It's September 28, the earliest date in the year -- except for the World War I-shortened season of 1918 -- that a World Series game has been played. But, this time, because it takes so much time, I've decided to no longer do the long lists, and concentrate only on milestone years (10th, 25th, 50th, 100th, and so on), and special games in regular-season or postseason baseball history to see which players are still alive.
September 28, 1951, 70 years ago: A sweep of a doubleheader with the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium means the Yankees will clinch the Pennant. They win the 1st game 8-0, as Allie Reynolds pitches his 2nd no-hitter of his career -- and his 2nd of the season, having blanked the Cleveland Indians on July 12. He is backed by home runs by Joe Collins and Gene Woodling.
The part-Cherokee fireballer known as the Superchief was the 1st AL pitcher to throw 2 no-hitters in a season. The only other major league pitchers to do it, through 2019: Johnny Vander Meer of the 1938 Cincinnati Reds (the only back-to-back no-hitters in MLB history), Virgil Trucks of the 1952 Detroit Tigers (one of them against the Yankees), Roy Halladay of the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies (one a perfect game, the other in the Playoffs), and Max Scherzer of the 2015 Washington Nationals.
The last out Allie needed for the 2nd no-hitter was Ted Williams, often called "the greatest hitter who ever lived." Allie got the Splendid Splinter to pop up in foul territory, but catcher Yogi Berra dropped it. Yogi goes to the mound to apologize, but Allie says, "Don't worry, Yogi, we'll get him again." He was right: He induced another pop-up, but Yogi caught this one.
Charlie "Paw Paw" Maxwell, later an All-Star 3rd baseman for the Detroit Tigers, is the last surviving player from this game, 70 years later. Yogi was the last surviving Yankee from it, living until 2015.
The nightcap was not as spectacular, but no less effective: A Pennant-clinching 11-3 win. Vic Raschi was the winning pitcher, backed by a home run by Joe DiMaggio, the 361st of his career -- and, as it turned out, his last in regular-season play. He would hit 1 more in the upcoming World Series, and then retire.
Other Major League Baseball games played on this Friday:
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-3 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. With the New York Giants not scheduled, this drops the Dodgers, who had been 13 1/2 games ahead of the Giants on August 11, into a tie for 1st place in the National League. The season will end with them tied, forcing a Playoff. And if you don't know how that turned out, you're too young to know baseball history, and/or you're too ignorant to be reading this blog.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.
* And the Chicago White Sox swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The Pale Hose won the opener, 6-2; and the nightcap, 4-3 in 10 innings.
Also on this day, David Christopher Rajsich is born in Youngstown, Ohio, about halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. A lefthanded pitcher, he was with the Yankees in their 1978 World Championship season, and then pitched 2 seasons for the Texas Rangers and 1 more in Japan. He is now a pitching coach in the San Francisco Giants' system.
Also on this day, Christian Marlowe (no middle name) is born outside Los Angeles in Santa Monica, California. A volleyball star at San Diego State University, Chris Marlowe kept playing after college, and helped the U.S. team win the Gold Medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Since then, he has broadcast for the NBA's Denver Nuggets. He is a member of the U.S. Volleyball Hall of Fame, San Diego State's Aztec Hall of Fame, and the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
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September 28, 1821, 200 years ago: The Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire is drafted in the National Palace in Mexico City. Mexico becomes independent from the Spanish Empire after a long war.
Nowhere in that declaration is it written that their national soccer team won't be full of players who dive, or have fans who will avoid bigoted chants.
September 28, 1901, 120 years ago: The American League's 1st season ends. The Chicago White Stockings (later renamed the White Sox) win the Pennant by 4 games over the Boston Americans (Red Sox), 8 1/2 over the Detroit Tigers, 9 over the Philadelphia Athletics, 13 1/2 over the Baltimore Orioles (the team that would fold the next year, making the franchise that became the Yankees possible), 20 1/2 over the Washington Senators, 29 over the Cleveland Bluebirds (later the Indians), and 35 1/2 over the Milwaukee Brewers (no relation to the current team of that name, this one became the St. Louis Browns the next season and the new Baltimore Orioles in 1954).
The White Stockings are managed by a Chicago baseball hero, and still an ace pitcher, Clark Griffith, who had starred for the earlier White Stockings of the National League, now called the Cubs. In 1903, he will be named the 1st manager of the New York Highlanders, to be renamed the Yankees in 1903.
Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, 2nd baseman of the Athletics, leads the League in just about every offensive category, including batting average (.426, an AL record that still stands), home runs (14), and runs batted in (125), giving him the AL's 1st Triple Crown.
Also on this day, The Gillette Company is founded in Boston by King C. Gillette, to make safety razors. It has long had a sponsorship agreement with Major League Baseball, and from 1977 to 1998 was the main sponsor of This Week In Baseball, a.k.a. The Greatest TV Show That Has Ever Existed. Or so it seemed to a boy who didn't have cable and couldn't watch highlights on ESPN.
