November 5, 1946, 75 years ago: The Boston Celtics play their 1st home game at the Boston Garden. Only 4,329 fans attend, and it's delayed for an hour, because a Celtic player damaged a wooden backboard with a dunk during warmups. A new backboard was brought in from the Boston Arena (now Matthews Arena, home court and ice of Northeastern University). The Celtics lose 57-55 to the Chicago Stags.
The Stags, and the original NBA teams of Washington, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis, would quickly fail. The Celtics might have as well, had their owner, Walter Brown, not also owned the Garden, the NHL's Bruins, and the Ice Capades. He was able to keep the team going long enough to hire Red Auerbach as head coach, and the rest is history.
Oh, the player who became the 1st NBA player to break a backboard? A 6-foot-5 25-year-old Brooklynite who played at New Jersey's Seton Hall University. He went on to play 1 game for his hometown Dodgers in 1949, coming to bat once as a pinch-hitter, never playing the field for them. He then got traded to the Chicago Cubs, and played 66 games at 1st base for them in the 1951 season.
The Cubs' top farm team at the time was the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. While playing in L.A., this athlete found off-season work as a stuntman, and, like John Wayne, moved from stunts to acting, mostly in Westerns. His name was Chuck Connors, famed for his portrayal of Lucas McCain, the lead character of The Rifleman; and as Jason McCord, the lead in Branded.
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November 5, 1605: Guy Fawkes, a Catholic fanatic, is arrested beneath the House of Lords at Britain's Parliament, for plotting to blow it up, taking with it the Protestant King James I, his wife Queen Anne, and his sons Prince Henry and Prince Charles. The idea was to place James' daughter, Princess Elizabeth, on the throne. She was just 9 years old, and would, under their order, be raised as, and be married to, a Catholic.
In hindsight, the plot was doomed to failure. The gunpowder was too damp: Lighting it would have had little effect, and aside from whoever lit it, nobody would have died.
And if it
had worked? Instead of the people of England rising up in celebration, the reaction would have been like America's after Pearl Harbor and 9/11, or Britain's after the Brighton bombing of 1985 failed to kill Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: A moment of fear, followed by righteous rage. The conspirators would not have lived to see Christmas, no matter what they did.
Although all the conspirators were caught and hanged, Fawkes is generally the only one remembered. Today, Britain chooses to "Remember, remember, the 5th of November, the gunpowder treason and plot," and it's known as Guy Fawkes Night, commemorated with fireworks and bonfires -- leading to its other name, Bonfire Night.
There are those, of course, who commemorate the plot, rather than its failure, but these are less Fawkes' fellow Catholic fanatics, and more people who don't like the government, whoever currently holds it: Fawkes is often called "the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions."
The 1982 graphic novel
V for Vendetta features an antihero wearing a mask designed to look like Fawkes, and his attempt to take down a tyrannical government in a dystopian future: 1997 in the book, 2038 in the film -- meaning that Norsefire took over in 2018.
The film based on it (with some considerable differences) was supposed to be released on November 5, 2005, the 400th Anniversary, but after the London bombings of July 7 of that year, it was considered to be too soon, and it was pushed back to March 17, 2006 -- St. Patrick's Day.
Except, in both book and film, "V" got one big thing very wrong: The government Fawkes was trying to bring down was actually more tolerant toward his faith than the one that came before (under Queen Elizabeth I), while the one he wanted to impose would have been a faith-based dictatorship that would have brooked no dissent -- much like the one "V" was trying to bring down. Not the only inconsistency in the character.
What does Guy Fawkes or his Night have to do with sports? Not much, I just like the story, and the story that uses it.
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November 5, 1869: The Cincinnati Red Stockings complete their 1st season as the 1st openly professional baseball team, going 65-0, and playing from coast (Boston) to coast (San Francisco), doing as much to spread the growth of the game than any other team had ever done.
Hail the Champions:
* Pitcher, Asa Brainard, from whose name we supposedly get the word "ace," a native of Albany, New York, 1841-1888.
* Center fielder and manager, Harry Wright, born in Sheffield, England, and grew up in New York, 1835-1895.
* 3rd baseman, Fred Waterman, Manhattan, 1845-1899.
* Left fielder, Andy Leonard, born in Ireland and grew up in Newark, 1846-1903
* 2nd baseman, Charlie Sweasy, Newark, 1847-1908
* Catcher, Doug Allison, Philadelphia, 1846-1916.
* Substitute, but mainly an outfielder, Dick Hurley, Honesdale, Pennsylvania, born in 1847, and history has lost track of him, the last record of him being in 1916.
