November 17, 1973: President Richard Nixon Says, "I Am Not a Crook"

November 17, 1973: President Richard Nixon gives a press conference at the hotel where he's staying on vacation, the Walt Disney World Contemporary Resort, outside the famous theme park, near Orlando, Florida.

He was trying to get away from the troubles of the Watergate scandal, and it wasn't working. On October 20, he had taken the desperate act of firing Archibald Cox, the Special Prosecutor investigating the scandal, making him look like he had something he really, really wanted to hide. In the process, his Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, refused to do it, and resigned; and his Deputy Attorney General, William Ruckelshaus, also refused to do it, and Nixon fired him. So the next man down, the Solicitor General, Robert Bork, did it. It became known as "the Saturday Night Massacre."

Calls for Nixon's impeachment and removal were getting louder and more frequent. And now, the unthinkable was possible: The next President would have been of the other party. Because Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew, had to resign the office on October 10, due to a conviction for a tax issue. (That's the thing that always gets me: Nixon's Veep had to resign, and it had nothing to do with Watergate.)

With the Vice Presidency vacant, the next man in line was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Carl Albert of Oklahoma, a Democrat. Nixon's choice to be the new Vice President, fellow Republican Gerald Ford, longtime Representative from Michigan, had yet to be confirmed by either house of Congress. So if Nixon got impeached and removed, or resigned, or died, Albert would have been President. (Albert was enough of a statesman to refuse to let that happen, and expedited Ford's confirmation through Congress. He was sworn in on December 6.)

And Watergate wasn't Nixon's only scandal. As with Agnew, there were questions about his income taxes. And there was a scandal involving campaign contributions from Robert Vesco, who got them to the President through his nephew, Donald Nixon. Then there was Nixon's apparent intervention in the Department of Justice's approval of the merger between ITT Corporation and Hartford Insurance.

All of this reminded people of 1952, when Nixon, then a U.S. Senator from California, was nominated for Vice President at the Republican Convention, and became the subject of a scandal over a "slush fund" that skirted the campaign finance laws of the time. It led to a half-hour TV ad bought by the Republican National Committee in which Nixon defended his financial status, admitting a gift of a dog the family named Checkers.

The speech probably saved his place on the ticket, and General Dwight D. Eisenhower stuck by him. Eisenhower would have won, anyway, but it kept Nixon as a rising star, leading to his losing a close election for President in 1960, winning a close election in 1968, and his landslide re-election in 1972.

These 1973 scandals were a lot more serious than what was alleged in 1952, and, as he had 21 years earlier, Nixon seemed to be angrier at accusations about his personal integrity than those about his conduct of the Presidency. He said:

Let me just say this, and I want to say this to the television audience: I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service. I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice.

And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination! Because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook! Well, I am not a crook. I've earned everything I've got!

On the video, it sounds like he's saying, "I'm not a crook!" But "I am not a crook" is how the line becomes remembered.

And, technically speaking, he wasn't a "crook." There was never enough evidence to charge him with anything in either the ITT scandal or Vesco's misdeeds. Nixon's crimes ended up being, as stated in the Articles of Impeachment that the House of Representatives drew up on July 27, 1974, "Obstruction of Justice," "Abuse of Power" and "Contempt of Congress."

No, Nixon was not a "crook," in the traditional sense of that word. He was an arch-criminal. Agnew, forced out over charges of bribery and tax evasion? He met the definition of a crook.

Nixon resigned the Presidency on August 9, 1974, because he'd been told by the Republican leaders of Congress that he could not avoid impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate. Vice President Ford became President, and pardoned Nixon for any crimes he may have committed while President.

*

November 17, 1973 was a Saturday. It was a day for college football:

* Number 1 Ohio State beat Iowa, 55-13 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Number 2 Alabama beat the University of Miami, 43-13 at Denny Stadium (now named Bryant-Denny Stadium) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

* Number 3 Oklahoma beat Number 18 Kansas, 48-20 at Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma finished 1st in the Big Eight Conference, but were on probation, and were thus ineligible for the Conference and National Championships, and for any bowl bids.

* Number 4 Michigan beat Purdue, 34-9 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana. Ohio State and Michigan played each other to a tie the next Saturday, thus forging an unbreakable tie for the Big Ten title. The Conference awarded Ohio State their Rose Bowl bid, which produced a tremendous controversy.

* Number 5 Notre Dame did not play on the day. They rose to Number 3 before the bowls, due to Ohio State's tie. They beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, and were awarded the National Championship.

* Number 6 Penn State beat Ohio University -- definitely not Ohio State -- 49-10 at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania. They beat Number 13 Louisiana State in the Orange Bowl, and ended the season ranked Number 5, despite having gone 12-0 and featuring the Heisman Trophy winner as the top college football player of the year, running back John Cappelletti.

It didn't help that they had a weak schedule, including all 3 service academies. Air Force finished 6-4 (including beating Arizona on November 17), but Army went 0-10 (losing to the University of Pittsburgh) and Navy went 4-7 (losing to Georgia Tech). Throw in non-conference games against MAC team Ohio, 0-10 Iowa, and 2-9 Syracuse, and it was difficult to take Joe Paterno's Nittany Lions seriously as potential National Champions.

* Number 9 USC beat Washington, 42-19 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. USC won the Pacific-Eight title, but lost to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl.

* Number 10 Nebraska beat Kansas State, 50-21 at KSU Stadium (now Snyder Family Memorial Stadium) in Manhattan, Kansas.

* Number 11 Texas beat Texas Christian, 52-7 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. Texas won the Southwest Conference title, but lost to Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl.

* In New York City, Columbia lost to Penn, 42-8 at Baker Field.

* In New Jersey, Rutgers beat Holy Cross, 27-7 at Fitton Field in Worcester, Massachusetts.

* And Princeton lost to Yale, 30-13 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

There were 7 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 100-93 at Madison Square Garden. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 24 points for the Bucks, but Dave DeBusschere scored 26 for the Knicks.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Buffalo Braves, 98-94 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Capital Bullets beat the Atlanta Hawks, 115-109 at The Omni in Atlanta. Elvin Hayes scored 43 points. (This was the former Baltimore Bullets' 1st season in the D.C. area, and they renamed themselves the Washington Bullets for the 1974-75 season, and then the Washington Wizards for 1997-98.)

