December 27, 1904: The Premiere of "Peter Pan"

December 27, 1904: Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up premieres at the Duke of York's Theatre in London. The play is written by James M. Barrie, who would later expand it with his 1911 novel Peter and Wendy. A legend is born.

The title role, that of a character who appears to be a teenage boy, is played by Nina Boucicault. This begins a tradition of Peter being played by women: Betty Bronson in the 1st film version in 1924, Mary Martin in the 1954 Broadway musical, Martin again in a famed 1955 TV production of the musical, and Sandy Duncan and former gymnast Cathy Rigby in later revivals of the musical. A notable exception is the 1953 Disney cartoon, where Peter is voiced by Bobby Driscoll.

Barrie was knighted in 1913, and died in 1937. Nina Boucicault died in 1950.

In 1991, Steven Spielberg tried a new take on the story, Hook. Robin Williams played Peter Banning, an adult with a wife and children, who goes to London finds out that his wife's elderly grandmother is the original Wendy Darling, and that he was Peter Pan, who lost his memory of his adventures when he did grow up, and has to fight Captain Hook all over again. Hook is played by Dustin Hoffman, and Tinker Bell by Julia Roberts.

UPDATE: In 2023, Disney released a live-action Peter Pan & Wendy, starring Alexander Molony.

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December 27, 1904 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. The college football season had ended. Professional basketball did not exist. Professional football and hockey barely did. So there were no scores on this historic day.

December 6, 1904: The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

"Speak softly and carry a big stick."

December 6, 1904: President Theodore Roosevelt issues a re-interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, a re-interpretation which becomes known as the Roosevelt Corollary.

NOTE: My cutoff date for this project is 1869, the year of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the 1st openly professional baseball team, and the 1st American football game. I had managed to work in references to most pre-1869 Presidents. This was the only way I could think of to do it for Monroe.

The Monroe Doctrine -- the name wouldn't be used until 1850, after the deaths of those involved -- was included in the annual message to Congress by President James Monroe on December 2, 1823. Such messages were written and delivered by hand in lieu of what would later be called the State of the Union Address. Over the last few years, following the American Revolution, France selling the Louisiana Territory to America, France losing Haiti in a revolution, and Spain's empire collapsing, especially with Mexico finally winning its struggle to break away in 1821, "the Old World" was losing its grip on "the New World."

It was written with Monroe's approval by his Secretary of State -- and, as it turned out, his successor, John Quincy Adams:

The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

In other words, America was saying, "Europe, those colonies that you have in our Hemisphere now, we will leave them alone. But don't try to establish any new ones. And we won't try to establish any on your side of the world."

At the time, America didn't have the Navy to back that up. And, with some irony, its next war was with one of those new nations in the Western Hemisphere, Mexico, in 1846 and 1847. In 1861, France began a takeover of Mexico, which took 2 years, and then failed 4 years later. America couldn't do anything about it, because of its own Civil War.

Other than that, though, America didn't have to do much about it. While tensions with Britain had been near-continuous, even after the War of 1812, it was in Britain's best interest to have its Royal Navy enforce a Pax Britannica on the world. And they still had territory in the New World, including Canada, though it granted Canada a form of independence in 1867. So, essentially, by doing their own job, they were doing America's job, too.

Things changed in 1895, when the South American nation of Venezuela claimed Essequibo and Guyana Esequiba as part of their country, while Britain claimed them as part of their colony of British Guyana. President Grover Cleveland intervened, and offered to have America mediate the dispute. Both countries accepted. In the end, the agreed-upon Paris tribunal awarded most of the territory to Britain. But Venezuela and the other countries in Latin America saw that the United States was willing to stand up for them to a European power, and relations between them and the U.S. improved.

In 1898, America won the Spanish-American War, taking Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines from Spain -- the Philippines suggesting that the promise of American non-expansion was gone.

Then came another crisis in Venezuela. In 1902, Britain, Germany and Italy imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela, after their President Cipriano Castro (no relation to later Cuban dictator Fidel) refused to pay his country's foreign debts. He was counting on America to invoke the Monroe Doctrine, and bail his country out diplomatically, as it had 7 years earlier. If not, then to defend his nation militarily.

Theodore Roosevelt was President now. He had commanded American troops in the Battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, and rode that fame to the Presidency. But he refused to intervene: He saw the Monroe Doctrine as applying only to European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se. With prior promises that no such seizure would occur, the U.S. was officially neutral, and allowed the action to go ahead without objection. The blockade saw Venezuela's small navy quickly disabled, but Castro refused to give in, and instead agreed in principle to submit some of the claims to international arbitration, which he had previously rejected.

Roosevelt wanted to avoid any future crises like the 2 recent ones in Venezuela. So he instituted what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: It asserted the right of the U.S. to intervene in Latin America in cases of "flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American Nation" to preempt intervention by European creditors.

This re-interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine went on to be a useful tool to take economic benefits by force when Latin American nations failed to pay their debts to European and U.S. banks and business interests. It provoked outrage across Latin America.

This was one of the actions of TR's that backed up what he called an old African proverb, which he liked to quote: "Speak softly, and carry a big stick: You will go far."

The Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary were used to invoke U.S. intervention in Latin America in Guatemala in 1954, in Cuba in 1962, in the Dominican Republic in 1965, in Chile in 1973, in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s, in Panama in 1989, in Haiti in 1994, and, lo and behold, in Venezuela again in the 2010s.

Monroe had quite a career before he was President. Along with Alexander Hamilton, he was with George Washington when he crossed the Delaware River on Christmas Night 1776, to surprise the Hessians at Trenton. He served Virginia as U.S. Senator and Governor. A protégé of both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, he served as U.S. Minister to France, then to Britain. 

During the War of 1812, he served as Secretary of State and Secretary of War (the post now called Secretary of Defense) at the same time. He was elected President in a landslide in 1816, and almost unanimously in 1820. He was the last President to dress in what we now consider the Revolutionary style: Tricornered hat, powdered wig, ruffled shirt, long coat and knee breeches. He was the last President not to have a photograph taken of him.

