As it turned out, despite all predictions and despite all polls, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the Republican nominee, did not defeat the incumbent Democrat, President Harry S Truman. This made Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, the patron saint of every Presidential underdog since.
The problem is, Harry was smarter than most of them. Which is why he's enjoying himself so much in the photo above: He fooled 'em all.
But Dewey was dumb to have blown what should have been a sure win. How dumb was he? Well, maybe not that dumb:
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Thomas Dewey for Losing the 1948 Presidential Election
5. Republican Complacency. They didn't give him the support he needed, because they presumed he wouldn't need it.
4. The Cold War. It was supposed to be Dewey's winning issue. Instead, it was Truman's, with the Truman Doctrine protecting Greece and Turkey from Communist takeover, the Marshall Plan aiding Western Europe before the Soviet Union could, and the Berlin Airlift preventing the Soviets from starving West Berlin into capitulation.
3. The Curse of Herbert Hoover. After 16 years, voters still didn't trust Republicans with the economy. Truman never mentioned Hoover by name, because they were on good terms (whereas Hoover was definitely not on good terms with FDR -- or with his own Republican predecessor, Calvin Coolidge), so he blamed the Republicans in general for the Depression of the 1930s, and it worked.
3. The Curse of Herbert Hoover. After 16 years, voters still didn't trust Republicans with the economy. Truman never mentioned Hoover by name, because they were on good terms (whereas Hoover was definitely not on good terms with FDR -- or with his own Republican predecessor, Calvin Coolidge), so he blamed the Republicans in general for the Depression of the 1930s, and it worked.
2. The Ghost of FDR. From their days as fellow members of the U.S. Senate, Truman was good friends with Alben Barkley, the Kentuckian who was the Democrats' Senate Leader, and had no problem accepting him as the nominee for Vice President.
But he hitched his wagon to Franklin Roosevelt's legacy, effectively making the New Deal his platform (his 1949 State of the Union Address would update it for the times as the Fair Deal), and FDR's ghost his running mate.
1. Harry Truman. He knew he could win, and he knew how he could do it: By going to the people themselves, in what the GOP derisively called "a whistle-stop campaign," a phrase Truman ran with, and explaining the truth to people where they were, and in terms they could understand -- without talking down to them, as Donald Trump does today. He connected with people the same way FDR did, even though they were very different men.
But he hitched his wagon to Franklin Roosevelt's legacy, effectively making the New Deal his platform (his 1949 State of the Union Address would update it for the times as the Fair Deal), and FDR's ghost his running mate.
1. Harry Truman. He knew he could win, and he knew how he could do it: By going to the people themselves, in what the GOP derisively called "a whistle-stop campaign," a phrase Truman ran with, and explaining the truth to people where they were, and in terms they could understand -- without talking down to them, as Donald Trump does today. He connected with people the same way FDR did, even though they were very different men.
Ever since, Ol' Harry S has been the patron saint of political underdogs, of the people who are told they can't possibly win.
(There's no period on his middle initial, since it legally didn't stand for anything, as his parents couldn't agree on whether to name him after one of his grandfathers, Anderson Shippe Truman or Solomon Young. So his entire middle name was the letter S, with no period.His mother's brother was Harry Young, and the name was "Harry," not "Henry" or "Harrison." His legal name was Harry S Truman.)
Even Republicans cite him as an inspiration. As Truman himself would have said, "Well, that's just political conversation." Or, as his only child, Margaret, who became a noted writer of mystery novels after a failed singing career, put it while editing one of her father's books, "My father originally used a shorter word here, but decided to change it." Truman did love him some of what I like to call "George Carlin words."
Legend has it that Harry and his wife Bess (formerly Elizabeth Wallace) toured a greenhouse, and Harry, a former farmer himself, told the owner, a woman, that she must have used some good manure." The owner pulled Bess aside and said, "Can't you get the President to say, 'Fertilizer'?" And Bess said, "It's taken me this long just to get him to say, 'manure'!"
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November 2, 1470: Edward of York is born in Westminster, Abbey, London. When his father, King Edward IV of England, died on April 9, 1483, he became, at age 12, King Edward V. But he was never crowned, because his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had him and his 9-year-old brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and declared illegitimate on June 26. Edward had reigned for 78 days, one of the briefest reigns in English/British history.
The Duke then became King Richard III, and it is believed he had "the Princes in the Tower" murdered. He was deposed and killed 2 years later, and the House of York fell, and the House of Tudor rose (if you'll pardon the pun).
November 2, 1734: Daniel James Boone is born in Birdsboro, outside Reading, Pennsylvania. Famous for his exploration of Kentucky, he may have been the 1st "Wild West" man. He later led the American military effort in the area during the War of the American Revolution.
He died in 1820, a legend in his own time. He may have been the basis for Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, and became the subject of songs, films and TV shows. Although Fess Parker's portrayal on NBC in the 1960s was essentially a redo of his earlier portrayal of Davy Crockett, who was a later figure and a very different man. Unlike Crockett, Boone never wore a coonskin cap. This would have been like William Shatner playing up-to-date Los Angeles cop T.J. Hooker, and then pausing to tell Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear, "You see, when man first set out to explore the stars... "
November 2, 1769: A Spanish exploration party sails into San Francisco Bay, the 1st European settlers to visit. In 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco is founded.
November 2, 1795: James Knox Polk is born in Pineville, North Carolina, now a suburb of Charlotte. He lives most of his life in and around Columbia, Tennessee, now a suburb of Nashville. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, well before the invention of basketball. However, UNC still beats Duke: Its Presidential connection is that Richard Nixon graduated from its law school.
A member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee from 1825 to 1839, Speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839, and Governor of Tennessee from 1839 to 1841, Polk was elected President in 1844. Texas was annexed right before his Inauguration, so he doesn't get credit for adding Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. But in 1846, he launched the Mexican-American War, which was essentially won in a year and a half. Having achieved his ambitions, he kept his promise to not run for re-election, contracted cholera, and died on June 15, 1849, just 3 months after leaving office -- the shortest ex-Presidency ever.
Cities whose teams are possible because of his expansionism are San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and, now, Las Vegas.
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November 2, 1804: Thomas Jefferson is re-elected President. The Democratic-Republican defeats the Federalist Party nominee, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a hero of the War of the American Revolution and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Oddly, the only office he held under the Constitution was one previously held by Jefferson: U.S. Minister to France. (Today, we would say, "Ambassador.")
The popular vote was not counted by every State in those days, Jefferson won 162 Electoral Votes. Pinckney won just 14, carrying only 2 States, and his native South Carolina was not one of them: He won Connecticut and Delaware, which both tended to go Federalist for as long as that party existed. Pinckney would be nominated again in 1808, but lose to Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison.
November 2, 1832: Andrew Jackson is re-elected President, defeating his arch-rival, Henry Clay. It's a landslide: "Old Hickory" wins 54 percent of the vote and 219 Electoral Votes, to Clay's 37 percent and 49 Electoral Votes.
November 2, 1847: Charles James Sweasy is born in Newark, New Jersey. The 2nd baseman on the 1st openly professional baseball team, the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings, he later played for several teams in the National Association and the National League, including winning the NA Pennant with the 1873 Boston Red Stockings, which featured some of his former Cincinnati teammates, and were the forerunners of the Atlanta Braves. He returned to Newark, and died in 1908, age 60.
November 2, 1852: Franklin Pierce is elected the 14th President of the United States. The Democratic nominee, who had served New Hampshire in both houses of Congress, defeats the Whig Party nominee, General Winfield Scott, a hero of the recent Mexican-American War, 254 Electoral Votes to 42. Pierce took almost 51 percent of the popular vote, Scott almost 44 percent.
Scott, a.k.a. Old Fuss and Feathers, won only 4 States: Whig strongholds Massachusetts, Connecticut, Kentucky (home State of the late Whig leader Henry Clay) and Tennessee (ironically, the home State of such Democratic icons as Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, who were both dead and thus unable to campaign for Pierce).
But as the Pierce family made its way to Washington for the Inauguration, their train derailed. Franklin and his wife Jane escaped with minor injuries, but their only surviving child, son Benjamin, was killed. Franklin never recovered from this loss, and his drinking got out of control, making him the 1st alcoholic President. He may also have been the worst President, taking actions that turned the Civil War from a possibility into an inevitability.
November 2, 1865: Warren Gamaliel Harding is born in Blooming Grove, now a part of North Bloomfield Township, Ohio, outside Columbus. November 2 remains the only day on the calendar to be a birthday of 2 Presidents. That will remain the case no matter who wins next Tuesday.
He lived most of his life in nearby Marion, ran a newspaper, and was elected Lieutenant Governor and then a U.S. Senator. Elected President in 1920, he died in office on August 2, 1923, as the Teapot Dome scandal began to swirl around his Administration.
He got off easy with the law (2 of his Cabinet officers went to prison), but not with history (he is generally regarded as one of the worst, and dumbest, Presidents ever, and that's before you get into his womanizing).
The Duke then became King Richard III, and it is believed he had "the Princes in the Tower" murdered. He was deposed and killed 2 years later, and the House of York fell, and the House of Tudor rose (if you'll pardon the pun).
November 2, 1734: Daniel James Boone is born in Birdsboro, outside Reading, Pennsylvania. Famous for his exploration of Kentucky, he may have been the 1st "Wild West" man. He later led the American military effort in the area during the War of the American Revolution.
He died in 1820, a legend in his own time. He may have been the basis for Natty Bumppo in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, and became the subject of songs, films and TV shows. Although Fess Parker's portrayal on NBC in the 1960s was essentially a redo of his earlier portrayal of Davy Crockett, who was a later figure and a very different man. Unlike Crockett, Boone never wore a coonskin cap. This would have been like William Shatner playing up-to-date Los Angeles cop T.J. Hooker, and then pausing to tell Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear, "You see, when man first set out to explore the stars... "
November 2, 1769: A Spanish exploration party sails into San Francisco Bay, the 1st European settlers to visit. In 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco is founded.
November 2, 1795: James Knox Polk is born in Pineville, North Carolina, now a suburb of Charlotte. He lives most of his life in and around Columbia, Tennessee, now a suburb of Nashville. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, well before the invention of basketball. However, UNC still beats Duke: Its Presidential connection is that Richard Nixon graduated from its law school.
A member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee from 1825 to 1839, Speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839, and Governor of Tennessee from 1839 to 1841, Polk was elected President in 1844. Texas was annexed right before his Inauguration, so he doesn't get credit for adding Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. But in 1846, he launched the Mexican-American War, which was essentially won in a year and a half. Having achieved his ambitions, he kept his promise to not run for re-election, contracted cholera, and died on June 15, 1849, just 3 months after leaving office -- the shortest ex-Presidency ever.
Cities whose teams are possible because of his expansionism are San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and, now, Las Vegas.
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November 2, 1804: Thomas Jefferson is re-elected President. The Democratic-Republican defeats the Federalist Party nominee, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a hero of the War of the American Revolution and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. Oddly, the only office he held under the Constitution was one previously held by Jefferson: U.S. Minister to France. (Today, we would say, "Ambassador.")
The popular vote was not counted by every State in those days, Jefferson won 162 Electoral Votes. Pinckney won just 14, carrying only 2 States, and his native South Carolina was not one of them: He won Connecticut and Delaware, which both tended to go Federalist for as long as that party existed. Pinckney would be nominated again in 1808, but lose to Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison.
November 2, 1832: Andrew Jackson is re-elected President, defeating his arch-rival, Henry Clay. It's a landslide: "Old Hickory" wins 54 percent of the vote and 219 Electoral Votes, to Clay's 37 percent and 49 Electoral Votes.
November 2, 1847: Charles James Sweasy is born in Newark, New Jersey. The 2nd baseman on the 1st openly professional baseball team, the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings, he later played for several teams in the National Association and the National League, including winning the NA Pennant with the 1873 Boston Red Stockings, which featured some of his former Cincinnati teammates, and were the forerunners of the Atlanta Braves. He returned to Newark, and died in 1908, age 60.
November 2, 1852: Franklin Pierce is elected the 14th President of the United States. The Democratic nominee, who had served New Hampshire in both houses of Congress, defeats the Whig Party nominee, General Winfield Scott, a hero of the recent Mexican-American War, 254 Electoral Votes to 42. Pierce took almost 51 percent of the popular vote, Scott almost 44 percent.
Scott, a.k.a. Old Fuss and Feathers, won only 4 States: Whig strongholds Massachusetts, Connecticut, Kentucky (home State of the late Whig leader Henry Clay) and Tennessee (ironically, the home State of such Democratic icons as Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk, who were both dead and thus unable to campaign for Pierce).
But as the Pierce family made its way to Washington for the Inauguration, their train derailed. Franklin and his wife Jane escaped with minor injuries, but their only surviving child, son Benjamin, was killed. Franklin never recovered from this loss, and his drinking got out of control, making him the 1st alcoholic President. He may also have been the worst President, taking actions that turned the Civil War from a possibility into an inevitability.
November 2, 1865: Warren Gamaliel Harding is born in Blooming Grove, now a part of North Bloomfield Township, Ohio, outside Columbus. November 2 remains the only day on the calendar to be a birthday of 2 Presidents. That will remain the case no matter who wins next Tuesday.
He lived most of his life in nearby Marion, ran a newspaper, and was elected Lieutenant Governor and then a U.S. Senator. Elected President in 1920, he died in office on August 2, 1923, as the Teapot Dome scandal began to swirl around his Administration.
He got off easy with the law (2 of his Cabinet officers went to prison), but not with history (he is generally regarded as one of the worst, and dumbest, Presidents ever, and that's before you get into his womanizing).
He was a big baseball fan, and on Opening Day of the 1923 season, as the Yankees visited Washington to face the Senators, he threw out the ceremonial first ball, and shook hands with Babe Ruth.
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November 2, 1870: William McKenzie Barlow is born in Montreal. In the early days of hockey, there was the position of "rover," a player who "roved" between offense and defense, what we would call today an "offensive defenseman," like Bobby Orr or Paul Coffey. Billy Barlow was a rover.
He played for the Montreal Hockey Club, of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, and was with them when they were declared the 1st winners of the Stanley Cup in 1893. In 1894, they actually had to play a series for the Cup, and Barlow scored the winning goal, against the Ottawa Hockey Club, the team that would later become known as the Silver Seven (counting the rover) and later as the original Ottawa Senators (defunct 1934).
The position of rover was eliminated when the National Hockey Association, the 1st professional league, was founded in 1910. Its successor, the NHL, did not include it upon its 1917 founding. By 1923, no league had it anymore. Barlow became a pharmaceutical salesman, and lived until 1963.
