November 11, 1921: The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

November 11, 1921: The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The Tomb faces east, overlooking the national capital.

It is 3 years to the day after the Armistice that ended World War I. An unidentified soldier from World War I is buried there on the day. Every day since, regardless of weather, a team of U.S. Army Sergeants, in dress uniform, known as "Sentinels," has walked a guard along a black mat in front of the Tomb, one at a time until relieved by another. The Sentinel does the following:

1. Marches 21 steps south down the 21-yard-long black mat laid across the Tomb.
2. Turns and faces east, toward the Tomb, for 21 seconds.
3. Turns and faces north, changes weapon to the outside shoulder, and waits 21 seconds.
4. Marches 21 steps up the mat.
5. Turns and faces east for 21 seconds.
6. Turns and faces south, changes weapon to the outside shoulder, and waits 21 seconds.
7. Repeats the routine until the soldier is relieved of duty at the Changing of the Guard.

The temporary Tomb was replaced by the permanent design in 1932, with a Memorial Amphitheater around it. People are asked to view with quiet and respect. The Sentinel will remind the audience of this if there is noise.

In 1958, coffins containing unidentified remains of soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean War were added. In 1984, one from the Vietnam War was added. In 1998, a reporter looked at evidence and decided he had identified the Vietnam "Unknown" as Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Blassie. The remains were exhumed, tested, and his identity confirmed. Blassie’s coffin was taken back to his hometown of St. Louis, where he was buried with full honors.

Rather than fill the space at Arlington where Blassie had rested with another "Unknown" from the Vietnam era, the space has been left empty, as an official tribute to those who never made it home, alive or dead.

Each day, on November 11, the President of the United States, or the Vice President if the President is unavailable due to a foreign trip or illness, lays a wreath at the Tomb, with assistance from a member of the Sentinel corps not walking the guard.

President Barack Obama, November 11, 2013

And all active-duty military personnel salute the Tomb, because they don't know the men's ranks: Each of the three remaining "Unknowns" could be a buck private, or a General, although the likelihood of a General having been unaccounted for, in any war, is slim. While they are all definitely men, no one knows their ranks, their races, their religions, their places of origin, or their branches of the service. The idea is that each could be anyone, and could have been anyone -- including veterans or future servicepeople.

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November 11, 1921 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. The start of the NHL season was over a month away. And no games were played in the NFL. But there were 8 college football games played that day:

* Virginia Tech beat North Carolina State, 7-3 on (mostly) neutral ground at League Park in Norfolk, Virginia.

* Trinity College beat Wake Forest, 17-0 at Riddick Field in Raleigh, North Carolina. Trinity was renamed Duke University in 1925.

* Birmingham-Southern beat Chattanooga, 14-7 at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama. Despite being the team that opened the city's famed Legion Field in 1929, and winning 3 Southern Conference titles in the 1930s, Birmingham-Southern College discovered that they couldn't compete with Alabama, Auburn, or even the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and so they dropped their program in 1939. They returned in 2007, playing in NCAA Division III, but folded the program again in 2023.

The University of Chattanooga was absorbed into the University of Tennessee system in 1969, and was renamed the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. They began playing a small-college schedule in 1956, were assigned to NCAA Division II in 1973, were promoted to Division I-A in 1977, but were dropped to Division I-AA, since renamed the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), where they remain.

* Florida beat Alabama, 9-2 at Denny Field in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

* Texas beat Mississippi A&M, 54-7 at Clark Field in Austin, Texas. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi was renamed Mississippi State College in 1932, and Mississippi State University in 1958.

* Texas A&M and Rice played to a tie, 7-7 at Rice Field in Houston.

* Iowa State beat Kansas State, 7-0 at Ahearn Field in Manhattan, Kansas.

* And Idaho beat Wyoming, 31-3 on (mostly) neutral ground at Public School Field in Boise, Idaho.

November 4, 1952: Dwight D. Eisenhower Is Elected President

November 4, 1952: General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the great American hero of World War II, is overwhelmingly elected President. The Republican nominee won 442 Electoral Votes, while the Democratic nominee, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, won only 9 States for 89 Electoral Votes. "Ike" won the popular vote, 55 to 44 percent, ending 20 years of Democratic governance in the White House. 

As the leading General of the U.S. Army from the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944 to the end of "The War" (for those who lived through it, like my grandparents, always Capital T, Capital W), Eisenhower was expected to follow in the footsteps of previous American Generals: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt (who never got promoted from Colonel to General).

Of course, some Generals tried to become President, and lost: Winfield Scott, Winfield Scott Hancock, Leonard Wood (who didn't even get nominated) and Douglas MacArthur (who seemed to want it more than Ike, but was never seriously considered). And then there those who didn't even run: William Tecumseh Sherman said, "I will not run if nominated, and will not serve if elected." This would be followed by John J. Pershing; and, after Eisenhower, by Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf. And by William Westmoreland, who never would have had a chance.

But in the next election, Ike didn't run. He didn't even say what party he belonged to. Both parties sought him out. Harry Truman, the incumbent, a Democrat, who became President upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, seemed willing to step aside and not amount to a term of his own, if Ike would run as a Democrat. He wouldn't, and he and Truman had a falling-out.

In 1952, Ike looked around at the potential candidates, considered their ability to both maintain American prosperity and stand up to the Communist world, and thought that he could do a better job than any of them. So he ran, as a Republican.

The Party regulars saddled him with a running mate they liked, but almost nobody else did: Senator Richard Nixon of California. In less than 6 years in Congress, including a year and a half in the Senate, Nixon had already generated a reputation as the slimiest, most dishonest major politician in America. His opponent in his 1950 Senate election, Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, gave him the nickname that stuck with him for the rest of his life: "Tricky Dick."

And while nothing was going to derail Ike's election, Nixon almost derailed his place on the ticket, with a scandal that forced him to take up half an hour of prime-time television, and detail his assets and debts, so people could see he wasn't corrupt. He mentioned the gift of a dog, and it became known as "The Checkers Speech." After seeing it, Ike told him, "Dick, you're my boy!"

The Democrats nominated Stevenson after a fine 1st term as Governor, with Senator John Sparkman of Alabama as his running mate. (Stevenson's grandfather, also named Adlai Ewing Stevenson, had been Grover Cleveland's Vice President from 1893 to 1897.)

"Let's face it," Stevenson said in his Convention speech. "Let's talk sense to the American people." But they weren't willing to listen. It didn't help that, unlike all previous major-party nominees except one (James M. Cox in 1920), he was divorced. Then again (as with Cox), it wouldn't have mattered if he were happily married.

