This Weekend in Baseball History
May 14th, 2012: Bryce Harper, age 19 years and 211 days, becomes the youngest player in franchise history to hit a home run, breaking the mark established by 20 year old Gary Carter while the team was in Montreal. (Harmon Killebrew is still the youngest to homer for a Washington team, clearing the fences for the Senators in 1955 at 19 years and 88 days.)
May 14th, 1996: Dwight Gooden no-hits the Mariners! The onetime Mets ace, who'd struggled since joining the Yankees that spring, reaches back for a taste of his early career greatness. He strikes out five in a 2-0 Yankee Stadium victory.
May 14th, 1977: Don Gullett's finest game as a Yankee -- he outpitches Nolan Ryan, allowing just four hits in a 4-1 win over the Angels in Anaheim.
May 14th, 1972: Willie Mays, wearing a New York uniform for the first time since 1957, hits the game winning home run as the Mets beat his former Giants teammates 5-4 at Shea Stadium. The cash-strapped Giants had traded the Say Hey Kid to the Mets three days earlier.
May 14th, 1968: Don Drysdale throws a two-hit shutout as the Dodgers blank the Cubs 1-0 in L.A.. It's the start of a (then) record 58 inning scoreless streak for the future Hall of Famer.
May 14th, 1967: Mickey Mantle becomes the sixth player to reach 500 career home runs. The milestone blast comes at Yankee Stadium off Stu Miller of the Orioles in a game New York goes on to win 6-5.
May 14th, 1958: A night after reaching the 3000 hit plateau in Chicago, Stan Musial's 1st inning homer at Busch Stadium is one of the Cardinals' most emotional moments of the '50s.
May 15th, 2005: There are Yankee highlights galore as they beat the A's 6-4 in Oakland. It's career victory number 250 for Randy Johnson and the 1800th for manager Joe Torre. Tino Martinez is the batting star, crushing a pair of home runs, giving him eight over an eight-game stretch.
May 15th, 1984: Mike Schmidt's 400th career home run, off Bob Welch, is the biggest hit in the Philles 12-1 victory at Dodger Stadium.
May 15th, 1981: Len Barker pitches the 11th perfect game in major league history -- and first in the AL since Catfish Hunter in 1968 -- as the Indians freeze out the Blue Jays, 3-0.
May 15th, 1976: Mark Fidrych makes his first major league start one to remember: a complete game two-hitter as the Tigers edge the Indians 2- 1 in Cleveland. The animated rookie held the Indians without a hit until the 7th inning.
May 15th, 1973: Nolan Ryan fires the first of his seven career no-hitters, in the Angels 3-0 win over the Royals in Kansas City.
May 15th, 1960: Two days after coming to the Cubs from Philadelphia, Don Cardwell no-hits the Cardinals in first no-hitter pitched against St. Louis since May of 1919. Cardwell is the first pitcher ever to keep the opponents hitless on his first start after a trade.
> This is quite a date for no-hitters: in 1952, Virgil Trucks authors the first of his two no-hitters on the season, in the Tigers 1-0 Briggs Stadium win over the Senators. And in 1944, at Crosley Field, Clyde Shounno-hits the Braves, 1-0. Chuck Aleno's only home run of the 1944 season accounts for the game's lone run.
May 15th, 1956: Sal Maglie goes from Cleveland to Brooklyn on waivers -- where, at age 39, he rediscovers his effectiveness. "The Barber" will go 13-5 for the Dodgers with an under-3 ERA the rest of the way -- and finish second to teammate Don Newcombe for the Cy Young Award.
May 15th, 1941 Joe DiMaggio begins gets a hit against White Sox pitcher Edgar Smith and will collect at least one hit in every game until July 17th -- as he begins his historic 56 consecutive game hitting streak.
May 16th, 2008: Jayson Werth ties the Phillies' single-
May 16th, 2007: Carlos Gomez, Carlos Beltrán and Carlos Delgado are in the Mets lineup, marking the first time in major meague history that a single team had three starters named "Carlos" in the same game. The combination worked well, backing a strong start from Jorge Sosa in the Mets 8-1 Shea Stadium victory.
May 16th, 2004: Ben Sheets strikes out 18 -- including eight of the final 11 batters -- in the Brewers 4-1 win over the Braves at Miller Park.
May 16th, 1996: Sammy Sosa becomes the first Cubs player to hit two home runs in one inning. He leads off the 7th with a solo job against Jeff Tabaka and returns for a two-run shot off Jim Dougherty. Chicago won it 13-1.
May 16th, 1983: Darryl Strawberry hits his first major league home run in the Mets 11-4 rout of the Pirates, as he connects against Pittsburgh's Lee Tunnell at Three Rivers Stadium.
May 16th, 1972: Greg Luzinski's home run off Burt Hooten bangs off the Liberty Bell replica hanging from Veterans Stadium's center-field roof. The blast, measured at 500 feet, accounts for the Phillies' only run in an 8-1 loss to the Cubs.
May 16th, 1965: Jim Palmer earns the first of 268 career victories in the Orioles 7-5 win over the Yankees. The 19 year old rookie fires 3-2/3 inning of relief, and adds a two-run home run off New York's Jim Bouton.
May 16th, 1957: A scuffle breaks out at New York's Copacabana nightclub between several Yankee players -- celebrating Billy Martin's 29th birthday at a Sammy Davis Junior show -- and a drunken man named Edward Jones. While Hank Bauer was blamed for (but denied) hitting Jones, Martin wound up being blamed by GM George Weiss, and was soon traded to Kansas City.
May 16th, 1939: Night baseball comes to the American League, as the Indians beat the A's 8-3 at Shibe Park, 8-3. But an unseasonably cold night held the crowd down to just 15,000. For trivia buffs: Frank Hayes of the Athletics hits the first AL home run under the lights.
Comments
Traded for the first time in his career over the winter, he split the following season between the Browns and White Sox and notched the only 20-win season of his career. (He had 19 wins in two other seasons.) Getting 5.06 runs per game in his starts that year was a big help, as was lowering his ERA by a full run.