November 18, 1992: "Seinfeld" Airs the Episode "The Contest"

Top: Michael Richards (left) and Jerry Seinfeld.

Bottom: Jason Alexander (left) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

November 18, 1992: The NBC sitcom Seinfeld airs its most famous (or infamous) episode, "The Contest."

Jerry Seinfeld (playing a fictionalized version of himself), his ex-girlfriend and still-friend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and his across-the-hall neighbor Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) are having lunch at Monk's Café, near their apartments on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Jerry's longtime best friend, George Costanza (Jason Alexander), walks in, and confesses that, while visiting his parents in Queens, he used the bathroom, found a magazine with some pictures of beautiful women in it, and, how shall I put this... took matters into his own hands. And his mother caught him.

Why George would mention this while the others were eating, only he knew. But he said he would never do it again. The others don't believe him. Jerry says he can go longer without doing it than George. George says, "Care to make it interesting?" In other words, bet money on it. All four of them get in on it, although George, taking note that it's different for a woman, tells Elaine, "You gotta give us odds!" She offers to put up $150, to the $100 for the guys. ($100 then would be about $210 in 2022 money.)

Jerry had told Kramer, "You'll be out before we get the check!" Sure enough, Kramer is the first to plunk his money down on Jerry's kitchen counter, having seen a naked woman walking around in an apartment across the street from Jerry's. For Jerry, the situation is complicated by this, and also by the fact that he's dating a woman named Marla (played by a pre-Frasier Jane Leeves) who claims to be a virgin. It's never stated whether actually having sex violates the term of the agreement.

In George's case, the situation is complicated by the fact that, after she saw him doing it, his mother was so shocked that she fell, hurt her back, had to be hospitalized, and was given a room alongside a younger woman, who received a daily sponge-bath from a nice-looking nurse. George could only see the silhouettes through a curtain, but he couldn't take his eyes off them.

(This would be lampooned 3 months later, in "The Outing," when a reporter mistakenly believed that Jerry and George were a gay couple, George's mother saw the story in the newspaper, threw her back out again, and, this time, in the bed next-door, there was a buff young man getting a sponge-bath from a buff young male nurse. Again, George could only see the silhouettes through a curtain, but it was bad enough.)

In Elaine's case, the situation is complicated by the fact that John F. Kennedy Jr. is working out at the same gym she goes to. And complicated further by the fact that they start dating, and that JFK Jr. had a reputation for womanizing similar to that of his father. (The actor playing him is not credited, and his face is not shown.)

But, other than Kramer, they all claim that they haven't "caved." The expression "Master of Your Domain" was entered into the American pop-culture lexicon. At Monk's, George claims, "I am King of the County," Jerry claims, "Lord of the Manor," and Elaine claims, "I'm Queen of the Castle."

Well, Elaine caves next, and Jerry says, "Oh, my God, the Queen is dead! I thought you'd make it at least into the Spring!" And one thing leads to another, and, as the show so often did, the strings of the plots run together. Marla is about to let Jerry have sex with her, and he tells her she has no idea of what a relief this is, and that proves to be a mistake, because he has to tell her why. She leaves him, and as she walks out of the building, she runs into JFK Jr., who has gotten tired of waiting for Elaine (who had told him that was her building, which it wasn't), and they end up in bed.

Oddly, the episode ends without revealing whether Jerry or George won. The implication is that, after watching the naked woman across the street together, George went home, and he and Jerry "caved" at the same time. Ten months later, the episode "The Puffy Shirt" aired, and George claimed to have won The Contest. But in the show's finale, when everybody thinks the plane is going to crash, George doesn't want it on his conscience anymore, and confesses to Jerry: "I cheated in The Contest!"

It should be noted that this episode and the 1996 episode "The Abstinence" can't both be canon. In the latter episode, George says, "I can do six weeks while standing on my head. I'm like a sexual camel." Furthermore, in that episode, not getting any action, even on his own, made George stop thinking about sex, and allowed his true brainpower to flourish, and made him smarter almost immediately. In "The Contest," George was just as dumb, and just as obsessed with sex, in the first couple of days. Unless, of course, he had already "cheated."

"The Contest" is one of several "Seinfeld" episodes that’s hard to watch now -- but not, in this case, because of the subject matter. Rather, it's because John F. Kennedy Jr. is a character in it, and he died young, a little more than a year after the show's finale.

