<< Yesterday

This Day in Baseball History
April 17th

Tomorrow>>
45 Fact(s) Found
1869 In baseball's first professional game, Cincinnati Red Stockings defeat Amateurs, 24-15. Team captain Harry Wright put all of his players under contract, making the club, which will become known as the Reds, the first pro team in sports history.
1904 By not charging admission but requiring fans to buy a scorecard, the Superbas find a way to play their first Sunday game at home, beating the Beaneaters, 9-1, at Brooklyn's Washington Park. The strategy attempts to circumvent legislation, known as the Blue Laws, designed to enforce religious edicts, including the observance of Sunday as a day of worship.
1912 In front of a larger than usual crowd at the Polo Grounds of over 14,000 patrons, including Broadway legend George M. Cohan, the Giants beat the new-look Yankees, now sporting pinstripes, in an unscheduled exhibition game, 11-2, to raise money for the survivors of the HMS Titanic. The charity contest, the first Sunday game ever played between major league teams at the Coogan's Bluff ballpark, raises over $9,000 when each fan donates the price of an admission ticket to purchase a special program for the event.
1925 Babe Ruth undergoes an operation for an intestinal abscess at St. Vincent's Hospital, remaining there for six weeks. The 30-year-old Yankee outfielder will miss the first forty games of the season due to his "bellyache heard 'round the world," a popular misconception that blamed the consumption of an abundance of hot dogs and soda for his illness.
1929 In a five a.m. ceremony on Opening Day, to avoid crowds, Claire Hodgson, a divorced actress and model from Athens (GA), becomes the second Mrs. Babe Ruth. The Yankee outfielder's first wife, Julia Woodford, died in a house fire in Watertown (MA) three months ago.
1929 On a cold and dreary day at Griffith Stadium, President Herbert Hoover throws out the first ball and then stays for the entire game, watching the A's beat the hometown Senators, 13-4. The loss spoils the managerial debut of Washington legend Walter Johnson.

1932 Giants' first baseman Bill Terry records 21 putouts, tying a National League mark. The future Hall of Famer's defense helps New York beat the Braves, 6-0, at the Polo Grounds behind Hal Schumacher's two-hit gem.
1934 On Opening Day at the newly-named Crosley Field, Reds' announcer Red Barber calls his first play-by-play for a major league team. The 26-year-old future Hall of Fame broadcaster had never attended a major league game before today's 6-0 loss to the Cubs.
1939 On the morning of Opening Day in Washington, D.C., President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Yankees visit Abner Doubleday's grave at Arlington National Cemetery. A rain cancels FDR's ceremonial first pitch at Griffith Stadium, with Vice President John Nance Garner doing the honors in the season opener four days later when the Bombers return from New York, having played Boston to start their campaign.

Library of Congress
1945 Browns outfielder Pete Gray, playing with one arm, makes his major league debut with one hit in four at-bats in a 7-1 victory over Detroit at Sportsman's Park. The 30-year-old St. Louis outfielder, who lost his right arm in a childhood accident, batted .333 last season as a minor leaguer.
1951 Before the Cubs' home opener, Sam Snead tees off from home plate, sending a golf ball soaring over the 89-foot Wrigley Field scoreboard in center field. 'Slammin' Sammy' won three Masters, three PGA Championships, and one British Open during his nearly 40 years as a professional golfer.
1951 Mickey Mantle, batting third, grounds out to second base in his first major league at-bat. The 19-year-old right fielder will hit a sixth-inning run-scoring single, going 1-for-4 in the Yankees' Opening Day 5-0 victory over Boston in the Bronx.
1951 Public address announcer Bob Sheppard announces the Yankees' lineup for the first time in a career that will span over half a century. The 'Voice of God's introduction of the team includes the memorable names of Mickey Mantle, playing his first game, Phil Rizzuto, and Yogi Berra, but the first player's name announced will be DiMaggio - Dom DiMaggio, the leading off for the visiting Red Sox.
1953 Mickey Mantle blasts a 'reported' 565-foot homer off southpaw Chuck Stobb in the Yankees' 7-3 victory over Washington at a windy Griffith Stadium. The distance of the historic round-tripper hit by the 21-year-old Yankee outfielder will become the subject of much debate, with later research debunking its original tape-measure status.

1954 Leading off the seventh inning at Milwaukee's County Stadium, Puerto Rican native Nino Escaper pinch-hits a single, becoming the first black player to appear in a Reds' game. Pinch-hitter Chuck Harmon, the next batter, pops out to first base in the team's 5-1 loss to the Braves to become the second black player in franchise history.
1955 In his first major league at-bat, Roberto Clemente singles off Dodger pitcher Johnny Podres. The Pirates' rookie, who dies in a 1972 plane crash attempting to bring relief aid to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua, will collect precisely 3,000 hits during his 18-year major league career, all with Pittsburgh.
1956 White Sox shortstop Luis Aparicio, Dodger right-hander Don Drysdale, and Reds outfielder Frank Robinson play in their first major league games. The trio's debut marks the first time three future Hall of Famers has made their initial appearance on the same day.