November 2, 1880: James Abram Garfield is elected the 20th President of the United States, in one of the narrowest races ever. In fact, in terms of total popular vote, it remains the closest ever. The Republican nominee, who had served Ohio in both houses of Congress, won 4,446,158 votes. The Democratic nominee, a hero General of the Civil War, Winfield Scott Hancock (named for the losing candidate of 1852), won 4,444,260 -- a margin of 1,898 votes. (Garfield had also been a General in the Civil War.)
But it's Electoral Votes that matter, although that was also close: Garfield won 214 to Hancock's 155. Each man won 19 States. Whether the Republicans stole the votes of any State, as they had for Rutherford B. Hayes 4 years earlier, has never been proven.
Garfield was inaugurated on March 4, 1881. On July 2, he was shot. He could have survived, but his doctors' incompetence led to an inability to find the bullet, and a subsequent infection that killed him on September 19. Only William Henry Harrison died earlier upon his Inauguration than Garfield's 200 days.
His opponent, known as Hancock the Superb and The Thunderbolt of the Army of the Potomac for his heroism at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, developed diabetes, chose not to run again in 1884, and died in 1886.
Chester Arthur, Garfield's Vice President and successor, also got sick, with kidney disease, did not run for a term of his own in 1884, and died in 1886. Samuel Tilden, cheated out of the Presidency in 1876, did not run in 1880 or 1884, and he, too, died in 1886. None of them lived to see what would have been the end of the Garfield-Arthur ticket's 2nd term -- or that of Hancock and his running mate, Congressman William H. English of Indiana.
November 2, 1881: The American Association of Professionals is founded, challenging the National League, with the motto "Liberty to All." The members are St. Louis‚ Cincinnati‚ Louisville‚ Allegheny‚ Athletic (Philadelphia)‚ and Atlantic (Brooklyn). This AA has officially, for many years, been considered by Major League Baseball to be a "major league."
He played for the Montreal Hockey Club, of the Amateur Hockey Association of Canada, and was with them when they were declared the 1st winners of the Stanley Cup in 1893. In 1894, they actually had to play a series for the Cup, and Barlow scored the winning goal, against the Ottawa Hockey Club, the team that would later become known as the Silver Seven (counting the rover) and later as the original Ottawa Senators (defunct 1934).
The position of rover was eliminated when the National Hockey Association, the 1st professional league, was founded in 1910. Its successor, the NHL, did not include it upon its 1917 founding. By 1923, no league had it anymore. Barlow became a pharmaceutical salesman, and lived until 1963.
November 2, 1880: James Abram Garfield is elected the 20th President of the United States, in one of the narrowest races ever. In fact, in terms of total popular vote, it remains the closest ever. The Republican nominee, who had served Ohio in both houses of Congress, won 4,446,158 votes. The Democratic nominee, a hero General of the Civil War, Winfield Scott Hancock (named for the losing candidate of 1852), won 4,444,260 -- a margin of 1,898 votes. (Garfield had also been a General in the Civil War.)
But it's Electoral Votes that matter, although that was also close: Garfield won 214 to Hancock's 155. Each man won 19 States. Whether the Republicans stole the votes of any State, as they had for Rutherford B. Hayes 4 years earlier, has never been proven.
Garfield was inaugurated on March 4, 1881. On July 2, he was shot. He could have survived, but his doctors' incompetence led to an inability to find the bullet, and a subsequent infection that killed him on September 19. Only William Henry Harrison died earlier upon his Inauguration than Garfield's 200 days.
His opponent, known as Hancock the Superb and The Thunderbolt of the Army of the Potomac for his heroism at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, developed diabetes, chose not to run again in 1884, and died in 1886.
Chester Arthur, Garfield's Vice President and successor, also got sick, with kidney disease, did not run for a term of his own in 1884, and died in 1886. Samuel Tilden, cheated out of the Presidency in 1876, did not run in 1880 or 1884, and he, too, died in 1886. None of them lived to see what would have been the end of the Garfield-Arthur ticket's 2nd term -- or that of Hancock and his running mate, Congressman William H. English of Indiana.
November 2, 1881: The American Association of Professionals is founded, challenging the National League, with the motto "Liberty to All." The members are St. Louis‚ Cincinnati‚ Louisville‚ Allegheny‚ Athletic (Philadelphia)‚ and Atlantic (Brooklyn). This AA has officially, for many years, been considered by Major League Baseball to be a "major league."
The AA elects H.D. McKnight as its president. It votes to honor the NL blacklist in the case of drunkenness, but not to abide by the NL reserve clause. The new league will rely on home gate receipts‚ visiting teams getting just a $65 guarantee on the road‚ as opposed to the NL's policy of giving 15 cents from each admission to the visitors. The AA will allow Sunday games‚ liquor sales‚ and 25-cent tickets (about $6.50 in today's money)‚ all prohibited by the NL (which then charged 50 cents for all games).
Six of their clubs would eventually join the National League. Two would be contracted out of existence in 1900: The Louisville Colonels and the original Baltimore Orioles. The other 4 are still in business today, albeit under other names: The St. Louis Browns (St. Louis Cardinals), the Cincinnati Red Stockings (Cincinnati Reds), the Pittsburgh Alleghenys (Pittsburgh Pirates), and the Brooklyn Grays (who replaced the Atlantics in 1884, and are known today as the Los Angeles Dodgers).
November 2, 1889: North Dakota is admitted to the Union as the 39th State. At the same time, South Dakota is also admitted, as the 40th State. This is the only time 2 States have been admitted on the same day, and it begins a 10-day stretch in which 4 States are added.
Neither State has any major league teams, and very few professional teams at any level, due to being so sparsely populated: Between them, they have only 1.6 million people, and aside from Mount Rushmore, which is outside Rapid City, South Dakota, they don't have much in the way of tourist attractions.
For the most part, the Dakotas are considered part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul sports "market," and most people there are Twins and Vikings fans, though western South Dakota has a noticeable presence of Denver Broncos fans.
Also on this day, Josiah Quincy IV dies in Boston at age 80. Usually listed as "Josiah Quincy Jr.," he was Mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849. His father (1823-28) and grandson (1895-99) also served as Mayor. During his time in office, "the Massachusetts game" became 1 of the 2 preferred forms of baseball in America. But in the late 1850s, it was phased out, and "the New York game" became the leading form.
November 2, 1898, 120 years ago: Cheerleading is started at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.
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November 2, 1902: Victoriano Santos Iriarte is born in Montevideo, Uruguay. A forward for Racing Club de Montevideo, he scored the winning goal for Uruguay in the 1st World Cup Final, beating Brazil on home soil in 1930. He lived until 1968.
November 2, 1903: Travis Clayton Jackson is born in Waldo, Arkansas. The shortstop played on the New York Giants' Pennant winners of 1922, '23, '24, '33 and '36, winning the World Series in 1922 and '33.
He managed in the minor leagues from 1936 to 1960. In 1982, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in his 45th year of eligibility -- the longest any player has had to wait, and still live to see his election. He died in 1987.
November 2, 1912: Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy Jr. is born in Philadelphia. Like his father, he never actually legally changed his name to "Mack." But he became known as Connie Mack Jr.
By the time Connie Sr. became majority owner of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1937, Connie Jr. was managing the concessions at Shibe Park. In 1938, he was named assistant treasurer. But there was a dispute in the family: Connie's sons from his 1st marriage, Earle and Roy, believed that they would be handed control of the team when their father either died or retired, and this appears to have been Connie's plan as well; but Connie's 2nd wife Katherine and their son Connie Jr. were adamant that Connie Jr. would run the team.
In 1950, when the father's 50th Anniversary as team manager became a massive flop, as his senility had become obvious, the sons, united for one of the few times in their lives, ganged up on their father, allied themselves with the other owners, the heirs of the Shibe family, and stripped their father of his power, making him owner but nothing else.
But that was the end of their getting along. Later in 1950, Earle and Roy bought Connie Jr. out, and the financial maneuvers they needed to do so were the death knell of the A's in Philadelphia. Connie Jr. moved to Philadelphia, ran a successful shrimp business there, and lived until 1996, long enough to see his son Connie Mack III elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Florida. His son, Connie Mack IV, has served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Still, while their names appeared on the ballot as "Connie Mack," legally, the family name remains McGillicuddy.
November 2, 1913: Former St. Louis Browns manager George Stovall is the 1st figure from either of the established major leagues to jump to the Federal League‚ signing to manage the Kansas City Packers.
Also on this day, Josiah Quincy IV dies in Boston at age 80. Usually listed as "Josiah Quincy Jr.," he was Mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849. His father (1823-28) and grandson (1895-99) also served as Mayor. During his time in office, "the Massachusetts game" became 1 of the 2 preferred forms of baseball in America. But in the late 1850s, it was phased out, and "the New York game" became the leading form.
November 2, 1898, 120 years ago: Cheerleading is started at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.
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November 2, 1902: Victoriano Santos Iriarte is born in Montevideo, Uruguay. A forward for Racing Club de Montevideo, he scored the winning goal for Uruguay in the 1st World Cup Final, beating Brazil on home soil in 1930. He lived until 1968.
November 2, 1903: Travis Clayton Jackson is born in Waldo, Arkansas. The shortstop played on the New York Giants' Pennant winners of 1922, '23, '24, '33 and '36, winning the World Series in 1922 and '33.
He managed in the minor leagues from 1936 to 1960. In 1982, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in his 45th year of eligibility -- the longest any player has had to wait, and still live to see his election. He died in 1987.
November 2, 1912: Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy Jr. is born in Philadelphia. Like his father, he never actually legally changed his name to "Mack." But he became known as Connie Mack Jr.
By the time Connie Sr. became majority owner of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1937, Connie Jr. was managing the concessions at Shibe Park. In 1938, he was named assistant treasurer. But there was a dispute in the family: Connie's sons from his 1st marriage, Earle and Roy, believed that they would be handed control of the team when their father either died or retired, and this appears to have been Connie's plan as well; but Connie's 2nd wife Katherine and their son Connie Jr. were adamant that Connie Jr. would run the team.
In 1950, when the father's 50th Anniversary as team manager became a massive flop, as his senility had become obvious, the sons, united for one of the few times in their lives, ganged up on their father, allied themselves with the other owners, the heirs of the Shibe family, and stripped their father of his power, making him owner but nothing else.
But that was the end of their getting along. Later in 1950, Earle and Roy bought Connie Jr. out, and the financial maneuvers they needed to do so were the death knell of the A's in Philadelphia. Connie Jr. moved to Philadelphia, ran a successful shrimp business there, and lived until 1996, long enough to see his son Connie Mack III elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Florida. His son, Connie Mack IV, has served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Still, while their names appeared on the ballot as "Connie Mack," legally, the family name remains McGillicuddy.
November 2, 1913: Former St. Louis Browns manager George Stovall is the 1st figure from either of the established major leagues to jump to the Federal League‚ signing to manage the Kansas City Packers.
With glib salesman Jim Gilmore as its president‚ and backed by several millionaires‚ including oil magnate Harry Sinclair and Brooklyn baker Robert Ward‚ the Feds declare open war 2 weeks later by announcing they will not honor the major leagues' reserve clause. It will prove a long‚ costly struggle‚ but with more losers than winners‚ similar to the AA's and AL's beginnings.
On this same day, Burton Stephen Lancaster is born in Manhattan. One of the most acclaimed actors of the 20th Century, one of his last roles (but not his very last) was as an old doctor who used to be a baseball player in Field of Dreams.
November 2, 1914: John Samuel Vander Meer is born in Prospect Park, Passaic, County, New Jersey, and grows up in nearby Midland Park, Bergen County. On June 11 and 15, 1938, pitching for the Cincinnati Reds, he became the 1st, and remains the only, pitcher ever to throw back-to-back no-hitters. He blanked the Boston Braves at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, and then did the same to the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, in the 1st major league night game ever played in New York City.
November 2, 1914: John Samuel Vander Meer is born in Prospect Park, Passaic, County, New Jersey, and grows up in nearby Midland Park, Bergen County. On June 11 and 15, 1938, pitching for the Cincinnati Reds, he became the 1st, and remains the only, pitcher ever to throw back-to-back no-hitters. He blanked the Boston Braves at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, and then did the same to the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, in the 1st major league night game ever played in New York City.
Many years later, Johnny Vander Meer was interviewed by a reporter for the Chicago Daily News for the anthology book My Greatest Day In Baseball. He said, "It would seem natural for me to name the second successive no-hitter I pitched in 1938 as my biggest day in baseball, and I'll have to explain why it isn't. I was still just a novelty, a kid who had done a freakish thing."
He was sick the next year and couldn't get untracked. While the Reds won the Pennant, he was not called on to pitch in the 1939 World Series, which the Reds lost to the Yankees. He got sent back to the minors in 1940. "I knew that was what I needed. At the same time it made me realize just how quickly a fellow can fall from the pedestal."
He pitched solidly for the Indianapolis Indians, then the Reds' Triple-A team, and was called back up. On September 18, 1940, he started what could have been the Pennant-clinching game for the Reds, against the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park. The game went 13 innings, and he pitched 12 innings. He batted in the top of the 13th and doubled, was sacrificed to 3rd, and Ivan Goodman hit a sacrifice fly to get him home. He was relieved by Joe Beggs for the bottom of the 13th, and the Reds won, 4-3. The Reds won the Pennant, and Vander Meer had his greatest day in baseball.
This time, he pitched in the World Series, tossing 3 scoreless innings against the Detroit Tigers in Game 5. The Reds won in 7 games, and he had his ring.
He went 16-12 in 1941, and came close to a 3rd no-hitter. He peaked at 18 wins the next year, and led the NL in strikeouts in 1941, '42 and '43. He was a 4-time All-Star, so he wasn't just a guy who caught lightning in a bottle for 5 days.
He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Although he missed the entire seasons of 1944 and '45, at ages 29 and 30, prime years, he said that pitching on a Navy team helped his control, and the statistics do back that up somewhat. He won 17 in 1948, but that was it, and after a stint with the Chicago Cubs, he last pitched in the majors in 1951 with the Cleveland Indians. In 1952, pitching for the Tulsa Oilers of the Texas League, he pitched another no-hitter, at age 37.
Much like a later no-hit hero, Don Larsen, Vander Meer was actually slightly under .500 for his career: In his case, 119-120. He had allowed so much as 1 hit in each of those 1938 games, he might be remembered today for that feat, but not nearly as well.