*

November 18, 1992 was a Wednesday. This was also the day that DC Comics released Superman #75, featuring the story "The Death of Superman." I have a separate entry for this event. The fact that Jerry Seinfeld is a major Superman fan, with a Superman magnet visible on his refrigerator and other memorabilia in his apartment, makes it even weirder.

Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. But there were 3 games played in the NBA. The Orlando Magic beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 120-110 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Utah Jazz beat the Boston Celtics, 92-91 at the Boston Garden. The Phoenix Suns beat the Sacramento Kings, 127-111 at the new AmericaWest Arena. (It's now named the Mortgage Matchup Center.)

There were 4 games played in the NHL. The New Jersey Devils beat the Buffalo Sabres, 3-2 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands. Valeri Zelepukin, Tom Chorske and Alexander Semak scored the goals for New Jersey.

The Minnesota North Stars beat the Washington Capitals, 5-4 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. The Hartford Whalers beat the St. Louis Blues, 5-2 at the Hartford Civic Center. (It's now named the PeoplesBank Arena.) The Edmonton Oilers beat the Vancouver Canucks, 4-2 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

None of these games held a moment of silence in memory of Superman before they started. 

September 26, 1964: "Gilligan's Island" Premieres

September 26, 1964: Gilligan's Island premieres on CBS. The show was created by Sherwood Schwartz. Lots of people loved it then. Lots of people love it now. I always hated it. I used to say that the two dumbest TV shows ever were Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch. You should have seen the look on my face when I found out that Schwartz created The Brady Bunch, too.

Schwartz wrote the theme song wrote with George Wyle. It was sung by a folk group called The Wellingtons. After the 1st season, the growing popularity of the characters not mentioned in the lyrics except as "the rest" led to a rewrite, and also a new recording, by a rock group called The Eligibles. It lays out the basic premise, although it calls the setting "Gilligan's Isle," rather than "Gilligan's Island":

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale

a tale of a fateful trip
that started from this tropic port
aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man

the skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
for a three-hour tour

a three-hour tour.

The weather started getting rough.

The tiny ship was tossed.

If not for the courage of the fearless crew
the Minnow would be lost

the Minnow would be lost.

The ship set ground on the shore

of this uncharted desert isle
with Gilligan
the Skipper too
the millionaire

and his wife
the movie star
the Professor

and Mary Ann

here on Gilligan's Isle.

The show's opening shows their voyage and its ruin. As each character is mentioned, their portrayer is shown in the credits:

* Willy Gilligan (played by Bob Denver), the first mate of the SS Minnow. A nice enough guy, but an idiot. His first name is mentioned only in the pilot.

* Jonas Grumby (Alan Hale Jr., son of a famous actor), the captain, or "Skipper," of the Minnow, which he'd guided out of Honolulu for a trip around the Hawaiian Islands before the storm hit. His real name was mentioned in the pilot, and only occasionally thereafter: Everybody just called him "Skipper." When he's not angry at Gilligan, the Skipper calls him "Little Buddy." But he's frequently angry at Gilligan, with considerable justification.

* Thurston Howell III (Jim Backus, then doing double duty as the voice of cartoon character Mr. Magoo), a millionaire who made his money on Wall Street. Pardon the pun, but, in a place where his money is useless, he is a fish out of water.

* Eunice Howell (Natalie Schafer), Howell's wife. He calls her "Lovey." The Howells were devoted to each other, but that's all the good that can be said about them.

* Ginger Grant (Tina Louise), an actress. It's never clear whether "Ginger Grant" is her real name: She had red hair, which explains "Ginger," and while her first name uses the soft G and her last name the hard G, it still looks like alliteration, like Marilyn Monroe. Before the Minnow set sail, she'd had a singing gig at a Waikiki hotel. Because she also sang, her character may have been based on fellow redhead Ann-Margret.

* Dr. Roy Hinkley (Russell Johnson), a high school science teacher from Cleveland. Despite the fact that he teaches below college level, everyone calls him "Professor." The character's real name may have been a play on words, a combination of the names of the anchors of NBC News at the time: Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Thurston did once mistakenly call him "Huntley," and, when corrected by the Professor, get it wrong again, as "Brinkley."

* Mary Ann Summers (Dawn Wells), a farm girl from Winfield, Kansas (a real place, about 40 miles southeast of Wichita), who won the trip to Hawaii and the excursion on the Minnow in a contest.

