October 23, 1926: Tulane Stadium Opens

October 23, 1926: Tulane Stadium opens in New Orleans. Hosts Tulane University lose to Auburn, 2-0. Auburn scored a safety, one of the rare instances of the expression "Defense wins games" actually being true.

The Tulane Green Wave would continue to play in the 80,000-seat rounded horseshoe until the 1974 season. They had already won the Southern Conference title in 1925, and would win it again in 1929, 1930 and 1931. They would win the Southeastern Conference title in 1934, 1939 and 1949, before downgrading their program after the 1965 season.

From 1935 to 1975, usually on New Year's Day, the stadium would also host the Sugar Bowl, which became the stadium's nickname as well, usually with the Southeastern Conference Champions, often going for the National Championship. They were won in the Sugar Bowls of 1939, by Texas Christian University (TCU); 1940, by Texas A&M; 1952, by Maryland; 1953, by Georgia Tech; 1958, by Louisiana State (LSU), Tulane's arch-rivals; 1960, 1961 and 1963, by Mississippi (Ole Miss); 1961, by Alabama; and 1973, by Notre Dame.

The NFL's New Orleans Saints played there from their 1967 inception through 1974. Tom Dempsey set an NFL record there by kicking a last-play 63-yard field goal to give the Saints a win over the Detroit Lions in 1970.

It also hosted Super Bowl IV in 1970: Kansas City Chiefs 32, Minnesota Vikings 14; Super Bowl VI in 1972: Dallas Cowboys 24, Miami Dolphins 3; and Super Bowl IX in 1975: Pittsburgh Steelers 16, Vikings 6. In each case, it was the 1st World Championship won by each team.

Tulane Stadium was replaced by the Louisiana Superdome in 1975, and demolished in 1979. Yulman Stadium, Tulane's 30,000-seat stadium starting in 2014, was built on the site.

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October 23, 1926 was a Saturday. These other notable college football games were played:

* Alabama beat Sewanee, 2-0 at Rickwood Field in Birmingham.

* Stanford beat Oregon, 29-12 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. Alabama and Stanford would play each other to a 7-7 tie in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 1927, and share the National Championship.

* Army beat Boston University, 41-0 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; and Navy beat Colgate, 13-7 at Thompson Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland.

* Among New York City teams, Columbia beat Duke, 24-0 at Baker Field; and Fordham lost to Washington & Jefferson, 28-13 at the Polo Grounds. Both stadiums were in Upper Manhattan. And New York University (NYU) beat Rutgers, 30-0 at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. The other major New Jersey team, Princeton, beat Lehigh, 7-6 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

* Notre Dame beat Northwestern 6-0 at Dyche Stadium outside Chicago in Evanston, Illinois. Dyche Stadium had just opened 3 weeks earlier. In 1997, it was renamed Ryan Field.

* In rivalry games, Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon) beat their neighbors, the University of Pittsburgh, 14-0 at Pitt Stadium; Virginia Tech beat Virginia, 6-0 at Miles Stadium in Blacksburg, Virginia; and Washington State beat Washington, 9-6 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

October 17, 1931: Al Capone Convicted

October 17, 1931: Al Capone, America's most famous criminal boss, is convicted of 5 counts of income tax evasion in federal court in Chicago. After 6 years as America's boss of all bosses, having half the Chicago Police Department on his payroll, and having as many admirers as opponents, he is sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.

He ended up serving 8 years, first at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, and then at Alcatraz when it opened in San Francisco Bay in 1934. But he was afflicted with neurosyphilis, and was released into the custody of his family in Miami, after a doctor determined that he had the mental capacity of a 12-year-old. He died in 1947.

Despite the best efforts of Hollywood -- the gangster movies starring James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson that began even before Capone's conviction, and the Godfather movies of the 1970s -- it would take until the rise of John Gotti in New York in the mid-1980s for a real-life gangster to replace Capone as the defining figure in American organized crime.

And it would take until Michael Jordan started winning NBA Championships in 1991 for anyone to replace Capone as the first person anyone thought of when they thought of Chicago. Even Ernie Banks, Bobby Hull and Walter Payton couldn't do that.

Incidentally, if you've heard the song "The Night Chicago Died," which the British band Paper Lace took to Number 1 in 1974, the song is full of crap. There was never a shootout between Al Capone's men and the police. It was unnecessary: Half the CPD was on Capone's payroll. It was how they were able to get uniforms to impersonate policemen and pull off the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929. Also, there's no East Side of Chicago: That would be Lake Michigan. And if the singer was a kid in 1929, then, in 1974, he was a man in his 50s telling this story to kids over the radio.