Instead, for 80 years, every time a pitcher has thrown a no-hitter, the name of Johnny Vander Meer has come up, with people wondering if the new no-hit hero can match his feat. None ever has -- at least, not in the major leagues. I have heard that 1 pitcher did it in the minors since 1938, but I can find no reference to this achievement.
Vander Meer became a minor league manager in the Reds' organization for 10 seasons, before retiring in 1962. He then worked for a brewing company. He was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame in 1958. He retired to Tampa, where the Reds long had their spring training complex, threw out ceremonial first balls at 6 World Series for the Reds (1961, 1970, 1972, 1975, 1976 and 1990), jsat for an interview for the Reds' 100th Anniversary team video in 1992, and lived until October 6, 1997, suffering an abdominal aneurysm. He was 82.
November 2, 1919: William Henry Mills is born in Boston. A catcher, Bill "Buster" Mills played in 5 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, in 1944, getting 1 hit, proving that he wouldn't have made it to the major leagues without the manpower drain of World War II.
Bill Mills went back to Boston, and became a high school teacher and coach. At age 99, he is 1 of 13 surviving former Philadelphia Athletics, 1 of the last 4 living men who played for Connie Mack, and the 5th-oldest living former MLB player. He should not be confused with Billy Mills, the Native American runner who won the Gold Medal in the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Olympics.
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November 2, 1920: KDKA begins broadcasting out of Pittsburgh, the 1st commercial radio station in America. The first broadcast is the results of the Presidential election. Warren Harding becomes the only person elected President of the United States on his birthday, defeating Governor James M. Cox of Ohio in a landslide. It is the 1st time women in all States can vote for President.
A year later, KDKA will become the 1st radio station to broadcast a baseball game, and the 1st to broadcast a football game. Eventually establishing itself at 1020 on the AM dial, it was long a Westinghouse Broadcasting station, but since 1996 has been part of CBS. It broadcast Pirates games from 1955 to 2006, including the 1960, '71 and '79 World Championships.
November 2, 1921: William Mosienko (no middle name) is born in Winnipeg. A 5-foot-8 right wing for the Chicago Blackhawks, he's in the Hockey Hall of Fame. On March 23, 1952, he scored 3 goals in just 21 seconds, still an NHL record, as the Hawks beat the New York Rangers 7-6 at Chicago Stadium. He died in 1994.
November 2, 1923: Cesare Rubini is born in Trieste, Italy. A member of the Basketball and International Swimming Halls of Fame, he starred for Italy in both basketball and water polo. He won a Gold Medal in water polo at the 1948 Olympics in London. For basketball team Olimpia Milano, he won 5 league titles as a player and 10 as a coach. He also coached Italy to the Silver Medal at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He died in 2011.
November 2, 1924: Uruguay, which recently won the Gold Medal in soccer at the Olympics in Paris (including with the aforementioned Santos Iriarte), playing at home at Parque Central in Montevideo, plays Argentina to a 0-0 draw. That's good enough to clinch the South American Championship, the tournament now known as the Copa América.
That night, a group of Argentine fans gathered at the door of the Colón Hotel, where the Argentina delegation was staying. The fans began to sing, and the players came out to salute them. But a Uruguayan began a counterdemonstration, and, as had so often happened before in soccer fandom, and has since, the songs and insults flew. Soon, objects were being thrown. Then came the shooting, and 3 men were wounded. One of them, Pedro Demby, a 26-year-old bank clerk who had been punching Argentines, died.
He went down as the 1st man ever to die as a result of violence connected to South American soccer. He would not be the last.
Also on this day, David William Bauer is born in Kitchener, Ontario. The younger brother of Boston Bruins Hall-of-Famer Bobby Bauer, he starred for the hockey team at St. Michael's College School in Toronto, and entered the priesthood instead of following his brother into the professional game.
He returned to St. Michael's to teach, and won the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian junior hockey, at St. Mike's as a player in 1944 and as a coach in 1961. He also coached Team Canada in the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and in the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, winning a Bronze Medal in the latter.
He remained involved with amateur hockey in Canada until he died in 1988, and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame the next year. Arenas are named for him in Calgary and Vancouver.
November 2, 1926: Myer Upton Skoog is born in Duluth, Minnesota. Like Edward Charles Ford and Don Richard Ashburn in baseball, he had very light hair that got him nicknamed "Whitey." A guard, the basketball team at the University of Minnesota retired his Number 41.
He played for his home-State Minneapolis Lakers, and helped them win the 1952, '53 and '54 NBA Championships. He is sometimes credited as the inventor of the jump shot, although this is not certain. He later served as the head coach at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.
He turns 92 today. He, Bob Harrison and Frank Saul are the last 3 surviving members of the '52 Lakers. He, Harrison, Saul and Dick Schnittker are the last 4 surviving members of the '53 Lakers. He, Saul and Schnittker are the last 3 surviving members of the '54 Lakers.
November 2, 1928, 90 years ago: William Raymond Daniel is born in Swansea, Wales. A centreback, Ray Daniel played for North London club Arsenal in the 1952 FA Cup Final, despite having a broken arm. Walley Barnes' injury in that game forced him to leave the pitch, but Daniel played on, leaving Arsenal with essentially 9 men, 2 at the back, and they lost to Newcastle United.
But Daniel missed only 1 match in the 1952-53 season, and Arsenal edged Preston North End in the closest title race in Football League history. He then went to Sunderland (who know a thing or two about hating Newcastle), and played for both of the big clubs in Wales, Cardiff City and Swansea Town (now Swansea City). He later worked for the postal service, and lived until 1997.
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November 2, 1932: Guy Paul Joseph Sparrow is born in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. The guard was 2-time All-Conference at the University of Detroit (now Detroit Mercy), and played the 1957-58 and 1958-59 seasons for the Knicks, and the 1959-60 season for the Philadelphia Warriors, with rookie Wilt Chamberlain as a teammate. He is still alive.
November 2, 1934: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and several other baseball players, led by manager Connie Mack, step off the cruiseliner Empress of Japan at Yokohama, and begin a tour of Japan. This is the 1st time American major leaguers will face Japanese professionals.
The Americans won 17 out of 18 games, which surprised no one. The big surprise occurred when 17-year-old Eiji Sawamura of the Tokyo Baseball Club struck Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Charlie Gehringer out in succession in a game in Shizuoka. But Gehrig also hit a home run off him, and the Americans won 1-0.
The Tokyo BC was founded that season, and became known as the Yomiuri Giants. They have won 45 Pennants (the last in 2014) and 22 Japan Series (the last in 2012). Because of this, despite bearing the name and colors of the New York (now San Francisco) team, they are known as "The Yankees of Japan."
Sawamura's career was cut short by World War II, and ended up being killed in 1944, when his ship was sunk by an American ship.
November 2, 1935: Ohio State leads Notre Dame 13-0 in the 4th quarter at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. But the Fighting Irish close to 13-12. They had a 2-way halfback named William Shakespeare. A year earlier, the Staten Island native had thrown a touchdown pass to beat Army at Yankee Stadium, and, in a pun on the William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice (and he did love puns), "the Bard of South Bend" had also been nicknamed "The Merchant of Menace."
In the last minute of the game, Shakespeare nearly threw an interception, but the Ohio State player dropped it. Given a second chance, he threw a last-second pass to future Washington Redskins Hall-of-Famer Wayne Millner for an 18-13 Irish win.
With the Notre Dame hype machine in full force, this became known as The Game of the Century and The Greatest Game Ever Played. Red Barber, later to broadcast for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Yankees, broadcast it for CBS radio, and called it "the greatest college football game I ever called." I'll guarantee you that if Ohio State had hung on to win, nobody, not even Buckeye fans, would claim it as the greatest game.
Ironically, given Notre Dame's unofficial status as America's Catholic university (not to be confused with The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.), Shakespeare, like his alleged ancestor, was Protestant; and Millner was Jewish.
November 2, 1936: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is founded. It picks up Canada's favorite (or, should I say, its favourite) radio show, Hockey Night In Canada, which began in 1931. In 1952, a bit late, they began TV broadcasting, and HNIC remains the country's most popular TV show.
November 2, 1937: A benefit game -- effectively, an all-star game -- is held for the family of the late Montreal Canadiens legend Howie Morenz at the Montreal Forum. Morenz had broken his leg in a game the preceding January, and then died of a heart attack in March, often blamed on the near-party atmosphere his former teammates kept bringing to his hospital room.
The Howie Morenz Memorial Game featured a combined team of the 2 Montreal clubs, the Canadiens and the Maroons. (The Great Depression finally caught up with the Maroons, and they went out of business at the conclusion of the 1937-38 season.) Canadiens Hall-of-Famers in this game included Aurel Joliat, Toe Blake, and Babe Siebert -- who would drown in a boating accident 2 years later, and whose family would be the subject of the next NHL benefit game, also at the Forum. The Maroons included Frank "King" Clancy, at the end of the line after a Hall of Fame career with the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Montreal team played an All-Star team made up of the rest of the NHL, including Hall-of-Famers: From the Leafs, Red Horner, Charlie Conacher and Harvey "Busher" Jackson; from the New York Rangers, Frank Boucher; from the New York Americans, David "Sweeney" Schriner and Leafs legend Clarence "Hap" Day; from the Boston Bruins, Clarence "Tiny" Thompson, Eddie Shore and Aubrey "Dit" Clapper; and from the Detroit Red Wings, Ebenezer "Ebbie" Goodfellow and Marty Barry. The 2 representatives from the Chicago Black Hawks, Johnny Gottselig and Harold "Mush" March, aren't in the Hall, but should be.
The Canadiens retired Morenz's Number 7, and then the Montreal All-Stars lost to the NHL All-Stars 6-5. The attendance was 8,683, not a sellout, but $26,595 (Canadian) was raised for the Morenz family. That's about $461,785 in current Canadian dollars, or $351,484 in U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate.
Morenz's son, Howie Morenz Jr., was 10 years old at the time, and was presented with his father's jersey. He went on to play professionally, but bad eyes kept him from reaching the NHL, and he became an executive in the food supply industry, before dying in 2015, at age 88.
Howie's daughter Marlene married a later Canadiens Hall-of-Famer, Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion. Their son Dan Geoffrion played for the Canadiens, the Quebec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets. And Dan's son Blake Geoffrion played for the Nashville Predators before coming to the Canadiens, honoring his grandfather Boom-Boom (whose Number 5 is retired) and his great-grandfather the Stratford Streak (number 7) by wearing Number 57. Unfortunately, a head injury ended his playing career in 2013.
Bernie died in 2006. Dan is now a scout for the Leafs. And Blake is now an executive in the Columbus Blue Jackets' organization.
November 2, 1939: Enrico Albertosi is born in Pontremoli, Tuscany, Italy. A goalkeeper, he helped Florence club Fiorentina win the Coppa Italia in 1961 and 1966, the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1961, and the Mitropa Cup in 1966.
He helped Sardinia club Cagliari win a miracle League title in 1970, and with AC Milan won the 1977 Coppa Italia and the 1979 League title. He played for Italy in the 1962, 1966, 1970 and 1974 World Cups, reaching the Final in 1970, and won Euro '68. He was still playing professionally at age 44, and is still alive at 79.
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November 2, 1943, 75 years ago: Bertrand Raymond is born in Montreal. A longtime columnist for Le Journal de Montréal, North America's largest French-language newspaper, he was given the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award, the Hockey Hall of Fame's award for sportswriters, for his coverage of the Montreal Canadiens. He is retired, but still alive.
November 2, 1944: Kevin James Hector is born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. A striker, he helped East Midlands club Derby County win England's Football League in 1972 and 1975. He later came to America, and helped the original version of the Vancouver Whitecaps win the North American Soccer League title in 1979.
He later rejoined Derby, and his 589 appearances for them remain a club record. Despite his obvious ability, England manager Alf Ramsey only selected him for the national side twice, both in 1973. Despite Ramsey's successor being Don Revie, manager of Hector's hometown team, Leeds United, Revie never selected him. England didn't qualify for the 1974 and 1978 World Cups, or for Euro 76. Maybe Hector should have been selected. He is still alive.
November 2, 1945: Lawrence Chatmon Little is born in Savannah, Georgia, and grows up in Miami. The guard helped his hometown Miami Dolphins reach Super Bowl VI, win Super Bowl VII with the NFL's only perfect season (17-0), and win Super Bowl VIII.
Larry Little played in 5 Pro Bowls, and was named to the Miami Dolphins Honor Roll (though his Number 66 has not been retired), the NFL 1970s All-Decade Team, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and, in 1999, The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players. He later coached a small-college team in North Carolina, and is still alive. His brother David Little played 12 years as a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, making the 1990 Pro Bowl.
November 2, 1946: The NBA's Boston Celtics play their 1st game, losing 59-53 to fellow New Englanders the Providence Steamrollers at the Rhode Island Auditorium.
The Steamrollers, named for a defunct NFL team, would only last the 1st 3 NBA seasons. The Celtics would take a few years to get untracked, but became the NBA's dominant franchise, winning 16 titles in 30 seasons from 1957 to 1986, and a 17th in 2008. They and the New York Knicks are the only original NBA franchises still playing in their original city.
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November 2, 1950: The Baseball Writers Association of America selects Phillies relief pitcher Jim Konstanty as the NL's Most Valuable Player. This was the 1st time either League had awarded its MVP to a relief pitcher, and, presuming you think pitchers should be eligible at all, it was totally justified. Without him, the Phils would have been in the middle of the standings; with him, they won the Pennant.
It would be another 31 years before another reliever won it, Rollie Fingers of the 1981 Milwaukee Brewers. In 1974, Mike Marshall of the Los Angeles Dodgers became the 1st reliever to win the Cy Young Award.
November 2, 1958, 60 years ago: Willie Dean McGee (not "William") is born in San Francisco. The center fielder starred for the St. Louis Cardinals, winning the World Series in his rookie year of 1982, including hitting 2 home runs and making a great catch in Game 3 of the Series. He won National League batting titles in 1985 and 1990, and won 3 Gold Gloves, making 4 All-Star Games.
He reached the postseason with the Cardinals (1982 World Championship, 1985 NL Pennant, 1987 Pennant), the Oakland Athletics (1990 AL Pennant), the Boston Red Sox (1995 AL East title), and the Cardinals again (1996 NL Central title). The Cards elected him to their team Hall of Fame, and, while it is not officially retired, they have not handed out his Number 51 since he retired after the 1999 season. With a .295 batting average and 2,254 hits, he is a borderline case for the Hall of Fame.
