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This Day in Baseball History
September 3rd

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51 Fact(s) Found
1894 Connie Mack, taking over for the fired skipper Ned Hanlon, leads the Pirates to a 22-1 rout of his former team, the Washington Senators. The triumph will be the Tall Tactician's first of the major league record-setting 3,731 victories he will collect as a manager with Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia A's during his 53 years in the dugout.
1906 The Philadelphia Giants, with Rube Foster on the mound, complete a five-game sweep of the Cuban X-Giants with a 3-2 victory, winning the first Freihofer Cup, named after league president William Freihofer. The Negro Championship game attracts 12,000 fans to Philly's Columbia Park, the largest crowd ever to watch a black baseball game.

1917 Grover Cleveland Alexander goes the distance in both games of the Phillies' doubleheader sweep of Brooklyn at Ebbets Field. In his 18 innings of work, the Philadelphia right-hander limits the Dodgers to seven hits en route to posting 5-0 and 9-3 victories in the twin bill.
1928 Ty Cobb collects the last hit of his career as a pinch-hitter, doubling off right-hander Bump Hadley in the A's 6-1 loss to the Senators at Griffith Stadium. The 41-year-old 'Georgia Peach' will end his playing days, establishing the major league record for hits with 4,191, which remains until Pete Rose surpasses it in 1985.
1936 Luke Appling's 27-game hitting streak is snapped by Wes Ferrell when the Red Sox right-hander goes the distance, holding the White Sox shortstop hitless in four plate appearances, including two bases-on-balls, in Chicago's 3-2 victory at Fenway Park. The 29-year-old infielder establishes a franchise record for consecutive games with a hit and will lead the American League with a .388 batting average this season.
1947 Tommy Henrich and Joe DiMaggio lead the way with four safeties each when the Yankees collect eighteen hits in their 11-2 rout of the Red Sox. Each of the Bronx Bombers' hits in the Fenway Park contest is a single.
1947 At Shibe Park, A's right-hander Bill McCahan throws a no-hitter as a rookie, beating the Senators, 3-0. The WW II test pilot, the seventh freshman in baseball history to toss a hitless gem, will hurt his arm lifting barrels of oil in his offseason job, cutting short his promising baseball career due to the injury.
1953 South Bend Blue Sox right-hander Jean Faut tosses a perfect game, beating the Kalamazoo Lassies, 4-0, to become the only professional pitcher in history to accomplish the feat twice. The AAGPBL Player of the Year, who also didn't allow a Rockford Peaches batter to reach base in a 1951 contest, will pitch only one more game before retiring at the end of the season.
1956 In front of the largest regular-season crowd in County Stadium history, the league-leading Braves split a twin bill with the Reds, 5-3 and 5-7. Much to the delight of many of the 47,604 fans attending the Labor Day double-dip, the home team ends the day 3.5 games in front of Cincinnati and the Dodgers, but Milwaukee will finish the season in second place, winning only 11 of 23 of its remaining games.
1957 Braves left-hander Warren Spahn, with his 8-0 whitewashing of the Cubs at Wrigley Field sets a National League mark for shutouts thrown by a southpaw. The future Hall of Famer has held his opponents scoreless 41 times, breaking the record previously shared by Eppa Rixey and Larry French.
1961 Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris become the first teammates to each hit fifty home runs in the same season when 'the Mick' goes deep twice, including a round-tripper in the ninth to tie the score, in the Yankees' 8-5 walk-off victory over Detroit at the Bronx ballpark. Roger Maris, who also blasted a pair of homers against the Tigers yesterday, has hit 53 homers in his pursuit of Babe Ruth's single-season mark of 60.
1962 The expansion Mets are blanked for the 30th time this year, bowing to the Bucs at Forbes Field, 2-0. The Amazins' tie the 1906 Senators for the second-most times a team has been held scoreless, but the 1908 Cardinals' mark of being whitewashed in 33 contests will remain the major league mark.
1963 Ron Santo ties the National League record by a third baseman for errors committed in an inning. The Cub infielder's three miscues in the second frame lead to a seven-run outburst and an eventual 16-3 victory for the Giants at Candlestick Park.
1965 En route to becoming the franchise leader, Jim Hickman becomes the first Met to have a three-homer game, going deep off Cardinal southpaw Ray Sadecki in the second, fourth, and sixth innings in New York’s 6-3 victory at Busch Stadium. With his performance today, the 28-year-old Tennessean surpasses original Met Frank Thomas, who had 52 round-trippers in three seasons with the expansion team.
