Chicago Cubs history unpacked, May 13

Free of charge for the discerning reader.

Happy birthday to Eli Morgan, and a mighty host of others.

Today in baseball history is a story that is so good, so nice it shouldn’t be buried amongst the ther stories. In 1947 – Larry Miggins hits the first of his two major league home runs, going deep off Preacher Roe in the fourth inning of the Cardinals’ 14-8 loss to the Dodgers at Ebbets Field. The round-tripper hit by the Bronx-born outfielder, who had once shared his dream of playing in the big leagues

during a prep school assembly with a buddy with aspirations to be a baseball broadcaster, is called by an overwhelmed Vin Scully, Brooklyn’s play-by-play announcer who had wondered that day with his friend “what the odds against that would be.” And enjoy the other stories as well.

Today in baseball history:

• 1911 – Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers hits his first grand slam. After six innings, Detroit leads the Boston Red Sox, 10 – 1. Boston comes back to win the game, 13- 1, in 10 innings.
• 1911 – The New York Giants score a major league record ten runs before the St. Louis Cardinals retire the first batter in the 1st inning. Fred Merkle drives in six of the Giants’ 13 runs in the first en route to a 19-5 victory. When Giants manager John McGraw decides to save starting pitcher Christy Mathewson for another day, Rube Marquard enters the game in the 2nd inning and sets a record for relievers (since broken) with 14 strikeouts in his eight-inning appearance.
• 1923 – Joe Sewell of the Cleveland Indians strikes out twice in one game for the first time in his career. Washington Senators rookie Cy Warmoth is the pitcher. In a 14-year career, Sewell will have only one other multiple strikeout game.
• 1947 – A barrage of racial slurs is directed at Jackie Robinson by the Cincinnati fans at Crosley Field. Brooklyn shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a Southerner from Kentucky, puts his arm around his teammate’s shoulder in support
• 1954 Robin Roberts gives up a HR then retires next 27 men in a row
• 1955 – At Yankee Stadium, Mickey Mantle hits home runs from both sides of the plate for the first time in his major league career. The New York Yankees slugger finishes the game with three home runs — two left-handed and one right-handed — and drives in all of his team’s runs in a 5-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers. Whitey Ford is the winning pitcher and Steve Gromek the loser.
• 1958 – Teammates Willie Mays and Daryl Spencer each have four extra-base hits as San Francisco beats the Dodgers in Los Angeles, 16-9. Mays hits two home runs, two triples, a single and drives in four runs, and Spencer has two home runs, a triple, a double and six RBI for a combined 28 total bases. The Ginats set a record with a total of 50 total bases in the game.
• 1958 – Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals collects his 3,000th career hit with a pinch double off Chicago Cubs pitcher Moe Drabowsky at Wrigley Field. The Cardinals win, 5-3.
• 1969 – Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs reaches the 1,500 runs batted in milestone with seven RBI in a 19 – 0 shellacking of the expansion San Diego Padres. Hard-throwing right-hander Dick Selma earns the win as the Cubs tie a modern-day record for the most one-sided shutout in National League history.
• 1976 – For the sixth consecutive game, George Brett of the Kansas City Royals collects at least three hits.
• 1981 – Don Sutton twirls a five-hit shutout to blank St. Louis, 3-0. It is the 53rd whitewash of the Astros hurler’s career.
• 1982 – The Chicago Cubs win game No. 8,000 in their history with a 5-0 shutout of Houston at the Astrodome. Allen Ripley and Lee Smith combine on the blanking.
• 1983 – Reggie Jackson became the first batter to strike out 2,000 (or about four years in the majors now)
• 1988 – Glenn Davis drives in four as Houston pounds the Cubs, 8-2. Nolan Ryan tosses his first complete game in over two years, fanning eleven. Davis leads the league in RBIs (33) .
• 1989 – Kirby Puckett of the Minnesota Twins ties a major league record with four doubles against the Toronto Blue Jays. He becomes the 35th player to hit four doubles in a game, the first since Toronto’s Damaso Garcia in 1986.
• 1993 – George Brett of the Kansas City Royals hits his 300th career home run in the sixth inning of a 7-3 victory over the Cleveland Indians. Brett is only the sixth major league player with at least 3,000 hits and 300 home runs.
• 1995 – As of today, Tony Gwynn has hit .402 in his last 162-game stretch.
• 2009 – Alfonso Soriano hits his 53rd leadoff homer as the Chicago Cubs defeat the Padres, 6-4, in a rain-shortened game. Soriano’s blast ties Craig Biggio for second on the all-time list, still well behind record holder Rickey Henderson at 81; it also breaks the Cubs record held by Jimmy Ryan, as it is Soriano’s 21st such homer since joining the team in 2006.
• 2015 – Last year’s AL Cy Young Award winner, Corey Kluber of the Indians, finally gets his first win of the year after starting off 0-5. He strikes out 18 Cardinals batters and allows only one hit over eight innings to lead Cleveland to a 2-0 win. The 18 strikeouts tie a club record set by Bob Feller in 1938 and are the most by any American League pitcher since Roger Clemens also struck out 18 in 1998.
• 2023 – By striking out Brice Turang and Joey Wiemer of the Brewers in the fifth inning, Zack Greinke becomes only the fifth pitcher in major league history to have struck out 1,000 different batters in his career. The veteran Royals hurler, who is in his 20th season, joins Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens in the exclusive club.

Cubs Birthdays: Eli Morgan,* Willson Contreras, Mychal Givens, Terry Hughes, Terry Hughes.

Today in history:

• 1607 – English colonists led by John Smith establish Jamestown at a second landing near the James River in Virginia – first permanent English settlement in North America.
• 1846 – US Congress votes in favor of President James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico over border disputes.
• 1878 – Danvers State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, opens and later serves as inspiration for Arkham Sanitorium in the work of H.P. Lovecraft, which in turn inspires Arkham Asylum of the D.C. Batman universe.
• 1905 – World heavyweight boxing champion James J. Jeffries retires undefeated after 7 title defences; returns in 1910 to be beaten by Jack Johnson.
• 1940 – Winston Churchill says “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” in his first speech as Prime Minister to the British House of Commons.
• 1966 – The Rolling Stones release “Paint it Black” single in the UK.
• 1977 – Howard Stern begins his professional broadcasting career at WRNW radio in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
• 1981 Pope John Paul II is shot and critically wounded by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Ağca in St Peter’s Square, Vatican City.
• 1989 – After weeks of unsuccessful attempts between the demonstrators and the Chinese government to find a peaceful resolution, the Chinese government initiated martial law in late May and deployed troops to occupy the square on the night of 3 June in what is referred to as the Tiananmen Square massacre.

*pictured.