There is one other character, heard but never seen: The never-named radio announcer, voiced by Charles Maxwell.

There is a theory that the show is an allegory for the Seven Deadly Sins:

1. Pride: The Professor has several university degrees, and is resourceful enough that he can make a ham radio out of some wire and two coconuts, so he has a right to have some pride. But, as comedian Jerry Seinfeld, 10 years old when the show premiered, pointed out in his act, he still couldn't fix a hole in the boat. Thus proving the Bible's book of Proverbs, Chapter 16, Verse 18: "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." (This is usually shortened to, "Pride goes before a fall.")

2. Envy: Mary Ann looked really good, and certainly showed her body off. But she was never as popular with the guys -- on the island and watching on TV -- as Ginger. Which brings us to...

3. Lust: Ginger, the movie star. (Although, as her name, or perhaps it was a nickname, suggested, she was a redhead, not a "blonde bombshell.")

4. Greed: Why did Howell take all that money on what was intended as a 3-hour trip on a dinghy?

5. Sloth: Mrs. Howell never did anything.

Here is where the theory gets stretched a bit: The remaining characters are Gilligan and the Skipper. But Gilligan represents neither Wrath nor Gluttony. The Skipper, however, does:

6. Wrath: The Skipper is always angry, although this is usually inspired by Gilligan. And:

7. Gluttony: The Skipper is the only character who can be called "fat."

So the theory forces the Skipper to represent 2 of the 7. So what does Gilligan represent? Well, these 6 people are trapped by their sins in what must seem like Hell to them. And why can't they get out? Why can't they get off the island? Who keeps keeping them there, due to his apparent incompetence? Gilligan.

There is an old saying, known as Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Certainly, Gilligan is stupid, and that stupidity harms the others. But what if it's not unconscious incompetence? What if he's keeping them there by active work? No, Gilligan isn't lonely, and treating those around him that way because he has a deep need for family: That's Michael Scott (Steve Carell) on The Office, 40 years later.

According to the theory, the reason Gilligan is keeping the sinners on the island is that he's in charge: He's the Devil. This also dovetails with the Star Wars theory that the apparently well-meaning, but idiotic, Jar Jar Binks is actually a Sith Lord, undermining the cause.

Ridiculous? Well, Gilligan does wear red... 

Jerry Seinfeld's routine about Gilligan's Island also mocks the fact that they had an awful lot of clothes for a three-hour tour. He also wondered why neither Gilligan nor the Skipper made a move on Ginger or Mary Ann: "I'm starting to wonder about this 'Little Buddy' business!"

Another New York-based comedian, Vic DiBitetto, likes to talk about the whacked-out TV shows of the 1960s. But he points out that some of these shows, you knew they were fantasy, like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, My Mother the Car, The Flying Nun, The Munsters and The Addams Family, and the sci-fi-influenced My Favorite Martian.

"But Gilligan's Island was not fantasy," he says. He calls it "the most fucked-up show ever created!" Like Jerry, Vic doesn't understand why they had so much luggage on "a three-hour tour." He compares their trip around the Hawaiian Islands to the Circle Line, the tour boat around Manhattan Island.

He admits that, as characters, Gilligan and the Skipper make sense: They're needed to run the SS Minnow. Mary Ann sort-of makes sense: The tourist who won the trip in a contest. And the Professor makes sense: Maybe he's studying the waves, the vegetation, the volcanoes, the stars when they're unencumbered by city lights and smog. What doesn't make sense to Vic is why either one of them is on the trip alone. Neither is mentioned as having a love interest back home.

But with Ginger, Vic says, "Here is where the show goes completely off the rails." He makes the Marilyn connection: Ginger would not have been alone. At the very least, she would have had a bodyguard, a publicist, or even a date with her. (And there's no indication that she was dating the Professor, in a Marilyn and Arthur Miller type of thing.)

And why would the Howells go on this three-hour tour? With their fortune, they can do it themselves on a yacht. If anything, they should have hired the Skipper and Gilligan for their yacht, with everybody else as their guests. The yacht probably would have been bigger than the Minnow, and better able to withstand the storm. They might have gotten knocked around a bit, but they probably would've gotten back to Honolulu with the boat intact and no major injuries.

