Classic Baseball Daily Highlights

September 19, 1968 – Detroit Tigers Pitcher Denny McLain 's 31st win is overshadowed by Mickey Mantle 's 535th homer which was good enough for 3rd on the all time list. McLain called Catcher Jim Price to the mound to have him inform Mantle he’d be seeing nothing but fastballs and Mantle delivered. Mantle tipped his cap to Denny as he rounded third base. Joe Pepitone , the next batter, sign...

September 18, 1975 - The New York Mets defeat the Chicago Cubs, 7 - 5 at Shea Stadium. Rusty Staub becomes the first Mets' player to reach 100 RBIs in a season with a 2-run homer in the fifth. Dave Kingman sets a team record with his 35th home run of the season to win it in the ninth inning. Kingman would also hit his 35th homer of the year on this date in 1976 when he was named to the Nationa...

September 17, 1968 Detroit clinches the American League pennant with a 2 - 1 win over the Yankees. Detroit is ahead 1 - 0 when Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey phones Tiger general manager Jim Campbell with the news that the Sox have beaten the Orioles, clinching the pennant for the Tigers. Campbell keeps the score off the radio and the scoreboard, fearing the news will send fans rampaging onto the field....

September 16, 1968: One day after seeing their team mathematically eliminated, Candlestick Park's patrons show up in 'record' numbers, the smallest crowd to see a Giants game in San Francisco. The 2,361 fans witnessed the rare sight of Willie Mays being restrained from charging into the stands to confront two hecklers. 'Nice catch, Willie,' they jeered from the front row after...

September 15, 1990 : Despite solo homers in the 5th by brothers Billy Ripken and Cal Ripken , both off David Wells, the Orioles lose 4 - 3 to Toronto. The brothers would homer together once more in 1996, again in the same inning. The Ripken Brothers joint stint in Baltimore, while managed by their father Cal Sr. from 1987 to 1988, marked the first time a father has managed two of his sons on the s...

September 14, 1994 - The remainder of the baseball season is canceled by acting commissioner Bud Selig after 34 days of the players' strike. The last 50 games of the season and post season were cancelled due to the strike called by the Players Association and their leader Don Fehr. The World Series would not be played for the first time in 90 years. The strike was finally ended by a ruling fro...

September 13, 2011 Due to terrorist attacks against targets in New York and Washington, D.C. Major League Baseball postpones all games through September 17. The 91 missed games are re-scheduled for the week after the regular season was supposed to end, meaning the World Series would extend into November for the first time in history. This would be the most regular-season contests not played since...

September 12 , 1911 - In a game billed as a pitchers' duel, Boston's Cy Young and the Giants' Christy Mathewson face each other for the first time before 10,000, Boston's largest crowd of the year. Young gives up three homers and nine runs in less than three innings. With a 9 - 0 Giants lead, John McGraw lifts Mathewson, who pitched just two innings, preferring to save his ace for...

September 11, 1918 - The Red Sox win the World Series in game six, on Carl May s's 2nd victory, a 2-1 three-hitter. Cubs pitchers compile a 1.04 ERA, while Boston's .186 batting average is the lowest ever for a World Series winner. They compensated for their poor showing at the plate by making just one error, a record not beaten this century in a 6-game World Series. The Cubs each earned $...

September 10, 1960 - Mickey Mantl e unloads a cannon shot clearing the RF roof in Detroit and landing in Brooks Lumber Yard across Trumbull Avenue. In June, 1985, Mantle's blow was retroactively measured at 643 feet, and was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the longest Home Run in History. New research by National Baseball Hall of Fame, overturned that estimate and instead gives...

September 9, 1953 - Mickey Mantle 's 2-run home run off Chicago's Billy Pierce caps a 7-run 5th inning, as New York wins 9 - 3 at Yankee Stadium. Returning to Center Field after the 5th, Mantle is photographed blowing a huge bubble with a wad of gum. Manager Casey Stengel will publicly rebuke the Mick, who will apologize for the indiscretion. However, Mantle does get an endorsement fee fro...

September 8, 2007 - Alex Rodriguez continues to lead the Yankees in their playoff hopes with an 11-5 win over the Kansas City Royals. He homers twice off rookie pitcher Brian Bannister. The first of the homers is his 49th of the year and breaks the record for homers by a third baseman. Previously, Mike Schmidt and Rodriguez (2005) had shared the record at 48 homers. Rodriguez already held the sing...

On the seventh day of September 1978, the Boston Red Sox lead was just four games over a charging Yankee team who arrive in Boston for a crucial 4-game series, which would become known as the “Boston Massacre”. The Yanks dominate game one with a 15 - 3 rout as Willie Randolph accounts for five of the runs. On July 24, the Red Sox held a 14 game lead in the AL East but played only 25 - 24 ball lead...

