Philly sports on Leap Day: The sad, the offbeat, and the bizarre

It takes 365.25 days for the Earth to rotate around the sun, which – come to think of it – is about the same time as it takes Giannis Antetokounmpo to shoot a free throw.

(Sad trombone.)

But seriously, those .25 days – 6 hours really – for the Earth to rotate is the reason we have Leap Year. Every four years, the geniuses who think this stuff is more important than Sean Couturier’s Corsi rating give us Feb. 29. Otherwise, the calendar would drift, and the stability of our seasons would be lost. So what if it kinda feels like that already.

That extra day also has given us plenty of sports memories. From a huge upset at the Palestra to Doug Collins nearly getting into a brawl, here are some of the more interesting things that have happened in the sporting world on Feb. 29. And below that, some notable people who were born on Leap Day.

1912: The two-time defending World Champion Philadelphia Athletics continued training camp in San Antonio with a pair of intrasquad games. Despite the frigid temperatures, manager Connie Mack was relentless. “Close to the end of the session,” a report in the Inquirer noted, “Chester Emerson severely injured his hip by slipping on some stones in right-center while running after a fly ball.” Emerson played only one game that season and never played again.

1924: West Philly High defeated Roman Catholic with a buzzer-beater by a player identified by the Inquirer only as “Matthews” in front of an overflow crowd in the championship game of the Penn Basketball Tournament at Weightman Hall. Sounds a lot like what happened in the Roman-Ryan game earlier this week at the Palestra, which opened three years AFTER “Matthews” game-winner. 

1932: Reserve outfielder Doug Taitt finally arrived to Phillies training camp in Florida after a cross-country trip from Pasadena, Calif. “We fought coyotes, wrestled panthers and battled bears, for 10 days, but we’re here,” Taitt exclaimed to the Inquirer. “I feel as if I ought to hit .350 this year.” Taitt played in four games in 1932 and didn’t have a hit. 

1944: Northeast Catholic swimmer Joe Verdeur set the U.S. record for the 200-yard freestyle in a dual meet at Haverford School. Verdeur would go on to become an Olympic gold medalist in 1948 and an inductee into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1966. He died in 1991.

1952: Paul Arizin scored a then-career high 40 points as the Warriors drilled Baltimore, 103-86, at Philadelphia Arena (46th & Market). 

1956: Arizin was held to 13 points on 4-for-20 shooting, but the Warriors slipped by Rochester, 86-81 in a game played at Lincoln High School in Northeast Philly.

1960: Wilt Chamberlain was unanimously selected by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year, becoming the first ever to win both awards in the same season. Wilt averaged 37.6 points and 27.0 rebounds as the Warriors improved by 17 wins from the year before.

1964: Oscar Robertson dropped 43 points as the Cincinnati Royals edged the Sixers, 117-114. Oddly, on Feb 29, 1960, Robertson also scored 43 points in a game. That time, he was playing for the University of Cincinnati.

1968: North Catholic coach Jack Friel reinstated his boys basketball varsity team following a three-day suspension for tardiness prior to the Catholic League playoffs. Friel, also the school’s disciplinarian, made national news not only with the suspension, but by using North’s JV team to shock McDevitt, 77-60, in a first round game. It was seen as a victory by the adults of the nation who were tired of the counterculture and messages of peace and love permeating through the nation’s youth. Get off my lawn.

1976: A Sixers win over the Sonics was marred by nasty physical play that included a near fight between Seattle’s Willie Norwood and the Sixers’ Doug Collins.  “He threw an elbow and I pointed to him and told him not to do that again,” Collins explained to The Inquirer. “Then he spit at me. Nobody spits at me. … My son [current Northwestern head coach Chris Collins] doesn’t do that, and he’s 2 years old.” One of the folks who separated Collins and Norwood before things escalated was Seattle coach Bill Russell. Yes, THAT Bill Russell.

1984: The Flyers won in Edmonton, 5-3, holding Oilers superstar Wayne Gretzky to just two assists. (That’s sarcasm, folks.) Gretzky averaged a mind-boggling 2.77 points per game that year with 205 points in 74 games. He had three games of zero points that year, and four where he had at least six.

1992: Wilt Chamberlain was released from a hospital in Inglewood, Calf., after suffering a slightly irregular heart beat. In 1999, Chamberlain died at age 63 of congestive heart failure, according to his agent.

1996: A poll conducted by Baseball America of MLB general managers predicted the Phillies would finish in last place in the National League East. “We have some good arms here and I don’t think we’re going to be nearly as bad as a lot of people seem to think,” general manager Lee Thomas told the Daily News. The Phillies went 67-95 and indeed finished in last place, 29 games behind the Braves.

