Scott Harper Gets His Fifteen Minutes Of Fame

 On August 9, 2005, in the 8th inning of a Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees game, 18 year-old Scott Harper got his fifteen minutes fame. 

Much like Patrick Lawler, a man who received notoriety because he didn't know he had a nail in his skull for four months, Scott Harper will not be remembered as "Scott Harper." He'll be remembered as the guy who dove 40 feet off the upper deck of Yankee Stadium and lived to tell about it.
Harper's fall ended when he crashed into the safety net behind home plate. The local YES telecast rattled as the net vibrated the camera line. The game temporarily came to a stop; everyone in the stadium watched as the kid, who was visibly shaken up, began to climb up the net towards the middle section of Yankee Stadium. Harper received a thunderous ovation from the crowd when he reached the seating area and was forcefully pulled away by security.

Harper left the stadium in a stretcher and was taken to a local hospital. When he was released the next day, Scott got a knock on his door from the police. Harper pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and received three years of probation. Even worse, he was permanently banned from all future New York Yankee home games.

Scott told the police that he wanted to test if the net could hold him and that he was pretty drunk at the time. "It was just like a stupid dare," said one of the friends who went to the game with him. ESPN decided not to air the clip of him falling when they learned it was intentional. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner called the stunt, "the only exciting thing that happened today," noting that the Yankees lost the game, 2-1.
Harper's plunge was not the first time a fan had jumped onto the safety net; Stephen Laurenzi had pulled the same stunt back in 2000.

Three weeks after his dive, Harper was pulled over for speeding in a residential area. He was again arrested, this time for the possession of marijuana. And that was the last of his fifteen minutes of fame.

Los Angeles Dodgers Trade For Manny Ramirez

On July 31, 2009, in a three-way trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Boston Red Sox trade Manny Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers for fellow outfielder Jason Bay. A few other players were swapped, with the Pirates ending up with four minor league prospects. Manny had been the best hitter on the Red Sox by miles, but his constantly aggravating behavior caused a riff in the clubhouse.

Just a few days earlier, he told ESPN Deportes, "The Red Sox don't deserve a player like me. During my years here, I've seen how they [the Red Sox] have mistreated other great players when they didn't want them to try to turn the fans against them. The Red Sox did the same with guys like Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez, and now they do the same with me."

 

Bay did okay with the Red Sox, but he was nowhere near as good as Manny was in L.A. Revitalized in a new city that completely embraced him, Ramirez single-handedly carried the Dodgers to the postseason. In his 53 games with the team, Manny batted .396 with 17 home runs and 53 RBI. He was even better in the postseason, producing 13 hits in 25 at-bats, 4 home runs, and 10 RBI in eight games. His numbers were so incredible that Red Sox players began calling him out, claiming that he had been dogging it so that he could be traded.

"The day he realized that they were not going to sign him to an extension was the day he said, 'Uncle. I'm done,'" former teammate Curt Schilling said in September of that year. "The fact of the matter was, you looked at a guy who, at the end of the day, when you look back on the history, never, ever cared about any of us."

Had Ramirez not been 36 years old, he would have fetched one of the largest contracts in MLB history. Instead, he and agent Scott Boras had to "settle" with a two-year $45 million extension with the Dodgers.

Disco Demolition Night At Comiskey Park

On July 12, 1979, a double header at Comiskey Park took place, which has since been called Disco Demolition Night. The White Sox had to forfeit the second game as fans ran all over the field during Disco Demolition Night.

Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, during which a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field. It was held during night half of the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers double header.

During the climax of the event, rowdy fans surged onto the field, and a near riot ensued. It would ultimately prove to be one of the most notable promotional ideas and one of the most infamous since "Ten Cent Beer Night" in Cleveland in 1974.

Although White Sox owner Bill Veeck took much of the public heat for the fiasco, it was known among baseball people that his son Mike was the actual front office "brains" behind it. As a result, Mike was blacklisted from Major League Baseball for a long time after his father retired.

To this day, the second game of this doubleheader is still the last game forfeited in the American League. The last game to end in this manner in the National League was on August 10, 1995, when a baseball giveaway promotion went awry and resulted in the Los Angeles Dodgers forfeiture.

