I started this thread at Baylorfans.com. Some of you who have not frequented there may find it interesting.

Hopefully the older BFans posts will remain available on the internet via Baylorfans archives, but that may or may not be the case. So, to be sure, read it now.

http://www.baylorfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=309674&page=12

On July 28, 1963, Dick Ellsworth struck out Cardinals' left fielder Stan Musial three times in the Cubs' 5-1 victory at Wrigley Field. It turned out to be the only time 'Stan the Man' was whiffed three times in a game during his 22-year career, a span of 3026 contests.

Ponderous Joe Bauman chases the all time home run record in the summer of '54.

http://joeposnanski.com/the-home-run-summer-of-54/

Baseball's first rulebook (1845)

In 1866, Vassar College had the first Women's baseball team.

In 1867, the first recorded curveball was thrown by Candy Cummings

Following

Good stuff.

BU84BEAR said:

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On July 28, 1963, Dick Ellsworth struck out Cardinals' left fielder Stan Musial three times in the Cubs' 5-1 victory at Wrigley Field. It turned out to be the only time 'Stan the Man' was whiffed three times in a game during his 22-year career, a span of 3026 contests.

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Stan Musial has 3,630 career hits - good for fourth all time. Exactly 1,815 were hit at home, and exactly 1,815 were hit on the road.

Don Mattingly set the single season grand slam record with 6 in 1987. These were the only grand slams of his career.

A young boy named Tim Smith had Tug McGraw's baseball card taped to his bedroom wall. One day he found his birth certificate and learned that Tug McGraw was his father. The boy then changed his last name. He grew up to become country music superstar Tim McGraw.

In 1961, Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's record for hitting the most home runs in a season (61, with the famous asterisk). But did you know that Maris's teammate, pitcher Whitey Ford broke the Babe's record for pitching 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in a World Series the same year?

When asked how it felt to have thrown 33 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings, beating the Babe's other record, Ford responded, "It was a bad year for the Babe."

Jimmie Foxx hit 60 home runs in 1932 and would have tied Babe Ruth's longstanding record, except that two of his home runs were "called back" by rainouts.

. Like Ruth, Foxx pitched (1.52 career ERA) and played outfield. But Foxx was also an All-Star at catcher, first and third. He even played one game at short!

They say that behind every great man there is a woman.

More evidence of this:

On Oct 8, 1956 Yankee Don Larson pitched the only.perfect game in a World Series on 97 pitches.

That morning, his wife had filed for divorce.

Interesting facts about the game: (from Wikipedia..)

Don Larsen's license plate number is DL000, representing his initials and the no-run, no-hit, no-error line score from his perfect game.

The headline in the New York Daily News for Larsen's game read, "ZERO HERO."

Joe Torre was a 16-year-old spectator at the game. He sat in the left field upper deck. Torre, as manager of the New York Yankees, was present in the Yankee dugout during perfect games thrown by David Wells (1998) and David Cone (1999), and thus a witness to all three of the perfect games pitched in Yankee Stadium.

Torre is also the current manager of the Dodgers, who left Brooklyn and relocated to Los Angeles, California before the 1958 season.

Umpire Pinelli later commented, "What a spot to be inif I were to call a base on balls, it would go down as the Crime of the Century."

On the day of the perfect game, Larsen's wife Vivian filed for divorce.

Larsen was in Yankee Stadium for two of baseball's 15 modern perfect games: his own in 1956, and David Cone's in 1999. Cone's game occurred on Yogi Berra Day; Larsen threw out the ceremonial first pitch to Berra before the game. Larsen would later claim that Cone's perfect game was the first game he had seen in person from start to finish since his retirement.

When David Wells threw a perfect game in 1998, it was noted that, coincidentally, Larsen and Wells had both attended San Diego's Point Loma High School. Larsen phoned Wells to congratulate him, and later told a reporter, "He won't forget it. He'll think about it every day, like I do."

Bartolo Colon hit his first-ever home run when he was 42 years, 349 days old! No major leaguer had ever waited until such an advanced age to hit his first dinger. "You could tell it was his first home run," quipped Jimmy Fallon, "because at each base, he stopped to ask directions to the next one."

Colon was also the oldest major leaguer to earn his first walk, which he did at the ripe young age of only 43! In 521 major league games, Colon managed to walk exactly once, raising his career OBP to a scintillating .095!

Sadly, it has gone down since.

