September 17, 1967: Television Goes Psychedelic

The Doors on The Ed Sullivan Show, September 17, 1967.

Front: Jim Morrison. Behind him, left to right:

John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek

Note the actual doors suspended from the ceiling.

September 17, 1967: Television goes psychedelic, as CBS caps "the Summer of Love" with 2 explosive variety shows -- one figurative, one literal.

From 1948 to 1971, "The Tiffany Network" aired The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights at 8:00 Eastern Time. Ed was progressive in some ways, willing to air rock and roll acts, and black performers of all kinds, when most variety-show hosts wouldn't.

But there were, occasionally, issues. In 1956, he said he wouldn't have the hot newcomer of the moment, Elvis Presley, on his show, until rival Steve Allen brought him to his show on NBC. Ed saw Allen's ratings, too the hint, and had Elvis on his show 3 times, the last time showing him only from the waist up, to hide his gyrations.

In 1963, Bob Dylan was scheduled for the show. He wanted to sing his song "Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues." The censors, afraid that he would look like a Communist, told him after the 1st rehearsal to drop it. He refused. Ed backed him up. And Ed usually got what he wanted. This time, they overruled him. Dylan never appeared on the show, but he kept Ed's respect.

In 1964, Ed booked The Beatles, and 73 million people watched. At the time, it was the biggest audience in U.S. TV history. That led to several other British bands being booked, one of them The Rolling Stones.

But on January 15, 1967, mere hours after Super Bowl I, the Stones wanted to sing their song "Let's Spend the Night Together." Trying to avoid a conflict with the censors, Ed's producer, and also his son-in-law, Bob Precht, suggested a slight change: "Let's Spend Some Time Together." The Stones did it that way, but their anger is obvious on the tape.

At that point, The Doors had just released their self-titled debut album, a groundbreaking opus that helped bring "psychedelic rock" into the mainstream, including the song "Light My Fire," which had hit Number 1. Ed booked them, but their biggest song contained the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher." You couldn't say the words "get high," or any variant, on prime-time U.S. TV in 1967, because it would be taken as a drug reference.

Ray Manzarek, the organist and spokesman for the group, told Precht, "We'll think of something." So they discussed it.

John Densmore, drummer: "What are we gonna do?"

Robbie Krieger, guitarist, who had written the lyrics: "It's my lyric, I don't care. Whatever you guys want to do, I'll do it."

Jim Morrison, lead singer, who usually wrote the lyrics, and sang them: "I'm not gonna change the lyric."

Manzarek: "Then let's not change the lyric." And, presuming they would get caught breaking the rules, they settled on their story.

Also on this show that day were comedians Jack Benny, Rodney Dangerfield and Flip Wilson; married singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme; the singing Kessler Sisters, Alice and Ellen; and actor Yul Brynner, who did a classical guitar routine. All of it live, coast-to-coast, from CBS Studio 50 at 1697 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The building had recently been renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater.

The Doors opened the show with a song from their 2nd album, "People Are Strange." When it was over, there was a pause, as Ed's usually straitlaced audience wasn't sure what to make of them. Even the teenagers, usually put in the balcony of the theater to scream at the rock bands, didn't applaud at first. The applause that followed was tepid.

At the end of the show, The Doors played "Light My Fire." Jim didn't change the lyric. (Unlike in the 1991 film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer, Jim did not stick his face in the camera and make a point of it. He just sang it as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.) They played a short version, similar (but not identical) to the single version, rather than the album version, which has gone down in music history as "The Long Version."

As the song ends, the camera shifts to Ed, who looks mad. To hide this, the director quickly fades to black and goes to commercial.

Afterward, Precht walked up to the band, and rips them for saying, "higher."

Manzarek presented the story the band agreed on: "Sir, it's The Ed Sullivan Show, we were nervous, and we just did the song the way we've done it a thousand times, we didn't think about it, and we're sorry!"

Precht told them, "We were gonna book you for 6 more shows. But now, you'll never do The Ed Sullivan Show again!"

The members thought they'd blown it. But Morrison said, "Hey, man, we just did The Ed Sullivan Show."

True to his word, Precht made sure The Doors were never on the show again. The show last aired on June 6, 1971. Within a month, Jim Morrison was dead. Three years later, so was Ed Sullivan.

However, Precht inherited control of the Ed Sullivan Show recordings, and had no qualms about lending the performance of "Light My Fire" back to CBS for TV specials commemorating the show. The nostalgia network Decades now airs the show, and the September 17, 1967 episode is in regular rotation. (UPDATE: In 2024, Decades was "rebranded" as Catchy Comedy.)

One more note: On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1967, a little more than 3 months later, George Carlin was a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show. He did his Al Sleet, the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman routine. Referring to a symbol on his weather map, he said, "This is a Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high." It was his 4th appearance on the show. Since it was played for laughs, and Al Sleet was clearly not someone the average viewer would want to emulate, Carlin got away with it, eventually making 11 appearances.

*

The night was still young. On February 5, 1967, CBS debuted The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Tom and Dick Smothers had been a big comedy act for a while, and had been a hit on Ed Sullivan. They went for a hipper-than-thou vibe. And, apparently, it was Ed who had a problem with The Doors, not CBS: They appeared on "the Smos Bros" on December 15, 1968, singing "Wild Child" and "Touch Me." (Come to think of it, George Carlin was on that episode.)

