How to Be a Red Bulls Fan In Philadelphia -- 2022 Edition

This Saturday night, the New York Red Bulls travel to Chester, Pennsylvania to play the Philadelphia Union, in a "derby."

Before You Go. Philadelphia is just down the road, so it's in the Eastern Time Zone, and you don't have to worry about fiddling with various timepieces. And the weather will be almost identical to what you'd have on the same day in New York.

Still, check the combined website for the Philadelphia newspapers, the Inquirer and the Daily News, before you head out. For the moment, it looks like temperatures in Philly will be in the low 70s in daylight, and the mid-60s at night. Rain is predicted for the afternoon, but should be over by gametime.

Tickets. The Union averaged 16,609 fans per home game in 2019, the last pre-COVID season, about 89 percent of capacity. This is less of a problem for soccer than for other sports, as some seats are always set aside for away supporters. If you can't get them from the club website, you can probably find a Red Bulls fan group willing to transport you down the Turnpike and give you a ticket, probably for a combined cost less than what you'd pay if you'd bought the ticket on your own and taken the train down.

Away supporters are placed at the top of Section 133, in the stadium's southeast corner -- right across from the River End, where the various Philly supporters groups sit. There have been reports of trouble, which I'll get to later. Tickets are $34.

Getting There. It's 99 miles from Times Square in Manhattan to City Hall in Center City Philadelphia, and 105 miles from Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey to Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania. This is close enough that a typical RBNY fan could leave his house, drive to the Arena parking lot, meet up with friends, head down to Subaru Park, watch a game, head back to RBA, pick up his car, and drive home, all within 10 hours. But it's also close enough that you could spend an entire day in Philadelphia, and, hopefully, you've already done this. Having done so many times myself, I can tell you that it's well worth it.

If you are driving only to the game -- rather than driving to Center City Philadelphia and spending some time seeing the touristy stuff -- you'll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike. Take Exit 2 to U.S. Route 322 West, and cross the Commodore Barry Bridge (named for John Barry, a naval hero of the American Revolution). The stadium is right over the bridge. Follow the signs. From anywhere in New York City, allow 3 hours for the actual drive, though from North Jersey you might need only 2½, and from Central Jersey 2 hours might suffice.

If you don't want to drive, there are other options, but the best one is the train. Philadelphia is too close to fly, just as flying from New York (from JFK, LaGuardia or Newark) to Boston, Baltimore and Washington, once you factor in fooling around with everything you gotta do at each airport, doesn't really save you much time compared to driving, the bus or the train.

And I strongly recommend not taking the bus. If you do, once you see Philadelphia's Greyhound terminal, at 10th & Filbert Streets in Center City, the nation's 2nd-busiest behind New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal, you'll say to yourself, "I never thought I'd say this, but thank God for Port Authority!"

The Philly terminal is a disgrace. I don't know how many people are in Atlantic City on an average Summer day, when both the beaches and the casinos are full (I'm guessing about half a million, or 1/3rd the size of Philly), but it has a permanent population of 40,000 people, compared to the 1.6 million of Philadelphia, and it has a bus station of roughly equal size and far greater cleanliness than Philly's.

If you do want to take Greyhound, it's about 2 hours and 10 minutes each way, and $93 round-trip (as little as $46 on advance purchase), and buses leave Port Authority just about every hour on the hour. But once you got to Philly, you'd have to walk across Filbert Street to Jefferson Station and take the SEPTA Wilmington Line to Chester. Round-trip fare is $10.

If you can afford Amtrak, and that will be $160 round-trip ($150 to 30th Street, $10 to Chester), it takes about an hour and a half to get from Penn Station in Midtown Manhattan to the 30th Street Station at 30th & Market Streets, just across the Schuylkill River from Center City.

Unlike the dull post-1963 Penn Station, this building is an Art Deco masterpiece from 1933, and is the former corporate headquarters of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Ironically, it never had the official name "Pennsylvania Station" or "Penn Station." (If you can't afford Amtrak, or if you can but you'd rather save money, I'll get to what to do in a minute.)

The east front of 30th Street Station,

with the Cira Center in the background

In 2020, 30th Street was renamed the William H. Gray III 30th Street Station, in honor of the Rev. Bill Gray, a Congressman from 1979 to 1991, and then the president of the United Negro College Fund until 2004. There had been a movement to rename it Ben Franklin Station, but this was discarded, because it was presumed people would call it "Ben Station," and this would sound too much like "Penn Station," of which there were already several on the Northeast Corridor.)

Philly's commuter-rail and bus systems are run by SEPTA, the SouthEastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. You might recognize their "S" logo from the film Trading Places, and the bus that hits Tommy Morrison at the end of Rocky V. At 30th Street Station, transfer to the Wilmington/Newark Line. (That's NOO-ark, Delaware, not NOO-erk, New Jersey.) Take it to the Chester Transportation Center, where shuttle buses run to the stadium every 20 minutes.

The Chester Transportation Center opened in 1903,

the same year as the similarly-designed station

in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

If you are going to spend time in Philadelphia proper, it was the last American city to use tokens for their subway system, but, last year, phased them out in favor of a farecard. An all-day KeyCard will allow up to 8 rides, for $9.00. One ride on a SEPTA subway train is $2.50, cheaper than New York's.

If you don't want to take Amtrak, your other rail option is local. At Penn Station, you can buy a combined New Jersey Transit/SEPTA ticket to get to Center City Philadelphia. Take NJT's Northeast Corridor Line out of Penn Station to the Trenton Transit Center. This station recently completed a renovation that has already turned it from an absolute hole (it was so bad, it made Philly's bus station look like Grand Central) into a modern multimodal transport facility.

Main waiting room of 30th Street Station.

You might recognize it from Trading Places.

Because you'll need 3 trains (New York to Trenton, Trenton to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia to Chester), there will be a lot more stops than there are on Amtrak (especially the SEPTA part), it will take 3 hours and 40 minutes, but you'll spend $51.50 round-trip, only a little more than what you'd spend on a same-day purchase on Greyhound, and less than half of what you'd be likely to spend on Amtrak. Then, from there, switch to SEPTA.

Broad Street Line subway

Once In the City. Philadelphia is a Greek word meaning "brotherly love," a name given to it by its founder, William Penn, in 1683. So the city is nicknamed "The City of Brotherly Love."

The actions and words of its sports fans suggest that this is ridculous. Giants coach Bill Parcells was once caught on an NFL Films production, during a game with the Eagles at the Vet, saying to Lawrence Taylor, "You know, Lawrence, they call this 'the City of Brotherly Love,' but it's really a banana republic." And Emmitt Smith, who played for that other team Eagles fans love to hate, the Dallas Cowboys, also questioned the name: "They don't got no love for no brothers."

On a map, it might look like Penn Square, surrounding City Hall, is the centerpoint, but this is just geographic, and only half-refers to addresses. Market Street is the difference between the north-south numbering on the numbered Streets. But the Delaware River is the start for the east-west streets, with Front Street taking the place of 1st Street. Broad Street, which intersects with Market at City Hall/Penn Square, takes the place of 14th Street.

The William Penn statue atop City Hall

In the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, Philadelphia was the largest city in America, before being overtaken by New York. As recently as 1970, it had about 2 million people. But "white flight" after the 1964 North Philadelphia riot led to the population dropping to just over 1.5 million in 2000. It has inched back upward since then.

The metro area as a whole -- southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and most of Delaware -- is about 7.2 million, making it the 7th-largest in the country, behind New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Dallas.

Philadelphia's racial and ethnic issues are long-standing. There was a pro-slavery riot in 1834, a nativist riot in 1844, race riots in both Philadelphia and nearby Chester in 1917, the aforementioned race riot in North Philadelphia in 1964, a race riot across the river in Camden in 1971, and the 1977 and 1985 police actions against the black separatist group MOVE. Elsewhere in Eastern Pennsylvania, there was the Scranton Coal Riot in 1871, and the York Race Riot in 1969.

And black Philadelphians were upset that a statue of 1972-80 Mayor Frank Rizzo, a notorious bigot, was placed in front of the Municipal Services Building, across the street from the north side of City Hall, in 1998.

A statue of professional baseball player and civil rights activist Octavius Catto, murdered on South Street in 1871, was placed on the south side of City Hall later in 2017. I had hoped that it would be placed on the north side, so he could stare Rizzo down. That became academic in 2020, when Rizzo's statue was removed.

The sales tax is 6 percent in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Massachusetts, Virginia and Kentucky are also "commonwealths" in their official State names), 8 percent within the City of Philadelphia.

ZIP Codes in Philadelphia start with the digits 191. In the suburbs, it's 189, 190, 193 and 194. The Area Code for the city is 215, and the suburbs 610, with 267 overlaying both, and 445 being added in 2018.

Philadelphia is about 42 percent black, 36 percent white, 13 percent Hispanic, and 7 percent Asian. North, Northwest and West Philadelphia are now almost entirely black, although University City (home to the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University) and some of Southwest Philly remains white. South Philadelphia (Italian) and Northeast Philadelphia (Irish) remain mostly white. Chester is about 74 percent black, 17 percent white, 9 percent Hispanic.

The Philadelphia electric company is named just that: Philadelphia Electric Company, or PECO. And while it's not quite as close as it is to New York, much of the Jersey Shore is easily reachable from Philadelphia, thanks to Interstate 195, New Jersey Route 70, U.S. Routes 30 and 40, the Atlantic City Expressway, and New Jersey Transit's buses and its Atlantic City Rail Line. Point Pleasant Beach is 76 miles away, Seaside Heights 64 miles, Long Beach Island 62, Atlantic City 61, Ocean City 65, Wildwood 90, and Cape May 92.

Going In. Built in 2010, and named PPL Park until 2015 when PPL was bought out by a larger company, and then as Talen Energy Stadium until 2020, Subaru Park seats 18,500 people, on the bank of the Delaware River in Chester. Hence, the south end of the stadium, where the supporters groups sit, is known as the River End.

The official address is 1 Stadium Drive, in Chester, usually written as "One Stadium Drive." It's 16 miles southwest of Center City. If you're only going for a visit, not a game when there would be plenty of police protection, do not visit at night: Chester can be a dangerous city. Parking is $20.

The field is natural grass, and is laid out north-to-south. The U.S. national team played Colombia there on October 12, 2010, but lost. They played Bolivia there on May 28, 2018, and won. The U.S. women's team played there on February 27, 2019, a 2-2 draw with Japan in the SheBelieves Cup.

The 2012 MLS All-Star Game was played there, and the All-Stars defeated London club Chelsea. Other international opponents to play the Union there include English clubs Manchester United, Everton of Liverpool, Aston Villa of Birmingham, Crystal Palace of South London, Stoke City of Staffordshire and Bournemouth of Dorset; Swansea City of Wales; Celtic of Glasgow, Scotland; Spain's Real Madrid, Germany's Schalke and Eintracht Frankfurt, and Mexico's Chivas de Guadalajara and UNAM Pumas. It hosted a game of the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Just as the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland usually have the football version of their annual Army-Navy Game in Philadelphia, their soccer game is played at TES.

The stadium has also hosted rugby, and 2 football games between Villanova University and the University of Delaware. It can seat about 26,000 for concerts, and there is a plan to expand it to 30,000 for soccer. Until then, the plan is for Playoff games to be held at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the NFL's Eagles.

That's the Commodore Barry Bridge in the background.

Food. From Old Original Bookbinder's (125 Walnut Street at 2nd, now closed) and Le Bec Fin (1523 Walnut at 16th) to the Reading Terminal Market (Philly's "South Street Seaport" at 51 N. 12th St at Filbert) to the South Philly cheesesteak giants Pat's, Geno's and Tony Luke's, Philly is a great food city and don't you ever forget it. The variety of food available at Subaru Park makes that available at Red Bull Arena look like high school cafeteria food by comparison.

Black Angus sells burgers, chicken tenders, "Big Ben Dogs" (hot dogs), fish & chips, and teriyaki chicken skewers, at Sections 101 and 122. Hot Dog Nation sells "specialty" hot dogs at 104 and 125. Authentic Philly sells regular hot dogs, cheesesteaks, chicken tenders, turkey burgers, "Veggie Steak" (whatever the hell that is) at 107 and 132. Fresh Classics sells regular hot dogs, Big Ben Dogs, chicken wraps, salads, at 112 and 117. Mozzarella's sells pizza and Italian-style sandwiches at 109 and 127.

There are Chickie's and Pete's outlets at 108 and 129. The Q 104 sells barbecue items at 104 (even though it's New York, not Philly, that has a radio station calling itself "Q104.3"). Blue Taco sells Mexican food at 120. Most stands sell French fries, nachos, popcorn, applesauce and Turkey Hill ice cream. And every stands sells Cracker Jacks and that Philly standard, soft pretzels. There's also a Dunkin Donuts tent outside the game, for pregame refreshment.

Team History Displays. Like the Red Bulls, the Union have a habit of disappointing their fans. This is their 13th season of play, and while they've made the MLS Cup Playoffs in 7 of them, including winning the Supporters' Shield in 2020, their best performance has been in 2021, reaching the Conference Finals. They also reached the overall Quarterfinals in 2011 and '19. They reached the Final of the U.S. Open Cup in 2014, '15 and '18, but lost all 3.

The Union do not, as yet, have any retired numbers. They have not yet selected an All-Time Team. As a result, there are no team history displays in the areas viewable by fans. Forward Sebastian Le Toux, with them in the 2010, '11, '13, '14, '15 and '16 seasons, remains their all-time leader in games played, goals, and most other offensive categories. (He was a washout with the Red Bulls in 2012, and is now retired.) In 2018, he became the 1st player inducted into their Ring of Honor. He remains the only one.

As you might guess, the Union's regional rivals are the 2 New York teams and D.C. United. The Boston-Philly rivalry doesn't come into play much, and so there's not much of a hate between the Union and the New England Revolution. The Union have an all-time record of 14 wins, 13 losses and 11 draws against the Red Bulls, 6-10-2 against NYCFC, and 18-9-7 against DCU. As yet, there are no trophies for any of these "derbies."

Stuff. The Union Shop is in the stadium's northwest corner, at the Seaport Deck, behind Sections 112 and 113. And, as befitting a relatively new team without a championship to its name, there are no books or videos about it available.

During the Game. As I said earlier, the Union puts away supporters in Section 133, in the stadium's southeast corner, right across from the River End, where the various Philly supporters groups sit. Unlike most MLS stadiums, here, your safety may be an issue. Visiting fans, particularly Red Bulls fans, have reported that home fans have thrown bottles across the sections, targeting visitors. Others, however, have reported that such actions have never been done, and would never be condoned, by the Sons of Ben. So whoever is doing it is doing it without official sanction.

The Union hold auditions for National Anthem singers, instead of having a regular. This year, they introduced a mascot, Phang, a snake -- something the Arizona Diamondbacks decided against -- part of their logo, and with a Ph for Philadelphia to start its name.

The main supporters' section is called the River End, and is home to The Sons of Ben. The group was founded in 2007, nearly a year before they even had a commitment from MLS for a team for Philadelphia. They named themselves after Benjamin Franklin, and they created a logo for the team, showing a skull, with a Liberty Bell-style crack in it, wearing Franklin's hairstyle and bifocals, on a kite-shaped background, with lightning bolts, a key (to match the kite-flying story), and a soccer ball.

The motto reads "Ad Finem Fidelis": Faithful to the end.

Which is appropriate, since they sit (and stand) in the River End.

They got their team announced on February 28, 2008, to begin play in 2010. When the "Snake & Shield" logo, based on the "Don't Tread On Me" Gadsden Flag, was adopted by the club, the Sons kept the logo they designed for their club.

Of course, fans of the rival New York Red Bulls and D.C. United tend to call them The Daughters of Betsy -- after Betsy Ross. This does not stop the Sons from singing their theme song, "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover," or their goal song, "Maria (I Like It Loud)" by Scooter. (A German techno group, not Phil Rizzuto or the Muppet.)

The River End

The difficult early history has led to a song to the tune of "Build Me Up, Buttercup":

Why do you build me up, Philly U, baby
just to let me down and mess me around
and then, worst of all, you never score, Union
like you say you will, but we love you still!
We need U! More than anyone, Union
you know that we have from the start!
So build me up, Philly U
don't break my heart. 

They sing, "We Are the Sons of Ben" to "Popeye the Sailor Man." They sing a variation on Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough." They used to taunt Red Bulls fans with a song that eventually ran to "Eighteen Years, No Cups," but that became stupid once we got a Supporters' Shield (and then another), while they've made the Playoffs only 3 times.

They also had to scrap the "You're Moving to Baltimore" song for D.C. United, and, like Red Bulls fans do, they've had to retired the taunt about D.C.'s now-former home: "RFK Is Falling Down!" And they like that classic that we also like:

Where's your father?
Where's your father?
Where's your father, referee?
You ain't got one!
Never had one!
You're a bastard referee!

Other Union supporter groups include the Tammany Saints (Section 101), the IllegitimateS (spelled with that capital S, in 133 with the away fans), the Corner Creeps (134), the Bridge Crew (120 and 121) and La Union Latina (114).

After the Game. Philadelphia is a big city, with all the difficulties of big cities as well as many of the perks of them. But since this game isn't in Philly proper, you're more likely to drive straight home, or to get on the shuttle bus back to Chester and take the 3 trains home.

It's also worth noting that there's no place within a 5-minute walk of the parking lot to get a postgame meal or drink, so you're going to have to wait until you get back to 30th Street Station or a Turnpike rest area.

If you took the train(s) down, the game should end by 9:30, and a shuttle bus should get you back to the Chester Transportation Center in time for you to catch the 9:57 train back to 30th Street, getting there at 10:26, and then switch to the 10:44 Trenton train, which will allow you to get the 11:57 PM NJ Transit train back to New York, arriving at Penn Station at 1:36 AM.

The Tavern on Broad, at 200 S. Broad Street at Walnut, sand the Fox & Hound, at 1501 Spruce Street and 15th Street, have both been alleged to be the headquarters of the local Giants fan club. BSL or MFL to City Hall. Revolution House, at 200 Market Street and 2nd Street, is apparently the local Jets fan hangout. MFL to 2nd Street.

A particular favorite restaurant of mine is the New Deck Tavern, at 3408 Sansom Street in University City, on the Penn campus. MFL to 34th Street. You can also pick up a sandwich, a snack or a drink at any of several Wawa stores in and around the city.

If your visit to Philly is during the European soccer season (which is now over, restarting in August), you can probably watch your favorite club at Fadó Irish Pub, at 1500 Locust Street in Center City. Be advised that this is home to supporters' groups for Tottenham Hotspur and Celtic FC, and Liverpool and Manchester United fans like it, too (though it's not their official hangout); so if you're not particularly fond of any of those teams, you might want to stay away.

Across the street from Fadó, at 1511 Locust, is Misconduct Tavern, home of the town's Arsenal supporters group. The main Man United bar is the Black Sheep Pub, at 247 S. 17th Street. The Bards, at 2013 Walnut Street, also shows Premier League games. These are all within a 5-minute walk of each other, and can be reached via BSL to Walnut-Locust.

A little further north of them is Tir na nOg (that's how they spell it) at 1600 Arch Street, home to the Delaware Valley's Chelsea, Manchester City, Crystal Palace, Swansea City and Real Madrid fans. BSL or MFL to City Hall.

The official Liverpool hangout is the Victoria Freehouse, 10 S. Front Street (which takes the place of 1st Street), Old City. Market-Frankford Line to 2nd Street.

Everton fans meet at O'Neal's, 611 S. 3rd Street at South Street. Newcastle United, Rangers FC, Barcelona and Bayern Munich fans meet at Cavanaugh's Headhouse, 421 S. 2nd Street, on Headhouse Square. For either of these, MFL to 2nd Street, then Bus 42

Fans of Italian teams -- particularly AC Milan and AS Roma -- tend to gather at Gran Café L'Aquila, at 1716 Chestnut Street (BSL or MFL to City Hall). Fans of German clubs, including the aforementioned Bayern, meet at Brauhaus Schmitz, 718 South Street (MFL to 8th Street, then Bus 47).

Sidelights. On November 30, 2018, Thrillist published a list of "America's 25 Most Fun Cities," and Philadelphia came in 17th. 

The Philadelphia sports complex once included 3 buildings that have all been replaced and demolished: From north to south, the Vet, the Spectrum and JFK Stadium. The arena now known as the Wells Fargo Center was built on the site of JFK Stadium. Citizens Bank Park, the new home of the Phillies, was built to the east of The Vet. And Lincoln Financial Field was built south of the new ballpark, and east of the Spectrum.

* Sesquicentennial/Municipal/JFK Stadium. Built in 1926 for a 150th Anniversary (Sesquicentennial of American independence) world's fair in Philadelphia, this 105,000-seat horseshoe (open at the north end) was designed for football, but one of its earliest events was a fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. For the 1st time, that title changed hands on a decision, rather than on a knockout. But Gene Tunney so decisively outfought champion Jack Dempsey that no one disputed it. (When they had their rematch a year later, at Soldier Field in Chicago, that was another story.)

The stadium was renamed Municipal Stadium in 1931 (sometimes it was called simply Philadelphia Stadium), and, due to being (roughly) halfway between the service academies, became the site of the Army-Navy Game from 1936 to 1941, and again from 1945 to 1979, before it was moved to The Vet.

Gene Tunney took the Heavyweight Championship of the World from Jack Dempsey there in 1926. Jersey Joe Walcott, from across the Delaware River in Merchantville, defended the title there in the last of his 4 fights with Ezzard Charles in 1952, then lost the title a few months later when he was knocked out by Rocky Marciano.

