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This Day in All Teams History
June 12th

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32 Fact(s) Found
1839 Due to an erronous eye-witness account, Abner Doubleday is given credit for establishing the first baseball game is played in America. The Hall of Fame, which opens a century later in Cooperstown, celebrates the orgin of our national pastime in this small upstate New York town although it is doubtful the West Point cadet was ever there or ever watched a baseball game.
1880 At the Worcester Agriculture Fairgrounds, Lee Richmond pitches the first perfect game beating Cleveland, 4-0. The 23-year old rookie southpaw threw a no-hitter in a collegiate exhibition against the White Stockings last season
1907 Eight different Highlanders commit a total of eleven errors en route to a 16-4 loss to Detroit. Shortstop Kid Elberfeld commits four of the fielding miscues in the contest played in New York's American League Park.
1928 Lou Gehrig collects fourteen total bases to lead the Yankees to a 15-7 win over the White Sox; the New York first baseman blasts two triples and two homers.
1939 With much of its funding provided by the Clark Foundation, a charitable organization established by the Singer Sewing Machine Company, the Baseball Hall of Fame is dedicated in Cooperstown, the site selected due to an erroneous report made that claimed Abner Doubleday had invented the game in the small town located in upstate New York. Players selected from the first four Hall of Fame induction elections are enshrined as its first members.
1939 In front of a record crowd of 23,864 fans at Ruppert Stadium, Lou Gehrig plays his last game as a Yankee during an exhibition game against the Kansas City Blues, their AA farm team. Playing only three innings and batting eighth, the' Iron Horse' grounds out weakly to second base in his only at-bat.
1940 In a trade which stuns the baseball world, the Dodgers obtain Ducky Medwick and pitcher Curt Davis from the Cardinals for outfielder Ernie Koy, pitcher Carl Doyle, two minor leaguers and $125,000. The deal signals the emergence of Brooklyn as a serious contender.
1941 The Braves break up the Waners' brother act sending Lloyd, known as 'Little Poison', to the Reds for pitcher Johnny Hutchings. 'Big Poison' Paul, the older sibling will stay in Boston.
1948 After piloting the team for 13 seasons, Charlie Grimm ends his tenure as the Braves manager by splitting a doubleheader with the Cubs. The 19,802 fans in attendance at Braves Field give the skipper, who will stay in the organization as Boston's vice-president, a long standing ovation when he takes up his position in the third base coaching box for the last time.
1954 Braves' right-hander Jim Wilson beats future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts when he no-hits the Phillies, 2-0. The one hour and forty-three minute at County Stadium contest, the major league's only no-no this season, is the first for the franchise since the team relocated from Boston following the 1952 season.
1954 The Indians (35-17) move into first place when Bob Feller gets his 2,500th career strikeout in the Tribe's 4-3 victory over Boston at Fenway Park. Rapid Rob will finish his 18-year major league career striking out 2,581 hitters, an average of more than six batters a game.
1957 Playing in his 823rd consecutive-game, Stan Musial breaks the National League record for endurance. The previous mark was set by Pirates first baseman Gus Suhr in 1937.
1957 Eddie Mathews hits his 200th career home run in the Braves' 11-9 loss to Brooklyn at Ebbets Field. The Milwaukee third baseman is the second youngest player to reach the plateau, being 98 days older than Mel Ott, who accomplished the feat at the age of 25 years and 144 days.
1959 Despite giving up a hit in the bottom of the sixth in the Giants' 3-0 victory over Philadelphia, Mike McCormick is credited with a no-hitter when the game is rained out and the inning is never completed statistically erasing the hit. The right-hander's five-inning rain-shortened no-no will be taken out of the record book due to a rule change in 1991 that mandates a game must last for at least nine innings for the hitless effort to be called an official no-hitter.
1967 In his ninth at bat, All-star backstop Paul Casanova, after catching the entire game and going 0-for-8, ends the 22-inning contest when he singles to left field scoring Hank Allen with the winning run in the Senators' 6-5 victory over the White Sox at D.C. Stadium. The six hours, 38 minutes marathon, which ends at 2:43 in the morning, results in American League adopting a curfew stating that no inning may begin an hour after midnight.
1970 Dock Ellis throws a 2-0 no-hitter against the Padres in San Diego during the first game of a twin bill. The former Pirates' right-hander, who became an adovocate of anti-drug programs, claims he was under the influence of LSD while tossing the most memorable game in his carreer.