Because, after 20 years of Democratic leadership, the party had grown stale in office, and the Republicans used the slogan, "It's time for a change." As far as I know, this was the first time it was used. And Ike was way too popular: The biggest fashion accessory of 1952 -- and 1956, as it turned out -- was an "I LIKE IKE" button. (The counterpart, "WE NEED ADLAI BADLY," didn't get far.)

Stevenson was bald -- but so was Eisenhower. And Stevenson had a broken nose, and seemed perpetually sad and tired, while Ike always seemed to be smiling, except when he was talking about standing up to Communism. The Republicans ran on a formula they called "K₁C₂," for "Korea, Communism, and Corruption."

In the end, Stevenson asked, "How you expect to defeat a man called Ike with a name like Adlai?" He never figured that out in 1956, either, and lost to Eisenhower by an even wider margin.

The Republicans also won both houses of Congress, winning 22 seats in the House of Representatives and 2 seats in the Senate. Among the new Senators were Democrats John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Stuart Symington of Missouri, Mike Mansfield of Montana, and Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington; and Republican Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

The City of Chicago eventually honored both candidates with Expressways: Interstate 290, heading west out of the city, then north, is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway; while the Cook County section of Interstate 55, heading southwest, is named the Stevenson Expressway.

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November 4, 1952, like most American Election Days, was a Tuesday. The baseball season was over, football was in midweek, and neither the NBA nor the NHL had any games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

September 21, 1953: Operation Moolah

September 21, 1953: No Kum-Sok, a pilot in North Korea's air force, defects, flying his Soviet-made MiG-15 jet into South Korea.

The American government offered him $100,000. He turned the money down. All he wanted was political asylum, to no longer have to live under Communism. He got his wish.

The United States Department of Defense launched "Operation Moolah" on April 27, 1953. The Pentagon offered $50,000 -- double that for the first one to do so -- to any pilot bringing them a Soviet-made MiG-15, fighter jet, because U.S. Air Force pilots, forced to engage in "dogfights" with them, said it was a better plane than their main jet, the F-86 Sabre. (That $50,000 sum works out to about $544,000 in 2022 money.)

The "MiG" was named for its designers:

Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich.

Operation Moolah turned out to be something of a damp squib: The Korean War ended in an armistice just 3 months after the operation began, with no takers. What did happen was that MiGs were grounded for several days right after the public bribe campaign began. And when the MiGs started flying again, Americans began blowing them out of the sky at an unprecedented rate.

Two months after the war ended, on September 21, No Kum-Sok showed up in his MiG at Kimpo Air Base, outside the South Korean capital of Seoul, having no knowledge of the financial reward for doing so. He said he'd heard rumors that his loyalty was being investigated, and in a Communist country like North Korea, that is a bad thing. So he flew his MiG-15 and flew the coop, defecting.

Chuck Yeager, the 1st man to break the sound barrier in a plane, flew the captured MiG, and said it was "the most demanding situation I ever faced." The North's aerial victories were not due to the plane being amazing, he said, but that their pilots were well trained in dogfight tactics.

No immigrated to the United States, changed his name to Kenneth Rowe, went to school, and worked as an aeronautical engineer for companies such as Boeing, Grumman, Pan Am, and Lockheed. As of September 21, 2022, he is still alive.

(UPDATE: He died on December 26, 2022, in Daytona Beach, Florida, at the age of 90.)

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September 21, 1953 was a Monday. Arie Luijendijk, the Dutch auto racer known as "The Flying Dutchman," winner of 2 Indianapolis 500s, was born on that day. 

There was 1 baseball game played: The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 4-0 at the first ballpark to be named Busch Stadium, which, until that season, had been the last ballpark to be named Sportsman's Park. Harvey Haddix pitched a 4-hit shutout. Stan Musial went 1-for-4. Rookie Ernie Banks went 1-for-3.

September 17, 1972: "M*A*S*H" Premieres

Clockwise from top: William Christopher, Jamie Farr,

David Ogden Stiers, Loretta Swit, Alan Alda,

Harry Morgan and Mike Farrell.

September 17, 1972: M*A*S*H premieres on CBS, based on a 1970 film, which was based on a 1968 novel by Dr. Richard Hornberger, who really was a surgeon from Maine who served at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War, and wrote the book under the name Richard Hooker. However, in real life, he was very little like Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, the brilliant but womanizing, hard-drinking and practical-joking Chief Surgeon from the (fictional) little coastal town of Crabapple Cove, portrayed on the show by Alan Alda.

Only one actor from the movie was kept in the same role on the show: Gary Burghoff as the company clerk, Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly, the naive but generous teenager from a farm outside Ottumwa, Iowa, who got his nickname from being able to predict things, such as known that helicopters -- "choppers," they were always called on the show -- were coming in with wounded soldiers.

The other surgeons: Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (McLean Stevenson), the commanding officer, from Bloomington, Illinois, a good doctor and a decent guy, but every bit as much a womanizer (despite being married) and a boozer as Hawkeye, and totally unsuited to running a military unit; Captain John "Trapper" McIntire (Wayne Rogers), from Boston, also a womanizer (and married) and a hard drinker, but nearly as good a surgeon as Hawkeye; and Major Frank Burns (Larry Linville), a paranoid right-winger from Fort Wayne, Indiana who was a lousy surgeon, talked the Christian talk but broke as many commandments as he could.

Including cheating on his wife with the camp's blonde bombshell Head Nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan, known as "Hot Lips." She was a career officer and the daughter of a career officer, so she had no real hometown. And she was a dictator with her nurses. But she was also a great nurse herself, and never asked them to work any harder than she did, which was hard.

In the film, where she was played by Sally Kellerman, Frank (played there by the great Robert Duvall) gave her the nickname when he mentioned her lips to her, unaware that their tryst was being caught on a microphone that Hawkeye and Trapper had hidden. But on the show, where she was played by Loretta Swit, a visiting General mentioned the nickname in the pilot, and Hawkeye and Trapper acted as though they'd never heard it before.

One of the show's original surgeons was quickly dropped: Captain Oliver Jones, a black neurosurgeon played by 2 football players: Fred "the Hammer" Williamson in the movie, and Timothy Brown (usually listed as "Timmy" while he played) on TV. Unfortunately, the character had the racist nickname "Spearchucker."

The urban legend that the character was dropped because the Army had no black surgeons during the Korean War turned out to be incorrect: The writers simply realized that they wouldn't have enough stories for a neurosurgeon: While he could assist the other surgeons, Jones had trouble taking the lead on an operation, admitting, "Anything outside the skull, I'm dead."

Also dropped after the 1st season was Captain John Black, an anesthesiologist on loan from the Australian Army, nicknamed "Ugly John." He was played by John Orchard, who later returned for 1 episode as an Australian Military Policeman.

