In this edition of the Sports Break, we cover the top events in sports history along with the players and athletes that were a part of them on November 18. As a bonus, we place the jersey number worn at the time with the athlete as well.
18 November in Sports History
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.
42 - 5 - 32 - 5 - 20 - 16 - 31 - 21 - 8 - 45 - 9
November 18, 1949 - National League batting leader (.342) Jackie Robinson, Number 42 of the Brooklyn Dodgers won the NL MVP
November 18, 1964 - Baltimore Orioles third baseman Number 5, Brooks Robinson won the American League MVP
November 18, 1966 - Pitcher Sandy Koufax, Number 32 of the Dodgers announced his retirement due to arthritic left elbow
November 18, 1970 - Johnny Bench, Number 5 of the Big Red Cincinnati Machine won the National League MVP
November 18, 1980 - Despite missing 45 games, Number 5, George Brett won the American League MVP
November 18, 1981 - Phillies 3rd baseman Number 20, Mike Schmidt wins his 2nd consecutive National League MVP
November 18, 1985 - Dwight Gooden, Mets Number 16 (National League) & Bret Saberhagen, Number 31 of the Royals (American League) won the Cy Young Awards
November 18, 1986 - Roger Clemens, Number 21 won the American League MVP
November 18, 1987 - Cubs Andre Dawson, Number 8 became the 1st player from a last-place club to win an MVP
November 18, 1997 - The Dallas Mavericks' Number 45, A C Green tied Number 9, Randy Smith's NBA record of 906 consecutive games
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 ofProfessional baseball player Johnny Bench circa 1977, taken by an unknown.