July 30, 1980: The Kozakiewicz Gesture

July 30, 1980: The Olympic Games continue in Moscow. With the United States, West Germany, and many other nations boycotting, in protest of the host country, the Soviet Union, having invaded Afghanistan, the Soviets and other Eastern Bloc or "Warsaw Pact" nations were doing very well.

Poland was not. Poland was going through a crisis in which its government, tightly controlled by the Kremlin, was repressing a genuine "workers' revolution" in the country. People marched in the streets, protesting the Soviet government. As a result, in these Games, the Soviet crowd booed Polish athletes.

One they booed was a pole vaulter, Władysław Kozakiewicz. Born in 1953, to Polish parents in Lithuania, the family was sent to Poland in 1958, as part of the last wave of post-World War II "repatriations" of ethnicities. His older brother Edward was a pole vaulter, before switching to the decathlon (which includes the pole vault), and taught Wład.

Wład became one of the best in the world, winning junior championships, and was favored for a medal at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, but was injured, and only finished 11th. In 1977, and again in 1979, he won both the European Indoor Championships and the World University Games, known as the Universiade.

He was booed as he took his place for his vault at the Central Lenin Stadium (later renamed the Luzhniki Stadium) for the 1980 Olympic Final. He shook this off, and set a world record with a vault of 18 feet, 11½ inches, to win the Gold Medal. The crowd booed him as he landed from his record vault.

He didn't miss a beat: He got up, and immediately gave them the obscene gesture that the French call "L'bras d'honneur": The Arm of Honor. Spain and Portugal call it the Iberian Slap, and Italy calls it the Italian Salute.

After the Olympics ended, the Soviet Ambassador to Poland demanded that Kozakiewicz be stripped of his medal over his "insult to the Soviet people." The official response of the Polish government was that Kozakiewicz's arm gesture had been "an involuntary muscle spasm caused by his exertion." It was no more truthful than many a statement made by other Communist governments, but, this time, the Kremlin got a taste of its own medicine. Ever since, the Poles have called it Gest Kozakiewicza --Kozakiewicz's gesture.

Interviewed in 2018, Kozakiewicz said:

The Russian crowd was whistling... at any non-Russian contestant. They were whistling to distract us. You can only imagine the noise: 70,000 people at the Luzhniki Stadium, probably only 10,000 of them were tourists.

It occurred to me that I'm the only person in the world who got whistled at for breaking the world record. So when I landed, I showed them this "Polish shaft," the nicest one you can imagine. I expressed my anger at the whistling Soviet audience. Nobody whistles in athletics. If you take a look at TV broadcasts, you find that people either clap rhythmically when they feel like it, or simply sit quietly.

The Soviet government demanded that he apologize for this action. He refused. Perhaps the backlash got to him, because he was never so good again. He tried to regain his form in time for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, but the Warsaw Pact turned the tables and boycotted those games.

In 1985, a dispute with Poland's athletics (track & field) federation led him to defect to West Germany. He competed for that country until the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea, but Poland refused to give him the necessary permission to compete for another country, effectively ending his career. He remained in Germany after its reunification, and coached athletes, later managing their professional careers, specializing in athletes from former Communist countries.

As of July 30, 2022, he is still alive.

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July 30, 1980 was a Wednesday. It was also the day that J.R. Richard of the Houston Astros, perhaps the best pitcher in baseball at the time, suffered a stroke that ended his playing career. I have a separate entry for that event.

These Major League Baseball games were played:

* In a bit of foreshadowing, without J.R. Richard available, the Houston Astros lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-4 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. The losing pitcher was... Nolan Ryan. The winning pitcher was Dick Ruthven. Mike Schmidt drew 2 walks and had to leave the game due to injury, but would be named the NL's Most Valuable Player that season. Pete Rose went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Yankees lost to the Minnesota Twins, 2-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. John Castino doubled home Ken Landreaux with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning, off Goose Gossage, after Tom Underwood had started. Jerry Koosman went the distance for the Twins. The lone Yankee run came in the 3rd, when Eric Soderholm singled home Bob Watson. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-0 at Shea Stadium. Pat Zachry pitched a 4-hit shutout. Claudell Washington had 3 hits.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Johnny Bench went 1-for-4.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 11-1 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Rickey Henderson went 2-for-5 with a stolen base. The A's got home runs from Wayne Gross (2 of them), Dave Revering and Jeff Newman.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The California Angels beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-5 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Rod Carew only appeared as a pinch-hitter, but, as you might guess, he got a hit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-5 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Robin Yount went 0-for-4. Paul Molitor went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-1 at Royals Stadium in Kansas City. It was renamed Kauffman Stadium in 1993. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-5. George Brett went 2-for-2 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Texas Rangers, 3-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Eddie Murray went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-2 at San Diego Stadium. It was renamed Jack Murphy Stadium the next year, and Qualcomm Stadium in 1997.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Willie Stargell did not play. Jerry Reuss pitched a 4-hit shutout, to beat John Candelaria, who also went the distance.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the the San Francisco Giants, 4-0 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. John Fulgham pitched a 5-hit shutout.