November 2, 1960: George Weiss‚ recently turned 66‚ resigns as general manager of the Yankees. He had seen the firing of manager Casey Stengel by co-owners Dan Topping and Del Webb, and figured he was next, so he "got out of Dodge."
He said the Yankee farm system was drying up, and no one knew that better than he did: He'd built it, and seen Topping and Webb tell him, year after year, to trade prospects for a player or two who could help them win the Pennant in a given year. He said, at the time, that he gave the Yankees 5 years before they all fell apart. In the next 4 years, they won the Pennant. In the 5th, 1965, they crashed to 6th place.
Weiss is in the Hall of Fame, for having been GM for 11 Pennants and 8 World Championships, and for having been farm system director for 8 Pennants and 7 World Championships before that. But don't expect to see him ever get a Plaque in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park: He was hated by the players for being so cheap, and was very much a racist. He's one of those "He was great at what he did, but... " figures in sports history.
He should not be confused with George David Weiss, who, in 1961, would write 2 classics of the early Rock and Roll Era: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens, and "Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley.
Also on this day, Bruce Robert Baumgartner is born in Haledon, Passaic County, New Jersey. The wrestler -- a real wrestler, not that fake WWE crap -- won a Gold Medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, a Silver Medal in 1988 at Seoul, another Gold Medal in 1992 at Barcelona, and a Bronze Medal at 1996 in Atlanta. He is now the athletic director at Edinboro University, outside Erie, Pennsylvania.
November 2, 1962: Derek Mountfield (no middle name) is born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. A centreback, he was part of the mini-dynasty at hometown soccer team Everton, winning the 1984 FA Cup, the Football League title in 1985 and 1987, and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985.
After managing in England's lower divisions and in Ireland, he is now what we would call a high school gym teacher.
November 2, 1963: The football team at the U.S. Naval Academy, ranked Number 4 in the nation, travels to South Bend, Indiana to play the University of Notre Dame. Led by quarterback Roger Staubach, about to win the Heisman Trophy on his way to a Hall of Fame career with the Dallas Cowboys (after fulfilling his service commitment in 1969), the Midshipmen beat the Fighting Irish 35-14.
Navy rise to Number 2, and win their annual get-together with Army, but lose to Number 1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl, costing them the National Championship. Not only have they never approached the national Top 10 again, but they never beat Notre Dame again until 2007, losing 43 straight seasons, an NCAA Division I-A record. Only 5 times in those 43 years did they even come within a touchdown's worth of points.
November 2, 1964: Desmond Kevin Armstrong is born in Washington, D.C. A right back, he played in the Major Indoor Soccer League for the Cleveland Force and the Baltimore Blast. He represented the U.S. at the 1988 Olympics and the 1990 World Cup, and was a member of the 1st U.S. team to win a major tournament, the 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
He went on to become a broadcaster, including for ABC at the 1994 World Cup on home soil. He is now technical director of FC Columbus, and a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
November 2, 1966: David Lawrence Schwimmer is born in Flushing, Queens, New York City, and grows up in the Beverly Hills section of Los Angeles. He is best known for playing anthropologist Dr. Ross Geller on Friends.
What does he have to do with sports? On a 1994 episode, he got hit in the nose by a flying puck at a Ranger game. On a 1996 episode, he and Courteney Cox, as Ross' sister Monica, were opposing team captains in a street football game played on Thanksgiving, a result still in dispute. On a 1998 episode, to impress his British girlfriend, Emily Waltham, played by Helen Baxendale, Ross played rugby with some of her fellow British expatriates. This was a mistake. In 2017, he played Robert Kardashian Sr., one of O.J. Simpson's lawyers, on American Crime Story.
Also on this day, the Batman TV series airs the episode "Hizzoner the Penguin." The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) opposes Gotham City's Mayor Linseed (Byron Keith), an obvious variation on New York's Mayor John Lindsay, for re-election. (They also parodied Governor Nelson Rockefeller with "Governor Stonefellow.")
Linseed knows he can't win, so he asks Batman (Adam West) to run, with himself as Deputy Mayor. Once Batman wins, he can then resign, and Linseed can legally regain the office. Despite the Penguin's dirty tricks -- the 2nd part of the 2-parter is titled "Dizzoner the Penguin" -- it works.
November 2, 1968, 50 years ago: The Bronze Boot is first awarded to the winner of the rivalry game between Colorado State University and the University of Wyoming, a game nicknamed The Border War. Wyoming wins the game, 46-14.
Colorado State dominated the rivalry for a long time, going 35-5-5 from 1899 to 1948. But, thanks to Coach Wyatt, Wyoming took over, dominating the Rams 19-4 from 1950 to 1973. Since then, it's been much more even. Since the Boot was established in 1968, Wyoming's lead is 27-24, having made it 3 straight wins earlier this season. Overall, Colorado State leads 58-47-5.
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November 2, 1971: The Baltimore Orioles' Pat Dobson pitches a no-hitter against the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants‚ winning 2-0 at Korakuen Stadium. It is the 1st no-hitter in the history of exhibition games between Japanese and American teams. The Orioles compile a record of 12-2-4 on the tour.
November 2, 1972: Former Boston Red Sox shortstop Freddy Parent dies at the age of 96. Parent had been the last surviving player from the 1st modern World Series between Boston and Pittsburgh in 1903. He was also the last surviving player from the first Pennant race between the teams now known as the Yankees and the Red Sox, in 1904.
November 2, 1973: Alfred Earle "Greasy" Neale dies in Lake Worth, Florida at age 81. An outfielder, he played in the major leagues from 1916 to 1924, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds, winning the 1919 World Series.
But he became better known for football. A 2-way end who played in the Ohio League before the NFL existed, he went on to coach at the University of Virginia in the 1920s and West Virginia University in the 1930s. For a time, he was coaching on the staff of Yale University, alongside future President Gerald Ford. From 1941 to 1950, he coached the Philadelphia Eagles, leading them to the 1948 and 1949 NFL Championships.
Also on this day, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel is released as a single. The album of the same title is released 7 days later. It was not a big hit, only reaching Number 25 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart early in 1974. But it launched Billy's career.
After the failure of his 1971 album Cold Spring Harbor, Billy stayed in Los Angeles where he'd recorded it, and got a job playing piano at the Executive Room, a bar in the Wilshire district on the West Side of Los Angeles. For legal reasons, he couldn't use his real name, so William Martin Joel became "Bill Martin." (He couldn't be "Billy Martin," because baseball.) Everybody in the song was a real person, including Billy's 1st wife, Elizabeth Weber, who also worked there: "And the waitress is practicing politics."
When legal matters were resolved, and Billy and Columbia Records were finally able to join forces, he recorded the song, and it came out at 5 minutes and 38 seconds. Just 8 years after Bob Dylan topped 6 minutes with "Like a Rolling Stone," Columbia (owned by CBS) cut the 2nd half of the 2nd verse and the 1st half of the 3rd verse; John the bartender's belief that he could be a movie star, Paul the real-estate novelist, and Davey who was still in the Navy, didn't make the final cut.
And a promotional version of the single was cut even further. So when Billy recorded his next album, Streetlife Serenade, it included "The Entertainer," in which he sang, "It took me years to write it. They were the best years of my life. It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long. 'If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit.' So they cut it down to 3:05."
Of course, Billy sings it at every show, including the 100-plus times he's sold Madison Square Garden out. He sang it at the 1st rock concert at the old Yankee Stadium in 1990. He sang it at the last concert at Shea Stadium in 2008.
During the 2013 World Series, he sang the National Anthem before one of the Citi Field games. As they usually do, the Mets played it in the middle of the 8th inning, and everybody sang along, and a camera was put on Billy -- who, being a Yankee Fan, felt out of place, anyway -- and the look on his face said, "People, this is not a happy singalong song." It could be worse: The Red Sox use "Sweet Caroline."
In 2011, deciding that those people didn't deserve to be left hanging, I wrote an unofficial sequel for the song-parody website Amiright.com. Billy goes back (in real life, he can't, as the place closed years ago), and the old man is still there, and remembers that the song he couldn't quite recall was "I Only Have Eyes for You." John now owns the bar, able to buy it because Billy made the place famous. Paul is a best-selling novelist, who leaves the real estate to his wife. Davey went to SEAL training and killed Osama bin Laden. The waitress went back home, and her political practice paid off: She was elected Mayor. The piano is still there, and it's kept in tune. The microphone, of course, still smells like a beer.
November 2, 1974: The Atlanta Braves trade Hank Aaron to the team that replaced them in Milwaukee, the Brewers, for outfielder Dave May and a minor league pitcher to be named later. Aaron will finish his major league career in Milwaukee‚ where he started it in 1954.
Later that off-season, Aaron‚ the Home Run King of American baseball‚ and Yomiyuri Giants star Sadaharu Oh‚ his Japanese counterpart‚ square off for a home run hitting contest at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo. Aaron wins 10-9. Aaron finishes his major league career with 755 home runs, Oh finishes his Japanese Leagues' career with 868. How many Oh would have hit in the North American majors is a mystery.
Also on this day, the Rutgers football team loses 9-7 to Connecticut at Rutgers Stadium. They will not lose another "home game" for nearly 3 years, until Penn State beat them at the Meadowlands on September 2, 1977. They won't lose again at Rutgers Stadium for 4 years, until November 25, 1978, against Colgate University.
Also on this day, Orlando Luis Cabrera is born in Cartagena, Colombia. A shortstop, he played in the major leagues from 1997 to 2011, reaching the postseason with the Boston Red Sox, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins and the Cincinnati Reds.
He won 2 Gold Gloves, and was the starting shortstop on the 2004 World Champion * Red Sox. He was also the last out in Yankee pitcher David Cone's perfect game against the Montreal Expos on July 18, 1999.
November 2, 1975: A surreal event takes place at Madison Square Garden. The New York Rangers had traded popular goaltender Eddie Giacomin to the Detroit Red Wings, sparking outrage among their fans. As it happened, the Rangers' next home game was against the Wings.
Seeing Giacomin in not the white jersey with the blue Number 1, but the red jersey with the white Number 31, the Garden crowd chanted, "Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE!" all night long, and actually booed the Rangers when they scored.
The Red Wings won, 6-4, and, for perhaps the only time in Madison Square Garden history, the home fans cheered a visiting team's victory.
It was the end of an era that had seen the Rangers rise to championship contention, but the closest they'd gotten to the Stanley Cup was the 1972 Finals, losing to the Boston Bruins in 6 games. They were knocked out of the previous season's Playoffs by a 3rd-year expansion team, the suburban Islanders.
Just 9 days after The Giacomin Game, they would trade Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. The Rangers would miss the Playoffs in 1976 and '77, before bouncing back in '78 and reaching the Finals in '79.
With new management coming in, the Rangers made peace with Eddie, and retired his Number 1 in 1990.
November 2, 1976: Former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia edges incumbent President Gerald Ford, to reclaim the White House for the Democrats. New Jersey voters approve casino gambling in Atlantic City -- which will one day have repercussions in another Presidential race, as Donald Trump will run in 2016 despite building 3 casino-hotels in A.C., and having them all go bankrupt. Some businessman he is.
Also on this day, Sidney Alton Ponson is born in Noord, Aruba, making him a citizen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He pitched in the major leagues from 198 to 2003, including brief stints with the Yankees in 2006 and 2008.
He reached the postseason with the 2003 San Francisco Giants and the 2006 Yankees, but never reached a League Championship Series. His career record was 91-113.
November 2, 1977: Arsenal acquire forward Alan Sunderland - not from Sunderland A.F.C. in England's North-East, but from Birmingham-area side Wolverhampton Wanderers, with whom he'd won the 1974 League Cup.
The Yorkshireman with the red Afro and the "Seventies porn star mustache" had his best season in 1978-79. Two days before Christmas, Arsenal played away to their North London Arch Rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, and Sunderland became only the 2nd, and remains the last, Arsenal player to score 3 goals in a game against Spurs. In the FA Cup, he knocked Wolves out with a goal in the Semifinal, and then scored the 89th minute goal that beat Manchester United in the Final at Wembley Stadium.
He is now 65, and lives in Malta, the island nation in the Mediterranean Sea. Every year, when the FA Cup Final comes around, so does a joke: Alan Sunderland never played for Sunderland, 1981 Final hero Ricky Villa never played for Aston Villa, and Danny Shittu never played for Tottenham.
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November 2, 1980: John Amirante sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a New York Rangers game for the 1st time. The Rangers beat the Los Angels Kings 6-3.
Amirante was born and raised in the Bronx, went to Cardinal Hayes High School, and sang with the school's dance band.By night, he would sing in The Bronx and Yonkers. By day, he would work as a design engineer for a naval architecture firm owned by Dr. John J. McMullen.
McMullen was one of the "limited partners" that helped George Steinbrenner buy the Yankees in 1973, and he would later say, "There is nothing so limited as being one of George's limited partners." But on July 4, 1978, George's birthday, McMullen brought Amirante to George's birthday party, and Amirante sang for him. George liked him, and they were friends for life.
But it would be the Mets that would be the first team to have him sing the National Anthem before a game, in 1979. He sent his audition tape to the Madison Square Garden Corporation, and in 1980, they hired him to sing before 3 Ranger games and 3 Knick games. They kept him on for 37 years.
From 1981 to 1985, he also sang the Anthem at some Yankee games, usually alternating with Robert Merrill, the legendary Metropolitan Opera singer from Brooklyn. By this point, McMullen had sold his share of the Yankees, and bought the Houston Astros. He'd also bought the NHL's Colorado Rockies, moved them to the Meadowlands, and renamed them the New Jersey Devils. He asked Amirante to sing the Anthem for their 1st game, on October 5, 1982, a 3-3 tie with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
McMullen asked him to sing for the Devils full-time, but he turned it down, saying, "I gotta stay where my faith is, and that's with the Rangers." He later said, "I wanted to be in The World's Most Famous Arena."
On December 23, 1992, I attended my 1st live NHL game. I'd like to tell you that I heard John Amirante sing the National Anthem. But that wouldn't be true, because I couldn't hear him: 18,000 Ranger fans yelled and drowned him out. When they finally won the Stanley Cup after 54 years, on June 14, 1994, Ranger broadcaster Sam Rosen said he'd never heard The Garden so loud as when he sang before Game 7.
John Amirante died on April 17, 2018, at age 83.
November 2, 1981: M*A*S*H airs the episode "Identity Crisis." Joe Pantoliano plays an Irish-American soldier who masquerades as a Jewish buddy he saw killed, having taken his dogtags. This backfires when the doctors give him the blood type on the tags, which isn't his, and he nearly dies. Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) convinces him to come clean. And this is one of the less creepy roles in the career of the actor known as Joey Pants.