On September 17, 1967, at 9:00 Eastern Time, while Ed Sullivan and Bob Precht were still steaming over "Girl, we couldn't get much higher," the Smothers Brothers went on the air, albeit on tape rather than live. In addition to show regulars, comedian Pat Paulsen and singer Jennifer Warnes, the show featured acting legends Bette Davis and Mickey Rooney.

And British rock band The Who.

Ed Sullivan was just short of his 66th birthday, making him old enough to be the grandfather of the eldest Door, Manzarek, 28. In contrast, Tommy Smothers was 30 years old, Dick was 27. So they were only a few years older than The Who: lead singer Roger Daltrey was 23, bass guitarist John Entwistle was about to turn 23, guitarist and main songwriter Pete Townshend was 22, and drummer Keith Moon was 21. The Brothers could relate to their guests a lot more easily than Sullivan could, and while the bandmembers were a bit more far-out than the Brothers were, the Brothers did handle things better.

The Who were already known for destroying their instruments onstage, having done so 3 months earlier at the Monterey Pop Festival in California. They were also known for destroying other things, like hotel rooms, and even cars: Moon had drunkenly driven one into a hotel pool.

The Who played their signature song, "My Generation," with Daltrey stuttering the lyrics because, as Townshend explained, the character is so hopped up on amphetamines (the drug of choice for British "Mods," as The Who's members had been). The key lyric seemed to be, "Things, they do look awful c-c-cold, I hope I die before I get old."

At the end of the performance, the members did wreck their instruments. This included Moon setting off an explosion in his bass drum. Unfortunately, Townshend got too close to it, and it wrecked his hearing. Now, like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, he was practically deaf in one ear.

Died before they got old: Jim Morrison, 1971, from a drug-induced heart attack, age 27; Keith Moon, 1978, from a drug-and-booze combination, 32; and John Entwistle, 2002, from a drug-induced heart attack, 57.

Lived to be old: Ed Sullivan, 1974, from cancer, 73; Ray Manzarek, 2013, from cancer, 74; and the following, all still alive at this writing: Tom Smothers, 85; Dick Smothers, 83; Roger Daltrey, 78; Pete Townshend, 77; John Densmore, 77; and Robbie Krieger, 76. (UPDATE: Tom Smothers died on December 26, 2023, at 86.)

*

September 17, 1967 was a Sunday. This was also the day of the Kayseri Atatürk Stadium Disaster in Turkey. I have a separate entry for that event.

A full slate of Major League Baseball games was played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Cleveland Indians, 4-2 at the old Yankee Stadium. Luis Tiant outpitched Mel Stottlemyre. Mickey Mantle went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-1 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. This was a bit of a blow in the Sox' 4-way dogfight for the American League Pennant with Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota. The Birds got home runs from Boog Powell (not surprising), Paul Blair (a little surprising) and Andy Etchebarren (very surprising).

Both pitchers of record would pitch for the Seattle Pilots in 1969, and feature in fellow pitcher Jim Bouton's published diary Ball Four: The winning pitcher for the O's was Gene Brabender, and the losing pitcher for the Sox was Gary Bell.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-4 at Forbes Field, in Pittsburgh. For the Pirates, Roberto Clemente went 3-for-5 with a solo home run. For the Giants, Jim Ray Hart hit a home run, but Willie Mays only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and didn't get a hit.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

* The Washington Senators beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-0 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Gary Peters pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Atlanta Braves, 5-3 at Atlanta Stadium. (It would be renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1974.) For the Cubs, Billy Williams hit a home run, and Ernie Banks went 2-for-4. For the Braves, the only home run was hit by Charlie Lau, the light-hitting catcher who would go on to become one of the sport's most admired hitting instructors; Hank Aaron went 1-for-4 with a double; and Joe Torre went 0-for-4.

* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 4-3 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The California Angels beat the Kansas City Athletics, 3-2 at Anaheim Stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim, California. (The ballpark is now named Angel Stadium of Anaheim.) This would be the last month for the A's as a Kansas City team: They moved to Oakland the next season.

And, being a Sunday, there was pro football, both the NFL and the AFL. For the senior league, it was the opening game of the season:

* The New York Giants beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 37-20 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, 35-24 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Atlanta Falcons, 38-31 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Chicago Bears, 41-13 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Dallas Cowboys beat the Cleveland Browns, 21-14 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions played to a tie, 17-17 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Minnesota Vikings, 27-21 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the New Orleans Saints, 27-13 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. The Saints were an expansion team, and this was the 1st regular-season game they ever played. They lost their 1st 7 games before finally beating the Eagles on November 5 at Tulane.

And in the AFL:

* The Houston Oilers beat the Buffalo Bills, 20-3 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the Denver Broncos, 35-21 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the Boston Patriots, 35-7 at the Oakland Coliseum.

* And the New York Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Diego Chargers all had a bye week. In 1966, the Dolphins were an AFL expansion team. Another, the Cincinnati Bengals, was added in 1968. So in 1966 and 1967, the AFL had 9 teams, and there was a bye every week to at least one team. 

September 13, 1969: The Toronto Rock 'n' Roll Revival Concert

September 13, 1969: The Toronto Rock 'n' Roll Revival Concert is held, at Varsity Stadium on the campus of the University of Toronto. It was one of the earliest examples of a rejection of the awful world of the present, and an embrace of the previous, seemingly simpler and more peaceful era.

