Baseball history unpacked, July 15 (2024)

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.

“Maybe I called it wrong, but it’s official.” — Tom Connolly.

Today in baseball history:

• 1901 - Christy Mathewson, 22 years old, of the New York Giants pitches a no-hitter, blanking the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-0, at League Park. Matty saves his own no-hitter in the 6th when an Otto Krueger hit caroms off 1B John Ganzel’s glove to Mathewson, who throws back to first base for a 3-1-3 putout. (1,2)
• 1908 - In Chicago, the New York Giants pound Three-Finger Brown and two relievers to win, 11-0, and move into second place. The Chicago Cubs drop two places to third. (2)
• 1913 - Veteran Three-Finger Brown, sold to the Cincinnati Reds over the winter after a 5-6 year with the Chicago Cubs, loses his match-up with New York Giants rival Christy Mathewson, 4-2. Matty walks none to run his streak to 61 innings. (2)
• 1932 - In the second game of a doubleheader, Satchel Paige pitches the first no-hitter in Greenlee Field as the Pittsburgh Crawfords defeat the New York Black Yankees, 6-0. Three Hall of Famers support Paige: Oscar Charleston at first base, Judy Johnson at third, and Josh Gibson in left field. Ted Radcliffe, who pitched in the first game, is behind the plate for Paige’s gem. (2)
• 1948 - The Boston Braves stop the host Chicago Cubs, 2-1, behind Johnny Sain, then battle to a 1-1 tie in 13 innings in the nitecap. Alvin Dark’s hitting streak of 23 games is stopped in the opener, but he has two hits and scores the run in the second game. Bob Rush pitches all 13 innings for the Bruins. (2)
• 1967 - The New York Mets rough up Fergie Jenkins for three home runs, including Al Weis’s second in two days, to beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-5. The Cubs now lead New York by 3 1/2 games. At the end of the game Tom Seaver jumps out of the dugout and clicks his heels several times, mocking Ron Santo’s gesture of the day before. The Mets will win tomorrow as well. (2)
• 1973 - Before 41,411 in Detroit, California Angels ace Nolan Ryan hurls his second no-hitter of the season in taming the Detroit Tigers, 6-0. Ryan fans 17 batters, the most ever in a nine-inning no-hitter, including eight straight, but only one over the last two innings. Nolan’s arm stiffens while watching his team rally for five runs in the top of the 8th. With two outs in the 9th, Norm Cash, who struck out his three other times at bat, comes to bat wielding a piano leg. Umpire Ron Luciano points out the illegality and Cash then pops out using a regulation bat. Ryan’s eight strikeouts in a row ties the American League record he set last year. Jim Perry of the Tigers becomes the only starting pitcher to be on the losing end of three no-hitters with today’s loss to Ryan. Perry was the losing pitcher in no-hitters thrown by Vida Blue on September 21, 1970 and by Steve Busby on April 27th of this year. (1,2)
• 1979 - The Geneva Cubs score 15 runs in the 9th inning to cap a 29-4 romp over the Utica Blue Jays in a New York-Pennsylvania League game. Scott Fletcher paces the attack with two singles, four doubles, a home run, and eight RBI. (2)
• 1994 - In the first inning at Comiskey Park, Chicago White Sox manager Gene Lamont accuses Cleveland Indians slugger Albert Belle of using a corked bat, and umpire Dave Phillips confiscates the bat and stores it in the umps’ dressing room. In a Mission Impossible caper revealed in 1999, the Indians’ Jason Grimsley crawls 100 feet along a ceiling, drops down into the dressing room, and exchanges Belle’s bat for one of Paul Sorrento’s. After the 3-2 Indians win, the switch is discovered to the consternation of the umps and the White Sox. The Indians subsequently turn over one of Belle’s bats and Belle is given a ten-day suspension, later reduced to seven games. (2)
• 2022 - Major League Baseball agrees to settle a long-standing lawsuit, originally filed in 2014 on behalf of Aaron Senne, and now covering some 23,000 retired minor league players, alleging violations of minimum wage laws. MLB will pay a settlement of $185 million to keep the suit from reaching trial, after initial rulings from the judge in charge had gone against it. While this sounds like a lot, it is little in comparison to the $450 million it pays annually in bonuses for newly-signed players, and represents an amount of barely $5,000 per plaintiff. All players who appeared in the California League or in instructional leagues in Florida or Arizona between 2011 and 2017 (with some variations in dates) are eligible. But a law passed by Congress in 2018 has since made MLB exempt from federal minimum wage laws, meaning the settlement won’t serve as a precedent going forward. One former minor leaguer who will benefit a lot from the settlement is lead attorney Garrett Broshuis, who will take in a significant chunk of the $55 million part of the settlement directed to the lawyers who pushed the case. (2)

Cubs Birthdays: Bubbles Hargrave, Bruce Edwards, Bob Will, Chris Denorfia.

Today in History:

• 1381 - John Ball, a leader in the Peasants’ Revolt, is hung, drawn and quartered in the presence of Richard II of England.
• 1783 - World’s first steamboat, the Pyroscaphe, built by Claude-François-Dorothée, marquis de Jouffroy d’Abbans, makes its first voyage on the river Saône in France.
• 1799 The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.
• 1815 - Napoleon surrenders to Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon at Rochefort after his earlier defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
• 1869 - Margarine is patented by Hippolye Méga-Mouriès for use by French Navy.
• 1870 - Manitoba becomes the 5th Canadian province and the Northwest Territories are created and transferred to Canada by the Hudson’s Bay Company.
• 1876 - Baseball’s first official no-hitter: George Bradley of the St Louis Brown Stockings no-hits the Hartford Dark Blues, 2-0. (2)
• 1912 - American athlete Jim Thorpe* is placed in top four in all 10 events, for an Olympic record 8,413 points to win the Decathlon gold medal at the Stockholm Olympics, medal stripped 1913 (played pro baseball), reinstated 1982.
• 1941 - Howard Florey and Norman Heatley present freeze dried mold cultures (Penicillin).
• 1965 - ”Mariner IV” sends back 1st pictures of Mars.
• 1974 - TV news reporter Christine Chubbuck shoots herself live on WXLT-TV, Florida, first person to commit suicide in a live broadcast.

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. We are trying to set the record as straight as possible. But it isn’t brain surgery.

Also, the ‘history’ segment is highly edited for space and interest. Of course a great many other things happened on those days. We try to follow up on the interesting or unfamiliar ones.

And everything is subject to editorial oui.

Thanks for reading