August 2, 1876: The Death of Wild Bill Hickok

August 2, 1876: James Butler Hickok is shot and killed in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, now in the State of South Dakota. He was 39 years old.

He grew up on the Illinois plains, in what's now the Chicago suburb of Troy Grove. At age 18, he thought he'd killed a man in a fight, and fled, taking his father's name, William Hickok. Knowing that his father had used the family house as part the Underground Railroad, assisting fleeing slaves, he joined the Union Army, and later served as a U.S. Army scout. "Wild Bill" served several towns as a lawman, but his chief means of income appears to have been gambling, especially cardplaying.

There are so many legends about the Wild West, including the belief that any saloon you could walk into would have a poker game going on. Poker was Hickok's favored game, but the most common card game in the Wild -- or "Old" -- West was a different game played with a standard deck of cards, faro.

To play bridge in the Wild West was to risk ridicule, as that was considered a game for gentlemen -- and gentlemen were considered more "gentle" than "men," in the West, and had to work harder to prove themselves to the men, as Theodore Roosevelt would eventually find out. Faro, a game dating to 17th Century France, was popularly with manly men, but poker overtook it as such in the early 20th Century, around the time that "the frontier closed," and "dime novels" telling tales of the Wild West began to surpass reality.

Hickok was good at poker, better than he was at enforcing the law. Fortunately for him, he was also a good marksman. Nevertheless, the English writer Joseph G. Rosa (1932-2015), who published They Called Him Wild Bill: The Life and Adventures of James Butler Hickok in 1974, and is considered the foremost authority on him, has been able to document "only" 6 kills. (Among Rosa's other books are The Gunfighter: Man Or Myth?, and books about the guns such men used.)

On August 1, 1876, having had a run of bad luck, Hickok went to Deadwood, home of Nuttal & Mann's saloon. There, he had a good game, taking a gambler named Jack McCall for all he had. As McCall turned to leave, Hickok gave him back the money, and suggested that McCall get something to eat.

Instead of comforting McCall, as it could have, it infuriated him, and he had Hickok set up. Knowing how many enemies he had made, Hickok always sat with his back to the wall when he played cards. But on his visit to Nuttal & Mann's for another poker game the next day, every chair with a back to the wall was taken. So he couldn't see who was coming in.

McCall came in. He shot Hickok in the back of the head, killing him instantly, and freezing his face in a smile. Hickok was holding two pairs: The aces and eights of spades and clubs, all black. This became known as "The Dead Man's Hand."

(In my hometown in New Jersey, I once saw a car with a personalized license plate: "ACESN8S.")

Hickok was a friend of Martha Jane Canary, the frontierswoman and scout known as Calamity Jane. Those who love the legends of the Wild West like to imagine that they were lovers, and that Wild Bill was the father of at least one of Jane's children. Certainly, she cared enough about him to try to avenge him, going after McCall with a meat cleaver, later claiming it was because she had left her guns at her rooming house and it was the only weapon available.

Calamity Jane at Wild Bill's grave, sometime in the 1890s

A native of Kentucky, McCall was hanged for the crime on March 1, 1877. He was 24 years old. Calamity Jane, a native of Missouri, and also 24 at the time of Wild Bill's death, later joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, and died from the effects of her drinking in 1903, at 51.

In 1941, a woman named Jean Hickok Burkhardt McCormick came forward, claiming to be the daughter of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane. The documentation she came up with -- which gave September 25, 1873 as both the date of their marriage and the date of her birth, making her almost 68 years old at the time of her claim -- have been disputed ever since, and she got no government benefits from it.

James Butler Hickok, a.k.a. Wild Bill, has been played by William S. Hart in the 1923 silent film Wild Bill Hickok, Wild Bill Elliott in the 1940 film Prairie Schooners, Guy Madison and later Andy Devine in the 1951-58 CBS series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, Lloyd Bridges on a 1964 episode of The Great Adventure, Jeff Corey in the 1970 film Little Big Man, Charles Bronson in the 1977 film The White Buffalo, Josh Brolin in the 1989-92 ABC series The Young Riders, William Russ in a 1995 episode of Legend, Sam Shepard in the 1999 TNT film Purgatory, and Luke Hemsworth in the 2017 film Hickok.

