December 24, 1913: The Italian Hall Disaster

December 24, 1913: A crowded Christmas party turns into a disaster -- possibly a massacre -- in Calumet, Michigan.

Calumet is on the Keweenaw Peninsula, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, near Lake Superior. This region of the Upper Midwest -- the U.P., northern Wisconsin, northeastern Minnesota, and the section of Canada's Ontario on the other side of the Lake -- was copper-mining country in the early 20th Century. In 1913, there were 15,000 men working for the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company (C&H), about 9,000 of them belonging to a union, the Western Federation of Miners.

The WFM went on strike on July 23, 1913, demanding recognition of their union, and adjustments to wages, hours and working conditions. On December 24, Christmas Eve, many of the striking miners and their families had gathered for a holiday party, sponsored by the WFM's Ladies Auxiliary. It was held on the 2nd floor of Calumet's Italian Hall, built in 1908.

A steep stairway was the only way to the 2nd floor. However, there was a poorly-marked fire escape on one side of the building, and ladders down the back of the building, which could be reached only by climbing through the windows.

Over 400 were in the room, and someone yelled, "Fire!" Except there was no fire. Still, attendees panicked, and rushed for the stairs. In the ensuing stampede, 73 people were killed -- 59 of them children. So much for "Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men."

No one knows who yelled, "Fire!" or why. It is conjectured by some historians that an anti-union ally of mine management did it to disrupt the party. On March 7, 1914, a Congressional Subcommittee came to the area to investigate. Eight witnesses testified that the man who first yelled, "Fire!" wore a button for the Citizens' Alliance, an anti-union organization, on his coat. But no one was ever prosecuted in connection with the disaster.

The folksinger Woody Guthrie was just 1 year old at the time, but, during his career, he always on the lookout for subjects about which to write, and he wrote "1913 Massacre" about the disaster, releasing it in 1945. Clearly, he believed the union-buster story, writing the line, "It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you."

One story about the disaster that has lingered is that the doors at the bottom of the Hall's stairs opened inward, making it hard to open them to let the people out. This wasn't true: They opened out. Eleven years to the day later, doors opening inward would be part of the reason so many died in a school fire in Babbs Switch, Oklahoma.

The Italian Hall remained in use until it was demolished in 1984. The archway, shown at the bottom left of the photo above, was preserved for a memorial park.

It is 566 miles northwest of Detroit, 278 miles northwest of the Mackinac Bridge, 428 miles north of Chicago, 338 miles north of Milwaukee, 223 miles north of Green Bay, 339 miles northeast of Minneapolis, and 231 miles east of Duluth. It's also about 300 miles west, across Lake Superior, from the site of another disaster, the final resting place of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in 1975.

*

December 24, 1913 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Professional football and basketball barely existed. There were no college football games played that day. There was no hockey, either: The National Hockey Association season began 3 days later, and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, while already underway, had no games scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

December 23, 1975: The Reserve Clause Is Killed

Peter Seitz

December 23, 1975: The reserve clause is struck down, changing baseball forever.

The clause -- nothing Christmassy about this -- began in 1879, when the National League instituted it, allowing teams to reserve players for each season, unless a player opted out of his contract and did not play in the league for a year. This allowed the team owners to control salaries, since the players could not play one team owner off another and get higher bids for their salaries.

In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed. To some people in baseball, the reserve clause sounded like a violation of that act. In 1922, in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled otherwise, saying, in a 9-0 unanimous vote, baseball was an "amusement," therefore did not constitute "interstate commerce," and therefore antitrust laws did not to apply to it. That ruling has never been overturned by a later Supreme Court ruling.

So opponents of the reserve clause had to find another way to get it struck down. In 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals traded Curt Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies, and, having a home and a business in St. Louis, and believing Philadelphia to be a racist city, he didn't want to go. He contacted the Chairman of the Major League Baseball Players' Association, Marvin Miller, to see what could be done about it.

Curt Flood

Miller decided that the reserve clause was a legitimate basis for negotiation in collective bargaining between players and owners. The case of Flood v. Kuhn went to the Supreme Court in 1972, and the decision was 5-3 in favor of the owners.

Finally, Miller got the team owners to agree to impartial arbitration. What he needed was two players to challenge the clause, by playing the 1975 season without signing a contract. This was because Miller realized that the clause only reserved the player for one year. The owners had always interpreted it to mean the player was reserved until he was released: Even if traded, his new team assumed the reservation.

Marvin Miller

It had to be two players, so that it wouldn't look like one embittered player, as Flood, fairly or not, seemed to be. Both players turned out to be pitchers. Dave McNally had been traded from the Baltimore Orioles to the Montreal Expos, and had determined that 1975 would be his last season, as he planned to retire to his ranch in Montana. So he had nothing to lose.

Andy Messersmith had much to lose. Born on the Jersey Shore in Toms River, and raised in the Orange County suburbs of Los Angeles, the righthander was 29, and had gone 20-6 in helping the Los Angeles Dodgers win the National League Pennant in 1974. He was in position to make a great deal of money if he could put his skills up for bid. But Miller convinced him that striking the reserve clause down was more important. So he played the '75 season with the Dodgers, without a contract, turned 30, and went 19-14.

Andy Messersmith

In an interview with The Sporting News for the 10th Anniversary of the decision, Messersmith said, "It was less of an economic issue at the time than a fight for the right to have control over your own destiny. It was a matter of being tired of going in to negotiate a contract and hearing the owners say, 'OK, here's what you're getting. Tough luck.'"