The capital of the Africa nation of Liberia is named Monrovia in his honor. Also named for him were the now-closed Fort Monroe army base in Portsmouth, Virginia; 17 Counties, and towns in 28 States, including 23 in Ohio, 18 in Indiana, 12 in Iowa, 9 in Pennsylvania, 8 in Missouri, 5 in Michigan, 3 each in North Carolina and Wisconsin; and 2 each in New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska and South Dakota.

There are high schools named for him in New York City, in the Borough of The Bronx; Rochester, in Monroe County, New York; Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is also where his law office was converted into an unofficial Presidential Library, opening on November 13, 1966; Lindside, Monroe County, West Virginia; and in the North Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. A submarine, the USS James Monroe, served the U.S. Navy from 1963 to 1990.

James Monroe statue, College of William & Mary,

Williamsburg, Virginia

He has been played by Morgan Wallace in the 1931 film Alexander Hamilton, John Elliott in the 1936 film Hearts Divided, Charles Waldron in the 1939 film The Monroe Doctrine, Henry Butler in the 1976 TV-movie The Adams Chronicles, and Robert Kelly in the 1986 TV-movie George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation.

The last surviving member of Monroe's Cabinet was Richard Rush, who served as Secretary of State, and lived until 1859. He also turned out to be the last surviving member of James Madison's Cabinet.

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December 6, 1904 was a Tuesday. Ève Curie, daughter of scientists Pierre and Marie "Madame" Curie, was born. She became a journalist and writer, and lived until 2007, nearly 103 years old.

Baseball was out of season. The football season had ended 2 days earlier. Hockey had not yet turned professional, and basketball barely had. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 8, 1904: Theodore Roosevelt, "Accident" No More

November 8, 1904: Theodore Roosevelt, who became President when William McKinley was assassinated 3 years earlier, is elected in his own right, the 1st "accidental President" to achieve the honor. John Tyler in 1844, Millard Fillmore in 1852, and Andrew Johnson in 1868 were so unpopular that they knew they wouldn't be nominated. Chester Arthur decided in 1884 that he was too ill to try.

It was an easy choice: The massively charismatic and widely-experienced TR was opposed by the incredibly boring Alton B. Parker, whose highest office was as a federal judge. That's how strapped for talent the Democratic Party was at the time.

TR got 56 percent of the popular vote, Parker not even 38 percent. TR got 336 Electoral Votes, Parker only 140, all in the "Solid South," which wouldn't have voted for Jesus if he were nominated by the Party of Lincoln. (It was only 40 years since the Civil War, after all.) TR did get 47 percent in Kentucky and 43 percent in Tennessee.

That night, TR makes a big mistake: He tells the press he won't run for what would amount to a 3rd term in 1908. He keeps his promise, but he tries again in 1912, and it splits the Republican Party. In a way, that split between well-meaning progressives and selfish conservatives has never been healed.

*

November 8, 1904 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. By this point, Saturday had become the standard day for college football. And basketball and hockey were still all-amateur. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 7, 1904: "Little Johnny Jones" Opens On Broadway

November 7, 1904: Little Johnny Jones opens at the Liberty Theatre at 236 West 42nd Street in New York. It is the 1st play staged there. George M. Cohan is the writer, director and star, playing an American jockey who goes to London to race in the famed Epsom Derby, loses, is accused of throwing the race, and must clear his name.

The show contains 2 of Cohan's legendary songs: "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Give My Regards to Broadway." The former not only becomes the title of the 1942 film biography of Cohan, starring James Cagney, but also helps to popularize "Yankees" as an alternative name for the New York Highlanders of baseball's American League.

Ironically, because New York Giants manager John McGraw cultivated Broadway performers as friends, Cohan became a Giants fan, despite being from Providence, Rhode Island. Cagney, however, was a Yankee Fan, and even threw out the ceremonial first ball at a 1981 World Series game. It was one of his last public appearances.

Cohan is best remembered for his patriotic songs, like "Grand Old Flag" and what became known as the theme song of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, "Over There." Of all the stars that Broadway has ever had, he's the only one with a statue on the street, at the northern end of Times Square.

But, contrary to what the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy" says, he was not born on the 4th of July. He was born on July 3, 1878, in Providence. Close enough, he probably thought. He died of cancer on November 5, 1942, at 64, 5 months after the premiere of Yankee Doodle Dandy the film. (Film biographies of classical composers, and of writers of more recent popular songs, were big in the 1930s and '40s.)

The Liberty Theatre still stands, but has been converted into retail space, including a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum and a Famous Dave's restaurant. With some appropriateness, a Yankees Clubhouse Store is almost right across the street, at 236 West 42nd.

*

November 7, 1904 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Saturday had been standardized as the day for football. And the NBA and the NHL hadn't been founded yet. So there were no scores on this historic day.

October 27, 1904: The New York Subway Opens

October 27, 1904: The 1st Subway line opens in New York. It runs from City Hall to Grand Central Station (roughly today's 4, 5 and 6 Trains), then turns onto 42nd Street (today's S, or Times Square-Grand Central Shuttle), then up Broadway to 207th Street (today's 1 Train) before making one final curve into the Bronx to Bailey Street (this part is part of today's A Train). The fare is 5 cents -- $1.52 in today's money.

The Polo Grounds of the time, and its 1911 successor, were served by the 155th Street station that opened on this day. It was supposedly on this line in 1908 that Jack Norworth, a songwriter, saw a sign saying, "Baseball To-Day, Polo Grounds," inspiring him to write the lyrics to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

It would be 1918 before "34th St.-Penn Station" opened to service the 1910-built Pennsylvania Station, and thus to the successor station and the "new" Madison Square Garden built on the site. The 34th Street station on the 8th Avenue side of Penn Station opened in 1932, as did the 42nd Street station that serves the Port Authority Bus Terminal that opened in 1950, and the 50th Street station that served the old Garden from 1932 until its closing in 1968.

