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This Date in Baseball – Cal Ripken Jr. Plays in His 2,131st Consecutive Game to Set MLB record

 The Associated Press  |    Sep 6th, 2024 7:01am EDT

Sept. 6

1905 — Frank Smith of the Chicago White Sox pitched a no-hitter against the Detroit Tigers in a 15-0 victory in the second game of a doubleheader. The score is the most lopsided margin of victory for a no-hitter in AL history.

1912 — Smokey Joe Wood of the Red Sox, on his way to a 34-win season, beat Washington’s Walter Johnson 1-0 at Boston. The victory was Wood’s 14th consecutive, two shy of Johnson’s AL record of 16 straight.

1924 — Urban Shocker of the St. Louis Browns pitched two complete games against the Chicago White Sox and won both, 6-2.

1943 — At 16 years, eight months and five days, Philadelphia A’s pitcher Carl Scheib became the youngest player to appear in an American League game.

1976 — Los Angeles catcher Steve Yeager was seriously injured when the jagged end of a broken bat struck him in the throat while he was waiting in the on-deck circle.

1981 — Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-0 to tie a National League record of seven shutouts by a rookie pitcher.

1995 — Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive major league game to surpass Lou Gehrig’s 56-year record. Ripken received a 22-minute standing ovation and went 2-for-4, including a homer, in Baltimore’s 4-2 win over California.

1996 — Eddie Murray hit his 500th home run, joining Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Willie Mays with at least 3,000 hits and 500 homers. Murray homered off Felipe Lira in the seventh inning of the Baltimore Orioles’ 5-4, 12-inning loss to Detroit.

2000 — Scott Sheldon of the Texas Rangers became the third player to play all nine positions in one game when he did it in a 13-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox. Sheldon joined Bert Campaneris (Sept. 8, 1965) and Cesar Tovar (Sept. 22, 1968) as true utility players.

2002 — The Oakland Athletics’ 20-game winning streak was snapped as Brad Radke pitched the Minnesota Twins to a 6-0 victory at the Metrodome.

2006 — Anibal Sanchez, a 22-year-old rookie, threw a no-hitter in his 13th career start to end the longest no-hit gap in major league history as Florida beat Arizona 2-0.

2009 — Ichiro Suzuki got his 2,000th hit in the majors. He became the second-fastest player to reach the mark, doing it in 1,402 games; Al Simmons did it in 1,390. The 35-year-old Suzuki also got 1,278 hits while playing in Japan.

2013 — Yusmeiro Petit’s bid for a perfect game was broken up by Eric Chavez’s two-out single in the ninth inning. The right-hander got the next batter to close out the San Francisco Giants’ 3-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

2013 — Mike Napoli hit a tying grand slam in the seventh, Shane Victorino had a go-ahead homer one inning later and the Boston Red Sox rallied past the New York Yankees 12-8. One night earlier, the Yankees took an 8-7 lead with a six-run seventh — only to lose 9-8 in 10 innings on Victorino’s tiebreaking single. New York lost consecutive games when scoring at least eight runs for the first time since September 1949. The last time it happened with both games at home was 1911 against Cleveland.

2016 — The Twins lose again, 10 – 3, to the Royals, but Brian Dozier is red hot. He homers in his fifth straight game, tying a team record, and now has 39, tying the American League record for a second baseman set by Alfonso Soriano. Dozier has hit 25 homers since the All-Star break, but the Twins have won only two of their last 17 games and have the worst record in the majors.

2020 — Hall of FamerLou Brock, who held the career and single-season stolen bases records before they were broken by Rickey Henderson, and a member of the 3,000 hit club, passes away at age 81.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

WBN MLB: https://worldbaseball.com/league/mlb/

Photo Credit: Cal Ripken Jr. #8 of the Baltimore Orioles acknowledge the fans as he gets a standing ovation for playing in his 2131st consecutive Major League baseball game breaking the record set by Yankee Great Lou Gehrig of 2130 games. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)

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The Associated Press