December 30, 1952: "The Ernie Kovacs Show" Premieres

December 30, 1952: The Ernie Kovacs Show premieres on NBC. It becomes a landmark in television production.

Up until then, TV production was basically done with what Leonard Nimoy on Star Trek would have called "stone knives and bear skins." Kovacs' visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death.

With his visual tricks, Kovacs has been credited as an influence by many individuals and shows, including Johnny Carson, Laugh-In, Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, and various PBS programs.

The Ernie Kovacs Show was one of only six TV shows broadcast on all four U.S. television networks during the Golden Age of Television. It was on NBC in the 1952-53 season, CBS in 1953-54, DuMont in 1954-55, and, in its return of 1961-62, ABC. The show probably would have continued had it not been for Kovacs' death in a car crash.

The others were: The Original Amateur Hour, Pantomime Quiz, Down You Go, The Arthur Murray Party, and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.

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December 30, 1952 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football season ended 2 days earlier, with the Detroit Lions beating the Cleveland Browns in the NFL Championship Game. There were no college football bowl games scheduled. Nor did the NHL schedule any games for this day.

There were 2 games in the NBA. The Rochester Royals beat their neighboring rivals, the Syracuse Nationals, 106-93 at the Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, New York. And the Indianapolis Olympians beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 74-69 at the Butler Fieldhouse (now the Hinkle Fieldhouse) in Indianapolis.

December 28, 1952: Lions vs. Browns

December 28, 1952: The Detroit Lions and the Cleveland Browns, both NFL powerhouses? Well, this was a long time ago.

Quarterback Bobby Layne and running back Doak Walker were teammates and best friends at Highland Park High School in Dallas. But they were rivals in college: Layne at the University of Texas in Austin, Walker staying in Dallas at Southern Methodist University (SMU). After 2 years with other teams, Layne was traded to the Lions in 1950, which, due to military service interrupting his college career, was Walker's rookie season with them.

By the time they got to Detroit, the Lions hadn't done much since their 1935 NFL Championship. Raymond "Buddy" Parker was a rookie running back on that team, and was now head coach of the Lions. In contrast, Paul Brown, as head coach and general manager, had built the Browns into the best franchise in the sport, winning the title in all 4 seasons of operation by the All-America Football Conference, coming into the NFL in 1950, winning the title, and then getting back to the title game in 1951 but losing it -- in both cases, against the Los Angeles Rams.

The Browns went through the 1952 regular season 8-4, winning the Eastern Division. The Lions rebounded from a 1-2 start to go 9-3, including a 17-6 win over the Browns at Briggs Stadium (renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961) on November 2. The Lions tied the Rams for the Western Division title, and beat the Rams in a Playoff on December 21, 31-12 at Briggs Stadium.

That set up an NFL Championship Game against the Browns. Being an even-numbered year, it was the East winners' turn to host, so it would be at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. There would be 14 future members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame on that field. For the Lions: Layne, Walker, guard Dick Stanfel, tackle Lou Creekmur, and safeties Yale Lary and Jack Christiansen. For the Browns: Quarterback Otto Graham, running back Marion Motley, center Frank Gatski, guard Bill Willis, tackle-placekicker Lou Groza, receivers Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie, and defensive end Len Ford.

Briggs/Tiger Stadium, set up for football

There was no scoring in the 1st quarter. The only scoring in the 2nd quarter was a 2-yard touchdown run by Layne. In the 3rd quarter, Walker broke off a 67-yard run to put the Lions up, 14-0. Harry "Chick" Jagade run 7 yards for a touchdown later in the quarter, to close Cleveland within 7. But in the 4th quarter, Pat Harder kicked a 36-yard field goal, and the Lions had a 17-7 win.

The teams would face each other again the next 2 years. The Lions had home-field advantage, but the Browns played them tougher. Perhaps the addition of rookie linebacker Joe Schmidt, a future Hall-of-Famer, made a difference, as the Lions won, 17-16. Back in Cleveland in 1954, it was no contest: The Browns blew the Lions away, 56-10.

In 1955, the Browns played the Rams in the title game, winning 38-14 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The team went into a transition, as this was Graham's last game. The 1956 title game was the New York Giants blowing the Chicago Bears away, 47-7.

But in 1957, with both teams having been revamped, the Browns and Lions again faced each other at Briggs Stadium. Parker had left the Lions in a dispute, and became head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. George Wilson replaced him. And Layne got hurt, and had to be replaced by Tobin Rote. And the Browns had the top rookie in the League, running back Jim Brown. Still, the Lions wrecked the Browns, 59-14. It remains the 2nd-most points scored in an NFL championship game, under any name, behind the 73 the Chicago Bears scored in 1940.

The Lions haven't been to an NFL championship game since. Only in the 1991 season have they even reached the NFC Championship Game. The Browns won the Championship in 1964, but that was their last title. They reached the NFL Championship Game in 1965, '68 and '69; and reached the AFC Championship Game in the seasons of 1986, '87 and '89 -- losing each of those.

Along with the Chicago, now Arizona, Cardinals, the Lions and Browns are 2 of the 3 teams to have won an NFL Championship, but not since the title game was renamed the Super Bowl. Indeed, of the 4 teams that have never reached the Super Bowl, the Houston Texans are a 2002 expansion team; the Jacksonville Jaguars are a 1995 expansion team, one that has, at least, reached 3 AFC Championship Games; and the other 2 are the Browns and the Lions, whose last titles could be called Super Bowl -II and Super Bowl -IX, respectively.