* The Boston Celtics beat the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, 123-110 at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Houston Rockets, 96-87 at the Hofheinz Pavilion (now the Fertitta Center) in Houston.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 130-110 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Golden State Warriors, 109-106 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 5 games played in the ABA:

* The New York Nets beat the Virginia Squires, 115-97 at the Scope in Norfolk.

* The Carolina Cougars beat the Utah Stars, 125-97 at the Greensboro Coliseum.

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Indiana Pacers, 100-96 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the San Diego Conquistadors, 118-96 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

* And the Denver Rockets beat the Memphis Tams, 112-102 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. The Rockets renamed themselves the Denver Nuggets the following season.

There were 7 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Minnesota North Stars, 6-3 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The New York Islanders lost to the St. Louis Blues, 4-0 at the Checkerdome (as the St. Louis Arena was known from 1973 to 1980).

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Buffalo Sabres, 8-5 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 8-0 at the Boston Garden.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 2-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

And there were 3 games played in the World Hockey Association:

* The Jersey Knights lost to the Houston Aeros, 3-2 at the Cherry Hill Arena in South Jersey.

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the New England Whalers, 10-4 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Chicago Cougars beat the Toronto Toros, 5-2 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago.

Also, the football team at what would become my high school, East Brunswick in Middlesex County, New Jersey, closed their season by beating Sayreville, 37-0 at Jay Doyle Field in East Brunswick.

Arsenal, the English soccer team I would one day start supporting, weren't so lucky: They could only manage a 0-0 draw against Chelsea at Highbury in North London.

November 2, 1920: The Ocoee Massacre

November 2, 1920: The Ocoee Massacre takes place, in Ocoee, Florida, about 12 miles west of Orlando. When black people tried to vote in that day's Presidential election, won by Warren Harding, they were attacked, and most of their owned homes and businesses were burned down. There were an estimated 35 deaths, and it has been called "the single bloodiest day in modern American political history."

I learned about this massacre... in 2020, on its 100th Anniversary. It wasn't taught to me in any school.

There were no scores on this historic day: The baseball season was over, the football season was in midweek, the NHL season didn't start until December 22, and the NBA wasn't founded until 1946. 

October 11, 2020: Celtics 17, Lakers 17

Pictured: Not "social distancing."

October 11, 2020: The Los Angeles Lakers clinch the NBA Championship, beating the Miami Heat, 106-93 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, at the COVID-19-forced neutral site -- the "bubble," where the entire NBA Playoffs were held, in front of no paying fans -- of the AdventHealth Arena in the Orlando suburb of Bay Lake, Florida.

It was the 4th NBA Championship, and the 4th Bill Russell Award for the Most Valuable Player of the Finals, for the 3rd different team, for LeBron James. He had previously won with the Heat in 2012 and 2013, and with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016. Of course, he had engineered his shift to the Lakers, after abandoning the Cavs for the 2nd time after the 2018 Finals. There was no bitterness that time, because he had finally won them a title.

It was also the 4th title for 40-year-old Udonis Haslem, who was LeBron's teammate on the 2012 and '13 Heat, and who also won with the Heat in 2006. It's the 3rd title for Danny Green, who beat LeBron, Udonis and the Heat in the '14 Finals for the San Antonio Spurs, and won in 2019 with the Toronto Raptors. It was also the 3rd title for JaVale McGee, who beat LeBron's Cavs with the 2017 and '18 Golden State Warriors.

It was the 2nd title for 4-time All-Star Rajon Rondo, who previously won with the 2008 Boston Celtics. It was the 2nd title for Quinn Cook, who was on the '18 Warriors. And it was the 2nd title for J.R. Smith, the Lakewood, New Jersey native who won with LeBron and the '16 Cavs, but was a target of ridicule for his mistake in the '17 Finals.

It was the 1st title, at any level, for the Lakers' head coach, Frank Vogel. It was also the 1st title for 34-year-old 8-time All-Star Dwight Howard, 27-year-old 7-time All-Star Anthony Davis, 35-year-old never All-Star Jared Dudley, 30-year-old never All-Star Markieff Morris, and for Kostas Antetokounmpo, younger brother of 4-time Milwaukee Bucks All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo, who had yet to reach an NBA Finals. (He won it all the next year.)

Rondo became the 1st player ever to win titles with both the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. Clyde Lovellette had won titles with the Celtics and the Minneapolis Lakers.

McGee and Quinn Cook joined Jamaal Wilkes as the only players to win titles with both the Lakers and the Warriors, regardless of what cities those franchises played in. (The Warriors played in Philadelphia from 1946 to 1962, and the Lakers in Minneapolis from 1947 to 1960.)

LeBron and Danny Green (2014 Spurs and 2019 Raptors) joined John Salley (1989 and '90 Pistons, 1996 Bulls, 2000 Lakers) and Robert Horry (1994 & '95 Houston Rockets; 2000, '01 & '02 Lakers; 2005 & '07 San Antonio Spurs) as the only players to win titles with 3 different teams. Haslem joined Salley and Tim Duncan (1999, 2003, '05, '07 and '14 Spurs) as the only players to win NBA titles in 3 different decades.

Rondo joined A.C. Green as the only players to win an NBA title in one decade, not win one in the next, and then win one in the next. His 12-year gap between titles exceeded Green's 11-year gap (1988-2000), and was 2nd all-time only to that of Sam Cassell, his teammate on the '08 Celtics, who had also won with the 1995 Houston Rockets, 13 years earlier.

Finally, in this, the NBA's 74th and longest season, the Lakers tied the Celtics for the most NBA Championships, 17:

* Celtics: 1957, '59, '60, '61, '62, '63, '64, '65, '66, '68, '69, '74, '76, '81, '84, '86 and 2008.

* Lakers: 1949, '50, '52, '53, '54, '72, '80, '82, '85, '87, '88, '2000, '01, '02, '08, '09 and 2020.

Meaning that 2 franchises have won 34 of the 74 NBA Championships, or 46 percent of them. Throw in the 6 titles won by the Warriors, the 6 won by and the Bulls, and the 5 won by the Spurs, and that's 5 teams winning 69 percent of the titles.

For comparison's sake, here was the ratios of the top 5 teams in the other 3 sports at that time:

* MLB, starting with the 1st World Series in 1903: Yankees 27, Cardinals 11, Red Sox 10, Athletics 9, Giants 8. That's 65 out of 117, or 55 percent. So, even with the old domination by the Yankees, the MLB was more equitable than the NBA.

* NFL, starting in 1920: Packers 13, Bears 9, Giants 8, Steelers 6, Patriots 6. That's 42 out of 100, or 42 percent.

