November 4, 1979: The Iran Hostage Crisis Begins

November 4, 1979: The Iran Hostage Crisis begins. Islamic militants, inspired by the Islamic Revolution 9 months earlier, led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a fundamentalist Shia Muslim cleric, take over the U.S. Embassy in Iran, and take 80 hostages, a number that will drop to 52. At first, the nation rallies around President Jimmy Carter, as the nation tends to rally around the President when a crisis occurs.

By April 25, 1980, when the failed "Desert One" rescue attempt occurred, Carter had the Democratic nomination for a 2nd term sewed up, and people (including some Republicans crossing over) started voting for Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy as a protest vote, knowing he could no longer win the nomination, but the Primaries he might win could, and did, damage Carter.

As the Crisis dragged on and on, with ABC News starting its late-night broadcast Nightline, hosted by Ted Koppel, and that show and Walter Cronkite on The CBS Evening News both counting the days up and up and up -- Day 50, Day 100, Day 200, Day 365, and so on -- and as the economy continued to struggle as it had begun to do in 1979, people got more and more fed up with Carter.

The 1980 election was held exactly one year to the date after the Crisis began, and Carter lost very badly to Ronald Reagan.

As the great politically-themed comedian Mort Sahl put it: "Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. Had he run unopposed, he would have lost."

The hostages:

* From the U.S. Army: Colonels Leland Holland and Charles W. Scott, military attachés; Chief Warrant Officer 3rd Class Joseph M. Hall, USA, military attaché; Master Sergeant Regis Ragan, defense attaché’s office; Staff Sergeant Joseph Subic, military police; Specialist 1st Class Donald Hohman, medic.

* From the U.S. Navy: Commander Donald Sharer and Lieutenant Commander Robert Engelmann, military attachés; IS1 Duane Gillette, communications and intelligence specialist.

* From the U.S. Air Force: Colonel Thomas Schaefer, Air Force attaché; Lieutenant Colonel David Roeder, deputy Air Force attaché; Captain Neal Robinson, military intelligence officer; Captain Paul Needham, logistics staff officer; Master Sergeant Joseph Vincent and Sergeant James Hughes, administrative managers.

* From the U.S. Marine Corps: Staff Sergeant Michael Moeller, head of the Marine Corps guard unit, as every U.S. Embassy is guarded by Marines; Sergeants William Gallegos, Kevin Hermening, Paul Lewis, James Lopez, Ladell Maples, John McKeel, Gregory Persinger, William Quarles, Rodney Sickmann, David Walker and Westley Williams, and Corporal Steven Kirtley, embassy guards.

* From the CIA (their roles since declassified): William J. Daugherty, secretary of the U.S. mission; Jerry Miele and Phillip Ward, communications officers.

* Civilians: Richard Morefield, consul general; Thomas Ahern, narcotics control officer; Clair Cortland Barnes, communications specialist; William Belk, records officer; Robert Blucker, economics officer; Donald Cooke and Richard Queen, vice consuls; Bruce German, budget officer; Alan Golacinski, chief of embassy security; John Graves, public affairs officer; Michael Howland, assistant regional security officer; Charles A. Jones Jr., teletype operator; Malcolm Kalp and Moorhead Kennedy, commercial officers; Kathryn Koob, cultural officer; Frederick Kupke, electronics specialist; Bruce Laingen, chargé d'affaires; Gary Lee, administrative officer; John Limbert and Michael Metrinko, political officers; Bert Moore, administration counselor; Robert Ode, retired foreign service officer on temporary duty in Tehran; Jerry Plotkin, civilian businessman visiting Tehran; Lloyd Rollins, administrative officer; Barry Rosen, press attaché; William Royer, assistant director of the Iran-American Society; Elizabeth Ann Swift, deputy head of political section; Victor Tomseth, counselor for political affairs; Kathy Gross, Lillian Johnson, Elizabeth Montagne, Terri Tedford and Joan Walsh, secretaries.

Kathy Gross, Ladell Maples and William Quarles were released on November 19, 1979. James Hughes, Lillian Johnson, Elizabeth Montagne, Lloyd Rollins, Neal Robinson, Terri Tedford, Joseph Vincent, David Walker, Joan Walsh and Westley Williams were released on November 20. Richard Queen, for health reasons, was released on July 11, 1980. The remaining 52 had to wait until the end, January 20, 1981, 444 days.

