As baseball writers, we’re compelled to acknowledge every anniversary of every event in baseball, no matter how innocuous. We’re told so right after we learn the secret handshake. While there’s neither time nor inclination to include them all, I hope there’s enough here to keep you entertained for a few minutes while keeping me in compliance with the unofficial baseball writers’ code.
First to 400/400
August 23, 1998: As players reached milestones during the 1998 season that, to borrow a phrase from Groucho Marx, were the most unheard-of things I ever heard of, San Francisco Giants left fielder Barry Bonds became the first player to hit 400 home runs and steal 400 bases in his career. Bonds achieved the feat with a third-inning home run off Florida Marlins knuckleballer Kirt Ojala at Pro Players Stadium. Bonds had stolen 438 bases at that point. Ojala was unaware of the milestone. Meanwhile, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were on a pace to break Roger Maris’ single-season home run record. Asked to compare their quest for the record to joining the 400/400 club, Bonds told a gaggle of press, “This is nothing. I’ve got nine writers standing here. McGwire had 200 writers when he had 30 home runs [on June 10].” The results of the actual games seemed secondary in 1998, but for those who care, the Giants beat the Marlins, 10-5.
Tuthill a Hero
August 24, 1907: I’ve used this column enough to have fun at the expense of the colorful, pugilistic New York Giants trainer, Harry Tuthill, always the source of a good story when I need one. So, let’s have one where he’s the hero. During a game at the Polo Grounds in which the Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-4, a fan threw a lit cigarette under the grandstands where trash had collected, setting the grandstands on fire. Until the fire engines arrived, Tuthill led a group of Giants ground crew who battled the blaze with hoses. The damage was limited to an estimated $1,000. Once again, cigarettes prove hazardous to one’s health.
“That’s the Man!”
August 24, 1931: While the Philadelphia Athletics were in Chicago the previous week, three of their players, Doc Cramer, George Earnshaw, and Earle Mack visited the detective bureau and viewed a lineup of criminals. For fun, the bureau’s photographers decided to take photos of the three Athletics stars on the “showup” platform. Somehow, the photos got published, and one Ann Wilson rushed to the nearest police station, holding up Earnshaw’s mug shot. “That’s the man who took a room at my house [on] July 29 and stole two watches, a camera, and a fountain pen from another roomer,” she told police. It took officers 20 minutes to convince her that on July 29, the Athletics were in Philadelphia, where they were in the midst of hosting the St. Louis Browns for three games.
While we’re at it, let’s check the record. The A’s were, in fact, hosting the Browns at Shibe Park. Earnshaw started the game on the 28th and pitched seven innings, getting a no-decision in a 6-3 Philadelphia victory. But the next time Earnshaw got into a game was on August 3, when he beat the Washington Senators, 6-5, at Shibe. Hmmm. . . Plenty of time to catch a train to Chicago after the game on the 28th, rent a room on the 29th, and get back to Philly in time for the next start, don’tcha think? Did Earnshaw need a fountain pen that badly? Could it be possible. . . Nah.
Grandstand Managers
August 24, 1951: Browns owner Bill Veeck had no shortage of wild promotional ideas, whether it was an ill-fated Disco Demolition Night or ballplayers in short pants. On this night at Sportsman’s Park, Veeck held Grandstand Managers Night for the Browns’ game against the Athletics. Veeck held an essay contest and chose two winners to co-manage the Browns for the evening. However, American League president Will Harridge – the spoilsport – ruled that they couldn’t take the field. Veeck pivoted and decided that all 1,115 contest entrants would manage the game from the grandstand. They were handed placards that read “YES” and “NO” in large, bold print on either side, which they used to vote on matters of strategy. One of the grandstand managers was Connie Mack, who retired as manager of the Athletics the previous year, although Harridge never stepped in and halted this clear conflict of interest.
One day in 1951, Bill Veeck let the fans decide how to manage the game.
On Grandstand Managers Night – 75 years ago today – the fans led Veeck’s St. Louis Browns to a victory. https://t.co/kM3AeUh2pM pic.twitter.com/Rn0OfAWpqw
— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) August 24, 2026
During the game, the Browns’ real manager, Zack Taylor, clad in civilian clothes and slippers, sat in a rocking chair in the dugout, smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper. The Browns won the game, 5-3. One decision by the grandstand managers that worked out well was starting Sherm Lollar behind the plate and hitting him third in the order. Lollar went 3-for-4 with a home run, a double, two RBI, and three runs scored. One of the essay winners, Clark Mitze, later told Veeck biographer Paul Dickson, “We only made one bad call, which was to tell Hank Arft to steal and he was out by 20 feet.”
