This Day in History

 Jan 5, 1920:
New York Yankees announce purchase of Babe Ruth



On this day in 1920, the New York Yankees major league baseball club announces its purchase of the heavy-hitting outfielder George Herman "Babe" Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for the sum of $125,000.

In all, Ruth had played six seasons with the Red Sox, leading them to three World Series victories. On the mound, Ruth pitched a total of 29 2/3 scoreless World Series innings, setting a new league record that would stand for 43 years. He was fresh off a sensational 1919 season, having broken the major league home run record with 29 and led the American League with 114 runs-batted-in and 103 runs. In addition to playing more than 100 games in left field, he also went 9-5 as a pitcher. With his prodigious hitting, pitching and fielding skills, Ruth had surpassed the great Ty Cobb as baseball’s biggest attraction.

Despite Ruth’s performance, the Red Sox stumbled to a 66-71 record in 1919, finishing at sixth place in the American League. New ownership took control of the club, and in early January, owner Harry Frazee made the decision to sell Ruth to the Yankees for $125,000 in cash and some $300,000 in loans (which Frazee reportedly used to finance his Broadway production interests). After the sale, the Yankees took over Ruth’s contract, which called for a salary of $10,000 per year. Aware of his value, Ruth had demanded a salary raise, and New York agreed to negotiate a new contract with terms that would satisfy their new slugger.

The deal paid off--in spades--for New York, as Ruth went on to smash his own home run record in 1920, hitting 54 home runs. He connected for 59 homers in 1921, dominating the game and increasing Yankee revenues to the point that the team was able to leave the Polo Grounds (shared with the New York Giants baseball team) and build Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923 and became known as "the house that Ruth built." Throughout the rest of the 20th century, the legacy of Frazee’s lopsided trade continued to hover over major league baseball, as the Yankees won 39 AL pennants and 26 World Series titles and the Red Sox went 86 years without a World Series win. In 2004, the Sox finally shook the "Curse of the Bambino," coming from behind to beat the Yankees in the AL Championship and beating the St. Louis Cardinals to win their first Series since 1918.

This Day in History

 Jan 4, 2006:
Vince Young leads Texas over USC in the Rose Bowl



On January 4, 2006, University of Texas quarterback Vince Young makes an eight-yard touchdown run on fourth down with 19 seconds left in the game, capping one of the best individual performances in college football history while leading his team to a Rose Bowl victory and a national championship title over the University of Southern California (USC).

The 2006 Rose Bowl boasted one of the most anticipated match-ups in college football history. USC and Texas entered the game with winning streaks of 34 and 19 games respectively; USC was the PAC-10 and the defending national champions, while Texas had come out on top of the Big 12 and was the defending champion of the Rose Bowl.

Some commentators held that the 2005-06 USC Trojans--led by two Heisman Trophy winners, quarterback Matt Leinart (2004) and running back Reggie Bush (2005)--was possibly the greatest team ever to play college football, and most believed that the Trojans’ punishing offense would put them on top in the Rose Bowl.

The Longhorns fumbled a play in the opening minutes of the game, leading to a USC recovery and touchdown. In the second quarter, Bush ran for 37 yards on a pass play but then threw a desperate lateral pass to a teammate while being tackled. He fumbled, and Texas recovered the ball. The possession ended in a field goal, cutting USC’s lead to four points. The Longhorns scored two touchdowns in the quarter, helped out by a Leinart interception, and by halftime had built a 16-10 lead. The lead changed hands three times in the third quarter, and on the first play of the fourth, with USC up 24-23, Texas kicker David Pino missed a field goal attempt that would have put his team ahead by two. Two USC touchdowns (and a Texas field goal) gave the Trojans their biggest lead of the night, 38-26, with 6:42 left in the game.

The next Texas drive was all Young, as he took just 2:39 to go 69 yards, rushing for 25 of those, including a 17-yard touchdown run, and completing five passes. A Pino extra point put the Longhorns within five points of the Trojans, with 3:58 to play. On his team’s next possession, on fourth-and-2 at the Texas 45-yard line, USC Coach Pete Carroll made a risky decision: Instead of going for the field goal, he told his team to run for the touchdown. White was only able to gain a yard, however, and Texas got the ball back with 2:09 left. Faced with a third-and-12, Texas got a first down with the help of a Trojans face-mask penalty, setting up Young’s game-winning eight-yard touchdown run on fourth down, with 19 seconds left to play.

As Texas celebrated their come-from-behind 41-38 win, Young (who had finished second to Bush in the 2005 Heisman voting) was named MVP of the game, having completed 30 of 40 passes (75 percent) for a total of 267 yards. He also rushed 19 times for 200 yards, scoring three touchdowns and a two-point conversion. After deciding to forgo his last year of college eligibility, Young was selected by the Tennessee Titans as the No. 3 overall draft pick in the 2006 National Football League (NFL) draft.

This Day in History

 Jan 3, 1993:
Buffalo Bills pull off greatest comeback in NFL history

   
       

On this day in 1993, backup quarterback Frank Reich leads the Buffalo Bills to a 41-38 overtime victory over the Houston Oilers in an American Football Conference (AFC) wild card playoff game that will forever be known to football fans as "The Comeback."

