Aug. 1
Olympics
1992: Barely 18 months after her feet were almost amputated as a result of radiation treatment for Graves' disease, Gail Devers wins the 100-meter dash at the Olympics in Barcelona in a five-woman photo finish. In an incredibly tight race, the five runners are within .06 seconds of Devers' winning time of 10.82.
At the press conference following her victory, the 25-year-old Devers tells how radiation had destroyed her thyroid gland and began affecting her extremities, particularly her feet. Her condition degenerated to the point that her father had to carry her around her apartment. But a change of medication enabled her to recover.
Gwen Torrence, the pre-race favorite who finishes fourth in 10.86 seconds, accuses three of the women in the race, including two medalists, of using drugs in their training. She insists she is not fingering Devers. This means she thinks silver medalist Juliet Cuthbert and bronze medalist Irina Privalova are the drug users.
Baseball
1978: After Pete Rose hit safely yesterday to extend his hitting streak to a National League record-tying 44 games, the Union Plaza sports book in Las Vegas dropped its odds from 10-1 to an incredibly low 3-1 that Rose would hit in his next 12 games. "But it's a very popular bet," says a Union Plaza spokesman. "It opened at 40-1 after he passed Tommy Holmes [at 37] and just kept going down. People keep betting on him."
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Aug. 2
Olympics
1992: After Jackie Joyner-Kersee wins Olympic gold in the heptathlon in Barcelona, she takes a victory lap and waves a tiny American flag. Then Bruce Jenner, the 1976 Olympic decathlon champion, tells her, "You have proved to the world that you are the greatest athlete who ever lived, male or female. You have done what no one has ever done."
Joyner-Kersee is the first to win consecutive gold medals in the grueling seven-event competition. The Germans try to intimidate her, but it doesn't work. Going into today's final three events, she leads by 129 points. She expands her advantage with a leap of 23 feet, 3+ inches in her specialty, the long jump. Then she throws the javelin 147 feet, 7 inches and runs the 800 meters in 2:11.78 to finish with 7,044, a margin of 199 over runner-up Irina Belova.
The next day, The New York Times headline on Joyner-Kersee's feat will be: "America's Seventh Wonder of the Games."
Baseball
1979: Thurman Munson, the New York Yankees' first captain since Lou Gehrig, is killed when the plane he is piloting crashes short of the runway on an attempted landing at the Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio.
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Aug. 3
Olympics
1984: Mary Lou Retton knows she needs an outstanding performance in her final event to win the individual all-around Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles. A 9.95 would enable the 16-year-old pixie to tie for first place; a 10 would give her the gold by herself.
The nerveless Retton responds by being perfect on her vault -- a full back somersault in layout position with a full twist. She is the first American woman to win an Olympic medal of any kind in gymnastics.
"I vault best under pressure," says the 4-foot-9, 94-pound bundle of energy. "It makes me fight harder. I knew if I stuck that vault I'd win it. I kept thinking, 'stick, stick, stick.' I knew I had to get a 10." She certainly sticks it. She descends from her midair twisting and turning in perfect form, landing upright and rock still.
Baseball
1948: Former Negro Leagues star Satchel Paige is successful in his first start in the American League. Before 72,434 fans -- the largest crowd to attend a night game in Cleveland -- the lanky Indians right-hander defeats the Washington Senators, 5-3.
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Aug. 4
Olympics
1936: Jesse Owens is almost out of the long jump at the Olympics in Berlin shortly after qualifying begins. He fouls on his first two jumps, though he is stunned when officials count a practice run down the runway and into the pit as an attempt.
With one jump remaining, Luz Long, a tall, blue-eyed, blond German long jumper who is his stiffest competition, introduces himself. He suggests that Owens make a mark several inches behind the takeoff board and jump from there to play it safe. Owens takes the advice, and qualifies.
In the finals that afternoon, Long's fifth jump matches Owens' 25 feet, 10 inches. But Owens leaps 26-3¾ on his next attempt and wins his second of four gold medals with a final jump of 26-5½. The first to congratulate the Olympic record holder is Long, who looks like the model Nazi but isn't. The two walk arm in arm in front of Adolf Hitler's box.
