October 11, 1971: John Lennon Releases "Imagine"

October 11, 1971: John Lennon releases his song "Imagine." It becomes one of the most beloved songs in the world, and remains the most popular song written by any of the men who were in The Beatles.

It was the title track to an album he released on September 9. The album also included songs he wrote to his wife, Yoko Ono, such as "Jealous Guy" and "Oh Yoko!" It also included a swipe at the previous most important person in his life, former Beatle Paul McCartney, attacking him for what John would later call "silly love songs," and for the business disputes between them: "How Do You Sleep?" And it includes "Gimme Some Truth," which is self-explanatory.

The following year, John released a promotional film based on the album -- they weren't called "music videos" yet -- including a performance of "Imagine," filmed at his home at Tittenhurst Park, near Ascot, Berkshire, England, a town known for its horse-racing track. The film shows Yoko slowly opening the windows of the room as John plays, and letting more light in. John had originally recorded the song there on May 27, 1971. He co-produced the song with Phil Spector, who added an orchestra.

(This was before a Los Angeles recording session at which Spector pulled a gun on Lennon, and Lennon actually dared him to pull the trigger. Not used to people standing up to him, Spector put the gun down.)

People who claim to be Christians have hated John for this song ever since. They haven't listened to the lyrics. He didn't say there is no Heaven, no Hell, no religion; he asked the listener to imagine that there wasn't. It's actually an implication that those things do exist.

Of course, asking people to imagine there's no countries might feel like an attack on people's patriotism. And asking people to imagine there's no possessions seems like an attack on capitalism. And they take those things personally.

In contrast, in 1970, for his solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, John recorded a song titled "God," in which he rattled off things and people he said he didn't believe in: Magic, the I-Ching, the Bible, tarot cards, Adolf Hitler, Jesus, John F. Kennedy, Buddha, mantras, Gita, yoga, kings, Elvis, Zimmerman (meaning Bob Dylan), and, finally, The Beatles. He said, "I just believe in me. Yoko and me. And that's reality."

Talk about a concurrence of events: The day after Imagine was released, October 12, 1971, the musical Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway.

A few weeks later, on November 24, John and Yoko released "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," with backing from the Plastic Ono Band and the Harlem Community Choir. They also rented Times Square billboards with the messages "Happy Xmas from John & Yoko" and "War is over (if you want it)."

Eight years later, on November 16, 1979, Paul released "Wonderful Christmastime." How is it that John, who dared to "Imagine there's no heaven... and no religion, too" wrote such a fantastic Christmas song? While his former musical partner, Paul, one of the world's greatest songwriters and one of its greatest sentimentalists, facing that most sentimental of holidays, wrote such a weak one?

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October 11, 1971 was a Monday. In America, it was Columbus Day.

Game 2 of the World Series, delayed a day by rain, was played at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The Baltimore Orioles beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 11-3. The Pirates would win the Series in 7 games.

The NHL season was underway, but no games were scheduled. The NBA season began the following night. The American Basketball Association's season began the night after that.

On ABC Monday Night Football, The Dallas Cowboys beat the New York Giants, 20-13. It was the last game the Cowboys played at their original home field, the Cotton Bowl. After losing away to the New Orleans Saints the next week, the week after that, they opened their new Texas Stadium in suburban Irving, with a win over the New England Patriots.

September 12, 1992: "Fever Pitch" Is Published

September 12, 1992: Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life is published, a memoir by Nick Hornby, less of his life in general to that point than a story of the evolution of his fandom for a sports team. It might be the best book ever written about being a fan of a particular team.

Hornby, then an English teacher in London, is a fan of Arsenal Football Club, a soccer team in North London. He told of following the team from the start of the 1968-69 season until just before publication, including the 1971 "Double" season (meaning that they won the Football League Division One and the Football Association Cup in the same season) and the next League title, which wasn't until 1989 -- 18 years.

The book made Hornby a best-selling author, and raised Arsenal's profile to the point where, already one of the most popular teams in England, they became one of the most popular teams in the world. But it also sparked a backlash against them, and they became one of the country's most hated teams as well.

Nick Hornby, posing outside Highbury

before the last match, May 9, 2006

Fever Pitch was made into a film in the United Kingdom, premiering on April 4, 1997, starring Colin Firth and Ruth Gemmell. The tagline was, "Life gets complicated when you love one woman and worship eleven men." This version, with Hornby writing the screenplay, followed a fictionalized version of Hornby during the epic 1988-89 season, with flashbacks to his youth in 1968 and 1972.

