April 21, 1980: The Boston Marathon is held. Bill Rodgers wins it for the 3rd time in a row, the 4th overall. (He would also win the New York City Marathon 4 times.) On the women's side, the winner is Rosie Ruiz.
Actually, no, it isn't: She got caught cheating. Imagine that, an athlete in Boston cheating. Anyway, the real winner was Jacqueline Gareau.
Jacqueline Gareau
Ruiz, a Cuban whose family brought her to Florida as a girl, had finished 11th in New York in 1979, qualifying her for the 1980 edition in Boston, but it turns out that she'd taken the Subway in that one, too, and she was stricken from their records.
When he and Ruiz were interviewed together after the race, Rodgers noticed that Ruiz could not recall many things that most runners know by heart, such as intervals and splits. Other observers noticed that Ruiz was not panting or coated in sweat. She later released stress-test results showing her resting heart rate as 76. Most female marathoners have a resting heart rate in the 50s or lower.
In addition, her time of 2:31:56 was an unusual improvement, more than 25 minutes ahead of her reported time in New York, 6 months earlier. When asked by a reporter why she did not seem fatigued after the grueling race, she said, "I got up with a lot of energy this morning."
Some female competitors thought it was odd that, when asked what she had noticed about the suburb of Wellesley while running through it, she did not mention the students of Wellesley College, who traditionally cheer loudly for the first female runners as they pass the campus.
Most seriously, no other runners could recall seeing her. Gareau was told that she was leading the race at the 18-mile mark, while Patti Lyons was told she was 2nd at the 17-mile mark. Ruiz could not have passed either of them without being seen. Several spotters at checkpoints throughout the course also did not remember seeing her in the first group of women. In addition, she did not appear in any pictures or video footage. Two Harvard students, John Faulkner and Sola Mahoney, recalled seeing Ruiz burst out of a crowd of spectators on Commonwealth Avenue, half a mile from the finish.
The evidence was reviewed, and Ruiz was disqualified, and banned from all future Boston Marathons. New York permanently banned her as well.
In 1982, she was sentenced to 7 days in jail and 5 years' probation -- not for her Boston Marathon fraud, which was apparently only a violation of a rule, not of any law; but for embezzling $60,000 from the real estate company for which she worked. In 1983, she was sentenced to 3 years' probation for her involvement in a Miami cocaine deal. She eventually found work for a medical laboratory company in West Palm Beach, and died on July 8, 2019, of cancer at 66.
As of April 21, 2022, Rodgers and Gareau are still alive.
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April 21, 1980, like all Boston Marathon days, was a Monday. Dallas Cowboys quarterback turned broadcaster Tony Romo was born.
Football was out of season. The NBA Playoffs were between rounds. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were in progress, but no games were played. These games were played in Major League Baseball:
* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Yankee Stadium. Graig Nettles hit a home run. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4 with an RBI. Tommy John outpitched Mike Flanagan, who edged John for the previous season's American League Cy Young Award. In 1979, John won 21 games, Flanagan 23; in 1980, John would win 22, Flanagan 16.
The Yanks (winners in 1976, 1977 and 1978) and the O's (winners in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974 and 1979) battled it out for the title in the AL Eastern Division all season long, including a 3-game series in August at Yankee Stadium attended by 156,352 fans, which the O's swept; and, a week later, a 5-game series at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium attended by 253,636 fans, with the O's winning 3 out of 5. The Yankees ended up winning 103 games, the Orioles 100 -- and, with no Wild Card in those days, the O's became a rare 100-or-more-win team to not reach the postseason.
* The New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-0 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Ray Burris (4 hits over 7 1/3rd innings) and Neil Allen combined on a 5-hit shutout, beating Steve Carlton. Pete Rose got 3 of those hits, and also drew a walk. Frank Taveras went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Expos, 7-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Willie Stargell did not play.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago White Sox, 9-8 at Fenway Park in Boston. Every year, on Marathon Day, a.k.a. Patriots Day, the 3rd Monday in April, the Red Sox play a home game at Fenway Park, starting at 11:05 AM, with the idea that fans would clear the area before the runners come down Boylston Street.
The Red Sox scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th, led by a double by Dwight Evans, to come from behind and win. Rick Burleson, Jim Rice and Carlton Fisk hit home runs for them. Wayne Nordhagen and Harold Baines hit them for the White Sox. Carl Yastrzemski did not play.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-5 at Milwaukee County Stadium. "Stormin'" Gorman Thomas hit a home run to win it in the 11th inning. Robin Yount went 2-for-5 with 2 RBI. Paul Molitor went 2-for-4 with 2 walks.
* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-1 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 0-for-3 with a walk.
* The Texas Rangers beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 6-5 at the Astrodome in Houston. Johnny Bench went 1-for-5.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco giants, 4-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
* The Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners, 4-2 at the Kingdome in Seattle. Rookie Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and a stolen base.
* And the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Diego Padres were not scheduled.
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