The fact that the Lions', Browns' and Cardinals' titles came before the advent of the Super Bowl means that they get discounted: Even before the distance of time became what it is now, NFL fans have come to regard any title won before the Super Bowl, NFL or AFL, as not a "real" championship.

And the fact that the 1970 AFL-NFL merger put the Browns in the AFC ended any real rivalry between the Browns and the Lions. So while Ohio State vs. Michigan is one of the biggest rivalries in college football, Cleveland vs. Detroit is much bigger in baseball and the NBA than it is in the NFL.

UPDATE: The Lions do not have a team Hall of Fame. But they did name an All-Time Team in 2019, in connection with the NFL's 100th Season. From their 1952, 1953 and 1957 NFL Championship teams, they named quarterback Bobby Layne, running back Doak Walker, guards Dick Stanfel and Harley Sewell, offensive tackle Lou Creekmur; and defensive backs Jack Christiansen, Jim David, Yale Lary and Don Doll. 

*

December 28, 1952 was a Sunday. There were no college football bowl games played on this day. Baseball was out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 72-54 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Indianapolis Jets, 84-73 at the Onondaga War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 89-66 at the War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

* And the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Milwaukee Hawks, 86-77 at the Minneapolis Auditorium.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Black Hawks, 6-3 at the old Madison Square Garden, which hosted the NBA and the NHL on the same day. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 7-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Marty Pavelich each scored 2 goals. The Canadian teams, the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, were not scheduled.

December 5, 1952: The Great Smog of London

December 5, 1952: London is hit by the deadliest smog in human history.

London is known for its fog, adding to the atmosphere of books, movies and TV shows set there. There is a brand of clothing named London Fog. Stories involving the fictional Sherlock Holmes and the very real Jack the Ripper tend to be shrouded in fog.

In 1967, when the producers of the Batman TV series wanted to do a 3-episode arc parodying the era's "Swinging London," they renamed the city Londinium (the ancient Roman name for it), and the villains were felonious sibling aristocrats, Lord Marmaduke Ffogg (played by Rudy Vallée with an accent even more ridiculous than Dick Van Dyke's in Mary Poppins) and Lady Penelope Peasoup (played by Glynis Johns, who was also in Mary Poppins, and was, at least, English).

But London was also the world's 1st truly industrial city, which led to it not only becoming the biggest city in the world by the mid-19th Century, but also to the production of pollution on a scale never seen before. "Smog" is a portmanteau of "smoke" and "fog," and the city has long been called "The Smoke" or "The Big Smoke" by people from elsewhere in England.

And the seat of the British Commonwealth, formerly the British Empire, had been hit hard by smog before: 780 dead in 1873; 2,200 in 1880; 779 in 1892; 800 in 1948. (In some cases, exact numbers can't be reached, based on symptoms.) And it didn't smell too good, either: 1858 was called "The Year of the Big Stink."

A period of unusually cold weather, combined with an "anticyclone" and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants, mostly arising from the use of coal, to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday to Tuesday, December 5 to 9, then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.

The smog caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severely than previous smog events, called "pea-soupers." Government medical reports in the weeks following the event estimated that up to 4,000 people had died as a direct result of the smog, and 100,000 more were made ill by the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities was considerably greater, with estimates of between 10,000 and 12,000 deaths.

The Great Smog was many times worse than anything the city had ever experienced before: It is thought to be the worst air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom, and the most significant, for its effects on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health. It led to several changes in practices and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956.

But that Act had not yet been implemented in December 1956, when another smog killed 1,000 people. Another 400 died in the long and especially cold Winter that began in December 1962, and another 160 in December 1991.

Certainly, when it came to deadly smog, London was not alone: New York would lose 260 in 1953, 405 in 1963, and 168 in 1966. But the American city best known for smog is Los Angeles. On July 26, 1943, the smog in L.A. was so bad, people began calling the police, thinking that the Japanese were conducting chemical warfare as part of their effort in World War II. The Japanese military never developed anything like that, but America didn't know that at the time. And on October 21, 1954, the smog in L.A. was so bad, the City actually closed its public schools for several days.

Oddly, the American city best known for fog, San Francisco, has never reported a smog causing multiple deaths.

Environmental activism from 1970 onward has gone a long way toward preventing such smog disasters, but not entirely, as pointed out by the 1991 London smog event.

*

December 5, 1952 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. There were 2 college football games played that night. The University of Georgia beat the University of Miami, 35-13 at Burdine Stadium in Miami. Burdine Stadium would be renamed the Orange Bowl in 1959. And the University of the Pacific beat the University of Hawaii, 49-13 at Honolulu Stadium.

There were no games scheduled for the NHL. One game was played in the NBA: The Indianapolis Olympians beat their geographical rivals, the Fort Wayne Pistons, 84-74 at the Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

November 8, 1952: Maurice Richard Becomes the NHL's All-Time Goals Leader

November 8, 1952: The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 6-4 at the Montreal Forum. At 10:01 of the 2nd period, Maurice Richard scored for the Canadiens. It was the 325th goal of his career, surpassing Nels Stewart as the NHL's all-time leader.