1967 The Reds intentionally walk Willie McCovey during his first three plate appearances in the Crosley Field contest. Although Cincinnati's two-out strategy works every time, the Giants prevail when Ray Sadecki hurls a three-hit shutout en route to the team's 4-0 victory.
1970 Cubs outfielder Billy Williams asks to be benched, thus ending his National League record for consecutive games at 1,117, a mark Steve Garvey will better in 1983 when he plays in 1,207 straight contests. During the streak, Chicago's future Hall of Famer becomes known as the 'Iron Man,' authoring a book with that title in 1970.
1975 Future Hall of Famer Bob Gibson gives up a grand slam to Chicago's Pete LaCock, the son of Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall. The Cardinal right-hander faces one more batter to end the inning, retiring Don Kessinger on a groundout, and never returns to a big-league mound.
1977 Sadaharu Oh hits his 756th career homer to surpass Hank Aaron as the all-time career home run leader in professional baseball. The Japanese superstar, a 1994 inductee into his country's Hall of Fame, will hit 868 homers during his 22 seasons with the Yomiuri Giants.
1978 At Dodger Stadium, Lee Mazzilli becomes the first Mets player to hit a home run from both sides of the plate in a game. The center fielder's first and seventh-inning blasts, hit off southpaw Tommy John and right-hander Charlie Hough, pace the last-place club to an 8-5 victory.
1981 The Red Sox and the Mariners play nineteen innings to a 7-7 tie. The game ends with the Mariners winning 8-7, thanks to a Joe Simpson RBI triple, in twenty innings when the suspended game is resumed the following day, making it the longest game played in Fenway Park history.
1984 Rick Sutcliffe, in the Cubs' 5-4 victory over Philadelphia at Veterans Stadium, strikes out 15 batters, tying a franchise record shared by Dick Drott (1957) and Burt Hooton (1971). The trio's accomplishment will remain the standard for a nine-inning game until Kerry Wood fans 20 Astros in 1998.
1985 Future Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, with his 525th career round-tripper, becomes the first major leaguer to collect one hundred home runs for three different teams. The California outfielder, who hit 269 during his ten seasons with Oakland and 144 in five years with the Yankees, hits two homers to go over the century mark playing for the Angels in the team's 14-8 loss to Detroit.
1986 After each team scores three times in the seventeenth inning to remain tied, the Astros finally edge the Cubs, 8-7, thanks to Billy Hatcher's home run in the top of the next frame. The Wrigley Field contest, suspended yesterday at the end of the 14th due to darkness, ended with the score knotted at 4-4.
1990 Bobby Thigpen, breaking the mark established by Dave Righetti with the Yankees in 1986, sets a major league record with his 47th save when he pitches a scoreless ninth inning in Chicago's 4-2 defeat of Kansas City at Comiskey Park. The White Sox reliever will save another ten games before the season ends, extending the record to 57.
1994 With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Jackson Generals overcome a 1-0 deficit when Tom Nevers and Jeff Ball hit back-to-back homers at Mississippi's Smith-Wills Stadium. The dramatic decisive Game 5 victory over the Shreveport Captains enables the Astros' AA minor league farm club to capture the Texas League East championship series.
1995 In the Bronx, Tony Fernandez becomes the tenth Yankee to hit for the cycle when he goes 4-for 5 against Oakland. The shortstop will complete the unique feat with a double that will lead to scoring the tying run in the bottom of the ninth inning, but the Bombers will suffer a 10-9 loss when Rickey Henderson goes deep in the top of the tenth frame.
1996 Todd Stottlemyre and the Cardinals beat the Astros at Busch Stadium, 12-5. With his win, the Redbirds' right-hander and his dad Mel set the major league record with 259 victories by a father (164) and son (95), surpassing Dizzy and Steve Trout.
2000 Kenny Lofton's first-inning run ties a 1939 major league record set by the Yankees' Red Rolfe, scoring in his eighteenth consecutive game. The speedy Indian outfielder, besides hitting the game-winning homer in the 13th, also steals five bases, tying Cleveland's single-game record set twice by Alex Cole, once in 1990 and then again in 1992.
2001 In just his 11th start, Cardinal freshman hurler Bud Smith, throwing 134 pitches, no-hits the Padres at Qualcomm Stadium on Labor Day, 4-0. The 21-year-old southpaw becomes the 18th rookie to throw a no-hitter since 1900 to accomplish the feat.