The owners were terrified. There is one thing that a sports team owner values more than money, and that is control. If the clause were struck down, the owners would have to pay more in salaries, but, from their perspective, the bigger problem was that they would lose some measure of control over the players' fates. They could have compromised, but were too stubborn and set in their ways to do so.

So the decision went to arbitration. A three-man panel was chosen. Miller represented the players. John Gaherin, the chief negotiator of the MLB Player Relations Committee, argued on behalf of the team owners. Together, they found an arbitrator acceptable to both of them: Peter Seitz, a 67-year-old lawyer who had negotiated New York City's labor relations law a decade earlier.

On December 23, the ruling was handed down. Surprising no one, Miller sided with the players, and Gaherin sided with the owners. Seitz had the deciding vote, and he sided with the players, saying:

The grievances of Messersmith and McNally are sustained. There is no contractual bond between these players and the Los Angeles and the Montreal clubs, respectively. Absent such a contract, their clubs had no right or power, under the Basic Agreement, the Uniform Player Contract or the Major League Rules to reserve their services for their exclusive use for any period beyond the renewal year in the contracts which these players had heretofore signed with their clubs...

The leagues involved in these proceedings, without delay, shall take such steps as may be necessary to inform and instruct their member clubs that the provisions of Major League Rules 4-A(a) and 3(g) do not inhibit, prohibit or prevent such clubs from negotiating or dealing with respect to employment with the grievants in this case; also, that Messersmith shall be removed from the reserve list of the Los Angeles Club and McNally from the reserve or disqualified lists of the Montreal Club.

The next day, the owners fired Seitz as arbitrator. But that did nothing to change the official result of his decision: The reserve clause was mortally wounded. It wasn't quite dead, as the owners had the right to appeal. On February 4, 1976, the Seitz decision was upheld in a federal district court. On March 10, it was upheld in a federal appeals court.

Finally, rather than take the apparently inevitable beatdown from the U.S. Supreme Court, the owners decided to make a deal. On July 12, an agreement was reached on a 4-year labor deal, giving players with at least 6 years' play in the major leagues the right to free agency. (This would later be reduced to 5 years.) Finally, on August 2, 1976, the players voted on ratification, and the reserve clause was formally buried.

A few years later, Cardinals owner and Anheuser-Busch beer magnate Gussie Busch met with the man he had traded to unwittingly set all this in motion, Curt Flood. No owner had been more vehement than Busch that the reserve clause had to be maintained, or else baseball would be "destroyed." But Busch told Flood he was right, and the owners were wrong, and apologized to him.

Flood had sacrificed his career for Messersmith and all the players who came after him. Messersmith signed with the Atlanta Braves, for $1 million over 3 years. But he didn't pan out with them, due to injuries. He went 11-11 in 1976, and only 5-4 in 1977. He was traded to the Yankees for 1978, but made only 7 appearances, going 0-3.

The Yankees released him, and, with some irony, he signed as a free agent with the Dodgers. This was possible because their owner, Walter O'Malley, champion of the cheap, had died, and his son, Peter O'Malley, was one of the owners willing to pay big money if he thought it would bring big results. In Messersmith's case, it didn't: He made just 11 appearances, going 2-4, and was done at age 34.

Messersmith later coached at a community college in Northern California, while McNally worked on his ranch and ran a car dealership. Neither worked in professional baseball again.

Seitz died in 1983, Flood in 1997, McNally in 2002, Miller in 2012. As of December 23, 2022, Messersmith is still alive, age 76.

*

December 23, 1975 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 7 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 110-108 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* The Buffalo Braves beat the Boston Celtics, 101-92 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Washington Bullets beat the Detroit Pistons, 120-102 at Cobo Hall in Detroit.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Chicago Bulls, 103-94 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Kansas City Kings, 111-97 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The Golden State Warriors beat the New Orleans Jazz, 105-97 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat their arch-rivals, the Seattle SuperSonics, 125-100 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

There were 3 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 107-102 at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Julius "Dr. J" Erving scored 31 points.

* The Spirits of St. Louis (that was their official name, not "The St. Louis Spirits") beat the Virginia Squires, 115-103 at The Scope in Norfolk.

* And the Indiana Pacers beat the San Antonio Spurs, 111-106 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

There were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Boston Celtics, 4-3 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia Flyers and the Atlanta Flames played to a tie, 2-2 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Buffalo Sabres beat the Kansas City Scouts, 5-1 at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City. It's now named the Hy-Vee Arena, and the Scouts became the Colorado Rockies in 1976, and the New Jersey Devils in 1982.

And there were 5 games played in the World Hockey Association:

* The Phoenix Roadrunners beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 5-3 at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati. (The arena is now the Heritage Bank Center.)

* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the Denver Spurs, 5-4 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

* The Calgary Cowboys beat the Toronto Tors, 10-1 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Edmonton Oilers, 6-2 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* And the San Diego Mariners beat the Quebec Nordiques, 10-4 at the San Diego Sports Arena. (The arena is now the Pechanga Arena.) 

December 8, 1962: The New York Newspaper Strike

December 8, 1962: The New York Typographical Union goes on strike. This means the newspapers of New York City have to stop publication.

This includes the broadsheets: The New York Times, The New York Herald Tribune, The New York Journal American, and the New York World-Telegram & Sun. It also includes the tabloids: The Daily News, the New York Post and the New York Mirror. And it included 2 papers on Long Island, both broadsheets: The Long Island Star Journal and the Long Island Daily Press. Newsday, a Long Island-based tabloid, was not affected.

New York had been a newspaper city for over 100 years. Even the growth of radio hadn't stopped that. Nor had the 1924 merger of the Herald, once the paper of James Gordon Bennett Sr. and Jr., with the Tribune, once the paper of Horace Greeley and the leading voice of the drive to abolish slavery in America prior to the Civil War.

