What is the story about?
Free
of charge for the discerning reader. The 50th Aaron anniversary and other stories. Happy birthday, Lendy Castillo.
Today in baseball history:
- 1909 – While at spring training, Hal Chase of the New York Highlanders contracts smallpox. The entire team is vaccinated and quarantined while traveling north.
- 1933 – Prior to a pre-season contest in New York, and exactly one week before Schoolboy Rowe’s official major league debut, the highly touted Tigers pitching prospect launches a batting practice bomb into the Polo Grounds’ center-field bleachers, a feat never before performed since the stadium’s 1923 reconfiguration. It will be more than 15 years — July 18, 1948, to be precise — before Rowe’s feat is finally matched in the course of a game, by Negro Leaguer Luke Easter, and roughly 20 — i.e. April 29, 1953 — before its first major league version, courtesy of Joe Adcock.
- 1963 – The Detroit Tigers claim little-known pitcher Denny McLain on waivers from the Chicago White Sox, who will regret their decision. After pitching brief stints for the Tigers in 1963 and 1964, McLain will win 108 games from 1965 through 1969.
- 1966 – At the Astrodome, the Astros and Dodgers play baseball’s first game on synthetic grass. Thanks to the Monsanto chemical company, who proposed using an experimental playing surface of nylon grass, the plan to play on an all-dirt field, necessitated by the need to paint the dome’s glass panes to reduce the glare which prevented natural grass from growing, was alleviated by the use of ‘AstroTurf.’
- 1970 – As partial compensation for the loss of Curt Flood, who refuses to report to Philadelphia, the Cardinals send minor league prospect Willie Montanez to the Phillies. The former St. Louis outfielder takes exception to being traded without his consent, ultimately appealing his challenge of the reserve clause, unsuccessfully, to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- 1974 – In the fourth inning of the Braves home opener against the Dodgers, Hank Aaron* of the Atlanta Braves blasts a historic home run at Fulton County Stadium, breaking Babe Ruth’s career all-time record. The 715th home run of Aaron’s career comes against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing and results in a game-delaying celebration. Aaron will finish his career with a total of 755 home runs.
- 1975 – Frank Robinson makes his debut as major league baseball’s first ‘official’ black manager. Rachel Robinson, the widow of Jackie Robinson, throws out the ceremonial first pitch before a crowd of 56,204. As the player-manager of the Cleveland Indians, Frank Robinson hits a home run in his first at-bat, helping Cleveland to a 5-3 victory over the New York Yankees. For Robinson, it is his eighth Opening Day home run, setting a major league record which will later be tied by Ken Griffey and Adam Dunn.
- 1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers vice-president Al Campanis is fired after he made racist remarks on national TV two days earlier. Campanis suggested that Black people lacked the “necessities” to become managers or executives.
- 1991 – Major league umpires strike on Opening Day, and amateur umpires are used as replacements. The arbiters, whose working agreement expired on December 31st, will settle and return to work the next day. Among the benefits won by the Major League Umpires Association is an increase in starting salaries from $41,000 to $60,000.
- 2003 – At Wrigley Field, a few of the 29,138 patrons at the Cubs opener boo when the Canadian national anthem, “O’ Canada,” is performed before the game against the Expos. The Chicago fans reaction comes as a result of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” being booed before an Islanders-Canadiens hockey game in Montreal due to some of their fans’ opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq.
- 2008 – An emotional Bill Buckner returns to Fenway Park for the first time in more than a decade to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Red Sox home opener. The beleaguered former Boston first baseman, best known for letting Mookie Wilson’s grounder roll between his legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, receives a heartfelt standing ovation from the stunned crowd as he slowly walks from left field to the pitcher’s mound.
- 2010 – Randy Wells, one of the National League’s top rookie pitchers in 2009, picks up where he left off, pitching six shutout innings in leading the Cubs to their first win of the season, a 2-0 blanking of the Braves and fellow sophomore Tommy Hanson. Tyler Colvin and Marlon Byrd hit solo homers for the game’s only runs.
Cubs birthdays: John Peters, Henry Lynch, Kirby Higbe, Alex Gonzalez, Eric Patterson, Lendy Castillo. Also notable: Catfish Hunter HOF, Gary Carter HOF.
Today in History:
- 1232 – Mongol army under General Subedei begins the siege of Chinese Jin capital of Kaifeng – First occasion gunpowder used in a major engagement.
- 1766 – First fire escape patented, wicker basket on a pulley & chain.
- 1783 – Catherine II of Russia annexes the Crimea.
- 1820 – The famous ancient Greek statue, Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Milos.
Thanks for reading. À bientôt.
* pictured