The current 4 Train station at 161st Street and River Avenue opened in 1917, and began serving Yankee Stadium at its opening in 1923. The D Train station there opened in 1933, probably to coincide with the opening of the nearby Bronx County Courthouse. The Prospect Park station now used by the Q Train became part of the City Subway in 1920, and was used to get to games at Ebbets Field.

The station now served by the 7 Train opened in 1939 for the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, well predating the 1964-65 World’s Fair and the opening of Shea Stadium and the National Tennis Center. It was named "Willets Point Blvd." from 1939 to 1964 and "Willets Point-Shea Stadium" from 1964 to 2008, and has been renamed "Mets-Willets Point," as the MTA did not want to use the name "Citi Field" due to CitiGroup's role in the 2008 financial crisis.

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October 27, 1904 was a Thursday. Poet Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales. He would die in New York in 1953.

There were no scores on this historic day: The baseball season was over, professional football was in its infancy, it was a Thursday so there were no college football games, and there was no professional basketball or professional hockey.

October 10, 1904: The Jack Chesbro Game

Photo colorized, but otherwise real.

October 10, 1904: For the first time, and not for the last, an American League Pennant comes down to New York and Boston. The last day of the season features a doubleheader at Hilltop Park, at 165th Street & Broadway in Manhattan's Washington Heights.

The New York Highlanders, forerunners of the Yankees, need to sweep the Boston Americans, forerunners of the Red Sox, in order to win. Otherwise, Boston will win it. Hilltop Park seats about 16,000, but there's perhaps 30,000 jammed into the confines, including thousands of standees roped off in the massive outfield area.

Pitching the 1st game for the Highlanders is Jack Chesbro, who has already won 41 games, which remains the single-season record for pitching from 60 feet, 6 inches away. And that's pronounced CHEESE-bro, not CHEZ-bro.

With the score 2-2 in the top of the 9th and Lou Criger on 3rd base, Chesbro throws a spitball – then a legal pitch – but it's a wild pitch, going over the head of his catcher, Jim "Deacon" McGuire, and Criger scores the Pennant-winning run. The Yankees win the nightcap, 1-0, but it's meaningless, as the Red Sox-to-be win the Pennant.

But, faced with the prospect of losing a postseason series not just to the champions of what they view as "an inferior league," but to the other New York team, the National League Champion New York Giants refuse to participate in the World Series. Manager John McGraw, on this day, issues a statement that it was his decision, not that of owner John T. Brush, to refuse to play the AL Champions, regardless of who they turned out to be. The 1904 World Series is called off, and it will be 90 years before such a thing happens again – over a very different kind of stupidity, and a more egregious one at that.

Brush and McGraw were so shamed in the press for chickening out that they agreed that they would participate in any future World Series – and they participated in 14 before moving to San Francisco, their total now 20.

Today, over a century later, the Red Sox organization does not claim a forfeit win and call themselves the 1904 World Champions, which would give them 9 World Championships, rather than 8. But they might as well -- after all, who can stop them, and how? Certainly, they have a more legitimate claim to the title of 1904 than they do to those of 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018.

And yet, the plaque at Polo Grounds Towers lists the Giants as World Champions for 1904, as well as for 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933 and 1954 -- but not for 1888 and 1889, possibly because those titles were not won at that location, but rather at a different location with a facility called the Polo Grounds.

After 1904, the Americans/Red Sox would win 4 more Pennants in the next 14 seasons. The Highlanders/Yankees would have to wait another 17 years before winning their 1st, but then, they would pretty much keep winning them for the next 43 years.

John Dwight Chesbro, a.k.a. Happy Jack, won 41 games that season, and 198 in his Hall of Fame career for the Pirates and the Yankees (and, for the very last game of his career, the North Adams, Massachusetts native came home and pitched and lost one for the Red Sox). Sadly, he is mainly remembered not for all the games he won, but for one he lost, basically for one bad pitch that he threw. He lived in Conway, Massachusetts, and died there in 1931, of a heart attack, at the age of 57.

A shocking percentage of the 1904 Americans died young, what with that being the pre-antibiotic era, although the man named Denton True Young, a.k.a. Cy Young, lived to be 87. The last survivor of the 1904 Americans, and the 1903 team that won the 1st World Series, was shortstop Freddy Parent, a New England native, from Biddeford, Maine, who lived on until 1972, at the age of 96. The last surviving 1904 Highlander was 2nd baseman Jimmy Williams (no relation to later Red Sox manager Jimy Williams), who died in 1965.

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October 10, 1904 was a Monday. This was before what became North America's other major sports, football, basketball and hockey, really went professional. There were only 2 other games that day in what would later be called Major League Baseball, and they were a doubleheader.

It was played at Boundary Field in Washington, D.C. The host Washington Senators lost the opener to the Philadelphia Athletics, 7-6. Then they were leading the nightcap, 4-3, when the game was called after 5 innings, due to darkness, as no ballparks had lights in those days.

Boundary Field burned down early in the 1911 season, as did the Polo Grounds in New York. Both were quickly rebuilt. The new Washington ballpark was named National Park, until 1922, when Clark Griffith -- the 1st manager of the Highlanders/Yankees and also a pitcher for them -- bought the Senators, and renamed it Griffith Stadium. Baseball continued to be played there until 1961. It was demolished in 1965, and Howard University Hospital was built on the site.

The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913. That same year, they moved into the Polo Grounds, invited to do so as a return courtesy for the Yankees letting the New York Giants use Hilltop Park while the Polo Grounds was rebuilt after their fire. They moved into the original Yankee Stadium in 1923.

Hilltop Park was torn down in 1914. For a while, Billy Sunday, a former major league pitcher turned nationally-known evangelist, had a church on the site. In 1928, the site of Hilltop Park, like that of Griffith Stadium, had a hospital built on it, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. At each hospital, the location of home plate is marked with a plaque.

And the home of the Americans/Red Sox? The Huntington Avenue Grounds didn't last much beyond the team moving to Fenway Park in 1912. Northeastern University built athletic facilities on the site. A statue of Cy Young now stands where the pitcher's mound once stood. 

