March in Baseball History

Interesting Baseball History for the month of March:

1867 - Denton True Young is born in Gilmore, Ohio. He will earn the nickname Cy for his cyclone-like pitching motion and he will win (and lose) more games than any pitcher in history with a 511-316 record and 2.63 ERA over 22 seasons. He wins 20 or more games 15 times, and tops the 30-win mark five times.

1871 - The National Association of Professional Baseball Players is founded setting the stage for the future National League (1876). The entry fee for a National Association franchise is set at $10.

1874 - At the fourth meeting of the Professional Association in Boston, the batter's box is officially adopted.

1894 - Pittsburgh issues free season tickets for ladies, good for Tuesday and Friday games.

1897 - Cleveland signs Holy Cross star Chief Sockalexis to a contract. Sockalexis, a full-blooded Penobscot Indian, soon earns the admiration of Spiders supporters because of his outstanding all-around skill. Before long, baseball fans start referring to the Cleveland team as the Indians. Sockalexis plays only three years with the team because of acute alcoholism, but the nickname Indians will be revived in 1915 to become the club's official name.

1900 - John McGraw, Wilbert Robinson, and infielder Bill Wagon-Tongue Keister are sold by Brooklyn to St. Louis for $15,000. McGraw and Robby refuse to report

1901 - Ground is broken for Boston's first American League ballpark, the Huntington Avenue Grounds.

1901 - The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Baltimore manager John McGraw has signed a Cherokee Indian named Tokohoma. It is really black second baseman Charlie Grant, who McGraw is trying to pass off as an Indian, but the ruse does not work.

1902 - The nickname Cubs is coined by the Chicago Daily News, when an unbylined column notes that, Frank Selee will devote his strongest efforts on the team work of the new Cubs this year. In time, the Cubs will replace the Colts as the nickname for Chicago's N.L. club.

1903 - The New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) are officially approved as members of the American League.

1908 - Ty Cobb signs with Detroit for $4,000 plus an $800 bonus if he hits over .300. He will collect the bonus with a league-leading .324, becoming one of only three A.L. regulars to top .300 (the N.L. has five) this year.

1909 - The National Commission rules that players who jump contracts will be suspended for five years. Players joining outlaw organizations will be suspended for three years as punishment for going outside organized baseball.

1910 - The Chalmers Auto Company of Detroit offers to award a new car to the batting champion of each league. The National Commission accepts.

1911 - Matthew Stanley Robison, president of the Cardinals, dies unexpectedly. He leaves the club and the bulk of his estate to his niece, Mrs. Helene Hathaway Britton, the first female owner of a major league club.

1913 - The Yankees are the first team to train outside the U.S. when they travel to Bermuda for spring practice.

1917 - After hearing that Gabby Street had caught a ball dropped off the Washington Monument, Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson bragged that he could catch a ball dropped from an airplane, even though he was in his mid-50s and well above his playing weight. But Casey Stengel substituted a grapefruit for the baseball. Robinson circled unsteadily under the descending spheroid and actually got a glove on it before it splattered across his chest. Robinson felt the ooze, thought it was blood, and screamed that he was dying until he tasted the juice. He later conceded that he probably would have been killed if a real baseball had been dropped from the plane.

1922 - Babe Ruth signs for three years at $52,000 a year. The next-highest-paid New York player is Frank Home Run Baker at $16,000.

1923 - The Cardinals announce that their players will wear numerals on their uniforms. The numerals will be assigned according to the batting order.

1923 - The New England American Legion appeals to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to discontinue morning games on Memorial Day. The request is turned down.

1930 - Babe Ruth signs a two-year contract for $160,000 with New York. At $80,000 per year, he is the highest paid player of all time as of 1930.

1934 - All-around female athlete Mildred Babe Didrickson pitches the first inning for the Philadelphia Athletics in a spring training exhibition game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. She gives up one walk but no hits. Two days later she pitches again, this time one inning for the St. Louis Cardinals against the Red Sox. She is less successful this time, giving up four hits and three runs. Didrickson is the second female to play exhibitions with a major league team (first baseman Lizzie Murphy played for an A.L. all-star team on August 14, 1922).

1936 - Much-heralded rookie Joe DiMaggio makes his debut with the Yankees, collecting four hits, including a triple. The day is marred when the Cardinals win 8-7.