* NHL, starting with the 1st Stanley Cup won by a current team, 1916: Canadiens 24, Maple Leafs 13, Red Wings 11, Bruins 6 and Blackhawks 6. That's 60 out of 103, or 58 percent.

Of course, the 1st 5 Laker titles came in Minneapolis, so, really, the Celtics still led, 17-12. The next-closest teams were the Bulls with 6 and the Spurs with 5.

And the Lakers and Celtics have faced each other in more NBA Finals than any other matchup, 12: The Celtics winning in 1959, '62, '63, '65, '66, '68, '69, '84 and 2008; and the Lakers winning in 1985, '87 and 2009.

James and Davis were named to the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team a year later.

However, this was, without question, the most asterisk-worthy title in NBA history. It was unlike any other season, and any other Playoffs. There wasn't home-court advantage for anyone. From 2008 to 2012, including their 2010 title, the Lakers won 5 straight Division titles. In the 10 years after that, here is where they finished in the Western Conference: 7th, 14th, 14th, 15th, 14th, 11th, 10th, 1st (the 2020 title), 7th, 11th.

The end of the Kobe Bryant era was bad, which, due to age and other attrition, was understandable. But the LeBron era has been crowned by that asterisk-worthy title. By Laker standards, which means multiple titles, this period has been a failure, every bit as much as their Wilt Chamberlain era, where, in 5 seasons, they made 4 Finals but only won 1 title.

And, unlike Wilt, LeBron has been, effective, all of these things for the Lakers: Best all-around player, best scorer, best passer, head coach, general manager and chief scout. No one player, in any sport, has ever had that much power over a team. Perhaps none ever should again.

UPDATE: The Lakers again finished 7th in 2023 and 2024. The Bubble Season aside, they have not made the Finals since 2010. And the Celtics won an 18th title in 2024.

*

October 11, 2020 was a Sunday. The NHL had also decided its title later than usual, on September 28, with the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the Stanley Cup, beating the Dallas Stars in 6 games.

Baseball's postseason was also in progress, and "in a bubble." Or, rather, 2 bubbles: Petco Park in San Diego, a National League ballpark, for the American League Playoffs; and Globe Life Field in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas, an AL ballpark, for the NL Playoffs.

There was 1 game on this day, Game 1 of the AL Championship Series, at Petco. The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Houston Astros, 2-1. Blake Snell outpitched Framber Valdez. Randy Arozarena hit a home run. The Rays went on to win the series in 7 games, but lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

And these NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants lost to the Dallas Cowboys, 37-34 at AT&T Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The New York Jets lost to the Arizona Cardinals, 30-10 at State Farm Stadium in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Arizona.

* The Baltimore Ravens beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 27-3 at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the Washington Football Team, 30-10 at FedEx Field (now Northwest Stadium) in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. This game marked the return of Washington quarterback Alex Smith from an injury that nearly killed him 2 years earlier. I have a separate entry for this event.

* The Carolina Panthers beat the Atlanta Falcons, 23-16 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

* The Houston Texans beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 30-14 at NRG Stadium (as Reliant Stadium was then known) in Houston.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-29 at Heinz Field (now Acrisure Stadium) in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Indianapolis Colts, 32-23 at FirstEnergy Stadium (now named Huntington Bank Field) in Cleveland.

* The Las Vegas Raiders beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-32 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the San Francisco 49ers, 43-17 at Levi's Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Santa Clara, California.

* The Seattle Seahawks beat the Minnesota Vikings, 27-26 at Lumen Field in Seattle.

* The preceding Thursday, the Chicago Bears beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 20-19 at the new Soldier Field in Chicago.

* The next night, on ESPN Monday Night Football, the New Orleans Saints beat the Los Angeles Chargers, 30-27 at the Superdome in New Orleans.

* Pushed back to Tuesday night due to COVID reasons, the Tennessee Titans beat the Buffalo Bills, 42-16 at Nissan Stadium in Nashville.

* And the Denver Broncos, the Detroit Lions, the Green Bay Packers and the New England Patriots had a bye week.

October 1, 1971: Walt Disney World Opens

October 1, 1971: Walt Disney World opens in Bay Lake, Florida, 15 miles southwest of Orlando. It had been 16 years since Disneyland opened outside Los Angeles in Anahein, California.

Why a 2nd park? Was "Uncle Walt" simply greedy? No: By 1959, he was seeing figures showing that, at the time, 75 percent of America's population lived east of the Mississippi River, but only 5 percent of Disneyland's visitors came from there. And he didn't like some of the businesses that were sprouting up near Disneyland. So he wanted a place convenient to the East, but with more land, so he could control what went up around it.

He had an idea he called "EPCOT": Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. In other words, while there would be a Main Street, U.S.A., a Fantasyland and a Frontierland as with Anaheim, the place would be more about tomorrow than yesterday.

The project was barely in the planning stage when Disney died from cancer on December 15, 1966. His brother Roy Disney saw it through, but only the original part of the park, known as the Magic Kingdom, opened in 1971.

"The Most Magical Place On Earth" was built over a series of tunnels that allowed employees or guests to move through the park out of sight. As with its California counterpart, the centerpiece is a castle, this one named Cinderella Castle, and reaching a higher peak, 189 feet.

All the water in the park is kept moving. Not having standing water nearly -- but not completely, as nothing is 100 percent effective -- eliminates one of the biggest problems with being in Florida: Disney World has hardly any mosquitoes.

Disney's Contemporary Resort also opened on the Magic Kingdom's opening day. It is a hotel, and a terminus for the park's monorail system.

November 17, 1973: On vacation, trying to get away from the troubles of the Watergate scandal, and staying at the Contemporary Resort, President Richard Nixon decides to hold a press conference. He gets mad at the questions about his integrity, and finally says, "I welcome this sort of examination, because people have gotta know whether or not their President is a crook! Well, I'm not a crook! I've earned everything I've got!"

The line becomes remembered as "I am not a crook." And, technically speaking, he wasn't a "crook." He was an arch-criminal. His recently-resigned Vice President, Spiro Agnew, forced out over charges of bribery and tax evasion? He met the definition of a crook.

October 1, 1982: Epcot, as Walt imagined it, finally opened, crowned by a "Spaceship Earth." It included several sections devoted to various countries around the world, inspired by the Busch Gardens theme parks in nearby Tampa and in Williamsburg, Virginia.