* 1st baseman, Charlie Gould, the only one actually from Cincinnati, 1847-1917.
* Right fielder, Cal McVey, born in Montrose, Iowa and grew up in Indianapolis, 1849-1926,
* Shortstop, George Wright, Yonkers, brother of Harry, the last survivor, 1847-1937.
So it was a pair of Wright Brothers in southern Ohio who, essentially, invented professional baseball, just as another such air invented the airplane. Harry and George are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1 of only 2 pairs of brothers both in. The other is Paul and Lloyd Waner.
November 5, 1872: President Ulysses S. Grant is re-elected, defeating Horace Greeley, with 55 percent of the vote to 43, and 286 Electoral Votes to 66.
This was a weird election. The Republican Party was split over the corruption in the Grant Administration (though Grant himself has never been accused of wrongdoing). A group of "Liberal Republicans" nominated Horace Greeley, publisher of the
New York Tribune, formerly one of the nation's leading voices against slavery, briefly a Congressman in 1848-49, and one of the Party's founders in 1854.
Greeley favored Western expansionism, popularizing the slogan, "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country!" But he didn't come up with the words himself: John Babson Lane Soule first used it in the
Terre Haute Express in Indiana in 1851.
Greeley had long lambasted the Democratic Party as the party of slavery, but, not wanting to divide the opposition to the Republicans, the Democrats swallowed their pride, and also nominated Greeley. As a result, pretty much every attack that Greeley had hurled at the Democrats for a quarter of a century was hurled back at him, including that he supported racist policies, even the nascent Ku Klux Klan.
In addition, his wife Mary got sick, and on October 12, he effectively stopped campaigning to be by her side. She died 5 days before the election, and he won only 6 States, all formerly slaveholding States: Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri and Texas.
All this took a terrible toll on his own health, and he died at age 61 on November 29, before the Electoral Votes could be cast -- thus becoming the only person ever entitled to receive Electoral Votes for President, but unable to receive them.
Did I say the election was weird? Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull voted -- Anthony for Grant, Woodhull for herself, the 1st woman known to have gotten on any ballot as a candidate for President. Even if the million-to-one shot came in, and she won, she couldn't have served at first, anyway: She didn't reach the minimum age of 35 until September 23, 1873, over 6 months into the term.
Both were arrested on Election Day: Anthony for voting, and Woodhull for obscenity, for printing, in a magazine she and her sister Tennessee Claflin ran (the 1st women in America to do so -- and they were also the 1st women ever to run a Wall Street brokerage firm), the story of the infidelity of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, yet another former abolitionist and yet another founder of the Republican Party.
Ironically, Beecher had supported women's right to vote, but, though apparently a practitioner of free love, he denounced it in public, and denounced Woodhull in particular, from his pulpit. That's why Woodhull was charged with obscenity (the story was sexual in nature), not with libel (the story was true), and Beecher's reputation did not improve.
Woodhull was held in jail for a month, and released. She ran for President again in 1884 and 1892, with almost no notice. She moved to England with her 3rd husband, and died there in 1927, and was buried there. Beecher died in 1887. He and Greeley are both buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, along with several early baseball stars.
November 5, 1891, 130 years ago: Alfred Earle Neale is born in Parkersburg, West Virginia. An outfielder, he played 8 seasons, batting .259, and won the World Series with the 1919 Cincinnati Reds, but it is football for which "Greasy" Neale is remembered.
He played professional football before there was an NFL, including as a player-coach, for some of the teams that would go on to found the League: The Canton Bulldogs in 1917, the Dayton Triangles in 1918, and the Massillon Tigers in 1919. He coached at the University of Virginia and West Virginia University, and in 1941 was named the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, leading them to 3 straight NFL Championship Games, winning in 1948 and 1949.
He retired after a disappointing 1950 season, and never coached at any level again. He died in 1973, having lived long enough to see himself elected to the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame.
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November 5, 1900: Harvey J. Harman is born in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. (I can find no record of what the J stands for.) He served as the head football coach at Haverford College in Pennsylvania from 1922 to 1929, Sewanee University in Tennessee in 1930, the University of Pennsylvania from 1931 to 1937, and at Rutgers from 1938 to 1941. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he returned to the Rutgers job from 1946 to 1955.
His tenure at Rutgers included the opening of Rutgers Stadium in 1938. He went 14-2-2 in 1938 and '39, and 22-5 from 1946 to 1948. He died on December 17, 1969 -- the day before I was born -- and was posthumously elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. A plaque in his memory hangs at the new Rutgers Stadium, now named High Point Solutions Stadium.