July 6, 1959: The Harlem Globetrotters In Moscow

July 6, 1959: As part of a cultural exchange program, which ends up including the "Kitchen Debate" between Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, basketball's Harlem Globetrotters play a game in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union.

Since 1927, the all-black Globies -- or the Trotters, if you prefer -- had been entertaining crowds all over the world with trick plays when they could, and with great basketball skill when they had to. They would play anybody, anywhere. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, they played a few games against the top team in the still-all-white pro leagues, the Minneapolis Lakers, and won the 1st 2 times before the Lakers managed to adjust.

Vasily Gricorevich, the director of Lenin Central Statium (later renamed the Luzhniki Stadium), extended an invitation to the Globetrotters. They played 9 games there, outdoors, in front of crowds in excess of 60,000, starting on July 6.

Among the Globetrotter players who made the trip were 3 whose uniform numbers would later be retired by the team: Charles "Tex" Harrison, Number 34; Meadowlark Lemon, Number 36; and Wilt Chamberlain, Number 13.

(They've honored 8 players in total. The others: Reece "Goose" Tatum, Number 50, from the 1940s and early '50s; Marques Haynes, Humber 20, from the same era, and returned as an elder statesman in the 1970s; Hubert "Geese Ausbie, Number 35, and Fred "Curly" Neal, Number 22, who played from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s; and Sweet Lou Dunbar, Number 41, who played in the 1970s and '80s, and now coaches the team.)

Chamberlain had starred at the University of Kansas, and wanted to turn pro, but the NBA wouldn't let him play until his college class had graduated in the Spring of 1959. So he played the 1958-59 season with the Globetrotters, and made more money with them in that one year, and certainly traveled to more places, and more interesting ones, than he did in each of his first few years in the NBA, with his hometown Philadelphia Warriors.

The previous season, 1957-58, Bob Gibson, who had starred on the court for Omaha's Creighton University before a Hall of Fame career pitching for baseball's St. Louis Cardinals, played for the Globetrotters. An urban legend said that Gibson quit because he couldn't stand the clowning, but it was really the constant traveling that made him give baseball a full go. Chamberlain later admitted that he loved the stunts.

In his writeup of the 1st game for Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, Gregor Belevich was not kind:

This is not basketball; it is too full of tricks. The Harlem Globetrotters from New York City played tonight against Basketball Club Dynamo of Moscow in what was presented to be a virtuous competition of basketball but was in fact nothing of the sort. These Americans are men big of the body, but made small by their deeds...

By relying on hoax and chicanery, these Globetrotters have surely become beholden to deception at the expense of their competitive spirit and industriousness (a more apt team of representatives from America this reporter cannot think of…). While the final score was 98–42 in favor of the Globetrotters, it is better to go to bed supperless than to rise in debt.

Dynamo was then known for its great soccer team, but also had the best basketball team in the U.S.S.R. at the time. It should also be noted that, while Harlem is in New York City, it was chosen as an identifier to indicate that the team was all-black. The team was actually based in Chicago, hometown of their founder, owner and manager, Abe Saperstein. Later ownership groups would move the team's organization to Los Angeles, and now to Phoenix.

But the fans did not agree with Belevich, and loved what they saw. Khrushchev met with them, and awarded them the Order of Lenin. While this medal could be given to Soviet citizens for various forms of service, it was also the highest award the country could give to a foreigner, usually to "Those who promoted friendship and cooperation between people and in strengthening peace."

The 2 leading newspapers in the Soviet Union were Pravda, meaning "Truth"; and Izvestia, meaning "News." This led to a joke: "There is no news in the Truth, and there is no truth in the News."

On this same trip, the Globetrotters played in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and -- no doubt due to some very delicate negotiations, as that nation was still largely closed to the West -- the People's Republic of China. Chamberlain was with them the whole way, before departing for the Warriors.

Interviewing him for his radio show in 1986, Philadelphia basketball historian Sonny Hill, told his listeners, "In the Fifties, they knew about Wilt Chamberlain in China! That's how big of a man he was, and is!" And, in this case, "big" did not refer to the man's physical size, but his impact.

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July 6, 1959 was a Monday. There were no scores on this historic day: Baseball was in its All-Star Break, and no other sports were in season.