August 30, 1904: 25 Miles of Insanity

Thomas Hicks

August 30, 1904: Perhaps the craziest sporting event ever held on American soil takes place. No movie studio would buy a script containing this story. But it all happened.

The 1st modern Olympic Games, in Athens, Greece in 1896, were a smashing success. Not least because its signature event, the marathon race, was won by a Greek, Spyridon Louis, who became, and perhaps remains, his nation's greatest sporting hero.

The founder of the International Olympic Committee, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, wanted them held every 4 years, just like they were in ancient Greece. Understandable. And he wanted the next one to be in his hometown: Paris, France. Also understandable, given his role in their establishment, given France's status as one of the world's leading countries, and given Paris' status as one of the world's most beloved cities.

But the 1900 Olympics were practically a sideshow to the Exposition Universelle, a World's Fair. It was so haphazard that some competitors, upon receiving their medals, were unaware that the events they had just won were part of the Olympic Games. About the only thing that can be said in favor of the Games of the IInd Olympiad is that they were the 1st to include women.

Things got worse in 1904. America wanted to be the next host. But the city with the winning bid was St. Louis, Missouri. Not being a coastal city, and not being as large a city as Athens or Paris, it was hard to get to. Throw in various worldwide tensions, including the Russo-Japanese War, and only 62 out of the 651 athletes who competed were from outside North America. Only 15 countries sent athletes.

And, again, they were attached to a World's Fair: The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the launch of the Lewis & Clark expedition. This Fair would popularize several foods we now take for granted, though none were actually invented there: The hamburger, the hot dog, peanut butter, iced tea, cotton candy, the waffle-style ice cream cone, and Dr. Pepper soda. The Fair would be the setting of the 1944 film Meet Me In St. Louis, starring Judy Garland and directed by Vincente Minnelli, who married shortly thereafter.

The 1904 Olympics were the 1st to feature boxing, freestyle wrestling, and the decathlon. Most events took place on the campus of Washington University, including on their Francis Field, which is still in use, although the current stadium on the site dates to 1984.

The Francis Field complex in recent years

George Eyser, born in Germany, but a naturalized American citizen living in St. Louis, had lost a leg in a railroad accident. Nevertheless, he competed in gymnastics, and won 3 Gold Medals, 2 Silvers and a Bronze. As he had 4 years earlier, Ray Ewry won all 3 standing jumps: High, long and triple. Only 2 athletes representing Great Britain won medals, and both were, rather inconveniently, from Ireland.

And then there was the marathon. The race had not yet been standardized at 26.2 miles. This one was 24.85 miles, in 90-degree heat, on unpaved roads that tended to kick up dust. It should never have been approved as the marathon course. The race began with 32 competitors from 6 countries: America, Canada, France, Greece, South Africa and Cuba.

The Canadian was Billy Sherring, of Hamilton, Ontario. He did not finish the race. Two years later, in the so-called Intercalated Games in Athens, he won the marathon, competing in a singlet with a large shamrock on it. It is said that this inspired the Athens-based soccer team Panathinaikos to adopt the shamrock as their logo, even though they have nothing to do with Ireland.

The South Africans were Len Taunyane and Jan Mashiani, the 1st 2 black Africans to compete in the Olympics. Aside from his participation in this race, little is known of Taunyane. It is not known when he was born. He participated in the Boer War, and was part of an exhibit on that war at the Fair. Having been a dispatch runner in the war, he decided he could run in the marathon. Despite the strict segregation of the State of Missouri, he was allowed to try.

But the organizers couldn't understand his thick accent, which made it hard for them to understand him even as he spelled his name. So he went into the books as "Len Tau," competing for the Zulu nation, because, as yet, there was no nation of South Africa. And he wasn't a member of the Zulu tribe: He was a Tswana. He ran barefoot, and at one point was chased off course by dogs. He still managed to finish 9th. He returned to his homeland, and, from there, history lost track of him: We don't know what he did after 1904, or when he died.

Even less is known of Mashiani, who finished 12th. Taunyane's part of the story would be distinctive enough. But it was far from the craziest part.

The Cuban was Félix de la Caridad Carvajal y Soto, known as Andarín Carvajal. He was a mailman, used to walking long distances. Once, he ran the entire length of the island on which Cuba lies. When he learned of the Olympics coming to America, he decided to run in the marathon.

He took a boat ride from Havana to New Orleans, and then lost all of his remaining money gambling. He had to walk and hitchhike the 683 miles up the Mississippi River to St. Louis. He showed up just in time to register, wearing street clothes, including long pants. A sympathetic official cut the pants so that they would feel more like shorts, and give him more ventilation.

Along the race course, he stopped several times to talk with spectators. He saw a car with a basket full of peaches, and swiped a few of them, to keep himself hydrated in the brutal St. Louis heat. The course included an apple tree, and he grabbed some apples. They turned out to be rotten, and he threw up. He stopped to take a nap. He got up, and resumed. So, what, it took him a week to finish the race? No: He finished 4th, in under 4 hours.

In 1907, he famously defeated American runner Henry W. Shelton in a 6-hour race. In 1909, a 6-laps-per-mile track was installed for a race around the Polo Grounds in New York, but he finished last. He lived until 1949.

You might think Carvajal's role was the craziest part of the event. But you would be thinking wrong.

Frederick Lorz was a 20-year-old bricklayer in New York. He competed in a long-distance race at Celtic Park in what's now Sunnyside, Queens, that was a precursor to the New York City Marathon. The 8 top finishers would be admitted to the Olympic marathon in St. Louis, all expenses paid. He was 1 of the 8, competing for the Mohawk Athletic Club.

He entered the race, but dropped out after 9 miles. His manager pulled up to him in a car -- still a novelty at that point -- and drove him 11 miles. Then he got back onto the course, ran into Francis Field, and broke the tape, purporting to be the winner. His time was 3 hours, 13 minutes even.

