Charles Schulz's comic strip Peanuts surged in popularity in the mid-1960s. It was the subject of a Time Magazine cover story in April 1965; the first animated Peanuts TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, aired in December 1965; and the following year a Christmas-themed novelty tune Snoopy vs. the Red Baronwent to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks. And on Oct. 27, 1966, a Thursday evening, the special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! aired on CBS for the first time.
I was 9 years old at the time and in the 4th Grade. I watched the 30-minute telecast over at the house of my friend Mary Kay Opalanko, who lived across the alley from us (she was a year older than me). We watched Linus and Charlie Brown's little sister Sally sitting in the pumpkin patch while we set up Mary Kay's new road-race set in her living room. My older brother Darrell joined us because of the lure of the racing set (which he also helped assemble). An added attraction was the Opalanko's new color TV. (Mary Kay's family was also the first in the neighborhood to get a big, above-ground swimming pool.)
"The Great Pumpkin" delivered a 31.6 Nielsen household rating, making it the 30th highest-rated telecast of 1966 (episodes of Bonanza dominated that year's top-30). And although new Charlie Brown specials would proliferate, none would achieve the same beloved stature as this one or "A Charlie Brown Christmas". (To purchase either on DVD doubleclick "Great Pumpkin" or "Charlie Brown Christmas".)
October 25 was a Saturday evening and I had gone to the commitment ceremony for two lesbian friends, Helena and Diana, who lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side. After the ceremony our party of fifteen hopped into taxis and went down to the Chinese restaurant Marvelous Mandarin in the East Village. The entire night we followed Game 6 of the World Series between the Red Sox and Mets. (By coincidence I had gone to the Mets' last game of the regular season with Helena and Diana.) After dinner the gang was going to continue celebrating this happy occasion and go to a dance club, but I had a touch of a cold and was low on energy and decided to go home instead.
When I left the restaurant shortly after midnight the Mets, who had come back twice to tie the game, had once again fallen behind. It was now the bottom of the 10th inning, Boston was ahead 5-3 and there were two outs and the bases were empty. I reconciled myself to the reality that the World Series was over and the Red Sox had finally broken their "curse". Of course it was a disappointment, especially since the Mets had a 108-54 record during the regular season. However, a few minutes after I began walking across town to my apartment in the West Village the streets exploded as if it was New Year's Eve. Curious, I popped my head into a nearby bar and heard the unbelievable news that the Mets had come back to win the game after an easy ground ball hit by Mookie Wilson went through the legs of Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner!
The Mets went on to win Game 7 two days later, making them World Series champions, but after Game 6's amazing finish it was almost anti-climatic. It was somewhat similar to the 1975 Series in which the Red Sox's Carlton Fisk's memorable home run in Game 6 is remembered more than the fact that Boston lost the Series the next day.
For the five years leading up to today Wall St. had been in the midst of a bull market. However, after reaching its all-time high at the end of the summer the market began heading south. Then on the afternoon of October 19, a Monday, a number of friends called me at work to report that Wall St. was experiencing a meltdown. Stock prices had plunged and the market was forced to close early because the huge volume of selling was just too great for the trading floor to handle.
At the closing bell the Dow had plummeted 508 points, a decline of nearly 23% (this was on top of 235 points lost the previous week.) This percent decline was nearly twice that of October 28, 1929 on the eve of the Great Depression.
I was 30 years old at the time and had been kicking myself for not investing during this bull market (I didn't open my first mutual fund until the following year). However, on the upside, since I didn't have much at stake I wasn't shaken like many of my older colleagues were. My boyfriend at the time was very concerned as he was chief counsel at EF Hutton, a brokerage that had been under investigation for various financial improprieties. Today's market collapse quickened its demise and in less than two months it merged with Shearson Lehman/American Express. (Happily, he kept his job.)