November 2, 1986: The book Happy Birthday, Cookie Monster, by Felice Haus, is published earlier in the year. In the book, the Sesame Street character's birthday is mentioned as being November 2. Since this children's book was given the official sanction of the series' producers, the birthday is considered canon, although Cookie Monster's age is not mentioned, so we don't know what year he was born.
November 2, 1989: Stevan Jovetić is born in Titograd, Yugoslavia -- now Podgorica, the capital of the independent nation of Montenegro. He is probably the greatest soccer player that nation has ever produced.
The forward helped Partizan Belgrade win the Double, the Serbian SuperLiga and the Serbian Cup, in 2008. He helped Manchester City win the Premier League and the League Cup (or, as I like to call it, the Baby Double) in 2014. He now plays for AS Monaco.
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November 2, 1994: Jonathan Stanley Loáisiga Estrada is born in Managua, Nicaragua. Known professionally as Jonathan Loasiga, and nicknamed "Lasagna," the righthanded pitcher made his major league debut with the Yankees in the 2018 season, making 9 appearances, including 4 starts. He went 2-0, but his ERA was 5.11 and his WHIP 1.541. If he's going to help make the difference for the Yankees in 2019 and beyond, his control will need to improve.
November 2, 1995: The Yankees name Joe Torre as their new manager‚ replacing Buck Showalter. Torre had been a good catcher in the 1960s, a decent 1st baseman in the early 1970s, and a very good hitter throughout his playing career. His managing was another matter. He managed the Mets in the late 1970s, and he didn't have much to work with. He managed the Atlanta Braves in the early 1980s, and got them to a Division title in 1982 and almost to another in 1983, but that was it. He managed the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1990s, and didn't get too far.
The Cardinals fired him in 1995, and he thought he'd never manage again. "I'd run out of teams," he said, noting that he'd played for 3 teams, and managed all of them. He'd been a broadcaster between his Braves and Cardinals jobs, and figured he'd go back into the broadcast booth, and that's how he'd finish out his days in baseball.
Then George Steinbrenner called to offer him the Yankee managing job. Joe had never played in the American League, let alone managed in it. But George thought he was the guy. The New York Daily News didn't think so: Citing his lackluster managerial record up until then, and also the circus that tended to surround Steinbrenner, especially where managers were concerned, they printed the headline "CLUELESS JOE."
You know the rest of the story. World Champions in his 1st season, 1996. Wild Card in 1997. World Champions in 1998, winning more games than any team ever had in a regular season and postseason combined, 125, including a 4-game sweep in the World Series. World Champions in 1999, including the best postseason record of the 1995-present Division Series era, 11-1. World Champions in 2000, beating the Mets in the World Series. American League Champions in 2001, missing another title by 1 run. Division Champions in 2002. AL Champions in 2003, with the dramatic AL Championship Series win over the Boston Red Sox.
Then, of course, the downturn, the kind of things that the Daily News probably expected when it printed the headline. A shocking ALCS loss in 2004. Pathetic performances in the AL Division Series in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Joe got lowballed by George's heirs, of both the family and the business variety: His sons Hank and Hal, Yankee brass Randy Levine and Lonn Trost, and general manager Brian Cashman. He walked out, and managed the Los Angeles Dodgers to a pair of Division titles, before taking a job in Major League Baseball's office.
Joe and the House of Steinbrenner made up. He's been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and is honored in Monument Park at the new Yankee Stadium.
The Daily News called him "CLUELESS JOE." They get reminded of that more than they do of "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."
November 2, 1995 was also the day Seinfeld aired the episode "The Soup Nazi." Happy Anniversary, Schmoopie!
November 2, 1996: Saturday Night Live debuts the sketch "The Culps." Will Ferrell plays balding, bearded Marty Culp, and Ana Gasteyer plays his wife Bobbi Mohan-Culp, middle school music teachers who are hopelessly unhip. The sketch runs for 6 years, and it never becomes good. The Will Ferrell era really was the worst of SNL.
November 2, 1999: The Texas Rangers trade outfielder Juan Gonzalez‚ pitcher Danny Patterson and catcher Gregg Zaun to the Detroit Tigers for pitchers Justin Thompson‚ Alan Webb and Francisco Cordero‚ outfielder Gabe Kapler‚ catcher Bill Haselman‚ and infielder Frank Catalanotto. The trade of "Juan Gone" is the beginning of the breakup of the Rangers' 1st postseason team, winners of 3 of the last 4 AL West titles.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners announce that superstar Ken Griffey Jr. is requesting a trade closer to his home. The Mariners agree to try to trade him during the off-season. The superstar outfielder will get his wish in February when Seattle trades him to the Reds for Mike Cameron, Antonio Perez and Brett Tomko, and minor leager Jake Meyer.
Of course, Cincinnati, where his father Ken Griffey Sr. once played, isn't all that close to Junior's adopted hometown of Orlando, Florida.
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November 2, 2001: A statue of head coach Joe Paterno is dedicated outside the east stand of Beaver Stadium on the campus of Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. It calls him "Joseph Vincent Paterno: Educator, Coach, Humanitarian."
On July 22, 2012, 6 months after his death, and 8 months after the scandal that forever tarnished his name, the statue was removed, since it was being called a roadblock in the healing process.
November 2, 2004: A groundskeeper finds a grenade in the Wrigley Field turf. Police bomb and arson investigators are called to evaluate the right field discovery. The rusty, hollowed-out shell turns out to be harmless, and its origins remain a mystery.
Also on this day, George W. Bush achieves -- due to shenanigans in Ohio, I won't say "wins" -- a 2nd term as President, defeating the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. Although Kerry was a rich liberal Catholic from Massachusetts with the initials JFK, and as a young man had met President John F. Kennedy, he was no Jack Kennedy.
During the campaign, Bush ran as the man who was fighting to avenge the 9/11 attacks, while his fellow Republicans mocked Kerry for saying that Democratic leadership could "reduce terrorism to the level of a nuisance."
By 2016, after 8 years of Barack Obama as President, 4 years of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and 4 years of Kerry himself as Secretary of State, Kerry had been proven correct: They have reduced terrorism, at least against American targets, at home and abroad, to the level of a nuisance.
November 2, 2005: Andrew Bynum, a native of Plainsboro, Mercer County, New Jersey, plays 6 minutes for the Los Angeles Lakers in their season opener, against the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center, becoming the youngest NBA player ever: 18 years and 6 days old. The Lakers won, 99-97.
Ironically, but appropriately, the center had been personally instructed in the preseason by Laker legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had once been thought to have been the NBA's oldest player ever. Kareem was 42 when he bowed out after the 1989 Finals, but later research showed that Pat Hickey, who played with the Providence Steamrollers in the league's 1st 2 seasons, was just short of 46 when he last played in 1948.
Bynum is now 30, but his record still stands. He won NBA Championships with the Lakers in 2009 and '10, and was an NBA All-Star in 2012. But injuries have rendered his career apparently over, well before it should have been. But then, he does have 2 titles, and I don't think we'll be seeing any more 18-year-olds playing in the NBA -- certainly not for a team with a pedigree anywhere near the Lakers'.
November 2, 2009: Game 5 of the World Series. Trying to stave off elimination at home at the hands of the Yankees, the defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies back Cliff Lee with a 6-1 lead after 3 innings, thanks to 2 home runs by Chase Utley (a future Met villain) and another by Raul Ibanez (a future Yankee hero). Utley's shots tie him with Reggie Jackson for the record for most home runs in a single World Series: 5.
The Phillies lead 8-2 after 7, but the Yankees come storming back, and close to within 8-6 with the tying runs on in the 9th. As the Fox cameras panned Citizens Bank Park, I could see the looks on the faces of Phillies fans. They weren't thinking of how they'd won the Series the year before, or in 1980. Most of them remembered the Series defeat of 1993. Many remembered the Playoff disaster of 1977. Some remembered September "Phillie Phlop" of 1964. They all at least knew of the earlier team disasters. They all seemed to be saying, "Oh, no, it's happening again!"
But Ryan Madson gets the final out for the save, and the Phillies would play Game 6 in New York 2 nights later.
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November 2, 2010: Clyde King dies in his hometown of Goldsboro, North Carolina. He was 86. A mediocre major league pitcher, he won Pennants with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and 1952, being in their minor-league system during the Pennant season of 1949 and traded to the Cincinnati Reds before their 1953 Pennant.
He managed the San Francisco Giants in 1969-70, the Atlanta Braves in 1974-75, and the Yankees for the last 2 months of the turbulent 1982 season. He was also Yankee general manager in 1985 and '86. From 1976 until 1990, he worked in various capacities for the Yankees, as one of what George Steinbrenner called "my baseball people."
Unfortunately, most Yankee fans will forever remember him for being the guy George sent to Yogi Berra's office to fire him as manager early in the 1985 season, because George was too cowardly to do his own dirty work. Yogi never blamed Clyde for doing George's job at that moment, and wouldn't have blamed George if he had done it himself. But George wouldn't do it himself, and it It took 14 years to heal the breach between them.
November 2, 2013: The Vancouver Canucks retire the Number 10 of Pavel Bure, and beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-0 at the Rogers Arena.
On the same day, the Colorado Avalanche retire the Number 52 of Adam Foote, and beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 at the Pepsi Center.
On the same day, Walt Bellamy dies in the Atlanta suburb of College Park, Georgia at age 74. The Basketball Hall-of-Famer starred at Indiana University while Bobby Knight was an opponent, at Ohio State. He was a member of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
"Bells" was an original 1961-62 member of the Chicago Packers -- yes, NFL fans, that was a real name -- and won the NBA Rookie of the Year with them that season. He moved with them in 1963 to become the Baltimore Bullets. It is now known as the Washington Wizards. He became a Knick in 1965, and in 1968 was traded to the Detroit Pistons for Dave DeBusschere, the most important trade in Knick history. A 4-time All-Star, he played out his career with the Atlanta Hawks and the expansion New Orleans Jazz in 1974.
November 2, 2014: Herman Sarkowsky dies in Seattle at age 89. Fleeing Nazi Germany with his Jewish family, he became the largest housebuilder in the Pacific Northwest. In 1970, he founded the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, selling them in 1975. In 1976, he and the Nordstrom family of department-store fame founded the NFL's Seattle Seahawks. He sold his stake in 1988.
November 2, 2016: To paraphrase Shirley Povich of The Washington Post, when the Brooklyn Dodgers finally did it 61 years earlier...
Please don't interrupt, because, unless you are over the age of 110, you have not heard this one before: The Chicago Cubs are the world champions of baseball.
Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, played at Progressive Field in Cleveland, was not a great game. Indeed, it was very sloppy. But it was great theater. Dexter Fowler, Javier Baez and David Ross hit home runs for the Cubs, and Rajai Davis hit one for the Cleveland Indians. But the Cubs made 3 errors, the Indians 1. The Cubs blew leads of 1-0 in the 3rd inning, and 6-3 in the 8th, and their fans must have thought that it was never going to happen, even though they had already come back from being 3 games to 1 down.
The game went to extra innings, and then it rained. So each of these seemingly cursed teams -- the Cubs hadn't won a World Series since 1908, the Indians since 1948 -- had, at least in theory, an equal chance.
Kyle Schwarber led off the top of the 10th with a single, and was replaced by pinch-runner Albert Almora. Kris Bryant flew out to center, but Almora got gutsy, and tagged up and got to 2nd. Anthony Rizzo was walked intentionally to set up the double play, but the strategy didn't work: Ben Zobrist hit an RBI double into the left field corner, the biggest hit in the Cubs' 142-season history. Addison Russell was walked intentionally, and Miguel Montero singled him home to make it 8-6. Cub fans could feel it finally happening after 108 years.
But the Indians weren't going down without a fight. In the bottom of the 10th, after Carl Edwards Jr. pitched the Cubs to within 1 out of glory, he walked Brandon Guyer, who took 2nd on defensive indifference.
Davis singled him home to make it 8-7, and Cub fans were staring at the choke to end all chokes, the Billy Goatiest Curse of the Billy Goat ever. But manager Joe Maddon brought Mike Montgomery on to relieve, and he got Michael Martinez to ground to 3rd, and Bryant threw him out to end it.
Thankfully, I have yet to see any evidence that Cub fans have followed up the end to their drought by acting like bastards, the way Red Sox fans did after 2004 and New York Ranger fans did after 1994.
November 2, 2042, only 24 years from today: According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
episode "If Wishes Were Horses," this was the day that baseball died.
It was Game 7 of the World Series, and only 300 people attended, perhaps a side effect of World War III having gone on since 2026 (only 8 years from now), in the Star Trek chronology. Buck Bokai hit a home run, and the London Kings won.
I am a devoted Trekkie. Not so much that I dress up (or "cosplay") and go to conventions, but enough that I dismiss the J.J. Abrams films of 2009-16 and the current CBS series Star Trek: Discovery as "alternate timelines" and "non-canon." But one big problem I have with Star Trek is their account of the death of baseball, at a time when I could well still be alive. (I would be 72 years old.)
In contrast, another science-fiction series of the 1990s, Space Precinct, showed the 42,000-seat Tokyo Dome jammed with spectators for Game 1 of the 2040 World Series between the Yankees and the Yomiuri Giants. I'd much prefer that scenario.
He pitched solidly for the Indianapolis Indians, then the Reds' Triple-A team, and was called back up. On September 18, 1940, he started what could have been the Pennant-clinching game for the Reds, against the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park. The game went 13 innings, and he pitched 12 innings. He batted in the top of the 13th and doubled, was sacrificed to 3rd, and Ivan Goodman hit a sacrifice fly to get him home. He was relieved by Joe Beggs for the bottom of the 13th, and the Reds won, 4-3. The Reds won the Pennant, and Vander Meer had his greatest day in baseball.
This time, he pitched in the World Series, tossing 3 scoreless innings against the Detroit Tigers in Game 5. The Reds won in 7 games, and he had his ring.
He went 16-12 in 1941, and came close to a 3rd no-hitter. He peaked at 18 wins the next year, and led the NL in strikeouts in 1941, '42 and '43. He was a 4-time All-Star, so he wasn't just a guy who caught lightning in a bottle for 5 days.
He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Although he missed the entire seasons of 1944 and '45, at ages 29 and 30, prime years, he said that pitching on a Navy team helped his control, and the statistics do back that up somewhat. He won 17 in 1948, but that was it, and after a stint with the Chicago Cubs, he last pitched in the majors in 1951 with the Cleveland Indians. In 1952, pitching for the Tulsa Oilers of the Texas League, he pitched another no-hitter, at age 37.
