 341-290, for a winning percentage of .540.
Also on this day, the Chicago Bulls make their NBA debut. Guy Rodgers scores 36 points, and they beat the St. Louis Hawks, 104-97 at the Kiel Auditorium. For most of their history, the Bulls will be at least good, and, at times, historically good.
October 15, 1967: The ABA's Denver Rockets play their 1st game, beating the Anaheim Amigos 110-105 at the Denver Auditorium. They will rename themselves after Denver's 1st NBA team, becoming the Denver Nuggets in 1974, and join the NBA in 1976.
Also on this day, Luigi "Gigi" Meroni darts into traffic on the Corso Re Umberto in Turin, Italy, and is hit by a car. The star winger for Torino F.C. was only 24 years old, and had just played in a 4-2 win over Genoa team Sampdoria.
Known as La Farfalla Granata (the Maroon Butterfly, for the color of Torino's shirts and for his fluttering around the field) and Il Beatnik del Gol (the Beatnik of Goals, for his bohemian lifestyle), Meroni was the matinee idol of Italian soccer. He became known for his stylish play, and had appeared for Italy in its ill-fated 1966 World Cup run that was tainted by a shocking loss to North Korea.
Torino, in the shadow of neighboring Juventus since the 1949 Superga Air Disaster killed most of their team, was on the rise again, and went on to win that season's Coppa Italia (and won it again 3 years later, and reached the Final the season before that). They won the Italian league, Serie A, in 1976, and finished 2nd in 1977, by which point Meroni could still have been playing. They could have won more.
Also on this day, the Soviet Union dedicates a statue at Volgograd, formerly named Stalingrad, commemorating the battle there that turned the tide of the Eastern Front in World War II. Known as The Motherland Calls, and standing 285 feet high -- taller than the Statue of Liberty if you don't count the latter's pedestal -- it remains the tallest statue in the world until 1989, and is still, far and away, the tallest statue in Europe.
Currently, the tallest statue in the world is the Statue of Unity, a Buddiest shrine, in Kevadiya, India: 597 feet.
October 15, 1969: A lot is going on in New York City. This includes Game 4 of the World Series at Shea Stadium. The starting pitchers are the New York Mets' Tom Seaver and the Baltimore Orioles' Mike Cuellar, in a rematch of Game 1. It turns out to be a brilliant pitching duel between the Fresno stuff-mixer and the Cuban curve and screwball master.
The Mets were clinging to a 1-0 lead in the top of the 9th, but the O's get Frank Robinson to 3rd and another runner on 1st with 1 out. Brooks Robinson hits a sinking liner to right field, which looks like a game-winning 2-run double. But Ron Swoboda dives and snares it. Frank still manages to tag up and score the tying run, sending the game to extra innings.
In the bottom of the 10th, tied at 1-1, Met manager Gil Hodges gambles on getting a run now, or good work from his bullpen and a run at some later point, and sends J.C. Martin up to pinch-hit for Seaver. "Tom Terrific" is normally a good hitter by pitchers' standards, but this is no time for that. Martin bunts, and Pete Richert, who has relieved Cuellar, tries to throw him out at 1st, but his throw hits Martin on the wrist. The ball gets away, and Rod Gaspar, who had been on 2nd, comes around to score the winning run.
The Mets are now 1 win away from completing their "Miracle." The upset is nearly complete, and former Yankee and Met manager Casey Stengel no longer speaks sarcastically when he uses the word he used to describe the awful early Mets: When interviewed about it, he says, "The New York Mets are amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing… "
There is controversy, as 250,000 people are marching in Washington for the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. There are several demonstrations in New York, and Mayor John Lindsay orders that the flag be flown at half-staff at all City-owned buildings. This included police precinct houses and fire stations, many of whom were commanded by men who disobeyed orders and refused to do it.
This also included Shea Stadium, where the Mets had invited 200 returning wounded soldiers to take part in a pregame ceremony. Lindsay consulted with Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and they agreed to leave the flag at full staff. Lindsay may have acquiesced because Election Day was 19 days away, and he was desperate. (He won.)
Also on this day, also in New York, a milestone in cable television occurs. What would become The Madison Square Garden Network premieres, the 1st regional sports network in America. The 1st broadcast is the Rangers' 4-3 win over the Minnesota North Stars. At the time, the channel, which didn't even have a name yet, had only 13,000 subscribers, or about 4,000 short of the New Garden's hockey capacity at the time.
