November 10, 1969: "Sesame Street" Premieres

November 10, 1969: Sesame Street premieres on PBS. It became the greatest show in the history of children's television.

Three years earlier, TV producer Joan Ganz Cooney and Carnegie Foundation vice president Lloyd Morrisett met to discuss creating a children's television show that would "master the addictive qualities of television and do something good with them." In 1968, they founded the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), and received grants from the Carnegie Foundation (later the Carnegie Corporation of New York), the Ford Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The original title for the show was 123 Avenue B. Get it? 1, 2, 3, A, B: Counting and the alphabet. But this idea was discarded, because people would have sought out the actual address, off East 8th Street, across from Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan. At the time, the Lower East Side of Manhattan was a pretty rough neighborhood: No person aware of its conditions would have wanted to know how to get there, but kids, not knowing, would have begged their parents to take them.

So the title became Sesame Street. Sesame is a seed that is a source of oil, but, at this time, while McDonald's had introduced the Big Mac burger with its famed "sesame seed bun," the jingle mentioning it didn't debut until 1974. So most people knew the word "sesame" from "Open sesame," a line used in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. People would associate "sesame" with "open," with the idea that they were opening children's minds to learning.

Since what became known as "The Street" (Capital T, Capital S) was supposed to be in a generic neighborhood in New York City, where it was taped, the show was big on diversity from the start. The first character to appear on the show was Gordon Robinson, played by Matt Robinson. (His daughter became an actress: Holly Robinson Peete.) Gordon was a science teacher, who was married to Susan, a nurse, played by Loretta Long. Together, they owned the building that was the centerpiece of the show, with the address of 123 Sesame Street.

The producers wanted to show a black couple as successful and stable. Well, they got most of what they wanted: Long remained on the show until retiring in 2016, and the Gordon character was retired the following year; but there were 3 separate actors playing him. Matt Robinson left in 1972, ironically because he was behind the times: He left because of a creative difference, namely that he did not want Susan to be depicted as working outside the home. He was replaced by Hal Miller, who left in 1974 because he didn't like being on a children's show. Roscoe Orman then played the character for the next 43 years.

In 1976, Alaina Reed joined the cast as Olivia Robinson, Gordon's sister and a photographer. In 1985, Miles Orman, Roscoe's real-life son, joined the cast as Miles, the adopted son of Susan and Gordon.

Another original castmember was Will Lee, as Harold Hooper, operator of Hooper's Store, across from 123 Sesame. In a 1974 episode, "Mr. Hooper" (everybody called him that, except Big Bird -- more on that in a moment) was, like his portrayer, canonically revealed to be Jewish, when his phone rang, and he began speaking Yiddish. In a 1977 episode, he told Big Bird, "I grew up in a neighborhood where that was the only language a lot of people spoke." In the 1978 special Christmas Eve On Sesame Street, Bob wished him a Happy Hanukkah.

Bob Johnson, a music teacher, was played by Bob McGrath. Along with Loretta Long, he was the last remaining original castmember, also retiring in 2016. Bob was white, and, aside from being as talented as the other characters, had nothing to make him stand out.

One particular song he sang was "I'm Going Somewhere," and challenged the audience: "Can you guess where?" He rattled off pretty much every way you could get there, concluding with subway and jeep, before sitting on the stoop of 123 Sesame, and singing, "I'm going... to sleep," and dozing off.

In 1971, in recognition of America's growing Hispanic community, Mexican-American actor Emilio Delgado was added, as Luis Rodriguez, owner of The Fix-It Shop, next-door to Hooper's Store. That same year, Bronx native Sonia Manzano was added as teenager Maria. In 1979, to celebrate the character's 21st birthday, the cast, Muppets included, went to Puerto Rico to meet Maria's family and celebrate.

The show combined human characters, both adults and children, with Jim Henson's "Muppet" puppets. It taught letters and the words those letters stood for, and numbers. Just as every episode began with the eventually iconic theme song (starting with "Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away" and concluding with "Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?"), every episode ended with a castmember saying, in a parody of sponsorship, that the show was brought to you by 2 letters and a number that were featured in it. Example: "Sesame Street has been brought to you today by the letters M and P, and by the number 4." (M and P are my initials, and 4 has always been my favorite number.)