He was called out: No one had seen him at the halfway mark. He admitted his deception, and the Amateur Athletic Union banned him for life from all competitions they oversaw. After 1 year, the ban was lifted, and he won the 1905 Boston Marathon. He died in 1914, of pneumonia in those pre-antibiotic days, only 29 years old.

So that's the strangest part of this story, right? No, it's not.

Only 14 of the 32 runners who started finished. One who did not was William Garcia, a 27-year-old runner from Oakland, California. He got to the 19-mile mark before the St. Louis heat did him in. He fell, and coughed up blood. A bystander saw this, and got him medical attention. Garcia nearly became the 1st person to die as a result of competing in the Olympic Games.

(Aside from the Israeli athletes murdered by terrorists in Munich in 1972, only 1 athlete ever has: Nodar Kumaritashvili, a luger from the Republic of Georgia, who was killed in a practice run in Vancouver in 2010.)

Finally, we come to the strangest part. Thomas John Hicks was born in England in 1876. By August 30, 1904, he was a 28-year-old brass worker living outside Boston in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1904, he finished 2nd at the Boston Marathon. Four months later, he was ready to compete in the Olympic Marathon. Or so he thought.

Midway through the race, he was well behind the leaders. His assistants gave him 1/60th of a grain -- about 1 milligram -- of strychnine, and some brandy. Historically, small doses of strychnine were given to people to strengthen muscle contractions, to stimulate the heart, and to aid in bowel movements. In doses larger than that, it had been used as poison, as a murder weapon. It had also been used as a pesticide.

The 1st dose didn't help Hicks much. So he was given another dose. That did the trick: With Lorz having already been disqualified, Hicks crossed the finish line officially 1st, in 3 hours, 28 minutes and 53 seconds -- nearly 16 minutes after Lorz. Albert Corey of France finished 2nd, at 3:34:52. Arthur Newton of the U.S. was 3rd, and, as I said, Carvajal finished 4th, oddly, but legitimately.

The strychnine was, literally, a "performance-enhancing drug." At the time, though, it was legal. Eventually, it was banned. A good thing, too: Hicks collapsed at the finish line, and it is believed that a 3rd dose would have killed him. Instead, he moved to Canada, joined his brothers working in a mine near Winnipeg, and lived until 1952.

Thomas Hicks had won a race that can legitimately be called 25 miles of insanity.

*

August 30, 1904 was a Tuesday. A full slate of games, and then some, was played in what would later be called Major League Baseball:

* The New York Highlanders beat the Cleveland Naps, 1-0 at Hilltop Park in Manhattan. Al Orth, known as "The Curveless Wonder," outpitched future Hall-of-Famer Addie Joss, known as "The Human Hairpin" because of his pitching motion. Jimmy Williams singled home Norman "Kid" Elberfeld to win the game in the bottom of the 9th.

In 1913, the Highlanders renamed themselves the Yankees. Cleveland's 2nd baseman, manager and namesake was Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, who went 0-for-4 in this game. After he left in 1914, the team was renamed the Cleveland Indians. In 2022, they renamed themselves again, the Cleveland Guardians.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-1 at the Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. Crosley Field was built on the site in 1912. Christy Mathewson got the win over Frank "Noodles" Hahn, advancing to 28-9 on the season.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-4 at West Side Park in Chicago. The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911.

* The Boston Americans beat the Detroit Tigers, 13-0 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. Cy Young not only pitched a 6-hit shutout, but went 3-for-5, including a 2-RBI triple.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 3-0 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. Roy Patterson pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* A doubleheader was split at League Park in Washington. The St. Louis Browns won the opener, 3-2. The Washington Senators won the nightcap, 4-1.

* The Boston Beaneaters beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-1 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 1-for-2 with a walk in a losing cause.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2 at Robison Field in St. Louis. 

August 7, 1904: The Eden Train Wreck

August 7, 1904: The No. 11 Flyer, intended to run on the Missouri Pacific Railroad (a.k.a. the MoPac) from Denver to St. Louis is hit by a flash flood as it crosses the Dry Creek Bridge near Eden Station, 8 miles north of Pueblo, Colorado.

The engineer, Charles Hinman, had been warned about the possibility, and had slowed the train to 15 miles per hour before the bridge. But after the engine crossed the creek, a wave threw the cars over to the right, breaking the coupling to the 2 rear Pullman (sleeping) and dining cars, and dragged the engine backwards into the river.

Melville Sales, the Pullman's porter, pulled the emergency air brakes, saving 29 passengers. But 111 deaths were attributed to the wreck. Some bodies were found as much as 22 miles down the Arkansas River.

Within 24 hours, the bridge was rebuilt, and passenger rail traffic had resumed.

In 1971, all MoPac passenger routes were taken over by Amtrak. In 1982, Union Pacific Corporation took over operation of MoPac freight lines.

*

August 7, 1904 was a Sunday. Ralph Bunche, a United Nations official who in 1950 became the 1st black person to receive the Nobel Prize, in his case for Peace, was born on this day.

Baseball was the only major league sport in North America at the time, and because several States still had laws against playing professional sports on Sundays, only 2 games were played. The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-2 at South Side Park in Chicago. And the Washington Senators beat the St. Louis Browns, 7-2 at the 1898-1908 version of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

July 15, 1904: Anton Chekhov Dies

July 15, 1904: Anton Chekhov dies of tuberculosis in Badenweiler, a health-resort town in the Black Forest, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He was 44 years old.

Regarded as Russia's greatest playwright, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on January 29, 1860 in Taganrog, in Rostov Oblast, in the southern portion of European Russia. (An "oblast" is an administrative division, like what America calls "States.") He became a physician, but, as a man unmarried for most of his life, admitted, "Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress."

Chekhov renounced the theatre after the poor reception of his play The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.

These four works present a challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a "theatre of mood" and a "submerged life in the text." The plays that Chekhov wrote were not complex, but easy to follow, and created a somewhat haunting atmosphere for the audience.

"Chekhov's gun" is a popular literary device: The idea is that, if you're going to mention something in your narrative, it should be part of the story. In other words, Chekhov believed that, if you write about a gun being in the room, at some point in the story, that gun must be fired.