Initially minor characters, but eventually part of the main cast, were Lieutenant Francis Mulcahy (George Morgan in the pilot, William Christopher thereafter), a priest from Philadelphia who serves as the camp's chaplain, a CYO boxing coach but a kindhearted soul who never calls the men out on their adultery; and Corporal Max Klinger (Jamie Farr), a street kid from Toledo, Ohio, was given a choice of jail or the Army, chose the Army, and then ran whatever scam he could to get out, from dressing in women's clothes to faking deaths in the family to things crazy enough to get a psychiatric discharge, a "Section 8."

When the show began, the Vietnam War was still going on. But, set in the Korean War, 20 years earlier, it became an allegory for Vietnam, a satire on how the U.S. Army did not live up to his self-proclaimed efficiency, had ridiculous regulations, and provided the soldiers with horrible food.

Take all of that, throw in all the wounded soldiers, whom the surgeons somehow (even with Frank's bungling) managed to save 98 percent of, and the occasional enemy shelling (they were only 3 miles from the front, and occasionally had to "bug out" and activate the "Mobile" part of their name because the front had come to them), and Hawkeye's inability to stay serious, shown as a defense mechanism, becomes easy to understand: "Making a joke is the only way I can open my mouth without screaming."

The Season 5 episode "The General Practitioner" had this exchange, after Frank misquoted Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman:

Frank: Well, everybody knows thar war is Hell.

B.J.: Remember: You heard it here last.

Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.

Father Mulcahy, certainly qualified to ask: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me: Who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Um, sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. But war is chock full of them: Little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

In a Season 2 episode, Hawkeye mentioned in a letter to his father, also a surgeon that he was making $413.50 a month. In 2022 money, that works out to about $4,738.61, or about $57,000 a year.

After 3 seasons, Stevenson had had enough, and left. So a script was written where Henry had gotten all his retention points, and he was discharged. But his plane to go home was shot down by a North Korean jet, and he was killed. That Season 3 finale, "Abysinnia, Henry" (a play on "I'll be seeing you" that Henry had used before), on March 18, 1975, was the 1st time a TV show had actually said that a main character had died when his portrayer hadn't. Previously, when an actor died, either the character was played by someone else, or written out and not mentioned again. The same thing was done when an actor simply left the show.

Rogers also left the show, but at least Trapper got to go home alive. He was replaced by Captain B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), a native of Mill Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area, married with a baby girl that he had barely seen when he went over to Korea.

And Blake was replaced by Colonel Sherman T. Potter (Harry Morgan), an older man from Hannibal, Missouri, who was "regular Army" (most of them were Army Reserve), and had served in both World Wars (his service in the cavalry in World War I was mentioned many times), but was far better suited to commanding a military hospital.

Frank and Margaret often bullied Henry and went over his head. Potter showed them that they would no longer get away with this. He soon figured out how much rope to give Hawkeye, B.J., and Klinger, too, before pulling them back.

Like many actors who played despicable characters, Linville was actually a good guy, beloved by his castmates. But in 1977, after Season 5, Linville got tired of playing "Ferret Face" Frank. who he called "a cartoon." He was the one character who never really grew. Margaret had, softening a bit, even getting married to another Army officer. The last time viewers saw Frank, he was looking up at the helicopter taking Margaret and her husband to their honeymoon, and softly saying, "Goodbye, Margaret." He had married his wife Louise for her family's money; he truly loved Margaret. (Her marriage was a disaster, and they got divorced within a few months, within the show's continuity.)

Through convoluted circumstances, Frank was transferred Stateside in the Season 6 premiere, and his replacement was Major Charles Emerson Winchester III (David Ogden Stiers), a Boston Brahmin who was every bit as conservative as Frank, but was a lot smarter (he was a Harvard graduate), he was considerably more refined (he frequently listened to classic music on his record player, and drank cognac instead of the "bathtub gin" from the distillery in the surgeons' tent, "The Swamp"), and was on Hawkeye's and B.J.'s level as a surgeon, so there was some reason for him to be pompous and egotistical. And he was both.

Early in Season 8, Burghoff left, and Radar was sent home on a hardship discharge: His father had died when he was really young, so his mother and his Uncle Ed were running the family farm. Now, Uncle Ed was dead, and Radar was sent home so his mother have to run the farm all alone.

That meant that Klinger was now the company clerk, and his added responsibility gave a little weight to the character. The crazy outfits and the schemes soon dwindled away, and while he was under-educated, he used some serious street-smarts to get the camp things it needed. As the man with the big nose and the bigger heart said, "I may be pathetic and inept, but I ain't dumb!" In the Season 10 episode "Promotion Commotion," he was promoted to Sergeant. Mulcahy had been promoted to Captain, in the Season 8 episode "Captains Outrageous."

Given the length of the show, some other turnover was to be expected. In Season 8, Staff Sergeant Zelmo Zale (Johnny Haymer), the dimwitted Brooklyn-born supply sergeant with whom Klinger frequently argued and sometimes physically fought, was phased out, and phased in was Staff Sergeant Luther Rizzo (G.W. Bailey), a shifty native of the Louisiana bayou who ran the motor pool. And yet, Private Igor Straminsky (Jeff Maxwell), who served the lousy chow, somehow got through the entire series without being dropped.

M*A*S*H tried to be realistic, getting historians, including medical historians, to help them get things right. But they got some things wrong. Certainly, at a real army base, the doctors would not have gotten away with so much tomfoolery (to use one of Potter's words). And if they drank that much, they wouldn't be fit to operate -- as Hawkeye pointed out when Alan's father, Broadway legend Robert Alda, played a visiting surgeon in the Season 3 episode "The Consultant."

For another thing, the continuity was all messed up. We were told in the Season 4 premiere, "Welcome to Korea," that Potter took command on September 19, 1952, that B.J. had arrived one week earlier, and that Frank and Radar were still there. But in Season 9, we're told that, by December 31, 1950, B.J., Potter and Charles were already there, and that Frank, Radar, Trapper and Henry Blake were all gone.

You could count that 1980 episode, "A War for All Seasons," covering all of 1951, as an outlier and non-canon. But in the series finale, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen," Margaret says she's known Charles for 2 years -- so even if she's rounding up, we're talking the Summer of 1951, meaning there's no way B.J., Henry or Frank should still have been there by then.

Throw in the fact that Hawkeye went from living in Vermont, having a sister, and having his mother still being alive to living in Maine, being an only child, and having his mother die when he was 10. Henry's wife was Mildred, then Lorraine. The name Mildred was brought back for Potter's wife. On multiple occasions, Potter mentioned as having a son, who had a nose as big as Klinger's. On a later episode, he said he had a daughter. Later still, he said it was one daughter and no son.

