30th Anniversary of Rick Monday Saving the American Flag

[Bluesteve32]

April 25th is the date that Rick Monday, then of the Cubs, saved the American Flag from being burned by two fans at Chavez Ravine.

The fans at the Ravine cheer Monday and when he was traded to the Dodgers, he remained a fan favorite and is part of the announcing team for the club today.

http://www.webspawner.com/users/bpick/

[riverfrontier]

i remember listening to that game on the radio when i was a kid. grew up in cali but hated the dodgers. the significance of the event didn't really hit me at the time. i was just bummed the dodgers won, because they were the big division rivals of the reds. although my perspective and age have changed, and rick monday rightfully goes down in history for a unique act of patriotism, i have to say i wouldn't have minded at all if they had tried to burn a dodger pennant(!)

[Bluesteve32]

i remember listening to that game on the radio when i was a kid. grew up in cali but hated the dodgers. the significance of the event didn't really hit me at the time. i was just bummed the dodgers won, because they were the big division rivals of the reds. although my perspective and age have changed, and rick monday rightfully goes down in history for a unique act of patriotism, i have to say i wouldn't have minded at all if they had tried to burn a dodger pennant(!)

ESPN Radio 710 here in LA just interviewed Monday a few minutes ago. They played Vinnie's call and the hosts asked Monday about it, and he still has the flag and will not sell it. He says he gets goosebumps when he hears that call.

About the Dodger pennant, I would go along with that. :p Monday did spend some time in the Marine Reserves and will always get props for what he did that day at the Ravine.

[SamtheBravesFan]

What can I say that hasn't already been said? :)

[KCGHOST]

You have to give Monday due props for his efforts that day.

[W_Marone]

I didnt know anything about this event until I saw it on PTI on ESPN, I'm not even sure I was born then, if it was before 87. For all the dumb people we have in this country who ruin things, it's people like Monday who are definitions of what an American is like. One of the best moments in baseball, ever, well not the part when they were about to burn the flag but the Monday saving it part.

[Mattingly]

Here's a link to a photo gallery of this. A friend of mine is a pro sports photographer and baseball fan, who's mentioned that the 2nd pic in this link (the same as attached in the original post here) won a Pulitzer Prize. In the below gallery, Monday is recently (it looks like) pictured holding the pic.

http://www.mlb.com/mlb/photogallery/year_2006/month_04/day_24/cf1416320.html

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/images/2006/04/24/7dmsrPqJ.jpg
Cubs center fielder Rick Monday rescues an
American flag from protesters on the field at
Dodger Stadium on April 25, 1976.
(Los Angeles Dodgers)

Monday's act heroic after 30 years
Outfielder recalls protecting country's honor from protesters (http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060424&content_id=1415977&vkey=news_chc&fext=.jsp&c_id=chc)
LOS ANGELES -- It was 1976, a fun year for America. It was the country's bicentennial, the war in Vietnam had ended a year earlier and everyone really wanted to put all the problems from the 1960s, Watergate and Vietnam behind them and just enjoy the country's yearlong 200th birthday party.

On April 25, the Chicago Cubs were visiting Dodger Stadium for a three-game series. Playing center field for the Cubs was Rick Monday, the first player taken in the amateur draft that was created 11 years earlier. Monday was born and raised in Santa Monica, Calif., so playing in front of his friends and family was always special to him. On this day, fate would hand Monday a moment that people still talk about with reverence 30 years later. Monday recounts the moment in his own words.

"In between the top and bottom of the fourth inning, I was just getting loose in the outfield, throwing the ball back and forth. Jose Cardenal was in left field and I was in center. I don't know if I heard the crowd first or saw the guys first, but two people ran on the field. After a number of years of playing, when someone comes on the field, you don't know what's going to happen. Is it because they had too much to drink? Is it because they're trying to win a bet? Is it because they don't like you or do they have a message that they're trying to present?

"When these two guys ran on the field, something wasn't right. And it wasn't right from the standpoint that one of them had something cradled under his arm. It turned out to be an American flag. They came from the left-field corner, went past Cardenal to shallow left-center field.

[1doug]

He played his best defense on that day! Bless him.

[Ursa Major]

Uh, okay. Two idiots aren't looking and try to do something dumb. Monday - a gifted natural athlete - runs up and grabs the item from them and runs away. It makes for nice imagery. But any one of us could have and would have done the exact same thing.

I guess it depends on what your definition of a hero is. I'm happy for the guy and the good vibes it gave him, both internally and in the eyes of many people. But it's hardly a heroic act. It's sort of like -- well, you're watering your posies in the front yard and there's a collision sending a car in flames over your curb. You turn your hose on the flaming occupant as he leaps from the car and yell for the wife to call the fire department. Mayor gives you a medal, and the newspapers laud your quick thinking. Fine -- but it wasn't anything that put you at risk or required much other than instinct.

I remember the incident. I was in my senior year at UC Berkeley at the time. Now, recall that we'd left Vietnam a year earlier, so the war-related protests involving flag burning were long over. So, who knows what these yo-yo's were protesting? Gerald Ford?? And, with my long-haired, bell-bottom wearing Berkeley attitude, I remember thinking, "Geez, I woulda kicked their asses on the spot if I was Monday."

But, I agree it was a "good moment." With all the divisiveness of the Vietnam War and the Nixon resignation, patriotism was a little bit on the wane. So, it was special for some event to say, "Hey, with all the self-loathing we've gone through as our government suffered through these two political cataclysms, let's not forget that we've got a history and a creed and a flag -- and there are still lines you do not cross." Rick expressed that emotion on that day in a way that resonated well. Good on him.