Chekhov at first wrote stories to earn money, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations that influenced the evolution of the modern short story. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.

But he was always unhealthy, and by 1884 had already begun to suffer from tuberculosis. Actress Olga Knipper had appeared in all 4 of his plays, and he married her in 1901, when he was 41 and she was 32. They had no children. The character of Masha in Three Sisters is said to be based on her, although Chekhov also had a sister named Masha. 

On June 3, 1904, like many TB patients before and after, he headed for a town known for its health spas, in his case Badenweiler, taking Olga with him. She described his death on July 15:

Anton sat up unusually straight and said loudly and clearly (although he knew almost no German): Ich sterbe ("I'm dying"). The doctor calmed him, took a syringe, gave him an injection of camphor, and ordered champagne. Anton took a full glass, examined it, smiled at me and said: "It's a long time since I drank champagne." He drained it and lay quietly on his left side, and I just had time to run to him and lean across the bed and call to him, but he had stopped breathing and was sleeping peacefully as a child.

Olga lived on until 1959. It's been suggested that Pavel Chekov, the Russian navigator on the original Star Trek series, was named for Anton Chekhov, but the names are spelled differently.

*

July 15, 1904 was a Friday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Highlanders beat the Cleveland Naps, 3-2 at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan. The game went 15 innings, and both starters went the distance: Jack Powell for New York, and Earl Moore for Cleveland.

Al Orth, known as "The Curveless Wonder," outpitched future Hall-of-Famer Addie Joss, known as "The Human Hairpin" because of his pitching motion. Jimmy Williams singled home Norman "Kid" Elberfeld to win the game in the bottom of the 9th.

In 1913, the Highlanders renamed themselves the Yankees. Cleveland's 2nd baseman, manager and namesake was Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, who did not play in this game. Nor did the Highlanders' biggest star, "Wee" Willie Keeler. After Lajoie he left in 1914, the team was renamed the Cleveland Indians. In 2022, they renamed themselves again, the Cleveland Guardians.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-2 at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. Christy Mathewson was the winning pitcher. Sam Mertens went 4-for-4 with a home run and 4 RBIs.

* The Brooklyn Superbas, forerunners of the Dodgers, beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 1-0 at Robison Field in St. Louis. Ned Garvin pitched a 3-hit, 10-inning shutout.

* The Boston Americans, forerunners of the Red Sox, beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-1 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Washington Senators, 7-2 at American League Park in Washington.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 0-for-1 with 3 walks.

* And the Boston Beaneaters, forerunners of the Braves, beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-3 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago.

July 6, 1904: The New York Giants Forfeit the World Series

John T. Brush: Civil War hero, baseball coward

July 6, 1904: The New York Giants forfeit the World Series. How is this possible, 3 months before the event in question would have begun?

The previous year, as part of the settlement of the "war" between the National League, founded in 1876, and the American League, founded in 1901, an agreement was made to stage a postseason series between each League's "Pennant" winner. This had previously been done between the winners of the Pennants in the NL and the American Association, from 1884 until 1891, after which the AA folded.

That earlier series had been called "the World's Championship Series," even though it involved only teams from the United States, and then no teams eligible for it were any further south than Washington, D.C., or further west than St. Louis. This would remain true in what would be called "Major League Baseball" until the 1950s, when teams began moving west, and then to the South in the 1960s, eventually adding two teams in Canada (but later moving one out).

The 1903 event became known by the shorter name "World Series." It was officials from the teams involved, the Boston Americans in the AL and the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL, who met and agreed to the rules for the Series, not officials from the Leagues. And there was no agreement to do this after every season.

John T. Brush, owner of the NL's New York Giants, had been opposed to any peace with the AL. He had also used his influence to keep the AL from establishing a team in New York City. Once that failed, he thought he could push them out by convincing landowners to not sell land for a ballpark to the AL's New York Highlanders. This also failed, and he got even more bitter.

In Spring Training 1904, when asked if there would be exhibition games between the Giants and the Highlanders, and a postseason series should each team win its Pennant, he said, "There will never be a series."

On July 6, Sporting Life magazine published an issue with an interview of Brush, who repeated his claim that his team would not play the Highlanders "if each wins the pennant in its respective league." As the Giants ran away with the NL Pennant, their 1st in 15 years, and the Highlanders battled the defending World Champion Boston Americans for the AL Pennant down to the last day of the season, the call for the Giants to stand up and prove, on the field, who the best baseball team in the world really was got louder and louder.

Born in AuSable, New York, 40 miles south of the Canadian border, in 1845, the year the Knickerbocker Club wrote the first rules of baseball, Brush had served in the American Civil War, before becoming a department store tycoon in Indianapolis, and owner of 3 different teams in the NL: He owned the Indianapolis Hoosiers from 1887 to 1889, he bought the Cincinnati Reds in 1891, and then sold the Reds in 1902, in order to buy the Giants. He had proven his courage on the battlefield and in the boardroom. But, in baseball, he was a coward.

One man who had seemingly proven his courage on the ballfield was John McGraw, the Giants' manager, who had been a star 3rd baseman in the previous decade. A short man who tried to make up for it by taking on any man in any contest at any time, including physical fights when he felt like it, he became known as "The Little Napoleon," which he didn't mind. His tendency to fight got him another nickname: "Muggsy." That nickname, he hated.

McGraw was just 31 years old,

but his hair had already begun to go gray.

But as a member of the National League's Baltimore Orioles, he had been a part of 3 straight Pennant winners, in 1894, 1895 and 1896 -- and, each time, they had played the NL's 2nd-place team in a postseason series, for a trophy known as the Temple Cup, In 1894, the Orioles lost -- with retroactive irony, to the New York Giants. In 1895, they lost to the Cleveland Spiders. That the Orioles avenged the 1895 defeat by beating the Spiders for the Cup in 1896, and beat the Pennant-winning Boston Beaneaters for it in 1897, did not change the fact that the 1894 and 1895 losses still burned him up.

