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This Day in Baseball History
July 16th

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41 Fact(s) Found
1897 Colts' first baseman Cap Anson becomes the first major leaguer to collect 3000 hits when he singles off George Blackburn. The 45-year-old infielder's historic safety comes in a 2-1 loss to Baltimore at Chicago's West Side Grounds.
1909 The Tigers and Senators play the longest scoreless game in American League history. Detroit's Ed Summers, who gives up just seven hits, goes the distance but doesn't get a decision when the 0-0 contest at Bennett Park ends after the 18th inning.
1913 In a game against the Cubs, Superbas' second baseman George Cutshaw handles 14 chances without an error. The infielder's defensive prowess helps Brooklyn beat Chicago at Ebbets Field, 4-2.
1920 After pitching 16 scoreless frames, Earl Hamilton and the Pirates lose to the Giants in the 17th at Forbes Field, 7-0. New York starter Rube Benton tosses 17 shutout innings to get the victory.

1924 George Kelly goes deep over the left-field fence, homering in his sixth consecutive game to set a major league record. The future Hall of Famer's seventh-inning two-run homer proves to be the difference in the Giants' 8-7 victory over the Pirates at Forbes Field.
1932 Tommy Thomas collects his third victory in three days, all against the same team, when the Senators rout St. Louis at Griffith Stadium, 11-0. The 32-year-old right-hander, who will defeat the Browns seven times this season, picked up two of his three wins against Washington as a reliever before going the distance in today's contest.
1933 Reds right-hander Red Lucas beats the Giants and Roy Parmelee, 1-0, in a 15-inning game that both starters go the distance. The Redland Field contest ends when Rollie Hemsley’s single to right field plates George Grantham with the winning run.
1948 Branch Rickey and Giants owner Horace Stoneham agree on a deal that releases Brooklyn manager Leo Durocher to become the Giants' skipper, replacing the popular Mel Ott. Burt Shotton will take the 'Lip's' place in the Dodger dugout.
1956 Radio executives John Fetzer and Fred Knorr buy the Tigers and Briggs Stadium for a record $5.5 million from a reluctant Walter Briggs, Jr., ordered by family estate administrators to sell the ownership he inherited from his father. The deal includes an agreement to retain Briggs, who will become the team's general manager, as executive vice president, but the former owner will resign from both posts at the start of next season.
1966 Horace Clarke hits his second career home run, a tenth-inning grand slam, giving the Yankees an eventual 9-5 win over the A's at Kansas City's Municipal Stadium. The New York shortstop's first-ever round-tripper also came with the bases full last season.
1968 After making a running catch of Chuck Hinton's blooper, Indians' center fielder Jose Cardenal continues into the infield, doubling up Jim Fregosi at second base to complete an unassisted double play. The Cleveland outfielder becomes only the fourth flychaser to record two unassisted double plays in one season, joining Socks Seybold (1907, A's), Tris Speaker (1918, Indians), and Adam Comorosky (1935, Pirates).
1969 Rod Carew steals home for the seventh time, establishing a new American League standard and tying Pete Reiser's major-league mark for swiping the plate in one season. After further research in 1991, Ty Cobb retains the record, having stolen home eight times in 1912.
1969 At Jarry Park, Willie Stargell becomes the first major leaguer to homer into a swimming pool when his 495-foot blast splashes into a recreational pool beyond the right-field fence. When Pirates' first baseman retired in 1982, the Expos presented him with a life-preserver in tribute to the homers he hit into what became known to the locals as "Willie's pool" or referred to in French as la piscine de Willie.
1970 Three Rivers Stadium debuts precisely on the same spot as Exposition Park, the Pirates' home from 1891-1909. Cincinnati's first baseman Tony Perez hits the park's first home run as the Pirates lose to the Reds, 3-2.
1975 The owners re-elect Bowie Kuhn to his second term as baseball commissioner. Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley attempted to persuade others to vote to remove Kuhn, who had become his adversary on many issues during his first seven years in the position.
1978 Tulsa southpaw starter Dave Righetti, who doesn't get the decision when the Drillers lose in the tenth, strikes out 21 Midland Cubs over nine innings, establishing a Texas League record. In the off-season, the 19-year-old Ranger farmhand becomes part of a ten-player trade that sends him to the Yankees.
1985 The All-Star Game telecast at Minnesota's Metrodome becomes the first-ever program transmitted in stereo. NBC, which broadcast the first professional baseball game in 1939, airs Midsummer Classic.
1985 The National League beats the AL, 6-1, marking its 21st victory in the previous 23 All-Star Games. Sparky Anderson, the first manager to win 100 games in the National and American Leagues, becomes the first skipper to lose a Midsummer Classics in each league.
1988 In the longest game ever played in Texas League history, the San Antonio Missions beat the visiting Jackson Mets in 26 innings, 1-0, when Manny Francois ended it with a bases-loaded single to center. The V.J. Keefe Stadium contest, which started on July 14th, was suspended at 2:25 a.m. and continued on July 16th, taking seven hours and 23 minutes to complete.
1990 Steve Lyons slides headfirst into first base to beat out a bunt. The play becomes memorable when the White Sox first baseman drops his pants to brush away the dirt inside his uniform in front of 14,770 surprised fans at Tiger Stadium.