2002 By losing their 15th straight game at Shea Stadium, the Mets pass the dubious mark set by the 1911 Braves to establish a new National League record for consecutive losses at home. The Amazins' did not win one home game in August, finishing the month 0-13 in New York.
2002 Joaquin Benoit, in the Rangers' 7-1 victory at Camden Yards, pitches seven innings of one-hit ball in relief against the Orioles. The Texas reliever's performance is the longest save ever recorded in major league history.
2006 In the opener of a doubleheader at Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia's Ryan Howard belts three home runs, bringing the first baseman's total to 52. The sophomore slugger, the 24th major leaguer to reach the milestone, becomes the first Phillies player to hit 50 homers, passing Ralph Kiner's 51 round-trippers for the Pirates in 1947 for the most homers hit by a second-year player in big-league history.

2006 The Marlins, 11-31 in late May, become the first team since 1899 to reach a .500 record after falling 20 games below the mediocre mark. Their 10-3 victory over the Brewers gets the team even at 68-68, placing the 'Fish' two games behind the Padres in the wild-card standings.
2007 Mets right-hander Pedro Martinez, making his first start of the season, whiffs Reds hurler Aaron Harang to become the 15th major league pitcher to record 3,000 career strikeouts. The three-time Cy Young winner has missed most of the season recovering from rotator cuff surgery.

2007 With a home run against Yankees starter Roger Clemens, Ichiro Suzuki collects his 200th hit for the seventh consecutive year. The Mariner outfielder joins Wee Willie Keeler (Orioles and Brooklyn Grooms/Superbas, 1894-1901) and Wade Boggs (Red Sox, 1983-1989) as the third player to accomplish the feat and will tie Keeler's record of eight straight seasons if he reaches the milestone next year.
2008 Yankee Alex Rodriguez's towering fly ball, which bounces off the Tropicana Field catwalk behind the foul pole in left field, is immediately ruled a home run by Brian Runge. The third base umpire's decision, disputed by Rays catcher Dioner Navarro, proves correct as the men in blue take 2 minutes and 15 seconds to review the video, becoming the first crew to use the new instant-replay system since its implementation last week.
2008 Although the official attendance, based on tickets sold, is announced to be 11,211, fewer than 600 fans attend the Marlins game against Atlanta at Miami's Dolphin Stadium. In contention for most of the season, the Fish beat the Braves on the hot and humid afternoon in Florida, 5-3.
2009 Pedro Martinez, tossing seven innings of one-hit ball at Citizens Bank Park in the Phillies' 2-1 victory over the Giants, becomes the tenth pitcher in major league history to win 100 games in both leagues. The right-hander compiled a 117-37 (.760) record pitching for Boston during his seven-year stint in the American League.
2009 Jorge Posada's homer and four RBIs contribute to the Yankees' 7-5 victory over Toronto at the Rogers Centre. The Bronx backstop's round-tripper makes it the first time the Bronx Bombers have had seven 20-homer players, matching a major league record shared by the 1996 Orioles, 2000 Blue Jays, and 2005 Rangers.
2009 After starting 13 times with two different clubs, Pat Misch's team finally wins a game he starts when the Mets beat the Rockies, 8-3. The former Giants' starter, who earned the Coors Field victory for New York, had tied a dubious mark established over the 1993-94 seasons by Seattle's John Cummings for the longest winless streak endured by a team with the same starter on the mound.
2010 Major League Baseball penalizes six players, both skippers and a coach, following an ugly brawl two days ago between the Nationals and Marlins in Miami, resulting from Chris Volstad throwing at Nyjer Morgan for the second time in the game. The Florida outfielder, who became a target after separating catcher Brett Hayes' shoulder in the previous contest, retaliated to being hit in the fourth by stealing two bases before charging the mound after the sixth-inning incident, setting off the melee.

