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 20, 1976: Rupert Murdoch Buys the New York Post

Murdoch's head on a mockup of the poster

for the 1976 remake of King Kong,

with a headline appropriate for his style of newspaper

November 20, 1976: New York newspapering changes forever. Rupert Murdoch, a brash right-wing Australian who had already changed British media with national newspaper The Sun, buys the New York Post. He turns it from what it was, a hard-hitting paper favored by liberal intellectuals, especially Jewish ones, into a conservative rag that cares a lot for flashy headlines and not a damn for journalistic accuracy and ethics.

Murdoch uses the Post to slam the City's liberals, the State's liberals, and the country's liberals, for allowing crime to go unchecked, for allowing government spending to go unchecked. You know, the usual right-wing bullshit.

The City's other major tabloid that survived the big newspaper closings of the 1960s was the Daily News. (The words "New York" have never been in the official title, but their masthead has called them "New York's Picture Newspaper" and "New York's Hometown Paper.") It had previously been a populist conservative paper, due to its roots as having been a part of the Chicago Tribune Company. But with the Post taking a rightward turn, the News realized it needed to shift and fill the Post's former void, and they became a left-populist paper -- not Communist, or even socialist, but definitely liberal. 

Murdoch's sensationalism, which he had perfected in his native country and then in Britain, was brought to the Post, including the infamous, and sometimes even correct, Page Six gossip page. The paper's huge, salacious headlines brought its circulation to unheard-of levels. The Daily News was forced to fight fire with fire. The Son of Sam, a serial killer who had already struck twice, would continue to kill, and this drove both papers' circulation to higher points than they'd had in years. On April 15, 1983, the Post outdid itself with its most famous headline.

In 1993, Murdoch folded the Post into his larger News Corp., which would include Fox News Channel. In the 21st Century, the Post finally exceeded the Daily News in circulation -- partly due to the News' ideological steps away from liberal populism, often pandering to the George W. Bush Administration, and its publisher Mortimer Zuckerman's longstanding friendship with another broadcast tycoon, Michael Bloomberg, whom Zuckerman's support, and Murdoch's, helped make Bloomberg Mayor for 3 terms, resulting in a serious decline for the City. By the time he left office at the end of 2013, Bloomberg was one of the most unpopular Mayors in City history.

The Post's circulation has not, however, exceeded that of The New York Times.

*

November 20, 1976 was a Saturday. Olympic Gold Medal-winning gymnast Dominique Dawes was born. This was also the day the 1st Rocky film premiered, and baseball pitcher Wayne Garland received a contract he couldn't live up to. I have separate entries for those events.

Baseball was out of season. There were college football games played that day, including some major rivalries:

* Rivalry: Number 3 University of Southern California beat Number 2 University of California at Los Angeles. USC beat UCLA, 24-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and clinched the Pacific-Eight Conference title.

* Rivalry: Number 4 Michigan beat Number 8 Ohio State, 22-0 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, clinching the Big Ten Conference title. Michigan lost the Rose Bowl to USC. Ohio State settled for the Orange Bowl.

* Rivalry: Number 6 Maryland beat Virginia, 28-0 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia, clinching the Atlantic Coast Conference title.

* Rivalry: Number 7 Oklahoma and Number 10 Nebraska had the week off, preparing for each other. Oklahoma won, 20-17 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. But this was a rare year in this era in which neither of them won the Big Eight Conference Championship.

* Number 9 Houston upset Number 5 Texas Tech, 27-19 at Jones Stadium in Lubbock, clinching the Southwest Conference title. Houston beat Maryland in the Cotton Bowl.

* Number 13 Notre Dame beat the University of Miami, 40-27 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* Number 15 Colorado beat Kansas State, 35-28 at KSU Stadium (now Bill Snyder Family Stadium) in Manhattan, Kansas, clinching the Big Eight title. Colorado lost the Orange Bowl to Ohio State.

* Number 16 Oklahoma State beat Number 14 Iowa State, 42-21 at Lewis Field (now T. Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

* Rivalry: Number 19 Missouri were upset by Kansas, 41-14 at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri.