In 2002, after CMGI went bust, taking the naming rights with it, Gillette bought the naming rights to the New England Patriots' new stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. It has been Gillette Stadium ever since. In 2005, Gillette has been owned by Procter & Gamble.
Also on this day, the Battle of Balangiga takes place in the Philippines. The "Philippine Campaign" has been more or less written out of American history, but it was America's 1st land war in Asia.
The sides were about evenly matched, about 500 men on each side. The Philippine side ambushed the U.S. 9th Infantry, killing 54 against 28 of their own losses. At the time, it was considered the U.S. Army's worst defeat since the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. U.S. forces retaliated, and concluded the war in victory on July 2, 1902.
Also on this day, William Samuel Paley is born in Chicago. With his father, his brother-in-law, and some other partners, he bought a small chain of radio stations, and in 1928 he turned them into the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the 2nd major radio network in America, after NBC. In 1947, again following NBC, he made it the 2nd major TV network in America. CBS Sports became a major shaper of how we view sports in America, particularly with its football broadcasts, both college and the NFL.
On the exact same day, another key CBS figure arrived: Edward Vincent Sullivan is born in the Harlem section of Upper Manhattan -- at the time, not yet America's foremost black neighborhood. In 1947, with CBS having televised the New York Daily News' Harvest Moon Ball, Paley noticed the host, then the paper's Broadway columnist, and hired him to do a Sunday night variety show, Toast of the Town. In 1955, it was renamed what everybody was calling it anyway: The Ed Sullivan Show. From then until it was canceled in 1971, it was the biggest show on television.
Ed loved vaudeville, and put vaudeville-style acts on his show, including bringing in such acts from all over the world. But he stayed current: After first insisting that he would never have Elvis Presley, the biggest star of 1956, on his show, he relented, and hosted Elvis 3 times. In 1963, he visited England, saw the fuss over the Beatles, signed them, and on February 9, 1964, got 73 million viewers to see them -- at the time, a record for a single network's telecast. He also signed black performers and edgier rock performers when few other variety show hosts would.
What did he have to do with sports? He was a tremendous sports fan, especially of boxing. As with great entertainers, when a great athlete was in the audience, he would interrupt the show and introduce them, and ask them to stand and wave to the audience.
On March 2, 1969, a day after Mickey Mantle announced his retirement from baseball, he invited Mickey to come onto the show, and allowed him to explain why: "Well, it got to where I couldn't hit anymore," he half-joked.
On October 19 of that year, 3 days after the Mets won their "Miracle" World Series, he brought the whole team onstage to sing a song from a baseball-themed musical, ironically titled Damn Yankees: "You Gotta Have Heart." Each was identified with graphics, but by their full name, resulting in 3 of their pitches being listed as "G. Thomas Seaver,""Frank L. McGraw" and "L. Nolan Ryan."
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September 28, 1941, 80 years ago: Ted Williams enters the last day of the regular season with a batting average of .39955, which would have been rounded up to .400. Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offers to let him sit and protect his ".400 batting average." But the Splendid Splinter, all of 23 years old, understands what his place in baseball history would have really been, and insists on playing the doubleheader, against Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park.
He singles to right in the 2nd inning, hits a home run leading off the 5th, singles to right in the 6th, hits an RBI single to right in the 7th, and reaches on an error in the 9th, by the A's 2nd baseman -- Lawrence Columbus "Crash" Davis of Durham, North Carolina, for whom the Kevin Costner character in the movie Bull Durham would be named. So the one time he doesn't get a hit, he gets on base anyway. Despite a 9-run A's outburst in the 5th inning, the Sox win 12-11.
Ted's batting average is now .404. Even if he goes 0-for-4 in the nightcap, he will still finish at .4004. (Going 0-for-5 would have made him .39956.) He plays anyway. He singles to right in the 2nd, doubles to center in the 4th, and flies to left in the 7th.
Because Pennsylvania had only legalized professional sporting events on Sunday in 1934, and had a 7:00 PM curfew for them on Sundays, the A's were already up 7-1, and Ted's .400 was secure, it was agreed between the umpires and the managers, Cronin and Mack, that the 1st game would end after 8 innings, thus denying Ted a 4th at-bat in the game. He finishes the season with 185 hits in 456 at-bats, for a batting average of .405701754, rounded off to .406.
Ironically, the Sox pitcher in the 2nd game was former A's star Lefty Grove. It was the last appearance of a Hall of Fame career in which he went 300-141. A's pitcher Fred Caligiuri, who lived to be 100 and died in 2018, was the last living player from this doubleheader.
Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees was awarded the American League MVP. Red Sox fans, now 3 generations removed, remain angry about this. They say Ted's .406 average was a greater achievement than DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak the same season. They forget that the award is named Most Valuable Player, not Most Outstanding Player. Ted's great season did not get the Red Sox above 6th place. Joe's great season put the Yankees on a run that led to them winning the World Series.
In 1957, Ted came close to .400 again, at age 39, batting .388. In 1977, Rod Carew was over .400 for much of the season, and finished at .388. In 1980, George Brett was over .400 in September, and finished at .390. In 1994, Tony Gwynn was at .394 when the strike hit on August 12. Ted died in 2002, and since then, there have been no living human beings who have hit .400 in a season. (Bill Terry of the 1930 New York Giants, at .401, remains the last to do it in the National League.)