Much like a later no-hit hero, Don Larsen, Vander Meer was actually slightly under .500 for his career: In his case, 119-120. He had allowed so much as 1 hit in each of those 1938 games, he might be remembered today for that feat, but not nearly as well.
Instead, for 80 years, every time a pitcher has thrown a no-hitter, the name of Johnny Vander Meer has come up, with people wondering if the new no-hit hero can match his feat. None ever has -- at least, not in the major leagues. I have heard that 1 pitcher did it in the minors since 1938, but I can find no reference to this achievement.
Vander Meer became a minor league manager in the Reds' organization for 10 seasons, before retiring in 1962. He then worked for a brewing company. He was inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame in 1958. He retired to Tampa, where the Reds long had their spring training complex, threw out ceremonial first balls at 6 World Series for the Reds (1961, 1970, 1972, 1975, 1976 and 1990), jsat for an interview for the Reds' 100th Anniversary team video in 1992, and lived until October 6, 1997, suffering an abdominal aneurysm. He was 82.
November 2, 1919: William Henry Mills is born in Boston. A catcher, Bill "Buster" Mills played in 5 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, in 1944, getting 1 hit, proving that he wouldn't have made it to the major leagues without the manpower drain of World War II.
Bill Mills went back to Boston, and became a high school teacher and coach. At age 99, he is 1 of 13 surviving former Philadelphia Athletics, 1 of the last 4 living men who played for Connie Mack, and the 5th-oldest living former MLB player. He should not be confused with Billy Mills, the Native American runner who won the Gold Medal in the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Olympics.
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November 2, 1920: KDKA begins broadcasting out of Pittsburgh, the 1st commercial radio station in America. The first broadcast is the results of the Presidential election. Warren Harding becomes the only person elected President of the United States on his birthday, defeating Governor James M. Cox of Ohio in a landslide. It is the 1st time women in all States can vote for President.
A year later, KDKA will become the 1st radio station to broadcast a baseball game, and the 1st to broadcast a football game. Eventually establishing itself at 1020 on the AM dial, it was long a Westinghouse Broadcasting station, but since 1996 has been part of CBS. It broadcast Pirates games from 1955 to 2006, including the 1960, '71 and '79 World Championships.
November 2, 1921: William Mosienko (no middle name) is born in Winnipeg. A 5-foot-8 right wing for the Chicago Blackhawks, he's in the Hockey Hall of Fame. On March 23, 1952, he scored 3 goals in just 21 seconds, still an NHL record, as the Hawks beat the New York Rangers 7-6 at Chicago Stadium. He died in 1994.
November 2, 1923: Cesare Rubini is born in Trieste, Italy. A member of the Basketball and International Swimming Halls of Fame, he starred for Italy in both basketball and water polo. He won a Gold Medal in water polo at the 1948 Olympics in London. For basketball team Olimpia Milano, he won 5 league titles as a player and 10 as a coach. He also coached Italy to the Silver Medal at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He died in 2011.
November 2, 1924: Uruguay, which recently won the Gold Medal in soccer at the Olympics in Paris (including with the aforementioned Santos Iriarte), playing at home at Parque Central in Montevideo, plays Argentina to a 0-0 draw. That's good enough to clinch the South American Championship, the tournament now known as the Copa América.
That night, a group of Argentine fans gathered at the door of the Colón Hotel, where the Argentina delegation was staying. The fans began to sing, and the players came out to salute them. But a Uruguayan began a counterdemonstration, and, as had so often happened before in soccer fandom, and has since, the songs and insults flew. Soon, objects were being thrown. Then came the shooting, and 3 men were wounded. One of them, Pedro Demby, a 26-year-old bank clerk who had been punching Argentines, died.
He went down as the 1st man ever to die as a result of violence connected to South American soccer. He would not be the last.
Also on this day, David William Bauer is born in Kitchener, Ontario. The younger brother of Boston Bruins Hall-of-Famer Bobby Bauer, he starred for the hockey team at St. Michael's College School in Toronto, and entered the priesthood instead of following his brother into the professional game.
He returned to St. Michael's to teach, and won the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian junior hockey, at St. Mike's as a player in 1944 and as a coach in 1961. He also coached Team Canada in the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and in the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, winning a Bronze Medal in the latter.
He remained involved with amateur hockey in Canada until he died in 1988, and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame the next year. Arenas are named for him in Calgary and Vancouver.
November 2, 1926: Myer Upton Skoog is born in Duluth, Minnesota. Like Edward Charles Ford and Don Richard Ashburn in baseball, he had very light hair that got him nicknamed "Whitey." A guard, the basketball team at the University of Minnesota retired his Number 41.
He played for his home-State Minneapolis Lakers, and helped them win the 1952, '53 and '54 NBA Championships. He is sometimes credited as the inventor of the jump shot, although this is not certain. He later served as the head coach at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.
He turns 92 today. He, Bob Harrison and Frank Saul are the last 3 surviving members of the '52 Lakers. He, Harrison, Saul and Dick Schnittker are the last 4 surviving members of the '53 Lakers. He, Saul and Schnittker are the last 3 surviving members of the '54 Lakers.
November 2, 1928, 90 years ago: William Raymond Daniel is born in Swansea, Wales. A centreback, Ray Daniel played for North London club Arsenal in the 1952 FA Cup Final, despite having a broken arm. Walley Barnes' injury in that game forced him to leave the pitch, but Daniel played on, leaving Arsenal with essentially 9 men, 2 at the back, and they lost to Newcastle United.
But Daniel missed only 1 match in the 1952-53 season, and Arsenal edged Preston North End in the closest title race in Football League history. He then went to Sunderland (who know a thing or two about hating Newcastle), and played for both of the big clubs in Wales, Cardiff City and Swansea Town (now Swansea City). He later worked for the postal service, and lived until 1997.
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November 2, 1932: Guy Paul Joseph Sparrow is born in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. The guard was 2-time All-Conference at the University of Detroit (now Detroit Mercy), and played the 1957-58 and 1958-59 seasons for the Knicks, and the 1959-60 season for the Philadelphia Warriors, with rookie Wilt Chamberlain as a teammate. He is still alive.
November 2, 1934: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and several other baseball players, led by manager Connie Mack, step off the cruiseliner Empress of Japan at Yokohama, and begin a tour of Japan. This is the 1st time American major leaguers will face Japanese professionals.
The Americans won 17 out of 18 games, which surprised no one. The big surprise occurred when 17-year-old Eiji Sawamura of the Tokyo Baseball Club struck Ruth, Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Charlie Gehringer out in succession in a game in Shizuoka. But Gehrig also hit a home run off him, and the Americans won 1-0.
The Tokyo BC was founded that season, and became known as the Yomiuri Giants. They have won 45 Pennants (the last in 2014) and 22 Japan Series (the last in 2012). Because of this, despite bearing the name and colors of the New York (now San Francisco) team, they are known as "The Yankees of Japan."
Sawamura's career was cut short by World War II, and ended up being killed in 1944, when his ship was sunk by an American ship.
November 2, 1935: Ohio State leads Notre Dame 13-0 in the 4th quarter at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. But the Fighting Irish close to 13-12. They had a 2-way halfback named William Shakespeare. A year earlier, the Staten Island native had thrown a touchdown pass to beat Army at Yankee Stadium, and, in a pun on the William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice (and he did love puns), "the Bard of South Bend" had also been nicknamed "The Merchant of Menace."
In the last minute of the game, Shakespeare nearly threw an interception, but the Ohio State player dropped it. Given a second chance, he threw a last-second pass to future Washington Redskins Hall-of-Famer Wayne Millner for an 18-13 Irish win.
With the Notre Dame hype machine in full force, this became known as The Game of the Century and The Greatest Game Ever Played. Red Barber, later to broadcast for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Yankees, broadcast it for CBS radio, and called it "the greatest college football game I ever called." I'll guarantee you that if Ohio State had hung on to win, nobody, not even Buckeye fans, would claim it as the greatest game.
Ironically, given Notre Dame's unofficial status as America's Catholic university (not to be confused with The Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C.), Shakespeare, like his alleged ancestor, was Protestant; and Millner was Jewish.
November 2, 1936: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is founded. It picks up Canada's favorite (or, should I say, its favourite) radio show, Hockey Night In Canada, which began in 1931. In 1952, a bit late, they began TV broadcasting, and HNIC remains the country's most popular TV show.
On the same day, the British Broadcasting Corporation begins the BBC Television Service, inventing what we would now call "network television." In 1964, it is renamed BBC1.
"The Beeb" beat America to network by 11 years. Oddly, they would be behind the curve when it came to "colour" TV: While nearly every U.S. TV show that had not already switched to broadcasting in color would do so by the start of the 1965-66 season, the CBC the next season, and the U.K.'s BBC and ITV wouldn't do so until 1969.
"The Beeb" beat America to network by 11 years. Oddly, they would be behind the curve when it came to "colour" TV: While nearly every U.S. TV show that had not already switched to broadcasting in color would do so by the start of the 1965-66 season, the CBC the next season, and the U.K.'s BBC and ITV wouldn't do so until 1969.
November 2, 1937: A benefit game -- effectively, an all-star game -- is held for the family of the late Montreal Canadiens legend Howie Morenz at the Montreal Forum. Morenz had broken his leg in a game the preceding January, and then died of a heart attack in March, often blamed on the near-party atmosphere his former teammates kept bringing to his hospital room.
The Howie Morenz Memorial Game featured a combined team of the 2 Montreal clubs, the Canadiens and the Maroons. (The Great Depression finally caught up with the Maroons, and they went out of business at the conclusion of the 1937-38 season.) Canadiens Hall-of-Famers in this game included Aurel Joliat, Toe Blake, and Babe Siebert -- who would drown in a boating accident 2 years later, and whose family would be the subject of the next NHL benefit game, also at the Forum. The Maroons included Frank "King" Clancy, at the end of the line after a Hall of Fame career with the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Montreal team played an All-Star team made up of the rest of the NHL, including Hall-of-Famers: From the Leafs, Red Horner, Charlie Conacher and Harvey "Busher" Jackson; from the New York Rangers, Frank Boucher; from the New York Americans, David "Sweeney" Schriner and Leafs legend Clarence "Hap" Day; from the Boston Bruins, Clarence "Tiny" Thompson, Eddie Shore and Aubrey "Dit" Clapper; and from the Detroit Red Wings, Ebenezer "Ebbie" Goodfellow and Marty Barry. The 2 representatives from the Chicago Black Hawks, Johnny Gottselig and Harold "Mush" March, aren't in the Hall, but should be.
The Canadiens retired Morenz's Number 7, and then the Montreal All-Stars lost to the NHL All-Stars 6-5. The attendance was 8,683, not a sellout, but $26,595 (Canadian) was raised for the Morenz family. That's about $461,785 in current Canadian dollars, or $351,484 in U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate.
Morenz's son, Howie Morenz Jr., was 10 years old at the time, and was presented with his father's jersey. He went on to play professionally, but bad eyes kept him from reaching the NHL, and he became an executive in the food supply industry, before dying in 2015, at age 88.
Howie's daughter Marlene married a later Canadiens Hall-of-Famer, Bernie "Boom-Boom" Geoffrion. Their son Dan Geoffrion played for the Canadiens, the Quebec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets. And Dan's son Blake Geoffrion played for the Nashville Predators before coming to the Canadiens, honoring his grandfather Boom-Boom (whose Number 5 is retired) and his great-grandfather the Stratford Streak (number 7) by wearing Number 57. Unfortunately, a head injury ended his playing career in 2013.
Bernie died in 2006. Dan is now a scout for the Leafs. And Blake is now an executive in the Columbus Blue Jackets' organization.
November 2, 1939: Enrico Albertosi is born in Pontremoli, Tuscany, Italy. A goalkeeper, he helped Florence club Fiorentina win the Coppa Italia in 1961 and 1966, the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1961, and the Mitropa Cup in 1966.
He helped Sardinia club Cagliari win a miracle League title in 1970, and with AC Milan won the 1977 Coppa Italia and the 1979 League title. He played for Italy in the 1962, 1966, 1970 and 1974 World Cups, reaching the Final in 1970, and won Euro '68. He was still playing professionally at age 44, and is still alive at 79.
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November 2, 1943, 75 years ago: Bertrand Raymond is born in Montreal. A longtime columnist for Le Journal de Montréal, North America's largest French-language newspaper, he was given the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award, the Hockey Hall of Fame's award for sportswriters, for his coverage of the Montreal Canadiens. He is retired, but still alive.
November 2, 1944: Kevin James Hector is born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. A striker, he helped East Midlands club Derby County win England's Football League in 1972 and 1975. He later came to America, and helped the original version of the Vancouver Whitecaps win the North American Soccer League title in 1979.
He later rejoined Derby, and his 589 appearances for them remain a club record. Despite his obvious ability, England manager Alf Ramsey only selected him for the national side twice, both in 1973. Despite Ramsey's successor being Don Revie, manager of Hector's hometown team, Leeds United, Revie never selected him. England didn't qualify for the 1974 and 1978 World Cups, or for Euro 76. Maybe Hector should have been selected. He is still alive.
November 2, 1945: Lawrence Chatmon Little is born in Savannah, Georgia, and grows up in Miami. The guard helped his hometown Miami Dolphins reach Super Bowl VI, win Super Bowl VII with the NFL's only perfect season (17-0), and win Super Bowl VIII.
Larry Little played in 5 Pro Bowls, and was named to the Miami Dolphins Honor Roll (though his Number 66 has not been retired), the NFL 1970s All-Decade Team, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and, in 1999, The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Football Players. He later coached a small-college team in North Carolina, and is still alive. His brother David Little played 12 years as a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, making the 1990 Pro Bowl.
November 2, 1946: The NBA's Boston Celtics play their 1st game, losing 59-53 to fellow New Englanders the Providence Steamrollers at the Rhode Island Auditorium.
The Steamrollers, named for a defunct NFL team, would only last the 1st 3 NBA seasons. The Celtics would take a few years to get untracked, but became the NBA's dominant franchise, winning 16 titles in 30 seasons from 1957 to 1986, and a 17th in 2008. They and the New York Knicks are the only original NBA franchises still playing in their original city.
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November 2, 1950: The Baseball Writers Association of America selects Phillies relief pitcher Jim Konstanty as the NL's Most Valuable Player. This was the 1st time either League had awarded its MVP to a relief pitcher, and, presuming you think pitchers should be eligible at all, it was totally justified. Without him, the Phils would have been in the middle of the standings; with him, they won the Pennant.
