September 23, 1957: Hank Aaron Walks a Pennant Off

Aaron with his 1957 MVP award

September 23, 1957: Hank Aaron hits the 109th home run of his career. He would later say it was the most important.

In hindsight, it probably was his most important home run, as it gave his team the Pennant. But the qualifier "probably" needs to be used, since he would go on to hit 755 home runs, and the 715th was also very important.

But no one could have foreseen that on this night. All anyone knew then was that Aaron was the defending National League batting champion, and that he had power, too, going into the game with 42 home runs on the season. He was the favorite for the NL's Most Valuable Player award, and did win it. Teammate Warren Spahn was awarded the Cy Young Award.

Managed by Fred Haney, and with an attack that also included Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, Del Crandall, Red Schoendienst, Wes Covington, Bill Bruton and Frank Torre, the Braves were in their 5th season in Milwaukee, after having moved from Boston. They had finished 1 game behind the Brooklyn Dodgers the season before. Now, with the Dodgers aging and in transition, it was the Braves' year.

The St. Louis Cardinals began the day 5 games behind the Braves, with 6 games to go, including the next 3 against each other at Milwaukee County Stadium. One more Braves win, or one more Cards loss, and the Braves had the Pennant. Before the Braves moved in, the minor-league version of the Milwaukee Brewers won the American Association Pennant in 1913, 1914, 1936, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1947 and 1951. This would be the city's 1st major league Pennant.

But this game wouldn't be easy. The Braves got a run on an error in the bottom of the 2nd inning. Alvin Dark singled 2 runs home for the Cards in the top of the 6th. Mathews doubled Schoendienst home in the 7th. (Schoendienst had starred for the Cardinals in the 1940s, would manage them to 2 Pennants in the 1960s, and remained in their organization until his death in 2018.)

The game went to extra innings. Lew Burdette pitched 10 innings for the Braves, before Gene Conley pitched the top of the 11th. Billy Muffett took the mound for the Cardinals in the bottom of the 11th. He got Schoendienst to fly to center, but allowed a single to Johnny Logan. (Logan, the Braves' shortstop, was once told that something that appeared in the newspaper was "a typographical error." Without thinking, his hitter's instinct kicked in, and he said, "The hell it was! It was a clean base hit!")

Muffett got Mathews to fly to center. But that brought Aaron up. He hit a drive into the center field bleachers, and the Braves were 4-2 winners. They weren't called "walkoff" home runs at the time, but a full house of 40,926 at County Stadium seemed to run out of the stands and onto the field.

Stan Musial went 3-for-4 in a losing cause for the Cardinals.

The Braves would face the New York Yankees in the World Series. Years later, Aaron said that the Braves weren't intimidated by the Yankees, but that they were intimidated by Yankee Stadium. They must have gotten over it, because they won Game 7 there, 5-0, and became World Champions.

The Green Bay Packers had won 6 NFL Championships by this point. The title of the National Basketball League had been won by the Oshkosh All-Stars in 1941 and 1942, and the Sheboygan Red Skins in 1943. And the University of Wisconsin had had some athletic success. So the State of Wisconsin had won titles before. But this was the 1st major league championship won by a Milwaukee team. They have been few and far between since.

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September 23, 1957 was a Monday. The film The Three Faces of Eve premiered on this day. I have a separate entry for this event.

There were 3 other games in the major leagues that day:

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 9-4 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Frank Malzone hit a home run for the Red Sox. Ted Williams went 1-for-1... with 3 walks. Harmon Killebrew hit a home run as a pinch-hitter.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Dick Brown singled Billy Harrell home with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning. Cal McLish -- in full, Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish -- went the distance for the win. Hitting home runs for the Indians were Brown, Rocky Colavito, and a rookie named Roger Maris. It is interesting that, on a night when Aaron hit a major home run, Maris -- who, like Aaron, would break a home run record set by Babe Ruth -- also hit a home run. For the Tigers, Al Kaline went 3-for-4 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs.

* And the Kansas City Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-5 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium.

There was another notable sporting event: Carmen Basilio won a split decision over Sugar Ray Robinson to win the Middleweight Championship of the World at Yankee Stadium. They would have a rematch 6 months later, at Chicago Stadium on March 23, 1958. It was another split decision, awarded to Robinson. 

June 25, 1952: Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Joey Maxim

June 25, 1952: Sugar Ray Robinson takes the biggest chance of his career.

He was called Walker Smith Jr. at birth, called Sugar Ray Robinson as a boxer, and called "pound-for-pound, the greatest boxer who ever lived" by many observers. He won the Welterweight Championship of the World in 1946, gave it up in 1950 to fight for the Middleweight Championship, and won that.

He was 129-1-2 for his career, the only loss coming in the 2nd of his 6th fights against former Middleweight Champion Jake LaMotta, before losing to British boxer Randy Turpin on July 10, 1951. On September 12, he regained the title. He followed that up with a decision over Carl "Bobo" Olson and a knockout of former Middleweight Champion Rocky Graziano.

