July 18, 1918: The Second Battle of the Marne

July 18, 1918: The Second Battle of the Marne is won by the Allies. It soon becomes clear that what we now call World War I has been won by them as well.

With Russia out of "The Great War," The German Empire, suffering mutinies within its Army and economic strife at home, was able to throw all of its forces at the Western Front. As with the First Battle of the Marne, nearly 4 years earlier, they had gotten within cannon range of the French capital of Paris on July 15. The French and British commanders were desperate.

But, as George M. Cohan said, the Yanks were coming. More than 250,000 Americans were rushed into combat. This battle would feature 52 German divisions, under the command of Field Marshal Erich Ludendorff, against 58 Allied divisions, under the command of Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch -- 44 of them French, 4 of them British, 2 of them Italian (Italy had switched sides in this war); and 8 of them American, under the command of General John J. Pershing, and fresh, rather than battle-weary.

They met at Dormans, about 17 miles east of Nogentel, the site of the First Battle of the Marne, and 80 miles east of central Paris. After 3 days, the result: The Germans lost 137,000 men; the French, 95,000; the British, 16,000; the Americans, 12,000; and the Italians, 9,000. That's 269,000 men dead in roughly 3 days: 137,000 German, 132,000 Allied. Death-wise, it was just about a stalemate. But the Allies also captured 29,000 German prisoners.

Ludendorff later said that the American troops were "decisive." And Chancellor Georg, Count von Hertling, who would resign in disgrace on September 30 -- and die the following January 4, at the age of 75 -- wrote:

At the beginning of July 1918, I was convinced... that before the first of September our adversaries would send us peace proposals... On the 18th even the most optimistic among us knew that all was lost. The history of the world was played out in three days.

Even the overall German commander, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, admitted that the American troops made the difference between winning and losing the war. By the time Hindenburg died in 1934, his successor as Chancellor of Germany would say that the real reason that Germany lost was a "stab in the back" by Communists and Jews. That Chancellor's name was Adolf Hitler. He lied.

Also on this day, the RMS Carpathia, the rescuer of the Titanic's survivors in 1912, was herself sunk, and not by nature: She was torpedoed by the German imperial navy off the southern coast of Ireland. Incredibly, while 5 crewmen died in the initial explosion, the other 218 people on board -- including civilians, as she was still a cruise ship, heading from Liverpool to Boston -- all survived.

*

July 18, 1918 was a Thursday. On that day, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Mveso, in what was then the Cape Province of the Union of South Africa. Imagine that George Washington and Muhammad Ali were the same person, in the modern world. And that we had lost the Revolution. And he was imprisoned. And then, a generation later, because of people who still believed in his ideals, there was a new revolution, and he was released, and, with him leading it, we had won. That's Mandela.

He is so big a figure of history, it required Idris Elba to play him when young, and Sidney Poitier and Morgan Freeman to play him when old.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers played a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds, due to a rainout the day before. The Tigers won the opener, 4-1. Bill James outpitched Herb Thormahlen. Ty Cobb went 0-for-2, but drew a walk and had an RBI on a groundout. He left the game with an injury, and didn't play in the nightcap.

Trailing that game 2-0 going to the bottom of the 9th, the Yankees got doubles from Ray Caldwell (normally a pitcher but playing center field that day), Wally Pipp and Ping Bodie, sending the game to extra innings. In the bottom of the 10th, they got singles from Roxy Walters, Frank Gilhooley, Caldwell and, in spite of his nickname, Frank "Home Run" Baker, and won, 3-2. Ray Keating was the winning pitcher, in relief of Joseph Finneran.

* The New York Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-5 at Robison Field in St. Louis. Rogers Hornsby entered the game due to another Cardinal's injury, and went 2-for-3.

* The Brooklyn Robins beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at at Weeghman Park in Chicago. Zack Wheat went 3-for-7. The ballpark was renamed Cubs Park in 1920, and Wrigley Field in 1926. The Brooklyn team became the Dodgers in 1911, then the Robins in 1914 in honor of manager Wilbert Robinson, and then the Dodgers again after he was fired after the 1931 season.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Dave Davenport outpitched Lore Bader. George Sisler went 1-for-4. Babe Ruth went 0-for-3 with a walk, and had an RBI on a groundout.

