May 1, 1962: Eusébio, the Sacred Monster, & The Curse of Béla Guttmann

Eusébio (left) and Mario Coluna

May 1, 1962: Sport Lisboa e Benfica, of Lisbon, Portugal, defeats Real Madrid, 5-3, to successfully defend the European Cup, at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. Since the tournament began in 1955-56, Real Madrid (1956-60) and Benfica (1961-62) are the only clubs to have won it, a pattern that will be broken the next season by Italy's AC Milan.

Ferenc Puskás, the Hungarian "Galloping Major," and possibly the best player in the world for the last 10 years, scored a hat trick for Madrid, giving them a 3-2 lead. But a pair of geniuses from Portuguese East Africa, now Mozambique, are the heroes: Mario Coluna, a.k.a. O Monstro Sagrado (the Sacred Monster – what a great nickname!), ties the game; and Eusébio da Silva Ferreira (known universally by just his first name) scores 2 goals in 3 minutes to win it.

Béla Guttmann, Puskás' fellow Hungarian, managed Benfica to both of those European Cup wins. He rarely stayed at a club longer than two seasons, and was quoted as saying, "The third season is fatal."

After the 1962 title, he asked for a raise, didn't get it, and quit. Supposedly, he then said, "Not in a hundred years from now will Benfica ever be European Champions again." 

there is no documentary evidence on Guttmann saying anything related to a curse and that the first mention of such was in May 1988, by newspaper Gazeta dos Desportos, on the day of the 1988 European Cup Final, which Benfica lost to Dutch team PSV Eindhoven.

Supposedly, before the 1990 European Cup Final, played in Vienna, where Guttman had died in 1981, Eusébio reportedly prayed at Guttmann's grave, and asked for the curse to be broken. It didn't work: Benfica lost to AC Milan. In 2011, Eusébio gave an interview in which he said the story of Guttmann placing a curse on the team was a lie.

Not in 100 years? Through the 2012-22 season, 60 years, he remains right: Between the Champions League and the UEFA Cup/Europa League, they have lost their last 8 finals in European competition. Nevertheless, a statue of him now stands outside Benfica's Estádio da Luz (Stadium of Light).

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May 1, 1962 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Bill Stafford was the winning pitcher. Elston Howard hit a home run. Mickey Mantle went 0-for-3 with 2 walks. Roger Maris went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI. Yogi Berra did not play.

* The New York Mets lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 8-2 at the Polo Grounds. Joey Jay not only went the distance for the win, but helped his own cause with a home run. Frank Robinson went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The Washington Senators beat the Boston Red Sox, 2-1 at District of Columbia Stadium (later Robert F. Kennedy Stadium) in Washington. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-3.

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-6 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Baltimore Orioles, 8-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Camilo Pascual, who had perhaps the best curveball in the American League while Sandy Koufax had the best one in the National League, not only went the distance for the win, but helped his own cause with a home run. Harmon Killebrew did not play. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-4.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Houston Astros, 6-4 at the first Busch Stadium (formerly the last Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Athletics, 3-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Vic Wertz singled Jake Wood and Al Kaline home in the top of the 10th inning. Jerry Lumpe -- a former Yankee described by manager Casey Stengel as, "He looks like the greatest player in the world, until you play him" -- hit a solo home run in the bottom of the 10th, but the A's couldn't find another run. Kaline had homered earlier in the game. Jim Bunning went all 10 innings for the win.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-5 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The Cubs tied the game in the 8th inning. There was no further scoring until the 15th, when both teams scored 2 runs. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety. Daryl Spencer led off the bottom of the 16th with a walk, and was singled to 2nd base by Willie Davis. They were both bunted over by former Yankee 3rd baseman Andy Carey, and Doug Camilli (son of former Brooklyn Dodger All-Star Dolph Camilli) singled Spencer home to win it.

Duke Snider went 1-for-6 with 2 walks. For the Cubs, Ernie Banks went 0-for-7, while George Altman went 4-for-7 with an RBI.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Orlando Cepeda hit a home run. Willie Mays went 1-for-3 with a walk. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4.