Nor had the merger of the morning American and the afternoon Journal, both owned by William Randolph Hearst's company, in 1937. Nor had the merger of the World, once the paper of Joseph Pulitzer and the publisher of The World Almanac, with the Telegram in 1931, or the 1950 merger of the combined "World-Telly" with The Sun, the paper that declared in an 1897 editorial, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

Nor had radio really hurt the newspaper business. Quite the contrary: Many of the early radio stations were founded by newspapers, and provided a great new source of revenue for them. Indeed, Chicago's best-known radio station, WGN, was founded by The Chicago Tribune, which named the station for the nickname it had chosen for itself: "The World's Greatest Newspaper."

But what radio didn't do, or even try to do, television, however inadvertently, did: It killed the institutions of the afternoon newspaper and the evening newspaper. It was bad enough for papers that there was a 6:00 news broadcast on local TV stations every night. But with the addition of an 11:00 news for when people were going to bed, and the promos throughout prime-time programming of a story they could watch on the news, with the tagline, "Film at 11," the need for an afternoon or an evening paper was gone.

The union knew they had the squeeze on the papers. The papers knew it, too. The strike dragged on through Christmas, New Year's, and the entire Winter. On March 4, 1963, the Post negotiated a separate peace. Finally, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. brought the sides to the bargaining table. On March 24, the strike was settled.

New York has had newspaper strikes since, but no strike in the history of the American labor movement has hurt an industry more than this one. Several of the papers never recovered. The Mirror published its last edition on October 16, 1963. My grandmother, who grew up in Queens, said it was no great loss: It was a conservative paper of low quality.

The remaining papers did whatever they could to survive, from cutting costs by laying off famous columnists to appealing to the rising Baby Boom generation. The Journal American, in particular, had gambled on gaining younger readers with heavy coverage of The Beatles' visits in 1964 and 1965, something you wouldn't expect a conservative broadsheet to do.

They even hired the famed "pop psychologist," Dr. Joyce Brothers, to analyze the Beatles from a distance. And they had the top entertainment columnist in New York, Dorothy Kilgallen, "The Voice of Broadway" and one of the panelists on CBS' What's My Line?, write about rock and roll for the first time.

But they lost their biggest asset on November 8, 1965, when Kilgallen died. The next year, a long-running power struggle between Hearst company CEO Richard Berlin and the Hearst family did the paper in. The paper's last edition was published on April 24, 1966.

The E.W. Scripps Company gave up on the World-Telegram & Sun the day before, April 23, 1966. The Daily News bought the rights to The World Almanac, and its parent company still publishes it today, although it's really a waste of money to publish a 1,000-page almanac, given how easy it is to look things up on the Internet.

The Herald Tribune, long the beacon of America's "liberal Republicans," with one of the finest sports sections in the country, hung on a little longer, until August 15, 1966. It was the most direct competitor to The New York Times, a.k.a. "The Paper of Record," which eulogized:

The death of The New York Herald Tribune stills a voice that for a century and a quarter exerted a powerful influence in the affairs of nation, state and city. It was a competitor of ours, but a competitor that sought survival on the basis of quality, originality and integrity, rather than sensationalism or doctrinaire partisanship.

For a while, the 3 papers that failed that year tried to band together: The World Journal Tribune began publishing on September 12, 1966. But instead of combining the best aspects of all 3 papers, it seemed to combine the worst ones, and the money problems of all 3. The WJT, or "Widget," never caught on, and Scripps (W-T&S) and Hearst (J-A) pulled the plug on May 5, 1967.

And so, New York City, which had 10 daily newspapers as recently as 1924, and 7 as recently as the Summer of 1963, was down to 3: The Times, the Daily News and the Post. The Daily News and the Post have each survived 2 existential crises since then, as well as their ideological flip-flop of 1976: Rupert Murdoch bought the Post, turning it from a paper for liberal intellectuals, especially Jewish ones, to a populist conservative paper, as the Daily News had been; and the News then became a liberal paper, though still taking conservative positions on crime in New York (helping Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani get elected Mayor), the Israeli-Arab conflict, and Cuba.

One more note: A survey showed that 1963 was the first year in which a majority of Americans said that they got more of their news from TV than from newspapers. The New York newspaper strike of December 8, 1962 until March 31, 1963 may have had something to do with that.

*

December 8, 1962 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. The college football regular season had ended the day before. But each of the 2 pro football leagues of the time played 1 game. In the NFL, the Baltimore Colts beat the Washington Redskins, 34-21 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. And in the American Football League, the New York Titans, forerunners of the Jets, lost to the Buffalo Bills, 20-3 at the Polo Grounds.

There were 4 games in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Detroit Pistons, 87-78 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Boston Celtics, 102-97 at the Onondaga War Memorial Arena in Syracuse. This was the last season for the Nats, who moved the next season, becoming the Philadelphia 76ers. Their arena still stands, as the Upstate Medical University Arena.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 131-128 at the Cincinnati Gardens. For the Lakers, Elgin Baylor scored 33, and Jerry West and Rudy LaRusso each scored 28. Oscar Robertson of the Royals led all scorers on the day with 42, but it wasn't enough.

* And the St. Louis Hawks beat the San Francisco Warriors, 145-129 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Wilt Chamberlain scored 39 for the Warriors, but the Hawks got 26 from Bob Pettit, 24 from Cliff Hagan, and 21 from John Barnhill.

