December 31, 1999 & January 1, 2000: The Millennium

December 31, 1999: The Millennium arrives. The people of planet Earth survived. At a terrible cost. But we hadn't destroyed ourselves. It felt like a great achievement. It was, "Hey, we made it! We actually made it! This is something really worth celebrating!"

ABC News covered it for 24 hours straight, from 4:00 AM U.S. Eastern Time on December 31 to 4:00 AM U.S. Eastern Time on January 1. Eventually, even anchorman Peter Jennings looked half-asleep in his tuxedo.

January 1, 2000: As time zone after time zone turned over from 11:59 to 12:00, there was great joy -- literally, all over the world.

It didn't last. So far, the 21st Century has been a bust. In words that have been attributed to, among others, New York Yankees legend Yogi Berra, then 74 years old, "The future ain't what it used to be."

December 31, 1999 was a Friday. It was the day that Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia, handing the office over to the Prime Minister -- Vladimir Putin.

It was the day that Elliot Richardson died. He remains the only person to serve the President of the United States in 4 different Cabinet posts, including Attorney General, an office he resigned rather than follow Richard Nixon's unconstitutional order in "the Saturday Night Massacre" in 1973.

In the Pacific, Portugal handed its colony of Macau over to China, just as Britain had handed Hong Kong over to China on June 30/July 1, 1997. In Central America, as per the 1978 treaty, America handed control of the Panama Canal Zone, including the Panama Canal itself, over to Panama.

It was also the day that actors Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones announced their engagement. They had to wait to get married until Douglas' divorce from current wife Diandra Luker was final. The ceremony was held on November 18, 2000.

And the computer problem known as "The Y2K Bug"? Not much happened. A few minor things, like scattered automatic teller machines (ATMs) at banks not quite working properly. But that was it: The computers didn't cause an apocalypse, or even an inconvenient power outage.

Why? Because changing the format from one that would have followed 12-31-99 with 01-01-00, and thus caused computers to think it was January 1, 1900, and thus confuse them into not working, into one that would recognize 01-01-2000, was a problem that human society took seriously, and properly handled. We'll never know what would have happened if we got it wrong, because we, as a people, stepped up, did what we had to do, and got it right.

And nobody stepped forward to say that the Y2K Bug was just a hoax perpetrated by liberals to take away your freedom, like gun control already had been for 20 years, and COVID-19 would be 20 years later.

The London Eye, a 443-foot-high Ferris wheel, opened on the day. Until 2006, it was the tallest Ferris wheel in the world.

Several big-city arenas hosted concerts, usually (but not exclusively) by local artists. Billy Joel played Madison Square Garden. James Taylor, who grew up in North Carolina and wrote and sang "Carolina In My Mind," played the Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena (now the Lenovo Center) in Raleigh.

Cher played Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. From the New York side of New Jersey rather than from New England, Bruce Springsteen played the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston. Quebec native Celine Dion played the Molson Centre (now the Bell Centre) in Montreal.

John Denver, singer of "Rocky Mountain High," the natural choice to play the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver, was already dead, so the artist in residence that night was New York native Neil Diamond. Elton John played Circus Maximus at Caesars Palace outside Las Vegas. Los Angeles-based rock band The Eagles played that city's Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena). NSYNC played the Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu, the arena that had hosted Elvis Presley's "Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite" concert in 1973.

This was also the day that the American Airlines Arena opened in Miami. Naturally, the choice to open it was a New Year's Eve concert by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. The building is now named the Miami-Dade Arena. (UPDATE: In 2023, it became the Kaseya Center.)

Neither Paul McCartney nor Bob Dylan played a concert that night. Michael Jackson was scheduled to play Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, but had to cancel after being injured in a concert in Munich, Germany.

Baseball was out of season, and no NFL games were played. As it turned out, no NBA games were scheduled for the day, either.

There were 2 games scheduled in the NHL. One was, by NHL standards, an ancient rivalry, going back to 1926. At the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, the host Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks played to a 4-4 tie. (There would be no shootouts in the NHL until the 2005-06 season.)

And in a matchup that had only been possible for 6 years, the Dallas Stars beat the team then known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 5-4 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

*

January 1, 2000 was a Saturday. Isis Naija Gaston was born that day, and grew up to become the rapper Ice Spice.

Still no baseball, and still no NFL games. But there were 7 NHL games, about a half-full slate:

* One team in the New York Tri-State Area was in action: The New Jersey Devils traveled to what's now named the TD Garden, and played the Boston Bruins to a 2-2 tie.

* The St. Louis Blues and the Washington Capitals played to a 1-1 tie at what's now named the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

* In a regional rivalry, the Buffalo Sabres beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 8-1 at what's now named the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.

* In a regional rivalry, the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 4-2 at what's now State Farm Arena in Atlanta. (The Thrashers became the new Winnipeg Jets in 2011.)

* In not just a regional but an intrastate rivalry, the Florida Panthers beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 7-5 at what's now named the Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida.

* The Nashville Predators beat the San Jose Sharks, 3-2 at what's now named the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Phoenix Coyotes, 5-4 at the America West Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix. (The Coyotes were renamed the Arizona Coyotes in 2014.)

And 6 college football bowl games were played:

* At 11:00 AM Eastern Time, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the Outback Bowl was played: Number 21 Georgia beat Number 19 Purdue, 28-25.

* Also at 11 Eastern, 10:00 AM Central Time, at the Cotton Bowl stadium in Dallas, the Cotton Bowl Classic was played: Number 24 Arkansas beat Number 14 Texas, 27-6. This was once an intense rivalry, but Arkansas' 1992 move from the Southwest Conference to the Southeastern Conference moved it to the back burner.

* At 12:30 PM Eastern Time, at Alltel Stadium (now TIAA Bank Field) in Jacksonville, the Gator Bowl was played: Number 23 Miami beat Number 17 Georgia Tech, 28-13.

* At 1:00 PM Eastern Time, at the Florida Citrus Bowl (now Camping World Stadium) in Orlando, the Florida Citrus Bowl was played: Number 9 Michigan State beat Number 10 Florida, 37-34.

* At 4:30 PM Eastern Time, 1:30 Pacific Time, at the Rose Bowl in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, the game of the same name was played: Number 4 Wisconsin beat Number 22 Stanford, 17-9.

* And at 8:30 PM Eastern Time, at Pro Player Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, the Orange Bowl was played: Number 8 Michigan beat Number 5 Alabama, 35-34.

It was a bit strange for it to be New Year's Day, and see Michigan playing in a game other than the Rose Bowl, and also to see Alabama playing on the day, but not in the Sugar Bowl.

Under the format then in place, the Bowl Championship Series, the Fiesta Bowl was played on January 2, at Sun Devil Stadium in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe. Number 3 Nebraska beat Number 6 Tennessee, 31-21.

And the matchup that the BCS was intended to set up? It was hard to argue that these 2 undefeated teams weren't the top 2 teams in the country. At the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, the Sugar Bowl was played between Number 1 Florida State and Number 2 Virginia Tech. Florida State won, 46-29.

December 12, 2000: Bush v. Gore

December 12, 2000: The Supreme Court of the United States overrules the Supreme Court of the State of Florida. It is the case of Bush v. Gore.

In the Presidential election of November 7, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, the then Vice President of the United States, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., got more popular votes than the Republican nominee, the Governor of Texas, George Walker Bush: Gore 50,999,897, Bush 50,456,002, a margin of 543,895 votes. Ralph Nader, famous as a consumer advocate since the 1960s, ran as the nominee of the Green Party. He got 2,882,955 votes. Gore got 48.4 percent of the popular vote; Bush, 47.9 percent, Nader, 2.7 percent.

