1968 – The Simon and Garfunkel tune “Mrs. Robinson” debuts on the Billboard’s Top 40. The song’s lyrics include the memorable question for the Yankees’ former center fielder, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”
2006 – At Detroit’s Comerica Park, Mike Napoli, on the first pitch he sees in his first major league at-bat, hits a home run. The Angels catcher becomes the third player in franchise history to make such a dramatic debut, joining Don Rose (1972) and Dave Machemer (1978), who also accomplished the feat.
2008 – Yogi Berra is one of the 15 inaugural honorees to be inducted into the newly conceived New Jersey Hall of Fame. Although the Yankee legend considers fellow inductee Albert Einstein to be “a pretty smart guy,” he is not convinced the Nobel Prize winner for physics would have made a good manager.
And finally…in 2012, an anonymous bidder pays $418,250 for the baseball hit by Mookie Wilson that rolled through the legs of Bill Buckner, allowing the Mets to cap a two-out rally with a 6-5 walk-off victory in the tenth inning in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. The historic horsehide was the centerpiece of memorabilia being offered by Heritage Auctions from the collection of Los Angeles songwriter Seth Swirsky, which also included Reggie Jackson’s third home run ball from Game 6 of the 1977 Fall Classic ($65,725), the Ranger cap that Jose Canseco was wearing in 1993 when a ball bounced off his head over the wall for a homer ($11,950), and a 1965 baseball signed by the Beatles from the Shea Stadium concert ($65,725).
PLAYERS BORN TODAY
Ken Oberkfell (1956), Joe Borowski (1971), Miguel Cairo (1974), and Sam LeCure (1984)
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