1936 - The St. Louis Cardinals without the Dean brothers, who are once again holdouts visit Cuba and are beaten by the Cuban all-stars. Luis Tiant, Sr., whose son will win 229 ML games, is the starting pitcher for the Cubans.

1937 - On the advice of Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio reduces the weight of his bat from 40 ounces to 36 ounces.

1942 - Owners decide not to allow furloughed players in the military to play for their clubs if based near a game site.

1943 - The major leagues approve an official ball, the insides of which will be made from reclaimed cork and balata, materials not needed in the war effort. Officials insist the ball will have the resiliency of the 1939 ball, but the players will express with dismay that they cannot drive the new ball and point out the dearth of runs and homers in 1942 even with the old ball.

1945 - Bert Shepard, a one-legged veteran of the war, tries out as a pitcher for the Senators (and subsequently appears in a league game). The symbol of wartime baseball, outfielder Pete Gray of the Browns, will field and bat with only one arm.

1946 - Ted Williams is offered $500,000 to play in the Mexican League. He stays in the U.S. and captures the A.L. MVP while leading the Red Sox to the pennant.

1948 - Stan Musial signs with the Cardinals for $31,000, ending his holdout.

1949 - The Browns, owners of Sportsman's Park, move to evict the Cardinals in order to gain a rent increase.

1953 - Senator Edwin C. Johnson offers a bill to give clubs the sole right to ban radio-TV broadcasts of major league games in their own territory. The Antitrust Division of the Justice Department outlawed this practice in 1949. Johnson believes that it started the decline of baseball in small towns and cities throughout the country. His bill will restore the equity between large communities and the small areas.

1953 - The Milwaukee Braves become the first franchise shift in baseball since 1903, when Baltimore moved to New York. The Braves have been in Boston for 77 years. Milwaukee assumes Pittsburgh's place in the Western Division for scheduling purposes and night games. The minor-league Milwaukee Brewers move to Toledo.

1954 - Hank Aaron homers in his first start with the Braves in an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox. The noise of the contact is so loud that Ted Williams runs out of the clubhouse to see who can make that sound with a bat.

1954 - Red Sox slugger Ted Williams breaks his collarbone in his first spring training practice and will be out until May 15.

1956 - In an effort to keep the Giants in New York, Manhattan Borough President Hulan Jack makes plans for a new 110,000-seat stadium over the New York Central railroad tracks, on a 470,000-foot site stretching from 60th to 72nd streets on Manhattan's West Side. The estimated cost of $75M for the stadium eventually dooms the project and will be a major factor in Horace Stoneham's decision to move to San Francisco.

1958 - In a move to change their image, the Dodgers announce that clown Emmett Kelly will not perform in 1958.

1958 - Starting this season, A.L. batters will be required to wear batting helmets

1960 - Red Sox catcher Sammy White announces he will retire rather than report to Cleveland, where he had been traded

1960 - The White Sox unveil new road uniforms with the players' names above the number on the back, another innovation by Bill Veeck.

1961 - The New York State Senate approves $55 million for a new baseball stadium at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens.

1962 - A former Giant, requesting anonymity, reveals that Bobby Thomson's home run in the 1951 playoffs against the Dodgers was helped by a sign-stealing clubhouse spy. The spying is claimed to have gone on for the last three months of the season. Thomson and former manager Leo Durocher vehemently deny that any help was received, but a source close to the team confirms the spy operation.

1962 - William DeWitt buys the Reds from the Crosley Foundation for $4.625 million.

1963 - Rookie Pete Rose plays his first spring training game, and goes two for two against the White Sox.

1966 - Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale end their 32-day holdout, signing for $130,000 and $105,000, respectively.

1967 - The White Sox are given permission to use a semi-designated hitter in training camp. With home club permission, clubs will be allowed to use a designated pinch hitter twice in the same game.

1968 - The name for Seattle's A.L. expansion club is the Pilots.

1969 - Mickey Mantle retires. He ends his career with 2,415 hits and 536 home runs in 18 years with the New York Yankees, numbers that would have certainly been higher if not for persistent knee injuries

1969 - Veteran utility infielder Chico Salmon is traded from the expansion Seattle Pilots to the Baltimore Orioles for pitcher Gene Brabender and infielder Gordy Lund. Salmon will play for three consecutive pennant winners in Baltimore from 1969 to 1971, while the Pilots last only one season in Seattle before moving to Milwaukee.