On the same day, Charles Robert Taylor is born outside Dallas in Grand Prairie, Texas. One of the earliest great football players at Arizona State University, Charley Taylor played 14 seasons with the Washington Redskins, including their 1972 NFC Championship and their appearance in Super Bowl VII.
He was NFL Rookie of the Year in 1964, and an 8-time Pro Bowler. When he retired in 1977, he was the NFL's all-time leader with 649 receptions and 9,110 receiving yards. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the NFL's 1960s All-Decade Team, the Washington Redskins Ring of Fame, and the Washington, D.C. Sports Hall of Fame. The Redskins do not officially retire uniform numbers (except for Sammy Baugh's 33), but Taylor's 42 remains out of circulation. He coached with the Redskins from 1981 to 1993, and is now a consultant for the team.
September 28, 1946, 75 years ago: Cliff Bastin plays for Arsenal for the last time, in a 5-2 loss to Manchester United at Old Trafford. It was a tame end to a career that saw the outside left (today, we would call him a left winger) win 5 League titles and 2 FA Cups.
The Exeter native retired at the end of the season, and ran a cafe and a pub, and wrote for the Sunday Pictorial. He lived until 1991. He would not live to see his club record of 178 goals surpassed in 1997 by Ian Wright, or Wright's 185 surpassed by Thierry Henry in 2005, eventually reaching 228.
September 28, 1947: While the Yankees officially count Lou Gehrig Day, July 4, 1939, as the 1st Old-Timers' Day, the first of the annual event at Yankee Stadium is held on this day.
Among the guests are Babe Ruth, then age 52, wearing a suit and his camel-hair coat, and appearing in spite of the cancer that will take him within a year; Ty Cobb, 61, wearing a Detroit Tigers uniform, Number 25; Tris Speaker, 59 and a coach for the Cleveland Indians, wearing his uniform, Number 43; and Cy Young, 80, who pitched for both the Indians and the old National League team, the Cleveland Spiders, wearing an Indians uniform, Number 29. Cobb, Speaker and Young all retired before numbers were regularly worn.
Left to right: The Georgia Peach, the Sultan of Swat,
and the Grey Eagle. Between them, 10,579 hits.
Also on hand were Duffy Lewis and Harry Hooper, who, with Speaker, formed the great Red Sox outfield that won the 1912 and 1915 World Series, before Speaker was traded to the Indians. With Ruth as a young pitcher, Lewis and Hooper won the Series again in 1916 and 1918. Had Walter Johnson, who died of cancer the year before, still been alive, he likely would have been invited as well, as he had pitched to Ruth in a war bond drive game in 1942.
Left to right: Cy Young, Duffy Lewis, Tris Speaker,
Harry Hooper and Ty Cobb.
There's also a regular game, the last of the regular season. The Yankees beat the Athletics, 5-3. Johnny Lindell hits a home run off Lou Brissie, the war hero who has to wear a metal plate on his shin to protect his surgically-repaired leg. The winning pitcher is Bill Wight -- not to be confused with Bill White, later a fine 1st baseman, a longtime Yankee broadcaster, and a President of the National League.
With the regular season over, Ted Williams has won the Triple Crown for the 2nd time: He batted .343, hit 32 home runs, and had 114 RBIs. Again, Joe DiMaggio leads the Yankees to the World Championship. Again, DiMaggio, not Williams, is named the AL MVP.
Also on this day, the St. Louis Browns start Dizzy Dean against the Chicago White Sox. Dean had been retired for 6 years due to an injury, and was broadcasting for the Browns. A few days earlier, frustrated with their pitching, said, on the air, "Doggone it, I can pitch better than 9 out of the 10 guys on this staff." (He never did say who the 10th guy was, the one who could pitch better.)
The Brown pitchers' wives complained to management, and they decided to put their money where Dean's mouth was. Since Dean was still only 37, they chose the last day of the season, when the spectator-poor Browns would have even more trouble than usual filling Sportsman's Park, to have Dean pitch for the Browns. It doesn't work: Attendance is only 15,910, about half the ballpark's capacity.
He goes 4 innings, and gets a hit off future Yankee All-Star Eddie Lopat, but pulls a muscle rounding 1st base, and has to leave the game. The Browns' bullpen proves Ol Diz' point as much as he does, losing the game for him: Although the game is scoreless going into the 9th inning, it ends White Sox 5, Browns 2. Lopat goes the distance for the win for the Pale Hose.
Interviewed on what would normally be his own postgame radio show, Diz says, "I said I can pitch better than 9 out of the 10 guys on this staff, and I can. But I'm done playing. Talking's my game now, and I'm glad that muscle I pulled wasn't in my throat."
