Aug. 31
1909 — The A.J. Reach Company was granted a patent for its cork-centered baseball, which replaced the hard rubber-cored one. This change will be particularly apparent in the National League in 1910 and 1911.
1915 — Jim Lavender of the Chicago Cubs pitched a 2-0 no-hitter in the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Giants.
1935 — Vern Kennedy of the Chicago White Sox pitched a no-hitter to beat Cleveland 5-0. Kennedy also had a bases-loaded triple.
1937 — Rudy York of the Tigers hit his 17th and 18th home runs of the month to set a major league record as Detroit beat Washington 12-3.
1950 — Brooklyn’s Gil Hodges tied a major league record by hitting four homers against the Boston Braves in the Dodgers’ 19-3 rout. Hodges also added a single for 17 total bases and drove in nine runs. Brooklyn pitcher Carl Erskine singled in the second, third, fifth and sixth innings.
1959 — Sandy Koufax of Los Angeles struck out 18 Giants for a National League record as the Dodgers beat San Francisco 5-2.
1965 — Boston catcher Russ Nixon tied a major-league record with three run-scoring sacrifice flies in the second game at Washington. Boston won 8-5, after taking the opener, 4-0.
1974 — In a Northwest League game, Portland manager Frank Peters rotated his players so each man played a different position each inning. The strategy worked for an 8-7 win over Tri-Cities.
1990 — The Griffeys — 20-year-old Ken Jr. and his dad, Ken, 40 — made major league history, leading Seattle to a 5-2 victory over Kansas City. The Griffeys were the first father and son to play together in the big leagues.
1998 — Cubs OF Sammy Sosa ties Mark McGwire by hitting his 55th home run in Chicago’s 5 – 4 win over Cincinnati. Sosa has hit 30 of his homers at Wrigley Field, three short of Hack Wilson’s Cub record and tying him with Ernie Banks.
2001 — Pitcher Danny Almonte, who dominated the Little League World Series with his 70 mph fastballs, was ruled ineligible after government records experts determined he actually was 14, and that birth certificates showing he was two years younger were false. The finding nullified all the victories by his Bronx, N.Y., team, the Rolando Paulino Little League All-Stars, and wiped out all its records — including Almonte’s perfect game and an earlier no-hitter.
2004 — Omar Vizquel went 6-for-7 to tie the American League record for hits for a nine-inning game in Cleveland’s 22-0 victory over the New York Yankees. The 22-0 beating, was the largest loss in the history of the Yankees’ organization. Cleveland matched the largest shutout win in the major leagues since 1900, set by Pittsburgh against the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 16, 1975.
2005 — Florida’s Jeremy Hermida became the first player in more than a century and the second to hit a grand slam in his first major league at-bat, connecting in the seventh inning off the St. Louis Cardinals’ Al Reyes.
2005 — Albert Pujols hit an RBI triple in St. Louis’ 10-5 victory over the Florida Marlins, giving him 100 RBIs this season. Pujols became the first player in major league history to hit at least 30 home runs and drive in 100 runs in his first five seasons in the majors.
2010 — Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman reached 102 mph during one perfect inning, and Cincinnati beat Milwaukee 8-4. Chapman joined the Reds’ bullpen and matched the hype his first time out, throwing four pitches clocked at 100 mph or better.
2011 — Two milestone home runs — Chipper Jones’ 450th and Derek Lowe’s first — gave Atlanta the early lead and Lowe combined with three relievers on a three-hitter in a 3-1 victory over Washington. Craig Kimbrel pitched the ninth for his 41st save, setting a major league rookie record.
2019 — Minnesota Twins hit six home runs in a 10-7 loss to the Tigers to break an MLB record by hitting 268 home runs in a season.
2022 — Shohei Ohtani adds another item to his ever-growing list of achievements when he homers off Gerrit Cole of the Yankees in the 6th inning of the Angels’ 3 – 2 win. With that, he becomes the first player ever to hit 30 homers and record 10 wins in the same season – a feat not even Babe Ruth managed to achieve.
_____