Bush's brother, Governor John Ellis "Jeb" Bush of Florida, saw how close the vote was in his State, and tampered with the voting process, and that one State held everything up for 5 weeks. The best attempt at a recount, in downtown Miami, was interrupted on November 22 by what became known as the Brooks Brothers Riot. As a result, there were votes that were never counted. I don't mean they weren't recounted, I mean they were never counted, not even once.

On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that all 61,000 "undervotes" had to be counted. Had that happened, Gore surely would have won. The Bush campaign immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS ruled on December 12:

* Four Justices ruled that the recount had to go forward: John Paul Stevens, appointed by Republican President Gerald Ford; David Souter, appointed by Republican President George H.W. Bush, the current Republican nominee's father; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed by the current President, Democrat Bill Clinton; and Stephen Breyer, also appointed by Clinton.

* Five Justices ruled that the recount had to stop immediately, all of them appointed by Republican Presidents: William Rehnquist, appointed by Richard Nixon, and promoted to Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan; Sandra Day O'Connor, appointed by Reagan; Antonin Scalia, appointed by Reagan; Anthony Kennedy, appointed by Reagan; and Clarence Thomas, appointed by the elder George Bush.

It was pretty easily guessed that all 4 Justices who voted to keep the recount going would do so; and that 3 Justices known for being archconservatives -- Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas -- would vote to stop it.

The question marks were 2 moderates, both known as "swing votes": O'Connor and Kennedy. If either of them had voted to keep the recount going, it would have been kept going, and Gore would have won. Instead, both voted to stop it.

And so, in an election where over 104 million votes had been accepted as counted, only two votes ended up mattering: Those of O'Connor and Kennedy.

It may have been the ghastliest decision in the Court's history, aside from the 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, that said that black people weren't citizens (a decision remedied by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution). It also marked perhaps the 1st time in the nation's history that political conservatives overruled a case based in part on a State's rights.

The editors of Time magazine announced that they were waiting for a winner to be certified before they named their Person of the Year. They named Bush. Had Gore been certified as the winner, they would have chosen him.

UPDATE: It may have been surpassed as the ghastliest decision in the Court's history by Trump v. United States in 2024, when the Court ruled that Presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution.

Gore conceded the election the next day, forever doomed to be "the 42nd 1/2 President of the United States" -- a President-elect, but never a President. On January 6, 2001, in his role as the outgoing Vice President, Gore properly read the Electoral Votes, including the 25 of the State of Florida. Whether those votes were properly arrived at is another matter. Congress then certified the Electoral Votes.

On that January 6, no Democrats stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in an attempt to stop that process.

Twenty years later, of course, when it was Republicans who didn't like the result, they did storm the Capitol, and attempt to stop the process. They only delayed the inevitable.

Rehnquist died in office in 2005. O'Connor retired right before that. Souter retired in 2009. Stevens retired in 2010, and died in 2019. Scalia died in office in 2016. Kennedy retired in 2018. Ginsburg died in office in 2020. Breyer retired in 2022. As of December 12, 2022, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas and Breyer are still alive; while Thomas is the only 1 of the 9 who is still on the Court. (UPDATE: O'Connor died in 2023. Souter died in 2025.)

Bush's 2 terms in office were an unmitigated disaster, both domestically (especially economically) and internationally. Had Gore been allowed to accept his victory, he would have governed completely differently, and most Americans, including the conservatives, would have been better off.

There are elementary schools named after Bush in St. Paul, Texas; and Stockton, California. His Presidential Library is on the campus Southern Methodist University, his wife Laura's Alma Mater, in Dallas. It opened on April 25, 2013.

Statue of the George Bushes,

at George W.'s Presidential Library

Bush remains the only President born in Connecticut. He and his father are the only ones who have lived in Connecticut, not counting time spent attending Yale University, although both also did so. And they are the only ones who lived in Maine. Nevertheless, the State each represented in politics was Texas.

Bush has been played by Timothy Bottoms in a comedic fashion on That's My Bush! in 2001 and The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course in 2002, and in the deadly serious DC 9/11: Time of Crisis in 2003. Steve Bridges played him on JAG in 2002, and in the pilot episode of its spinoff, NCIS, in 2003.

He was played by James Adomian in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay in 2008, Josh Brolin (himself the son of someone much better in his profession) in Oliver Stone's film W. in 2008, Connor Trinneer in American Made in 2017, and Sam Rockwell in Vice (a film about his Vice President, Dick Cheney) in 2018.

On Saturday Night Live, he was played by Will Ferrell from 2000 to 2002, Chris Parnell in 2002-03, Will Forte from 2004 to 2006, and Jason Sudeikis thereafter. On rival show MADtv, he was played by Christian Duguay in 2000-01, Will Sasso in 2001-02, and Frank Caliendo thereafter.

*

December 12, 2000 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in its off-season, and the NFL doesn't play on Tuesday. But there were 8 NBA games played that day. The New York Knicks were not in any of them:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 116-94 at the Brendan Byrne Arena in the New York suburb of East Rutherford, New Jersey. Stephon Marbury led all scorers with 27 points.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Sacramento Kings, 107-99 at the Philips Arena (now the State Farm Arena) in Atlanta. Jason Terry scored 38 points.

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Indiana Pacers, 104-90 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto. Vince Carter led all scorers with 33.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Dallas Mavericks, 92-87 at the Gund Arena in Cleveland. (It is now named the Rocket Arena.)

* The Miami Heat beat the Denver Nuggets, 96-85 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It is now named the Ball Arena.)

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 109-105 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Ray Allen scored 35 in victory, Shaquille O'Neal 26 and Kobe Bryant 25 in defeat.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Golden State Warriors, 101-93 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena (then named The Arena in Oakland). Antawn Jamison scored 30 for the Dubs, but Rasheed Wallace's 29 sent the Blazers to victory.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Orlando Magic, 97-92 at the Key Arena in Seattle.

And there were 4 NHL games played. The New Jersey Devils were not scheduled: 

* The New York Rangers lost to the San Jose Sharks, 3-2 at the HP Center in San Jose. (It is now named the SAP Center.)

* The New York Islanders beat the Washington Capitals, 3-2 at the Nassau Coliseum in suburban Uniondale (Hempstead), Long Island, New York.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Boston Bruins, 3-0 at the FleetCenter in Boston. (It is now named the TD Garden.)

* And the Philadelphia Flyers and the Nashville Predators played to a tie, 2-2 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville. (It is now the Bridgestone Arena.) 

November 22, 2000: The Brooks Brothers Riot

November 22, 2000: An election that began to be stolen on Election Day itself, November 7, takes a big step closer to being stolen, with "The Brooks Brothers Riot."

The Republican nominee for President, Governor George W. Bush of Texas, lost the national popular vote to the Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore. But he appeared to have won enough Statewide popular votes to win 271 Electoral Votes to Gore's 269.

In dispute was the State of Florida, where Bush was originally certified to have won by 1,784 votes. It's important to note that the Governor of Florida was his brother, John Ellis "Jeb" Bush. Through his Secretary of State -- and, it was rumored, his mistress -- Katharine Harris, Jeb had the Florida vote fixed for his brother, including the deletion of the names of 55,000 people, nearly all black men, from the voter rolls.

In other words, if those 55,000 people were permitted to vote, even if less than half of them ended up voting at all, there was no way Gore wouldn't have gotten enough of those 55,000 votes to offset a 1,784-vote lead for "Dubya."

A clause in Florida's State Constitution mandated that, since the election was so close, a Statewide recount had to be done. The recount for Dade County, including the City of Miami, was done at the Stephen P. Clark Government Center, at 111 Northwest 1st Street in downtown Miami. (Clark was Mayor of Miami from 1967 to 1972, and again from 1993 to 1996.)

