September 21, 2001: Baseball Returns to New York After 9/11

September 21, 2001: The New York Mets host the Atlanta Braves in the 1st professional sporting event in New York City since the 9/11 attacks.

A crowd of 41,235 files into Shea Stadium to watch this matchup, and the nastiness of the teams’ rivalry over the last 3 years is put away. Bruce Chen started with the Mets, while Jason Marquis, a Staten Island native, started for the Braves.

Each team scored in the 4th inning. For the Braves, Chipper Jones, always giving the Mets trouble, singled, and Ken Caminiti doubled him home. For the Mets, Mike Piazza doubled; Robin Ventura singled, but Piazza, being slow, couldn't score; and Tsuyoshi Shinjo hit a sacrifice fly to bring Piazza home.

The Braves took a 2-1 lead in the top of the 8th, Julio Franco drew a walk against John Franco. (They were not related: Julio is Dominican, while John is Italian and from Brooklyn.) Chipper singled him over. Met manager Bobby Valentine brought in Armando Benitez, who had succeeded Franco as the Mets' closer. Brian Jordan doubled Julio home.

But with 1 out in the bottom of the 8th, Steve Karsay walked Edgardo Alfonzo. Desi Relaford was sent in to pinch-run. And Mike Piazza hit a home run to center field, electrifying the Flushing Meadow amphitheater. The Mets won, 3-2.

Ever since, Met fans have acted like this was the moment when New York was saved, as if that one Piazza home run meant more to the City than everything the Yankees did the rest of the way. Fugeddaboutit: The Mets went into the game 5 1/2 games behind the Braves for the National League Eastern Division lead, and 11 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the only Wild Card spot then available in the NL; they went 8-7 the rest of the way, and finished 6 games behind the Braves (the Philadelphia Phillies finished 2 back), and were still 11 games behind the Cards.

*

September 21, 2001 was a Friday. This was also the day the film Glitter premiered. It was supposed to be Mariah Carey's big entry into movies. Instead, this movie was so bad (How bad was it?), it was nicknamed "Flashdunce." It took 4 years for her personal and professional lives to recover.

These other Major League Baseball games were played, all of them the games that were regularly scheduled for this day, with the games of September 11 to 16 tacked on at the end of the regular season:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Baltimore Orioles, 7-6 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. The Yankees scored 3 runs in the top of the 9th, but the O's scored 2 in the bottom of the 9th to win it, when Jerry Hairston Jr. singled home Brian Roberts and Brady Anderson. This beat Mariano Rivera, in relief of Mike Mussina. Cal Ripken in his last 2 weeks as an active player, went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Tino Martinez, Scott Brosius and Alfonso Soriano hit home runs. Derek Jeter went 0-for-5.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Montreal Expos, 11-9 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Todd Helton singled Juan Pierre home with the winning run in the top of the 11th inning.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-2 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Florida Marlins, 1-0 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Brian Hunter singled Marlon Anderson home with the winning and only run in the bottom of the 9th. Omar Daal pitched 7 innings of 4-hit shutout ball, striking out 10. Ricky Bottalico pitched a perfect 8th. José Mesa pitched a shaky 9th, but ended up as the winning pitcher.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Astros, 12-4 at Enron Field (now Daikin Park) in Houston. Sammy Sosa did not play, but ended up with 64 home runs that season.

* The Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-4 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-5 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-7 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-2 at Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-2 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Anaheim Angels, 9-8 at The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Alex Rodriguez went 3-for-5 with a home run and an RBI.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 2-0 at Qualcomm Stadium (formerly San Diego Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium). Jason Schmidt pitched 6 innings of 7-hit shutout ball, and 3 relievers each pitched a perfect inning. Barry Bonds went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with a walk for the Padres. Tony Gwynn, in his last 2 weeks as an active player, appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 10-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Miguel Batista pitched 7 innings of 4-hit shutout ball, and Eric Knott and Troy Brohawn combined to finish the 5-hit shutout.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Ichiro Suzuki went 1-for-4.

