September 13, 1999: This was the date in the opening of the TV show Space: 1999, when, in the show's chronology, an explosion of nuclear waste left on the Moon rips the satellite out of Earth's orbit.
Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov pointed out that any explosion strong enough to knock the Moon out of Earth orbit would also be strong enough to destroy the Moon entirely.
So, it's good that this has never happened. On the other hand, it's 2022, and we still don't have anything like Moonbase Alpha or the Eagle spacecraft.
In real life, 2 bad things happened on this day. Pioneering New York radio station WNEW-FM abandoned its 32-year-old rock and roll format for talk radio, a sad day for fans of what had come to be called "classic rock."
But a genuine tragedy on this day was that Hurricane Floyd had hit the Northeast, killing 85 people on the Atlantic Coast. This included 6 people in New Jersey, 3 of them in the small Somerset County town of Bound Brook, where 4 branches of the Raritan River come together and occasionally cause flooding, as seen in the photo above.
At the time, Bound Brook (shown above, during the flood) was home to about 10,000 people. The media descending on the town seemed to double the population.
I was then living in East Brunswick, on high ground, despite being just a block's worth of distance from another tributary of the Raritan. My house was safe, and we didn't even lose power. With a nor'easter in 2010, we lost power for 4 days, and our sump-pump broke. As a result, our basement got flooded. With Hurricane Sandy in 2012, we sustained no damage, but we were without power for 7 days.
That day, after the rain stopped, I went to the Morris Goodkind Bridge, which carries U.S. Route 1 over the Raritan, between New Brunswick and Edison. There's a small marina on the Edison side of the bridge, and half the boats in it had been ripped out of their moorings, and some of them were halfway across the river.
That season, the Somerset Patriots minor-league baseball team began play at what is now named TD Bank Ballpark, in Bridgewater, about a mile west of downtown Bound Brook. The brand-new ballpark was flooded, but their season was already over, so they didn't lose any games. That would not be the case in 2021, when Hurricane Ida hit the Northeast, and the ballpark was flooded again. Luckily, the waters receded, and they were able to have the ballpark ready to host baseball again in just 3 days.
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September 13, 1999 was a Monday. On ABC Monday Night Football, the Miami Dolphins beat the Denver Broncos, 38-21 at Mile High Stadium in Denver. It was Dan Marino's last season with the Dolphins. And John Elway had retired, so it was the Broncos' 1st game without him as their hoped-for starting quarterback since 1982. That starter was Brian Griese, son of Bob Griese, the only quarterback ever to lead the Dolphins to a Super Bowl win.
And these Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Toronto Blue Jays, 2-1 at the SkyDome (now named the Rogers Centre) in Toronto. Once-and-future Yankee David Wells outpitched Orlando "El Duque" Hernández, allowing only 4 hits: A double to Shane Spencer, and singles to Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Chad Curtis. Vernon Wells hit a home run for the Jays.
* The New York Mets beat the Colorado Rockies, 6-5 at Coors Field in Denver. Mike Piazza, not the swiftest of men, scored the winning run in the top of the 9th, on a wild pitch by Dave Veres with Darryl Hamilton at bat. Rickey Henderson hit a home run for the Mets.
Amazingly, none of the MLB teams in the Northeast got postponed due to the hurricane, partly because, the way the schedule worked out, Baltimore was the only one playing at home:
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-4 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. David Bell hit a 2-run homer in the 9th to tie it for the M's, but the O's won it in the bottom of the 10th, when Mariner reliever José Mesa threw away Jeff Conine's grounder, allowing B.J. Surhoff to score the winning run. Cal Ripken Jr. went 1-for-2 with 2 walks and 3 RBIs. Ken Griffey Jr. went 1-for-5, and Alex Rodriguez went 0-for-5, but Edgar Martinez went 3-for-3 with a walk.
* The Oakland Athletics beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 8-3 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 11-7 at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Florida Marlins, 7-4 at Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront Stadium) in Cincinnati.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago.
* The Anaheim Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-5 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Mark McGwire went 0-for-1 with a walk, and was then substituted off.
* The Texas Rangers beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-4 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. The Rangers scored 4 runs in the top of the 10th inning, partly due to a wild pitch and an error.
* The Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 13-2 at the Astrodome in Houston.
* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-1 at Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field) in Phoenix.
* The San Diego Padres beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-0 at Qualcomm Stadium (formerly San Diego Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium). Woody Williams pitched 8 innings of 4-hit shutout ball, and Trevor Hoffman completed the 4-hit shutout. Tony Gwynn went 1-for-4.
* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos, 12-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
* And the Chicago Cubs and the San Francisco Giants were not scheduled.
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