The Stephen P. Clark Government Center

The recount began, but Representative John E. Sweeney, then a freshman Congressman from New York's Capital Region, including the State capital of Albany, told an aide to "Shut it down." And so dozens of people, many of them wearing sharp suits typical of Republican staffers at the time -- hence the name of the demonstration, as Brooks Brothers is a popular store chain with them -- found their way into the building, and pounded on the doors of the room where the recount was being done, making it unsafe for the counters.

They got what they wanted. Bush's lead got down to 537 votes, when a local court ordered that the recount be stopped. In other words, some votes were never counted, not even once. The State Supreme Court ruled that the recount had to resume.

But on December 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the recount had to stop. And so, Bush's 537-vote win in Florida was certified by the State of Florida, and later by Congress.

Strange: For decades, conservatives -- first in the Democratic Party, then in the 1960s they began to shift to the Republican Party -- were in favor of States' rights over civil rights. But when States' rights and civil rights came together in Florida in 2000, the conservatives wanted the State of Florida to have no rights.

Did Democratic protestors try to stop Congress from certifying this apparently stolen election, as Republican ones tried 20 years later? No. Every Democratic demonstration, including outside Bush's Inauguration as the 43rd President of the United States on January 20, 2001, was peaceful.

But the Republicans have now tried this sort of thing twice in the 21st Century. Indeed, the Brooks Brothers Riot has been called a "dress rehearsal" for the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021.

Many of the Miami demonstrators later took jobs in the Bush Administration. One of them was Roger Stone, a self-described "GOP Hitman," with a history of Republican dirty tricks going back to his work for Richard Nixon's Committee for the Re-Election of the President, the group behind the Watergate burglary of 1972.

Nobody was ever charged with a crime in connection with the Brooks Brothers Riot -- not with election fraud, not with property damage, not with assault, not even with trespassing, of which they were all guilty.

*

November 22, 2000 was a Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. As was tradition in my family, I spent Thanksgiving weekend at my grandmother's house, including the Thursday night with my parents and sister, and we sat transfixed at the TV, watching not football games -- the Detroit Lions beat the New England Patriots 34-9 at the Silverdome in suburban Pontiac, Michigan; while the Dallas Cowboys lost to the Minnesota Vikings, 27-15 at Texas Stadium in suburban Irving, Texas -- but footage of the Brooks Brothers Riot, on a seemingly endless loop, as talking heads on CNN and MSNBC tried to make sense of the most blatant election theft in American history.

Other Presidential elections have had accusations of fraud. But this was on television. Even the alleged theft of Illinois' votes by Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago in 1960 -- the overturning of which wouldn't have swung the election from John F. Kennedy to Nixon anyway -- wasn't caught by TV or film cameras. The Brooks Brothers Riot was, and the news networks were all too happy to show it over and over again, refusing to say that it was wrong.

The fact that Al Gore's rightly-won Presidency was being assassinated on November 22, the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, seemed not to have occurred to most people. Certainly, I didn't think of it at the time. With the chaos of the election, the JFK anniversary may have been mentioned less than on any November 22 since 1963.

As I said, it was a Wednesday in November, midweek for the NFL, and the off-season for baseball. There were 11 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Atlanta Hawks, 78-74 at the Philips Arena in Atlanta. It's now named the State Farm Arena. Allan Houston led the Knicks with 21 points, but it wasn't enough.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Phoenix Suns, 97-85 at the AmericaWest Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix. Stephon Marbury scored 30 for the Meadowlands team, and Jason Kidd 8 for the Suns.

At the end of the 2000-01 season, they would be traded for each other, a classic "My headache for your headache" trade. Marbury did little for the Suns, while Kidd singlehandedly turned the Nets from a terrible team to back-to-back NBA Finalists.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets, 96-81 at the FleetCenter in Boston. (It's now the TD Garden.)

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 88-73 at the Charlotte Coliseum.

* Elsewhere in Miami that day, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Miami Heat, 86-67 at the American Airlines Arena. (It's now the Kaseya Center.) Eighty-six to sixty-seven? I know this was a defensive era in the NBA, especially with a post-Lakers Pat Riley coaching the Heat, but it looks like votes weren't the only thing being undercounted in Miami!

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 93-84 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Vancouver Grizzlies, 101-100 at the Target Center in Minneapolis. This would be the Grizzlies' 6th and last season in Vancouver, as they moved to Memphis for 2001-02.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 112-85 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

* The Utah Jazz beat their arch-rivals, the Denver Nuggets, 116-78 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors, 111-91 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. At the time, the Warriors thought of the Lakers as their arch-rivals, but the feeling was not reciprocated. Despite the Warriors' success of the 2010s, it still isn't.

* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Chicago Bulls, 100-71 at the ARCO Arena in Sacramento. (It's now the Sleep Train Arena.)

There were 12 NHL games that night. All 3 New York Tri-State Area teams were in action, including 2 of them against each other:

* The New Jersey Devils, defending Stanley Cup Champions (and also my team, so it's my prerogative to list them first if I want to), beat the team then known as "The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim," 5-2 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim. (The team is now the Anaheim Ducks, and the arena is the Honda Center.) The Devils got goals from Patrik Elias in the 1st period, Jay Pandolfo and Scott Gomez in the 2nd, and Jason Arnott and Pandolfo again in the 3rd.

* In an arch-rivalry game, the New York Rangers beat the New York Islanders, 4-3 at the Nassau Coliseum. Theoren Fleury got the winner for the Broadway Blueshirts, with 35 seconds left in overtime.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-2 at the MCI Center in Washington. (It's now the Capital One Arena.) Andrei Nikolishin scored the winner in overtime.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 8-2 at the Ice Palace in Tampa. (It's now the Amalie Arena.)

* In an All-Canadian matchup, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. (It's now the Scotiabank Arena.)

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-1 at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo. (It's now the KeyBank Center.)

* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1 at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh. (It had previously been known as the Civic Arena.)

* In an Original Six matchup, the Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-4 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Calgary Flames and the Minnesota Wild played to a tie, 1-1 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

* The Dallas Stars beat the Nashville Predators, 1-0 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in Nashville. (It's now the Bridgestone Arena.)

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 5-2 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It's now the Ball Arena.)

* And the San Jose Sharks beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-1 at the San Jose Arena. (It's now the SAP Center.)

Also, Arsenal played a UEFA Champions League Group Stage match, losing to Spartak Moscow, 4-1 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.

November 7, 2000: No One Is Elected President

November 7, 2000: Election Day. The Democratic Party's nominee for President, Vice President of the United States, Albert Arnold Gore Jr., gets more votes than the Republican Party's nominee, the Governor of Texas, George Walker Bush: Gore 51.0 million, Bush 50.4 million. Gore gets 48.4 percent of the popular vote, Bush 47.9 percent.

Ralph Nader, famous as a consumer advocate since the 1960s, runs as the nominee of the Green Party. He gets 2.9 million votes, or 2.7 percent.

Bush's brother, Governor John E. "Jeb" Bush of Florida, sees how close the vote is in his State, and tampers with the voting process, and that one State holds everything up for 5 weeks.

The following Sunday, November 12, among the guests on NBC's Meet the Press is William Safire, longtime political columnist for The New York Times; before that, a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon. Host Tim Russert asks him, "What do we have here, Bill?" And Safire says, "We have a tie."

For all intents and purposes, he was correct. Both Bush and Gore had a base that thought their man would make a good President. Both of them had party regulars who might not have been happy that the party as a whole nominated the candidate that it did, but would vote for that party's nominee anyway, because that's what they always did. And then there were people who weren't members of either party, and didn't especially like either one, but decided one was worse, and voted for the other one.

It would have been so simple for Gore to win. All he had to do was ask the outgoing President, Bill Clinton, to do one rally for him in downtown Miami. It would, literally, have made all the difference in the world, because, in spite of his personal mistakes, Clinton was a very successful President, and still popular nationwide -- more so than Gore or Bush.