2010 Stephen Strasburg undergoes reconstructive elbow surgery where Dr. Lewis Yocum takes a piece of the ligament from the 22-year-old right-hander's left leg and transplants it into the rookie's pitching elbow. The 'Tommy John' surgery might keep the Nationals' much-heralded phenom out of the starting rotation until 2012.
2011 Left-handed starter Tom Milone hits a home run on the first pitch he sees in the big leagues. The 24-year-old southpaw's three-run blast gives him a 5-0 lead at the time, but the rookie goes only 4.1 innings in his debut and doesn't get the win in the Nationals' 9-8 victory over New York.

2011 George Kottaras, needing a two-bagger to become the first major leaguer to hit for the cycle this season, strokes an apparent triple but accomplishes the feat when the ball bounces off of Tal's Hill, a 20-degree angled incline located in centerfield, over the fence for an unexpected ground-rule double. The Brewers backstop also hit a solo homer in the fourth, a sixth-inning triple, and singled in the seventh in Milwaukee's 8-4 victory of Houston at Minute Maid Park.

2012 The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, with its ballpark known as PNC Field in Moosic (PA) under renovations, finish the season playing their entire 144-game schedule away from home. The International League (AAA) team will become unofficially known as the Empire State Yankees, using six different venues where all but twelve of their 'home' games occur in Upstate New York.
2012 The Nationals win their eighty-second game when they beat Chicago at home, 2-1, assuring the team of their first winning season since leaving Montreal to play in Washington. The transplanted team finished precisely .500 after their first year in the nation's capital, posting an 81-81 record in 2005.
2013 Max Scherzer's opportunity to become the second hurler to start a season with a 20-1 record ends when Jon Lester and the Red Sox beat the Tigers at Fenway Park, 2-1. Yankees right-hander Roger Clemens, who finished 20-3 in 2001, remains the only pitcher to open a campaign 20-1.
2013 The Pirates ensure their first non-losing campaign since 1992, when the team beats Milwaukee at Miller Park, 4-3. Travis Snider's ninth-inning pinch-hit home run brings the Bucs their eighty-first victory this season, a total the team hadn't reached in 21 years.

2014 In the Red Sox' 9-4 victory at Yankee Stadium, Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts become the first Boston rookies to hit a home run in the same game at the Bronx ballpark in 62 years. In 1952, Dick Gernert and Faye Throneberry also accomplished the feat, providing the difference in the team's 3-1 win over the Bombers.
2015 Bryce Harper, thanks to being issued four bases-on-balls, scores four times and records an RBI without ever swinging his bat in Washington's 15-1 rout of the Braves at Nationals Park. The 22-year-old slugger from Las Vegas joins Rickey Henderson, Joe Morgan, and Larry Doby, who also were 0-for-0 and scored four runs without an official at-bat.
2020 Before their game against the Yankees at Citi Field, the Mets pay tribute to Tom Seaver by adding a spot of dirt to the right knee of their uniforms, reminiscent of the result of the Hall of Fame right-hander's drop-and-drive delivery. Last night, the Hall of Fame announced the three-time Cy Young Award winner" had died two days ago from complications of Lewy body dementia and COVID-19.

51 Fact(s) Found