ON THIS DATE

1936: The Olympic Games open in Berlin, with your host Adolf Hitler.

1945: Mel Ott of the Giants hits his 500th home run; only Babe Ruth (714) and Jimmie Foxx (527) have more. (Now 24 have more, one-third of them known or suspected cheats.)

1957: Gil Hodges hits his 13th career grand slam, an NL record and the last ever by a Brooklyn Dodgers player.

1963: Arthur Ashe becomes the first Black ever named to the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team.

1966: Darryl Hall, is born in Oscoda, Mich., but chooses to become a linebacker for the Calgary Stampeders rather than half of a pop music duo.

1969: College All-Star Game: N.Y. Jets 26, AllStars 24. (Namath still hung over from Super Bowl party six months earlier.)

1972: Nate Colbert of the San Diego Padres drives in 13 runs in a doubleheader sweep of Atlanta 9-0 and 11-7.

1973: Thurman Munson of the Yankees and Carlton Fisk of the Red Sox brawl at home plate. Fisk’s next bout is 1990 vs. Deion Sanders.

1977: Willie McCovey hits two home runs, including his 18th career grand slam, an NL record to this day.

1978: Pete Rose’s 44game hitting streak ends with an 0 for 4 against Atlanta pitchers Larry McWilliams and Gene Garber.

1986: John McEnroe and Tatum O’Neal get married. She thinks he hangs the moon, but it’s only paper.

1986: Bert Blyleven becomes the 10th pitcher with 3,000 strikeouts when he fans 15 A’s, including Mike Davis for the big one.

1993: Reggie Jackson is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. (“They should have a wing for the real Hall of Famers,” he once told me.)

1996: Dan O’Brien, four years after his stunning failure to make the U.S. team, becomes the first American since Bruce Jenner

in 1976 to win Olympic gold in the decathlon.

2001: Korey Stringer, offensive lineman for the Minnesota Vikings, dies of heat stroke after a training camp practice.

2005: Rafael Palmeiro is suspended 10 days following a positive test for steroids, less than five months after emphatically telling Congress: “I have never used steroids. Period.”

2010: Australian Stuart Appleby shoots a 59 to win the Greenbrier Classic, the first non-American (and only the fifth player overall) to break 60 on the PGA Tour.

2010: Twin brothers Bob and Mike Bryan win their 62nd career doubles title, breaking the record held by the Wood brothers — Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde.

2012: Four teams are kicked out of the women’s badminton doubles at the London Games for trying to lose. (They were eating picnic food while playing!)