May 22, 1968: The Battle of Morningside Heights

May 22, 1968: The West Coast had their leading collegiate protest movement at the University of California's main campus in Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco. The East Coast had theirs in New York City, not at a State university but at an Ivy League school, Columbia University.

They had one very significant thing in common: Great wealth in proximity to great poverty. The Columbia campus is in Upper Manhattan, between 114th and 122nd Streets, and Morningside and Riverside Drives. Traditionally, the residents there were poor white Irish Catholics. One was George Carlin, who, after becoming a comedian, said that he and his friends, in order to sound tougher than they actually were, called their neighborhood not by its real name, Morningside Heights, but "White Harlem."

For the actual Harlem was next-door, to the east across Morningside Park and the north across 122nd. At the turn of the 20th Century, it went from a white neighborhood of German and Jewish immigrants -- the German ones including the parents of baseball legend Lou Gehrig, who played at Columbia -- to America's foremost black neighborhood. (It has never been surpassed as such in influence, although Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant and the South Side of Chicago would each eventually have more people.)

Columbia planned to build Morningside Gymnasium for its nearly all-white students across Morningside Park in nearly all-black Harlem. On April 23, the nearly all-white protesters ended up occupying Hamilton Hall, named for the school's most famous graduate, Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. 

The building included the offices of the university administration, including president Grayson Kirk. After 8 days, on April 30, Kirk had had enough, and called the police to clear the building, which they did. He had previously been a well-regarded president of the university, but this act permanently turned the student body against him. They demanded his resignation. They didn't get it.

A second round of protests began on May 17, when community residents occupied a Columbia University-owned partially vacant apartment building at 618 West 114 Street to protest Columbia's expansion policies, and later when students re-occupied Hamilton Hall to protest Columbia's suspension of "The IDA Six." Before the night of May 22, 1968 was over, police had arrested another 177 students and beaten 51 students. It became known as the Battle of Morningside Heights.

The public turned on the protesters, seeing them as rich, privileged white kids riding their parents' influence to an Ivy League school, and not knowing anything about the real world. This was stupid: That Ivy League school was educating them about the real world, in ways intended and otherwise.

In the end, the students got only one thing they wanted. Kirk decided to retire at the end of the academic year, which had come up, anyway. They didn't stop the building of the gym, and they didn't get the university to divest itself from its partnership with the military industrial complex. Life went on as before, except that Columbia now had a reputation for troublemaking kids. 

Meanwhile, in Paris, college students were bringing an entire country to a halt, and making the protesters at Columbia and Berkeley look like rank amateurs.

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May 22, 1968 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Baltimore Orioles, 4-3 at Yankee Stadium, less than 3 miles from the Columbia campus. The Yankees led 3-2 going into the 9th inning, but future Met manager Davey Johnson led off with a walk, and Don Buford hit a home run off John Wyatt. Mickey Mantle went 2-for-4.

* The New York Mets lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 8-0 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Woodie Fryman pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 2-0 at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington. (It was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium the next year.) Frank Bertaina took a 4-hit shutout into the 9th inning, but needed Dave Baldwin to get the last 2 outs.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Atlanta Braves, 2-1 at Atlanta Stadium. (That facility was renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1975.) Willie Mays singled Ron Hunt home with the winning run in the top of the 9th inning. Hank Aaron went 0-for-4.

* The Houston Astros beat the Cincinnati Reds, 1-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Rusty Staub singled home Ron Davis (not the later Yankee reliever) with the only run in the top of the 6th inning. Dave Giusti allowed only 2 hits, a single by Pete Rose and a double by Vada Pinson.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 13-6 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Roberto Clemente did not play, but Willie Stargell went 5-for-5 with 3 home runs and 7 RBIs. Ernie Banks went 1-for-4 with a walk.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Jim Perry started for the Twins, and helped his own cause with a home run. But the bullpen blew it, before the 8th inning, when Tony Oliva doubled and Harmon Killebrew singled him home. Al Kaline singled in a run as a pinch-hitter.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium. Don Drysdale pitches a 5-hit shutout. It is his 3rd straight shutout, of what will be 6 straight, leading to 58 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings.

The losing pitcher is Bob Gibson, who finishes this "Year of the Pitcher" with a 1.12 ERA and a record of 22-9. If you want to know how he had the lowest ERA of the post-1920 Lively Ball Era, and still lost 9 games, this is one of the reasons. 

* The Boston Red Sox beat the California Angels, 4-0 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Gary Bell pitched a 4-hit shutout. Carl Yastrzemski went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Jim Nash pitched a 5-hit shutout. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3.