 Check out the video below of ESPN's coverage of Disco Demolition Night:

United States Wins FIFA Women's World Cup

On July 10, 1999, in front of a Rose Bowl crowd of 90,185, one of the greatest moments in female athletics occurs, as the United States women's soccer team beats China to win the FIFA Women's World Cup. The score was tied at zero at the end of regulation, but on penalty kicks, the U.S. won 5-4. The game-winning kick, and one of the most replayed highlights in history, came from America's Brandi Chastain, who launched the soccer ball just right of Chinese goalie Gao Hong.

As the American crowd erupted, as the United States team raced onto the field in celebration, Chastain whipped off her shirt and twirled it in the air, revealing a black Nike sports bra. The image of Chastain's celebration would grace the cover of Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and Newsweek.

It was a phenomenal moment in women's sports. Soccer was said to be irrelevant in America, and women's team sports had been nothing but obscure. But here was a case where a combination of the two had somehow worked.

The crowd of 90,185 was the largest for a women's sporting event ever, while an additional 40 million people watched the World Cup Final on ABC, the largest TV audience ever for a soccer game in America. The team was so huge that even president Bill Clinton was on hand for the final match. The men's soccer team, which had never even come close to winning the World Cup, couldn't approach that if they tried. The women were undeniably better than the men.

Just two years later, the Women's United Soccer Association, the world's first female professional soccer league, played its first game. The league was founded in an attempt to capitalize on the success of the U.S. women's te

am; some believed that the championship game proved that an all-women soccer league could be legitimized in this country. However, even though the league featured many of that team's players, such as Mia Hamm, Briana Scurry, and Chastain, the WUSA failed to reach its expectations. The league incurred zero mainstream attention, and in 2003, the league was forced to fold after accumulating close to $100 million in losses.

Monica Seles Stabbed During Citizen Cup Tournament

On April 30, 1993, that tennis great Monica Seles was stabbed in the back by an obsessed fan during her quarterfinal match against Magdalena Maleeva.  The incident occurred in Hamburg, Germany at the Citizen Cup tournament.

Monica Seles (white) after being stabbed during the 1993 Citizen Cup Tournament.

Monica Seles entered the 1993 season as the world’s top ranked female player.  She was the three-time reigning French Open champion, as well as the two-time reigning Australian and U.S. Open champion.  It was an obsessed fan of Steffi Graf’s, Seles’ biggest rival, who carried out the attack in an attempt to help Graf regain her number one status. 

Gunter Parche stormed the court during a break and would stab Monica in the back between the shoulder blades to a depth of one and a half centimeters.

Gunter Parche (center) being detained after stabbing Monica Seles during the 1993 Citizen Cup Tournament.

Although her injury took only a few weeks to heal, Seles would not return to competitive tennis for over two years. Considering the traumatic experience she went through, it was not a surprise to see Monica take a long hiatus from the game she loved to play.

Though she enjoyed some success after rejoining the tour in 1995, including a fourth Australian Open success in 1996, she was unable to consistently reproduce her best form.

She played her last professional match at the 2003 French Open, but did not officially retire until February 2008.

Seles is a former Yugoslav world number one professional tennis player and a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

She was born and raised in Novi Sad, SR Serbia, and SFR Yugoslavia. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1994 and also received Hungarian citizenship in June 2007. She won nine Grand Slam singles titles, winning eight of them while a citizen of Yugoslavia and one while a citizen of the United States.

In 1990, at the age of 16, Seles became the youngest-ever French Open champion. She went on to win eight Grand Slam singles titles before her twentieth birthday and was the year-end World number one in 1991 and 1992.

Seles career record in singles is 595-122 a winning percentage of 82.98 with 53 career titles. He won 13 Grand Slam Single titles including four Australian Open’s including three straight from 1991-1993, three French Open’s including three consecutive from 1990-1992, two U.S. Open’s in 1991 - 1992 and one Wimbledon title in 1992. As well three Championships from 1990-1992.

She also won a Bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games in singles

In double Seles were also good, winning 89 matches and dropping 45, winning six career titles. However, Seles was not quite the doubles player she was in singles, as her highest mark in doubles was sixteenth in the world on April 22, 1991. She never reached further than the semi-finals in doubles, in 1991 and 2001 at the Australian Open.

Until her loss to Martina Hingis at the 1999 Australian Open, Seles had a perfect record at the event (33–0), which is the longest undefeated streak for this tournament (although Margaret Court won 38 consecutive matches there from 1960 to 1968 after losing a match in 1959).

