The year was 1976 and the United States was approaching its big bicentennial celebration.
The location was Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium and the Chicago Cubs were in town on this Sunday afternoon to complete a 3-game set. The teams had split the first two games (Cubs won the first game, 4-3 in 11 innings; Dodgers won the second, 2-1).
Batting leadoff and playing centerfield in all three games for the Cubs was Rick Monday. Monday had the distinction of being the first-ever player selected in MLB’s Amateur Draft (in 1965 to the Kansas City Athletics). He’d go on to hit one of the more famous home runs in Dodgers history, a ninth inning solo homer off the Montreal Expos’ Steve Rogers to give the Dodgers a 2-1 victory in the National League Championship Series and send them to the World Series where they’d beat the rival New York Yankees in six games.
On that April Sunday, however, Monday was noteworthy for a markedly different reason.
In the fourth inning, Monday noticed a pair of individuals enter the playing field carrying something that he later saw as the American flag which the men were dousing in lighter fluid. Monday, a former U.S. Marine Corps Reservist, sprung into action, sprinted over, and snatched the flag before the men could get a match lit.
The incident was unexpected (at the start of an inning) and occurred so quickly, photographers at the game were not really focused on the outfield. James Roark from the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner was able to capture the moment just after Monday snatched the flag and began his sprint to the left field line. Roark’s photo was later nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Sadly, Roark’s life ended in 1995 at the age of 49 to an act of violence in Portland, OR, where he was working as a night cook following the Herald-Examiner‘s closing in 1989.
a pair of protesters lit it on fire at Dodger Stadium on April 25, 1976.
(Photo by James Roark/Los Angeles Herald-Examiner)
Today, Monday is working his 32nd year as a Dodgers’ radio broadcaster and he’s witnessed and participated in many amazing moments during his now 60 years in professional baseball, but he might be best remembered for what transpired on that sunny April Sunday in 1976.
- Here‘s a Dodgers’ blog retrospective of the event;
- Here‘s a National Baseball Hall of Fame piece on the event.
By the way, the Dodgers went on to win the game, 5-4 in 10 innings.
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