1960 After Bob Friend blanks the Reds, 5-0, in the opener, the Pirates sweep the Easter Sunday twin bill with a dramatic come-from-behind walk-off victory at Forbes Field. Bob Skinner's two-out, two-strike, two-run home run caps a six-run rally, giving the eventual World Champions an improbable 6-5 win.

(Ed. Note: We thank 81-year-old Pirate fan, Christy, for sharing the memory of this incredible comeback. - LP)

1960 The Tigers and Indians swap fan favorites when Detroit trades Harvey Kuenn, last season's batting champ, for Cleveland's 26-year-old slugger Rocky Colavito, the AL's home run champ. Detroit's new outfielder puts together four consecutive solid seasons batting .271 with 139 homers, with their former fly chaser hitting .308 in his only season in Cleveland before being traded by the Tribe to the Giants for Johnny Antonelli and Willie Kirkland.
1964 After spending the first two years of their existence at the Polo Grounds, the Mets play their first game at Shea Stadium in front of 50,312 fans in Queens. The Amazins drop the stadium opener to Pittsburgh, 4-3, with Willie Stargell hitting the first homer in the Flushing facility.
1968 In their first game at Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, the newly arrived A's lose to the Orioles, 4-1. Baltimore southpaw Dave McNally shut down the team on two hits, which played in Kansas City last season.
1969 In only the ninth game of the franchise's history, Expos hurler Bill Stoneman, who had never thrown a complete game in the major leagues, tosses a no-hitter, defeating the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium, 7-0. The 25-year-old right-hander, the future GM of the Angels, will throw another no-hit game in 1972 against the Mets.
1976 At Wrigley Field, Mike Schmidt hits four home runs in one game, including the game-winner, when the Phillies come back from an 11-run deficit to beat the Cubs in ten innings, 18-16. The Phillies' slugging third baseman is the first National Leaguer, third overall, to hit his homers consecutively.

1976 At Yankee owner George Steinbrenner's insistence, Thurman Munson is named the team captain. The reluctant backstop is the first player to assume the role since the Bronx Bombers honored Lou Gehrig with the position in 1935.
1977 At Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the umpires walk off the field in the fourth inning to protest the Braves showing a controversial play on the ballpark's massive instant replay screen that involves Houston's Bob Watson scoring on a close play at the plate. Team executive Bill Lucas persuades the crew, including Terry Tata, Ed Sudol, Dick Stello, and Bruce Froemming, to return to the field after assuring the arbitrators the incident would not occur again.
1977 Mike Pazik posts his first and last major league win when he hurls eight innings in the Twins' 10-2 victory over Oakland at Metropolitan Stadium. The 27-year-old former Yankees farmhand's career will suddenly end on April 25 when his van is hit head-on by a car driving the wrong way on a freeway entrance, resulting in the southpaw fracturing both legs.
1988 The Braves beat the Dodgers, 3-1, after breaking the National League record with ten losses to start the season. The team will drop 27 of its first 39 decisions, costing Chuck Tanner his job as the Atlanta manager.
1995 The Devil Rays and the City of St. Petersburg come to terms on a 30-year lease for the new American League expansion team to play their home games at the ThunderDome. The covered stadium, now known as Tropicana Field, was built originally as the Florida Suncoast Dome to coax the White Sox to leave their aging ballpark in Chicago and relocate to the Tampa Bay/St. Pete area.
2001 Barry Bonds becomes the 17th major leaguer and the fourth Giant to join the 500 home run club when he hits a Terry Adams' 2-0 heater into McCovey Cove at Pac Bell Park. The San Francisco left-fielder is joined at home plate by two other members of the elite fraternity, Willie Mays (660) and Willie McCovey (521), for a brief ceremony.

2006 In front of 36,867 Shea Stadium patrons, Pedro Martinez becomes the 103rd pitcher in major league history to win 200 games when the Mets beat the Braves, 4-3. The Dominican ace has lost only 84 contests at the time of reaching the milestone, putting him behind only Bob Caruthers (74), Whitey Ford (79), and Lefty Grove (83).
2006 In the bottom ninth inning, Mark Loretta hits a two-out, two-run home run over the left-field wall, giving the Red Sox a dramatic 7-6 victory over the Mariners at Fenway Park on Patriots' Day. The only other player to end a game with a homer on Boston's special day of celebration is Frank Malzone, who gave the team a 5-4 walk-off victory over the Yankees in 1959, the year the New England baseball tradition began. (Ed. Note: Mark H., a leading denizen of Red Sox Nation, inspired this entry. - LP)

2007 After the second inning of an eventual 6-4 loss to the Braves at RFK Stadium, the Nationals take the field wearing Virginia Tech baseball caps as a tribute to the 32 victims of the shooting rampage on the Blacksburg campus yesterday morning. Nearly a dozen of the burgundy caps signed by the players who wore them will be sent to the nearby college, while the hat worn by the Nationals' last batter of the game, Chris Snelling, will reside in the Hall of Fame.
2008 In the longest game in franchise history, the Rockies beat the Padres, 2-1, in a 22-inning marathon played at Petco Park. The game, which ends at 1:31 am, takes six hours and 16 minutes to complete, falling one minute shy of San Diego's record for the length of a game, but goes into the team record books for the most innings played to complete a contest.

