October 6, 1966: The Smoggy Sendoff of Sandy Koufax

Sandy Koufax (left) and Jim Palmer

October 6, 1966: Game 2 of the World Series. Los Angeles Dodger outfielder Willie Davis, having trouble seeing a white baseball against the smog-gray Los Angeles sky, commits 3 errors in 1 inning, enabling the Baltimore Orioles to win 6-0, and take both World Series games at Dodger Stadium, and head back to Memorial Stadium with a 2-0 lead.

Jim Palmer, days short of his 21st birthday, outduels Sandy Koufax, who struggles with the Oriole bats, Davis' fielding, and the pain in his elbow.

Koufax has told only a few people yet, but he's already decided that this is his last major league game. He is not yet 31. This could be called a "generational hinge" game. To put it another way: Koufax had won 169 games, including 4 in the World Series, but would never win another; Palmer, if you count this game, had won 21, and 255 more would follow.

To this day, the Orioles have never won a Pennant without Palmer on their staff. But they won 6 with him, including the 1966, 1970 and 1983 World Series. He is the only pitcher to win a World Series game in 3 different decades. His 186 wins during the 1970s made him the winningest pitcher of the decade. By a weird coincidence, the scout who discovered him was Hal Newhouser, whose 170 wins during the 1940s made him the winningest pitcher of that decade.

Many American cities have had, and some still have, smog issues, due to topography. New York's used to be bad, up until the 1970s, when the effects of the environmental movement helped. Denver's is bad, because of the Rocky Mountains.

But Los Angeles is widely known for smog, because it's the American city most identified with driving as opposed to public transportation, and all that car exhaust flies east with the prevailing wind in the Northern Hemisphere, and runs smack into the San Gabriel Mountains, trapping it. To make matters worse, the city gets an average of only an inch and a quarter of rain per month.

On July 26, 1943, the smog in L.A. was so bad! (How bad was it?) It was so bad, people began calling the police, thinking that the Japanese were conducting chemical warfare as part of their effort in World War II. The Japanese military never developed anything like that, but America didn't know that at the time, and it had only been 25 years since World War I and Imperial Germany's use of poison gas..

On October 21, 1954, the smog in L.A. was so bad, the City actually closed its public schools for several days.

On October 16, 10 days after this World Series game, comedian Allan Sherman appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sherman, a Chicago native famed as a game show producer and a song parodist -- the "Weird Al" Yankovic of his time, many of his rewrites reflecting his Jewish heritage -- mentioned that he once lived in the L.A. suburb of Van Nuys, and sang this, to the tune of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes": 

They ask me through the years

why I shed these tears.

I, of course, replies:

When you live in Van Nuys

smog gets in your eyes.

I thought I'd play it wise

so I closed my eyes.

Then, what do you suppose?

When both my eyes I close

smog got in my nose.

I went to price

an anti-smog device

to fit behind my car.

But, all too quick

the smog became so thick

I could not find my car.

Ten thousand cars provide
carbon monoxide.
If they’d all drive a horse
there’d be no smog, of course…
But there’d be something worse!

In 1971, on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, taped outside Los Angeles in what they mockingly called "Beautiful Downtown Burbank," co-host Dan Rowan saiid this as part of his regular "News of the Future" sketch: "Los Angeles, two years from now: Race relations were solved in Los Angeles, when the smog became so thick, nobody could tell what anybody's color was!" (That didn't happen in 1973, but the city did elect its 1st black Mayor that year, Tom Bradley.)

The founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of the Clean Air Act, both in 1970, helped. So did an additional Clean Air Act in 1990. L.A.'s last Stage 1 Smog Alert was in 1974; its last Stage 2 Smog Alert, in 1988. Then again, the American Lung Association still ranked L.A. as the nation's most-polluted city as recently as 2013.

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October 6, 1966 was a Thursday. Also on this day, LSD was declared illegal throughout the United States. And Irish soccer star Niall Quinn was born.

Football was in midweek. The NBA season wouldn't start for another  9 days; the NHL season, for another 13. Therefore, there were no other scores on this historic day.

July 19, 1977: An All-Star Game for a Troubled New York

July 19, 1977: The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is held at Yankee Stadium, the only one held in New York City between 1964 and 2008.

Three days earlier, the New York Mets had held Old-Timers' Day at Shea Stadium, and they honored the 4 great living center fielders of New York baseball: Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle of the Yankees, Willie Mays of the Giants (who, due to his last 2 seasons, was wearing a Mets uniform), and Edwin "Duke" Snider of the Dodgers.

DiMaggio had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955; Mantle, in 1974; and Mays would become eligible in 1979, and everyone presumed that he would be elected that year, and he was. Snider was eligible, but not yet in. In 1980, he was finally elected, leading songwriter Terry Cashman to write and record "Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey and the Duke)."

