August 16, 1969: Woodstock, Day 2

John Sebastian. Although I'm a fan of his,

I chose this photo more for the panorama of the crowd.

August 16, 1969: The Woodstock Music & Art Fair resumes on Max Yasgur's dairy farm outside Bethel, Sullivan County, New York.

This is the day everybody remembers, but hardly anybody remembers the act that began the day's proceedings at 12:30 PM: Quill. The group had 5 members, and if you can name 1 of them, then you're 1 up on me.

Santana, the San Francisco-based psychedelic band led by Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana, had trouble getting their equipment together, so Joe McDonald, lead singer of Country Joe & The Fish, also from San Francisco, and scheduled for the next day, went on in their place.

He did "The Fish Cheer," asking the 500,000 or so people on hand, "Gimme an F!" They all yelled out, "F!" He then asked them for a U, a C, and a K, and they obliged. When he asked them, over and over again, "What's that spell?" they answered enthusiastically, every time. And then he launched into the one Fish song that everybody remembers, "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," with its chorus:

And it's one, two, three, what are we fightin' for?

Don't ask me, I don't give a damn.

Next stop is Vietnam.

And it's five, six, seven, open up the Pearly Gates.

Well, ain't got time to wonder why.

Whoopee! We're all gonna die!

The last 2 lines were an homage to Alfred Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade": "Theirs not to wonder why, theirs but to do and die."

At 2:00, Santana were ready, and made themselves legends. But several acts that were scheduled weren't ready: The traffic jam caused by the festival meant that Arlo Guthrie was right: The New York State Thruway was closed, man. Good thing it wasn't Induction Weekend for the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, or a lot of baseball fans would have been really pissed at the Hippies.

John Sebastian of The Lovin' Spoonful was there, and at 3:30, someone handed him a guitar, and he started singing. He later said that it was the worst performance of his career, and on the film, he does both look and sound stoned.

The Keef Hartley Band went on at 4:45. The seriously-delayed Incredible String Band finally took the stage at 6:00. Canned Heat did so at 7:30, Mountain at 9:00, and The Grateful Dead at 10:30. They played for 1 hour and 35 minutes, the last half of which was one song, "Turn On Your Love Light."

It was now after midnight, Sunday, August 17.

*

Major League Baseball games played on Saturday, August 16:

* Chicago White Sox 5, New York Yankees 4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Bill Melton hit a home run off Jack Aker in the 8th inning, to win it for the Pale Hose. Horace Clarke hit a home run for the Yankees.

* Doubleheader at Shea Stadium. 1st game: New York Mets 2, San Diego Padres 0. Tom Seaver pitched 8 shutout innings, allowing 4 hits, and Rod Taylor pitched a perfect 9th. Bobby Pfeil went 3-for-4 with an RBI. 2nd game: Mets 2, Padres 1. Cleon Jones hit a home run in support of Jim McAndrew.

* Philadelphia Phillies 7, Houston Astros 0 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Rick Wise pitched a 4-hit shutout and hit a home run, foreshadowing the day 2 years later when he hit 2 home runs and pitched a no-hitter for the Phils. Dick Allen also hit a home run in this game.

* Washington Senators 6, Minnesota Twins 5 at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington. Graig Nettles and Rich Reese hit home runs for the Twins, Harmon Killebrew went 2-for-3 with an RBI, and Rod Carew did not play. Frank Howard hit a home run for the Senators.

* Los Angeles Dodgers 9, Montreal Expos 3 at Jarry Park in Montreal.

* St. Louis Cardinals 8, Atlanta Braves 1 at Atlanta (-Fulton County) Stadium. Joe Torre hit a home run, and Lou Brock went 1-for-4, in support of Bob Gibson. Hank Aaron went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* Cincinnati Reds 5, Pittsburgh Pirates 2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. For the Reds, Lee May hit a home run, Pete Rose went 2-for-4, and Johnny Bench went 1-for-3 with an RBI. For the Pirates, Willie Stargell hit a home run, and Roberto Clemente went 2-for-4. 

* California Angels 4, Cleveland Indians 0 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Andy Messersmith pitched a 5-hit shutout, beating Luis Tiant.