By halftime of the game, Houston was out in front, 28-3, behind four touchdown passes by future Hall of Famer Warren Moon. At the beginning of the second half, things got even darker for Buffalo when the Houston strong safety Bubba McDowell intercepted a pass from Reich, who was filling in for the injured Jim Kelly. McDowell ran 58 yards for another Oiler touchdown, putting the score at 35-3. At this point, many Bills fans headed home out of the chilly western New York weather, convinced the game was lost.

On the very next possession, however, Buffalo began to rally, driving 50 yards in 10 plays and scoring a touchdown on a one-yard run by Kenneth Davis. Bills kicker Steve Christie then recovered his own onside kick to give Reich the ball. Reich needed only four plays that time, connecting with Don Beebe on a 38-yard touchdown to put the score at 35-17. A stellar job by the Bills’ defense gave Buffalo possession again, and Reich capitalized by finding Andre Reed for a 26-yard touchdown. On the Oilers’ next drive, Bills safety Henry Jones intercepted a deflected Moon pass for a 15-yard return, enabling Reich to find Reed for another score. By that point, the Bills had cut their deficit to four points, in a span of only six minutes and 52 seconds.

After the Oilers botched a field goal attempt and turned the ball over again, Reich made a 17-yard touchdown pass to Reed to put Buffalo up 38-35 with less than three minutes left in regulation. In the waning seconds of the game, Houston’s Al Del Greco made a 26-yard field goal kick to tie the score and send the game into overtime. On a Houston drive, the Bills defensive back Nate Odomes intercepted a Moon pass. Davis made two six-yard rushes, and Christie stepped up for a 32-yard field goal attempt. He booted the ball through the uprights, winning the game for Buffalo 41-38 and completing the largest comeback victory (32 points) in National Football League (NFL) history.

The Bills made it to the Super Bowl that year but lost to the Dallas Cowboys. It was the third of four consecutive Super Bowl appearances for the Bills; they lost all four games.


   
   
   
       
   
       
   

This Day in History

 Jan 1, 1959:
Batista forced out by Castro-led revolution



On this day in 1959, facing a popular revolution spearheaded by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista flees the island nation. Amid celebration and chaos in the Cuban capitol of Havana, the U.S. debated how best to deal with the radical Castro and the ominous rumblings of anti-Americanism in Cuba.

The U.S. government had supported Batista, a former soldier and Cuban dictator from 1933 to 1944, who seized power for a second time in a 1952 coup. After Castro and a group of followers, including the South American revolutionary Che Guevara (1928-1967), landed in Cuba to unseat the dictator in December 1956, the U.S. continued to back Batista. Suspicious of what they believed to be Castro's leftist ideology and worried that his ultimate goals might include attacks on the U.S.'s significant investments and property in Cuba, American officials were nearly unanimous in opposing his revolutionary movement.

Cuban support for Castro's revolution, however, grew in the late 1950s, partially due to his charisma and nationalistic rhetoric, but also because of increasingly rampant corruption, greed, brutality and inefficiency within the Batista government. This reality forced the U.S. to slowly withdraw its support from Batista and begin a search in Cuba for an alternative to both the dictator and Castro; these efforts failed.

On January 1, 1959, Batista and a number of his supporters fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic. Tens of thousands of Cubans (and thousands of Cuban Americans in the U.S.) celebrated the end of the dictator's regime. Castro's supporters moved quickly to establish their power. Judge Manuel Urrutia was named as provisional president. Castro and his band of guerrilla fighters triumphantly entered Havana on January 7.

The U.S. attitude toward the new revolutionary government soon changed from cautiously suspicious to downright hostile. After Castro nationalized American-owned property, allied himself with the Communist Party and grew friendlier with the Soviet Union, America's Cold War enemy, the U.S severed diplomatic and economic ties with Cuba and enacted a trade and travel embargo that remains in effect today. In April 1961, the U.S. launched the Bay of Pigs invasion, an unsuccessful attempt to remove Castro from power. Subsequent covert operations to overthrow Castro, born August 13, 1926, failed and he went on to become one of the world's longest-ruling heads of state. Fulgencio Batista died in Spain at age 72 on August 6, 1973. In late July 2006, an unwell Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul. Fidel Castro officially stepped down in February 2008.

This Day in History

 Dec 31, 1972:
Plane carrying Roberto Clemente crashes

On December 31, 1972, an airplane chartered by the professional baseball player Roberto Clemente to bring food and other relief supplies to survivors of a recent earthquake in Nicaragua crashes shortly after takeoff from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Five people were killed in the crash, including Clemente, whose body was never recovered.

Born in 1934, Clemente was a track and field star and Olympic hopeful before deciding to turn his attention to baseball, a national passion in his native Puerto Rico. He was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954 and was given a bonus of $10,000--an impressive amount for the time. Due to a league rule forcing major league clubs to keep any player paid more than $4,000 on their roster for an entire season--or risk him being drafted by rival teams--Clemente was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates after the Dodgers relegated him to the minor league Montreal Canadiens.

