20 September in Sports History

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 September 20. As a bonus, we place the jersey number worn at the time with the athlete as well.

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.

4 - 14 - 25 - 32 - 15 - 9 - 7 - 38 - 15 - 87 - 34 - 41 - 26 - 13 - 

September 20, 1902 - Chicago White Sox pitcher Jimmy Nixey Callahan no-hits Detroit Tigers, 3-0

September 20, 1907 - Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Nick Maddox threw a no-hitter against the Brooklyn Superbas, in 2-1 Pirates home win at Exposition Park

September 20, 1908 - Chicago White Sox Frank Smith 2nd no-hitter, beats Philadelphia 1-0

September 20, 1919 - Legendary baseball slugger Babe Ruth tied Ned Williamson's MLB mark of 27 home runs with a 9th inning blast in Boston Red Sox 4-3 win against Chicago White Sox

September 20, 1922 - St. Louis Cardinals future Baseball Hall of Fame infielder Rogers Hornsby ends hitting streak of 33 games

September 20, 1924 - Carl Mays became the 1st pitcher to win 20 games seasons for 3 different teams

September 20, 1924 - Chicago Cub's Grover Cleveland Alexander beats NY Giants to win 300th game

September 20, 1931 - New York Yankee's Number 4, Lou Gehrig's 4 RBIs break his old RBI mark of 175 en route to 184

September 20, 1933 - Pittsburgh Steelers, as the Pittsburgh Pirates, played their first NFL game. The new franchise lost 23-2

September 20, 1953 - Cubs Ernie Banks, Number 14 hits his 1st major league HR

September 20, 1955 - Willie Mays (Giants Number 25) homered off of Pittsburgh Pirates pitching ace Vern Law (Number 32) in both ends of DH. With these, Mays became the 7th MLB player to reach 50 home runs in a season.

September 20, 1958 - Baltimore Oriole knuckleball pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm, Number 15 tossed a no-hit performance versus the New York Yankees to provide a 1-0 Orioles win.

September 20, 1961 - Roger Maris, Number 9 hit a home run # 59 and barely misses reaching his 60th in game 154 of the season. Yanks clinch pennant #26

September 20, 1968 - Mickey Mantle, Number 7 of the New York Yankees hit his final career home run, for a total of 536.

September 20, 1969 - Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher Number 38, Bob Moose no-hits NY Mets, 4-0

September 20, 1980 - Bronze plaque dedicated to memory of catcher Thurman Munson, Number 15 unveiled at Yankee Stadium. Munson died in plane crash in 1979

September 20, 1987 - San Francisco wide receiver Number 87, Dwight Clark's NFL record streak of 105 consecutive games with a reception ends in 49ers 27-26 victory in Cincinnati

September 20, 1987 - Chicago Bears running back Number 34, Walter Payton scored his NFL record career 107th rushing touchdown in the Bears' 20-3 victory over Tampa Bay

September 20, 1988 - Detroit first baseman Darrell Evans, Number 41 hit a home run in Tigers' 4-3 loss to Cleveland Indians. It was Evans' 400th MLB career HR

September 20, 1988 - Boston Red Sox Number 26, Wade Boggs is 1st player to get 200 hits for 6 consecutive seasons

September 20, 2013 - Alex Rodriquez, Number 13 of the New York Yankees, set a new ML record with 24 Grand Slam home runs

September 20, 2021 - Kansas City Royals' Salvador Perez hits his 46th home run to break Hall of Famer Johnny Bench's MLB record for most in a season by a catcher, in Royals 7-2 win in Cleveland

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 a Coca-Cola ad with Nixey Callahan circa 1914.