Rube Works a Double Shift

Rube Works a Double Shift (1902)

Connie Mack talked Rube Waddell into leaving Los Angeles that June. By September the Athletics were chasing a pennant and pitching him every third day. In the opener against Baltimore he came in during the first inning with Philadelphia down 4 to 0, and the A's won 9 to 5. He came back in the nightcap, relieved in the eighth with the score tied, and Philadelphia won 5 to 4. It capped two weeks in which he pitched nine times and won eight.

The Fans Get a Ballot (1933)

Two Pittsburgh sportswriters, Roy Sparrow and Bill Nunn, took an idea to Gus Greenlee, and Comiskey Park was booked. The white leagues let sportswriters pick their All-Stars. The Negro Leagues put it to the public, with ballots printed in the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier. More than a million came back in the mail. On a drizzly afternoon the West won 11 to 7 behind Willie Foster's complete game and a Mule Suttles home run. The East-West Classic ran three decades as the showcase of Black baseball.

Now Batting, Alou (1963)

The Giants were out of the race, so Alvin Dark had room to be sentimental. Down 3 to 0 at the Polo Grounds in the eighth, he sent up 21-year-old Jesús Alou for his first big league at-bat, then Matty, then let Felipe hit in his regular turn. Carl Willey got all three. Three brothers had never batted back to back to back before. Five days later in Pittsburgh they played the outfield together, the part everybody remembers, but this came first.

Grand Larceny at Busch (1974)

Lou Brock once said the record belonged to a man who did not hit for extra bases. He was 35 when he decided he was that man. He tied Maury Wills in the first inning. In the seventh he singled to left, took off after a false start, and Bob Boone's throw skipped into the dirt. They stopped the game ten minutes while Cool Papa Bell quieted the crowd and called Brock the greatest. He kept running to 118 for the year.