He broadcast for the Cardinals from 1941 to 1946, the Browns from 1941 to 1948, the Yankees in 1950 and 1951, Mutual Broadcasting in 1952, ABC in 1953 and 1954, CBS from 1955 to 1965, and the Atlanta Braves -- probably since he was the best-known living Southern-born baseball figure -- from 1966 to 1968.
He was known for his fractured syntax ("Zarilla slud into third" being the best-remembered example), and was the template for football quarterback turned broadcaster Terry Bradshaw: The redneck who wasn't nearly so dumb as he appeared.
September 28, 1955: Game 1 of the World Series, at the original Yankee Stadium. Yes, a World Series game was played on a September 28. This was also the 1st World Series game broadcast in color, on NBC (as were all World Series from the 1st telecast of one in 1947 until 1975), although hardly anyone has a color TV set at this point, and no TV recording of it, in color or otherwise, is known to survive.
There is film footage, though. That footage shows Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers stealing home plate against the New York Yankees. Home plate umpire Bill Summers rules him safe. Yankee catcher Yogi Berra says Jackie was out, and has a fit.
Whitey Ford was pitching, and he insists to this day that Jackie was out. But Phil Rizzuto claimed that Jackie was safe, and he knew, because he was playing shortstop, and had the best view of the play.
Whitey didn't like that, so he looked it up. The steal was in the top of the 8th inning -- and in the bottom of the 6th, manager Casey Stengel had pinch-hit Eddie Robinson for the Scooter! In the top of the 7th, a new shortstop took the field: Jerry Coleman (normally a 2nd baseman). Coleman was playing short when Jackie stole home. Oops on the Scooter.
So who was right? Judge for yourself. Here's the film. It's hard to tell from there. But this photo makes it obvious: He was out! See: Yogi's mitt was between Jackie's foot and the plate.
And if the Yankees had lost the game, and the World Series, because of this, there would have been an uproar -- or, as the Dodgers' legendary broadcaster, ironically now with the Yankees, Red Barber, would have put it, a rhubarb.
But the Yankees did not lose the Series, or even the game, because of the steal. Indeed, the Yankees won the game, 6-5. Left fielder (and backup catcher) Elston Howard, a "rookie" at age 30, hit a home run off Don Newcombe in the 2nd inning, while 1st baseman Joe Collins hit 2 homers off Big Newk. Carl Furillo and Duke Snider hit home runs off Ford.
Like Carlton Fisk's home run in Game 6, 20 years later, Robinson's steal of home was a spectacular moment, but, ultimately, it had no effect on the result of the Series.
Still, stealing home plate has become Jackie Robinson's signature, along with his grace under more pressure than any American athlete has ever faced. He stole home plate 19 times in the regular season, plus this 1 time in the World Series -- still the last steal of home in a World Series game. (One of the many records that Ty Cobb set, and one that he still holds, is the most steals of home in a career: 54.) It even became a point of reference in Buddy Johnson's 1949 song about Jackie, with the Count Basie Orchestra having made the best-known recording:
Did you see Jackie Robinson hit that ball?
Did he hit it?
Yeah!
And that ain't all:
He stole home!
Yes, yes, Jackie's real gone.
"Gone" meaning "cool." Not as in "has left the vicinity" or "gone in the head." No player ever kept his head -- or had to -- as much as Jack Roosevelt Robinson of Pasadena, California (and Stamford, Connecticut).
With Ford's death last October 8, Eddie Robinson is the only player from this game who are still alive, 66 years later.
This Series was a classic, and it went to 7 games. In the end, as would be said in the Brooklynese accent, the Dodgers finally dooed it. After World Series losses in 1916, 1920, 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953 (the last 5 of those 7 against the Yankees), losses in Playoffs for the National League Pennant in 1946 and 1951 (the latter against the hated New York Giants), losing the Pennant on the final day of the regular season in 1942 and 1950, and finishing 2nd to the Giants in 1954 -- 10 close calls in a span of 14 years -- 1955 turned out to be the "Next Year" that Dodger fans from Williamsburg to Coney Island, from Morristown to Montauk, from Poughkeepsie to Point Pleasant, had waited for.
Also on this day, Donald Laurie Edwards is born in Hamilton, Ontario. With the Buffalo Sabres, "Dart" was a 2-time NHL All-Star, and won the 1980 Vezina Trophy as the NHL's top goaltender. He is still alive, and a member of the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.
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September 28, 1960: Having announced his retirement, Ted Williams plays his last game. The Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles are both way out of the American League race, which the Yankees wrapped up a few days ago. It's a Wednesday afternoon. The weather? As Ted later recalled, "Lousy day, damp." Only 10,454 fans come out to Fenway Park in Boston to say goodbye to "the greatest hitter who ever lived."
In the bottom of the 8th, the Orioles lead 4-2. with 1 out. Ted comes to bat against Jack Fisher, and cranks a home run to straightaway center field. He is easily the greatest player ever to hit a home run in his last career at-bat.
It is his 521st career home run -- at the time, good for 3rd all-time behind Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx -- and his 2,654th hit. It's hard to believe, until you see it in print, but, because he lost 5 years to military service, Ted Williams not only didn't get 3,000 hits, he didn't even get all that close. His lifetime batting average was .344, which remains the highest of any player whose career began after 1917. (Rogers Hornsby began that year, and batted .358.)