March 8, 1983: Another Republican President took time off to go to Orlando -- although the speech in question was not given at the Disney World complex. Addressing the National Association of Evangelicals, 28 years after the former actor had helped open Disneyland, Ronald Reagan gave a speech appealing to the anti-atheist, and therefore anti-Communist, views of the attendees, attacking the Soviet Union -- not with bombs, but with words:

I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, and good and evil.

Uncle Walt would have approved.

November 4, 1986: I visited Disney World with my family. My parents had wanted to go for a long time, and could now afford it. I wasn't crazy about the idea, but my sister was then 7 years old, so it was more for her than for anything else.

It quickly grew on me, and, despite the distaste I eventually developed for Disney the man, it was a great experience. At one point, I lost my wallet, and it was found and returned within 2 hours. At the time, I was relieved. As time went by, I become very impressed with the efficiency of the place.

My parents noticed just how much of it had been bought by Disney from the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. My grandmother was with us, and, remembering the 1939-40 edition, kept saying, "That wasn't the real World's Fair." But she enjoyed it, too. (We also visited nearby Sea World, the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral -- my father and I, both science fiction fans, insisted -- and, at the other end of Florida, a cousin of my father's outside Tampa.)

January 26, 1987: The day after the New York Giants won Super Bowl XXI, a commercial began airing. To the tune of "When You Wish Upon a Star," from the 1940 Disney cartoon Pinocchio, highlights of the game were shown, mostly of the game's Most Valuable Player, Giant quarterback Phil Simms.

Halfway through, an unseen announcer said, "Phil Simms: You've just won the Super Bowl! Now, what are you going to do?" And Simms looked into the camera and said, "I'm going to Disney World!" Sure enough, Simms and his teammates attended a parade in their honor at Disney World, and a tradition was born: Not just for Super Bowl MVPs, but for other sports stars. (Mark McGwire did it after breaking * Roger Maris' home run record in 1998.)

What I didn't know for several years was that 2 versions had been filmed, one for the East, and one for the West, in which Simms said, "I'm going to Disneyland!" Since the game was played at the Rose Bowl, on the other side of Los Angeles, they went to Disneyland first.

May 1, 1989: Disney's Hollywood Studios opens on Disney World land, to compete with the nearby Universal Studios theme park.

June 1, 1989: Disney's Typhoon Lagoon, a water park, opens.

November 4, 1989: Orlando becomes a major league sports city, with the debut of an NBA team. It is named in honor of the Magic Kingdom: The Orlando Magic. The team has made the Playoffs 16 times in its 1st 32 seasons, including 2 trips to the NBA Finals. But it has never explained what "one Magic" is called. Then again, neither have their Florida arch-rivals, the Miami Heat.

April 1, 1995: Disney's Blizzard Beach, a water park with a contradictory name, opens.

April 22, 1998: Disney's Animal Kingdom opens, based on the safari at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey and the nearby Busch Gardens park in Tampa.

*

October 1, 1971, the day that Walt Disney World opened, was a Friday, and fell between the end of baseball's regular season and the start of its Playoffs, in an NFL midweek, and a little bit before the start of the 1971-72 basketball and hockey seasons. So there were no scores on this historic day.

July 18, 1996: The Magic Is Gone In Orlando

July 18, 1996: Shaquille O'Neal signs as a free agent with the Los Angeles Lakers. This ends his 4-season tenure with the Orlando Magic, and also ends what could have been a golden era for the Magic.

Founded in 1989, the Magic struggled in their 1st 3 seasons, as expansion teams tend to do in sports, including in the NBA. But they got to .500 in their 4th season, which was O'Neal's rookie season. And it was an epic season: The enormous "Shaq" was blasting through opponents, and even destroying backboards with his dunks. Not only did he shatter 2, but he actually brought down a reinforced backboard against the New Jersey Nets at the Meadowlands.

They finished 41-41, but didn't make the Playoffs. They drafted guard Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway, and he formed a terrific rotating backcourt with original '89 Magic player Nick Anderson, Scott Skiles and Dennis Scott. They made the Playoffs in 1994.

General manager Pat Williams and head coach Brian Hill kept working. Hill moved Scott to small forward, and Williams traded for Chicago Bulls power forward Horace Grant. In 1995, the Magic went 50-32, eliminated the Boston Celtics from the Playoffs, beat the Bulls in spite of the return of Michael Jordan, and beat the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals.

In the franchise's 6th season, its 3rd with Shaq, and its 2nd with Penny, they were in the NBA Finals. They were swept in 4 straight by the defending Champions, the Houston Rockets, but they extended Game 1 in Orlando to overtime, and only lost Game 3 in Houston by 3 points. They were not far from making it a good series.

In 1995-96, they went 60-22, winning the NBA's Atlantic Division. Only the Bulls, with Jordan fully back, at a record 72-10, and the Western Conference-leading Seattle SuperSonics, at 64-18, had a better record. And when the Magic swept the Detroit Pistons in 3 straight, and then beat theAtlanta Hawks 4 games to 1, nobody expected the Eastern Conference Finals between Da Bulls and the Magic to be easy for either side.

But the Bulls blew the Magic out in Game 1 in Chicago, 121-83. There was hope in Game 2, as the Magic led 64-46, But the Bulls came back, and won, 93-88. Game 3 in Orlando was a wipeout, an 86-67 Bulls win, and the sweep was completed, 106-101.

Still, there was lots of reason to hope. Shaq was 24. Penny was about to turn 25. They were 2 of the 10 best players in basketball. The Magic had as much chance as Patrick Ewing's New York Knicks or Reggie Miller's Pacers to dethrone the Bulls in the East.

But Shaq was a free agent. He said the team "just didn't respect (Hill)." He also compared his lack of privacy in Orlando to "feeling like a big fish in a dried-up pond." He also learned that Penny considered himself the leader of the team, and didn't want Shaq making more money than him.

So, on July 18, 1996, Shaq signed a 7-year, $121 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. He said the money wasn't the issue: "I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok." Sounds like it was about the money to me.

With Shaq gone, and Penny missing one-quarter of the games due to injury, the Magic went 45-37 in 1997, and lost in the 1st Round to their cross-State rivals, the Miami Heat. Penny missed all but 19 games in 1997-98, and they went 41-41 and missed the Playoffs. He played all 50 games in the strike-shortened 1998-99 season, and the Magic went 33-17, but, again, they lost in the 1st Round, to the Philadelphia 76ers. In mid-season, Hill was fired. After that season, Penny was traded to the Phoenix Suns, and the Magic went into rebuilding mode. What could have been a Golden Age fell well short, and was now over.