Joan Walsh and Michael Howland married each other in 1982. William Keough died in 1985, Leland Holland in 1990, John McKeel in 1991, Robert Ode in 1995, Jerry Plotkin in 1996, Bert Moore in 2000, Michael Kalp and Richard Queen in 2002, Elizabeth Cronin (formerly Elizabeth Swift) in 2004; Bruce German, Richard Morefield and Gary Lee in 2010, Phillip Ward in 2012, Thomas Schaefer in 2016, Neal Robinson in 2017, Bruce Laingen in 2019, Westley Williams in 2020, Donald Sharer and Donald Hohman in 2021, and Duane Gillette in 2022. As of November 4, 2022, the others are still alive.

UPDATE: Moorhead Kennedy died in 2024.

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November 4, 1979 was a Sunday. The baseball season was over. But the NFL held games:

* The New York Giants lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 16-14 at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands.

* The New York Jets beat the Green Bay Packers, 27-22 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-19 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The New England Patriots beat the Buffalo Bills, 26-6 at Rich Stadium (later Ralph Wilson Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Washington Redskins, 38-7 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 38-28 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 17-14 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions, 35-7 at the old Soldier Field in Chicago.

* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Minnesota Vikings, 37-7 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The San Diego Chargers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 20-14 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Denver Broncos beat the New Orleans Saints, 10-3 at Mile High Stadium in Denver.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the San Francisco 49ers, 23-10 at the Oakland Coliseum.

* And the Los Angeles Rams beat the Seattle Seahawks, 24-0 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

* The next, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Houston Oilers beat the Miami Dolphins, 9-6 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

There were 3 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Kansas City Kings, 101-98 at the Rutgers Athletic Center in Piscataway, New Jersey. (It's now named the Jersey Mike's Arena)

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 114-101 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the San Antonio Spurs, 127-124 in overtime at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. George Gervin led all scorers on the night, with 32 points.

And there were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Vancouver Canucks, 4-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. The Rangers trailed 2-1 with 4:16 left in regulation, but they got an equalizer on the power play from Anders Hedberg at that point, a go-ahead goal from Phil Esposito with 3:07 to go, and an empty-netter at the end from Don Maloney.

* The New York Islanders played the Winnipeg Jets to a tie, 4-4 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-1 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Edmonton Oilers, 2-1 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

October 4, 1976: The Ballad of Barbara and Harry

Harry Reasoner (left) and Barbara Walters.

The screen behind them shows Pope Paul VI.

October 4, 1976: ABC World News Tonight starts a new anchor team. Former anchor Howard K. Smith begins a semi-retirement, where he will only be doing a nightly commentary at the end of the broadcast. His former partner, Harry Reasoner, is joined by a new co-anchor: Barbara Walters. She is the 1st female anchor or co-anchor of a network news broadcast.

In hindsight, it might seem like putting pineapple on pizza: Two good things that didn't go  well together. But that's not the case at all. It was more like oil and water: It simply didn't mix.

Harry was born in 1923 in Iowa, and was a farm boy before the family moved to Minneapolis. He started as a newspaperman, a career interrupted by serving in the U.S Army in World War II. In 1946, he published a novel titled Tell Me About Women, about a fading marriage. It should have been a red flag.

He moved to CBS radio in 1948, and television in 1956. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and Walter Cronkite, then the anchorman, delivered the news over CBS. Reasoner and Cronkite then relieved each other over the next 4 days as it was the only story in the world, boosting both men's profiles. It was Reasoner who broke the news that Lee Harvey Oswald, arrested as JFK's assassin, had, himself, been shot.

In 1967, Reasoner hosted a CBS Reports documentary, The Hippie Temptation. While it rightly warned of the dangerous of running away from home and joining the hippies in New York or San Francisco, and the drugs that could be involved, it made all the hippies look like dirty, drugged-out sex maniacs, hypocritically bashing capitalism while begging for spare change.

In 1968, Reasoner and Mike Wallace became the co-anchors of the first "news magazine" show, 60 Minutes. Morley Safer and Andy Rooney, also correspondents on the show, both cited Reasoner's drinking, and Rooney, a writer by trade, called Reasoner "a lazy writer." And this was his friends talking. ABC signed him away in 1970, and paired him with Smith.

Barbara was born in 1929 in Boston, descended from Russian Jews who changed the family name from Waremwasser to Warmwater to Walters. Her father owned the Latin Quarter, one of the top nightclubs in Boston, and she was immersed in show business from the beginning. And she went to private schools in New York City. With all of that, and being a woman, her background was very different from Harry's.