He rounds the bases with his head down, shakes hands with on-deck batter Jim Pagliaroni (later to become semi-famous as a 1969 Seattle Pilot as a result of Jim Bouton's book Ball Four), and walks back into the dugout. Fans are hoping that he will come out and tip his cap, something he swore he would never do after being abused by Boston fans early in his career. He does not. As John Updike wrote in his acclaimed New Yorker magazine piece about the game, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu, "Gods do not answer letters."
Ted's career is over, but the game is not. Carroll Hardy replaces him in left field for the 9th inning. In the bottom of the 9th, with the O's leading 4-3, Marlan Coughtry singles, Vic Wertz (yes, the man robbed by Willie Mays 6 years minus 1 day earlier) doubles him to 3rd, Pumpsie Green (the 1st black Red Sock) walks to load the bases, and Willie Tasby grounds to 2nd, where Marv Breeding mishandles the ball, allowing Coughtry and Wertz to score, giving the Red Sox a 5-4 walkoff win.
There are 7 players from this game who are still alive, 61 years later: From the Red Sox, only Willie Tasby; from the Orioles, Brooks Robinson, Jackie Brandt, Ron Hansen, Jim Gentile, Albie Pearson, and the pitcher who gave up the home run, Jack Fisher. (Red Sock Don Gile died earlier this year.)
September 28, 1961, 60 years ago: Steve Hamilton (born "Steven" with no middle name) is born in Niagara Falls, New York. A defensive end, he played 5 seasons in the NFL, all with the Washington Redskins, including winning Super Bowl XXII. He is still alive.
September 28, 1968: Mickey Mantle plays what turns out to be his last major league game. It's an unseasonably warm early Autumn Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park in Boston, the next-to-last day of a season that sees both teams, the Yankees and the hosts and Pennant holders, the Boston Red Sox, well out of the American League race, which has been won by the Detroit Tigers. Nevertheless, a decent crowd of 25,534 comes out, possibly suspecting that it might be Mickey's last game -- 15,000 more than came to see off hometown hero Ted Williams 8 years to the day earlier.
In the top of the 1st inning, Mantle comes to bat against Jim Lonborg, the previous season's AL Cy Young Award winner, with Horace Clarke on 1st base and 1 out. Clarke steals 2nd, but that doesn't help Mantle much: He pops up to short left field, where the ball is caught by Sox shortstop Rico Petrocelli -- with some irony, a New York native (from Brooklyn).
Mickey gets another standing ovation. In the bottom of the 1st, instead of Mickey, the player who goes out to play 1st base is Andy Kosco. Manager Ralph Houk had switched center fielder Mantle and 1st baseman Joe Peptione at the start of the 1967 season, to ease the strain on Mickey's legs. Had there been a designated hitter at the time, it would have been Mickey.
Mel Stottlemyre gives up 3 runs on 3 hits and 5 walks in 6 innings. Lindy McDaniel pitches perfect ball the rest of the way. With some irony, it is Mantle's replacements who are the home run heroes, Kosco and Pepitone. The Yankees win, 4-3.
The teams close out the season the next day. Kosco starts at 1st, and again the Yankees win 4-3. The following March 1, having defied the rumors of his retirement long enough to go to Spring Training in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Mickey realizes, at age 37, that it's just too much for him, and announces his retirement.
He finishes with a .298 lifetime batting average, 2,415 hits including 536 home runs, 12 Pennants and 7 World Series. For perspective, in their entire history, 1901 to 2017, the Red Sox have won 13 Pennants and 8 World Series.
It has now been more than half a century since Mickey Mantle played a regular-season game. So, if you remember him as an active player, you are, at the least, in your late 50s. If you remember him in his prime, you're either on Social Security and Medicare, or close to it.
I got to see Mickey Mantle on Old-Timers' Days. So I did get to see Mickey Mantle in his Pinstriped uniform Number 7. But I never got to see Mickey Mantle play baseball in person. So if you are one of those over-60 people, I have some envy for you.
September 28, 1971, 50 years ago: The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Mets 5-2 at Shea Stadium. Steve Carlton and Nolan Ryan are the starting pitchers, and will one day be the top 2 pitchers in career strikeouts. Carlton lives up to his billing, and pitches a complete game, for his 20th win of the season.
Ryan does not: He walks the 1st 4 batters of the game: Lou Brock, Ted Sizemore, Matty Alou and Joe Torre. He then gives up a 2-run single to Ted Simmons, and is relieved. Brooklyn native Bob Aspromonte grounds out to 2nd against Carlton in the 8th. Just 3,338 fans come out to Shea on a Tuesday afternoon for this game, which appears to be meaningless.
The meaning of this game becomes clear in the off-season. It is the last game that Carlton pitches for the Cardinals, as he is stupidly traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, for Rick Wise, a good but hardly great pitcher, all because Cards owner Gussie Busch, a billionaire from his beer company, wouldn't give him an extra $10,000 for the 1972 season. (About $62,000 in today's money.) It is also the last game that Ryan pitches for the Mets, as they make possibly an even dumber trade, sending him and his control problems to the California Angels for Jim Fregosi.