Les Habitantes got goals from 6 different players, a rarity. In addition to "The Rocket," scoring for them were Dick Gamble, Floyd Curry, Elmer Lach, Dick Gamble and Paul Meger.

This was one of the earliest hockey games broadcast on television, as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had just begun television broadcasting, with Hockey Night In Canada. CBC would also cover that season's Stanley Cup Finals, won by the Canadiens.

Richard would become the 1st player with 400 career goals in 1954, and the 1st with 500 in 1957. He retired in 1960, with 544. Gordie Howe would surpass him in 1963, finishing with 801. Wayne Gretzky would break that record in 1994, and extend it to 894.

In 1999, the NHL would establish the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy, for the League's annual goal-scoring leader. Richard died the next year.

*

November 8, 1952 was a Saturday. One other NHL game was played that day. The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings played to a 3-3 tie at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins were not scheduled.

Baseball was out of season. The NFL played the next day, but these were among the college football games played that day:

* Number 1 Michigan State beat Indiana, 41-14.

* Number 3 Georgia Tech beat Army, 45-6 at Grant Field in Atlanta.

* Number 4 Oklahoma were upset by Notre Dame, 27-21 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* Number 5 UCLA beat Oregon, 57-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* Number 6 Southern California beat Stanford, 54-7 at the old Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California.

* Number 7 Kansas were upset by Nebraska, 14-7 at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas.

* Number 8 Tennessee beat Louisiana State (LSU), 22-3 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Number 9 Purdue were held to a 14-14 tie by Minnesota at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis.

* Number 12 Duke were upset by Navy, 16-6 at Duke Stadium (now Wallace Wade Stadium) in Durham, North Carolina.

* Number 15 Penn State were upset by Syracuse, 25-7 at Beaver Field in State College, Pennsylvania.

* In New York City, Fordham played Clemson to a 12-12 tie at Triborough Stadium (later Downing Stadium) on Randall's Island. Columbia traveled to Memorial Field in Hanover, New Hampshire, and lost to Dartmouth, 38-14.

* And in New Jersey, Rutgers beat Lafayette, 21-6 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway; and Number 19 Princeton beat Harvard, 41-21 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Baltimore Bullets, 92-62 at the Baltimore Coliseum.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Syracuse Nationals, 106-83 at the Boston Garden.

* The Minneapolis Lakers beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 93-71 at the Philadelphia Arena.

* And the Rochester Royals beat the Indianapolis Olympians, 99-96 in 4 overtimes at the Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, New York.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat Yorkshire team Middlesbrough, 4-1 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London. Arsenal would go on to win the 1952-53 Football League title.

And actress Alfre Woodward was born on this day.

November 4, 1952: Dwight D. Eisenhower Is Elected President

November 4, 1952: General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the great American hero of World War II, is overwhelmingly elected President. The Republican nominee won 442 Electoral Votes, while the Democratic nominee, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, won only 9 States for 89 Electoral Votes. "Ike" won the popular vote, 55 to 44 percent, ending 20 years of Democratic governance in the White House. 

As the leading General of the U.S. Army from the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944 to the end of "The War" (for those who lived through it, like my grandparents, always Capital T, Capital W), Eisenhower was expected to follow in the footsteps of previous American Generals: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt (who never got promoted from Colonel to General).

Of course, some Generals tried to become President, and lost: Winfield Scott, Winfield Scott Hancock, Leonard Wood (who didn't even get nominated) and Douglas MacArthur (who seemed to want it more than Ike, but was never seriously considered). And then there those who didn't even run: William Tecumseh Sherman said, "I will not run if nominated, and will not serve if elected." This would be followed by John J. Pershing; and, after Eisenhower, by Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf. And by William Westmoreland, who never would have had a chance.

But in the next election, Ike didn't run. He didn't even say what party he belonged to. Both parties sought him out. Harry Truman, the incumbent, a Democrat, who became President upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, seemed willing to step aside and not amount to a term of his own, if Ike would run as a Democrat. He wouldn't, and he and Truman had a falling-out.

In 1952, Ike looked around at the potential candidates, considered their ability to both maintain American prosperity and stand up to the Communist world, and thought that he could do a better job than any of them. So he ran, as a Republican.

The Party regulars saddled him with a running mate they liked, but almost nobody else did: Senator Richard Nixon of California. In less than 6 years in Congress, including a year and a half in the Senate, Nixon had already generated a reputation as the slimiest, most dishonest major politician in America. His opponent in his 1950 Senate election, Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, gave him the nickname that stuck with him for the rest of his life: "Tricky Dick."

And while nothing was going to derail Ike's election, Nixon almost derailed his place on the ticket, with a scandal that forced him to take up half an hour of prime-time television, and detail his assets and debts, so people could see he wasn't corrupt. He mentioned the gift of a dog, and it became known as "The Checkers Speech." After seeing it, Ike told him, "Dick, you're my boy!"

The Democrats nominated Stevenson after a fine 1st term as Governor, with Senator John Sparkman of Alabama as his running mate. (Stevenson's grandfather, also named Adlai Ewing Stevenson, had been Grover Cleveland's Vice President from 1893 to 1897.)

