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This Day in Baseball History
June 18th

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43 Fact(s) Found
1911 In the sixth inning in Detroit, the White Sox lead the Tigers, 13-1; after eight innings, the Pale Hose still are ahead, 15-7. The Tigers, however, use five singles and two walks to narrow Chicago's lead to 15-13 in the eighth and then complete their incredible comeback in the final frame when Ty Cobb strokes a two-run single, his fifth hit of the day, and then scores on Sam Crawford's double to win the Navin Field contest, 16-15.

1919 At Fenway Park with two outs in the ninth, Red Sox catcher Wally Schang is the victim of third baseman Jimmy Austin's hidden ball trick. The backstop's trickery ends the game with the Browns beating Boston, 3-2.


Wally Schang (1914)
Library of Congress - George Grantham Bain Collection
1927 On Charles Lindbergh Day, the transatlantic pioneer flyer helps the Cardinals raise the National League pennant before the team's 6-4 victory over New York at Sportsman's Park. The game marks the return to St. Louis of Rogers Hornsby, the Redbirds' former player-manager who guided the team to a world championship last season but was traded to the Giants in the offseason after having disputes over salary with owner Sam Breadon.
1938 Knowing he will not be considered for the manager's job when Burleigh Grimes retires at the end of the season, Babe Ruth accepts GM Larry MacPhail's offer to coach first base for the Dodgers. The Bambino will quit at the end of the season, severing his ties with major league baseball, when team captain Leo Durocher becomes the skipper of the Brooklyn club.
1940 Dodger Ducky Medwick, acquired in a trade less than a week ago, is beaned by former Cardinal teammate Bob Bowman and needs to be carried off on a stretcher. Brooklyn president Larry MacPhail accuses the St. Louis pitcher of deliberately beaning Medwick because the two had quarreled in a hotel elevator before the game.
1947 At Crosley Field, Reds hurler Ewell Blackwell no-hits the Braves, 6-0, with first baseman Babe Young hitting two three-run homers to account for all the runs in the game. The 24-year-old Cincinnati right-hander misses duplicating his teammate Johnny Vander Meer's feat of throwing back-to-back no-nos when he holds the Dodgers without a hit through 8⅓ innings in his next start.
1950 In the second game of a twin bill against the A's at Cleveland Stadium, the Indians establish an American League record by scoring 14 runs in the first inning as they rout Philadelphia, 21-2. Cleveland also won the first game against the Mackmen, 7-0.
1953 Sending twenty-three batters to the plate at Fenway, the Red Sox enjoy a 17-run and 14-hit seventh inning when they pound the Tigers, 23-3. Sammy White sets a modern major league record, scoring three times in the frame, and 20-year-old rookie outfielder Gene Stephens collects three hits (single, double, single) off three pitchers in the frame to establish a modern major league mark.
1960 Tom Sheehan becomes the oldest person to debut as a major league manager. The 66-year-old replaces fired Giant skipper Bill Rigney, resulting in the second-place club finishing fifth, 16 games behind the Pirates.
1961 Pirates rookie Don Leppert hits a home run on the first pitch thrown to him in his major league career, going deep off southpaw Curt Simmons in the second inning of the Bucs' 5-3 victory over the Redbirds at Forbes Field. The 29-year-old freshman catcher's feat will not be accomplished again by another Pittsburgh player until 2012 when Starling Marte homers on the first pitch he sees in his big league debut.
1961 Eddie Gaedel, the 3' 7" small person made famous by Browns' owner Bill Veeck, who employed him to lead off for one at-bat in a 1951 game, is found dead lying in his bed with bruises on the left side of his face after returning home from a Chicago bowling alley. Bob Cain, the opposing Tiger pitcher who issued a base-on-balls in the infamous stunt, is the only person from major league baseball to attend the funeral of the 36-year-old, whose cause of death will be determined to be the result of a heart attack.
1961 In Game 1 of a doubleheader at Fenway Park, the Red Sox, trailing by seven runs entering the bottom of the ninth, beat the Senators, 13-12, after Jim Pagliaroni's two-out grand slam tied the score. In addition to catching all 22 innings of the twin bill, the Boston backstop hits a walk-off home run in the 13th inning of the nightcap, giving the Boston a 6-5 victory.
1967 Red Sox third baseman Joe Foy, spending the night with his parents before a series against the Yankees, helps his parents get safely out of the building when a fire breaks out in their Bronx home. The house blaze will result in losing the many souvenirs and keepsakes the 24-year-old infielder has accumulated as a baseball player.
1967 Astros' hurler Don Wilson no-hits the Braves, 2-0, striking out 15 of the 30 batters he faces. Next season, the right-handed fireballer, who will pitch another no-no for Houston, becomes the tenth rookie to throw a no-hitter.