Now, still holding that title, he tried to move up to the Light Heavyweight Championship. It was held by Giuseppe Antonio Berardinelli, a 30-year-old Clevelander who fought under the name Joey Maxim. His pro career was just getting going when he was drafted into World War II, and he fought Army bouts while serving as a Military Policeman in Miami.

The wartime experience kept him from fighting real contenders, so he didn't get a title shot until January 24, 1950, against British boxer Freddie Mills, in London. It was no contest: Maxim didn't just knock Mills out, he knocked out 3 of his teeth. Mills never fought again. But before Robinson could take a chance and move up, Maxim did, challenging Ezzard Charles for the Heavyweight Championship. He went the distance, but lost by a unanimous decision.

The Maxim-Robinson fight was scheduled for Yankee Stadium on June 23, but it rained, and the fight was postponed for 2 days. For all intents and purposes, the weather was no better: New York had gone into a record heat wave.

During the fight, Robinson built up a large points lead over Maxiim, who began to come on later in the fight. Robinson gradually succumbed to the heat, and collapsed to the canvas at the end of the 13th round, but managed to stagger back to his corner. He failed to answer the bell at the start of the 14th, even though he only had to remain on his feet to win the fight, and Maxim won by a technical knockout. This was the only time that Robinson was stopped in his 200-fight career.

Ray Miller waved the fight over. He was the substitute referee: Ruby Goldstein, himself once a boxing contender, and generally regarded as the best ref in the business, had to drop out of the fight, due to the heat. And dozens of spectators also collapsed due to the heat. No deaths were recorded, though.

At this point, Maxim's career record was 79-17-4. But he was never the same fighter: He lost his next fight, to Archie Moore, who not only held the title for the next 10 years, but beat Maxim twice more. After losing 6 straight fights in 1957 and '58, Maxim retired, his final record being 83-28-4.

For the rest of his life, people told Maxim the only reason he lost is that Robinson couldn't handle the heat. "Maybe you think it wasn't hot for me," he told such people. He ran a restaurant and became a standup comic in Las Vegas. He lived until 2001.

Robinson was Middleweight Champion 5 different times, on and off, from 1951 to 1960. He retired in 1965, concentrating on running his famous Harlem restaurant, and died in 1989.

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June 25, 1952 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees, obviously on the road, lost to the St. Louis Browns, 10-9 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Vic Raschi didn't get out of the 3rd inning, but, pitching for the Browns, once-and-future Yankee Tommy Byrne didn't get out of the 2nd. Mickey Mantle went 2-for-4 with a walk.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at the Polo Grounds. Willie Mays was unavailable, due to serving in the Korean War.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-1 at Ebbets Field. Carl Erskine went the distance for the win. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-4. Roy Campanella drove in all the Dodger runs with a home run.

* The Boston Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-2 at Braves Field in Boston. The Braves would only win 37 more games before moving to Milwaukee.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 11-9 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 10-3 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Ted Williams was unavailable, due to serving in the Korean War.

* The Washington Senators beat the Chicago White Sox, 9-6 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. White Sox reliever Marv Grissom collapsed in the top of the 10th inning, giving up 3 walks and a single and suffering an error behind him, before being relieved by Bill Kennedy, who gave up 2 walks, all leading to 3 Senator runs.

February 14, 1951: Boxing's St. Valentine's Day Massacre

February 14, 1951: The Middleweight Championship of the World is contested at the Chicago Stadium. It is a brutal fight, one that brought up memories of a previous February 14 in the same city, in 1929, when Chicago crime boss Al Capone had members of rival Bugs Moran's gang killed. Like that event, this fight gets the nickname "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

Walker Smith Jr., born in 1921 in Georgia and raised in Manhattan's Harlem, fought under the name Sugar Ray Robinson. He fought professionally 75 times before first winning a title, the Welterweight Championship of the World, by beating Tommy Bell in 1946. In those 75 fights, he had only 1 loss and 1 draw.

Giacobbe LaMotta, nicknamed Jake, was born in 1922 on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and grew up in The Bronx. "The Bronx Bull" had to fight even more times to get a title shot, going 72-13-3 before winning the Middleweight Championship of the World in 1949, beating French fighter Marcel Cerdan at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Though not a heavyweight, and not lefthanded, essentially, he was "Rocky" before Sylvester Stallone wrote his movie.

In 1970, LaMotta wrote a memoir, Raging Bull. In 1980, Martin Scorcese made a film of it, and Robert de Niro won an Academy Award for playing LaMotta, making him a star -- though hardly a role model -- to a new generation. He became a popular after-dinner speaker, with lines like, "I fought Sugar Ray so often, I almost got diabetes!"

They fought 6 times. Here were the 1st 5:

* 1. October 2, 1942, at the old Madison Square Garden. Robinson won a unanimous decision after 10 rounds.

* 2. February 5, 1943, at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. Also a decision after 10 rounds, but, this time, LaMotta won. This would be the only defeat in Robinson's 1st 133 fights: Going in, he was 40-0.

