30 June in Sports History

The stars did shine on this June 30 sports day in history. We had a couple of the greatest pitchers of all-time tossing no-nos and hitters pounding the rock around the yard, it all makes for a fantastic sports break!

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 - 32 - 16 - 44 - 41

June 30, 1908 - At the ripe old age of 41 years, 3 months future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Cy Young became the oldest player to record a third career no-hitter as Boston Red Sox beat New York Highlanders, 8-0

June 30, 1934 - Detroit radio executive George Richards pays $7,952.08 to buy NFL's Portsmouth Spartans; moves team to Detroit and rebrands the franchise as the  Detroit Lions.

June 30, 1948 - Cleveland Indians' ace and future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon, wearing his famous Number 21, tossed a no-hitter against the Detroit Tigers, in a 2-0 Cleveland win.

June 30, 1962 - LA Dodgers' future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, Number 32 allowed no-hits against the New York Mets, 5-0. It was the first of 4 career no-hitters thrown by Koufax.

June 30, 1967 - When the Philadelphia Phillies signed Cookie Rojas (who wore Number 16) away from the Cincinnati Reds after the 1962 season as a utility man, they probably did not realize the versatile bargain they were getting. Rojas pitched a scoreless inning in the 9th as the Phils suffered a 12-3 loss to San Francisco Giants. In taking the mound that day, Rojas had now played all 9 positions since arriving in MLB just 4 seasons earlier.

June 30, 1978 - The San Francisco Giants' star hitter Willie McCovey, Number 44 hit his 500th career HR and with it became the 12th player to reach 500 Home Runs 

June 30, 1977 -  New York Yankee Designated Hitter Cliff Johnson, in his Uniform Number 41 hit 3 consecutive Home Runs in Toronto against the Blue Jays pitching staff. Johnson was quoted by the Associated Press as "Happiness is getting to the plate four times a night." The veteran Yankee slugger entered the batter's box five times on this particualr evening and 2 of his three HRs occurred in a record setting 8 run 8th inning where New York bashed the Canadian club 11-5.

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 Y.M.C.A. hut in France -- soldiers' ball game circa 1917 via Bain News Service.