Baseball History on April 11
Major League Baseball Events on April 11 | Baseball Almanac
Baseball history on April 11, including a list of every Major League baseball player born on April 11, a list of every Major League baseball player who died on April 11, a list of every Major League baseball player who made their big league debut on April 11, and a list of every Major League baseball player whose final big league game was on April 11.
"No matter how your mind works, baseball reaches out to you. If you're an emotional person, baseball asks for your heart. If you are a thinking man or a thinking woman, baseball wants your opinion. Whether you are left-brain or right-brain, Type A or Type Z, whether your mind is bent towards mathematics or toward history or psychology or geometry, whether you are young or old, baseball has its way of asking for you. If you are a reader, there is always something new to read about baseball, and always something old. If you are a sedentary person, a TV watcher, baseball is on TV; if you always have to be going somewhere, baseball is somewhere you can go. If you are a collector, baseball offers you a hundred things that you can collect. If you have children, baseball is something you can do with children; if you have parents and cannot talk to them, baseball is something you can still talk to them about." - Baseball Historian Bill James in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (Free Press Publishing, 06/13/2003, "Part 1: The Game", Page 5)
Baseball history on April 11 includes a total of Major League baseball players born that day of the year, Major League baseball players who died on that date, baseball players who made their Major League debut on that date, and Major League baseball players who appeared in their final game that date.
On April 11 in Baseball History...
- 1912 - Rube Marquard of the New York Giants began a 19-game winning streak with an 18-3 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers.
- 1917 - Babe Ruth beats the Yankees, pitching a three-hit, 10-3 win for the Red Sox in the opener. He is on the way to a 24-13 record and a league-leading 35 complete games in his best year as a pitcher.
- 1954 - To make room for promising rookie outfielder Wally Moon, the Cardinals trade longtime great Enos Slaughter to the Yankees. In what turns out to be a good deal for both teams, the Cardinals get center fielder Bill Virdon, pitcher Mel Wright, and outfielder Emil Tellinger in return. Virdon will become the N.L. Rookie of the Year in 1955, and Slaughter will help the Yankees win 103 games.
- 1959 - Don Drysdale hits his second Opening Day home run to become the first pitcher with two career home runs on Opening Day. Unfortunately, his home run is the only Dodgers score as he loses to the Cubs 6-1.
- 1961 - The Los Angeles Angels won their first major league game, 7-2 over the Orioles in Baltimore. Ted Kluszewski had two homers for the Angels.
- 1962 - The New York Mets played their first game and lost 11-4 to the Cardinals in St. Louis.
- 1963 - Warren Spahn's Opening Day 6-1 victory over the Mets is the 328th win of his career. He thus moves ahead of Eddie Plank as the all-time winningest left-hander. Except for Duke Snider's home run, no Mets get past second base.
- 1966 - A crowd of 44,468, including Vice President Hubert Humphrey, attends a historic opener at Washington. Emmett Ashford becomes the major league's first black umpire in Cleveland's 5-2 win against the Senators.
- 1969 - The Seattle Pilots played their first game, with Gary Bell shutting out the White Sox 7-0 at Sicks Stadium.
- 1975 - In Milwaukee, 48,160 fans brave 37-degree weather to welcome home Hank Aaron. Hank drives in a run as the Brewers whip the Indians 6-2.
- 1981 - After 15 seasons with the Dodgers, Don Sutton makes his debut with the Astros and is pounded by his former club for six runs in four innings. Los Angeles wins 7-4.
- 1985 - Seattle's Gorman Thomas hit three homers and drove in six runs to lead the Mariners to a 14-6 victory over the Oakland A's.
- 1990 - California's Mark Langston and Mike Witt combine to no-hit the Mariners 1-0 for the first combined no-hitter in the major leagues since 1976. It is Langston's first start for the Angels since signing as a free agent in the off-season.
- 1991 - Junior Ortiz guns down Rickey Henderson, who is trying to break Lou Brock's all-time stolen base record. Henderson later leaves the game with a calf injury.
- 1996 - Greg Maddux loses his first road game since June 27, 1994 in Montreal. Atlanta's 2-1 loss in San Diego ends a string that saw Maddux go 18-0 with only 17 earned runs allowed in 154.2 innings.
Did you know that there were baseball players born on every date of the year and baseball players who died on every date of the year? Use the calendar below to select any date in baseball history.
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Bill James, on the same page of the same book we used at the top of this page, said, "But as I began to do research on the history of baseball (in order to discuss the players more intelligently) I began to feel that there was a history a baseball that had not been written at that time, a history of good and ordinary players, a history of being a fan, a history of games that meant something at the time but mean nothing now." To that end, I have created Baseball Almanac. A site to worship baseball. A site by a fan who is trying to tell the history of good and ordinary baseball players.