2000: St. Joe’s stunned 5th-ranked Temple in a Big 5 thriller at the Palestra which ended up costing the Owls a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Owls, the No. 2 in the East that year, lost in the second round to Seton Hall in the “Ty Shine” game.

2000: Allen Iverson shook off a nagging shoulder injury and dropped 35 points in a win over Dallas. Another highlight was fading star Dennis Rodman, who played 19 uneventful minutes for the Mavericks giving up his shoes and jersey to fans before the game even finished. A week later, Dallas waived Rodman, and he never played in the NBA again.

2000: The Blue Jays signed second-year pitcher Roy Halladay to a 3-year, $3.7 million contract. When the Phillies acquired Halladay 9 years later, they signed him to a 3-year, $60 million deal with a player option for a fourth year.

2004: The Sixers beat Minnesota, but Iverson missed the game with a stomach ailment. He had one of his assistants alert the club that he was ailing, which was a violation of team rules and enraged head coach Chris Ford.

2008: The Eagles signed cornerback Asante Samuel, who had been all-pro the year before. Samuel had 23 interceptions in his four seasons for the Eagles, but had a reluctance for tackling, which did not sit well with fans.

2016: Brayden Schenn had a hat trick and Claude Giroux notched four assists as the Flyers beat Calgary, 5-3. “I’ve always believed in myself,” the 24-year-old Schenn said to reporters afterward. “I know it’s a bit slower development than maybe some people thought, but I keep chipping away and try to get better.” Schenn was traded to St. Louis a year later for two first-round picks, which turned out to be Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee.

2016: Villanova officially lost its No. 1 ranking in the AP poll after a loss earlier to Xavier five days prior. That’s OK, though. The Wildcats would go on to win the National Championship exactly five weeks later when Kris Jenkins hit a shot for the ages.

2016: Ish Smith scored 25 points against Washington, but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Sixers from losing their 9th straight. They were 8-52 and would finish 10-72, nearly breaking the ‘72-73 dubious record of 9-73. The Sixers’ starting five on this night in 2016 was Smith, Isaiah Canaan, Robert Covington, Jerami Grant and Nerlens Noel. 

2020: The Sixers did not play on Feb. 29 for the first time since 1972. Led by Joel Embiid (23.3 ppg), they were 37-23 this Leap Day, a 29-game improvement from the same point four years before. 

2020: A.J. Brodeur had 20 points and Jordan Dingle added 17 as Penn picked up a key win against Brown to keep its postseason hopes alive. No one knew, of course, that two weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic would shut the sportsworld down and there would be no postseason tournaments. It was four years ago, but sometimes it feels like 40.

Subhed: Birthday Book

There’ve been thousands of people who’ve played for the Phillies over the years, from Ed Abbaticchio (1887-88) to Jon Zuber (1996-98). But only one, according to the exquisite database Baseball-Reference.com, was born on Feb. 29.

Ralph Miller, a World War I Army veteran, was an infielder for the Phils in 1920-21. He played a total of 154 games for the Phillies, who stopped in his hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind. and played an exhibition  game on “Ralph Miller Day” before a sold-out crowd in 1920. Tickets were $1 for men, 50 cents for women and children.

Miller’s last game as a major-leaguer was Game 7 of the 1924 World Series for the Washington Nationals. He even had a chance to be the hero, but grounded into a double play in the bottom of the ninth. The Nats won it in the 12th anyway, but the franchise wouldn’t win another World Series until 1987 long after they had moved to Minnesota.

Miller served in France during The Great War in what seems to be the equivalent of the Special Services division, according to PHLY research. He was in the service from 1917-19 before signing with the Phillies. 

Miller was 43 when he died at his Fort Wayne home in 1939 following an appendicitis operation. 

Other Feb. 29 birthdays:

Al Clark, born in 1948; played six NFL seasons, his final with the Eagles in 1976. His three career interceptions were off Steve Spurrier, Roger Staubach and Steve Bartkowski.

Vonteego Cummings, born in 1976; played 58 games for the Sixers in 2001-02.

Simon Gagne, born in 1980; played for the Flyers from 1999-2010, and again in 2012-13. He’s 10th in Flyers’ history with 264 goals. 

Tyrese Haliburton, born in 2000; two-time All-Star, no Philly connection, but he is the cousin of former Temple star Eddie Jones.

John Niland, born in 1944; a six-time Pro Bowl offensive lineman, finished his career with the Eagles in 1975.Henri Richard, born in 1936; also no Philadelphia connection, but the best player ever born on Feb. 29.