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Today in baseball history:
- 1885 – A new rule is adopted stating that the pitcher must “do all his throwing to bases before he has taken his stride as if to pitch ball.”
- 1891 – Albert Spalding retires from active participation in the affairs of the Chicago Colts club and the National League . James A. Hart will assume the club presidency.
- 1934 – In New Orleans, Louisiana Mildred Didrickson (Babe Zaharias) pitches again, this time for the New Orleans Pelicans against a split squad of the Cleveland Indians. She throws two scoreless innings and lines out in her only plate appearance. In nearby Lafayette, manager Walter Johnson pitches for the other Cleveland squad against the minor league Kansas City Blues.
- 1935 – The Yankees purchase pitcher Pat Malone from the Cubs. Malone had led the N.L. in wins in 1929 and 1930, but Malone will only post a 19-13 record with the Yankees for the next three seasons.
- 1951 – Hall of Fame player/manager Eddie Collins dies in Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of 63. Collins batted .333 and stole 744 bases over a 25-year career, and batted .328 in six World Series with the Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Athletics.
- 1962 – Elvin Tappe is named as the Chicago Cubs’ first “head coach” of the season in team’s college of coaches plan. Chicago hasn’t had a manager since 1960.
- 1985 – An Illinois judge rules that state and city laws effectively banning night baseball at Chicago’s Wrigley Field are constitutional. After being forced to give up a home game during the 1984 NLCS (** note below), and threatened with playing future postseason games at another stadium in order to accommodate network television’s prime-time schedules, the Cubs had sued to overturn the laws.
- 2008 – Opening Day in Major League Baseball is held in the Tokyo Dome. The game was put in doubt earlier in the month when the Red Sox planned to “strike” due to disagreements with MLB over payment for coaches who make the trip. Daisuke Matsuzaka battles control problems, walking five, and allows two runs in five innings in a homecoming of sorts. In the sixth inning, Manny Ramirez hits a two-run double off Joe Blanton to tie the score and Brandon Moss singles him in for the lead. Oakland retakes the lead, 4-3, entering the 9th. Moss then delivers more heroics with one out in the ninth, homering off A’s closer Huston Street to tie the score. Hideki Okajima tosses a scoreless bottom of the inning for the win. In the 10th, Ramirez hits a two-run, two-out double off Street for a 6-4 lead. Oakland scores once off Jonathan Papelbon in the 10th, but he hangs on for the save.
- 2011 – Blue Jays OF Corey Patterson is sent to the hospital when he is hit in the head by a Daniel Bard fastball during a Grapefruit League game with the Boston Red Sox in Fort Myers, FL.
Cubs Birthdays: Frank Dwyer, Bill Carney, Polly McLarry, Denver Grigsby, Jim Ellis, Jeff Kunkel, Scott Sanders, Neal Cotts, Pete Crow-Armstrong*. Also notable: Tom Glavine HOF.
Today in history:
- 31 – First Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus.
- 421 – Friday at 12 p.m. — City of Venice founded.
- 1306 – Robert the Bruce crowned Robert I, King of Scots, having killed his rival John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch.
- 1655 – Astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovers Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
- 1857 – Frederick Laggenheim takes the first photo of a solar eclipse.
- 1882 – 1st demonstration of pancake making, held at a department store in NYC.
- 1919 – Woodrow Wilson’s dream of a League of Nations becomes a reality after the League Covenant is adopted at the Paris Peace Conference.
- 1954 – RCA manufactures the first color TV set (12½” screen at $1,000).
- 2019 – NASA cancels a planned historic all-female spacewalk because it doesn’t have enough spacesuits to fit women.
*pictured.
**this turns out to be untrue. Click the link.