It also marked her first defeat in Australia, having won the Sydney tournament in 1996. Seles was the first female tennis player to win her first six Grand Slam singles finals: 1990 French Open, 1991 Australian Open, 1991 French Open, US Open, 1992 Australian Open, and 1992 French Open.

Seles was also the first female player since Hilde Krahwinkel Sperling in 1937 to win the women's singles title three consecutive years at the French Open. (Chris Evert, however, won the title the four consecutive times she played the tournament: 1974, 1975, 1979, and 1980; in 2007, Justine Henin won her third consecutive French Open singles title.) With eight Grand Slam singles titles before her twentieth birthday,

Seles holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles won as a teenager.

In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time Magazine.

Seles was listed as the thirteenth greatest player of all time (men and women) by (U.S.) Tennis magazine and was also one of 15 women named by Australian Tennis magazine as the greatest champions of the last 30 years (players were listed chronologically).

In 2012, Tennis Channel created a list of the "100 Greatest Of All Time" tennis players. Seles was listed at number 19.

Magic Johnson Reaching NBA Milestone

On March 7, 1996, NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson becomes the second NBA player to reach 10,000 career assists.

After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Lakers.

He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s.

Los Angeles Lakers great Magic Johnson (left) in 1991 backing down arguably the best player of all time, Chicago Bulls shooting guard Michael Jordan (right).

Johnson retired abruptly in 1991 after announcing that he had contracted HIV, but returned to play in the 1992 All-Star Game, winning the All-Star MVP Award. After protests from his fellow players, he retired again for four years, but returned in 1996, at age 36, to play 32 games for the Lakers before retiring for the third and final time.

Johnson's career achievements include three NBA MVP Awards, nine NBA Finals appearances, twelve All-Star games, where he was the MVP twice. He also earned nine All-NBA First and one Second Team nominations. He led the league in regular-season assists four times, and is the NBA's all-time leader in average assists per game, at 11.2. He also led the NBA in steals twice in 1982-1983. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 1980.

The Lakers retired his no. 32 jersey.

Johnson was a member of the "Dream Team", the U.S. basketball team that won the Olympic gold medal in 1992. After leaving the NBA in 1992, Johnson formed the Magic Johnson All-Stars, a barnstorming team that traveled around the world playing exhibition games.

Johnson was honored as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, and enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002.

Magic was rated the greatest NBA point guard of all time by ESPN in 2007. His friendship and rivalry with Boston Celtics star Larry Bird, whom he faced in the 1979 NCAA finals and three NBA championship series were well documented.

Since his retirement, Johnson has been an advocate for HIV/AIDS prevention and safe sex, as well as an entrepreneur^, philanthropist^, broadcaster and motivational speaker.

Johnson was a part owner of the Lakers for several years, and was part of a group that purchased the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012.

Miami Dolphins Hire Jimmy Johnson

On Jan. 10, 1996, the Miami Dolphins announced Jimmy Johnson as their new head coach. 

Johnson replaced legendary Dolphins coach Don Shula, who’s tenure lasted 26 years with the Miami organization.

Before accepting the job with the Dolphins, Johnson led the Dallas Cowboys to back-to-back Super Bowl titles in 1992 and 1993.  Despite all of his accomplishments with the Cowboys, Johnson and team owner Jerry Jones did not see eye to eye on many things, which ultimately led to coach Johnson’s departure. 

Jimmy Johnson also enjoyed success at the collegiate level, coaching the Miami Hurricanes to the 1987 NCAA Division I National Championship. 

At the start of his head coaching days in college he led Oklahoma State to a 29-26-2 record over five seasons and two bowl appearances. Most notably the 24-14 win over Baylor in the Bluebonnet Bowl in 1983.

He left Oklahoma State after rebuilding the program for the Hurricanes of the University of Miami.

In just a few short years Johnson led the Hurricanes to an NCAA National Championship victory in 1987 over Oklahoma.

Johnson left Miami in 1989 for the NFL and the Cowboys, but left Miami with an amazing record of 52-9, and 44-4 record over his final four seasons.

His entire NCAA record as a head coach was 81-34-3.

However, Johnson would not share similar success with the Dolphins, as he went 36-28 in the regular season and just 2-3 in the playoffs during his four-year stay in Miami.

Jimmy Johnson is currently working in television as an analyst for FOX NFL Sunday’s pregame show.  Although there are quite a few coaching opportunities available in the NFL this off-season, do not expect the 69-year-old Johnson to be filling any of those spots.