The Eagles played home games there from 1936 to 1939, and in 1941, and select games thereafter, including the 1950 season opener that was, as soccer fans would call it, a "Charity Shield" game: The 2-time defending NFL Champion Eagles vs. the Cleveland Browns, 4-time titlists in the All-America Football Conference. The Browns were 47-4-3 over the AAFC's 4-season history; the Eagles, 22-3-1 over the last 2 years, thanks to a 5-2 alignment that was the 1st defensive unit to have a memorable nickname: Before San Diego and Los Angeles had a Fearsome Foursome, Philly had a Suicide Seven.

Some people then called it "The Game of the Century," and some now think of as an unofficial "first Super Bowl" -- ironic, since neither team has won an NFL Championship in the Super Bowl era, and the Browns haven't even been to a Super Bowl yet. Playing on a Saturday night -- making it, sort of, not just "the 1st Super Bowl" but "the 1st Monday Night Football game" -- in front of 71,237 fans, which is still the largest crowd ever to watch a football game in Philadelphia (and nearly double the capacity of Shibe Park, which really limited the Eagles' attendance), the Browns beat the Eagles 35-10, stunning football fans all over the nation. The Eagles never recovered, while the Browns won the NFL title that year, and appeared in 7 title games in 8 years, winning 3.

In 1964, Municipal Stadium was renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium. On August 16, 1966, the Beatles played there. On July 13, 1985, it hosted the American end of Live Aid. But that show exposed to the world that it already falling apart. The Rolling Stones, who had packed the place on their 1981 Tattoo You tour, chose the considerably smaller Vet for Steel Wheels in 1989. It was demolished in 1992, and the new arena opened on the site in 1996.

* The Spectrum. This modern (for its time) arena opened in 1967, and 2 teams at the opposite ends of the competitive, uh, spectrum moved in: The 76ers, the NBA's defending Champions; and the Flyers, an NHL expansion team. Although the Flyers won inspirational (and confrontational) Stanley Cups in 1974 and '75, they also lost in the Finals in 1976, '80, '85 and '87. And while the Sixers won the 1983 NBA title in a dominating season-long performance, they also lost in the Finals in 1977, '80 and '82, and were lost after a couple of puzzling Draft Day trades in 1986.

The Spectrum hosted the NCAA Final Four in 1976 and 1981, both times won by Bobby Knight's Indiana. Since 1976 was the Bicentennial year, it also hosted the NBA and NHL All-Star Games. The Vet also hosted baseball's All-Star Game that year. And the Spectrum was the site of both fights between Philly native Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed, the former in the first Rocky, on New Year's Day 1976, and the latter in Rocky II, on Thanksgiving of that year. (Rocky II was released in 1978, but the scripts make the dates definitive. All the movies' fights were actually filmed at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, due to its proximity to Hollywood.)

The Spectrum was also a big arena for college basketball: Villanova used it for home games that were too big for its on-campus Pavilion, the Atlantic 10 Conference used it for its tournament, and it hosted NCAA Tournament games at the sub-Final Four level, including the 1992 thriller that put Duke into the Final Four at Kentucky's expense, thanks to the last-second shot of Christian Laettner.

The 1st rock concert there was by Cream, on their 1968 farewell tour. The last, and the last public event there, was by Pearl Jam in 2009. Elvis Presley played it on November 8, 1971; 2 shows on June 23, 1974; June 28, 1976; and, on what turned out to be his final tour, May 28, 1977. The Grateful Dead and Aerosmith became known for their Spectrum shows. So did Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, who are honored with banners for their shows at the Wells Fargo Center. (Billy and Elton John are so honored at Madison Square Garden.)

The Spectrum became, in the words of its promoters, "America's Showplace" and the most-used sports arena in the world. This was a blessing and a curse: They could make a lot of money off of it, but it was limited. So Spectacor, the company that owned the Spectrum and the Sixers, built Spectrum II -- which, in a series of naming-rights changes due to bigger banks swallowing old ones, became the CoreStates Center, the First Union Center (Flyer fans loved calling it "the F.U. Center"), the Wachovia Center and now the Wells Fargo Center.

From 1996 to 2009, the arenas stood side-by-side. The main Spectrum tenants said goodbye as follows: The Flyers with an exhibition game on September 27, 2008, with all their former Captains on hand, as the Fly Guys beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2; Villanova with the building's last college basketball game on January 28, 2009, a win over the University of Pittsburgh; and on March 13, 2009, the Sixers beat the Chicago Bulls 104-101 in a special regular-season game.

The Spectrum was demolished the next year, and replaced in part with a live concert venue called "Xfinity Live!" (Yes, the exclamation point is included in the official name.) This structure now hosts the statues that were outside the Spectrum: For Julius Erving, for Kate Smith, and a statue titled "Score!" depicting Gary Dornhoefer's overtime goal against the Minnesota North Stars in the 1973 Playoffs. The statue of Sylvester Stallone as Rocky was moved, appropriately enough, to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, not far from the steps he ran up in every movie. A hotel is planned for the rest of the Spectrum site.

* Veterans Stadium. When it opened on April 10, 1971, it was considered state of the art and wonderful. And, as the Phillies had a great team from 1976 to 1983, reaching 6 postseasons in 8 years, winning 2 Pennants and the 1980 World Series, it became beloved by Phils fans. The Eagles, too, had a resurgence in the late 1970s, and hosted and won the 1980 NFC Championship Game.

The Vet was seen as everything that Connie Mack Stadium was not: New instead of old, in good shape instead of falling apart, in a safe place instead of a ghetto (unless you were a New York Giants or Dallas Cowboys fan), and -- with Paul Owens and Dallas Green working their magic for the Phils, and Jim Murray and Dick Vermeil doing the same for the Eagles -- representative of victory instead of defeat.

The Vet hosted the Army-Navy Game every year from 1980 to 2001, except for 1983, 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2000. (The 1983 game was played at the Rose Bowl, the 2000 game at the new Ravens' stadium in Baltimore, and the rest, as well as the 2002 game, at the Meadowlands.) Temple played home games there from 1978 to 2002, and the USFL's Philadelphia Stars in 1983 and 1984. In the old North American Soccer League, the Philadelphia Atoms played there from 1973 to 1975, and the Philadelphia Fury from 1978 to 1980.

The Eagles had a down period in the mid-1980s, but rebounded toward the end of the decade. But the Phils had collapsed, and the Vet's faults began to be seen: It was ugly, the sight lines were bad for baseball, and the turf was bad for both sports. The turf was bad for everything, from eyes to knees.

By the time the Phils won the Pennant in 1993, Camden Yards had opened just down the road in Baltimore, and suddenly everyone wanted a downtown "retro park," and no one wanted one of the suburban (or sort-of-suburban, as in the Vet's case) "cookie-cutter stadiums" that dominated the 1960s and '70s.

It took a few more years, and a lot of complaints from opposing NFL players that the stadium was deteriorating and the turf was dangerous, for a new stadium to be approved. The Eagles closed the Vet out with a shocking and devastating loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2002 NFC Championship Game, and the Phils did so with a loss to the Atlanta Braves on September 28, 2003. The Eagles had already moved into their new stadium by that point, and the Phils moved into theirs the next April, a few days after the Vet's demolition. The baseball and football sculptures that were outside have been placed on Pattison Avenue, in front of the parking lot where the Vet once stood.

* Wells Fargo Center. Despite having 5 different names in its 1st 14 years, this arena, built on the site of JFK Stadium, is a big improvement over the Spectrum, which had a common flaw in arenas built in the 1960s, '70s and '80s: Two levels of seats but only one level of concourse. The Fargo has a lot more concourse space, and even a sellout doesn't feel cramped.

Since it opened, the Flyers have made their sport's Finals twice, in 1997 and 2010; the Sixers, once, in 2001; all 3 were lost. While the new arena is much more comfortable for the fans, it's not especially intimidating: The sound doesn't carry as well as it did in the Spectrum. No opposing hockey player is afraid of the noise that Flyer fans make anymore, the Sixers don't exactly have a good home-court advantage, and as for anyone being afraid of Villanova, well, even their newly-won National Championship won't make that happen: They're called "Vanilla-Nova" for a reason. The Wells Fargo Center hosted the NCAA's hockey version of the Final Four, the Frozen Four, in 2014.

The arena includes a statue of Philly native, and former Warriors and Sixers star, Wilt Chamberlain, dedicated a few years after his death in 1999. (Dr. J got his statue shortly after he retired.) It hosted the Republican National Convention in 2000, nominating George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. So if you need a reason to dislike the place, there's a good one. The Democrats will nominate Hillary Clinton there in a few weeks.

UPDATE: On August 2, 2022, the 76ers announced a new arena project, currently called 76 Place at Market East. It would be built on the site of the shopping mall built in 1977 as The Gallery at Market East, now known as Fashion District Philadelphia.

It is bordered by 9th, Market, 12th and Filbert Streets. As is the mall, the arena will be connected to SEPTA's Jefferson Station, formerly Market East Station. The site is across Filbert from Philadelphia's Greyhound Terminal, and the Sixers want that site as well. Greyhound is already looking at alternative sites, and will probably do what they did in Washington, D.C.. which is move their operations to the city's main Amtrak station, in this case 30th Street Station.

If all goes according to plan, demolition will begin in 2026, and the 18,500-seat arena will be ready for the 2031-32 season. The Flyers will remain at the Wells Fargo Center. Whether Villanova will move their basketball games to the new arena, or stay put at Wells Fargo, remains to be seen.

* Lincoln Financial Field. The new home of the Eagles has seen them make the Playoffs more often than not, and reach the Super Bowl in the 2004 season. And fan behavior, while still rowdy, is not as criminal as it was at The Vet: No more municipal court under the stands is necessary.

"The Linc" has hosted the Army-Navy Game every year since it opened, except for 2007, 2011 and 2016. It's hosted 4 games of the U.S. National Soccer Team, most recently a 1-0 win over Paraguay in the 2016 Copa America; games of the 2003 Women's World Cup, an MLS All-Star Game, and several games by touring European teams such as Manchester United, Glasgow Celtic and A.C. Milan. It's hosted games of the CONCACAF Gold Cup: 2 in 2009, 1 in 2015, 2 in 2017, and will host 2 more this year.

It hosted an NHL Stadium Series game between the Pennsylvania teams on February 23, 2019, and the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3. It has been selected by the U.S. Soccer Federation as a finalist to be one of the host venues for the 2026 World Cup. (UPDATE: It has been chosen as a host venue.)

If you drove down, or you came by train early on Saturday and have the whole day to yourself before a 7:05 gametime, in addition to the other stadiums and arenas at the Sports Complex, there are lots of interesting locations for you to check out. Remember that, although the city's centerpoint is technically Broad & Market Streets, where City Hall is, the numbering of north-south streets starts at the Delaware River, so that Broad takes the place of 14th Street.

* Citizens Bank Park. Home to the Phillies since 2004, it is far more appropriate for baseball than the Vet ever was. Until 2012, the Phils never played a season here where they were out of the National League Playoff race before the last week of the regular season. They won Division titles there in 2007, '08, '09, '10 and '11, Pennants in 2008 and '09, and the World Series in 2008.

As part of the city's celebrations of the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Major League Baseball has awarded Citizens Bank Park the 2026 All-Star Game, just as The Vet was awarded it for 1976.

* Site of Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium. This is where the A's played from 1909 to 1954, the Phils from 1938 to 1970, and the Eagles in 1940, and from 1942 to 1957. The A's played World Series there in 1910, '11, '12, '13, '14, '29, '30 and '31, and the Phils (against the Yanks) in '50.

The Eagles played and won the 1948 NFL Championship Game at Shibe Park, beating the Chicago Cardinals 7-0 in a snowstorm, and also won the NFL title in '49 (though the title game was played in Los Angeles against the Rams). The Frankford Yellow Jackets sometimes used it in the 1920s, winning the 1926 NFL Championship.

On October 14, 1948, shortly after Israel declared its independence, its national soccer team faced the U.S. at Shibe Park, shortly after doing so at Yankee Stadium. These were Israel's 1st 2 matches, and the U.S. won them both.

After the Phillies bought the ballpark from the Mack family in 1952, they renamed it Connie Mack Stadium. The A's moved to Kansas City, and the Phils were alone in the increasingly inadequate 33,608-seat relic. They finally got Veterans Stadium built, and left Connie Mack Stadium after the 1970 season. A fire the next year gutted the place, and it was finally demolished in 1976.

The site sat vacant for many years, until Deliverance Evangelistic Church was built on the site in 1991. Be advised, though, that this is North Philly, and the church is easily the nicest building for several blocks around. Across the street is Dobbins Tech, a high school known for its great basketball program. (Remember the story of Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble? They went to Dobbins. So did Dawn Staley.) 21st Street & Lehigh Avenue. By subway, use the North Philadelphia station on the Broad Street Line, and walk 7 blocks west on Lehigh.

* Site of Baker Bowl. This was where the Phils played from 1887 to 1938, and the Eagles from 1933 to 1943 (though sometimes moving to Municipal Stadium, the one renamed for JFK). It was also the Eagles' 1st home, in the 1933, '34 and '35 seasons; and their predecessor franchise, the Frankford Yellow Jackets, played their last season there, 1931.

It was the last 19th Century ballpark still in use, and the last wooden one, too. On August 6, 1894, the original version, named the Huntingdon Avenue Grounds, burned down, fortunately while the Phils were on the road. After a quick build of makeshift stands, and 6 games at the University of Pennsylvania's field at 39th & Spruce Streets, the Phils moved back in on August 18. After the season, it was rebuilt for 1895, with 2 cantilevered steel decks, seating 18,800 -- big for the time, but woefully inadequate following the ballpark building boom of the Taft and Wilson years. It was named for team owner William F. Baker.

On August 8, 1903, a balcony collapsed at Baker Bowl, killing 12 people -- the closest North American sports has ever come to the kind of stadium disasters that have fallen soccer stadiums in Britain and continental Europe. The Phillies then played 16 home games at Columbia Park while Baker Bowl was being repaired.

On May 14, 1927, rotting timbers, weakened further by rainfall, caused a section of Baker Bowl's right field upper deck to collapse. Incredibly, no one was killed, but the resulting stampede injured 50 people, and 1 man died of a heart attack. Again, the Phils groundshared with the A's on a temporary basis, before moving in permanently during the 1938 season.

Because of the shape of the land, the right-field foul pole was just 280 feet from home plate, and so a high fence was erected. The fence was tall enough for a giant soap ad, reading, "The Phillies use LIFEBUOY." The joke was, "And they still stink!"

It was not kept up well, and the Reading Railroad tunnel gave center field a bit of a rise. Baker Bowl became known as The Dump By the Hump. The team was just as bad: In the site's 52 seasons of use, only once did the Phils win a Pennant, and only 1 World Series was played there. That was in 1915, and the Phils lost to the Boston Red Sox. But Game 2 was attended by President Woodrow Wilson, making Baker Bowl the 1st ballpark to host both a World Series and a President of the United States at the same time.

It was used for "midget auto" racing until it was finally demolished in 1950 -- ironically, the year the "Whiz Kids" Phils won the Pennant 7 blocks away at Shibe Park. Retail now occupies the site. Southwest corner of Broad Street and Lehigh Avenue. Same subway stop as Shibe/Connie Mack.

* Site of Columbia Park. The A's original home was in a section of North Philly called Brewerytown, on Columbia Avenue at 29th Street. It was a 13,600-seat wooden structure with a right field fence that, like Baker Bowl's, was only 280 feet from home plate. Here, the A's won the Pennant in 1902 and 1905.

When the A's built Shibe Park in 1908-09, the sod was transplanted from Columbia Park. After lying vacant for a few years, it was torn down, and the familiar Philly-style row houses were built on the site. Columbia Avenue, and its stop on the Broad Street Line, were renamed for Philadelphia civil rights leader and City Councilman Cecil B. Moore Avenue following his death in 1979. 2900 Cecil B. Moore Avenue.

* Recreation Park. Perhaps the 1st home of baseball in Philadelphia, the site was used at least as far back as 1860. It was the 1st home of the Phillies, from 1883 to 1886. By 1890, the 6,500-seat wooden grandstand was gone. Row houses and 2 churches now occupy the site. 2400 Ridge Avenue.

* Jefferson Street Grounds. The 1st home of openly professional baseball in Philadelphia, the original Philadelphia Athletics played there in the National Association from 1871 to 1875, and in the National League in 1876, before being kicked out of the League. From 1883 (a Pennant year for them) until 1890 (when they folded), it was the home of the American Association's version of the Philadelphia Athletics. (Neither of these Athletics have any connection but name to the American League team now based in Oakland.)

The 1st game in NL history was played at this 5,000-seat wooden facility, on April 22, 1876, and the Athletics lost 6-5 to the Boston Red Stockings (forerunners of the Atlanta Braves.) It was demolished sometime after 1890, and a school named Camelot Academy, including, appropriately enough, athletic fields, is now on the site. 1435 N. 26th Street, also in Brewerytown. The sites of Columbia Park, Recreation Park, and the Jefferson Street Grounds all can be reached by Bus 3, 7 or 48 from Cecil B. Moore stop on the Broad Street Line.

If you're going to any of these old ballpark sites, do it in daylight.

* The Palestra. Built in 1927, this is the arena aptly nicknamed the Cathedral of Basketball. It even has stained-glass windows. (I swear, I am not making that up.) The home gymnasium of the University of Pennsylvania (or just "Penn"), it also hosts some games of Philly's informal "Big 5" basketball programs when they play each other: Penn, Temple, La Salle, St. Joseph's and Villanova.

Penn, a member of the Ivy League, has one of the nicest college campuses anywhere, but do not be fooled by its Ivyness: In Philadelphia, even the Ivy Leaguers are tough. 235 South 33rd Street. Take the "Subway-Surface Line" trolley, either the Number 11, 13, 34 or 36, to the 33rd Street stop.

As I said, Philadelphia has hosted 2 NCAA Final Fours, both at the Spectrum. 'Nova has made it 5 times: 1939, 1971, 1985, 2009 and 2016. La Salle made it in back-to-back years, 1954 and 1955. Temple made it in 1956 and 1958, although never under legendary coach John Chaney. St. Joe's made it in 1961, and just missed in 2004. Penn made it in 1979, under future Detroit Pistons coach Chuck Daly. Temple won the NIT in 1938, but the only Philly-based National Champions under the NCAA banner (which began in 1939) are La Salle in 1954 and 'Nova in 1985 and 2016.

* Franklin Field, right next to the Palestra. The oldest continuously-used college football site, the Penn Quakers have played here since 1895 (which is also when the Penn Relay Carnival, the nation's premier track-and-field event, began), and in the current stadium since 1922. That year, it supposedly hosted the first football game ever broadcast on radio (a claim the University of Pittsburgh disputes), and in 1939 it supposedly hosted the first football game ever televised (a claim New York's Columbia University disputes). The amazing building in the west end zone is the University administration building.

The original Franklin Field was the 1st midpoint/neutral site game for Army vs. Navy: 1899 to 1904, 1906 to 1912, and 1914. The current structure hosted it in 1922, and 1932 to 1935, before it was moved to Municipal/JFK Stadium.

The Eagles played here from 1958 to 1970, including their last NFL Championship, December 26, 1960, beating the Green Bay Packers in a thriller, 17-13. Half a century. Penn's football team has been considerably more successful, having won 14 Ivy League titles since the league was formally founded in 1955.

Like the Palestra, the stadium at Franklin Field is in surprisingly good shape (must be all those Penn/Wharton Business School grads donating for its upkeep), although the playing field has been artificial turf since 1969. Same trolley stop as the Palestra.

* Site of the Philadelphia Civic Center. This complex included the Convention Hall, where Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for President by the Democrats in 1936, Wendell Willkie by the Republicans in 1940 and both Harry Truman and Thomas E. Dewey were nominated in 1948 – that year's Republican Convention being the first televised convention. It was built on the site of the Exposition Auditorium, where the Republicans renominated William McKinley in 1900.

(The Democrats met in Atlantic City at the Convention Hall, now named Boardwalk Hall, in 1964, nominating Lyndon Johnson. 2301 Boardwalk at Mississippi Avenue. New Jersey Transit Atlantic City Line from 30th Street Station. The Beatles played there a few days before.)

The Beatles played here on September 2, 1964. Pope John Paul II said Mass here. The Philadelphia Warriors played here from 1952 to 1962, when they moved to San Francisco (and now the "Golden State Warriors" play in Oakland), and the 76ers from 1963 until the Spectrum opened in 1967. Joe Louis defended the Heavyweight Championship of the World here, knocking Gus Dorazio out in the 2nd round on February 17, 1941.

Titles were won here by the 1956 Warriors and the 1967 76ers. The Philadelphia Blazers played the 1st World Hockey Association season here, 1972-73, but were terrible, and with the Flyers on the way up, nobody wanted to see the WHA team. They moved to Vancouver the next season.

So many Philly area greats played here, in high school, college and the pros, but you need know one name -- pardon the pun -- above all others: Wilt Chamberlain. I saw a concert here in 1989, and the acoustics were phenomenal, with a horseshoe of seats and a stage at one end, much like Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City and the building once known as the Baltimore Civic Center.

Built in 1931, it was demolished in 2005 to make way for the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine. an addition to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. 34th Street & Civic Center Boulevard. Same stop as the Palestra and Franklin Field, which are a block away.

* Site of Philadelphia Arena. Built in 1920, this was the first home of the NBA's Warriors from 1946 to 1952, and site of some 76ers home games as well. It seated only 6,500 at its peak, so the Civic Center and later the Spectrum were preferable.

The Arena made its name hosting college hockey: Penn playing there was understandable, but, at the time, Princeton and even faraway Yale did not have their own rinks, and used the Arena as home ice.