And Aspromonte never plays again -- making this the last game ever played by a man who had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, 14 years after their move. Willie Mays, the last active New York Giant, is still with the Giants, although the Mets will acquire him the next season.
September 28, 1981, 40 years ago: David Andrew Baas is born in Bixby, Oklahoma, and grows up in Sarasota, Florida. A center, he was with the Giants when they won Super Bowl XLVI, but a neck injury ended his career in 2014.
September 28, 1991, 30 years ago: Ian Wright scores his 1st League goal for Arsenal, and his 1st hat trick for them, leading them to a 4-0 wipeout of Hampshire club Southampton, at Southampton's old ground, The Dell.
Also on this day, Saturday Night Live premieres its 17th season. It is the debut of castmembers Ellen Cleghorne, Siobhan Fallon, and Robert Smigel, who writes the "Bob Swerski's SuperFans" sketch. It features a TV talk show focused on Chicago sports fans and the things they like to eat and drink.
George Wendt of Cheers, not a regular cast member but a Chicago native in real life, plays the host of the show, Swerski, conducting the show from Bears coach Mike Ditka's Chicago restaurant. Smigel played Carl Wollarski, Chris Farley played Todd O'Connor, and Mike Myers played Pat Arnold. So, 2 Poles and 2 Irishmen.
All of them tried to resemble Ditka by wearing Bears caps (or Bulls caps, depending on the time of year), sunglasses and mustaches. They extolled "Da Bears" and "Da Bulls," spoke with exaggerated Chicago accents, and joked about heart attacks -- which got a lot less funny in retrospect after Farley's drug-induced heart attack death in 1997.
I first visited Chicago on September 13, 1990, 4 months before the sketch's debut on January 12, 1991. When I got back, I was asked if I noticed any distinctive accent in the city. I thought about it, and realized that I hadn't. Once I saw the sketch, I realized why: The Chicago accent, with its "dis, dat, dese, dose" and stretched-out vowels, is so similar to the accents of New York City and North Jersey that I didn't notice it. Between that, and the neighborhood around Wrigley Field resembling the North Jersey neighborhoods of my parents, I felt right at home! I love Chicago.
Also on this day, Miles Davis dies at St. John's Hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica, California. The legendary jazz trumpet innovator had been suffering from pneumonia, and had a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 65.
September 28, 1996, 25 years ago: At their home ground of Highbury in North London, Arsenal defeat North-East club Sunderland 2-0. They leave it late, with John Hartson scoring the winner in the 73rd minute, and Ray Parlour adding an insurance goal in the 88th.
This is the last game for Pat Rice, the Captain of Arsenal's 1979 FA Cup-winners, as "caretaker" manager. After the firing of Bruce Rioch in the Summer, Arsenal were waiting until the former winner of the French league at AS Monaco could see out his contract with Japanese team Nagoya Grampus. Two days later, they were legally able to introduce him. His name was Arsène Wenger. Rice served as one of his assistants until retiring in 2013.
Also on this day, Saturday Night Live premieres the "Saturday TV Funhouse" animated sketch "The Ambiguously Gay Duo," designed to look like a 1970s-style Saturday morning cartoon, and playing with the idea that Batman and Robin are a gay couple.
Ace, voiced by Stephen Colbert, is the "Batman," the alpha male. Gary, voiced by Steve Carell, is the "Robin," the less experienced, younger, shorter, not quite as power-arrayed, but equally-muscled sidekick. (Their names start with A and G, as in "Ambiguously Gay.")
While they can both fly, they tend to get around in a suspiciously-shaped "Duocar." Their main adversary is a villain named Bighead, voiced by the series' creator, Robert Smigel, a.k.a. Carl from the Chicago Superfans (Da Bears) sketch.
The sketch appeared 4 times in the 1996-97 season, and occasionally thereafter. Both allies and enemies spend much of the episodes wondering if the Duo are gay. The evidence that they are is plentiful, but not definitive. As far as I know, gay activist groups have never protested the sketch.
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September 28, 2000: The last game is played at Milwaukee County Stadium. The Milwaukee Brewers lose 8-1 to the Cincinnati Reds. Juan Castro and Sean Casey hit home runs for the visitors. A postgame ceremony is held, with many greats of the Braves (1953-65) and Brewers (1970-2000) on hand, including Hall-of-Famers Hank Aaron, Robin Yount and Paul Molitor.
September 28, 2003: Two of the stadiums of the expansion era, necessary to keep their teams in town, but also past their useful life, close. The Philadelphia Phillies play the last game at Veterans Stadium, and lose 8-3 to the Atlanta Braves. The Eagles had already moved across the street to the south, to Lincoln Financial Field, and the Phillies were preparing to move across the street to the east, to Citizens Bank Park.