But Gore was terrified that Clinton's personal scandal, which led to his impeachment by a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, and then his acquittal by a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, would attach itself to him. So, in his speech at the Democratic Convention at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, he tried to run on the Clinton economic record without the Clinton personal-conduct record, and said, "I stand here today as my own man."

Bush couldn't say that. Well, he could, but, like so many other things he said, it would have been a lie. The son of a President, he was a dimwitted hothead who had faked his way through life. Every time he failed -- in keeping out of military service, in business, and in a 1978 run for Congress -- his father's friends bailed him out.

But Texas evangelicals got him nominated for that State's Governor, an office where the only real requirement is make it easier for businessmen to make money. He got elected in 1994 and 1998. Jeb, considered the smart, level-headed one in the family -- often compared to Michael Corleone, to George's Sonny and father George's Don Vito -- lost in his 1st race for Governor, also in 1994, but won in 1998.

The media gave Bush the benefit of every doubt, and Gore the doubt of every benefit. Case in point: The 1st debate, on October 3, at the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. Bush, as he usually did, made himself look like he was not smart enough to be President. Gore was caught on camera sighing over some of Bush's dumb answers. The reaction of most of the American media was not that Bush was too dumb to be President, but that Gore was too rude to be President.

This was the problem: Bush, a known recovering alcoholic, was seen as "the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with," while Gore was "stiff," "uptight," and "a know-it-all." As comedian Bill Maher put it, "God forbid, the President of the United States should be smarter than we are." But Maher also addressed Gore's image: "People like what he stands for. They just don't like him." And people did like Bush, even if they thought he was dumb.

And enough people didn't like Gore to throw Florida into doubt. Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, in charge of running elections, was Katherine Harris: Young (33 in 2000), attractive, every bit as committed to the conservative movement as the Bush brothers were, and, it was rumored at the time, Jeb's mistress. He put her in charge of ensuring that "Dubya" won in Florida.

Court-ordered recounts were undertaken, and "the Brooks Brothers Riot" in downtown Miami the day before Thanksgiving stopped the one in Dade County. When the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled on December 12 that the recounts must stop, and Bush be accepted as the winner, it was the ghastliest decision in the Court's history, aside from the Dred Scott decision that said black people weren't citizens (a decision remedied by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution).

Nader, appealing to leftists who felt betrayed by Gore and President Bill Clinton over the last 8 years, won 97,488 votes in Florida. Bush's final lead in Florida was 537 votes. But Nader's voters wanted their "pure" candidate, and the result was the most un-Nader-like (and the most un-Gore-like) Administration anyone could have imagined.

Needless to say, New York's 2 major tabloid newspapers had differing opinions. The Daily News cared about journalism, and their headline was "TOO CLOSE." The Post cared about promoting the conservative candidate, and their headline was "BUSH WINS!"

The election of sitting First Lady Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. Senator from New York was almost unnoticed outside that State. More attention was paid in Missouri, where Governor Mel Carnahan was killed in a plane crash, too close to the election to be replaced on the ballot, and still won the election for Senator over the incumbent, former Governor John Ashcroft. His widow, Jean Carnahan, was appointed to replace him. Bush appointed Ashcroft to be his Attorney General.

Indeed, in connection with the Democratic nominee for President getting the most popular votes, the Democrats gained 4 seats in the Senate, forging a 50-50 tie, which went 51-49 in their favor the following June, when Jim Jeffords of Vermont switched to become an Independent caucusing with the Democrats. The Democrats only gained 1 seat in the House, not nearly enough to take control.

*

November 7, 2000, like all modern U.S. Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 6 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 103-89 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee.

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Boston Celtics, 105-75 at the SkyDome in Toronto. (It's now named the Rogers Centre.)

* The Washington Wizards beat the Chicago Bulls, 88-83 at the United Center in Chicago.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 84-74 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Phoenix Suns beat the San Antonio Spurs, 100-81 at the AmericaWest Arena in Phoenix. (It's now named the Mortgage Matchup Center.)

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 97-88 at the Rose Garden in Portland. (It's now named the Moda Center.)

And there were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3 at Madison Square Garden. The Broadway Blueshirts came from 2-0 down on 2 goals by Brian Leetch and 1 by Mike York. Then they blew the 3-2 lead, before Radek Dvorak won it with 5:15 left in regulation.

* The New York Islanders beat the Nashville Predators, 2-1 at the Nassau Coliseum. The Isles came from 1-0 down on 2 goals by Brad Isbister.

* The Colorado Avalanche beat the expansion Minnesota Wild, 2-0 at the Pepsi Center in Denver. (It's now named the Ball Arena.)

* And the Phoenix Coyotes and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 3-3 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Also, Arsenal played a UEFA Champions League Group Stage match, losing 3-0 to Shakhtar Donetsk at Shakhtar Stadium in Donetsk, Ukraine.

November 2, 2000: The International Space Station Is First Occupied

November 2, 2000: Expedition 1, launched 2 days earlier from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, arrives at the International Space Station, carrying American astronaut William Shepherd and Russian "cosmonauts" Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. For the 1st time, the ISS has people on board.

The Russian Federation, and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, had space stations for nearly 30 years by that point, running the Salyut (meaning "Salute") program from 1971 to 1986, and the Mir (meaning "Peace") from 1986 to 2001. The last Mir craft became a component of the ISS.

America's experience with space stations wasn't nearly as successful: Our one and only attempt before this, Skylab, was launched in 1973, and had 2 manned missions that year, and a 3rd that carried over into the new year of 1974, before it was deemed unfit for use, and burned up upon re-entry in 1979.

On the other hand, the U.S. was well ahead of the U.S.S.R. in terms of reusable spacecraft. We had 5 different Space Shuttles, though we eventually lost 2 of them; while their 1 and only, Buran (meaning "Blizzard"), flew only once, unmanned in 1988, was put into storage, and was destroyed when heavy snow caused its hangar's roof to collapse in 2002. So, they had the stations, while we had the means of getting to them.

The 1st module of the ISS was launched on November 20, 1998, a joint projected between NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Roscosmos (Russia), the CSA (Canadian Space Agency), the ESA (European Space Agency), and the JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency).

The ISS averages 260 miles above the Earth, and usually has a crew of 7. In addition to America and Russia, it has hosted astronauts from Canada, Japan, Brazil, and the European nations of Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.

Currently, the ISS is projected to be in operation until 2031, at which point it will be directed to fall out of Earth orbit, and splash down into the Pacific Ocean, where it would be least likely to harm any people. However, no serious plan to replace it has yet been suggested.

*

November 2, 2000 was a Tuesday. Baseball season had ended 7 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the New York Mets in the World Series. Football was in midweek. There were 7 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 94-69 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Indiana Pacers, 94-88 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 115-93 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 103-91 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Golden State Warriors, 101-97 at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 108-82 at the America West Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.

* And the Vancouver Grizzlies beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 99-91 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

And there were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Ottawa Senators, 6-5 at the Corel Centre in the Ottawa suburb of Kanata, Ontario. (It's now the Canadian Tire Centre. The town was absorbed into Ottawa proper in 2001.)

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-3 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 5-4 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.

* The Nashville Predators beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-1 at the First Union Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 5-2 at the Philips Arena (now the State Farm Arena) in Atlanta.

* And the St. Louis Blues beat the Washington Capitals, 2-0 at the Savvis Center (now the Enterprise Center) in St. Louis.

October 26, 2000: Yankees Have Scoreboard for All Time

October 26, 2000: Major League Baseball's 1st All-New York World Series in 44 years -- a "Subway Series" -- comes to what should have been its inevitable conclusion: As Yankee broadcaster John Sterling said: "Ballgame over! World Series over! Yankees win! Theeeeeeee Yankees win!"

