September 21, 1993: "NYPD Blue" Premieres

Left to right: David Caruso, Dennis Franz, Sherry Stringfield,

James McDaniel, Nicholas Turturro and Amy Brenneman

September 21, 1993: NYPD Blue premieres on ABC. Stephen Bochco's police procedural stretches the boundaries of what can be said and shown on TV. Airing at 10:00 PM on Tuesday nights allows them to do that.

And that may not have been a good thing, given what some shows have tried since. And co-creators Stephen Bochco and David Milch knew they wouldn't have gotten away with it if the writing, the acting, and the camera work -- showing New York as it grew out of being an urban hole to comparative safety -- hadn't been so damn good.

Bochco had previously developed successful series like the police drama Hill Street Blues, the legal drama L.A. Law, and the medical drama/coming-of-age comedy Doogie Howser, M.D. However, in 1990, his project Cop Rock, trying to make a musical police series, flopped. He had become a laughingstock, and needed a comeback. So he and Milch, who went on to create the Western series Deadwood, created NYPD Blue.

The show takes place in the 15th Precinct, which doesn't exist in real life. The precinct house used for exterior shots was the 9th, on East 5th Street on the Lower East Side, which covers the area that the 15th would. That same house was later used for the 12th on the ABC series Castle, and the 2nd on the NBC series The Mysteries of Laura.

(Those precincts don't exist, either. Nor does the 99th, later used for the NBC comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Nor does the 125th, later used for the ABC drama Life On Mars. The 12th Precinct was also used for the 1970s ABC sitcom Barney Miller, but the outside of that building was never shown.)

Right off the bat, the show tests the censors, and the country's self-appointed moral arbiters. Dennis Franz plays Detective Andy Sipowicz, an old-school cop, bigoted, alcoholic, and never suffering fools gladly. He's testifying in court against a Mob soldier he'd busted, but the prosecutor, Sylvia Costas, played by Sharon Lawrence, thinks his testimony is biased and undermining the case, and it gets thrown out.

As they exit the courthouse, he tells her, "Wow, you really prosecuted the hell out of that one, Counselor!" (I suppose, at this point, even this show wasn't willing to say, "prosecuted the shit out of that one.") She turns back and, as a lawyer might, throws some Latin phrases at him. He grabs his crotch and yells, "Ipso this, you pissy little bitch!"

But as the show went on, Andy went to rehab, Sylvia decided she liked the new version of him, they got married, and had a son named Theo -- but Sylvia is killed in Season 6, 3 years after Andy Jr., his son from his 1st marriage, a cop in nearby Hackensack, New Jersey, was killed in the line of duty.

Andy's partner, Detective John Kelly, played by David Caruso, is introduced as the son and namesake of a cop killed in the line of duty. In the pilot, he starts a relationship with Officer Janice Licalsi, played by Amy Brenneman. The middle of the episode shows the two of them in bed, flashing his rear end and her breasts. The end of the episode is even more shocking: Like her cop father before her, Janice is compromised by the boss of the Mob soldier that Sipowicz and Kelly had been investigating.

This eventually leads to both John's and Janice's downfalls. Caruso left the show for movies, flopped, and returned to TV, as a cop on CBS' CSI: Miami. He was replaced on NYPD Blue in Season 2 by Jimmy Smits as Bobby Simone. Simone died of heart trouble in Season 6, and was replaced by Ricky Schroeder as Danny Sorenson. Schroeder didn't like how the character was written, and so was written out after Season 8.

Season 9 began right after the real-life 9/11 attacks, and it was written that Sorenson had been missing since that day, and was presumed killed in the attack, but it turned out that he'd been killed earlier in the day by a Mob group he was infiltrating. Mark-Paul Gosselaar replaced him as John Clark Jr., son and namesake of a retired cop Andy with whom had a running feud.

The show ran for 12 seasons, with Andy the constant, and was nominated for 84 Emmy Awards, winning 20 of them.

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September 21, 1993 was a Tuesday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Minnesota Twins, 5-4 at Yankee Stadium. Willie Banks outpitched Jim Abbott. Pedro Muñoz hit 2 home runs for the Twins. Don Mattingly went 0-for-5, and the Yankees fell to 5 games out of 1st place in the American League Eastern Division, with 10 games to play. And Yankee Fans of a certain generation object when I call Mattingly a "loser."

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-0 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto. This put them the aforementioned 5 games ahead of the Yankees. They went on to win the World Series.

Todd Stottlemyre, son of Yankee pitching legend Mel, pitched a 3-hit shutout, outpitching Roger Clemens. Paul Molitor went 1-for-3 with a walk. Rickey Henderson was available for this game, but did not play.

* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Montreal Expos, 18-5 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. John Smoltz was the winning pitcher. Terry Pendleton hit 2 home runs, and Fred McGriff added one.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Florida Marlins, 5-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Seven days later, in Pittsburgh, the Phillies clinched the National League Eastern Division title.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-6 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The O's came from 6-5 down in the 9th inning to win it. Cal Ripken went 2-for-5.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Jody Reed's sacrifice fly and Brett Butler's single scored the winning runs in the top of the 11th inning.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-4 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 13-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-0 at the Astrodome in Houston. Mark Portugal pitched a 3-hit shutout. Barry Bonds went 0-for-4.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres, 15-4 at Mile High Stadium in Denver. Future Yankee manager Joe Girardi hit a home run for the Rockies. Tony Gwynn did not play for the Padres. Their "fire sale," and the Rockies' really taking to their baseball-hungry fans in their expansion season, allowed them to finish ahead of the Padres in the NL Western Division.

* The California Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-0 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). John Farrell (6 1/3rd innings) and Steve Frey combined on a 7-hit shoutout.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 9-6 at the Oakland Coliseum. George Brett hit his 314th career home run. He hit 3 more that season, and retired.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers, 8-0 at the Kingdome in Seattle. Ken Griffey Jr. hit a home run.