"It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler," Owens will say years later. "You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace. The sad part of the story is I never saw Long again. He was killed in World War II."
Baseball
1993: Nolan Ryan is known for throwing no-hitters. Tonight, he throws a six-hitter - with his fists.
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Aug. 5
Olympics
1984: Asked once about the pressure he feels because of his incredible winning streak in the 400-meter hurdles, Edwin Moses replied, "It's like going to your execution 15 times a year."
Moses dodges another bullet today when he wins the gold medal at the Olympics in Los Angeles. It is Moses' 105th consecutive victory, including 90 in finals.
He wins by more than three yards over runner-up Danny Harris in a mundane (for him) 47.75 seconds, slower than his time in winning at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. "Had I been pressed, I could have run a much faster race," says the 28-year-old Moses. "At no time did I feel a threat. After waiting eight years and not being able to go in '80 [because of the U.S. boycott], this is a great relief."
Moses ties Paavo Nurmi's feat as the only Olympic runners to win an individual gold medal in the same event eight years apart. The Flying Finn won the 10,000 meters in 1920 and 1928.
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Aug. 6
Swimming
1926: Lloyd's of London is giving 7-1 odds that Gerturde Ederle won't be able to swim the English Channel. Twice during the swim, her trainer, aboard the tugboat that accompanies Ederle, suggests to the 19-year-old swimmer that she give up her quest. She refuses, confident that she can overcome the ebb and flow of the tide.
During the last few hours, she has to buck a rough sea, the tide running strongly against her and a stinging spray that is hurled into her face as she stubbornly pursues her goal. Finally, a favorable current sweeps her toward Kingsdown Beach in England.
"Pop, I will have that roadster," she tells her father, who had promised her a car if she swam the channel. Not only is she the first woman to swim it, she crosses it one hour and 52 minutes faster than any man has ever swam it. Starting in the morning at Cape Gris-Nez, France, she finishes at night in Kingsdown, 14 hours and 31 minutes in the water. She is the sixth swimmer to cross the channel; the first was in 1875.
Those who bet on Ederle are handsomely rewarded.
Baseball
1953: In his first game back since leaving the Boston Red Sox to rejoin the Marines as a fighter pilot in Korea, Ted Williams gets a warm welcome from the small crowd of 6,792 at Fenway Park.
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Aug. 7
Baseball
1906: When John McGraw's ego and anger get the best of him, the New York Giants forfeit a game. Yesterday, the Giants' pugnacious manager was ejected by umpire James Johnstone. Today, McGraw is suspended.
So he retaliates by having the turnstile keeper refuse to admit Johnstone to the Polo Grounds. Johnstone then forfeits the game to the Chicago Cubs.
"Whoever heard of an umpire outside of the playing field a half hour or so before the game declaring a game forfeited?" McGraw says.
The second umpire leaves when Johnstone is barred. McGraw sends his team on the field anyway and assigns one of his players, Sammy Strang, to ump. When the Cubs refuse to play without the regular umpires, Strang awards his teammates a victory by forfeit.
National League president Harry Pulliam emphatically backs Johnstone and the Cubs are credited with a 9-0 victory.
1956: When the Boston fans get on Ted Williams, the Red Sox left-fielder is spitting mad. With two outs in the 11th inning, Williams misjudges Mickey Mantle's fly and drops it for a two-base error. The overflow crowd of 36,350 in Fenway Park erupts in boos.