The "Heidi" Game

On Nov. 17, 1968, one of the worst moments in sports broadcasting took place. 

The New York Jets were facing the Oakland Raiders in an AFL battle. The Jets held a 42-29 lead against the Raiders and seemed to be in good shape.

However, NBC made the controversial decision to switch off the game in the final minutes and start showing "Heidi" instead.

What fans on the east coast missed was an exciting comeback by the Raiders. They scored two touchdowns in the last minute to win the game 43-42.

This game would lead to new measures to make sure nothing like this would happen again.

In the late 1960s, few professional football games took longer than two and a half hours to play, and the Jets–Raiders three-hour time slot was thought to be adequate. A high-scoring contest, together with a number of injuries and penalties for the two bitter American Football League rivals, caused the game to run long. NBC executives had ordered that Heidi must begin on time, but given the exciting game, they decided to postpone the start of the film and continue football coverage. As 7 p.m. approached, many members of the public called NBC to inquire about the schedule, to complain or opine, jamming NBC's switchboards.

As NBC executives were trying to call the same switchboards to implement their decision, the change could not be communicated, and Heidi began as scheduled. The movie preempted the final moments of the game in the eastern half of the country, to the outrage of viewers who missed two Oakland touchdowns that turned the game around.

The Heidi Game led to a change in the way professional football is shown on network television; games are shown to their conclusion before evening programming begins. To ensure that network personnel could communicate under similar circumstances, special telephones (dubbed "Heidi phones") were installed, with a connection to a different telephone exchange from other network phones. In 1997, the Heidi Game was voted the most memorable regular season game in pro football history.

Smith Sets World Record

On Oct. 16, 1968, On the morning of 16 October 1968, U.S. athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race in a world-record time of 19.83 seconds, with Australia's Peter Norman second with a time of 20.06 seconds, and the U.S.A's John Carlos in third place with a time of 20.10 seconds.

After the race was completed, the three went to collect their medals at the podium. The two U.S. athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty. Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride, Carlos had his tracksuit top unzipped to show solidarity with all blue collar workers in the U.S. and wore a necklace of beads which he described "were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed and that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage.

All three athletes wore Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) badges after Norman, a critic of Australia's White Australia Policy, expressed empathy with their ideals. Sociologist Harry Edwards, the founder of the OPHR, had urged black athletes to boycott the games; reportedly, the actions of Smith and Carlos on 16 October 1968 were inspired by Edwards' arguments.

Both U.S. athletes intended on bringing black gloves to the event, but Carlos forgot his, leaving them in the Olympic Village. It was the Australian, Peter Norman, who suggested Carlos wear Smith's left-handed glove, this being the reason behind him raising his left hand, as opposed to his right, differing from the traditional Black Power salute. When "The Star-Spangled Banner" played, Smith and Carlos delivered the salute with heads bowed, a gesture, which became front-page news around the world. As they left the podium the crowd booed them. Smith later said, "If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight.”

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, Avery Brundage, deemed it to be a domestic political statement, unfit for the apolitical, international forum the Olympic Games were supposed to be. In an immediate response to their actions, he ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the U.S. team and banned from the Olympic Village. When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the two athletes being expelled from the Games.

A spokesman for the IOC said it was "a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit.^” Brundage, who was president of the United States Olympic Committee in 1936, had made no objections against Nazi salutes during the Berlin Olympics. He argued that the Nazi salute, being a national salute at the time, was acceptable in a competition of nations, while the athletes' salute was not of a nation and therefore unacceptable^.

Brundage had been one of the United States' most prominent Nazi sympathizers even after the outbreak of the Second World War and his removal as president of the IOC had been one of the three stated objectives of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.

As late as 2010, the official IOC website stated "Over and above winning medals, the black American athletes made names for themselves by an act of racial protest

Smith and Carlos were largely ostracized by the U.S. sporting establishment in the following years and, in addition, were subject to criticism of their actions. Time magazine showed the five-ring Olympic logo with the words, "Angrier, Nastier, Uglier", instead of "Faster, Higher, Stronger”.

Back home, they were subject to abuse and they and their families received death threats.

Smith continued in athletics, going on to play in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals, before becoming an assistant professor of Physical Education at Oberlin College. In 1995, he went on to help coach the U.S. team at the World Indoor Championships at Barcelona. In 1999 he was awarded the California Black Sportsman of the Millennium Award. He is now a public speaker.