* 3. February 26, 1943, also at the Olympia. Just 3 weeks later, it went the full 10 rounds, and Robinson was declared the winner.

* 4. February 23, 1945, at Madison Square Garden. Another 10-round win by decision for Robinson.

* 5. September 26, 1945, at Comiskey Park in Chicago. It went 12 rounds, and Robinson won by a split decision. The 1st 4 decisions had not been controversial. This one was close, but few people thought LaMotta had been "robbed."

By February 14, 1951, LaMotta had defended the Middleweight Championship 6 times, and was 78-14-3. Robinson was 121-1-2, and had willingly given up the Welterweight Championship to move up in weight class and try to take the Middleweight title. To do it, he would have to fight LaMotta for a 6th time, at Chicago Stadium, home of the NHL's Chicago Black Hawks (the NBA's Bulls hadn't been founded yet), and already the site of some big fights.

This time, the fight was not really a contest. Although LaMotta was one of the hardest hitters the fight game has ever known, Robinson was a smarter fighter. LaMotta was a "puncher," but Robinson was a "boxer," a stylist instead of a mere hitter. Some boxing historians have considered Robinson to be "pound-for-pound, the greatest boxer who ever lived." They rank him ahead of Heavyweight Champions Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali; and ahead of the Welterweight and Middleweight Champions who dominated the early 1980s: Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Durán, and a man who would alter his real name to evoke memories of Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard.

Robinson outboxed LaMotta for the first 10 rounds. Had the fight been set for only 10 rounds, it would probably not be well-remembered today, and would be considered just another of Sugar Ray's many wins. But he then unleashed a series of savage combinations on LaMotta for 3 rounds. In the 13th round, he dealt LaMotta his 1st legitimate knockout loss in 95 professional bouts. (LaMotta had lost by knockout to Billy Fox earlier in his career. However, that fight was later ruled to have been fixed.) Because of the date, the location in Chicago, and its brutality, the fight became known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

The people of France hated LaMotta for beating Cerdan, even more so when Cerdan, trying to fly back across the Atlantic Ocean for a rematch, was killed in a plane crash. Robinson went to Europe after beating LaMotta, bringing his pink Cadillac on the cruise ship with him, and was wildly cheered in Paris as the man who had avenged Cerdan.

It was a working vacation: He kept fighting. He fought in Paris, Zürich, Antwerp, Berlin and Turin. But on July 10, just 9 days after his Turin fight, and getting into the ring for the 7th time in as many weeks, Robinson took his 129-1-2 record into the Earl's Court Arena in London, and lost his title to British boxer Randy Turpin.

He got the title back from Turpin, 3 months later at the Polo Grounds in New York. He ended up winning and losing the Middleweight title 5 times. In 1952, he tried to move up to the Light Heavyweight Championship, but in a brutally hot Yankee Stadium, the Champion, Joey Maxim, defeated him. For the rest of his life, people told Maxim the only reason he lost is that Robinson couldn't handle the heat. "Maybe you think it wasn't hot for me," he told such people.

Sugar Ray Robinson last won a title fight in 1958, last lost one in 1961, and finally retired in 1965, at the age of 44, with a record of 174-19-6. He ran a famous restaurant in Harlem, but developed dementia, probably as a result of having had nearly 200 professional fights, and died in 1989. Johnny Barnes played him in Raging Bull.

Jake LaMotta never had another title fight after getting destroyed by Robinson in Chicago. He kept fighting until 1954, retiring with a record of 83-19-4. He ran a bar in Miami, and became an actor, before writing his memoir and going on the after-dinner circuit. He died in 2017.

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February 14, 1951 was a Wednesday. English soccer legend Kevin Keegan was born on this day.

Baseball and football were out of season. There was 1 game in the NHL: The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-1 at the old Madison Square Garden.

And there were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Rochester Royals, 81-65 at the old Madison Square Garden. This turned out to be a preview of the NBA Finals, but the result would be reversed, as the Royals won in 7 games. The Royals became the Cincinnati Royals in 1957, the Kansas City Kings in 1972, and the Sacramento Kings in 1985.

* The Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Syracuse Nationals, 77-75 at North Side High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Pistons moved to Detroit in 1957. The Nats became the Philadelphia 76ers in 1963.

* The Tri-Cities Blackhawks beat the Indianapolis Olympians, 98-91 at the Wheaton Field House in Moline, Illinois. The "Tri-Cities" were Moline and Rock Island, Illinois, and, across the Mississippi River, Davenport, Iowa. Today, Bettendorf, Iowa is usually included, and the region is known as the "Quad Cities." The Blackhawks became the Milwaukee Hawks the next season, the St. Louis Hawks in 1955, and the Atlanta Hawks in 1968.

* And the Minneapolis Lakers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 99-71 at the Minneapolis Auditorium. The Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1960. The Bullets folded in 1954, and had no connection to the Baltimore Bullets that began in 1963, moved to Washington in 1973, and were renamed the Wizards in 1997.