In Season 4, Klinger said his blood type was B+. In Season 7, he said he, Charles and Father Mulcahy had the same blood type. But in Season 8, Charles said his type was the very rare AB-. Also, if Klinger (like his portrayer, whose real name is Jameel Farah) has Lebanese ancestry, are all his Lebanese relatives on his mother's side? Because Klinger isn't an Arabic name.

Poor Nurse Kelly. Or Kelley. Or Kellye. (Played by Kellye Nakahara.) We know her rank was Lieutenant throughout. But her name was never fully mentioned, or even definitively spelled. Early on, a couple of times, she was "Nurse Charlie," and another actress was called "Nurse Kelly."

After that, Nakahara's character was always referred to as "Nurse Kelly," suggesting that Kelly (however it was supposed to be spelled) was her last name. Funny, she didn't look Irish. Certainly, she didn't interact much with the very Irish characters of Trapper and Father Mulcahy. (Then again, Hawaii Five-O -- also on CBS, both the 1968-80 classic version and the 2010-20 reboot -- had a character named Chin Ho Kelly.)

But, twice, including in the next-to-last episode, "As Time Goes By," Margaret called her "Lieutenant Nakahara," suggesting that the actress' name was also the character's name. She said a few times that she was from Hawaii. In the real-time Season 8 episode "Life Time," she said she was (ethnically) half-Chinese and half-Hawaiian. But Nakahara is a Japanese name. And in the Season 10 episode "Communication Breakdown," she spoke fluent Japanese. Despite her previously-stated ancestry, and many chances to speak to wounded Chinese soldiers, at no time is she shown speaking Chinese.

Nor is Kellye ever shown speaking Korean, the language of the country they're actually in. Ironically, the only main character who shows any facility with Korean is Radar, who has some difficulty with English!

Indeed, it would have made sense (for any organization but this fictional version of the 1950s U.S. Army) to have a translator there. That could have been a good role for Kellye, and it would have given Nakahara much more screen time, instead of what she usually did: Stand in the background, assist the surgeons, or respond to requests: "Yes, Doctor," or (to Margaret), "Yes, Major."

Despite the "New Wave of Feminism" being underway by the time the show debuted in 1972, the nurse characters, aside from Margaret, really got short shrift, an issue addressed in the final season (Fall 1982), in an episode titled "Who Knew?" when one of the nurses dies in an accident, and no one seems to have learned much about her, not even Hawkeye, with whom she was on a date right before she died.

We know there were nurses named Able, Baker and Charlie (a reference to the "military alphabet"). A black nurse named Lieutenant Ginger Bayless (Odessa Cleveland) was a constant in Season 1. A nurse named Lieutenant Peggy Bigelow was frequently mentioned and shown, usually played by Enid Kent.

But the actresses playing these specific characters tended to change. This made no freakin' sense. The only nurse who tended to get significant screen time (if only to be in the background or to interact with Margaret and the doctors) was Kellye. And she was so underused, we might as well have called her "Uhura." (While Uhura is a Swahili name, like Obama, maybe, like Obama, it could sound Japanese.)

There's a few anachronisms as well. At one point, Hawkeye, hearing a lot of letters of Army acronyms spoken, mockingly sings, "M-O-U-S-E." The Mickey Mouse Club didn't start airing until 1955, 2 years after the war ended. In another episode, he references the assassination of Albert Anastasia, king of the New York Mob, which happened in 1957. And while Indochina is referenced in an episode, in the finale, it's called "Vietnam," and I'm not sure how widespread that name was in 1953.

The biggest anachronisms are the hairstyles. This was the Army. This was the 1950s. No way would Hawkeye, B.J. and Klinger have had that much hair. And I don't think the Fifties Army would have allowed B.J. to grow a mustache. Granted, Major Sidney Freedman, the Brooklynite psychiatrist played by Allan Arbus in one episode every season, had a mustache, but, being older and higher-ranking, they might have given him some leeway.

Another problem is the ages of the characters. When the show began, Burghoff was 29 playing 19, and mainly got away with it because he was short and had a high voice; when he left, he was 36 and balding, playing 21 or so. How old was Klinger? We're led to believe he was a street kid, who might've been soon out of high school, but he sometimes called Radar "Kid." Farr was 38 at the show's start. When the show ended, he was 49, and now playing a character possibly less than half his age!

Once, Charles specifically mentioned that he was "Harvard, Class of '43." This would make him 30 or so when he arrived. Granted, being bald and overweight didn't help, but did Stiers look only 30 to you? He was 35; when the show ended, if we believe his '43 reference, he was 41 playing about 32.

And none of the characters, except Potter, are mentioned as having served in World War II, which ended 5 years before the Korean War began. Not even Margaret, who, because of her father, has lived on Army bases her entire life. Clearly, she's qualified to be a U.S. Army Major, so she's probably at least 30. Which means she was at least 25 when "The Big One" ended. That doesn't mean she was already a combat nurse, but it does mean she was no kid. Certainly, midway through the series, there was a reference to her needing to color her hair to remain blonde.

So, no mention of World War II service for the doctors. Does this mean the doctors (Henry and Potter excepted) had student deferments? This would be understandable, if it meant medical school that could make them military doctors, especially since no one knew until 1945 that the war would end anytime soon.

That makes them at least 30 when the Korean War began, but look at the gray hair that Alan Alda and Mike Farrell had at the end: Alda was 47, Farrell 44. I'm 52 as of this writing, and I don't look nearly as old as any of the doctors, except Wayne Rogers, who played Trapper and always looked good for his age.

Larry Linville was just 4 years older than Gary Burghoff. There's no way that Frank, married with kids and a receding hairline, was just 4 years older than Radar. Though Burghoff usually wore a hat to hide his even more encroaching baldness.

Potter mentioned lying about his age to get into the Army for World War I, but in a later episode, he tells Sidney he's 62, meaning he was 27 when the U.S. got into "Dubya Dubya One," and possibly already a fully-qualified doctor.

The show, about a war that lasted 3 years, ran 11 years, and some of the actors, especially Alda, seemed to have aged even more than that. To again paraphrase General Sherman, fictional war is Hell.

Finally, there's the way the Army is portrayed. A U.S. Army that incompetent wouldn't have won World War II. And there's no way Hawkeye, Trapper and B.J. would've gotten away with half the things they got away with just because they were great surgeons, no matter how many favors Henry and Potter could call in to keep them out of the stockade.