There were 3 games played in the NHL, as all of the "Original Six" teams were in action:

* The New York Rangers played the Boston Bruins to a tie, 3-3 at the Boston Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks played the Toronto Maple Leafs to a tie, 1-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. 

November 21, 1927: The Columbine Mine Massacre

November 21, 1927: The Colorado State Police open fire on 500 rowdy but unarmed miners during a strike in Serene, killing 6 of them. It becomes known as the Columbine Mine Massacre.

This should not be confused with the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado in 1914, or with the Columbine High School Massacre in Littleton in 1999.

A Statewide coal miners' strike began on August 8, called for by the leftist International Workers of the World (IWW), looking for a $1.00 per day wage increase. The company town of Serene was the home of the Columbine mine. The strikers had been conducting morning rallies at Serene for 2 weeks, since the Columbine was one of the few coal mines in the State to remain in operation.

On November 21, 500 miners, some accompanied by their wives and children, arrived at the north gate just before dawn, carrying 3 U.S. flags. The recently disbanded State Police known as the Colorado Rangers were recalled to duty, and barred the picketers' path.

The miners were surprised to see men dressed in civilian clothes but armed with pistols, rifles, riot guns and tear gas. The Rangers were backed up by rifle-toting mine guards stationed on the mine dump. The Head of the Rangers, Louis Scherf, shouted to the strikers, "Who are your leaders?" "We're all leaders!" came the reply.

Scherf announced that the strikers would not be allowed into the town, and for a few moments, the strikers hesitated outside the fence. There was discussion, with many strikers asserting their right to proceed. They argued that Serene had a public post office, and some of their children were enrolled in the school in Serene. One of the Rangers reportedly taunted, "If you want to come in here, come ahead, but we'll carry you out."

Strike leader Adam Bell stepped forward and asked for the gate to be unlocked. As he put his hand on the gate, one of the Rangers struck him with a club. A sixteen-year-old boy stood nearby and was holding one of the flags. The banner was snatched from him, and in the tug of war that followed, the flagpole broke over the fence.

The miners rushed toward the gate, and suddenly the air was filled with tear gas launched by the police. Enraged, the strikers forced their way through the wooden gate. At least two, and possibly three, machine guns were available at the mine. Miners later claimed that their ranks were decimated by a withering crossfire from the mine tipple – a structure where coal was loaded onto railroad cars – and from a gun on a truck near the water tank. Five died initially on the day of the massacre.

No one was ever charged with any crimes as a result of the deaths. On January 12, 1928, two more people were killed by police raiding the IWW's hall in Walsenburg, Colorado while strikers were rallying there. In May, the strikers got their extra dollars a day.

*

November 21, 1927 was a Monday. Georgia Frontiere, eventually to be the owner of the Los Angeles Rams, who moved them first down the Freeway to Anaheim, and then halfway across the country to her hometown of St. Louis, was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And there were no games scheduled in the NHL. So there were no game on this historic day.

November 19, 1915: Joe Hill Is Executed

November 19, 1915: Labor activist Joe Hill is executed by firing squad at Sugar House Prison in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was 36 years old.

Born on October 7, 1879 as Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden, he and his brother Paul immigrated to America in 1902. He went across the country, ending up in San Francisco, and was there when the 1906 earthquake hit.

In 1910, he took the name Joe Hillstrom, began working on the docks in the San Pedro section of Los Angeles, and joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, a.k.a. "The Wobblies"). They were leftists, and were already celebrating labor in song. He took to this, and began writing poems and songs under the name Joe Hill, never knowing that he would be immortalized in song under that name.

In 1868, S. Fillmore Bennett and Joseph P. Webster wrote the Christian hymn "The Sweet By-and-By." It is mostly forgotten today. Better-remembered is Hill's parody of it, "The Preacher and the Slave":

Long-haired preachers come out every night

try to tell you what's wrong and what's right

but when asked, How 'bout something to eat?

they will answer in voices so sweet:

You will eat, bye and bye

in that glorious land above the sky.

Work and pray, live on hay

you'll get pie in the sky when you die.

Thus was coined the phrase "pie in the sky." And whenever Joe sang all 3 verses and 3 full choruses, his audience would respond, "And that's a lie!"

On January 10, 1914, Hill was working in the Silver King Mine in Park City, Utah, outside Salt Lake City. That night, John G. Morrison and his son Arling Morrison were killed in their grocery store in Salt Lake City by two armed intruders, masked in red bandanas. It had not been all that long since the days of the Wild West: Robert LeRoy Parker, a.k.a. Butch Cassidy, had committed his last robbery in his home State of Utah only 13 years earlier.

Nothing was stolen from the store, so the police first considered that the motive was revenge: John Morrison had been a police officer, and had enemies. There were 12 different people arrested before Hill was considered a suspect.

That same night, Hill met a doctor. He said he'd been shot in the chest, in an argument over a woman, though he wouldn't give her name. The doctor reported that Hill had a pistol with him. When his room at a boarding house was searched, a red bandana was found.

Hill denied killing the Morrisons. He denied ever having met them. The murder weapon was never found. The red bandana that was found proved nothing: Lots of men had one. There was no evidence that he was at the store that night. And four other men were treated for bullet wounds in Salt Lake City that night.

At his trial, the prosecution produced 12 eyewitnesses who said the killer resembled Hill. One was Merlin Morrison, age 13, son of one victim and brother of the other. At the trial, he identified Hill as the killer. But when originally question, Merlin said, "That's not him."

The jury took only a few hours to find Hill guilty. Hill appealed, but the Utah Supreme Court upheld the earlier verdict. Orrin Hilton, who represented him in the appeal, said, "The main thing the State had on Hill was that he was a Wobbly, and therefore sure to be guilty."

