17 July in Sports History

In this edition of the Sports Break we find some monumental moments in baseball history that occurred on July 17.

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 - 5 - 45 - 20

July 17, 1900 - It was the start of a great era on the mound for the New York Giants eventhough it may not have felt like it. Rookie hurler Christy Mathewson began his career that day but lost the game to the Brooklyn Superbas. Mathewson would enjoy the better part of 16 seasons in New York winning 373 games and holding a career ERA of 2.13.

July 17, 1902 - The Baltimore Orioles forfeited a game to the St Louis Browns for having only 5 players available to play.  they then forfeited their franchise back to the AL. Apparently this was the final dominoes to fall in a wild transaction. John Mahon the Orioles owner at the beginning of the 1902 season, sold his interest in the Orioles to Andrew Freedman, principal owner of the Giants, and John T. Brush, principal owner of the Cincinnati Reds, also of the NL. These fellas had some alterior motives in the purchase of the franchise that was in dire financial straights. It all started when Mahon and his then manager John McGraw feuded making McGraw resign and take a position with the New York Giants (see our July 16 post).  The transaction of buy out was reported to have been in the range of $20,000 ($626,385 in current dollar terms). That day, Freedman and Brush released Joe Kelley, Joe McGinnity, Roger Bresnahan, Jack Cronin, Cy Seymour, and Dan McGann from their Oriole contracts. Brush then signed Kelley and Seymour to the Reds, while Freedman signed McGinnity, Bresnahan, Cronin, and McGann, joining McGraw, his new player-manager, on the Giants. This initial version of the Orioles franchise in utter shambles moved to New York in 1903 when Frank Farrell and Bill Devery purchased the franchise rights to the defunct team and rebranded them as the New York Highlanders and they of course eventually became the New York Yankees.

July 17, 1922 - Ty Cobb clobbered 5 hits in a single game for record 4th time in a one year period. His at bats that day against the Boston Red Sox, included a home run, a double and three RBIs. Not a bad day at all for the Georgia Peach.

July 17, 1924 - St Louis Cardinals ace Jesse Haines no-hit the Boston Braves line-up, in 5-0 blanking.

July 17, 1925 - Tris Speaker, became the fifth MLB player to reach the 3,000 hit milestone. Speaker who was playing for the Cleveland Indians then led the AL with a .479 On-Base-Percentage that season.

July 17, 1934 - New York Yankees Number 3, Babe Ruth drew his 2,000th base on balls at Cleveland. The Great Bambino walked a grand total of 2062 times in his 22 year career.

July 17, 1941 - New York Yankee Number 5, Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak ended in Cleveland as the Indians kept him off of the basepaths, at least through hits.

July 17, 1974 - Bob Gibson, Number 45 for the St Louis Cardinals became just the second pitcher to strike-out 3,000 batters when he sat down Cesar Geronimo, Number 20 of the Cincinnati Reds to reach the MLB milestone.

The banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of a cropped version of a Photographic reproduction of photographic montage of all the American League Teams in 1902 surrounding a portrait of American League President Ban Johnson.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites mentioned above including the baseball-reference.com,OnThis Day.com, Newspapers.com, SABR.org and MLB.com