As one who has all but given up participating in fans’ social media groups, I shudder to think about how a similar promotion would go today. Every batter who made an out and every pitcher who gave up a hit would be immediately designated for assignment. The home team would hardly have anybody left for the next day’s game.
“Too Good for This World”
August 24, 1965: Who made the greatest throw in the history of Forbes Field? You might guess Pirates superstar right fielder Roberto Clemente. In 1965, most baseball games weren’t televised, and there were no 24-hour cable TV sports channels with nightly highlights. For making comparisons during that era, all we have is anecdotal evidence, according to which it was the Giants’ Willie Mays who made the greatest throw ever seen in the venerable old ballpark. In the bottom of the first inning, the Pirates had Bill Virdon on second base and Willie Stargell on first when Donn Clendenon smacked a long double to left-center field. Virdon scored easily as Mays fielded the ball off the wall – 406 feet away from home plate – and fired a one-hop strike to catcher Tom Haller, who tagged Stargell out.
Stargell was shocked to see Haller waiting for him with the ball. “I couldn’t believe Mays could throw that far,” he told Lester J. Biederman of The Pittsburgh Press. “I figured there had to be a relay. Then I found out there wasn’t. He’s too good for this world.” Mays aggravated a groin injury when he made the throw and later came out of the game, which the Pirates won, 5-2. It was believed Mays would have to miss the next two games.
They Didn’t Want to Revive the Pilots’ Name?
August 24, 1976: Seattle’s new expansion team, which was to begin play in 1977, held a contest to name the team. The winner would receive two season tickets and a free trip to one road series. The winning entry was submitted by one Roger Szmodis of Bellevue, Washington, who suggested “Mariners.” However, Szmodis never claimed his prize. Letters, phone calls, and even a trip to his apartment produced no results. Szmodis was finally located in 2023, living in Bethlehem. Through a niece, the Mariners were informed that Szmodis and his wife were private people and didn’t wish to be contacted about the unclaimed prize anymore. I guess first and foremost, he just really wanted that team to be named the Seattle Mariners.
No-Hitter Competition?
August 25, 1952: Virgil Trucks of the Detroit Tigers tossed his second no-hitter of the season, beating the eventual World Series champion New York Yankees, 1-0, but it wasn’t without controversy. In the bottom of the third, Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto led off by hitting a grounder to his counterpart, Johnny Pesky. The ball got stuck in the web of Pesky’s glove. He dug it out, bobbled it, and threw to first base, where Rizzuto was called safe on a close play that the Tigers disputed. Official scorer John Drebinger of the New York Times ruled it a hit. He changed the ruling to an error in the seventh inning after calling the Tigers’ dugout and speaking with Pesky. According to the Associated Press, Pesky said, “It was my fault. I booted the ball. I had it in my glove but it squirted loose just as I was about to take it out.” It was a strange season for Trucks. Pitching for a bad Tigers team, he was 5-19, with the five wins including two no-hitters, a one-hitter, and a two-hitter.
That same evening, as though there was a competition to see who could pitch the most no-hitters in a season, Pirates farmhand Bill Bell tossed his third no-hitter of the year for the Bristol Twins of the Class D Appalachian League, defeating the unaffiliated Bluefield Blue-Grays, 4-0. Earlier in the season, Bell did his best Johnny Vander Meer imitation by throwing no-hitters in consecutive games. After the second no-hitter, a back injury kept him out of action for a spell.
Winfield Chokes Instead
August 25, 1979: Perhaps this entry should read “August 25-26, 1979” because the 19-inning game at San Diego Stadium between the Pirates and San Diego Padres ran into the next morning. When the Pirates acquired third baseman Bill Madlock and left-handed pitcher Dave Roberts from the Giants in a deadline deal, they got the hitter they needed in Madlock, and Roberts was a mere afterthought. However, on this night – or should I say morning? – it was Roberts who was the hero.
Roberts, the last reliever available, entered the 3-3 game in the 16th inning. He surrendered a single to Jay Johnstone. Two outs later, Johnstone had advanced to third. With the Padres having run out of pinch-hitters, Pirates manager Chuck Tanner ordered intentional walks to Dave Winfield and Fred Kendall so that Roberts could face pitcher John D’Acquisto. Roberts ran the count to 2-0, looked behind him, and saw Winfield giving him the “choke” sign. Roberts threw ball three, then rallied to strike out D’Acquisto.
Roberts had one more Houdini act left in him. In the bottom of the 17th, the Padres loaded the bases with no outs. Roberts struck out Johnstone, got Jerry Turner to hit into a force at home, and induced a ground-out from Bill Fahey. The Pirates won the game, 4-3, in the 19th inning, with Tim Foli’s RBI single being the difference. Meanwhile, Roberts had little trouble in the final two innings, including retiring Winfield to lead off the 18th. Of Winfield and the choke sign, Roberts told Dan Donovan of The Press, “I’ll remember that. He didn’t say anything when I got him out and gave him the choke sign.”
