May 17, 1974: The UVF and the SLA

May 17, 1974: A violent day, on both sides of the Atlantic. The Dublin and Monaghan bombings are carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force, when they explode four car bombs in counties Dublin and Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland.

The UVF were a Protestant paramilitary group, who committed terrorist attacks targeting Catholics in Ireland, both in the Republic and in Northern Ireland. On this day, their attacks killed 33 civilians and wounded almost 300, the highest number of casualties in any single event during "The Troubles."

The UVF declared a ceasefire in 1994, accepted the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and officially disbanded in 007.

Meanwhile, in Compton, California, a shootout broke out between members of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Symbionese Liberation Army terrorist group. The firing of tear gas canisters into the residence was followed by a fire that killed six of the SLA members.

The shootout and fire were broadcast on live television in Los Angeles, preempting national news programming. Three SLA members escaped: William and Emily Harris, and the 20-year-old socialite they had kidnapped, Patty Hearst.

The Harrises were eventually arrested, convicted of their part in the Hearst kidnapping, and served eight years in prison.

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May 17, 1974 was a Friday. Elsewhere in Ireland that day, in Dundalk, County Leith, Andrea Corr was born. She and her siblings formed music group The Corrs, and she was the lead singer.

The European Cup Final was held that day. Bayern Munich won the European Cup for the first time, defeating Atlético Madrid, 4-0, at Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium. (The same stadium that hosted the 1985 Final, when it shouldn't have.) Uli Hoeness and Gerd Muller each scored 2 goals for Bayern. They subsequently made West Germany's team for the World Cup on home soil, along with Bayern teammates Franz Beckenbauer, Sepp Maier, Paul Breitner, Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck and Jupp Kapellman. I have a separate entry for this event.

Game 3 of the World Hockey Association Finals was played. The Houston Aeros, led by Gordie Howe and his sons Mark and Marty, beat the Chicago Cougars, 7-4 at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston. They completed the sweep 2 days later.

Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Finals were between Games 5 and 6. The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Boston Bruins in Game 6, to win the Cup. The NBA Finals ended 5 days earlier, with the Boston Celtics beating the Milwaukee Bucks in 7 games. The ABA Finals ended 2 days before that, with the New York Nets beating the Utah Stars in 5 games.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 3-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. George "Doc" Medich outpitched Clyde Wright. Rookie Rick Dempsey caught for the Yankees instead of Thurman Munson. Rookie Robin Yount had a single and a sacrifice bunt before being pinch-hit for.

* The New York Mets beat the Montreal Expos, 5-0 at Shea Stadium. Tom Seaver pitched a 5-hit shutout, walking none, striking out 13. Rusty Staub hit a home run.

* The Baltimore Orioles led the Boston Red Sox, 6-0 after 6 innings at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, when the umpires called the game due to rain. Mike Cuellar had a 6-hit shutout going. Tommy Davis hit 2 home runs for the O's. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-3. For the Sox, Carl Yastrzemski also went 1-for-3.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Al Kaline, in his last year as a player, went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 10-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Reggie Jackson did not play.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the California Angels, 2-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew each went 1-for-3 with a walk. Frank Robinson, then with the Angels, did not play in the game.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 9-8 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Lou Brock went 1-for-4 with a walk and a stolen base.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Texas Rangers, 6-4 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Rookie George Brett went 2-for-2 with 3 RBIs.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 4-2 at the Astrodome in Houston. Pete Rose went 2-for-5. Johnny Bench went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Mike Lum doubled home the winning runs in the top of the 11th inning. Hank Aaron, then with 720 career home runs, went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants, 7-3 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Nate Colbert hit a grand slam. Rookie Dave Winfield went 0-for-3 with a walk, and an RBI on a sacrifice fly. For the Giants, Bobby Bonds went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies and the Pittsburgh Pirates were rained out at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. The game was made up 2 days later, as part of a Sunday doubleheader. The Phils won the opener, 3-2. Jim Lonborg outpitched Dock Ellis. The Bucs won the nightcap, 2-1. Jerry Reuss outpitched Dick Ruthven. Over the 2 games, Mike Schmidt went 0-for-8, and Willie Stargell went 2-for-8 with an RBI.

