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This Day in Baseball History
March 10th

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14 Fact(s) Found
1941 The Dodgers announce their players will start to wear helmets when batting. The safety headgear will not be not mandatory in the National League until 1954, with the AL following suit four years later.
1951 J. Edgar Hoover, longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, declines the baseball commissioner's post. President Calvin Coolidge appointed him in 1924, and the nation's top cop remained with the FBI until his death in 1972.
1962 At St. Petersburg's Al Lang Field, the ballpark the team shares with today's opponents, the Mets, playing their first major league exhibition game, drop an 8-0 decision to the Cardinals. The New York National League expansion club's hurlers, Jay Hook, Clem Labine, and Craig Anderson, give up twelve hits, including two homers to Minnie Minoso and Gene Oliver.


Mets Virtual Vault
1963 In an exhibition game against the White Sox, 21-year-old rookie Pete Rose goes 2-for-2 in his first appearance in a Reds' uniform. The future all-time major league hit leader will be named the National League's Rookie of the Year.
1966 The Orioles trade 22-year-old minor league outfielder Lou Piniella to the Indians for reserve catcher Camilo Carreon, who retires at the end of the season after playing in only four contests for his new team. The Tribe's latest flycatcher will appear in more than 1,700 big-league games, but only six games for Cleveland, all in 1968, before becoming the Pilots selection in the expansion draft, the team that trades him at the start of the 1969 campaign to the Royals for John Gelnar and Steve Whitaker.
1967 Ted Davidson, who had five wins and four saves for the Reds last season, is gunned down in an alley as he leaves a local restaurant, telling police his estranged wife shot him once in the abdomen and twice in the chest. The judge dismisses the charge against Mary Ruth Davidson when the southpaw, who will return to the team in June without his same effectiveness, fails to appear in court twice.
1992 The Pirates trade pitcher Neal Heaton (3-3, 4.33) to the Royals for outfielder Kirk Gibson (.236, 16 HR, 18 SB). After being released by the Bucs in May, the veteran flycatcher, who will turn down an offer to play for the Arena Football League's Detroit Drive, ends his brief retirement, playing his last three years as a Tiger for his former manager Sparky Anderson.
1993 Sherry Davis becomes the first full-time female major league public address announcer when the Giants hire her to work at Candlestick Park. The legal secretary, chosen from five hundred contestants, won the job in an open audition.
1995 Former Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan, citing labor unrest as the reason, announces that he is leaving the White Sox organization to return to the Chicago Bulls. In his only season in professional baseball, the future NBA Hall of Famer batted .202, hit three home runs, drove in 51 runs, stole 30 bases, and made 11 errors playing the outfield for the Double-A Birmingham Barons last season.
2004 When asked by Senator John McCain to renegotiate the major league baseball's contract concerning the use of controlled substances, Donald Fehr refuses to comply. Although the union boss condemns the use of steroids, he believes the players oppose random drug testing as a violation of privacy, an argument countered by the Arizona Republican as unacceptable, promising congressional action if the status quo remains in place.

2005 Singling off Brad Thompson in a Cardinal intrasquad game, former pitching prospect Rick Ankiel goes 1-for-2 in his debut as a position player. Historic wildness and injuries ended the 25-year-old's once-promising career on the mound.
2009 At Puerto Rico's Hiram Bithorn Stadium, the Netherlands World Baseball Classic team, mostly of unknown players, upsets a heavily favored Dominican Republic club for the second time in four days, advancing to the next round. The Dominicans, considered to be an odds-on favorite, with a roster filled with major league All-Stars, including David Ortiz (Red Sox), Hanley Ramirez (Marlins), and Miguel Tejada (Astros), are eliminated in the first round of the 16-team tournament.
2010 Nomar Garciaparra, announcing his retirement before the exhibition game against Tampa Bay, signs a ceremonial one-day contract with Boston, six years after rejecting the team's four-year, $60 million offer that resulted in an acrimonious trade to the Cubs in 2004. The former Rookie of the Year and AL batting champion, who finishes his 14-year major league career with a .313 batting average, gets his wish to leave the game in a Red Sox uniform when he throws out the ceremonial first pitch to former teammate Jason Varitek.

2010 Justin Upton (.300, 26, 86) and the Diamondbacks agree on a $51.25 million, six-year contract, the second-largest deal in franchise history being slightly less than Randy Johnson's $52.4 million pact in 1999. The 22-year-old outfielder, the team's No. 1 pick in the 2005 draft, was selected to last season's National League All-Star squad.
14 Fact(s) Found