November 21, 1914: The Yale Bowl Opens

November 21, 1914: The Yale Bowl opens, a mile and a half west of the main campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Arch-rival Harvard spoil the party, as the Crimson beat the Bulldogs, 36-0. Yale were a good team that season, going 6-2. But Harvard might have been the best team in the country, going 7-0-2.

Prior to the Yale Bowl, Yale had played since 1884 at Yale Field, across Derby Avenue, where they built the current baseball version of Yale Field in 1928. It seated 33,000 fans, while the Yale Bowl seated 70,896. After decades of deterioration, a much-needed renovation was completed in 2006, with a more modern facility, and wider seats, reducing seating capacity to 61,446.

While Yale claim 27 retroactively-awarded National Championships, only one of these, in 1927, has been won since the Yale Bowl opened. The Ivy League was founded in 1954, and in 2022, Yale won its 17th Ivy League title. (UPDATE: In 2023, they won their 18th.)

With the combined Harvard-Yale logo at midfield

When the New York Giants needed a temporary home between the October 1973 closing of the original Yankee Stadium and the October 1976 opening of Giants Stadium, they considered several facilities in the New York Tri-State Area. Being 76 miles northeast of Midtown Manhattan, the Yale Bowl was at the very edge of that area.

Indeed, New Haven is the terminus of one of the lines of what's now the Metro-North Commuter railroad. And, with ties to both New York and New England, the city often serves as something of a "neutral zone" between New York and Boston sports fandoms.

Nevertheless, the Giants played 5 home games at the ale Bowl in 1973, and 7 in 1974, before being allowed to use Shea Stadium in Queens for the 1975 season. The commute, the traffic and the parking situation were terrible, and as the Giants got worse and worse, attendance dropped from a peak of 70,168 to a trough of 21,170. The Giants went 1-11 at the Yale Bowl, including a 1974 overtime loss to the Jets -- and that doesn't include the 1st game ever played between the Giants and the Jets, a 1969 preseason game at the Yale Bowl, which the Jets also won.

In the 1976 and 1977 seasons, the Connecticut Bicentennials of the North American Soccer League played at the Yale Bowl. But, except for the 17,302 they got for a 1977 game against the Pelé-led New York Cosmos, they never got more than 7,000 fans.

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November 21, 1914 was a Saturday. These other notable college football games were played that day:

* Army beat Springfield College, 13-6 on The Plain in West Point, New York. Army went 9-0 that season.

* Navy beat Ursinus, 33-2 at Worden Field in Annapolis, Maryland.

* Illinois beat Wisconsin, 24-9 at Randall Field in Madison, Wisconsin. Illinois went 7-0, and won the title of the Western Conference, which later became the Big Ten.

* Nebraska beat Iowa, 16-7 at Iowa Field in Iowa City. Nebraska finished 7-0-1 and won the Missouri Valley Conference title.

* Tennessee did not play that week. They went 9-0, and won the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association title.

* Texas also did not play that week. They went 8-0, and won the 1st-ever Southwest Conference title.

* Rivalry: Lehigh beat Lafayette, 17-7 at March Field in Easton, Pennsylvania.

* Rivalry: Purdue beat Indiana, 23-13 at Stuart Field in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Rivalry: Minnesota beat the University of Chicago, 13-7 at Stagg Field in Chicago.

* Rivalry: Missouri beat Kansas, 10-7 at McCook Field in Lawrence, Kansas.

* Among New York City teams, New York University lost to Wesleyan, 29-13 at Ohio Field in The Bronx; Fordham beat Boston College, 14-3 at Fordham Field in The Bronx; and Columbia had suspended its program for the season.

* And for the New Jersey schools, Rutgers beat the Stevens Institute of Technology, 83-0 at Castle Field in Hoboken; while Princeton had concluded its season the week before, losing to Yale.

Baseball was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. And, in that era, it was a little early for hockey season to start.

In English soccer, North London team Arsenal went to Yorkshire, and lost to Huddersfield Town, 3-0 at Leeds Road.

November 13, 1875: The 1st Harvard-Yale Game

November 13, 1875: Harvard University and Yale University, America's oldest and 3rd-oldest colleges, and both pioneers of college football, play each other in the sport for the 1st time. The game is played at Hamilton Park, a horse-racing track in New Haven, Connecticut, and, with one touchdown, under the scoring system of the time, Harvard won, 4-0.