So on the issue of playing the AL Champions in a 1904 World Series, McGraw not only backed his boss Brush up, he doubled down: Having previously established a feud with AL co-founder and President Ban Johnson, he frequently belittled the AL. When the Giants beat the Reds, 7-5 at the Polo Grounds, to clinch the Pennant on September 22, 1904, McGraw said that his team was already the World Champions, because they were the champions of the "only real major league."

On October 4, Joseph Gordon, president of the Highlanders, sent Brush a letter by registered mail, so he would know whether it was received, challenging him to a postseason series in the event his team won the as-yet-undecided AL Pennant. There would be 3 games at the Polo Grounds, 3 at the Highlanders' Hilltop Park, and a coin flip would decide the site of a Game 7 should it be necessary. Brush received the letter, and, on October 6, made one more public announcement, refusing to play.

The AL race went down to the wire. The Americans and the Highlanders closed the season on October 10 with a doubleheader at Hilltop Park -- just 6 blocks up the street from the Polo Grounds. The Highlanders had to sweep in order to win the Pennant; otherwise, the Americans would win. The Americans won the opener, and clinched the Pennant. This became known as the Jack Chesbro Game, for which I have an entry.

The Giants claimed the World Championship. So did the Americans, and the public sided with them, because they were willing to prove it, head-to-head, and the Giants were not. There would be no head-to-head matchup between the Giants and the Americans, no pitching duel between the best pitcher in each League, Christy Mathewson and Cy Young.

It never occurred to Brush, McGraw, or anyone else that playing for the championship, and losing, would be more honorable than refusing to play. Then again, given that there would be 4 late-season disasters for the Giants over the next 20 years -- making public victims of Fred Merkle in 1908, Fred Snodgrass in 1912, Heinie Zimmerman in 1917 and Fred Lindstrom in 1924 -- I could be wrong about that.

Humiliated by the massive negative attention he had received, Brush caved in: In February 1905, he drew up rules, and submitted them to Johnson and NL President Harry Pulliam. The Presidents polled their team owners, who found the Brush rules acceptable, and they were adopted. The rules compelled the Pennant winners to participate, and governed the annual determination of sites, dates, ticket prices and division of receipts.

The Giants defended their Pennant in 1905, and made their point by beating the Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series, 4 games to 1. In spite of the successes of the franchises that have been known as the Boston Red Sox since 1908 and the San Francisco Giants since 1958, through the 2022 season, those 2 teams have met in the World Series only once, in 1912, with the Red Sox winning 4 games to 3, with Game 2 ending in a tie, called due to darkness, in the era before outdoor stadiums had permanent lights. John Brush, already in poor health, attended the games of that Series, which probably did him no favors. He died a month later, at the age of 67.

In 1991, Benton Stark published a book about the events, titled The Year They Called Off the World Series. The title became no longer unique in 1994, when Commissioner Bud Selig canceled the postseason, to spite the players' union for their strike.

Today, the Red Sox hang championship flags outside the front entrance of Fenway Park, and have notations for these titles on the press box behind home plate. While they treat 1903, 1912, 1915, 1916, 1918, 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018 as seasons in which they won "World Championships," they treat 1904 as merely an "American League Championship." If they claimed it was a "World Championship," few people would object. After all, unlike 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018, there was no accusation of cheating for it.

Note the reverse of colors for the 1904 banner.

In contrast, when the Polo Grounds Towers housing complex opened on the site of that ballpark in 1966, a plaque was placed at one of the building entrances, roughly at the location of home plate. It claims that the Giants were World Champions 6 times: 1904, 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933 and 1954. It includes 1904, even though they did not meet the Boston Americans in a World Series.

It does not, however, claim 1888 and 1889, when they did win a postseason series, because those were won before they moved to that plot of land.

*

July 6, 1904 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 12-3 at National League Park (later renamed Baker Bowl) in Philadelphia. Christy Mathewson went 6 shutout innings, but then McGraw put Red Ames in, and he allowed 3 runs in the bottom of the 9th, with the Giants already ahead, 12-0.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Boston Beaneaters, 3-2 at the South End Grounds in Boston. The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911, and the Beaneaters became the Braves in 1912.

* The New York Highlanders beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 7-1 at Hilltop Park. Tom Hughes outpitched Eddie Plank. Willie Keeler, normally one of the best hitters in the game, went 0-for-2 with a walk. The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913.

* The Boston Americans beat the Washington Senators, 3-0 at American League Park in Washington. Cy Young pitched a 7-hit shutout.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 1-for-4 for the Pirates.

* The St. Louis Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds, 3-0 and 6-3 at Robison Field in St. Louis. Jack Taylor pitched a 3-hit shutout in the opener. Kid Nichols went the distance in the nightcap.

* And the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Naps (who became the Indians in 1915 and the Guardians in 2022), the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Browns (who became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954) were not scheduled.

June 24, 1904: The Perdicaris Affair

Ion Perdicaris

June 24, 1904: What had become known as the Perdicaris Affair is resolved.

Ion Hanford Perdicaris was born in Athens, Greece in 1840, and grew up in Trenton, New Jersey. He became a journalist, and fought for the rights of the Moorish people in Morocco, then a French colony. In the 1870s, he and his wife Ellen established Place of the Nightingales, an estate in the Moroccan city of Tangier.

Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni -- for some reason, his name was usually written as "Raisuli" in the English-language press -- was born in Zinat, Morocco in 1871. He was a leader of the Jebala tribal confederacy in Morocco. Typical of nonwhite leaders of his time, he was viewed by his own people as a heroic figure, fighting against a tyrannical government of outsiders; and by the rest of the world as a villainous barbarian. 

Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni

The mansion on the Perdicaris estate was raided by 200 bandits on May 18, 1904. Ion and his stepson Cromwell Varley were kidnapped by Raisuni and brought to the mountains. Perdicaris broke his leg during the ordeal.