Courtesy of the Houston Astros network
via Astrosdaily.com
1973 The A's stage a Father's Day's Mustache Day promotion, giving fans with hair above their upper lip free admission into the ballpark. Charlie Finley offers his players a $300 bonus for growing facial hair for the event, and all do except Vida Blue, who is still bitter about his recent contract negotiations with the team owner.
1975 At Tiger Stadium, Red Sox rookie outfielder Fred Lynn hits three home runs, driving in ten runs in the team's 15-1 rout of Detroit. The 23-year-old Chicago native also hits a single and third-inning triple that misses being a homer by a few feet.
1977 In the bottom of the sixth inning of NBC's Game of the Week at Fenway Park, Yankees manager Billy Martin pulls Reggie Jackson out of the game after the outfielder's lackadaisical effort in right field turns a fly ball into a cheap double for a Jim Rice. In the dugout, the skipper and the stunned, sensitive superstar begin screaming at one another, with coaches Yogi Berra and Elston Howard needing to separate them.
1979 Billy Martin returns to the dugout to manage the Yankees for the second time, replacing Bob Lemon, the skipper who replaced him last season and led the team to a World Championship. Martin will be at the helm for 95 games, with the fourth-place team posting 55 victories.
1986 Angels' hurler Don Sutton becomes the 19th major league pitcher to earn his 300th victory when the Alabama native three-hits the Rangers, 4-1. The 43-year-old right-hander will finish with 324 wins during his 23-year playing career.
1989 The Phillies trade second baseman Juan Samuel to the Mets for outfielder Lenny Dykstra, relief pitcher Roger McDowell, and a player to be named later that will be minor league pitcher Tom Edens. Unfortunately, the Mets' experiment to turn their new infielder, who plays only 86 games, into a center fielder fails miserably, and 'Nails' becomes a three-time All-Star and a cog in Philadelphia's National League championship in 1993.
1996 Chris Anderson, the team's 66th-round draft choice, becomes the first player representing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to get a base hit. The Hudson Valley catcher delivers a run-producing single in the second inning of the Renegades' 7-6 loss to New Jersey in the New York-Penn League contest.
1996 In a twin bill at Wrigley Field, Brant Brown hits the first three career home runs on the same day. The 25-year-old rookie goes deep as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning off Chan Ho Park in a 9-6 loss to the Dodgers in the opener, but his two additional round-trippers contribute to Chicago's 7-4 victory in the nightcap.
2000 The A's slam the Royals, 21-3, as every player in the Oakland starting lineup has at least one hit and one RBI and scores at least one run. The 18-run difference is the largest margin of victory for the A's and the largest margin of defeat for the Royals in the team's respective histories.
2000 In a 19-2 drubbing of the Diamondbacks, Mike Lansing needs only the first four innings to hit for the cycle. The Rockies' second baseman gets a triple in the first, a two-run homer in the second, and a double in the third, completing the rare event with a single in the fourth inning before the game becomes official.

2001 Citing he wants to spend more time with his family, Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. announces he will retire at the end of the season. The two-time MVP's streak of playing in 2,632 consecutive games established a new major league record, surpassing the once-thought insurmountable mark set by Lou Gehrig.
2001 A mandate issued by the commissioner's office imposes a two-minute limit for warm-up tosses thrown by relievers who come in during an inning, starting when the pitcher enters fair territory. At the beginning of a frame, the allotted warm-up time for a hurler will be one minute and forty seconds, twenty seconds longer if the game is on national television.
2002 At Pro Player Stadium, Marlins infielder Luis Castillo beats out a dribbler to the box, extending his hitting streak to 33 straight games. The sixth-inning single in Florida's 2-1 victory over the Indians ties Rogers Hornsby's 80-year-old record for a second baseman getting a hit in consecutive contests.
2002 In the first major league game to feature four players with 400 career homers, the Cubs beat the Rangers, 4-3, when Alex Gonzalez hits a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth inning. Sammy Sosa (475), Fred McGriff (459), and Juan Gonzalez (401) watched Rafael Palmeiro add his 460th home run to the total.
2004 At Shea Stadium, Hall of Fame catchers Carlton Fisk, Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, and Yogi Berra participate in a pregame ceremony to honor Mike Piazza for hitting the most home runs as a catcher in baseball history. The Mets' backstop established the new mark, breaking Carlton Fisk's record with his 352nd home run on May 5.

2005 Julio Franco becomes the oldest player to hit multiple home runs in a game when he goes deep on two occasions in the Braves' 6-1 victory over Cincinnati. The 46-year, 299-day-old Atlanta first baseman homers twice off Cincy starter Eric Milton, going yard in the first and third innings at the Great American Ball Park.
2005 Derek Jeter, who will average 13 home runs during a 20-year career, hits his only major league grand slam in his 156th plate appearance with the bases loaded. The 30-year-old All-Star shortstop, who collects two round-trippers in the Bombers' 8-1 victory over the Cubs, who are playing at Yankee Stadium for the first time since the 1938 World Series, clears the bases in the sixth inning with a blast off Joe Borowski that clears the fence in left-center field.