The first American intercollegiate sporting event took place on August 3, 1852, after Yale invited Harvard to a race of crews. Harvard won "The Boat Race" on that 1st occasion. The first intercollegiate contests in ice hockey, soccer, and 5-on-5 basketball featured teams from Harvard and Yale.

Many now century-old, or older, aspects of American football were introduced by Harvard or Yale students or athletes. Yale introduced cheerleading at athletic events in 1890, and tailgate parties in 1905. Harvard introduced spring practice to collegiate football March 14, 1889.

Yalies sang "Hold the Fort" during the 1892 Harvard game, considered the first public performance of a collegiate "fight song." It predated "Boola Boola," in 1900, and what became their official fight song, "Bull Dog," written by Cole Porter when he was a senior at Yale in 1913.

In 1883, Harvard and Yale played each other at the Polo Grounds in New York, with Yale winning, 23-2. From 1891 to 1894, they played each other at Hampden Park in Springfield, Massachusetts. There was fan violence at the 1894 game, won by Yale, 12-4, leading to the schools taking the next 2 seasons off. They resumed in 1897, and have alternated between Boston and New Haven ever since.

They took 1917 and 1918 off due to World War I; 1943, 1944 and 1945 due to World War II; and 2020, due to COVID. But, since WWII, they have played at Harvard Stadium (built in 1903) in even-numbered years, and the Yale Bowl (built in 1914) in odd-numbered years. An exception was made in 2018, when Harvard, having the choice of home field, talked Yale into playing at Fenway Park in Boston. Harvard won that one, 45-27, making it the highest-scoring contest in the history of "The Game."

November 17, 2018

Both teams went into the 1900 game undefeated, and Yale won, 28-0. The 1908 game saw both teams undefeated as well, and Harvard won, 4-0. In 1914, Harvard spoiled the opening of the Yale Bowl, winning 36-0.

The Yale Bowl, with the field marked for "The Game"

Before the opening kickoff of the 1923 game, Yale coach Dwight Jones told his undefeated Bulldogs, "Gentlemen, you are about to play Harvard. You will never do anything else so important for the rest of your lives."

They certainly wouldn't have done so under worse conditions: According to the era's greatest sportswriter, Grantland Rice, the field at Harvard Stadium was "a gridiron of seventeen lakes, five quagmires and a water hazard." Perhaps it was fitting that the key play, a return of a fumble 67 yards for a touchdown, was made by a man named Raymond Pond, known as Ducky. Yale won, 13-0. Pond later served as Yale's head coach, from 1934 to 1940.

In 1947, the only way for a Harvard football player to win his varsity letter was to play in the Yale game. Legend has it that, knowing this, Robert F. Kennedy played in the Harvard-Yale game on a broken leg. In 1955, his brother, Ted Kennedy, caught a touchdown pass against Yale. What the Kennedy legend doesn't say is that Bobby really played on "only" a sprained ankle, and that Yale won both of these games. (Ted was good enough to receive interest from the Green Bay Packers, but his father told him to go to law school instead.)

Harvard Stadium

Both teams were undefeated going into the 1968 game at Harvard Stadium, making it the 1st Ivy League title decider between them. Yale led 29-13 with 42 seconds to go, but Harvard scored 2 touchdowns and 2 2-point conversions to tie the game, and split the honors. The Harvard Crimson newspaper had the headline: "HARVARD BEATS YALE, 29-29."

November 23, 1968

In 1982, students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard's Cambridge neighbors, pulled one of the great college football pranks, pushing a balloon with the letters "MIT" on it through the turf at Harvard Stadium. (Harvard won, 45-7.) Not to be outdone, a little over a year later, during the 1984 Rose Bowl, students at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena hacked into the Rose Bowl scoreboard, so that what should have read "UCLA 38" and "ILLINOIS 9" read "CALTECH 38" and "MIT 9." (UCLA ended up winning, 45-9.)

November 20, 1982

Going into the 2022 game, Yale leads the all-time series, with 69 wins to Harvard's 60, while there have been 8 ties. (UPDATE: Through the 2024 game, Yale leads, 71-61.)

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November 13, 1875 was a Saturday. This was still early in the history of football, college or otherwise. Only 1 other game was played that day: Princeton (then still known as the College of New Jersey) beat Columbia, 6-2 at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.

August 17, 1969: Jets vs. Giants, the 1st Time

August 17, 1969: The New York Jets and the New York Giants play each other for the 1st time.

