Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 20, according to the Tribune’s archives.
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Sports page flashback: April 21, 1946
1946: The defending National League champion Cubs were supposed to make their TV debut, but it did not happen due of technical difficulties. Station WBKB was scheduled to carry the Cubs-Cardinals game, a 2-0 loss by Chicago.
“The station’s mobile unit televised the game successfully at the field, but electrical interference in the State-Lake building where the transmitter is located resulted in such poor images after the relay that William C. Eddy, director, declined to put them on the air,” the Tribune reported. “This was the first attempt to televise a baseball game in Chicago.”
The first actual broadcast was three months later on July 13, 1946. The Cubs lost to the Brooklyn Dodgers 4-3 at Wrigley Field.
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 87 degrees (1985)
- Low temperature: 24 degrees (1897)
- Precipitation: 2.37 inches (2000)
- Snowfall: 0.2 inches (1943)
1986: In Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs, Michael Jordan torched the Boston Celtics for a postseason-record 63 points in a 135-131 double-overtime loss at Boston Garden.
Jordan’s prodigious output set a National Basketball Association playoff record, eclipsing Elgin Baylor’s 61 points against the Celtics on April 14, 1962. The effort came on the heels of Jordan scoring 49 points and was “the best back-to-back performances ever against the league’s premier franchise.”
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“Not Wilt Chamberlain, not Jerry West, not Oscar Robertson, not Baylor had done what Jordan did in the last two games,” the Tribune reported.
“I think he’s God disguised as Michael Jordan. He is the most awesome player in the NBA,” Celtics star Larry Bird said after the game. “Today in Boston Garden, on national TV, in the playoffs, he put on one of the greatest shows of all time.”
Two days later, however, the Bulls were eliminated from the playoffs in three games by the Celtics.
1990: A clerk at Ball-Mart in Itasca, which was owned by Joe Irmen, mistakenly sold a $1,200 Nolan Ryan rookie card to 12-year-old Brian Wrzesinski for $12. The sale resulted in a lengthy legal battle.
Irmen sued the 12-year-old, seeking the return of the card or $1,188 in cash. Then, on the eve of a hearing on Irmen’s suit, Wrzesinski traded the Ryan card. The suit was settled on April 22, 1991, when the parties involved agreed to auction the card and donate the proceeds to charity.
The card was sold at auction on June 22, 1991, for $5,000 to Tony Del Angel of Lisle.
2004: An F3 tornado hit Utica, killing eight people.
Tribune reporter Julia Keller won a Pulitzer Prize for her three-part recounting of the tornado’s 10 seconds on the ground.
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