Kevin Oklobzija

@kevinoDandC

For 67 years, the Rochester Press-Radio Club Day of Champions Dinner has been a cornerstone of the local banquet scene as a fund-raiser for children's charities.

The biggest names in sport have been honored, from Ben Hogan, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Jim Brown with the Hickok Belt, to Walter Payton, Joe Montana, Arnold Palmer and Cal Ripken Jr. with the Rochester Coca-Cola Sports Personality Award.

And then there was 1999, the year that the Day of Champions nearly became the Night of Dishonor, thanks to former New York Yankees pitcher David Wells.

Except Muhammad Ali saved the night, simply out of the goodness of his heart. Ali died Friday. He was 74.

Just three days before that dinner in 1999, Wells phoned Press-Radio Club officials to say he couldn't make it. His girlfriend was ill, he said. This was on Jan. 22. The dinner was on the 25th.

Sorry about that.

"Obviously the club was left in a lurch," said Scott Pitoniak, a club member for 29 years and a volunteer on the board of directors for more than 15 years.

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali dies at 74

Word of Wells' cancellation spread quickly. Rochester is very much a Yankees town, and the Bronx Bombers were coming off a World Series championship. In the neighborhood of 1,200 tickets had been sold for the dinner, with Wells as the driving force.

But fate is funny, sometimes. Among the guest of honors that year was world renowned photographer Howard Bingham. He would be receiving the Eastman Kodak Vision Award.

And he just happened to have a pretty famous best friend: Ali.

Bingham heard Wells backed out so he made a call to Ali. The world's most famous athlete said he'd love to come. Kodak then sent its private jet to South Bend, Indiana, and flew Ali to Rochester the night before the dinner.

Few knew. So when Bingham walked to the podium to accept his award, he made the surprise introduction and the 57-year-old Ali, slowed by Parkinson's disease, appeared from behind the curtains and walked to the dais.

"All of a sudden Ali walks out and the place goes nuts," said Gordon Lennox of Rochester. "It was amazing. He even shadow-boxed a little."

The crowd no longer cared that they had been jilted by some Yankees pitcher.

Ali thrilled local fans on many occasions

Over and over on the microphone Bingham said, "David who?"

Indeed. Ali charged no appearance fee; he just showed up to help. And Wells eventually refunded his up-front fee of $16,000. Plus, the charities benefited greatly because Ali donated a pair of signed boxing gloves. Gunther Buerman, then a partner in the Pittsford-based law firm Harris Beach and a co-founder of American Rock Salt in Retsof, placed the winning bid of $11,000.

"Ali saved the day," Pitoniak said.

KEVINO@gannett.com