The worst team in NHL history played there: The 1930-31 Philadelphia Quakers. After 5 seasons as the Pittsburgh Pirates, they clowned their way to a record of 4 wins, 40 losses and 4 ties, making them about as bad as the worst team in NBA history, the 1972-73 76ers (9-73). They were strapped during this 2nd indoor sports season of the Great Depression, and went out of business thereafter. Although several minor-league teams would play at the Arena -- the Arrows, the Comets, the Ramblers, the Falcons and the Rockets -- it would not be until 1967, with the opening of the Spectrum and the beginning of the Flyers, that Philly would have another NHL team.

Baseball pitcher-turned-evangelist Billy Sunday delivered sermons there in the 1920s,, and Charles Lindbergh used it for an America First speech in 1940. Early in his career, Elvis sang at the Arena on back-to-back days, doing 2 shows each on April 5 and 6, 1957.

Philly's ABC affiliate, Channel 6, formerly WFIL and now WPVI, built its studio next-door. It still stands. The Arena does not: It caught fire on August 24, 1983, and had to be demolished. A housing project is on the site today. 4530 Market Street. Market Street Line to 46th Street.

* Site of the National Athletic Club. This was home base for Joseph Francis Hagan, who fought under the name Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, He won the Light Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1905, but abandoned it to fight for the Heavyweight Championship. He never got it, losing to Tommy Burns in Los Angeles in 1907, and gaining a generous draw (decided by racist judges) against Jack Johnson at the National A.C. on May 19, 1909.

I can find no record of when the National A.C. was demolished, only that it no longer stands. 1100 Catharine Street, Broad Street Line to Lombard-South.

* Site of Frankford Stadium. Philadelphia's 1st pro football team was the Frankford Yellow Jackets, who played at Frankford Stadium in Northeast Philly from 1924 to 1930, winning the 1926 NFL Championship, before a fire on the eve of the 1931 season forced them into Baker Bowl and then into folding.

The stadium was on a plot bounded by Frankford Avenue, Devereaux Avenue, Hawthorne Street and Benner Street. An AutoZone (at 6137 Frankford) and rowhouses are on the site now. Market-Frankford Line to Frankford Transportation Center, then transfer to SEPTA Bus 66 Frankford & Harbison Avenues.

In addition to the Yellow Jackets, another ill-fated team played in Eastern Pennsylvania in the NFL's early days. The Pottsville Maroons played at the 5,000-seat Minersville Park, at the intersection of Sunbury Road and Prison Road, 106 miles northwest of Philly, from 1920 to 1928. They claimed the 1925 NFL Championship, but may have been "robbed" of the title.

* Site of Broadwood Hotel. From 1924 to 1991, this hotel stood at the intersection of Broad and Wood Streets, just north of Center City. From 1924 to 1946, its ballroom was the home of the Philadelphia SPHAs -- a basketball team run by the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, even though it wasn't in South Philly. This team would evolve into the Warriors. A parking deck for Hahnemann University Hospital is on the site now. Broad Street Line to Race-Vine.

* Site of Cherry Hill Arena. Before the Devils, the 1st hockey team with major league pretensions to call New Jersey home was actually in South Jersey. In the 1973-74 World Hockey Association season, the former New York Raiders set up shop at the Cherry Hill Arena in Bergen County, and renamed themselves the Jersey Knights.

The building went up in 1959 as the Ice House, and was later renamed the Delaware Valley Gardens before assuming its most familiar name, but no one was confusing it with Madison Square Garden (old or new), the Boston Garden or Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Sports Illustrated called it "perhaps the worst facility" used by any WHA team, noting that it lacked showers in the dressing room for visiting teams, who had to dress at a Holiday Inn 2 miles away, and that the ice surface was not even level, giving the home team a distinct advantage, as, 2 periods out of every 3, the visitors would have to skate uphill to the opponent's goal.

The Eastern Hockey League placed 2 teams there: The Jersey Larks in 1960-61, and the Jersey Devils (the 1st pro hockey team with the name) from 1964 until 1973, when the arrival of the Knights forced their move. The Philadelphia Warriors played an occasional "home game" there.

The Knights left for San Diego after the 1973-74 season. In 1978, the Arena was renamed The Centrum, and the Northeastern Hockey League placed the Jersey Aces there, but they only lasted a few games. The Arena was demolished in 1981. 

The site is now a parking lot for a shopping center that includes a Burger King and a Retro Fitness. 1447 Brace Road, at Haddonfield-Berlin Road. Not easy to reach by public transit: PATCO train to Haddonfield, then almost a half-hour walk.

* Temple University. Straddling the border between Center City and the mostly-black North Philadelphia ghetto, Temple has given thousands of poor urban kids a chance to make something of themselves, including comedian Bill Cosby, who ran track for the school, including in the Penn Relays at Franklin Field.

Temple now plays basketball at the Liacouras Center, at 1776 N. Broad Street, across from its former arena, McGonigle Hall, at 1800. Broad Street Line to Cecil B. Moore station.

The Owls have played football at the South Philly complex since 1978, first at The Vet and now at the Linc. From 1928 to 1977, they played at Temple Stadium, a 20,000-seat facility on the city's northern edge. On September 25, 1968, the U.S. soccer team played Israel to a draw there. It was demolished in 1996, and, like Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium, the site is now home to a church. 2800 Pickering Avenue at Vernon Road. Broad Street Line to Olney Transportation Center, then transfer to the Number 18 bus toward Cedarbook Mall.

* LaSalle University. All of Philly's Big 5 basketball universities are private; unlike Penn and Temple, La Salle, St. Joe's and 'Nova are Catholic. LaSalle is in the northernmost reaches of the city, its bookstore at 1900 W. Olney Avenue, and the Explorers' new Tom Gola Arena, named for their late 1950s superstar and 1960s coach, and 2100 W. Olney. Broad Street Line to Olney Transportation Center.

* St. Joseph's University. St. Joe's straddles the western edge of the city, on a hill bisected by City Line Avenue. They are known for their Hawk mascot flapping his wings throughout the game, never stopping, thus leading to the chant, "The Hawk will never die!" This, of course, leads their Big 5 opponents to chant, "The Hawk must die!" and, if victorious, "The Hawk is dead!"

Their fieldhouse, now named the Michael J. Hagan Arena, is at 2450 N. 54th Street, and features a plaque commemorating a 1967 speech delivered there by Martin Luther King. Number 44 bus from Center City.

* Villanova University. The Wildcats just won their 2nd National Championship, defeating North Carolina in a thriller in Houston, 31 years after their even more amazing upset of Georgetown in Lexington, Kentucky.

Famously (well, famous within the Philadelphia area, anyway), they played a Big 5 game against St. Joe's at the Palestra a few years back, having beaten each of the other Big 5 schools, and, pulling away, their fans chanted, "We own Philly!" The St. Joe's fans, no fools, reminded them of their location, in the town of Villanova, 18 miles northwest of Center City: "You ain't Philly!"

Jake Nevin Field House, their home at the time of their 1985 National Championship, and The Pavilion, which that success allowed them to build, are next to each other, along with their bookstore, at 800 E. Lancaster Avenue. They also have a 12,500-seat stadium for their Division I-AA football team. SEPTA R5 commuter rail to Villanova Station.

Of the Big 5, only Temple plays Division I-A football: Temple, 'Nova and LaSalle play I-AA, and while St. Joseph's Prep has one of the better programs in Philly-area high school football, their collegiate namesake doesn't play football at all.

* Rowan University. Founded in 1923, and known as Glassboro State College for most of its history, from 1958 to 1992, this school is in Glassboro, Gloucester County, and is the largest institution of higher learning in South Jersey. It was prominent enough of a place in 1967 that it hosted a summit conference between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Alexei Kosygin, then Premier of the Soviet Union. If there were a University of New Jersey (and it wasn't Rutgers), this would probably be it.

Alas, they are NCAA Division III, but they are home to a semi-pro soccer team, named the Philadelphia Fury, after a former team in the old NASL. They play in the American Soccer League, North America's 4th division, at Rowan's 4,000-seat Richard Wackar Stadium. Carpenter Street and Joseph L. Bowe Blvd., 22 miles south of Center City. Bus 412.

* Spike's Trophies. When the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society closed its facility in the northern suburb of Hatboro, they moved their operations, and the plaques honoring A's greats that used to be on the concourse wall at the Vet, to this store near Northeast Philadelphia Airport. 2701 Grant Avenue at Ashton Road. Market-Frankford Line to Frankford Transportation Center, then transfer to Number 50 Bus.

* Laurel Hill Cemetery. This is the final resting place of Flyers founding owner Ed Snider; former Phillies manager Harry Wright, who founded the 1st professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, in 1869; and of longtime broadcaster Harry Kalas. 215 Belmont Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, not far from the St. Joe's campus. Use the Number 44 bus to get to both.

* Gladwyne Methodist Church. Kalas' longtime broadcast partner, the Hall of Fame center fielder Richie "Whitey" Ashburn, is laid to rest here. 316 Righters Mill Road in Gladwyne. The Number 44 bus can also be used for this.

* Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. This is the final resting place of Connie Mack. 3301 W. Cheltenham Avenue. Broad Street Line to Olney Transportation Center, then Number 22 bus.

Philadelphia is home to Independence National Historic Park, including Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. The Visitor's Center is at 6th & Market Streets: At this complex, there will be people there to advise you on what to do. 5th Street on the Market Street Line.

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence at what's now known as Declaration House, at 599 S. 7th Street, although the front of the building would be 700 Market Street (which would suggest 1 S. 7th Street).

The President's House -- that's as formal a name as it had -- was where George Washington (1790-97) and John Adams (1797-1800) lived while Philadelphia was the national capital before Washington, D.C.. It was demolished in 1832. When digging to build the new Liberty Bell Center, the house's foundation was found, and somebody must've asked, "Why didn't anybody think of this before?" So, an exhibit has been set up, at 530 Market Street at 6th. The new Liberty Bell Center is between it and Independence Hall (Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th). Be advised that since 9/11 -- and since the movie National Treasure -- they're understandably a bit finicky about security there.

The oldest surviving Presidential residence (chosen specifically for the President, not counting homes like Mount Vernon or Monticello) is the Germantown White House, which still stands at 5442 Germantown Avenue. George Washington and John Adams used it to escape the heat and, more importantly, the yellow fever epidemics of what's now Center City Philadelphia, making it less "the first Summer White House" and more "the first Camp David." SEPTA R7 to Germantown, then 3 blocks down Armat Street and a left on Germantown Avenue. Definitely not safe at night.

Speaking of George Washington, Valley Forge National Historical Park is just an hour's bus ride from Suburban Station. On JFK Blvd. at 17th Street, board the SEPTA 125 bus. Valley Forge Casino Resort and the King of Prussia Mall are a short drive (or a moderate walk) away. The fare is $4.75 each way ($9.50 total).

Only one President has ever come from Pennsylvania, and he might be the worst one of all: James Buchanan, whose Administration began with the Panic of 1857 and ended with the secession of several Southern States. (Whether Buchanan was gay has been debated since even before he became President, but the evidence is flimsy.) His home, Wheatland, still stands at 1120 Marietta Avenue in Lancaster, and he's buried about a mile away in Greenwood Cemetery. But Lancaster, the heart of "Pennsylvania Dutch Country," is 80 miles west of Philly. It's a cheap trip by Amtrak standards, but unless you've always wanted to visit the area, or you're a big history buff, I'd suggest forgetting about it if you're pressed for time.

The Musical Fund Hall hosted the 1st Republican National Convention in 1856, nominating John C. Fremont for President. (He lost to Buchanan.) It was one of many historical meetings at this building, which has stood since 1824. 808 Locust Street, Center City. The Academy of Music hosted their 1872 Convention, renominating President Ulysses S. Grant. It opened in 1857, and hosted the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1900 to 2001, when the Kimmel Center opened across Locust Street. 240 S. Broad Street, Center City.

And the Walnut Street Theatre, which opened in 1809 and is the oldest continuously operating theater in America, hosted the 1st Presidential Debate of the 1976 campaign, between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. 825 Walnut Street, Center City.

Philadelphia's answer to the Museum of Natural History is the University of Pennsylvania Museum, at 33rd & South Streets, across from Franklin Field. (Same trolley stop.) Their answer to the Hayden Planetarium -- and a better one -- is the Franklin Institute, which is also the national memorial to Big Ben, the man who, more than any man made any city in the Western Hemisphere, made Philadelphia. 20th Street & Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Number 76 bus. 76, get it? The bus is nicknamed "The Ben FrankLine."

At the other end of the Parkway, at 25th and Spring Garden Streets, is Philly's answer to the Metropolitan, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Rocky Balboa statue is here, and it doesn't cost anything except sweat to run up the steps.

The chocolate city of Hershey, Pennsylvania is 95 miles west of Center City, and only 15 miles east of the State Capitol in Harrisburg. The smell of chocolate wafts over the city, and is the source of the nickname "The Sweetest Place On Earth." Amtrak goes from 30th Street station to Harrisburg and nearby Middletown (the home of the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which is still in operation and hasn't had an incident since the one in 1979), but if you want to go to any prominent place in Hersey, you'll have to rely on local bus service.

There are 4 prominent places in Hershey. There's the Hershey's chocolate factory. There's Hersheypark amusement park. There's Hersheypark Stadium is a 15,641-seat high school football stadium, opened in 1939. On May 9, 1990, the U.S. soccer team beat Poland there. Most notably, Hersheypark Arena, formerly Hershey Sports Arena, which now seats 7,286 people. The Warriors and 76ers played a few home games here, including the March 2, 1962 contest between the Warriors and the Knicks, when Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points.

The minor-league Hershey Bears used it from its opening in 1936 until 2002, when the 10,500-seat Giant Center opened next-door. It still hosts college hockey and concerts. Appropriately, the address of the Arena is 100 W. Hershey Park Drive.

Lincoln University, the 1st of America's historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), was founded in 1854, even before the American Civil War. Now an NCAA Division II school, it won black college National Championships in 1923 and 1924, and excels in track & field, anually sending competitors to the Penn Relays. 1570 Baltimore Pike (once part of U.S. Route 1, which has since been realigned), in Oxford, Chester County, 44 miles southwest of Center City.

No college football rivalry has been played more than Lafayette College and Lehigh University, separated by 17 miles of U.S. Route 22 in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Lafayette is in Easton, 69 miles north of Center City; Lehigh is in Bethlehem, 56 miles north. On occasion, they've played each other twice and, during World War II, even 3 times a season. Now, they limit themselves to 1. In 2014, on the occasion of their 150th meeting, they played each other at the new Yankee Stadium, with Lafayette winning. Lehigh won last year, but Lafayette leads the series, 78-68-5.

Lehigh's Goodman Stadium hosted a U.S. soccer game on October 23, 1993, a draw vs. Ukraine -- although I doubt too many people in the Delaware Valley were paying attention, as that was the day of Game 6 of the World Series, which the Phillies lost to the Toronto Blue Jays on the Joe Carter home run.

Believe it or not, it's easier to reach both Easton and Bethlehem without a car from New York than it is from Philadelphia: Transbridge Lines runs buses from Port Authority into the Lehigh Valley, and Susquehanna Trailways runs them from Philly's Greyhound Terminal at 1001 N. Filbert Street, across from the Market East Station.

Also in the Lehigh Valley is Scranton, where a fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World was held on May 27, 1983. Easton native Larry Holmes won a 12-round decision over Lucien Rodriguez. 900 Adams Avenue, 125 miles north of Center City, and 122 miles northwest of Times Square. Bus service is available from both cities.

Once upon a time, Central Pennsylvania was home to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which coach Glenn "Pop" Warner and running back Jim Thorpe led to upsets of Harvard (18-15) in 1911 and Army (27-6) at West Point in 1912. Ironically, in 1918, the Army bought the school, land and buildings, and it's now the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. 950 Soldiers Drive, in Carlisle, 122 miles west of Center City Philadelphia and 17 miles west of Harrisburg.

Not surprisingly for a city of its size, Philadelphia has had a few TV shows set there, but not many actually filmed there. Boy Meets World was taped entirely at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. (Its sequel series, Girl Meets World, featuring Cory & Topanga Matthews and their kids, is set in New York.) Amen was also taped in L.A.

Neither does It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia film in Philly -- and it is not always sunny there. Nor did Angie film there, nor Thirtysomething, nor Cold Case, nor Strong Medicine, nor Body of Proof. Kim Delaney's legal drama Philly includes City Hall, which includes the Philadelphia County Courthouse, in its opening montage, but that was about it. Same with the legal drama Shannon's Deal and the current hit How to Get Away with Murder. The 1960s flashback series American Dreams did some filming under the Market Street Elevated Line, but most of it was filmed in L.A. And, being a cartoon, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids didn't have to "film" anywhere.

The 1980s period piece The Goldbergs is set in the northern suburb of Jenkintown. The American version of The Office was set in Scranton. Fictional Philadelphia suburbs are sometimes used for daytime soap operas and their evening counterparts: Pine Valley on All My Children, Llanview on One Life to Live, Corinth on Loving, and Roseweood on Pretty Little Liars. 

On M*A*S*H, Father Francis Mulcahy, the Army chaplain played by William Christopher, was a Philadelphia native, and coached boxing at a Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), while "my sister the Sister" coached basketball at a convent.

The films Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Story and The Philadelphia Experiment had a few Philly locations put in, but all filming was done in Southern California. For chronological reasons, the film version of the musical 1776 couldn't be filmed on the streets of Philadelphia, or even inside Independence Hall -- although National Treasure used the Hall, and the Franklin Institute, and the Reading Terminal Market.

Probably the best-known film set in the city is Trading Places -- except a lot of it was filmed in and around New York! The New York Chamber of Commerce Building (65 Liberty Street) and the Seventh Regiment Armory (643 Park Avenue) stood in for the Heritage Club. Mill Neck Manor for the Deaf on Long Island stood in for the Duke Brothers' estate. And, of course, the climactic scene was set at the New York Mercantile Exchange, at 4 World Trade Center, which was at destroyed in the 9/11 attacks.

Locations in the film that were absolutely in Philly were: 30th Street Station; Duke & Duke, at Fidelity Bank at 135 S. Broad Street, 2 blocks south of City Hall; and Lewis Winthorpe's residence, with exterior shots at 2014 Delancey Place at 20th Street, near Rittenhouse Square, which is where Eddie Murphy pretended to be a blind, legless Vietnam veteran. (This is a private residence: Walk down there if you like, but leave the residents alone.)

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So, to sum up, I would definitely recommend to any soccer fan, even a Red Bulls fan, that they take in a Philadelphia Union game at Subaru Park. It may be the best MLS stadium, or, at least (since Seattle's and Portland's stadiums were built for other sports), the best soccer-specific stadium in the country. You should be able to enjoy yourselves -- even if the home fans aren't always nice. 

Winter Is Coming

Last night, the New York Red Bulls were up 3-2 away to the Philadelphia Union in the MLS Cup Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, about 3/4 of the way through the game. Then they allowed an equalizer. Then regular time ran out. Then stoppage time ran out. It was 3-3, and, in this format, away goals don't mean anything. So the game went to extra time.

In which they lost, 4-3, on a freaky (but not exactly fluky) goal.

The Yankees' season and the Red Bulls' season ended within 20 hours of each other, both in ignominious defeats.

I'm reminded of the words Bart Giamatti used to describe baseball:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone.

You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

We had a hot Summer, and then a few nice Autumn days, and then, yesterday, October 20, it rained all day and all night.

So here's what we've got in New York Tri-State Area sports:

* Yankees: Not good enough by their standards

* Mets: Not good enough by anyone's standards

* Giants: Rebuilding

* Devils: Rebuilding

* Knicks: Run by James Dolan

* Rangers: Run by James Dolan

* Jets: Joke franchise, always rebuilding

* Nets: Joke franchise, the Jets of basketball

* Liberty: They still exist?

* Islanders: They still exist?

* Red Bulls: Always choke in the Playoffs

* NYCFC: Always choke in the Playoffs

 

As George R.R. Martin would say, Brace yourself: Winter is coming. And it's probably going to be a long, cold, hard Winter.

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October 21, 1422: King Charles VI of France dies in Paris at the age of 53. He may not even have known that his enemy and son-in-law, King Henry V of England, had died just 51 days earlier. Known as Charles the Beloved before France started losing the war, and Charles the Mad after they started losing it, he is succeeded by his son, who becomes Charles VII.

With Henry's son, Henry VI, still an infant, England is rudderless, and Charles VII puts France back on the road to victory. Sounds a bit like Rocky Wirtz rebuilding the Chicago Blackhawks after his father Bill had run them into the ground.

October 21, 1772: Samuel Taylor Coleridge is born in Ottery St. Mary, Devon, in England's West country. In 1797, he published the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The Mariner's shooting of an albatross, a bird that was said to bring good luck, led to the metaphor of "an albatross around his neck," or just "an albatross."

It also led to the nickname "The Ancient Mariner," for a pair of Seattle Mariners pitchers: First for Diego Segui, then 40, the only player on the original 1977 Mariners to have played for the city's previous major league team, the 1969 Seattle Pilots; then for Gaylord Perry, who won his 300th game while with the Mariners in 1982, shortly before turning 44.  

In 1816, he published the poem Kubla Khan, opening with the familiar words, "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree," inspiring the name "Xanadu" for Charles Foster Kane's Florida estate in the 1941 film Citizen Kane, and the 1980 disco music-theme film Xanadu.

Coleridge suffered from various maladies throughout his life, and became addicted to opium. Nevertheless, he lived until 1834, age 61.

October 21, 1805: In Champions League action, Arsenal defeat Paris Saint-German and their Spanish striker. Actually, no: A British fleet under Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet under Admiral

Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve, off Cape Trafalgar, Spain.