One final point: None of the characters was Italian. Vic says, "If I'm on that island, I'm whackin' Gilligan, so he can't fuck up, and I'm gettin' off that island!"

For its 2nd season, in 1965, as did most U.S. TV shows that had not already done so, the show switched from black & white to color. It was always filmed, never videotaped. It ran for 3 seasons, its last first-run episode airing on April 17, 1967. It was already filmed before the cast found out that the show had been canceled. And since this was before most TV shows had a planned finale that wrapped everything up, they didn't, and so there's no finale showing them escaping from the island. (The Fugitive pioneered the planned finale, 4 months later.)

In 1975, Bob Denver did another separated-from-civilization show, with comedian Chuck McCann, for kids-show producers Sid and Marty Krofft: Far Out Space Nuts.

From 1974 to 1977, ABC aired the Filmation-produced cartoon The New Adventures of Gilligan. Tina Louise and Dawn Wells were working on other projects, so Jane Webb voiced both characters. Otherwise, the original cast took up their roles. In the 1982-83 season, CBS aired Gilligan's Planet: Somehow, the Professor built a spaceship that allowed them to escape from the island, but they went too far, literally, and ended up on a distant planet. On one of its islands. Most fans of the original series don't consider either of these shows to be canon.

In 1978, 14 years after the pilot, NBC aired Rescue from Gilligan's Island. Tina Louise was in a dispute with the producers, and so Ginger was played by Judith Baldwin; while the rest of the cast resumed their roles. They finally get back home, but have difficulty reintegrating into society. On the first anniversary of their rescue, they take a reunion cruise, and history repeats itself, and they end up on the same island.

In 1979, NBC aired The Castaways on Gilligan's Island, with Baldwin again playing Ginger. The film starts mere days after the previous movie ends: The castaways are rescued, and the Howells convert the island into a getaway resort, with the other 5 as "silent partners."

There was one more sequel, in 1981, also on NBC: The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. This time, Ginger was played by Constance Forslund. Jim Backus was too ill to participate, so it was written into the script that he was back on the mainland, tending to Howell Industries.

David Ruprecht played Thurston Howell IV, son of Thurston and Lovey, who was now managing the resort. He later hosted the game show Supermarket Sweep, co-hosted an early reality-TV show titled Real People, was the voice of the captain of the doomed space freighter Kobayashi Maru in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and played Phillip Dawson, who married Joyce DeWitt's character Janet Wood on the last episode of Three's Company in 1984.

Being a sports nut, and knowing about the Globetrotters, the legendary all-black basketball team, but not a fan of the show, I was not aware that the characters could now come and go from the island as they pleased, so I wondered: Did the Trotters get off the island? If so, why didn't the castaways? Well, they did.

Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, married in real life, and heroes on the TV shows Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999, played villains this time. (I guess they needed a colon in the title to play good guys.) They want the island for themselves, due to the presence of a valuable fictional element. The Trotters assist the former castaways in stopping them.

In 2008, noting the many other classic TV series that had been adapted into movies, Sherwood Schwartz said he wanted to adapt Gilligan's Island for the big screen, with Michael Cera as Gilligan and Beyoncé Knowles as Ginger. So far, no such adaptation has ever been green-lit.

Jim Backus died in 1989, Alan Hale in 1990, Natalie Schafer in 1991, Charles Maxwell in 1993, George Wyle in 2003, Bob Denver in 2005, Sherwood Schwartz in 2011, Russell Johnson in 2014, and Dawn Wells in 2020. As of September 26, 2022, Tina Louise is still alive, and had reconciled with the people behind the show. Judith Baldwin and Constance Forslund, the later Gingers, are also still alive. So is David Ruprecht.

*

September 26, 1964 was a Saturday. Dave Martinez, who managed the Washington Nationals to win the 2019 World Series, was born on this day.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 7-0 at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington. (D.C. Stadium was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969.) Mel Stottlemyre pitched a 2-hit shutout, and helped his own cause by going 5-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Joe Pepitone hit a home run. Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris both went 0-for-4.

* The New York Mets lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-1 at Shea Stadium. The Reds won despite Frank Robinson going 0-for-5, although Pete Rose went 2-for-5.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-4 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. This was the 6th game in the Phils' infamous 10-game losing streak that cost them the National League Pennant.