* The University of Pittsburgh, ranked Number 1, had the week off. The following Friday night, they beat Penn State, and then won the National Championship by beating Southeastern Conference Champion Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.

* Rivalry: Villanova beat Temple, 24-7 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* Rivalry: Kentucky beat Tennessee, 7-0 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* Rivalry: North Carolina beat Duke in a wild one, 39-38 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

* Rivalry: Clemson beat South Carolina, 28-9 at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina.

* Rivalry: Mississippi State beat Mississippi (Ole Miss), 28-11 at Memorial Stadium in Jackson, Mississippi.

* Rivalry: Louisiana State (LSU) beat Tulane, 17-7 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Rivalry: Indiana beat Purdue, 20-14 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Rivalry: Illinois beat Northwestern, 48-6 at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois.

* Rivalry: Wisconsin beat Minnesota, 26-17 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

* Rivalry: Brigham Young beat Utah, 34-12 at Rice Stadium (now Rice-Eccles Stadium) in Salt Lake City.

* Rivalry: Stanford beat the University of California, 27-24 at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley.

* Rivalry: Oregon beat Oregon State, 23-14 at Parker Stadium (now Reser Stadium) in Corvallis, Oregon.

* Rivalry: Washington beat Washington State, 51-32 at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Washington.

* Air Force beat Wyoming, 41-21 at Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Army and Navy both had the week off, preparing for each other the following Saturday, at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. Navy won, 38-10.

In New Jersey, Princeton had already finished their season, at 2-7. Rutgers were off. Five days later, on Thanksgiving Day, beat Colgate at Giants Stadium, 17-9, to clinch an undefeated regular season, 11-0. But they were not invited to a bowl game.

There were 6 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Denver Nuggets, 120-115 at Madison Square Garden. David Thompson scored 35 points in defeat.

* The Washington Bullets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 109-103 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 123-106 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Boston Celtics, 116-110 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Bob Lanier scored 40 points.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Kansas City Kings, 127-126 in overtime 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 Golden State Warriors beat the Buffalo Braves, 130-93 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the St. Louis Blues, 3-1 at the St. Louis Arena.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Minnesota North Stars, 8-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Darryl Sittler, Jack Valiquette, and Dave "Tiger" Williams each had 2 goals for the Leafs.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 5-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* And the Buffalo Sabres beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And there were 3 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The New England Whalers and the Minnesota Fighting Saints played to a tie, 3-3 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 8-4 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* And the Houston Aeros beat the Phoenix Roadrunners, 5-2 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

And in English soccer, Arsenal and Liverpool played to a 1-1 draw at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.

November 16, 1995: The Gingrich Tantrum

November 16, 1995: President Bill Clinton's victory in the federal government shutdown is sealed when the New York Daily News prints a front-page cartoon, showing the Speaker of the House, and the leader of the Republican Party's move to make drastic cuts in the federal budget, as a "cry baby."

After the failure of his health care initiative in 1994, Clinton saw his Democratic Party battered in the midterm elections, with the Republicans taking both houses of Congress. Bob Dole, from Russell, Kansas, regained the office of Senate Majority Leader that he had held in 1985 and 1986, having been the Minority Leader from 1987 to 1994.

And Gingrich, a Pennsylvania native who moved to the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Georgia to teach at a college, and was first elected to Congress in 1978 and used fiery rhetoric to get into the Republican Party's leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1989, became the Speaker of the House.

Dole was considered mean, a reputation he got in his 1976 Vice Presidential debate with Walter Mondale, and deepened in his 1988 Presidential run. But, politically speaking, he was still a center-right candidate, willing to compromise for the greater good of the country. Gingrich was not: He was frequently called a "firebrand" and a "bombthrower."

Like most politicians, especially Republicans, he wanted to balance the federal budget. But his plan severely cut social services -- and also seriously cut taxes, especially on the wealthy. This didn't work when Ronald Reagan was President in the 1980s, and actually created the harsh economic conditions that led to Clinton's election in 1992. As we have since seen, it didn't work in 2001, and it didn't work in 2017. It would not have worked in 1995.

