October 2, 1974: "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" Premieres

October 2, 1974: The original version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three premieres, starring Walter Matthau. It's based on the novel of the same name, published the year before, by Morton Freedgood, under the pen name of John Godey.

Before I saw the movie, I had thought that the title referred to robbing a bank in Pelham -- which is the name of both a neighborhood in The Bronx and a town in neighboring Westchester County -- in 3 steps. No: "Pelham One Two Three" is New York's Number 6 subway/elevated train that leaves the Pelham Bay Park terminal in the northeast Bronx at 1:23 PM. (It's also the source for Jennifer Lopez's debut album, On the 6. And you thought "the 6" was a reference to a clock position, and thus to her legendary tush.)

This movie also, by 18 years, predated Reservoir Dogs' device of using color-coded names for the heisters: Robert Shaw played Mr. Blue, Martin Balsam played Mr. Green, Earl Hindman played Mr. Brown, and a young Héctor Elizondo played Mr. Grey. They hijack a subway train and demand that a ransom of $1 million (about $5.8 million in 2022 money) be delivered in 1 hour, or 1 of the 18 hostages on the train will be killed every minute that the delivery is late.

In 1998, the film was remade as a television film, with Edward James Olmos in Matthau's role and Vincent D'Onofrio in Shaw's. It was remade again in 2009, with Denzel Washington and John Travolta.

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October 2, 1974 was a Wednesday. It was the last day of Major League Baseball's regular season:

* The New York Yankees beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 2-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Pat Dobson outpitched Jim Colborn. Ron Blomberg hit a home run. The Yankees finished 2 games behind the Orioles in the American League Eastern Division, their closest call to the postseason in 10 years, but it wasn't enough.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Brooks Robinson went to 0-for-2, but drove in a run with a fielder's choice, and was then pinch-run for. Tiger legend and Baltimore native Al Kaline played his last game, going 0-for-2 as the designated hitter, striking out in the 1st inning and flying out to left in the 3rd, before Ben Oglivie was sent up to pinch-hit for him.

* The California Angels beat the Oakland Athletics, 3-2 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). The A's led 2-1 going into the bottom of the 9th, but a single by Bruce Bochte, a sacrifice bunt by John Balaz, an intentional walk to Leroy Stanton (who had homered in the 7th), an RBI single by Ellie Rodríguez, and an RBI double by Denny Doyle gave the Halos the win. Paul Lindblad thus blew the save for Vida Blue, while Chuck Dobson (no relation to Pat) went the distance for the win. For the A's, Joe Rudi homered, and Reggie Jackson went 0-for-2 with a walk before being taken out.

Despite this defeat, the A's won the AL Western Division by 5 games over the Texas Rangers, for their 4th straight Division title. They beat the Orioles for their 3rd straight AL Pennant.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Manny Sanguillén singled Al Oliver home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning. Willie Stargell went 0-for-3 with 2 walks. The Pirates won the NL Eastern Division by a game and a half over the Cardinals.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Astros, 5-4 at the Astrodome in Houston. Lee Lacy doubled John Hale home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

The Dodgers finished with the best record in baseball, 102-60, but only won the NL Western Division by 4 games over the Reds. They beat the Pirates for the NL Pennant, and bragged about how they were a better team than the defending World Champion A's. The A's beat them in the World Series, clinching in Game 5. That should have shut the O'Malleys up, but they still said they were the better team. For all their talk between 1965 and 1981, they did not win a World Series between those seasons.

* The New York Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2 at Shea Stadium. Bill Robinson hit a sacrifice fly to score Willie Montañez with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning. Montañez would later play for the Mets, and Robinson would be the 1st base coach on their 1986 World Champions.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-6 at Fenway Park in Boston. The Sox scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th to tie it, but in the top of the 9th, Rusty Torres hit a home run, Duane Kuiper singled, and Oscar Gamble, then with an Afro so big his batting helmet barely fit over it, doubled Kuiper home. Carl Yastrzemski did not play.

Gaylord Perry was the winning pitcher, finishing 21-13. The losing pitcher for Boston was the unfortunately named Dick Pole. Even more unfortunately, he was out of the major leagues before he had the chance to pitch to Rusty Kuntz.

Frank Robinson hit his 574th career home run for the Indians. The next day, team owner Ted Bonda fired manager Ken Aspromonte, and hired Robinson, making him MLB's 1st black manager. Bonda knew that other teams had already expressed interest in him, and that he already knew the players and the organization, so he was a good choice regardless of making history. He played 2 more seasons, retired, then kept managing, but the Indians did not contend. In 1977, Frank became the 1st black manager to be fired.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Cincinnati Reds, 13-0 at Atlanta Stadium. Phil Niekro pitched a 4-hit shutout, finishing 20-13. In spite of their offensive output, the Braves hit only 1 home run, by Mike Lum.

Hank Aaron went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. This was his last game for the Braves, having hit 733 home runs for them in Milwaukee and Atlanta. This was also the last game at the stadium under its original name: The next season, it became Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

For the Reds, Pete Rose went 1-for-3, and Johnny Bench only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. In the bottom of the 12th inning, Bruce Dal Canton threw a wild pitch, allowing Lee Richard to score the winning run. The batter was Bucky Dent. It would not be the biggest thing that would happen to him on a ballfield on an October 2. For the Royals, rookie George Brett went 0-for-6.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Minnesota Twins, 2-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Rod Carew did not play for the Twins. Tom Grieve hit a home run. The Rangers finished 5 games behind the A's in the AL West. They would not do better than this in a full season, unaffected by a strike, until 1996.