August 6, 1930 (87 years ago today) right here in Wacotown at Katy Park

Gene 'Half Pint' Rye of the Waco Cubs set a professional baseball record (that still stands) by hitting 3 HR in one inning


http://www.baseballroundtable.com/baseball-stocking-stuffers-gene-rye-john-schuerholz-and-mickey-mantle/

Thanks, Mr Golfguy.

Rye almost hit for the HR cycle that day.

Only one pro player has...

On July 27, 1998 Tyrone Horne, playing for the Double A Arkansas Travelers, became the only professional player (to date) to hit for the "Home Run Cycle" bashing a solo, two-run, three-run and grand slam home run all in the same game (a 13-4 win over the San Antonio Mission). They were the only home runs in the game, in which Arkansas collected 13 hits. Horne ended the day four-for-four, with four runs scored and ten RBI.

Horne hit three of his four dingers off San Antonia starter Pete Zamora a two-run shot in the first inning, a grand slam in the second and a solo homer in the fifth. His final homer, a three-run long ball, came in the sixth off reliever Miguel Garcia. Horne came up once more, with two on, in the eighth, but reliever Jeff Kubenka struck him out.

http://www.baseballroundtable.com/tyrone-horne-day-15th-anniversary-of-pro-balls-only-homer-cycle/

There are 9 players in 600 HR club. Only @AROD & @PujolsFive had more homers at their 26th birthday than @MikeTrout

By all accounts, the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves had no business meeting in the 1991 World Series.

Both teams finished last in their division the year before. However, both got hot in 1991 and stayed that way, pulling off worst-to-firsts in the same year.

Minnesota had an easier path to the World Series, defeating the Blue Jays in five games of the ALCS.
The Braves had a tough go of it against the Pirates, as the series went seven games.
Ultimately, the Braves won Game 7, 4-0.

In the World Series, the Twins and Braves engaged in one of the best World Series ever to be played. Not to mention that their Game 7 was perhaps the best Game 7 in history.

Jack Morris went 10 innings, as the Twins scored a run in the bottom of the 10th to win the game, 1-0.
It was truly a classic World Series between teams nobody thought would get there.

The following are scenes from the first World Series in 1903 between the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1903_World_Series

The Boston Americans are in front and the Pirates are in the back.



Poster


Program

Game 3 rain check



Ticket



Boston Police

Game 5 at Exhibition Park at Pittsburgh.



Fans sneaking into 1903 World Series in Boston



Game 3 at Boston Huntington Grounds

Boston Cheering Section The Royal Rooters watching the 1903 World Series from the field.

Pittsburgh Pirates at 1903 World Series in Boston



Boston Americans <---click

Interesting article about the 1903 World Series and the Royal Rooters:

http://news.wgbh.org/post/root-1903-red-sox-world-series-victory

http://www.bpl.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/boston-sports-temples/view-the-exhibition/huntington-avenue-grounds/

Pictures of 1903 World Series from Boston Public Library.

It is actually a collection of pictures from the stadium so some are of other years.

Most of these pictures were used as decorations at the bar called Third Base across from the Huntington Grounds owned by the head of the Royal Rooters. The owner donated the memorabilia to the Library in 1920 when the bar had to close due to prohibition.

The 1884 Providence Greys, the original 1st World Series Champions (winner of the one off championship series between the national League and the American Association).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence_Grays

Fidel Castro was once a star baseball player for the University of Havana.

Babe Ruth lived for a time on the site of what is now Oriole Park at Camden Yards, above one of his father's string of saloons.

BU84BEAR said:

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The 1884 Providence Greys, the original 1st World Series Champions (winner of the one off championship series between the national League and the American Association).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence_Grays

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The major league team pictured folded in 1885. It was replaced by an unrelated minor league team of the same name in 1886. That team folded, as did the team that replaced it in Providence. Babe Ruth played for the next minor league team in Providence, also known as the Greys, a team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox. It was on this team in 1914 that he hit his first professional home run.

Babe Ruth's first major league home run came against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds on May 6, 1915. Exactly three years later, in the same ballpark, Ruth hit a home run in his first start at a position (1B) other than pitcher.

Babe Ruth was one of 17 players Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee traded or sold to the Yankees between December 1918 and July 1923, when he finally sold the team. On New York's first World Series title team of 1923, half the regular players and six of the seven pitchers to throw more than a dozen innings were acquired from Frazee.

MLB Career Batting Average---Only 4 Active players are even in the top 100:

#55 Miguel Cabrera .3177
#59 Jose' Altuve .3173
#78 (tied) Joey Votto .3127 (ask me my Nomar Garciaparra brushes with greatness story (also tied at #78))
#91 (tied) Icharo Suzuki .3115