TODAY IN SPORTS HISTORY
1972 — Baseball Hall of Fame inducts Yogi Berra, Sandy Koufax, Lefty Gomez, and Early Wynn. 1983 — Grete Waitz of Norway wins first all-women Marathon (Helsinki, Finland).
1984 — Japan beats U.S.A. for Olympic gold medal in baseball at Los Angeles Summer Games. 1984 — Jim Deshales becomes 1,000th player for the New York Yankees.
1985 — Major League Baseball players end their two-day mid-season strike. A five-year agreement between the union and owners is concluded.
1987 — Bill Mazeroski’s uniform jersey No. 9 is officially retired from active service by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
1990 — New York Yankees’ player Kevin Mass sets a record with his 12th home run in his first 92 at-bats and becomes the 21st player to hit a ball into third deck at Seattle’s Kingdome.
1991 — The U.S.A. sets the 400metre relay mark of 37.67 seconds. 2001 — Black Betsy, Shoeless Joe Jackson’s 40-ounce warped hickory bat, is won in a 10-day eBay auction. The $577,610 price tag is believed to be the largest amount ever paid for a baseball bat.
2007 — At AT&T Park in San Francisco, Giants slugger Barry Bonds surpasses Hank Aaron as the all-time home-run leader with his 756th. During the 10-minute celebration following the historic homer, a video message is played on the scoreboard in which Aaron congratulates the left fielder for breaking the 33-year old record. San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds rounds the bases after hitting his record-breaking 756th career home run in the fifth inning against the Washington Nationals, 11 years ago today.