Not even when Williams makes an outstanding catch on the Yankees' next batter, Yogi Berra, to preserve the scoreless tie and end the inning do the fans let up. As tempestuous Ted approaches the dugout -- with the boos far outweighing the cheers -- he spits at the crowd. Just to make sure there is no mistake, the splendid spitter comes out of the dugout and directs another salivary attack at the fans. In the bottom of the inning, Williams walks with the bases loaded to give the Red Sox a 1-0 victory. As he heads to first base, he throws his bat some 40 feet in the air. Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey hears Mel Allen's broadcast of the game on radio in New York and calls general manager Joe Cronin, who fines the $100,000-a-year slugger $5,000 for spitting. While Cronin says Williams told him he is sorry about his actions, Williams is unrepentant when he talks with the press. "I'm not a bit sorry for what I did," Williams says. "I was right and I'd spit again at the same fans who booed me today. Some of them are the worst in the world. Nobody's going to stop me from spitting."Back to top
Aug. 8
Olympics
1992: For the first time, professional basketball players are allowed to compete in the Olympics. And as expected, the Dream Team romps to the gold medal, cruising to a 117-85 victory over Croatia in the final in Barcelona.
"You will see another team of professionals," says U.S. coach Chuck Daly, "but I don't think you'll ever see another team like this. This team has a mystique and a quality that's been built over 15 years - Magic [Johnson] and Larry [Bird] and now [Michael] Jordan. This is a majestic team."
"Actually, the greatest basketball I've ever been involved in was in Monte Carlo," says Magic, referring to the Dream Team's intra-squad scrimmages.
The Dream Teamers sleep-walk through the first 10 minutes and are actually losing, 25-23. After receiving their wake-up call, they roar back to take a 56-42 halftime lead. Jordan finishes with a team-high 22 points and Charles Barkley scores 17 as seven U.S. players reach double figures.
The Dream Team wins its games by an average of 44 points, but it can't break the mark set by the 1956 U.S. team. The Bill Russell-led club won by an average of 52 points.
Baseball
1990: Pete Rose, who never cheated anybody with his effort on a baseball field, begins a five-month sentence for cheating on his income taxes. Rose becomes No. 01832061 at the minimum-security camp next to the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill.
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Aug. 9
Olympics
1936: With three gold medals (the 100 and 200-meter races and the long jump), Jesse Owens believed he was finished competing at the Olympics in Berlin. All along, it had been assumed that Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller would be running on the 4x100-meter relay team.
But two days ago, on the morning of the heats, U.S. track coaches unexpectedly replaced Glickman and Stoller, the only Jews on the U.S. track team, with Owens and Ralph Metcalfe. The rumor is that the Nazi hierarchy had asked U.S. officials not to humiliate Germany further by using two Jews to add to the gold medals the African-Americans already had won. Glickman will blame American Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage for acquiescing to the Nazis.
With Owens running leadoff, the U.S. wins the relay by 15 yards. Its world-record time of 39.8 seconds will last 20 years.
Baseball
1947: While Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, it's the Cleveland Indians' Larry Doby and the St. Louis Browns' Hank Thompson who become the first African-Americans to oppose one another in a major league game. In the second game of a doubleheader in Cleveland, baseball history is made when Doby pinch-hits in the seventh inning and walks in the Indians' 5-4, 10-inning victory. Thompson, the Browns' second baseman, goes 3-for-3.
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Aug. 10
Olympics
1984: Mary Decker's bid for Olympic gold in Los Angeles comes to a crashing halt. With a little more than three laps left in the 3,000 meters and running in the inside lane, Decker's right foot becomes tangled with the left foot of the leader, Zola Budd, the 18-year-old African who runs for Britain. Reaching out as she falls, Decker tries to grab something -- all she gets is the number 151 off Budd's back. She tries to get up, but can't. She collapses in tears.
The distraught Budd, spiked by Decker, continues the race, also in tears. The bare-footed runner fades badly on the final lap and finishes seventh. Afterwards, she tries to apologize to Decker, but is rebuffed. "Don't bother," Decker says. "Get out of here. I don't want to talk to you."
Publicly and angrily, Decker blames Budd for the collision, though not all track people believe it is Budd's fault.
"Zola Budd tried to cut in without being actually ahead," insists Decker, who suffered a torn gluteus muscle in her left hip. "Her foot upset me. To avoid pushing her, I fell. Looking back, I should have pushed her. But the headlines tomorrow would have read, 'Mary Decker Pushes Zola.'"