Although Nelson himself was killed in the battle, the British didn't lose a single ship. Their opponents lost 22. It ended Napoleon Bonaparte's attempts to invade Britain by sea. Villeneuve was captured, and committed suicide in prison the following April.

October 21, 1833: Alfred Bernhard Nobel is born in Stockholm, Sweden. An engineer and inventor, his 355 patents included dynamite. But he also founded a company that made military armaments and parts therefor.

In 1888, his brother Ludvig died while visiting Cannes, on the French Riviera. A local newspaper mistook him from Alfred, and published an obituary that spread, first throughout France, then throughout Europe, condemning him, saying, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday," and, "The merchant of death is dead."

Alfred realized that this was how people thought of him, and decided to change that. With no wife or children to leave his fortune to (though he was straight), he changed his will to found the Nobel Foundation, to annually award the Nobel Prizes, without distinction of nationality. He died in 1896, and they began to be awarded in 1900.

A committee in Nobel's native Sweden awards the Prizes in the categories of Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry, Physics and Literature. Another, in Norway, awards the Nobel Prize for Peace, although that is frequently given to someone involved in great humanitarian causes, rather than for efforts in stopping a war or maintaining a peace.

October 21, 1837: James Addams Beaver is born in Millerstown, Pennsylvania. He served in the Union Army at the Civil War battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville (where he was wounded), Gettysburg (not far from his hometown), Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor.

He was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 1886, and was President of the Pennsylvania State University from 1906 to 1908. Their Beaver Stadium is named for him. He died in 1914, at age 76.

October 21, 1845: According to John Thorn, author of a bunch of books about baseball and now Major League Baseball's official historian, the first real baseball game may have been played on this date. It also begins the baseball rivalry between New York and Brooklyn, which will still be separate cities until 1898.

October 21, 1848: Julian Sturgis is born in Boston. At the age of 7 months, he was moved with his family to London. He and his brother Howard Sturgis both became writers. He was a lawyer and wrote the libretti for operas, including working for William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.

Why am I mentioning him? Because, in 1873, the 2nd year of Britain's Football Association Cup, he became the 1st person born outside the British Isles to play in the tournament. His position would, today, be called "centre forward" or "striker" or "Number 9." He helped London-based Wanderers win the FA Cup that year, beating Oxford University 2-0 at the Lillie Bridge ground in Southwest London. He died in 1904.

October 21, 1851: George Ulyett (no middle name) is born in Sheffield, Yorkshire. I don't know what makes a cricket player great, but he played for Yorkshire from 1873 to 1893, and, according to Wikipedia, was "noted particularly for his very-aggressive batsmanship." In modern baseball terms, he would swing at anything.

In 1877, he played for England against Australia in what is called the first-ever Test match, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. He also played as a goalkeeper for the soccer team now known as Sheffield Wednesday from 1882 to 1884.

In 1898, watching the Yorkshire club play in poor weather at Bramall Lane (the current version of the stadium is the home of soccer team Sheffield United), he caught a cold that turned into pneumonia. With no antibiotics available, he died at age 46.

October 21, 1861: At the Elysian Fields in Hoboken‚ the greatest event of the baseball season‚ the Grand Match for the Silver Ball‚ takes place between all-star teams from Brooklyn and New York. The Silver Ball Trophy is the same size as a regular baseball, and will be kept by the club whose members score the most runs during the match.

A crowd of 15,000 fans sees the Brooklyn team‚ behind their star Jim Creighton‚ defeat New York 18-6. This is the same Jim Creighton who will be dead within a year.

October 21, 1879, 140 years ago: Thomas Edison announces his creation of a practical incandescent light bulb at his laboratory in the Menlo Park section of Raritan Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey. This is one of the things that made the modern world possible, including the survival of professional sports.

In 1954, to avoid confusion with Raritan Borough in Somerset County, and Raritan Township in Hunterdon County, the name of the Township is changed to Edison.

October 21, 1880: George Vincent Brown is born in Boston, and grows up in nearby Hopkinton, Massachusetts. In 1897, the Boston Marathon was first run, starting in Hopkinton, as it still does. In 1899, he began working for the Marathon's governing body, the Boston Athletic Association. From 1904 to 1936, he was an official with the U.S. Olympic Team. From 1905 to 1937, he fired the starter's pistol that began the Boston Marathon.

In 1910, he founded an ice hockey team under the BAA's leadership. In 1917, he became the athletic director at Boston University, and founded its hockey team, one of the most successful programs in American college hockey. That same year, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and became its athletic director. In 1919, he became the manager of the Boston Arena (now the Matthews Arena).

In 1924, he managed the U.S. hockey team at the 1st Winter Olympics in Chamonix, in the Alps of southeastern France. Later that year, he accepted the NHL's 1st U.S.-based team, the Boston Bruins, at his Arena. In 1928, when the Boston Garden opened, he was named its operator, and continued his involvement with the Bruins. He died in 1937.

He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961. His son, Walter Brown, managed the Boston Garden, technically making him the owner of the Bruins and, from 1946 until his death in 1965, the NBA's Boston Celtics. He joined his father in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as well.

Also on this day, John Francis Hayden is born outside Philadelphia in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. This guy was a piece of work. In baseball, he was an outfielder, and an original member of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1901, then was absent from the major leagues until returning with the Boston Red Sox (then still named the Boston Americans) in 1906, and closed with 11 games with the Chicago Cubs in 1908, although he was not on their World Series roster.

On September 11, 1906, the Boston Americans were playing the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) at Hilltop Park in Manhattan, when Jack Hayden got into a fight with his own teammate, 2nd baseman Hobe Ferris, who accused him of loafing. They got separated, and started fighting again. They became the 1st pair of teammates ejected from a game for fighting with each other.

But it wasn't fighting, or suspensions that resulted, that explain his absence from baseball. He was also a football player, at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1906, he jumped from the Miassillon Tigers of the Ohio League, the 1st professional football league, to their arch-rivals, the Canton Bulldogs, because of, you guessed it, more money.

That year, there was a betting scandal involving the teams. Hayden's quarterbacking and kicking were in fine form the 1st time the teams played that year. But the 2nd time, 6 punts sailed over his head. He never played football again after that season, and died in 1942.

October 21, 1883: Ernest Russell (no middle name) is born in Montreal. A center, Ernie Russell won the Stanley Cup with the Montreal Wanderers in 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1910. He died in 1963, and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1965.

October 21, 1885: August Harris Fisher is born in Pottsboro, Texas. A catcher, Gus Fisher briefly played in the major leagues, with the 1911 Cleveland Naps (forerunners of the Indians) and the 1912 New York Highlanders (forerunners of the Yankees). He lived until 1972.

October 21, 1887: The National League Champion Detroit Wolverines clinch the World Championship with their 8th victory in Game 11 of the series this afternoon, over the American Association Champions, the St. Louis Browns, 13-3 on neutral ground in Baltimore.

With a rainout yesterday in Washington‚ this morning's rescheduled Game 10 sees the Browns pull off a triple play and win‚ 11-4‚ to delay elimination. But the Wolverines take Game 11 later in the day to clinch.

But they will end up losing money, and fold at the end of the next season. Detroit will not return to major league ball until the American League and the Tigers arrive in 1901, and will not win another World Championship for 48 years.

The Browns will win their 4th straight AA title the next season, but will go 38 years before winning another Pennant. In 1892 they join the NL; by 1901, they will be named the Cardinals.

October 21, 1891: Ed Daily of the American Association's Washington Statesmen dies at age 29. I can't find a record of how he died, but he last played on July 14, which suggests a lingering illness, possibly tuberculosis, or any number of other ailments in those pre-antibiotic days.

He reached the major leagues as a pitcher with the 1885 Philadelphia Quakers (Phillies), winning 26 games (a common, but still impressive, feat at the time). The next year, despite going 16-9, he began to lay more as an outfielder. He won the 1890 AA Pennant with the Louisville Colonels, but was traded to Washington, where he died.

October 21, 1892: For the 1st time, the University of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University play each other in football. Vanderbilt, hosting the game in Nashville, wins 22-4.

Despite early dominance by Vandy, this rivalry is lopsided in the Volunteers' favor: They lead the Commodores 75-32-5, despite Vandy having won the last 2 and 4 of the last 6.

October 21, 1893: For the 1st time, the University of Tennessee and the University of Kentucky play each other in football. Despite Tennessee hosting the game in Knoxville, Kentucky wins, 56-0.

The game becomes known for the trophy that is set up for it: The Battle for the Beer Barrel. Despite early dominance, this rivalry is even more lopsided than that between the Vols and Vandy: The Vols lead the Wildcats 79-25-9.

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October 21, 1901: Joseph Sill Clark Jr. is born in Philadelphia. He was elected Mayor of Philadelphia in 1951, but his tenure included the Athletics leaving for Kansas City. Nevertheless, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1956 and 1962, but was defeated in 1968 because of his opposition to the Vietnam War and guns. He died in 1990, at age 88.

October 21, 1916: Edwin Elliott Carnett is born in Springfield, Missouri, and grows up in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Eddie Carnett was a pitcher who appeared in 2 games in his "cup of coffee" with the 1941 Boston Braves, went into the U.S. Navy during World War II, and then reappeared with the Chicago White Sox in 1944 and the Cleveland Indians in 1945, pitching 2 games each for them.

But he had mainly become an outfielder, playing 126 games for the '44 ChiSox, before even the manpower shortage of WWII wouldn't allow him to play in more than 30 for the '45 Tribe.

He didn't have much of a major league career, but, unlike the vast majority of people reading this post, he did have one. He remained in the minor leagues until 1955, and later ran a country club and became vice president of a chemical company. Eddie Carnett died in Ringling, Oklahoma on November 4, 2016, just 2 weeks after his 100th birthday.

Also on this day, Floyd Clifford Bevens is born in Hubbard, Oregon. He was nicknamed Bill because a fly ball once hit him on the bill of his cap. He pitched for the Yankees from 1944 to 1947. In June 1947, in an interview for Baseball magazine, he said, "I do not use anything odd or unorthodox. I have a sinker, but it is a natural delivery. Fastball, curve, change, and change in speeds. That is my repertoire."

He started Game 4 of the 1947 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, and was 1 out away from a no-hitter. However, he was wild, and walked 9 batters, finally issuing a 10th walk, an intentional one to load the bases and set up a force at any base. It backfired, as Cookie Lavagetto doubled to clear the bases, and make the Dodgers 3-2 winners, and tie up the Series.

In Game 6, Dodger left fielder Al Gionfriddo made a great catch to rob Joe DiMaggio of an extra-base hit. In Game 7, Bevens pitched 2 2/3rds innings of scoreless relief, and the Yankees won. Neither Bevens, nor Lavagetto, nor Gionfriddo ever appeared in another major league game.

Bevens' career record was 40-36, with a 3.08 ERA. He pitched for the Newark Bears of the International League in 1948, and last pitched in 1952, for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacfic Coast League. He died on October 26, 1991, just 5 days after his 75th birthday. He was a decent pitcher, and he did earn a World Series ring with the Yankees in 1947. However, he was not the best Yankee pitcher born on an October 21 and wearing Number 16.

October 21, 1917: An exhibition game in Kansas City features the 2nd and last matchup between Walter Johnson and Grover Cleveland Alexander. Alex's team wins‚ 4-3. Included in Alexander's lineup is 21 year-old Cardinal rookie Rogers Hornsby. In his 1962 book My War With Baseball, Hornsby described his last at-bat:

Johnson had two strikes on me. He threw me a real fast ball and I knocked it straight for the fence. The ball knocked out the knot and went through the fence for a home run and we won 4-3. The hole‚ I admit‚ was one of the biggest cases of pure luck I ever heard of. I'm convinced he absolutely had the best fastball of anyone who ever played baseball.

Hornsby will face Johnson again in 1924.

Also on this day, John Birks Gillespie is born in Cheraw, South Carolina. Jay Hanna Dean was known as "Dizzy" for a whacked-out mind. Dizzy Gillespie was one of the great scholars of music, and was known as Dizzy because his fellow musicians got dizzy trying to keep up with him. It's been said that trumpeters in the 1950s and '60s copied Miles Davis because Gillespie was too complicated a player to copy. He lived until 1993.

October 21, 1918: Harry Chapman dies of the Spanish Flu epidemic at a U.S. Army base in Nevada, Missouri. He was 30 years old, and 1 of 8 Major League Baseball players to die in the service during World War I -- in his case, despite seeing no combat.

A native of Severance, Kansas, Chapman was a catcher, who played for the Chicago Cubs in 1912, the Cincinnati Reds in 1913, the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League in 1914 and 1915, and the St. Louis Browns in 1916.

Also on this day, Christopher Duffy (no middle name) is born in Methil, Fife, Scotland. A left winger, he scored the only goal of the 1947 FA Cup Final, in extra time in the 114th minute, to give Charlton Athletic of South London its only major trophy to date. Chris Duffy later managed Bangor F.C. in Northern Ireland, and died in 1978.

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October 21, 1920: Louis Herman Klotz is born in Philadelphia. In 1939 and 1940, he starred at South Philadelphia High School, and was named the city's basketball player of the year. He played at Villanova University, served in World War II, and was a member of the 1948 NBA Champion Baltimore Bullets. (This team went out of business in 1954, and is not connected to the new Bullets that began in 1963 and are now known as the Washington Wizards.)

"Red" Klotz played for several teams, including against the Harlem Globetrotters. Trotters owner Abe Saperstein asked him to form a team that would serve as the Trotters' traveling opponents. He named the team the Washington Generals, in honor of the new President, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Eventually, having settled outside Atlantic City in Margate City, New Jersey, he changed the name of the team to the New Jersey Reds. He only beat the Trotters twice. The last time was in 1971. He was 50 years old, and he said, "The crowd wanted to kill me."

He resumed the Washington Generals name, and last played for them at age 68. In 1995, while keeping his organization in place -- and, legally, separate from the Globies -- he "disbanded" the Generals and former the New York Nationals. He kept that name until 2007, and it didn't work. He changed the name back to the Washington Generals. He died in 2014, still insisting that the Generals tried to win every time they took the court. Even though he never played for them, the Number 3 he wore with the Generals/Reds/Nationals was retired by the Globetrotters.

Also on this day, Cyril Charles Done is born in Liverpool. A forward, he helped Liverpool FC win England's Football League in 1947. He died in 1993.

October 21, 1921: The Sheik premieres, starring Rudolph Valentino. It makes him the movies' 1st true "matinee idol." He starred in a sequel, The Son of the Sheik, in 1926, becoming an even bigger star, but died a few weeks after the premiere, only 31 years old, from a bleeding ulcer. Had antibiotics been available at the time, he could have lived and acted well into the 2nd half of the 20th Century.

October 21, 1924: Edward Joseph McIlvenny is born in Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland. A right half -- today, he'd be a right back -- Ed McIlvenny played for hometown club Greenock Morton and Wrexham in Wales, before coming to America, and playing for the Philadelphia Nationals.

He had begun the process of becoming an American citizen. Under the rules of the time, that made him eligible to play for the U.S. national team. Not just play: He was their Captain at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, and his throw-in led to the goal by Joe Gaetjens that won their tremendous upset against England.

That got the attention of his fellow Scot, Matt Busby, who signed him for Manchester United. He only played twice for them in 3 seasons, and then went to Ireland to play for Waterford. He became a teacher, and died in 1989, having never become an American citizen. He is, however, a member of the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame.

Also on this day, Joyce Sirola is born in Detroit. We know her as Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton on The Honeymooners. At 95, she is, as far as I know, the only actor who ever appeared on the show who is still alive. Even the actors who played various children have since died: Tommy Manicotti, Johnny Bennett (both were played by Ralph Roberts, who died in 2014), Judy Connors and Harvey Wohlstetter Jr.

She has a baseball connection: She is the great aunt of Tim Redding, who pitched in the major leagues from 2001 to 2009, including for both New York teams.

October 21, 1925: For the 1st time, a professional athlete dies as the result of an airplane crash. Marv Goodwin went 21-25 pitching for the Washington Senators, St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds from 1916 to 1925. He was 1 of the 17 pitchers permitted to continue throwing any of the banned pitches that fell under the category of "spitball" in 1920.

He missed the 1918 season, serving in World War I as a pilot, becoming an aviation instructor for the U.S. Army, but hadn't yet been sent overseas when the Armistice was signed. He remained in the Army Reserve, and on October 18, 1925, he was conducting a training exercise at Ellington Field in Houston, when he went into a tailspin and crashed. He died 3 days later, only 34 years old.

He had been a player-manager with the Texas League's Houston Buffaloes in 1924, hence his reserve stationing in Houston. Given that fact, his age, and the fact that he made only 4 major league appearances in 1925, he may have played his last major league game anyway. That doesn't mean, however, that his baseball career was over: He could still have become a major league manager or pitching coach.

Also on this day, Valmy Thomas (apparently, his entire name) is born in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He lived most of his life in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A catcher, he played in Caribbean leagues until signing with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1955. He was a 31-year-old rookie with the 1957 New York Giants, and moved with them to San Francisco.

He lasted until 1962, when he was shot by the other man his girlfriend was seeing. He recovered, but his playing career was over. He lived until 2010.

Also on this day, New York City gives a ticker-tape parade to the crew of the SS President Harding, which had made a dramatic rescue at sea.

October 21, 1926: Melvin Simon (no middle name) is born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and grows up in The Bronx. After being stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison during the Korean War, he stayed in Indianapolis, and went into the real estate business, taking his brother Herb with him and founding what's now the Simon Property Group, which runs several malls, including the Brunswick Square Mall in my hometown of East Brunswick, New Jersey.

Mel and Herb Simon bought the NBA's Indiana Pacers in 1983, reaching the NBA Finals in 2000. Mel died in 2009. Herb is still alive, about to turn 85.

October 21, 1928: Edward Charles Ford is born in Manhattan, and grows up in the adjoining Queens neighborhoods of Long Island City and Astoria. Known as Whitey for his hair, now white but even as a kid it was very light blond, and as the Chairman of the Board because he was such a commanding figure on the mound (and he loved the nickname, as he was a big Frank Sinatra fan and Sinatra also had the nickname), his 236 wins are the most by any Yankee.

He reached the major leagues in the 1950 season, and won the clinching Game 4 of the World Series. He missed the next 2 seasons in the U.S. Army, serving in the Korean War. He returned in 1953, and helped the Yankees win 11 Pennants and 6 World Series: Winning in 1950, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961 and 1962; and losing in 1955, 1957, 1960, 1963 and 1964.

Among all retired pitchers with at least 200 decisions, his .690 career winning percentage is the highest: 236-106, 342 decisions. The current active leader is Clayton Kershaw, at .696, but that's at 169-74, just 243 decisions.

Whitey's career WHIP (Walks and Hits, divided by Innings Pitched) is 1.215. His 2.75 career earned-run average is the best among retired starting pitchers in the post-1920 Lively Ball Era. The leader among all post-1920 pitchers, at 2.21, is Mariano Rivera. The only other pitcher ahead of Whitey is also a reliever, Hoyt Wilhelm. Among Lively Ball Era starters, Sandy Koufax is 2nd, at 2.76. The current active leader, given enough innings to qualify, is Kershaw at 2.44, but that's only over 12 years. Among pitchers with at least 13 seasons, it's Justin Verlander, at 3.33. Jacob deGrom, in just 6 years, is at 2.62.

Manager Casey Stengel would sometimes move him up or back in the rotation, to face a tougher team. This makes his .690 winning percentage and his 2.75 ERA even more amazing. In 1950, and from 1953 to his last game on May 21, 1967, the Yankees went 1,486-1,027, and 1,250-921 in games that he didn't pitch, for a percentage of .576.

This made Whitey 11.4 percent more likely to win than his team -- which, don't forget, had Hall-of-Famers Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra on it, as well as Phil Rizzuto early on, not to mention All-Stars such as Moose Skowron, Elston Howard, Roger Maris and Joe Pepitone, and fellow pitchers Allie Reynolds, Bob Turley and Ralph Terry.

When Ralph Houk succeeded Casey in 1961, he asked Whitey how he'd like to pitch every 4 days (or every 4 games), no matter what. Whitey said, "I'd love to!" And over the next 3 seasons, he went 66-19. He made 10 American League All-Star Teams. He led the AL in wins in 1955, 1961 and 1963, and in ERA in 1956 and 1958.

In 1961, he won the Cy Young Award -- from 1956 to 1967, an award for the best pitcher in both Leagues -- and the Babe Ruth Award as World Series Most Valuable Player, as he broke Ruth's record of 29 2/3rds consecutive scoreless innings in Series play. Before his Game 4 start, Whitey was asked by the press about the record. He said, "What record?" They told him. He said he didn't even know Ruth had been a pitcher.

Whitey's 10 wins in World Series play has never been approached. Bob Gibson won 7, and as great as he was in his wins, Koufax won "only" 4. And Whitey still holds the record for consecutive scoreless innings in Series play, 33. Mariano holds the record for postseason play, 33 1/3.

His Number 16 was retired by the Yankees in 1974, when he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, making him the 1st Yankee pitcher thus honored. He was also 1 of the 1st 2 Yankee pitchers awarded a Plaque in Monument Park, honored along with Lefty Gomez in 1987.

It says something about this great competitor that my Grandma, a dedicated Brooklyn Dodger fan who hated the Yankees (especially Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra, for some reason), loved 2 Yankees: Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford.

That both were from her home Borough of Queens had something to do with it, but she also loved that Whitey was smart and didn't rely on overwhelming force, mixing up his pitches like her favorite Dodger pitchers, Don Newcombe, Carl Erskine and especially Preacher Roe. (And also like her favorite Met pitchers, Tom Seaver, Ron Darling, David Cone and Al Leiter.) She had no patience for pitchers who were fastball-reliant, like Ralph Branca of the Dodgers. She also hated hotheads like Billy Martin, Eddie Stanky and Roger Clemens. She loved that Whitey kept his cool.

