October 19, 1999: Kenny Rogers Walks Andruw Jones

October 19, 1999: A wild National League Championship Series, just 2 days after Robin Ventura's "Grand Slam Single" won Game 5 at Shea Stadium, moves on to an even wilder Game 6 at Turner Field in Atlanta. (The stadium is now known as Center Parc Stadium.) The Atlanta Braves blow Al Leiter off the mound with 5 runs in the 1st inning, and later lead the New York Mets, 7-3. But the Mets storm back, with Mike Piazza tying the game with a home run. The Braves take an 8-7 lead late, but the Mets tie it. The Mets take a 9-8 lead in the 10th, but the Braves tie it.

In the bottom of the 11th inning, the Braves load the bases, and Met manager Bobby Valentine, instead of bringing in righthanded reliever Octavio Dotel to pitch to righthanded hitter Andruw Jones, brings in lefthander Kenny Rogers. Rogers has been one of the top pitchers in baseball in regular-season play the last few years, but his postseason experience has been limited to some terrible outings for the Yankees in 1996 and '97. For whatever reason, Valentine brings him in to face the Braves'
kinderwonder from the Netherlands Antilles.

I watched this game on TV with my father, who was a nominal Met fan (the only sports team he really cared about was Rutgers football), and it was this series, with all its twists and turns, that led him to finally understand what lunatics like me see in the game of baseball.

And I remember telling him, late in the game, that this game and this series deserved to end with a hero, and that it would be a shame if it ended with a goat.

With a 3-2 count on Jones, Rogers threw a pitch low and outside. Jones would not swing at it. Ball 4. 10-9 Braves. Winning run forced home. Pennant dream over.

If Jones had gotten a hit, to drive home the Pennant-winning run, he would have been a hero, and you couldn't really criticize anyone on the Mets. They had fought gallantly, at moments even brilliantly, from a 3-games-to-none deficit.

Of course, no one had ever come back from such a deficit to win a postseason series. Not in baseball, anyway. None had even forced a Game 7. None had even forced a Game 6 until the Braves themselves did it the year before against the San Diego Padres in the NLCS.

Back from 3-0 to win the series? That was never going to happen in baseball. Everybody who had ever watched baseball was thinking that in October 1999. If only it had stayed that way for 5 more years, plus a couple more days.

Was the goat Rogers, for pitching poorly when his team needed him to get one more out and get out of the 11th-inning jam? Or was the goat Valentine, for yet another dimwitted bullpen move? (Paging Mel Rojas, and that was in a game with far less significance.)

Did this move convince him to leave Leiter in to face Luis Sojo in Game 5 of the next year's World Series after 141 pitches? Who knows. Bobby V himself probably doesn’t know.

What is known is that the Mets had taken their fans on a thrilling ride, their first October ride in 11 years, and provided them with treasured moments on the ride... and then they crashed. What a way for the Mets and their fans to end the 20th Century.

One more thing: In the 2010s, in sports, "goat" ceased to be short for "scapegoat," someone or something you blamed for a defeat; and became an abbreviation: "GOAT," meaning "Greatest Of All Time." It even became a verb: A player who had reached elite status was said to have been "goated." To those of us old enough to remember earlier times, this sounds really stupid.

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October 19, 1999 was a Tuesday. The American League Championship Series had ended the night before, with the New York Yankees beating the Boston Red Sox in Game 5 at Fenway Park, to take the Pennant. Since Major League Baseball counts the 1978 Bucky Dent Game as a regular-season game, this was the 1st official postseason matchup between the ancient rivals, and the Yankees had clinched on Boston soil. There would be revenge.

Football was in midweek. The NBA season started 12 days later. There were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the San Jose Sharks, 2-1 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim beat the Washington Capitals, 7-1 at the MCI Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 6-5 at the Ice Palace (now the Benchmark International Arena) in Tampa. Mark Messier, playing out the string with the Canucks, scored the winner, 39 seconds into overtime.

* And the St. Louis Blues beat the Calgary Flames, 7-1 at the Kiel Center (now the Enterprise Center) in St. Louis.

January 28, 1985: "We Are the World" Is Recorded

January 28, 1985: "We Are the World" is recorded in Los Angeles. It is the American response to the British recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and its fundraising for relief for the famine in the African nation of Ethiopia.

It was produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian. It was the idea of singer, actor and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, after he'd heard the British single.

Officially, the name of the "performer" on the Columbia Records single release was "USA for Africa." The song was listed as having been written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, at Havenhurst, the Jackson family home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino, California. One particular note is the changing of an original lyric: "There's a chance we're taking, we're taking our own lives." Jackson wasn't satisfied with that, and Jones suggested, "There's a choice we're making, we're saving our own lives."

The first tracks for recording were laid down on January 22, 1985, at Lion Share Recording Studio in Los Angeles, owned by country superstar Kenny Rogers. The main session was on January 28, at A&M Recording Studios in Hollywood.

A sign taped to the studio door read: "Check your ego at the door." Stevie Wonder greeted the musicians as they entered, and said that if the recording was not completed in one take, he and Ray Charles, two blind men, would drive everybody home. They began at 10:30 PM, Pacific Time (1:30 AM, January 29, Eastern Time). The singers were as follows:

* First verse: Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, James Ingram, Tina Turner and Billy Joel.

* First chorus: Michael Jackson and Diana Ross.

* Second verse: Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson and Al Jarreau.

* Second chorus: Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Loggins, Steve Perry of Journey, and Daryl Hall.

* Bridge: Michael Jackson, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper and Kim Carnes.

* Third, fourth and fifth choruses: Everybody, with Bob Dylan coming in for the second half on the fourth and fifth chorus.