Remember: It's not a "Subway Series" unless it's a World Series. Nobody ever called regular-season games between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers a "Subway Series."

There had been exhibition games between the Yankees and the Mets from the Mets' 1962 debut onward. There had been preseason games, and the midseason "Mayor's Trophy" games. But they didn't count. Met fans thought they did. They didn't. In 1997, Interleague Play began, and the New York media called it a "Subway Series," but who was kidding who?

The 1985 season was the 1st time the Yankees and the Mets both stayed in their Divisional races until the last week of the regular season. The 1999 season was the 1st time that both made the Playoffs. Lots of people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were sure that was going to be it. The Yankees held up their end of the bargain. The Mets didn't hold theirs up.

Now, after 39 years of hoping, wishing, praying for a chance to beat the Yankees in a World Series, Met fans finally had that chance. And they were sure they were going to win it.

After all, Al Leiter was going to start Games 1 and 5, and Mike Hampton was going to start Games 2 and 6. And, as everybody knows, "The Yankees can't hit lefthanded pitching. Especially in the postseason." I guess Met fans, whom I nicknamed "the Flushing Heathen," hadn't noticed how the Yankees beat all pitchers, left and right alike, in winning the Series in 1996, '98 and '99, and winning another Pennant to put them in this Series.

Still, Met fans always wanted this chance. In the immortal words of Leonard Nimoy -- who, being a Bostonian, probably knew just how illogical baseball can be -- "You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting."

*

October 21, 2000: Game 1 of the 1st Subway Series since 1956 is played at the original Yankee Stadium. Billy Joel, who was the first singer to sell out the Stadium, and later played the last concert at Shea, sang the National Anthem. Don Larsen threw out the ceremonial first ball to Yogi Berra, evoking memories of that 1956 Series, when the Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, including Larsen's perfect game in Game 5, and Yogi's 2 homers in Game 7.

Game 1 of the 2000 World Series came on the 25th Anniversary of the Carlton Fisk Game, and on the 20th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Phillies' 1st World Series win. It turns out to be, quite possibly, the greatest game I've ever seen. At the least, it was the most nerve-wracking game I've ever seen.

(Note: I realize I'm going back and forth between using present tense and past tense. As I've already alluded to, baseball is often illogical, and so is writing.)

Leiter outpitches Andy Pettitte, but 4 baserunning blunders by the Mets leave the score 3-2 in the Mets' favor entering the bottom of the 9th. Still, to be able to take Game 1 at Yankee Stadium would be a huge boost to the Mets.

Manager Bobby Valentine brings in his closer. Unfortunately for him, it's Armando Benítez. Paul O’Neill fouls off pitch after pitch, and finally draws the most clutch walk in baseball history. The Yankees bring him around to score on DH Chuck Knoblauch's sacrifice fly, and the game goes into extra innings.

It goes to the bottom of the 12th, and to 1:04 AM. With 1 out, Tino Martinez singles off Turk Wendell. Jorge Posada doubles, but Tino doesn't run well, and has to hold at 3rd. O'Neill is walked again, this time intentionally, to set up the double play. Luis Sojo pops up. And a Met castoff, José Vizcaino, playing 2nd base because Knoblauch is not fielding well, singles home the winning run.

José Vizcaino

Yankees 4, Mets 3. Essentially, the World Series that Met fans had waited their whole lives for has been decided in Game 1. Had the Mets won this game, the Series would have been very, very different.

Maybe the Yankees would have been shaken by the events of Game 1, and instead of just holding the Mets off in Game 2, 6-5, they would have fully blown that lead. The Mets won Game 3, and their idiot fans would have been thinking sweep.

Would the Yankees still have won Game 4? It was pretty shaky in the 5th inning. Would they still have won Game 5? It was tied in the 9th. Would they have won a Game 6? Would they have completed the ultimate comeback in Game 7, 4 years before the Red Sox did it to them?

*

October 22, 2000: Game 2 is one of the most bizarre contests in baseball history. It begins with Robert Merrill, the Brooklyn-born singer for the Metropolitan Opera Company whose recording of "The Star-Spangled Banner" had been the one the Yankees had used since 1967, singing it in person. (He died in 2004.) 

In the top of the 1st, with 2 out and a man on, Mike Piazza bats for the Mets against Roger Clemens of the Yankees. Piazza had hit some long home runs off Clemens, and in July, in an Interleague game also at Yankee Stadium, Clemens had nailed Piazza on the helmet with a fastball, giving him a concussion.

This time, Piazza hits a foul ball, and breaks his bat. The barrel of the bat comes back to Clemens, and... he throws the jagged-edged bat barrel across the 1st-base foul line. Right in Piazza's path, and Piazza almost steps into it.

We may never know what was going on in the head of the Rocket, but what's going on in the head of Piazza is rage. He thinks Clemens was throwing the sharp object at him. Piazza moves toward Clemens, and both benches empty. For one of the few times in his career, there's an on-field controversy with Clemens on the field, and Clemens is not the most insane man involved.

The umpires restore order, and Clemens finishes the at-bat by getting Piazza to ground to 2nd. He pitches 8 strong innings, and the Yankees pound Mike Hampton, and take a 6-0 lead into the 9th.

But the bullpen can't hold it, and the Mets come to within 6-5, including home runs by Piazza (the 1st-ever World Series homer for the alleged "greatest-hitting catcher ever") and Jay Payton, before Joe Torre has enough and brings in the Hammer of God, Mariano Rivera, to slam the door and keep it 6-5. The Yankees take a 2-games-to-0 lead in the Series, which now heads across town to Shea.

Clemens will be fined $50,000 for his what-the-hell moment. But Met fans have never gotten this into their thick skulls: Clemens was not throwing the bat at Piazza. If there's one thing that Roger Clemens made perfectly clear many times in his playing career, it's this: If he wants to throw something at someone with the intention of hitting him, that person will get hit. If he wanted to throw the bat at

Piazza, that bat would have hit Piazza.

And now, the question needs to be asked: Which of these men was on steroids, warping their perceptions of what was happening? Was it Clemens? Was it Piazza? Was it both? Until either man, or both men, decide to change their stories, we may never know for sure.

As it turned out, both men played their last game in 2007, meaning that both became eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in the election of January 2013. Piazza was elected in 2016. Clemens is still waiting. That did, however, avoid what would have been the most awkward induction ceremony in the Hall's history.

*

October 24, 2000: The World Series moves to Shea Stadium for Game 3. NSYNC sing the National Anthem. The Mets defeat the Yankees‚ 4-2‚ behind the pitching of Rick Reed and their bullpen. Benny Agbayani's 8th inning double is the key hit for the Mets as they cut the Yankees Series lead to 2-games-to-1.

Orlando "El Duque" Hernández strikes out 12, a Series record for a Yankee pitcher, but loses a postseason game for the 1st time after 8 wins. John Franco, the senior Met, is the winning pitcher.

Benítez, having blown Game 1, saves Game 3.

The loss ends the Yankees' record streak of 14 consecutive wins in World Series action. This would be the last World Series game won by the Mets until Game 3 in 2015.

*

October 25, 2000: Bobby Valentine chooses Bobby Jones as the Mets' Game 4 starter, and he's not especially good. However, the Yankees will have to choose between an aging and struggling David Cone, a struggling Denny Neagle, and Andy Pettitte on 3 days' rest.

This bodes well for the Mets, and if they win this one, then the Series is tied, and they've really got momentum. In Game 5, also at Shea, Al Leiter can outpitch Pettitte as he did in Game 1, and maybe this time the bullpen won't blow it; after all, after blowing the save in Game 1, Armando Benítez got it in Game 3.