The closing ceremony features several former Phillies, including most of the 1980 World Champions. After the introductions, Steve Carlton walks out to the mound and pretends to throw one last pitch. Then Mike Schmidt swings a bat and takes one more trip around the bases. And Tug McGraw, dying of cancer (he didn't live long enough to see the new ballpark's opening) and his catcher Bob Boone reenact the stadium's greatest moment, the strikeout that ended the 1980 World Series. It ends with Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas saying The Vet "is... outta here!" It was demolished the following March.
The San Diego Padres end up no better at the finale for San Diego/Jack Murphy/Qualcomm Stadium, losing 10-8 to the Colorado Rockies. Tony Gwynn, not yet eligible for the Hall of Fame but "Mr. Padre," involved in both their 1984 and their 1998 Pennant, throws out a ceremonial last pitch to Bruce Bochy, a former big-league catcher who managed their 1998 Pennant winners.
September 28, 2008: An emotional day for both New York teams. The Yankees, having closed the old Yankee Stadium a week earlier with a 7-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles, and a star-laden pregame ceremony and a postgame lap of honor, but eliminated from postseason eligibility for the 1st time in 15 years in their next game, beat the American League Eastern Division Champion Boston Red Sox 6-2 at Fenway Park.
Xavier Nady hits a home run off Daisuke Matsuzaka, who came into the game 18-2. But the big story is Mike Mussina, who has announced his retirement, and this is his last game. He wins his 20th game of the season, the only time he ever did that. No Yankee has won 20 in a season since. It is the 270th win of Moose's career.
But at Shea Stadium, the Mets endure "Groundhog Day." Having blown a September Division lead and lost to the Florida Marlins at home on the last day of the season to miss the Playoffs completely last season, it happens again. They lose the last scheduled game at Shea, 6-2 to the Marlins.
The Phillies didn't wait until the last day to clinch the National League East this time, although they do beat the Washington Nationals 8-3. And when the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Chicago Cubs 3-1, they clinch the NL Wild Card, and eliminate the Mets. There will be no more games at Shea, with Citi Field nearing completion beyond center field.
A postgame ceremony is held, with Mets going back to the first team in 1962, prior to Shea's opening in 1964, coming onto the field, including most of the 1969 and 1986 World Champions. Despite his Yankee connections, 1973 Pennant-winner manager Yogi Berra gets a nice hand. So does Dave Kingman, a slugger known for his long home runs, but also for his strikeouts, bad fielding and moodiness. So does Willie Mays, even though he wasn't a Met for very long.
The close has the greatest of all Mets, Tom Seaver, take the mound, and throw a last pitch to Mike Piazza. But it's a bad pitch, bouncing in front of the plate. (Seaver threw a strike to Piazza for the ceremonial first pitch at Citi Field the following April.) Then, to the tune of "In My Life," not one of the songs the Beatles playing in their 1965 and 1966 concerts at Shea, Seaver and Piazza walk across the field, give one last wave to the fans at the center field gate, and walk out.
Why Seaver and Piazza? Why not representatives of both World Series teams, who were both already in the Hall of Fame? Why not Seaver and Gary Carter, who was still alive and well? If they wanted representatives of all the Mets' Pennant-winners, why not Seaver (1969 and 1973), Piazza (2000) and Carter (1986)? If they wanted representatives of all the Mets' Playoff teams, why not Seaver (1969 and 1973), Piazza (1999 and 2000), David Wright (2006) and Carter (1986 and 1988) -- making a "Met Mount Rushmore"? The organization had little control over the game, but they had absolute control over the closing ceremonies. Yet another error on the Mets.
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September 28, 2011, 10 years ago: This was one of the most remarkable days in the history of regular season baseball. The Yankees have won the American League East, with help from the Red Sox, who went 7-20 in September, a month they began by leading the Division by 1 game and the Wild Card by 9.
But the Baltimore Orioles come from 3-2 down in the bottom of the 9th at Camden Yards, as Robert Andino singles off Jonathan Papelbon to give the O's a 4-3 win. This gives the Yankees the Division title. The Sox can still win the Wild Card, but the Rays complete a sweep of the Yankees, coming from 7-0 down to win 8-7 in the 12th inning on Evan Longoria's 2nd home run of the game.
Ordinarily, this would be a great embarrassment for Yankee Fans. But they end up having a good laugh: The Sox become the 1st team ever to miss the postseason completely after having a 9-game lead for any berth in September. The Sox may have won the World Series twice in the 8 years following, but this night adds to their long list of chokes.
The Atlanta Braves also choke, having led the St. Louis Cardinals by 10 1/2 games for the NL Wild Card on August 25, but going 11-20 since, while the Cards went 23-9. On the final day, the Cards beat the Houston Astros 8-0 as Chris Carpenter pitches a 2-hit shutout, while the Braves lose to the Phillies, 4-3 in 13 innings. The Braves are out.
Also on this day, the Florida Marlins play their last game under that name, and their last game at the Miami Dolphins' stadium. They lose 3-1 to the Washington Nationals, ending 19 years of play in the suburb of Miami Gardens. The next season, they will be named the Miami Marlins, and move to the new, garish, retractable-roof Marlins Park, built on the Little Havana site of the Orange Bowl.
