21 August in Sports History

We have collected some the top sporting events of all-time that occurred on August 21 and have them listed with the athletes and their jersey number for easy recall.

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 - 14 - 21 - 18 - 6 - 34 - 5 - 10 - 7

August 21, 1901 - Baltimore Orioles pitcher Joe McGinnity is suspended from NL for punching & spitting on umpire Tom Connolly in previous day's 5-2 loss to Detroit Tigers; lifetime suspension reduced to 12 days

August 21, 1926 - Chicago White Sox pitcher Ted Lyons no hits Boston Red Sox, 6-0 in just 67 minutes at Fenway Park

August 21, 1931 - New York Yankees legend Babe Ruth, Number 3 became the first MLB player to hit 600 career home runs as NY defeats St. Louis Browns, 11-7 at Sportsman's Park

August 21, 1932 - Wes Ferrell, Number 14 of the Cleveland Indians became the first MLB pitcher to win 20 games in each of his 1st 4 seasons

August 21, 1948 - Cleveland Indians 47-inning scoreless streak is broken as future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon wearing Number 21 gave up a home run to Number 18, Aaron Robinson in a 3-2 loss to Chicago White Sox

August 21, 1967 - Kansas City utility player Number 6, Ken Harrelson became baseball's first free agent when he is abruptly released by the Athletics. He took his parting shots too as he called team owner Charlie Finley "a menace to baseball." Harrelson would end up siging on with the Washington Senators soon after this release and later play for the Cleveland Indians.

August 21, 1982 - American League MLB Milwaukee Brewers' relief pitcher Rollie Fingers in his familiar Number 34 jersey became the first MLB pitcher to get save number 300. Fingers was aptly named as he had some wicked pitches that confounded many batters, and oh he sported probably the most famous moustaches in all of baseball history.

August 21, 1986 - Red Sox Spike Owen, Number 5 scored 6 runs in a 24-5 rout of Cleveland Indians

August 21, 2008 - US Olympic Women's Soccer Striker Carli Lloyd, Number 10 scored in extra time as the United States beat Brazil 1-0 to take the women's Football Gold Medal at the Beijing Olympics

August 21, 2016 - Hoops great Kevin Durant , wearing Number 7 scored 30 points as the US retained the Olympic men's basketball title with a comfortable 96-66 win over Serbia at the Rio de Janeiro Games

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 ofLyons, Chicago, 1924 National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress) [cropped].