It's an exhibition game, part of the merger process between the Giants' National Football League and the Jets' American Football League. It's played nearly 80 miles from Midtown Manhattan, at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut, as the Albie Booth Memorial Game. Booth was a football and basketball star at Yale University, and died in 1959.

The Jets had won Super Bowl III, 7 months earlier, making them the World Champions of pro football, and stunning the NFL. But the Giants and their fans refused to accept them as champions. Why? “Giants fans still don’t feel we’re on a parity with their team and we feel we’ve got to prove it,” Jets linebacker Larry Grantham said, early in training camp in 1969. “A lot of people, NFL fans, still regard the Super Bowl as a fluke.” They bought into the propaganda that, if the Jets had played the Baltimore Colts 10 times, the Colts would have won 9? Apparently.

So the Jets realized that the only way to convince the New York media that they were the best team in the world was to prove they were the best team in New York. To make the point, Jet coach Weeb Ewbank appointed Grantham, Don Maynard and Bill Mathis, all original 1960 New York Titans who became Jets and had played through the entire history of the AFL, as team Captains for the day. Three Jet players had retired after the Super Bowl, and actually came out of retirement, just to play in this 1 game. 

John Mara, son of Giants owner Wellington Mara, and later the team's owner himself, was interviewed in 2019, for the 50th Anniversary of the game. He recalled: “Players were talking about this being the biggest game they had ever played in. The tension was unreal. The build-up to that game was unlike anything I had ever experienced, almost like a modern playoff game.”

As with the Woodstock festival, 131 miles to the west, traffic was an issue, jamming the Connecticut Turnpike and the Merritt Parkway, although, unlike the New York State Thruway, neither was closed, man. It was 86 degrees and muggy, but they managed to avoid the rain that drenched the festival. The crowd was 70,874, about evenly split between Big Blue and Gang Green, and there were fights in the already-old Ivy League football plant.

The Jets removed all doubts. Joe Namath, who was named Most Valuable Player of the Super Bowl despite not having an especially good game, was considerably better. He completed 16 of 18 passes, for 188 yards and 3 touchdowns, including 1 to Mathis.

John Mara was 14, and remembered, just before halftime, the Giants' Dave Lewis punting: “The one play I remember was Mike Battle returning a punt for a touchdown, and leaping over our punter. The rest I have managed to successfully block out.”

That made the score 24-0 Jets, and they cruised to win, 37-14. “Today, we proved we have the best team in New York, a team that can compete on any field with any team at any time,” Grantham said.

Wellington Mara fired head coach Allie Sherman, replaced him with former Giant running back Alex Webster, and he finished the 1969 season 6-8. The Jets went 10-4, won the AFL Western Division, and lost in the Divisional Playoffs.

The 1st regular-season game between the teams was played on November 1, 1970, at Shea Stadium. In a game with considerably less hype, even though it actually counted for something, the Giants won, 6-1.

As it turned out, between the Giants' moving around due to the renovation of Yankee Stadium, the Jets' injuries, and dumb management decisions by both teams, neither team made the Playoffs again until 1981.

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August 17, 1969 was a Sunday. It was also the day the Woodstock festival ended, and the day that Hurricane Camille crashed into America's Gulf Coast. I have separate entries for those events. Also, basketball star Christian Laettner and New Kids On The Block singer turned actor Donnie Wahlberg were born on this day.

And these Major League Baseball games played:

* New York Yankees 5, Chicago White Sox 2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Jimmie Hall hit a home run for the Bronx Bombers. Stan Bahnsen started, and Mike Kekich won it in relief.

* Another doubleheader at Shea Stadium: The New York Mets beat the San Diego Padres 3-2 in each game. Duffy Dyer hit a home run in support of Jerry Koosman in the opener, and Ed Kranepool and Bud Harrelson each got 2 hits in support of Don Cardwell in the nightcap.

* Houston Astros 3, Philadelphia Phillies 2 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.

* Minnesota Twins 4, Washington Senators 3 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. Tony Oliva's RBI single won it in the top of the 13th inning.

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

* St. Louis Cardinals 5, Atlanta Braves 3 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Hank Aaron, Bob Tillman and Rico Carty hit home runs for the Braves, but all were solo blasts, and Steve Carlton was the winning pitcher for the Cards, as Lou Brock went 2-for-5, and Joe Torre went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* Pittsburgh Pirates 8, Cincinnati Reds 5 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Gene Alley, Al Oliver and Willie Stargell hit home runs. Roberto Clemente went 2-for-5. The Reds got homers from Pete Rose, Bobby Tolan, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez, but it wasn't enough.