* Another rain-forced doubleheader was played at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, but were also rained out. This one was also made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Chicago White Sox won the 1st game, 3-1. The Philadelphia Athletics won the 2nd game, 4-3. Over the 2 games, Eddie Collins, the former A's star now playing 2nd base for the White Sox, went 3-for-8. Shoeless Joe Jackson didn't play in either game: He was working in a shipyard as World War I duty.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 5-1 at National Park in Washington Park. (It was renamed Griffith Stadium in 1922.) Stan Coveleski outpitched Jim Shaw. Tris Speaker went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. Senators Pitching legend Walter Johnson appeared as a pinch-hitter, but did not reach base.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. In the top of the 13th inning, Ed Burns bunted, and pitcher Cy Slapnicka threw the ball away, allowing Gavvy Cravath to score. Both pitchers, Slapnicka of the Bucs and Elmer Jacobs of the Phils, went the distance. Slapnicka would later become a scout for the Cleveland Indians, discovering Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Feller and Bob Lemon.

* And the Boston Braves and the Cincinnati Reds were rained out at Redland Field in Cincinnati. (It was renamed Crosley Field in 1934.) The game was made up as part of a doubleheader 3 days later. The Braves won the 1st game, 5-2. The Reds won the 2nd game, 7-3.

June 24, 1995: The Rugby Match That United a Nation

Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar

June 24, 1995: A nation in search of reconciliation finds a moment to rally around -- as its President knew it could.

During the years of apartheid in South Africa, soccer was seen as the sport of the nation's black people, while cricket and rugby were the sports of its white people. Cricket appealed to the white people of British descent, while rugby appealed to both them and the people of Dutch descent, the Afrikaners whose Afrikaans language was a derivation of Dutch.

But Nelson Mandela, elected President in the country's 1st all-races election in 1994, saw that he was going to host the Rugby World Cup the following year. He knew that sport had the power to bring people together. In some cases -- soccer in Germany in 1954 and England in 1966, hockey in Canada in 1972 and America in 1980 -- it could bring an entire country together, or even the entire world.

So he wanted South Africa's famed rugby team, the green-and-gold-clad "Springboks" (a springbok is an antelope native to southern and western Africa), to bring the country together, by becoming racially integrated for the 1st time in its history, and face the other world powers of rugby, all integrated, and beat them on home soil.

Chester Williams, a 24-year-old left wing from Cape Town, was the 1st black Springbok. In club matches, some opponents had made racist remarks about him. That was not the case when those opponents joined him on the national side: "When we were together as a team, the team-spirit was good. We partied together, we had fun together, we stuck by one another. Those other things happened while we were playing against one another in the Currie Cup, or domestic competitions. But that's in the past now. We have all moved on, and everybody's happy." Mandela could be seen in the stands wearing Williams' Number 11 shirt.

Chester Williams

South Africa were put in a group with Australia, Romania and Canada, but beat them all. They beat Western Samoa in the Quarterfinal, 42-14; and a tough France team in the Semifinal, 19-15. They would host the Final on June 24, at Ellis Park in Johannesburg, the home of South African rugby.

But they would have to play New Zealand. They are known as the All Blacks, referring to their uniforms, as they are multicultural, with players of Samoan descent often leading them in a fierce-looking pregame haka dance. (The New Zealand soccer team is the All Whites, again for their uniforms, not their racial makeup.)

The All Blacks had won the 1st Rugby World Cup, in 1987; and finished 3rd in 1991. They came into this edition as the favorites, mainly because they had the man then regarded as the best player in the world: Jonah Lomu. Scotland player Kenny Logan put it this way: "You could talk about Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, that's what Jonah was, someone who could change games if you gave him the ball, wherever he was."

A New Zealander of Tongan ancestry, Lomu had been an all-around track and field star as well. At 6-foot-5 and 262 pounds of solid muscle, Lomu was so effective, his playing style attracted attention from NFL scouts and suggested that he might be able to make the transition to American football. He never tried it, though.

Jonah Lomu

(While a few NFL players had played rugby at a scholastic or collegiate level, only 1 professional rugby player has ever played in the NFL: Hayden Smith, an Australian who played 8 seasons for Saracens in London, and 5 games as a tight end for the New York Jets in 2012. Most of those who've tried out have been cut, or only made the practice squad, never getting into a game.)