Years later, Erik Schrody, a white rapper from Long Island using the nom de rap of Everlast, would also nickname himself "Whitey Ford," and title an album Whitey Ford Sings the Blues, with the follow-up titled Eat at Whitey's and another Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford.

Whitey Ford is now the oldest living Hall-of-Famer. The legendary New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey, also a Queens native, has called him the greatest living Yankee since Yogi Berra died in 2015.

It's between him, Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. The greatest pitcher in Yankee history? It's down to Whitey and Mo. Those of you who only knew Mo, it shouldn't just tell you how great Whitey was to be fairly compared with Mo, it should tell you how great Mo was to be fairly compared with Whitey.

Also on this day, Arild Verner Agerskov Mikkelsen is born in the Fresno suburb of Parlier, California, and grows up in Askov, Minnesota. Minnesota was heavily settled by Scandinavians, hence the State's football team was named the Vikings. But Vern Mikkelsen's sport was basketball, and the forward was a 6-time All-Star, and helped the Minneapolis Lakers win the 1950, '52, '53 and '54 NBA Championships.

He later coached the Minnesota Pipers of the ABA. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, and, in 2002, he and the other Minneapolis players in the Hall were honored at halftime of a Los Angeles Lakers game, with a banner honoring their achievements (even though they had nothing to do with L.A.), and with the championship rings they never got. He died in 2013.

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October 21, 1931: James Michael Parks is born in Haywards Heath, Sussex, England. Like his father, James Horace Parks -- so he wasn't actually "Jim Parks Junior," but that's what he was called -- he played cricket for Sussex, played in 46 Tests for England between 1954 and 1968, and was considered England's best wicket-keeper (equivalent to a catcher in baseball).

He went into management, and is still alive. His son Bobby played county cricket for both Hampshire and Kent.

October 21, 1933: Francisco Gento López is born in El Astillero, Cantabria, Spain. A left winger by position, he starred for a very right-wing soccer team, Real Madrid, winning 12 La Liga titles from 1954 to 1969, the last 6 (1963 to 1969) as Captain.

"Paco" Gento was with Los Blancos as they won the 1st 5 European Cups: 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960. He was their Captain when they won it again in 1966, making him the 1st man to play on 6 European Cup winners. The tournament became known as the UEFA Champions League in 1992, but he's still the only player to win it 6 times.

He was selected for Spain for the 1962 and 1966 World Cups, but not for the 1964 European Nations' Cup (Euro 64), which Spain won on home soil. He later managed lower-league teams, and became a club ambassador for Real Madrid. At 84, he is the last surviving member of the 1st European Cup winners, of 1956; and, with the 2017 death of Raymond Kopa, he is also the last survivor of the 1957 European Cup winners.

October 21, 1934: Brian Blair Kilrea is born in Ottawa. A center, he was a victim of the "Original Six" era of the NHL, stuck in the high minor leagues, unable to break through, playing just 1 game for the Detroit Red Wings in 1958. The Great Expansion of 1967 allowed him to play a season for the Los Angeles Kings, but by season's end, he was nearly 34 years old, and never played in the NHL again, remaining in the minors until 1970.

In 1974, he became the head coach of the Ottawa 67's of the Ontario Hockey League. He remained their coach through the 2009 season, winning its playoff title, the Robertson Cup, in 1977 and 2001; and the championship of Canadian junior hockey, the Memorial Cup, in 1984 and 1999.

He remained general manager, and on October 17, 2014 -- the closest home game to his 80th birthday -- he got permission from the OHL to serve as head coach one more time, becoming the oldest head coach in the history of professional hockey anywhere in the world, defeating the Mississauga Steelheads 6-3. It was his 1,194th career win, extending his record as the winningest coach in the history of junior hockey.

His uncles Wally, Kenny and Hec Kilrea all played for the Red Wings, and won Stanley Cups. Unlike them, however, Brian "Killer" Kilrea is in the Hockey Hall of Fame, in the Builder category, and also in the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame. He is still alive.

October 21, 1936: Louisiana State University introduces its 1st live Tiger mascot. He was named for Mike Chambers, LSU's athletic trainer at the time. The 1st Mike the Tiger lived until 1956, at the age of 21, despite having once been kidnapped and spray-painted green by students at arch-rival Tulane University. The mascot introduced last season is Mike VII.

October 21, 1938: Carl Thomas Brewer is born in Toronto. A 4-time All-Star defenseman for his hometown Maple Leafs, he helped them win the Stanley Cup in 1962, '63 and '64. He died in 2001.

October 21, 1939, 80 years ago: Theodore Otto Uhlaender is born in Chicago Heights, Illinois. An outfielder, Ted Uhlaender began his career on a team that won the Pennant but lost the World Series, the 1965 Minnesota Twins; and ended it on another, the 1972 Cincinnati Reds. He was also with the Twins when they won the AL West in 1969 (but not in 1970). He also played for the Cleveland Indians, and coached for them, and scouted for the San Francisco Giants. He died in 2009.

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October 21, 1940: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway is published. It is a tale of the International Brigades, aiding the leftist Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. The novel was far more successful than those to whom it paid tribute.

The title is taken from a 1624 poem by Englishman John Donne, which has put 3 famous sayings into our lexicon. Hemingway left the original spelling in his epigraph, but I'll render it in modern English:

No man is an island, entire of itself.
Every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.
If a Cloud be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less
as well as if a Promontory were,
as well as if a Manor of thy friends or thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me
because I am involved in Mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee.

Also on this day, James Beaumont is born in Pittsburgh. With his doo-wop group The Skyliners, Jimmy had several hits from 1959 to 1963. He died in 2017. As far as I know, he has had nothing to do with sports. Certainly, none of The Skyliners' hits have become sports anthems.

But I think of all the players who could have helped the Yankees win, and whom Brian Cashman failed to acquire (or keep), and I'm reminded of The Skyliners' 1st and biggest hit, with the group members wrote together: "Since I Don't Have You."

October 21, 1941: The Nazis execute nearly 2,800 men in the Serbian city of Kragujevac, in reprisal for a resistance attack that killed 10 German soldiers.

Also on this day, Steven Lee Cropper is born in Dora, Missouri, and grows up in Memphis. "The Colonel" is one of the greatest guitarists of the 1960s, starting out with The Mar-Keys (best known for their big hit instrumental of 1961, "Last Night"), and then with Booker T. & the M.G.'s (Memphis Group, who had a huge hit instrumental in 1962, "Green Onions").

The M.G.'s became the house band at Memphis' Stax Records, backing Rufus Thomas, his daughter Carla Thomas, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, and Sam & Dave. Since Sam & Dave had recorded "Soul Man," Steve and the surviving members of the M.G.'s were invited to be the backing band for The Blues Brothers sketches on Saturday Night Live, including a cover of "Soul Man" that was a hit in 1978, with John Belushi copying Sam Moore by yelling, "Play it, Steve!" in the 2nd chorus.

The M.G.'s backed Belushi and Dan Aykroyd again for the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, backed a pairing of Moore and Aykroyd -- Belushi and Dave Prater already being dead -- at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden in 1988, and served as the house band at the 1992 Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary concert at The Garden in 1992.

That year, the M.G.'s -- Steve, bass guitarist Lewie Steinberg, his replacement Donald "Duck" Dunn, keyboard player Booker T. Jones and the late drummer Al Jackson Jr. -- were elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Cropper turns 78 today, Jones is about to turn 75, Jackson was killed in 1975, Dunn died in 2012, and Steinberg died in 2016.

October 21, 1942: Louis P. Lamoriello (I can't find a record of what the P stands for) is born in the Providence suburb of Johnston, Rhode Island. He coached the hockey team at Providence College into the NCAA Final Four, a.k.a. the Frozen Four, and from 1987 to 2015 was the general manager of the New Jersey Devils.

The team made the Playoffs every year but one from 1990 to 2010, including 10 Atlantic Division titles, 4 Eastern Conference championships and 3 Stanley Cups. It added a 5th Conference Championship in 2012.

But El Baldo also made some puzzling trades, and was so cheap (How cheap was he?) that he let some terrific players go without lifting a finger, including Scott Niedermayer (who helped the Anaheim Ducks win the Cup in his first season away from the Devils, 2007), Brian Rafalski (who helped the Detroit Red Wings win the Cup the very next season, 2008), John Madden, Brian Gionta and Zach Parise. The Devils missed the Playoffs 5 seasons in a row until making them earlier this year.

He finally stepped down as team president and general manager in 2015, perhaps 2 or 3 years too late. But now, the team has started over, with GM Ray Shero and head coach John Hynes as new blood. Ironically, despite turning 77 today, Lou has also become "new blood," as he is the GM of the rebuilding Islanders. Why not, he does remember them winning Cups, and might know how to restore them.

But maybe the game has passed him by -- another reason he might be a good fit for the Maple Leafs, who haven't won the Cup or even made the Finals since 1967, and have only made the Conference Finals 4 times since then, none at all since 1999.

I have never figured Lamoriello out, and I doubt that I ever will.

Also on this day, William Alexander Curry is born outside Atlanta in College Park, Georgia. A center, he won NFL Championships his 1st 2 seasons in the NFL, with the Green Bay Packers, including winning Super Bowl I. He was a member of the Baltimore Colts when they shockingly lost Super Bowl III, and was still with them when they redeemed themselves by winning Super Bowl V.

He had played at Georgia Tech, and returned there as an assistant coach in 1976, then went back to the Packers on the staff of the man he had previously snapped the ball to, Bart Starr. In 1980, he got his 1st head coaching job, at Georgia Tech. He was named Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year in 1985, and won the All-American Bowl that season.

That got him noticed at the University of Alabama, but despite winning the 1988 Sun Bowl and the 1989 Southeastern Conference title, and 2 SEC Coach of the Year awards, he was fired after losing the 1990 Sugar Bowl. He coached the next 7 seasons at the University of Kentucky. His most recent job has been back in his hometown, at Georgia State, from 2008 to 2012. Overall, his coaching record is 93-128-4.

October 21, 1944, 75 years ago: Thomas James Wright is born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Everton fans have voted Tommy Wright the team's all-time greatest right back, as he was part of the team that won the 1966 FA Cup and the 1970 League title.

Manchester United legend George Best called him the most difficult defender he ever played against. He played for England in Euro 1968 and the 1970 World Cup. He is still alive.

Also on this day, American troops take their 1st city in Germany, in their race to Berlin. With some appropriateness, it is 1st in alphabetical order, too: Aachen.

October 21, 1946: James Webster Hill is born in San Antonio. A defensive back, he played 2 seasons in the AFL and 6 in the NFL. In 1976, he became the sports anchor at Los Angeles station KCBS-Channel 2, switched to KABC-Channel 7 in 1987, helped ABC cover the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and went back to KCBS in 1992, and has been there ever since.

Though he's not from Southern California and never played a home game there at any level, Jim Hill is a sports icon there. He's even got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He should not be confused with Jimmy Hill the late English soccer player, coach and TV personality.

Also on this day, Gregorio Benito Rubio is born in El Puente del Arzobispo, Spain. A centreback, playing under the name Goyo Benito, from 1970 to 1982, he helped Real Madrid win La Liga 6 ties and the Copa del Rey 5 times, including both, "the Double," in 1975 and 1980. He is still alive, but has suffered from Alzheimer's disease. (UPDATE: He died on April 2, 2020, as the nursing home where he lived was devastated by the coronavirus.)

October 21, 1949, 70 years ago: Two very different kind of legends of hockey are born. Michel Edouard Brière, of Malartic, was one of the brightest young players the Province of Quebec has ever produced, and put together a terrific rookie season for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1969. But in 1970, he was in an awful car crash and fell into a coma. He died in 1971. His Number 21 was immediately taken out of circulation by the Pens, although there was no official retirement ceremony for 30 years.

Also on this day, Michael Edward Keenan was born in Bowmanville, Ontario. He coached the Philadelphia Flyers into the Stanley Cup Finals in 1985 and 1987, and did the same with the Chicago Blackhawks in 1992.

But he's best known for the one and only season in which he coached the New York Rangers, 1994. With the highest payroll the NHL had yet seen, and seasons veterans all over the place (many of them, led by Captain Mark Messier, from the Edmonton Oilers, including some who had beaten his Flyers in the '85 and '87 Finals), he led the Broadway Blues to their 1st Stanley Cup in 54 years -- now their only Cup in the last 75 years. Ranger broadcaster Sam Rosen was right: This one now has lasted a lifetime.

But Mike Keenan demanded a big new contract right after that, and threatened to take the Madison Square Garden Corporation to court if he didn’t get it. Instead, they let him walk, and he signed with the St. Louis Blues. It was one of the most shocking "divorces" in the history of New York Tri-State Area sports, and the Rangers have won just 1 Stanley Cup Finals game since. The Curse of Keenan?

He is a mad genius, but except for once, and that once just barely, the madness is what has triumphed. In 2014, he led Metallurg Magnitogorsk to the Gagarin Cup, the championship of Russia's Kontinental Hockey League.

Also on this day, LaTanya Richardson (no middle name) is born in Atlanta. The actress made her name on Broadway, and most commonly appears in police-themed and legal-themed TV shows, including a recent role as a Lieutenant on the CBS drama Blue Bloods. Since 1980, she has been married to fellow actor Samuel L. Jackson.

Also on this day, Benjamin Netanyahu (no middle name) is born in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is now Prime Minister of his nation for the 2nd time. As with the 1st time, he has been unable to avoid being a warmonger and financially compromised, though (as far as we know) he has avoided the adulteries of his 1st term. He has taken the worst of Bill Clinton, worst of Newt Gingrich, and the worst of George W. Bush, and combined them, instead of the best of each. (I’m still not sure Gingrich has a "best" – he and Netanyahu are both really smart, but have serious blind spots.)

For part of his childhood, he and his family lived in the Philadelphia suburb of Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. He and his brother Yonatan attended Cheltenham High School. Yonatan graduated from that school in 1964, along with Reggie Jackson, and was the Israeli commander in the 1976 raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda, successfully completing the raid at the cost of his own life.

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October 21, 1950: Ronald Erwin McNair is born in Lake City, South Carolina. In 1959, he wanted to check books out of that town's public library. It was segregated, and he was black. His mother and the police were called. The police talked the librarian into letting him borrow the books.

He became a physicist, leading to him becoming a mission specialist on space shuttle missions, the 2nd black American to fly in space after Guy Bluford. He was launched on 2 missions, both on the shuttle Challenger. The 1st, in 1984, was a success. The 2nd, on January 28, 1986, was not: He and the other 6 astronauts were killed, most likely the result of the cockpit, from which there was no escape, crashing into the Atlantic Ocean after the explosion. He was 35.

The Lake City Library is now named for him.

October 21, 1952: Patricia Ann Reagan is born in Los Angeles, the daughter of actors Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis -- 7 months after their marriage. Taking her mother's maiden name, Patti Davis did not fall in with their doctrinaire conservatism.

She became an actress and a writer, and her books became controversial; lived with Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon, and together they wrote "I Wish You Peace," a song that went on their 1975 album One of These Nights; dated actors Timothy Hutton and Peter Strauss; married a yoga instructor and got divorced, and has never had children; got involved in the anti-nuclear movement; and posed nude for Playboy and was put on the cover -- at age 41.

When her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, she got involved in the movement to fight it, and now runs Beyond Alzheimer's, an organization based at UCLA, at whose Medical Center her father died in 2004.

October 21, 1954: The smog in Los Angeles is so bad! (How bad is it?) It's so bad, on this day, the City actually closes its public schools for several days. People were just beginning to figure out that having millions of cars and thousands of diesel-powered buses jammed in between the Pacific Ocean and the San Gabriel Mountains, in a city that gets an average of only an inch and a quarter of rain per month, was a bad thing.

On July 26, 1943, the smog in L.A. was so bad, people began calling the police, thinking that the Japanese were conducting chemical warfare as part of their war effort in World War II. The Japanese military never developed anything like that.

On October 6, 1966, the smog in L.A. was so bad, it was blamed for the 3 errors that Willie Davis made that cost the Dodgers Game 2 of the World Series, and possibly the Series itself: He couldn't see the white ball against the gray sky. Small penance for Walter O'Malley to pay for moving the Dodgers out of Brooklyn.

The founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of the Clean Air Act, both in 1970, helped. So did an additional Clean Air Act in 1990. L.A.'s last Stage 1 Smog Alert was in 1974; its last Stage 2 Smog Alert, in 1988. The again, the American Lung Association still ranked L.A. as the nation's most-polluted city as recently as 2013.

October 21, 1955: Richard Marvin DeVos Jr. is born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dick DeVos succeeded his father Rich DeVos as CEO of Amway, and as the owner of the NBA's Orlando Magic. He was the Republican nominee for Governor of Michigan in 2006.

He is married to Betsy DeVos, whom Donald Trump appointed U.S. Secretary of Education. She is not only unqualified for this position, she is anti-qualified, and should have been disqualified.

October 21, 1956: The New York Giants football team plays its 1st home game at Yankee Stadium. They beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 38-10. They had previously been there as the visiting team playing teams named the New York Yankees, none of whom lasted very long.

Also on this day, Carrie Frances Fisher is born in Beverly Hills, California. No relation to Frances Fisher, a redheaded actress of similar age. But she was the daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher, and the half-sister of actress Joely Fisher (daughter of Eddie and actress-singer Connie Stevens).

She will forever be known as Princess/General Leia Organa in the Star Wars saga, but she was also an accomplished writer and director, having written the novel Postcards On the Edge about her relationship with her mother and her struggle with drug addiction, later writing the screenplay for the film version. She co-wrote the TV-movie These Old Broads, which starred her mother, and Shirley MacLaine (who played the Reynolds character in the film version of Postcards), and Elizabeth Taylor, the woman her father left her mother for (before leaving her for Stevens).

We lost her right after Christmas in 2016, and her mother died the very next day. Debbie Reynolds may have died of a broken heart over losing her daughter. Carrie Fisher may have died of a broken heart over the nation getting Donald Trump as President.

Carrie would not seem to have a sports connection, but country singer Carrie Underwood is married to hockey player Mike Fisher, so her married name is Carrie Fisher.

Also on this day, Paul Levitz (no middle name) is born in Brooklyn. A comic book writer, he worked for DC Comics on Batman and the futuristic Legion of Super-Heroes. He created the crimefighting character of the Huntress. He also hired writers Marv Wolfman and Alan Moore for DC, as well as artists John Byrne and George Pérez, and later served as Preisdent of DC. He is still alive and writing.

October 21, 1957: Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, visiting North America, is given a ticker-tape parade in New York.

October 21, 1959, 60 years ago: Jorge Antonio Bell Mathey born in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic. A left fielder and a 3-time All-Star for the Toronto Blue Jays, George Bell hit a walkoff for the last home run in Exhibition Stadium. He also hit the 1st homer at the SkyDome.

At that dome, now named the Rogers Centre, his name hangs in the "Level of Excellence," the Jays' team hall of fame that, until Roberto Alomar's Number 12 was retired, served as a substitute for retiring numbers such as Bell's 11. (The NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs don’t retire numbers, either, except for 2 very special cases; instead, they have a system of "Honoured Numbers" that remain in circulation.) However, the Jays never won a Pennant until after trading Bell, brother of major leaguer Juan Bell.

He's also a member of the Caribbean Baseball, Canadian Baseball and Ontario Sports Halls of Fame.

Also on this day, Kevin Mark Sheedy is born in Bulith Wells, Wales. A midfielder, he is one of the few soccer players admired by fans of both Liverpool clubs. With Liverpool FC, he won the 1982 League Cup. With Everton, he won the FA Cup in 1984, the League in 1985 and 1987, and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985.

Although he was from Wales, his father was from the Republic of Ireland, and thus he holds ROI citizenship, and played for that country in "international football." He played for them in Euro 1988, and in 1990 became the 1st man from his country to score a World Cup goal. He later managed Everton's reserves, and is now a coach with Saudi club Al-Shabab.

Also on this day, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum moves into its new building, at 1071 5th Avenue at 89th Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The oval structure was the last building designed by America's leading architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, and becomes one of New York's iconic structures.

Solomon Robert Guggenheim (1861–1949) was a Philadelphia-born businessman and art collector. His original museum was part of the Plaza Hotel complex, 30 blocks to the south.

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October 21, 1960: Elvis Vernell Patterson is born in Bryan, Texas. A cornerback, Giants coach Bill Parcells nicknamed him "Toast" because he kept getting burned by receivers in practice. Nevertheless, he did something Parcells tried to do, but couldn't: He won Super Bowls with both the Giants (XXI) and the Dallas Cowboys (XXVIII). He has since gone into coaching.

October 21, 1962: David Ian Campese is born in the Canberra suburb of Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Australia. One of Australia's top rugby union players, he scored 64 tries (equivalent to touchdowns) in Test matches, a world record at the time of his retirement. He played for the "Wallabies" in 3 Rugby World Cups, winning in 1991. His brother Terry Campese is a renowned rugby league player in England.

October 21, 1964: After just 12 seasons in Milwaukee‚ the Braves' Board of Directors votes to ask the National League for permission to move to Atlanta. Officials of Milwaukee County, who own the namesake stadium, sue to block the move. The end result is that the Braves must play the 1965 season in Milwaukee, as lame ducks.

Attendance, once booming as the city embraced Major League Baseball for the first time in 50 years, collapses, and only 14,000 come out for the final Milwaukee Braves home game 11 months later. The reason? Partly, it was the novelty wearing off. Partly, it was the Minnesota Twins taking away huge chunks of their market, including the entire States of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, and even westernmost Wisconsin. The Brewers will arrive in Milwaukee in 1970.