And in New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, lost to South Brunswick, 39-32 at Jay Doyle Field in East Brunswick.

September 11, 2001: The World Trade Center Is Destroyed and the Pentagon Is Attacked

 

September 11, 2001: I woke up that warm, sunny Tuesday morning, unemployed and with no reason to get up early, and, as was always the case at the time, the first thing I did was turn on the radio. It was after 10:30, so it had already all happened. And the announcer -- a woman whose name I never learned -- on WCBS, 880 on the AM dial, said, "The World Trade Center is gone."

What? What do you mean, "gone"? The World Trade Center is gone? A pair of 110-story skyscrapers -- actually, a seven-building complex -- doesn't just disappear. Gone? What, did aliens come along and beam it up, like on Star Trek?

If it had, there would still, theoretically, have been a chance to get it back. But, no, that was not the case.

Did I hear it right? I had just gotten up. I was still half-asleep. Maybe I misunderstood. I went to the TV, turned it on, and... nothing. Of course. Every station had its transmitter on 1 World Trade Center. Except one, WCBS, Channel 2. Theirs was, and remains, at the Empire State Building. If you didn't have cable TV, then they were the only ones broadcasting. And all that was left of the World Trade Center was a cloud of black smoke.

The planes:

* American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767, with 92 people on board, took off from Logan International Airport in Boston at 7:59 AM, meant for Los Angeles International Airport, and hit 1 World Trade Center, the North Tower, between the 93rd and 99th floors, at 8:46.

* United Airlines Flight 175, also a Boeing 767, with 65 people on board, took off from Logan at 8:14, also meant for Los Angeles, and hit 2 World Trade Center, the South Tower, between the 77th and 85th floors, at 9:03.

* American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757, with 58 people on board, took off from Dulles International Airport in Loudoun County, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., at 8:20, also meant for Los Angeles, was turned back toward Washington, and hit the west wall of the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, also across the Potomac River from Washington, in Arlington, at 9:37. Victims: 184.

* And United Airlines Flight 93, another Boeing 757, with 44 people on board, took off from Newark International Airport in New Jersey at 8:42, meant for San Francisco International Airport. The passengers, having heard on their cell phones about the other planes, decided to fight back, and stopped the hijackers from reaching their target, which U.S. intelligence later decided was the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington. Instead, at 10:03, the plane crashed into a field in rural Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, usually identified by its mailing address of Shanksville, about 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, and 130 miles northwest of Washington.

The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 AM. In 2003, in commemoration of the magazine's 50th Anniversary, TV Guide listed "South Tower Falls" as the most memorable televised moment ever, topping the 1st manned Moon landing in 1969. The North Tower followed at 10:29 -- mere seconds before I woke up.

There's an overpass about a mile from where I was living at the time, where State Route 18 goes over the New Jersey Turnpike. It's next to the Tower Center complex, the 23-story "minor league twin towers," as I called them, where the bus takes me into Manhattan. From that overpass, on a clear day, you could see the World Trade Center. On 9/11/01, all you could see was a plume of black smoke, going back seemingly forever.

Three days later, I stood on that overpass again, and it was a plume of white smoke. No, it didn't mean there was a new Pope, or that the Towers would be back.

My father worked at the World Trade Center, as an engineering consultant for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the complex's operator, for six months, before he decided that the commute was too long, and he quit. That was two years before the attack. It was a week before he found out that everyone he worked with got out all right.

Not so lucky were, depending whose figures you believe, and whether you count people who got sick from working the rescue and salvage jobs afterward, about 2,750 people. Eight of them were from my hometown of East Brunswick, New Jersey. As far as I know, I never met any of them.

East Brunswick's memorial

There were 1,747 who, at the time, were living in the State of New York. Of those, 1,147 lived in New York City. There were 694 from New Jersey, including 3 from my parents' hometown of Newark, and 3 from next-door Bloomfield, where they lived when I was born.