1979 The Mets enjoy the most productive inning in franchise history when ten runners cross the plate in the sixth fame of their 12-6 victory over the Reds at Shea Stadium. The highlight of the double-digit deluge is Doug Flynn's three-run inside-the-park home run.
1979 The Tigers hire Sparky Anderson as their new manager replacing the recently fired Les Moss. The former Cincinnati skipper will spend 17 seasons in Detroit compiling a 1331-1248 record and will capture a World Championship in 1984.
1981 Major League Baseball experiences its first in-season work stoppage. The strike, a precursor to the future, will be responsible for canceling thirteen regular-season games.
1983 Recently-elected Hall of Famers Charlie Gehringer and Hank Greenberg have their uniform numbers retired by the Tigers in a pre-game ceremony. The digits #2 and #5 respectively will join Al Kaline's #6 (1980) as the only numbers retired in franchise history.

1983 Before the game against the Giants, Dale Murphy visits with a six-year old in the stands who recently lost both arms and a leg due a power line accident and is asked by the girl's nurse if he could hit a home run for the injured child. The outfielder modestly answers "Well, Okay", and then proceeds to hit two homers in the 3-2 Braves victory at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
1988 Mike Scott's attempt for his second career no-hitter is spoiled with two outs in the ninth inning by a Braves infielder Ken Oberkfell's line drive single down the right field line. The right-hander, who settles for a 5-0 one-hitter, tossed a no-no in 1986 which clinched the National League West division for the Astros.
1990 Cal Ripken plays in his 1,308th consecutive game moving into second-place on the all-time list ahead of former Yankee and Red Sox shortstop Everett Scott (1918-1925).
1996 Due to questionable comments about Hitler, Reds owner Marge Schott is forced to relinquish her role as managing general partner for two years.
1997 After 126 years of major league play, the first interleague game in history is played when the Giants defeat the Rangers, 4-3, at the Ballpark in Texas. Glenallen Hill becomes the National League's first regular season designated hitter.
1999 In a 22-1 inter-league rout of the Braves, Cal Ripken becomes the first Oriole to go 6-for-6 as Baltimore scores the most runs in their franchise history. The team, as the St. Louis Browns, had set the previous mark on Aug. 18, 1951 tallying twenty times.
2001 The pitching poor Rangers trade backup backstop Doug Mirabelli to the Red Sox for Double-A Trenton right-handed pitcher Justin Duchscherer (6-3, 2.44). Mirabelli will help fill the void created last week when Boston's starting catcher Jason Varitek broke his right elbow.
2002 In the third inning of the Padres' 2-0 victory over Baltimore at Camden Yards, Brian Lawrence strikes out the side on nine pitches, with only one being a called strike. The 26-year old right-hander becomes the 36th pitcher in baseball history to accomplish the feat when he whiffs Brook Fordyce, Jerry Hairston and Melvin Mora, who all go down swinging.
2004 In inter-league action, Barry Bonds (675) of the Giants and Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro (536 and 537 to pass Mickey Mantle) both homer in a 9-6 San Francisco victory at Camden Yards. The sluggers join Willie Mays and Ernie Banks (1970) and Mays and Hank Aaron (1971) as only the third pair in baseball history to have 500 career home runs and connect in the same game.
2006 After hitting .625 (15-for-24), Joe Mauer is named the American League player of the week. The 23-year old Twins catcher becomes one of the very few players in baseball history to reach base four times in five consecutive games.
2010 During a 10-2 rout of Philadelphia at Fenway Park, Daniel Nava hits a grand slam on the first pitch he sees as a major leaguer. The Red Sox left fielder, recently called up from Triple-A Pawtucket, hits his bases loaded round-tripper in the second inning off Joe Blanton to become only the second player in big league history to accomplish the feat joining Kevin Kouzmanoff, who went yard with the bases juiced with Cleveland in 2004.
2012 Alex Rodriguez ties Lou Gehrig's 74 year-old major league record when he hits his 23rd career grand slam in a 6-4 victory over Atlanta at Turner Field. The Yankee third baseman's historic homer over the left field fence comes off an eighth-inning 3-2 pitch thrown by Jonny Venters, tying the game at 4-4.
32 Fact(s) Found