20 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.

9 - 15 - 14 - 22-  33 - 23 - 7 - 4

April 20, 1910 - Cleveland Naps, pitcher Addie Joss, tossed his second career no-hitter, as he and the Naps closed out Chicago White Sox, 1-0. The future Hall of Famer, Addie remarkably only is credted with one strike out in the game. Joss had a 9-year career ERA of 1.89 and claimed the best Earned Run Average in the MLB in two seperate seasons.

April 20, 1920 - Philadelphia Phillies skipper Gravvy Cravath, entered himself into the lineup as a pinch hitter. Unbelievably in this at bat, Cravath's belted a 3- run homerun as the Phils blanked the New York Giants 3-2. Reportedly shortly before the heroics in the batter's box, manager Cravath was on the verge of being ousted from the game for arguing an Umpire's call.

21 Apr 1920, Wed The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) Newspapers.com

April 20, 1939 - Ted Williams, Number 9 of the Boston Red Sox has an historic milestone in his career. Williams had his first MLB hit on this day off of New York Yankees fellow future Hall of Fame player, Red Ruffing, who wore Number 15 that day, in Boston's 2-0 opening day defeat at Yankee Stadium, NYC

Here are some more events from the hardball diamonds that occured on this date from The Day in Baseball History website

April 20, 1938 - Cleveland Indians Pitcher, Number 14, Bob Feller pitched the first of his 12 career one-hitters.

April 20, 1939 - For the first time in club history, the Philadelphia A’s wore numbers on their uniforms.

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

April 20, 1986 - Chicago Bulls guard, the legendary Number 23, Michael Jordan scored an NBA playoff-record 63 points, but the Bulls dropped a 135-131 double-overtime decision to the Celtics at Boston Garden in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round. Jordan shot 22-of-41 from the field and 19-of-21 from the free-throw line in his record performance, breaking (Number 22 )Elgin Baylor’s previous mark of 61 points in a playoff game, set during the Lakers’ 126-121 road win at Boston in Game 5 of the 1962 NBA Finals. 

April 20, 1999 - Washington Wizard’s Number 33, Otis Thorpe became the 16th player in NBA history to compile 15,000 career points and 10,000 career rebounds during the Wizards’ 83-77 loss at Chicago.

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

April 20, 1950 - The New York Rangers defeated the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 in game five of the Stanley Cup finals played at the Olympia in Detroit. Number 7, Don Raleigh became the first player to score two consecutive overtime game winning goals in NHL history when he scored the OT winner. The Rangers lost the series in seven games.

April 20, 1965 - The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Chicago Black Hawks 2-0 in game two of the Stanley Cup finals. Number 4, Jean Beliveau scored one goal and added an assist, to give him 100 career points in 93 Stanley Cup playoff games.

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

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of a cropped version of Baseball players Ed Walsh (left) and Addie Joss (right) between 1902 and 1911., taken by an unknown.