The organizers managed to sign several of the founding fathers of rock and roll: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent. They also signed The Doors, and a young, as-yet-unknown, Alice Cooper.

But they weren't selling tickets. They needed a bigger name. One thing led to another, and John Lennon said yes. With him came his wife, Yoko Ono, and "The Plastic Ono Band": Guitarist Eric Clapton, bass guitarist Klaus Voorman (who had designed the cover of The Beatles' album Revolver), and drummer Alan White.

The concert was an overwhelming success, although, in his 1st concert without any of the other Beatles in 12 years, Lennon was far from at his best. But he found it liberating. Seven months later, Paul McCartney announced that The Beatles had broken up.

Actually, the best-remembered moment from the concert was when someone threw a live chicken onstage at Cooper, and Cooper threw it back, thinking it could fly. It couldn't, it fell into the audience, and they tore it apart. Just as Ozzy Osbourne would later be remembered for biting the head off a bat onstage, Cooper got remembered for killing a chicken onstage -- which he didn't do. But it launched his career as a "shock rocker."

*

September 13, 1969 was a Saturday. Actor, director and playwright Tyler Perry was born. This was also the day of the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert. I have a separate entry for that event.

These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 5-2 at Yankee Stadium. Zoinks! Like, Gary Wagner outpitched Fritz Peterson. Rico Petrocelli hit a home run, Reggie Smith went 3-for-4 with an RBI, Tony Conigliaro went 1-for-3 with an RBI, and Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-2, but did draw 2 walks. And they got away with it, too, because the Yankees didn't have enough meddling kids. Bobby Murcer went 1-for-3 with a walk and an RBI, but rookie Thurman Munson went 0-for-4.

* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Tom Seaver went the distance for the win. Ron Swoboda hit a grand slam. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4. Willie Stargell went 1-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-5 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 10-5 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-1 with 2 walks and an RBI. Frank Robinson did not play.

* The Washington Senators beat the Detroit Tigers, 11-6 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Al Kaline entered the game as a pinch-hitter, and went 0-for-2.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 3-2 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Phil Niekro pitched 11 shutout innings for the Braves, allowing 6 hits. Larry Dierker pitched 12 shutout innings for the Astros, allowing 4 hits. Jimmy Wynn singled home 2 runs for the Astros in the top of the 13th.

But in the bottom of the 13th, Fred Gladding allowed single, double, walk, single. Jack Billingham got an out, but was immediately replaced by Wade Blasingame, who intentionally walked Hank Aaron, and then unintentionally walked Bob Aspromonte to give the Braves the win.

This game did not make a fellow proud to be an Astro. Maybe manager Harry Walker should have brought in Jim Bouton, whom the Astros had acquired from the Seattle Pilots on August 24. He was in the process of writing his diary of the season, which became the book Ball Four.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. John "Blue Moon" Odom pitched 8 shutout innings for the A's, before being relieved by Fred Talbot, who had been liberated from the expansion Seattle Pilots 16 days earlier. Paul Edmondson pitched 9 innings of 3-hit shutout ball for the ChiSox, but Wilbur Wood gave up 4 runs in the top of the 10th, including a 3-run home run to Dave Duncan. Reggie Jackson did not enter the game for the A's.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 1-0 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Dean Chance went the distance, allowing 4 hits -- and lost for the Twins. The expansion Royals started Roger Nelson, but he only pitched 1 inning before leaving the game with an injury. He didn't pitch again that season, and pitched only 9 major league innings in 1970, and battled injury thereafter, missing all of 1975, and last pitched in 1976, age 32.

Mike Hedlund pitched 6 innings, allowing just 2 hits. Ed Kirkpatrick singled home the only run of the game in the top of the 9th, making a winning pitcher out of Moe Drabowsky, who completed the 2-hit shutout. Shortstop Leo Cárdenas got both Twin hits. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-3 with a walk, and Rod Carew went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 7-4 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. The Cubs led 4-3 going into the bottom of the 8th, but the Cards scored 4 runs off Fergie Jenkins, Ken Johnson and Phil Regan. Lou Brock went 2-for-4 with a walk. Joe Torre went 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

In this 1st season of Divisional play, the Cubs led the National League Eastern Division by as much as 9 games on August 16, but went 17-26 the rest of the way, falling behind the Mets on September 10, a collapse known as the September Swoon.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres, 7-2 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Francisco Giants, 6-4 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Pete Rose went 1-for-5. Johnny Bench went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI. Willie Mays entered the game as a pinch-hitter, and went 0-for-2.

* And a doubleheader was split at Sick's Stadium in Seattle. The Seattle Pilots won the opener, 6-4. Steve Hovley, Danny Walton and Don Mincher each got 2 hits, to make a winning pitcher of Diego Seguí, in relief of Marty Pattin. The California Angels won the nightcap, 4-2. Eddie Fisher (not the singer) outpitched Miguel Fuentes, the Dooley Womack and John Gelnar.

This was also the opening weekend of the college football season. But only 1 team ranked in the Top 20 played that day: Number 17 UCLA beat Oregon State, 37-0 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

And in English soccer, North London team Arsenal traveled to Lancashire, and beat Burnley, 1-0 at Turf Moor. George Graham, later to manage them to success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, scored the game's only goal. 

July 3, 1971: Jim Morrison Dies

July 3, 1971: Jim Morrison, lead singer of rock band The Doors, dies in Paris. It wasn't publicly announced until July 8, as the circumstances of his death were unusual.

