Baseball history unpacked, April 24

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Bleed Cubbie Blue is pleased to present a light-hearted, Cubs-centric look at baseball’s colorful past, with plenty of the lore and various narratives to follow as they unfold over the course of time. Here’s a handy Cubs timeline, to help you follow along.

Today in baseball history:

• 1901 - Three rain postponements give Chicago the honor of hosting the first major league game in American League history (the circuit played as a minor league in 1900). At South Side Park, a crowd of over 10,000 fans attends the game to see pitcher Roy Patterson take the win for the Chicago White Sox over the the visiting Cleveland Blues, 8-2. Clark Griffith manages Chicago. (1,2)
• 1917 - George Mogridge of the New York Yankees pitches a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox, 2-1, at Fenway Park. Mogridge strikes out three batters and walks three as he becomes the first Yankee pitcher to actually win a no-hit game. (1,2)
• 1931 - Three days before his 35th birthday, Chicago’s player-manager Rogers Hornsby is again undaunted by Forbes Field’s forbidding expanse. Hornsby hits three consecutive home runs to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 10-6. This is the final season in which Hornsby will allot himself significant playing time – 357 at-bats in 100 games. The hyphenate portion of his career will extend through 1937, but his on-field appearances will come primarily off the bench and never again will he amass as many as 100 at-bats in a season. Regarding today’s display, Fred Wertenbach of the Pittsburgh Press reports: “For the enlightenment of those fans not among the 15,000 at yesterday’s slaughter, the great Rogers crashed three successive long, legitimate and unsullied homers over the distant Forbes Field ramparts, two off Larry French and the third off Claude Willoughby. Mr. French tried to southpaw Hornsby in the 3rd à la screw ball. Two men were on at the time. He pitched a bit low. Hornsby drove it over the left field wall, about the seventh panel up from the scoreboard. The score then became Cubs 3, Pirates 5. In the 5th, Larry faced Hornsby again with two on. ‘Huh! He hits ‘em low; I’ll try one high outside,’ Larry reasoned. Bang! The ball cleared the screen in right, and the score in a trice became 6-5, Cubs. The 6th frame saw Willoughby, a right-hander, ready to benefit from French’s experience, the latter having left the scene. ‘This guy hits ‘em low, he hits ‘em high – my play is to curve him to death,’ was the ex-Phillie’s logic. Kiki Cuyler was on second. Wham! A curve, waist high, was interrupted as it came up to the plate, and diverted over the scoreboard in left. Two more runs added to the Cub total, making eight driven in by Rogers.” (2)
• 1945 - Happy Chandler becomes the second baseball commissioner. The major league owners unanimously elect the former governor of Kentucky on the first ballot and reward him with a seven-year contract. Chandler succeeds Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the game’s first commissioner, who died in 1944. (1,2)
• 1946 - Eleven former players — Jesse Burkett, Frank Chance, Jack Chesbro, Johnny Evers, Clark Griffith, Tommy McCarthy, Joe McGinnity, Eddie Plank, Joe Tinker, Rube Waddell, and Ed Walsh are inducted into the Hall of Fame.
• 1957 - The Chicago Cubs set a National League record by walking nine batters in the fifth inning of a 9-5 loss to the Cincinnati Redlegs. Moe Drabowsky walks four batters, Jackie Collum issues three free passes, and Jim Brosnan two during the wild inning. (1,2)
• 1958 - Lee Walls hits three home runs and drives in eight runs as the Cubs rout the Dodgers, 15-2, at the Los Angeles Coliseum. (1,2)
• 1962 - Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers strikes out 18 Chicago Cubs in a 10-2 victory at Wrigley Field. Koufax ties the (to-that-date) record of 18 strikeouts in a single game, matching the mark set by Bob Feller with the Cleveland Indians. (1,2) Kerry Wood and Roger Clemens share the modern record of 20.
• 1998 - Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza ties a major league record hitting his third grand slam of the month. The blast highlights a nine-run second inning which leads Los Angeles to 12-4 victory over the visiting Chicago Cubs. (2)
• 2010 - After undergoing shoulder surgery in November 2009, Ted Lilly pitches six scoreless innings in his first start of the year for the Cubs, leading his team to a 5-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. Carlos Zambrano, who, in a controversial decision, was moved to the bullpen to make room for Lilly in the starting rotation, pitches an inning and a third in his first relief appearance in almost eight years. He gives up the Brewers’ sole run, but drives in one of the Cubs’ tallies with a sacrifice fly. (2)

Cubs birthdays: Ken Penner, Glen Hobbie, Herman Segelke, Will Cunnane, Welington Castillo, Steven Souza Jr. Also notable: Andy Cooper HOF, Chipper Jones HOF.

Today in history:

• 1184 BC - The Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional date). (that this actually happened is a matter of dispute — the first mention was in Virgil’s Aeneid, but historians differ.)
• 1066 - Halley’s Comet sparks English monk to predict country will be destroyed.
• 1793 - French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of charges brought by the Girondin in Paris.
• 1872 - Volcano Mt Vesuvius erupts in Italy.
• 1898 - Spanish–American War: Spain declares war after rejecting US ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
• 1913 - The Woolworth Building is opened in New York City by Frank Winfield Woolworth at a cost of $13.5 million, at 792 feet it was the world’s tallest building at the time.
• 1962 - Massachusetts Institute of Technology sends TV signal by satellite for the first time: California to Massachusetts.

Common sources:

• (1) — Today in Baseball History.
• (2) — Baseball Reference.
• (3) — Society for American Baseball Research.
• (4) — Baseball Hall of Fame.
• (5) — This Day in Chicago Cubs history.
• For world history.

*pictured.

Some of these items spread from site to site without being verified. That is exactly why we ask for reputable sources if you have differences with a posted factoid, so that we can address that to the originators and provide clarity if not ‘truth’. Nothing is posted here without at least one instance of corroboration (this also includes the history bullets). Thanks for reading, and thanks also for your cooperation.