10 July in Sports History

For this date in history of July 10 we have seen some truly great events in sports. A pitcher that mowed down on of perhaps the greatest lineups of hitters the MLB has ever seen and a hitters dream in the HR record world.

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.

11 - 3 - 4 - 7 

July 10, 1938 - After producing 11 straight hits, Cleveland Indians outfielder, Tris Speaker and his torrid pace was halted by Tom Zachary of Washington. Speaker, also known as the “Grey Eagle”  produced this record, which would not be broken until 1938 when Red Sox third baseman Pinky Higgins hit safely in 12 at bats in a row.

July 10, 1929 - Here is an interesting developemnt to remember. In game between Pirates and Phillies there were a total of 9 Home Runs hit in the contest, 1 in each inning. Pittsburgh's George Grantham had two circiut smashers as the Phillies produced 4 base cleaning hits themselves.  The Pirates got the better of the Phils on the scoreboard 15-9.

July 10, 1934 - Talk about taking on the big boys single-handidly! National League New York Giants pitcher Number 11, Carl Hubbell struck out Babe Ruth (Number 3 Yankees), Lou Gehrig (Number 4 Yankees), Jimmie Foxx (Number 3 Phil. A's), Al Simmons (Number 7 White Sox) and Joe Cronin (Number 4 Senators) for an MLB All Star game record for consecutive strikeouts. Hubbel could only do his part as the American League and their fire power still overcame and won, 9-7. 

July 10, 1936 - Philadelphia Phillies slugger Chuck Klein, wearing the Number 4 uniform, becamethe fourth player in the MLB to have hit four Home Runs in a single game. The others that did so before Klein were: 

• Bobby Lowe was the first to hit four home runs in a single game, doing so on May 30, 1894 for the Boston Beaneaters
• Ed Delahanty of the Philadelphia Phillies became the second player on July 13, 1896
• Lou Gehrig for the Yankees on June 3, 1932 against the Philadelphia A's.
• There have been 14 additional occurrances of a player having 4 wall cleareres in a game since 1936 including the two most recent times in 2017 with:
• Scooter Gennett on June 6, 2017 as he and the Cincinnati Reds pounded the St. Louis Cardinals  13-1
• J. D. Martinez had his day on September 4, 2017 with  the Arizona Diamondbacks and he slugged his way through the Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff.

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

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of the Tris Speaker, Boston AL (baseball) from the Bain News Service, publisher.