Hill never testified on his own behalf. A recent biographer has suggested that he saw himself worth more to the movement as a martyr than as a living songwriter and agitator. At any rate, the real killer of the Morrisons has never been identified.

On November 19, 1915, Hill wrote to IWW leader Big Bill Haywood, whom he knew: "Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize." He also wrote, "Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don't want to be found dead in Utah."

That day, he was led out to a wall, to be executed by firing squad. The order was given: "Ready, aim... " But, having had so little control over his life, he exercised a sliver of control over his death, shouting the last word: "Fire!"

In 1925, Alfred Hayes wrote the poem, "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night." In 1936, Earl Robinson set it to music, and it became the song "Joe Hill" that is remembered today:

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead."
"I never died," says he.
"I never died," says he.

"In Salt Lake City, Joe," says I,
him standing by my bed,
"They framed you on a murder charge."
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."

"The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
they shot you Joe," says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man."
Says Joe, "I didn't die."
Says Joe, "I didn't die."

And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes
says Joe, "What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize."

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
where workers strike and organize
it's there you'll find Joe Hill,
it's there you'll find Joe Hill!"

Paul Robeson, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger all made "Joe Hill" a featured song in their concerts. In his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote a speech for the character of Tom Joad whose repeated line, "I'll be there" seems to echo "It's there you'll find Joe Hill." Henry Fonda recited it in the 1940 film version. Joan Baez sang the song at the Woodstock concert in 1969. Ken Burns used it in his 1994 miniseries Baseball, whenever the subject turned to the relationship between the players and the team owners.

And the song has become known to millions of people who have no idea about the particulars of who Joe Hill was, or why he died.

*

November 19, 1915 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. There was no NFL, no NBA, and no NHL. And while there were major college football games played on November 20, none were played on November 19. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 11, 1944: The Musicians’ Strike Ends

November 11, 1944: The musicians' strike that began on July 31, 1942, prohibiting members of the American Federation of Musicians from making commercial records, ends. It remains the longest strike in the history of the American entertainment industry.

The strike did not affect musicians performing on live radio shows, in concerts, or, after October 27, 1943, on special recordings made by the record companies for V-Discs for distribution to the armed forces fighting World War II, because V-Discs were not available for sale to the general public.

However, the union did frequently threaten to withdraw musicians from the radio networks to punish individual network affiliates who were deemed "unfair" for violating the union's policy on recording network shows for repeat broadcasts.

The strike had a major impact on the American musical scene. At the time, union bands dominated popular music; after the strike, and partly as a result of it, the "Big Bands" began to decline, and vocalists began to dominate popular music. It was the dawn of the "Hit Parade" era, which lasted for about 10 years, until the dawn of rock and roll.

Shortly after the strike ended,, Les Brown & His Band of Renown, with Doris Day on lead vocal, record "Sentimental Journey." They would also record a song that would be a Number 1 hit for The Platters in 1958, "Twilight Time." 

*

November 11, 1944 was a Saturday. These notable college football games were played:

* The big game of the day, as it would be many times in the pre-television era, was Army, on this occasion ranked Number 1 in the country, against Notre Dame, this time ranked Number 5. In front of a crowd of 74,437 at Yankee Stadium, coach Earl "Red" Blaik's West Pointers walloped Frank Leahy's Fighting Irish, 59-0.

* Number 3 Navy beat Cornell, 48-0 at Municipal Stadium in Baltimore. Three weeks later, at the same stadium -- which was converted into Memorial Stadium in 1954 -- Army and Navy played for what amounted to the National Championship, and Army won in front of 70,000 people.

World War II meant that the service academies -- not yet counting the Air Force, which wasn't separated from the Army until 1947, didn't get its own Academy until 1954, and didn't start playing football until 1955 -- got better players than it normally would, this time including 2 future Heisman Trophy-winning running backs, Felix "Doc" Blanchard and Glenn Davis, a.k.a. "Mr. Inside" and "Mr. Outside," respectively. It also meant that military bases put teams together, and the NCAA let them play college teams on an equal basis.

* One of those military bases was Randolph Field, based near San Antonio, Texas. Their team was ranked Number 4, and they played the team from Maxwell Field, outside Montgomery, Alabama. Randolph Field won, 25-0 at Alamo Stadium in San Antonio.

In 2010, Randolph Air Force Base was merged with Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sam Houston to form Joint Base San Antonio.

* Number 6 Bainbridge Naval Training Station was based at Port Deposit, Maryland, and its home games were played at Tome Field. They played Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, based in Havelock, North Carolina, and won, 50-7. Bainbridge NTS went undefeated in 1944. The base, near the Army's Aberdeen Proving Grounds, was closed in 1976.

* Number 7 Iowa Pre-Flight, like the University of Iowa located in Iowa City and playing home games at Iowa Stadium, later renamed Kinnick Stadium, played at home, and won, 12-10, over Bunker Hill Naval Air Station, based not in or near Boston, like him might expect, but in Kokomo, Indiana.

* Number 9 March Field, based in the Los Angeles suburb of Riverside, California, beat the University of Washington, 28-0 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* Number 14 Great Lakes Naval Training Station, playing at home, at Ross Field in Great Lakes, Illinois, north of Chicago, and coached by former Ohio State coach and future Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown, played Morris Field, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Great Lakes won, 12-10. Their baseball team, which once included Bob Feller and several other major leaguers, was so good, they were called "the 17th major league team."

* The Coast Guard Academy beat Dartmouth, 19-0 at Memorial Field in Hanover, New Hampshire. The Academy, based in New London, Connecticut, now play in NCAA Division III.