1999 New York closer Mariano Rivera blows the save, giving up four ninth-inning runs in the team's 10-7 loss to Atlanta, after hearing Enter Sandman played as his entrance song for the first time. Seeing the San Diego fans' enthusiastic reaction to Trevor Hoffman's entrance to AC/DC's Hell's Bells during the World Series, the Yankees' ownership comes up with the iconic Metallica heavy metal rock song for the quiet Panamanian, who is a devout Christian.

2000 A 1919 Chicago 'Black Sox' autographed baseball fetches $93,666 at an eBay auction. The ball's value, believed to be the most for such an item, was unusually high because it included the signature of Shoeless Joe Jackson, an illiterate player who usually just signed legal documents.
2000 The Twins announce the possibility of playing a home series outdoors in a temporary stadium next season. However, moving away from the Metrodome would require the approval of major league baseball, the players' association, the opponents, broadcast affiliates, and the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission.
2001 Fred McGriff invokes his no-trade clause, blocking a deal that would have sent him to the first-place Cubs from the last-place Devil Rays. Later in the day, the 'Crime Dog' homers, helping Tampa Bay to beat the Braves 6-5.
2001 President George W. hosts the first White House Tee Ball All-Star Game on the South Lawn, featuring a player from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Hall of Famer Frank Robinson served as the Honorary Commissioner of the contest, designed to encourage fitness among America's youth while promoting the sport as the country's national pastime.
2003 At 77, Minnie Minoso became the first person to play in a professional game in seven decades. The Cuban native, who played his last full season in 1963 with the White Sox, walks as the designated hitter for the St. Paul Saints against the Gary SouthShore RailCats in Northern League action, an independent minor league.
2003 The Yankees send pitching prospects Jason Anderson, Anderson Garcia, and Ryan Bicondoa to the Mets for hard-throwing embattled closer Armando Benitez. The 30-year-old All-Star reliever, slated to be the setup man for closer Mariano Rivera, blew seven of 28 save opportunities and became the object of much booing at Shea Stadium.
2005 The Northern League initially approved that the fans in the stands and the players looking on from their dugouts would watch the action on a video stadium monitor as two kids determine the outcome of the first two innings using an X-Box and the MVP Baseball software. Although individual Kansas City T-Bones and Schaumburg Flyers statistics generated by the video game would not have counted, the league officials nix the promotion, deciding instead to have the game's final two innings replayed on the game system.
2005 The Yankees acquired recently released Al Leiter from the Marlins to bolster their injured pitching rotation. The 39-year-old $8-million southpaw, who posted a disappointing 3-7 record and a 6.64 ERA with the Fish, will quickly pay dividends, limiting the Red Sox to one run and three hits in his first start back as a Bronx Bomber.
2006 At Wrigley Field, Mets outfielders Cliff Floyd and Carlos Beltran hit grand slams during a franchise-record 11-run inning in the sixth of the 13-7 defeat of the Cubs. The pair of four-run homers marks only the seventh time a team has accomplished the feat in one inning.
2006 Chipper Jones ties a major league record by collecting an extra-base hit in his 14th straight game. The Braves' third baseman's fourth-inning home run equals the mark established in 1927 by Pirates outfielder Paul Waner.
2006 Mariano Rivera records his 400th career save, pitching two innings in New York's 6-4 victory over the White Sox. The Yankee closer becomes the fourth major league reliever to reach the milestone, joining Lee Smith (478), Trevor Hoffman (460), and John Franco (424).
2006 The Reds honor perfect game hurler Tom Browning and slugging first baseman Lee May with induction into the team's Hall of Fame. Cooperstown and Mets Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, who spent five-plus seasons with the team, hurling a no-hitter with Cincinnati in 1978, is also included as an inductee.
2008 In Washington, D.C., the United States Post Office releases the Take Me Out to the Ball Game commemorative stamp, marking the 100th anniversary of baseball's official anthem. Scottsdale (AZ) graphic artist Richard Sheaff designed the 42-cent postage stamp based on a circa-1880 "trade card" image from his private collection that features a baseball scene promoting a product made in Michigan.
2009 In Miami, Ryan Howard, playing in his 658th game, becomes the fastest player to hit 200 home runs when he goes deep off Marlin right-hander Chris Volstad with his solo shot in the sixth inning in the team's 4-0 victory. Hall of Fame slugger Ralph Kiner, who played in 48 more contests than the 29-year-old Phillies first baseman to reach the plateau, had previously held the mark.