Every year, the federal budget takes effect on October 1. To put it another way: "Fiscal Year 1996" ran from October 1, 1995 to September 30, 1996. If no deal between Congress and the President is in place by October 1, they can pass a "continuing resolution," or "CR": For the length of the resolution, the proportions of the previous fiscal year continue.

But Clinton and the Republicans controlling Congress couldn't reach a deal by September 30. So they passed a CR that ran until November 13. But the Republicans refused to pass a new budget or a new CR by November 14. So, at 12:00 Midnight on November 13, the federal government shut down, because it was not legally permitted to spend any more money. People were still working for it, but without pay.

And the Republicans went before the media and said it was Clinton's fault. Except Clinton also went before the media, and pointed out that he was still willing to make a deal, and the Republicans weren't. Finally, he called Dole and Gingrich into the Oval Office. So often willing to compromise on things, seemingly desperate to get re-elected, not wanting to be a one-term President like 3 of the last 4 (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush), but angering many in his own party, Clinton stiffened his spine, and told them, "I don't care if I go down to 5 percent in the polls. If you want that budget signed into law, you're going to have to get somebody else behind this desk."

For once, Clinton held his ground. And polls showed that more people supported his stance than the Republicans' stance. Once the Daily News printed that front page, and blow-ups of it were displayed on the floor of the very House of which Gingrich was Speaker -- by a Representative from Brooklyn, later to be Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer -- their approval rating plummeted. It has never again reached its 1995 height.

Clinton had invited Dole and Gingrich to go with him to the funeral of the assassinated Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin -- certainly, a gesture of respect, if not reconciliation. But the article accompanying the cartoon alleged that, on the flight back, Gingrich wanted to talk about the budget impasse, Clinton didn't, and Clinton made Gingrich get off Air Force One at the back entrance, and Gingrich got upset about these developments.

As comedian Dick Gregory told Clinton at an NAACP convention the following year, "He got upset because you made him a Negro!" Everybody in the audience laughed at the reference to black people being segregated to the backs of buses up until 1955. Clinton couldn't have made that joke himself, but Gregory could.

Did Clinton "make" Gingrich get off at the back of the plane? Was it true? Only Clinton and Gingrich know for sure. The problem was, given Gingrich's own actions over the 17 years he'd served in Congress to that point, the story was completely believable. He had lived by the persona of a guy who tapped into people's emotions, and now, politically, he was dying by them.

Leading an opposition and leading a majority are two very different things, and while some skills cross over, some do not. Gingrich's tantrums had worked pretty well when he was in the opposition to House Democrats like his predecessors as Speaker, Jim Wright of Texas and Tom Foley of Washington State. They did not work when he had a position of power, and they certainly didn't work against a political talent like Clinton. It was like, "Welcome to the major leagues, Newt."

That front page became the Daily News' 2nd-best-known ever, trailing only the October 30, 1975 front page concerning another budget mess, that of New York City, when President Gerald Ford refused to use federal money to bail the City out. The News' front page read, "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." That headline probably cost Ford the State of New York in the 1976 election, and thus the election itself. Having brought down a President, now, 20 years later, the News was bringing down a Speaker. Not yet, though: Time magazine would name Gingrich its Man of the Year for 1995.

Finally, on November 19, the Republicans caved. And when the general election campaign got underway, the Democrats aired commercials showing Dole and Gingrich together so many times, it began to look like Gingrich was Dole's running mate, instead of his actual choice, Jack Kemp, former pro quarterback and Congressman from New York.

Once the Democrats had their convention, Clinton and his running mate, Vice President Al Gore, solidified their lead, and Dole and Kemp never really challenged them. Dole didn't run a bad campaign, but once Clinton won the battle over the budget, Dole never had a chance, unless there was a new "Clinton scandal" bigger than anything that had happened to that point.