Shaq and Kobe Bryant led the Lakers to 3 straight NBA Championships, 2000, '01 and '02. The Magic didn't get back to the Finals until 2009, losing to the Lakers, now led by Kobe without Shaq.

UPDATE: The Magic have a team Hall of Fame. From their 1995 Eastern Conference Champions, they have honored center Shaquille O'Neal, guards Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway and Nick Anderson, forward Dennis Scott, head coach Brian Hill, founding owner Richard DeVos, founding general manager Pat Williams, founding executive Jim Hewitt, and original broadcaster David Steele.

From their 2009 Eastern Conference Champions, they have honored center Dwight Howard. From in between those Finals berths, they have honored guards Darrell Armstrong and Tracy McGrady, and general manager John Gabriel.

Williams, Anderson and McGrady have also been elected to the Florida Sports Hall of Fame.

*

July 18, 1996 was a Thursday. These games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Milwaukee Brewers, 16-4 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Scott Karl outpitched Dwight Gooden. Fernando Viña went 3-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Rookie Derek Jeter went 0-for-2 before being replaced. Rubén Sierra went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

* The New York Mets lost to the Montreal Expos, 7-3 at Shea Stadium. Pedro Martínez outpitched Pete Harnisch. Henry Rodríguez and Cliff Floyd homered for the Expos, Todd Hundley for the Mets.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox, 6-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. David Wells outpitched Aaron Sele. Cal Ripken went 1-for-5.

* The Florida Marlins beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-0 at Joe Robbie Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida. Kevin Brown pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-4 at the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-4 at Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) in Cleveland.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Chicago White Sox, 7-1 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers, 5-4 at The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Rafael Bournigal singled Terry Steinbach home with the winning run in the top of the 11th inning.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 3-2 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Colorado Rockies, 9-2 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. John Flaherty, Steve Finley and Ken Caminiti hit home runs. Rickey Henderson went 2-for-5. Tony Gwynn did not play, but his brother Chris Gwynn went 1-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* The Seattle Mariners beat the California Angels, 15-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Ken Griffey Jr. went 2-for-4 with a walk and 4 RBIs. Alex Rodriguez went 4-for-4 with a home run, a walk and 2 RBIs. Jay Buhner went 2-for-5 with a home run and 5 RBIs.

* And the Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 8-3 at 3Com Park (as Candlestick Park in San Francisco was known at the time). Hideo Nomo outpitched Shawn Estes. Eric Karros and Mike Busch homered; in Busch's case, a grand slam. For the Giants, Matt Williams homered, while Barry Bonds went 1-for-3 with a walk.

July 17, 1955: Disneyland Opens

July 17, 1955: Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California, 26 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Walt Disney, head of the film studio that bore his name, based it on Henry Ford's Museum and Greenfield Village, in the Detroit suburbs, having enjoyed its Main Street concept and steamboat rides. He had also been inspired by such places as Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia and the 1939-40 New York World's Fair.

The opening day was a disaster. It was open only to invited guests and the media, but about half of the 28,000 people there had bought counterfeit tickets or climbed over the fence. Traffic to get in was as bad as for a major sporting event.

And the temperature was 101 degrees. (Most of Southern California had been desert before L.A. was built on it and then expanded out, after all.) The local plumbers' union was on strike. As a result, the water pressure was such that Disney was given a choice of having working drinking fountains or working public toilets. He chose the toilets, which was unquestionably the right move. But since Pepsi-Cola was one of the sponsors, having non-working drinking fountains made it look like a cynical move to sell more Pepsi.

And the vendors didn't have enough food. The heat also meant that some of the asphalt that had just been poured didn't have time to fully cool, and some women's high heels sank into it, tripping them up and injuring some.

Usually being media-savvy, Disney wanted the events televised nationwide, and got ABC to broadcast it, with some of his conservative Hollywood friends like Art Linkletter, Bob Cummings and... Ronald Reagan. But many guests tripped over the large TV camera cables of the era. Cummings was caught kissing a dancer. Linkletter tried an "over to you" to Cummings over and over again, but a technical issue made it impossible, and he ended up looking very foolish on live TV. (It was Linkletter's birthday, too: He was 43.)

For the rest of his life, Disney referred to the day as "Black Sunday," and accepted the next day, July 18, as Disneyland's "official birthday." After his death, though, the park began to restore the July 17 birthday.

The original park had 5 main sections, which have since been added onto. Main Street, U.S.A. was patterned after a typical Midwest town of the early 20th Century -- specifically, the one Disney himself grew up in, during the 1900s and 1910s: Marceline, in north-central Missouri, which now has a museum in Disney's honor. 

Adventureland was "designed to recreate the feel of an exotic tropical place in a far-off region of the world," as Disney put it, "far from civilization, in the remote jungles of Asia and Africa." Being in the Western U.S., and this being the early days of television, when Western movies were big, there pretty much had to be a Wild West-themed place, and it was named Frontierland.

Fantasyland was inspired by such Disney cartoon classics as their versions of the stories of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Its centerpiece, and the park's symbol, is the 77-foot-high Sleeping Beauty Castle. And Tomorrowland was especially inspired by New York 1939, as an idea of what the future would look like -- keeping in mind that, in 1955, space travel was still just a concept.

All of which allowed Disneyland to rebound from the lousy Day One to become what it billed itself as: "The Happiest Place On Earth," one that denied the existence of the troubles of post-World War II America: The Cold War, smog, suburban banality... and racial strife. It would be a while before Disneyland's employee roster was desegregated, and even longer before there was enough of a black middle class in America to provide enough of a black customer base.

On October 1, 1955, 76 days after Disneyland opened, The Honeymooners premiered on CBS. Formerly a sketch on The Jackie Gleason Show, Gleason spun the show off as a half-hour sitcom. The premiere episode featured Gleason's Ralph Kramden facing the demand of his wife Alice, played by Audrey Meadows, for something they did not yet have, but most families now seemed to: A television set. But Ralph hadn't even gotten a telephone -- or, something that always bugged my mother, a kid at the time, curtains for the kitchen window, the only window visible on the stage set.

Ralph told Alice he worked hard for his money -- no question about that, he was a bus driver in New York -- and that she should be lucky to live the way she does, in their small apartment in Brooklyn, without modern amenities. Alice went along with it, in the most sarcastic of fashions: "It's a regular Disneyland!"

