The advertising jingle always seems to get stuck in my head on the Fourth of the July. You know the one: "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet."
And the first two of those items - baseball and hot dogs - are almost as central to the Fourth as fireworks or John Philip Sousa's timeless "Stars and Stripes Forever."
Especially when two of major league baseball's greatest pitchers - Nolan Ryan (1980) and one-time Atlanta Brave Phil Niekro (1984) - each recorded his 3,000th strikeout on July 4th, though Niekro was with the Yankees at the time. And for those who care about such things, the hot dog-eating king Joey Chestnut will be going for his 10th championship today in the Nathan's Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island in Brooklyn.
But however gross Chestnut's accomplishment may be to stomach, it's still swallowed whole when matched against these fab four sports moments from past July Fourths:
No. 4 (and mostly because most Americans can't be serious about placing tennis above baseball and stock car racing): American John McEnroe - his Wimbledon whites trimmed in a wee bit of red and blue - toppling Bjorn Borg in the gentleman's singles final at the All-England Club in 1981.
A year earlier the unflappable Borg had withstood the brash lefty in five tense sets - including Mad Mac claiming a timeless 18-16 tiebreaker in the fourth - to claim his fifth straight Wimbledon crown.
But McEnroe returned a slightly less emotional, somewhat more disciplined and polished player the following summer and ended Borg's reign and his Wimbledon appearances, besting Borg in four sets on America's birthday.
That year also marked Mac's first uttering of his now signature phrase "You cannot be serious" when umpire Edward James had the gall to call a McEnroe serve out.
No. 3: New York Mets knock off Atlanta Braves 16-13 in a game that started on July 4th, 1985 and ended after 19 innings on July 5 at 4 a.m.
Thanks to rain delays and an odd bad outing by young Mets ace Doc Gooden, New York pitcher Tom Gorman was facing Braves pitcher and emergency pinch-hitter Rick Camp (he was the last man on the bench) in the bottom of the 18th with the Mets up 11-10, two outs and no one on at 3 a.m.
Moreover, Camp was hitting .060 for his career (10-167) as he stepped to the plate. But with nothing to lose, he did his best Hammerin' Hank Aaron imitation, swinging for the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium fences.
"He hit the (heck) out of it," Gorman said. "It wasn't a cheapie."
Yet the Braves being the Braves, they got throttled 5-2 in the 19th, the game ending at 4 a.m. When the Atlanta brass nevertheless honored their pledge to the 44,000-plus in attendance at game's beginning to shoot off fireworks at game's end, residents around the stadium briefly thought the Big Peach was under attack.
Screamed then-TBS announcer John Sterling when Camp's crusher left the yard: "That certifies this game as the wackiest, wildest, most improbable game in history!"
No. 2: Richard "The King" Petty drove far more than Chevrolets to victory throughout his 200-win career, but few of those victories in any make of car were more emotional than his July 4, 1984 Firecracker 400 win at Daytona with then-President Ronald Reagan in attendance.
Not only would it be Petty's final NASCAR Premiere Series win, it was the first time a sitting U.S. President had attended a NASCAR race.
And Reagan actually gave the "start-your-engine" command to begin the race from his phone on Air Force One before landing nearby. He then stuck around after the race to eat a picnic dinner with the drivers and NASCAR executives featuring Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Said Petty of that victory in his No. 43 Pontiac, "The whole day was beyond the imagination."
No. 1: There was only one Lou Gehrig and when it comes to retirement speeches by athletes, entertainers or heads of state, they're all playing for second after the New York Yankees' No. 4 told the crowd in Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, his Hall of Fame career having been cut short two weeks earlier by a diagnosis of ALS, now known as Lou Gehrig's Disease: "Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth."
Regardless of your political leanings, your preference for barbecue or hot dogs, beer or sweet tea, Kate Smith's "God Bless America" or Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner," as each of us celebrate this nation's 241st birthday today, we should all consider ourselves the luckiest folks on the face of the earth to call this country our home. Both today and every day.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.