October 21, 1965: Ion Andoni Goikoetxea Lasa is born in Pamplona, Navarre, Spain. Yes, the city famous for The Running of the Bulls. A midfielder of Basque descent, Andoni Goikoetxea played for the nearest La Liga side, Osasuna, before being purchased by Barcelona, with whom he won 4 straight La Liga titles, 1991 to 1994.

"Goiko" came on as a substitute in the 1992 European Cup Final, Barcelona's 1st win in the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League. He played for Spain at the 1994 World Cup. He later returned to Osasuna as assistant manager.

Also on this day, Bill Black dies during surgery to remove a brain tumor, in Memphis. He was just 39 years old. He was the 1st member of Elvis Presley's original band to die, the bass fiddle player. In 1959, after Elvis went into the U.S. Army, Black formed Bill Black's Combo, and led it until the tumor began to affect him in 1963, having some minor hits.

Elvis died in 1977, guitarist Scotty Moore in 2016, and drummer D.J. Fontana earlier this year.

October 21, 1966: The Aberfan Disaster occurs. A mine collapses in Aberfan, outside Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, over a natural spring, causing hot water to bubble up and spill down a hill into a school, killing 116 children and 26 adults.

October 21, 1967: The Minnesota North Stars play their 1st home game, at the Metropolitan Sports Center, across Cedar Road from Metropolitan Stadium, home of MLB's Twins and the NFL's Vikings, in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington. They beat the Oakland Seals 3-1, getting their 1st win after 2 losses and 2 ties. This was the 1st event at the arena.

The Stars played at the Met Center until 1993, when owner Norm Green moved them to become the Dallas Stars. It should have been "Dallas Lone Stars." The Met Center was demolished in 1994, an IKEA was built on the site as part of the Mall of America complex, and the Minnesota Wild were added to the NHL in 2000, playing at the new Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

Also on this day, Paul Emerson Carlyle Ince is born in East London. The midfielder helped restore Manchester United to glory, winning back-to-back Premier League titles after not having won England’s predecessor league for 26 years, and winning 2 FA Cups – taking both titles, or "doing The Double," in 1994. He was also the 1st black Captain of the England national team.

After managing some lower-division teams, including Milton Keynes Dons, in 2008 Blackburn Rovers signed him, making him the 1st black manager in the 1st division of English football (either as "the Football League Division One" or as "the Premier League"). He won only 3 of 17 matches in 6 months and was fired. He has since managed MK Dons again and also Notts County and Blackpool, a team that included his son Tom Ince, also a midfielder. Tom now plays for Stoke City.

Also on this day, an antiwar protest hits Washington, D.C. The marchers head across the Potomac River to the Pentagon, and, to this day, some marchers claim they actually "levitated" the building. Uh-huh.

This was the day of the famous Pulitzer Prize-winning "Flower Power" photograph, taken by Bernie Boston of The Washington Star, of the long-haired (but not hippie-length-haired) kid in the turtleneck sweater sticking a carnation in the barrel of a rifle held by a soldier "protecting" the Pentagon from the demonstrators.

The kid is usually identified as George Harris, then an 18-year-old actor from New York. He later took the stage name Hibiscus and formed a drag troupe in San Francisco, and died in the 1st wave of the AIDS epidemic in 1982.

Although there was not a demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial that day, it's been suggested that this was the day of the demonstration shown in Forrest Gump, which Forrest (Tom Hanks) wanders into after leaving the White House, where he'd just been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Lyndon B. Johnson. A cop pulled the microphone cable out to prevent people far away from hearing Forrest as he spoke. So filmgoers never heard it.

The script has Forrest saying, "Sometimes, when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mamas without any legs. Sometimes, they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing." That's when the cable gets plugged back in, and Forrest concludes, "That's all I have to say about that." And an activist obviously meant to be Abbie Hoffman (Richard D'Alessandro, the only historical figure in the film portrayed by an actor rather than being digitally inserted in), says, "That's okay, man: You said it all."

October 21, 1968: Elston Howard announces his retirement after 14 big-league seasons, the 1st 12½ with the Yankees. He will soon be named a Yankee coach, making him the 1st black coach in the American League.

He was preceded in the National League by former Kansas City Monarchs 1st baseman and manager John "Buck" O'Neil, with the Chicago Cubs, and former 2nd baseman Jim "Junior" Gilliam with the Dodgers.

Also on this day, Alexis Alexandris is born in Kiato, Greece. A forward, he helped AEK Athens with the Superleague Greece in 1992, '93 and '94; and the biggest Athens club, Olympiakos, to do so in 1997, '98, '99, 2000, '01, '02 and '03 -- 10 titles. He also won the Greek Cup in 1999, for a Double. He played for Greece in the 1994 World Cup, and now manages Aris Archangelou.

October 21, 1969, 50 years ago: Morris Clyde Lewis III is born in Atlanta. The All-Pro linebacker played in 200 games for the New York Jets, 3rd-most in franchise history at the time he retired.

He is probably best known for his sack of Drew Bledsoe of the New England Patriots early in the 2001 season, which injured Bledsoe and forced the Pats to bring in a new quarterback. Tom Brady. So maybe we shouldn't be so quick to praise Mo, because that sack altered the course of NFL history, and not for the better!

His son Mo IV plays basketball at the U.S. Naval Academy, and his son Chris plays basketball at Harvard. Smart kids.

Also on this day, Jack Kerouac dies in St. Petersburg, Florida. The novelist and poet whose works led the Beat Generation writing genre had been a football and track star at Lowell High School in Massachusetts, but injuries and squabbles with coach Lou Little ended his football scholarship at Columbia.

By the mid-Sixties, his fellow Beat writer and close friend Allen Ginsberg noticed that he no longer looked like the handsome young athlete he had so recently been when they met in 1944, or even the mature (physically if not emotionally) writer who became famous with the publication of On the Road in 1957. Rather, Allen though that Jack now looked like his father Leo, the result of 25 years of massive drinking. That drinking burned an ulcer in his esophagus, and that's what killed him at age 47.

(In contrast, Ginsberg, who rather enjoyed various mind-altering drugs, but wasn't a serious boozer, lived to be 70; and the other member of the Beats' Big Three, William S. Burroughs, who abused himself in countless ways, turned out to be the last survivor, outliving Ginsberg by a few weeks and passing away peacefully at 83.)

Kerouac and the early Beats loved jazz, especially bebop, whose 2 main leaders were saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker and the aforementioned trumpeter John "Dizzy" Gillespie. Parker died in 1955, on March 12, Kerouac's birthday, which crushed Jack. Jack himself then died on an October 21, which was Gillespie's birthday.

Also on this day, the "Paul Is Dead" rumor reaches New York. A disc jockey at the University of Michigan's radio station had put together a few "clues" on Beatles album covers and in song lyrics that suggested that Paul McCartney had been killed in a car crash in 1966, and replaced with a lookalike. It certainly explained why the Beatles weren't touring anymore.

On this night, Roby Yonge, the overnight host on New York's biggest radio station, WABC, 770 on the AM dial -- or "W-A-Beatle-C," as it called itself in those heady "British Invasion" days of 1964 and '65 -- had already been told that his contract would not be renewed. This is a fact that a lot of people forget. In other words, he really had nothing to lose, and perhaps something to gain.

Yonge mentioned the rumor, and the clues, and continued talking about it for an hour and a half. The ABC switchboard lit up like Times Square, and program director Rick Sklar, who had built the most successful station in the history of music radio, was awakened by phone, and he got the station's regular newsman, Les Marshak, to go in and tell Roby he was relieved.

Oddly, on WABC's sister station, WABC-FM -- 95.5, which became WPLJ in 1971 -- Bob Lewis, a.k.a. "Bob-a-Loo," a former WABC-AM jock, did a full "Paul Is Dead" show on November 14. Since Sklar had no authority over him anymore, he was not fired.

Another part of the story that people get wrong is that Yonge never worked in New York again, and fled to his native Florida. He was hired at WCBS-FM, not yet "New York's Oldies Station" (it became that in 1972), and worked there for a while before heading to Miami, where he worked at various stations until his death from a heart attack in 1997. He was only 54. In Miami, he's a legend. In New York's he's a different kind of "legend."

*

October 21, 1971: William R. Daley dies in Cleveland after a long illness at age 79. He owned the Cleveland Indians from 1952 to 1962, and was the largest stakeholder, 47 percent, in the Seattle Pilots in 1969, but had to sell them due to the team's near-bankruptcy.

October 21, 1972: The Pride of the Southland Band, the marching band of the University of Tennessee, plays "Rocky Top" for the 1st time. It doesn't help the team, as Alabama beats them 17-10 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville. But a legend is born.

In 1967, married songwriters Felice & Boudleaux Bryant, famed for writing most of the Everly Brothers' hits, wrote it, detailing a city dweller's lament over his lost life "down in the Tennessee hills." Lynn Anderson had a hit with it in 1970, and Roy Clark played and sang a fiddle version of it on The Muppet Show in 1978.

W.J. Julian, the band director from 1961 to 1993, said, "If 'Rocky Top' were ever not played, then there would be a mutiny among Vol fans." Although not an official fight song, and originally having nothing to do with the University, USA Today named it the Number 1 fight song in college football in a 2015 article.

Also on this day, the expansion New York Islanders play the established New York Rangers for the 1st time. The Rangers win, 2-1, at the Nassau Coliseum. On December 10, the teams played at Madison Square Garden for the 1st time, and the Rangers won 4-1. They played each other 6 times in the Isles' inaugural 1972-73 season, and the Rangers won them all. The Isles didn't get their 1st win over the Rangers until October 27, 1973.

Also on this day, Orlando Thomas (no middle name) is born in Crowley, Louisiana. An All-Pro safety with the Minnesota Vikings as a rookie in 1995, he died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) in 2014.

Also on this day, Jim Duncan walks into a police station in his hometown of Lancaster, South Carolina, grabs the sidearm of an officer, and shoots himself in the head. That was the police department's story, anyway. His family members, noting that he was a black man in an all-white station in the South, found inconsistencies in the story.

Duncan played football and basketball at what's now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. He played cornerback for the Baltimore Colts for 3 seasons, and started for them in Super Bowl V, which they won.

But in 1971, he sustained a head injury. This was not the earliest example of football-induced brain trauma, but, given his age and the swiftness of its ultimate effect, it may be one of the worst. He began experiencing memory loss, and his once bright personality became dark.

He was traded to the New Orleans Saints, but was cut from them. He then signed with the Miami Dolphins (possibly on the recommendation of former Colt teammate Earl Morrall, who had backed up Johnny Unitas there and was now doing the same for Bob Griese), but never played a down for them. He lost thousands of dollars in a business, his wife left him, and he developed an ulcer.

The police began to follow him, suspecting him of drug use. He may have been "rubbed out" by the police. Whatever really happened, his misery was over, but that of his family was only deepened. He was 26 years old.

October 21, 1973: Game 7 of the World Series at the Oakland Coliseum. Bert Campaneris and Reggie Jackson hit home runs off Jon Matlack, and the A’s beat the Mets, 5-2, for their 2nd straight World Championship.

Reggie is named Series MVP. After having missed the previous year’s Series with an injury sustained while scoring the winning run in the NLCS, he has begun to build his reputation as a big-time postseason performer.

A's reliever Darold Knowles -- who once said of Reggie, "There isn't enough mustard in the world to cover that hot dog" -- becomes the 1st pitcher, and through 2014 remains the only one, to appear in all 7 games of a Series.

The Mets had a 3-games-to-2 lead, but considering what that A’s team was capable of, and that the A's had the home-field advantage for Games 6 and 7, it’s hard to say that the Mets "choked." They just got beat.

They had a great run, coming from last place and 12 1/2 games back on July 8, 11 1/2 back on August 5, and 5 1/2 back on September 5, to win a Division that no one seemed to want to win, doing it with just 82 wins, and fighting off Cincinnati's Big Red Machine in the NLCS and taking the defending World Champion A’s to the limit.

And, considering how good the A's were, it might not be fair to blame Yogi Berra, then the Met manager, for losing the Series by pitching Tom Seaver on 3 days' rest in Game 6. A, Yogi was hoping he could prevent a Game 7 entirely.  B, Seaver didn't pitch all that badly on short rest.

Reliever Frank "Tug" McGraw had given the Mets their late-season rallying cry, "Ya gotta believe!" But what you should believe is that this Series was not lost by the Mets nearly so much as it was won by the A's, the better team. This time, unlike in 1969 (and 1986), the Mets simply ran out of miracles.

There are 22 surviving players from the 1973 A's: Reggie, Campaneris, Knowles, Rollie Fingers, Vida Blue, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Gene Tenace, Dick Green, John "Blue Moon" Odom, Angel Mangual, Ted Kubiak, Dave Hamilton, Jesus Alou, Ray Fosse, Dave Duncan, Allan Lewis, Vic Davalillo, Mike Andrews, Horacio Pina, Pat Bourque and Billy Conigliaro, who thus won the World Series ring that his brother Tony never won.

Also on this day, Fred Dryer of the Los Angeles Rams becomes the 1st player in NFL history to score 2 safeties in the same game. The Rams beat the Green Bay Packers, 24-7 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Dryer, an All-Pro defensive end, remains the only player ever to accomplish the feat, but will become better known as an actor, starring in the police drama Hunter.

Also on this day, John Barnhill dies in Fayetteville, Arkansas at age 70. He coached football at the University of Arkansas from 1946 to 1949, and was their athletic director from 1946 to 1971. He won the Southwest Conference Championship in 1946.

Arkansas' former basketball arena is named for him, but was nicknamed "Barnhell" in the early 1990s, before coach Nolan Richardson's program got good enough to build the larger Bud Walton Arena.

Also on this day, Daniel Patrick Neil is born in Houston. A guard, he was with the Denver Broncos when they won Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII. He later hosted a conservative radio talk show, and ran as a Republican for the Texas House of Representatives in the 2010 election, losing a very close election.

October 21, 1975: Mere hours before Game 6 of the World Series, the World Football League folds in the middle of its 2nd season. Unlike the 1946-49 AAFC and the 1960-69 AFL, it didn't get to merge or even partly merge with the NFL. Unlike the 1983-85 USFL, it didn't go out with a bang (in the USFL's case, the bang of a judge's gavel). It went out with a whimper. Indeed, if you weren't a fan of a WFL team, most likely, in the wake of Games 6 and 7 of the World Series, you might not have even heard about it for days.

On this same day, football legend Alex Karras, now a correspondent for ABC's Monday Night Football, begins a 5-game stint on CBS's Match Game 75. (It was taped the previous month, but aired on October 21, 22, 23, 24 and 27, 1975.)

He was one of 3 pro athletes who appeared as panelists on the classic Match Game. The others were football star Rosey Grier on April 19 and 22 to 25, 1974; and baseball star Don Sutton, who appeared 5 times: November 1976, May 1977, May and December 1978, and December 1980.

On this same day, Toby Jason Hall is born in Tacoma, Washington, outside Seattle. A catcher, he was with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from 2000 to 2006, closing his career with the White Sox in 2008.

Also on this day, Henrique Hilário Meireles Sampaio is born in the Porto suburb of São Pedro da Cova, Portugal. Known professionally as simply Hilário, the goalkeeper won the Primeira Liga with FC Porto in 1997 and '98, and the Taça de Portugal (Portuguese Cup) in 1998, 2000 and '01. With West London's Chelsea, he was a backup to Petr Cech on teams that won the 2010 Premier League title, 4 FA Cups (including a Double in 2010), the 2012 UEFA Champions League, and the 2013 UEFA Europa League. He is now an assistant coach at Chelsea.

As for that Game 6 of the World Series: In The Curse of the Bambino, his somewhat skewed history of his beloved Boston Red Sox, Dan Shaughnessy called it "a brilliant autumn day in New England," following a 3-day delay for rain. Brilliant though the Tuesday afternoon may have been, this game was played at night at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox trail the Cincinnati Reds 3 games to 2, and must win to force a Game 7. The Sox haven't won the World Series in 57 years, including a loss as recently as 1967; the Reds, 35 years, including 2 Series losses in this decade already. Both teams need it badly. Something's gotta give.

Just 14 years later, not 43 years as we now have, Shaughnessy wrote, "Game Six has taken on a life of its own in the years since it was played, and it gets larger and more thrilling in each retelling. Some distance allows that there may be other contenders for the title of The Greatest Game Ever Played, but by any measure, 1975's Game Six will stand as one of the top ten games in World Series history, and one that came at a time when baseball needed it most."

In The New Yorker magazine, Roger Angell wrote, "Game Six... what can we say of it without seeming to diminish it by recapitulation or dull it with detail?" Roger, one of the greatest writers ever on the subject of baseball, and still writing at age 96, was wrong on this one: The details are necessary.

Due to the rain, Sox manager Darrell Johnson was able to start Luis Tiant, winner of Games 1 and 4. Reds manager Sparky Anderson started Gary Nolan. Fred Lynn’s home run gave the Sox a 3-0 lead in the 1st inning, and Tiant pitched shutout ball through 4.

But, as they would say in English soccer, Three-nil, and they fucked it up. The Reds got 2 men on in the 5th, and Ken Griffey Sr. sent Lynn to the wall. Lynn crashed, telling NBC's Bob Costas years later that he'd hurt his ribs, and for a moment was barely conscious and couldn't feel his legs. Griffey's triple scored 2 runs, and then Johnny Bench singled Griffey home to tie the game. A 2-run double by George Foster in the 7th and a solo homer by Cesar Geronimo in the 8th gave the Reds a 6-3 lead, with just 6 outs to go for the title.

Typical Boston choke, leading to a Reds win? As ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast, my friend!" Six-three, and they fucked it up. In the bottom of the 8th, Reds reliever Pedro Borbon (who, like Griffey, would later see his son and namesake play in the major leagues) gave up a single to Lynn and a walk to Rico Petrocelli.

Sparky brought in Rawley Eastwick, who struck out Dwight Evans and got Rick Burleson to line out to left. He got 2 strikes on Bernie Carbo, a former Red, pinch-hitting for pitcher Roger Moret (who had relieved Tiant in the 8th), but Carbo drove one to dead center, and tied it up.

In the bottom of the 9th, Denny Doyle drew a leadoff walk. Carl Yastrzemski singled him over to 3rd. Sparky brought in reliever Will McEnaney, and had him intentionally walk Carlton Fisk -- a premonition? Lynn flew to left, and Foster threw home. Doyle tagged up and broke for home, because he thought Sox 3rd-base coach Don Zimmer was telling him, "Go, go, go!" In fact, Zim was saying, "No, no, no!" Doyle was out at the plate. Had he scored, winning it for the Sox right there, this would still have been a superb game. Instead, it went to extra innings.

Dave Concepcion singled and stole 2nd with 1 out in the top of the 10th, but Sox reliever Dick Drago stranded him. Pat Darcy sent the Sox down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 10th.

Pete Rose led off the top of the 11th, and turned to Sox catcher Fisk, and said, "Can you believe this game?" (Some sources have Rose's comment as, "Some kind of a game, isn't it?") Fisk may not have taken kindly to that, because Drago -- who would bean Thurman Munson in a Yanks-Sox game at Fenway 3 years later -- hit Rose with a pitch.

Griffey bunted, and, unlike the Ed Armbrister play in Game 3, did not even appear to interfere with Fisk, who threw Rose out at 2nd. With Griffey on 1st and 1 out, Joe Morgan drove the ball to right field, and at Fenway the right-field fence was, and remains, only 3 feet high. Evans reached over the fence to make a great catch, and then started a double play, throwing to Yaz, who threw to Burleson who had run over to cover 1st, to eliminate Griffey and end the Reds’ rally.

The Sox went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 11th. In the top of the 12th, Tony Perez and Foster singled off Rick Wise, but Wise stranded them.

At 12:34 AM on October 22, 1975, Fisk led off the bottom of the 12th against Darcy, and hit a 1-0 pitch down the left-field line. It had distance. Would it be fair? Would it be foul? Fisk, thinking it would actually influence the flight of the ball, waved his arms to his right. The ball hit the pole near its top, for a home run. Final score, Boston 7, Cincinnati 6. The Series was tied, and would go to a Game 7.

John Kiley, the organist at Fenway Park (and also at the Boston Garden, thus the answer to the corny old trivia question about "the only man to play for the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins"), played George Friedrich Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." Then he played "Stout-Hearted Men." Then he played "The Beer Barrel Polka." ("Roll out the barrel, we'll have a barrel of fun.") Then he played "Seventy-six Trombones." (I have no idea why he played that one.)

The shot of Fisk thinking he can wave the ball fair, which I've dubbed the Fenway Twist, is the most familiar clip in the history of televised sports. (As they had with every World Series since 1947, NBC was televising it, although they would begin to alternate with ABC starting the 1977 season.)

From seeing this clip so much, and hearing so much talk about Game 6 of '75 from Red Sox fans, a reasonable person might have asked (through 2004 anyway), "Wait a minute. The Red Sox haven't won the World Series since 1918. That means... they lost Game 7! So why do people make such a big deal about this homer?" Well, it won one game, not a World Series, but it was still one of sports' greatest epics.

Game 6 of the 1975 World Series has been called "The Greatest Baseball Game Ever Played" by many people. Certainly, it is in the discussion, along with Game 8 in 1912 (Game 2 was tied when called due to darkness), Game 7 in 1924, Game 7 in 1960, and Game 7 in 1991, and also with the 1951 Giant-Dodger Playoff and the 1978 Yanks-Sox Playoff.