* Boston Red Sox 1, Kansas City Royals 0 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4, but Vicente Romo, Sparky Lyle and Sonny Siebert combined for a 4-hit shutout.

* California Angels 7, Cleveland Indians 6 at Anaheim (now Angel) Stadium.

* Detroit Tigers 9, Oakland Athletics 4 at the Oakland Coliseum. Catfish Hunter was knocked out of the box in the 4th inning, as the Tigers got 2 homers from Al Kaline, and 1 each from Jim Northrup, Don Wert, former Yankee Tom Tresh and Mickey Stanley. Denny McLain went the distance, despite giving up a home run to Reggie Jackson.

* Doubleheader at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. 1st game: San Francisco Giants 5, Chicago Cubs 3. 2nd game, Cubs 3, Giants 1. Over the 2 games, Willie Mays went 2-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Ernie Banks only appeared in this game as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* Baltimore Orioles 4, Seattle Pilots 1 at Sick's Stadium in Seattle. Dave May (filling in at right field for Frank Robinson, who got the day off), Don Buford and Brooks Robinson homered for the O's, while Don Mincher hit one for the Pilots. Tom Phoebus won it, Fred Talbot lost it. Jim Bouton did not get into the game. A sweep for the Birds over the Pilots.

As Pilot manager Joe Schultz no doubt said, "Ah, shitfuck. Let's get 'em tomorrow, and then go pound some Budweiser." If Jim Bouton and his book Ball Four are to be believed, Joe Schultz would not have fit in well at Woodstock. 

May 31, 1976: The Bicentennial Cup

Left to right: Bobby Moore, Gerry Francis, Pelé

May 31, 1976: The Bicentennial Cup concludes. Set up as one of the celebrations of the 200th Anniversary of American independence, it was not a good showcase for American soccer.

England and Italy were invited after they failed to qualify for Euro 76. Also invited was Brazil. The 4th team would be "Team America," made up of players in the North American Soccer League. That meant American players, who simply were not up to the task; and foreign players, who were mostly too old to play at a world class level anymore, such as Brazil's Pelé of the New York Cosmos and England's Bobby Moore of the San Antonio Thunder.

On May 23, Team America played Italy at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. The crowd was decent: 33,445. The result was rather indecent: Italy won, 4-0. Fabio Capello scored in the 15th minute, and the U.S. was never really in it. A midfielder for Turin club Juventus, Capello would later win Serie A (Italian league) titles with A.C. Milan, A.S. Roma and Juventus; and La Liga titles with Real Madrid; total league titles, 9. He also led Milan to the UEFA Champions League title in 1994.

Also on May 23, Brazil beat England, 1-0 before 32,495 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Carlos Roberto de Oliveira, a forward for Rio de Janeiro club Vasco da Gama, known as "Roberto Dinamite," won the game with a goal in the 89th minute.

On May 28, England beat Italy, 3-2 at Yankee Stadium; and Team America lost to Brazil, 2-0 at the new Kingdome in Seattle. Only 20,245 paid to get into the big gray toadstool in Seattle's Lower Downtown. For England vs. Italy in The Bronx, the attendance was 40,650. I would have expected more, given how many Italians live in and around New York City. But the vast majority of Italian-Americans are descended from people who left Italy before the country embraced soccer. For Italian New Yorkers of the 1970s, their sports were baseball, football and boxing.

At any rate, Francesco Graziani of the other Turin club, Torino F.C., scored 2 goals within 5 minutes early in the 1st half. But Mick Channon of Hampshire team Southampton scored 2 within 7 minutes early in the 2nd half, and Phil Thompson of Liverpool scored between those Channon goals.

On May 31, England beat Team America, 3-1 before 16,239 at John F. Kennedy Stadium, leaving over 87,000 empty seats at the big South Philadelphia horseshoe. Kevin Keegan of Liverpool scored twice within 6 minutes in the 1st half, and Trevor Francis of Birmingham City scored early in the 2nd half. Stuart Scullion, a Scottish winger playing for the Tampa Bay Rowdies, got a consolation goal for Team America in the 87th minute.

Later, 36,096 went into the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut, to see a copy of the 1970 World Cup Final: Brazil beat Italy, 4-1. Capello scored in the 2nd minute, but Gil (Gilberto Alves) of Rio club Fluminense, who had scored 2 against Team America, did it again against Italy.