U.S. Consul Samuel R. Gummeré alerted the U.S. government about the incident. Ion was in the mountains for several weeks. Perdicaris and the kidnapper became very good friends, and the incident is regarded as an example of Stockholm syndrome. Raisuni demanded a ransom $70,000 -- about $2.3 million in 2022 money -- from the U.S. government.

Theodore Roosevelt had become President upon the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. To that point, no Vice President who had become President had ever won a term of his own. And, at the time, he was very popular, but it was hardly a given that he would win.

But the Perdicaris Affair played right into his hands. The Republican Party pushed the slogan "Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead!" Due to Perdicaris' political background and wealth, by May 30, Roosevelt had sent the U.S. Navy's South Atlantic Squadron to Morocco.

The Republican National Convention began on June 21, 1904, at the Chicago Coliseum. Roosevelt was nominated for a full term. Senator Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana was nominated for Vice President. Secretary of State John Hay did not speak at the Convention, but he sent a message to it, read on June 22 by the Convention Chairman, the Speaker of the House, Joseph Cannon of Illinois. The message was the established slogan: "This government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuni dead." The delegates roared their approval.

What no one at the Convention yet knew was that the ransom had been paid. When the Convention adjourned on June 24, Perdicaris and Varley were already back at Place of the Nightingales. Everybody had gotten what they wanted: Roosevelt and the Republicans -- and Raisuli (and Varley) -- had gotten Perdicaris (and Varley) alive, and the political goodwill that came from it; while Raisuni had gotten his money and the prestige that had come from standing up to America.

The Democratic Party had its Convention at the St. Louis Music and Exposition Hall from July 6 to 10. They nominated perhaps the most obscure major-party nominee ever: Alton B. Parker, the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. With the popularity he already had, the successful resolution of the Perdicaris Affair, and the Democrats running a candidate that one historian called "colorless," Theodore Roosevelt won a landslide victory.

In 1910, Ion and Ellen Perdicaris moved to London. Ellen died in 1920, Ion in 1925. His Place of the Nightingales has become a public park. Cromwell Varley died in 1934.

In 1913, Raisuni led several Rif tribes in a bloody revolt against the Spanish, and continued a protracted guerilla war against them. His men were finally defeated in 1919, although Raisuni and most of his troops managed to slip away. After having been reported dead in 1914 and 1923, he was finally captured in 1925, and died of edema in captivity.

The film The Wind and the Lion was released in 1975. Sean Connery played Raisuli, but, to add a hint of "romance" to it, the character of Ion Perdicaris was changed to a woman, Eden Pedecaris, played by Candice Bergen. Brian Keith played Roosevelt, John Huston played Hay, and Geoffrey Lewis played Gummeré.

*

June 24, 1904 was a Friday. Phil Harris was born, leader of a "Big Band," music director for The Jack Benny Program, and husband of actress-singer Alice Faye.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Highlanders, forerunners of the Yankees, beat the Washington Senators, 5-3 at American League Park in Washington.

* The New York Giants beat the Boston Beaneaters, forerunners of the Braves, 5-3 at the South End Grounds in Boston. "Iron" Joe McGinnity beat Irvin "Kaiser" Wilhelm.

* The Brooklyn Superbas, forerunners of the Dodgers, beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at Washington Park in Brooklyn.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Americans, forerunners of the Red Sox, 8-4 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-0 at Bennett Park in Detroit. Nick Altrock pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Patsy Flaherty outpitched Kid Nichols. Honus Wagner went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* And the Chicago Cubs, the Cincinnati Reds, the St. Louis Browns and the Cleveland Naps -- forerunners of the Indians and the Guardians -- were not scheduled.

June 21, 1904: The Trans-Siberian Railway Is Completed

Vladivostok Distance Monument:

9,288 kilometers from Moscow, or 5,771.3 miles.

The station opened in 1893.

June 21, 1904: The Trans-Siberian Railway is completed. It runs 5,771.3 miles, from Yaroslavsky Station in Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, Chita Khabarovsk, and finally to Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East. That's 7 time zones. Presuming the train stays on time, it can be done in 6 days and 4 hours.

"Vladivostok" means "lord (or ruler) of the east." How far east is it? Further east than any point in China, Korea, or the Philippines, and most of Indonesia, half of Australia, and nearly as far east as Hiroshima, Japan. It is in a part of Russia that curls around the border with China, and the station is just 28 miles from that border. Nevertheless, of the city's 600,000 or so residents, 92 percent are ethnically Russian.

Yaroslavsky Station, opened in 1862

Construction began on May 19, 1891, inaugurated by Czarevich Nicholas, later Czar Nicholas II. It took 13 years, through the coldest part of the country, the place to which, even then, people guilty of crimes against the state were sentenced.

The main purpose of the railway was not passenger traffic, but freight: Specifically, the transportation of food. Hunger has always hung over Russia, and in the decades to come, both World Wars and the "Five-Year Plans" of dictator Joseph Stalin would lead to famine in what is, by land area, the world's largest country.

*

June 21, 1904 was a Tuesday.  These baseball games were played:

* The New York Highlanders beat the Washington Senators, 4-0 at Boundary Park in Washington. Jack Chesbro pitched a 4-hit shutout, and advanced to 15-3 on the season. He finished the season at 41-12. The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants beat the Boston Beaneaters, 6-2 at the South End Grounds in Boston. Joe McGinnity outpitched Vic Willis. The Beaneaters went through some name changes, before settling on the Braves in 1912.

* The Brooklyn Superbas lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-0 at the Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. Tom Walker pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-1 at South Side Park in Chicago. Cleveland's 2nd baseman, manager and namesake was Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, who went 1-for-4 in this game. After he left in 1914, the team was renamed the Cleveland Indians. In 2022, they renamed themselves again, the Cleveland Guardians.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 3-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. George Mullin pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-6 at Robison Field in St. Louis. Honus Wagner went 2-for-5.

* And the Boston Americans and the Philadelphia Athletics were rained out at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 12. The Americans won the opener, 6-4. The A's won the nightcap, 6-2. The Americans became the Boston Red Sox in 1908.