This Week in Baseball History

This Week in Baseball History

1961 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy threw out the first pitch at Griffith Stadium. The Senators lost to the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 

            -The Washington Senators were established as a franchise the same year and became the Texas  Rangers in 1972.  However, the original Senators [of the original 8 of the American League] moved to Minnesota [to become the Twins] in 1960, subsequently a new Senators franchise was established the next year.

1969 - Bill Singer of the Dodgers is credited with the first official save as Los Angeles defeats Cincinnati, 3-2.

            -Singer pitched a three inning shutout in relief of Don Drysdale on Opening Day. It is the first save statistic to be noted by the MLB, but the term save [as well as relievers] was used as far back as 1952.

1974-In the home opener in Atlanta Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's home run record when Aaron connected off of Al Downing [of Los Angeles] in the fourth inning to hit his 715th home run.

            -On July 20, 1976 Aaron hit his 755th [and final homerun]  at Milwaukee County Stadium, which stood until 2007 when it was broken by Barry Bonds.  He also holds the record for most RBIs [2,297], most career extra base hits [1,477], and most career total bases [6,856].

1975-Frank Robinson, the first black manager in the majors, debuts as player-manager for the Cleveland Indians. Robinson hits a home run in his first at-bat — as a designated hitter — to help beat the New York Yankees 5-3.

            -In addition to being the first black manager of the American league, he also became of the first black manager in the National League, upon joining the Giants. He was Manager of the year in 1989 and rather than relying on statistics to determine his lineup he is have said to use his gut.   

1986 - On Opening Day at Tiger Stadium, Boston's Dwight Evans achieves a major league first by hitting a home run off Jack Morris on the first pitch of the entire season. Detroit's Kirk Gibson later hits two home runs of his own to lead the Tigers to a 6-5 victory.

            -Morris would finish the year with 21 wins [but flew under the radar of cy young winner Roger Clemens]  Morris also had 162 wins in the 80s, the most by any pitcher during the decade

1998 - On the same day that major league baseball returned to Wisconsin 28 years earlier, National League baseball returned to Milwaukee for the first time in 32 years. It's a complicated story with a happy ending: The Milwaukee Braves were an N.L. team that moved to Atlanta in 1966 the Seattle Pilots, who formed as an A.L. West expansion team in 1969, moved to Milwaukee and played their first game as the Brewers on April 7, 1970. Five years after their team owner became commissioner of baseball, the Brewers became an N.L. club. And on this day they were 6-4 winners over the Expos in their home opener.

[This is the 1998 Brewers logo] 

            -The Brewers finished the season second to last in the NL central with a record of 74-88, and weren't the first team asked if they wished to be a part of the NL expansion

2000 - Ken Griffey Jr. became the youngest player in baseball history to reach 400 home runs. He was 30 years, 141 days old. 

            -His 630 career home runs ranks 6th in MLB history, he is tied for the most consecutive games with a home run [at 8 with Don Mattingly and Dale Long] and won 10 golden gloves over his career

The Topps Pennant App and the Baseball Purist

The Topps Pennant App and the Baseball Purist 

If your anything like myself you probably consider yourself to be a baseball purist. You eat, breathe, and sleep the sport. You may even disagree with the league when teams are relocated and it might even be the case that you prefer original team names over their current ones [The Houston Colt .45s seems a-lot better than the Astro's]. I recently spent $3.99 on the Topps Pennant App, which provides historical data for seasons and games on a team-by-team basis. Its possible for you to see when a team was on a hot streak, when they were going through a slump. It even shows a teams comparison to the rest of the league. In some cases you can even see how a particular player performed on a particular day. 

For any baseball nut this is a good purchase, while like any app it has its downfalls. For example it doesn't provide the name of every team in MLB history [which for me is a slight annoyance]. Here is a screenshot of the Houston Astro's in 1962 

In 1962, they weren't even called the Astro's [their name change didn't come until 1965]. In their inaugural season in '62 they were the Colt .45s and their logo looked like this. 

It does give the stats of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves [who were first the Boston Braves and later the Atlanta Braves] when they won the World Series

The app even gives you stats for the Boston Braves, the franchise before Milwaukee, but its doesn't tell you the Florida Marlin stats instead it gives you the stats as the Miami Marlins.  Overall though the APP is awesome for any baseball nut. While baseball-reference.com is just as handy [if not handier]. This app is must have for any baseball die hard. After all who else will be able to tell you that the St. Louis Browns only played seasons while compiling a record of 118-190 over those two seasons on the fly? Only the proud owner of the Topps Pennant app would be able to do so..and you'd even be able to show your friends this is what the Browns logo looked like