June 16, 1967: The Monterey Pop Festival begins, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The performances came to symbolize the San Francisco-based "Summer of Love," and turned some performers from little-known to superstars.
The next year, the documentary Monterey Pop made millions feel as though they had been there, and made the following year's Woodstock festival in New York's Catskill Mountains possible.
The performers on day one at Monterey: The Association, The Paupers, Lou Rawls, Beverly Kutner, Johnny Rivers, The Animals, and Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel.
Despite it being a Friday, there was not a full slate of Major League Baseball games played that day. The New York Yankees, the Chicago White Sox, the Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Athletics were not scheduled.
* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 4-3 at Shea Stadium. John Boccabella drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly of Don Shaw in the top of the 10th, making a winner of Joe Niekro.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-3 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.
* The California Angels swept a doubleheader from the Baltimore Orioles, at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The Halos won the 1st game 2-1, and the 2nd game 5-3.
* The Washington Senators swept a doubleheader from the Boston Red Sox, at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington (later Robert F. Kennedy Stadium). The Senators won the opener 1-0, and the nightcap 4-3.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins, 2-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Chuck Hinton's single won it in the bottom of the 10th. Luis Tiant went the distance for the Tribe.
* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 9-8 at the Astrodome. In the top of the 10th, Hank Aaron got aboard due to an error, and former Yankee Clete Boyer got him home on a groundout.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. In Monterey, 109 miles to the south, few cared. Psychedelic music seemed like the path to the future, while baseball increasingly felt like a pastime that was for the past time.
And German soccer manager Jürgen Klopp was born that day.
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On Saturday, June 17, the musical lineup was: Canned Heat, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin singing lead, Country Joe and the Fish, Al Kooper, The Butterfield Blues Band, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Steve Miller Band, The Electric Flag, Moby Grape, Hugh Masekela, The Byrds, Layra Nyro, Jefferson Airplane, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and Otis Redding.
Quicksilver Messenger Service, like The Grateful Dead and many of these others, were out of San Francisco. Sometimes, those two bands would be booked together, as "The Quick and the Dead."
MLB games for that Saturday:
* This time, the Yankees and the White Sox did play, against each other, at Comiskey Park, on the South Side of Chicago, birthplace of the electric blues that so many of the Monterey acts tried to copy, some with more success than others.
The ChiSox won, 1-0. The only run came in the bottom of the 8th, on a double off Fritz Peterson by Walt Williams, an outfielder known as "No Neck," who would later play for the Yankees. Joe Horlen pitched the 1st 8 innings for the Pale Hose, and Hall of Fame knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm pitched the 9th for the save.
* It was also New York vs. Chicago in the National League, and, again, the Mets lost to the Cubs at Shea, this time 9-1.
* The Pirates beat the Phillies, 6-5 in Philadelphia.
* The Orioles beat the Angels, 7-5 in Baltimore.
* The Red Sox beat the Senators, 5-1 in Washington.
* The Indians beat the Twins, 7-3 in Cleveland.
* The A's and the Tigers did not play the day before. They made up for it on this day, playing 3 games' worth of baseball at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. In the 1st game of a doubleheader, the Tigers won 7-6. The 2nd game went 19, before Dave Duncan, these days best known as the right-hand man on Tony La Russa's coaching staffs, hit a home run off Mike Marshall to give the A's a 6-5 win.
Believe it or not, 28 innings is not a record for most innings played in 1 day. In 1964, the Mets hosted the Giants in a doubleheader where the nightcap went 23 innings, for a total of 32.
* Another doubleheader was played at the Astrodome. In the opener, another Aaron hit and a wild pitch helped to give the Braves a 3-1 win in 10 innings. But the Astros won the 2nd game, 4-3.
* The Dodgers beat the Reds, 6-1 in Los Angeles.
* And the Giants beat the Cardinals, 3-2 in San Francisco.
*
On Sunday, June 18, these were the performers at Monterey: Ravi Shankar, The Blues Project, Big Brother and Janis Joplin again (because they wanted to be in the film, and their Saturday set wasn't filmed), The Group With No Name (not to be confused with The Band, who were not there), Buffalo Springfield, The Who, The Grateful Dead, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and, closing the show, The Mama's & the Papa's, led by John Phillips, with guest vocalist Scott McKenzie.
Phillips had written, and McKenzie had recorded, a song they hoped would be the theme for the Summer of Love: "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair."
But that's not what the festival would be most remembered for. First, The Who closed by playing "My Generation," and, as they so often did, destroying their instruments onstage. Then came the Dead, with their "Relax, man" vibe. Then came Hendrix, another really intense performer. It was the psychedelic rock equivalent of the Yankees' early 1950s pitching rotation of fastballer Allie Reynolds, followed by junkballer Eddie Lopat, followed by fastballer Vic Raschi.
But Hendrix went even further than The Who. He didn't just smash his guitar -- which caused somebody to tell Who leader Pete Townshend, "He's stealing your act," and Pete to say, "He's not stealing my act, he's doing my act" -- he put the remains on the ground, and, while bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell kept playing, poured lighter fluid, struck a match, dropped to his knees, dropped the lit match it on the guitar, and knelt there, fanning the flames.
He had done this before, but this was the first time it had been widely reported. He went on to do it so many times, it's a wonder he lived another 3 years.
The MLB games for that Sunday:
* The Yankees got swept by the White Sox in Chicago. In the opener, despite a home run by Bill Robinson, Al Downing didn't get out of the 3rd inning, and the South Siders won 7-3. In the nightcap, a young man named Tommy John pitched a 6-hit shutout, winning 4-0. The Yankee pitchers were Fred Talbot and Dooley Womack, both immortalized in teammate Jim Bouton's later book Ball Four; and Steve Hamilton.
* The Mets split with the Cubs at Shea. In the 1st game, Tommie Reynolds hit a walkoff home run off Cal Koonce in the 10th, giving the Mets a 4-3 win. The Mets must've liked something they saw in Koonce, because they soon traded for him, and he would still be with them when they won the World Series in 1969. Jack Fisher was the winning pitcher, in relief of starter Bob Shaw.
The 2nd game would also be 4-3, but a Cubs win. In the top of the 8th, Lee Thomas hit a sacrifice fly to make a losing pitcher out of Tom Seaver. Seaver, of course, went on to become the NL Rookie of the Year, and the face of the Mets' 1st run of glory.
* The Pirates beat the Phillies, 5-3 in Philadelphia.
* The Angels beat the Orioles, 5-3 in Baltimore.
* The Senators beat the Red Sox, 3-2 in Washington. Hank Allen, brother of Dick Allen, singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 10th.
* The Twins beat the Indians, 4-2 in Cleveland.
* The A's beat the Tigers, 8-4 in Detroit, mercifully in only 9 innings.
* The Astros beat the Braves 2-0 in Houston. This time, Hank Aaron didn't get a hit. No Brave did: Don Wilson pitched a no-hitter for the Astros. It wasn't all that close to a perfect game: He walked Denis Menke in the 5th inning, Aaron in the 7th, and Menke again in the 8th. But it was a no-hitter against a dangerous-hitting team.
* The Dodgers beat the Reds, 5-3 in L.A.
* And the Cardinals beat the Giants, 4-1 in San Francisco. So, that weekend, if you were in Northern California, the place to be was definitely the Monterey County Fairgrounds, not Candlestick Park.
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