As for Frank, and the even crazier occasional guest star Colonel Flagg, played by Edward Winter, they would have been removed much sooner than they were. Maybe Hawkeye and B.J. wouldn't have been willing to ruin Margaret's career over the truth of her affair with the married Frank later on -- notably, Charles wasn't willing to lie to ruin it and get himself transferred back to his dream job at Tokyo General Hospital -- but early, when she was frequently as bitchy as she wanted to be, oh yeah, Hawkeye and Trapper would have eagerly ruined her and Frank. In the Season 2 episode "The Trial of Henry Blake," they threatened to expose Frank and Margaret if they didn't back off, big-time.

That's the only way Frank, in temporary command after Henry's discharge, could have allowed Hawkeye the 5-day R&R he had in the Season 4 premiere, forcing him to miss Trapper's goodbye. No way Frank agrees to that otherwise.

A prominent feature of the camp was the signpost, with arrows names of cities, and their distances from the camp. The signs, from top to bottom, are: Boston (Trapper and Charles), Seoul (the South Korean capital), Coney Island (could represent Sidney or Zale), San Francisco (B.J. took that arrow home in the finale), Burbank (no character on the original show was said to have come from the Los Angeles area), Death Valley (ditto, and I'm not sure why they would choose one of the few places on the planet more desolate than that section of central Korea to be on the signpost), Toledo (Klinger), and Decatur (not sure if it's the one in Illinois or the one in Georgia, at any rate no character was from either).

In the early seasons, before Klinger was promoted from secondary to primary character (and, in Season 10, from Corporal to Sergeant), there was an Indianapolis sign (no character was said to come from there, although Frank was from Fort Wayne, Indiana), but it was replaced by a Toledo sign. Also, early on, there was a second Seoul sign underneath the Decatur sign, and underneath that there was a Honolulu sign (which could be for Kellye). But why weren't there signs for all the primary characters? At least, for the nearest cities: Portland (Maine, not Oregon) for Hawkeye, Chicago for Henry, St. Louis for Potter, Des Moines (Iowa's capital) for Radar, and Philadelphia for Mulcahy.

But for all the problems with M*A*S*H, it might be the greatest show in the history of television. In its 11 seasons, it won 14 Emmy Awards, including 7 for acting: 3 for Alda, 2 for Swit, and 1 each for Morgan and Burghoff. Alda also won an Emmy for directing, and another for writing.

The 1970 film version was the 1st major studio film to use the word "fuck," or any variant thereof, in its dialogue. The word is spoken during the football game near the end of the film by Captain Walt Waldowski, the camp dentist known as "The Painless Pole," when he says to an opposing football player, "All right, Bud, your fucking head is coming right off!" The actor, John Schuck, said in an interview that Andy Sidaris, who directed the football scene for Robert Altman, encouraged Schuck to "say something that'll annoy him."

The statement made it into the film without a second thought. Previously, under the Hays Code, such a word would have been forbidden, but the Motion Picture Association of America allowed it -- with an R rating.

Likewise, the TV show may have been the 1st to use the phrase, "You son of a bitch!" It was used 3 times: Twice by Hawkeye, to a Korean Colonel, and in the finale to Sidney Freedman for making him un-repress a horrifying memory; and once to him, by a General whose son Hawkeye was unable to save.

Three times on M*A*S*H, one of the antagonistic Majors borrowed the "I'm a doctor, not a… " line of DeForest Kelley's Leonard "Bones" McCoy on Star Trek. In the Season 5 episode "End Run," Frank sees a soldier with a wounded leg, and says, "Yuck!" Hawkeye says, "Frank, have you ever heard of 'patient morale'?" Frank says, "I'm a doctor, not an entertainer!" Hawkeye says, "You could've fooled me!"

In the Season 8 episode "The Yalu Brick Road," most of the camp is stricken with salmonella, and Margaret demands that Charles help her wash sheets. Charles, a chauvinist on top of everything else, says, "Margaret, I'm a doctor, not a woman!" In the Season 9 episode "The Foresight Saga," Charles objects to letting a teenage Korean boy whose village had been bombed stay in the Swamp's spare bunk: "I'm a doctor, not a social worker!"

In the Season 6 episode "The M*A*S*H Olympics," Charles offered a variation: When Potter saw him, Hawkeye, B.J., Margaret, Klinger and Mulcahy unable, between them, to push an overturned ambulance into an upright position, but 4 MPs could, he reminded them, "You people are in sorry shape! This is a mobile hospital! If we ever have to bug out, you people won't be able to lift a tent pole!" Charles said, "I'm a surgeon! I'm not a circus roustabout!" And in the Season 10 episode "A Holy Mess," when Margaret asked him how she was supposed to soft-boil an egg if water won't boil, he said, "I'm a surgeon, not a Hindu philosopher."

The last episode, running 2 1/2 hours, aired on February 28, 1983. Over 105 million viewers watched, making it the most-watched scripted episode in the history of American television, breaking the record set a little over 2 years earlier in the episode of Dallas where they finally answered the question of who shot J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman).

The record looks safe for all time, given the fragmentation of TV since (there were still only 3 major networks when the episode aired), and the fact that several much-hyped finales since then haven't come close: Cheers got 80 million in 1993, Seinfeld got 76 million in 1998, and, combined, The Sopranos in 2007, Breaking Bad in 2013 and Game of Thrones in 2019 got "only" 36 million.

Indeed, among all U.S.-based TV single-network broadcasts (not counting coverage of live news events), only 8 have ever gotten more viewers than the M*A*S*H finale. All of them have been Super Bowls: XLIV, XLV, XLVI, XLVII, XLVIII, XLIX (on February 1, 2015, New England Patriots over Seattle Seahawks, the record holder at 114 million), 50 and LI.

Incidentally, the most-watched Major League Baseball game ever was Game 7 of the 1986 World Series, New York Mets over Boston Red Sox, 60 million; the most-watched basketball game ever was Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan in his then-presumed last game, Chicago Bulls over Utah Jazz, 29 million; and the most-watched hockey game ever was the 1980 Winter Olympic Gold Medal Game, U.S. over Finland, 33 million. In other words, the 3 most-watched games in the other "Big Four" North American sports, combined, had 112 million viewers, 2 million fewer than the most-watched Super Bowl.

Over the course of the show, the following characters appeared in this many episodes: Hawkeye, 251 (the only one to appear in all of them); Margaret, 236; Klinger, 216; Mulcahy, 213; Radar, 181; Potter, 180; B.J., 179; Kellye 167, more than 4 "regulars"; Charles, 131; Frank, 121; Trapper, 72; Henry, 72; Igor, 48; Ginger, 22; Zale, 20; Rizzo, 13; Sidney, 12; Ugly John, 11; Brigadier General Crandall Clayton, the official commanding officer of all 5 MASH units in Seasons 1 and 2, played by Herb Voland, 7; Flagg, 7; Spearchucker, 6.