2009 The Diamondbacks and Rockies announce that the teams will share an Arizona spring training home in 2011. The Pima-Maricopa Indians, according to a 25-year agreement, plan to build an 11,000-seat ballpark and a complex, making the major league facility the first located on a site believed to be tribal land.
2010 Bengie Molina becomes the eighth major leaguer and the first backstop since 1900 to hit a grand slam and a single, double, and triple in the same game. The slow-footed catcher, the eighth Ranger to hit for the cycle, legs out an improbable triple in the eighth inning to complete the feat.
2010 The Yankees honor Bob Sheppard's memory, wearing commemorative patches on the left sleeve of their uniforms as a tribute in the first game played at the Bronx ballpark since his death. During the contest against Tampa Bay, the public address announcements come from an empty PA booth.

2013 In the first All-Star Game played in the Queens in 49 years, the American League pitchers hold their National League opponents to just three hits, blanking the Senior Circuit at Citi Field, 3-0. Yankee closer Mariano Rivera, voted the game's MVP, receives a standing ovation from the enthusiastic 45,186 fans in attendance when he enters the contest in the eighth inning en route to retiring three consecutive NL batters.
2013 In the All-Star Game played at New York's Citi Field, Salvador Perez, who replaced Joe Mauer behind the plate in the last inning, leads off the eighth with a single to right field off Atlanta's Craig Kimbrel. The Kansas City catcher becomes the first Royals player to get a hit in the Midsummer Classic since Bo Jackson blasted his memorable moonshot at Anaheim Stadium in 1989.
2021 Padres' second baseman Jake Cronenworth completes the cycle when he scratches out a sixth-inning infield single in the team's 24-8 of the Nationals in Washington. The 26-year-old rookie doubled in the second, tripled in the third, and homered in the fifth frame en route to accomplishing the rare feat, the first for the club since Wil Myers did it against the Rockies in 2017.
41 Fact(s) Found