The Doubleheader That Needed Two Boroughs

The Doubleheader That Needed Two Boroughs (1903)

The Giants and the Brooklyn Superbas played each other twice on this date, and not in the same building. The morning game started at 10:30 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The afternoon game was across the river at the Polo Grounds. Both road teams won. New York took the opener 6 to 4, then Brooklyn rookie Henry Schmidt threw a four-hitter to win 3 to 0 in Manhattan. It would be 97 years before two New York clubs did it again.

Nine Innings in Right Field (1936)

Frances Dunlap, called Sonny, was an All-America basketball player for the Tulsa Stenos who lived just outside Fayetteville. The local paper ran no advance notice. She simply appeared in right field for the Class D Fayetteville Bears against the Cassville Blues and stayed there all nine innings. Fayetteville won 5 to 1. She went 0 for 3 but put the bat on the ball every trip, and not one thing was hit her way. She is regarded as the first woman to finish a game in men's professional baseball.

The Longest Throw Anybody Had Measured (1952)

Don Grate was a converted pitcher whose arm trouble cost him the mound and left him something stranger. Before Chattanooga's last home game, Lookouts owner Joe Engel turned him loose on the record book. Grate threw a baseball 434 feet 1 inch at Engel Stadium, beating a mark that had stood more than four decades. He was also a two-time basketball All-America at Ohio State, picked for a 1944 Olympic team that never got to compete.

Ball Four at 100.8 (1974)

The Angels had Rockwell International wire Anaheim Stadium to settle the oldest argument in the sport. Bob Feller's 98.6 from 1946 was the number to beat. Ryan sat in the low nineties most of the night, then came out for the ninth against Lee Richard, a utility man hitting .118 who had beaten him a month earlier. The second pitch read 100.8. It is still the fastest pitch on record. Richard walked.