* And the San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants, 9-5 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

June 20, 1975: "Jaws" Premieres

June 20, 1975: Jaws premieres, turning Steven Spielberg into a star director, and inventing the "Summer blockbuster film."

It was based on the novel of the same title, by Peter Benchley, grandson of Robert Benchley of Algonquin Round Table fame. He later regretted writing the book, because the movie led people to go out and kill sharks who had done nothing wrong.

Steven Spielberg was only 27 years old during filming, but he was already a genius, capable of out-Hitching Alfred Hitchcock for fear, suspense and characterization.

The movie was filmed on Martha's Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts, and "The Vineyard" stood in for the fictional Amity Island.

Roy Scheider, having previously played a second banana in The French Connection, proved that you didn't have to look like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman or Robert Redford to be an action hero.

Richard Dreyfuss, having played teenagers in American Graffiti and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, was so much better playing a young, thoughtful scientist like Hooper than being a rotten old man. It's one thing to play a mean old Republican, like he did in The American President and W., and he was damn good at both. It's another thing to be one.

English actor Robert Shaw played Quint, who became a shark-hunter after surviving the shark attack on the survivors of the Japanese attack on the USS Indianapolis in the waning days of World War II. Surviving a harrowing wartime experience should make a man less of a jerk, not more. Quint never figured this out.

Murray Hamilton played Mayor Larry Vaughn, a coward who pandered to local businesses. He would have made a great modern Southern Republican. In contrast, as Chief Brody, Scheider gives off serious "I'm a Republican of conscience, and that's why I'm now a guest on MSNBC at least 3 times a week" vibes.

Look, I get why some people root for the shark. Frankly, I wept not at all when it chomped Quint up. I would have cheered if it had gotten that useless Mayor, the real villain of the movie. But you're not supposed to root for the shark, any more than you root for the witch in The Wizard of Oz, or Barzini in The Godfather, or Darth Vader in Star Wars, or Thanos in the Marvel movies.

"Smile, you son of a bitch!" is a better "I'm about to kill you!" line than was ever delivered by John Wayne, and neither Clint Eastwood, nor Sylvester Stallone, nor Arnold Schwarzenegger, nor Bruce Willis has ever topped it, either. Nor will they, in whatever time is left to them.

There were 3 sequels by 1987. The less said about them, the better.

Shaw died in 1978, Hamilton in 1986, Scheider in 2008. As of June 20, 2022, Spielberg, Dreyfuss, and Lorraine Gary, who played Ellen Brody, the Chief's wife, are still alive.

I don't like horror movies, and Jaws has too much screaming for me to buy some people's argument that it's a "perfect movie." But it's a great movie, one proven by both the post-9/11 hysteria and COVID to have stood the test of time.

If had not been made then, and were made today, would it have the same impact? Probably not, since we've been desensitized to some forms of fear. Except... You're gonna need a bigger bank account.

In a 2014 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Spielberg. It became a "battle royale" of film directors, with Peter also playing Michael Bay, while "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Alfred Hitchcock, rapper Michael "Wax" Jones played Quentin Tarantino, and rapper Ruggles Outbound played Stanley Kubrick.

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June 20, 1975 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 10-9 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Rudy May didn't get out of the 1st inning, as the Tigers tagged him for 7 runs. But the Yankees nearly came back against Vern Ruhle, with 6 runs in the top of the 9th. Mickey Stanley's home run in the 7th made the difference. Graig Nettles and Bobby Bonds, in his only season with the Yankees, hit home runs. Nettles and Walt "No Neck" Williams each got 3 hits.

* The New York Mets lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-1 at Shea Stadium. Tom Seaver and Brooklyn native John Candelaria had a pitcher's duel going, until Willie Stargell hit a home run in the top of the 7th. The Mets tied it in the bottom of the 8th. Met manager Yogi Berra brought Tom Hall in to pitch the 9th, and he had nothing, and neither did Bob Apodaca, and the Bucs scored 3 runs, to make a winning pitcher out of Candelaria.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-3 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Rick Burleson hit a sacrifice fly to score Doug Griffin with the winning run in the top of the 12th inning. Carl Yastrzemski went 3-for-3 with 3 walks. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-5.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 7-4 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Greg Luzinski hit a home run. Mike Schmidt did not play.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 4-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Jim Slaton pitched a 6-hit shutout. Robin Yount went 2-for-4 with a walk. Hank Aaron was available for the Brewers, but did not play. Nor did Cleveland player-manager Frank Robinson insert himself into the game. So that's 2 men with a combined 1,321 career home runs who could have played in this game, but didn't.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Rod Carew went 2-for-5 for the Twins, while Steve Brye hit a home run. Bucky Dent went 3-for-4 for the White Sox, while Ken Henderson hit a home run.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Cago Cubs, 8-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 7-3 at the Astrodome in Houston. Pete Rose went 2-for-5. Johnny Bench went 1-for- 4 with a walk.

* The San Diego Padres beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Willie McCovey, who never looked right in a Padre uniform -- then again, in the 1970s, nobody did -- hit a home run.

* The California Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 12-11 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). The Rangers scored 6 runs in the 1st inning, before the Angels even came to bat, chasing Bill Singer. But Gaylord Perry couldn't hold it, and the Angels led 8-7 after 6.

The Rangers sent the game to extra innings, and scored 3 runs in the top of the 11th. But the Angels scored 4 in the bottom half, the winning run scoring when 2nd baseman Mike Cubbage mishandled Jerry Remy's ground ball. Morris Nettles, no relation to Graig (Morris was black), had an RBI double in the inning.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Reggie Jackson went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs. George Brett went 0-for-4.