Some of the Muppet characters became icons. Carroll Spinney both wore the costume as Big Bird, who represented childlike wonder (to this day, even after Spinney's retirement, replacement and death, the character is said to be 6 years old), and operated the character of Oscar the Grouch.

Several "monster" Muppets were introduced, to show kids that just because someone is different -- even a monster -- doesn't mean they're bad. Okay, Cookie Monster is a glutton, and Grover is a klutz, but they mean well.

There were Bert and Ernie, who debuted in the 1st episode. Contrary to popular belief, they are not a gay couple, and were never meant to be. (The Stonewall Riot happened just 5 months earlier.) Contrary to another popular belief, they were not named after Bert the cop and Ernie the cabdriver in the film It's a Wonderful Life.

But they were based on The Odd Couple, which had already been a Broadway play and a movie, but not yet a TV show: Bert was the "Felix," uptight with some strange hobbies; and Ernie was the "Oscar," sloppy and immature. The name and personality of Oscar the Grouch, who loved trash and lived in a trash can, may also have been a nod to Oscar of The Odd Couple.

Occasionally, Kermit the Frog, an original Jim Henson Muppet, would make an appearance. In 1976, Kermit became the "host" of The Muppet Show, which, at first, confused the heck out of me: I thought the Muppets meant Sesame Street, but he was the only Sesame Street character who appeared on it. (Eventually, Big Bird would make an appearance, and Bert and Ernie also would, but those were rare exceptions.)

And except for Kermit, no Muppet Show characters -- not Miss Piggy, not Fozzie Bear, and, thankfully, not Statler and Waldorf -- crossed over onto Sesame Street. At that age, I didn't know that the Muppets, including Kermit himself, went all the way back to 1955, and were regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s.

Some Muppets would be re-used. For example, TV game show host Guy Smiley was re-dressed as The Muppet Show's anchorman: "Here is a Muppet News Flash!" There was also a "Fat Blue" that was used for several early characters, including the bald, mustachioed restaurant customer who drove Grover, playing a waiter, crazy.

Let's see, I've mentioned Big Bird, Oscar, Cookie Monster, Grover, Bert, Ernie, Kermit, Guy and Fat Blue. That's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine! Nine nifty Muppets! Ah ah ah ah! (BOOM!) Oh yes, there was also "The Count": "Do you know why they call me The Count? Because I love to count things!" He was later given the full name of Count Von Count. He was a purple guy who looked like Count Dracula, but didn't bite anybody. (Come to think of it, while Cookie Monster would eat almost anything, not just cookies, he didn't bite anybody, either. Except for that one time when he tried to eat Guy Smiley's hand.)

The show also produced legendary songs. Kermit's "Bein' Green," meant to say that it's okay to be different; Ernie's bathtime song "Rubber Duckie"; and "Mah Na Mah Na" actually became hit records. (It was 1970. There were some considerably stranger songs on the charts in those days.) All were sung by Henson himself, who operated and voiced the corresponding Muppets.

(Officially, the hippie-looking guy who sings "Mah Na Mah Na" is named Bip Bippadotta, but everybody ended up calling him "Mahna Mahna," so that became his official name when he appeared on The Muppet Show, with "Bip" still being his Sesame Street name.)

Other songs that were featured on Sesame Street included Big Bird's alphabet song "Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" (pronounced "AB-ka-DEF-gee-JECK-le-min-OP-qwer-STOOV-wix-iz"), Cookie Monster's "C is for Cookie," Oscar's "I Love Trash," "Sing (Sing a Song)" and "One of These Things Just Doesn't Belong Here."

The 1st episode introduced 2 counting sequences: "Jazz Numbers," narrated by, of all people, Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane; and "Song of Ten," which always concluded with a baker, voiced by Henson but played by Alex Stevens, holding a tray full of desserts, whatever number of them that was the featured number, at the top of a staircase, and then falling down the stairs.

