Baseball history unpacked, July 12

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:

• 1900 - Frank “Noodles” Hahn of Cincinnati twirls a 4-0 no-hitter over Philadelphia. The Reds lefty gives up five walks to the visiting Quakers who are playing without Nap Lajoie. Hahn strikes out seven, including the first two batters in the ninth. The last batter, Roy Thomas, is thrown out on his two-strike bunt. Philadelphia’s Bill Bernhard allows seven hits, including a homer by Sam Crawford in the 7th. (2)
• 1905 - Chicago’s Three-Finger Brown scores the first of nine straight wins over Christy Mathewson, 8-1, as he allows just two New York hits. New York’s lone run scores on an error by Billy Maloney. Matty gives up 12 hits while his teammates commit five errors. Of 28 match-ups over their careers, Brown will win 14. (2)
• 1934 - Chuck Klein is out of the Cubs lineup because of injuries as they beat the Braves, 7-4. He is batting .331 with 19 homers and 65 RBI, but will miss much of the second half and never again will return to the high level of performance previously shown. (2)
• 1945 - The Chicago Cubs stop Tommy Holmes’s modern-day National League-record hitting streak at 37 games, beating the Boston Braves, 6-1, behind Hank Wyse, for their 11th victory in a row. The Braves take game two, 3-1, as Claude Passeau loses his first after nine straight wins. Holmes hit .433 during the streak and will finish at .352, second in the National League. His nine strikeouts coupled with 28 homers and 47 doubles is unparalleled for making contact and hitting for average and power. (2)
• 1949 - Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians and Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Don Newcombe of the host Dodgers became the first black players to appear in an All-Star game. The American League took advantage of five National League errors to win 11-7 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. (1,2)
• 1951 - At Cleveland, Allie Reynolds of the New York Yankees blanks Cleveland, 1-0, for the first of his two no-hitters this season. Gene Woodling’s 7th-inning homer off loser Bob Feller is the difference in the game. The Chief’s no-hitter is the first by a Yankee since Monte Pearson in 1928. (1,2)
• 1954 - Major League Baseball Players Association founded.
• 1979 - After a delay of an hour and 16 minutes, the White Sox are forced to forfeit the second game of twi-night doubleheader against the Tigers when over 5,000 fans refuse to leave the field during a Disco Demolition Night* promotion gone awry. Mike Veeck’s promotion involves admitting fans for 98 cents with a disco record, collecting the vinyl and then literally blowing up the LPs and 45s in center field.(1,2)

• 1987 - The Yankees trade P Bob Tewksbury and two minor league pitchers to the Cubs for Steve Trout, who has just pitched back-to-back shutouts. (2)
• 1996 - Montreal defeats the Cubs by a score of 3-2. Throughout the game, Expo 1B David Segui shares his mitt with Chicago’s Mark Grace as Grace’s glove did not arrive at the ballpark due to a shipping mix-up. The players leave the mitt in the field between innings, as players did at the turn of the century. (2)
• 1997 - Cubs play in their 5,000th consecutive game without being no-hit.
• 2009 - The Cubs and Cardinals split a day/night doubleheader at Wrigley Field. Chicago wins the opener, 7-3, on home runs by Micah Hoffpauir and P Carlos Zambrano, and the Cards take the nightcap, 4-2. Ryan Ludwick hits a pair of two-run home runs to account for all of St. Louis’s runs; Adam Wainwright picks up his tenth win and Ryan Franklin strikes out the side in the ninth for his 21st save. As a result, the first four teams in the NL Central are within 3½ games of each other heading into the All-Star break. (2)

Cubs birthdays: Hank Schreiber, Al Glossop, Jack Warner, Tom Gorzelanny, Narciso Crook.

Today in history:

• 1191 - English King Richard I the Lionheart and Crusaders defeat Saracens in Palestine.
• 1785 - 1st manned flight by gas balloon in Netherlands.
• 1804 - Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot in a pistol duel the previous day by Vice President Aaron Burr.
• 1917 - The Bisbee Deportation occurs as vigilantes kidnap and deport nearly 1,300 striking miners and others from Bisbee, Arizona.
• 1970 - Thor Heyerdahl crosses the Atlantic ocean on the raft Ra II, arrives in Barbados from Morocco after 57 days.

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.