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This Day in Baseball History
October 17th

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23 Fact(s) Found
1960 At the Sheraton Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, the National League votes to admit Houston and New York, making it the first structural change in the Senior Circuit since the turn of the century. The owners award the New York franchise to a group headed by Joan Payson thanks to the efforts of prominent attorney William A Shea, and Judge Roy Hofheintz is one of five owners of the new club in Texas.
1964 The Yankees, who finished with a 99-63 record, fire Yogi Berra after dropping the World Series to the Cardinals in seven games. The 39-year-old dismissed skipper will join the crosstown Mets as a coach, becoming the team's manager in 1972 following Gil Hodges' unexpected death in spring training.
1964 Johnny Keane, rumored to be replaced as the Cardinals' manager by Leo Durocher before the Redbirds surged to win the World Series, surprises team owner Gussie Busch with a letter of resignation that he had written at the end of September during the height of the pennant race. The former St. Louis skipper will take the Yankee job, which opens due to the firing of Yogi Berra, which also occurs today.
1966 The Tigers lose the second of the two skippers who managed the team this season when 51-year-old Bob Swift succumbs to lung cancer. The former major league catcher had taken over as the team's interim manager in mid-May for Charlie Dressen, who was stricken with a heart attack and died before the end of the summer.
1967 In an Associated Press poll, 324 of 397 baseball writers and broadcasters select Dick Williams as the American League's Manager of the Year, easily outdistancing runner-ups Eddie Stanky of the White Sox and the Angels' Bill Rigney. The 38-year-old rookie skipper led the 92-70 Red Sox through a tight four-team pennant race to their first AL championship since 1946.
1971 Roberto Clemente hits a fourth-inning homer off Baltimore's Mike Cuellar to put the Pirates ahead, 1-0, in Game 7 of the World Series. The right-fielder has hit safely in all seven games, a feat he also accomplished in 1960 against the Yankees, to extend his consecutive Fall Classic hitting streak to 14 contests.
1971 At Memorial Stadium, behind Steve Blass's complete-game four-hitter, the Pirates beat Mike Cuellar and the heavily favored Orioles to capture their fourth world championship in franchise history. Immediately after the Game 7 victory, 21-year-old rookie Bruce Kison and his champagne-soaked best man Bob Moose take a helicopter to a waiting Lear Jet to attend his wedding in Pittsburgh, where he arrives 33 minutes late.
1978 The Yankees capture their twenty-second and second consecutive World Championship, beating Los Angeles with a 7-2 victory at Dodger Stadium. Playoff hero Bucky Dent, who collects ten hits in the six-game series, is named the Fall Classic's Most Valuable Player.
1979 In Game 7, Willie Stargell goes 3-for 4, including his third home run in the Series, propelling the Pirates to a 4-1 victory over the Orioles. The Bucs overcame a three-games-to-one deficit to win their fifth World Championship in franchise history.

1979

"Next time, get your ass here before the seventh game,"- RICK DEMPSEY, Orioles' catcher chiding the president for skipping Opening Day ceremonies during his term in office.

At Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, Jimmy Carter throws the ceremonial first pitch before the Pirates' 4-1 defeat of the Orioles in Game 7 of the Fall Classic. The toss marks the only time the Commander-in-Chief will perform the pregame ritual during his presidency.

1982 In Game 5, a 6-4 Milwaukee victory at County Stadium, Robin Yount becomes the first player in World Series history to have two four-hit games. In addition to today's 4-for-4 performance, the Brewers' third baseman collected four hits in 6 at-bats in the Fall Classic opening contest, helping the team beat the Cardinals, 10-0.

1985 Billy Martin, who had become the team's skipper for the fourth time after the Yankees fired Yogi Berra in April, is replaced by Lou Piniella. "Billy, the Kid', piloted the 97-64 Bronx Bombers to a second-place finish, ending the season two games behind Toronto.
1987 In the first World Series game played indoors, the Twins club the Cardinals, winning Game 1 of the Fall Classic at the Metrodome, 10-1. The noise made by the boisterous, hanky-waving, sold-out Minnesota crowd at times exceeds 110 decibels, an audio level equivalent to a jet plane taking off at an airport.
1989

"Well, I don't know if we're on the air or not and I'm not sure I care at this particular moment but we are. Well folks, that's the greatest open in the history of television, bar none. We're still here. We are still as we can well on the air, and I guess you are hearing us, even though we have no picture and no return audio. And we will be back, we hope, from San Francisco in just a moment." - AL MICHAELS, the ABC-TV play-by-play announcer, reacting to the Bay Area earthquake.

As the Giants and A's get ready to play Game 3 of the World Series, a massive 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake hits the Bay Area, which will be responsible for 63 deaths. Commissioner Fay Vincent quickly postponed the Candlestick Park contest, wisely ordering the ballpark's evacuation.
1996 Completing a comeback from a 3-1 deficit in NLCS, the Braves, with the help of a six-run first inning, rout the Cardinals, 15-0. The Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium victory marks the biggest blowout in postseason history.
1999 With the bases loaded in the bottom of the 15th frame, Robin Ventura hits a home run, which becomes known as "The Grand Slam Single," driving the Mets fans into a frenzied state as the team, who lost the first three games of the playoff series, extends the NLCS to a Game 6. Failing to touch all four bases when mobbed by his teammates on the base paths, the Shea Stadium hero only gets credit for a single with the umpires awarding New York a 4-3 victory, ruling Roger Cedeño crossed home plate before the on-field celebration began.

2000 David Justice's three-run homer propels the Yankees to their 37th American League pennant in a come-from-behind victory over the Mariners, 9-7. The Bronx Bombers will face the Mets in the Fall Classic, setting up the first Subway Series in New York in 44 years when they faced the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956.
2000 With an opposite-field single, Mariners catcher Dan Wilson snaps his 0-for-42 skid, the longest hitless streak in postseason history. Marv Owen had gone 0-for-31 in the 1934 and 1935 World Series playing for the Tigers.
2002 The legal suit against the fan who caught Barry Bonds' record-breaking 73rd home run, brought by three friends claiming a promise they made to split the ball's value in exchange for a game ticket, becomes settled when Jay Arsenault agrees to sell the ball and divide the money. Arsenault's lawyer said his client initially excluded the friends due to being overwhelmed by the situation.
2003 Early editions of the New York Post include an editorial claiming the Yankees couldn't get the job done against the Red Sox in Game 7 of the ALCS. However, the Bronx Bombers rally to beat their arch-rival in 11 innings, 6-5.
2004 In Game 4 of the NLCS at Minute Maid Park, Carlos Beltran goes deep in the seventh inning, giving the Astros an eventual 6-5 victory over the Cardinals. With the round-trippers, the Houston center fielder sets a new postseason record, hitting a homer in five consecutive playoff games, and ties Barry Bonds' 2002 mark with eight postseason round-trippers.
2005 The juiced Minute Maid Park crowd, anticipating the Astros' first National League crown, after the first two batters are quickly retired, is 'pulverized' when Albert Pujols hits a two-out, three-run ninth-inning homer. A two-strike single stroked by David Eckstein and a walk worked out by Jim Edmonds set the stage for the Cardinals' dramatic 5-4 comeback.

2018 In Game 4 of the ALCS, crew chief Joe West rules fan interference, turning Jose Altuve's potential two-run homer into the second out of the inning. Red Sox right fielder Mookie Betts appeared ready to make a catch over the top of the wall before a fan inadvertently bumped into his open glove, closing it the instant before he could make the play.

23 Fact(s) Found