And the characters had their names, or at least their nicknames, used in the titles of this many episodes: Hawkeye, 9; Margaret, 6; 4 each for Henry and Radar; Charles, 2; and 1 each for B.J., Potter and Mulcahy.

Herb Voland died in 1981, Johnny Haymer in 1989, Keye Luke (a veteran Asian actor who played 3 different roles in the series) in 1991, John Orchard in 1995, McLean Stevenson in 1996, Richard Hornberger in 1997, Larry Linville in 2000, Edward Winter in 2001, producer Larry Gelbart in 2009, Harry Morgan in 2011, Allan Arbus in 2013, Wayne Rogers in 2015, and William Christopher in 2016.

David Ogden Stiers, Soon-Tek Oh (who played 5 different roles in the series), John Fujioka (who played 3 different roles) and Beeson Carroll (who played Margaret's brief husband, Lieutenant Colonel Donald Penobscott, in his debut appearance) died in 2018. Kellye Nakahara, producer Gene Reynolds, and theme song composer Johnny Mandel died in 2020. Mike Henry (who played Penobscott in the character's 2nd and last on-screen appearance) died in 2021, and producer Burt Metcalfe in 2022.

As of September 17, 2022, the 50th Anniversary of the pilot, Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, Gary Burghoff, Jamie Farr, Mike Farrell, Odessa Cleveland, Enid Kent, Jeff Maxwell, G.W. Bailey, Eileen Saki (bar owner Rosie) and Rosalind Chao (Soon-Lee, the Korean refugee that Klinger marries in the series finale) are still alive.

UPDATE: Eileen Saki died in 2023. Loretta Swit died in 2025.

It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much influence by television, and, at the same time, not enough of it. A lot of TV went too far, but there was also a lot of bad TV, and some of the good TV didn't go as far enough in doing good that it could have.

*

September 17, 1972 was a Sunday. It was also the day that ABC's police drama The Streets of San Francisco premiered, starring Karl Malden and Michael Douglas. Also debuting, interestingly enough, was an American celebrity of Korean descent: Comedian Bobby Lee, best known as a member of the cast of the sketch comedy series MADtv.

There was another debut that day: The Harry S Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City, Missouri. The new home of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs, Arrowhead Stadium, opened. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, like their last game at Kansas City Municipal Stadium, a Playoff game the preceding Christmas Day, they lost to the Miami Dolphins, in this case 20-10. Nobody knew it yet, but the Dolphins had begun what remains, through the 2021 season, the only undefeated-and-untied Championship season in NFL history.

The following April, adjacent to Arrowhead, Royals Stadium opened. It was renamed Kauffman Stadium in 1993. Both the Chiefs and the Royals still play at the Complex.

Other NFL games played that day:

* The New York Jets beat the Buffalo Bills, 41-24 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo. Joe Namath completed only 5 of 14 passes, 1 for a touchdown. But the Bills couldn't stop the Jets' ground game, as John Riggins rushed for 125 yards and a touchdown, and Emerson Boozer rushed for 50 yards and 2 touchdowns.

The Jets' defense held O.J. Simpson to only 41 rushing yards. He actually had more passing yards, 46, going 2-for-2 with an option pass to J.D. Hill for a 21-yard touchdown in the 3rd quarter.

* The New York Giants lost to the Detroit Lions, 30-16 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Cincinnati Bengals beat the New England Patriots, 31-7 at Schaefer Stadium (later Sullivan Stadium and Foxboro Stadium) in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Baltimore Colts, 10-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Johnny Unitas, starting what turned out to be his last season for the Colts, went 22-for-36 for 257 yards, but had no touchdown passes and 2 interceptions.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Oakland Raiders, 34-28 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Cleveland Browns, 26-10 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Chicago Bears, 37-21 at Soldier Field in Chicago.

* The Dallas Cowboys beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 28-6 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

* The Denver Broncos beat the Houston Oilers, 30-17 at Mile High Stadium in Denver.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the New Orleans Saints, 34-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The San Francisco 49ers beat the San Diego Chargers, 34-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* The next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Washington Redskins beat the Minnesota Vikings, 24-21 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

And these games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles, 2-1 at Yankee Stadium. Fritz Peterson outpitched Dave McNally. Felipe Alou hit a home run for the Pinstripes. Brooks Robinson went O's-for-4.

* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 6-4 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Willie Mays was available for the Mets in this game, but did not play. For unlisted reasons, Met starter Jim McAndrew left after only 2 innings, having allowed 2 runs. He made his last 3 starts of the season, although he didn't pitch well in any of them, so it might not have been due to injury. Maybe it was just a precaution.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Buddy Bell hit a home run in support of Gaylord Perry. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 3-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt, who'd made his major league debut 6 days earlier, went 1-for-3. (In that debut, he got a hit off McAndrew. The day before this, he hit the 1st of his 548 career home runs, off Balor Moore.)

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 7-4 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Hank Aaron hit the 670th home run of his career.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Cincinnati Reds, 10-7 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 1-for-5. Johnny Bench went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Al Kaline went 1-for-4.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 10-6 at Metropolitan Stadium. (The Vikings played there the next night, so there was time to convert it for football use.) Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-2 before leaving the game due to an injury. Rod Carew only appeared as a pinch-hitter and, uncharacteristically, struck out. The Royals led 6-0 going into the bottom of the 8th inning, but the Angels sent it to extra innings, and then the Royals scored 4 runs in the top of the 10th inning to win it.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Lou Brock went 2-for-3 with a walk. Joe Torre had an unusual day: He came to the plate 4 times, but was only charged with 1 at-bat: He had a sacrifice fly for an RBI, was hit with a pitch, and drew a walk, none of which is an official at-bat according to the rules, before flying out. For the Pirates, Roberto Clemente went 3-for-5. Willie Stargell went 1-for-5.

* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 15-11 at the Astrodome in Houston. Yes, that's a baseball game, not football. Lee May of the Astros and Willie Davis of the Dodgers hit home runs. May and César Cedeño each had 5 RBIs. May went 4-for-6, and Jimmy Wynn went 4-for-5 with 3 RBIs.

Frank Robinson, in his only season with the Dodgers, went 0-for-4, but did draw a walk. Bobby Valentine -- yes, that Bobby V -- went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs. He was a decent player until injuries took their toll.

* The California Angels beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers, 4-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Jim "Catfish" Hunter went the distance for his 20th win of the season, and Reggie Jackson went 2-for-2 with 2 walks.