From work I went home and tuned to the CBS Evening News to try to grasp the enormity of it all. Wondering how much further might this collapse go was cause for anxiety as Tuesday dawned. Trading that day was characterized by wild swings, so much that the market closed for a brief time at mid-day in hopes of regaining its bearings. Thankfully, the market rebounded in the afternoon and half of Monday's losses were regained in the next few trading days. This rebound was in stark contrast to the Black Mondays of 1929 and 2008 which presaged the beginning of grim economic times. By contrast, this turned out to be merely a market "correction".
Although the number of points lost on this day in 1987 was 270 fewer than the 777-point plunge in late September 2008, the percent change was much greater because it was off a much smaller base (back then the Dow was only in the 2,000's compared to 11,000+ in 2008). By comparison, '08's one-day decline was a drop of "only" 7%. (A behind-the-scenes account of what transpired on October 19-20, written by a former reporter for the Wall St. Journal, is provided in the book Black Monday: The Stock Market Catastrophe of Oct. 19, 1987).
Somewhat lost during that week in 1987's financial turmoil was the acrimonious confirmation hearings for President Bush's choice for the Supreme Court, Robert Bork. At the end of the week the U.S. Senate would vote down his nomination by a 58-42 vote.
A few weeks ago I wrote about ten hurricanes and the memories I associated with each of them. In this post I've chosen to write of memories I connect with ten post-season baseball games over the past 45 years (not including the 1986 World Series, which I've written about in a previous post).
1969 World Series
Game 5/Mets vs. Baltimore (Oct. 16)
I was home from school (7th Grade) with a cold so I was able to watch the entire game. I wasn't rooting for the Mets because, despite winning 100 games in the regular season, in my eyes their rise was a fluke. (I felt the same when expansion teams like Florida, Arizona and Tampa Bay played in the World Series.) And I certainly didn't think they'd be able to prevail over the mighty Orioles (who had won 109 games), but not only did the Mets do it - but in just five games.
1971 World Series
Game 7/Pittsburgh vs. Baltimore (Oct. 17)
It was a Sunday afternoon when the Pirates won a 2-1 nail-biter over the Orioles to win the World Series. My mother and I waited for the game to end before we drove my grandmother home, honking the car horn the entire way. (My dad, never a big Pirates fan watched the day's football games on our other TV.) We also put a big "Bucs Fever" sign in the living room window. Since I was too young to celebrate the Pirates' 1960 World Series victory over the Yankees this one was very sweet. The '71 Series was the first to have a game played at night, a novelty that eventually became the norm by the mid-1980s.
1972 National League Playoffs
Game 5/Pittsburgh vs. Cincinnati (Oct. 11)
The game was still being played when I headed out to my weekly Junior Achievement meeting in downtown Pittsburgh, so I brought my transistor radio with me to listen to the closing innings. As the bus I was riding approached the City on the Ft. Pitt Bridge I heard the Reds score the winning run in the bottom of the 9th inning on a wild pitch to advance to the World Series. A similar crushing loss in the bottom of the 9th happened to the Pirates 20 years later when they lost Game 7 of the NL Championship Series to Atlanta. (Then they went 21 years before their next winning season.)
1973 National League Playoffs
Game 3/Mets vs. Cincinnati (Oct. 8)
I had just come home from school and turned on the game. As I was changing clothes Pete Rose and Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson got into a scuffle after Rose slid hard into Harrelson at 2nd base. However, the Mets got the last laugh by advancing to the World Series. Like 1969, I wasn't a Mets fan, especially since they barely had a winning record (82-79) and had passed my Pirates in the final week of the season to win the NL East. Two big news events occurred during that post-season: 1) VP Spiro Agnew resigned due to tax problems and 2) Egypt attacked Israel on the eve of Yom Kippur during the weekend the World Series began.
1975 World Series
Game 6/Cincinnati vs. Boston (Oct. 21)
I was in my freshman year at Penn State and watched the game in a friend's dorm room when it went into extra innings, so I saw the Red Sox' Carlton Fisk hit his famous game-winning home run in the bottom of the 12th inning. This game was such a good one that almost forgotten is the fact that Cincinnati won the next day to win the World Series.