* Sixth chorus: Ray Charles.

* Seventh chorus: Stevie and Bruce.

* Eighth chorus: Everybody... and so on.

* Backing vocalists, in alphabetical order: Dan Aykroyd, Harry Belafonte, Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac, Sheila E., Bob Geldof (it seemed natural to invite him, as the starter of it all), music producer Bill Gibson; Jackie, La Toya, Marlon, Randy and Tito Jackson; Waylon Jennings, Bette Midler, Daryl Hall's usual singing partner John Oates, Jeffrey Osborne; Anita, June and Ruth Pointer; Smokey Robinson; and, from Huey Lewis' band, The News, Mario Cipollina, Johnny Colla, Chris Hayes and Sean Hopper.

Louis Johnson of The Brothers Johnson played bass guitar. From the band Toto, David Paich and Steve Porcaro played synthesizers. In addition, keyboards were played by Omartian, John Barnes, Michael Boddicker, Ian Underwood from Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention; and Greg Phillinganes, who was then Michael Jackson's musical director, and had also worked with Stevie Wonder and Toto. John Robinson played drums, as he had previously for Jackson on the albums Off the Wall and Thriller, both with Quincy Jones producing. Brazilian musician Paulinho da Costa played percussion.

The session is as interesting for who didn't participate as for who did. There was no lead guitarist. Paul Simon was there, but not his former singing partner Art Garfunkel. Lindsay Buckingham was invited, but none of his former Fleetwood Mac bandmates were. No acts identified primarily with disco were involved.

Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson had worked together many times, and, later in 1985, would form The Highwaymen with Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson; however, despite their own previous (and later) charity work, neither Cash nor Kristofferson was involved on this occasion. Nor was any other act usually considered "country," including Dolly Parton.

Despite the heavy Motown Records presence, there were no members of the Temptations or the Four Tops; and, sadly, Marvin Gaye had been killed the year before. Bonnie Pointer had left The Pointer Sisters in 1977, and did not participate. Given Jackson's affinity for Elvis Presley, it has to be considered that, had Elvis lived, he would have been invited.

Aside from the courtesy to Geldof, it was all American acts, so there were no Canadian singers like Neil Young or Geddy Lee of Rush. Nor were Young's occasional singing partners David Crosby (American), Stephen Stills (Canadian) and Graham Nash (British), nor Nash's former girlfriend Joni Mitchell (Canadian).

Madonna, probably then too new a star, was not invited. Nor was any member of Van Halen, despite Eddie Van Halen having played on Jackson's "Beat It." Nor was any other act considered to be "heavy metal," or any act considered to be "punk" or "New Wave." Prince was invited, but the reason he didn't participate is disputed, from his ego getting in the way to his being miffed that Geldof had once called him "a creep."

Eddie Murphy was then the biggest comic actor in the world, and was close with both Michael and Stevie, but he turned it down because he was working on something else, and later said, "After I realized what it was, I felt like an idiot."

John Denver, whose charitable bona fides had long been established, asked to participate, and was turned down, because his style was considered too light for a "pop-rock anthem." He said, "It broke my heart not to be included."

It's often forgotten that there was an entire album, titled We Are the World, which Columbia released on April 1. Side One: "We Are the World"; "If Only for the Moment, Girl," by Perry; "Just a Little Closer," by The Pointer Sisters; "Trapped," Springsteen's cover of a Jimmy Cliff song; and "Tears Are Not Enough," by Northern Lights.

Side Two: "4 the Tears in Your Eyes," Prince; "Good for Nothing," Chicago, with lyrics by Richard Marx; "Total Control," Tina Turner; "A Little More Love," Kenny Rogers; and "Trouble in Paradise," by Huey Lewis.

"We Are the World" was released as a single on March 7, just 38 days after being recorded, and sold over 20 million copies, winning 4 Grammy Awards. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" sold 12 million. In spite of the fundraising of both songs, much of the money was converted not into food for the starving, but into guns and other amenities for the ruling party. In the end, Ethiopia, which had 40 million people before the famine started, lost 1.2 million people to death by starvation, and 400,000 people fled the country. The Communist regime collapsed in 1991, but the country has been in civil war on and off ever since.

Aretha Franklin, enjoying something of a comeback in 1985, was not involved in recording the song, although she led a performance of the song, along with Jackson, Jones, Ross and Rogers, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, as part of the ceremonies honoring the Inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993.

A&M Studios is now part of Jim Henson Studios. The building is still standing, at 1416 North La Brea Avenue, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles.

Waylon Jennings died in 2002, Ray Charles in 2004, June Pointer in 2006, Michael Jackson in 2009, Louis Johnson in 2015, Al Jarreau in 2017, James Ingram in 2019, Kenny Rogers in 2020. As of January 28, 2022, the rest are still alive.

UPDATE: Anita Pointer died in 2022. Harry Belafonte and Tina Turner died in 2023. Tito Jackson and Quincy Jones died in 2024.

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January 28, 1985 was a Monday. Jermaine Lamarr Cole, the rapper known as J. Cole, was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football season had ended 8 days earlier, when the San Francisco 49ers beat the Miami Dolphins in the Super Bowl. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 117-91 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Houston Rockets, 97-93 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena is now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.)

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 111-109 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas. Mark Aguirre scored 49 points for the Mavs.

* And the Denver Nuggets beat their arch-rivals, the Utah Jazz, 104-100 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah.

And there was 1 game in the NHL: In "the Battle of Alberta," the Edmonton Oilers beat the Calgary Flames, 4-3 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. The Flames led, 3-2, but Paul Coffey scored with 1:20 left in regulation, and Mike Krushelnyski scored with 2 seconds left.