Also on this day, as a warmup for the Moscow half of the "Summit Series," Team Canada played the 2nd of back-to-back exhibition games against Sweden. After winning the night before, 4-1, they played to a 4-4 draw. Both games were played at Johanneshovs Isstadion, a.k.a. "Hovet," in the national capital of Stockholm.

September 15, 1950: The Incheon Landing

September 15, 1950: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of United Nations forces, launches what amounts to the Korean War's "D-Day," an amphibious landing of 40,000 infantry from 230 ships.

On June 25, troops of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (a.k.a. North Korea), a Communist nation, and by no means democratic or a republic -- crossed the parallel of 38th degrees north latitude, and invaded the Republic of Korea (a.k.a. South Korea), which was capitalist, but hardly free.

Two days later, President Harry S Truman announced that American and other NATO forces would come to the aid of South Korea. The next day, North Korean troops took the South Korean capital of Seoul. But it was not just NATO troops, but 15 United Nations countries that came to the South's aid.

At first, it looked like that aid might be too late. On August 5, North Korea had South Korean troops backed up into the southeastern corner of the peninsula, centered on the city of Pusan (now usually written in English as "Busan"). They held what became known as the Pusan Perimeter. It was a siege, but the ROK troops were holding on.

There would be no evacuation, the way the Nationalist Chinese had gone to Taiwan the previous year; the American troops had done in the Philippines in 1942, by escaping to Australia; or the British troops had done at Dunkirk in 1940 by retreating to their home island.

It wasn't just a matter of pride: The South Koreans had no place to go. American troops could have evacuated them to the nearest friendly country, but that would be Japan, where "friendly" was a bit of a stretch: That nation had occupied them from 1910 (and had effectively ruled them from 1876) until the end of World War II in 1945 -- just 5 years earlier. And Japan was still in the rebuilding process: Taking on millions of Korean refugees was not part of the plan of their military governor.

That was MacArthur, the 70-year-old 5-star General who had been commander of Allied forces in the Pacific. In spite of his age, there was no one more qualified to lead the mission than "Big Mac." As with D-Day, the invasion of Normandy in France in 1944, the U.S. had a deception operation underway, to convince the enemy that the invasion would be elsewhere -- in this case, at Kunsan, 105 miles to the south. The Communist spy network bought it.

After 5 days of bombing to provide air support, MacArthur, invading with his troops as he had at Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in 1944, gave the green light on September 15. The invasion began at 6:30 AM, local time. As with Normandy, there were invasion points given different code names: Green Beach, Red Beach and Blue Beach. The U.N. lost 224 troops; the North Koreans, 1,350.

MacArthur famously didn't like the photo

of him wading ashore in the Philippines in 1944.

I'm thinking he liked this one much more.

Within 2 days, U.S. forces were able to take Kimpo, Seoul's international airport. Within 2 more, they were able to use it to bring more troops in. By September 22, they had over 53,000 men on the ground. By September 25, Red troops had abandoned the Pusan Perimeter, and were attempting to defend their ill-gotten gains at Seoul. On September 28, they had to abandon that.

In a span of 2 weeks, MacArthur had led, for all intents and purposes, the liberation of South Korea. He wanted more: He wanted to kick the Commies completely off the peninsula. He nearly did it: By November 26, 10 weeks after the Incheon landing, he had them backed up to the Yalu River, which separates the Korean peninsula from mainland China (and, technically, makes Korea not a peninsula but an island).

China then intervened on behalf of its Communist "little brother." Again, U.N. troops were pushed below the 38th parallel. By April 1951, they had gained back most of South Korea's territory, and a line cutting southwest-to-northeast across the peninsula became like the trench warfare of World War I, 35 years earlier.

At the end of the calendar year 1950, Time magazine named its first collective "Men of the Year": "The American Fighting Man." In 2000, on the 50th Anniversary of the war, it published a special issue on the year, calling it "the fulcrum point of the 20th Century," not just the midpoint.

MacArthur wanted to use tactical nuclear weapons against China. Truman told him no, because that would get the Soviet Union involved, and it would be World War III. MacArthur let his objections be known to the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Joe Martin of Massachusetts. Martin leaked this to the press. Truman found out, and fired MacArthur for subordination, replacing him with 4-star General Matthew Ridgeway, and later replacing him with 4-star General Mark Clark.

The war became a stalemate, lasting 3 years. About 327,000 Americans served in the conflict, and 36,574 were killed, with another 103,000 wounded but surviving.

It's not clear how many of those wounded, but surviving, were treated at Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, or MASHes, which, due to the 1972-83 CBS TV series M*A*S*H, became popular culture's most familiar story of the Korean War. But, by being close to the front, they were able to save soldiers who surely would have died in the conditions of World War II. But that, and the addition of antibiotics and sulfa in World War II, saved a lot of lives that would have been lost in the conditions of World War I.

Today, Incheon is home to just under 3 million people, making it the 3rd-largest city in South Korea, behind Seoul, with 9.4 million; and Busan, with 3.3 million. Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, has 3.1 million.

*

September 15, 1950 was a Friday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 9-7 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Johnny Mize hit 3 home runs and had 6 RBIs, but it wasn't enough. Tommy Byrne got knocked out of the box in the 2nd inning, and Allie Reynolds ended up the losing pitcher in relief. The winning pitcher, in relief? Hank Borowy, a former Yankee, from nearby Bloomfield, New Jersey. (Not to be confused with the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.)

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Cubs, 4-3 at the Polo Grounds. Hal Jeffcoat singled home Johnny Klippstein with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2 at Ebbets Field. At first, it looked like the Dodgers had caught a break: Cloyd Boyer, older brother of Ken and Clete, was scheduled to start, but took the mound, and left during his warmups. But George "Red" Munger stepped in, and went the distance. Duke Snider hit a home run for the Dodgers, and Don Newcombe went the distance, singling in his own cause. Jackie Robinson did not play. But Stan Musial went 1-for-4 with a walk, and Albert "Red" Schoendienst went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Boston Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-4 at Braves Field in Boston. Ralph Kiner went 1-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Philadelphia Phillies swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 and 8-7 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The 2nd game saw the Phils trailing 5-0 after 5 innings, but a double by Granville "Granny" Hamner sent the game to extra innings. And I do mean "extra": They played what amounted to another game, and then some.

The Reds scored 2 runs in the top of the 18th inning, The Phils tied it, with a double by Del Ennis, a single by Dick Sisler, a sacrifice fly by Hamner, and a triple by Stan Lopata. Then they won it in the bottom of the 19th: Eddie Watkus and Richie Ashburn singled, Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones walked to load the bases with nobody out, and Ennis singled Waitkus home. So fans got to have 28 innings for the price of 9, and, if they were root, root, rooting for the home team, won 2 games.