There were 92 from Massachusetts, 81 from Virginia, 65 from Connecticut, 50 from Maryland, 49 from California, 30 from Pennsylvania, 11 from the District of Columbia, 10 from New Hampshire, 9 from Illinois, 6 from Texas; 5 each from Florida and Rhode Island; 4 each from Alabama, Georgia and Maine; 3 each from Louisiana, North Carolina and Ohio; 2 each from Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Oklahoma; and 1 each from Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

There were 13 from Britain, 6 from Germany, 5 from Canada, 3 from Australia, 3 from Japan, 2 from China, and 1 each from Bermuda, El Salvador, Grenada, Ireland, Israel and Sweden.

At first, we didn't know how bad it would be. The front page of the New York Daily News on September 13 suggested 10,000 people had died. It was quickly revised to 5,000, and then, when records were checked to see who was in the Twin Towers and hadn't been found alive, and checking against duplicate entries, down to 3,000, still the worst one-day loss of life on American soil since the American Civil War.

Among the notable people who died as a result of the 9/11 attacks were television producer David Angell, conservative TV legal analyst Barbara Olson, and hockey player-turned-scout Garnet "Ace" Bailey, each of them on board one of the planes intended for Los Angeles. (Bailey was no relation to the old-time hockey star Irvine "Ace" Bailey.) Alice Trillin, a teacher and film producer, and wife of author Calvin Trillin, also died that day, but her death was separate from the attacks.

In 2001, smartphones were few and far between, a lot of us still hadn't really figured out the Internet, and for those of us in the New York Tri-State Area who still didn't have cable TV, Channel 2 was the only station we had left. So we had one channel, and the same damn thing on, for an entire week.

And that's all we watched: Images of the carnage, updates from police and fire department leaders, politicians making statements, pundits speculating about America's response to al-Qaeda and its allies. The parallel was made to the 4 days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. But distractions were few. No regular TV programming. Certainly, no sports, for an entire week, before the various leagues started up again.

Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of New York, put his municipal counter-terrorism center in 7 World Trade Center. They had to evacuate it. He and the others inside nearly died when the North Tower collapsed. He bounced back from this blunder to represent the City and its recovery before the public, and Time magazine named him its Person of the Year, ahead of President George W. Bush -- and Osama bin Laden, who approved and ordered the attacks.

For reasons that aren't worth getting into here, it took until May 1, 2011 for the victims to be avenged. The official memorial at the site was opened on September 11, 2011, the 10th Anniversary of the attacks. And the new One World Trade Center opened on November 3, 2014, with a height purposely set to match the year of America's independence: 1,776 feet.

A temporary memorial at the Pentagon, for the lives lost there, was dedicated on September 12, 2002. A permanent memorial was dedicated on September 11, 2008. The Flight 93 National Memorial was dedicated at the Pennsylvania field on September 10, 2011, the day before the 10th Anniversary. The names of the victims at these sites are also inscribed at the main memorial in Manhattan.

For those of us too young to remember the JFK assassination -- and maybe for those of us who are old enough -- 9/11 remains the most shocking event of our lifetimes. It shouldn't be.

After all, a foreign foe killed 3,000 of us, and our government said it would do whatever it took. And it lied. But the next government did what it took.

*

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 happened in the morning, so there was time to decide to take what was, then as now, the obvious step of postponing most professional sports indefinitely.

Minor League Baseball was already in its Playoffs, and canceled the rest of them. This enabled the Brooklyn Cyclones, a 1st-year farm team of the Mets, to be declared Co-Champions of the Class A New York-Penn League, along with the other team in the Final, the Pennsylvania-based Williamsport Crosscutters. They won their 1st full Pennant in 2019.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced that games would resume the following week, on Monday, September 17.

The games that were scheduled for Tuesday, September 11 through Sunday, September 16 were moved to the week after the end of the regular season, thus pushing the postseason back a week, resulting in the 1st-ever November games that counted in MLB.