"Let's face it," Stevenson said in his Convention speech. "Let's talk sense to the American people." But they weren't willing to listen. It didn't help that, unlike all previous major-party nominees except one (James M. Cox in 1920), he was divorced. Then again (as with Cox), it wouldn't have mattered if he were happily married.

Because, after 20 years of Democratic leadership, the party had grown stale in office, and the Republicans used the slogan, "It's time for a change." As far as I know, this was the first time it was used. And Ike was way too popular: The biggest fashion accessory of 1952 -- and 1956, as it turned out -- was an "I LIKE IKE" button. (The counterpart, "WE NEED ADLAI BADLY," didn't get far.)

Stevenson was bald -- but so was Eisenhower. And Stevenson had a broken nose, and seemed perpetually sad and tired, while Ike always seemed to be smiling, except when he was talking about standing up to Communism. The Republicans ran on a formula they called "K₁C₂," for "Korea, Communism, and Corruption."

In the end, Stevenson asked, "How you expect to defeat a man called Ike with a name like Adlai?" He never figured that out in 1956, either, and lost to Eisenhower by an even wider margin.

The Republicans also won both houses of Congress, winning 22 seats in the House of Representatives and 2 seats in the Senate. Among the new Senators were Democrats John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Stuart Symington of Missouri, Mike Mansfield of Montana, and Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington; and Republican Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

The City of Chicago eventually honored both candidates with Expressways: Interstate 290, heading west out of the city, then north, is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway; while the Cook County section of Interstate 55, heading southwest, is named the Stevenson Expressway.

*

November 4, 1952, like most American Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over, football was in midweek, and neither the NBA nor the NHL had any games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 1, 1952: The 1st Hydrogen Bomb

November 1, 1952: America successfully detonates the 1st hydrogen bomb, at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean.

A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb -- H-bomb -- is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs (fission bombs), a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits.

Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239.

Edward Teller, a Hungarian-born Jewish physicist who won a power struggle with A-bomb pioneer J. Robert Oppenheimer within the American government, is considered "The Father of the Hydrogen Bomb." Late in life, he admitted in an interview, "I think the world has enough nuclear weapons."

He was more than right: The H-bomb was supposed to give the U.S. a leg up on the Soviet Union, but they detonated their 1st H-bomb on August 12, 1953, only 9 months later.

*

November 1, 1952 was a Saturday. Baseball season was over. These were among the college football games played:

* Number 1 Michigan State beat Number 8 Purdue, 14-7 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana. MSU finished 9-0, but, in this, their last season before joining the Big Ten (which was officially the Big Nine since 1940, when the University of Chicago dropped out), they were not invited to the Rose Bowl, or to any other bowl game. Nonetheless, after the season, they were voted the consensus National Champion.

* Number 2 Maryland beat Boston University, 34-7 at Fenway Park in Boston. Previously undefeated, Maryland lost its last 2 games, and didn't even get invited to a bowl game.

* Number 3 Oklahoma beat Iowa State, 41-0 at Clyde Williams Stadium in Ames, Iowa. Oklahoma won the Big Seven Conference title, but did not go to a bowl game.

* Number 4 Georgia Tech beat Number 5 Duke, 28-7 at Duke Stadium (later Wallace Wade Stadium) in Durham, North Carolina. Tech went on to win the Southeastern Conference title. However, they did not play the University of Mississippi during the regular season, and, despite 2 ties, and despite not even being ranked in the Top 20 until the week after this, "Ole Miss" were also undefeated. So the teams were paired up in the Sugar Bowl, and Tech won, earning National Championship honors from some minor polls.

Duke won the Southern Conference title, but were already on their way out of that league: The next season, they were charter members of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

* Number 6 USC, the University of Southern California, had the week off. Number 7 UCLA, the University of California at Los Angeles, beat Number 11 Cal, the main campus of the University of California, 28-7 at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. Three weeks later, USC beat UCLA for the Pacific Coast Conference title.

* Rivalry: Number 9 Kansas beat Kansas State, 26-6 at Memorial Stadium in Manhattan, Kansas. The Jayhawks lost 2 of their last 3 games, knocking themselves out of league title honors and bowl consideration. Most people there didn't care, as they were still basking in their National Championship in basketball, won in March.

* Number 12 Tennessee beat North Carolina, 41-14 at Shields-Watkins Field (later renamed Neyland Stadium) in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Number 13 Notre Dame beat Navy, 17-6 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. This was the end of an 0-2-1 stretch that saw Navy fall out of the Top 20. They were still invited to the Orange Bowl, but declined. Notre Dame declined all bowl invitations between the 1925 and 1969 seasons.

* Number 14 Texas beat Southern Methodist University (SMU), 31-14 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. Texas won the Southwest Conference title, then beat Tennessee in the Cotton Bowl.

* Number 15 Michigan were upset by Illinois, 22-13 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

* Number 16 Virginia were upset by South Carolina, 21-14 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia.

* Number 17 University of Pennsylvania were upset by Pennsylvania State University, a.k.a. Penn State, 14-7 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. The night before, another of Philadelphia's "Big 5" college basketball schools failed to win in football despite being nationally ranked: Number 10 Villanova were held to a tie by to the Parris Island Marines, 20-20 at Villanova Stadium in the Philadelphia suburb of Villanova, Pennsylvania. The Marines had their ranks swelled by volunteers to fight in the Korean War.