1973 - In an exhibition game against the Pirates, Larry Hisle of the Twins becomes the first designated hitter in major league history. Hisle makes the new A.L. rule look good by collecting two home runs and driving in seven runs.

1973 - Yankees teammates Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich arrive at spring training and announce they have swapped their wives and families. Even the family dogs were traded.

1974 - With Hank Aaron needing only one home run to tie Babe Ruth's career record (714), Atlanta plans to save the event for a home audience by benching him on the road. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn plans otherwise, ordering the Braves to start Aaron in at least two of the team's three season-opening games in Cincinnati.

1975 - The Dodgers sign free-agent pitcher Juan Marichal. After two poor outings, Marichal will retire on April 17, leaving a career record of 243-142, 52 shutouts, and a 2.89 ERA.

1976 - In a last-minute deal, the Giants are bought for $8M by Bob Lurie and Bud Herseth. This purchase assures that team will stay in San Francisco.

1977 - Mark Fidrych, the 1976 Rookie of the Year, rips the cartilage in his left knee and will undergo surgery 10 days later. The injury will effectively end the fabled career of the Bird.

1978 - For the St. Patrick's Day exhibition game, the Reds don green uniforms, rather than their traditional red, starting an annual ritual. The Cardinals and other teams will follow suit.

1978 - The A's trade Vida Blue to the Giants for seven players and an estimated $390,000 in cash.

1979 - Commissioner Bowie Kuhn issues a notice to all clubs urging that all reporters, regardless of sex, be treated equally in the matter of access to locker rooms.

1979 - The Padres and Giants announce that the 1980 exhibition series between the two teams will be played in Tokyo. But Giants owner Bob Lurie leaves the decision up to his players, who reject the agreement.

1983 - While some clubs are concerned about low attendance at the start of the season, the Dodgers become the first team in major league history to cut off season ticket sales before the start of the season. The Dodgers, with 27,000 season tickets already sold, implement the cutoff so that group sales won't be impeded and fans will be able to buy tickets for individual games.

1984 - Denny McLain, the last major league pitcher to achieve a 30-win season, is indicted on various charges of racketeering, loan-sharking, extortion, and cocaine possession.

1984 - The Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee agrees to stage a six-team exhibition baseball tournament as part of the 1984 Summer Olympics to be held in Los Angeles.

1985 - An Illinois judge rules that state and city laws effectively banning night baseball at Chicago's Wrigley Field are constitutional. After being forced to give up a home game during the 1984 NLCS, and threatened with playing future postseason games at another stadium in order to accommodate network television's prime-time schedules, the Cubs had sued to overturn the laws.

1985 - Commissioner Peter Ueberroth reinstates Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, who had been banned from association with organized baseball by Bowie Kuhn due to their employment by Atlantic City casinos.

1985 - Dave Stieb, the ace of the Toronto staff for the past five seasons, signs an 11-year contract that could be worth up to $25 million with deferred payments and incentives. He would pitch only another six full seasons.

1986 - Major league baseball's Rules Committee votes to change the designated hitter rule for the World Series, allowing a DH to be used in all games played in the A.L. club's home park. Since 1976, the DH had been used in all games in alternating years.

1987 - Free agent Andre Dawson signs a one-year contract with the Cubs for the bargain-basement price of $650,000. Dawson had offered to sign a contract with the dollar amount left blank just so he could play on the natural grass at Wrigley Field and save his fragile knees. He will hit 49 home runs, lead the majors in RBIs, and win the 1987 N.L. MVP Award.

1993 - Cleveland pitcher Steve Olin is killed instantly and new teammate Tim Crews dies several hours later as a result of a boating accident at Little Lake Nellie in Clermont, Florida. Bob Ojeda is seriously injured as well, but he will survive and make a comeback in the major leagues

1994 - Eric Show, who won 100 games pitching for the Padres, dies of a drug overdose at age 37.

1996 - The first ever March Opening Day takes place in Seattle.

1997 - Chipper Jones is now able to chip teeth as Malley's Chocolates announces the introduction of the Chipper Jones Candy Bar. On a team full of marketable stars, the 24-year-old Atlanta Braves third baseman is the first member of the club to get his own candy bar.