New Zealand beat Ireland, Wales and Japan in the Group Stage, their win over Japan being a shocking 145-17. They beat Scotland in the Quarterfinal, and England in the Semifinal. So they had beaten all 4 of the United Kingdom's "Home Nations," given that the Ireland team was a combination of players from the Republic of Ireland and British-controlled Northern Ireland. The Semifinal win over England was 45-29, and that 16-point margin was the closest anyone had come to beating them. Lomu scored 4 tries (touchdowns) in that game. He and teammate Mark Ellis had each scored 7 over the course of the tournament.

(For the sake of perspective: In the Spring tournament then known as the Five Nations Championship, England went 4-0, Scotland 3-1, France 2-2, Ireland 3-1, and Wales 0-4. In 2000, Italy were admitted to the competition, giving it the current name: The Six Nations Championship.)

Essentially, it looked like a battle of a great offense against a great defense: New Zealand had outscored their opponents, 315-104; while South Africa had outscored theirs, 129-55. Average that out, and you get New Zealand 180, South Africa 116. Of course, sports usually doesn't work out anywhere near that way, but enough people thought it would that, despite the Springboks being the hosts, the All Blacks were the worldwide betting favorites. The match kicked off at 1:30 PM local time -- 11:30 AM in London, 6:30 AM on the U.S. East Coast, and 11:30 PM in New Zealand.

South Africa played their own game, relying on their defense. This led to Ruben Kruger, Mark Andrews and Joost van der Westhuizen preventing much progress. Nevertheless, Andrew Mehrtens scored a penalty just 6 minutes in, giving New Zealand a 3-0. In the 11th minute, Joel Stransky tied the game. Each of these men added another penalty to make it 6-6, and in the 32nd minute, Stransky added another, allowing South Africa to take a 9-6 lead into halftime. The policy of "bend, but don't break" seemed to be working.

In the 55th minute, Mehrtens scored another drop goal, to tie it at 9-9. He just missed another late in regular time, but it was still tied at full time, putting the game into extra time. According to the rules, if extra time finished with scores still level, with no side having scored more tries than the other, then the team with the better overall disciplinary record during the tournament would win. That tiebreaker belonged to New Zealand. So South Africa had to score.

But early in the first half, the Springboks were penalized for chasing a Stransky kick from an offside position. From just inside the half-way line, Mehrtens kicked truly to give New Zealand a 12–9 lead. As half-time approached, Stransky put a high kick for his teammates to chase, and from the resultant play, referee Morrison penalized the All Blacks for diving to the ground near the tackle. Right on the stroke of half-time of extra time, Stransky levelled the scores at 12–12.

Joel Stransky

With 7 minutes remaining, Stransky scored a drop goal from 30 meters out (about 33 yards, in U.S. football terms). No tries were scored in the entire match, but South Africa had won, 15-12. They had held a team that had averaged 63 points a match thus far to 1/5th of that.

After the match, Mandela, wearing a Springbok jersey and cap, as head of state for the host nation, presented the Webb Ellis Cup to Captain Pienaar, to the delight of the diverse crowd of 59,870 people.

The story was depicted in the book Playing the Enemy: Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, by British journalist John Carlin. A screenplay based on that book was filmed as Invictus in 2009, with Clint Eastwood directing. Morgan Freeman as Mandela, Matt Damon as Pienaar, McNeill Hendricks (who had played 2 matches for the Springboks) as Williams, Eastwood's son Scott Eastwood as Stransky; and Isaac Fe'aunati (credited as Zak Fe'aunati), who made 13 appearances for the Samoa national team, as Lomu.

A surprising number of players from that Final have died young: Ruben Kruger from cancer in 2010, at 39; Joost van der Westhuizen from ALS (known in British Commonwealth countries as "motor neurone disease" and in America as "Lou Gehrig's disease) in 2017, at 45; both James Small and Chester Williams from heart attacks in 2019, at 50 and 49, respectively. South Africa's manager, George "Kitch" Christie, died in 1998, from leukemia, at 58. Mandela died in 2015, at 95.

New Zealand star Jonah Lomu married a white South African woman, but it didn't last. Despite all his fame, and an ability to speak 7 languages, he suffered from kidney disease and lost all his money trying to treat it. He died in 2015, only 40 years old.

*

June 24, 1995 was a Saturday. On this same day, the New Jersey Devils beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-2, at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey. This completed a 4-game sweep, and gave the Devils their 1st Stanley Cup. I have a separate entry for this event.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat those pesky Toronto Blue Jays, 10-2 at Yankee Stadium. The only home run in the game was hit by the Jays' Joe Carter. But, for the Bronx Bombers, Luis Polonia, Wade Boggs and Dion James each got 2 hits. Boggs got 3 RBIs, and James and Paul O'Neill each got 2. This was in support of Melido Perez.

