May 29, 1914: The Empress of Ireland Sinks

May 29, 1914: The RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, between the Canadian Province of New Brunswick and what is then still the British Colony (later a Canadian Province) of Newfoundland.

It sank following a collision in thick fog with the Norwegian collier Storstad in the early hours of the day, en route to Liverpool. Although the ship was equipped with watertight compartments and, in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster 2 years earlier, carried more than enough lifeboats for all aboard, she foundered in only 14 minutes.

Of the 1,477 people on board, there were 1,012 deaths. This was fewer than the Titanic 2 years earlier, and fewer than the Lusitania the next year, but it was more than on the Eastland the following year. It remains the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Canadian history.

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May 29, 1914 was a Friday. This was the 1st season of the Federal League, when there were 3 major leagues in baseball. In the American League:

* The New York Yankees were swept by the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-2 and 3-0 at the Polo Grounds. Charles "Chief" Bender pitched a 4-hit shutout in the nightcap.

* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The Washington Senators won the 1st game, 1-0. Walter Johnson pitched a 2-hit shutout. The Boston Red Sox won the 2nd game, 6-5. Over the 2 games, Tris Speaker went 0-for-5, but with 4 walks. (Babe Ruth made his major league debut with the Red Sox on July 11.)

* The Chicago White Sox and the Cleveland Naps were rained out at League Park in Cleveland. The game was made up as a doubleheader the next day. The White Sox won the 1st game, 6-2. The Naps won the 2nd game, 2-1. Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the Cleveland manager and 2nd baseman for whom the team was named, went 2-for-7 with an RBI over the 2 games. "Shoeless" Joe Jackson went 1-for-7 with a walk.

* The Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Browns were rained out at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The game was made up as a doubleheader the next day. The Tigers won the 1st game, 2-1. The Browns won the 2nd game, 2-0. Carl Weilman pitched a 3-hit shutout. Ty Cobb was injured, and did not play in either game.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1-0 at Ebbets Field. (This was the 1st season in which the Dodgers were managed by Wilbert Robinson, and they would be known as the Brooklyn Robins until his last season there, 1931.) Rube Marquard pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Braves at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals were rained out at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. The game was made up as a doubleheader the next day. The Cubs won the 1st game, 6-4. The Cardinals won the 2nd game, 4-2.

In the Federal League:

* The Brooklyn Tip-Tops lost to the Buffalo Blues, 5-1 at Federal League Park in Buffalo.

* The Pittsburgh Rebels beat the Baltimore Terrapins, 7-5 at Terrapin Park in Baltimore.

* The St. Louis Maroons beat the Kansas City Packers, 5-0 at Handlan's Park in St. Louis. Doc Crandall allowed 8 hits, but kept the shutout.

* And the Chicago Whales and the Indianapolis Hoosiers were rained out at Weeghman Park in Chicago (the ballpark that would eventually become Wrigley Field). The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 12. The Whales won the 1st game, 6-5 in 13 innings. The Hoosiers won the 2nd game, 4-2.

May 3, 1945: The Nazi Titanic

May 3, 1945: The Nazis had their own version of the Titanic. And guess what: It sank.

Unlike the original, it wasn't just due to incompetence. It had "help."

The SS Cap Arcona was launched in 1927. It was named after Cape Arkona on Rügen, Germany's largest island, on the Baltic Sea. It weighed 27,561 tons, compared to the 46,329 of the original RMS Titanic. It was 679 feet long, compared to the original's 889 feet. Cruising speed was close, 23 miles per hour to Titanic's 24. In other words, it was big, but not as big as the Titanic, the world's largest cruise liner when it first and last sailed in 1912.

Cap Arcona was the flagship of the Hamburg-South America line, and sailed between Hamburg, Germany's 2nd-largest city and largest port, and the east coast of South America. In 1940, the Kriegsmarine, the Nazi navy, took it over. In 1943, it was "cast" in the title role in Titanic, a Nazi propaganda film, designed to show that the British were incompetent because they built the "unsinkable," ill-fated Titanic. It had 3 smokestacks, instead of the 4 that Titanic had. But it was still big enough to be plausible.

In 1945, Cap Arcona became a prison ship, as the Nazis, aware that they were losing the war, and that the Allies had begun to liberate the concentration camps, began to evacuate their camps in occupied Norway and Denmark. On May 3, 3 days after Hitler killed himself, Cap Arcona was sunk off the coast of Neustadt -- fittingly, by Britain's Air Force -- and over 5,000 prisoners were killed.

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May 3, 1945 was a Thursday. This was also the day that American poet Ezra Pound was arrested for treason in Italy. I have a separate entry for that event.

The only sport in season at the time was baseball, and no major league games were scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.

April 14, 1912: The Titanic Sinks

April 14, 1912: The cruise ship RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic Ocean, leading to more than 1,500 deaths. There were 710 survivors. At the time, it was the worst maritime disaster in human history.

There have since been bigger ones. But the reason the Titanic -- the RMS stood for "Royal Mail Ship" -- has stayed in the public memory is that it was the largest ship of any kind ever built, on its maiden voyage, from Southampton on the English Channel coast to New York City, and that it was said to be "unsinkable." Also, it was a case where the rich suffered along with the nonrich, showing them that they weren't better than the rest of us.

An Englishwoman named Millvina Dean was the last survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, living until May 31, 2009, at the age of 97. She was an infant survivor, with no memory of the event.

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April 14, 1912 was a Sunday. There was, as yet, no National Football League, and no professional basketball league of any name. The National Hockey League hadn't yet been founded. There was a National Hockey Association in Eastern Canada, and a Pacific Coast Coast Hockey Association with teams in Western Canada and America's Pacific Northwest, but their seasons were already over, with the Quebec Bulldogs as Stanley Cup winners.

But the Major League Baseball season had just gotten underway, and 4 games were played. None of the 3 teams then in New York City were involved:

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Naps, 1-0 at League Park in Cleveland. The home team was named after their manager and 2nd baseman, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie. After he left the team following the 1914 season, they were renamed the Cleveland Indians.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 11-7 at Redland Field in Cincinnati. This ballpark had hosted its 1st game only 3 days earlier. Its name would be changed to Crosley Field in 1934, and the Reds left it in 1970. On April 20, 6 days after the Titanic sank, Fenway Park would open in Boston, and Navin Field would open in Detroit. Fenway has been seriously altered a few times, but is still in use. Navin Field would be expanded and renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961, and closed in 1999.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-1 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-4 at Robison Field in St. Louis.