November 5, 1911, 110 years ago: Berry Nieuwenhuis is born in Boksburg, South Africa. An outside right, he played for Liverpool from 1933 to 1947, winning the Football League title in his last season. He lived until 1984.
Also on this day, Leonard Franklin Slye is born in Cincinnati. We knew him as Roy Rogers. "The King of the Cowboys" was an entertainment legend from 1933 until his death in 1998, he was my mother's childhood hero due to
The Roy Rogers Show, which ran on NBC from 1951 to 1957. Aside from lending his name, and doing some commercials, he had no involvement with Roy Rogers Restaurants.
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November 5, 1921, 100 years ago: Mike Mitchell Goliat (not "Michael") is born outside Pittsburgh in Yatesboro, Pennsylvania. He only played 4 seasons in the major leagues, but 1 of them was as the starting 2nd baseman on the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies, the "Whiz Kids" who won the National League Pennant. He died in 2004.
November 5, 1931, 90 years ago: Izear Luster Turner Jr. is born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. We knew him as Ike Turner. He was introduced to abuse as a boy by a vengeful alcoholic stepfather, and, instead of rejecting this, adopted it.
He became a disc jockey in Memphis, and a bandleader. In 1951, at Sun Records in Memphis, later to be home base for Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and other stars, he and his band, The Kings of Rhythm, recorded "Rocket 88," about an Oldsmobile car. It is often called the 1st rock and roll record.
In 1957, he met a teenager named Anna Mae Bullock, and she became his singer and girlfriend, eventually his wife. He renamed her Tina Turner, because Tina rhymed with a TV character he liked, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. In the 1960s, The Ike & Tina Turner Revue were big among black audiences. By 1970, white audiences had accepted them as well.
But he had been terribly abusive toward Tina, and on July 1, 1976, she left him, and began a solo career. She became bigger than ever in the 1980s, and his reputation was in ruins. In 1991, they were, as a unit, elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Tina showed up to claim her award. Ike couldn't: He was in prison following a drug conviction. Accepting for him, and keeping it until he could be released, was a man who had produced records for them... Phil Spector, another man whose artistic genius had long excused his monstrous treatment of women.
When Tina's memoir I, Tina was turned into the 1993 film What's Love Got to Do With It, with Angela Bassett as Tina and Laurence Fishburne as Ike, any reputation Ike still had was utterly destroyed. No one wanted to think of such a horrible person as one of the founding fathers of rock and roll, or as the discoverer and guide of a legend like Tina. He published his own memoir in 1999, but his confessions only dug his hole deeper. He died in 2007, from a cocaine overdose.
November 5, 1941, 80 years ago: Arthur Ira Garfunkel is born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York. In 1954, he was cast in a 6th grade play version of Alice In Wonderland. A classmate in the play was Paul Simon. In 1957, still in high school, they recorded "Hey Schoolgirl" together, under the name Tom & Jerry, after the cartoon cat and mouse. The song was not a hit.
Both men got their college degrees, and in 1964, they recorded their 1st album under the Simon & Garfunkel name, the all-acoustic Wednesday Morning, 3 AM. It went nowhere, and they split up.
But in late 1965, someone at Columbia Records took their recording of Simon's song "The Sound of Silence," and had electric backing tracks recorded over it. It hit Number 1 at the beginning of 1966, and they got back together. Their harmonies and Simon's lyrics produced 5 fantastic albums, but they split up again after Bridge Over Troubled Water in 1970.
Paul launched a very successful solo career. Art's was less successful, but he also got good reviews for some movie roles. The have occasionally reunited since: An early episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975, The Concert In Central Park in 1981 (500,000 people came), their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, tours in 2003 and 2009, and, most recently, a tribute to Mike Nichols in 2010.
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November 5, 1951, 70 years ago: The 1st section of the New Jersey Turnpike opens, from Exit 1 in Pennsville, Salem County, accessing the newly-opened Delaware Memorial Bridge, to Exit 5 in Westampton, Burlington County. On January 15, 1952, it will be fully open, all the way to Exit 16/18 in Secaucus, Hudson County, accessing the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge. This includes Exit 9 in what would become my hometown, East Brunswick, Middlesex County.
The year 1956 would see the opening of the Newark Bay Extension, including Exits 14A, 14B and 14C, and accessing the Holland Tunnel; and the Pearl Harbor Memorial Turnpike Extension, leaving at Exit 6 and connecting the main road with the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
In 1970, the Western Spur was opened, including Exits 15W, 16W and 18W, with 16W providing access to the Meadowlands Sports Complex that opened in 1976. This forced the renaming of Exits 15, 16 and 18 to 15E, 16E and 18E.
