Scores On This Historic Day

April 1, 1914: Rube Waddell dies. It was a tragedy. But it was not really a surprise. Indeed, it was appropriate that it occurred on April Fool's Day. It's hard to describe him , as he was one of a kind. That's probably a good thing. George Edward Waddell was born on October 13, 1876 in Bradford, Pennsylvania.  At the age of 3, he wandered over to a local fire station, and stayed there for several days. He did not attend school very often. He was lefthanded, and strengthened his arm as a child by throwing rocks at birds he encountered while working on his family's land. He also worked on mining and drilling sites as a youngster, which helped his conditioning. He reached the major leagues in 1897, with the Louisville Colonels. That team was absorbed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, the closest major league team to his home, in 1900, but they couldn't handle his shenanigans, and released him in 1901. The Chicago Cubs quickly signed him, and nearly as quickly released him. ...

Hulk Hogan (left) and Mr. T March 31, 1985: The 1st WrestleMania is held. It marked the peak of fandom for what had come to be known as "professional wrestling." The event -- I won't call it a "sport" -- was a natural for TV, because, like boxing, the size of the "playing field" was small enough that a camera could easily cover the whole thing. Men like "Gorgeous" George Wagner, Wladek "Killer" Kowalski and Bruno Sammartino became legends. In 1984, Terry Bollea, using the name Hulk Hogan, became the heavyweight champion of the World Wrestling Federation. The year before, he had appeared in Rocky III, as a pro wrestler named Thunderlips. His blond hair, biker mustache, ripped physique and braggadocio made him the most popular pro wrestler ever. He called it "Hulkamania." Vince McMahon, president of the WWF, decided to strike while the iron was hot. So he set up WrestleMania for Madison Square Garden, which billed itself as...

March 31, 1976: The Supreme Court of the State of New Jersey rules in the case of  In re Quinlan,  that Karen Ann Quinlan, a hospital patient in a persistent vegetative state, can be disconnected from her ventilator. Karen had been born on March 29, 1954 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Roxbury, Morris County, New Jersey. She graduated from Morris Catholic High School in Denville, and worked several jobs, moving to a house in Byram, Sussex County, with 2 roommates. On April 15, 1975, she attended a friend's birthday party at a local bar. Having  eaten almost nothing for 2 days, as part of a crash diet, she got drunk and took a Valium pill. Her friends took her home, and discovered her not breathing. She was taken to a hospital in Newton, Sussex County, but never regained consciousness. Unresponsive, she was taken to St. Clare's Hospital in Denville, which was better able to handle her condition: A persistent vegetative state. After doctors refused the request of...

March 31, 1968: President Lyndon Baines Johnson announces that he is dropping out of this year's Presidential election. When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, Johnson, as Vice President, became President. He inherited JFK's national security team: Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, and Bundy's brother, William Bundy, the  Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs . He also inherited JFK's problem in Vietnam. We will never know for sure how JFK would have handled Vietnam. We know how LBJ handled it: Badly. In his State of the Union Address in January, he said, "The enemy has been defeated in battle after battle." And it was true. But that didn't make a bit of difference. On January 31, the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive. In military terms, it was a massive bungle by the Communists. But in terms of perception, it was a victory...

March 31, 1943: The musical Oklahoma! premieres on Broadway, written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, beginning one of the great partnerships in musical history -- but also ending another. In 1919, composer Richard Rodgers began to write songs with lyricist Lorenz "Larry" Hart. It took them until 1925 to have their first Broadway success, The Garrick Gaeties . Over the next 15 years, they would produce many instances of what would later be called "standards" and "The Great American Songbook": "Thou Swell," "Ten Cents a Dance," "Isn't It Romantic?" "Blue Moon," "There's a Small Hotel," "Where Or When," "My Funny Valentine," "The Lady Is a Tramp," and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." By 1942, Hart had fallen so deep into alcoholism that he had become unreliable. So when Rodgers wanted to write his next musical, he turned to Oscar Hammerstein I...

March 31, 1939: The Hound of the Baskervilles premieres, the 1st of 14 films starring Basil Rathbone, coming off his villainous turn as Sir Guy of Gisbourne for the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood , as "consulting detective" Sherlock Holmes, and Nigel Bruce as his partner in crime-solving, Dr. John H. Watson. Both characters were created by the man for whom Watson was a stand-in, Dr. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The series has defined the characters of Holmes and Watson ever since. Based on Conan Doyle's 1902 novel, Holmes is called on by Sir Henry Baskerville, heir to a family's country estate, to find out about a large, vicious dog that has allegedly killed much of the family. Holmes discovers that the dog belongs to another heir, who wants the family fortune for himself. This was followed later in 1939 by The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes , pitting the hero against his arch-enemy, Professor James Moriarty, "the Napoleon of Crime," played by George Zuc...