* And the Milwaukee Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies were supposed to play at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, but, according to Baseball-Reference.com, despite it being May, the game was postponed due to cold. It was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 20. The Braves won the opener, 7-5. The Phils won the nightcap, 3-2. Over the 2 games, Hank Aaron went 3-for-9 with a solo home run.

April 25, 1974: Portugal's Carnation Revolution

April 25, 1974: A military coup overthrows the Fascist government of Portugal, ending it after 41 years. Because of the flowers that the soldiers wore in their lapels, it became known as the Carnation Revolution.

Portugal's First Republic was overthrown in a coup on May 28, 1926, leading to the Ditadura Nacional (National Dictatorship). It was replaced on April 11, 1933 by the Estado Novo (New State). Historians would falsely label this combined era as the Second Portuguese Republic.

From its founding in 1933 until 1968, the Estado Novo was run by António de Oliveira Salazar. It was Fascist: Corporatist, nationalist, and bigoted, heavily oppressing Portugal's overseas colonies, especially in Africa: Mozambique, Angola, and Cape Verde. Like most Fascist regimes, including the one that began in Italy in 1922 and the one that would begin in neighboring Spain in 1939, it was tied in with the Catholic Church, itself conservative and autocratic.

António Salazar

Like Spain, Portugal remained neutral during World War II, and postwar American Administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, looked the other way at their abuses, domestic and foreign, since they were part of the worldwide bulwark against Communism. Portugal was a founding member of NATO in 1949, although Spain was kept out until 1982, due to not wanting to antagonize the Soviets, with their memories of the Spanish Civil War that was lost in 1939. Both Portugal and Spain joined the United Nations in 1955.

From 1950 until 1970, Portugal saw its Gross Domestic Product per capita increase at an annual average rate of 5.7 percent. Despite this remarkable economic growth, by the fall of the Estado Novo in 1974, Portugal still had the lowest per capita income and the lowest literacy rate in Western Europe. They were in so deep of a hole that this remained true following the fall, and continues to the present day.

After the Second Vatican Council (1962-66), a large number of Catholics became active in the democratic opposition. The outbreak of the colonial wars in Angola, Guinea and Mozambique – in March 1961, January 1963 and September 1964 respectively – exacerbated the divisions within the Catholic sector along progressive and traditionalist lines.

On August 3, 1968, Salazar fell in his bath and hit his head. At first, he seemed fine. But on August 19, he felt sick, and was admitted to a hospital. On September 16, he went into a coma. Américo Tomás, who, as the President of Portugal, had ceremonial duties but otherwise had little power, presumed that Salazar would never recover, and dismissed him on September 25, replacing him with Marcelo Caetano.

But Salazar did emerge from his coma, and was even lucid. He was not told that he had been removed from power. He was allowed to continue to believe that he ruled the nation, until he died on July 27, 1970, at the age of 81.

Caetano continued to pave the way towards economic integration with Europe and a higher level of economic liberalization in the country, achieving the signing of an important free-trade agreement with the European Economic Community (a.k.a. the EEC or the "Common Market") in 1972.

In February 1974, Caetano decided to remove General António de Spínola from the command of Portuguese forces in Guinea, in the face of Spínola's increasing disagreement with the promotion of military officers and the direction of Portuguese colonial policy. This occurred shortly after the publication of Spínola's book, Portugal and the Future, which expressed his political and military views of the Portuguese Colonial War.

Several military officers who opposed the war formed the Movimento das Forças Armadas (MFA, or Armed Forces Movement) to overthrow the government in a military coup. The movement was aided by other Portuguese army officers who supported Spínola and democratic civil and military reform.

Thousands of Portuguese took to the streets, mingling with, and supporting, the military insurgents. A central gathering point was the Lisbon flower market, then richly stocked with carnations (which were in season). Some of the insurgents put carnations in their gun barrels, an image broadcast on television worldwide, which gave the revolution its name. Caetano was permitted to flee to Portuguese-speaking Brazil.

Portugal's 1st free election, ever, was held on the 1st anniversary of the Revolution, April 25, 1975 to write a new constitution, replacing the Constitution of 1933, which prevailed during the Estado Novo era. Another election was held in 1976, and the first constitutional government, led by socialist Mário Soares, took office. He served as Prime Minister until 1978, and again from 1983 to 1985, and later as the President of Portugal from 1986 to 1996.