November 5, 1971, 50 years ago: The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 110-106 at The Forum. Gail Goodrich leads all scorers with 31 points. Jim McMillian, taking over at forward for the retired Elgin Baylor, has 22. Despite their reputations, Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain are limited to 19 and 12, respectively, although Wilt does grab 25 rebounds.
This begins a 33-game winning streak, which remains the longest in the history of major league sports in North America, and leads them to an NBA record (since broken) of 69 wins and the Championship the following May.
For perspective: The longest winning streak in Major League Baseball is 26, by the 1916 New York Giants (who nonetheless finished 4th); in the National Football League, 23 in regular season play, by the 2008 and '09 Indianapolis Colts, and 21 counting the postseason, by the 2003 and '04 New England Patriots; and in the National Hockey League, 17, by the 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins.
In the 1979-80 season, the Philadelphia Flyers had a 35-game unbeaten streak, but that included 6 ties. When Arsenal set a new record for longest unbeaten streak in English 1st division soccer in 2003 and '04, it was 49 games, but that included 13 draws.
November 5, 1978: The newspaper strike in New York City, which began on August 10, ends. The fact that there were fewer reporters to bother them, and to complain to (although there were still TV and radio guys), is often credited as being one of the reasons the Yankees made their epic comeback and won the World Series.
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November 5, 1981, 40 years ago: Luke Hemsworth -- as far as I know, his full name -- is born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The older brother of actors Chris and Liam Hemsworth, he plays Ashley Stubbs on Westworld.
November 5, 1987: Kevin Paul Jonas II is born in Teaneck, Bergen County, New Jersey, and grows up in nearby Wyckoff. He is the oldest of the singing Jonas Brothers.
November 5, 1988: The expansion Miami Heat make their NBA debut, at the now-demolished Miami Arena. They probably thought that picking the Los Angeles Clippers as their 1st opponent would help.
Just as their arch-rivals, the Orlando Magic, will do a year later when they choose the Nets, the Heat chose wrong: The Clips win, 111-91. Dwayne "the Pearl" Washington comes off the bench to lead the Heat with 16 points, but the Clips get 22 from Ken Norman and 21 from Reggie Williams.
Also on this day, Gino Gradkowski (no middle name) is born in Pittsburgh. A center, he was with the Baltimore Ravens when they won Super Bowl XLVII. He is now retired.
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November 5, 1994: A 45-year-old overweight minister wins the Heavyweight Championship of the World. It doesn't sound possible. It is, when it's George Foreman.
Wearing the same trunks he wore 20 years minus a week earlier, when he lost the title to Muhammad Ali, Big George knocks Michael Moorer out in the 10th round at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas. He thus breaks Jersey Joe Walcott's record as oldest Heavyweight Champion (38).
He doesn't hold the title for long, as organizational shenanigans beyond his control forced him to give it up. But he had made his point. Today, who remembers the guys who made George Foreman give up the title (except for Ali)? Ah, but everybody remembers George, and everybody likes George. Which was not the case the first time around: After retiring from boxing for the 1st time in 1977, he totally changed his life, and became a different and better person. His last fight was a loss to Shannon Briggs in 1997. His final record was 76-5 -- 31-3 after his comeback.
November 5, 1995: The expansion Vancouver Grizzlies make their NBA debut, at the new General Motors Place (now the Rogers Arena). They win their premiere, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves 100-98. Christian Laettner scores 26 for the T-Wolves to lead all scorers, but the Grizz get 18 off the bench from ex-Laker star and future Net head coach Byron Scott, 17 from ex-Knick Greg Anthony, and 16 from James "Blue" Edwards.
The Grizzlies never make the Playoffs in Vancouver, and they move to Memphis in 2001. The NBA has shown no indication that they will give Vancouver a 2nd team.
November 5, 2011, 10 years ago: Louisiana State, ranked Number 1, takes on Number 2 Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Complicating things is the fact that Alabama coach Nick Saban had previously led LSU to a National Championship. It is one of several college football games that, in its leadup, had gotten billed as "The Game of the Century," and it goes to overtime, where Alabama's Cade Foster misses a field goal, while Drew Alleman makes his to give LSU a 9-6 victory.
But, in one of the several scenarios that made people hate the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and demand a Playoff system (which we now have), 'Bama ended up Number 2 in the national rankings anyway, and got a rematch with LSU, and dominated it, 21-0, to win the National Championship. It made Saban the 1st coach ever to win National Championships at 2 different schools.