* Number 2 Ohio State beat the University of Pittsburgh, 54-19 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State won the Big Ten Conference title, and finished the season undefeated. They did not, however go to a bowl game, and so only some minor polls named them, rather than Army, the National Champions.

* Number 8 Michigan beat Number 10 Illinois, 14-0 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

* Number 11 University of Southern California were idle that week. USC won the Pacific Coast Conference title.

* Number 12 Wake Forest were upset by Number 20 Duke, 34-0 Duke Stadium (later Wallace Wade Stadium) in Durham, North Carolina. This decided the Southern Conference title.

* Number 13 Georgia Tech beat Tulane, 34-7 at Grant Field in Atlanta. Tech won the Southeastern Conference title, but, instead of the Sugar Bowl, as the SEC Champion usually does, they accepted a bid to the Orange Bowl.

* Number 16 Tennessee were idle. They were invited to the Rose Bowl, where they lost to USC.

* The University of Alabama were unranked, but beat the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), 34-6 in a game played, for some reason (wartime travel restrictions, perhaps?) at Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama. 'Bama went to the Sugar Bowl, where they lost to Duke.

* The University of Tulsa beat Southwestern University, 51-6 at Skelly Field in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa went on to beat Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl.

* Texas Christian University beat Texas Tech, 14-0 at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. TCU won the Southwest Conference title.

* Oklahoma A&M (which became Oklahoma State in 1957) beat Texas, 1308 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. A&M won the Missouri Valley Conference title, and beat TCU in the Cotton Bowl.

* Penn State beat Temple, 7-6 at Temple Stadium in Philadelphia.

* In a major rivalry, Georgia beat Florida, 38-12 at Fairfield Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida.

* And in a rivalry no one outside Kansas cares about, Kansas State beat Kansas, 18-14 at Memorial Stadium in Manhattan, Kansas. (KSU's home field at the time. KU's home field was also, and remains, named Memorial Stadium.)

* Among the New York City teams, Fordham had suspended its program for the duration of The War; Columbia lost to the University of Pennsylvania, 35-7 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia; New York University (NYU) lost to Swarthmore, 21-0 at Ohio Field in The Bronx; and City College of New York (CCNY) lost to Bucknell, 78-0 at Memorial Stadium (since renamed for the school's most famous graduate, Baseball Hall-of-Famer Christy Mathewson) in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

* And among the New Jersey teams, Rutgers lost to Lafayette, 39-0 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway; and Princeton beat Muhlenberg, 16-6 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-2 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.

October 1, 1908: Ford Introduces the Model T

October 1, 1908: The Ford Motor Company begins producing the Model T, a.k.a. "The Tin Lizzie." By 1913, Henry Ford would use the assembly line to crank out a near-continuous stream of them, saying, "You can have any color car you want, as long as it's black." 

He offered his workers $5.00 a day -- $159 in 2022 money. That works out to about $800 a week -- before taxes. He believed that a man should be able to buy the very thing his labor built. Ford was unusual in that he gave his black workers the same pay rate as his white workers.

But he wasn't as enlightened as this would suggest: He was a notorious anti-Semite. He was also a micromanager who tried to run his workers' lives. And when they tried to unionize, he hired a security firm to beat up striking workers. He eventually caved in.

In 1913, Ford started using an assembly line to build his cars. He was not the first executive to adopt the idea, nor even the first in the American automobile industry. But he was the popularizer of it, because it reduced the time to produce a single car from 12 hours and 30 minutes to 2 hours and 40 minutes.

He sold over 1 million Model Ts in 19 years, helping to make Detroit the automotive capital of the world. In 1927, he introduced a successor, a nicer car called the Model A. The song he commissioned to introduce it said, "Henry's made a lady out of Lizzie."

*

October 1, 1908 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Highlanders beat the Washington Senators, 2-1 at Hilltop Park in Manhattan. It was a bad season for the team that officially became the Yankees in 1913, but, on this occasion, a battle of Hall-of-Famers was won by Jack Chesbro over Walter Johnson.

* The New York Giants, in a furious 3-way race for the National League Pennant, split a doubleheader with the Philadelphia Phillies at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. The Giants won the 1st game, 4-3, with Christy Mathewson going the distance. The Phillies won the 2nd game, 6-2.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Boston Doves, 2-1 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Superbas? They had been managed by Ned Hanlon, and there had been a famous circus troupe known as Hanlon's Superbas. They became the Dodgers in 1911. Doves? Their owner was John Dovey. They became the Braves in 1912.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-2 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia.

* The Chicago Cubs, in that 3-way fight with the Giants for the Pennant, beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-0 at the Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati. Ed Reulbach pitched a 2-hit shutout.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates, the 3rd team in that Pennant fight, and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled to play that day.

* The the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Naps (who became the Indians in 1915), the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Browns were also not scheduled. The White Sox, Naps and Tigers were in a tight 3-way race for the American League Pennant.

September 15, 1994: The Baseball Season Is Canceled

September 15, 1994: A date which lives in infamy. There is no joy in Mudville, or anywhere else.

Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig, a walking conflict-of-interest as the Acting Commissioner of Major League Baseball, cancels the remainder of the regular season, and the postseason, including the World Series, following a vote of the team owners. No Commissioner, in any of the "big four" North American sports, had ever done that before.

The vote is 26-2. Oddly, the 2 who voted to go on with the season and not betray the fans were 2 of the most hated team owners of the era: Peter Angelos of the Baltimore Orioles and Marge Schott of the Cincinnati Reds.

