18 July in Sports History

The history of sports is interesting when you take a lok at it on a daily basis. In today's Sports Break we examine some pretty interesting baseball history that occurred on July 18.

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 - 4 

July 18, 1913 - It was bound to happen as all great thing eventually end. After 68 straight innings New York Giants ace Christy Mathewson gave up a walk.

July 18, 1915 - Boston Braves started a truly historic climb that moved them from last place to become the eventual world series champs of 1915.

July 18, 1921 - Babe Ruth, who would eventually wear Number 3 smacked his 139th career home run and with it became the all-time home run leader in Major League Baseball, taking the title from Roger Connor. The home run set another baseball record as well. The shot traveled an MLB record 575 feet in New York Yankees' 10-1 win over the Tigers at Detroit's Navin Field.

July 18, 1927 - Ty Cobb reached a milestone with his 4000th career MLB hit.

July 18, 1948 - Pat Seerey, wearing Number 5 for the Chicago White Sox had quite a game against the Philadelphia Athletics. The Chicago slugger smacked 4 pitches out of the park in an 11 inning game to help propel Chicago to a 12-11 thrilling victory. On June 2 that year the Cleveland Indians traded Seerey to the Sox due to his lack or production and an over abundance of outfielders on their roster. He sure was productive inthe Windy City on this day!

July 18, 1960 - The National League brass voted to add the Houston and New York Mets franchises after pressure of a Continental League forming forced expansion.

July 18, 1962 - What an amazing start! Minnesota Twins Bob Allison, Number 4 and Harmon Killebrew, Number 3 hit grand slams in the 1st inning against the Cleveland Indians. The Twins power hitting tandem became the first players in history to hit basesloaded homers in the same inning. Minnesota went on to score a club record 11 runs in the beginning frame and defeat the Indians, 14-3. 

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 of the Boston Braves players on the cover of Baseball Magazine, February 1915.