April 6, 1971: John Denver releases his album Poems, Prayers & Promises. It contains covers of the Beatles' "Let It Be" and James Taylor's "Fire and Rain." It also includes his own composition "Sunshine On My Shoulders," and a song written by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, a then-married couple who would join with another, Jon Carroll and Margot Chapman, to form the Starland Vocal Band. In 1976, they went on to have a Number 1 hit with "Afternoon Delight."
Danoff and Nivert were driving down Clopper Road in Maryland to a Nivert family reunion in Gaithersburg. But the melody that got stuck in Danoff's head needed 4 syllables, so he tried Massachusetts, his home State, before remembering West Virginia. Not only was West Virginia nearby, but Danoff remembered listening, from his home in Springfield, Massachusetts, to a radio show that was broadcast from Wheeling, West Virginia: Saturday Night Jamboree.
So West Virginia became the site of the song, titled "Take Me Home, Country Roads." The State government eventually put the words "Almost Heaven" on its license plates. In 2014, the State made it the official State Song.
In 1979, Denver -- by this point, more identified with Colorado, not just because of his stage name (the native of Roswell, New Mexico was born Henry John Deutchendorf Jr.), but because of his 1972 hit "Rocky Mountain High" -- made it up to Maryland. He appeared at a World Series game in Baltimore, singing yet another of his rural-themed hits: "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." To this day, the Orioles play that song after "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th Inning Stretch.
As for "Take Me Home, Country Roads," the site of the song's inspiration is no longer "Almost Heaven": The Washington, D.C. metropolitan area has grown like crazy in the last half-century, and swallowed up so much of the countryside with development. Both couples in the Starland Vocal Band split up, although, as of April 6, 2022, all 4 of them are still alive. Denver is not: He was killed in a plane crash in 1997.
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April 6, 1971 was a Tuesday. It was Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season. Oddly, the team that was closest to the site of the song's inspiration, the Baltimore Orioles, did not play that day: They had their opener the next day, beating the Washington Senators, 3-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.
Nor did the Chicago White Sox play that day: They also opened the next day, beating the Oakland Athletics, 6-5 at the Oakland Coliseum.
The A's and the Senators opened on April 5, at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Tradition had it that the 1st game of the season in the American League would be in Washington, and that the President of the United States would throw out the ceremonial first ball.
President Richard Nixon had done so in 1969, but he wasn't available in 1970, and Vice President Spiro Agnew got booed when he did it -- not because the fans wanted to see Nixon, but based on his personality. Nixon was again unavailable for Opening Day 1971, so he selected someone absolutely unbooable: Master Sergeant Daniel L. Pitzer, U.S. Army, who had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
The Senators won, 8-0. Dick Bosman pitched a 6-hit shutout. As it turned out, this would be the last traditional AL opener in Washington: The following season, the Senators moved to the Dallas area, becoming the Texas Rangers. In 1984, Ronald Reagan began throwing out the Opening Day first ball in Baltimore, as the closest MLB city to Washington, restarting the tradition. In 2005, the Washington Nationals arrived, playing in the National League.
The traditional NL opener was always in Cincinnati, preceded by a downtown parade, in honor of the city's status as the home of the 1st openly professional baseball team. Although the Cincinnati Reds were founded in 1880, and have no corporate connection to the 1869-70 Cincinnati Red Stockings, they (and their chosen opponents) have usually played before every other NL team. And on April 5, they lost to the Atlanta Braves, 7-4 at Riverfront Stadium.
These games were played on April 6:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 3-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Ray Culp outpitched Stan Bahnsen. Reggie Smith and Duane Josephson each went 3-for-4. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Thurmann Munson went 2-for-4, but the rest of the Yankees only got 3 hits and no walks between them, including an RBI single by Horace Clarke.
* The New York Mets were leading the Montreal Expos, 4-2 after 5 innings at Shea Stadium, when the game was called due to rain. Tom Seaver was the winning pitcher.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente went 0-for-4, and Willie Stargell went 1-for-4.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 1-for-4 with a walk.
* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Billy Williams hit a home run off Bob Gibson in the bottom of the 10th inning to win it, making a winning pitcher out of Ferguson Jenkins. On what turned out to be his last Opening Day as a player, Ernie Banks did not play.
For the Cards, Joe Torre hit a home run, on his way to a season where he would win the batting title with a .363 average, and would be named the NL's Most Valuable Player. Lou Brock went 0-for-4.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Minnesota Twins, 7-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Rod Carew went 0-for-4 with a walk.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Astros, 2-0 at the Astrodome in Houston. Claude Osteen pitched a 4-hit shutout to outpitch Don Wilson.
* The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 4-0 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Juan Marichal pitched a 5-hit shutout. Willie Mays hit his 629th career home run.
* And the Kansas City Royals beat the California Angels, 4-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).
Football was out of season. The NHL was between the end of its regular season and the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. There were 2 games played in the NBA Playoffs. The New York Knicks beat the Baltimore Bullets, 112-111 at Madison Square Garden. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls, 109-98 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association Playoffs:
* The New York Nets beat the Virginia Squires, 135-131 at the Hofstra Physical Fitness Center, Hempstead, Long Island, New York. Like many ABA (and later World Hockey Association) teams, the home arenas only booked the "rebel league" teams through the end of their regular season, meaning that some of them had to scramble to find new homes for the Playoffs. In the Nets' case, the gym at Hofstra University was right across the street from the parking lot where their new home, the Nassau Coliseum, was being built. Rick Barry scored 43 points.
* The Miami Floridians beat the Kentucky Colonels, 120-102 at the gymnasium of Miami-Dade Junior College North in Miami.
* And the Utah Stars beat the Texas Chaparrals, 128-107 at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas. For the 1970-71 season only, the Dallas Chaparrals tried the ABA's experiment of regional "home games," and called themselves the Texas Chaparrals. In 1973, they became the San Antonio Spurs.
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