For the record: Capone never met the other big crime figures of the era, including Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, or John Dillinger, even though Dillinger also operated in Chicago.

In a 2013 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, Capone was played by "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist, while "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Edward Teach, the legendary early 18th Century pirate known as Blackbeard.

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October 17, 1931 was a Saturday. The World Series had ended a week earlier, with the St. Louis Cardinals defeating the Philadelphia Athletics in a rematch of the previous year's Series. There was no NBA yet. The NHL season wouldn't start until November 12. And although it was not unusual for the NFL to play games on Saturdays at the time, there weren't any played on this day.

There were college football games played. But this was before the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) started ranking college football teams. So I can't tell you who the Number 1-ranked team in the country was, because there wasn't one.

It was the 3rd Saturday in October. In the South, that means the University of Alabama plays the University of Tennessee. In Knoxville, Tennessee won 25-0.

Today, it is hard to imagine Tulane University of New Orleans and Vanderbilt University of Nashville -- if there was a Southern equivalent of the Ivy League, they would both probably be in it -- being football powerhouses. But, at the time, they were. They both came into the week 3-0, and met at Nashville, and Tulane won 19-0.

In the New York Tri-State Area, New York University beat Rutgers 17-0 at Yankee Stadium. Princeton went to Ithaca, New York and lost to Cornell, 33-0. Columbia hosted Dartmouth at Baker Field, and won 19-6. And Fordham "hosted" Holy Cross at the Polo Grounds, and the game ended in a 6-6 tie.

Also, Arsenal drew with Bolton Wanderers, 1-1 at Highbury in North London. 

August 3, 1975: The Superdome Opens

August 3, 1975: The Louisiana Superdome opens in downtown New Orleans. Trumpeter Al Hirt and clarinetist Pete Fountain, both based in that city known as the birthplace of jazz, perform at the opening concert.

The "Big Mushroom" was designed to take the place of Tulane Stadium, on the campus of Tulane University, as the home of the school's football team, and of the NFL's New Orleans Saints, and of 2 of college football's most popular games, the Sugar Bowl and the historically black schools' Bayou Classic. On the very day of the Superdome's dedication, Tulane Stadium was condemned. It was demolished in 1979.

Between August 28 and September 14, 1975, the Superdome continued to celebrate its grand opening, with appearances by Bob Hope, Telly Savalas, Dorothy Lamour, Karen Valentine, and Raquel Welch. The Allman Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band, Wet Willie, The Charlie Daniels Band, The O'Jays, The Isley Brothers, The Temptations, Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds, and the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus also performed. On October 3, Johnny Cash led a concert that included his wife June Carter, Waylon Jennings and his wife Jessi Colter, and Merle Haggard.

The 1st football game in the Superdome was on August 6, an exhibition game in which the Saints lost to the Houston Oilers, 13-7. Their 1st regular-season game in the building was on September 28, a 21-0 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Tulane's dome debut was better, a 14-3 win over the University of Mississippi.

On November 29, the Bayou Classic was played there for the 1st time. The Grambling State University Tigers defeated the Southern University Jaguars, 33-20. And on December 31, New Year's Eve, the Sugar Bowl was first held there. Alabama beat Penn State, 13-6. 'Bama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant was not wearing his famous houndstooth hat. When asked why, he said, "My mama told me never to wear a hat indoors." He had never coached a game under a dome before.

With the closing (but not, as of this writing, the demolition) of the Astrodome in Houston, the Superdome is the oldest actively used domed stadium in the United States. It has hosted the Super Bowl more times than any other venue:

1. 1978, Super Bowl XII: Dallas Cowboys 27, Denver Broncos 10.

2. 1981, Super Bowl XV: Oakland Raiders 27, Philadelphia Eagles 10.

3. 1986, Super Bowl XX: Chicago Bears 46, New England Patriots 10.

4. 1990, Super Bowl XXIV: San Francisco 49ers 55, Denver Broncos 10.

5. 1997, Super Bowl XXXI: Green Bay Packers 35, New England Patriots 21.

6. 2002, Super Bowl XXXVI: New England Patriots 20, St. Louis Rams 17.

7. 2013, Super Bowl XLVII: Baltimore Ravens 34, San Francisco 49ers 31.

It is scheduled to host for an 8th time, Super Bowl LIX, to conclude the 2024 NFL season. (UPDATE: The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-22.)

It has hosted 6 NCAA Final Fours:

1. 1982, North Carolina over Georgetown.

2. 1987, Indiana over Syracuse.