* Doubleheader at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. 1st game: Boston Red Sox 10, Kansas City Royals 1. 2nd game: Royals 8, Red Sox 7. Carl Yastrzemski went 3-for-9 with a home run over the 2 games.

* Oakland Athletics 4, Detroit Tigers 3 at the Oakland Coliseum. For the Tigers, Norm Cash and Don Wert hit home runs, but Al Kaline didn't play. For the A's, Reggie Jackson went 1-for-4, and John "Blue Moon" Odom pitched 9 innings and hit a home run himself, but it went to extra innings. Rollie Fingers gave up Wert's homer in the top of the 10th. But in the bottom of the 10th, Reggie drew a walk, was singled over to 2nd by Sal Bando, and Danny Cater drove them both in with a walkoff double.

* Chicago Cubs 3, San Francisco Giants 0 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. In a battle of Hall of Fame starters, Fergie Jenkins pitched a 3-hit shutout to defeat Gaylord Perry, who got 1 of the 3 hits. Willie Mays did not. Ernie Banks did not play.

* Baltimore Orioles 15, Seattle Pilots 3 at Sick's Stadium in Seattle. At different points in Jim Bouton's book Ball Four, Pilot pitcher Fred Talbot said, "We got no business scheduling these guys. This Baltimore outfit can sure fluff up your ERA," and somebody else tells the Pilots, "You guys are going to get killed in Baltimore." Apparently, it didn't matter whether the Pilots played the O's home or away.

In this game, Chico Salmon hit 2 homers for the O's, while 1 each was hit by Paul Blair and Boog Powell. Frank Robinson went 0-for-3, but did draw a walk. Brooks Robinson did the same. Tommy Davis had 2 hits for the Pilots. Dave McNally was the winning pitcher, Diego Seguí the loser. Bouton pitched the 7th and 8th innings for the Pilots, allowing 3 runs on 4 hits, walking 2 batters and hitting another.

April 30, 1900: The Legend of Casey Jones

April 30, 1900: Casey Jones saves the people on his train, at the cost of his own life, and becomes an American legend. That's the legend, and that's also the truth. There is more to the truth, however. He was... complicated.

John Luther Jones was born on March 14, 1863 in Cayce, Kentucky. The town's pronunciation, KAY-see, led to his nickname, "Casey." (Just as Charles Dillon Stengel was from Kansas City, and that got shortened to "K.C.," ultimately becoming "Casey.") He had a wife and 3 children, and was believed to have never touched a drop of alcohol.

He worked for the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, and became a brakeman on their route from Columbus, Kentucky to Jackson, Tennessee, outside Memphis. Jackson became his home for the rest of his life. He was promoted to fireman (shoveling coal to put in the fire to power the locomotive) on their route from Jackson to Mobile, Alabama. In 1887, a yellow fever epidemic hit the Illinois Central Railroad hard, opening opportunities, and in 1888, Casey was hired as a fireman on their freight line from Jackson to Water Valley, Mississippi, finally being promoted to engineer in 1891. He was 28, and becoming an engineer so young was unusual.

He was noted for his exceptionally punctual schedules, often saying he would "get her there on the advertised," meaning on schedule. People were known to set their watches by his arrival. But this sometimes had a degree of risk, including those of derailing, crashing into another train, or hitting a person on the track before they could get out of the way of the oncoming train. But from 1891 to 1899, there were no incidents on Casey's trains.

Well, one, a heroic incident. In 1895, he was approaching Michigan City, Mississippi. He had left the cab in charge of fellow engineer Bob Stevenson, who had reduced speed sufficiently for Casey to walk safely out on the running board to oil the relief valves. He advanced from the running board to the steam chest and then to the pilot beam to adjust the spark screen.

He had finished well before they arrived at the station, as planned, and was returning to the cab when he noticed a group of small children dart in front of the train some 60 yards ahead. All cleared the rails easily except for a little girl who suddenly froze in fear at the sight of the oncoming locomotive. Jones shouted to Stevenson to reverse the train and yelled to the girl to get off the tracks in almost the same breath. Realizing that she was still immobile, he raced to the tip of the pilot or cowcatcher and braced himself on it, reaching out as far as he could to pull the frightened but unharmed girl from the rails.