Carlos' career followed a similar path to Smith's. He initially continued in athletics, equaling the 100-yard dash world record the following year. Later, he played in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles, before a knee injury prematurely ended his career. He fell upon hard times in the late 1970s and, in 1977, his ex-wife committed suicide, leading him to a period of depression. In 1982, Carlos was employed by the Organizing Committee for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles to promote the games and act as liaison with the city's black community. In 1985, he became a track and field coach at Palm Springs High School, a post he still holds.

Norman, who was sympathetic to his competitors' protest, was reprimanded by his country's Olympic authorities and ostracized by the Australian media. He was not picked for the 1972 Summer Olympics, despite finishing third in his trials. Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral after his death in 2006^.

In 2005, San Jose State University honored former students Smith and Carlos with a 22-foot high statue of their protest, created by artist Rigo 23^. A student, Erik Grotz, initiated the project: "One of my professors was talking about unsung heroes and he mentioned Tommie Smith and John Carlos. He said these men had done a courageous thing to advance civil rights, and, yet, they had never been honored by their own school." In January 2007, History San Jose opened a new exhibit called Speed City: From Civil Rights to Black Power, covering the San Jose State athletic program "from which many student athletes became globally recognized figures as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements reshaped American society."

On March 3, 2008, in the Detroit Free Press editorial section, an editorial by Orin Starn entitled "Bottom line turns to hollow gold for today's Olympians" lamented the lack of social engagement of modern sports athletes, in contrast to Smith and Carlos.

Smith and Carlos received an Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2008 ESPY Awards honoring their action.

Internationally, in a 2011 speech to the University of Guelph, Akaash Maharaj, a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee and head of Canada's Olympic Equestrian team, said, "In that moment, Tommie Smith, Peter Norman, and John Carlos became the living embodiments of Olympic idealism. Ever since, they have been inspirations to generations of athletes like myself, who can only aspire to their example of putting principle before personal interest. It was their misfortune to be far greater human beings than the leaders of the IOC of the day."

Ruth Says Farewell To Baseball

On Sept. 24, 1934, 2,500 fans see Babe Ruth's farewell Yankee appearance at Yankee Stadium.

Babe Ruth without question was one of the best hitters of all time.  If you include his high quality of pitching in his early years, there is no doubt that he is the greatest all around baseball players of all time.

Before Ruth’s decline, he was hands down the best player during his era in the Major Leagues. He still holds records for .690 career slugging percentage and 1.164 career on base plus slugging percentage, and still ranks top 10 in over 15 offensive categories.

Ruth was the first player to 60 home runs, and he did so in a time when the next best player was hitting in the low teens. He was a seven time World Series Champion with the New York Yankees, he was voted 1923 American League MVP and was a two-time All-Star. He led the American League in home runs 12-times, and was a six-time American League RBI Champion.

“The Sultan of Swat,” as often named, was the American League Batting Champion in 1924, but only after he gave up as an honored pitcher who won the American League ERA title in 1916.

During his career “The Great Bambino” hit for a .342 career average, with 714 home runs, 2,873 hits, 2,213 RBI’s. He also pitched for an amazing 94-46 record with a 2.28 ERA.

The Yankees retired his no. 3 jersey and Major League Baseball has honored Ruth’s legacy by nameing him to the All-Century and All-Time teams.

“The Babe,” was elected into Cooperstown Baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1936 with 95.13 percent of the vote.

Ruth has been named the greatest baseball player of all time in various surveys and rankings. In 1998, The Sporting News ranked him number one on the list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players".

In 1969, he was named baseball's Greatest Player Ever in a ballot commemorating the 100-year anniversary of professional baseball.

In 1993, the Associated Press reported that Muhammad Ali was tied with Babe Ruth as the most recognized athlete in America.

In a 1999 ESPN poll, he was ranked as the second-greatest U.S. athlete of the century, behind Michael Jordan.

The Babe Ruth Award is an annual award given to the Major League Baseball (MLB) player with the best performance in the World Series. The award, created by the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) in honor of Babe Ruth, was first awarded in 1949, one year after Ruth's death.

The Babe Ruth Home Run Award is an annual award presented to the leading home run hitter in MLB. Ruth’s daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens, or her son, Tom Stevens, usually presents it to the recipient.