Baseball
1929: Grover Cleveland Alexander, in his 19th season in the majors, wins his 373rd -- and final -- game. Pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals, the 42-year-old right-hander relieves in the eighth inning and holds the Phillies scoreless for four innings as the Cardinals win, 11-9, in 11 innings in the second game of a doubleheader in Philadelphia.
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Aug. 11
Olympics
1984: Carl Lewis' goal at the Olympics: duplicate Jesse Owens' performance at the 1936 Olympics by winning gold medals in the same four events that Owens did.
Lewis, the track star with the designer clothes and Grace Jones haircut, already has won three - the 100- and 200-meter dashes and the long jump. Today, he equals his hero's mark as anchor for the U.S. 4x100 relay team. He blazes through his 100 meters in 8.94 seconds as the team sets a world record of 37.83 seconds.
"Jesse Owens is still the same man to me he was before," says Lewis. "He is a legend. I'm just a person. I still feel like the same Carl Lewis I was six years ago, except I'm a little older and a lot more people come to my press conference."
At the medal ceremony, Lewis wears new jogging shoes that are white and trimmed in gold, of course.
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Aug. 12
Football
1978: New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley suffers a broken neck and is paralyzed from the chest down after taking a savage hit from Oakland Raiders safety Jack Tatum in an exhibition game.
"There's been a fracture and dislocation of the fourth and fifth vertebrae," says a Patriots team doctor, "and a subsequent compression of the spinal cord that immediately rendered Darryl quadriplegic."
Stingley is hurt while running a crossing pattern over the middle in the second period. Tatum knocks Stingley out cold with a forearm and doesn't think he has done anything wrong.
Tatum, who had met Stingley once or twice, says he regrets the incident, "but you can't get emotional about it. You don't like to see any player get hurt, but football is a contact sport and that's a real dangerous pattern. We don't even run it in practice. But I had to do what I had to do. It was my job, and he was doing his job."
Baseball
1974: In his last start, Nolan Ryan came within one out of a no-hitter. Tonight, the California Angels fireballer is looking for a strikeout record. And an error by shortstop Bobby Valentine helps him achieve it.
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Aug. 13
Horse Racing
1919: His winning streak is at six when undefeated two-year-old Man o' War races in the Sanford Stakes at Saratoga. It is Man o' War's most remembered race -- because it is the only one he would ever lose.
Starting gates are not yet used and horses are led up to a tape barrier. A fill-in starter has difficulty getting the horses ready and they mill around. While Man o' War apparently is backing up, the tape is sprung. Man o' War "was almost left at the post," the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
After a slow start, Man o' War is third as the field heads for home in the six-furlough race. Blocked by close quarters, he has to go to the outside in the final eighth and though he gamely makes up ground, he misses by a half-length of overtaking the winner, who at 115 pounds carries 15 fewer pounds than the 11-20 favorite.
The winner is named, rather appropriately, Upset.
Baseball
1995: For more than 40 years Mickey Mantle left empty glasses before he checked into the Betty Ford Clinic in 1994.
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Aug. 14
Olympics
1936: During the first Olympic men's basketball tournament, the International Basketball Federation approved a rule in which all players over 6-foot-3 would be banned from play. The rule was withdrawn after the United States, which would have lost three players, objected.
One of those players is "College Joe" Fortenberry, a 6-foot-8 center who scores a game-high eight points in leading the U.S. to an 19-8 victory over Canada in today's final. Fortenberry is one of four U.S. players from McPherson, Kan. The four account for 17 points.
The teams play in a sea of mud in Berlin as the game is played outdoors in a tennis stadium on courts of clay and sand. The U.S. leads 15-4 at halftime, but in the second half, played in a blinding rain, each team scores only four points.
The U.S. will win the next six gold medals as well and stretch its Olympic winning streak to 62 games until it is beaten in a controversial final to the Soviet Union in 1972.
Baseball
1971: Having said many times that he would never pitch a no-hitter, Bob Gibson proves to be a better pitcher than prophet. The St. Louis Cardinals' 35-year-old right-hander, who had pitched two one-hitters in his career, no-hits the Pirates, 11-0, in Pittsburgh.