In February 1900, Casey was transferred from Jackson to Memphis, for the passenger run between there and Canton, Mississippi, the 3rd link in the 4-train Illinois Central run from Chicago to New Orleans, in the days before the City of New Orleans (leaving Chicago by morning and arriving in New Orleans at morning, and vice versa, running from 1947 to 1971) and the Panama Limited (a night train at each end, 1911 to 1971) could run the whole way (and before each could be celebrated in song: "The City of New Orleans" in 1971 and "Night Train" in 1951).

On April 29, 1900, already scheduled to make the Memphis to Canton run, he was asked to take over another service through the day, which may have deprived him of sleep. He left Memphis aboard Engine No. 382, known (like many other fast trains of the era) as "The Cannonball," at 12:50 AM on April 30, an hour and 15 minutes late.

But he drove that train hard. By the time he got to Durant, Mississippi, he was only 5 minutes behind, telling his fireman, a black man named Simeon Webb, "Sim, the old girl's got her dancing slippers on tonight!" He thought he could get to Canton "on the advertised" at 4:05 AM.

But at Vaughan -- 172 miles south of Memphis, 225 miles north of New Orleans, and just 16 miles north of his destination of Canton -- there were 3 trains in the station, and 2 were, due to their length, crossing between the passing track and the main line. An air hose broke on one, leaving 4 cars of 1 of the trains on the main line. And Jones and Webb were coming in, only 2 minutes behind schedule, on a left-hand curve that blocked Jones' view from the right side.

Webb saw the red lights ahead, meaning "Stop." He told Casey. Casey told him to jump off, which was pretty dangerous, but better than staying on. He jumped, and was knocked unconscious, but not before he heard Jones blow a long, piercing train whistle to warn anyone still on the freight train ahead.

Casey reversed the throttle and slammed the airbrakes. This could only cut his speed from 70 to 40 miles per hour, before he crashed into the freight cars ahead of him, wrecking some. There were 6 people injured, including Webb. But, between his train, the others, and the people in the station, only 1 person died, and that was Casey Jones. The impact stopped his watch at 3:52 AM -- 13 minutes before he was scheduled to arrive in Canton. Had the tracks been clear, he would have made it. He was 37 years old.

Adam Hauser, a passenger on Casey's train, told The Times-Democrat, a New Orleans newspaper, "The passengers did not suffer, and there was no panic. I was jarred a little in my bunk, but when fairly aware the train was stopped and everything was still. Engineer Jones did a wonderful as well as a heroic piece of work, at the cost of his life."

Sim Webb -- who, probably due to his race, never got the credit he deserved for seeing the stuck train and giving Casey the chance to save everyone's lives -- lived on until 1957, age 83. Casey's widow, Janie Brady Jones, died the next year, at 92, having never remarried, and having worn black nearly every day since Casey's death. She was buried next to him in Jackson (the one in Tennessee, not the State capital of Mississippi).

By 1909, there was already a song titled "The Ballad of Casey Jones." It made its way up the Illinois Central to Chicago, where it became popular in vaudeville. Poet Carl Sandburg, based in Chicago, called it "the greatest ballad ever written." Labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill challenged the traditional version and, without evidence of Casey actually having been one, wrote "Casey Jones, Union Scab." (In fact, Casey belonged to 2 unions, 1 for locomotive firemen and 1 for engineers.)

In 1969, The Grateful Dead began performing a song titled "Casey Jones," recording it for their 1970 album Workingman's Dead. It bears little resemblance to the true story, with lyricist Robert Hunter writing:

Driving that train

high on cocaine.

Casey Jones you'd better

watch your speed.

Trouble ahead

trouble behind

and you know that notion

just crossed my mind.

Hunter later said he tried rhyming "Driving that train" with something else: "I write, 'Driving that train, whipping that chain.' No. 'Lugging propane.' No. I tried any way to get away from it, and there just wasn't one. It had to go. There was no other line for that song."

*

April 30, 1900 was a Monday. The National League was down to 8 teams, after eliminating the teams then using the names of the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Spiders, the Louisville Colonels and the Washington Senators. And the American League was working its way up to major league status. These NL games were played that day:

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Giants, 14-13 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Philadelphia, later renamed Baker Bowl.

* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Boston Beaneaters, 5-2 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn team was managed by Ned Hanlon, and that reminded someone of a popular circus troupe of the time, Hanlon's Superbas. By 1911, they were the Dodgers. By 1912, after going through several nicknames, the Boston team of the NL became the Braves, which they have remained through their Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta tenures.

* The Chicago Orphans beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-6 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. "Orphans" because, as he got older, Adrian "Cap" Anson was re-nicknamed "Pop," and, since he retired in 1897, the team "missed their Pop." They became the Cubs in 1903.

* And, seeing a weather forecast showing rain for April 30, the Pittsburgh Pirates moved their home game with the Cincinnati Reds at Exposition Park up to April 26. It did the Pirates no good, as the Reds won, 12-11.

March 23, 1975: The S.N.A.C.K. Concert In San Francisco

Bob Dylan (left) and Neil Young

March 23, 1975: Promoter Bill Graham stages the S.N.A.C.K. (Students Need Athletics, Culture and Kicks) charity concert at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, California, to benefit the city's educational system.

Almost 60,000 people come to see The Grateful Dead, The Doobie Brothers, Santana, Jefferson Starship, Tower of Power, Eddie Palmieri, Joan Baez, Graham Central Station and Neil Young joined by members of The Band, along with a surprise appearance by Bob Dylan. It's the largest benefit concert in history to date.

The original Kezar Stadium was built in 1926, was home to the San Francisco 49ers from 1946 to 1970, made a cameo appearance in "Dirty Harry" in 1971, and was torn down in 1989 -- before the earthquake during the Bay Bridge World Series, not because of it. A new, smaller stadium was built on the site, and is used for high school sports.

*

March 23, 1975 was a Sunday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 96-86 at the Boston Garden.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the New Orleans Jazz, 125-114 at New Orleans Municipal Auditorium.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Houston Rockets, 101-95 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Kansas City-Omaha Kings beat the Chicago Bulls, 103-101 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. Nate "Tiny" Archibald scored 35 points for the Kings. Bob Love scored 38 in defeat for the Bulls.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 116-97 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Gail Goodrich scored 36 points.

* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Seatttle SuperSonics, 102-96 at the Seattle Center Coliseum. 

There were 5 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets lost to the Denver Nuggets, 114-111 at the Nassau Coliseum. Julius "Dr. J" Erving scored 40 in defeat.

* The Memphis Sounds beat the Virginia Squires, 104-101 in overtime at the Hampton Coliseum, outside Norfolk in Hampton, Virginia.

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Spirts of St. Louis, 121-110 at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Marvin Barnes scored 36 in defeat.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Utah Stars, 117-112 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. George McGinnis led all scorers on the day with 44 points.

* And the San Antonio Spurs beat the San Diego Sails, 122-102 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.

There were 7 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Boston Bruins, 7-5 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New York Islanders and the Minnesota North Stars played to a tie, 3-3 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the Washington Capitals, 5-0 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the California Golden Seals, 9-4 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 4-4 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 3-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

And there were 4 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-2 at the St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Chicago Cougars, 4-3 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* The Phoenix Roadrunners beat the Indianapolis Racers, 5-3 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the San Diego Mariners beat the Vancouver Blazers, 1-0 in overtime at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).

January 14, 1967: The Human Be-In

January 14, 1967: An event called "The Human Be-In" is held in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It is considered the beginning of the Hippie movement, and makes the adjacent Haight-Ashbury neighborhood the epicenter of what became known as "The Summer of Love."

Of course, this was in the Winter. But as with a lot of other things about the city, the weather in San Francisco is weird. How weird is it? It's the only city I know of that has baseball weather during football season, and football weather during baseball season. And this was football season: The next day, in Los Angeles, what would later be retroactively named Super Bowl I would be played. The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.

But on January 14, at Golden Gate Park, nobody was thinking about football.

The title was a play on the words "human being," and took its name from the "sit-ins" at racially segregated facilities in the South, and from the subsequent "teach-ins" about racism and the Vietnam War on college campuses.

The event took place 3 months after the State of California banned the psychedelic drug LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide, or "acid"), because of its dangerous effects on the human brain. The speakers included Dr. Timothy Leary, the psychologist who had been the nation's leading advocate for the drug, and popularized the slogan, "Turn on, tune in, drop out." (Popularized, but not originated: He said he got it from media analyst Marshall McLuhan.)

