ON THIS DATE
1937: Philadelphia Phillies. trailing 8-2 to St Louis, forfeit game. (Couldn’t even wait for the 10-run rule.) 1944: Tommie Smith, Olympic gold medalist protester and king of San Jose State’s “Speed City,” is born in Clarksville, Tex. 1944: All MLB games are canceled in honor of the D-Day landings in northern France. 1946: The National Basketball Association is founded at the Commodore Hotel in New York. 1956: Björn Borg is born in Stockholm, Sweden. 1959: Dave Schultz, world champion freestyle wrestler better known for his tragic ending at Foxcatcher Farms, is born in Palo Alto. 1971: Willie Mays hits the last of his 22 extra-inning home runs, a record that hasn’t come close to being touched, even by PED users. (Babe Ruth is next with 16.) 1976: Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw (27) weds ice skater JoJo Starbuck (25). 1987: Steffi Graf, eight days shy of her 18th birthday, becomes the youngest women’s champion of the French Open when she beats Martina Navratilova 6-4, 4-6, 8-6. 1999: Andre Agassi wins his only French Open and becomes the fifth man to complete a career Grand Slam. 1999: Juli Inkster, Santa Cruz native and the pride of San Jose State University, wins the U.S. Women’s Open with a 16-under 272, the lowest 72-hole score in the championship’s 54-year history. 2007: And the Stanley Cup goes to ... the Anaheim Ducks? 2007: Trevor Hoffman becomes the first major leaguer with 500 saves. 2010: Rafael Nadal wins his fifth French Open title and avenges his lone Roland Garros defeat, beating Robin Soderling in the final. 2011: The Bowl Championship Series strips USC of its 2004 title for rules violations committed during the 2004 and ’05 seasons. 2013: With the first pick in the MLB Draft, the Houston Astros selected pitcher Mark Appel from Stanford University. 2013: Esther Williams, American swimmer and actress, dies from natural causes at 91. 2015: American Pharoah becomes the first horse in 37 years to win the Triple Crown. 2015: Serena Williams wins the French Open, her 20th major singles championship. 2015: Tiger Woods shoots an 85 — highest score of his career — in the Memorial at Muirfield Village, where he had won eight times. 2017: Scooter Gennett of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the 17th player to hit four homers in one game. (Two years later, in 42 games with the Reds and the Giants, he can’t hit more than two total.)