What no one yet knew was that the government shutdown, at the same time that it was securing Clinton's win, was also setting the stage for such a scandal: Among the volunteers working in the White House during the government shutdown was a young woman named Monica Lewinsky.

But the public's backlash against the Republicans' effort to impeach Clinton led to the Democrats gaining seats in the 1998 Congressional elections. Gingrich's marital infidelities had been at least as notorious as Clinton's, and the Republicans didn't care. But now, they cared: To the conservative movement, everything is acceptable except losing, and Gingrich was forced to step down, not just from the Speakership but from Congress.

*

November 16, 1995 was a Thursday. The baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 5 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Golden State Warriors, 120-97 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* The Orlando Magic beat the Indiana Pacers, 89-80 at the Orlando Arena.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 115-87 at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. Robert Horry led all NBA players on the night, with 40 points.

* The Los Angeles Clippers beat the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies, 103-98 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. (The Grizzlies moved to Memphis in 2001.)

* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 105-102 at the Rose Garden in Portland. (It's now named the Moda Center.)

There were 7 games played in the NHL, and all 3 of the New York Tri-State Area teams were in action:

* The New Jersey Devils, the Stanley Cup holders, played the Boston Bruins to a tie, 2-2 at the new FleetCenter in Boston. (It's now named the TD Garden.) The Meadowlands Marauders came from 2-0 down in the 3rd period, to salvage a point thanks to goals from Ricard Persson and Valeri Zelepukin.

* The New York Rangers weren't so lucky: They lost to the Chicago Blackhawks, 3-1 at the United Center in Chicago.

* The New York Islanders weren't even that lucky: They lost to the Los Angeles Kings, 9-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Wayne Gretzky only got 1 of the Kings' goals.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Ottawa Senators, 5-3 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-4 at the ThunderDome in St. Petersburg, Florida. (It's now named Tropicana Field. The following season, the Lightning moved into what's now named the Amalie Arena.) Former Islander Benoit Hogue scored the winner, just 32 seconds into overtime.

* The Florida Panthers and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 2-2 at the Miami Arena.

* And the St. Louis Blues beat the San Jose Sharks, 3-1 at the Kiel Center in St. Louis. (It's now named the Enterprise Center.) 

November 2, 1995: The Yankees Hire "Clueless" Joe Torre

November 2, 1995: The New York Yankees name Joe Torre as their new manager‚ replacing Buck Showalter.

Torre had been a good catcher with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves in the 1960s, a decent 1st baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals in the early 1970s, and a very good hitter throughout his playing career.

His managing was another matter. He managed the New York Mets in the late 1970s, and he didn't have much to work with. He managed the Braves in the early 1980s, and got them to a Division title in 1982 and almost to another in 1983, but that was it. He managed the Cardinals in the 1990s, and didn't get too far.

The Cardinals fired him in 1995, and he thought he'd never manage again. "I'd run out of teams," he said, noting that he'd played for 3 teams, and managed all of them. He'd been a broadcaster between his Braves and Cardinals jobs, and figured he'd go back into the broadcast booth, and that's how he'd finish out his days in baseball.

Then George Steinbrenner called to offer him the Yankee managing job. Joe had never played in the American League, let alone managed in it. But George thought he was the guy.

The New York Daily News didn't think so: Citing his lackluster managerial record up until then, and also the circus that tended to surround Steinbrenner, especially where managers were concerned, they printed the headline "CLUELESS JOE," a play on early baseball star "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. As a Yankee Fan, I will admit: I was very skeptical about this hire.

The results: World Champions in his 1st season, 1996. Wild Card in 1997. World Champions in 1998, winning more games than any team ever had in a regular season and postseason combined, 125, including a 4-game sweep in the World Series. World Champions in 1999, including the best postseason record of the 1995-present Division Series era, 11-1. World Champions in 2000, beating the Mets in the World Series. American League Champions in 2001, missing another title by 1 run. Division Champions in 2002. AL Champions in 2003, with the dramatic AL Championship Series win over the Boston Red Sox.

