Time For Some Overtime

    I have had more jobs in my working career then I care to admit. Many of those jobs have asked me to work later then scheduled and paid overtime to get me to stay on the job. I have collected many hours of overtime over the years. The life of a professional athlete is no different in this manner. Frequently its a heroic effort that forces a contest into overtime. Today we are looking at a few of these games.

  We start on March 21, 1929 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Rangers and their co-tenants the New York Americans took a scoreless tie into double overtime. During the second overtime the Rangers scored and advanced into the semi-finals against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The overtime goal was the only one scored during the two game series!!

  We move now to 1953 and up the coast to the Boston Garden. The Boston Celtics fought a gallant fight with the Syracuse Nationals before the locals won out in the 4th overtime by a score of 111-105. Moving up to 1980 and over to the Windy City we arrive at Chicago Stadium with the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets took the Bulls into triple overtime before disappointing the home fans with a 134-128 win.

   The overtime madness spilled over to the next day when on March 22, 1955 the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Minneapolis Lakers met at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum. The game went into overtime, the offense did not. The Pistons only scored one point and won!! The final score was 98-97.

   The answer to yesterdays trivia question. The first grand slam in MLB history was an ultimate grand slam. On September 10, 1881 future Hall of Famer Roger Conner of the Troy Trojans emptied the bases in the bottom of the ninth inning against the Worcester Ruby Legs for a 8-7 win. For those of you who might know the difference between a walk off grand slam and an ultimate grand slam, a walk off grand slam ends the game, where an ultimate grand slam wins the game by one run like Conners blast did.
   
    The answer to the second part was on October 10, 1920 Game five of the World Series in the first inning Elmer Smith of the Cleveland Indians cleared the bases with a grand slam. The Indians went on to win the game 8-1 and later the series 5 games to two. Four innings later in the top of the fifth inning Indians shortstop Bill Wambsganss made history himself. After catching a line drive he turned to find that the runner from first base was standing next to him and the runner who on second was rounding third base. Wamby turned the catch into an unassisted triple play. The hitter Brooklyn Robins relief pitcher Clarence Mitchell in his other at bat on the day grounded into a double play.

   Todays trivia question is on what date did the original Arena Football League play its first league games. The answer in tomorrows daily blog about an ice skating champion.