Natural Pastime
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History October 14 - 20.
It was thirty minutes before the first pitch of Game 3 of the 1989 World Series. It was 5:04 p.m. Pacific Time and the visiting Oakland Athletics were warming up on the field of Candlestick Park, home of the San Fransisco Giants. It was dubbed The Battle of the Bay.
Tim McCarver, the color man on the ABC television broadcast, recounted important plays from Game 2, an Oakland victory that put them up 2-0 in the best-of-seven-game series. The screen begins to cut in and out in the middle of his narrative as you hear McCarver trying to continue.
Immediately, his booth partner, Al Michaels, interrupts with the words, “I'll tell you what; we have an em…”
The screen and audio are cut. A green background with the words World Series written on it appears.
I watched the scary moment unfold across the country in Columbus, Ohio, unsure what was happening.
Ten seconds later, you hear the noise of a crowd in the background, and then Michaels begins speaking. He says he doesn’t know if they are on-air or not, and he tells anyone listening that he doesn’t care; he goes on to explain that was the greatest opening in television history.
ABC then cut to a commercial, and minutes later, we discovered that a 6.9-magnitude earthquake had shaken the grounds along the Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Clara Mountains just miles away.
Buildings fell, landslides occurred, and bridges snapped and collapsed.
Approximately 67 were killed, and 3,000 were injured on October 17, 1989.
The World Series was postponed for ten days, and when it resumed, Oakland swept the Giants in four games, winning their first baseball championship in 14 years.
It was another one of those moments when baseball provided normalcy to something terrible and showed how resilient we are as people.
Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events celebrate their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here's what I got:
1. Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 12, 1964. The American Civil Rights leader won the prize for his work as a nonviolent activist. In his acceptance speech, he questioned the audience in Oslo, Norway, as to why this prize was awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.
2. Abolitionist John Brown and his men captured the US Arsenal on October 16, 1859. The American hero who believed he was an Instrument of God took the federal battery in hopes of initiating a slave revolt in the Southern states. It was the first national crisis to be publicized by electronic telegraph. Two days later, President Buchanan dispatched Marines from Washington Navy Yard to squash the rebellion. Leading the charge were future traitors Robert E. Lee and JEB Stuart. Brown would be tried, convicted, and hung for his heroism.
3. President Herbert Hoover died on October 20, 1964. By 1964, Hoover had been out of office for over 31 years. It was the longest presidential retirement until Jimmy Carter broke it in 2012. Hoover suffered many illnesses late in life and died in New York City from complications of having a tumor removed. He was 90. He’s buried in Iowa near his presidential library, and his wife, who died in 1944, was re-interred from California beside him.
Happy Indigenous People’s Day, which is paired with Christopher Columbus Day on the second Monday in October. Despite President Biden officially recognizing it in 2021, it is not a federal holiday.
The Indigenous Peoples’ Day Act has 56 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and 11 in the Senate. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia no longer recognize Columbus Day, while 17 and DC honor and recognize the first peoples of America.
Speaking of sports, we have made great strides in honoring Indigenous people. A few years ago, my favorite baseball team from Cleveland dropped the nickname and racist mascot, and now we are back in the American League Championship Series.
The football team that resides in my current home dropped its racist nickname and did a complete 180 in deciding on its mascot. We shall see if they make the playoffs.
These are important steps because of the value we place on such institutions.
I hope you have another great week. We are back ranking presidential elections on Friday. Thanks for supporting Okay History; I love you all. Go Guardians.
Okay,
Chris
I still remember hearing about the earthquake. The fact that the World Series involved the two teams from the Bay Area would have made it a monumental event there, but Earth had other plans...