Dick Stockton, born in Philadelphia but grew up in Queens, then the 32-year-old lead broadcaster on Sox games for WSBK-Channel 39, and previously for Boston Celtics games on WBZ-Channel 4, then an NBC station, was the lead broadcaster for NBC in this Series. A 22-year-old writer from Quincy named Lesley Visser was part of the Boston Globe's coverage. Stockton and Visser would both go on to become key cogs in CBS Sports' programming. Supposedly, they met on this night. Other sources say they met at another Boston-based event in 1982. Either way, they married in 1983, but got divorced in 2010, and each has since married someone else.

*

October 21, 1976: The Cincinnati Reds beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, and complete a 4-game sweep of the World Series. Johnny Bench hits 2 home runs and is named Series MVP. The 9th inning featured Bench’s homer, which helped the Reds go from a 3-2 to a 7-2 lead, which holds until the end.

A frustrated Billy Martin, with nothing left to lose (except maybe a fine from the Commissioner), angrily throws a ball from the dugout onto the field, and gets thrown out of the game, the only uniformed person in Yankee history ever to be tossed from a World Series game.

Thurman Munson excels in defeat, tying a Series record with 6 straight hits. On the official Series highlight film, Reds manager Sparky Anderson is heard telling Bench and Pete Rose, "That fella can flat-out hit, now. Ooh, is he a good hitter. He just stays with the ball." Rose responds by comparing Munson to Bill Madlock, then with the Chicago Cubs, who had just won the 2nd of what turned out to be 4 NL batting titles.

But in a postgame press conference, Anderson is asked to compare Munson to Bench, and he says, "Don't ever embarrass someone by comparing him to Johnny Bench." In all fairness, even at his best, and 1976 was his MVP year, Munson was not as good as Bench. Bench was the greatest catcher in NL history, and in all of baseball history the only catchers that could be greater are the 2 Yankee legends, Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra. Bench and Berra were voted by fans to the All-Century Team in 1999. But Munson did have the right to be offended: Comparing him to Bench did not embarrass him, nor did it embarrass Bench.

The Reds have their 4th World Championship, and become the 1st (and still only) NL team to win back-to-back World Series since the 1921-22 New York Giants. (The 1995-96 Atlanta Braves came within 2 games of doing it, but we all know how that ended.) The Reds had also swept the Phillies in the NLCS, and they remain the only team ever to make it through both the LCS and the World Series undefeated. Their 7-0 postseason record has never been matched, although the Yankees went through the '99 postseason, with an extra round, 11-1.

There are 24 surviving players from the '76 Reds: Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony
Pérez, Dave Concepcion, George Foster, César Gerónimo, Ken Griffey Sr., Dan Driessen, Doug Flynn, Fred Norman, Ed Armbrister, Don Gullett, Will McEnaney, Gary Nolan, Pat Zachry, Jack Billingham, Rawly Eastwick, Bill Plummer, Mike Lum, Joel Youngblood, Santo Alcala & Manny Sarmiento. 

As for the '76 Yankees, they were in their 1st Series in 12 years, most of them were in postseason play for the 1st time, and they were physically and emotionally exhausted after their ALCS battle with the Royals that ended with Chris Chambliss' Pennant-winning home run. Against the rested and more experienced Reds, they had little reason for confidence. But they will be back, while the Reds will win only 1 Pennant in the next 41 years.

Also on this day, the New York Knicks retire a uniform number for the 1st time, the Number 19 of their 1970 and 1973 title-winning Captain, Willis Reed. The Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers 102-97 at Madison Square Garden -- not quite the 113-99 score by which they beat the Lakers in Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals on that court, but they did hold the Lakers to under 100 points.

Also on this day, Lavinia Corina Miloșovici is born in Lugoj, Romania. She won 2 Gold Medals, a Silver and a Bronze in gymnastics for Romania at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and 2 more Bronze Medals in 1996 in Atlanta.

October 21, 1977: After 9 seasons on Long Island, the New Jersey Nets return to the State where they were born as the New Jersey Americans, playing there only their 1st season, 1967-68, before moving and becoming the New York Nets.

It doesn't go so well: Despite 28 points from Al Skinner, Pistol Pete Maravich torches them for 41 points, and the Nets lose 111-103 to the New Orleans Jazz at the brand-new Rutgers Athletic Center, on RU's Livingston Campus in Piscataway.

Dave Wohl, like me a graduate of East Brunswick High School, 9 miles away from the RAC, plays for the Nets, but scores no points. Perth Amboy native and Princeton graduate Brian Taylor had won 2 ABA titles with the Nets, was, by this point, with the Denver Nuggets.

Also on this day, Urgel "Slim" Wintermute, a member of the University of Oregon team that won the 1st NCAA basketball tournament in 1939, sailed into Portage Bay in Washington State, and was never seen again. His boat was found, but he wasn't. Assuming he died, he was 60 years old.

Also on this day, singer Meat Loaf and songwriter Jim Steinman release their album Bat Out of Hell. It includes the huge hit "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad," and the cult hit "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." The latter song is a duet with singer-actress Ellen Foley, who would later play the public defender on the 1st season of the NBC sitcom Night Court, before being replaced by Markie Post.

It also includes a voice-over by Yankee broadcaster Phil Rizzuto, then 60 years old. When he came in to record his part, which included 2 utterances of "Holy cow," he innocently asked, "Do I have to be high to understand this song?" No, you just have to remember what it was like to be a teenager.

In 1994, after Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell was released, making Meat bigger than ever, he was invited to sing the National Anthem at the All-Star Game, at which Rizzuto, newly-elected to the Hall of Fame, was named the American League's honorary captain. For the National League, it was Negro League legend Buck Leonard, who had played in the host city, Pittsburgh.

In 2006, Meat made Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose -- without Steinman. This remains a bone of contention between them, as Steinman registered the "Bat Out of Hell" trademark.

Also on this day, the CBS version of Wonder Woman airs the episode "The Pied Piper." Martin Mull plays a singer with, perhaps a nod to Jethro Tull lead singer Ian Anderson, a hypnotic flute. He uses it to brainwash groupies into robbing for him, to pay for his expensive lifestyle. One of them is Elena Atkinson, played by Eve Plumb, a.k.a. Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch. Her character was the daughter of Joe Atkinson (Norman Burton), head of the IADC, the agency for which Diana Prince and Steve Trevor Jr. (Lyle Waggoner) work.

I would have liked Lynda Carter to put her Lasso of Truth around episode writers David Ketchum (a.k.a. Agent 13 on Get Smart), Tony DiMarco and Brian McKay, and ask them, "What were you thinking?"

October 21, 1978: Wichita State beats Southern Illinois, 33-7 at Cessna Stadium in Wichita. Joe Williams kicks a 67-yard field goal for WSU, tying a record that had been set twice the year before. A rule change, banning kicking tees, has prevented another attempt so long.

Williams never played in the NFL, and the Shockers' program was canceled after the 1986 season. The other 2 should have been so lucky: Russell Erxleben of Texas and Steve Little of Arkansas were both flops in the NFL, the former is now in prison for securities fraud for the 2nd time, and Little was paralyzed in a car crash in 1980 and died in 1999.

Also on this day, John Joseph Harrington Jr. is born in Portland, Oregon. Joey, a star at the University of Oregon, was supposed to be the quarterback who led the Detroit Lions out of the wilderness. Unfortunately, the highlight of his career was a game after they cut him, and he led the Miami Dolphins to victory over, yes, the Lions at the Silverdome. He has since retired, become a broadcaster, and runs a charitable foundation.

October 21, 1979, 40 years ago: Khalil Thabit Greene is born in Butler, Pennsylvania. An All-Star shortstop for the San Diego Padres, he has since gone into the music business.

Also on this day, Gabriel Jordan Gross is born in Baltimore. The son of former New Orleans Saints center Lee Gross, Gabe was an outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays, and played on their 2008 AL Pennant winners before retiring before the 2011 season.

*

October 21, 1980: After 98 seasons of play, the Philadelphia Phillies are 1 game away from finally winning their 1st World Championship. They are the last of the "Original 16" teams not to have won a World Series. The last World Series won by a Philadelphia team was by the Athletics, 50 years ago.

It's Game 6 against the Royals at Veterans Stadium. Steve Carlton pitches 8 shutout innings, and closer Tug McGraw, one of the heroes of the Mets' 1969 and '73 postseason runs, takes a 4-0 lead into the 9th in front of 65,838 Phanatics. But he lets a run in, and loads the bases with one out.

Nervous about fans running onto the field and vandalizing the stadium, as happened 10 years earlier when the Phils played their last game at Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia Mayor Bill Green has ordered police on horseback to surround the field to keep fans from running onto it.

McGraw, already in a jam, looks around, sees one of the horses, and sees the horse's tail go up. "They did not send us stadium-trained horses," he would later say. "And I'm thinking, 'If I don’t get these guys out, and something bad happens, that’s what I'm gonna be: What that horse is getting rid of.'" In baseball, "horseshit" is a common term for something lousy.

A popup sails over the area in front of the Phillies' dugout, and catcher Bob Boone grabs it, but he can't hang onto it, and it pops out of his glove. This is the kind of play that has led Phillies fans to think that their team is jinxed, that they will never win the big one.

Except, this time, the bobbled ball is snared by 1st baseman Pete Rose, who shows it to the umpires so they know it's a legit catch, and promptly spikes the ball on the Vet's hideous artificial turf, as if he's just scored a touchdown. (Pete was a high school football star, as well as baseball.)

All that remains is for Tug to get the Royals' Willie Wilson out. At 11:29 PM, the exhausted Tugger fires, and Wilson swings and misses for strike 3.

(While tipping your hat to the Phils for this magnificent victory, have a moment of silence for Wilson: It was his 12th strikeout of the Series, a record that would stand until 2009 when it was broken by... Phillies 1st baseman Ryan Howard.)

From Scranton in the north to Rehoboth Beach in the south, from Atlantic City in the east to Harrisburg in the West, Phillies fans erupt in the kind of joy they had never experienced – not with this team, anyway.

Dallas Green's wild (or, at least, wild-haired) bunch has done it. Boone, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Larry Bowa, Garry Maddox, all the rest, after 3 failed trips to the postseason before this, they have their ring at long last. Rose and McGraw, opponents in the '73 NLCS and each with a previous ring (McGraw with the '69 Mets, Rose with the '75 and '76 Reds), add to their collection. So do Carlton, who'd won with the '67 Cardinals; and Manny Trillo, the 2nd baseman who'd won with the '74 A's, and made a huge difference for the '80 Phils, particularly as the MVP of the NLCS.

The next day’s Philadelphia Daily News fills up their entire front page beneath the masthead with the words "We Win!" A parade goes down Broad Street from City Hall to the Sports Complex, and a massive rally at John F. Kennedy Stadium, whose 105,000 seats is a lot more than the Vet's 65,000. Tug holds the Daily News up for all to see. It remains the greatest moment in the history of Philadelphia sports.

Also on this day, Iranian negotiators, previously offered military equipment by the Carter Administration as part of the exchange for the 52 remaining American hostages from the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran the preceding November 4, turn this offer down. This followed a meeting with former Republican government officials, including former Deputy Secretary of State William Casey, who told the Iranians that, no matter what, they shouldn't release the hostages before November 4, Election Day.

This assured the election of the Republican nominee, former Governor Ronald Reagan of California, over the incumbent President, Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. Although this was not the 1st use of the phrase "October Surprise," it is the best-known example. Still, it's not clear that getting the hostages out between October 21 and November 3 would have saved Carter: There were other issues.

Also on this day, Kimberly Noel Kardashian is born in Los Angeles. Unlike her former friend Paris Hilton, another L.A.-based heiress with an embarrassingly released sex tape, Kim is not an "heirhead." She actually works for a living, and not just as a model: She worked for the music-marketing company that was run by her late father, Robert Kardashian, who had given up being a high-powered L.A. lawyer to do it, returning for one last case in 1994-95 (the murder defense "Dream Team" of O.J. Simpson).

She and her sisters Kourtney and Khloe also run high-end women's clothing stores, one in their hometown near L.A., one in Miami's South Beach, and one in New York's SoHo. She has been the main focus of the E! reality series Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

What does Kim have to do with sports? Well, after her parents Robert and Kris divorced, Kris married Olympic decathlon Gold Medalist Bruce Jenner, though they have split up, and Bruce has "transitioned" into what he, now she, has always considered his, now her, true identity of Caitlin Jenner.

Kim married then-Nets player Kris Humphries, following sister Khloe's marriage to Los Angeles Lakers player Lamar Odom. However, the Kardashian-Humphries marriage collapsed after 72 days, and Kim is now married to Kanye West, and they now have 4 children. Khloe and Lamar split, and after an attempted reconciliation after Lamar was hospitalized a year ago, they've called it quits again. Khloe had a child with Tristan Thompson, then of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Previously, Kim dated, among others, running back Reggie Bush, in a relationship the gossip pages liked to call "Kush." And if "Bush" and "Kush" rhyme with a prominent part of Kim's anatomy, that's not my fault!

October 21, 1981: The Yankees take a 2-0 lead in the World Series, as Tommy John and Goose Gossage combine on a 3-0 shutout of the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. Bob Watson has 2 hits and an RBI.

The Yankees are 2 wins away from their 23rd World Championship. No one can imagine it now, but the team will not win another competitive game until April 12, 1982, Reggie Jackson will never play for them again, and it will take them 15 more years to get that 23rd title.

The Yankees also make a trade today, sending 22-year-old outfielder Willie McGee to the St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher Bob Sykes. It will be one of the worst trades in Yankee history, as Sykes, a native of nearby Neptune, New Jersey, is already damaged goods, and never appears in another big-league game, finished at 27; while McGee helps the Cards win the next year’s World Series and 3 of the next 6 NL Pennants, and by the time his career begins to slow down in the mid-1990s, Bernie Williams will have been ready.

Also on this day, Willis Andrew McGahee III is born in Miami. The former University of Miami star has been plagued by injuries, but made 2 Pro Bowls while with the Baltimore Ravens. He rushed for 8,474 career yards in the NFL, and is now retired.

Also on this day, Antonio DeShonta Smith is born in Oklahoma City. A defensive end, he played in 2 Super Bowls, losing XLIII with the Arizona Cardinals, and winning 50 with the Denver Broncos. He last played in 2016, with the Houston Texans, having previously reached the 2011 Pro Bowl with them.

Also on this day, Nemanja Vidić is born in Uzice, Serbia. He was a dirty soccer player, and was the Captain of Manchester United. I don’t think we need a 3rd reason to loathe him. He won a League title and 2 national cups with Red Star Belgrade. With Man U, he won 5 League titles and the 2008 UEFA Champions League. Now retired, he is married to a woman named Ana Ivanović, although it's not the tennis star of the same name.

October 21, 1982: Brandon Chillar (no middle name) is born in Los Angeles, and grows up outside San Diego in Carlsbad, California. Following Sanjay Beach, a receiver who played from 1988 to 1993, including in 1989 with the Jets, Chillar is only the 2nd player of Indian (South Asian) descent ever to play in the NFL. Coming into the 2019 season, there has not been a 3rd.

A linebacker, he was with the Green Bay Packers when they won Super Bowl XLV. He is now the defensive coordinator at Carlsbad High School, from which he graduated.

Also on this day, James Duffey Henderson is born in Calgary, Alberta. Jim Henderson pitched for the Milwaukee Brewers from 2012 to 2014, but a shoulder injury sidelined him. He pitched for the Mets in 2016, and is now a minor-league pitching coach.

Also on this day, James William White IV is born in Washington, D.C. A guard, he was an NBA Champion as a rookie with the 2007 San Antonio Spurs. However, he has bounced around European leagues, and is now playing in the Philippine league.

October 21, 1983: All the Right Moves premieres. Tom Cruise, who had played football and wrestled at Glen Ridge High School in Essex County, New Jersey, plays a high school football player who sees the sport as his way out of his hard-hit "company town" outside Pittsburgh. Craig T. Nelson plays his coach, with whom he has a strained relationship. Nelson would later go on to play Hayden Fox, the title character, on the ABC sitcom Coach.

Johanna Weinberg is a lifelong friend, whose grandfather Harry Jacunski played on the Green Bay Packers during World War II. She admires the Packer organization, but is a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. She was a freshman at Glen Ridge when Cruise was a senior there, in 1980. She remembers him being "weird, but quiet." I asked her, "What happened to 'quiet'?" She doesn't know.

Also on this day, Donald Zackary Greinke is born in Orlando, Florida. Zack won the AL's Cy Young Award in 2009, and pitched the Milwaukee Brewers to their 1st Division title in 29 years in 2011. He now pitches for the Houston Astros, and got helped them win this year's AL Central Division title. His career record currently stands at 205-123, with 2,622 career strikeouts.

The 6-time All-Star and 5-time Gold Glove is married to Emily Kuchar, a former beauty-pageant winner and Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. They have 2 sons. I hope the Cowboy gene is the recessive one.

Also on this day, Casey Michael Fien is born in the San Francisco suburb of Santa Rosa, California, but grows up in the Los Angeles suburb of La Palma. He is a relief pitcher, who has pitched for a few teams, mostly for the Minnesota Twins, but has not appeared in the majors since 2017, with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Also on this day, Andy Manuel Marte is born in Villa Tapia, Dominican Republic. An infielder, he was with the Cleveland Indians when they reached the ALCS in 2007, and was killed in a car crash in San Francisco de Macorís, Dominican Republic on January 22, 2017.

Also on this day, Shelden DeMar Williams is born in Oklahoma City. The forward graduated from Duke University as their all-time leader in rebounds and blocked shots. He briefly played for the Knicks and the Nets, and has now gone into coaching.

October 21, 1984: The Detroit Lions beat the Minnesota Vikings 16-14, but pay a heavy price for it. Billy Sims, the 1978 Heisman Trophy winner at Oklahoma, was in the middle of his 5th NFL season, and had 5,106 rushing yards and another 2,072 receiving yards. But gets hit on a carry, and his knee crashes on the Metrodome turf. He never plays again, and what should have been a Hall of Fame career gets cut in half.

Also on this day, Steve Cox kicks a 60-yard field goal for the Cleveland Browns, but the Cincinnati Bengals win "the Battle of Ohio," 12-9 at Riverfront Stadium -- a game without a touchdown.

The 1984 Bengals went 8-8, scored 339 points, and allowed 339 points. Talk about "midtable mediocrity." In spite of this, they missed the AFC Central Division title by just 1 game, as the Pittsburgh Steelers went only 9-7.

Also on this day, José Manuel Lobatón is born in Acarigua, Venezuela. A catcher in the Dodgers' minor-league system, he was playing for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2012, when they allowed him to marry his wife Nina on the field at Tropicana Field. He played for the Mets in 2018.

Also on this day, Marvin Mitchell (no middle name) is born in Norfolk, Virginia. A linebacker, he was a member of the New Orleans Saints when they won Super Bowl XLIV. He last played for the Minnesota Vikings in 2013.

Also on this day, Kenneth Scott Cooper Jr. is born in Baltimore, where his father, Kenny Cooper Sr., had just managed the Baltimore Blast to the championship of the Major Indoor Soccer League. Kenny Sr. was a Blackpool native who played as a goalkeeper for the Dallas Tornado of the old North American Soccer League, winning the 1971 title, and after the MISL folded, he moved his family back to Dallas, where Kenny Jr. grew up.

A forward, Kenny Jr. was signed to Manchester United's youth program, but never played a senior game for them. getting loaned to Academica Coimbra in Portugal and Man U's lower-division neighbors Oldham Athletic. He returned to his hometown, playing 3 seasons for FC Dallas, went back to Europe to play 2 season for 1860 Munich, and has bounced around Major League Soccer. He played the 2012 season with the New York Red Bulls, and last played in 2015 with the Montreal Impact. He scored 4 goals for the U.S. national team.

Also on this day, Kieran Edward Richardson is born in Greenwich, Southeast London, England. The midfielder won the 2006 League Cup and the 2007 Premier League with Manchester United, and last played in 2016 for Welsh club Cardiff City.

October 21, 1985: The Chicago Bears defeat the Green Bay Packers on Monday Night Football, 23-7. William Perry, the rookie defensive tackle so full of food his nickname is The Refrigerator, is put in the lineup as a running back for the 2nd time, and scores a touchdown on a 1-yard run.

October 21, 1986: Game 3 of the World Series at Fenway Park. Desperate for a win to keep their "inevitable" World Championship alive, the Mets turn to lefty Bob Ojeda, who had been with the Red Sox until last season. With Len Dykstra leading off the game with a homer, as he had also hit the walkoff homer in Game 3 of the NLCS, Ojeda cruises, and the Mets win, 7-1, to get back in the Series.

This would not, however, turn out to be the worst thing that happened to Boston on this exact date. That would be the fact that Tamerlan Tsarnaev is born in Elista, Russia. He and his brother Dzhokhar carried out the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

October 21, 1987: Game 4 of the World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals score 6 runs in the bottom of the 4th, including a home run by light-hitting Tom Lawless off eventual AL Cy Young Award winner Frank Viola, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Minnesota Twins, 7-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium. The Series is tied.

Also on this day, Justin Andrew De Fratus is born in the Los Angeles suburb of Oxnard, California. After 5 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, reaching the Playoffs in 2011, he reached them again in 2015 with the Washington Nationals. He is now in the Dodgers' organization, but has not appeared in the major leagues since 2015.

October 21, 1989, 30 years ago: Kathleen Turner hosts Saturday Night Live, and the musical guest is Billy Joel. He sings his Number 1 hit, "We Didn't Start the Fire," with its references to Joe DiMaggio, Sugary Ray Robinson, Rocky Marciano, Roy Campanella, the Brooklyn Dodgers winning the World Series and then moving, and Mickey Mantle. He also sings "The Downeaster Alexa," naming his fictional fisherman's boat after his real-life daughter, now a jazz pianist.

