On June 29 in Baseball History...
1912 - Rube Marquard's NL-record consecutive game winning streak (20th Century) goes to an amazing 18-0 as he tops Boston‚ 8-6‚ for New York's 12th straight win over the hapless Braves.
1915 - Led by Tris Speaker's 5-for-5‚ the Red Sox trip the Yankees‚ 4-3‚ in 10 innings. Babe Ruth gets the win‚ going all the way before Sheriff Gainer hits for him in the 10th.
1916 - The Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds played a nine-inning game with just one baseball.
1923 - Brooklyn's Jack Fournier went 6-for-6 with a home run, two doubles and three singles. The Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies 14-5.
1937 - Chicago Cubs first baseman Rip Collins played an entire game without a putout or an assist.
1941 - Joe DiMaggio singles against Washington knuckleballer Dutch Leonard in the sixth inning in the first game of a doubleheader to tie George Sisler's A.L. consecutive-game hit record of forty-one (41). In the nightcap he collects a seventh-inning single off of Walt Masterson to set the record at forty-two (42) games.
1950 - In an effort to thwart the ML's signing of black players‚ Dr. J. B. Martin‚ the president of the Chicago Giants of the Negro American League‚ instructs manager‚ Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe to sign white players. Radcliffe inks three white players‚ teenagers Lou Chirban‚ Lou Clarizio and Al Dubetts. Later in the year he will sign at least two others (Stanley Miarka and Frank Dyall). However‚ their Negro League careers will be brief.
1955 - Willie Mays hits the first grand slam of his career‚ off Clem Labine‚ and accounts for all the RBI in a 6-1 Giant win over Brooklyn. Roy Campanella has a broken spur in his knee and will miss 2 weeks.
1961 - With three home runs at Philadelphia, including a tenth-inning shot to win 8-7, Willie Mays becomes the fourth major-league player with three or more home runs twice in one season. Manager Gene Mauch's efforts to conceal his starting pitcher and force Alvin Dark's hand has a Phillies lineup including hurlers Don Ferrarese (batting leadoff, playing center field), Jim Owens (third, right field), Chris Short (seventh, catcher), and Ken Lehman (ninth, pitcher) against San Francisco. When Dark sends a lefty to the mound, Mauch replaces Ferrarese. Dark then replaces Billy O'Dell with Sam Jones. Mauch replaces Lehman with Dallas Green after two batters. All the maneuvering takes three hours and twenty (20) minutes.
1968 - Detroit's Jim Northrup hit his third grand slam in a week and the Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox 5-2.
1969 - On Billy Williams Day in Chicago, the Cubs outfielder passes Stan Musial's National League record for consecutive games played (896). The Cubs sweep the Cardinals 3-1 and 12-1 before 41,060.
1977 - Willie Stargell hits his 400th career home run, this one coming off Eric Rasmussen of the Cardinals.
1984 - Pete Rose plays in his 3,309th major-league game, surpassing Carl Yastrzemski as the all-time leader. Rose goes 0-for-5, but Montreal beats Cincinnati 7-3.
1986 - Detroit beats Milwaukee 9-5 in the first game of a doubleheader split, making Tigers manager Sparky Anderson the first manager ever to win six-hundred games in each league.
1987 - In the first game of Philadelphia's doubleheader sweep of Pittsburgh, Steve Bedrosian records his twelfth consecutive save (in twelve appearances) to break the major-league record set by Sparky Lyle in 1975.
1990 - Oakland's Dave Stewart and the Dodgers Fernando Valenzuela both throw no-hitters. Stewart blanks the Blue Jays 5-0, and a few hours later Valenzuela beats the Cardinals 6-0.
1992 - Oakland's Dennis Eckersley sets the new standard with his twenty-sixth straight save of the season.
1995 - The Dodgers' Hideo Nomo struck out thirteen Colorado Rockies in a 3-0 victory, giving him fifty (50) strikeouts in four (4) games. That broke the Los Angeles record of forty-nine (49) over four (4) games accomplished three (3) times by Sandy Koufax, the last thirty (30) years earlier.
2003 - Eric Byrnes hit for the cycle and matched a franchise record with five hits in Oakland's 5-2 win over San Francisco.
2004 - At Bank One Ballpark, Diamondbacks’ 40-year old fireballer Randy Johnson records his 4,000 career strikeout whiffing Padres' third baseman Jeff Cirillo, a fellow USC Trojan, to become the fourth player in major league baseball history to reach the plateau. The ‘Big Unit’ (3,237 1/3) needs less innings than Nolan Ryan (3,844 2/3), Roger Clemens (4,151), and Steve Carlton (4,991 1/3) to accomplish the feat.
2005 - Craig Biggio breaks Don Baylor’s record for being hit by a pitch as he is plunked for the 268th time in his career. At Coors Field, Rockies starter Byung-Hyun Kim hits the Astros' second baseman on the left elbow in the fourth inning to establish a new mark, both literally and figuratively.
2007 - With a triple in the second inning, a double in the fourth, a three-run home run in the next frame, and a bloop single in the seventh, Aubrey Huff becomes the third player to hit for the cycle since the franchise moved to Baltimore in 1954. The southpaw-swinging first baseman joins Cal Ripken (1984) and Brooks Robinson (1960) as the only other Orioles to accomplish the feat, and the first to do it in front of the home crowd.
2010 - Minutes before the game against the Mets in San Juan’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria tells his players at an impromptu team meeting that the club has decided to retain interim manager Edwin Rodriguez to the end of the season. Rodriguez, the first Puerto Rican manager in the major leagues, ironically is told of the decision when Florida is playing a series in Puerto Rico, five minutes away from his home.
Baseball Birthdays on June 29...
1848 - Radcliff, John
1861 - Sowders, Len
1863 - Robinson, Wilbert
1867 - Reitz, Heinie
1867 - Seward, Ed
1873 - Sutthoff, Jack
1875 - Steelman, Farmer
1876 - Flaherty, Patsy
1877 - Donahue, She
1880 - McGill, Bill
1884 - Patton, Harry
1887 - Nagelsen, Lou
1888 - Shelton, Skeeter
1888 - Veach, Bobby
1897 - Adkins, Grady
1898 - Long, Jimmie
1910 - Whitehead, Burgess
1910 - Healy, Francis
1915 - Trout, Dizzy
1925 - Connelly, Bill
1925 - Jones, Nippy
1926 - Morgan, Bobby
1928 - Testa, Nick
1928 - Verble, Gene
1933 - Shaw, Bob
1934 - Wilson, Duane
1936 - Killebrew, Harmon
1941 - Boccabella, John
1941 - Stahl, Larry
1951 - Freeman, Jimmy
1951 - Kimm, Bruce
1954 - Honeycutt, Rick
1956 - Guerrero, Pedro
1957 - Miller, Eddie
1966 - Hoy, Peter
1967 - Wehner, John
1969 - Martinez, Pablo
1969 - Glinatsis, George
1969 - Alberro, Jose
1973 - Rakers, Jason
1973 - Valdes, Pedro
1977 - McKnight, Tony
Baseball Deaths on June 29...
1935 - O'Neill, Jack
1942 - Cueto, Manuel
1945 - Winters, Clarence
1955 - Milan, Horace
1957 - Van Buren, Deacon
1979 - Williams, Steamboat
1979 - Bassler, Johnny
1990 - Perry, Boyd
1994 - Mueller, Ray