3. 1993, North Carolina over Michigan.

4. 2003, Syracuse over Kansas.

5. 2012, Kentucky over Kansas.

6. 2022, Kansas over North Carolina.

The NBA's New Orleans Jazz played there from 1975 until their 1979 move to Salt Lake City, as the Utah Jazz. Muhammad Ali regained the Heavyweight Championship of the World from Leon Spinks there in 1978, and Sugar Ray Leonard regained the Welterweight Championship from Roberto Duran there in 1980.

It also hosted some preseason baseball games: Minnesota vs. Houston in 1976; the New York Yankees vs. Baltimore in 1980; the Yankees vs. the New York Mets, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in 1981; the Yankees vs. Montreal and Texas in 1982; the Yankees vs. Montreal and Toronto in 1983; Philadelphia vs. St. Louis in 1984; San Francisco vs. Oakland in 1989; Los Angeles vs. Oakland in 1991; the Mets vs. Oakland in 1993; the Yankees vs. Boston in 1994; and the Chicago Cubs vs. Minnesota in 1999.

Baseball doesn't look right in the Superdome, does it?

The Class AAA New Orleans Pelicans played their home games there in 1977. New Orleans tried to get the Oakland Athletics to move there in 1979, and the Pittsburgh Pirates for 1982, but were unsuccessful.

It has also hosted a Mass by Pope John Paul II in 1987, and the 1988 Republican National Convention, which nominated George H.W. Bush for President.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina nearly ruined New Orleans, including causing serious damage to the Superdome. It was used as a shelter for those who had lost their homes, with disastrous results. The Saints split their home games that season between Tiger Stadium on the Louisiana State campus in Baton Rouge and the Alamodome in San Antonio; Tulane used 5 different smaller college stadiums in Louisiana; the Bayou Classic was moved to what's now named NRG Stadium in Houston; and the Sugar Bowl to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The Superdome reopened the following September 25.

Current seating capacity is 73,208. The post-Katrina renovation of 2005-06 was designed solely to make it usable again. Another renovation was undertaken in 2011, to do some modernization -- which also ended the building's baseball capability. There has been talk of a new domed stadium to replace it, but no plans are underway.

Naming rights were sold in 2011, making it the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The 2017 move of the Saints' arch-rivals, the Atlanta Falcons, to the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium confused matters, and Mercedes-Benz allowed their naming rights on the Superdome to lapse. In 2021, it became the Caesars Superdome, with the rights bought by the Caesars casino company.

The New Orleans Arena opened next-door in 1999. Since 2014, it has been named the Smoothie King Center. Since 2002, it has been home to the NBA team known as the New Orleans Hornets until 2013, and the New Orleans Pelicans ever since.

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August 3, 1975 was a Sunday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Cleveland Indians at Shea Stadium, where they groundshared with the Mets while Yankee Stadium was being renovated. The Yankees won the opener, 12-1. George "Doc" Medich went the distance as the winning pitcher. Bobby Bonds, in perhaps his best game in his lone season as a Yankee, went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

The Indians won the nightcap, 3-2. Larry Gura went 7 strong innings, but Dick Tidrow blew the game in the 8th inning. Rico Carty, who always seemed to hit the Yankees well, went 4-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Frank Robinson, in his 1st season as Major League Baseball's 1st black manager, was not yet retired as a player, but did not put himself into either game.

* The New York Mets were swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-4 and 4-3 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. The 1st game went 15 innings, when ex-Met Duffy Dyer hit a home run off Bob Apodaca, who pitched 4 innings in relief of Tom Seaver. Willie Stargell went 1-for-5 with 2 walks in the 1st game, and did not play in the 2nd game.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 5-4 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Tommy Hutton singled Mike Schmidt home with the winning run in the top of the 10th inning. Schmidt went 3-for-5 with a home run. Tug McGraw was the winning pitcher, in relief of Steve Carlton.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-4 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4 with a walk, but Denny Doyle, Rick Burleson and Cecil Cooper hit home runs.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-1 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Hank Aaron went 1-for-4 with an RBI. Robin Yount went 1-for-3 with an RBI. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-3.

* A doubleheader between arch-rivals was split at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Chicago Cubs won the 1st game, 6-3. The St. Louis Cardinals won the 2nd game, 7-4.

* The Minnesota Twins swept a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox, 7-4 and 12-9 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Over the 2 games, Rod Carew went 3-for-7 with 2 walks and 3 RBIs.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Oakland Athletics, 5-0 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Paul Splittorff allowed only 1 hit, a single by Claudell Washington in the 1st inning. George Brett went 2-for-4 with 3 RBIs. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-3.

