This Was a Blowout of Epic Proportions

It was ice hockey’s Foreman-Frazier fight, the 15-0 beating the Detroit Red Wings pinned on the New York Rangers, 55 years ago today in Detroit’s Olympia Stadium.

What would be an equivalent football score, 80-0?

Whatever, there has never been anything like the meltdown that occurred on a night when 10 Red Wing players contributed points and Detroit finished with an eight-goal third period.

New York’s goalie, Ken McAuley, made 43 saves, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Detroit’s Connie Dion handled only nine shots.

The Red Wings’ Syd Howe scored three goals--all in the third period--and three of his teammates had two each.

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In the mid-1950s, Southland horse players couldn’t figure out a filly named Cerise Reine.

She seemed too small to cut it and had exceptionally skinny legs to boot. Yet rarely was she out of the money in mud races.

On this rainy date in 1954, she had the right rider in Santa Anita’s Santa Margarita Handicap--Bill Shoemaker.

“You know the horse, use your best judgment,” trainer Noble Threewitt told Shoemaker just before the race.

Shoemaker kept Cerise Reine out of traffic, let the leaders tire, then spurred his filly past them on the last turn, winning by three lengths.

Also on this date: In 1962, Jackie Robinson became the first African American elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. . . . In 1979, Willie Mays was voted into the Hall of Fame.