In the film, returning from Arsenal's 1-0 win over Newcastle United on April 15, 1989, Firth's Paul Ashworth and Gemmell's Sarah Hughes are watching the news reports of the Hillsborough Disaster, when a crowd crush in Sheffield led to the deaths of Liverpool fans -- 74 at the time of the report, rising to 95 at the time of the book's publication. A 96th victim was still in a coma at that time, and died the next year. In 2021, fan who had been injured in the crush died, and his death was ruled to have been caused by his 1989 injuries, thus making him the 97th victim.

Sarah says that football matches aren't safe, and she has a point. Paul says people will go back -- which they did, and stadiums were made significantly safer in response to the disaster. But she says he and the other fans she met had an unhealthy obsession with the sport, and she leaves him. She returns to him afterward, seeing the joy and the others he felt at winning the title, seeing that sport can heal.

But, for the moment, Paul was left to ruminate on what the sport was doing to his life. Hornby wrote, and Firth spoke:

Football has meant too much to me, and has come to represent too many things. See, after a while, it all gets mixed up in your head. You can't remember whether life's shit because Arsenal's shit, or if it's the other way around.

I've been to watch far too many games, and spent far too much money, fretted about Arsenal when I should have been fretting about something else. I've asked too much of the people I love.

Okay, I accept all that. Perhaps it's something you can't understand, unless you belong...

The great thing is, it comes again and again. There's always another season. You lose the Cup Final in May? Well, there's the 3rd Round to look forward to in January. And what's wrong with that? It's actually pretty comforting, if you think about it.

The United States version was adapted by Providence, Rhode Island-based filmmakers Peter & Bobby Farrelly, fans of New England's sports teams, including baseball's Boston Red Sox. They cast Jimmy Fallon, then a former star of NBC's Saturday Night Live, and not yet the host of a late-night talk show, now hosting The Tonight Show. Ironically, in real life, Fallon is a fan of the New York Yankees, the Red Sox' arch-rivals -- so this film proves that he really can act.

This version of the film follows the Red Sox in their own epic season, of 2004. To avoid confusion, this film was renamed The Perfect Catch for the British Isles market. The French-language version of the British film is titled Carton Juane -- "Yellow Card," which is what a referee shows a player as a warning. A red card is for a foul so bad, it requires the player to be immediately sent off, and getting a second yellow card in a single game is followed by a red card.

*

September 12, 1992 was a Saturday. Although Hornby's memoir celebrated Arsenal, the club did not hold up their end of the bargain, losing to Lancashire team Blackburn Rovers, 1-0 at Highbury in North London.

In American football, the day's slate of college games included these did not include a game by the team then ranked Number 1, the University of Miami, in Florida. They had the week off. But the slate included these games:

* Number 2 Washington beat Wisconsin, 27-10 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* Number 3 Notre Dame and Number 6 Michigan played to a 17-17 tie at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* Number 4 Florida beat Kentucky, 35-19 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida.

* Number 5 Florida State beat Number 15 Clemson, 24-20 at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina.

* Number 7 Texas A&M beat the University of Tulsa, 19-9 at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.

* Number 8 Alabama beat Southern Mississippi, 17-10 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

* Number 9 Syracuse beat Texas, 31-21 at the Carrier Dome (now the JMA Wireless Dome) in Syracuse, New York.

* Number 10 Penn State beat Temple University, 49-8 at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania.

* Number 14 Georgia were beaten by Number 20 Tennessee, 34-31 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

* Number 17 University of California were beaten by Purdue, 41-14 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Number 18 Mississippi State were beaten by Louisiana State (LSU), 24-3 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Among the service academies, Army beat Holy Cross, 17-7 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; Navy lost to Number 23 Virginia, 53-0 at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland; and Air Force lost to Hawaii, 6-3 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu.

* And in New Jersey, Rutgers beat Colgate, 41-0 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway.

And these Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals, 11-9 at Yankee Stadium. Randy Velarde hit a home run. Don Mattingly went 4-for-4 with 3 RBIs. Bernie Williams went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The New York Mets lost to the Montreal Expos, 4-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-5 at Fenway Park in Boston. Wade Boggs went 4-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-7 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Barry Bonds went 1-for-4.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-0 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Jaime Navarro pitched a 5-hit shutout. Robin Yount went 1-for-4. Paul Molitor went 2-for-5. Cal Ripken went 0-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the California Angels, 7-2 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 11-3 at Busch Memlorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Texas Rangers, 4-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 9-3 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Diego Padres, 7-4 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn did not play.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 7-0 at Dodger Stadium. Pedro Astacio pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-4 at the Oakland Coliseum. Neither Rickey Henderson nor Mark McGwire played for the A's in this game. Ken Griffey Jr. went 3-for-5 with an RBI.