* Number 18 Wisconsin beat Rice University, 21-7 at Rice Stadium in Houston. It sounds like a bowl game, but it was in the regular season. Wisconsin did go on to win the Big Ten Conference title, but USC beat them in the Rose Bowl.

* Number 19 Alabama beat Georgia, 34-19 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. Losses to Tennessee and Georgia Tech cost 'Bama the SEC title, but they were still invited to the Orange Bowl, where they played Syracuse, who were idle on November 1. Alabama won, 61-6, and those 61 points stood as a record for the most points in a bowl game until 2008.

* Rivalry: Minnesota beat Iowa, 17-7 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapoli.s.

* Rivalry: Montana beat Montana State, 35-12 at Dornblaser Field in Missoula. (Montana State is in Bozeman.)

* Army beat Virginia Military Institute (VMI), 42-14 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.

* Among New York City teams, NYU beat Lafayette, 14-7 at Fisher Field in Easton, Pennsylvania. Fordham lost to the University of Detroit, 28-20 at Triborough Stadium (later Downing Stadium) on Randall's Island in the East River. And Columbia lost to Cornell, 21-14 at Baker Field in Upper Manhattan.

* And in New Jersey, Rutgers beat Temple, 40-28 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway; while Princeton beat Brown, 39-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Baltimore Bullets, 69-53 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Syracuse Nationals, 86-84 in overtime at the Philadelphia Civic Center.

* The Rochester Royals beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 94-82 at the Rochester War Memorial Arena (now the Blue Cross Arena) in Rochester, New York.

* The Milwaukee Hawks beat the Indianapolis Olympians, 73-71 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* And the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Boston Celtics, 94-91 at the Minneapolis Auditorium. Ed Macauley scored 37 in defeat for Boston.

There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 4-1 at the Montreal Forum. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, North London team Arsenal went to the Birmingham area, and lost 2-0 to West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns. Arsenal went on to win the Football League title for the 1952-53 season, anyway.

October 26, 1952: Wild Man Willey

October 26, 1952: The Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York Giants 14-10, thanks in part to the efforts of Norm Willey, a 24-year-old defensive end from West Virginia. There appears to be no surviving film of this game, but Hugh Brown of the Philadelphia newspaper The Evening Bulletin
wrote, "Willey awed inhabitants of the Polo Grounds by dumping New York Giants quarterback Charlie Conerly 17 times as he attempted to pass."

The term "sack" hadn't yet been used to describe such a play. It would be years before Los Angeles Rams defensive end Deacon Jones came up with the term. Since passing ahead of the line of scrimmage is illegal, those 17 attempts could only have happened behind it -- therefore, they were sacks.

So unless Brown got it really wrong, "Wild Man" Willey sacked Conerly 17 times. In one game. To paraphrase a later Philly sports legend, "Not a season, not a season, not a season: We talkin' 'bout a game."

Interestingly, given what happened at that same stadium a little more than a year earlier, the name of the Eagles' starting quarterback was Bobby Thomason -- not quite "Bobby Thomson."

Willey wasn't huge, not even by the standards of his time: He was 6-foot-2 and 224 pounds. He must have been fast, though. At a time when seasons were 12 games long, he appears to have gotten 20 to 30 sacks a season.

Officially, the single-game record is 7, by Derrick Thomas of the Kansas City Chiefs in 1990; the single-season record is 22 1/2, by Michael Strahan of the Giants in 2001, and tied by T.J. Watt of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2021; and the career record is 200 by Bruce Smith, from 1985 to 2003. If Brown was even half-off with his account, Thomas' record goes by the wayside, and the Strahan/Watt record is probably wrong as well.

So, is the record legit? There is no surviving film of the game, so we can't check that way. The Bulletin was the only paper to mention it the next day. The Inquirer, the Daily News, the Trenton Times, the Camden Post (South Jersey's largest paper is now named the Courier-Post), The Press of Atlantic City, the News-Journal (Delaware's largest paper), and, covering the game for New York, the papers of New York City and North Jersey didn't mention it.

There is one noticeable backup: The next week, the Eagles were supposed to play the Green Bay Packers, and, in a preview, the Green Bay Press-Citizen credited Willey with 13 sacks, which would still be far and away the record. (The Packers won, 13-12.)

Paul Zimmerman, later to be Sports Illustrated's lead NFL writer for decades, was at Columbia University at the time, and claimed to have been at the game, covering it for the Columbia Spectator. He kept a play-by-play log, and, hearing the Willey story long after the fact, checked his own notes from that game. The Eagles, as a team, had 14 sacks according to him -- 8 by Willey, which would still be a record, and 6 by Pete Pihos, which would be 1 short of the official record.

Willey played for the Eagles from 1950 to 1957. He remained in the Philadelphia area, coaching at Pennsville Memorial High School in Salem County, on the New Jersey end of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. He died in 2011, outliving Thomas, a victim of a car crash.