With the release of their self-titled debut album on January 4, 1967, The Doors -- lead singer Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robbie Krieger and drummer John Densmore -- merged the influences of rock and roll, jazz and classical music, and Morrison's interest in older literature and poetry for their lyrics, to form one of the most spectacular bands of all time.

Morrison's looks, stage presence and lyrics made them stand out. Krieger wrote the lyrics to their hits "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me" and "Love Her Madly," but Morrison wrote most of the others.

The Doors during their controversial appearance

on The Ed Sullivan Show, September 17, 1967.
L to R: John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek.

But Morrison was an alcoholic and a user of psychedelic drugs, and as they went along -- releasing Strange Days later in 1967, Waiting for the Sun in 1968, The Soft Parade in 1969, Morrison Hotel/Hard Rock Cafe in 1970, and L.A. Woman in 1971 -- he became more controversial and less reliable.

Much like a later Los Angeles-based band, Guns N' Roses, a Doors concert was unpredictable: You never knew when the lead singer was going to join with the others to give you a transcendent experience, or when he was going to start a riot, or whether he was going to show up at all.

On September 18, 1970, another of the icons of psychedelic rock, Jimi Hendrix, died as a result of mixing drugs and alcohol. When asked for her thoughts on it, bluesy rock singer Janis Joplin said, "There but for the grace of God go I." She wasn't kidding. She died just 16 days later.

When he found out about Jimi's death, Morrison asked his friends, "Do you believe in omens?" Like Janis, he didn't take the hint. When Janis died, Jim told his friends, "Believe it or not, you're drinking with number three."

In March 1971, Morrison left Los Angeles for Paris, the adoptive home of so many writers and composers he'd admired, in the hopes of getting away from L.A., clearing his mind, and getting ready to make great art again. By this point, he had gotten fat, and had started using harder drugs like heroin. He was joined by Pamela Courson, his longtime girlfriend.

At first, the sabbatical seemed to work. He wrote of taking long walks through the great city. He lost weight, including some of the puffiness in his face that had led him to grow a beard.

But on July 3, at around 6:00 AM local time, Pam found Jim in the bathtub, dead. She said he seemed to be looking up, with a smile and a look of peace on his face. He had seemed to celebrate death in some of his songs, and now he had achieved it. He seemed not to have found peace in life. I hope he found it in the afterlife.

No autopsy was performed. The official cause of death was heart failure, which was possible, considering his weight gain and his heavy drinking. It has been speculated that the real cause was an accidental heroin overdose. It has also been rumored that his death was faked, and that he went elsewhere, to live out his years in obscurity, away from prying eyes. Pam definitely died from heroin, 3 years later.

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison. All 3 of them, dead within 10 months. All of 3 of them, dead at the age of 27. (The New York Times, who relegated Jim's death to a minor Page 1 story, mistakenly listed him as 25.) This gave rise to the idea of rock and roll's "27 Club."

Pamela died on April 25, 1974, from a heroin overdose in Los Angeles. She, too, was 27 years old. Ray Manzarek died of cancer in 2013, at the age of 77. As of July 3, 2022, the other 2 Doors are still alive: Robbie Krieger is 76, while John Densmore is 77.

*

July 3, 1971 was a Saturday. Actor Benedict Wong was born. So was arch-criminal Julian Assange.

It was the off-season for the NFL, the NBA, the ABA and the NHL. But there was a full slate of Major League Baseball games that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 2-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Luis Tiant allowed only 3 hits, but 1 was a home run by Roy White. Fritz Peterson was the winning pitcher.

* The New York Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 7-1 at Shea Stadium. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4 with an RBI, and Mike Lum hit a home run to help knock Gary Gentry out of the box in the 1st inning.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 6-3 at Jarry Park in Montreal.

* The Washington Senators beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-1 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Merv Rettenmund hit a home run, Brooks Robinson went 2-for-4 with an RBI, Frank Robinson went 0-for-4 but drew a walk, and Paul Blair went 2-for-2 with 2 walks and 4 RBIs. For the Tigers, Jim Northrup hit a home run, but Al Kaline went 0-for-4.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks did not play for the Cubs, but Don Kessinger hit a home run. For the Pirates, Roberto Clemente went 1-for-4, but Willie Stargell went 0-for-3.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 7-1 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Harmon Killebrew went 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a groundout. Rod Carew went 2-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 1-0 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Tommy John pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* The Houston Astros beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3 at the Astrodome in Houston. Jack Hiatt singled home the winning run in the 13th inning. Pete Rose went 3-for-4 with 2 walks, and Johnny Bench went 1-for-6.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres, 1-0 at San Diego Stadium. (It was later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium and SDCCU Stadium.) Al Downing outdueled Dave Roberts, pitching a 6-hit shutout.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the California Angels, 5-3 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4.

* And the San Francisco Giants beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-1 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. For the Giants, Chris Speier, Bobby Bonds and Ken Henderson hit home runs; Willie Mays went 1-for-3 with 2 walks, and Willie McCovey did not play. Steve Carlton got knocked out in the 6th inning. Lou Brock went 0-for-3 with a walk, and Joe Torre went 0-for-4.

June 20, 1948: "The Ed Sullivan Show" Premieres

June 20, 1948: Toast of the Town premieres on CBS. The host is Ed Sullivan, Broadway columnist for the New York Daily News. The first guests are the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein, and the comedy team of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis (both of whom also sang). In 1955, the program was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show.