They led 4-0 after 2 innings, and 4-3 going into the 9th. But Bobby Shantz, the former Philadelphia Athletics ace back in his hometown, couldn't hold the lead, due in part to an error by 2nd baseman Tony Taylor, and Rico Carty hit a bases-loaded triple. It was Shantz's 39th birthday, and he made only 1 more big-league appearance, 3 days later. Hank Aaron went 2-for-5. Joe Torre went 3-for-4.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell and Russ Snyder hit home runs.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-6 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Al Kaline went 1-for-4. For the Red Sox, rookie Tony Conigliaro hit a home run, and Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-5.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Athletics, 5-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 2-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where the Angels groundshared until their Anaheim stadium could open. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Chicago Cubs and the San Francisco Giants got rained out at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Cubs swept, 4-1 and 4-2. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 2-for-7 with a home run, a walk, and 4 RBIs. Willie Mays went 2-for-8.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Colt .45s (who renamed themselves the Astros the year before) were not scheduled.

*

Two days before, the Number 7 college football team in the nation, the University of Washington, beat Baylor University, 35-14 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. Among the college football games played on September 26 were these:

* The top 2 teams in the country were both upset. Kentucky beat Number 1 Mississippi, 27-21 at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium in Jackson. And the University of Southern California beat Number 2 Oklahoma, 40-14 at Owen Field in Norman, Oklahoma. This was also the day that Oklahoma debuted its mobile mascot, a horse-drawn covered wagon known as the Sooner Schooner.

* Number 3 Illinois beat California, 20-14 at California Memorial Stadium in Berkley.

* Number 4 Texas beat Texas Tech, 23-0 at Jones Stadium in Lubbock, Texas.

* Number 5 Ohio State beat Southern Methodist, 27-8 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Number 6 Alabama beat Tulane, 36-6 at Ladd Stadium in Mobile, Alabama.

* Number 8 Auburn beat Tennessee, 3-0 at Cliff Hare Stadium (later Jordan-Hare Stadium) in Auburn, Alabama. Yes, that's football, not baseball.

* Number 9 Syracuse beat Kansas, 38-6 at Archbold Stadium in Syracuse, New York.

* Notre Dame beat Wisconsin, 31-7 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

* Among the service academies: Army beat Boston College, 19-13 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; Navy beat William & Mary, 35-6 at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland; and Air Force lost to Michigan, 24-7 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

* In New York City, Columbia beat Colgate, 21-14 at Baker Field.

* And in New Jersey, Princeton beat Rutgers, 10-7 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

In New Jersey high school football, my eventual Alma Mater, East Brunswick, beat Woodbridge, 20-6 at Woodbridge Stadium, later renamed Nicholas A. Priscoe Stadium for the school's most successful coach.

And in English soccer, Arsenal lost to West London team Chelsea, 3-1 at Highbury in North London.

July 5, 1989: "Seinfeld" Premieres

Still photo from The Seinfeld Chronicles

July 5, 1989: The Seinfeld Chronicles premieres on NBC. New York-based comedian Jerry Seinfeld plays New York-based comedian Jerry Seinfeld -- essentially, a version of himself that hasn't yet made it big.

Jerry created the series with his friend Larry David, a former writer for Saturday Night Live. The character of George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander, is based on David. Seinfeld and David co-wrote the pilot episode, which was directed by Art Wolff.

The episode begins with Jerry and George having lunch at Pete's Luncheonette. One of the waitresses, Claire (Lee Garlington), is a friend of theirs. Jerry tells George about a woman named Laura (Pamela Brull), whom he met doing a comedy show in Lansing, Michigan. She had called him, and told him she was coming to New York, and asked if she could stay overnight at his apartment. But Jerry still isn't sure whether she has sex in mind. It turns out, she's engaged, and just wants the apartment to stay in.

It's not a good episode. By itself, it shouldn't have led to a regular series. Neither Jerry nor George nor Claire is especially interesting, or even all that funny. Nor is Jerry's across-the-hall neighbor, Kessler (Michael Richards), whose first name is not revealed.

And yet, the pilot got better reviews than I just gave it. NBC still believed in Seinfeld and David. So some retooling was in order. When the show next aired, with "The Stake Out," nearly 11 months later, on May 31, 1990, the name of the show was simply Seinfeld; the female lead was now Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes, an ex-girlfriend of Jerry who stayed friends with him; Richards' character became Kramer, with a different personality; and the lunch spot became Monk's Cafe, with a different set.