There were 7 games originally scheduled for that Thursday, which was a travel day for the other teams then in the major leagues. All times listed below are Eastern Daylight Time:

* 2:05: Cleveland Indians vs. Milwaukee Brewers at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* 7:35: New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays at SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto.

* 7:35: St. Louis Cardinals vs. Philadelphia Phillies at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* 7:35: Florida Marlins (now the Miami Marlins) vs. Pittsburgh Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* 8:05: Oakland Athletics vs. Chicago White Sox at the new Comiskey Park (now Guaranteed Rate Field) in Chicago.

* 8:05: Atlanta Braves vs. Houston Astros, at the Astrodome in Houston.

* 10:05: Cincinnati Reds vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* Not scheduled to play: The Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, the California Angels (now the Los Angeles Angels), the Chicago Cubs, the Colorado Rockies, the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals, the Minnesota Twins, the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals), the New York Mets, the San Diego Padres, the San Francisco Giants, the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers.

* Not yet established: The Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Rays.

This was in midweek of the NFL season, and a few weeks before the starts of the NBA and NHL seasons, so those leagues did not play on this day.

*

That strike, lasting from August 12, 1994 to April 25, 1995, was rough. Although President Clinton got the Crime Bill passed, his health care initiative failed, the Republican Party won control of both houses of Congress, and began passing bills slashing social services, which Clinton had to veto. A ferry carrying passengers from Estonia to Sweden sank, killing over 800 people. The Taliban was founded. A religious cult unleashed a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, killing 13 and putting 5,000 in the hospital. Singer Selena (Quintanilla-Perez, not Gomez) was murdered. And, just before baseball started play again, a white "Christian" domestic terrorist blew up the federal government office building in Oklahoma City.

It wasn't all bad. A totalitarian government in Haiti fell. The Channel Tunnel opened, finally linking Britain with the European Continent by road. Sony released the first PlayStation. George Foreman regained the Heavyweight Championship of the World, 20 years after he lost it to Muhammad Ali, by knocking Michael Moorer out, making himself the oldest Heavyweight Champion ever, age 45.

Billy Wright, and Wilma Rudolph, and Howard Cosell died. Halsey, and Carlos Correa, and Giannis Antetokounmpo were born.

September 9, 1924: The Hanapēpē Massacre

September 9, 1924: The Hanapēpē Massacre takes place in Hawaii. Police kill 16 striking Filipino sugarcane plantation workers.

To oppose organized labor, the Hawaiian Territorial Legislature -- dominated by non-natives -- passed the Criminal Syndicalism Law of 1919, the Anarchistic Publications law of 1921, and the Anti-Picketing Law of 1923. These laws, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison, increased the discontent of the workers.

The Filipinos, who were rapidly becoming the dominant plantation labor force, had deep-seated grievances: as the latest immigrants they were treated most poorly. Although the planters had claimed there was a labor shortage and they were actively recruiting workers from the Philippines, they wanted only illiterate workers, and turned back any arrivals who could read or write, as many as 1 out of every 6.

The conflict began when two Ilocano youth, allegedly breaking a Filipino-led labor strike, were detained and harassed by a group of Visayans at the Hanapēpē strike camp. When the local police were called to settle the dispute, they arrived with a group of heavily armed special deputies. Upon arrival, the officers issued warrants of arrest for the two detained Illocanos, causing the collection of Filipino strikers to rally in opposition.

Despite previously ridiculing the two Ilocanos, the remaining Filipinos armed themselves, and demanded the boys be released.  A violent exchange ensued wherein 16 Filipino laborers and 4 police officers were left dead.

The police rounded up all male protesters they could find, and a total of 101 Filipino men were arrested. Of these, 76 were brought to trial. Of these, 60 received 4-year jail sentences. After 8 months, the strike disintegrated, the labor movement in Hawaiʻi dwindled, and discontent among the workers rarely surfaced again.

*

September 9, 1924 was a Tuesday. Actress Sylvia Miles was born. And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. Herb Pennock got his 20th win of the season. Babe Ruth went 0-for-4 with a walk, and rookie Lou Gehrig appeared as a pinch-hitter, but struck out. But Bob Meusel hit a home run.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 7-3 at Navin Field (later Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Ty Cobb, by this point also the Tigers' manager, went 1-for-3 with a walk. For the White Sox, Eddie Collins went 2-for-4 with a walk.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at Cubs Park (later Wrigley Field) in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-4 and 6-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Over the 2 games, Rogers Hornsby went 3-for-7 with a walk and an RBI.

* The New York Giants and the Boston Braves were rained out at the Polo Grounds. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Giants swept, 22-1 and 8-0. Nope, that's not a misprint on the opener: Twenty-two to one. They didn't score more than 5 runs in any inning, but they scored in every inning but the 2nd (and, of course, the 9th, since it wasn't necessary).

Frankie Frisch went 6-for-7 with a home run and 4 RBIs. Emil "Irish" Meusel, Bob's brother, went 5-for-6 with 3 RBIs. Lewis "Hack" Wilson, not yet the star he would be on the Chicago Cubs, went 3-for-5 with a walk and an RBI. Hank Gowdy, no longer the star he was leading Boston's "Miracle Braves" past the Giants for the 1914 Pennant, went 2-for-3 with a home run, a walk and 4 RBIs. Ross Youngs also hit a home run for the Giants.

And that was just in the 1st game! In the 2nd, game, Hugh McQullain pitched a 3-hit shutout, and Travis Jackson hit a home run. Wilson, Youngs and Meusel each added another RBI.

* The Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics were rained out at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The A's won the opener, 2-1. The Senators won the nightcap, 6-5.  

