Quake rocks the World Series, Owls shake up college football, and the first athlete disqualified for doping - This DiSH for Oct. 17

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Hey, and welcome back to another edition of this day in Sports history, a member of the Sports History Network.

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You can find more podcasts and a whole lot more info@sportshistorynetwork.com.

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, and on this day in: 1989

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It was the Bay Area series between the Oakland as and the San Francisco Giants.

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The A's had won the first two games at home, and the series moved across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco for game three.

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At: 05:04

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pacific time, ABCs Al Michaels and Tim McCarver were reviewing video highlights of the first two games when the earthquake hit.

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Here's the ABC television broadcast from that night.

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Dave Parker, barely by inches, just misses a home run.

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Candy Maldonado with the hesitation, allowing Jose Canseco to score.

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And he fails to get Dave Parker at second base.

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So the Oakland A's take take a while?

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Well, I don't know if we're on the air or not, and I'm not sure I care at this particular moment, but we are.

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Well, folks, that's the greatest open in the history of television, bar none.

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Yes, it certainly did.

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We're still here.

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We are still, as we can tell, on the air.

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And I guess you are hearing us even though we have no picture and no return audio.

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We will be back, we hope, from San Francisco in just a moment.

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CB's radio featured Jack Buck, Johnny Bench and John Rooney, and they were in a commercial break when the earthquake struck.

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But Buck was able to add a little levity to the situation when they came back on air.

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That was wild, wasn't it?

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Well, it really was, John.

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And still a few aftershocks have happened since that time.

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The whole building and right below us, the floor just started shaking.

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Jack Buck standing here right now, and he just figured he'd just go right down below.

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No, I picked a spot down below and I just felt sorry for those people that I was coming down on, but I thought I'd be all right.

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And I must say about Johnny Bench, folks, if he moved like that when he was playing, he didn't never hit into a double play.

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I never saw anybody move that fast in my life.

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63,000 people were filing into the seats at Candlestick park at the time.

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Some cheered after the initial quake.

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Others were terrified.

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One umpire actually ran out from the locker room in his underwear.

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Players in the locker room feared that they might be buried alive the stadium suffered very little damage and there were many who wondered why they just couldnt go ahead and play the game.

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The situation outside the stadium, though, was a much different scene.

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The Cypress street viaduct collapsed, killing 42 people.

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Buildings and parking garages crumbled.

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In total, 67 people died.

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But the World Series game is actually credited with saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives.

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And heres why.

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Without a game, thousands more would have been on the freeways heading home from work.

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Instead, they were either at Candlestick park or had left work early to watch the game in a local bar.

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Commissioner Faye Vincent, who was in attendance, did not hesitate to call the game off and initially rescheduled it for the 22nd.

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Delays in restoring transmission links delayed it another five days.

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San Francisco's mayor actually wanted to delay the resumption of the series for a month, but Commissioner Vincent said that they could not wait that long and he put several major league cities on notice that they may actually end up hosting the World Series.

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But it didn't come to that.

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On October 27, game three was played in San Francisco with Oakland winning 13 seven, and they would close out the series the next night for a four game sweep.

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And that was the last time that the A's franchise actually won the World Series.

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On this day in: 1998

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The Owen six Owls were 36 point underdogs and playing on the road against number 14 Virginia Tech, who were undefeated in their five games so far.

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Both of those teams were members of the Big east at this point.

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Temple had gone winless in their previous 26 league games.

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Also, the Owls were a beat up team.

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Both first and second string quarterbacks were injured the prior week.

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They had eleven guys playing this game that had not even put on a uniform six weeks earlier.

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First year head coach Bobby Wallace said.

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He had guys playing positions that they had never practiced before and it sure didn't look like things were going to go well for Temple early on.

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The Hokies led 17 nothing midway through the second quarter and they were threatening to punch in another one late in the half when Lamont McGeese fumbled the football and the Owls recovered on their own 1 yd line.

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Temple went on a quick 99 yard drive to make it a 17 seven game at the half.

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yard td run to make it a: 1714

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Temple was playing with their third string quarterback in this one, freshman Devin Scott, but he played more like an All American in the second half, he hooked up with receiver Carlos Johnson for an 80 yard strike.

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And just like that, the Owls led 20 117.

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The Hokies fought back for another score to retake the lead, but the Owls had some fight left in them.

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They picked off a pair of passes in the second half, and those were their first two interceptions of the year.

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Now, this was week seven of their schedule, and that's their first two interceptions.

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Devin Scott led the Owls back down the field and punched one in from a couple of yards out.

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And Temple led again, 28 24 with six minutes left.

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Down four and needing a touchdown, Tech drove down the field and with 19 seconds left, faced a fourth and goal from the five.

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But the Owls defense swarmed to the football and snuffed the run to secure an impressive probable win over the 14th ranked Hokies.

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It was the first of only two wins that the Temple Owls would have that season, but the 36 point underdogs had overcome a 17 point deficit to shock the college football world.

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On this day in: 1968

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Alright, so he had to be some weightlifter who was doing anabolic steroids, right?

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Mmm, nope.

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Okay.

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He was a sprinter and he was doping to make himself faster.

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Not a chance.

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Hans Gunner Lilinwal was a pentathlete for the swedish team.

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Pentathlon is an odd bag of five different events.

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There's fencing, swimming, equestrian, shooting and running.

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It seems that Hans was a little nervous prior to the shooting event and according to him, drank two beers to calm his nerves, even though beer was not on the banned list of substances.

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Lilinwal was disqualified, as were his swedish pentathlete teammates.

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And time now for todays non sports.

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Did you know the first calculated height of Mount Everest was actually intentionally misreported?

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When Sir Edmund Wall calculated the height to be 29,000ft, he thought that people would think that it was just rounded off and therefore not accurate at all.

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So he added 2ft to his total to make it 29,002ft.

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That actually turned out to be closer to what most consider the height of Everest to now be at 29,029ft.

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That's all I've got for you today.

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On the way tomorrow, it's a special edition of this day in sports history.

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Don't miss it.

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I'll see you tomorrow.

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This has been an original thrive suite production.