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Today in baseball history:
- 1903 – The American League formal Opening Day is played at Columbia Park, with the Philadelphia Athletics winning over the Boston Americans, 6-1, before 13,578. Rube Waddell bests Bill Dineen as AL President Ban Johnson presents the 1902 AL Championship pennant to the Athletics.
- 1903 – At American League Park, the New York Highlanders lose their first game to the Washington Senators, 3 – 1, before 11,950 fans. Washington elects to bat first, but the New Yorkers score in the bottom of the opening inning to take a 1-0 lead. Each starter gives up six hits with Jack Chesbro, the National League’s top winner last year (28-6) taking the loss.
- 1908 – In the New York Giants home opener, 25,000 fans watch the Brooklyn Superbas take a 2-1 lead into the ninth inning against Christy Mathewson. But in the bottom, with Fred Tenney on first base, Mike Donlin hits a walk-off home run to give the Giants a 3-2 win.
- 1914 – At age 19, Babe Ruth plays his first professional game as a pitcher, as he throws a six-hit, 6-0 shutout for the Baltimore Orioles over the Buffalo Bisons in the International League. Ruth is 2 for 4 at the plate in addition to his great pitching.
- 1931 -Seventeen years later, Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees collides with Charlie Berry, Boston Red Sox catcher and former pro football player, while trying to score on a sacrifice fly. Ruth is carried off the field at Fenway Park and taken to a hospital.
- 1934 – Lon Warneke of the Chicago Cubs pitches his second consecutive one-hitter, beating the St. Louis Cardinals and Dizzy Dean, 15-2, at Sportsman’s Park.
- 1947 – Al Zarilla‘s single in the seventh inning is the only hit off Bob Feller as the Indians beat the Browns, 5-0, at Cleveland Stadium.
- 1959 – The Chicago White Sox, down 6-1 after two innings, score 11 runs with only one hit in the seventh inning of a 20-6 rout of the Kansas City Athletics. Johnny Callison has the hit – a single. In the inning, Chicago is the recipient of ten walks – five with the bases loaded – three Kansas City errors and one hit batsman. Nellie Fox collects five RBI, including two in the inning, both times by walking. He also goes 4 for 5 in the game, while Luis Aparicio is 3 for 4, including a three-run home run, and scores four runs.
- 1959 – At Griffith Stadium, Whitey Ford of the New York Yankees pitches a 14-inning, 1-0 shutout against the Washington Senators, giving up eight hits while striking out 15. The Yankees win in the first half of the 14th inning on a Moose Skowron solo home run.
- 1969 – In his first major league start, Rollie Fingers of the Oakland Athletics shuts out the Minnesota Twins, 7-0, at Metropolitan Stadium, stopping Minnesota’s seven-game winning streak.
- 1970 – Tom Seaver of the New York Mets strikes out the last ten batters he faces in a 2-1 victory against the San Diego Padres. Seaver gives up only two hits and finishes with a total of 19 strikeouts, tying Steve Carlton‘s major league record. The ten consecutive strikeouts are a record that will be tied, but not bettered.
- 1975 – Billy Williams of the Oakland A’s becomes the first player to collect the only hit for his team in five games, having the team’s only two hits in a 2-1 loss against Fergie Jenkins of the Rangers. Williams also had the only hits while playing for the Chicago Cubs on September 24, 1961; July 5, 1966; September 5, 1969; and July 25, 1970. César Tovar and Eddie Milner will later join Williams as the only other players to achieve this particular feat.
- 1985 – The Minnesota Twins collect 16 hits in a 9-5 victory over the Seattle Mariners. In the fourth inning, Kirby Puckett hits a three-run home run, his first homer in the majors, off Matt Young. After no homers last year, Puckett will hit four homers this season before blossoming into a power hitter with 31 next year.
- 2008 – John Smoltz becomes the 16th major league pitcher to strike out 3,000 batters. The 40-year-old Braves hurler gets Felipe Lopez swinging on a 2-2 offering in the 3rd for his 3,000th K. He is the sixth-quickest to the mark in terms of innings pitched (3,386). Smoltz fans ten in seven innings in this win, showing that age has not yet caught up to him.
- 2014 – Albert Pujols becomes the 26th member of the 500 Home Run Club as he goes deep twice against Taylor Jordan of the Washington Nationals, in the 1st and 5th innings. He is the first member of the fraternity to hit No. 499 and No. 500 in the same game.
Cubs Birthdays: Mickey Morandini*, Terry Francona, Fabian Kowalik, Taylor Douthit, Bob Smith.
Today in history:
- 1692 – Edward Bishop is jailed for proposing flogging as a cure for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts
- 1823 – British inventor Robert John Tyers patents an in-line roller skate he calls the “Volito” with a single row of five wooden wheels, a wooden sole, and a curved iron bar at the front as a rudimentary brake.
- 1884 – Thomas Stevens leaves San Francisco on the first bicycle trip around the world, which takes him 2 years and 9 months
- 1889 – A 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for white colonial settlement in Oklahoma officially starts at 12pm (The Oklahoma Land Run)
- 1934 – US Division of Investigation (later the FBI) under Melvin Purvis botch an operation to capture the John Dillinger Gang at Little Bohemia Lodge, Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, with 2 dead and 4 injured
- 1966 – The Troggs second single “Wild Thing” released; tops the charts in July
- 1979 – The Rolling Stones play two benefit concerts for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, in Oshawa, Ontario; performance part of guitarist Keith Richards’ heroin conviction sentence
- 1994 – World’s largest lollipop, weighing 3,011 pounds, made by BonBon, a candy factory in Home-Olstrup, Denmark; record later broken.
*pictured.
