Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131st straight game on September 6, 1995, breaking Lou Gehrig’s record that stood for 56 years and most deemed unbreakable. Ripken would add three more years to the record, finally voluntarily sitting out a game in 1998, leaving his record at 2,632 games. Because this is the internet, and by law we have to find something negative in any event that’s ever happened, we’ll just say that Chris Berman got to do the national broadcast of the game and leave it at that.
You might be wondering what the number one song on the charts was the day Ripken broke the record. You weren’t? Of course you weren’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway, cuz it’s some shit. It was Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”
On the subject of perseverance, 490 years ago today the Spanish ship Victoria made it back home and became the first ship to circumnavigate the world. It was the only one of five ships that set out that made it all the way and just 18 of 265 people who left on the voyage made it back alive. The expedition was planned by Ferdinand Magellan and took roughly three years. Magellan was killed two years into the trip in the Philippines.
It was this day in 1847 that Henry David Thoreau packed up and left Walden Pond. Thoreau lived there for two years, an experiment on several levels that he turned into his book, “Walden, Life in the Woods”. Upon leaving Walden Pond, Thoreau moved in with his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family. I’m guessing their dinner conversation was a little more high-brow than what you might find at the Kardashian home.
Another life experiment type of thing ended today in 1992, when hunters found the body of Christopher McCandles in an abandoned bus, 25 miles west of Healy, Alaska.
Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming became the first woman to ever vote in a U.S. general election today in 1870. 142 years later and women can finally join Augusta National.
This smells like something ESPN would do: On September 6, 1912, in a purposely set up matchup of superstar pitchers, the Red Sox Smokey Joe Wood bested the Senators Walter Johnson 1-0 to win his 30th game of the season. The only run was scored when Tris Speaker and Duffy Lewis hit back to back doubles. The first double would have been a run-of-the-mill fly out, but landed in an area that had been cordoned off by rope to contain the overflow crowd at Fenway Park. At least Chris Berman wasn’t involved.
“Rhinestone Cowboy” reached number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart today in 1975. It became the first song to sit on top of the Country and Hot 100 charts simultaneously in 14 years.
Happy Birthdays to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, NBA Champion Kevin Willis, Emmy winner Elizabeth Vargas and Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan, who all turn 50 today.
– Bill Hubbell