*
October 15, 1970: The Baltimore Orioles avenge their upset loss in last year's World Series, and claim their 2nd title with a 9-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 5 at Memorial Stadium.
After winning the 1st 3 games and then dropping Game 4 – this remains the only time in Series history that this has ever happened – the O's overcome a 3-0 deficit for the 3rd time in the Series. Frank Robinson and Merv Rettenmund each homer and drive in 2 runs.
Brooks Robinson‚ who has not only fielded so spectacularly that he has been nicknamed the "Human Vacuum Cleaner‚" but has also gotten several key hits, and fields the final out, easily wins the Series MVP award.
There are 11 surviving members of the 1970 Orioles: Brooks Robinson, Palmer (who won this Series on his 25th birthday), Rettenmund, Richert, John "Boog" Powell, Davey Johnson, Bobby Grich, Dick Hall, Terry Crowley, Eddie Watt and Dave Leonhard. Frank Robinson, Tom Phoebus and Andy Etchebarren all died this year.
Also on this day, the Buffalo Sabres play their 1st home game. It turns into their 3rd straight loss, as they fall to the Montreal Canadiens 3-0 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.
Also on this day, President Richard Nixon signs into law the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. It allows the leaders of a crime syndicate to be tried for the crimes they ordered others to commit, or assisted them in doing.
Although it has been used against organized crime more than anything else, it has been used in sports as well. In 2001, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig convinced the team owners to eliminate 2 teams, and they were sued under the RICO Act. The case was sent to arbitration, and the teams were not eliminated. And there is a currently ongoing RICO case involving FIFA, the worldwide governing body for soccer.
October 15, 1971, 50 years ago: Julius Erving plays his 1st professional basketball game. The University of Massachusetts star, already known as Doctor J, suits up for the Virginia Squires against the Carolina Cougars at the Greensboro Coliseum. He scores 21 points, but it's former North Carolina star Charlie Scott who leads all scorers with 36, leading the Squires to a 118-114 victory.
Also on this day, Andrew Alexander Cole is born in Nottingham. One of the 1st great black soccer players in England, the striker is the 2nd-leading goal scorer in Premier League history – that is, the 2nd-highest in English league play since the 1st division of "the Football League" became the Premier League in 1992. Too bad he did most of it for Manchester United. He scored 187 times in Premiership play, although this is well behind the record of 260 held by former Newcastle United star Alan Shearer.
With Man U, he won the League in 1996, '97, '99, 2000 and '01; the FA Cup in 1996 and '99, and the UEFA Champions League in 1999, completing England's only European Treble. With Blackburn Rovers, he won the 2002 League Cup. He was usually known as Andy when he played, but now prefers to be called Andrew.
Also on this day, Richard Nader's Rock 'n Roll Revival is held at Madison Square Garden in New York. It was nicknamed "The Garden Party." This helped to kickstart the nostalgia wave for the 1950s and the early 1960s, as the generation that came of age during the Vietnam War wanted to think back to what seemed like a simpler time. (It wasn't, which was why Billy Joel wrote "We Didn't Start the Fire" in 1989.)
Among the performers were Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Bobby Rydell and Ricky Nelson. Except Nelson not only insisted, as he had since his 21st birthday, upon being introduced as "Rick Nelson," but came out with long hair, a purple velvet shirt, and bell-bottom jeans, as if he was taking the stage at Woodstock.
As was expected, he played his classics like "Hello Mary Lou," but he also played Bob Dylan's "She Belongs to Me," and the crowd didn't like that. Then he played "Country Honk" by the Stones, and they flat-out booed. And he walked off the stage.
It wasn't until afterward that Nader told Nelson that the audience didn't want current music from anyone at his "oldies shows": Fans had booed The Supremes when they sang "Love Child," and doo-wop legend Little Anthony when he sang "Aquarius." Nelson insisted upon his artistic integrity, and wrote the song "Garden Party" about the event: "If memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck" -- a reference to the job that Elvis Presley had before he got a recording contract.
