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A HUGE Happy birthday to Ross Barnes, who was born in 1850 and played on the 1876 White Stockings (Cubs, hence the photo) and was considered the GOAT of MLB upon his death in 1915, and a mighty host of others.
Today in baseball history: In 1973, Cubs manager Whitey Lockman is ejected during a 12-inning, 3 – 2 win over the Padres. Coach Ernie Banks fills in for the last few innings, technically becoming the major leagues’ first black manager, and other stories
as well.
Today in baseball history:
- 1896 – In the top of the 9th inning, Philadelphia’s Billy Nash starts to argue with the umpire over a called strike. Clark Griffith throws a pitch in the midst of the argument which nicks Nash’s bat, resulting in a double play. Griffith’s quick thinking helps the Chicago Colts take a 5-3 victory.
- 1901 – Amos Rusie makes his first start after a two-year layoff and is bombed, 14-3, by the Cards. After two more appearances, he goes back to digging ditches, having won 245 games in nine years, mostly for the New York Giants.
- 1901 – Boston defeats Philadelphia, 12-4, behind Cy Young. His 33 wins are 41.8 percent of his team’s 79 victories; a post-1900 record, it will stand until Steve Carlton wins 45.8 percent of the Phils’ 59 wins in 1972.
- 1914 – The A’s drive six runs in three innings to force Walter Johnson from the mound. Johnson throws the one and only beanball of his career, a fastball at the head of Frank “Home Run” Baker, a particular nemesis of Johnson’s. The beanball misses Baker, whom Johnson calls “the most dangerous batter that I ever faced.” Baker had hit .385 against the Nats ace up till this game in four seasons; he’ll hit just .207 off him in the next nine years.
- 1947 – A movement among Cardinal players to protest the first meeting with Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers is aborted by a clubhouse talk from owner Sam Breadon, according to a story by writer Stanley Woodward. League president Ford Frick had warned the team that if a strike occurred, any player involved would be suspended. Cardinal manager Eddie Dyer denies there was any strike talk. The Cards win, 5-1.
- 1948 – At Griffith Stadium, Larry Doby pounds a 408-foot homer to center field, which hits the loudspeakers 35 feet high, to help the Indians top the Senators, 6-1. Larry’s ball bounces back onto the field and is initially declared in play. The eighth-inning three-run homer is the longest home run in the Stadium since Babe Ruth‘s shot in 1922, and is the first of Doby’s four career inside-the-park homers.
- 1963 – A Stan Musial home run against the Dodgers gives him 1,357 extra-base hits, surpassing Babe Ruth‘s major league record. He will get 20 more; his record will later be broken by Hank Aaron.
- 1966 – Orioles outfielder Frank Robinson hits the only ball ever completely out of Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. The shot clears the left-field single-deck grandstand‘s rear wall, 451 feet away, going an estimated 541 feet.
- 1966 – In a controversial trade for San Francisco, St. Louis acquires popular 1B Orlando Cepeda from the Giants for P Ray Sadecki. Sadecki will go 3-7 this year, and Cepeda will win the MVP Award for St. Louis in 1967.
- 1973 – Cubs manager Whitey Lockman is ejected during a 12-inning, 3-2 win over the Padres. Coach Ernie Banks fills in for the last few innings, technically becoming the major leagues’ first black manager.
- 1984 – Twins rookie Kirby Puckett hits four singles in his first major league game, helping Minnesota beat the Angels, 5-0. He is the ninth player in history to collect four hits in his first nine-inning game.
- 1985 – Ryne Sandberg‘s homer off Mike Krukow is the only score as Rick Sutcliffe and the Cubs beat the Giants, 1-0.
- 2001 – The Devil Rays edge the Orioles, 4-3, as Tampa Bay’s Fred McGriff joins Mark McGwire, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Eddie Murray and Reggie Jackson as the only players to homer off 300 different pitchers in their career.
- 2001 – Diamondbacks flamethrower Randy Johnson strikes out 20 Reds in Arizona’s 4-3 win over Cincinnati in 11 innings. Johnson gets all 20 in his nine innings of work, but does not officially tie Roger Clemens and Kerry Wood‘s record since the contest goes into extra frames.
- 2010 – Snapping out of what is for him a typical cold start to the season, the Yankees’ Mark Teixeira hits three homers and drives in five runs to lead New York to a 14-3 win over the Red Sox at Fenway Park; he is the second player in Yankee history to hit three long balls in a game against Boston, after Lou Gehrig.
- 2016 – The Cubs decide they are not going to let Bryce Harper beat them and their pitchers walk him a record-tying six times, with his other at-bat resulting in a hit-by-pitch as he does not take even one swing of the bat in the Nationals’ 13-inning, 4-3 loss in Wrigley Field on a walk-off homer by Javier Baez. The strategy works all series, as Harper draws 13 walks, but Chicago sweeps all four games to improve to 24-6 after 30 games.
Cubs Birthdays: Bill Powell, Ross Barnes. Also notable: Turkey Stearnes HOF. Edd Roush HOF. Dan Brouthers HOF.
Today in history:
- 1348 – Ship from Bordeaux carrying the plague, lands in Melcombe Regis (now Weymouth), Dorset. The beginning of the Terrible Pestilence (Black Death) in England.
- 1958 – US President Eisenhower orders National Guard out of Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas.
- 1970 – The Beatles release 12th, and final, studio album, “Let It Be”, in conjunction with the film of the same name.
- 2014 – The world’s oldest astrolabe (mariner’s navigation tool) from circa 1498 is found near Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman, from a Portuguese shipwreck of explorer Vasco da Gama.
- 2025 – Cardinal Robert Prevost (69) is elected as the 267th pope of the Catholic church, the first American to hold the office takes the name of Pope Leo XIV.
*pictured.