She eventually married and divorced 3 different men, 1 of them twice, adopted a daughter, and, in between husbands, had, by her own later admission, a love-life that might have been terribly scandalous had she not been so discreet.

She worked for NBC's New York affiliate, now WNBC-Channel 4, wrote and produced for children's TV shows, wrote for Redbook magazine, and, in 1961, joined the staff of NBC's morning program, The Today Show, hosted by Hugh Downs. She became co-anchor in 1963, and remained so after 1971, when Downs left and Frank McGee took his place. Downs liked her; McGee did not. When her contract ran out in 1976, ABC jumped at the chance to get her as nightly news co-anchor.

Walters said that the tension because Reasoner did not want to work with a co-anchor, and also because he was unhappy at ABC, not because he disliked Walters personally. She may have taken the high road: Several women recalled Reasoner making misogynistic remarks to them off-camera.

The experiment didn't even last 2 years. CBS wanted Reasoner back, and gave him an offer he couldn't refuse, including a return to 60 Minutes. On July 10, 1978, ABC went with a three-anchor setup: Peter Jennings at the foreign desk in London, Max Robinson (the 1st black man to even be a partial anchor on a major network's nightly news show) at the national desk in Chicago, and Frank Reynolds at the main desk in Washington. This held until Reynolds died of cancer in 1983, by which point Robinson's health had also begun to fail, and Jennings became the single anchor for the next 21 years.

But ABC had invested heavily in Walters, and found ways to use her talents. The Barbara Walters Special was a periodic show that ran for over 20 years, and featured her interviewing major figures from international leaders to show business stars. In 1980, she had the first major-network interview with former President Richard Nixon following his resignation, and the syndicated interview with David Frost in 1977. 

Her joint interview with Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, as they began the process that led to the Camp David Accord, was considered huge. So was her trip to Cuba, to interview dictator Fidel Castro, whose command of English was better than his command of his country.

In 1979, ABC started its own newsmagazine with a number in the title: 20/20. And it hired Downs and Walters as co-anchors, and they remained so until Downs' retirement in 1999. Walters continued to host it until 2004.

In 1981, on 20/20, Walters interviewed Reasoner, who had just published a memoir. They got along fine in this one-time-only meeting. Reasoner died in 1991, at the age of 68, while still with 60 Minutes. By that point, his reputation had recovered, but, from the rise of 20/20 onward, he was never again as big a news star as Walters.

In 1997, she began the daytime talk show The View, and she remained its main host and its executive producer in 2014, when her health began to fail. (UPDATE: She died on December 30, 2022, at 93.)

In 1997, Fox News made Catherine Crier, Walters' former ABC teammate, their nightly news anchor. But Fox has never been a respected news network. In 2001, Judy Woodruff became the main prime-time anchor on CNN.

Of the "Big Three" American networks, ABC tried again in 2005 with Elizabeth Vargas, CBS had their 1st female anchor in 2006 with Katie Couric, and NBC has still never had one. However, aside from Max Robinson as tri-anchor on ABC, NBC is the only one of the Big Three to have had a single black anchor, as Lester Holt has anchored The NBC Nightly News in 2015. In 2014, ABC replaced Diane Sawyer, after 5 years, with David Muir, who still anchors as of October 4, 2022. CBS has had Norah O'Donnell since 2019.

*

October 4, 1976 was a Monday. Actress Alicia Silverstone and soccer star Mauro Camoranesi were born. And Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz resigned over a racist remark. I have a separate entry for that event. 

Baseball was between the end of the regular season and the start of the Playoffs. The NBA, NHL and WHA seasons were about to start. On ABC Monday Night Football, the Minnesota Vikings beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17-6 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

April 6, 1987: Al Campanis' Racist Interview

April 6, 1987: It is Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season. Late that night, ABC's news program Nightline dedicated its show to the 40th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers desegregating MLB. (The anniversary was on the 15th).

Host Ted Koppel had videotaped interviews, ready for broadcast, of Jackie's widow, Rachel Robinson, and former Dodger broadcaster Red Barber. The original intention was to have a live conversation with Jackie's former Dodger teammate and fellow former Negro Leagues player, pitcher Don Newcombe; sportswriter Roger Kahn, a Brooklyn native who covered the Dodgers for the New York Herald Tribune in 1952 and 1953, and knew Jackie well for the rest of his life; and Al Campanis, a former minor-league teammate of Jackie's, later an executive who had been with the Dodgers during their 1957-58 move to Los Angeles, and had been their general manager since 1968.