Martha Jane Canary, a.k.a. Calamity Jane, has been played by Jane Russell in the 1948 film The Paleface, Norma Crane on an 1961 episode of Have Gun -- Will Travel, Stefanie Powers on a 1963 episode of Bonanza (which pairs her up with not Wild Bill but John "Doc" Holliday, whom she appears never to have met in real life), and Catherine O'Hara in the 1995 Disney film Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill. (Pecos Bill was a fictional cowboy and folk hero, something of a Wild West version of Paul Bunyan.)

And, together, they were portrayed in the 1936 film The Plainsman by Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur, in the 1940 film Young Bill Hickok by Roy Rogers and Sally Payne, in the 1953 film Calamity Jane by Howard Keel and Doris Day, on a 1966 episode of Death Valley Days by Rhodes Reasons and Fay Spain, in the 1984 CBS movie Calamity Jane by Frederic Forrest and Jane Alexander, in the 1995 film Wild Bill by Jeff Bridges (Lloyd's son) and Ellen Barkin, in the 1995 CBS movie Buffalo Girls by Sam Elliott and Anjelica Huston, and by Keith Carradine and Robin Weigert in the 2004-06 HBO series Deadwood (and Jane by Weigert again in its 2019 film sequel).

UPDATE: Stephen Amell, who played Oliver Queen, a.k.a. the superhero Green Arrow, and Emily Bett Rickards, who played his crimefighting associate and later wife Felicity Smoak, on the TV show Arrow, played Hickok and Canary in the 2024 film Calamity Jane.

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August 2, 1876 was a Wednesday. Only one game was played that day, in the National League. The Hartford Dark Blues beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 15-5 at the Hartford Ball Club Grounds in the Connecticut capital. Neither of these teams would survive the 1877 season, and the A's founded in Philadelphia in 1901, who have been in Oakland since 1968, have no connection to them besides name.

But, thus far, "Wild Bill" has been a nickname for 14 Major League Baseball players, most notably William Edward Donovan, who won 185 games, pitching mostly for the 1900s and 1910s Detroit Tigers; and William Anthony Hallahan, who won 102 games, and was with the St. Louis Cardinals when they won the World Series in 1926, 1931 and 1934.

July 6, 1944: The Hartford Circus Fire

July 6, 1944: A deadly fire breaks out during a performance of the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut.

World War II had affected every American industry, including circuses. There were shortages of personnel and equipment. As a result, accidents had become more common. A 1942 fire had killed several Ringling Brothers animals.

On July 5, 1944, the circus arrived in Hartford, by train as was their tradition, but so late that, of their two shows scheduled for that day, one had to be canceled. In circus superstition, missing a show is considered extremely bad luck. Nevertheless, the show they did put on that night went off without a hitch.

The next day, a performance was scheduled for 2:15 PM. The temporary stands inside the big top could seat 9,000 spectators, and it is believed that 7,000 were on hand for this show. The tent's canvas had been coated with 1,800 pounds of paraffin wax dissolved in 6,000 gallons of gasoline -- at the time, a common method of waterproofing, but dangerous. A person could exit the tent by a main entrance or eight smaller exits. However, as it turned out, many of the alternative exists were blocked by circus wagons or other items.

While the show was transitioning from a performance by the lions to one by the Flying Wallendas, the already-famous trapeze act, circus bandleader Merle Evans saw the beginning of the fire. He told the band to play "The Stars and Stripes Forever," known among circus people as a distress signal. Ringmaster Fred Branda took to the microphone, and told the audience to leave in an orderly fashion. But he could not be heard, as the fire had already shorted out the power.

The wind and the wax led to the fire spreading quickly. Many people were burned by the melting wax, dripping from the roof. Within eight minutes, the tent collapsed, trapping hundreds of people. Emmett Kelly, the world's most famous clown, was photographed carrying a bucket of water, to try to put out some flames, and appeared to be crying. The day became known as "The Day the Clown Cried."

Kelly survived the fire. So did all of the Wallendas who were then performing. So did Eunice Groark, then 6 years old, who went on to be elected Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut in 1990. So did Harold Belsky, then 15 and living in Hartford. He had been born in nearby Holyoke, Massachusetts, and, under the name Hal Blaine, went on to become one of the greatest drummers of all time, particularly admired for his work with Phil Spector's "Wrecking Crew." (Blaine claimed in his memoir that he was the most-recorded musician of all time, and that he had the W-2 forms to prove it.)