1978 AL Tie-Breaker
Yankees vs. Red Sox (Oct. 2)
The Yankees had stormed back in August and September to tie the Red Sox for the AL East crown and played a one-game tie-breaker. I watched the first seven innings in my dorm's TV room. I left for dinner after seeing the Yankees' Bucky Dent(pictured with Reggie Jackson) hit his memorable 3-run homer over the Green Monster at Fenway to erase Boston's 2-0 lead. The Yankees won the game and went to the World Series - which they won over the Dodgers for the second year in a row.
1979 World Series
Game 7/Pittsburgh vs. Baltimore (Oct. 17)
The "We Are Family" Pirates defeated the Orioles in a carbon copy of their 1971 World Series championship over them, i.e. after falling behind 3 games to 1, they swept the next three games. But it was a bittersweet victory for me because I was living in northern New Jersey and there was no celebrating crowd. I called my brother who lived down the street and then my parents back in Pittsburgh to share the good news.
1989 World Series
Game 3/Oakland vs San Francisco (Oct. 17)
This World Series is forever known for the earthquake that struck minutes before Game 3 was about to start - and captured on live TV. I had turned on the game about five minutes after the quake hit. Since the Series involved two teams from the Bay Area it was delayed for 10 days.
2003 NL Championship Series
Game 6/Marlins vs. Cubs/Oct. 14
As was my usual habit I went to the gym late after taking a nap (around 9:30). The game was on one of the TV monitors above the treadmills and Stairmasters, and when I left it appeared the game was in hand with the Cubs leading 3-0 in the top of the 8th inning. If they won they'd advance to the World Series and get a chance to break their 95-year streak without a World Series championship. However, between the time I left and got back to my apartment, about 10 minutes, the game had turned around completely and the Marlins had taken an 8-3 lead! It turned out that an overzealous fan (the infamous Steve Bartman) had leaned over and deflected a fly ball that the Cubs outfielder was about to catch. After that the floodgates opened. (This was was somewhat similar to what happened in the 1996 AL League Championship between the Orioles and Yankees when 12-year old Jeffrey Maier reached out to grab a fly ball hit by Derek Jeter that was about to be caught. It was called a home run and the Yankees won the game because of it.)
2009 World Series
Philadelphia vs. Yankees
A novel experience was having someone to watch the games with as my boyfriend David was also a baseball fan. However, we had different ways of enjoying the games. For instance, David was more a student of pitching while I liked high-scoring games. Furthermore, he found it peculiar that I often commented about the appearance of each player as they came to bat (which I thought was normal, especially for a gay man). Lastly, I found it nerve wracking to sit through an entire game, especially if the Yankees had a lead, while David enjoyed watching the entire nine innings. However, one thing we had in common was rooting for the Yankees, who beat the Phillies in six games.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, one of the proudest moments in the city's history, a story passed down through the generations, was the Pirates' World Series championship in 1960 over the mighty New York Yankees. In the most dramatic ending in World Series history, Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning to win Game 7. It seemed fitting that the title came to Pittsburgh because the "Steel City" was going through its "Renaissance" at the time, a massive civic campaign to clean the air/water, create parks and rebuild parts of downtown.
In the first six games of the Series the Yankees had scored twice as many runs as Pittsburgh, yet the Pirates managed to win three games. In the games won by the Yanks, they crushed the Pirates (by scores of 16-3, 10-0, 12-0) while the Pirates wins were games in which its pitchers shined (6-4, 3-2, 5-2). Then in Game 7 the Pirates ramped up its offense. It was a see-saw game and after the Yankees scored two runes in the top of the 9th the game was tied 9-9.
"Maz" was the first batter in the bottom of the 9th and he hit his famous home run a little past 3:30. My mother was watching the game with my older brother and sister who were already home from school (2nd and 5th Grades, respectively). As for me, I was just 3 years old so I have no recollection. Since my father had bet against the Pirates, when he came home from work at 4:30 Mom and my brother Darrell met him on the sidewalk waving a "crying towel". His bet was with a neighbor from across the street for a case of beer (Iron City, of course). Mr. Zamanski magnanimously didn't want Dad to pay-up but Dad insisted and they drank a bottle together.