*

October 26, 1952 was a Sunday. These other NFL games were played that day:

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Washington Redskins, 19-15 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Chicago Cardinals, 34-28 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Green Bay Packers, 52-17 at Green Bay City Stadium. That should not be a shock: The Lions went on to win the NFL Championship that season, and the Packers went on to finish 6-6.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the Chicago Bears, 31-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* And the San Francisco 49ers beat the Dallas Texans, 48-21 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Contrary to legend, which says that the Texans became the Baltimore Colts the next season, the team was actually folded, this created a new place in the NFL for 1953, into which a new Colts team came in, replacing the one that played from 1947 to 1950.

A new Dallas Texans was founded in the AFL in 1960, becoming the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963. But the '52 Texans became neither the Colts, nor the Chiefs, nor any other team -- including a '53 Texans.

The NBA season wouldn't start for another 5 days. But there were 2 games played in the NHL that day. The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a 1-1 tie at the Chicago Stadium. The Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs were not scheduled.

October 16, 1952: The 1st India-Pakistan Cricket Match

October 16, 1952: India and Pakistan, both having become independent from Britain 5 years earlier, play each other in cricket, a sport they inherited from their former colonial masters and kept because they loved it, for the 1st time. From October 16 to 19, at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in New Dehli, India, they play a traditional 5-day test match, and India win, by an innings and 70 runs.

The original stand at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium opened in 1883.

In 2019, it was renamed Arun Jaitley Cricket Stadium.

(The current national capital of New Dehli was created as a separate district from the wider city of Dehli, and includes the venue for this test match, which is now named Arun Jaitley Stadium. The renaming came in 2019 after the death of Jaitley, former President of the Dehli & District Cricket Association.)

But such international cricket competitions usually come in runs of 5 tests. At the University Ground in Lucknow, Pakistan won the 2nd Test, October 23 to 26, by an innings and 43 runs. At Brabourne Stadium in Bombay (now known by its native name, Mumbai), India won the 3rd Test, November 13 to 16, by 10 wickets. At MA Chidambaram Stadium in Madras, the 4th Test, November 28 to December 1, was drawn. And at Eden Gardens in Calcutta, the 5th Test, December 12 to 15, was also drawn. So, India won, 2-1-2.

I've been told by an Indian who I know online from our shared fandom of London soccer team Arsenal that this is the greatest sports rivalry in the world. It carries with it the weight of history and the influence of religion: Most Indians are Hindu, while Pakistanis are, by definition, Muslim.

Despite India's massive edge in population -- 1.38 billion, as opposed to 243 million -- they've only beaten Pakistan 71 times, while Pakistan has beaten India 88 times. There have been 43 draws. India has won the Cricket World Cup in 1983 and 2011, while Pakistan won it in 1992. (The tournament, which began in 1975, has also been won by Australia 5 times, in 1987, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2015; the West Indies team twice, in 1975 and 1979; Sri Lanka in 1996, and England in 2019.)

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October 16, 1952 was a Thursday. Baseball season had ended 9 days earlier, with the New York Yankees beating the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. Football was in midweek. The NBA season started 15 days later. The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 7-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

October 11, 1952: The 1st NHL Game On Television

October 11, 1952: For the 1st time, a National Hockey League game is shown on television.

It is broadcast in French on CBFT, Channel 2 in Montreal. The producer and announcer is René Lecavalier, who would continue broadcasting for the Canadiens until 1985.

The Montreal Canadiens defeat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1 at the Montreal Forum. Elmer Lach scores for Les Habitantes at 4:39 of the 2nd period. Alex Delvecchio ties it 5 minutes later. With 3:53 left in regulation, Billy Reay scores on a power play to win it for the home team. 

The Canadiens went on to win the Stanley Cup that season. Reay later coached the Chicago Black Hawks to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1971 and 1973, losing both times -- to the Canadiens.

On November 1, 1952, Hockey Night In Canada would debut nationally on CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with Toronto Maple Leafs broadcaster Foster Hewitt, who had made the 1st hockey broadcast on radio in 1923, making the transition to TV. He was already known for introducing the phrase, "He shoots, he scores!" Lecavalier, on the French version of HNIC, La Soirée du hockey, would introduce the French version of Hewitt's phrase: "Il lance, et compte!"

*

As all HNIC nights are, October 11, 1952 was a Saturday. There was 1 other NHL game played that day: The Black Hawks beat the Maple Leafs, 6-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens.

The baseball season had ended 4 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-2 at Ebbets Field, in Game 7 of the World Series. The NFL played its games the next day. And the NBA season was about to start. But there were college football games played:

* Number 1-ranked Wisconsin lost to Ohio State, 23-14 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Number 2 Michigan State capitalized by beating Texas A&M, 48-6 at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan.

* The University of Pittsburgh beat Number 8 Notre Dame, 22-19 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* Alabama beat Virginia Tech, 33-0 at Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa -- later renamed Bryant-Denny Stadium.

* Penn State beat West Virginia, 35-21 at the old Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia.

* Army beat Dartmouth, 37-7 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York.

Among New York City teams:

* NYU lost to Holy Cross, 35-0 at Triborough Stadium in Manhattan -- later renamed Downing Stadium.

* Columbia lost to Yale, 35-28 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Fordham did not play that week.

Among New Jersey teams:

* Rutgers lost to Colgate, 13-7 at Colgate Athletic Field in Hamilton, New York -- later renamed Crown Field at Andy Kerr Stadium.

* Princeton lost to Penn, 13-7 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

Also, Arsenal drew with Sheffield Wednesday, 2-2 at Highbury in North London. 