Another survivor was Charles Nelson Reilly, then 13 and living in Hartford. Although he became an actor, famous for his comedic roles in Broadway musicals (he won a Tony Award for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying), on the TV sitcom The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and as a panelist on Match Game, and also as a theater director, he refused to ever be a spectator in a theater, because it brought back memories of the fire.

The people who survived but with burns or other injures numbered over 700. The number who did not survive varies, depending on the source, but is usually cited as 168, the same number that would die in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. While there were lawsuits for negligence, no one was ever criminally charged with starting the fire, and its cause is still unknown.

Today, Wish Elementary School is on the site, on Barbour and Kensington Streets in Hartford's North End. A memorial to the victims is on the school grounds.

In 1976, I attended the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. It remains my only attendance at a circus -- not out of fear, but because the idea of going back simply hasn't ever interested me.

By the 21st Century, declining attendance and increasing accusations of animal abuse led to the decline of the Ringling operation. In 2017, they announced they were closing up shop, and launched a final tour. They appeared in Hartford, at the XL Center (formerly the Hartford Civic Center) on April 30, and gave their final show at the Nassau Coliseum on May 21. After 146 years, it was all over. The company that owns the rights to the Ringling operation announced in 2022 that, without animals, the circus will resume in Autumn 2023.

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July 6, 1944 was a Thursday. It was also the day the film Double Indemnity premiered. I have a separate entry for that event.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-0 at Yankee Stadium. Hank Borowy pitched a 4-hit shutout to beat Mel Harder.

* The New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Loius.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 10-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 13-3 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-0 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Bob Muncrief pitched a 4-hit shoutout.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Mickey Haefner pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-5 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the Boston Braves, 11-6 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

April 13, 1997: The Hartford Whalers Play Their Last Game

April 13, 1997: The Hartford Whalers defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1 at the Hartford Civic Center. Since the Whalers did not make the Playoffs, this was their last game, as they were being moved to become the Carolina Hurricanes.

They were founded in 1972 as the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association -- the name reflecting not only New England's maritime tradition, but the league: WHAlers. They won the league's 1st title in 1972, and reached the Final again in 1978.

They entered the NHL in 1979, changing their name to the Hartford Whalers (and adopting the logo where the W for Whalers was easy to see, but the H for Hartford wasn't), but only won 1 Playoff series, in 1986 over fellow WHA graduates the Quebec Nordiques, and only won 1 regular-season Division title, the next season.

They played at the Boston Arena (later the Matthews Arena) in the 1972-73 season, the Boston Garden in 1973-74, and the Big E Coliseum in West Springfield, Massachusetts in 1974-75, before the Hartford Civic Center opened. A 1978 roof collapse forced them to the nearby Springfield Civic Center (now the MassMutual Center) for 2 years.

Ultimately, they left because the Hartford Civic Center -- since renamed the XL Center and now the PeoplesBank Arena -- was too small and didn't have the precious luxury boxes. It also didn't help that Hartford is about halfway between New York, with 3 NHL teams in its metropolitan area (one of which, the Rangers, replaced the Whalers with a farm team, the Hartford Wolf Pack), and Boston, with the established Bruins.

But their attendance in Raleigh has barely been enough to fill their old arena. Maybe they should have stayed put.

From 1874 to 1877, Hartford was home to the Hartford Dark Blues, of the National Association and then the National league, but the couldn't compete in the NL, and folded. The Hartford Blues played in the NFL in the 1926 season, but only in that season. The Connecticut Bicentennials played in New Haven in the North American Soccer League in the 1975, 1976 and 1977 seasons.

But with the demise of the Whalers, the only sports team in Connecticut that could even remotely be called "major league" are the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA, who have played at Mohegan Sun Arena, at the Mohegan Sun casino resort in Montville, Connecticut since 2003.

UPDATE: In 2025, the XL Center was renamed the PeoplesBank Arena.

The Whalers retired 3 uniform numbers: 2, for defenseman Rick Ley; 9, for right wing Gordie Howe; and 19, for right wing John McKenzie. In 2006, arena management also hung banners for 5, defenseman Ulf Samuelsson; 10, center Ron Francis; and 11, right wing Kevin Dineen. The Whalers did not retire that number.