Leary did not illegally provide LSD. Owsley Stanley, known as an "underground chemist," did. Since San Francisco always, not just today, had a serious homelessness problem, food was provided by a group called the Diggers, including future actor Peter Coyote.

Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Michael McClure read their poetry. In 1955, also in San Francisco, those 3, along with Philip Lamantia and Philip Whalen had read poems at the Six Gallery, with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady in the audience but not reading, an event that is said to have founded the Beat Generation of writing. Now, they were effectively passing the torch from the Fifties Beats to the Sixties Hippies.

Dick Gregory, the black comedian, also spoke. And music was provided by bands whose names would soon become household words, if your household had a teenager in it: The Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin singing lead), the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and The Grateful Dead -- the latter two frequently playing the same shows, to the point where they were nicknamed "The Quick and the Dead."

Over 20,000 people showed up, about as many as had appeared for any rally against the war at that point. And it wasn't all like-minded people, either: Some of them were radicals, wanting an increase in the militancy in the protests of the war; but most of the Hippies were decidedly apolitical, with an attitude of, "Man, just leave us alone, let us take our drugs, listen to our music, dress the way we want, grow our hair the way we want, and make love to each other in peace."

The Hippies were considered "leftist" by mainstream America, but there was something libertarian about it, too. But both groups were united in their hatred of war and bigotry.

With the media making a big deal about this event, San Francisco became a magnet for everybody who wanted to leave their possibly dull, possibly regimented, lives behind, and embrace a culture that was willing to embrace anybody. John Phillips of the vocal group The Mamas & the Papas wrote a song titled "San Francisco," recorded and turned into a big hit by his friend Scott McKenzie:

If you come to San Francisco

be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

If you're going to San Francisco

you're going to meet some gentle people there.

But it's a small city. I don't mean, "It doesn't have that many people." (It had about 725,000 people then, compared to about 875,000 now.) I mean, "For a city with that many people, it doesn't have nearly enough space." And parks like Golden Gate took up even more space.

San Francisco got overwhelmed with all the new people coming in. Some of them fell victim to con artists, and lost everything. Some of them fell victim to the drugs, LSD and harder drugs like heroin, and lost everything to that. Even by the Summer of 1969, it was not just all over, but dangerously so.

As David Crosby of The Byrds (a Los Angeles-based band) said of the Hippies, "We were right about a lot of things. We were right that peace is better than war. We were right that love is better than hate. We were not right, as it turned out, about drugs."

To this day, San Francisco has the leftist/Hippie image, ignoring the fact that it's a tough, working-class, labor-union, seaport city, with an innate Catholicism (it was founded by Spanish missionaries, after all) that gives its conservatives as strong a voice as its liberals. The city still makes money off tourists coming to enjoy the old image. But the image never quite lived up to the reality. Many tried to make it so. But the world was too big for San Francisco.

The Human Be-In was a success. But the movement it inspired was a beautiful failure.

*

January 14, 1967 was a Saturday. British actress Emily Watson was born that day.

As I said, the football season ended the next day, with Super Bowl I. Baseball was in the middle of the off-season. There were 4 games played in the NBA that day. None were played in San Francisco, although the city's team did play on the road:

* The Boston Celtics beat the Baltimore Bullets, 115-106 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena).

* The Cincinnati Royals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 116-105 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 122-121 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. Guy Rodgers scored 39 points for the Bulls, in their 1st season of play. For their 2nd season, they moved into Chicago Stadium.

* The San Francisco Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 136-121 at Cobo Hall in Detroit (now named Huntington Place). The Warriors' Rick Barry led all scorers on the day with 50 points. The next day, in St. Louis, the Warriors lost to the Hawks, but Barry again led all NBA scorers with 48.

The Warriors moved across San Francisco Bay to Oakland in 1971, and became the Golden State Warriors. Despite moving back to San Francisco in 2019, they have kept the Golden State name.

And, in the last season of "Original Six" play, the entire NHL was in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Chicago Blackhawks, 5-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-4 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

Also, Arsenal beat Manchester City, 1-0 at Highbury in North London.