Newcombe turned out to be unable to participate, due to travel issues. And that turned out to be the least of the broadcast's issues. The taped interview with Mrs. Robinson closed with her saying, "It's not coincidental that baseball in the 40-year period has not been able to integrate at any other level other than the players' level. We have a long way to go."

At this point, there had been 3 black field managers in MLB: Frank Robinson, with the Cleveland Indians, and then with the San Francisco Giants; Larry Doby, with the Chicago White Sox; and Maury Wills, with the Seattle Mariners. Only Robinson (no relation to Jackie) had lasted a full season. Plenty of teams had black coaches, but only 4 out of the 26 teams then in MLB had had a black manager.

Officially, there had never been a black general manager in MLB. Bill Lucas had the duties of a GM, but not the title, with the Atlanta Braves, starting in 1976, but died unexpectedly less than 3 years later, and there had not yet been another.

Next up was Campanis' segment. He was sitting in the press box at the Astrodome in Houston, where the Dodgers had just opened the season by losing to the Houston Astros, 4-3. Mike Scott outpitched Orel Hershiser. Sitting at his usual desk at ABC's Washington office, Koppel asked Campanis why there were, at the moment, no black managers or GMs.

Campanis' answer: "Well, Mr. Koppel, there have been some black managers, but I really can't answer that question directly. The only thing I can say is that you have to pay your dues when you become a manager. Generally, you have to go to the minor leagues. There's not very much pay involved, and some of the better-known black players have been able to get into other fields, and make a pretty good living in that way."

They hadn't paid their dues? To his credit, Koppel gave Campanis a chance to clarify his remarks, and perhaps recover from what could have been a career-ruining moment: "Yeah, but you know, in your heart of hearts, you know that that's a lot of baloney. I mean, there are a lot of black players, there are a lot of great black baseball men who would dearly love to be in managerial positions, and I guess what I'm really asking you is to, you know, peel it away a little bit. Just tell me, why you think it is. Is there still that much prejudice in baseball today?"

Instead of coming up with a better answer, Campanis doubled down: "No, I don't believe it’s prejudice. I truly believe that they may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager."

"Necessities"? What would those be? Interviewed years later, Kahn, sitting in the ABC studio in New York, said, "When he said that blacks lacked the necessities, my legs almost fell off my body."

Koppel asked Campanis, "Do you really believe that?" And he said, "Well, I don't say that all of them, but they certainly are short. How many quarterbacks do you have? How many pitchers do you have that are black?" (This was 10 months before Doug Williams became the 1st black quarterback to start in, and the 1st to win, a Super Bowl.)

Koppel was Jewish. He knew what discrimination was. Campanis was the 1st person born in Greece ever to play in the major leagues, growing up in America at a time when Catholics -- especially Eastern Orthodox ones, as he was -- were treated by the establishment as less than fully American. He knew what discrimination was. Campanis should have known better, and Koppel knew that he should have known better.

Koppel went to a commercial, and when he came back, challenged Campanis again: "Yeah, but I mean, I gotta tell you, that sounds like the same kind of garbage we were hearing 40 years ago about players, when they were saying, 'Ah, not really, not really cut out.' Remember the days, you know, 'Hit a black football player in the knees,' and you know, no. That really sounds like garbage, if you'll forgive me."

Campanis still didn't realize he was in a hole, and kept digging: "No, it's not, it's not garbage, Mr. Koppel, because I played on a college team, and the center fielder was black, and the backfield at NYU, with a fullback who was black, never knew the difference, whether he was black or white, we were teammates. So, it might just be... Why are black men, or black people, not good swimmers? Because they don’t have the buoyancy."

"Buoyancy"? Where was he getting this stuff? Kahn, Jewish, and a victim of professional discrimination as a young man, had had enough. He said, "Oh, I get it, Al. Blacks have the ability to work in the cotton fields, but not to manage a baseball team."

Koppel responded to the swimming remark by saying, "Oh, I don't... It may just be that they don't have access to all the country clubs and the pools."

Koppel tried one more time to get Campanis to take the high road: "From everything I understand, you're a very decent man and a highly respected man in baseball. I confess to you, before we began this program, baseball is not one of my areas of expertise. I'd like to give you another chance to dig yourself out, because I think you need it."

Instead of taking this lifeline, Campanis took the offensive. He had a point, but he was the wrong man to make it: "Well, let me just say this, Mr. Koppel. How many executives do you have on a higher level or higher echelon in your business, in TV, I mean, or anchormen? How many black anchormen do you have?"