These are the games that were supposed to be played on September 11, and got pushed back to Monday, October 1:

* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-1 at the old Yankee Stadium in The Bronx.

* The New York Mets lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-1 at Shea Stadium in Queens.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Baltimore Orioles, 1-0 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

* The Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the Boston Red Sox, 10-3 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. (The Tampa Bay team is now named simply the Rays.

These are the games that were supposed to be played on September 11 that got pushed back to Tuesday, October 2:

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-1 at Turner Field in Atlanta.

* The Florida Marlins beat the Montreal Expos, 4-3 at what was then named Pro Player Stadium in Miami Gardens. (The Expos are now the Washington Nationals, the Marlins are the Miami Marlins, they play in Marlins Park, and Pro Player Stadium is now named Hard Rock Stadium.)

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at Comerica Park in Detroit.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-1 at Miller Park in Milwaukee.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-1 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Houston Astros, 4-1 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Colorado Rockies, 10-1 at Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix. (Now named Chase Field.)

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres, 5-2 at what was then named Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. (It's now SDCCU Stadium, and the Padres now play at Petco Park.)

* The Seattle Mariners beat the team then known as the Anaheim Angels, 14-5 at Edison International Field. (The team is now known as the Los Angeles Angels, and their ballpark as Angel Stadium.)

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers, 9-4 at the Oakland Coliseum.

Not in the country affected by the attacks, UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations, decided that the day's Champions League matches would go ahead as scheduled, in spite of some of the teams objecting:

* Arsenal lost to Real Mallorca, 1-0 at Estadio Son Moix on Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain.

* Liverpool and Boavista of Portugal played to a draw, 1-1 at Anfield in Liverpool.

* FC Nantes beat PSV Eindhoven of the Netherlands, 4-1 at Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes, France.

* Panathinaikos of Athens, Greece beat Schalke 04, 2-0 at Parkstadion in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

* Real Madrid beat AS Roma, 2-1 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.

* Dynamo Kyiv and Borussia Dortmund of Germany played to a draw, 2-2 at Olimpiyskiy Natsionalnyi Sportovyi Kompleks in Kyiv, Ukraine.

* Lokomotiv Moscow and Anderlecht of Belgium played to a draw, 1-1 at the Central Dynamo Stadium of Moscow.

* And Galatasaray beat SS Lazio of Rome, 1-0 at Al Sami Yen Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey.

By September 11, 2022, we can determine that there are already two famous people who were born on September 11, 2001: Nicholas Robertson, a left wing for the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs; and actress Mackenzie Aladjem.

September 11, 1905: The Ninth Avenue Elevated Derailment

September 11, 1905: The Ninth Avenue Elevated Line has a train derail at the intersection of 9th Avenue and 50th Street, where the building we now know as "the old Madison Square Garden" would be built 20 years later. With 13 deaths, and 48 additional injuries, it is the worst accident in the history of elevated railways in New York City.

Trains of the Ninth Avenue and Sixth Avenue elevated lines shared the same track above West 53rd Street, where the Sixth Avenue Line branched off, rather than go through Central Park between 59th and 110th Streets. Downtown-bound trains displayed disks indicating to the towerman at the junction whether he should set the switch for the train to enter the curve or proceed straight on to the 50th Street station.

During the morning rush hour, a Ninth Avenue train following a Sixth Avenue train was mistakenly switched onto the curve. The train was traveling at 30 miles per hour when it entered the sharp curve, for which 9 miles per hour was the company-mandated limit.

The motorman, Paul Kelly, realizing the error, braked quickly. The lead car remained on the tracks, but the second was thrown right off the trestle and down to the street, coming to rest with one end on the ground and the other across the third rail on the trestle, which sparked an electrical fire. Kelly was blamed for the deaths -- probably unfairly -- and served time for manslaughter.

This was the 1st New York disaster to occur on a September 11. It would not be the last.