Then, of course, the downturn, the kind of things that the Daily News probably expected when it printed the headline. A shocking ALCS loss in 2004. Pathetic performances in the AL Division Series in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Joe got lowballed by George's heirs, of both the family and the business variety: His sons Hank and Hal, Yankee brass Randy Levine and Lonn Trost, and general manager Brian Cashman. He walked out, and managed the Los Angeles Dodgers to a pair of Division titles, before taking a job in Major League Baseball's office.

Joe and the House of Steinbrenner made up. He's been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and is honored in Monument Park at the new Yankee Stadium.

The Daily News called him "CLUELESS JOE." They get reminded of that more than they do of "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."

*

November 2, 1995 was a Thursday. Baseball season had ended 5 days earlier, when the Atlanta Braves beat the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. There was a college football game, a big one, which decided the Atlantic Coast Conference title: Number 2 Florida State were upset by Number 24 Virginia, 33-28 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The NBA season started the next day. There were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Los Angeles Kings, 5-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The New Jersey Devils and the San Jose Sharks played to a tie, 3-3 at the San Jose Arena (now the SAP Center).

* The Ottawa Senators beat the Hartford Whalers, 5-0 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena).

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 6-5 at the brand-new FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston. Steve Yzerman scored with 3:50 left in overtime.

* And the Florida Panthers beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

October 30, 1975: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD"

October 30, 1975: The New York Daily News, responding to President Gerald Ford's statement that he wouldn't allow the federal government to bail out New York City's desperate finances, prints the most famous newspaper headline ever: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."

Ford didn't actually say that, but that was the message he sent, intentionally or otherwise.

Both sides compromised, as the City did a few more things to try to get its financial house in order, and this satisfied Ford to the point where he changed his mind and signed a bailout bill.

But Ford was damned when he did, and damned when he didn't. The bailout he actually did sign infuriated many conservatives, who already had a few problems with the mildly conservative Ford, and they voted for former Governor Ronald Reagan of California in the Republican primaries, and Reagan very nearly won the GOP nomination, and when Ford won the nomination anyway, many of those conservatives stayed home on Election Day, November 2, 1976.

This may have made the difference in throwing some States, including New York, to the Democratic nominee, former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia. White conservatives in Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Long Island and Westchester abandoned him. Not that they voted for Carter (Southern or not, conservative by Democratic standards or not, they still viewed all Democrats as "socialists"), but they didn't vote at all.

It also upset undecided voters and disaffected Democrats. A lot of people remembered only the headline, and forgot that Ford changed his mind about the bailout, and held it against him, and a lot of people in the City who might not have been comfortable with Carter either voted for Carter or stayed home, enough to throw the State of New York to Carter. It may have made, literally, all the difference in the world.  Had Ford simply won the State, he would have won a full term.

True, the Nixon pardon, lingering feelings over Watergate, the shaky economy, his debate gaffe about Eastern Europe, and conservatives issues with him over things like foreign policy and federal spending also hurt him.

But the day after the '76 election, Mayor Abe Beame posed in front of City Hall with the headline, as if to say, "City to Ford: Don't tell someone to drop dead unless you can make him drop dead. We just made your campaign drop dead."

Beame outside Gracie Mansion on November 3,

a year and 4 days after the headline,

and the day after the election.

A year later, with the City's finances still not fully straightened out, and crime seemingly out of control, the City’s voters told Beame to "drop dead," and elected Congressman Ed Koch as its Mayor.

*

October 30, 1975 was a Thursday. Baseball season had just ended with a classic World Series. Football was in midweek. These 2 games were played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Kansas City Kings, 117-113 at Madison Square Garden. Nate "Tiny" Archibald scored 35 points, but the Knickerbockers got 32 from Walt "Clyde" Frazier and 26 from Spencer Haywood.

