THIS DATE IN BASEBALL
1913 — Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field hosted its first game, an exhibition. Before a crowd of 25,000, the Dodgers beat the Giants, 3- 2. Casey Stengel hit an inside- the- park homer for Brooklyn.
1971 — In their last opening day, the Senators, behind pitcher Dick Bosman, beat the Oakland A’s 8- 0 before 45,000 fans at RFK Stadium.
1979 — Baltimore manager Earl Weaver picked up his 1,000th career victory when the Orioles beat the Chicago White Sox.
1983 — The San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants 16- 13 in the highestscoring opening day game in 50 years. Winning pitcher Tim Lollar also drove in three runs.
1993 — The expansion Florida Marlins won their first game, 6- 3 over the Los Angeles Dodgers, at Joe Robbie Stadium. The new Colorado Rockies lost to the Mets 3- 0 in New York.
1998 — Andy Benes pitched seven strong innings and Matt Williams had three hits and an RBI in to lead Arizona to its first victory, 3- 2 over San Francisco. The Diamondbacks ( 1- 5) had the second- longest, season- opening losing streak for an expansion team in its first season.
2003 — Kansas City became the first major league team to start 5- 0 after a 100loss season.
2004 — Carlos Beltran of Kansas City and Shannon Stewart of Minnesota combined to set a record. For the first time in modern history, two players hit game- winning home runs on the same day. The Royals beat the Chicago White Sox, 9- 7, while the Twins overcame the Cleveland Indians, 7- 4, in 11 innings. The Royals also were the first team since 1901 to recover from a ninth- inning deficit of four runs on opening day.
2005 — The Washington Nationals, formerly known as the Montreal Expos, lose their inaugural season opener Philadelphia 8- 4.
2006 — Ivan Rodriguez went 5- for- 5 with a single, homer, three doubles and five RBIs, leading Detroit to a 14- 3 rout over Kansas City.
2009 — Atlanta’s Jordan Schafer became the 10th player in Braves history and the 99th player overall to hit a home run in his first major league at bat. Schafer connected off Philadelphia’s Brett Myers in the second inning.
2010 — Garrett Jones homered in his first two at- bats, pinch- hitter Ryan Church doubled home three runs in Pittsburgh’s 11- 5 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
2010 — Atlanta’s Jason Heyward hit a three- run homer in his first major league at bat in the Braves’ 16- 5 rout of the Chicago Cubs. The rookie’s first- inning homer into the Braves’ bullpen behind the right- field wall gave Atlanta a 6- 3 lead.
2012 — J. P. Arencibia’s three- run homer in the 16th inning sent the Toronto Blue Jays to a 7- 4 win over the Cleveland Indians in the longest opening- day game in major league history. The marathon eclipsed the previous longest openers — 15 innings between Cleveland and Detroit in 1960 and 15 innings between Philadelphia and Washington in 1926.
2015 — The Los Angeles Dodgers set a baseball record with a $ 270 million openingday payroll, including nearly $ 44 million going to players no longer on the team. Major League Baseball’s average salary on opening day also set a mark at $ 4.2 million.