*

September 11, 1905 was a Monday. There were 3 sets of doubleheaders played in baseball that day:

* A doubleheader was split at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. The Boston Americans won the 1st game, 6-3. The Washington Senators were leading the 2nd game, 14-0 after 7 innings, when it was called due to darkness. The Americans became the Boston Red Sox in 1908.

* A doubleheader was split at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Reds won the 1st game, 3-2. The Chicago Cubs were leading the 2nd game, 12-0 after 6 innings, when it was called due to darkness.

* And the Cleveland Naps swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Browns, at the 1898-1908 version of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Both games ended 2-1, the 2nd game taking 11 innings. Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the Cleveland team's 2nd baseman, best hitter, manager and namesake, saw no reason to put himself into either game, and did not play. The Naps would become the Cleveland Indians in 1915, and the Cleveland Guardians in 2022.

May 1, 2011: Osama bin Laden Is Killed

May 1, 2011: U.S. Navy SEALs conduct a raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan that kills Osama bin Laden, the leader of terrorist organization al-Qaeda.

It had been 9 years, 7 months and 21 days since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, destroying the World Trade Center in New York, and attacking the Pentagon outside Washington, killing nearly 3,000 people.

President George W. Bush promised to get justice for the victims. But he took his eyes off the prize, and turned them toward his invasion of Iraq.

When Senator Barack Obama ran for President in 2008, he made finding and killing bin Laden a priority. He won the election. It took another 2 1/2 years for America's national security apparatus to find bin Laden. It did.

Usama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden -- as close as the English alphabet comes to correctly translating his Arabic name -- was born on March 10, 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a family heavily engaged in construction on the Arabian peninsula. From 1984 until 1990, the U.S. government, concerned with the encroachment of the Soviet Union on the Muslim world, considered bin Laden and his groups -- first the Maktab al-Khidamat, the Afghan Services Bureau; then al-Qaeda, "The Foundation" -- to be allies.

That changed in 1990, when President George H.W. Bush put U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in preparation for the Persian Gulf War. bin Laden didn't want "unbelievers" on "holy soil," which he considered the entire Arabian Peninsula to be. By 1996, his supporters were carrying out attacks on American interests on his orders. On September 11, 2001, they carried out his most audacious plan yet.

On December 14, 2001, the President of the United States promised that bin Laden would be taken, "dead or alive, no matter how long it takes." On March 13, 2002, the President said, "I truly am not that concerned about him."

On October 7, 2008, during a Presidential debate with Senator John McCain, who had already told a campaign rally, "I know how to get bin Laden," Senator Barack Obama said, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaida. That has to be our biggest national security priority." On May 1, 2011, the President of the United States kept his promise.

President Obama was given the details of a plan that would kill bin Laden. He knew that if it failed, and any of the SEALs were killed, it would feel like the 1980 "Desert One" operation that not only failed to rescue the American citizens held hostage in Iran, but led to the accidental deaths of 8 American soldiers. It pretty much ended President Jimmy Carter's chances of re-election.

Obama knew that his re-election in 2012 could very well hang on the result of his decision. If the mission failed, he would get blamed. If he said don't do it, and word reached the public that there was such an idea and he turned it down, it would be a public relations nightmare.

Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- each of whom had run for the Presidency before, and would again -- said he should go for it. He went for it. It worked. bin Laden was dead, and every American who participated got out alive.

The raid happened at about 1:00 AM, local time, on May 2. But Obama announced it to America at 11:35 PM, U.S. Eastern Time, on May 1, so I'm using May 1 as the date.

Earlier, during the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcast, word filtered through social media to reach the crowd at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, and the fans began to chant, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"

There's both a prologue and an epilogue to this story. In the world of the TV show The West Wing, bin Laden and al-Qaeda were mentioned by name. But instead of al-Qaeda successfully destroying the World Trade Center, the fictional nation of Qumar had its Defense Minister, the brother of the ruling Sultan, plan to destroy the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

This plan was thwarted, but the Minister was recorded as saying he was going to try something else, as yet undetermined. So the President, Josiah "Jed" Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) approved a plan to have the Minister assassinated.

