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Happy birthday to Bill Hands, and a mighty host of others.
Today in baseball history, in 1998, Rookie Kerry Wood ties the ML record with 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game, pitching a one-hitter to lead the Chicago Cubs over the Houston Astros, 2-0. This and other stories are posted as well, including a trio of examples of stellar excellent sportswriting.
Today in baseball history
:- 1915 – Babe Ruth, pitching for the Boston Red Sox, collects three hits, including his first major league home run when he connects off Jack Warhop of the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds.
- 1925 – Ty Cobb hits his fifth home run in two games tying the record set by Cap Anson in 1884.
- 1934 – At Fenway Park, Carl Reynolds, Moose Solters, Rick Ferrell and Bucky Walters hit four consecutive triples for the Boston Red Sox en route to a 14-4 win over the Detroit Tigers.
- 1941 – Hank Greenberg makes his last game before entering the U.S. military a memorable one as he hits two home runs with three RBI helping the Detroit Tigers to a 7-4 victory over the New York Yankees.
- 1953 – Bobo Holloman of the St. Louis Browns pitches a 6-0 no-hitter against the Philadelphia A’s, to become only the third pitcher in majors’ history to fire a no-hitter in his first start. Holloman will win only two more games during a brief one-year career and will never pitch another complete game in the majors.
- 1955 – Roberto Clemente crashes Willie Mays‘s birthday party at the Polo Grounds, by banging a 430-foot triple over the Mays’s head to lead to a 3-2 Pirate win over the Giants. Jesse Abramson of the New York Herald Tribune reports: “Roberto Clemente tripled so far over Mays’ head that even Willie on his charger, shedding the cap, couldn’t catch it…”
- 1958 – Exactly three years later, Roberto Clemente again disrupts Willie Mays‘s birthday, if not quite so dramatically. Bob Stevens of the San Francisco Chronicle reports: “Only a spectacular catch by Clemente on a 400-foot blast by Mays in the sixth with the bases loaded prevented San Francisco from making a genuine rout of the thing.” Circus catch notwithstanding, the Bucs suffered a 7-0 defeat.
- 1960 – As fate would have it, Roberto Clemente‘s first visit to the newly-opened Candlestick Park coincides with the 29th birthday of his one-time mentor Willie Mays, and once again Mays’ student steals the spotlight. While all three Willies – i.e. Mays, McCovey and Kirkland – go deep to power San Francisco‘s 5-1 win over Pittsburgh, it’s Clemente who gets the crowd’s attention with a shot to left center into the teeth of a vicious wind. Arnold Hano, California-based biographer of both Mays and Clemente, witnesses this moment: “Clemente’s bat hit the ball, and the result absolutely clubbed the crowd into awed silence for a long moment. Right into that wet whipping wind the ball carried. Right on through, hit 120 feet high in a long soaring majestic parabola that came down finally over 450 feet away. There is just no way of telling how far Clemente’s home run blast would have traveled had it not been for that wind. Suffice it to say partisan Giant fans suddenly broke their shell-shocked silence and let loose a gigantic roar. For two innings the stadium buzzed. For days the Giants talked about it. Even today if you slip up behind a Giant pitcher and suddenly whisper in his ear: ‘Remember the home run Clemente hit?’ he’s likely to jump as high as if he’d been caught putting spit on baseballs.”
- 1998 – Rookie Kerry Wood ties the ML record with 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game, pitching a one-hitter to lead the Chicago Cubs over the Houston Astros, 2-0. The 20-year-old right-hander ties the record set by Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox in 1986, and matched by Clemens in 1996. Wood also breaks the National League record of 19 strikeouts in a nine-inning game, held by Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver and David Cone, and the rookie record of 18 held by Bill Gullickson.
- 2005 – Preserving a 6-5 win over the Cardinals, Trevor Hoffman becomes the third pitcher in ML history to save 400 games, joining Lee Smith (478) and John Franco (424) to have also reached this milestone.
- 2010 – The Texas Rangers manage to blow an 8-0 lead to the Royals, but come back in dramatic fashion for a wild 13-12 win. Texas scores the tying and winning runs on back-to-back solo homers by Josh Hamilton and Vladimir Guerrero off Royals closer Joakim Soria with two outs in the bottom of the 8th.
- 2012 – Both teams end up having to use position players on the mound when a game between the Orioles and Red Sox goes into extra innings. O’s manager Buck Showalter turns to DH Chris Davis to take the mound in the 16th inning with the score tied at 6-6. Davis gives him a pair of scoreless innings. The Sox turn to OF Darnell McDonald. However, he surrenders a three-run homer to Adam Jones; he then grounds into a double play against Davis to end the game in the bottom of the frame. It is the first time both teams use position players to pitch in the same game since October 4, 1925, when future Hall of Famers George Sisler and Ty Cobb both got to pitch on the last day of the season.
- 2019 – Pablo Sandoval becomes the second MLB player since 1900 to throw a scoreless outing, hit a home run and steal a base in the same game in the Giants’ 12-4 loss in Cincinnati. (Also Christy Mathewson in 1905.)
Cubs Birthdays: Bill Hands*, Tom Baker, Leo Burke. Also notable: Willie Mays
HOF.
Today in history:
- 1626 – Dutch colonist Peter Minuit organizes the purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for 60 guilders worth of goods, believed to be the Canarsee Indians of the Lenape
- 1733 – First international boxing match: Local fighter Bob Whittaker beats “The Venetian Gondolier”, Tito di Carni at James Figg’s academy amphitheatre in Marylebone, London
- 1837 – US blacksmith John Deere creates the first steel plough in Grand Detour, Illinois
- 1851 – Linus Yale Jr. patents the Yale cylinder lock
- 1889 – Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris opens with the recently completed Eiffel Tower serving as the entrance arch; the lifts in the tower are not ready, so intrepid visitors have to climb 1,710 steps to reach the top
- 1937 – German airship Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 of the 97 on board and one on the ground
- 1954 – English athlete Roger Bannister becomes the first to run a sub-4-minute mile, recording 3:59.4 at Iffley Road Track in Oxford
- 1960 – US President Eisenhower signs Civil Rights Act of 1960
- 1994 – Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait sets fire to the guest chair on NBC’s “The Tonight Show”
- 1994 – Nelson Mandela and the ANC, finally confirmed winners in South Africa’s first post apartheid election
*pictured.
