November 7, 1962: The results of the previous day's elections are in. Normally, the Party that holds the White House loses the Congressional elections in Year 2 of a Presidency. But the Democratic Party, led by President John F. Kennedy, doesn't do so badly. In the U.S. House of Representatives, they lost 4 seats, but the Republican Party only gained 1.
As a result, the Democrats will have 258 seats in the 88th Congress, whose term will begin on January 3, 1963 (although they won't have their swearing-in ceremony until January 9). The Republican Party will have 176. One seat remains vacant for the time being.
In the U.S. Senate, the Democrats actually gained 4 seats. Among the new Senators are the President's brother, Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, but that's not a Democratic gain: That's the seat that JFK had to resign after being elected President.
Also newly elected were Democrats George McGovern of South Dakota, Abe Ribicoff of Connecticut, Birch Bayh of Indiana, Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.
But the most interesting election is that for Governor of California. The Democratic incumbent, Edmund G. "Pat" Brown went into the election thinking that the Republican nominee was going to be Mayor George Christopher of San Francisco. (That's right: As late as January 8, 1964, San Francisco had a Republican Mayor.) Instead, Christopher was nominated for Lieutenant Governor, and the nominee for Governor was Richard Nixon, who had been Dwight D. Eisenhower's Vice President, and had previously served California in both houses of Congress.
Why did Nixon want to be Governor? Wouldn't that be a step down? Actually, he didn't want to be Governor, but California Republican officials talked him into it. Still, he wanted to win, especially since it would confirm him as the nation's leading Republican politician, rather than Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, who was expected to win re-election easily (and did), or Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, leader of the Party's conservative wing.
When the final vote was tallied, Brown had a little over 3 million votes, or about 51.9 percent. Nixon had around 2.7 million, or 46.8 percent. Scattered other candidates got 1.3 percent. It was close, but Brown was the definitive winner.
Nixon became the 1st notable Republican politician to publicly blame his defeat on negative coverage by the media. At a press conference that morning, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, the man known as Tricky Dick said, "I leave you gentlemen now. And you will now write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you, I want you to know: Just think how much you're going to be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore. Because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."
Nixon did not keep that promise. It took nearly another 12 years before America truly didn't have Nixon to kick around anymore.
One person who would definitely not be giving any more press conferences was former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who died on this day, at her apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, of heart failure, at age 78.
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November 7, 1962 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 3 NBA games played on this day:
* The New York Knicks beat the St. Louis Hawks, 122-112 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Richie Guerin scored 33 points for the Knicks, while Bob Pettit scored 37 in defeat for the Hawks.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 106-105 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Oscar Robertson scored 42 points in defeat.
* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the San Francisco Warriors, 132-108 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California. For the Lakers, Elgin Baylor scored 30, and Jerry West scored 28. For the Warriors, in their 1st season by the Bay after moving from Philadelphia, Wilt Chamberlain scored 38 points and grabbed 29 rebounds, to no avail.
There were 2 games played in the NHL. The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Rangers, 5-1 at the old Madison Square Garden. The Leafs got 2 goals from Billy Harris.
And the Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a 3-3 tie at the Chicago Stadium. The Bruins' John Bucyk scored a shorthanded goal with 1:07 left in the game to forge the tie. (There was no overtime in NHL regular-season games from 1942 to 1983.)
At the 10:21 mark of the 1st period, Hawks goaltender Glenn Hall had to leave the game with an injury, and Dennis DeJordy was in goal the rest of the way. This ends Hall's streak of 502 consecutive games, playing every minute of every game for the last 5 years -- and although he also did so when the Hawks made the Playoffs, those games are not counted in his total. If they are, then he really played 536 straight games, never missing a minute.
True, teams played 70 games a season back then, not 82 like they do now. But no goalie, not even Martin Brodeur, has ever come close to matching that. I have a separate entry for this event.
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