* The Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were known during Wilbert Robinson's managing from 1914 to 1931) and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at Ebbets Field. The game was made up on an off-day, 2 days later. Brooklyn won, 8-7. Eddie Brown singled Andy High home with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning.

* And the Cleveland Indians and the St. Louis Browns were not scheduled.

September 2, 1921: The Battle of Blair Mountain

September 2, 1921: The largest labor uprising in American history takes place in Logan County, West Virginia. It becomes known as the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Coal companies had been exploiting their workers for decades. Due to the prosecution of miners' union leaders, things came to a head in the Summer of 1921. The United Mine Workers called for a rally at the State Capitol in Charleston for August 7. The UMW's leaders, including organizer Bill Blizzard, met with Governor Ephraim Morgan, who owed his election to the coal companies, and rejected their demands.

Labor leader Mary "Mother" Jones, for whom a liberal magazine would later be named, feared a bloodbath between the union men and the better-armed Logan County Sheriff's Department, led by Sheriff Don Chafin. So she warned the union men against taking further action.

Nevertheless, on August 24, 13,000 men began marching toward the Logan County mine, to try to force the strikebreakers out of their jobs. The next day, President Warren Harding threatened to send federal troops to protect the mine -- not the miners. A meeting was arranged between Chafin and the union leaders, and a truce was called. It seemed to be over.

It wasn't: Chafin wanted to break the union for once and for all, and assembled a "private army." Rumor got around that this army had shot union sympathizers, and caught families in the crossfire, in Sharples, just north of Blair Mountain. The union men turned back, believing that Chafin had done more than just front up with a private army, and that he had flat-out broken his word.

The Chafin army, now including some State Police officers, was outnumbered, but had the high ground and better weapons. On August 29, private planes dropped homemade bombs on the miners. One did not explode, and that proved crucial. The next day, Governor Morgan called out the West Virginia National Guard. On September 2, federal troops arrived. Many of the miners were World War I veterans, and refused to fire on the U.S. Army. The miners surrendered.

The number of casualties is unclear. The actual Army reported 3 deaths, because one of their planes crashed upon its return. On the Chafin side, the number of deaths has been reported as being between 10 and 30; on the miners' side, anywhere from 50 to 100. After the battle, 985 miners were indicted for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, and treason -- not against the United States of America, but against the State of West Virginia.

At Blizzard's trial, the unexploded bomb was used as evidence of the government and companies' brutality, and he was acquitted. Though some were acquitted by sympathetic juries, others were imprisoned. The last was paroled in 1925.

Bill Blizzard

The UMW was crippled, and was a spent force throughout the 1920s. The Great Depression enabled them to come back, and they appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. FDR's New Deal programs gave them much of what they wanted.

Mother Jones, already elderly by the time of Blair Mountain, died in 1930. In 1924, Sheriff Chafin was arrested in connection with moonshining, and sentenced to two years in prison. He died in 1954. UMW leader John L. Lewis expelled Blizzard, but the union revolted, and he had to be hired back. The two men were never friendly, and Lewis expelled Blizzard again in 1955. Blizzard died in 1958.

*

September 2, 1921 was a Friday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 9-3 at the Polo Grounds. Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel and Roger Peckinpaugh hit home runs for the Yankees. Waite Hoyt was the winning pitcher.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-3 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Bill Doak started for the Cardinals, and pitched to 1 batter, giving up a single to Carson Bigbee. Manager Branch Rickey then took him out, and put in Jesse Haines, who went the rest of the way, pitching shutout ball for 9 innings, allowing 6 hits and a walk.

I don't know why Rickey did this. Both Doak and Haines were righthanded pitchers, so it wasn't as if Rickey was trying to trick Pirate manager George Gibson into loading his lineup with lefthanded hitters, with the intention of then switching to a lefthanded pitcher.

Doak does have 2 distinctions worth mentioning. He was 1 of the 17 pitchers who, at the start of the season, was allowed to continue using various pitches that fell under the category of "spitball" until they retired, with the pitches banned for everyone else. Doak may have been the only one who actually did spit on the ball, instead of licking his fingers or putting some other "foreign substance," such as grease or Vaseline, on the ball, earning him the nickname "Spittin' Bill."

And, in 1920, he suggested to sporting goods company Rawlings, maker of all major league baseball gloves, that a "web" should be laced between the index finger and the thumb, saying it would create a natural pocket. This design soon replaced all other baseball gloves, and remains the standard.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-0 at Redland Field in Cincinnati. (It was renamed Crosley Field in 1934.) Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 12-1 at Navin Field in Detroit. (It was renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, and Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Tris Speaker went 2-for-5 with an RBI for Cleveland. Ty Cobb went 1-for-3 for Detroit. Each was, by this point, his team's manager.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Urban Shocker pitched a 4-hit shutout. George Sisler went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Eddie Collins went 0-for-3 with a walk for the White Sox.

* Concerned about possible bad weather on September 2, the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers (or the Brooklyn Robins as they were known from 1914 to 1931, due to their manager being Wilbert Robinson), arch-rivals, moved their game at Ebbets Field back to September 1. Brooklyn won, 5-1. Zack Wheat went 2-for-4, in support of Burleigh Grimes, who turned out to be the last legal spitballer, retiring in 1934.

* As it turned out, there was enough rain to postpone the game in Brooklyn, though not in Upper Manhattan, as the Yankees played. There was also enough rain to postpone the game in Philadelphia, and a doubleheader was set up for Baker Bowl the next day. The Philadelphia Phillies won the opener, 4-1. The Boston Braves won the nightcap, 15-4. So the Phillies scored the same number of runs in both games, winning one comfortably and getting blown out in the other.