Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A feature column in the Sunday magazine section of The Spokesman- Review attempted to categorize a few distinctive types of Spokane baseball fans:

• Joe Adams, the comic and frivolous fan – He can be heard humorously supplicating to Oswattium, the god of batting, before each pitch.

• Harry Olive, the overly dramatic fan – When things are going poorly he “gives voice to treason, slaughter, devastation, harakiri, earthquake and revolution” as possible reasons for inadequate performance.

• General Smith, the pessimistic fan – He’s an ex-military man who generally worries that whatever can go wrong probably will.

• Doc Frazier, the overly vehement fan – He pounds on the grandstand bench, and, during certain especially suspenseful moments, comes close “to tearing down his section of the grandstand.”

• Dean Hicks, the aggressive fan – He is not violent by nature, but there are certain moments when he advocates “a trifle” of bodily harm, projected “in the general direction of the umpire.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1973: Chicago’s 110-story Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) was topped out after two years of construction, becoming the world’s tallest building for the next 25 years.