September 6, 1995 - Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive Major League game to surpass Lou Gehrig's 56-year record. When the game becomes official in the middle of the fifth inning, Ripken takes a victory lap around Camden Yards during the 22-minute standing ovation from the sell-out crowd. Ripken went 2 for 4, including a home run, in Baltimore's 4 - 2...

September 5th, 1954,  Hank Aaron  goes 4 for 4 in a 9 – 7 triumph over the Cubs, but breaks his ankle in the second game of a doubleheader and is lost for the remainder of the season. September 5th, 1995,  Cal Ripken  ties Lou Gehrig’s all-time mark by appearing in his 2,130th consecutive game. In the fifth inning, when the game became official the crowd erupted in applause. The 35 year old shorts...

September4, 2000, the Red Sox's defeat the Seattle Mariners, 5 – 1. Boston Outfielder, Carl Everett drives in his 100th ribbie of the year becoming only the sixth major-league switch-hitter to drive in 100 runs in both leagues. Pedro Martinez however, is the star of the day, striking out 11 in eight innings to go 7 - 0 over the M's. Prior to the game, Boston retires Hall of Fame Catcher Ca...

September 3, 2009 — Yankee Catcher, Jorge Posada hit his 20th homer of the season and drove in four runs to help New York beat Toronto 7-5. Posada's homer gave New York a major league-leading seven players with at least 20 dingers. The ’09 Yankees are the only team in franchise history to accomplish this feat. Only the ’96 Orioles, the 2000 Blue Jays and the ’05 Rangers have been able to colle...

September 2, 2001 — A pitching duel between former Yankee teammates David Cone and Mike Mussina saw New York's Mike Mussina came within one strike of pitching the first perfect game in the 89-year history of Fenway Park. Over eight innings Mussina did not allow a single Red Sox baserunner. Red Sox pitcher David Cone kept pace keeping the Yankees scoreless till the top of the 9th when the Yanks...

September 1, 2007 — Clay Buchholz throws a no-hitter in his second major league start just hours after being called up by the Boston Red Sox. Buchholz threw 115 pitches, striking out nine, walking three, with one hit batter to give the Red Sox a 10-0 victory over Baltimore. He became the 21st rookie to throw a no-hitter and the third MLB pitcher since 1900 to throw a no-hitter in his first or seco...

August 31, 1990, the Houston Astros make one of their best trades ever, acquiring minor league infielder Jeff Bagwell from the Boston Red Sox for pitcher Larry Andersen. Refusing to part with Triple-A third baseman Scott Cooper to get Larry Andersen from the Astros for the stretch run, Red Sox general manager Lou Gorman trades the Eastern League's MVP Jeff Bagwell for the right-handed relief p...

On August 30, 2006, Boston right-hander Curt Schilling fans Oakland slugger Nick Swisher with his trademark splitter to record the 3,000th strikeout of his career. Schilling becomes the 14th pitcher to reach the milestone. Schilling ranks 2nd all time with 4.38 strikeouts for every walk allowed. Third on the all time list is 2004 team mate Pedro Martinez with a 4.15 ratio. After recording the stri...

1977 - Cardinals outfielder Lou Brock steals second base in a 4-3 loss to the Padres. It is career steal 893 for Brock, breaking Ty Cobb's modern record. Brock wasted no time, leading the game off with a walk, he stole second base off the battery of Danny Freisleben and Dave Roberts, he advanced to third and scored on Jerry Mumphries single. Brock would steal another base in the seventh after...

This Week we cover August 26 - Sept 1 . . . We are going to talk Tom Yawkey, Jackie Robinson, Jeff Bagwell, The First Televised Game, Rob Dibble, The Rat and Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammell.  If you want to dive deeper into these subjects check out my show notes page on my website.  https://thisdayinbaseball.com/daily-rewind-season-3-episode-5-jackie-robinson-meets-branch-rickey/ Mentioned in this...

August 28, 1990, Ryne Sandberg of the Chicago Cubs becomes the first second baseman in history to notch consecutive 30-home run seasons. Sandberg hits his milestone 30th home run against the Houston Astros, helping the Cubs to a 5-2 win. Sandberg went onto hit 40 homeruns, he is 1 of 9 men to hit 40 homeruns in a season and the cubs ar the only team to have 40+ homerun hitters at shortstop and sec...

The king of thives: August 27, 1982, Rickey Henderson of the Oakland A’s breaks Lou Brock’s single-season stolen base record. Henderson steals his 119th base, surpassing Brock’s total of 118 thefts. Henderson stole the base in the 3rd inning off the battery of Doc Medith and Ted Simmions. Henderson, would steal three more bases in a 5-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, he will finish the season with...