Then the Mets only have to win 1 of 2 at Yankee Stadium to win the Subway Series, and reclaim New York from the Yankees. The Yanks will start Roger Clemens in Game 6, and after the bat-throwing incident in Game 2, the Mets will be loaded for bear, and Mike Hampton can't possibly have as bad a start in Game 6 as he had in Game 2, right? And if it still goes to Game 7, it'll be Rick Reed against Orlando Hernández again, and Reed showed in Game 3 he could outpitch "El Duque."

So, at this point, if you're a Met fan, you don't have a lot of reason to be confident of ultimate victory. But your position is quite defensible, your team is hardly in deep trouble following the Game 3 win, and, as the one man who has ever managed both these teams to Pennants, Yogi Berra, has said, "It ain't over 'til it's over." This World Series is far from over, and if you're a Met fan, at this point, you do have some reason to be optimistic.

Sheryl Crow sings the National Anthem, Game 4 begins, and that reason lasts all of one pitch. The 1st pitch of the game is from Jones to Derek Jeter, who knocks it over the left-field fence for a home run. The kind of hit that, once he was named team Captain in 2003, earned him the nickname "Captain Clutch."

Neagle struggles in the 5th, and manager Joe Torre plays a huge hunch, bringing Cone, once a superb Met starter, out of the bullpen to face the dangerous Mike Piazza with the bases loaded. I have to admit, I was sure he was going to either walk a run home, or serve up a gopher ball for a grand slam.

Instead, Cone gets Piazza to pop up, ending the threat. Cone never throws another postseason pitch, and he never throws another pitch for the Yankees. But he got the job done. (Dwight Gooden, back with the Yankees, had appeared in the ALCS, but was left off the World Series roster, and got a nice hand at Shea went introduced. He then retired.)

David Cone

The Yankees hang on to win the game, 3-2, and take a 3 games to 1 lead in the Series. They can wrap it up tomorrow night. Met fans, who began the day feeling like it was still possible, are no longer using Tug McGraw’s old rallying cry of "Ya Gotta Believe!" Now, they're using another familiar rallying cry, that of "Yankees Suck!"

But all is not good news in Yankeeland. Darryl Strawberry, who was introduced to stardom and drug as a Met, and has been one of George Steinbrenner's reclamation projects, is arrested and jailed, after leaving a treatment center following a weekend drug binge.

*

October 26, 2000: The Euro, the currency of the European Union, which had started, on January 1, 1999, at $1.10 in comparison to the American dollar, drops to 83 cents. This remains its all-time low. Its all-time high is $1.60, achieved on July 15, 2008.

More importantly for me, on this day, Game 5 of the World Series is played at Shea Stadium. Marc Anthony, a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent and a Met fan, sang the National Anthem. Jeter and Bernie Williams homer off Al Leiter. Pettitte and Leiter give it their all. The game is tied 2-2 in the top of the 9th. Two outs. Posada on 2nd, Scott Brosius on 1st. Not great speed on the basepaths. 

Luis Sojo, playing 2nd base because Knoblauch's fielding difficulties limited him to DH status, is coming up to bat. Leiter had thrown 141 pitches. A number that would not have caused Catfish Hunter and Tom Seaver to flinch, but by the standards of the 1990s and 2000s, a lot.

Met Manager Bobby Valentine's choices are not good:

* A: Stick with an exhausted Leiter. He would be pitching on brains, courage and fumes, and pray that he gets the out that sends it to the bottom of the 9th still tied.

* B: Put in Armando Benítez. He led the National League in saves that year and saved Game 3, but also blew Game 1 for Leiter, and also blew a Division Series game against the Giants (which the Mets ended up winning anyway), and had previously messed up 2 ALCS games against the Yankees for the Orioles (including the Jeffrey Maier Game). Or...

* C: Put in John Franco. He was the winning pitcher in Game 3, and also pitched well in Game 4, but would be pitching for the 3rd day in a row. And he was 39: There was a reason Valentine had taken the closer's job from Franco and given it to Benítez.

Valentine decided a tired Leiter was better than an aging, potentially tired Franco or an inconsistent, unreliable Benítez. Although I frequently accused Valentine of overmanaging, and sometimes outright stupidity, I can't fault him for this choice. If he had put in the very popular New York native Franco and lost anyway, he might have gotten away with it. But if he had put in the already suspicious Benítez and he blew yet another game, Valentine would have been run out of Flushing on the Long Island Railroad.

Leiter throws his 142nd pitch to Sojo. He knocks it up the middle. A Met fan once told me that Rey

Ordóñez would have stopped this grounder. This Met fan was a fool: Ordóñez would not have gotten it. Mike Bordick was the shortstop that night, and he was a good shortstop, and he couldn't quite get it.

Base hit for Sojo. Posada comes around 3rd. Center fielder Jay Payton's throw... never makes it to Mike Piazza at the plate, instead hitting Posada in the back and getting away, toward the backstop. This enables not only Posada to score the tiebreaking run, but also Brosius to score an insurance run as well. Yankees 4, Mets 2.

Bottom of the 9th. Two out. The Mets get a man on. Piazza comes up to the plate. If you're a Met fan, this is the man you want up: The best offensive player the Mets have ever had (cough-steroids-cough), one of the best fastball hitters of his time, power hitter against power pitcher, Mariano Rivera.

But if you're a Yankee Fan, there’s no one you'd rather have on the mound, and there's no one you’d rather get as the final out. It was similar to the final matchup of the 1978 Boston Tie Party, with Carl Yastrzemski, one of the greatest fastball hitters ever, and the most beloved player in his franchise's history (remember, Sox fans didn't always love Ted Williams), coming up to try to save his club against one of the fastest and most fearsome pitchers ever, Rich "Goose" Gossage.

Yaz popped up to end that game in victory for the Yankees; 22 years later, Piazza gets considerably better wood on his pitch, and hits one deep to straightaway center field.

For a moment, many of us, including myself -- and, years later, on the YES Network broadcast of a Yanks-Mets regular-season game, the entire announcing team of Michael Kay, Paul O'Neill and David Cone -- think, "Uh-oh!" Translation, at least in my case: "No! Tie game! The Mets will go on to win it, and take the next 2 in The Bronx, and the Yanks will have choked it away!"

Because we had grown up with the Mets as the team that won and the Yanks as the team that fell short. We had the arrogance of Yankee Fans of old, but deep down, in places we don't like to talk about at parties, we had the fears that came so easily to fans of the team then known as the Cleveland Indians, the pre-2004 Red Sox, the pre-2007 Phillies, the pre-2016 Cubs -- and the post-2006 Mets.

But Piazza had juuuust gotten under it. The ball has too much height and not enough distance. As the clock strikes 12:00 Midnight, Bernie stands on the warning track, settles under it, makes the easy catch, and it's over.

Jeter becomes the 1st player ever to be named Most Valuable Player of the All-Star Game and the World Series in the same season. Still, he would never be named MVP of a regular season. At the site of his 1st game as a manager, 23 years earlier, Torre is picked up by his grateful players, and carried off the field.

There were 25,000 people at Shea chanting "Let's Go Yankees!" and "We're Number 1!" Eventually, the owner came out to talk to the press, and he and the announcers couldn't talk, because the Yankee Fans were so loud, chanting "Thank you, George!" Imagine that, thousands of people saluting George Steinbrenner at Shea Stadium.

I loved it. October 26, 2000 – actually, the final out came just before Midnight, so it was really October 27 that we celebrated – remains my favorite moment as a sports fan.

For the 1st time, the Mets had the chance -- their first, their best, maybe their last -- to beat the Yankees in a Subway Series, and to irrevocably "take over New York." And while they had their chances and fought hard, in the end, the better team won.

The Yankees have beaten the Mets in a World Series. The other way around has never happened. And it never will. Never, never, never. Or, in the words of Flushing's own Fran Drescher, "It begins with an N and ends with an A: Nev-a."

