Nap Lajoie Throws the Game Away

Nap Lajoie Throws the Game Away (1903)

Cleveland's player-manager was the league's best hitter and had a temper to match. In the eleventh against Detroit, an old blackened ball came into play while his Naps batted. Lajoie wanted it gone. Umpire Tom Connolly saw nothing wrong with it. So Lajoie threw it over the grandstand, out of the park and out of the argument. Connolly forfeited the game to Detroit, who led 6 to 5 anyway. The team was named after Lajoie. That afternoon, so was the loss.

Seventy-Three Minutes, Start to Finish (1920)

Howard Ehmke shut out the Yankees 1 to 0 at Navin Field in one hour and thirteen minutes. New York's best chance came in the fifth: two on, nobody out. Then Ping Bodie strolled a step off second while Tigers infielder Ralph Young waited with the ball behind his back. Tag. New York never did score. Ehmke later founded a company making canvas tarpaulins for ballpark infields, a fine second act for a man who beat the rain by finishing early.

The Crooner Buys In (1946)

The Dreyfuss family had owned the Pirates since 1900. On this day they sold, and the buying group included a Pittsburgh lawyer, two Midwestern businessmen, and Bing Crosby. In 1960, certain he would jinx them, he flew to Paris and followed Game Seven by radio while Bill Mazeroski beat the Yankees. He had paid a company to film the broadcast. Those reels sat in his wine cellar for fifty years, the only complete copy of that game in existence.

Let There Be Light, Briefly (1988)

Harry Grossman was 91 and saw his first Cubs game in 1906. He threw the switch at 6:09 and said "Let there be light." Wrigley had waited 74 years. Rick Sutcliffe threw the first pitch at 7:01, Phil Bradley homered four pitches in, then the storm came. After a two-hour delay it was called with the Cubs up 3 to 1. None of it counted. During the wait, four Cubs including Greg Maddux ran out and belly-slid across the tarp. Five hundred dollars apiece. Worth it.