October 15, 1972: In what turns out to be his last appearance at a major league ballpark, Jackie Robinson, speaking prior to Game 2 of the World Series at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, urges baseball to hire a black manager. Jackie will die of a heart attack, brought on by years of weakening by diabetes, 9 days later.
The 1st African-American skipper will not be hired until 2 years later, just after the conclusion of the 1974 regular season, when the Cleveland Indians hire Frank Robinson to run the team.
In the game, the Oakland Athletics win Game 2, 2-1, as Joe Rudi clouts a homer and makes an amazing game-saving catch in the 9th to back up Catfish Hunter's pitching. Despite being without their best player, the injured Reggie Jackson, the A's take a 2-game advantage over the Big Red Machine as the Series moves to Oakland.
Also on this day, the Winnipeg Jets play their 1st home game. Despite winning their 1st 2 games on the road, over the hapless New York Raiders and the somewhat better Minnesota Fighting Saints, they lose this one, 5-2 to the Alberta Oilers at the Winnipeg Arena.
October 15, 1974: T
he Washington Capitals play their 1st home game, managing a 1-1 tie against the Los Angeles Kings at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland. It was one of the few highlights of a season that saw them go 8-67-5.
October 15, 1977: The Yankees beat the Dodgers in Game 4 at Dodger Stadium, 4-2, to take a 3-1 advantage in the World Series. Reggie Jackson doubles and homers‚ and rookie lefthander Ron Guidry pitches a 4-hitter‚ striking out 7.
From August 10, 1977 through April 22, 1979, including the postseason, Guidry went 42-5 with a 1.93 ERA, one of the greatest runs any pitcher will ever have.
October 15, 1978: The Yankees beat the Dodgers in Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, 12-2, to take a 3-2 advantage in the World Series. Jim Beattie, the Yanks' 4th starter, who had a 6-9 record in the regular season, pitches the 1st complete game of his career. Bucky Dent, Mickey Rivers and Brian Doyle, substituting at 2nd base for the injured Willie Randolph, each collect 3 hits.
After taking the 1st 2 games in L.A., the Dodgers have been shellshocked by Graig Nettles' defensive display in Game 3 and Reggie Jackson's "Sacrifice Thigh" in Game 4, and have not recovered. The Series heads back to California, and the Yankees need to win only 1 of the last 2.
Also on this day, the San Diego Clippers play their 1st home game. The lose 98-94 to the Denver Nuggets at the San Diego Sports Arena.
October 15, 1979: The Utah Jazz play their 1st home game. They have even less luck than the Clippers did a year earlier, getting pounded by the Milwaukee Bucks, 131-107, despite 29 points from Pistol Pete Maravich.
*
October 15, 1981, 40 years ago: The Yankees beat the A's, 4-0 at the Oakland Coliseum, and sweep the ALCS in 3 straight. Bobby Murcer finally wins a Pennant.
Once and future Yankee manager Billy Martin, a native of nearby West Berkeley, California, had previously played for the Oakland Oaks' 1948 Pacific Coast League champion under Casey Stengel, and now, once again, he had revived the fortunes of his hometown team, saving the A’s from total incompetence and irrelevance, taking them from 108 losses the year before he arrived to 2nd place in his 1st season to the AL West title in his 2nd.
This was the 5th time Billy had managed a team into the postseason, and with the 4th different team: Minnesota in 1969, Detroit in '72, the Yankees in '76 and '77, and now the A's in '81. He came close to making it 6 times with 5 different teams, with Texas in '74.
When introduced before Game 1 of this series at Yankee Stadium, Billy got a huge ovation. That made him very happy. George Steinbrenner couldn't be reached for comment. But in this series, the Yankees just had too much for the A's, and took their 33rd Pennant -- the A's, if you count their Philadelphia years, are 2nd among AL teams, with 12.
For reasons partly, but not entirely, his fault, Billy would never manage in the postseason again. And, for reasons partly, but not entirely, Billy's fault, the Yankees' 34th Pennant would not be soon in coming. Today, the total stands at Yankees 40, A's 16. (Red Sox? 13. If you count the last 3*.)
During this Game 3 at the Oakland Coliseum, "professional cheerleader" Krazy George Henderson, a native of nearby San Jose, leads what is thought to be the first audience Wave. "And anybody who says I didn't is a stinkin' liar," he would later say.
