TODAY IN SPORTS HISTORY
1916 — New York Yankees buy Frank (Home Run) Baker from the Philadelphia Athletics for US$37,500.
1930 — Weona beats Toluca in Illinois Basketball Tournament in 10 overtimes.
1931 — Spring training site of New York Yankees in St. Petersburg is renamed Miller Huggins Field in honour of the team’s late manager.
1932 — III Olympic Winter Games close in Lake Placid, N.Y.
1932 — U.S. bobsled team member Eddie Eagan becomes the only athlete to win gold in both summer and winter Olympics
(1920 boxing gold).
1936 — Sonja Henie of Norway wins her third consecutive Olympics figure skating gold.
1956 — Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Athletics cancel an exhibition game in Birmingham, Ala., because of a local ordinance barring black people from playing against white people.
1958 — Ice Pairs Championship at Paris won by Barbara Wagner and Rob Paul of Canada.
1961 — Entire U.S.A. figure skating team of 18 dies in Belgian Sabena 707 crash.
1972 — Bill Torrey becomes first New York Islanders general manager.
1973 — Friendsville Academy (Tennessee) ends 138-game basketball losing streak.
1976 — XII Olympic Winter Games close in Innsbruck, Austria.
1978 — Leon Spinks beats Muhammad Ali in 15 rounds for the world heavyweight crown. 1980 — Wayne Gretzky assists on an NHL-record-tying seven goals. 1980 — Eric Heiden skates an Olympic-record 500 metre in 38.03 seconds.
1987 — Craig Stadler is disqualified from the Andy Williams Open for kneeling on a towel to make a shot. 1990 — A lockout begins as Major League Baseball owners refuse to open spring training camp without reaching a new basic agreement with the players. 1991 — Troy State sets an NCAA Division II record with 103 points in the second half, routing DeVry Institute, 187-117.
1995 — The Dublin, Ireland, versus England football match in Lansdowne Road is abandoned due to violence and rioting.
1998 — In Dayton Beach, Fla., Dale Earnhardt wins the Daytona 500 in his 20th try. 2006 — Jeff Weaver agrees to a one-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim worth $8,325,000. 2007 — Baseball commissioner’s office approves a one-year contract worth $15.8 million for Barry Bonds with the San Francisco Giants.