Starting in 1971, Paul Benedict, later part of the regular cast of The Jeffersons, played The Mad Painter, painting a particular number in places where it shouldn't have been. The animated "Pinball Number Count," which, unlike previous counting sketches, went past 10 to 12, debuted in 1977.

I was born just 38 days after Sesame Street debuted. The show and I grew up together. By 1978, it was big enough to get its own Christmas special, with Bert and Ernie having a storyline paralleling O. Henry's story The Gift of the Magi, except that Mr. Hooper came through to provide a happy ending. Also, Cookie Monster tried to contact Santa Claus, but every method -- his pencil, his typewriter, his phone -- reminded him of cookies, and he ate them.

And, in an unusual instance of Spinney's characters interacting, Oscar asked Big Bird how big fat Santa got down those skinny little chimneys on the roofs of city apartment buildings. Big Bird got worried that Santa might not be able to come to Sesame Street, and nobody would get any presents. Spoiler Alert: The presents showed up, and Big Bird was told that it didn't matter how it happened.

Also by that point, there were international versions of the show. It became Plaza Sesamo in Spanish-speaking countries; 1, rue Sésame in French-speaking countries; Sesam Strasse in German-speaking countries; and, from 1983 to 2015, in Israel, Rechov Sumsum, with the street in question being a safe place for Jewish and Muslim children to play together, a "neutral zone" apart from "the real world." Today, Sesame Street has variations shown in 150 different countries, in 70 languages.

Big Bird occasionally had a difficult relationship with the show's grownups. Starting in 1971, he had a friend, Mr. Snuffleupagus. This was a big thing with orange hair that looked like an elephant, with a long trunk, but without the large ears. He did, eventually, get a first name: Aloysius Snuffleupagus. But Big Bird usually just called him "Snuffy." Snuffy called him "Bird."

The Muppets and the show's kids could see him, but the grownups never did. Since they'd never heard of a snuffleupagus, and Snuffy never seemed to show up when Big Bird needed him to, they said there is no snuffleupagus, usually followed by, "Big Bird, you sure have some imagination!"

Times change, and the show had to change with it. By the mid-1980s, it began to dawn on the CTW's people that children might see that the grownups didn't believe Big Bird when he said Snuffy was "real," so they might not be believed about important things -- good or bad. So the decision was made to have them definitively see Snuffy.

The episode where it happened aired on November 18, 1985, the premiere of the show's 17th season. This was also the episode that introduced the character of Elmo, the little red monster Muppet, and he turned out to be instrumental in Snuffy's revelation. This is what I call the show's "hinge episode": Elmo proved so popular that he came to dominate the show. "Elmo's World" became a segment, but, at times, it seemed like the entire show was Elmo's world.

A quirk in Big Bird's character was that he always mispronounced Mr. Hooper's name, usually coming out "Mister Looper." I remember a "Mr. Dooper" and a "Mr. Stooper" -- that last one really annoyed Mr. Hooper. Even when Mr. Hooper got his GED, he was introduced at the ceremony -- by a grownup -- as "Harold Cooper."

On December 7, 1982, Will Lee died at age 74. The CTW had a dilemma. They based their whole show on the fact that kids were smart enough to learn things. So they knew that kids would notice if Mr. Hooper were played by a different actor, or if he stopped appearing altogether, and would need an explanation. Since it had been established on the show that he had a brother living in Chicago, they toyed with the idea of saying the character had retired and moved away.

In the end, they decided to tell the truth -- or, rather, write the actor's truth into the character's story. On November 24, 1983 -- Thanksgiving Day, a day when families were together, to help explain to the kids watching anything that the show might not have properly covered -- it was revealed that Mr. Hooper had died some time earlier (no cause was given), but that Big Bird still didn't grasp what this meant. He had to be told that it means, "Mr. Hooper's not coming back."

McGrath said of the human cast, "We barely got through that show." Spinney said, "The best episode we ever did was Mr. Hooper's death. Those were real tears. Will was the sweetest man."

In 1986, Manzano got married in real life. In 1988, she got pregnant. Now, the CTW had a very different adult issue on their hands. They couldn't have Maria disappear from the show until after Sonia's baby was born: Again, kids would notice, and ask what was going on.