* The New York Mets, as they so often did in those days, lost to the Atlanta Braves, 5-4 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-0 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Carlos Perez, brother of Melido and Pascual, pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-5 at Camden yards in Baltimore.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Florida Marlins, 5-2 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-2 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-3 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-9 at Busch Memorial Stadium.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-5 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Oakland Athletics, 6-5 at The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Houston Astros, 5-2 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Colorado Rockies, 2-0 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Joey Hamilton pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 7-0 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Hideo Nomo had the night's best pitching performance, pitching a 2-hit shutout and striking out 13.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the California Angels, 3-2 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

April 27, 1994: South Africa's 1st All-Races Election

April 27, 1994: The Republic of South Africa ends apartheid by holding its 1st all-races general election. Lines of people miles, and hours, long developed, stunning the world with footage. It shook many people up, including Americans, who had taken the right to vote for granted.

The African National Congress won 62 percent of the vote, resulting in 252 seats in the national legislature, the National Assembly. As a result, its Leader, Nelson Mandela, was sworn in as President on May 10.

The National Party, which went into the election as the party holding the government, got just 20 percent, winning 82 seats. Its leader, Frederik W. de Klerk, who had set the end of apartheid in motion by releasing Mandela from his 27-year imprisonment 4 years earlier, lost the post of President, but remained Deputy President under an agreement reached to set the election up.

This agreement got Mandela and deKlerk, along with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Palestinian Chairman Yassir Arafat, named "The Peacemakers" and "Men of the Year" for 1993 by Time magazine.

Coming in 3rd, with 10 percent of the vote and 43 seats, was the Inkatha Freedom Party, led by Zulu tribal Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Mandela appointed him Minister of Home Affairs.

Since then, April 27 has been a national holiday in the country: Freedom Day.

On June 21, 1990, 4 months after his release, Mandela had addressed a civil rights rally at the original Yankee Stadium. A former professional boxer, he, like many national leaders -- some more ethical than others -- understood how sports can shape public opinion. He helped inspire South Africa to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup on home soil, which he hoped -- correctly, as it turned out -- would help in bringing his country together.

He served one term, May 10, 1994 to June 14, 1999, stepped aside, and lived until 2013. de Klerk lived until 2021. As of April 27, 2022, Buthelezi is still alive. (UPDATE: He died in 2023.)

*

April 27, 1994 was a Wednesday. Corey Seager, an All-Star shortstop who won the World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Texas Rangers, was born on this day.

There were 12 games played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners, 12-2 at the Kingdome in Seattle. They had 5-run innings in the 3rd and the 5th, but only 1 home run, by Jim Leyritz. Scott Kamieniecki was the winning pitcher, over Dave Fleming.

* The New York Mets beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2 at Shea Stadium. The game went 15 innings, before Fernando Vina singled home a run.

* The Montreal Expos beat the San Francisco Giants, 7-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The team then known as the Florida Marlins beat the Colorado Rockies, 3-2 at what was then named Joe Robbie Stadium in the suburb of Miami Gardens, Florida. (It's now Hard Rock Stadium.)

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-1 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-7 at Jacobs (now Progressive) Field in Cleveland. The Pale Hose scored 2 runs in the top of the 12th inning, but the Tribe scored 3 in the bottom half, with a home run by Manny Ramirez, Matt Merullo drawing a walk, Kenny Lofton reaching on an error, and Mark Lewis doubling Merullo home.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-0 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Scott Erickson pitched a no-hitter. It wasn't a perfect game: He walked Bill Spiers in the 4th inning, hit John Jaha with a pitch in the 6th, walked Rich Becker in the 7th, walked Dave Nilsson in the 8th, and walked both Spiers and Turner Ward in the 9th.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 11-3 at what was then known as The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* On a rare day when both Texas teams were at home, the Houston Astros beat the Chicago Cubs, 8-5 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Veteran reliever Larry Andersen, forgetting the cliche that walks, especially the leadoff variety, can kill you, began the bottom of the 10th by walking Henry Rodriguez and Tim Wallach, and allowed an RBI single to Cory Snyder.

* On a rare day when both the Dodgers and the team then known as the California Angels were at home, the Angels lost to the Baltimore Orioles, 13-1 at Anaheim Stadium.