Mário Soares

Portugal became free, and remains free to this day. But freedom from Fascism for them meant independence for its colonies. And that proved to be troublesome, even disastrous:

* Guinea-Bisseau: Portugal recognized its independence on September 10, 1974. At first, things went well. But in 1980, as in many other countries, the economy went sour, and there was a coup. Multi-party elections were not held again until 1994. A civil war was fought in 1998-99, and there were coups again in 2003 and 2004, a Presidential assassination in 2009, another coup in 2012. Things stabilized after that, although there was a failed attempt at another coup in 2022.

* Mozambique: Portugal recognized its independence on June 25, 1975. After just 2 years of independence, a civil war broke out, and lasted until 1992. Finally, in 1994, they had their 1st multi-party elections, and the country became free, and remains so.

* Cape Verde: Portugal recognized the independence of this archipelago off the West Coast of Africa on July 5, 1975. This is easily the most successful of the ex-colonies, having remained democratic since independence. In 2013, they officially changed their name to the Portuguese-language Cabo Verde. In 2020, they were voted Africa's most democratic nation by the V-Dem Institute, which tracks emerging democracies.

* São Tomé and Príncipe: Portugal recognized its independence on July 12, 1975. Like Cabo Verde, it has been comparatively stable and free.

* Angola: Portugal recognized its independence on November 11, 1975. But it went Communist, and descended into a civil war that lasted until 2002, well after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to the point where the only outside aid it was getting was from Cuba, which had been aiding its leftist forces since 1961.

The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, or MPLA) has ruled the country from the beginning, and José Eduardo dos Santos ruled as President from 1979 to 2017. He retired for health reasons, and was succeeded by João Lourenço, who has reformed things somewhat. Nevertheless, Angola remains a one-party dictatorship.

* East Timor: Formerly Portuguese Timor, it declared its independence on November 28, 1975. Neighboring Indonesia invaded on December 7, and since America "needed" Indonesia's President Suharto in the Cold War (you know, like we needed Somoza in Nicaragua until he was overthrown, and needed the Shah of Iran and then Saddam Hussein in Iraq), America did nothing about it. So a brutal civil war happened, and independence was not truly secured until 2002.

Marcelo Caetano lived until 1980, António de Spínola until 1996, and Mário Soares until 2017.

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April 25, 1974 was a Thursday. There were 6 Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Kansas City Royals, 6-1 at Shea Stadium, where the Yankees groundshared with the Mets while Yankee Stadium was being renovated. Paul Splittorff allows only 2 hits, a double by Lou Piniella and a single by Elliott Maddox, plus an RBI sacrifice fly by Thurman Munson, to outpitch Steve Kline. The very next day, Kline was 1 of 4 Yankee pitchers traded to Cleveland as part of the Chris Chambliss deal.

* The New York Mets beat the San Diego Padres, 5-2 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Jerry Koosman pitched a complete game.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2 at Atlanta Stadium. (The name was changed to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium the next season.) Hank Aaron hit his 718th career home run. Willie Stargell went 1-for-4.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-0 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Jim Bibby pitched a 4-hit shutout, outpitching Luis Tiant. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 1-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Tommy John pitched a 4-hit shutout, outpitching Dick Ruthven. Later in the year, John hurt his elbow, and underwent the surgery that would bear his name, and won more games after it than before.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Montreal Expos, 8-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

Football was out of season. The NBA was between its Conference Finals and its Finals. The Boston Celtics would beat the Milwaukee Bucks in 7 games. The American Basketball Association held Game 6 of its Western Division Finals, and the Indiana Pacers beat the Utah Stars, 91-89 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis. The Stars won Game 7 anyway, and then lost the ABA Finals to the New York Nets.

There were 2 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-2 at the Chicago Stadium. And the New York Rangers beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-3 at Madison Square Garden. The Flyers went on to beat the Bruins in the Finals.

The World Hockey Association was between Playoff rounds. The Houston Aeros would win the title.