In 1947, the Daily News hosted a dance competition titled The Harvest Moon Ball, and had it broadcast on local television. Sullivan was asked to host it. CBS founder and Chairman William S. Paley was looking for a host for a Sunday night variety show, and thought Sullivan would be a good choice.

Paley turned out to be right: As Sullivan's old friend, comedian Jack Benny, once said, "You don't sing, you can't dance, you don't tell jokes, you merely introduce the acts." But he also served as his own talent scout. Ed was progressive in some ways, willing to air rock and roll acts, and black performers of all kinds, when most variety-show hosts wouldn't.

All of it live, coast-to-coast, from CBS Studio 50 at 1697 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan. In 1967, the building was renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater.

Ed grew up watching vaudeville, and would have vaudeville-style acts, including every comedian in the business, from old-timers like Jimmy Durante and George Burns, to the top ones of the time like Alan King and Henny Youngman, to edgy new ones: George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers and Robert Klein.

He had jugglers, acrobats, circus performers. Wenceslao Moreno, a Spanish ventriloquist known professionally as Señor Wences, was a frequent guest. "Easy for you," his doll "Johnny" would say, "For me, is difficult!" And he would speak to a box, and ask, "Okay?" And open it, and "Pedro," a disembodied head, would say, "'S all right!" 

Erich Brenn had a talent for "plate spinning," and performed his act on Ed's show many times, to the tune of Aram Khatchaturian's Sabre Dance. Señor Wences liked Brenn's act so much, he copied it, and did it himself on a 1962 show.

He also liked impressionists, and some would even do impressions of him, including Will Jordan, who, from 1954 until his death in 2018, essentially "played Ed Sullivan" longer than Ed did. He noticed that Ed used phrases like, "here on this stage," "on this great stage," and "big show," and rolled his R's. So the centerpiece of his impression became, "Tonight, we've got a rrrreally big shew." Not "show," "shew," which Ed never actually said, except, occasionally, in self-deprecation.

He played Ed in the original 1960 Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie, and in the films I Want to Hold Your Hand and The Buddy Holly Story in 1978, The Doors in 1991, and Mr. Saturday Night in 1992.

But there were, occasionally, issues. In 1956, he said he wouldn't have the hot newcomer of the moment, Elvis Presley, on his show, until rival Steve Allen brought him to his show on NBC. Ed saw Allen's ratings, took the hint, and had Elvis on his show 3 times, the last time showing him only from the waist up, to hide his gyrations. But, at the end of that January 6, 1957 show, Ed told the audience, "This is a real, decent, fine boy." Elvis took it was one of the greatest compliments of his career.

In May 1963, Bob Dylan was scheduled for the show. He wanted to sing his song "Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues." The censors, afraid that he would look like a Communist, told him after the 1st rehearsal to drop it. He refused. Ed backed him up. And Ed usually got what he wanted. This time, they overruled him. Dylan never appeared on the show, but he kept Ed's respect.

For his February 9, 1964 show, Ed booked The Beatles, and 73 million people watched. At the time, it was the biggest audience in U.S. TV history. That led to several other British bands being booked, one of them The Rolling Stones.

On October 18, 1964, the show was partly preempted by President Lyndon Johnson delivering a speech from the Oval Office at the White House. So Ed, always conscious of time since the show was done live, had to shorten the show, meaning he had to shorten the acts.

Ed's technique on the show was to introduce the act, then walk to a spot just offstage where he would sit on a stool and watch. On this night, he introduced Jackie Mason, a regular comedian whose humor was based largely on his Jewish identity. Ed held up two fingers, to tell Jackie that he had 2 minutes to do his act.

But Jackie didn't know what the 2 fingers meant, and he went over. Ed kept holding up the fingers, and got madder and madder. The studio audience could see this, and laughed at that, not at Jackie's jokes. "The TV audience couldn't see it," Jackie said, decades later, after he had become a star all over again. "They only knew one thing: This Jew is dying!"

Finally, Jackie decides to use Ed's gestures to his advantage, pointing offstage, and saying, "He keeps showing me fingers, this guy!" Suddenly, the studio audience is laughing at him, and he closes by pointing fingers at everybody, and runs off the stage -- to the other side from Ed.

Ed collared Jackie after the show, and, as Jackie remembered, "I saw a man livid, with violent rage." Ed claimed that Jackie had given him the middle finger. Jackie denied it, saying he'd never even heard of the gesture. Jackie was 36 years old, and had grown up in New York: He knew exactly what it meant. But the surviving videotape is inconclusive: It's not clear that Jackie had made the gesture, or what his intentions were.

Ed banned him from the show. Jackie sued him for defamation of character. After 2 years, they made peace, and Jackie made 5 more appearances on the show. But the damage was done: For 20 years, he was all but unemployable in show business, until starring in a one-man show on Broadway that made him a star again in his 50s.

On January 15, 1967, The Rolling Stones were on, and wanted to sing their song "Let's Spend the Night Together." Trying to avoid a conflict with the censors, Ed's producer, and also his son-in-law, Bob Precht, suggested a slight change: "Let's Spend Some Time Together." The Stones did it that way, but their anger is obvious on the tape.

