Baseball history unpacked, August 19

... on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Bleed Cubbie Blue brings a you a lighthearted Cubs-centric look at baseball’s past. Here’s a handy Cubs timeline, to help you follow along as we review select scenes from the rich tapestry of Chicago Cubs and Major League Baseball history*.

Today in baseball history:

• 1913 - Grover Alexander is reached for nine straight hits and six runs as the Cubs defeat Phillies, 10-4. (2,3)
• 1930 - In the first of two, Chicago’s Hack Wilson connects off Phils P Les Sweetland for his 43rd home run, tying Chuck Klein’s National League record set last year. In RF, Klein waves to Wilson as he circles the bases. The Phils hold on for a 9-8 win with Claude Willoughby the winner over rookie Bud Teachout. The second game ends in a 6-6 tie after 16 innings. (3)
• 1941 - Pittsburgh Pirates manager Frankie Frisch is ejected by umpire Jocko Conlan from the second game of a doubleheader when he appears on the field with an umbrella to protest the playing conditions at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. The rainy argument is later portrayed in a famous oil painting by artist Norman Rockwell. (2,3)

• 1949 - The Phillies host ‘Eddie Waitkus Night’ at Shibe Park and shower their injured first baseman with gifts. The All-Star infielder, in uniform for the first time since June, had been shot in the chest at Chicago’s Edgewater Beach Hotel by Ruth Ann Steinhagen, an obsessed fan upset with his trade from the Cubs to Philadelphia. (1)
• 1950 - The Pirates outslug the Cubs, 13-9, for their sixth win in seven games. Ralph Kiner slugs two homers to put him seven days and nine games ahead of last year’s pace, when he hit 54. He has rapped eight dingers this month and four in the last five games. Clyde McCullough adds a bases-loaded triple, sac fly, and two-run double, while Johnny Hopp homers. The Cubs answer with homers by Hank Sauer, Mickey Owen, and Roy Smalley, but it’s not enough. Reliever Bob Rush loses to Murry Dickson. (3)
• 1951 - Emerging from a papier-mache cake between games of a Sportsman’s Park’s doubleheader, three-foot-seven-inch Eddie Gaedel appears as a surprise lead-off pinch-hitter, walking on four pitches in his only major league appearance. American League president Will Harridge voids the small person’s contract the next day, with Browns’ owner Bill Veeck threatening to request an official ruling on whether 5 foot 6 inch Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto is a short ballplayer or a tall dwarf. (1)
• 1965 - At Wrigley Field, Reds hurler Jim Maloney no-hits the Cubs, 1-0, with the only run scoring on a Leo Cardenas homer in the 10th inning. Earlier in the season, Maloney had also no-hit the Mets for ten innings, but lost the game in the 11th when Johnny Lewis homered off him. (1,3)
• 1969 - At Wrigley Field, Ken Holtzman no-hits the Braves, 3-0, with Ron Santo’s first-inning homer off Phil Niekro providing all of the Cubs’ runs. The no-hitter is the fifth of the season, and the first since 1923 in which no strikeouts are recorded, when Sad Sam Jones accomplished the feat with the Yankees. (1)
• 1970 - Fergie Jenkins homers and his teammates add another six as Chicago coasts over San Diego, 12-2. Jim Hickman (2), Glenn Beckert, Johnny Callison, Joe Pepitone, and Billy Williams also hit round trippers for Chicago. Six of the Cub homers are solo shots and San Diego adds a solo homer: the seven solo homers by two teams sets a National League record and ties the major league mark set on April 29, 1962. (3)
• 1989 - Cubs’ center fielder Jerome Walton extends his hitting streak to 29 games in an 8-4 loss to Houston at the Astrodome. With his seventh-inning single, the 24-year-old rookie establishes the longest consecutive-game hit streak in modern franchise history, surpassing the mark set by Ron Santo in 1966. (1)
• 2011 - Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts fires general manager Jim Hendry, the man who brought the perennial losers within five outs of the World Series in 2003 and built back-to-back division winners in 2008 and 2009, after nine years on the job. Hendry’s success was achieved at the cost of a massive payroll, however, and the team is now on the hook for a number of expensive contracts to underachieving former stars, while headed for a second consecutive fifth-place finish. His players send Hendry out a winner as pinch-hitter Tyler Colvin hits a walk-off single in the 10th inning to give the Cubs a 5-4 win over the Cardinals on his last day. Assistant GM Randy Bush is named to take over in the interim but is not in line to succeed Hendry. (3)

Cubs birthdays: Ike McAuley, Tex Carleton, Tim Blackwell, Gary Gaetti, Matt Franco, Rocky Cherry.

SimNews:

The Cubs (88-38) came up a run short as Yu Darvish continued to post low-quality starts and left in the fourth, trailing. Yu was tagged with the 5-4 loss, his 6th against 9 victories. Solo homers by Baez, Bryant, and Bote, plus a run that was basically stolen by Greg Jones, who was obtained from the Rays in the Yarbrough/Q deal and was brought up to replace Almora, who went down for a day in lieu of going on the IL for a sprain. Jones is an intriguing player, just 20 years old, and with speed to burn, good contact skills, and the ability to play a variety of positions. We’ll keep him up for a minute. Brett Phillips is now back in Iowa, and Almora has returned, as the 77-51 Dodgers boast a host of southpaws.

Jon Lester (13-5, 3.29) will face David Price (12-6, 3.81) in the third of four games and if he’s right, Jon will try to get a chance to look behind door #2 to see what’s left. The Dodgers are riding an eight-game winning streak — it’s time to end that nonsense. The game will ‘air’ at 1 p.m. CT. All game video and related material is available commercial-free, 24/7, at the BCB Media Center.

Thanks for reading.