24 July in Sports History

In this episode of the Sports Daily Digits we discuss Jersey numbers for players that made history on the date of July 24.

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.

21 - 9 - 31 - 14 

July 24, 1909 - Brooklyn Superbas pitcher Nap Rucker struck out sixteen Pittsburgh Pirates in a 1-0 victory at Washington Park, Brooklyn

July 24, 1949 - Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Lemon, Number 21 hit 2 homers to help Cleveland overcome the Washington Senators by the tune of 7-5

July 24, 1961 - Roger Maris, Number 9 hit 4 home runs, in a doubleheader. The Yanks overcame the Chicago White Sox in both games with the help of Maris' hitting, by the scores of 12-0 and 5-1.

July 24, 1968 - Number 31, Hoyt Wilhelm pitched in a record 907th major league game breaking Cy Young's record for pitching appearances

July 24, 1977 - Pete Rose passed Frankie Frisch as switch-hit leader with 2,881 hits wearing that famous Number 14 jersey for the Cincinnati Reds.

July 24, 1978 - Pete Rose, Number 14 of the Reds tied the NL hitting streak of 37 games

July 24, 1979 - Boston Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski, wearing Number 8 clobbered a home run and with it reached the 400th HR career mark.

July 24, 1983 - The infamous Pine Tar Game took place. With his team trailing 4–3 in the top half of the ninth inning with two out already recorded, the KC's future Hall of Fame third baseman Number 5, George Brett crushed a two-run home run to give his team the lead. However, New York manager Billy Martin, famous for always looking for an edge, had noticed a large amount of pine tar on Brett's bat, and subsequently requested that the umpires inspect his bat. The umps ruled that the amount on the bat exceeded that allowed by rule,  so they dicredited Brett's home run, and called him out and took the runs off of the scoreboard. Brett was the third out in the ninth inning with the home team in the lead, the game ended with a Yankees win. The Royals protested the game, upheld by American League president Lee MacPhail, who ordered that the game be continued from the point of Brett's home run. The game was resumed 25 days later on August 18, and officially ended with the Royals winning 5–4

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: On This Day Sports, Wikipedia, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com.

Banner photo is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons of KC Royals player George Brett bats during a 1990 game at Royals Stadium.George_Brett_1990.jpg: photo by SW (via MissouriStateArchives, on Flickr. Cropped version to fit our banner.