Eight months later, on September 17, The Doors were on, and were told by Robert Precht -- Ed's producer, and also his son-in-law, married to his daughter Betty -- that the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" from their Number 1 hit "Light My Fire" constituted an advocacy of drug use, and wouldn't be allowed, and they had to change it. They said they would.

They didn't: Lead singer Jim Morrison sang the lyrics exactly as lead guitarist Robbie Krieger had written them, and Precht told them, "We were going to book you for six more Ed Sullivan Shows, and you'll never do The Ed Sullivan Show again!" Morrison had the perfect comeback: "Hey, man, we just did The Ed Sullivan Show." He knew the difference between one and none was bigger than the difference between one and two, or even one and ten.

Ed would frequently get names wrong, especially if they were foreign. At some point, he must have pronounced singer Robert Goulet's name as "GOOL-ett" instead of the correct, French "Goo-LAY," because impressionist Rich Little worked that into his impression of Ed. A frequent guest was Italian opera singer Sergio Franchi (pronounced "FRONG-kee"), and, the 1st time he was on, Ed needed several tries to get his name right.

Ed's memory got worse in the show's later years, and Joan Rivers later suggested that he had developed Alzheimer's disease. Diana Ross recalled that he had trouble remembering the name of her group, The Supremes: "He called us 'the girls.'" After the show was taken off the air, former Beatle Paul McCartney recalled a visit to New York, and said that Ed didn't recognize him, even though The Beatles' appearance is now what the show is best remembered for.

CBS was in a transition in the early 1970s, as a lot of long-time fan-favorite shows were canceled, and a lot of new ones that turned out to be fan-favorites began. In 1971, with the show's ratings having dropped, CBS canceled the show. Ed found out by reading the newspaper. They didn't even have the decency to tell him face-to-face. Three more months of shows were scheduled, but he refused to do them.

The last new episode aired on March 28, 1971. The guests included singer Melanie Safka, impressionist David Frye, and opera singer Joanna Simon, whose sister Carly Simon was about to become a popular singer as well.

Ed Sullivan died of cancer on October 13, 1974, about a year after his wife Sylvia. Betty, his only child, lived until 2014. As of June 20, 2022, son-in-law Bob Precht is still alive, and still controls the show's footage through his company, Sofa Entertainment. (UPDATE: Precht died in 2023.)

*

June 20, 1948 was a Sunday. Frank Sinatra only appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show once, on June 28, 1964. But his daughter Tina Sinatra, later a TV producer, was born on the day that the show premiered.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. They won the opener, 4-2. Vic Raschi went the distance for the win, and was backed by a home run from Joe DiMaggio. They won the nightcap, 6-2. Red Embree went the distance, and got 2 homers from DiMaggio.

* A doubleheader was split at the Polo Grounds. The St. Louis Cardinals won the 1st game, 7-2. Stan Musial hit a home run. The New York Giants won the 2nd game, 6-4. The Giants hit 3 straight homers in the 8th inning, by Johnny Mize, Willard Marshall and Sid Gordon.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Chicago Cubs, 6-3 at Ebbets Field. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-4.

* The Boston Braves swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4 and 4-1 at Braves Field in Boston. And the eventual National League Champions did it without either of their aces, Warren Spahn or Johnny Sain: Red Barrett won the 1st game, and Vern Bickford outpitched former double-no-hitter hero Johnny Vander Meer in the 2nd game.

* And a doubleheader was split at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Phillies won the 1st game, 9-0. Dutch Leonard pitched a 4-hit shutout, and Richie Ashburn went 4-for-5. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 2nd game, 7-5. Ralph Kiner hit 2 home runs.

* The Cleveland Indians swept a doubleheader from the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-3 and 10-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Bob Feller won the 1st game, and Bob Lemon pitched a 4-hit shutout in the 2nd game.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-3 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Ted Williams went 2-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the 1st game, 8-5. The Washington Senators won the 2nd game, 4-1.

March 1, 1969: Jim Morrison In Miami

March 1, 1969: Rock band The Doors hold a concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami. It becomes notorious for what happened -- or didn't.

For the last 2 years, The Doors -- lead singer Jim Morrison, organist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robbie Krieger and drummer John Densmore -- had been one of the best rock bands in the world. But they had also been one of the most controversial, mostly because of Morrison. He acted bizarrely, even when sober and drug-free. Which wasn't often: He was an alcoholic, and loved hallucinogenic drugs, especially LSD. He would leave concerts early, or not show up at all. And he was a compulsive womanizer. And yet, his lyrics marked him as a genius.

By the dawn of 1969, he was noticeably overweight, due to his drinking. His face, once on a poster on the walls of thousands of teenage girls, was now puffy, which he tried to hide with a beard. On March 1, the band was supposed to appear at the Dinner Key Auditorium, a poorly-ventilated, and thus very hot, building with 10,000 temporary seats set up. In his memoir, Manzarek said that he didn't think the building was safe. And Morrison showed up late.

He was unable to remain focused. He stopped in mid-song a few times. At one point, he told the audience, "I was born in Florida! I went to Florida State!" It was true: He was born in Melbourne, not far from Cape Canaveral, while his father, a U.S. Navy officer, was stationed nearby. That got cheers. Then he said, "Then I got smart, and moved to California!" He laughed. The audience booed.

At one point, he yelled, "You wanna see my cock?" Whether he actually showed it to them has been debated ever since. While there are photographs from the concert, showing him sticking his hand in his pants, none has ever been found showing him exposing himself. No film footage of the concert is known to exist. When Oliver Stone made his 1991 film The Doors, he had Val Kilmer, playing Morrison, stick a finger through his fly, making people believe they had see "Little Jim" "break on through to the other side."