* And the Boston Red Sox beat the Oakland Athletics, 1-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Former Met Ron Darling went the distance in defeat for the A's. In contrast, it took 3 BoSox to pitch a 2-hit shutout: Frank Viola (also a former Met), Scott Bankhead (a former Yankee) and Jeff Russell.

The NFL was in its offseason. The NBA had just ended its regular season, and its Playoffs were about to begin. There were 3 Stanley Cup Playoff games played that night, all of them Eastern Conference Quarterfinals:

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the New Jersey Devils, 1-0 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Dave Hannan scored the winning goal 5 minutes and 43 seconds…into the 4th overtime. In other words, goaltenders Dominik Hasek (turning away 70 shots) and Martin Brodeur (49) had held each other's team scoreless for 125 minutes, over 2 full games' worth in 1 night.

This was Game 6. Two nights later, at the Meadowlands, the Devils won Game 7.

* In a rare "Original Six" Playoff series (well, rare since the NHL's 1982 realignment), the Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 at the Montreal Forum. Two nights later, in Boston, the Bruins won Game 7.

* And the Washington Capitals beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 6-3 at the USAir Arena (formerly the Capital Centre) in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. This Game 6 win gave the Caps the series. 

April 20, 1964: Nelson Mandela Says He Is Prepared to Die

April 20, 1964: Nelson Mandela is on trial for treason in Johannesburg, South Africa. He tells the judge about his ideal, "My lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

He was born on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, in the Eastern Cape province of what was then known as the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion of the British Empire (and, after 1947, the British Commonwealth). As a result, the white minority, a combination of British and Dutch-ancestry "Boers" or "Afrikaners," instituted policies of racial segregation, called "apartheid," far beyond what Great Britain ever had.

Mandela claimed to have inherited a "proud rebelliousness" and a "stubborn sense of fairness" from his father. He was at university when World War II broke out, and supported the British Empire and opposed Nazi Germany. He became a lawyer, and rose through the ranks of the African National Congress, the leading advocacy organization for black South Africans. In 1958, his work with the ANC got him charged with treason. The charges were dropped, but, at the age of 40, he was already on the apartheidists' radar.

On October 5, 1960, a referendum -- with only white people voting -- to become the Republic of South Africa was narrowly approved, and the country officially left the British Commonwealth on May 31, 1961. This permitted a tightening of the apartheid laws.

In response to these whites-only actions, the ANC passed a resolution declaring "No Constitution or form of Government decided without the participation of the African people who form an absolute majority of the population can enjoy moral validity or merit support either within South Africa or beyond its borders." Mandela himself wrote:

The adoption of this part of the resolution did not mean that conference preferred a monarchy to a republican form of government. Such considerations were unimportant and irrelevant. The point at issue, and which was emphasized over and over again by delegates, was that a minority Government had decided to proclaim a White Republic under which the living conditions of the African people would continue to deteriorate.

In response to this, the government cracked down as never before. Mandela and 2 others founded uMkhonto we Sizwe, meaning "Spear of the Nation," or "MK" for short. Inspired by the success of Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba -- and, in spite of his virtues, Castro and Mandela would be lifelong friends -- the group carried out a bombing campaign in December 1961.

On August 5, 1962 -- the day Marilyn Monroe died -- Mandela was arrested, and was held prisoner in Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, before his trial. (Unusually, the nation has three capitals. Cape Town is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital. Johannesburg is the largest city, and the unofficial capital of South African culture, but not in any official way a capital.)

On April 20, 1964, in what became known as the Rivonia Trial, Mandela testified on his own behalf, delivering what became known as the "I Am Prepared to Die Speech." He closed:

I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But, My Lord, if it needs to be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

On June 12, Mandela was convicted. The prosecution asked for the death penalty. Instead, the presiding judge, Justice Quartus de Wet, sentence him to life in prison. Mandela was taken to Robben Island.

His speech was published worldwide, and many people who came to admire him for it feared that it would be the last they ever heard from him. He served 27 years.

*

April 20, 1964 was a Monday. Actors Crispin Glover and Andy Serkis were born. So was longtime NFL placekicker John Carney.

Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Finals were between Games 4 and 5. The Toronto Maple Leafs would beat the Detroit Red Wings in 7 games. Game 2 of the NBA Finals was played. The Boston Celtics beat the San Francisco Warriors, 124-101 at the Boston Garden. Wilt Chamberlain scored 32 points and had 25 rebounds, but, as usual, the Red Auerbach-coached, Bill Russell-led Celtics were the better team. They won the series in 5 games.

And there were 4 baseball games played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 4-0 at Fenway Park. Bill Monbouquette allowed 7 hits over 8 innings, but no runs, and Dick Radatz allowed 2 more hits but finished the shutout. Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4, and Tony Conigliaro hit his 2nd career home run.

Bob Meyer had a poor start for the Yankees, and was traded to the Los Angeles Angels 2 months later. Bobby Richardson got 3 hits, Mickey Mantle and Elston Howard 2 each, Tom Tresh and Joe Pepitone 1 each, and that was it.

* The Houston Colt .45s beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-1 at Colt Stadium in Houston. The Colts became the Houston Astros the next season.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Hank Aaron went 0-for-5.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-2 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie Mays went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Willie McCovey hit a home run. Frank Robinson went 1-for-5. Pete Rose went 0-for-4 with a walk.

February 11, 1990: Nelson Mandela Is Freed

February 11, 1990: Nelson Mandela is released from prison after 27 years.

Viewing him through the prism of his life having reached extraordinary heights after his release, and then coming to a conclusion, it is easy to lose the context that landed him in prison in the first place: His homeland was a terribly unfair place.

He was born on July 18, 1918, in Mvezo, in the Eastern Cape province of what was then known as the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion of the British Empire (and, after 1947, the British Commonwealth). As a result, the white minority, a combination of British and Dutch-ancestry "Boers" or "Afrikaners," instituted policies of racial segregation, called "apartheid," far beyond what Great Britain ever had.

Mandela claimed to have inherited a "proud rebelliousness" and a "stubborn sense of fairness" from his father. He was at university when World War II broke out, and supported the British Empire and opposed Nazi Germany. He became a lawyer, and rose through the ranks of the African National Congress, the leading advocacy organization for black South Africans. In 1958, his work with the ANC got him charged with treason. The charges were dropped, but, at the age of 40, he was already on the apartheidists' radar.

On October 5, 1960, a referendum -- with only white people voting -- to become the Republic of South Africa was narrowly approved, and the country officially left the British Commonwealth on May 31, 1961. This permitted a tightening of the apartheid laws.

In response to these whites-only actions, the ANC passed a resolution declaring "No Constitution or form of Government decided without the participation of the African people who form an absolute majority of the population can enjoy moral validity or merit support either within South Africa or beyond its borders." Mandela himself wrote:

The adoption of this part of the resolution did not mean that conference preferred a monarchy to a republican form of government. Such considerations were unimportant and irrelevant. The point at issue, and which was emphasised over and over again by delegates, was that a minority Government had decided to proclaim a White Republic under which the living conditions of the African people would continue to deteriorate.

In response to this, the government cracked down as never before. Mandela and 2 others founded uMkhonto we Sizwe, meaning "Spear of the Nation," or "MK" for short. Inspired by the success of Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba -- and, in spite of his virtues, Castro and Mandela would be lifelong friends -- the group carried out a bombing campaign in December 1961.

On August 5, 1962 -- the day Marilyn Monroe died -- Mandela was arrested, and was held prisoner in Pretoria, the administrative capital of South Africa, before his trial. (Unusually, the nation has three capitals. Cape Town is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital. Johannesburg is the largest city, and the unofficial capital of South African culture, but not in any official way a capital.)

On April 20, 1964, in what became known as the Rivonia Trial, Mandela testified on his own behalf, delivering what became known as the "I Am Prepared to Die Speech." He closed:

I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realized. But, My Lord, if it needs to be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

On June 12, Mandela was convicted. The prosecution asked for the death penalty. Instead, the presiding judge, Justice Quartus de Wet, sentence him to life in prison. Mandela was taken to Robben Island, where he was imprisoned for the next 18 years.

By the 1970s, the Black Consciousness Movement had succeeded the ANC as the leading advocacy group, and Steven Biko became the new hope of the people. But the 1976 Soweto Uprising led to a new crackdown, and in 1977, Biko was arrested, and beaten to death in custody.

Since Mandela, however removed from the struggle, was still alive, attention turned back toward him. By 1981, in absentia, he received an honorary doctorate from a university in Lesotho, a black-led independent nation completely surrounded by South Africa (but, like Switzerland, heavily mountainous and thus hard to conquer); the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding from the government of India; the Freedom of the City of Glasgow, Scotland; and a resolution demanding his release from the United Nations Security Council.