Koppel: "You're absolutely right, but I... "

Campanis: "Let's just, let's just turn around."

Koppel: "Yeah, fortunately, there are a few black anchormen. But if you want me to tell you why there aren't many black executives, I'm not going to tell you it's because the blacks aren't intelligent enough. I'm going to tell you it's because it is that whites have been running the establishment of broadcasting, just as they've been running the establishment of baseball for too long, and seem to be reluctant to give up power. I mean, that's what it finally boils down to, isn't it?"

Campanis: "Well, we have scouts in our organization who are black, and they're very capable people. I have never said that blacks are not intelligent. I think many of them are highly intelligent, but they may not have the desire to be in the front office. I know that they have wanted to manage and some of them have managed, but they're outstanding athletes, very God-gifted, and they're very wonderful people, and that's all I can tell you about them."

The Dodgers fired Campanis than 48 hours later. He never held another job in baseball.

In 1989, National League President Bart Giamatti was named Commissioner of Baseball. Hired to take his place as NL President was Bill White, then a broadcaster for the New York Yankees, and previously one of the game's top 1st basemen. He was black. He served in the office until 1994. That year, Leonard Coleman was named the 1st black President of the American League.

Most MLB teams have since had a black manager. The Yankees are not one of them. They have, however, had a black GM, Bob Watson.

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April 6, 1987 was a Monday. This was also the night of the fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler. I have a separate entry for that event.

These games were played on MLB's Opening Day, in addition to the Dodger-Astro game:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 2-1 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Rickey Henderson doubled Claudell Washington home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning, making Dave Righetti a winning pitcher in relief of Dennis Rasmussen. Dave Winfield went 1-for-4. Don Mattingly went 0-for-5.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Texas Rangers, 2-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Larry Sheets drove in the winning run, Rene Gonzales, with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 9th. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4, and Cal Ripken went 0-for-4.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-3 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Montreal Expos, 11-5 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Paul Molitor went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Robin Yount went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-4 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett hit a home run.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 4-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Chili Davis singled Jeffrey Leonard home with the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning. Tony Gwynn went 1-for-4.

* And the New York Mets, the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the St. Louis Cardinals, the California Angels, the Minnesota Twins, the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners each opened their seasons the next day.

Football was out of season. The NHL was between its regular season and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. There were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 108-101 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 110-105 at The Omni in Atlanta. Dominique Wilkins scored 41 points.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Dallas Mavericks, 118-110 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* The Sacramento Kings beat the Utah Jazz, 110-104 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 135-112 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Houston Rockets beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 114-108 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. 

January 6, 1992: "ABC World News Now" Premieres

The show's original logo

January 6, 1992: ABC News premieres its overnight news program, World News Now, airing it between 2:30 and 5:30 AM.

It featured weather at :07 and :37, sports at :10 and :40; and, at :15 or :45, condensed versions of Nightline, 20/20, Barbara Walters' interviews or (before her retirement) , or "World News Then," a noteworthy event as seen through the eyes of ABC News at the time.

The original hosts were Aaron Brown, then 45 years old, later a CNN anchor, and now retired from teaching journalism at Arizona State University; and Lisa McRee, then 30, later the anchor of ABC's Los Angeles affiliate, co-host of Good Morning America (with another World News Now alumnus, Kevin Newman), and now the brains behind The Skinny, a health-themed website. (UPDATE: Brown died in 2024.)

I was unemployed through much of the 1990s, and up in the middle of the night. I can't thank ABC enough for airing this show.

In addition to the preceding, alumni whose names you might recognize include Thalia Assuras, Asha Blake, Juju Chang, Alison Stewart, Liz Cho, Tamala Edwards, T.J. Holmes, Gigi Stone, Rob Nelson, Yunji De Nies, current The View panelist Sunny Hostin, current ABC World News anchor David Muir, and, yes, CNN star Anderson Cooper. The current anchors are Kendis Gibson and Diane Macedo.

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January 6, 1992 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was in its Playoffs. There were 5 games in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 105-90 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Sacramento Kings, 110-108 at the Boston Garden. Kevin Gamble scored 34 points.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Houston Rockets, 109-97 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Detroit Pistons, 100-90 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* And the Utah Stars beat the Indiana Pacers, 124-108 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 4-2 at Madison Square Garden. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Dave Ellett scored the winning goal with 9 seconds left in overtime.