October 7, 1952: Billy Martin's Desperate Dash

October 7, 1952: In the decisive Game 7 of the World Series, the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field, 4-2, to win their 4th consecutive World Championship, their 15th overall, and their 1st without Joe DiMaggio in 20 years.

The Dodgers still haven't won a World Series, and the idea that "Next Year" will come is getting more and more frustrating.

This game was highlighted by the Dodgers loading the bases with 1 out in the bottom of the 7th. Carl Furillo was on 3rd base, Billy Cox on 2nd, and Pee Wee Reese on 1st. Yankee manager Casey Stengel had already used each of his "Big Three" starting pitchers in the game: Vic Raschi, Eddie Lopat, and now Allie Reynolds. He called on the lefthanded reliever who had closed out the previous year's Series, Bob Kuzava.

The dangerous Duke Snider was up: The Dodgers' best slugger, a lefthanded hitter, with Ebbets Field being the best hitter's park in the National League, and the right-field pole being only 297 feet from home plate. But Kuzava got the Duke to pop up to 3rd baseman Gil McDougald. Now, to get out of the threat, he had to stop Jackie Robinson.

He got Robinson to pop the ball up, too, but the late afternoon Sun was peeking through the decks of Ebbets Field, and nobody saw the ball!

The day before, Raschi had attempted a sacrifice bunt, and it ricocheted off the leg of Dodger pitcher Billy Loes, helping a Yankee rally that forced this Game 7. Asked about it after the game, Loes said, "I lost the ball in the Sun!" It sounded stupid, because he was bent over, not looking up, but his teammates, more familiar with playing in the Flatbush ballyard, stood up for him.

Still, it ended up defining Loes' career: While such Brooklyn pitchers as Don Newcombe, Carl Erskine, Elwin "Preacher" Roe and this game's starter, Joe Black, would remain admired by reminiscing ex-Dodger fans, Loes was not.

This time, the Yankee infielders couldn't see the ball, and all 3 runners were on the move. If the ball dropped, it would have been no worse for the Dodgers than a tie game. None of them saw it, except 2nd baseman Billy Martin, who dashed in, and caught the ball at his knee to end the threat.

Game 7 of the 1952 World Series was the 1st time that Billy Martin was a Yankee hero, and the 1st time he ruined Dodger hopes. The last time for each of these, it would be as a manager, and the Dodgers would represent Los Angeles.

Even though he did not enter the game, or any game in this Series, Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca was ejected by home plate umpire Larry Goetz, for excesses in bench-jockeying.

Gil Hodges finished the Fall Classic hitless in 21 at-bats, which had prompted some Brooklyn fans, some fellow Catholics, some not, to gather at local churches asking for divine help for their beloved 1st baseman.

Fortunately, Dodger owner Walter O'Malley, mean old man that he was, was not George Steinbrenner, and didn't do what George did to Dave Winfield following his 1-for-21 performance in the '81 Series against the L.A. edition of the Dodgers: Call him "Mr. May," in comparison to "Mr. October," Reggie Jackson.

Outfielder Irv Noren was the last surviving 1952 Yankee, dying on November 15, 2019. Whitey Ford, who lived for nearly another year, was not on the roster in this season, as he was serving in the Korean War.

*

October 7, 1952 was a Tuesday. It was a great day for the Yankees, but it was a bad day for the world at large, only we wouldn't know it for half a century: Vladimir Putin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia (then Leningrad, the Soviet Union).

Football was in midweek. The new NHL season started in 2 days; the NBA season, in 24 days. So there were no other scores on this historic day.

October 5, 1952: Norman Vincent Peale Publishes “The Power of Positive Thinking”

October 5, 1952: The Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale publishes The Power of Positive Thinking: A Practical Guide to Mastering the Problems of Everyday Living. It becomes one of the best-selling books of all time.

It is a self-help book that provides anecdotal "case histories" of positive thinking, using a  biblical approach, and practical instructions which were designed to help the reader achieve a permanent and optimistic attitude. These techniques usually involved affirmations and visualizations, what would later be known as "postive reinforcement." Peale claimed that such techniques would give the reader a higher satisfaction and quality of life.

The book was negatively reviewed by scholars and health experts, but was popular among the general public. It sold 2.5 million copies in its 1st 4 years. As of 2022, it has sold over 20 million, more than all but 5 non-fiction books published before it. (Many have surpassed it since.)

Born in 1898 in southwestern Ohio, Norman Vincent Peale got his bachelor's degree from Ohio Wesleyan University, his masters in sacred theology from Boston University's School of Theology (where Martin Luther King got his Ph.D.), and his his Doctor of Divinity degree from Syracuse University. He served as pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in in New York from 1951 to his retirement in 1984.

Peale wrote over 40 books, but none got him as much notoriety as The Power of Positive Thinking. What did get him some notoriety was his comments during the 1960 Presidential election. With John F. Kennedy as the Democratic Party's nominee, Peale said, "Faced with the election of a Catholic, our culture is at stake."

At the time, there were 3 leading Protestant clergymen in America: Peale, Billy Graham, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Graham also didn't want Kennedy, despite being a lifelong Democrat. But Niebuhr responded that Peale was motivated by "blind prejudice." Facing intense public criticism, Peale retracted his statement.