2009 At Citi Field, Gary Sheffield becomes the 25th player to hit 500 career home runs, his first as a Met, tying the game in the seventh inning against the Brewers, 4-4. Joining Ty Cobb and Rusty Staub as the only major leaguers to homer as a teenager and a forty-year-old, the recently released Tiger DH becomes the first to reach the milestone as a pinch-hitter and the first to accomplish the feat in a Mets uniform.

2009 Washington's right fielder Adam Dunn and third baseman Ryan Zimmerman start the game against Florida with the word "Nationals" misspelled on the front of their uniforms. Majestic Athletic, the jersey manufacturer, takes full responsibility for the missing "O" and apologizes for the mistake to the organization, the players, and their fans.

2009 Jason Kubel blasts a grand slam to become the ninth Twins player to hit for the cycle, the first to do it at the Metrodome since 1986 when Kirby Puckett accomplished the feat in front of the home crowd. The left fielder's bases-full homer caps a seven-run eighth inning in Minnesota's 11-9 comeback victory over the Angels.
2010 In a nationally televised afternoon game at Busch Stadium, the Mets need 20 innings to beat the Cardinals, 2-1. The 6-hour-53-minute contest ends when Jose Reyes plates the eventual winning run with a sac fly off outfielder-turned-hurler Joe Mather and Mike Pelfrey, usually a starting pitcher, gets the final three outs to record his first career save.
2010 The 26-year-old Rockies' right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez, striking out seven and walking six, hurls the first no-hitter in the 18-year history of the franchise. Center fielder Dexter Fowler saves the 4-0 historic victory over Atlanta with a spectacular catch in the seventh inning at Turner Field.

2012 Throwing seven strong innings in the Rockies' 5-3 victory over San Diego, Jamie Moyer becomes the oldest pitcher to win a major league contest. The 49-year, 150-day-old southpaw surpasses Brooklyn's Jack Quinn, who was almost three months younger when he got the victory, pitching five frames in relief against St. Louis in 1932.
2012 After agreeing on a $1.25 million deal last week, Johnny Damon signs a minor league contract en route to joining the Indians, possibly becoming their regular left fielder. The 38-year-old career .286 hitter, who needs 277 knocks to reach the 3,000-hit plateau, will bring intangibles to the club by providing veteran leadership for the struggling Tribe and mentoring the team's younger stars.
2012 Mark Melancon allows six earned runs without recording an out in the eighth inning, a frame that features three home runs to the six Rangers he faces in the 18-3 rout of the Red Sox at Fenway Park. The Boston reliever yields a double to Ian Kinsler, walks Elvis Andrus, and gives up a three-run blast to Josh Hamilton, followed by Adrian Beltre's round-tripper, before David Murphy walks and Nelson Cruz homers before ending his historic outing.
2013 Clayton Kershaw becomes the second-fastest Dodger to strike out 1,000 batters when he throws a second-inning 93-mph fastball past San Diego first baseman's Yonder Alonso. The 25-year-old southpaw reaches the milestone in 970 career innings, 15.2 more than needed by Hideo Nomo, who established the team mark in 2003.
2015 Mike Trout, at the age of 23 years and 253 days, becomes the youngest major league player to compile 100 career home runs and 100 career stolen bases when he homers in the sixth inning off Roberto Hernandez in the Angels’ 6-3 victory over the Astros at the Minute Maid Park. The Melville Millville Meteor surpasses the mark previously set by Alex Rodriguez, who was 56 days older when he reached the 100/100 mark.
2015 Kris Bryant makes his much-anticipated major league debut for the Cubs, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in the team's 5-4 loss to the Padres at Wrigley Field. Chicago had delayed the start of his season to extend the club's control on the highly-touted freshman, who will be named the National League's Rookie of the Year.
2024 Alexander Cartwright, considered by many the 'father' of the national pastime, celebrates his second birthday in New York City. After reviewing journals that reveal many of his contributions to baseball, the banker, given credit for establishing three strikes for an out and three outs for each half inning, will be elected into the Hall of Fame in 1938. (Alex Cartwright, Mr. Cartwight's great-great-grandson, inspired this entry.)
45 Fact(s) Found