This was the 26th World Championship. And for those of us who grew up as Yankee Fans during the Mets' "glory" years of 1984 to 1990, the Dynasty That Never Was -- or, as Michael Wilbon of The Washington Post and ESPN's Pardon the Interruption would say, a Dynasty of One -- and had to deal with the unearned arrogance of Met fans, delusional that their 2 titles outweighed our 22 (until 1996; now 27), damn fools to believe that the 1986 Mets could have beaten the Yankees of 1927, 1938, 1941, 1953, 1961 and 1978, and eventually even the 1998 juggernaut... for us, this was the greatest, sweetest moment of them all.

We beat the Mets. And it wasn't close. All 5 games were close, so it wasn't domination. But winning in 5 games is definitive, beyond any question. And we clinched at their place, on their field, at the William A. Shea International Airport, at the Flushing Toilet.

After all, we could have had worse luck, and it would have been all our own fault. We could have chosen to be Met fans. We chose Yankees. We chose greatness. Or, to put it another way: No matter how bad the 2004 ALCS was, losing the 2000 World Series to the Mets would have been 10 times worse.

As we saw in 2015, we don't have to live around very many Red Sox fans with their cheated-for arrogance, but we do have to live around Met fans with their unearned arrogance.

How arrogant are Met fans? Some insist that 2000 and the other World Series the Yankees have won since 1978 don't count, because they used steroids; therefore, the count since 1986 is 1 to 0, and the count since 1962 is 2-2. These fans are idiots: We have more evidence against the 2000 Mets (Piazza) than we do against the 1996-2009 Yankees. So if 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009 don't count for the Yankees, then 2000 doesn't count for the Mets, either.

For the moment, the count remains 27 to 2, and 5 to 0 since 1986.

This was the 13th World Series game played at Shea. An unlucky 13th. It was also the last, which no one (not even a wiseass Yankee Fan like me) could have predicted at the time.

I once saw a Met fan with a cap that had the 2000 World Series logo on the side, but razored off, with some of the stitching still visible. That's how much it bothers them. It should bother them: It basically erased their team's reason to exist.

As we've seen, the Yankees are (depending on your point of view: again, or still) the better team now. And let us not pretend that any Met World Series win -- be it 1969, 1986, or any future win -- is better than all of the Yankees' World Series wins.

Most of all, winning the 2000 World Series means that, as Paul Louis, a Yankee Fan and a Facebook Friend who was my age, said at the time, "The Yankees have scoreboard over the Mets for all time."

For all time.

*

October 26, 2000 was a Thursday. There was 1 college football game played that night: Brigham Young University beat Wyoming, 19-7 at Cougar Stadium in Provo, Utah. At the end of the season, BYU head coach LaVell Edwards retired after 19 Conference Championships and the 1984 National Championship, and the school renamed the facility LaVell Edwards Stadium.

The NBA season started 5 days later, on Halloween. There were 4 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-0 at the First Union Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Washington Capitals, 4-1 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.

* The Colorado Avalanche beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 2-0 at the United Center in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Blues beat the Calgary Flames, 4-3 at the Savvis Center (now the Enterprise Center) in St. Louis.

October 23, 2000: The New York Jets' Monday Night Miracle

October 23, 2000: Once again, the New York Jets had the indignity of playing a home game in a venue that was named after another team, Giants Stadium, in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, Bergen County, New Jersey.

They were playing the Miami Dolphins, then considered to be their arch-rivals. (The New England Patriots would, over the next few years, replace the Dolphins as such.) Both teams came in with 5-1 records, so this would decide, for at least a week, 1st place in the AFC Eastern Division. And the game was on national television, on ABC Monday Night Football.

At least, for the 1st time since 1982, they would be facing the Dolphins without Dan Marino as their starting quarterback. Marino threw 420 touchdown passes in his career, and it seemed like half of them were against the Jets. As it turned out, it was 72, still the most by a single quarterback against a single team, and 17 percent of his total, or 1 out of every 6.

The Jets no longer had to deal with Marino. It didn't seem to matter: With a little more than 3 minutes gone in the 2nd quarter, the Dolphins led, 20-0. The Jets got a touchdown in the last minute of the half when Vinny Testaverde threw to Wayne Chrebet, but Jay Fiedler led the Dolphins downfield in enough time to get a field goal from Olindo Mare. At the end of the 3rd quarter, Lamar Smith ran the ball in for a touchdown, and the Dolphins led, 30-7.

Given how bad the traffic can be at the Meadowlands when there's a full house -- and it was, with 78,389 fans on hand -- thousands of fans gave up and left early. What they may have heard on their radios as they were going back toward the Lincoln Tunnel or down the New Jersey Turnpike or State Route 3 may have made them wish they had stayed.

Some fans stayed and, recognizing that it was an off-day in the World Series, with the 2 New York teams playing each other, Jet fans, traditionally more favorable to the Mets than the Yankees, started a "Let's go, Yankees!" chant during the 3rd quarter. This was quickly countered by a "Let's go, Mets!" chant.

With 13:49 left in regulation, Testaverde threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Laveranues Coles. The 2-point conversion attempt failed, and, at 30-13, it looks like little more than a consolation score. But Testaverde put another touchdown drive together, and, with 9:51 left, passed to Jermaine Wiggins for a touchdown, the extra point making it 30-20. Suddenly, the Jets had a chance.

Testaverde got the Jets close again, and, with 5:43 left, John Hall kicked a 34-yard field goal. It was 30-23. The Jets were now one score away. Their defense held the Dolphins to a three-and-out, and, with 3:55 to go, Testaverde threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Chrebet. Extra point by Hall. Tie ballgame, 30-30.

But Fiedler struck quickly -- maybe a little too quickly. With 3:33 left, he threw a 46-yard touchdown pass to Leslie Shepherd, and it was 37-30 Dolphins. But that left plenty of time for an old pro like Testaverde, who was about to turn 37. With 42 seconds left, he called a tackle-eligible play, and John "Jumbo" Elliott, his fellow Long Islander, all 6-foot-7 and 308 pounds of him, caught a 3-yard touchdown pass. With 30 points in the 4th quarter, the Jets had sent this game to overtime.

In overtime, Marcus Coleman intercepted Fiedler, allowing Testaverde to get the Jets within field goal range. With 8:13 left in overtime, Hall attempted a 40-yard field goal. It was good, and the Jets won, 40-37. It became known as the Monday Night Miracle.

When Monday Night Football celebrated its 30th Anniversary that season, this game -- possibly because it was so recent, or possibly because a lot of New Yorkers voted -- was voted the greatest game the show had ever aired. It may be the greatest regular-season moment in Jet history, with their win in Super Bowl III in 1969 topping it, of course.

*

October 23, 2000 was a Monday. As I said, it was an off-day in the World Series. The Yankees then led, 2-0, and would win the Series in 5 games.

The NBA season didn't start for another 8 days. But there was 1 NHL game that night, and it was between local rivals, on the other coast: The Los Angeles Kings beat the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 5-4 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim (now named the Honda Center). Ziggy Palffy scored the winning goal with 3:56 left in overtime.

October 22, 2000: Clemens vs. Piazza

October 22, 2000: Game 2 of the Subway Series, at the original Yankee Stadium, is one of the most bizarre contests in baseball history. In the top of the 1st, with 2 out and a man on, Mike Piazza bats for the Mets against Roger Clemens of the Yankees.

Piazza had hit some long home runs off Clemens, and in July, in an Interleague game also at Yankee Stadium, Clemens had nailed Piazza on the helmet with a fastball, giving him a concussion.

This time, Piazza hits a foul ball, and breaks his bat. The barrel of the bat comes back to Clemens, and... he throws the jagged-edged bat barrel across the first-base foul line. Right in Piazza's path, and Piazza almost steps into it.