* And the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Chicago Bulls, 108-91 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

And there was a game in the American Basketball Association, entering its final season: The San Antonio Spurs beat the San Diego Sails, 102-100 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

There were 5 games played in the NHL:

* The Boston Bruins beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-2 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-2 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Buffalo Sabres and the Vancouver Canucks played to a 4-4 tie at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Kansas City Scouts, 6-2 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. In 1976, the Scouts would become the Colorado Rockies. In 1982, they would become the New Jersey Devils.

* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And there were 4 games played in the World Hockey Association:

* The Calgary Cowboys beat the Indianapolis Racers, 7-5 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 4-0 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* The Phoenix Roadrunners beat the Denver Spurs, 3-2 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

* And the Houston Aeros beat the San Diego Mariners, 4-2 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).

August 10, 1978: The 1978 New York Newspaper Strike

August 10, 1978: A newspaper strike shuts down New York City's 3 major newspapers until November 5. It was a multi-union strike: Not just the reporters, but the paperhandlers, machinists keeping the presses literally rolling, and the mechanics and drivers for the delivery trucks. Over 10,000 employees were out.

Wages were not the main issue. When the strike was settled, the union won some concessions in benefits, while management eliminated some overtime. Both sides could legitimately claim victory.

The fact that there were fewer reporters to bother them, and to complain to (although there were still TV and radio guys), is often credited as being one of the reasons the New York Yankees made their epic comeback and won the World Series.

Unlike with the 1962-63 strike that immediately killed the New York Mirror (a tabloid), and led by 1966 to the deaths of the Herald Tribune, the Journal-American, and the World-Telegram & Sun (all broadsheets), all 3 major New York dailies survived the strike. The broadsheet Times was as strong as ever. The tabloids, the Daily News and the Post, would each have their problems over the next few years, and each almost went out of business at least once, but have survived.

I've often said that the Times is the face that New York City prefers to show to the rest of the world, the Daily News is the face the City prefers to show to itself, and the Post is a face that only a mother could love.

*

August 10, 1978 was a Thursday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 9-0 at Yankee Stadium. Ron Guidry pitched a 3-hit shutout, with only a double by Robin Yount, and singles by Yount and Dick Davis. He advanced to 16-2 on the season. He would finish 25-3 -- 27-3 counting the postseason. Reggie Jackson did not play. Chris Chambliss went 3-for-4 with a walk and 4 RBIs.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-5 at Fenway Park in Boston. Andre Thornton had singled home the go-ahead run in the top of the 13th inning. But then, just after he giveth, Thornton taketh away: His error on a Butch Hobson grounder to start the bottom of the 13th led to another error on the same play, allowing Hobson to come all the way around to score. George Scott doubled, Gary Hancock pinch-ran for him, and Rick Burleson singled Hancock home.

On July 20, the Red Sox had led the Yankees by 14 games. After this game, their lead was 7 1/2. The Yankees would tie them on September 10, and they would finish in a tie for the American League Eastern Division title. The Yankees would win a Playoff, then the Pennant, and finally the World Series.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-3 with an RBI. The Pirates' only run came on a home run by Dave Parker. Willie Stargell went 1-for-4.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Ken Singleton hit a home run, and Eddie Murray went 1-for-4.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Chicago White Sox, 7-3 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Cincinnati Reds, 15-3 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Gene Tenace went 3-for-5 with a home run and 5 RBIs. Dave Winfield went 1-for-3 with 2 walks. Pete Rose went 2-for-4. Johnny Bench only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 12-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* And the California Angels beat the Oakland Athletics, 16-5 at the Oakland Coliseum. Lyman Bostock went 3-for-4 with a walk and 5 RBIs. Having finished 2nd in the American League batting race to this then-teammate, Rod Carew of the Minnesota Twins, he was looking like a superstar in the making. Just 45 days later, he was dead.

August 5, 1924: "Little Orphan Annie" Debuts

August 5, 1924: The comic strip Little Orphan Annie debuts in the New York Daily News. It was created and written by Harold Gray, who continued to write and draw it until his death in 1968. It continued, written and drawn by others, until 2010. Starting in 2013, characters from Little Orphan Annie began to appear as supporting characters in a surviving strip from the same era: Dick Tracy.

