THIS DATE IN SPORTS
December 9
1934 — The New York Giants wins the NFL championship by beating the Chicago Bears 30-13 in the famous “Sneakers Game.” With the temperature at 9 degrees and the Polo Grounds field a sheet of ice, the Giants open the second half wearing basketball shoes and score 27 points in the final period to overcome a 13-3 Chicago lead.
1949 — The All-America Conference merges with the National Football League. Three teams from the AAFC — the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts — join the 10-team NFL. The league is called the National-American Football League, but months later the National Football League name is restored. 1973 — Jim Bakken of the St. Louis Cardinals kicks six field goals in a 32-10 victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
1977 — Moses Malone leads the Houston Rockets to a 116-105 win over the Los Angeles Lakers in a game marred by a one-punch knockout of Rockets’ forward Rudy Tomjanovich. Los Angeles forward Kermit Washington and Rockets’ center Kevin Kunnert go at it at center court. Lakers’ center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar jumps in and grabs Kunnert. Tomjanovich rushes to aid Kunnert and Washington turns around and throws a right-hand punch to Tomjanovich’s face that knocks him to the floor, leaving him in a pool of blood. 1982 — The Los Angeles Kings snaps Wayne Gretzky’s NHL-record 30-game point streak. Rookie goaltender Gary Laskoski makes 32 saves to lead the Kings to 3-3 tie with the Edmonton Oilers. 1995 — Eddie George, who led the nation with 24 touchdowns and rushed for an Ohio State-record 1,826 yards, wins the Heisman Trophy by a wide margin over Nebraska’s Tommie Frazier and Florida’s Danny Wuerffel.
2000 — Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith rushes for a season-high 150 yards, putting him over 1,000 for a record-tying 10th straight season and joins Walter Payton and Barry Sanders as the only players in NFL history with 15,000 career yards.
2001 — Bode Miller becomes the first American since 1983 to win a World Cup giant slalom race. Miller, third after the opening leg, has an excellent second run to win in a combined time of 2 minutes, 36.02 seconds in Val D’Isere, France. 2007 — Tom Brady throws four touchdown passes and the New England Patriots stay unbeaten with a 34-13 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Patriots are the fifth team with a 13-0 record, joining the 1934 Chicago Bears, 1972 Miami Dolphins, 1998 Denver Broncos and 2005 Indianapolis Colts.
2009 — Cassidy Schaub rolls consecutive 300 games and sets a Professional Bowlers Association 16-game scoring record, averaging 257.25 to retain the second-round lead in the Pepsi Red, White and Blue Open. Schaub had a 16-game total of 4,116 pins to erase the PBA record of 4,095 set by John Mazza in Las Vegas in 1996.
2016 — Russia’s sports reputation is ripped apart again when a new report into systematic doping details a vast “institutional conspiracy” that covers more than 1,000 athletes in over 30 sports and a corrupted drug-testing system at the 2012 and 2014 Olympics.
2017 — Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield wins the Heisman Trophy, completing a climb from walk-on to one of the most accomplished players in the history of college football.