Robb Weller, later to co-host Entertainment Tonight, would say he invented the Wave himself, at a University of Washington football game. But the game in question happened 2 weeks later, so I'm inclined to believe Krazy George.
Now 77 years old and still a "free agent" cheerleader, Krazy George once came to a Trenton Thunder game I was at, and we won. I told him, "George, stick around, we need the wins!" To be honest, though (and I didn't tell him this), I've always hated the Wave. I find it juvenile.
People outside North America first saw the Wave during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, and that's why they call it the Mexican Wave.
October 15, 1983: The Saddledome opens in Calgary, and becomes the home of the NHL's Calgary Flames. But they lose 4-3 to their arch-rivals, the Edmonton Oilers. Ever since, the building has hosted the Flames and the world's largest rodeo, the Calgary Stampede. In 1988, it was the main indoor venue for the Winter Olympics.
The Saddledome will soon be the 2nd-oldest arena in the NHL, after Madison Square Garden. There is a plan to build a new arena, which the Flames hope will open for the 2023-24 season. Whenever it opens, the Saddledome will be demolished.
October 15, 1986: Desperate to win Game 6 of the National League Championship Series at the Astrodome, the Mets do not want to face Houston pitcher Mike Scott – a Met-killer both as a Met and an Astro – in a Game 7, especially in the Astrodome, where Scott is far better than he is on the road.
The Mets use that sense of desperation to score 3 runs in the top of the 9th to force extra innings. In the 14th, the Mets make their first bid to win. After Gary Carter opens with a single, a walk to Darryl Strawberry puts 2 runners on with nobody out. After Knight forces Carter at 3rd, Wally Backman drives a single to right. When Kevin Bass' throw to the plate sails high over Alan Ashby's head to the screen, Strawberry scores.
But with 1 out in the bottom of the 14th, and the Houston fans with their heads in their hands, Billy Hatcher shocks everyone with a line-drive home run off the left field foul pole. It was the 1st earned run allowed by the Mets bullpen in the entire series. Hatcher went 3-for-7 in the game, and his homer meant the Astros would be kept alive for at least one more inning. (This presages his heroics in the 1990 World Series.)
Both teams fail to score in the 15th, and the game goes to the 16th inning, the most innings in baseball's postseason history at that time. The Mets appear to take control of the game once again, this time coming up with 3 runs in the top half of the inning. The rally begins with Strawberry receiving a gift double when Hatcher and Bill Doran misplay his towering fly ball with 1 out. When Knight follows with a single to right, a poor throw to the plate by Bass allows the tiebreaking run to score, just as it had in the 14th. Jeff Calhoun then relieves Aurelio Lopez and uncorks a walk, two wild pitches, and a single by Lenny Dykstra to bring in 2 more runs, putting the Mets up 7–4.
But as they had in the 14th, the Astros refuse to go down without a fight in the bottom of the 16th. Jesse Orosco strikes out Craig Reynolds to open the inning, but a walk and 2 singles later, Houston has a run in and the tying run on base. Orosco induces Denny Walling to hit into a force play at 2nd for the 2nd out, but Glenn Davis singles home another run, bringing the Astros within 7-6.
The tying run is on 2nd, the winning run on 1st – a run that Met fans do not want to allow to score. So damned smug all season long, Met fans are now are freaking out over the possibility of facing Scott in the Dome in Game 7, and their magnificent 108-win season, their "inevitable" World Championship, going down in flames.
But Orosco strikes out Bass, ending the game. He throws his glove in the air, foreshadowing the end of the World Series. As the pitcher of record when the Mets took the final lead, he is was awarded the victory, marking the 1st time in postseason history that a reliever won 3 games in a series.
Despite a .189 batting average, the lowest average ever recorded by a winning team in a postseason series to that point, the Mets have their 3rd National League Pennant. Until 2015, it was the only one they'd clinched on the road.
My Grandma watched Major League Baseball for about 75 years, first as a Dodger fan in Queens and Newark, then as a Met fan in the New Jersey towns of Belleville, Nutley and Brick. I asked her once what her favorite game of all time was. This is the one she chose, without hesitation.
I can't say that I blame her. It wasn't a "heavyweight title fight," with big punches going back and forth. It was more like a middleweight or welterweight fight, with lots of jabs, until finally one fighter finished off a "death of a thousand cuts" and the other fell. It was an epic.
