Today in Sports History
SATURDAY 1876 Albert Spalding with US$800 starts sporting goods company in the USA, manufacturing first official baseball, tennis ball, basketball, golf ball, and football.
1972 The XI Olympic Winter Games are held in Sapporo, Japan.
1975 Billy Herman, Earl Averill, and Bucky Harris elected to Baseball Hall of Fame.
1979 Minnesota Twins trade Rod Carew to California Angels for four players.
1980 Larry Holmes TKOs Lorenzo Holmes in six rounds for heavyweight boxing title.
1987 Montreal Expos trade Jeff Reardon to Minnesota Twins for Neal Heaton.
1990 Jockey Billy Shoemaker (58) retires after 40,350 horse races.
1993 Cincinnati Reds’ owner Marge Schott suspended for one year due to racist comments.
1998 Florida Panthers’ player Dino Ciccarelli is 9th NHL player to score 600 career goals.
2002 The New England Patriots beat the St. Louis Rams 20-17, in NFL Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans.
2008 In Glendale, Arizona, the NFL’s Super Bowl XLII is played. The New York Giants beat the previously undefeated New England Patriots with a 17-14 victory. Most Valuable Player is Giants’ Quarterback Eli Manning. The telecast is viewed by 97.4 million Americans, a record for the Super Bowl and making it the second-largest TV audience, behind the MASH finale in 1983. SUNDAY
1861 Wearing ice skates, the champion Atlantics defeat the Charter Oak Club, 36-27 in a baseball game played on frozen Litchfield Pond in South Brooklyn, New York, USA.
1903 Stanley Cup: Montréal AAA beat Winnipeg Victorias, two games to one and one tie.
1924 First Olympic Winter Games close at Chamonix, France.
1932 The III Olympic Winter Games are held in Lake Placid, New York, USA.
1956 American League plans to test automatic intentional walk during spring training.
1962 Russian newspaper Izvestia reports baseball is an old Russian game.
1968 Bowie Kuhn replaces William Eckert as 5th commissioner of baseball.
1969 John Madden is named head coach of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders.
1973 New York Islanders and Buffalo Sabres play a penaltyfree game.
1976 The XII Olympic Winter Games are held in Innsbruck, Austria. 1987 Dennis Conner and Stars and Stripes beat Australia’s
Kookaburra 3, bringing America’s Cup yachting trophy back to USA.
1991 Baseball Hall of Fame’s board of directors vote 12-0 to bar Pete Rose.
1997 Mario Lemieux is seventh NHL player to score 600 goals.
2004 The St. Louis Cardinals and Albert Pujols agree to a US$100 million, seven-year deal.
2007 The Indianapolis Colts defeat the Chicago Bears 29-17 in NFL’s Super Bowl XLI, played at Dolphin Stadium, Miami, Florida.