So, since it had long been established that Maria worked for Luis at The Fix-It Shop, the writers wrote a story that had Luis and Maria falling in love, getting married, and having a baby. It was all above-board. It was a story that could have been told on TV, even 20 years earlier.

Except, by this point, I was an adult, and I thought it was kind of a creepy way around it. Sure, they were both Hispanic (the term "Latinx" for Hispanics of every gender identity wasn't used yet), and they already knew and liked each other. But Luis was old enough to be Maria's father! (Or so I thought. As it turned out, Manzano was 38 when the baby was born, and only 10 years younger than Delgado. But I didn't know that then.)

So, in the 1990s, Gordon and Susan's son Miles and Luis and Maria's daughter Gabi became the representatives of what could have been called Sesame Street: The Next Generation. By this point, with Northern Calloway, who played Mr. Hooper's assistant David, also having left the show (it wasn't a story I'd like to share, and he died soon thereafter), Hooper's Store was run by Alan, a Japanese-American played by Alan Muraoka, and Miles and Gabi went on to work there.

I guessed that the show would eventually write in a romance between them. This hasn't happened: When they graduated from high school (together, despite Miles being introduced as a baby 4 years earlier), and went off to college, the characters were written out of the show. 

Other difficult subjects were introduced. Deaf actress Linda Bove introduced the show's viewers to sign language and the difficulties of hearing impairments. Aristotle was introduced in 1981 as a blind Muppet, Julia in 2017 an autistic one, and Lily in 2011 as a poor one, revealed in 2018 to be homeless. Because he depended on his hearing more than any other character on the show, Aristotle is one of the few monster Muppets to have visible ears.

After September 11, 2001, an episode was written with as close a parallel to the terrorist attacks as the writers could safely come up with: Maria and Elmo are in Hooper's Store when a grease fire breaks out. Although Alan is able to put it out with his fire extinguisher, Maria still has to get Elmo out, and Elmo is traumatized by the event. And when the firefighters, wearing their full equipment, making them look bigger than people their size would normally be, try to talk to him, he's scared further. They explain things to them, and invite him to their firehouse, and he calms down.

Joan Ganz Cooney is still alive, and is scheduled to turn 93 on November 30. Lloyd Morrisett is also still alive, and turned 93 on November 2. He also co-created The Electric Company, which The CTW also ran, from 1971 to 1977. (UPDATE: Morrisett died on January 22, 2023.)

Sesame Street was originally taped at Reeves Teletape Studios, at 81st Street and Broadway, formerly CBS Studio 72. Also taped there were The Electric Company, and several other shows, for kids and adults alike. In 1986, Reeves Teletape was demolished, and Sesame Street moved production to Unitel Video, at 515 W. 57th Street, off 10th Avenue. Since 1993, they have taped at Kaufman Astoria Studios, on a block in Astoria, Queens bounded by 35th and 36th Avenues, and 35th and 36th Streets.

In 2000, The Children's Television Workshop was renamed Sesame Workshop. In 2016, Sesame Street left PBS, and moved to HBO, where it just began its 54th season. It remains relevant.

A 2015 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as Stan Lee, against "Nice" Peter Shukoff as Muppets creator Jim Henson, with Zach Sherwin stepping in as Walt Disney, "taking over" the battle the way his company bought out both Marvel and the Muppets franchise. 

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November 10, 1969 was a Monday. Actress Ellen Pompeo, and soccer legends Jens Lehmann of Germany and Faustino Asprilla of Colombia were born on this day.

The baseball season was over. And the NFL wouldn't start Monday Night Football until the following year.

There were 2 games played in each of the major basketball leagues of this period:

* In the NBA, the New York Knicks lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, 130-109 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Dick Barnett led the Knicks with 26 points. For the Lakers, Elgin Baylor also scored 26, Jerry West 24 with 11 assists, and Wilt Chamberlain 21 with 21 rebounds. This turned out to be a preview of the 1969-70 season's NBA Finals, but the Knicks would win.

* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Detroit Pistons, 130-128 in overtime at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* In the ABA, the New York Nets lost to the Minnesota Pipers, 118-96 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Oakland Oaks beat the Miami Floridians, 137-129 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

And there were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-2 at the Chicago Stadium. The Rangers got 4 different scorers: Jim Neilson, Bob Nevin, Jean Ratelle and Phil Goyette.

* The Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues played to a tie, 1-1 at the Boston Garden. This turned out to be a preview of the Stanley Cup Finals, which the Bruins would win.

* The Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 4-4 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Oakland Seals, 3-1 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* The Los Angeles Kings, the Minnesota North Stars, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Pittsburgh Penguins were not scheduled. 

September 5, 1976: "The Muppet Show" Premieres

Top row, left to right: Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Skrid, Waldorf, Statler,

Link Hogthrob, Dr. Teeth, Beaker.

Second row: Lew Zealand, Animal, Floyd Pepper, Rowlf.

Third row: Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, Camilla.

Bottom row: Gonzo the Great, Kermit the Frog, Scooter.

September 5, 1976: The Muppet Show premieres on British network ITV. Joel Grey is the guest host. In America, it aired in syndication, debuting on September 13, with the episode featuring Rita Moreno.

It surprised me, as a kid who watched Sesame Street, that the only Muppet to cross over to this show (with rare exceptions) was Kermit the Frog, who hosted. I was being introduced to a bunch of Muppets I'd never seen before, and didn't know. But I came to know them: Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo the Great, Rowlf the piano-playing dog, Kermit's nephew Robin, and the two old guys heckling from the corner box, Statler and Waldorf, named for old New York hotels.

The band was Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. Dr. Teeth played piano, a hippie chick named Janice played guitar, Floyd Pepper (wearing a military jacket and obviously meant to evoke the Beatles' character Sgt. Pepper) played bass, Zoot played saxophone, and, of course, the drummer was Animal.

Sketches included Muppet News Flash; The Dance, with dance marathoners making dumb jokes; The Swedish Chef, whose indecipherable recipes always went wrong; Veterinarians' Hospital, with Rowlf as a doctor assisted by Miss Piggy and Janice; Pigs In Space, with Miss Piggy serving alongside Link Hogthrob as captain ("hamming it up" while sounding like Ted Knight's Mary Tyler Moore Show character Ted Baxter) and Dr. Julius Strangepork (a German-accented homage to Dr. Strangelove and Albert Einstein); Muppet Labs, with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his beleaguered assistant Beaker; and Bear On Patrol, with Fozzie playing a cop reporting to desk sergeant Link.

Jim Henson voiced Kermit, Waldorf, Rowlf, Dr. Teeth, Link, and the Newsman. Frank Oz voiced Miss Piggy, Fozzie (name derived from "F. Oz"), Animal and Sam the Eagle. Dave Goelz voiced Gonzo, Zoot and Bunsen Honeydew. Richard Hunt voiced Scooter, Statler, Janice, Beaker and Sweetums. Jerry Nelson, better known as The Count on Sesame Street, voiced Robin, Floyd, Dr. Strangepork, Gonzo's girlfriend Camilla the Chicken, mad bomber Crazy Harry, and the dragonlike Uncle Deadly (formerly known as Skrid).

The show ran 5 seasons. Not counting guest Muppets from Sesame Street, there were 128 total guest stars in the show’s 5-year history. Three married couples appeared together as guests: Roy Rogers & Dale Evans (stayed married 'til death did they part), Kris Kristofferson & Rita Coolidge (divorced) and Robert Shields & Lorene Yarnell (divorced). One pair of siblings appeared, but not together: Loretta Lynn and her much younger sister Crystal Gayle. One parent-child pair appeared, but not together: Indeed, Candice Bergen appeared before her father Edgar and her "brother," Charlie McCarthy, did.