April 15, 1974: The Patty Hearst Bank Robbery

April 15, 1974: What had been a potentially tragic story, the kidnapping of media heiress Patty Hearst, takes a bizarre turn, as she is seen participating in a bank robbery.

Patricia Campbell Hearst, daughter of Randolph Hearst, himself a son of San Francisco media mogul William Randolph Hearst, was studying at the University of California's main campus in Berkeley. On February 4, 16 days before her 20th birthday, she was kidnapped from her apartment, just off campus.

The Symbionese Liberation Army claimed responsibility. The SLA was founded the year before, in San Francisco. Donald DeFreeze, who had escaped from prison after a conviction for robbing a prostitute, wrote their manifesto, claiming, "The name 'symbionese' is taken from the word symbiosis and we define its meaning as a body of dissimilar bodies and organisms living in deep and loving harmony and partnership in the best interest of all within the body."

DeFreeze went on to describe this as "the unity of all left-wing struggles," including feminism, anti-racism, and anti-capitalism. He wanted all races, genders and ages to fight together in a united front, and to live together peacefully. Or so he wrote.

On November 6, 1973, 2 SLA members killed Marcus Foster, superintendent of schools in Oakland, California, and badly wounded his deputy, Robert Blackburn. It seemed to make no sense: Foster was black. But he had a plan to introduce identification cards into Oakland schools, and, to the SLA, this made him a "fascist." He had already dropped the idea, but, apparently, the SLA didn't know that.

SLA members Joseph Remiro and Russell Little were convicted of the murder, but there remains dispute as to who pulled the trigger on both men. If you're thinking this inspired the lyric, "I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy," it didn't: Bob Marley had already released that song in February 1973.

The SLA decided to up the ante, by kidnapping an important figure to exchange for their imprisoned members. They chose Patty Hearst because her family was possibly the richest in Northern California. She had been in the news recently, due to her engagement to Steven Weed. The story had been published, complete with her address, in the San Francisco Chronicle -- ironically, the arch-rival of the cornerstone of the Hearst empire, the San Francisco Examiner. And so, on February 4, 1974, she was kidnapped.

The SLA issued an ultimatum to the Hearst family, namely that they would release Patty in exchange for the freedom of Remiro and Little. When such an arrangement proved impossible, the SLA demanded a ransom, in the form of a food distribution program. The value of food to be distributed fluctuated: On February 23, the demand was for $4 million; it peaked at $400 million. (In 2022 money, about $2.3 billion.)

Although free food was distributed, the operation was halted when violence erupted at one of the four distribution points. This happened because the crowds were much greater than expected, and people were injured as panicked workers threw boxes of food off moving trucks into the crowd. After the SLA demanded that a community coalition called the Western Addition Project Area Committee be put in charge of the food distribution, 100,000 bags of groceries were handed out at 16 locations across four counties between February 26 and the end of March.

The SLA claimed they were holding Hearst in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, which define the conditions under which prisoners of war can be held. But F. Lee Bailey, then America's most famous defense attorney, would later claim in his defense of Patty that she had been kept in a small closet, drugged, and raped by DeFreeze and another SLA member, Willie Wolfe; and that her seeming to side with the SLA thereafter was attributable to "Stockholm syndrome," a psychological response in which a hostage exhibits apparent loyalty to the abductor.

The SLA needed money. And so, on April 15, they robbed the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank, at 1450 Noriega Street in San Francisco. (It's still a bank, now a Bank of America.) One of the "members" was caught on security cameras yelling, with some hesitation, "I'm Tania. Up, up, up against the wall, motherfuckers!" Two men walked into the bank during the robbery, and were shot and wounded. The robbers got away with over $10,000 (about $58,000 in 2022). "Tania" was identified as Patty Hearst.