In 1952, with his book a new sensation, he had opposed Adlai Stevenson's Presidential candidacy, not because of Party, but because Stevenson was divorced. The Governor of Illinois responded, "I find Saint Paul appealing, and Saint Peale appalling."

In spite of all the books he wrote, especially the one, Peale had been pretty much forgotten by the time he died, on Christmas Eve 1993. He was 95 years old.

A comedian named Ronnie Shakes liked to say, "I thought about buying a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, but decided, What good would that do?" Maybe he would have changed his life: He died in 1987, from a heart attack while jogging, only 40 years old.

*

October 5, 1952 was a Sunday. Game 5 of the World Series was played at Yankee Stadium. Duke Snider doubled home the winning run in the top of the 11th inning, and the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Yankees, 6-5. Carl Erskine pitched all 11 innings for the Brooks.

Game 6 and, if necessary, Game 7 would be at Ebbets Field. As their broadcaster Red Barber would have said, the Dodgers were sitting in the catbird seat. But the Yankees would knock them out of that seat.

And these games were played in the NFL:

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 31-7 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Chicago Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Bears, 21-10 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Washington Redskins, 35-20 at Marquette Stadium in Milwaukee.

* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Dallas Texans, 37-14 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The following season, the Texans became the 2nd edition of the Baltimore Colts.

* And the Detroit Lions beat the Los Angeles Rams, 17-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

September 30, 1952: The Revised Standard Version of the Bible Is Published

September 30, 1952: The Revised Standard Version of the Bible is published by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. It becomes the most familiar version of the Bible in America.

In the beginning, there was the Word. At first, "the Word of God" was called the Torah, or the Pentateuch, because it consisted of the 1st 5 books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This formed the written basis of Judaism.

  

It is traditionally said that these books, known as the Mosaic Books because of their association with Moses, were written by Moses himself. But while Moses could have written most of them in the third person, detailing his own exploits, Deuteronomy 34:5 says, "And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said." So, clearly, Moses didn't write that.

The remaining books written before the birth of Jesus became known as "The Law and the Prophets." After Jesus' time, they became known as the Old Testament, with the books written about Jesus, known as the Gospels, and the books about his Apostles, together, became known as the New Testament.

There's an old joke about a preacher demanding English as America's official language, holding up a Bible, and saying, "If English was good enough for the Good Book, then it's good enough for me!" In fact, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the Gospels in Aramaic, and the books by and about the Apostles in Greek.

For a majority of the history of Christianity, the leading version of the Bible was the Vulgate Bible, published in Latin in AD 382. Since priests studied Latin, and most people they preached to were illiterate, they could tell their flocks that the Bible said pretty much anything, and there wasn't much they could do about it.

This is why the Roman Catholic Church was very resistant to the Bible being translated into the native language of countries it oversaw. In 1521, while hiding at Wartburg Castle after telling the Diet of Worms, "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise," Martin Luther translated the Bible from ancient Greek into what was then the current version of German. William Tyndale translated the New Testament into English in 1536, and was executed for it by the head of the Church of England, King Henry VIII.

But in 1611, King James I of England (and VI of Scotland) commissioned a definitive English version of the Bible, and "The King James Bible" or "The King James Version" (KJV) was regarded as the definitive English version for over 400 years, including through the House of Stuart, the House of Hanover, the religious-tinged English Civil War of the 1640s, the Glorious Revolution of 1688-90, the Victorian Era, and the early years of the United States of America.

The desire for an American version led to the publication in 1901 of the American Standard Version, which, in its preface, said it aimed to "preserve all that is best in the English Bible as it has been known and used through the years," and "to put the message of the Bible in simple, enduring words that are worthy to stand in the great Tyndale-King James tradition."

The discover of the Dead Sea Scrolls led to the desire for a new version, with the cleared-up translation of the text. This led to the Revised Standard Version.

But for many of us who grew up in the 1970s, the RSV was our parents' Bible. Ours was The Living Bible, published in 1971 and translated by Kenneth N. Taylor into simpler prose. In a 1979 interview, he explained:

The children were one of the chief inspirations for producing the Living Bible. Our family devotions were tough going because of the difficulty we had understanding the King James Version, which we were then using, or the Revised Standard Version, which we used later. 

All too often I would ask questions to be sure the children understood, and they would shrug their shoulders. They didn't know what the passage was talking about. So I would explain it. I would paraphrase it for them, and give them the thought. It suddenly occurred to me one afternoon that I should write out the reading for that evening thought by thought, rather than doing it on the spot during our devotional time. So I did, and read the chapter to the family that evening, with exciting results: They knew the answers to all the questions I asked!

An example: Jesus starts the Sermon On the Mount with the Beatitudes. In the RSV, Matthew 5:3 reads, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." In The Living Bible, it becomes "Humble men are very fortunate! For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

In 1978, yet another translation was published, the New International Version, or the NIV. Its publisher, Biblica, formerly the New York Bible Society, claims, "The NIV delivers the very best combination of accuracy and readability." For the most part, it follows the text of the RSV. It has become the best-selling translation in America.

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September 30, 1952 was a Tuesday. There were no games on this day: Baseball was between the end of the regular season and the World Series, football was in midweek, and it was too early for the NBA and NHL seasons.