Also on this day, Damien Berry (no middle name) is born in outside Miami in Belle Glade, Florida. A running back, he was with the Baltimore Ravens when they won Super Bowl XLVII. He is now out of football.

Also on this day, Samuel Michael Vokes is born in Southampton, Hampshire, England. The forward helped Birmingham-area club Wolverhampton Wanderers gain promotion to the Premier League in 2009, and Lancashire club Burnley do the same in 2016. He now plays for Stoke City.

Despite his English birth, his grandfather was born in Wales, making him eligible to play for their national team, as long as he hadn't yet played a senior match for England. Sam Vokes was a part of the Wales team that reached the Semifinal of Euro 2016.

*

October 21, 1990: Ricard Rubio i Vives is born in Barcelona. A point guard, Ricky Rubio starred in basketball's Euroleague before being drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Ankle injuries have thus far stopped him from becoming the superstar in North America that he was in Europe. He now plays for the Phoenix Suns.

October 21, 1992: Game 4 of the World Series. A Pat Borders home run makes the difference, as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Atlanta Braves 2-1 at the SkyDome, Jimmy Key outpitching Tom Glavine.

October 21, 1993: Curt Schilling's stellar pitching and Kevin Stocker's 2nd-inning RBI double keeps the Phillies alive, beating the Toronto Blue Jays 5-0 in Game 5 of the World Series.

This is the kind of pitching that will lead Phillies GM Ed Wade to say of Schilling, "One day out of every five, he's a horse; the other four, he's a horse's ass." But Schilling will not reach his greatest fame with the Phillies. Neither will most of the baseball world realize what a horse's ass he is during his tenure with the Fightin' Phils.

This turns out to be the last postseason baseball game ever played in Veterans Stadium, and the last postseason game the Phillies will win for 15 years.

Also on this day, Bob Hunter, longtime sportswriter for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, dies at age 80. For his coverage of the Dodgers, he had received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, tantamount to election to the Baseball Hall of Fame for sportswriters.

October 21, 1994, 25 years ago: Little Giants premieres, a sports underdog story with Kevin Moranis playing gas station owner Danny O'Shea, living in the shadow of his older brother, Kevin O'Shea, a former Heisman Trophy winner, now coaching a Pee-Wee football team named the Cowboys and modeled after the Dallas team. He is played by Ed O'Neill, then best known for playing a football player whose promising career had ended far earlier, Al Bundy on Married... with Children.

Danny builds his own team of kids who feel like rejects, and names them the Little Giants, and gives them uniforms reminiscent of the New York team. When the Little Giants beat the Cowboys, Danny suggests to Kevin that the teams be merged, and that they coach them together. Kevin agrees, redeeming himself.

October 21, 1995: Vada Pinson dies of complications from a stroke in his hometown of Oakland, California. The 4-time All-Star outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds was 57.

October 21, 1996: Greg Maddux shuts out the Yankees, as the Braves take Game 2 of the World Series, 4-0. The Yankees have been embarrassed in the 1st 2 games, and now have to go to Atlanta in front of 52,000 war-chanting, tomahawk-chopping rednecks.

The outlook is grim. Anybody predicting a new "Yankee Dynasty" at this point sure looks delusional.

October 21, 1997: Game 3 of the World Series, at Jacobs Field in Cleveland, is the coldest World Series game of all time -- for the moment. The Cleveland Indians lead the Florida Marlins 2-1 after the 1st inning. Going to the bottom of the 4th, it's 3-2 Marlins. Going to the top of the 6th, it's 7-3 Indians. At the 7th inning stretch, it's a 7-7 tie.

Pardon the pun on such a cold night, but both teams are just getting warmed up. The Marlins score 7 runs in the top of the 9th. The Indians try to come back in the bottom of the 9th, but only score 4, and lose, 14-11. Gary Sheffield, and 1993 Phillies "Macho Row" veterans Darren Daulton and Jim Eisenreich hit home runs for Florida. Jim Thome does so for Cleveland.

October 21, 1998: The Yankees beat the San Diego Padres, 3-1 at Jack Murphy (Qualcomm) Stadium, and complete the sweep for their 24th World Championship. Scott Brosius, who hit 2 homers last night, takes a grounder at 3rd base for the final out, and is named Series MVP.

The Padres had maybe their best team ever. Arguably, so did the Cleveland Indians that the Yankees beat in the ALCS. Maybe, so did the Texas Rangers that the Yankees beat in the ALDS. All of them had the bad luck to run into what may have been anybody’s best team ever.

Also on this day, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine airs the episode "Take Me Out to the Holosuite." I love Star Trek, but one thing that I don't like about it is that DS9 made it clear that, in their fictional history, baseball died out, its last World Series being played in 2042 (just 23 years from now), and only 300 people showing up for Game 7. Of course, in their fictional history, World War III was going on. (Probably not to be confused with the war you'll see in the 2013 entry.)

In contrast, the 1994-95 series Space Precinct featured Ted Shackleford, better known as Gary Ewing on Knots Landing, as an interstellar cop attending Game 1 of the 2040 World Series, between the Yankees and the Yomiuri Giants, and the Tokyo Dome was packed!

Anyway, DS9's Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) is responsible for restarting the game in the United Federation of Planets in the 2370s. He keeps a baseball on his desk, and had taken various crewmembers into the station's holosuite to watch recreations of historic games. So when an old rival of his, the Captain of an all-Vulcan ship, challenged him to a baseball game, he had to accept.

Sisko on baseball: "It's about courage. And it's also about faith. And it is also about heart. And if there's one thing our Vulcan friends lack, it's heart!" Maybe so, but the Vulcans win, 10-1 -- but Sisko gets a measure of satisfaction from the game.

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October 21, 2000: Game 1 of the 1st Subway Series since 1956 – it doesn't matter what Met fans call those Interleague series in the regular season, it's not a true Subway Series unless it happens in October – is played at the original Yankee Stadium. It turns out to be, quite possibly, the greatest game I've ever seen. At the least, it was the most nerve-wracking game I've ever seen.

After 39 years of hoping, wishing, praying for a chance to beat the Yankees in a World Series, Met fans finally have that chance. And they were sure they were going to win it.

After all, Al Leiter was going to start Games 1 and 5, and Mike Hampton was going to start Games 2 and 6. And, as everybody knows, "The Yankees can't hit lefthanded pitching. Especially in the postseason." I guess Met fans, the Flushing Heathen, hadn't noticed how the Yankees beat all pitchers, left and right alike, in winning the Series in 1996, '98 and '99, and winning another Pennant to put them in this Series.

Still, Met fans always wanted this chance. In the immortal words of Leonard Nimoy -- who, being a Bostonian, probably knew just how illogical baseball can be -- "You may find that having is not so fine a thing as wanting."

Leiter outpitches Andy Pettitte, but 4 baserunning blunders by the Mets leave the score 3-2 in the Mets' favor entering the bottom of the 9th. Still, to be able to take Game 1 at Yankee Stadium would be a huge boost to the Mets.

Manager Bobby Valentine brings in his closer. Unfortunately for him, it's Armando Benitez. Paul O’Neill fouls off pitch after pitch, and finally draws the most clutch walk in baseball history. The Yankees bring him around to score on DH Chuck Knoblauch's sacrifice fly, and the game goes into extra innings.

It goes to the bottom of the 12th, and a Met castoff, Jose Vizcaino, playing 2nd base because Knoblauch is not fielding well, singles home the winning run.

Yankees 4, Mets 3. Essentially, the World Series that Met fans had waited their whole lives for has been decided in Game 1. Had the Mets won this game, the Series would have been very, very different.

Maybe the Yankees would have been shaken by the events of Game 1, and instead of just holding the Mets off in Game 2, 6-5, they would have fully blown that lead. The Mets won Game 3, and their idiot fans would have been thinking sweep.

Would the Yankees still have won Game 4? It was pretty shaky in the 5th inning. Would they still have won Game 5? It was tied in the 9th. Would they have won a Game 6? Would they have completed the ultimate comeback in Game 7, 4 years before the Red Sox did it to them?

No matter how bad the 2004 ALCS was, losing the 2000 World Series to the Mets would have been 10 times worse.

As we saw in 2015, we don't have to live around very many Red Sox fans with their cheated-for arrogance, but we do have to live around Met fans with their unearned arrogance.

For the moment, the count remains 27 to 2, and 5 to 0 since 1986.

As we've seen, the Yankees are (depending on your point of view: again, or still) the better team now. And let us not pretend that any Met World Series win -- be it 1969, 1986, or any future win -- is better than all of the Yankees' World Series wins.

*

October 21, 2001: The Arizona Diamondbacks defeat the Atlanta Braves‚ 3-2‚ to win the NLCS and reach the World Series for the 1st time in their history. They get to the Series faster than any expansion team in history‚ doing so in the 4th year of their existence. Randy Johnson gets the win for Arizona. Erubiel Durazo's pinch-hit 2-run homer is the key blow. Craig Counsell is named the NLCS MVP.

The Yankees take a 3-1 lead in their ALCS matchup with Seattle‚ defeating the Mariners by a score of 3-1 at Yankee Stadium. Bret Boone's 8th inning homer broke a scoreless tie‚ but Bernie Williams homers in the bottom half of the inning to tie the score. The Yankees win on Alfonso Soriano's 2-run walkoff dinger in the 9th. Mariano Rivera gets the victory in relief.

In spite of this defeat, Mariner manager Lou Piniella makes a bold prediction: His team will win Game 5. "We're going back for Game 6," he tells the media, meaning back to Seattle. Sweet Lou should have known better than to test the Yankees' Ghosts of October. After all, he was one of them.

Also on this day, the Cleveland Browns beat the defending NFL Champion Baltimore Ravens 24-14 at what's now named FirstEnergy Stadium. It is Cleveland's 1st win over Art Modell and the former Browns.

Also on this day, the MLS Cup Final is played at Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. It is a "California Classico," perhaps the league's best rivalry, and the San Jose Earthquakes beat the Los Angeles Galaxy 2-1.

The Gals, led by Cobi Jones and Paul Caligiuri, take a 1-0 lead in the 21st minute on a goal by Luis Hernandez. But the Quakes tie it up in the 43rd when Landon Donovan tallies. The game goes to extra time, and, with the "golden goal" rule still in effect, Dwyane De Rosario, a Canadian son of Guyanese immigrants, wins it in the 96th minute.

October 21, 2003: The Yankees beat the Marlins‚ 6-1‚ behind the pitching of Mike Mussina and the hitting of Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams. Jeter gets 3 hits off losing starter Josh Beckett (the only hits Beckett allows)‚ while Williams and Aaron Boone hit home runs.

Williams' homer is his record 19th in postseason play, breaking the record shared by fellow Yankee Legends Mickey Mantle (all in World Series play) and Reggie Jackson (who never had a Division Series available to him except in strike-forced 1981). His 65 RBI are also a new postseason record.

The Yankees lead this World Series 2 games to 1. Things are looking good for them. No one can yet imagine that it will take them 6 years to win another World Series game -- and that, when they do, it will be in a new Yankee Stadium.

October 21, 2004: After blowing a 2 games to none lead, the Cardinals come from 3 games to 2 down to beat the Houston Astros 5-2 in Game 7 of the NLCS. Craig Biggio leads off the game with a home run off Jeff Suppan, but Scott Rolen takes Roger Clemens deep, and the series concludes with the home teams having won every game.

For the Cards, it is their 1st Pennant in 17 years, and the beginning of a run that saw them win 4 Pennants in 10 seasons. For the Astros, Year 43 ended just like Years 1 through 42: Without a Pennant. Fortunately for them, they only have to "Wait 'Til Next Year" 1 more time.

October 21, 2005: The Charlotte Bobcats Arena opens in downtown Charlotte, with an exhibition game by the eponymous team. They have played there ever since.

Neither has the same name now: The arena became the Time Warner Cable Arena in 2008, and the Spectrum Center in 2016 when Spectrum Sports bought Time Warner Cable from Time Warner; and Charlotte got the rights to the name "Charlotte Hornets" back when the former Charlotte team, now in New Orleans, became the Pelicans. The arena also hosted the 2012 Democratic Convention, and will host the 2020 Republican Convention.

October 21, 2006: In the 1st-ever match-up of rookies to start Game 1 of the World Series, Anthony Reyes bests Justin Verlander as the visiting Cardinals beat the Tigers at Comerica Park, 7-2. The 25-year old righthander allows 2 runs and 4 hits, striking out 5 Redbirds in 8 innings of work.

This game also makes Detroit the 2nd city to host a Super Bowl and a World Series in the same calendar year. San Diego had done so in 1998. Detroit had also hosted a World Series and an NFL Championship Game in the same year in 1935. Cleveland did so in 1964. New York did it 7 times: 1934, 1936, 1938, 1941, 1956, 1958 and 1962.

Reaching the World Series and the NFL Championship Game in the same calendar year? New York 11 times (1933, '38, '39, '41, '56, '58, '61, '62, '63, '69 and 2001; '33 being both sets of Giants, '69 being the Mets and Jets, and all the others being the Yankees and the football Giants), Baltimore twice (1969 and '71), Boston twice (1986 and 2004), and once each for Chicago (1932), Detroit (1935), Cleveland (1954), Pittsburgh (1979), San Francisco (1989) and Atlanta (1999).

October 21, 2007: The Tennessee Titans, the team formerly known as the Houston Oilers, return to their original home, and beat the Houston Texans 38-36 at Reliant (now NRG) Stadium. They need all 38 points, and they get 26 from Rob Bironas: 2 points-after-touchdown, and a record-breaking 8 field goals, including a 52-yarder in the 1st quarter, and a 29-yarder as time expires.

Several kickers had kicked 7 field goals in a game, starting with Jim Bakken of the 1967 St. Louis Cardinals, and some have since. Bironas remains the only professional kicker with 8 field goals in a competitive game.

October 21, 2008: Arsenal go to Istanbul, Turkey, and beat Fenerbahçe 5-2 in a UEFA Champions League match. Goals are scored by Emmanuel Adebayor (no surprise), Theo Walcott (no surprise), Abou Diaby (a big surprise), Alex Song (a minor surprise), and a recent signing from Cardiff City, Welsh midfielder Aaron Ramsey (a bit of a surprise, since he's not quite 18 years old).

October 21, 2009, 10 years ago: In Game 5 of the NLCS, the Phillies defeat the Dodgers, capturing their 2nd straight pennant, the 1st time the franchise has ever done it, and the 1st time any Philly baseball team has done it since the 1929-30-31 A's.

Philadelphia, with their 10-4 victory at Citizens Bank Park, becomes the 1st NL team to win back-to-back Pennants since the Braves in 1995-96. And, having also eliminated the Dodgers in the NLCS of 1983 and 2008, they have fully exorcised the ghosts of the 1977 and 1978 NLCS.

*

October 21, 2011: Apocalyptic cult leader Harold Camping had said on his nationally syndicated radio show that The Rapture would take place on May 21 of this year, and that the end of the world would come on this date. Neither happened. Which was lucky for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers, who were in the travel day for the World Series. The Series was tied 1-1.

He had previously predicted it would come in 1994. In March 2012, he announced that he was no longer going to predict the end times. On December 15, 2013, the end came -- for him. He was 92 years old.

October 21, 2013: Kenneth Stanley Adams Jr. dies of natural causes in Houston at age 90. Bud Adams had been the only owner in the history of the franchise then known as the Tennessee Titans, and, at that point, had more wins than any current NFL owner, with 409.

Bud had founded the team with the founding of the American Football League in 1960, as the Houston Oilers, and won the 1st 2 AFL Championships in 1960 and 1961. But he never went as far as the rules allowed him to go again: He lost the AFL Championship Game in 1962 and 1967, and the AFC Championship Game in 1978 and 1979.

Controversially, he moved the Oilers to Memphis in 1997 and Nashville in 1998, and the Titans won the 1999 AFC Championship, but lost Super Bowl XXXIV to the St. Louis Rams. They never got close again in his lifetime.

Also on this day, Castle airs the episode "Time Will Tell." The main suspect in a murder, Simon Doyle (Joshua Gomez) claims to be a time traveler, trying to stop an assassination that will lead to the wrong side winning World War III, which will be fought over energy in the early 2030s. The episode includes Tim Russ, who played Lieutenant Commander Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager.

Was the (as it turned out, innocent) suspect telling the truth? He said that Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) would stop writing murder mysteries and go on to write serious literature. He said that NYPD Detective Kate Beckett would go on to be elected to the Senate -- though he didn't specify U.S. or New York State. And he said Castle and Beckett would have 3 children together.

According to the series finale, 2 1/2 years later, but set 10 1/2 years later (in May 2024), only that last prediction had definitively come true.

Then again, the finale didn't take us up to the 2030s, so we don't know if the war happens. Maybe Castle and Beckett taking LokSat down in the finale prevents that war. But maybe Donald Trump stealing the Presidential election in 2016 leads to it.

October 21, 2014: During Game 1 of the World Series at Kauffman Stadium, Laurence Leavy, better known as Marlins Man, is approached by a Kansas City Royals representative, who informs him that team owner David Glass is upset with his bright orange Miami jersey that is diverting attention from the home team on national television.

Although he is offered a variety of inducements, including autographed memorabilia and an opportunity to sit in the luxury boxes, the workers compensation attorney refuses to remove his colorful garb, choosing to remain in his $8,000 seat behind home plate.

This must have particularly infuriated Glass, as he married into the Walton family of Walmart infamy, noted for their poor treatment of employees and distate for workers comp. Laurence Leavy is a hero, for both workers and freedom of expression.

As for the game, the 1st World Series game in Kansas City in 29 years, the Royals are beaten by the San Francisco Giants 7-1, behind a home run by Hunter Pence and the pitching of Madison Bumgarner, who allows just 4 hits, 1 a home run by Salvador Perez.

Also on this day, Ben Bradlee dies in Washington, D.C. at age 93. He was Washington bureau chief at Newsweek magazine in 1965, when he was promoted to managing editor of the newspaper that owned Newsweek, The Washington Post.

In this role, he talked the paper's owner, Katharine Graham, into publishing the Pentagon Papers in 1971, and pursuing the Watergate scandal the following year. He was the only man, besides Carl Bernstein, that Bob Woodward told the identity of his Watergate source "Deep Throat" until former FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt admitted in 2005 that he was the man.

He's been played by Jason Robards in the 1976 film All the President's Men (about Watergate), G.D. Spradlin in the 1999 film Dick (a spoof of Watergate), Tom Hanks in the 2017 film The Post (about the Pentagon Papers), and Alfred Molina in the 2018 film The Front Runner (about the 1987 fall of Presidential candidate Gary Hart).

Also on this day, Edward Gough Whitlam dies in Elizabeth Bay, a suburb of Sydney, at age 98. The Melbourne native had been Leader of Australia's Labour Party from 1967 to 1977, and Prime Minister from 1972 to 1975, before he was fired by Sir John Kerr, the Governor-General, entitled to act as head of state in place of the actual head of state, the monarch of Australia -- Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. He did not consult her, or any of her Cabinet officials, unilaterally increasing, rather than settling, what had come to be known as the country's "constitutional crisis," which Gough Whitlam did not cause.

October 21, 2015: Game 4 of the NLCS at Wrigley Field. Home runs by Lucas Duda, Travis d'Arnaud and Daniel Murphy back Bartolo Colon, and the Mets complete the sweep of the Chicago Cubs, 8-3.

This is the Mets' 1st Pennant in 15 years. As of now, it is the only Pennant won by a New York baseball team in the last 10 years.

It did not, however, mean that the Mets had "taken back New York." That would require a World Series win over the Yankees. In the immortal words of Yankee Fan Paul Reiser, "Never gonna happen, my friend!"

Of course, in the film Back to the Future Part II, this was the day on which the Cubs won the World Series, against... Miami? Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) decided to buy a sports almanac, and take it back to 1985 with him, to place bets on sporting events whose results he would know in advance. Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) told him to get rid of it, to avoid contaminating the timeline.

He did -- with disastrous results: It was found by elderly Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), who stole the book and the DeLorean time machine, took them back to 1955, and gave the book to his teenage self. 

Result: When Marty and Doc got back to 1985, Hill Valley was a hellhole, Richard Nixon was in his 5th term as President, the Vietnam War was still going on, and middle-aged Biff was a combination of Fat Elvis and Donald Trump -- except, in real life, most of the country didn't know about Trump yet. And Biff's casino made money, unlike Trump's. Marty and Doc had to go back to 1955 to set things right.

October 21, 2016: Jerry Rullo dies in Philadelphia at age 93. The South Philly native and Temple University graduate was the last surviving player from the 1st NBA Champions, the 1947 Philadelphia Warriors.

He was a rookie on that team, and played for them through 1949, before playing a little longer in the minor leagues, and then served as a coach and supervisor for the Philadelphia Department of Recreation from 1950 until he retired in 1983.

October 21, 2017: Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. It was an ugly ending to the Yankees' season. How ugly was it? If it were any uglier, Muhammad Ali would have had to come back from the dead and fight it. The Yankees didn't go out with a bang, they went out with a whimper.

CC Sabathia was fine for 3 innings, and we dared to hope he would come through in the clutch one more time. But Evan Gattis hit a home run in the 4th, and our hearts sank. Being 1-0 down at that point felt like being down 8-0. Joe Girardi brought Tommy Kahnle in, and he got out of it. But he allowed 3 runs in the 5th, and that was it: Astros 4, Yankees 0.

In the 3 games of this series in New York, the Yankees outscored the Astros 19-5. In the 4 games in Houston, they were outscored 15-3. On the average: In New York, won 6-2; in Houston, lost 4-1.

For the Astros: Their 2nd Pennant in their 56-season history. For the Yankees: Another failure, and, finally, it cost Joe Girardi his job. Brian Cashman kept his.