The same day, after being down 3 games to 1 in the ALCS, the Red Sox complete one the greatest comebacks in Playoff history by defeating the California Angels 8-1 to win the American League Pennant.
The game caps yet another heartbreaking failure for Angels skipper Gene Mauch‚ who in Game 5 was 1 strike away from reaching his 1st World Series in 25 seasons as a major league manager. He had previously been a part of the Phillies' collapse in 1964, a tough last-weekend Division loss for the Montreal Expos in 1980, and the Angels' 2-games-to-none choke against the Milwaukee Brewers in 1982. No manager ever managed longer without winning a Pennant. After the game‚ 2nd baseman Bobby Grich retired after a fine career with the Orioles and Angels.
The Mets and Red Sox winning Pennants on the same day -- with the Sox having beaten the Yankees out for the Division en route to doing so. This was a bad day to be a Yankee Fan. Over the next 12 days, it would get worse.
Also on this day, Jerry Smith dies. He played as a tight end for the Washington Redskins from 1965 to 1977, including in Super Bowl VII in 1973. He was a 2-time Pro Bowler, and is a member of the Washington Redskins Ring of Fame. When the 70 Greatest Redskins were selected on the team's 70th Anniversary, he was named to that list -- as were all 70 when the 80 Greatest Redskins were selected 10 years later.
But he was one of the earliest professional athletes who was known to be gay. He couldn't "come out," but his teammates knew. Vince Lombardi, coaching the Redskins in 1969 before dying of cancer, had a gay brother, and, despite his intense Catholicism, refused to accept anti-gay slurs on his team.
Jerry Smith became the 1st former pro athlete known to have died from AIDS. A Redskins logo with his Number 87 on it was added to the AIDS quilt. His Washington teammate, Brig Owens, has said that if Smith weren't gay, he would already be in the Pro Football hall of Fame.
*
October 15, 1988: In one of the most improbable finishes in World Series history‚ pinch hitter Kirk Gibson hits a 2-run home run off Dennis Eckersley with 2 out and 2 strikes in the bottom of the 9th inning, to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 win over the Oakland Athletics in Game 1.
The injured Gibson was not expected to play in the Series, and will not play in it again. It is the 1st World Series game to end on a home run since Game 6 in 1975.
Vin Scully, normally the voice of the Dodgers, but broadcasting this game for NBC, said, "In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened." Jack Buck, normally the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals but broadcasting on radio for CBS, said, "I don’t believe what I just saw!"
Yankee Fans of my generation had heard tall tales of Mickey Mantle limping up to home plate, looking like he had no chance, then hitting a home run anyway, and limping around the bases to the rapturous cheers of the Bronx faithful. But since we weren't old enough to have seen it, and the expense of videotape meant that so many of those old games were taped over by WPIX-Channel 11, we've hardly seen any footage of it. (Mickey’s 500th homer, on May 14, 1967, is an exception, thankfully preserved, showing both Mickey and the pre-renovation old Yankee Stadium in full color.)
Gibson, one of many players who got the tag "the next Mickey Mantle" -- and he got a lot more of the Mantle injuries than the Mantle homers -- gave my generation a glimpse of what that must have been like.
After the game, Eckersley coined the phrase "walkoff home run." The powerful A's, winners of 103 games, were expected to make quick work of the comparatively weak-hitting Dodgers, who barely scraped by the Mets in the NLCS. Instead, Gibson's homer set the tone for a very different Series.
It's also worth noting that Gibson had a good enough year to be named NL Most Valuable Player that season, and had previously hit 2 home runs in Game 5 of the 1984 World Series, to give the Detroit Tigers the championship. So he's one of the few players to be a World Series hero for 2 different teams -- in 2 different leagues, no less.
Also on this day, the University of Notre Dame, then ranked Number 4, hosts the University of Miami, ranked Number 1 and defending National Champions, at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. In 1985, Miami had run up the score on Notre Dame, beating them 58-7. Both teams came into this game undefeated: Miami had won 36 straight regular season games, the only loss in that stretch being the 1987 Fiesta Bowl to Penn State, costing them a National Championship.