In the strip, Annie, age 10, with her orange hair, white eyes with no pupils, and red dress -- and her dog, Sandy -- are adopted by millionaire Oliver Warbucks, or "Daddy Warbucks" as she calls him. Unfortunately, the racial stereotypes of the time prevailed: Warbucks' mansion was run by an Indian butler named Punjab, and opponents included the Egyptian villain The Asp.

Little Orphan Annie inspired a radio show in 1930, as mentioned in the 1983 film A Christmas Story. Films were made in 1932, starring Mitzi Green; and in 1938, with Ann Gillis. Both were  panned by the critics.

In 1977, the strip was adapted into the Broadway musical Annie, including the songs "Tomorrow" (as in, "The Sun will come out... "), "It's the Hard Knock Life" and "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile." It was set in 1933, and suggests something of a rivalry between Warbucks, an avowed Republican, and the new President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat. Andrea McArdle was the 1st actress to play Annie on Broadway, and among those who succeeded her was future Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker.

Andrea McArdle and Reid Shelton with Sandy

Unusually for such a recent debut, the musical has already been filmed 3 times. In 1982, John Huston directed Aileen Quinn as Annie, Albert Finney as Warbucks, Broadway legend Ann Reinking as his secretary Grace Farrell, TV legend Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan, Tim Curry as her con-artist brother Rooster, and Edward Herrmann playing FDR (not for the first time, nor the last).

A version was made for the TV anthology The Wonderful World of Disney in 1999, with those roles going to, respectively, Alicia Morton, Victor Garber, Audra McDonald (again, better known for Broadway than Hollywood at the time of her casting), Kathy Bates, Alan Cumming and Dennis Howard. Andrea McArdle had a cameo.

A 2014 version brought the action to present-day Harlem, and both Annie and the Warbucks equivalent were black: Respectively, they were played by Quvenzhané Wallis and Jamie Foxx (as William Stacks, a mobile phone magnate who is running for Mayor). The secretary is played by Rose Byrne, and her real-life husband, Bobby Cannavale, is an advisor to Stacks, but has his own motives. (His character is adapted from a relatively minor one in the musical, and hires the stand-in for Rooster and his girlfriend, who masquerade as Annie's real parents.) Cameron Diaz played Miss Hannigan.

In 2021, NBC aired Annie Live! It went back to the original story set in 1933, with Celina Smith as Annie, Harry Connick Jr. as Warbucks, Nicole Sherzinger as Grace Farrell, Taraji P. Henson as Miss Hannigan, Tituss Burgess as Rooster, and Alan Toy as FDR.

*

August 5, 1924 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-2 at Navin Field (later renamed Briggs Stadium an Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Bullet Joe Bush started for the Yankees, but left the game with an injury in the 4th inning. Waite Hoyt pitched the rest of the way, and got the win. Babe Ruth went 3-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Ty Cobb, by this point also managing the Tigers, went 1-for-4 with a walk.

* The New York Giants beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-1 at the Polo Grounds. In the bottom of the 10th inning, Cub shortstop Earl "Sparky" Adams mishandled Jimmy O'Connell's grounder, and allowed Heinie Groh to score the winning run.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers (known as the Robins from 1914 to 1931, while Wilbert Robinson was their manager) lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-1 at Ebbets Field. Walter "Rabbit" Maranville, who made the Hall of Fame as a great-field-almost-no-hit shortstop, went 3-for-3 with 4 RBIs.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Braves, 8-4 at Braves Field in Boston. Rogers Hornsby went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-3 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. Ike Caveney singled Curt Walker home with the winning run in the top of the 11th.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0 at League Park in Cleveland. Indians player-manager Tris Speaker went 1-for-3 with a walk. Stan Coveleski pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Chicago White Sox swept a doubleheader from the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-2 and 6-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Browns swept a doubleheader from the Washington Senators, 2-0 and 4-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Urban Shocker pitched a 3-hit shutout in the opener. Over the 2 games, George Sisler went 1-for-7 with a walk.