Elaine was based on Carol Leifer, a comedian that Jerry had dated, who went on to write for the show. Kramer, who took until 1996 to receive the first name Cosmo, was based on Kenny Kramer, a friend of David's.

The show still took until a 2nd season, in 1991, to catch on with the public. But by the end of that calendar year, the middle of the show's 3rd season, it became the most popular show on TV and a cultural phenomenon. It lasted 9 seasons, until May 14, 1998 -- although it probably should have wrapped up at least 2 seasons sooner.

Garlington and Brull are both still alive, but neither ever appeared on Seinfeld again. Garlington is still acting, while Brull's last credit was in 1996.

*

July 5, 1989 was a Wednesday. These Major League Baseball games were played on that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-0 at Yankee Stadium. Andy Hawkins pitched a 5-hit shutout. He had more run support than he would have in his "no-hitter" a year to the week later: Luis Polonia hit a home run, and both he and Steve Sax went 4-for-5 with 3 RBIs. Don Mattingly went 0-for-4, although he did draw a walk.

* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 6-5 at the Astrodome in Houston. Keith Hernandez did not appear in this game.

Early on in the show, it seemed like both Jerry and George were Met fans. In a 1992 episode in which Hernandez guest-starred as himself, it also seemed like Kramer and Newman were Met fans. (In the real June 14, 1987 game, the Mets were in Pittsburgh, they beat the Pirates, and Hernandez was more hero than goat.) Later episodes definitively showed that George and Kramer were Yankee Fans. Newman was shown having fallen asleep while watching a Yankee game, so his fandom is still not clear.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. 

* The Montreal Expos beat the Atlanta Braves, 7-5 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-4 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto. Cal Ripken went 1-for-4. It was later established that Elaine was from Towson, Maryland, just outside Baltimore, and was an Orioles fan. The winning run was scored in the bottom of the 10th inning, by Steve Jeltz on a passed ball by Reds catcher Jeff Reed, on a pitch thrown by John Franco (a future Met, who would be name-dropped on a 1992 Seinfeld episode), with Von Hayes at bat.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Diego Padres, 5-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Tony Gwynn went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Eddie Murray went 0-for-4 with the Dodgers.

* The California Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 2-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Oakland Athletics, 12-9 at the Oakland Coliseum. George Brett went 2-for-6 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Bo Jackson went 3-for-6 with an RBI. Rickey Henderson went 2-for-5 with an RBI and a stolen base. Mark McGwire went 2-for-5 with a home run, 2 walks and 5 RBIs.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the Minnesota Twins, 7-3 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

May 14, 1998: The Finale of "Seinfeld" Is So Bad, Frank Sinatra Dies

May 14, 1998: The final episode of Seinfeld airs on NBC. It was terrible.

Perhaps we should have seen it coming. Just a week earlier, the show aired its next-to-last episode, "The Puerto Rican Day Parade." Between the writing, the stereotyping, and the sight of Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) accidentally burning, and then purposely stomping, a Puerto Rican flag, this episode was so offensive, NBC actually issued an apology for it, and dropped it from the repeat schedule.

The night before the Seinfeld finale, on his ABC talk show at the time, Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher asked his panel what NBC should do if, 3 minutes into the finale, they get the word that O.J. Simpson has killed again. Should they break into coverage, and handle that instead of showing the finale? The panel all agreed: Yes.

The finale was a disaster. Both in-universe and out. Face it: Any competent lawyer would have explained that the camcorder recorded a crime, providing evidence of it, meaning that "The New York Four" were doing the local police's job for them.

Furthermore, none of those "character witnesses" -- from former restaurateurs Babu Bhat and Yev Kassem, a.k.a. the Soup Nazi, to baseball legend Keith Hernandez and the parents of George's late fiancée, Susan Ross -- were relevant to the case, so Judge Art Vandelay should have told the jury to disregard their testimony completely. The case should have been dismissed.

And if the writers were on their game, they wouldn't have just shown Newman laughing so hard at the verdict that he choked on his popcorn, they would have shown him actually choking, and then, Jerry would have saved him. This would have shown the judge that these people weren't so bad, and he should have vacated the verdict.

I recently saw an article where actual former prisoners were asked how long each of the characters would have lasted in prison. They seemed to agree: Jerry and George would have been killed quickly. Elaine was tough enough that she might have lasted a little longer, until she angered the wrong inmate. But Kramer would have won them over.

