September 28 · This Day in America
At nine o'clock on the night of September 28, 1846, a merchant named Eben Frost stumbles into the Boston dental office of William T. G. Morton, half-mad with a toothache, begging to be mesmerized. Instead Morton holds a handkerchief soaked in ether to his face. Frost breathes, drifts off, and wakes to find the tooth already on the floor — and no memory of pain at all. For all of human history, surgery had meant being held down and screaming. In one quiet office, on one ordinary patient, that ended. Within weeks Morton would demonstrate ether before surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the discovery raced around the world. Pain, the oldest companion of medicine, was no longer the price of healing. It is hard now to imagine the gift of it: to sleep, to wake, to be whole.
Source: www.ebsco.com
Also on this day · 1960
On September 28, 1960, at a two-thirds-empty Fenway Park, 42-year-old Ted Williams steps to the plate for the last time and drives Jack Fisher's pitch into the right-center bullpen — home run number 521, in his final swing in the major leagues. The crowd roars for him to come out and tip his cap. He never does. He runs the bases head down, disappears into the dugout, and that is that. John Updike, in the stands, called it perfect.
Source: sabr.org
“Gods do not answer letters.”John Updike, "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," 1960