Chicago Cubs history unpacked — September 9

Free of charge for the discerning reader.

Happy birthday to Jerry Mumphrey, and a mighty host of others.

Today in baseball history, in 1918 – In Game 4 of the World Series, Babe Ruth bats in two runs on a triple in the fourth and pitches seven scoreless innings before the Cubs tie it in the eighth, ending Ruth’s World Series record of 29.2 scoreless innings. Phil Douglas relieves Lefty Tyler for Chicago in the last of the eighth and throws away the game, first by a wild pitch, then with an error. Ruth is the winning pitcher, but Carl Mays relieves with two on and no out in the ninth; and 1938 – Lou Gehrig plays his 2,100th consecutive game and has four hits to bring his average over .300, and other stories as well.

Today in baseball history:

1932 – The Tigers beat the Yankees, 14-13, in a 14-inning game in which Lou Gehrig hits a grand slam and drives in eight runs. He has reached this RBI feat twice before.
1953 – Mickey Mantle’s two-run home run off Chicago’sBilly Pierce caps a seven-run fifth inning, as New York wins, 9-3, at Yankee Stadium. Returning to CF after the fifth, Mantle is photographed blowing a huge bubble with a wad of gum. Manager Stengel will publicly rebuke the Mick, who will apologize for the indiscretion. However, Mantle does get an endorsement fee from the Bowman Gum company.
1987 – Striking out 12 of the final 13 hitters and a total of 16, Nolan Ryan beats the Giants, 4-2. The “Ryan Express” whiffs Mike Aldrete to end the seventh inning notching his 4,500th career strikeout.
1992 – Milwaukee OF Robin Yount gets the 3,000th hit of his career in his team’s 5-4 loss to the Indians. He also becomes only the second player in history to record 200 home runs, 200 stolen bases and 100 triples, duplicating Willie Mays’ feat.
2007 – Todd Helton hits his 35th double of the season, this one against Joe Thatcher, in a 4-2 Rockies win. It makes him the first major leaguer ever to hit 35 or more doubles 10 years in a row; even the legendary Tris Speaker had only had nine such consecutive seasons.

Today in Cubs history:

1935 – Chicago tops the Braves, 5-1 and 2-1, behind the pitching of Larry French and Tex Carleton, cutting the Cardinals’ lead to a single game.
1969 – With a 3-2 win, Tom Seaver hands Chicago its sixth straight loss, giving the Mets a sweep of two games. New York now trails the Cubs by half a game.
1975 – The Cubs’Bill Madlock suffers an “incomplete fracture” of his right thumb when hit by a Bruce Kison pitch in a 6-5 win over the Pirates. He will be out for two weeks but will return and win his first batting title, finishing at .354.
1989 – The Cubs’Luis Salazar singles in the tying run in 8th, then doubles in the winner in the 10th to give Chicago a 3-2 win over St. Louis. The Cubs now lead the Cards by one and a half games.
1999 – In the Cubs’ 5-3 loss to the Reds, Sammy Sosa hits his 59th homer. Sosa has more homers than the Cubs have wins: 56. They’ve lost 31 of their last 39 games.

Cubs Birthdays: Ben Brown, Billy Hamilton, Michael Bowden, Edwin Jackson, Todd Zeile, Jerry Mumphrey*, Earl Averill, Ed Mickelson, Abner Dalrymple, Frank Chance HOF. Also notable: Waite Hoyt HOF. Frankie Frisch HOF.

Today in history:

1839 – English scientist and astronomer John Herschel takes the first glass plate photograph.
1841 – Tom Hyer beats George McChester in 101 rounds (two hours and 55 minutes) at Caldwell’s Landing, NY, to become the first American heavyweight boxing champion.
1909 – Jack Johnson retains his heavyweight boxing title when he fights Al Kaufman to a no decision in 10 rounds at Coffroth’s Arena in San Francisco, California.
1919 – The hydrofoil designed by Alexander Graham Bell, his wife Mabel Bell, and F.W. Casey Baldwin sets a new water speed record of 114 km/h on Bras d’Or, Nova Scotia
1971 – Apple Records releases John Lennon’s second solo studio album, “Imagine,” in the US; it tops the charts in the US, UK, Australia, and three other countries.
2019 – Poet John Milton’s own copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio of 1623 survives with his annotations, according to scholar Jason Scott-Warren, in a Philadelphia library and could be the world’s most important modern literary discovery.