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Aug. 15
Golf
1948: Babe Didrikson Zaharias earns $1,200 for winning the third U.S. Open, but she misses out on another $1,000 when she misses a five-foot putt on the final hole.
In winning the tournament by eight strokes over Betty Hicks, the long-driving Zaharias shoots a final-round 78 to finish at an even 300 at the Atlantic City Country Club in Northfield, N.J. A member of the country club had offered a $1,000 prize to any of the 11 pros who scored less than 300.
"That's the kind of game I've played," Babe says. "Couldn't get a putt down. It doesn't make a difference to me because I'd only have to give the $1,000 to the government. I'm in that kind of tax bracket."
Babe will go on to win two more U.S. Opens, in 1950 and 1954.
Baseball
1989: Last year, San Francisco left-hander Dave Dravecky developed a cancerous growth in his pitching arm. After an operation and a long recuperation, he tries to come back this year.
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Aug. 16
Baseball
1948: Babe Ruth, the man who transformed baseball with his powerful swing, dies of cancer of the throat after a two-year battle with the disease. He was 53.
Ruth, who set home-run records for a season (60) and a career (714), had been in critical condition for the past five days at Memorial Hospital in New York. Tonight, he slips into a partial coma. Ruth's wife Claire, their two adopted daughters, his sister and several close friends are at his bedside when he dies. Gathered below on the grimy Manhattan street are more than 150 children.
A half-hour before Ruth's death, he is blessed by Father Thomas Kaufman of the Roman Catholic Church. When asked for Ruth's last words, Father Kaufman replies, "The Babe said his prayers to the very end. He received all the last rites and he died a good Catholic."
Baseball
1920: In the fifth inning at the Polo Grounds, Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman is batting in his peculiar crouch and crowding the plate, as he normally does. New York Yankees right-hander Carl Mays throws a submarine-style pitch, as he normally does.
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Aug. 17
Boxing
1938: Having won the featherweight and welterweight championships in the past 10 months, Henry Armstrong seeks to become the first fighter to hold three titles simultaneously when he battles lightweight champ Lou Ambers in Yankee Stadium.
Armstrong, the 17-5 favorite, knocks down Ambers in the fifth and sixth rounds, but Ambers cuts him severely. "If you spit any more blood on that floor," referee Billy Cavanaugh tells Armstrong, "I'm going to stop this fight."
Homicide Hank has his cornermen remove his mouthpiece so he can swallow the blood flowing in his mouth the last five rounds. Despite almost blacking out in the 15th, losing three rounds on fouls, having both eyes cut and swollen, and needing 37 stitches to close the wound inside his mouth, Armstrong wins on a split decision.
While the crowd boos the decision, Armstrong has fulfilled his goal -- he reigns as champion over three divisions, the only man to ever do so.
Baseball
1966: Willie Mays continues to climb the home-run ladder. Going into the season fifth all-time with 505 homers, the San Francisco Giants center-fielder passes Mel Ott (511), Ted Williams (521) and today Jimmie Foxx (534). No. 535 is a line drive over the right-field fence in Candlestick Park off St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Ray Washburn in the fourth inning.
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Aug. 18
Basketball
1992: It's the end of an era as a chronically troublesome back forces Larry Bird to retire before he wanted to. During the last two seasons, the Boston Celtics forward had missed 59 games because of the back, undergone surgery and still couldn't endure the rigors of an NBA season.
"I would have liked to play a little longer, but I've had enough pain to last me a lifetime," he says in a press conference in Boston Garden. "I can't shake it. I don't care if I could go out and score 60 points each night. It just is not worth it." Bird is the only non-center to win three consecutive MVP awards (1984-86). He led the Celtics to three NBA titles, winning Finals MVP twice. He averaged 24.3 points, 10 rebounds and 6.3 assists in his 13-year career. He appeared in 10 All-Star Games, starting nine, and was all-NBA first-team his first nine seasons.