March 31, 1931:  Knute Rockne is killed in a plane crash. At that point, he was probably the most famous American ever to suffer that fate. It happened to aviator Wiley Post and entertainer Will Rogers in 1935, on the same flight, in America's northernmost city, Barrow, Alaska. It probably happened to pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, in the Pacific Ocean in 1937. It happened to early rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and Ritchie Valens in Iowa in 1959; to soul singer Otis Redding in Wisconsin in 1967; to rock singer Jim Croce in Louisiana in 1973; to country-rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd in Mississippi in 1977; to early rock singer Ricky Nelson in Texas in 1985; pop singer John Denver off California in 1997; pop singer Aaliyah in the Bahamas in 2001; and banda singer Jenni Rivera in Mexico in 2012. It happened to labor leader Walter Reuther in Michigan in 1970; to Congressmen Hale Boggs and Nick Begich in Alask...

March 31, 1928: Every now and then, the English, who endlessly remind the Scots, the Germans, the Americans, and whoever else will listen that they invented "football" (soccer), and only they can truly play it, get a very rude reminder that this is not true. This was one of the earliest such reminders. From 1884 to 1984, t he  British Home Championship was contested between the national teams of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland -- and then, after the 1921 Partition of Ireland, between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The tournament was stopped in 1984, due to the rising hooliganism in British soccer. Scotland had failed to win either of their previous matches in the 1928 Home Championship,  losing 1–0 to Ireland and Hampden Park in Glasgow,  and drawing 2–2 with Wales at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham. (Wrexham? Damn near killed 'em.) But England had been worse: They lost 2-0 to Ireland at Windsor Park in Belfast, and 2-1 to Wales at Turf Moor in Burn...

Pearl White, 1916. I don't know why she's holding a pig on a car's hood. March 31, 1914: The Perils of Pauline premieres, one of the earliest film serials, starring Pearl White, one of the top film stars of the era. It set the tone for serials to come: Every 2 weeks (eventually serials would be cut to every week), a hero would be put into a seemingly impossible situation, and, there, the installment would end, and you would have to come back and see the next installment to see how he -- or, in this case, she -- would get out of it. White played Pauline, an ambitious young heiress with an independent nature and a desire for adventure. Her wealthy guardian had left her inheritance in the care of his secretary, Raymond Owen, who was legally obligated to release it as soon as she was married. Of course, if she should die before getting married, then the money would go to Owen. So he continually sets her up for calamity. There were 20 chapters, averaging 20 1/2 minutes apiece....

March 31, 1889: The Eiffel Tower opens, on the Left Bank on the River Seine, in the 7th Arrondissement of Paris. It was the centerpiece of the Exposition Universelle, a world's fair celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the French Revolution. Parisian high society hated it. I guess they didn't get the memo: The fair was celebrating the overthrow of the high society of the previous century. Everybody else liked it. Visitors during the Exposition included the great French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII of Britain, who was having an affair with Bernhardt), inventor Thomas Edison, and Buffalo Bill Cody, whose Wild West Show was an attraction at the fair. Gustave Eiffel was 56 years old at the time it opened, and was previously best known for designing railroad bridges, which explains the black iron structure of his tower. It was meant to be torn down after the fair, but it was kept up. This proved to be invaluable in World War I, since its...

Christian Laettner (left) and Grant Hill March 30, 1991: The basketball team of Duke University defeats the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, the defending National Champions, 79-77, in the Semifinal of the NCAA Tournament. It is now hard to imagine Duke being an underdog, but, at the time, it was UNLV who were the big bad villains of college basketball. UNLV were coached by Jerry Tarkanian, a.k.a. "Tark the Shark," known for his bald head and nervously chewing on a white towel while sitting on the sideline. With a starting lineup that included future NBA stars Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony and Stacey Augmon, all of whom would return for a senior year, they went 34-5. In the Final, at the McNichols Arena in Denver, they beat Duke, 103-73. Under coach Mike Krzyzewski, Duke had lost to Louisville in the 1986 Final. In 1990-91, with stars like Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill, they got back to the Final Four, going 29-7. But UNLV took a 45-game winning streak, sti...

March 30, 1981:  President Ronald Reagan is shot in an assassination attempt. It happens as he's walking to his car outside the Washington Hilton. It was 2:27 PM. A few minutes later, the news reached my mother and me, at the library in East Brunswick, New Jersey. I don't remember why I was there, instead of in school: It was a Monday, not during Spring Break (Easter wasn't until April 19 that year), and I was in the 6th grade, at a school that let out at 2:35. Maybe it was a half-day, due to parent-teacher conferences, or something like that. No President had been assassinated since John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. My mother was in her senior year of high school; my father, in his senior year of college. Both were sent home early. There were 2 assassination attempts against Gerald Ford in September 1975, but neither came close to succeeding. So this was the first close call that I could remember, and it remains the only one. Reagan was at the Hilton to give a speech a...