According to Baseball Reference, the game began at 7:00 PM San Diego time and ran for six hours and 12 minutes, which means it would have ended at 4:12 AM in Pittsburgh, where 21-year-old me stayed up to watch the end of the game. According to a contemporaneous note I wrote, the game ended at 4:21 AM. I had to be up early for move-in day at college. That wasn’t a great day.
How to Win Fans and Influence People
August 26, 1886: The Louisville Colonels lost to Allegheny City, 7-0, at Recreation Park in Pittsburgh, in a game with “no features worthy of mention,” dropping the Colonels’ 9.5 games out of first place in the American Association behind the St. Louis Browns. After the game, Louisville manager Jim Hart told the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, “We wouldn’t want the pennant if we could get it. Pennant winners never make money, and that’s what we play for.” The next season, Hart would make his money in the minor leagues.
Happy Trails, Chuck
August 26, 1951: At the Polo Grounds, Giants pitcher Sal Maglie took the mound for the ninth inning against the Chicago Cubs to protect a 4-1 lead. However, two Cubs reached base with one out, and then Cubs first baseman Chuck Connors hit a three-run homer to tie the game. The Giants won it, 5-4, in the bottom of the ninth on catcher Wes Westrum’s second home run of the game. For Connors, it was the second and final home run of his brief major league career. Connors also played professional basketball, making him one of only 13 men to play in both the NBA and MLB, and the only one with a hit TV show. He gave up sports to pursue an acting career and starred as Lucas McCain on The Rifleman for five seasons.
Hang Down Your Head, Jim
August 26, 1969: Seattle Pilots pitcher Jim Bouton was asleep in a Baltimore hotel room when his phone rang. On the other line was manager Joe Schultz, informing him he’d just been traded to the Houston Astros. When Bouton asked who the Pilots got in return, Schultz told him it was pitcher Dooley Womack. Of course, Bouton took it in stride.
Wrote Bouton in Ball Four: “Dooley Womack? Holy mackerel. The same Dooley Womack whose great spring I almost matched with the Yankees? Oh Lord! I hope there was a lot of undisclosed cash involved. I hope a hundred thousand, at least. Maybe it’s me for a hundred thousand and Dooley Womack is just a throw-in. I’d hate to think at this stage of my career I was being traded even-up for Dooley Womack.”
Actually, the trade was Bouton for Womack and another pitcher, Roric Harrison, then a minor leaguer. Hopefully that made Bouton feel better.
“Nothing but a Fastball”
August 27, 1914: Keeping with the theme of fine baseball literature, I return to Ring Lardner’s fictional Jack Keefe, the stubborn, clueless Chicago White Sox pitcher whose story of the 1914 season was told via a series of letters to his best pal, Al Blanchard, in a magazine serial that later became the novel, You Know Me, Al. On this date, Keefe tells of seeing Washington’s Walter Johnson shut out his White Sox. (Errors in grammar and punctuation are as in the original text, lest the reader think that Keefe is a better writer than yours truly.) “Honest Al he ain’t as fast as me,” wrote Keefe. After the game, White Sox coach Kid Gleason asked Keefe what he thought of Johnson. Keefe wrote, “I says I don’t think much of him. He says Well I guess you ain’t learned nothing then. He says What was the matter with Johnson’s work? I says He ain’t got nothing but a fast ball. Then he says Yes and Rockefeller ain’t got nothing but a hundred million bucks.”
The Backward Cycle
August 29, 1948: In the first game of a doubleheader at Sportsman’s Park, Jackie Robinson victimized four pitchers and hit for a “backward cycle” in helping the Brooklyn Dodgers to a 12-7 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. That included a two-run homer off Harry Brecheen in the first inning, a triple off Ted Wilks in the third, a double off Al Brazle in the fourth, and a single off Gerry Staley in the eighth. The newspaper account didn’t mention the word “cycle.”
The Not-So-Secret Weapon
August 29, 1954: In 1954, the Giants’ Dusty Rhodes was manager Leo Durocher’s not-so-secret weapon. Durocher liked Rhodes better as a pinch-hitter than as an outfielder, where Rhodes was subpar, and rather than start Rhodes, he would insert him when a big hit was needed. In the first game of a doubleheader at Busch Stadium, Rhodes entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning and finished the 11-inning affair in left field. Rhodes hit two triples, but the Cardinals won Game 1 on an RBI single by Alex Grammas. Durocher liked to ride Rhodes when he was hot. In Game 2, Rhodes started in left field and hit two home runs and two doubles, leading the Giants to a 7-4 win. For Rhodes, the best was yet to come.