Baseball
1967: The promising career of Boston Red Sox right-fielder Tony Conigliaro is short-circuited when he's beaned by a fastball from the California Angels' Jack Hamilton. The pitch strikes him just below his left temple, knocking him unconscious.
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Aug. 19
Baseball
1948: In life, Babe Ruth filled Yankee Stadium. In death, he fills St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Three days after he died of throat cancer at the age of 53, St. Patrick's is jammed to capacity as 6,000 mourners attend Ruth's funeral mass. Heedless of the intermittent heavy rain, there are another 75,000 outside the stately church in midtown Manhattan. It also was estimated that between 75,000 and 100,000 had filed by Ruth's coffin in the past two days as he lay in state in Yankee Stadium, known as "the House that Ruth Built."
Among those attending today's mass, presided over by Cardinal Spellman, are Joe DiMaggio, Jack Dempsey, Connie Mack, Hank Greenberg, Leo Durocher, Mel Ott, several of Ruth's former teammates, New York Governor Thomas Dewey and New York City Mayor Bill O'Dwyer.
After the mass, Ruth is buried in Mount Pleasant, N.Y., 30 miles north of New York City in the highlands of the Hudson River.
1951: In perhaps his most outrageous stunt, St. Louis Browns president Bill Veeck sends a midget to bat. Eddie Gaedel, all of 3-foot-7, pops out of a giant-sized cake and a few minutes later is sent up to pinch-hit for the Browns' leadoff hitter in the home first inning in the second game of a doubleheader against Detroit.
When "No. 1 / 8, Eddie Gaedel, batting for Saucier" is announced over the loudspeaker, home-plate umpire Ed Hurley points to the Browns dugout. Manager Zack Taylor hands Hurley the official American League contract for the 26-year-old stuntman from Chicago. Tigers left-hander Bob Cain walks Gaedel on four pitches (all high, naturally). Replaced by a pinch-runner, Gaedel bows and doffs his cap repeatedly, to the delight of a paid crowd of 18,369. "For a minute, I felt like Babe Ruth," Gaedel says after the game. Veeck is prepared for Gaedel thinking he was the Babe and taking some swings. Before the game he tells Gaedel, who has never played baseball in his life, not to swing. He warns him that he has placed sharpshooters on the roof who are ready to fire if he takes a cut. Gaedel never appears in another game. Major League Baseball will bar the midget from playing again.Back to top
Aug. 20
Football
1920: The American Professional Football Conference-- the forerunner of the National Football League -- is formed in Canton, Ohio, in the offices of Ralph Hay at the Jordan and Hupmobile auto showroom. Hay is also the business manager of the Canton Bulldogs and he is chosen secretary of the new league.
The purpose of the APFC is to keep salaries down by eliminating the bidding for star players between rival teams, to have clubs and players honor the athletes' contracts, and to secure cooperation for the formation of schedules.
Cleveland, Dayton, Akron, Canton, Buffalo, Hammond (Ind.) and Rochester (N.Y.) are the charter members, with Massillon still an uncertainty. (By the end of the season, 14 teams will have played in the new league.)
At a meeting in September, the league will change its name to the American Professional Football Association, which will become the NFL in 1922.
Baseball
1915: The struggling Cleveland Indians need money so owner Charles Somers deals star outfielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson to the Chicago White Sox. In exchange for Jackson, who is hitting .331 and for the past four seasons has batted between .338 and .408, the Indians get outfielder Braggo Roth and two seldom-used players, outfielder Larry Chappell and pitcher Ed Klepfer. Most important, the Indians also receive cash, with reports varying from $15,000 to $31,500.
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Aug. 21
Golf
1914: In only his second U.S. Open, 21-year-old Walter Hagen led after each round in winning the two-day, 72-hole tournament at the Midlothian Country Club in Blue Island, Ill., just outside Chicago.
Hagen shot a marvelous 68 in yesterday's first round and then a 74 in the afternoon to take a one-stroke lead at the halfway point. Today's rounds of 75 and 73 (35 on the back nine) give him a two-over-par 290, one stroke better than charging amateur Chick Evans, who fires rounds of 71 and 70.