Fast forward 50 years. As the anniversary of Game 7 approached word came that a kinescope of the game had been found in the wine cellar of Bing Crosby's home outside of San Francisco. Crosby had been a partial owner of the Pirates back in 1960 and was too nervous to watch the game so he arranged to have a tape made of the game being shown on the TV screen that he could watch later. It's the only recording of the entire that exists.
The Pirates also had dramatic World Series triumphs in 1971 and 1979, both times coming from 3-games-to-1 deficits to prevail (defeating Baltimore each time). However, neither matched the adrenaline rush of that late afternoon home run over the scoreboard in beloved Forbes Field. (The book The Best Game Ever: Pirates 10 Yankees 9 offers an in-depth, inning-by-inning account of Game 7.) Happily, "Maz" is still with us (at age 77) and to honor him a statue outside Heinz Field was unveiled three summers ago.
Oct. 11, 1991 was a Friday, and that afternoon I was sitting in my office at ad agency NWAyer when I heard on the radio news of the rather contentious confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill, a former colleague of Thomas', had made allegations about lewd comments he made and sexual harassment she had been subjected to when they worked together (he was her manager at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.) Curious, I walked down the hall to the office of the director of national broadcast buying to watch some of the live testimony on his TV.
I was taken aback by Hill's frank testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, e.g., Thomas' comment about a pubic hair being on a can of Coke on his desk during a meeting with her (perhaps the most ignominious brand mentions of all time?). Never before had words such as these, or for that matter, "penis" and "oral sex" been talked about so openly in a public forum. (This was seven years before the references to the semen stain on Monica Lewinsky's blue dress.)
The riveting "he said/she said" testimony continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening (when Thomas got his chance at rebuttal). In addition to watching some of it at the office I continued watching the coverage at home before and after I went to the gym and then after traveling out to New Jersey to spend the night at my boyfriend's apartment.
Four days later Thomas was approved in a very close vote in the Senate. In fact, the 52-48 vote was the closest confirmation vote of the 20th century. (By comparison, Elena Kagan was confirmed this summer by a 63-37 vote, Sonia Sotomayor by 68-31 and Chief Justice John Roberts by 78-22.) The book The Prince & the Pauper: The Case Against Clarence Thomas provides an essay that offers background into Thomas, an analysis of his confirmation as well the political process that resulted in his selection.
In 2018 this unpleasant skewering of Hill was brought to mind when another Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, was accused by Christine Blasey Ford of attempting to rape her in 1982 when they were teenagers in Maryland.
When I was growing up magazines were always found in our house. We had subscriptions to Time, Sports Illustrated, Good Housekeeping, Look, Money and Consumer Reports. Thrown into the mix were subscriptions my older sister had to Cosmo, People and Rolling Stone. And I had my own subcriptions to Jack & Jill (when I was in grade school), Weatherwise and Baseball Digest. And I've always been drawn to magazine covers. During my sophomore and junior years at Penn State I stapled covers from various magazines to the ceiling of my dorm room to give it a unique look. (I still collect covers that catch my eye and I've amassed a nice collection.)
Until this decade, when newsweeklies began struggling mightily for relevance due to the draw of the Internet, there was a certain cachet attached to appearing on the cover of TIME Magazine (however, unlike Rolling Stone, a song was never written about it). Since it began publishing in March 1923 approximately 4,600 covers have been published. I recently surveyed these covers and was mesmerized by the wonderful review of US and world history they provided.
In Times's first few decades covers were relatively uninspired B/W portraits but they slowly evolved and became more eye-catching, incorporating a mix of styles, e.g., photographs, collages or illustrations. (Covers of the past decade feature noticeably more white space.) Some were created by well-known artists of the day such as Andy Warhol (first cover, below), Peter Max (middle cover) and Robert Rauschenberg. Many covers around Christmastime had a religious theme depicted by beautiful paintings. Covers can be purchased through Time'swebsite; those featuring the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Leonard Bernstein or Jackie Kennedy, for example, are great conversation pieces and make great wall decorations.