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May 31, 1976 was a Monday. Actor Colin Farrell was born.

Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup was won by the Montreal Canadiens 15 days earlier. The NBA Finals was between Games 3 and 4, and the Boston Celtics beat the Phoenix Suns in 6 games. And these games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 8-3 at Fenway Park. Jim "Catfish" Hunter went the distance for the win, while Ferguson "Fergie" Jenkins didn't get out of the 4th inning. Thurman Munson hit a home run, and Chris Chambliss and Oscar Gamble each had 3 hits. Fred Lynn homered for the Sox, and Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-4.

* The New York Mets split a doubleheader with the Pittsburgh Pirates at Shea Stadium. The Mets won the opener, 13-2. Jon Matlack went the distance for the win, and had an RBI single in his own cause, while Jerry Reuss didn't get out of the 4th inning.

Willie Stargell went 1-for-4, then sat out the night, which the Pirates won the nightcap, 2-1. Oddly, despite all their runs in the 1st game, the Mets' only home run on the day was in this game, a solo shot by Ron Hodges. Over the 2 games, Wayne Garrett went 3-for-6 with 2 walks and 3 RBIs.

* A doubleheader was split at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. The Chicago Cubs won the 1st game, 7-5. Rick Reuschel outpitched Steve Carlton: But it was still "Win Day" for the Philadelphia Phillies, as they won the 2nd game, 4-1. Jim Kaat went the distance for the win, while Mike Garman couldn't get out of the 2nd inning. Over the 2 games, Bill Madlock went 4-for-8, and Mike Schmidt went 1-for-9. 

* The San Diego Padres beat the Atlanta Braves, 10-7 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Dave Winfield hit a home run. Earl Williams hit one for the Braves, while Ken Henderson and Jerry Royster each had 3 hits.

* The Cleveland Indians swept a doubleheader from the Baltimore Orioles, 4-1 and 4-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. In the opener, Jim Kern outpitched Ken Holtzman, Rick Manning went 3-for-5 with a solo home run, and Larvell Blanks went 4-for-4 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Brooks Robinson went 0-for-3, the left the game with an injury, and did not play in the nightcap.

In that game, former Oriole Pat Dobson outpitched Mike Cuellar. Blanks hit a 2-run homer. Over the 2 games, Reggie Jackson, in his only season with the O's, went 2-for-7 with a walk and an RBI. Reggie and Brooks shared a birthday, May 18. As far as I know, the 1976 Orioles were the only team with 2 future Hall-of-Famers who shared a birthday.

Frank Robinson, the Indians' manager, in his last season as a player, did not insert himself into either game. It must have been the right choice, because the Tribe swept.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-4 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Brewers scored a run in the top of the 11th inning. In the bottom of the 11th, the Tigers tied it, and then Tom Veryzer singled future manager Jerry Manuel home with the winning run. Hank Aaron, playing his final season, went 1-for-4 with a walk for the Brewers.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Texas Rangers, 9-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The California Angels beat the Minnesota Twins, 3-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Frank Tanana outpitched Bert Blyleven. Rod Carew went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 4-2 at the Astrodome in Houston. Pat Darcy, who gave up Carlton Fisk's winning home run in Game 6 of the previous season's World Series, started, and pitched just 5 innings, but got the win, over J.R. Richard. Pete Rose went 2-for-4 with a walk. Johnny Bench went 1-for-4 with a walk.

* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-1 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The game was 0-0 after 8, a fine pitching duel between Los Angeles' Doug Rau and San Francisco's Jim Barr. Each team scored a run in the 9th. But Dodger closer Mike Marshall melted down in the top of the 12th, allowing 5 singles, a double, and an intentional walk, with an error behind him, for 6 runs.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 10-1 at the Oakland Coliseum. Mike Torrez outpitched Paul Splittorff. George Brett went 0-for-3. Billy Williams, the former Chicago Cubs star playing out the string with the A's, went 3-for-5 with 5 RBIs, including the 421st home run of his career. He retired at the end of the season, with 426.

* And the Montreal Expos and the St. Louis Cardinals were rained out at Jarry Park in Montreal. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on September 6. The Cardinals won the 1st game, 3-1. The Expos won the 2nd game, 3-2. Earl Williams singled Mike Jorgensen home with the winning run in the bottom of the 9th inning.