In their memoirs, Manzarek and Densmore both denied that he'd done it. As of March 1, 2022, Krieger has not written a memoir, but he has never confirmed the story, either.

But the story got out, and many venues that had booked The Doors canceled. Warrants for Morrison's arrest were issued by the Dade County Public Safety Department. Eventually, Morrison surrendered. On September 20, 1970, he was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity. He was sentenced to 6 months in prison and a $5,000 fine. He remained free on appeal, having paid a $50,000 bond.

The appeal trial never happened. Morrison died on July 3, 1971. On December 8, 2010, the 67th anniversary of his birth, Governor Charlie Crist of Florida issued a complete pardon for Morrison.

*

March 1, 1969 was a Saturday. Spanish actor Javier Bardem was born.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 4 games scheduled in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 115-96 at the new Madison Square Garden.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the San Diego Clippers, 119-113 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).

* The Phoenix Suns beat the San Francisco Warriors, 119-118 at the Cow Palace, outside San Francisco in Daly City, California.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 134-122 at the Seattle Center Coliseum. Bob Rule scored 47 points for the Sonics. This was no fluke, as he had scored that many the year before, in a game against the Lakers.

There were 3 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Miami Floridians, 122-116 at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Louie Dampier scored 46 points for the Colonels. The Floridians had played some of their home games at Dinner Key, but most of them at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

* The New Orleans Buccaneers beat the Los Angeles Stars, 143-105 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

* And the Oakland Oaks beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 107-96 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

And there were 5 games scheduled in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 8-5 at the Boston Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-0 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Pittsburgh Penguins played to a tie, 3-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Philadelphia Flyers and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 2-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks and the Oakland Seals were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, Arsenal, the North London team I would one day support, went to Yorkshire, and beat Sheffield Wednesday, 5-0 at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield.

January 4, 1967: The Doors Release Their Self-Titled Debut Album

Left to right: Jim Morrison, John Densmore,

Ray Manzarek & Robbie Krieger

January 4, 1967: Los Angeles-based rock and roll band The Doors release of their self-titled debut album. This begins a year in which many landmark albums would be released.

George Morrison graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, and witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor 6 months later. Two years after that, in between his combat missions as a Navy pilot, he and his wife Clara became the father of a boy they named James Douglas Morrison. George was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the Korean War, and was commander of the U.S. naval forces that became involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, which led to the escalation of America's role in the Vietnamese Civil War. He retired with the rank of Rear Admiral.

It was quite a career -- and yet, he's best known as the father of a rock star who wrote a lyric about wanting to kill him.

Jim, as were his younger sister Anne and their younger brother Andrew, was a "Navy brat," never staying in one place too long due to his father's transfers. One of them was to the Pentagon, outside Washington, D.C., and Jim graduated from George Washington High School, one of the schools in Alexandria, Virginia that was folded into T.C. Williams High School, the school from the football-themed film Remember the Titans.

Speaking of movies: Jim was accepted into film school at the University of California at Los Angeles. Before that, he dropped out of Florida State University, after getting arrested for disturbing the peace and petty larceny after getting drunk at a football game on September 28, 1963. (The Seminoles lost to Texas Christian University, 13-0 at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee.)

At the infamous Miami concert in 1969, Jim allegedly told the crowd, "I'm from Florida! I went to Florida State!" The crowd cheered. Then he said, "Then I got smart, and moved to California!" The cheers quickly turned to boos.

At UCLA Film School, he met Ray Manzarek, a classical pianist and a blues fan from the South Side of Chicago, who had been in a band with his brother Rick, named Rick & the Ravens. Being Polish, he noticed that the music produced by the black blues performers on the South Side was heavy enough to remind him of the kind of classical music produced in Slavic countries like Russia, Poland and Hungary, and it influenced his performing.

Jim and Ray bonded over their shared love of film, poetry, and rock and roll. Morrison read some of his own poetry, and told Manzarek, "I got a whole concert in my head." Manzarek said, "Let's get a rock and roll band together, and make a million dollars!" (How quaint the amount sounds now.)

In his memoir, Manzarek said of the musicians he wanted to fill out the band, "I wanted guys who wanted to make music more than they wanted to fuck." He found two men who shared his love of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Guitarist Robbie Krieger had written a song titled "Light My Fire," and suggested "putting some long solos on it, like Coltrane did on 'My Favorite Things.'"

And drummer John Densmore asked Manzarek if he liked Coltrane. Of Coltrane's pianist, Manzarek said, "McCoy Tyner is my idol!" Of Coltrane's drummer, Densmore said, "I worship Elvin Jones. He is the greatest drummer on the planet." Morrison approved of both hirees, and, as Manzarek put it, "the diamond" was set.

And it would be a diamond, 4 members: Vocalist, organist, guitarist, drummer. Instead of hiring a bass guitarist, Manzarek played a Vox Continental organ with his right hand, and, on top of that, placed a Rhodes Piano Bass, which he played with his left hand.

Morrison named the group whose concert he heard in his head The Doors. Manzarek initially interpreted the name as "opening the doors of your mind." He was close: Morrison, a devotee of psychedelic drugs, had read Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception. And he knew that Huxley got his title from a line by English poet William Blake: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, then everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite."

