22 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.

3 - 34 - 7 - 11 - 9 - 29 - 1

April 22, 1876 - Philadelphia native Tim McGinley of the Boston Red Caps scores baseball National League's first run, in Philadelphia. This game you see was the first official National League baseball game ever played. The contest featured the Boston Red Caps who bettered the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-5 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia.

April 22, 1898 - A pair of No-Hitters occurred on the same day. Baltimore Oriole's  pitcher, Jay Hughes no-hit the Boston Beaneaters, 8-0 while Cincinnati's Theodore Breitenstein  threw a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates in an 11-0 route.

April 22, 1914 - Babe Ruth played in his first professional baseball game as a pitcher. Ruth was on the mound for the Baltimore Orioles that day and gave up 6-hits to the Buffalo Bisons in 6-0 Oriole win. At the time this was a minor league game, Ruth would make his Major League debut July 11 that season with the Boston Red Sox, and go on to a Hall of Fame career with the Yankees.

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

April 22, 1962 - The Toronto Maple Leafs won Lord Stanley's Cup by defeating the defending champion Chicago Black Hawks 2-1 in game six. Hall of Fame legend, Number 7, Bobby Hull scored the games first goal and the Hawks held that 1-0 lead into the third period when Leaf's Number 11, Bob Nevin tied the score with less than 10 minutes remaining. Number 9 for Toronto, Dick Duff scored the Cup winning goal. This was the beginning of the Leafs 1960's dynasty which saw them win three Stanley Cup championships from 1962 - 1964 and another in 1967.

April 22, 1979 - the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Game four of the quarter finals. With the victory goaltender Number 29, Ken Dryden became the NHL’s all time leader in playoff wins with 72 passing Jacques Plante, who wore the Number 1 sweater with the Canadiens, Rangers, and Leafs.

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

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

April 22, 1947 - The Philadelphia Warriors defeated the Chicago Stags 83-80 in Game 5 to take the NBA’s first championship series 4-1.

April 22, 1988 - Charles Oakley, wearing Number 34 of the Chicago Bulls grabbed 35 rebounds, the most in one game in the 1980s, in a 107-103 loss to Cleveland.

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 a baseball game at Manzanar. Japanese Americans observe an amateur baseball game in progress; one-story buildings and mountains in the background. Contributed by Ansel Adams.