I'm not so sure: I think that, as in "The Contest," Kramer would have been the 1st one out.

*

Well, O.J. Simpson didn't commit another murder that night -- that we know of. But there was something big happening that night, although it wasn’t revealed until the next morning: Frank Sinatra had died.

The singer and actor known as "The Voice," "Ol' Blue Eyes" and "The Chairman of the Board," the biggest pop-culture star of the World War II generation, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 82, and had several health issues. So his death had nothing to do with seeing the Seinfeld finale.

Only his 4th and last wife, Barbara – "Lady Blue Eyes," she liked to call herself – was at his side at the end. She told him to keep fighting. She said that his last words were, "I'm losing."

Barbara and Frank. One of the last photos of the Chairman of the Board.

But also among his final words were, "Where are my children?" His daughter Tina, a television producer, believes that Barbara purposely did not tell her, daughter Nancy, and son Frank Jr. (who became singers in their own right) that this was it, so that only she could be by his side at the end.

He is buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, not far from Palm Springs, where he made his final home. His epitaph is the title of the last song he sang in public: "The Best Is Yet to Come."

Also buried there: Actors Dorothy Arnold (Joe DiMaggio's 1st wife), Brad Dexter of The Magnificent Seven, Cameron Mitchell, Patrick Macnee and Howard Hesseman; singers Betty Hutton and Sonny Bono; songwriters Frederick Loewe, Hugo Montenegro, and Sinatra's close friend and frequent collaborator Jimmy Van Heusen; and baseball star Pete Reiser, who had starred in the 1940s, despite an unceasing array of injuries, for Sinatra's favorite team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Like comic actor Danny Kaye, Sinatra went to Los Angeles before the Dodgers did, and can't be faulted for staying a fan of theirs.

Barbara followed Frank in 2017. Frank Jr. died in 2016. As of May 14, 2022, Nancy and Tina are still alive.

*

May 14, 1998 was a Thursday. Football was out of season. The NBA Playoffs were between the Conference Semifinals and Finals. There were 2 games played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Buffalo Sabres beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Molson Centre (now the Bell Centre) in Montreal, completing a 4-game sweep. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the St. Louis Blues, 5-2 at the Kiel Center (now the Enterprise Center) in St. Louis. The Wings went on to win the Cup for the 2nd straight season.

And these Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Texas Rangers, 7-5 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees led 5-0 going into the 8th inning, but Hideki Irabu's shutout was ruined by a combined meltdown of Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson and Mariano Rivera, before Rusty Greer hit a home run off Willie Banks in the top of the 13th inning. Derek Jeter, Paul O'Neill, Chad Curtis, Jorge Posada and Scott Brosius each had 2 hits, and Curtis hit a home run, but it wasn't enough.

* The New York Mets got swept in a doubleheader by the San Diego Padres, 3-1 and 6-2 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Over the 2 games, Tony Gwynn went 3-for-8 with a home run and 5 RBIs.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-4 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Jim Thome and Travis Fryman hit home runs. Cal Ripken went 1-for-4.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 10-2 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Anaheim Angels, 5-4 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Florida Marlins, 11-8 at Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront Stadium) in Cincinnati.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Oakland Athletics, 8-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Rickey Henderson went 0-for-3 with a walk and a stolen bases.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-3 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago. Ken Griffey Jr. went 3-for-5, but did not hit a home run. He had 15 on the season.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 2-1 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Pat Meares singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Mark McGwire hit his 15th home run of the season.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Houston Astros, 7-2 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Colorado Rockies, 9-7 at Coors Field in Denver. Mark Grace hit 2 home runs. Sammy Sosa didn't hit any. He had 7 at that point, and nobody had any idea that he was going to battle McGwire for Roger Maris' home run record.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-1 at Bank One Ballpark (now Chase Field) in Phoenix.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Mark Portugal pitched shutout ball for 8 innings, with Mark Leiter finishing the 2-hit shutout.

* And the San Francisco Giants swept the Montreal Expos, 6-1 and 2-0 at Candlestick Park (then named 3Com Park at Candlestick Point) in San Francisco. Barry Bonds hit a home run in the opener. Danny Darwin pitched shutout ball for 8 innings in the nightcap, with Robb Nen finishing the 4-hit shutout.