October 10, 1956: New York Baseball: "There's No Tomorrow"

October 10, 1956, 70 years ago: Game 7 of the World Series is played at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. A pair of Jersey boys start: Johnny Kucks (pronounced like "cooks") of Hoboken, Hudson County, for the New York Yankees; Don Newcombe of Elizabeth, Union County, for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The New York Post's headline reads:

Kucks vs. Newk and…

THERE’S
NO
TOMORROW

(Sorry, I looked for a photo of it online, and couldn't find it.)

The Post is right: Win or lose, this is it for one of the best seasons in New York baseball history, as the Yankees had Mickey Mantle's Triple Crown and Most Valuable Player; the Dodgers had a fantastic Pennant race, over the Cincinnati Reds, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Milwaukee Braves, edging the Braves by 1 game, a season highlighted by no-hitters from Carl Erskine and former Giant nemesis Sal Maglie; and the World Series had Don Larsen's perfect game in Game 5 and a 1-0 10-inning Dodger win in Game 6.

This is Game 7. This is it.

The Yankees turn out to be "it": They shell Newk, with 2 homers from Yogi Berra and a grand slam from Bill "Moose" Skowron. Kucks hardly needs to pitch a shutout, but does, and the Yankees win, 9-0. The Dodgers had been World Champions of baseball for 372 days.

Johnny Kucks

The last out turns out to be the last play in the career of Jackie Robinson: He strikes out swinging, but Yogi drops the ball, a flash of the Mickey Owen and Tommy Henrich play 15 years earlier. His weight up and his speed down, but his instincts as keen as ever, Robinson sees what's happening, and runs to 1st base. But, as I said, his great speed is gone, and Yogi quickly picks up the ball, and throws him out. Jackie retires 2 months later.

The Yankees' on-field celebration

What no one knows at the time -- not Robinson, not even Dodger owner Walter O'Malley -- is the extent of the finality of this game. It is not just the end of a terrific baseball season. It is the last Subway Series game for 44 years -- 33 years if you count the 1989 "BART Series."

Remember: It's only a Subway Series if it's a World Series. Nobody ever went to a regular-season game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants and called it a "Subway Series." And if they did, they'd be told, by fans of either team, "Go home, you're drunk." (The thought of being on drugs wouldn't have occurred to most baseball fans at the time.)

It is the last home game in a World Series for a National League team from New York for 13 years. And it is the last postseason game that Ebbets Field, or Brooklyn, will ever host. The next season, the Giants will announce they are moving to San Francisco, and the Dodgers will announce they are moving to Los Angeles.

"There's no tomorrow," indeed.

Bobby Richardson is the last surviving member of the 1956 World Champion New York Yankees.

February 15, 1726: Abraham Clark, New Jersey Declaration Signer

February 15, 1726, 300 years ago: Abraham Clark is born in Elizabethtown, in the Province of New Jersey. In 1855, Elizabethtown was incorporated as the City of Elizabeth, the seat of the newly-created Union County.

Like George Washington, Clark was taught to be a surveyor. Like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, he became a lawyer. He became known as "the poor man's councilor," as he offered to defend poor men who could not afford a lawyer. He married Sarah Hatfield, and they had 10 children. Alas, as New Jersey was the last State in the North to abolish slavery, Clark was a slaveholder. (There was partial abolition in 1804, but full abolition only came with the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865.)

Clark was elected as Clerk of the Provincial Assembly, and then as High Sheriff of Essex County. In 1776, with New Jersey's delegates to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia divided on the issue of independence, new delegates were elected: Clark, John Hart, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson and Richard Stockton.

On July 2, 1776, they all voted in favor of independence. On July 4, 1776, the day the Declaration of Independence was officially approved, Clark wrote a letter to Colonel Elias Dayton, saying, "It is gone so far, that we must now be a free independent State, or a conquered country... We can die here but once."

Clark's signature on the Declaration

(Dayton, 1737-1807, was a fellow Elizabeth native, a merchant, who rose to the rank of Brigadier General. His son, Jonathan, became the youngest signer of the Constitution of the United States.)

Clark remained in the Continental Congress through 1778, when he was elected as Essex County's Member of the New Jersey Legislative Council. He had 2 sons fighting in the war, and they were captured by the British, and incarcerated on the prison ship HMS Jersey, docked at Wallabout Bay, which later became the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

He served in Congress again from 1780 to 1783, and from 1786 to 1788. At the Annapolis Convention of 1786, Clark was one of New Jersey's 3 representatives, and formally motioned for the Constitutional Convention, although he was not a delegate to it.

He ran for the U.S. Senate for the 1st Congress in 1788, but lost. He ran for the U.S. House of Representatives for the 2nd Congress in 1790, and won. He was still serving when he died on September 15, 1794, in Rahway, New Jersey, at the age of 68.

He is buried at Rahway Cemetery. The adjoining Township of Clark is named for him, and so is Abraham Clark High School in the neighboring Borough of Roselle, where he lived. His original house burned down, but in 1941, a replica was built on the site, at 101 West 9th Avenue.