It would be another 31 years before another reliever won it, Rollie Fingers of the 1981 Milwaukee Brewers. In 1974, Mike Marshall of the Los Angeles Dodgers became the 1st reliever to win the Cy Young Award.
November 2, 1958, 60 years ago: Willie Dean McGee (not "William") is born in San Francisco. The center fielder starred for the St. Louis Cardinals, winning the World Series in his rookie year of 1982, including hitting 2 home runs and making a great catch in Game 3 of the Series. He won National League batting titles in 1985 and 1990, and won 3 Gold Gloves, making 4 All-Star Games.
He reached the postseason with the Cardinals (1982 World Championship, 1985 NL Pennant, 1987 Pennant), the Oakland Athletics (1990 AL Pennant), the Boston Red Sox (1995 AL East title), and the Cardinals again (1996 NL Central title). The Cards elected him to their team Hall of Fame, and, while it is not officially retired, they have not handed out his Number 51 since he retired after the 1999 season. With a .295 batting average and 2,254 hits, he is a borderline case for the Hall of Fame.
November 2, 1960: George Weiss‚ recently turned 66‚ resigns as general manager of the Yankees. He had seen the firing of manager Casey Stengel by co-owners Dan Topping and Del Webb, and figured he was next, so he "got out of Dodge."
He said the Yankee farm system was drying up, and no one knew that better than he did: He'd built it, and seen Topping and Webb tell him, year after year, to trade prospects for a player or two who could help them win the Pennant in a given year. He said, at the time, that he gave the Yankees 5 years before they all fell apart. In the next 4 years, they won the Pennant. In the 5th, 1965, they crashed to 6th place.
Weiss is in the Hall of Fame, for having been GM for 11 Pennants and 8 World Championships, and for having been farm system director for 8 Pennants and 7 World Championships before that. But don't expect to see him ever get a Plaque in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park: He was hated by the players for being so cheap, and was very much a racist. He's one of those "He was great at what he did, but... " figures in sports history.
He should not be confused with George David Weiss, who, in 1961, would write 2 classics of the early Rock and Roll Era: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tokens, and "Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley.
Also on this day, Bruce Robert Baumgartner is born in Haledon, Passaic County, New Jersey. The wrestler -- a real wrestler, not that fake WWE crap -- won a Gold Medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, a Silver Medal in 1988 at Seoul, another Gold Medal in 1992 at Barcelona, and a Bronze Medal at 1996 in Atlanta. He is now the athletic director at Edinboro University, outside Erie, Pennsylvania.
November 2, 1962: Derek Mountfield (no middle name) is born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. A centreback, he was part of the mini-dynasty at hometown soccer team Everton, winning the 1984 FA Cup, the Football League title in 1985 and 1987, and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1985.
After managing in England's lower divisions and in Ireland, he is now what we would call a high school gym teacher.
November 2, 1963: The football team at the U.S. Naval Academy, ranked Number 4 in the nation, travels to South Bend, Indiana to play the University of Notre Dame. Led by quarterback Roger Staubach, about to win the Heisman Trophy on his way to a Hall of Fame career with the Dallas Cowboys (after fulfilling his service commitment in 1969), the Midshipmen beat the Fighting Irish 35-14.
Navy rise to Number 2, and win their annual get-together with Army, but lose to Number 1 Texas in the Cotton Bowl, costing them the National Championship. Not only have they never approached the national Top 10 again, but they never beat Notre Dame again until 2007, losing 43 straight seasons, an NCAA Division I-A record. Only 5 times in those 43 years did they even come within a touchdown's worth of points.
November 2, 1964: Desmond Kevin Armstrong is born in Washington, D.C. A right back, he played in the Major Indoor Soccer League for the Cleveland Force and the Baltimore Blast. He represented the U.S. at the 1988 Olympics and the 1990 World Cup, and was a member of the 1st U.S. team to win a major tournament, the 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
He went on to become a broadcaster, including for ABC at the 1994 World Cup on home soil. He is now technical director of FC Columbus, and a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
November 2, 1966: David Lawrence Schwimmer is born in Flushing, Queens, New York City, and grows up in the Beverly Hills section of Los Angeles. He is best known for playing anthropologist Dr. Ross Geller on Friends.
What does he have to do with sports? On a 1994 episode, he got hit in the nose by a flying puck at a Ranger game. On a 1996 episode, he and Courteney Cox, as Ross' sister Monica, were opposing team captains in a street football game played on Thanksgiving, a result still in dispute. On a 1998 episode, to impress his British girlfriend, Emily Waltham, played by Helen Baxendale, Ross played rugby with some of her fellow British expatriates. This was a mistake. In 2017, he played Robert Kardashian Sr., one of O.J. Simpson's lawyers, on American Crime Story.
Also on this day, the Batman TV series airs the episode "Hizzoner the Penguin." The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) opposes Gotham City's Mayor Linseed (Byron Keith), an obvious variation on New York's Mayor John Lindsay, for re-election. (They also parodied Governor Nelson Rockefeller with "Governor Stonefellow.")
Linseed knows he can't win, so he asks Batman (Adam West) to run, with himself as Deputy Mayor. Once Batman wins, he can then resign, and Linseed can legally regain the office. Despite the Penguin's dirty tricks -- the 2nd part of the 2-parter is titled "Dizzoner the Penguin" -- it works.
November 2, 1968, 50 years ago: The Bronze Boot is first awarded to the winner of the rivalry game between Colorado State University and the University of Wyoming, a game nicknamed The Border War. Wyoming wins the game, 46-14.
Colorado State dominated the rivalry for a long time, going 35-5-5 from 1899 to 1948. But, thanks to Coach Wyatt, Wyoming took over, dominating the Rams 19-4 from 1950 to 1973. Since then, it's been much more even. Since the Boot was established in 1968, Wyoming's lead is 27-24, having made it 3 straight wins earlier this season. Overall, Colorado State leads 58-47-5.
November 2, 1971: The Baltimore Orioles' Pat Dobson pitches a no-hitter against the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Giants‚ winning 2-0 at Korakuen Stadium. It is the 1st no-hitter in the history of exhibition games between Japanese and American teams. The Orioles compile a record of 12-2-4 on the tour.
November 2, 1972: Former Boston Red Sox shortstop Freddy Parent dies at the age of 96. Parent had been the last surviving player from the 1st modern World Series between Boston and Pittsburgh in 1903. He was also the last surviving player from the first Pennant race between the teams now known as the Yankees and the Red Sox, in 1904.
November 2, 1973: Alfred Earle "Greasy" Neale dies in Lake Worth, Florida at age 81. An outfielder, he played in the major leagues from 1916 to 1924, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds, winning the 1919 World Series.
But he became better known for football. A 2-way end who played in the Ohio League before the NFL existed, he went on to coach at the University of Virginia in the 1920s and West Virginia University in the 1930s. For a time, he was coaching on the staff of Yale University, alongside future President Gerald Ford. From 1941 to 1950, he coached the Philadelphia Eagles, leading them to the 1948 and 1949 NFL Championships.
Also on this day, "Piano Man" by Billy Joel is released as a single. The album of the same title is released 7 days later. It was not a big hit, only reaching Number 25 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart early in 1974. But it launched Billy's career.
After the failure of his 1971 album Cold Spring Harbor, Billy stayed in Los Angeles where he'd recorded it, and got a job playing piano at the Executive Room, a bar in the Wilshire district on the West Side of Los Angeles. For legal reasons, he couldn't use his real name, so William Martin Joel became "Bill Martin." (He couldn't be "Billy Martin," because baseball.) Everybody in the song was a real person, including Billy's 1st wife, Elizabeth Weber, who also worked there: "And the waitress is practicing politics."
When legal matters were resolved, and Billy and Columbia Records were finally able to join forces, he recorded the song, and it came out at 5 minutes and 38 seconds. Just 8 years after Bob Dylan topped 6 minutes with "Like a Rolling Stone," Columbia (owned by CBS) cut the 2nd half of the 2nd verse and the 1st half of the 3rd verse; John the bartender's belief that he could be a movie star, Paul the real-estate novelist, and Davey who was still in the Navy, didn't make the final cut.
And a promotional version of the single was cut even further. So when Billy recorded his next album, Streetlife Serenade, it included "The Entertainer," in which he sang, "It took me years to write it. They were the best years of my life. It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long. 'If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit.' So they cut it down to 3:05."
Of course, Billy sings it at every show, including the 100-plus times he's sold Madison Square Garden out. He sang it at the 1st rock concert at the old Yankee Stadium in 1990. He sang it at the last concert at Shea Stadium in 2008.
During the 2013 World Series, he sang the National Anthem before one of the Citi Field games. As they usually do, the Mets played it in the middle of the 8th inning, and everybody sang along, and a camera was put on Billy -- who, being a Yankee Fan, felt out of place, anyway -- and the look on his face said, "People, this is not a happy singalong song." It could be worse: The Red Sox use "Sweet Caroline."
In 2011, deciding that those people didn't deserve to be left hanging, I wrote an unofficial sequel for the song-parody website Amiright.com. Billy goes back (in real life, he can't, as the place closed years ago), and the old man is still there, and remembers that the song he couldn't quite recall was "I Only Have Eyes for You." John now owns the bar, able to buy it because Billy made the place famous. Paul is a best-selling novelist, who leaves the real estate to his wife. Davey went to SEAL training and killed Osama bin Laden. The waitress went back home, and her political practice paid off: She was elected Mayor. The piano is still there, and it's kept in tune. The microphone, of course, still smells like a beer.
November 2, 1974: The Atlanta Braves trade Hank Aaron to the team that replaced them in Milwaukee, the Brewers, for outfielder Dave May and a minor league pitcher to be named later. Aaron will finish his major league career in Milwaukee‚ where he started it in 1954.
Later that off-season, Aaron‚ the Home Run King of American baseball‚ and Yomiyuri Giants star Sadaharu Oh‚ his Japanese counterpart‚ square off for a home run hitting contest at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo. Aaron wins 10-9. Aaron finishes his major league career with 755 home runs, Oh finishes his Japanese Leagues' career with 868. How many Oh would have hit in the North American majors is a mystery.
Also on this day, the Rutgers football team loses 9-7 to Connecticut at Rutgers Stadium. They will not lose another "home game" for nearly 3 years, until Penn State beat them at the Meadowlands on September 2, 1977. They won't lose again at Rutgers Stadium for 4 years, until November 25, 1978, against Colgate University.
Also on this day, Orlando Luis Cabrera is born in Cartagena, Colombia. A shortstop, he played in the major leagues from 1997 to 2011, reaching the postseason with the Boston Red Sox, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins and the Cincinnati Reds.
He won 2 Gold Gloves, and was the starting shortstop on the 2004 World Champion * Red Sox. He was also the last out in Yankee pitcher David Cone's perfect game against the Montreal Expos on July 18, 1999.
November 2, 1975: A surreal event takes place at Madison Square Garden. The New York Rangers had traded popular goaltender Eddie Giacomin to the Detroit Red Wings, sparking outrage among their fans. As it happened, the Rangers' next home game was against the Wings.
Seeing Giacomin in not the white jersey with the blue Number 1, but the red jersey with the white Number 31, the Garden crowd chanted, "Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE!" all night long, and actually booed the Rangers when they scored.
The Red Wings won, 6-4, and, for perhaps the only time in Madison Square Garden history, the home fans cheered a visiting team's victory.
It was the end of an era that had seen the Rangers rise to championship contention, but the closest they'd gotten to the Stanley Cup was the 1972 Finals, losing to the Boston Bruins in 6 games. They were knocked out of the previous season's Playoffs by a 3rd-year expansion team, the suburban Islanders.
Just 9 days after The Giacomin Game, they would trade Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. The Rangers would miss the Playoffs in 1976 and '77, before bouncing back in '78 and reaching the Finals in '79.
With new management coming in, the Rangers made peace with Eddie, and retired his Number 1 in 1990.
November 2, 1976: Former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia edges incumbent President Gerald Ford, to reclaim the White House for the Democrats. New Jersey voters approve casino gambling in Atlantic City -- which will one day have repercussions in another Presidential race, as Donald Trump will run in 2016 despite building 3 casino-hotels in A.C., and having them all go bankrupt. Some businessman he is.
Also on this day, Sidney Alton Ponson is born in Noord, Aruba, making him a citizen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He pitched in the major leagues from 198 to 2003, including brief stints with the Yankees in 2006 and 2008.
He reached the postseason with the 2003 San Francisco Giants and the 2006 Yankees, but never reached a League Championship Series. His career record was 91-113.
November 2, 1977: Arsenal acquire forward Alan Sunderland - not from Sunderland A.F.C. in England's North-East, but from Birmingham-area side Wolverhampton Wanderers, with whom he'd won the 1974 League Cup.
The Yorkshireman with the red Afro and the "Seventies porn star mustache" had his best season in 1978-79. Two days before Christmas, Arsenal played away to their North London Arch Rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, and Sunderland became only the 2nd, and remains the last, Arsenal player to score 3 goals in a game against Spurs. In the FA Cup, he knocked Wolves out with a goal in the Semifinal, and then scored the 89th minute goal that beat Manchester United in the Final at Wembley Stadium.
He is now 65, and lives in Malta, the island nation in the Mediterranean Sea. Every year, when the FA Cup Final comes around, so does a joke: Alan Sunderland never played for Sunderland, 1981 Final hero Ricky Villa never played for Aston Villa, and Danny Shittu never played for Tottenham.
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November 2, 1980: John Amirante sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" before a New York Rangers game for the 1st time. The Rangers beat the Los Angels Kings 6-3.
Amirante was born and raised in the Bronx, went to Cardinal Hayes High School, and sang with the school's dance band.By night, he would sing in The Bronx and Yonkers. By day, he would work as a design engineer for a naval architecture firm owned by Dr. John J. McMullen.
McMullen was one of the "limited partners" that helped George Steinbrenner buy the Yankees in 1973, and he would later say, "There is nothing so limited as being one of George's limited partners." But on July 4, 1978, George's birthday, McMullen brought Amirante to George's birthday party, and Amirante sang for him. George liked him, and they were friends for life.
But it would be the Mets that would be the first team to have him sing the National Anthem before a game, in 1979. He sent his audition tape to the Madison Square Garden Corporation, and in 1980, they hired him to sing before 3 Ranger games and 3 Knick games. They kept him on for 37 years.