(Ed. Note: The New York shortstop's home run, coming in his 1,431 career game and 5,770 major league at-bat, ends the streak of having the most at-bats of any active player without hitting a grand slam. - LP)

2006 In a game in which veteran hurler Kenny Rogers wins his 200th career victory, the Tigers go yard eight times to set a club record. Cubs starter Mark Prior, who recently returned from the 60-day disabled list, gives up three of Detroit's home runs in the six-run first inning of the 12-3 barrage at Wrigley Field.
2007 Trailing the Red Sox by 15 games in the AL East after playing just sixty-nine games, the last-place Orioles fire Sam Perlozzo as the team's manager. As the club embarks on a West Coast road trip, the team names bullpen coach Dave Trembley the interim manager amid Baltimore's eight-game losing streak.
2010 President Obama and his two daughters make an unannounced trip to Nationals Park to watch Stephen Strasburg pitch against his favorite team, the White Sox. The Commander in Chief is on hand to see the 21-year-old fireballer strike out ten batters to bring the phenom's three-game total to 32, three more than the rookie record of 29 established by J.R. Richard in 1971.
2012 With his one-out, solo home run off Shawn Kelley in the seventh in the Diamondbacks' 7-1 victory over Seattle at Chase Field, Aaron Hill becomes the fifth player in franchise history to hit for the cycle. The Arizona second baseman, the first D-Back to single, double, triple, and homer in four at-bats joins Kelly Johnson (2010), Stephen Drew (2008), Greg Colbrunn (2002), and Luis Gonzalez (2000) in accomplishing the rare feat.
2012 At Citi Field, R.A. Dickey, allowing a single by Oriole third baseman Wilson Betemit, throws his second consecutive one-hitter, becoming the first pitcher to record back-to-back one-hit games since Dave Stieb accomplished the feat in 1988. The 37-year-old Mets' knuckleball pitcher, who hasn't allowed an earned run in 42.2 innings, also limited Tampa Bay to a lone safety in his last start.

2012 After a lengthy ten-week trial, the jury acquits Roger Clemens on all charges of obstructing justice and lying to Congress when he testified at a deposition during a 2008 nationally televised hearing. The seven-time Cy Young winner, who won 354 games during his 24 years in the major leagues, contended that the success in the latter part of his career was due to an over-the-top work ethic and not the result of taking performance-enhancing drugs.
2014 With the only batter reaching base due to a throwing error by shortstop Hanley Ramirez in the seventh inning, Clayton Kershaw no-hit the Rockies at Dodger Stadium, striking out a career-high 15 batters. The left-hander's teammate Josh Beckett also threw a no-hitter 24 days ago, making it the shortest span between no-hitters by a team since the Reds' Johnny Vander Meer accomplished it in consecutive starts, four days apart, in 1938.

2015 Carlos Correa, the number one overall pick in 2012, becomes the second-youngest player in the modern era to steal three bases when he swipes a trio of bags in Houston's 8-4 victory against the Rockies at Coors Field. In 1979, Rickey Henderson was 20 years, 241 days old when he accomplished the feat, 18 days younger than the Astros' shortstop.

2017 On Father's Day, Nolan Arenado becomes the fifth major leaguer to hit a walk-off homer to complete a cycle when he blasts a three-run homer off Mark Melancon to beat the Giants at Coors Field, 7-5. The game-ending round-tripper caps the team's first four-game sweep of San Francisco in the 25-year history of the franchise.

2018 In the continuation of a game that started May 15, Juan Soto pinch-hits a two-run homer that proves to be the difference in the Nationals' 5-3 victory against the Yankees. The stats of the game will indicate the 19-year-old rookie outfielder's accomplishment preceded his big league debut, an oddity that also includes Dave Parker (1973) and Barry Bonds (1986) among the players who also recorded hits before making their big league debuts.
2019 At Target Field, Twins' pinch-hitter Max Kepler collects a game-tying single in the eighth inning, a game-tying home run five frames later, and ends the contest with a one-out walk-off single in the 17th to beat the Red Sox, 4-3. The overtime performance marks the 24th time since 1925 that a player records a game-tying hit and a go-ahead hit in extra innings.
2022 Joining former teammate Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax becomes the second player honored with a statue in the center-field plaza at Dodger Stadium with the unveiling of the nearly 20-ton sculpture during a private morning ceremony with Hall of Fame player and manager Joe Torre, Dodger right-hander Clayton Kershaw, and team owner Mark Walter in attendance. Sculptor Branly Cadet, the artist who created Robinson's statue, immortalizes the three-time Cy Young Award winner by capturing the southpaw's iconic leg kick.

43 Fact(s) Found