On the night of a debate in his re-election campaign, Bartlet's White House Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry (John Spencer), one of the few people who knows the truth, meets with Ali Nassir (Tony Amendola), the Qumari Ambassador to the United States, who has accused Israel of carrying out the assassination, and so Qumar has threatened Israel. He knows that the only way to clear Israel is for the President to admit the truth, and he tells Leo that the President is afraid to do so, because it might cost him the election.

Leo laughs at this, and says, "To sweep all 50 States, the President would only have to do two things: Blow the Sultan's brains out in the middle of Times Square, and then walk across the street to Nathan's and buy a hot dog!" In other words, the hot dog would be unnecessary. Qumar dropped its threat, the assassination remained a secret, and Bartlet won in a landslide. It did not remain a secret for much longer, with serious personal consequences for Bartlet.

Obama killed bin Laden about a year and a half before he had to face the voters. And when Election Day came, the country's casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan had slowed to a trickle, the economy was doing well, and he had no scandal. And yet, Obama won just 26 States. Of the 24 States he lost, only 1 (North Carolina) was close; in the rest, he got an average of less than 39 percent.

Some States just wouldn't vote for a Democrat, especially a black one, no matter what he'd done. Even if he had personally pulled the trigger and killed bin Laden, they wouldn't have voted for him. So The West Wing's creator, Aaron Sorkin, and his co-writer for the episode, Paul Redford, were wrong.

*

May 1, 2011 was, as I said, a Sunday. There was a full slate of MLB games that day:

* In that ESPN Sunday night game, the New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1. Ronny Paulino won it with an RBI double in the top of the 14th inning.

* The New York Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-2 at the new Yankee Stadium. Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson hit home runs, and Iván Nova was the winning pitcher.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 3-2 at Fenway Park In Boston.

* The Washington Nationals beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-2 at Nationals Park in Washington.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5 at Turner Field in Atlanta.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 6-5 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at Progressive Field in Cleveland.

* The Florida Marlins beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-5 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-4 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 10-3 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Houston Astros beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-0 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Colorado Rockies, 8-4 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-3 at Chase Field in Phoenix.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers, 7-2 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the Overstock Coliseum).

There were 2 NBA Playoff games played on that day:

* The Miami Heat beat the Boston Celtics, 99-90 at the American Airlines Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami. Dwyane Wade scored 38 points.

* The Memphis Grizzlies beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, 114-101 at what's now named the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City. Zach Randolph scored 34 for Memphis, Kevin Durant 33 for OKC.

There were 2 Stanley Cup Playoff games played on that day:

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Washington Capitals, 3-2 at what's now named the Capital One Arena in Washington. Vincent Lecavalier scores the winning goal, 6:19 into overtime.

* The San Jose Sharks beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1 at what's now named the SAP Center in San Jose.

Also, Arsenal beat Manchester United, 1-0 at the Emirates Stadium in North London, on a 56th minute goal by Aaron Ramsey. This was part of a pattern: When Ramsey scored, famous people died within a day or two. Some could be explained by already being sick, as with Ted Kennedy, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, David Bowie and Roger Moore. But that didn't cover Whitney Houston, Paul Walker and Robin Williams.

March 20, 2003: The Iraq War Begins

March 20, 2003: President George W. Bush launches the Iraq War, to topple President Saddam Hussein of Iraq from power.

April 9, 2003: Saddam fled, his regime of nearly 34 years coming to an end.

May 1, 2003: Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, beneath a huge banner reading "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED," Bush did not use those words himself, but he did say, "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

To be fair, he added, "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. Our mission continues."

December 13, 2003: Allied forces captured Saddam, at a farm outside his hometown of Tirkit, about 100 miles north of Baghdad. But this was not the end of the war, either.