She pointed out the window, at the tenements, and the laundry lines between them: "That's my Fantasyland!" She turned on the faucet of the kitchen sink. What came out of it? Water? Nope, just a weird knocking sound. "I never know what's going to happen with it," she said. "That's my Adventureland. That stove and that icebox: That's Frontierland. The only thing missing, Ralph, is The World of Tomorrow. I have nothing in my Disneyland from The World of Tomorrow!"

Ralph: "You want The World of Tomorrow? I'll show you The World of Tomorrow: You're going to the Moon!"

In 1966, two and a half miles to the east, across Interstate 5, what is now Angel Stadium of Anaheim opened, as the home of the baseball team then known as the California Angels, but now again called, as they originally were, the Los Angeles Angels. Jokes about the Angels playing "at Disneyland" have abounded ever since. But, between them, the Angels and Mickey Mouse have made the City of Anaheim grow by leaps and bounds, to the point where it's no longer just a giant suburb of L.A., but a real city in its own right, of 350,000 people.

*

October 1, 1971: Walt Disney World opens in Bay Lake, Florida, 15 miles southwest of Orlando.

Okay, why a 2nd park? Was "Uncle Walt" simply greedy? No: By 1959, he was seeing figures showing that, at the time, 75 percent of America's population lived east of the Mississippi River, but only 5 percent of Disneyland's visitors came from there. And he didn't like some of the businesses that were sprouting up near Disneyland. So he wanted a place convenient to the East, but with more land, so he could control what went up around it. If there's one thing that a powerful person desires more than money, it's control.

He had an idea he called "EPCOT": Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. In other words, while there would be a Main Street, U.S.A., a Fantasyland and a Frontierland as with Anaheim, the place would be more about tomorrow than yesterday.

The project was barely in the planning stage when Disney died from cancer on December 15, 1966. His brother Roy Disney saw it through, but only the original part of the park, known as the Magic Kingdom, opened in 1971.

"The Most Magical Place On Earth" was built over a series of tunnels that allowed employees or guests to move through the park out of sight. As with its California counterpart, the centerpiece is a castle, this one named Cinderella Castle, and reaching a higher peak, 189 feet.

All the water in the park is kept moving. Not having standing water nearly -- but not completely, as nothing is 100 percent effective -- eliminates one of the biggest problems with being in Florida: Disney World has hardly any mosquitoes.

Disney's Contemporary Resort also opened on the Magic Kingdom's opening day. It is a hotel, and a terminus for the park's monorail system.

November 17, 1973: On vacation, trying to get away from the troubles of the Watergate scandal, and staying at the Contemporary Resort, President Richard Nixon decides to hold a press conference. He gets mad at the questions about his integrity, and finally says, "I welcome this sort of examination, because people have gotta know whether or not their President is a crook! Well, I'm not a crook! I've earned everything I've got!"

The line becomes remembered as "I am not a crook." And, technically speaking, he wasn't a "crook." He was an arch-criminal. His recently-resigned Vice President, Spiro Agnew, forced out over charges of bribery and tax evasion? He met the definition of a crook.

October 1, 1982: Epcot, as Walt imagined it, finally opened, crowned by a "Spaceship Earth." It included several sections devoted to various countries around the world, inspired by the Busch Gardens theme parks in nearby Tampa and in Williamsburg, Virginia.

March 8, 1983: Another Republican President took time off to go to Orlando -- although the speech in question was not given at the Disney World complex. Addressing the National Association of Evangelicals, 28 years after the former actor had helped open Disneyland, Ronald Reagan gave a speech appealing to the anti-atheist, and therefore anti-Communist, views of the attendees, attacking the Soviet Union -- not with bombs, but with words:

I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, and good and evil.

Uncle Walt would have approved.

November 4, 1986: I visited Disney World with my family. My parents had wanted to go for a long time, and could now afford it. I wasn't crazy about the idea, but my sister was then 7 years old, so it was more for her than for anything else.

The place quickly grew on me, and, despite the distaste I eventually developed for Disney the man, it was a great experience. At one point, I lost my wallet, and it was found and returned within 2 hours. At the time, I was relieved. As time went by, I become very impressed with the efficiency of the place.

My parents noticed just how much of it had been bought by Disney from the 1964-65 New York World's Fair. My grandmother was with us, and kept saying, "That wasn't the real World's Fair," remembering the 1939-40 edition, But she enjoyed it, too. (We also visited nearby Sea World, the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral -- my father and I, both science fiction fans, insisted -- and, at the other end of Florida, a cousin of my father's outside Tampa. While some members of my family have been to California, none of us has ever visited Disneyland.)

January 26, 1987: The day after the New York Giants won Super Bowl XXI, a commercial began airing. To the tune of "When You Wish Upon a Star," from the 1940 Disney cartoon Pinocchio, highlights of the game were shown, mostly of the game's Most Valuable Player, Giant quarterback Phil Simms.

Halfway through, an unseen announcer said, "Phil Simms: You've just won the Super Bowl! Now, what are you going to do?" And Simms looked into the camera and said, "I'm going to Disney World!" Sure enough, Simms and his teammates attended a parade in their honor at Disney World, and a tradition was born: Not just for Super Bowl MVPs, but for other sports stars. (Mark McGwire did it after breaking * Roger Maris' home run record in 1998.)

What I didn't know for several years was that 2 versions had been filmed, one for the East, and one for the West, in which Simms said, "I'm going to Disneyland!" Since the game was played at the Rose Bowl, on the other side of Los Angeles, they went to Disneyland first.

May 1, 1989: Disney's Hollywood Studios opens on Disney World land, to compete with the nearby Universal Studios theme park.

June 1, 1989: Disney's Typhoon Lagoon, a water park, opens.

November 4, 1989: Orlando becomes a major league sports city, with the debut of an NBA team. It is named in honor of the Magic Kingdom: The Orlando Magic. The team has made the Playoffs 16 times in its 1st 32 seasons, including 2 trips to the NBA Finals. But it has never explained what "one Magic" is called. Then again, neither have their Florida arch-rivals, the Miami Heat.

April 1, 1995: Disney's Blizzard Beach, a water park with a contradictory name, opens.

April 22, 1998: Disney's Animal Kingdom opens, based on the safari at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey and the nearby Busch Gardens park in Tampa.