The SLA needed more than money. They needed supplies, and they needed support. They weren't getting the support they needed in the San Francisco Bay Area. So they headed south, to Los Angeles. On May 16, William and Emily Harris walked into Mel's Sporting Goods Store in Inglewood. William shoplifted a bandolier. When a security guard confronted him, William pulled a gun. A fight broke out, and Patty, the lookout, shot at the store's sign. Everyone took cover, giving the Harrises the chance to get out and drive off with Patty.

But the Los Angeles Police got a tip as to where the SLA were hiding out, in the Central Alameda section, south of downtown. A 2-hour shootout erupted, and 6 SLA members, including DeFreeze and Wolfe, were dead.

All of this was going on during a lull in the Watergate scandal that ended up forcing the resignation of President Richard Nixon. And the Hibernia Bank robbery too place just 1 week after Hank Aaron had hit his 715th career home run, bringing that engrossing story to an end. So the Hearst/SLA story was in the forefront of the American consciousness for weeks.

The SLA went back to the Bay Area, and laid low for a while. On September 18, 1975, a year and a half after her kidnapping, Patty Hearst was arrested in San Francisco. On March 20, 1976, she was convicted for her role in the Hibernia Bank robbery, and sentenced to 7 years in prison. The Harrises were also convicted and imprisoned. The SLA was effectively ended.

On February 1, 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted Patty's sentence, after just under 2 years. On January 20, 2001, on his last day in office, President Bill Clinton pardoned her. Shortly after her release, she married Bernard Lee Shaw, a policeman who was part of her security detail during her time on bail. (He was not related to author George Bernard Shaw, or journalist Bernard Shaw.)

They lived in Wilton, Connecticut, outside New York, and had 2 daughters. Gillian Hearst-Shaw is active in the publishing industry. Lydia Hearst, using her mother's family name, became a model, an actress, and a lifestyle blogger. Gillian has 3 daughters, while Lydia has 1.

Patty, under her birth name of Patricia Hearst (apparently, she doesn't like "Patty" any more than she likes "Tania"), has written about her experiences, and has also been an actress, having appeared in several films directed by John Waters. She became an activist in the fight against AIDS, and raises dogs, 3 of whom have won prizes at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden.

As of April 15, 2022, Patricia Hearst is still alive, age 68. Her husband died in 2013. William and Emily Harris are also still alive, as are a few other minor members of the SLA.

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April 15, 1974 was a Monday. Tim Thomas, the goaltender for the Boston Bruins' 2011 Stanley Cup win, was born on this day.

There were 7 games played in Major League Baseball, and neither of New York's teams was involved in any of them:

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 1-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Joe Coleman outpitched Reggie Cleveland, allowing just 3 hits. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-3. So did the Tigers' legend, Al Kaline.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Reggie Smith hit 2 home runs in a losing cause for the Cards, but Lou Brock went 0-for-4. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-3.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Diego Padres, 6-0 at Atlanta Stadium. (It was renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium the next season.) Phil Niekro pitches a 4-hit shutout, striking out 13. Hank Aaron goes 0-for-2 with a walk.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-2 with a walk.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Francisco Giants, 3-1 at the Astrodome.

* The California Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 8-1 at Anaheim Stadium. (It was renamed Edison Field in 1998, and Angel Stadium in 2004.) For the Angels, Joe Lahoud hit a home run, and Frank Robinson went 2-for-4 with an RBI. For the Twins, Rod Carew went 2-for-4 with an RBI, but Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-3.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Dick Allen hit a home run for the ChiSox, Ray Fosse for the A's. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-5, but had an RBI on a groundout. Gene Tenace singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 14th inning.

The NFL was out of season. There were no games played that day in the NBA, but there were 2 in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 99-80 at the Nassau Coliseum. And the Utah Stars beat the Indiana Pacers, 106-102 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. These teams would end up facing each other in the ABA Finals, which the Nets would win.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were played on the day. There was 1 Playoff game in the World Hockey Association: In Game 1 of a Semifinal, the Toronto Toros beat the Cleveland Crusaders, 4-1 at Varsity Arena on the University of Toronto campus.