Since the show was taped in London, it was more internationally-oriented than most American TV variety shows. There were 97 Americans, 21 British, 2 Canadians (Doug Henning and Anne Murray), 2 Frenchmen (Charles Aznavour and Jean-Pierre Rampal), 2 Swiss (both of them members of Mummenschanz, which also included an American), a Dane (Victor Borge), a German (Elke Sommer), a Spaniard (Señor Wences) and a Russian (Rudolf Nureyev). The only one born in Asia was Juliet Prowse, born in India while it was a British colony. She was raised in South Africa, also in the British Commonwealth at the time, making her, despite being white, the only African host.

The oldest performer was 86-year-old Señor Wences, younger than George Burns by a few months, but older than Burns was when each appeared on the show -- and Wences beat Burns in final age, 103 to 100. The youngest was 15-year-old Brooke Shields, the next-youngest being a 28-year-old Christopher Reeve. Zero Mostel was not only the first of the show's guest stars to die, but he died before his episode could air.

There were 69 men and 59 women. There were 9 black guest hosts. In order of appearance: Lena Horne, Pearl Bailey, Harry Belafonte, Lou Rawls, Shirley Bassey, Lola Falana, Leslie Uggams, Gladys Knight and Ben Vereen. There were 4 Hispanics, not counting the Spain-born Señor Wences: Rita Moreno, Raquel (Tejeda) Welch, Joan Baez and Lynda (Cordova) Carter. There were no ethnically Asian guests. There were 5 guests now known to be gay: Elton John was already out, Rudolf Nureyev didn't exactly hide it, Jim Nabors and Joel Grey came out late in life, and Liberace denied it to the end.

Although the guests came from across the spectrum of show business, no guest came from outside show business. And 9 of the guests would also appear in The Muppet Movie in 1978: Edgar Bergen, Milton Berle, James Coburn, Dom DeLuise, Bob Hope, Madeline Kahn, Cloris Leachman, Steve Martin and Paul Williams. (Charles Durning, who played the film's villain Doc Hopper, was never a Muppet Show guest.)

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September 5, 1976 was a Sunday. Dutch actress Carice van Houten, known for her role as Melisandre on Game of Thrones, was born. And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Baltimore Orioles, 5-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Ross Grimsley Jr. outpitched Jim "Catfish" Hunter. Al Bumbry, one of several Orioles in that period that drove the Yankees nuts, hit a home run. Reggie Jackson, in his only season with the Orioles, went 1-for-4. Thurman Munson went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The New York Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Shea Stadium. Larry Christenson outpitched Mickey Lolich, for whom the Mets traded Rusty Staub in his prime to Detroit, not knowing Lolich was washed up. Christenson also hit 2 home runs. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-4.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1-0 at Jarry Park in Montreal. Woodie Fryman pitched a 4-hit shutout, outpitching Jerry Reuss. José Morales, pinch-hitter extraordinaire, batted for Larry Parrish in the bottom of the 8th inning, and reached on an error by Pirate 2nd baseman Rennie Stenett, bringing Bombo Rivera home with the winning run.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Atlanta Braves, 6-4 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Pete Rose went 0-for-4 with a walk. Johnny Bench went 0-for-5.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Rick Waits outpitched, ironically, Reggie Cleveland. Indians manager Frank Robinson, in his last month as an active player, did not put himself into the game. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-6 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Hank Aaron, in his last month as an active player, did not appear in the game. Robin Yount went 0-for-4.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 1-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ron Fairly singled Lou Brock home with the game's only run in the top of the 11th inning. It made Al Hrabosky the winning pitcher, in relief of John Denny, who went 9 shutout innings. It made Joe Coleman Jr. the losing pitcher, in relief of Rick Reuschel, who went 8 shutout innings. Over 11 innings, the Cards allowed just 5 hits.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 18-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. The Twins scored 10 runs in the 5th inning. They got home runs from Roy Smalley and Dan Ford. Rod Carew went 4-for-5.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-1 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 1-for-4.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Astros, 4-0 at the Astrodome in Houston. Doug Rau pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The California Angels beat the Oakland Athletics, 3-2 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Nolan Ryan went the distance, allowing 3 hits and striking out 8.

* And a doubleheader was split at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The San Francisco Giants won the opener, 5-0. John Montefusco pitched a 4-hit shutout. The San Diego Padres won the nightcap, 6-1.