As the 1950s progressed cover subjects began to touch upon societal trends and issues. Many were topics that would have never been discussed in polite company in the first 40 years of Time's existence, e.g., homosexuality, date rape, domestic violence, herpes. Surprisingly, some social issues of current concern, e.g,. suburban sprawl, salt intake, women's changing roles, obesity, were featured as cover stories 15-25 years ago.
Of course "anyone who was anybody" in the fields of politics, culture and entertainment, religion and sports graced the covers over the years. However, some personalities slipped through the cracks. For instance, Judy Garland, Truman Capote, Hank Aaron and Coco Chanel are some of the "movers and shakers" of their time not to get a cover. And it wasn't until 30 years after his death that Babe Ruth appeared on the cover. (Determining those who haven't been on the cover can be a great parlor game.)
The world was wild about Pope John Paul II. Less than a year into his papacy he made a triumphant visit to his Polish homeland in June and a few months later the U.S. got its turn when he spent the first week of October 1979 in the Northeast visiting Boston, New York, Philadelphia and D.C. (he was the first pope to visit the White House). During his visit to New York I managed to see him twice.
Mys first sighting was during lunchtime on Tuesday, October 2 as I waited with three co-workers (the "3-M's": Marina, Maria & Marian) at the corner of First Ave./49th St. We saw him drive past after he left the U.N., which was a short walk from our office on 3rd Ave./50th St. (ad agency Scali, McCabe, Sloves).
I saw him again the following morning and this time it was pure happenstance. I was walking to work in a downpour when he came riding past in his "popemobile" down 5th Ave. on his way to Madison Square Garden after saying mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral (see video clip below). Not a bad way to start the day I must say! And it seemed that the good feeling generated by JP-II's visit extended to much of the nation (or, at least, among Roman Catholics) but the euphoria would last for just a month because on November 4 the U.S. embassy in Tehran was overtaken and 52 of its American staff were taken hostage. This turn of events, combined with tough economic times (e.g., double-digit inflation), created a national malaise that would be instrumental in bringing down Jimmy Carter's presidency.
My nascent interest in baseball was boosted by the excitement created by 1967's American League pennant race, decided on the final day of the season. The race was between Boston, Minnesota and Detroit. Boston played Minnesota in the closing weekend and both games were telecast. The rabid interest shown by my dad in these games rubbed off on me and the rest of the family. Although our hometown team was the Pittsburgh Pirates he was closely following the Red Sox's Carl Yastrzemski because of their shared Polish heritage (truth be told, my dad was never a big fan of the Pirates).
Boston won both games over the Twins that weekend but then had to wait for the outcome of the second game of the Tigers' doubleheader against the Angels (the Tigers lost) before laying claim to first place. As for "Yaz" he finished the season by becoming one of the select few players to ever win the Triple Crown (i.e., highest batting average, most home runs and most runs batted in). In fact he would be be the last player to achieve this honor. His storybook season was instrumental in making Boston a serious contender, a huge surprise after it finished next-to-last the previous season.
Before this weekend the only other baseball event I had any recollection of was the 1966 World Series between the Dodgers and Orioles. My 15-year old sister, Linda, had a crush on Dodger pitching great Sandy Koufax and at her urging we visited our Uncle John so we could watch one of the games Koufax pitched on his new color TV.
Ultimately the Red Sox's magical season would end in defeat in Game 7 of the World Series versus the St. Louis Cardinals. The book The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox recounts Boston's enthralling season. And here's a great clip from a 1967 TV special on Boston TV station WHDH celebrating the Red Sox's season.
Skip ahead to the spring of 1968. I shocked my male classmates because here I was, the boy who preferred reading rather than go to recess, rattling off baseball statistics in front of them on the playground. It was the first instance of me being drawn to numbers and the math behind them. This interest in statistics and the analysis of them is what would also interest me in meteorology (high/low temperatures, amounts of precipitation), music (Billboard charts) and many years later proved instrumental in fueling my career in media research.