Left to right: Snider, DiMaggio, Mays, Mantle

Holding the All-Star Game in New York seemed problematic. True, the Yankees had won the American League Pennant the year before, and were contenders again. And the Stadium had just been renovated, making it capable of hosting a major event again.

But the City was in trouble. Crime seemed to be out of control. The serial killer known as the Son of Sam was on the loose. Just 6 days earlier, there had been a City-wide blackout that led to terrible looting and multiple fires. There was already a lot of burned-out, and otherwise substandard, housing and commercial property in The Bronx, the Yankees' home Borough; Harlem, former home of the Giants; and Brooklyn, former home of the Dodgers. And there seemed little that the City government could do about it, because it was still recovering from its near-bankruptcy of 2 years earlier. The incumbent Mayor, Abe Beame, wasn't even going to make the runoff for the Primary in his own Democratic Party.

But, for this night, as it so often does, sport, especially baseball, provided a distraction from it all.

DiMaggio was named Honorary Captain for the AL, and Mays was so named for the National League. (Mantle had been so honored at the 1975 All-Star Game, along with Stan Musial.) Rachel Robinson threw out the ceremonial first ball, as a nod to the 30th Anniversary of her husband, Jackie Robinson, re-integrating the sport. (Jackie had died in 1972.)

Yankees selected to play at home were Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Sparky Lyle, Graig Nettles, Willie Randolph, and, as manager of the defending Pennant winners, Billy Martin. The only current Met selected was John Stearns. Former Mets Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan and Ken Singleton were also selected. (Seaver and Singleton both became broadcasters for the Yankees.)

The game featured a lot of players who would later play in New York: For the Yankees: Rich "Goose" Gossage, Dave Winfield, Ruppert Jones, Rick Reuschel, Dave LaRoche, Butch Wynegar, Jason Thompson, Bert Campaneris and Ken Griffey Sr. For the Mets: Willie Montanez, Jerry Morales and Ellis Valentine. For both: Frank Tanana and John Candelaria.

This was also an expansion year, with the American League adding 2 teams. The 1st All-Star for the Seattle Mariners was center fielder Ruppert Jones. The 1st All-Star for the Toronto Blue Jays was 1st baseman Ron Fairly, a former Los Angeles Dodgers star, who had been an All-Star for the Montreal Expos. He was the only player to be an All-Star for both Canadian-based teams before the Expos moved to Washington after the 2004 season.

Jim Palmer of the Baltimore Orioles started for the AL. Usually, he pitched well against the Yankees. This time, pitching in Yankee Stadium did him no favors. He gave up a leadoff home run to Joe Morgan of the Cincinnati Reds. He struck out Steve Garvey of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Then he gave up a single to Dave Parker of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then he gave up an RBI double to George Foster of the Reds, who ended up leading the NL with 52 home runs and winning the NL's MVP. Then Palmer gave up a home run to Greg Luzinski of the Philadelphia Phillies.

It was 4-0 NL, the AL's starting pitcher had gotten 1 out, and the game was essentially already over. Or, as Warner Wolf, then the sports anchor for Eyewitness News on New York's WABC-Channel 7, would have said, "Turn your sets off right there!"

In contrast, the NL's starter, Don Sutton of the Los Angeles Dodgers, pitched 3 strong innings, allowing no runs, 1 hit and 1 walk. This was a foreshadowing of that season's World Series -- and the next season's -- when the Yankees faced the Dodgers. So was Garvey hitting a home run in the 3rd, to make it 5-0.

Seaver got a standing ovation when he came out to pitch the bottom of the 6th, wearing his gray Reds road uniform. But he didn't pitch well, allowing a leadoff single to Rod Crew of the Minnesota Twins, who flirted with a .400 average for much of the season, ending at .388, and winning the AL MVP; a walk to Fred Lynn of the Boston Red Sox; and a double by Richie Zisk of the Chicago White Sox, making the score 5-2.

Rarely getting the chance to face Yankees, in the 7th, Seaver faced Nettles, who reached on an error, allowing Butch Wynegar of the Twins to get into scoring position; and then Randolph singled Wynegar home, to make it 5-3.

The NL got 2 more runs in the 8th, while in the bottom of the 9th, George Scott of the Red Sox homered off Rich "Goose" Gossage of the Pirates to get the AL within 7-5. But Gossage, apparently auditioning for the Yankees, impressed team owner George Steinbrenner by getting Randolph to short and striking Munson out to end the game.

The National League won, 7-5. This is the only game in the YES Network series Yankees Classics in which current Yankees are shown to lose.

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July 19, 1977 was a Tuesday. Since no other major league sport was then in season, this was the only score on this historic day.