It is also the last game for Ivan Rodriguez, playing out the string for the Marlins, whom he and his steroids helped win the 2003 World Series.
September 28, 2012: The Barclays Center opens in Brooklyn, across from the Long Island Rail Road's Flatbush Avenue Terminal, on the site that Walter O'Malley originally wanted for his new Dodger Stadium. Designed by Frank Gehry, it is the strangest-looking sports venue in North America.
The 1st event is a concert by Brooklyn native rapper Jay-Z. The NBA's Nets, finally getting to rebrand themselves as "Brooklyn" after playing their last 8 seasons in New Jersey as a lame duck franchise, have to delay their entry even further, as Hurricane Katrina postpones their opener. The New York Islanders move in for the 2015-16 season, but are building a new arena, adjacent to horse racing's Belmont Park on Long Island, with the hope of opening it for the 2021-22 season.
September 28, 2013: The Yankees beat the Houston Astros 2-1 at Minute Maid Park. It is Andy Pettitte's last major league game, and the Yankee pitcher, who had a 3-year (2004-06) sabbatical with the Astros, the team he grew up rooting for in the Houston suburbs, pitches a complete-game victory in his hometown. It is the 256th win of his career, his 219th for the Yankees. Only Whitey Ford (236) and Red Ruffing (231) have won more for the Yankees.
Right, Joe Girardi let his starter pitch a complete game, after the Yankees were eliminated from the Playoffs, and the game no longer means anything to anybody but Pettitte. He allows 1 run on 5 hits and 2 walks, with 5 strikeouts, and gets the win, as the Yankees get 2 runs in the 6th thanks to some poor Astro fielding.
Also on this day, Arsenal set a record of 12 consecutive away wins -- no losses, no draws -- beating Swansea City 2-1 at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea, Wales. Aaron Ramsey and Serge Gnabry are the goalscorers.
September 28, 2014: The Yankees beat the Red Sox 9-5 at Fenway Park. Michael Pineda outpitches Clay Buchholz. With the game scoreless in the top of the 3rd, Francisco Cervelli leads off with a walk. Chris Young strikes out, but Jose Pirela singles, and Buchholz moves the runners over with a wild pitch. Ichiro Suzuki triples the runners home.
Derek Jeter, the designated hitter on this day -- Stephen Drew is the shortstop -- hits a ground ball to 3rd base. Garin Cecchini fields it, but Jeter beats the throw, and Ichiro scores, to make it 3-0 Yankees.
It is Jeter's 3,465th career hit. Only Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Tris Speaker have more -- meaning Jeter has more hits than all but 2 living people (Rose and Aaron), and more hits than anyone born after April 14, 1941 (when Rose was born).
Girardi sends Brian McCann -- perhaps the slowest runner on the team, but whose bat will fill the DH slot -- in to pinch-run, and the Fenway crowd, which despises the Yankees and has long maintained that Jeter and his teammates "suck," gives him a standing ovation as he leaves a major league field for the last time. It is 46 years to the day after Mickey Mantle played his last game for the Yankees, also at Fenway.
Mantle had played in more games, 2,401, and in more seasons, 18, than anyone in Yankee history. Jeter broke both of those records: 2,747 games and 20 seasons. I didn't get to see Mantle play, but I saw Jeter play many times. I even got to see him hit a home run at Fenway Park, in a 13-3 Yankee demolition of the Red Sox on July 30, 1999. Great memory.
My in-person memories of Mantle are limited to Old-Timers Days, and an appearance (in a suit rather than a uniform) on Phil Rizzuto Day. And while I saw Joe DiMaggio a few times at Yankee Stadium, it was only in a suit, never a uniform, although his 1995 Opening Day first ball ceremony meant that, at the least, I got to see Joe DiMaggio throw a baseball. Which is more than I can say for Mantle. And I never got to see Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig, who died long before I was born.
But I've seen plenty of legends in person, at various ballparks and at the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony. So I've had some luck -- if not, as Gehrig would say, become the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.
September 28, 2020: The Coronavirus-delayed NHL season finally comes to a conclusion, on neutral ice at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Brayden Point scores in the 1st period, and Blake Coleman in the 2nd, as the Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the Dallas Stars 2-0, and win the Stanley Cup.
The Lightning had previously won the Cup in 2004. They had lost in the Finals in 2015, and had been among the favorites to win it in 2019, but ignominiously lost in the 1st Round. Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman is awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Most Valuable Player of the Playoffs. (The NHL is the only one of the "Big Four" sports that names an MVP for the entire postseason, not just the Finals.)
Patrick Maroon, with the St. Louis Blues the season before, was the only Lightning player to have won the Cup before. Hedman, Captain Steven Stamkos, Braydon Coburn, Alex Killron, Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Nikita Kucherov, Cedric Paquette and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy had been on the Bolts' 2015 Finalists. This was Coburn's 3rd Finals, as he had also lost with the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers. Ryan McDonagh had lost the Finals with the 2014 New York Rangers.