Evans needs an eagle two on the final hole, a short 277-yard par-4, to tie Hagen. He hits a wonderful drive just off the edge of the green, but his 30-foot putt misses by 12 inches.
Hagen earns $300 for the first of his 11 major titles. The key to his victory is that he birdied the 18th hole each round, something no champion has done before or since.
Baseball
1982: Rollie Fingers pitches the final two innings of the Milwaukee Brewers' 3-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners to become the first to save 300 games. While Fingers keeps the ball -- after getting it away from teammate Gorman Thomas, who had promised to throw the memento into the stands -- he seems upset about the manner in which he achieves the milestone.
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Aug. 22
Boxing
1939:A year after taking the lightweight title from Lou Ambers, Henry Armstrong loses the crown back to Ambers in their rematch before 29,088 fans at Yankee Stadium. It's another brawl as the fighters pound each other for 15 rounds. Armstrong is penalized five rounds by referee Arthur Donovan for punching low, and that costs him the fight as two officials have Ambers winning 8-7.
Donovan says he knew "that some day Henry would lose the lightweight title if he kept punching low. It had to be. I knew Armstrong was going to do that some night, and that I'd have to penalize him."
Ambers gains the distinction of becoming the first to regain the lightweight crown from the fighter to whom he lost it.
After the decision is announced, a battle of words begins; both managers and the New York State Athletic Commission are the participants. Armstrong's manager, Eddie Mead, shouts his fighter was robbed and will be suspended 13 months after accusing commissioner Bill Brown of favoring Ambers. Al Weill, Ambers' manager, will be suspended four months for his unsportsmanlike behavior.
Baseball
1965:Bad blood in the heated rivalry between the Dodgers and Giants erupts. After a throw from John Roseboro comes close to San Francisco's Juan Marichal's face as the Los Angeles catcher returns the ball to pitcher Sandy Koufax, Marichal goes berserk and strikes Roseboro with his bat.
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Aug. 23
Baseball
1969:Taiwan begins its domination of the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. It wins the 23rd annual tournament before a crowd of 30,000, which includes thousands of Chinese waving Republic of China flags.
Tsu-Yen Chen, a slender right-hander who struck out 21 in Taiwan's opening-game, nine-inning win over Canada, shuts out Santa Clara, Calif., 5-0. He fans 11, walks two and allows three hits.
This is the first of 10 titles in 13 years for Taiwan.
Mickey Mantle is the color man on ABC-TV's "Wide World of Sports" broadcast of the game.
Baseball
1982:Gaylord Perry, 43 years old and in his 21st major league season, has been accused of throwing a doctored baseball for years, but he's never been ejected for the act. Until tonight.
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Aug. 24
Baseball
1989:Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader, is out -- of baseball. He accepts an agreement with Commissioner Bart Giamatti that permanently bans him from baseball, although he can apply for reinstatement after a year.
There is nothing in the five-page agreement that can be deemed either an admission or a denial by Rose of the allegation that he bet on major league games. However, at a news conference in New York announcing the Cincinnati Reds manager's "banishment for life," Giamatti makes it clear where he stands.
"In the absence of a hearing and therefore in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I am confronted by the factual record of the Dowd report, and on the basis of that, yes, I have concluded that he bet on baseball," he says.
And on the Reds? "Yes," he says.
Rose, at his own news conference in Cincinnati, insists he never bet on baseball. Asked if he expected to be reinstated by the commissioner as soon as he is eligible, Rose replies, "Absolutely. Without a doubt."
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Aug. 25
Golf
1996:Tiger Woods ends his amateur career by winning one of the most dramatic matches in golfing history. Down by five holes with 16 to go, the 20-year-old Stanford student shows the eye of the tiger in becoming the first to win three consecutive U.S. Amateur championships.
Steve Scott, a University of Florida student, is on his way to a major upset after taking a five-hole lead in the morning round at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Cornelius, Ore. While Tiger rallies in the afternoon, he's still trailing by two with three holes left. But then he birdies 16 and 17 (on a 30-foot putt) to force a playoff. On the second extra hole, Woods wins it with a par. His putter falls from his hands and he raises his arms above his head.