Clemente made his major league debut in 1955 and spent his entire career with the Pirates, winning legions of fans with his strong hitting and base-running ability and, especially, his powerful throwing arm. The winner of 12 Golden Gloves and four National League batting titles, he boasted a career batting average of .317. Off the field, he became known as a strong voice for the growing contingent of Latino players in the major leagues, earning comparisons to the pioneering African-American player Jackie Robinson.

When a massive earthquake hit Nicaragua in late December 1972, Clemente headed up relief efforts from Puerto Rico, where he spent his off-seasons and played and managed for teams in the Puerto Rican national league. When he learned that the cargo of earlier relief flights had not reached its intended recipients, Clemente decided to accompany the next one himself. The plane that crashed was found to have a history of mechanical problems, and was carrying too much weight. Only three months after his death, the Baseball Writers of America held a special vote to induct Clemente into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

This Day in History

 Dec 30, 1916:
Rasputin the  "Mad Monk" is murdered



Sometime over the course of the night and the early morning of December 29-30, 1916, Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, a self-proclaimed holy man, is murdered by Russian nobles eager to end his influence over the royal family.

Rasputin, a Siberian-born muzhik, or peasant, who underwent a religious conversion as a teenager and proclaimed himself a healer with the ability to predict the future, won the favor of Czar Nicholas II and Czarina Alexandra through his ability to stop the bleeding of their hemophiliac son, Alexei, in 1908. From then on, though he was widely criticized for his lechery and drunkenness, Rasputin exerted a powerful influence on the ruling family of Russia, infuriating nobles, church orthodoxy, and peasants alike. He particularly influenced the czarina, and was rumored to be her lover. When Nicholas departed to lead Russian forces in World War I, Rasputin effectively ruled the country through Alexandra, contributing to the already-existing corruption and disorder of Romanov Russia.

Fearful of Rasputin's growing power (among other things, it was believed by some that he was plotting to make a separate peace with the Germans), a group of nobles, led by Prince Felix Youssupov, the husband of the czar's niece, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Nicholas's first cousin, lured Rasputin to Youssupov Palace on the night of December 29, 1916.

First, Rasputin's would-be killers gave the monk food and wine laced with cyanide. When he failed to react to the poison, they shot him at close range, leaving him for dead. A short time later, however, Rasputin revived and attempted to escape from the palace grounds, whereupon his assailants shot him again and beat him viciously. Finally, they bound Rasputin, still miraculously alive, and tossed him into a freezing river. His body was discovered several days later and the two main conspirators, Youssupov and Pavlovich were exiled.

Not long after, the Bolshevik Revolution put an end to the imperial regime. Nicholas and Alexandra were murdered, and the long, dark reign of the Romanovs was over.

This Day in History

 Dec 29, 1890:
U.S. Army massacres Sioux at Wounded Knee

  In the tragic final chapter of America's long war against the Plains Indians, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

Tensions had been running high on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for months because of the growing popularity of a new Indian spiritual movement known as the Ghost Dance. Many of the Sioux at Pine Ridge had only recently been confined to reservations after long years of resistance, and they were deeply disheartened by the poor living conditions and deadening tedium of reservation life. The Ghost Dance movement taught that the Indians were defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their traditional ways. If they practiced the Ghost Dance ritual and rejected white ways, many Sioux believed the gods would create the world anew, destroy the unbelievers, and bring back murdered Indians and the giant herds of bison.

By late 1890, Pine Ridge Indian agent James McLaughlin was alarmed by the movement's increasing influence and its prediction that all non-believers—presumably including whites—would be wiped out. McLaughlin telegraphed a warning to Washington, D.C. that: "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy. We need protection now." While waiting for the cavalry to arrive, McLaughlin attempted to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux chief, who he mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dance supporter. U.S. authorities killed Sitting Bull during the arrest, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge rather than defusing them.

On December 29, the 7th Cavalry under Colonel James Forsyth surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under the Sioux Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. Big Foot and his followers had no intentions of attacking anyone, but they were distrustful of the army and feared they would be attacked if they relinquished their guns. Nonetheless, the Sioux agreed to surrender and began turning over their guns. As that was happening, a scuffle broke out between an Indian and a soldier, and a shot was fired. Though no one is certain which side fired it, the ensuing melee was quick and brutal. Without arms and outnumbered, the Sioux were reduced to hand-to-hand fighting with knives, and they were cut down in a withering rain of bullets, many coming from the army's rapid-fire repeating Hotchkiss guns. By the time the soldiers withdrew, 146 Indians were dead (including 44 women and 18 children) and 51 wounded. The 7th Cavalry had 25 dead and 39 wounded.

Although sometimes referred to as a battle, the conflict at Wounded Knee is best seen as a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it is highly unlikely that Big Foot's band would have deliberately sought a confrontation. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of Custer's old 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment's defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the army's massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the final major confrontation in America's deadly war against the Plains Indians.