We may never know what was going on in the head of the Rocket, but what's going on in the head of Piazza is rage. He thinks Clemens was throwing the sharp object at him. Piazza moves toward Clemens and both benches empty. For one of the few times in his career, there's an on-field controversy with Clemens on the field, and Clemens is not the most insane man involved.

The umpires restore order, and Clemens finishes the at-bat by getting Piazza to ground out to 2nd base. He pitches 8 strong innings, and the Yankees pound Mike Hampton, and take a 6-0 lead into the 9th.

But the bullpen can't hold it, and the Mets come to within 6-5, including home runs by Piazza (the 1st-ever World Series homer for the alleged "greatest-hitting catcher ever") and Jay Payton, before Joe Torre has enough and brings in the Hammer of God, Mariano Rivera, to slam the door and keep it 6-5. The Yankees take a 2-games-to-0 lead in the Series, which now heads across town to Shea.

Clemens will be fined $50,000 for his what-the-hell moment. It was absolutely indefensible. He probably should have been suspended for it. Besides, he was probably on steroids at the time, right?

That is the conventional wisdom, aided by Met fans and other Yankee Haters, including the media. But the conventional wisdom was not wise.

Baseball is a game where things happen very slowly, and then, suddenly, they happen very quickly. It takes about 4/10ths of a second for a pitch to get from the pitcher's hand to the plate, and less than that to get at least the 60 feet, 6 inches back to the pitcher's mound, even if it's not hit toward said mound.

When Carl Mays threw the pitch that hit Ray Chapman in the head and caused a fatal injury on August 16, 1920, the sound of the ball hitting Chapman's head -- no batting helmets in those days -- and the fact that the ball came right back to him led him to believe that Chapman had hit the ball. So he threw the ball to Wally Pipp at 1st base. Clemens did what Mays did: Picked up something coming toward him, and threw it. It was natural to think, at first, that it was the ball.

But that bears the question: How do you mistake half of a broken baseball bat for a baseball? It seems stupid. Nevertheless, Clemens told home plate umpire Charlie Reliford, "I thought it was the ball." His actions back that claim up. Clemens may not be the most honest ballplayer you'll ever meet, but, on this occasion, his words were consistent with his actions.

Let's tell the truth: Clemens did not throw the bat at Piazza. He threw it across the foul line. Look at the video: Once the bat left Piazza's hands, he and it never came within one foot of each other.

Joe Buck, who is known to hate the Yankees, broadcasting the game on Fox, said, "He fires the bat back toward Piazza." Not at him. Toward him. If even Joe Buck, right as it's happening, wouldn't say it was at Piazza, that speaks volumes.

It was Tim McCarver, his broadcast partner, who called it "a blatant act" and "foolish." McCarver was one of these people who knows he's really smart, and wants you to know it, too. This time, he outsmarted himself: It couldn't be both a blatant act and foolish. "Foolish" suggests that he was acting in the heat of the moment. "A blatant act" would be planning it out, or, at least, having time to think about it. He didn't have that kind of time.

And so, just as Yankee shortstop turned NBC broadcaster Tony Kubek burned into fans' minds, 25 years earlier in the 1975 World Series' Game 3, that Ed Armbrister of the Cincinnati Reds had blatantly interfered with Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox, which cannot be proven, fans heard McCarver, and they took his word for it. They shouldn't have.

If there's one thing that Roger Clemens made perfectly clear, many times in his playing career, it's this: If he wants to throw something at someone with the intention of hitting him, that person will get hit. If he wanted to throw the bat at Piazza, that bat would have hit Piazza.

Which brings us to a simple concept: Clemens did nothing wrong. I know: That sounds like the reaction to Avengers: Infinity War and "The Snap": "Thanos did nothing wrong." Yeah, well, to hear Met fans tell it, what Clemens did was as bad as killing half of all life in the universe. They may actually hate him more than Red Sox fans do. And he didn't do anything to them, either. (Hell, he didn't reject the Red Sox for the Yankees: The Red Sox rejected him, and he went to Toronto first.)

McCarver was right about one thing: What Clemens did was foolish. But it caused no harm. It didn't come close to causing harm. Clemens broke neither the rules of baseball, nor the laws of the City of New York, nor the laws of the State of New York, nor the laws of the United States of America.

Should he have done it? No. But the only thing that got hurt was Piazza's feelings, and the Mets', and the Met fans', and those of Yankee Haters everywhere.

So now, the question needs to be asked: Which of these men was on steroids, warping their perceptions of what was happening? Was it Clemens? Was it Piazza? Was it both? Was it neither? Until either man, or both men, decide to change their stories, we may never know for sure.

As it turned out, both men played their last game in 2007, meaning that both became eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame in the election of January 2013. Piazza was elected in 2016. Through 2022, Clemens is still waiting. That did, however, avoid what would have been the most awkward induction ceremony in the Hall's history.

Oh, yes: The rest of the game. The Yankees took a 6-0 lead. The Mets scored 5 runs in the 9th, after Clemens was taken out. This included a home run by Piazza. Yankee manager Joe Torre had to call on Mariano Rivera to get the last out. He did. The Yankees took a 2-0 lead in the Series, and won the Series in 5 games.

Roger Clemens has 2 World Series rings. Mike Piazza has none. But Mike Piazza is in the Hall of Fame. Roger Clemens, thus far, is not. Who is better off?

*

October 22, 2000 was a Sunday, so it was also a day of NFL action. Almost lost in the craziness of Game 2 of the World Series was the fact that, a few hours earlier, Corey Dillon of the Cincinnati Bengals rushed for 278 yards against the Denver Broncos, breaking Walter Payton's single-game record of 275, set in 1977. The Bengals had been 0-6, but won this one, 31-21 at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. (It's now named Paycor Stadium.) They won the next week, too, beating their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns. But they fell apart, finishing 4-12.

Dillon, who has since been arrested for hitting his wife, has seen his record surpassed by Jamal Lewis and Adrian Peterson -- a cocaine addict and a child abuser, respectively. Walter Payton, one of the most decent men in sports history, went to his grave with his record intact. I don't think he would have minded seeing his record broken, but it would have upset him to see the character of the men who have done it.

Other NFL games played that day:

* The Indianapolis Colts beat the New England Patriots, 30-23 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Chicago Bears, 13-9 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Tennessee Titans beat the Baltimore Ravens, 14-6 at PSINet Stadium (now M&T Bank Stadium) in Baltimore.

* The Carolina Panthers beat the San Francisco 49ers, 34-16 at Ericsson Stadium (now Bank of America Stadium) in Charlotte.

* The New Orleans Saints beat the Atlanta Falcons, 21-19 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 35-16 at Alltel Stadium (now EverBank Stadium) in Jacksonville.

* The Dallas Cowboys beat the Arizona Cardinals, 48-7 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 22-0 at Three Rivers Stadium in PIttsburgh.

* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Buffalo Bills, 31-27 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the St. Louis Rams, 54-34 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. There was never really an NFL rivalry in Missouri, not between the Chiefs and the Rams from 1995 to 2015, and not between the Chiefs and the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1970 to 1987.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the Seattle Seahawks, 31-3 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the Network Associates Coliseum).

Three days earlier, the Detroit Lions beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 28-14 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. And on ABC Monday Night Football, the New York Jets entered the 4th quarter at Giants Stadium trailing 30-7, and won it 40-37 on John Hall's field goal with 8:13 left in overtime. It's become known as the Monday Night Miracle.

And the New York Giants, the Green Bay Packers and the San Diego Chargers had a bye week.

There were 4 NHL games that day:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus. Kirk Maltby scored the winning goal with 2:59 left in overtime.

* The Florida Panthers and the Minnesota Wild played to a 0-0 tie at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* And the Phoenix Coyotes and the Edmonton Oilers played to a 3-3 tie at the Skyreach Centre, as the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton was then known.