September 12, 2008: The Chatsworth Collision

September 12, 2008: The Los Angeles area’s deadliest public transportation accident occurs in Chatsworth, killing 25 people.

So badly dominated by cars, Los Angeles finally got a subway system, Los Angeles Metro Rail, in 1990; and a commuter rail system, Metrolink, in 1992. Contrary to what could have been expected, it proved rather popular.

At 4:22 PM, Pacific Time (7:22 Eastern), a Union Pacific Railroad freight train and a Metrolink train collided head-on in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Metrolink train ran through a red signal, and reached the the UP train's track. In addition to the 25 deaths, 135 people sustained non-lethal injuries.

The engineer, Robert M. Sanchez, was found to be distracted while driving. As he was one of the fatalities, he was not punished, beyond the ruination of his reputation. The crash remains the only fatal incident in the system's history.

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September 12, 2008 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Tim Wakefield pitched 8 innings of 3-hit shutout ball, and Manny Delcarmen pitched a perfect 9th.

* The Florida Marlins beat the Washington Nationals, 2-1 at Dolphin Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-2 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Kansas City Royals, 12-5 at Progressive Field in Cleveland.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Chase Field in Phoenix.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies, 7-2 at Coors Field in Denver.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 5-2 at Qualcomm Stadium (formerly San Diego Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium).

* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-3 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Oakland Athletics, 7-0 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the McAfee Coliseum). Matt Harrison pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays were rained out at Yankee Stadium. The game was made up the next day as part of a doubleheader. The Rays won the opener, 7-1. James Shields pitched 8 shutout innings, while Mike Mussina, about to retire did not pitch well. The only Yankee run was a home run hit by Bobby Abreu in the 9th inning.

The Yankees won the nightcap, 6-5. Dámaso Marte was the winning pitcher, in relief of Sidney Ponson. Wilson Betemit hit a home run. Derek Jeter went 3-for-3. Alex Rodriguez went 0-for-3 with a walk and an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

* The New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves were rained out at Citi Field. The game was made up the next day as part of a doubleheader. The Braves won the 1st game, 3-2. The Mets led 2-0 after 7 innings, but blew it, as the Braves scored 3 runs in the 8th, first against the much-hyped newly-acquired pitcher Johan Santana, then against 4 relievers. That's right, the Mets needed 5 pitchers to hold the Braves to 3 runs in 1 inning.

The Mets won the 2nd game, 5-0. Jon Niese -- who was born on October 27, 1986, the night the Mets last won the World Series -- pitched 8 innings of 6-hit shutout ball, and Luis Ayala finished an 8-hit shutout. David Wright, José Reyes and Carlos Beltrán hit home runs.

* The Baltimore Orioles and the Minnesota Twins were rained out at Camden Yards in Baltimore. The game was made up the next day as part of a doubleheader. The Twins swept, 12-2 and 12-6.

* The Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers were rained out at U.S. Cellular Field (now Rate Field) in Chicago. The game was made up 2 days later, as part of a doubleheader. The ChiSox swept, 4-2 and 11-7.

* The Milwaukee Brewers and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. The game was made up 2 days later, as part of a doubleheader. The Phils swept, 7-3 and 6-1.

* And the Chicago Cubs and the Houston Astros were supposed to play at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston, but Hurricane Ike led MLB to move the series to neutral ground. Miller Park (now American Family Field) in Milwaukee was chosen, as the Brewers were on the road. The Astros, still officially the home team, batted 2nd. The Cubs won the game postponed from September 12, 5-0, on September 14. Carlos Zambrano pitched a no-hitter, walking 1 batter, striking out 10.

And in New Jersey high school football, my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, opened its season by losing to Sayreville, 28-7.

May 10, 1869: The Golden Spike

May 10, 1869: The 1st transcontinental railroad is completed, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, connecting the Union Pacific Railroad, which had been building westward from Omaha, Nebraska, with the Central Pacific Railroad, which had been building eastward from Oakland, California.

Leland Stanford, once Governor of California, later one of its U.S. Senators and founder of a university he named for his son ("The Leland Stanford Junior University," usually just called "Stanford University" today), and at this point the President of the Central Pacific, completed the process, using a silver hammer to ceremonially complete the driving in of a golden spike.

The photograph of the event, by Andrew J. Russell, is familiar, more than a century and a half later: Two locomotives facing each other, with the ceremony's participants all around them. One was the Jupiter, of the Central Pacific. The other was simply named Union Pacific No. 119.

The original Golden Spike was replaced, and is now on display at the Cantor Arts Museum at, somewhat appropriately, Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, on "The Peninsula" between San Francisco and San Jose. Russell, who worked as a photographer for the Union Pacific, and had already become famous for his photos of the American Civil War, lived until 1902.

In 1901, the Southern Pacific Railroad, which had bought the Central Pacific and all its assets, sold the original Jupiter for scrap. No. 119 faced the same fate in 1903. Even at the dawn of the 20th Century, when the American Revolution was closer in time than the Golden Spike is to us now, our country had insufficient regard for its history.

Golden Spike National Historical Park is now on the site of the ceremony, with replicas of the two locomotives. Ironically, there is no passenger rail service to it: Service stopped running to and past the site in 1962, a later Amtrak route bypassed it, and the site can only be reached by car.

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May 10, 1869 was a Monday. Now, you may be thinking that, since there was, as yet, no major league baseball, capitalized or otherwise, there must have been no scores on this historic day. But there was one.

The 1st openly professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, had already begun play. On this day, at the Union Grounds in Cincinnati, they played one of the more established baseball clubs of the Midwest, Kekionga of Fort Wayne, and beat them, 86-8. That is not a misprint: Eighty-six to eight.

"Kekionga," pronounced "Key-KEY-ong-gah," was the original Native name of the place where Fort Wayne was built, and it means "blackberry bush." It became the capital of the Miami tribe, whose name predates not only the small Ohio city with the name, but the much larger Florida city with it.

Unlike the Cincinnati club, Kekionga would survive long enough to enter the 1st professional baseball league, the National Association, in 1871. They played the 1st NA game, at what was officially named the Kekionga Ball Grounds, but nicknamed the Grand Dutchess. They beat Forest City of Cleveland, 2-0.

That would be the highlight of the team's history. Attendance was bad, there weren't enough gate receipts to pay players their agreed-to salaries, the good ones left, the team had a bad season, and then, at the end of it, their ballpark burned down. (Insurance fraud?)