The Hurricanes have retired 4 numbers: Francis' 10; 2, for defenseman Glen Wesley; 12, for center Eric Staal; and 17, for center Rod Brind'Amour. They have also removed from circulation, without officially retiring them, Howe's 9; 3, for defenseman Steve Chiasson; and 63, for center Josef Vašíček. Francis and Brind'Amour have also been elected to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

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April 13, 1997 was a Sunday. There were 6 other games in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-4 at the CoreStates Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-3 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Buffalo Sabres, 8-3 at the Marine Midland Arena (now the KeyBank Center) in Buffalo.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Dallas Stars, 5-2 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

Football was out of season. There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, 132-123 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. Despite the defeat, Kerry Kittles scored 40 points for the Nets.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Chicago Bulls, 108-91 at The Palace in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 113-73 at The Summit in Houston. (It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.)

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah Jazz, 100-98 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Shaquille O'Neal scored 39 points.

* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Golden State Warriors, 105-97 at the San Jose Arena. The Warriors played that season there, now known as the SAP Center, while the Oakland Coliseum complex's arena was under renovation.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Oakland Athletics at Yankee Stadium, after a rainout the day before. The Yanks won the opener, 3-2. Andy Pettitte was the winning pitcher. Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams hit home runs. The A's won the nightcap, 7-4. Ariel Prieto outpitched Ramiro Mendoza. Mark Whiten hit a home run for the Yankees. Gerónimo Berroa went 4-for-5 for the A's.

* The New York Mets were swept by the San Francisco Giants in a doubleheader at Shea Stadium, 5-1 and 7-6. As with the Yankees, the Mets had been rained out the day before. Mark Gardner outpitched Mark Clark in the 1st game. Jeff Kent hit a home run for the Giants, and John Olerud hit one for the Mets.

Shawn Estes outpitched Bobby Jones in the 2nd game. Mark Lewis hit 2 home runs, and José Vizcaíno hit 1. Bernard Gilkey hit 1 for the Mets. Over the 2 games, Barry Bonds went 2-for-7 with 2 walks and an RBI.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 7-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Ken Griffey Jr. went 1-for-4.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Tony Gwynn went 2-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Texas Rangers, 9-0 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Jimmy Key pitched a 6-hit shutout. Jeffrey Hammonds hit 2 home runs, and Cal Ripken and Chris Hoiles also homered.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 14-5 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Anaheim Angels beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-3 at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland. Eddie Murray hit a home run, but Rickey Henderson, in his only season with the Angels, did not play.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Florida Marlins, 6-4 at Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront Stadium) in Cincinnati.

* A doubleheader was split at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Chicago White Sox won the 1st game, 11-8. The Detroit Tigers led 7-0 after 5 innings, but the South Siders came back, and scored 3 runs in the top of the 9th to send the game to extra innings. Each team scored a run in the 11th. The White Sox scored the winning run on a wild pitch in the top of the 12th, and added 2 more runs. The Tigers won the 2nd game, 4-2.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Houston Astros, 6-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-1 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* And the Montreal Expos beat the Colorado Rockies, 8-3 at Coors Field in Denver.

This was also the day that Tiger Woods won his 1st major golf tournament, running away with the Masters. I have a separate entry for that event.

January 18, 1978: The Hartford Civic Center's Roof Collapses

January 18, 1978: The roof of the Hartford Civic Center collapses under the weight of snow. It ends up remaining closed for 2 years while it is repaired.

It could have been a lot worse. Not only did the collapse happen in the middle of the night, when there was the least likelihood of people being hurt or killed, but, just a few hours earlier, on the night of January 17, there was a game. The men's basketball team of the University of Connecticut (a.k.a. UConn) played the University of Massachusetts (a.k.a. UMass), and won, 56-49.

The attendance at that game was 4,746, not quite halfway to the building's seating capacity of 10,507. It could have been a death toll surpassing Pearl Harbor, or the as-yet-future 9/11.

Like a lot of the sports venues built in America in the 1960s and '70s, the Civic Center was not designed well. When the City of Hartford, the building's owner, investigated, it was found that the roof's supports were not strong enough. It wasn't one snowfall that did it, it was several over the course of 6 New England Winters, from the building's opening on January 9, 1975.

At that time, it became the home of the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association, who had previously played at the Boston Garden, the Boston Arena (now the Matthews Arena of Northeastern University), and the Eastern States Coliseum (a.k.a. the Big E), the longtime home of the American Hockey League's Springfield Indians, in nearby West Springfield, Massachusetts, 24 miles north of downtown Hartford.

It also served as a home for UConn basketball, for games too large for the facility they had on their main campus of Storrs, the Hugh S. Greer Fieldhouse. The Harry A. Gampel Pavilion, 25 miles east of Hartford, and named for a philanthropist and civil rights activist who helped fund its construction, opened in 1990, and the Fieldhouse was converted into an indoor track facility. The NBA's Boston Celtics played 14 "home games" there before the collapse.

For 2 years, the UConn Huskies were restricted to on-campus games, and the Whalers moved 26 miles north to the Springfield Civic Center (now the MassMutual Center) in Springfield, Massachusetts. Their temporary stay there included their being brought from the WHA into the NHL for the 1979-80 season, along with the Quebec Nordiques, the Winnipeg Jets and the Edmonton Oilers. This move to the established league also led the team to change their name, to the Hartford Whalers.

The Hartford Civic Center reopened on January 17, 1980, with a capacity of 14,750 for hockey, and 15,600 for basketball. This gave it about 700 more seats than the Boston Garden. The Celtics played 2 regular-season games in Hartford in the 1979-80 season, 5 in 1980-81, and 3 per year until 1994-95. With 2 exceptions, early on, they sold out every game. They stopped because they moved from the Boston Garden to the larger arena now known as the TD Garden. But they returned for preseason exhibition games in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2014.

In the 1980s, UConn's men's and women's basketball teams both became national powers, and use the building for their bigger games.

The Whalers continued to play there until 1997. New owner Peter Karmanos had wanted a bigger arena with more luxury boxes. He didn't get it. He was a multibillionaire from getting in on the computer industry early. He could have built 50 new arenas himself. But he wanted the taxpayers of the State of Connecticut to build it for him.

And so, he took the Whalers to North Carolina, renaming them the Carolina Hurricanes. First, they played the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons at the Greensboro Coliseum. In 1999, what's now named the PNC Arena opened in Raleigh, and the 'Canes were moved there. (UPDATE: In 2024, the Raleigh arena was renamed the Lenovo Center.)

In 1997, to take the Whalers' place, the New York Rangers moved their top farm team, the Binghamton Rangers, to the Civic Center, renaming them the Hartford Wolf Pack. In 2007, the building was renamed the XL Center.

A 2014 renovation did as much as could be hoped for, but no NHL team, or ownership group looking to start an expansion team, has expressed interest in moving to Hartford unless a new arena is built. And it really isn't a big market: Hartford has just 121,000 people according to the 2020 Census, which also gives it credit for a "metropolitan area" of less than 1.5 million people. The market is made smaller by the fact that the Rangers and the Boston Bruins cut into the market as well: The former's Madison Square Garden is 121 miles to the southwest, and the latter's TD Garden is 102 miles to the northeast.

UPDATE: Another renovation was undertaken, completed in 2025. The arena was then renamed the PeoplesBank Arena.

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January 18, 1978 was a Wednesday. There were 3 games scheduled to be played in the WHA that night, and 1 involved the Whalers. But it was on the road, so it went on as scheduled:

* The New England Whalers, lost to the Edmonton Oilers, 1-0 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* The Birmingham Bulls beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 3-0 at the Jefferson Civic Center in Birmingham. (now the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex).

* And the Winnipeg Jets beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-1 at the Winnipeg Arena.

There were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Los Angeles Kings, 3-0 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The New York Islanders beat the Minnesota North Stars, 5-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 1-0 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Cleveland Barons, 7-4 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio. The Barons and the North Stars, both on the verge of bankruptcy, were merged at the end of the season, with the North Stars remaining in operation.

* The Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Rockies played to a tie, 4-4 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. This would be the only season that the NHL version of the Rockies made the Playoffs. In 1982, they moved, becoming the New Jersey Devils.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Washington Capitals, 5-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins, the Buffalo Sabres, the Philadelphia Flyers, the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.

There were 8 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Portland Trail Blazers, 127-101 at the Rutgers Athletic Center (now the Jersey Mike's Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 130-116 at the Boston Garden. Sidney Wicks had 35 points and 15 rebounds for the C's.

* The New Orleans Jazz beat the Atlanta Hawks, 108-106 at The Omni in Atlanta. Pete Maravich scored 34 points off his former team.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Buffalo Braves, 113-100 at Cob Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Indiana Pacers, 109-96 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Kansas City Kings, 126-106 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* The Seattle SuperSonics beat the Houston Rockets, 106-104 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 Golden State Warriors beat the Washington Bullets, 113-106 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.