The season before 2 Miami players had been arrested, losing their scholarships. However, neither had yet been convicted of any crime. Nevertheless, T-shirts were printed up for the game, reading, "CATHOLICS vs. CONVICTS." Never mind "Presumed innocent until proven guilty," or the fact that Miami had plenty of Catholics on their roster, or that Notre Dame wasn't exactly pure. (Their legend George Gipp would have gotten them put on probation had 1988's NCAA rules been in place in 1920.)
The teams fought in the tunnel before the game. The game went back and forth. Midway through the 4th quarter, Notre Dame led 31-24, and Miami seemed to score a touchdown when Cleveland Gary caught a pass, but the referee ruled that he had fumbled before he was hit. Instant replay seemed to show that his knee was down before the ball came loose, but another angle showed the the ball had been stripped out of his arm before his knee hit the ground. Notre Dame took over.
But Notre Dame fumbled, and with 45 seconds left, Steve Walsh threw a touchdown pass. Except the pass may have been trapped against the ground, meaning, even if the refs took one touchdown away from Miami, they gave them one they didn't deserve. Miami coach Jimmy Johnson decided to go for the game-winning 2-point conversion, but the play was broken up, and Notre Dame held on for a 31-30 win.
Notre Dame went on to win the National Championship. Miami rebounded, making it the only game they lost that season, and won the National Championship in 1989, and again in 1991, and nearly did so again in 1992. From 1985 to 1992, Miami went 88-7, winning 3 National Championships and just missing 3 others.
Also on this day, Mesut Özil is born in Gelsenkirchen, Westphalia, Germany. A 3rd-generation Turkish-German, the midfielder helped Werder Bremen win the 2009 DFB-Pokal (the German national cup), and Spanish club Real Madrid win the 2011 Copa del Rey (King's Cup) and 2012 La Liga (Spanish league) title.
In 2013, he was acquired by North London club Arsenal, and, within a 2-month span in 2014, won the FA Cup with Arsenal and the World Cup with Germany. He won the FA Cup again in 2015 and 2017. With Germany, he also finished 3rd at the 2010 World Cup, and reached the Semifinals of the European Championships in 2012 and 2016.
When Germany got knocked out of the 2018 World Cup in the Group Stage, Özil took more heat for it than anyone. The truth is, none of the great German players -- not goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, not centreback Mats Hummels, not central midfielders Sami Khedira and Toni Kroos, not winger Julian Draxler, not forwards Marco Reus and Thomas Müller, all of them holdovers from the 2014 World Champions except Reus (who was injured for that tournament) -- played up to their established standards.
With the criticism, Özil announced his retirement from "international football." But during this international break, Germany has continued struggling. Someone noticed that whoever runs the English Twitter feed for the national team, a.k.a. "Die Mannschaft," posts a picture of a white, blond, blue-eyed -- or, as they said in Nazi times, "Aryan" -- player when they win; but one of a black, immigrant and/or Muslim player when they lose or draw. (Özil is white, but also Muslim.)
When manager Arsène Wenger left Arsenal in 2018, new manager Unai Emery marginalized Özil, claiming that the best player he has ever managed "didn't fit the system." Upon being substituted off in Arsenal's disastrous loss to Chelsea in the 2019 UEFA Europa League Final, Özil yelled at Emery, "Wallahi" -- an Arabic word, roughly meaning, "I swear to God" -- "You are no coach!" He may have understated the case.
Emery was fired early in the 2019-20 season, and replaced by Mikel Arteta, who played in the same midfield with Özil from 2013 to 2016. But he, too, refrained from playing Özil. Some Arsenal fans, unwilling to accept that their best player is a foreigner and a practicing Muslim, have called him "lazy," even though the statistics prove this to be an incredibly stupid lie: He outruns just about everybody on the pitch.
The real reason he has been kept out of the lineup appears to be more sinister. Özil has spoken out about the treatment of Yugurs (the spelling tends to vary), Muslims living in the People's Republic of China, by the Chinese government. And Arsenal has taken in a lot of money from China, due to a Summer tour and merchandise sales, and may be afraid of offending that government by playing Özil. In other words, Arsenal management may value Chinese money over allowing their best player to give them their best chance to win.
Arsenal sold Özil to Fenerbahçe, of Istanbul, Turkey. He now appears to be in decline. But Fener are in better shape than Arsenal these days.
*