But, by this point, the President of the United States was Ronald Reagan, and the Prime Minister of Britain was Margaret Thatcher. They both viewed Mandela as a Communist and a terrorist, so he could count on no official help from either of their countries.

And in 1982, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Although conditions were considerably better -- he and the white commanding officer managed to build a friendship -- the reason for the move is that he was having too great an influence on the younger prisoners at Robben Island, who would see their sentences end and then take his ideas back home.

In 1986, both houses of the Congress of the United States passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, a resolution imposing economic sanctions on South Africa. Reagan vetoed it. To override the veto required a 2/3rds vote of each house: 290 in the House of Representatives, 67 in the Senate. And Reagan's party, the Republicans, controlled the Senate with 52 members, and had 180 members in the House.

And yet, on September 29, 1986, the House voted 315-84 to override Reagan's veto. Three days later, the Senate voted 78-21 to do so. That's how shameful apartheid had come to be seen outside South Africa. (For the record: Mitch McConnell, now seen as the leading voice of white supremacy in the U.S. Senate, voted to override Reagan's veto. Chuck Grassley, also still there, voted for the Act, but against overriding the veto.)

On June 11, 1988, to celebrate his upcoming 70th birthday, a tribute concert was held at the original Wembley Stadium in London, with a full house of over 100,000 people on hand, and an estimated 200 million watching on television worldwide. Being greedy and wanting the money from the ratings, Rupert Murdoch bought the U.S. TV rights; being a right-wing maniac, he had it broadcast in America on tape delay, so he could censor the more political aspects of the show.

The show was launched by the Farafina Drummers, from the West African nation of Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta). Speakers and other performers included Harry Belafonte, Sting, George Michael, Richard Attenborough, Whoopi Goldberg, Eurythmics, Graham Chapman, Tracy Chapman (no relation), Al Green, Joe Cocker, Ashford & Simpson, Natalie Cole, Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie, Phil Collins, Joan Armatrading, Paul Carrack, Paul Young, Curt Smith of Tears for Fears, Bryan Adams, The Bee Gees, Youssou N'Dour, Jackson Browne, UB40, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba (South African performers, once married to each other), Denzel Washington, Simple Minds, Peter Gabriel, Meat Loaf, Whitney Houston, Salt-N-Pepa, Stevie Wonder, Chubby Checker, Dire Straits with Eric Clapton sitting in (despite Clapton's previous racist remarks), and, closing the show, opera singer Jessye Norman singing "Amazing Grace."

Millions of people who had never heard Mandela's story before now knew. But one mind had to be changed in order to get him released. That was the mind of the President of South Africa. And that was P.W. Botha, and he was a committed apartheidist, and was never going to release Mandela. Mandela was moved to Victor Verster Prison.

But in 1989, Botha suffered a stroke, and the National Party removed him from power, installing Frederick W. de Klerk. On February 2, 1990, de Klerk announced a series of reforms, including striking down the ban on the African National Congress. This meant that its leaders could be freed from prison.

On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison, and, surrounded by a large crowd, he and Winnie held hands, and raised their other hands in fists.

Mandela visited America in June, including receiving a ticker-tape parade up Broadway in New York, and holding a rally at Yankee Stadium, wearing a Yankee cap at both, a gift from David Dinkins, the City's 1st black Mayor. In 1994, de Klerk permitted an all-races election, even though he knew it would mean his defeat. The ANC won, and on May 10, 1994, Mandela was sworn in as President of South Africa.

He served a full five-year term, and then walked away. The work of building a new nation was not finished -- and still isn't, long past his death on December 5, 2013 -- but, despite having spent more than 27 years of it in prison, Nelson Mandela became one of the giants of the 20th Century.

*

February 11, 1990 was a Sunday. This was also the day that James "Buster" Douglas knocked Mike Tyson out. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball and football were out of season. On that day, the NBA held its All-Star Game, at the Miami Arena. The East beat the West, 130-113. Magic Johnson was named the game's Most Valuable Player.

There were 6 games played in the NHL that day: 

* The New York Rangers lost to the Calgary Flames, 5-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at the Boston Garden.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Minnesota North Stars, 5-3 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-2 at the St. Louis Arena.

* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 7-4 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.