Author: Bill Grimes

I'm from Chicago. I worked in broadcast journalism for much of the 1970's and 80's. In 1990 I became a litigation consultant, retiring in 2017. Around 2005 I recall flipping through the sports section of the newspaper coming across "On this day in baseball history Willie Mays hit his 600th home run." I enjoyed the one-liners, but I wanted more. I wanted a story. I took my news reporting skills and started researching and telling baseball stories, one for every day of the year. TodayinBaseball.com is the result.

Sept 9: Strikeout King

SEPTEMBER 9, 1987 | HOUSTON, TEXAS – If you needed a strikeout who would you want on the mound? Nolan Ryan wouldn’t be a bad choice. On this date in 1987 the Houston Astros’ right-hander struck out 16 in a 4-2 win over the San Francisco Giants in the Astrodome. When Ryan struck out Mike Aldrete in the 7th he became the first pitcher to reach 4,500 strikeouts in a career. Only Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson have since reached that mark.

Nolan Ryan is to strikeouts what Cy Young is to wins. Ryan has almost a thousand more Ks than number 2 on the list – Roger Clemens. Cy Young had 511 career wins. Number 2 is Walter Johnson with 417.

Here, according to BASEBALL-REFERENCE, are the top 10 career strikeout leaders:

1. Nolan Ryan – 5,714
2. Randy Johnson – 4,875
3. Roger Clemens – 4,672
4. Steve Carlton – 4,136
5. Bert Blyleven – 3,701
6. Tom Seaver – 3,640
7. Don Sutton – 3,574
8. Gaylord Perry – 3,534
9. Walter Johnson – 3,509
10. Greg Maddux – 3,371

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Most strikeouts 
September 9, 1987 box score/play-by-play

Sept 8: “ain’t over ‘til it’s over”

SEPTEMBER 8, 1914 | BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – Yogi Berra hadn’t even been born yet to utter those famous words. But the notion was epitomized by the stunning turnaround of the Boston Braves (today’s Altanta Braves) of 1914. On July 18th of that year the Braves were in last place, 11 games out. By September 8th, the Braves found themselves in first place for good – from worst to first.

It took the Braves only 37 days to go from worst to first on August 22nd. They went 24-5 over that span to tie the New York Giants at 59-48. The Braves had leapfrogged six teams.

The Braves, Giants and St. Louis Cardinals changed places a few times for the next couple of weeks. By September 8th the Braves had passed all seven (there were only 8 teams in each league back then, no divisions), and were in sole possession of first place. Not only did the Braves pass the entire National League in a matter of weeks, they went on to win the pennant by 10.5 games.

The Boston Braves went on to sweep the heavily favored Philadelphia A’s four straight in the 1914 World Series.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Koppett’s Concise History of Major League Baseball, 2004, pg 122, by Leonard Koppett
1914 National League pennant race
World Series winners

SEP 7: Mark Whiten explosion

SEPTEMBER 7, 1993 | CINCINNATI, OHIO • Mark Whiten of the St. Louis Cardinals had one of the most explosive offensive games in major league history on this date in baseball history (1993). He hit four home runs and drove in 12.

Whiten’s 4 home runs tied a major league record held by eleven others. His 12 RBI in one game also tied a record which was set by another St. Louis Cardinal in 1924, Jim Bottomley. The most RBI in the American League was 11 by Tony Lazzeri of the New York Yankees in 1936.

Here are a few other RBI records as compiled by Baseball-Almanac:

Most in a season
National League……Hack Wilson     191 (1930)
American League….Lou Gehrig       184 (1931)

Most by a rookie
National League……Albert Pujols     130 (2001)
American League….Ted Williams     145 (1939)

Most by a switch hitter
National League……Lance Berkman 136 (2006)
American League….Mark Teixeira    144 (2005)

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
Runs Batted In
Sept. 7, 1993 box score/play-by-play

SEP 6: The AL race of ’67

SEPTEMBER 6, 1967 | CHICAGO, DETROIT, BOSTON, MINNEAPOLIS – Splitting the National and American Leagues into divisions in 1969 brought more teams into the postseason, but it pre-empted some great pennant races, one of those was the American League race of 1967.

The “Pennant” winner, do they even use that term anymore, used to be decided by regular season games.There were no division champions or wildcard teams. The only postseason was the World Series and only two teams made it. Every regular season game was crucial.

On this date in ’67 4 teams were tied for 1st place – not to get to the American League Divisional Series (ALDS) or American League Championship Series (ALCS) – to get to the World Series. This is what the American League standings looked like at the end of the day – September 6, 1967:

American League
—————–W–L– -Pct.–G.B.
Minnesota……78  61  .561    –
Chicago……….78  61  .561    –
Boston…………79  62  .560    –
Detroit…………79  62  .560   –
California……72   67 .518   6
Washington….66  74  471  12
Cleveland…….65  76  .461  14
Baltimore……..62 75  .453  15
New York……..62 78  .443  16
Kansas City…..57 82 .410  21

The Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers all went down to the last weekend of the season to decide the pennant. From August 19th on none of the four teams was ever more than 3 games out. Minnesota and Boston were still tied for the lead on the last day of the season and were playing each other. The Red Sox won 5-3. They went on to play St. Louis in the World Series.

If the original divisional alignment had been in play that year there would have been two 2-team races in the Eastern Division (Boston and Detroit) and the Western Division (Minnesota and Chicago). Four teams is a little more dramatic.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
1967 AL pennant race
Red Sox-Twins final game of the season

SEP 5: Ripken Ties Gehrig

SEPTEMBER 5, 1995 | BALTIMORE, MARYLAND • Drama followed Cal Ripken the summer of ’95. On this date that year he tied Lou Gehrig‘s 2,130 consecutive games played streak. He received a 5 minute standing ovation from his hometown Camden Yards crowd when the game became official in the bottom of the 5th inning. If that wasn’t dramatic enough, Ripken homered the following inning.

The 35-year old shortstop, who’s been playing every single game on the Baltimore Orioles schedule for 14 years, would go on to play almost three more full seasons before ending the streak September 20, 1998 having played in 2,632 consecutive games. The only active player (as of this writing) among the top 15 in consecutive games played is Miguel Tejada, another former Oriole. Tejada was not quite half-way there when his streak ended at 1,152 games in a row. He only had about seven more years to go without missing a game.

Think Ripken’s streak will ever be broken?

Contributing sources:
Consecutive games played 
September 5, 1995 box score/play-by-play  http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL199509050.shtml
New York Times, Cal Ripken