21 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.

1 - 18 - 8 - 9 - 14 - 34 - 33

April 21, 1898 - Philadelphia Phillies' pitcher Bill Duggleby smacked a grand slam on his first at bat of his career. Very rare for a first time at bat by a regular but for a pitcher, it is almost unheard of.

April 21, 1904 - Ty Cobb makes his professional baseball debut for Augusta, Georgia, a minor league team in the South Atlantic League.

April 21, 1977 - Legendary manager, Billy Martin reportedly pulled his New York Yankee's line-up out of a hat. The funny thing is that it didn't matter as the Yanks still won over the Toronto Blue Jays 8-6. The Yankees would retire the uniform Number 1 in honor of Martin.

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

April 21, 1951 - Pittsburgh led by Number 18, Gus Bell, who crushed a home run, three doubles and a single, helped the Pirates defeat Cincinnati, 7 – 5, at Crosley Field. Bell, a four-time All-Star outfielder, would spend his first three seasons in the Majors with the Pirates before joining the Reds for 9 years. 

April 21, 1971 – Number 8, Willie Stargell hit three home runs, leading the Pittsburgh Pirates to a 10 – 2 victory over the Atlanta Braves. Stargell, who also hit three home runs against Atlanta on April 10th, will set a major league record – since broken – for the most home runs in April with eleven.

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

April 21, 1945 - The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 1-0 in game six of the Stanley Cup finals on Mud Bruneteau's goal at 14:16 of overtime. Rookie goalie Harry Lumley recorded his second career playoff shutout and Wings a 1-0 win at Toronto.

April 21, 1978 - As part of the World Hockey Association, Hartford Whaler's Gordie Howe, Number 9 scored on the first shift against the Edmonton Oilers minutes after finding out that he had become a grandfather.

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

April 21, 1970 - The Boston Celtics' great Number 14, Bob Cousy and Bob Pettit, Number 9 of the St. Louis Hawks were inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

April 21, 1996 - Houston Rockets Big Man, Number 34, Hakeem Olajuwon, blocked three shots in the Rockets’ season-ending 118-110 victory over the Phoenix Suns to reach 3,190 career blocks, giving him the all-time record, surpassing Number 33 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s previous mark by one.

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 New York Yankees players Billy Martin (left) and Phil Rizzuto in about 1953 by Bowman Gum.