"This is by far the best," says Woods, who two years ago was the first black to win the U.S. Amateur. "By far. Thirty-eight holes, the comeback, it's just an unbelievable feeling for me."
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Aug. 26
Tennis
1933:Helen Wills Moody had dominated her competition, not losing a match - rarely even losing a set - since 1926. But that streak ends today.
In the final of the U.S. Nationals at Forest Hills, N.Y., Jacobs falls behind in the third set and then defaults to the woman known as Helen the Second, Helen Jacobs. In a well-played match, Jacobs wins the first set, 8-6, and Moody, who is wearing a back brace for her ailing right hip and right leg, takes the second, 6-3.
When Jacobs wins the first three games of the third set, Moody tells an amazed Jacobs that she can't go on. In a display of good sportsmanship, Jacobs, the defending champion, suggests they take a rest and then continue, but Moody declines.
"In the third set I felt as if I were going to faint," Moody says in a statement, "because of the pain in my back and hip, and a complete numbness of my right leg."
It is the first time Jacobs beats Moody in their eight matches.
Baseball
1939:Television and major league baseball are joined for the first time. Ebbets Field is the site and Red Barber, Brooklyn's radio announcer, is the broadcaster as RCA-NBC televises the Dodgers splitting a doubleheader with the Cincinnati Reds. There are some 500 television sets in the New York metropolitan area.
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Aug. 27
Baseball
1982:Rickey Henderson becomes baseball's all-time single-season record-holder for steals when he breaks Lou Brock's record of 118, set in 1974. Not only does Henderson pilfer No. 119, he adds to his mark by stealing three more, giving him 122.
In the third inning of Oakland's 5-4 loss to Milwaukee, the A's left-fielder draws a walk from Doc Medich. After four throws by Medich to first to hold him close, Henderson swipes second, despite a pitchout.
The crowd of 41,600 in Milwaukee gives Henderson a brief standing ovation. In a short ceremony, Brock presents the 24-year-old speedster with the second-base bag. The base is transported to the box seats near the Oakland dugout and given to Rickey's mother, Bobbie.
Henderson sets the record in 127 games, 26 fewer than Brock needed. Three days ago, Henderson had set another record -- for being thrown out the most times attempting to steal in a season, 39. Henderson will finish with 130 thefts, still the record as the century closes.
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Aug. 28
Baseball
1945:Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was seeking an African-American to integrate baseball. His scouts had told him about Jackie Robinson, an infielder with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro League. Today, Rickey meets with the 26-year-old Robinson at the Dodgers' Montague Street offices in Brooklyn.
Rickey wants a man who can restrain himself from responding to the ugliness of the racial hatred that is certain to come. A shorthand version of their fateful conversation:
Soccer
1977:In Pele's last National American Soccer League game, the Brazilian superstar doesn't score on any of his seven shots. However, his New York Cosmos win the league championship by defeating the Seattle Sounders, 2-1, in Portland before 35,548 fans, a record crowd for an NASL title game.
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Aug. 29
Baseball
1977:At 38, Lou Brock isn't so fast as he used to be. But his wheels still are working quickly enough. The St. Louis Cardinals left-fielder runs past Ty Cobb and into the record book with two steals against the San Diego Padres.
He leads off the game in San Diego with a walk and then, with a great jump, he steals second, tying Cobb's career record of 892. In the seventh inning of the Cardinals' 4-3 loss, he reaches first on a forceout. The crowd chants, "Lou! Lou! Lou!" Brock responds by making history, again stealing second off the battery of pitcher Dave Freisleben and catcher Dave Roberts.
His teammates rush to mob him. Repeating the first-inning ceremony, the bag at second is unhitched and presented to Brock. "It has not been an easy thing, but the moment is here," he says. Then he grins and says, "Looking back on it, I did it my way."
Brock's 893 steals come in 2,376 games over 17 seasons. Cobb stole his 892 in 3,034 games over 24 years.
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