*

July 17, 1955, the day Disneyland opened, was a Sunday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 6-5 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Eddie Robinson and Gil McDougald hit home runs, but starting pitcher Bob Wiesler couldn't get the job done. Nor could Mickey Mantle: He went 0-for-4. The Tigers won in the bottom of the 10th inning when Earl Torgeson stole home plate. So the Yankees had almost as bad a day as Walt Disney did.

* The New York Giants were swept by the Milwaukee Braves in a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds. The Braves won the 1st game, 8-7. Joe Adcock hit 2 home runs, and Del Crandall 1. The Braves won the 2nd game, 3-1. Over the course of the 2 games, Hank Aaron went 3-for-7 with an RBI, and Willie Mays went 1-for-7.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Redlegs at Ebbets Field. (To avoid the connection with Communism, the Reds were officially named the Redlegs from 1954 to 1958.) The Dodgers won the opener, 6-2. Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo and Pee Wee Reese all hit home runs, in support of Roger Craig.

The Dodgers won the nightcap, 8-5. No home runs this time, but Furillo, Don Hoak and Jim Gilliam each got 2 hits, in support of Don Bessent. Jackie Robinson did not play in either game.

* A doubleheader was split at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Boston Red Sox won the 1st game, 6-0. Tom Brewer pitched a 3-hit shutout, defeating rookie sensation Herb Score. The Cleveland Indians won the 2nd game, 6-5. Ted Williams hit a home run, his only hit of the day.

* The Chicago White Sox swept a doubleheader from the Baltimore Orioles at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Pale Hose won the 1st game, 3-2; and the 2nd game, 5-4.

* The Washington Senators beat the Kansas City Athletics, 4-0 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. It was a battle of ex-Yankees, as Frank "Spec" Shea pitched a 3-hit shutout for the Senators, defeating Vic Raschi.

* The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania then had a 7:00 PM curfew for games played on Sundays, so these doubleheaders had to be suspended and resumed:

At Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 12-11 in 10 innings. Bobby Morgan hit a sacrifice fly to get the winning run home. The Cubs led the 2nd game 5-4 when the game was suspended in the bottom of the 6th. The game was resumed the next day, and the Phillies won, 8-6.

At Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-8 in 12 innings. Ken Boyer singled home the winning run. The Cardinals led the 2nd game 1-0 when the game was suspended in the bottom of the 8th. It was resumed during the Cards' next visit to Pittsburgh, on August 30, and the 1-0 score held. Over the 2 games, Stan Musial went 2-for-7 for the Cardinals, and rookie Roberto Clemente went 1-for-7 for the Pirates. 

June 12, 2016: The Pulse Nightclub Shooting

June 12, 2016: Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, is hosting a Latin Night when 102 people are shot by a single gunman. Of those, 49 died.

The shooter was Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old Long Island native, a son of Afghan immigrants, who was working for the Florida Department of Corrections. His family was described as moderate Muslims, but going back to his childhood, he had a preoccupation with violence. He had sworn allegiance to the terrorist group ISIL, and said that the killing of ISIL official Abu Waheeb in Iraq the month before set him off. After a 3-hour standoff inside the club, Orlando police shot and killed him.

The massacre was officially classified a terrorist attack, and still ranks as the deadliest one in America since 9/11. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history, but that record only lasted until October 1, 2017, in Las Vegas -- one that has not been officially classified as a terrorist attack.

The massacre deeply shook the people of Central Florida, and gay Americans everywhere. At the time, what was then named Orlando City Stadium was being constructed in Orlando, to be the home of Major League Soccer's Orlando City SC (Soccer Club), and the National Women's Soccer League's Orlando Pride, a name obliquely referencing women's soccer's ties to the gay community.

When the stadium opened on February 24, 2017, 49 seats in Section 12 were painted in a rainbow pattern, as a memorial to the Pulse victims. The venue was renamed Exploria Stadium in 2019. (UPDATe: It was renamed Inter&Co Stadium in 2024.)

Pulse had opened in 2004. It never reopened after the shooting, not even in a different location. The building is being converted into a memorial and museum, with its opening planned for later in 2022. (UPDATE: As of June 12, 2026, various reasons have delayed the start of construction.)

*

June 12, 2016 was a Sunday. Though the shooting took place at 2:00 AM on Sunday, June 12 -- meaning that some people had gotten in on Saturday night, June 11 -- not one single sporting event scheduled for the 12th was postponed.

It was the off-season for the NFL. The NBA Finals were underway, and the Golden State Warriors had a 3-games-to-1 lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers. But the Cavs won the next 3 straight to take the title.

Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals was played that night. The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the San Jose Sharks, 3-1 at the SAP Center in San Jose, to clinch the Cup.

And there was a full slate of Major League Baseball games played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 4-1 at Yankee Stadium II. Michael Pineda gave up a home run to Ian Kinsler, and got outpitched by Michael Fullmer.

* The New York Mets lost to the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-3 at Miller Park (now named American Family Field) in Milwaukee.

* The Washington Nationals beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-4 at Nationals Park in Washington.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Atlanta Braves, 13-2 at Turner Field in Atlanta.

* The Tampa Bay Rays beat the Houston Astros, 5-0 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Baltimore Orioles, 10-9 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-3 at PNC Par in Pittsburgh.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-1 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1 at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-4 at Target Field in Minneapolis. Max Kepler hit a 3-run walkoff home run in the 10th inning.

* The Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres, 2-1 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Miami 6-0 at Chase Field in Phoenix.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Los Angeles Angels, 8-3 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1 at Oracle Park in San Francisco.

* And the Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners, 6-4 at Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle. 

March 21, 2026: LeBron James Breaks the NBA Record for Games Played

NOTE: Although this entry is from after 2022, I have backdated all entries from after that year to the corresponding date in 2022.

March 21, 2026: The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Orlando Magic, 105-104 at the Kia Center in Orlando, Florida. Luka Dončić scored 33 points to lead all players in the game.

LeBron James, 41 years old, started, played 34 minutes, and scored 12 points. It was the 1,612th NBA regular-season game of his career, making him the all-time leader.

He surpassed the record set by Robert Parish, who played in 1,611 games from 1976 to 1997, mostly with the Boston Celtics. He had broken the record set by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played in 1,560 games from 1969 to 1989, with the Milwaukee Bucks until 1975, then with the Lakers.

Unlike some of James' records, this one is a bit dubious, as he was a pioneer it what became known as "load management": Not just skipping some games, which would make the record more impressive, but limiting his time on the court, making it less so.