The Doors merged their influences of rock and roll, jazz and classical music, and Morrison's interest in older literature and poetry for their lyrics, to form one of the most spectacular bands of all time. Morrison's looks, stage presence and lyrics made them stand out.

Krieger wrote the lyrics to their hits "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me" and "Love Her Madly," but Morrison wrote most of the others. They moved up among the music clubs of Los Angeles in 1965 and 1966, until, in May 1966 they became the house band at the biggest club of them all, the Whisky a Go Go, at 8901 Sunset Boulevard. (The "Sunset Strip" is roughly 8000 to 9300 Sunset Blvd.)

They -- or, rather, Morrison -- blew that gig with his song "The End." As if the song, with its imagery of death, a snake, "a Roman wilderness of pain," insane children, and a mysterious bus, wasn't weird enough. On August 21, Morrison slipped in a spoken-word piece, a rock retelling of the Greek myth of Oedipus:

The killer awoke before dawn.
He put his boots on.
He took a face from the ancient gallery
and he walked on down the hall

He went into the room where his sister lived 
and then he paid a visit to his brother
and then he, he walked on down the hall!
And he came to a door!
And he looked inside!

"Father?"
"Yes, son?"
"I want to kill you."
"Mother, I want to..."

The words "fuck you!" wouldn't make it onto the album -- he just yelled unintelligibly at that moment in the song -- but he would do it in his concerts, and he did it on this occasion. The show over, the club fired the band. But Jac Holzman, head of Elektra Records, and his top producer, Paul Rothchild, were on hand, and they offered the band a record deal.

They recorded their self-titled debut album 3 days later, on August 24, 1966. Ten songs, including the very long "Light My Fire" and the even longer "The End," all in one day. You could do that back then.

They covered the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill song "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)" and blues singer Howlin' Wolf's "Back Door Man," but all the other songs were originals. The album opened with "Break On Through (To the Other Side)," so Morrison was opening with a metaphor for death. They closed, naturally, with "The End." The last song on the 1st side was "Light My Fire," which hit Number 1 that Summer, and made them legends.

The Doors during their controversial appearance

on The Ed Sullivan Show, September 17, 1967.
L to R: John Densmore, Robbie Krieger,

Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek.

But Morrison was an alcoholic, and a user of psychedelic drugs, and as they went along -- releasing Strange Days later in 1967, Waiting for the Sun in 1968, The Soft Parade in 1969, Morrison Hotel/Hard Rock Cafe in 1970, and L.A. Woman in 1971 -- he became more controversial and less reliable.

Much like a later Los Angeles-based band, Guns N' Roses, a Doors concert was unpredictable: You never knew when the lead singer was going to join with the others to give you a transcendent experience, or when he was going to start a riot, or whether he was going to show up drunk and practically useless, or whether he was going to show up at all.

On September 18, 1970, another of the icons of psychedelic rock, Jimi Hendrix, died as a result of mixing drugs and alcohol. When asked for her thoughts on it, bluesy rock singer Janis Joplin said, "There but for the grace of God go I." She wasn't kidding. She died just 16 days later.

When he found out about Jimi's death, Morrison asked his friends, "Do you believe in omens?" Like Janis, he didn't take the hint. When Janis died, Jim told his friends, "Believe it or not, you're drinking with number three."

In March 1971, Morrison left Los Angeles for Paris, the adoptive home of so many writers and composers he'd admired, in the hopes of getting away from L.A., clearing his mind, and getting ready to make great art again. By this point, he had gotten fat, and had started using harder drugs like heroin. He was joined by Pamela Courson, his longtime girlfriend.

At first, the sabbatical seemed to work. He wrote of taking long walks through the great city. He lost weight, including some of the puffiness in his face that had led him to grow a beard. But on July 3, Pam found Jim in the bathtub, dead. She said he seemed to be looking up, with a smile and a look of peace on his face.

He had seemed to celebrate death in some of his songs, and now he had achieved it. He seemed not to have found peace in life. I hope he found it in the afterlife.

Pamela claimed to have married Jim -- but so did Patricia Kennealy, a journalist who claimed to be a witch. If either of them had married him, it wasn't legal. When Pamela died in 1974, also from drugs, that settled Jim's estate: It went, irony of ironies, to his parents. Jim is not known to have fathered any children.

Producer Paul Rothchild lived until 1995, Curtis Amy (who played that great saxophone solo on "Touch Me") in 2002, Clara Morrison until 2005, Admiral George Morrison until 2008, Ray Manzarek until 2013, Patricia Kennealy until 2021. As of January 4, 2022, Robbie Krieger, John Densmore, Jerry Scheff (the bass guitarist used on L.A. Woman, also of Elvis Presley's TCB Band), Jim's brother Andrew Morrison, Jim's sister Anne Morrison Chewning, and producer Jac Holzman are still alive.

*

January 4, 1967 was a Wednesday. Actress Marina Orsini was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football was between its league championship games and its 1st-ever "AFL-NFL World Championship Game," which would be retroactively renamed "Super Bowl I."

There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Chicago Bulls, 136-115 at the Philadelphia Civic Center.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Baltimore Bullets, 132-126 in double overtime at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena).

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the St. Louis Hawks, 122-101 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Jerry West led all scorers on the day with 35 points.

There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 1-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. And the Montreal Canadiens and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 2-2 at the Chicago Stadium. The Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled to play.