The Phils, known as the "Whiz Kids" for being mostly a young team, were now 7 1/2 games ahead of the Dodgers with 17 games to play. And yet, they had to go to extra innings of the last game of the season to clinch the Pennant, on a 10th-inning home run by Sisler off Newcombe.

* A doubleheader was split at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Cleveland Indians won the opener, 4-2. Luke Easter hit a 2-run home run in the bottom of the 9th to win it. The Washington Senators won the nightcap, 4-1.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the Boston Red Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 12-9 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Just another day at the office -- or, rather, business trip -- for Ted Williams: The Splendid Splinter went 4-for-6 with a home run and 3 RBIs.

August 8, 1952: Bob Neighbors Is Killed In Action

August 8, 1952: Major Robert Neighbors, U.S. Air Force, is shot down over North Korea. He is believed to be the only major league athlete to have been killed in action in the Korean War. He was 34 years old.

Robert Otis Neighbors was born on November 9, 1917 in Talihina, Oklahoma. After playing baseball for a season at Oklahoma Baptist University, he signed with the St. Louis Browns, who had a farm team in the area. He moved up through their system as a power-hitting shortstop, a rarity in those days.

On September 16, 1939, Bob Neighbors made his major league debut. He entered the game as a late-inning defensive replacement, and the Browns lost to the Washington Senators, 4-0 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. (By a twist of fate, his uniform number has been lost to history: Neither Baseball-Reference.com nor Baseball-Almanac.com nor Wikipedia have it recorded, and no surviving photographs reveal it.)

Neighbors played 7 of the Browns' last 17 games, 5 at shortstop and 2 as a pinch-runner. He fielded 12 chances, with 6 assists, 5 putouts, participating in 1 double play, and making only 1 error. He got 2 hits in 11 at-bats, one of them a home run off Denny Galehouse in a 6-2 Browns loss to the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The Browns finished 43-111, the rock-bottom worst finish for the worst franchise in American League history.

(Galehouse would later help the Browns win their only Pennant in 1944, then go back to the Red Sox, and start and lose their 1948 Playoff for the Pennant with the Cleveland Indians. The Browns became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954, and found some success, but their 111 losses as the '39 Browns remained the worst in the franchise's history, until, in 2018, they lost 115. )

Neighbors never played another major league game. He played for the Toledo Mud Hens in the American Association in 1940. In 1941, he married Winifred Wilcox, and played for the San Antonio Missions in the Texas League. That Summer, while the Missions were on the road, "Winnie" was hit by a car and killed.

"It had a bad effect on Bob," his younger brother Morris said later. "Bob was on the road, and Winnie back home in San Antonio when it happened. He felt that if he had been there, if he had a job where he wasn't traveling, it wouldn't have happened." His hitting also seemed to die, as he fell to a .216 batting average. When Pearl Harbor was bombed at the end of the year, he felt he had enough reason to quit baseball, and joined what was then called the U.S. Army Air Corps.

While serving at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama, he met Katherine "Kitty" Burke, and she became his 2nd wife. He didn't quit baseball entirely, playing for base teams. But when World War II ended, he decided to keep the military as his career, including as player-manager for the Maxwell Field team. In 1947, the Army Air Corps was separated from the Army to become its own branch of the armed forces, the U.S. Air Force. In 1950, Bob became the father of Robert Cameron Neighbors. All seemed well.

Then North Korea invaded South Korea, and President Harry S Truman rallied the United Nations to South Korea's aid. Major Neighbors flew a Douglas Invader with the 13th Bomb Squadron of the 3rd Bomb Group.

On August 8, 1952, he and his crew, also including 1st Lieutenant William Holcom and Staff Sergeant Grady Weeks, flew a night mission over North Korea. They reported being hit by enemy fire, and said they were bailing out. There was no further contact, and they failed to return. They were reported as "Missing In Action" (MIA). After the Truce of Panmunjom ended the war, and all prisoners of war were repatriated, Neighbors, Holcom and Weeks were not among them. It became accepted that they had died in action.

The Browns moved to Baltimore after the 1953 season. The Orioles make no mention of Neighbors in their historical displays at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Although the St. Louis Cardinals have honored Browns legend George Sisler with a statue outside the new Busch Stadium, and have some Browns memorabilia in their in-park Hall of Fame Museum, they make no mention of Neighbors, either.

By a macabre coincidence, like Neighbors, the only Major League Baseball Player who died in the Korean War, the 2 Major League Baseball players to die in combat in World War II also played very briefly, just in the 1939 season, for teams that no longer exist under the names they used at the time.

Elmer Gedeon, a multi-sport star athlete at the University of Michigan, played 5 games in the outfield for the Washington Senators, and was shot down over France in 1944. Harry O'Neill made 1 appearance as a catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics, and died on Iwo Jima in early 1945.

*

August 8, 1952 was a Friday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Giants lost to the Boston Braves, 2-0 at Braves Field in Boston. Max Surkont pitched a 4-hit shutout, and Bob Thorpe went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Willie Mays was serving in the Korean War, and unavailable to the Giants.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-3 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Andy Pafko went 2-for-5 with 5 RBIs, including a 3-run home run in the top of the 10th inning, to make a winning pitcher out of Preacher Roe. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-4. Richie Ashburn went 3-for-4 for the Phillies.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 1-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Murry Dickson went the distance and beyond for the Pirates, winning his own game with a single in the bottom of the 10th inning, allowing just 6 hits in his extra-inning shutout.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-5 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Stan Musial went 1-for-4.

* The Chicago White Sox swept a doubleheader from the Detroit Tigers, 4-3 and 2-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the St. Louis Browns, 10-9 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Bob Feller had the worst performance of his Hall of Fame career, getting knocked out of the box in the 1st inning, allowing 6 runs without getting an out. But the Indians came back from an 8-0 2nd inning deficit, as Bill Glynn won it with a home run leading off the top of the 12th inning, to make a winner in relief out of Early Wynn. That's the kind of franchise the Browns were.

* The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox were rained out at Yankee Stadium. The game was made up on August 11, and the Yankees won, 7-0. Allie Reynolds pitched a 2-hit shutout. Mickey Mantle hit 2 home runs. Ted Williams was serving in the Korean War, and unavailable to the Red Sox.

* And the Philadelphia Athletics and the Washington Senators were rained out at Griffith Stadium in Washington. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 2, and the Senators swept, 3-2 and 5-0. Jackie Jensen won the opener with a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the 10th. Mike Fornieles pitched a 1-hit shutout in the nightcap.