* The California Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 6-4 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Nolan Ryan started for the Angels, but pitched only 5 innings. The Angels' bullpen blew the lead, but they scored 2 runs in the top of the 9th to win it.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Diego Padres, 5-1 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium).

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Pete Rose went 0-for-4. Johnny Bench did not play.

* And a doubleheader was split at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The San Francisco Giants won the 1st game, 5-4. The Houston Astros won the 2nd game, 10-9.

January 1, 1935: The 1st Sugar Bowl

January 1, 1935: The 1st Sugar Bowl is played, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. Tulane University beat Temple University, 20-14.

The most notable play of the game came in the 2nd quarter, when Tulane's quarterback, John McDaniel, caught a Temple kickoff, ran to the right to draw tacklers, then threw a lateral pass to his teammate Monk Simons, who ran 75 yards for the touchdown. Two more Tulane touchdowns in the second half outweighed Temple's early lead.

Tulane had been built on a sugar plantation, and sugar was long the leading crop in the State of Louisiana. Hence, the game was named for a local crop. New Orleans civic leaders wanted to copy Pasadena, California's Rose Bowl for a few years, and finally got it set up for 1934-35. There was no pregame parade, however.

Tulane had been one of the South's leading football schools, winning titles in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1920, and the Southern Conference in 1925, 1929, 1930 and 1931. That league was the forefather of both the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).

In 1933, Tulane was a founding member of the SEC, and won the title in 1934, giving them the credibility to host the bowl game. They would win the SEC again in 1939 and 1949, but went into decline, and left the league after the 1965 season, surpassed in football importance in their State by Louisiana State University (LSU), and even by the black college rivalry between Grambling State and Southern University. They would later win the title in Conference USA in 1998, and are now members of the American Athletic Conference (AAC). (UPDATE: They won the AAC title in 2022.)

The game was held at Tulane Stadium from 1935 until 1975. In 1975, the Louisiana Superdome opened, and the game has been held there every year since, with the exception of 2006, when it was held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, due to repairs on the Superdome from Hurricane Katrina.

Tulane Stadium

Temple have also never again reached the football heights they reached in the 1930s. They devalued their program in 1958, but began moving back up in 1991, becoming members of the Big East Conference. In 2013, they joined the American Athletic Conference (AAC), winning it in 2016.

After the inaugural Sugar Bowl, they didn't go to another bowl game until the 1979 season, and then not again until 2009. They won the Garden State Bowl in 1979, the New Mexico Bowl in 2011, and the Gasparilla Bowl in 2017. But they've never been to another traditional New Year's Day bowl game.

Tulane Stadium hosted Super Bowls IV, VI and IX, and was home to the NFL's New Orleans Saints from 1967 to 1974, before they and the Green Wave moved into the Superdome for the 1975 season. Tulane Stadium was demolished in 1979, the 1st of the 4 classic New Year's Day bowl game facilities to go. (The Orange Bowl followed in 2008, while the Rose Bowl and Cotton Bowl stadiums still stand.) In 2014, Yulman Stadium was opened on the site of Tulane Stadium.

The Superdome

The Sugar Bowl has usually invited the SEC Champion, although this was not made official until the 1976 season. With the advent of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in the 1998 season, hosting the SEC Champion was no longer a given. Given the success of the SEC since the start of the National Championship Playoff in 2014, it's been almost impossible.

The Sugar Bowl has featured the National Champions of the preceding calendar year 23 times: Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1959 and 2007; the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in 1960, 1961 and 1963; Alabama in 1962, 1979, 1980 and 1993; the University of Miami in 1990 and 2001; Texas Christian University (TCU) in 1939; Texas A&M in 1940; Oklahoma in 1950; Maryland in 1952; Georgia Tech in 1953; Notre Dame in 1974; the University of Pittsburgh in 1977; Georgia in 1981; Penn State in 1983; Florida in 1997; Florida State in 2000; and Ohio State in 2021.

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January 1, 1935 was a Tuesday. This was also the day the 1st Orange Bowl was played, at Miami Field in Miami. Unlike in a few later appearances, having the home-field advantage did not help the University of Miami, as they lost to Bucknell University, 26-0. I have a separate entry for that event.

Also on this day, the Rose Bowl was played at the stadium of the same name, outside Los Angeles in Pasadena, California. Alabama completed an undefeated season, ruining Stanford's, 29-13.

And the entire National Hockey League was in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 5-2 at the Boston Garden.

* The New York Americans beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-3 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 1-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* And the Montreal Maroons beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium.