Tim Curry is 70 today.

The actor has offered several performances in his career that could be described as “career-defining”; so many defining performances that he really does not have one for which he is most fondly remembered, except of course, THIS one:
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The longest professional baseball game in history started 35 years ago today. The Pawtucket Red Sox (box score above) and the Rochester Red Wings, two Triple-A teams, played 32 innings to a 2-2 tie between 8:25 p.m. and 4:07 a.m. the next morning, April 19. Several players recorded more than a dozen at bats each in the game. (Wade Boggs went four for 12 for Pawtucket and Cal Ripken, Jr. went two for 13.)

Most cities and, thus, most professional sports leagues have mandatory curfews that dictate a game should be suspended at a certain time if it is tied. This is for many reasons, all of them having to do with common sense: courtesy to the neighbors of the ballpark if the park is located in a residential neighborhood, for one thing, and also so that those in attendance who need mass transportation services to get home can catch the last trains home. The rule book in home plate umpire Dennis Cregg’s possession did not happen to have the league’s curfew rule included in it. So when 12:50 a.m. ticked by, which was the league’s mandatory, common sense, curfew hour, the two teams continued playing.
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Legend has it that on this date in 1397, Geoffrey Chaucer (above) first recited The Canterbury Tales at the court of King Richard II. History has not recorded the date, but the likelihood that he did recite it one evening at court is great, and this date has been passed down for centuries as the date that this took place.

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Mickey Mantle made his major league debut for the New York Yankees 65 years ago today at home against the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees won, and Mantle went one for four.
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