From 1981 to 1985, he also sang the Anthem at some Yankee games, usually alternating with Robert Merrill, the legendary Metropolitan Opera singer from Brooklyn. By this point, McMullen had sold his share of the Yankees, and bought the Houston Astros. He'd also bought the NHL's Colorado Rockies, moved them to the Meadowlands, and renamed them the New Jersey Devils. He asked Amirante to sing the Anthem for their 1st game, on October 5, 1982, a 3-3 tie with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
McMullen asked him to sing for the Devils full-time, but he turned it down, saying, "I gotta stay where my faith is, and that's with the Rangers." He later said, "I wanted to be in The World's Most Famous Arena."
On December 23, 1992, I attended my 1st live NHL game. I'd like to tell you that I heard John Amirante sing the National Anthem. But that wouldn't be true, because I couldn't hear him: 18,000 Ranger fans yelled and drowned him out. When they finally won the Stanley Cup after 54 years, on June 14, 1994, Ranger broadcaster Sam Rosen said he'd never heard The Garden so loud as when he sang before Game 7.
John Amirante died on April 17, 2018, at age 83.
November 2, 1981: M*A*S*H airs the episode "Identity Crisis." Joe Pantoliano plays an Irish-American soldier who masquerades as a Jewish buddy he saw killed, having taken his dogtags. This backfires when the doctors give him the blood type on the tags, which isn't his, and he nearly dies. Father Mulcahy (William Christopher) convinces him to come clean. And this is one of the less creepy roles in the career of the actor known as Joey Pants.
November 2, 1986: The book Happy Birthday, Cookie Monster, by Felice Haus, is published earlier in the year. In the book, the Sesame Street character's birthday is mentioned as being November 2. Since this children's book was given the official sanction of the series' producers, the birthday is considered canon, although Cookie Monster's age is not mentioned, so we don't know what year he was born.
November 2, 1989: Stevan Jovetić is born in Titograd, Yugoslavia -- now Podgorica, the capital of the independent nation of Montenegro. He is probably the greatest soccer player that nation has ever produced.
The forward helped Partizan Belgrade win the Double, the Serbian SuperLiga and the Serbian Cup, in 2008. He helped Manchester City win the Premier League and the League Cup (or, as I like to call it, the Baby Double) in 2014. He now plays for AS Monaco.
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November 2, 1994: Jonathan Stanley Loáisiga Estrada is born in Managua, Nicaragua. Known professionally as Jonathan Loasiga, and nicknamed "Lasagna," the righthanded pitcher made his major league debut with the Yankees in the 2018 season, making 9 appearances, including 4 starts. He went 2-0, but his ERA was 5.11 and his WHIP 1.541. If he's going to help make the difference for the Yankees in 2019 and beyond, his control will need to improve.
November 2, 1995: The Yankees name Joe Torre as their new manager‚ replacing Buck Showalter. Torre had been a good catcher in the 1960s, a decent 1st baseman in the early 1970s, and a very good hitter throughout his playing career. His managing was another matter. He managed the Mets in the late 1970s, and he didn't have much to work with. He managed the Atlanta Braves in the early 1980s, and got them to a Division title in 1982 and almost to another in 1983, but that was it. He managed the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1990s, and didn't get too far.
The Cardinals fired him in 1995, and he thought he'd never manage again. "I'd run out of teams," he said, noting that he'd played for 3 teams, and managed all of them. He'd been a broadcaster between his Braves and Cardinals jobs, and figured he'd go back into the broadcast booth, and that's how he'd finish out his days in baseball.
Then George Steinbrenner called to offer him the Yankee managing job. Joe had never played in the American League, let alone managed in it. But George thought he was the guy. The New York Daily News didn't think so: Citing his lackluster managerial record up until then, and also the circus that tended to surround Steinbrenner, especially where managers were concerned, they printed the headline "CLUELESS JOE."
You know the rest of the story. World Champions in his 1st season, 1996. Wild Card in 1997. World Champions in 1998, winning more games than any team ever had in a regular season and postseason combined, 125, including a 4-game sweep in the World Series. World Champions in 1999, including the best postseason record of the 1995-present Division Series era, 11-1. World Champions in 2000, beating the Mets in the World Series. American League Champions in 2001, missing another title by 1 run. Division Champions in 2002. AL Champions in 2003, with the dramatic AL Championship Series win over the Boston Red Sox.
Then, of course, the downturn, the kind of things that the Daily News probably expected when it printed the headline. A shocking ALCS loss in 2004. Pathetic performances in the AL Division Series in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Joe got lowballed by George's heirs, of both the family and the business variety: His sons Hank and Hal, Yankee brass Randy Levine and Lonn Trost, and general manager Brian Cashman. He walked out, and managed the Los Angeles Dodgers to a pair of Division titles, before taking a job in Major League Baseball's office.
Joe and the House of Steinbrenner made up. He's been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and is honored in Monument Park at the new Yankee Stadium.
The Daily News called him "CLUELESS JOE." They get reminded of that more than they do of "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."
November 2, 1995 was also the day Seinfeld aired the episode "The Soup Nazi." Happy Anniversary, Schmoopie!
November 2, 1996: Saturday Night Live debuts the sketch "The Culps." Will Ferrell plays balding, bearded Marty Culp, and Ana Gasteyer plays his wife Bobbi Mohan-Culp, middle school music teachers who are hopelessly unhip. The sketch runs for 6 years, and it never becomes good. The Will Ferrell era really was the worst of SNL.
November 2, 1999: The Texas Rangers trade outfielder Juan Gonzalez‚ pitcher Danny Patterson and catcher Gregg Zaun to the Detroit Tigers for pitchers Justin Thompson‚ Alan Webb and Francisco Cordero‚ outfielder Gabe Kapler‚ catcher Bill Haselman‚ and infielder Frank Catalanotto. The trade of "Juan Gone" is the beginning of the breakup of the Rangers' 1st postseason team, winners of 3 of the last 4 AL West titles.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners announce that superstar Ken Griffey Jr. is requesting a trade closer to his home. The Mariners agree to try to trade him during the off-season. The superstar outfielder will get his wish in February when Seattle trades him to the Reds for Mike Cameron, Antonio Perez and Brett Tomko, and minor leager Jake Meyer.
Of course, Cincinnati, where his father Ken Griffey Sr. once played, isn't all that close to Junior's adopted hometown of Orlando, Florida.
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November 2, 2001: A statue of head coach Joe Paterno is dedicated outside the east stand of Beaver Stadium on the campus of Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. It calls him "Joseph Vincent Paterno: Educator, Coach, Humanitarian."
On July 22, 2012, 6 months after his death, and 8 months after the scandal that forever tarnished his name, the statue was removed, since it was being called a roadblock in the healing process.
November 2, 2004: A groundskeeper finds a grenade in the Wrigley Field turf. Police bomb and arson investigators are called to evaluate the right field discovery. The rusty, hollowed-out shell turns out to be harmless, and its origins remain a mystery.
Also on this day, George W. Bush achieves -- due to shenanigans in Ohio, I won't say "wins" -- a 2nd term as President, defeating the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts. Although Kerry was a rich liberal Catholic from Massachusetts with the initials JFK, and as a young man had met President John F. Kennedy, he was no Jack Kennedy.
During the campaign, Bush ran as the man who was fighting to avenge the 9/11 attacks, while his fellow Republicans mocked Kerry for saying that Democratic leadership could "reduce terrorism to the level of a nuisance."
By 2016, after 8 years of Barack Obama as President, 4 years of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and 4 years of Kerry himself as Secretary of State, Kerry had been proven correct: They have reduced terrorism, at least against American targets, at home and abroad, to the level of a nuisance.
November 2, 2005: Andrew Bynum, a native of Plainsboro, Mercer County, New Jersey, plays 6 minutes for the Los Angeles Lakers in their season opener, against the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center, becoming the youngest NBA player ever: 18 years and 6 days old. The Lakers won, 99-97.
Ironically, but appropriately, the center had been personally instructed in the preseason by Laker legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had once been thought to have been the NBA's oldest player ever. Kareem was 42 when he bowed out after the 1989 Finals, but later research showed that Pat Hickey, who played with the Providence Steamrollers in the league's 1st 2 seasons, was just short of 46 when he last played in 1948.
Bynum is now 30, but his record still stands. He won NBA Championships with the Lakers in 2009 and '10, and was an NBA All-Star in 2012. But injuries have rendered his career apparently over, well before it should have been. But then, he does have 2 titles, and I don't think we'll be seeing any more 18-year-olds playing in the NBA -- certainly not for a team with a pedigree anywhere near the Lakers'.
November 2, 2009: Game 5 of the World Series. Trying to stave off elimination at home at the hands of the Yankees, the defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies back Cliff Lee with a 6-1 lead after 3 innings, thanks to 2 home runs by Chase Utley (a future Met villain) and another by Raul Ibanez (a future Yankee hero). Utley's shots tie him with Reggie Jackson for the record for most home runs in a single World Series: 5.
The Phillies lead 8-2 after 7, but the Yankees come storming back, and close to within 8-6 with the tying runs on in the 9th. As the Fox cameras panned Citizens Bank Park, I could see the looks on the faces of Phillies fans. They weren't thinking of how they'd won the Series the year before, or in 1980. Most of them remembered the Series defeat of 1993. Many remembered the Playoff disaster of 1977. Some remembered September "Phillie Phlop" of 1964. They all at least knew of the earlier team disasters. They all seemed to be saying, "Oh, no, it's happening again!"
But Ryan Madson gets the final out for the save, and the Phillies would play Game 6 in New York 2 nights later.
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November 2, 2010: Clyde King dies in his hometown of Goldsboro, North Carolina. He was 86. A mediocre major league pitcher, he won Pennants with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and 1952, being in their minor-league system during the Pennant season of 1949 and traded to the Cincinnati Reds before their 1953 Pennant.
He managed the San Francisco Giants in 1969-70, the Atlanta Braves in 1974-75, and the Yankees for the last 2 months of the turbulent 1982 season. He was also Yankee general manager in 1985 and '86. From 1976 until 1990, he worked in various capacities for the Yankees, as one of what George Steinbrenner called "my baseball people."
Unfortunately, most Yankee fans will forever remember him for being the guy George sent to Yogi Berra's office to fire him as manager early in the 1985 season, because George was too cowardly to do his own dirty work. Yogi never blamed Clyde for doing George's job at that moment, and wouldn't have blamed George if he had done it himself. But George wouldn't do it himself, and it It took 14 years to heal the breach between them.
November 2, 2013: The Vancouver Canucks retire the Number 10 of Pavel Bure, and beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-0 at the Rogers Arena.
On the same day, the Colorado Avalanche retire the Number 52 of Adam Foote, and beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 at the Pepsi Center.
On the same day, Walt Bellamy dies in the Atlanta suburb of College Park, Georgia at age 74. The Basketball Hall-of-Famer starred at Indiana University while Bobby Knight was an opponent, at Ohio State. He was a member of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
"Bells" was an original 1961-62 member of the Chicago Packers -- yes, NFL fans, that was a real name -- and won the NBA Rookie of the Year with them that season. He moved with them in 1963 to become the Baltimore Bullets. It is now known as the Washington Wizards. He became a Knick in 1965, and in 1968 was traded to the Detroit Pistons for Dave DeBusschere, the most important trade in Knick history. A 4-time All-Star, he played out his career with the Atlanta Hawks and the expansion New Orleans Jazz in 1974.
November 2, 2014: Herman Sarkowsky dies in Seattle at age 89. Fleeing Nazi Germany with his Jewish family, he became the largest housebuilder in the Pacific Northwest. In 1970, he founded the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, selling them in 1975. In 1976, he and the Nordstrom family of department-store fame founded the NFL's Seattle Seahawks. He sold his stake in 1988.
November 2, 2016: To paraphrase Shirley Povich of The Washington Post, when the Brooklyn Dodgers finally did it 61 years earlier...
Please don't interrupt, because, unless you are over the age of 110, you have not heard this one before: The Chicago Cubs are the world champions of baseball.
Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, played at Progressive Field in Cleveland, was not a great game. Indeed, it was very sloppy. But it was great theater. Dexter Fowler, Javier Baez and David Ross hit home runs for the Cubs, and Rajai Davis hit one for the Cleveland Indians. But the Cubs made 3 errors, the Indians 1. The Cubs blew leads of 1-0 in the 3rd inning, and 6-3 in the 8th, and their fans must have thought that it was never going to happen, even though they had already come back from being 3 games to 1 down.
The game went to extra innings, and then it rained. So each of these seemingly cursed teams -- the Cubs hadn't won a World Series since 1908, the Indians since 1948 -- had, at least in theory, an equal chance.
Kyle Schwarber led off the top of the 10th with a single, and was replaced by pinch-runner Albert Almora. Kris Bryant flew out to center, but Almora got gutsy, and tagged up and got to 2nd. Anthony Rizzo was walked intentionally to set up the double play, but the strategy didn't work: Ben Zobrist hit an RBI double into the left field corner, the biggest hit in the Cubs' 142-season history. Addison Russell was walked intentionally, and Miguel Montero singled him home to make it 8-6. Cub fans could feel it finally happening after 108 years.
But the Indians weren't going down without a fight. In the bottom of the 10th, after Carl Edwards Jr. pitched the Cubs to within 1 out of glory, he walked Brandon Guyer, who took 2nd on defensive indifference.
Davis singled him home to make it 8-7, and Cub fans were staring at the choke to end all chokes, the Billy Goatiest Curse of the Billy Goat ever. But manager Joe Maddon brought Mike Montgomery on to relieve, and he got Michael Martinez to ground to 3rd, and Bryant threw him out to end it.
Thankfully, I have yet to see any evidence that Cub fans have followed up the end to their drought by acting like bastards, the way Red Sox fans did after 2004 and New York Ranger fans did after 1994.
November 2, 2042, only 24 years from today: According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
episode "If Wishes Were Horses," this was the day that baseball died.
It was Game 7 of the World Series, and only 300 people attended, perhaps a side effect of World War III having gone on since 2026 (only 8 years from now), in the Star Trek chronology. Buck Bokai hit a home run, and the London Kings won.
I am a devoted Trekkie. Not so much that I dress up (or "cosplay") and go to conventions, but enough that I dismiss the J.J. Abrams films of 2009-16 and the current CBS series Star Trek: Discovery as "alternate timelines" and "non-canon." But one big problem I have with Star Trek is their account of the death of baseball, at a time when I could well still be alive. (I would be 72 years old.)
In contrast, another science-fiction series of the 1990s, Space Precinct, showed the 42,000-seat Tokyo Dome jammed with spectators for Game 1 of the 2040 World Series between the Yankees and the Yomiuri Giants. I'd much prefer that scenario.