18 April in Sports History

Sports history is made every day of the year. We will preserve at least a small sampling from some great athletes every day based on the uniform number they wore.

42 - 5  - 22 - 8 - 12 - 24 - 6 - 99 - 68

April 18, 1918 - Cleveland Indians center fielder Tris Speaker turns an unassisted double play. Speaker reportedly glove trapped a fly ball and then sprinted into the infield tagging Detroit's Ossie Vitt who had been on second base and then forcing Babe Ellison out by tagging second base after he had apparently stayed close to the first base bag to tag up if the ball had been caught.

April 18, 1946 - Jackie Robinson, Number 42 made his debut as the new 2nd baseman of the Montreal Royals. It was a stepping stone in the minor leagues to eventually become the fisrt black man in the Majors with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

April 18, 1950 - Sam Jethroe is the first African American to play for Boston Braves. Sam wore the Number 5 jersey in his brief time in Boston.

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The website of NBA.com offers these nuggets of history for the day.

April 18, 1962 - The Boston Celtics beat the Los Angeles Lakers 110-107 in overtime in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, despite the 11th straight 30-plus point scoring performance by Lakers forward Number 22, Elgin Baylor, an NBA playoff record. Number 6, Bill Russell of Boston tied his own NBA Finals record by grabbing 40 rebounds in the game.

April 18, 1967 - Rick Barry, Number 24 for San Francisco scored 55 points as the Warriors beat Philadelphia 130-124 in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, a series Philadelphia eventually won in six games. Barry’s 55 points is tied for the second-highest point total in playoff history and his 22 field goals made tied Number 22, Elgin Baylor’s NBA Finals record.

April 18, 1991 - Utah guard Number 12, John Stockton, in a 130-103 Jazz win over Seattle at the Salt Palace, dished out 11 assists to finish the 1990-91 season with 1,164 assists, breaking his own NBA record for assists in a season set the previous year.

Here are a couple of items from the Vintage Hockey Jerseys website

April 18, 1954 - The Detroit Red Wings' Number 8, Tony Leswick's goal at 4:29 of overtime gave his team a 2-1 victory over the visiting Montreal Canadiens in Game 7 of the Finals. It was the Red Wings' second Stanley Cup Championship in three years.

April 18, 1999 - Number 99, Hall of Fame Center, Wayne Gretzky played the final game of his career. He assisted on the Rangers lone goal of the game in a 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, finishing with 2,847 career points 943 ahead of Pittsburgh Penguins, Number 68, Jarmoir Jagr in second place.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: On This Day Sports, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com.

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the 1912 American baseball player Tris Speaker. from the Bain News Service, taken by an unknown.