September 30, 2004: With the war still going, with no end in sight, Bush was running for re-election, and debating the Democratic nominee for President, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. Bush was asked why he started the war.

He said, "The enemy attacked us." This was part of his continuing telling of the story that Saddam was involved in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, including the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York.

Kerry responded: "Saddam Hussein did not attack us on September 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden did."

Kerry was right. Bush was lying. That should have ended Bush's bid for a 2nd term right there.

November 2, 2004: By a margin of one State in the Electoral College -- and we may never know just how much the Republicans cheated in Ohio, possibly in other States -- Bush was re-elected.

May 16, 2006: The 3rd season finale of the military-themed drama NCIS airs. Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon, was in an explosion, and when he emerges from his coma, he has no memory of anything that happened after a similar thing happened to him while he was serving in the original Iraq War of 1991.

Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (David McCallum) meets with NCIS Director Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly), who says that Gibbs now knows that 15 years have passed, but, seeing the images of the current war on ZNN, that world's fictionalized version of CNN, he says he wants to know why we're still at war in Iraq. Ducky says, "He's not the only one."

November 5, 2006: The Iraqi Interim Government convicted Saddam of treason.

December 30, 2006: Saddam was hanged. He was 69 years old.

January 20, 2009: Bush left office as one of the most unpopular Presidents ever, and Barack Obama became President. He had been elected partly on a pledge to end the Iraq War, which was still ongoing.

June 1, 2009: Dick Cheney, who from 2001 to 2009 had been Bush's Vice President, finally admitted the truth: "I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm that (Saddam) was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true," Cheney conceded.

December 18, 2011: President Obama withdrew the last U.S. combat forces from Iraq, leaving behind only a token force in a defensive role. There were 4,507 American soldiers killed, among 32,000 wounded. Other countries' forces in support, including the new Iraqi army: 18,000. Pro-Saddam and later ISIS forces killed: Approximately 37,000. Iraqi civilians killed: Officially, over 110,000, but probably far more.

Benefits to Iraq: They traded one corrupt regime for another, with far fewer extrajudicial killings. In other words, things became better, but still not good.

Benefits to America: The Bush-Cheney Administration's friends, especially energy companies and defense contractors, made a lot of money, and... uh... well... America remembered that war is a bad thing, and that just because you spout slogans and wave flags doesn't make you more patriotic than the people who say that war is a bad thing.

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March 20, 2003 was a Thursday. Major League Baseball was in Spring Training, so any games played in that sport on that day didn't count. The NFL was in its off-season. There were 3 NBA games played that night:

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 113-85 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan. Chauncey Billups of the Pistons led all scorers with 29 points.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Dallas Mavericks, 112-110 in overtime at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Nick Van Exel scored 35 for the Mavs, but Tim Duncan scored 25 for the Spurs, and Malik Rose and Tony Parker each added 22. The Spurs went on to win the NBA Championship.

* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Los Angeles Lakers 107-99 at the Arco Arena in Sacramento. Kobe Bryant scored 34 for the Lakers, and Shaquille O'Neal scored 28. But the Kings got 26 from Chris Webber, 23 from Peja Stojakovic, and 19 from Mike Bibby, riding a 41-point 4th quarter to victory.

There were 9 games played in the NHL, and 4 of them went to overtime: 

* The only team in the New York Tri-State Area playing that night was the New York Islanders, and they beat the Montreal Canadiens, 6-3 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-2 at the First Union Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3 in overtime at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the team then known as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 3-2 in overtime at the Kiel Center (now the Enterprise Center) in St. Louis.

* The Colorado Avalanche beat the San Jose Sharks, 2-0 at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver.

* The team then known as the Phoenix Coyotes beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2 in overtime at the America West Arena (now the PHX Arena) in downtown Phoenix.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Los Angeles Kings played to a 2-2 tie, in overtime at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Calgary Flames, 4-1 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

* And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Nashville Predators, 7-3 at General Motors Place (now the Rogers Arena) in Vancouver.