Cards and vintage stuff: September 24-27, 1968

This somber-looking matchbook was produced for the New Jersey State Funeral Directors' Association Convention in 1968. The funeral directors met in Atlantic City and elected Mildred Damiano of Irvington as President, the first woman to be elected to the post.

The Presidential election was also the major focus of international news. Hubert Humphrey, trailing Richard Nixon by 17% in the polls, proposed a series of televised debates with Richard Nixon, recalling Nixon's difficulties in that area in 1960. Nixon declined. Meanwhile, a Republican filibuster successfully prevented Lyndon Johnson's Supreme Court pick, Abe Fortas, from being confirmed. The empty seat would go to a Republican, Warren Burger, in 1969. Political leaders were in the news elsewhere as well. The Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Salazar, was formally removed from office while he was in a coma caused by a stroke. In Burma, Thakin Than Tun, Chairman of the Communist Party, was assassinated by a government agent.

In baseball, the team closest to Atlantic City, the Philadelphia Phillies, was winding up a 7th-place season with games against the Cardinals and Mets. They won in St. Louis on the 24th, lost on the 25th, and won in New York on the 27th. Gary Sutherland was the Phillies' hitting hero all three games. He hit a tie-breaking double in the top of the 9th on the 24th to give the Phils a 2-1 win. In the loss on the 25th he had three hits and scored two runs. And on the 27th at Shea Stadium, he led off the top of the 11th with a double, eventually scoring the winning run on a single by Cookie Rojas.