Given his age, it was understandable that LeBron only played 60 games in the 2025-26 season. But he hasn't played in at least 72 since 2017-18, which is the only one of his 23 seasons in which he's played in all 82 games.

*

March 21, 2026 was a Saturday. There were 9 other NBA games that day:

* The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Washington Wizards, 132-111 at the Capital One Arena in Washington. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 40 points.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Memphis Grizzlies, 124-101 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Golden State Warriors, 126-110 at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the New Orleans Pelicans, 111-106 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.

* The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Dallas Mavericks, 138-131 in overtime at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. Darius Garland scored 41 for the Clips.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Miami Heat, 123-122 at the Toyota Center in Houston. Bam Adebayo scored 32 and had 21 rebounds.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Indiana Pacers, 134-119 at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Utah Jazz, 126-116 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns, 108-105 at the Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 6 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 7-3 at the Bell Centre in Montreal. Cole Caufield had 3 goals and 2 assists.

* The Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Seattle Kraken, 5-2 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.

* In an "Original Six" Matchup, the Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-2 at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

* The Minnesota Wild beat the Dallas Stars, the former Minnesota North Stars, 2-1 at the Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-2 at Rogers Place in Edmonton.

* And the Buffalo Sabres beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-1 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.

March 8, 1983: President Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire Speech

March 8, 1983: Ten years after a different Republican President, Richard Nixon, went to Orlando, Florida and told the media, "I am not a crook," President Ronald Reagan goes to the same city, and is believed by many more.

Reagan, the 1st divorced man, and the 1st divorced-and-remarried man, to become President, and a man who already had a terrible record concerning the poor and race relations, was speaking before the National Association of Evangelicals. Of course, their record wasn't exactly Christian, either.

This was a low point in Reagan's Presidency. In August 1981, he signed his tax cut into law. This sent unemployment soaring from 7 percent to 11 percent in a little more than a year. The economy was still in recession. The American manufacturing sector had been severely damaged. And his policy of belligerence toward the Soviet Union -- who had recently replaced the long-ailing, leader-in-name-only Leonid Brezhnev with the much more energetic Yuri Andropov -- was making the Cold War worse.

Reagan needed an audience that was solidly in his corner. And he needed a speech they would love.

He could have spoken to the NAE about his opposition to abortion. He could have spoken to them about his support for reinstating teacher-led prayer in public schools (which is unconstitutional). He could have spoken to them about using federal government money to help religious private schools (which is also unconstitutional).

Instead, he wanted to talk about the Cold War, and the battle against what had long been known as "godless Communism." And those phony Christians ate it up.

He started by buttering them up, saying, "I can’t tell you how you have warmed my heart with your welcome. I’m delighted to be here today. Those of you in the National Association of Evangelicals are known for your spiritual and humanitarian work." He moved on to decrying secularism at home.

He went on to tell a truth: "There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might." Then he told a bald-faced lie: "There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country." He was in the South, and had pandered to the South for years. He knew goddamned well that one major room for racism in this country was the Oval Office.

He moved on to attacking the Soviets: "As good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution." And how was that different from the conservative movement, trying to tear down liberalism all over the world, from Britain's national health service to the officially secular government of Turkey to the liberalism that took hold in Japan after World War II?

He talked about the dangers of a nuclear freeze. That is, America stopping its production of nuclear weapons. He was sure the Soviets would only say they were doing the same, but would keep on making them.

And then he delivered the two words by which the speech would be remembered: "So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely, uh, declaring yourselves above it all, and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding, and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil."

He closed by quoting Thomas Paine: "Yes, change your world. One of our founding fathers, Thomas Paine, said, 'We have it within our power to begin the world over again.' We can do it, doing together what no one church could do by itself. God bless you, and thank you very much."

Huge applause in the room. Like Reagan himself, they were idiots. Thomas Paine was a proud atheist.

Some people point to the Evil Empire Speech as the turnaround moment in the Reagan Presidency, when he went from an unpopular President who had recently gotten the Republican Party clobbered in the Congressional midterm elections to a wildly popular President who won 49 out of 50 States in 1984.

In fact, while the speech did help him shore up his conservative base, he remained unpopular with a majority of Americans. The economy wasn't getting appreciably better. And the Cold War was getting worse. There would be three separate incidents in 1983 that could be called close calls for a nuclear war.

On September 1, the Soviet Air Force shot down a South Korean commercial airliner that had strayed into their space, thinking it a spy plane. The other two incidents were not known to the public at the time, only revealed years later in declassified documents. In October, a mistake made by a Soviet missile-monitoring base almost resulted in the launching of missiles. And in November, the Soviets' misinterpretations of NATO's "Able Archer 83" wargames almost set things off.

At the close of 1983, Time magazine named Reagan and Andropov their Men of the Year. What only his inner circle knew was that, even as he succeeded the dead Breznhev in 1982, Andropov, too, was seriously ill, with kidney failure. On February 9, 1984, he died, and was replaced with Konstantin Chernenko. And then he died early the next year. Reagan asked, "How can I talk to the Russians, if they keep dying?"

Fortunately for Reagan, and for everyone else, the next Soviet leader wasn't an elderly Communist who remembered the original Bolshevik Revolution. It was the much younger Mikhail Gorbachev, and he and Reagan would meet in "summits" in every year of Reagan's 2nd term. And the world would be better off for it. On Reagan's 1988 visit to Moscow, he was asked if he thought the Soviet Union was still "an evil empire." He said it wasn't.

America's troubles with Russia took a break. But they couldn't stay away forever.

*

March 8, 1983 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 7 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 107-98 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 110-93 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Indiana Pacers, 107-101 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Phoenix Suns, 120-99 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Houston Rockets, 102-99 at The Summit in Houston. (The building has been converted into an evangelical "megachurch," Dr. Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church Central Campus.) World B. Free led all scorers on the night with 37 for the Cavs.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the San Antonio Spurs, 129-118 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors, 116-112 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 9 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 7-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

* The New York Islanders lost to the St. Louis Blues, 6-0 at the St. Louis Arena.

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Washington Capitals, 5-4 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands. So all 3 of the New York Tri-State Area's NHL teams lost.

* In the League's oldest rivalry, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens played to a tie, 3-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Quebec Nordiques, 11-5 at Le Colisée de Québec.

* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Hartford Whalers, 9-4 at the Hartford Civic Center. (Now the PeoplesBank Arena.)

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Buffalo Sabres, 5-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Calgary Flames, 6-4 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Detroit Red Wings, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Winnipeg Jets were not scheduled.