Baseball History on April 22
Major League Baseball Events on April 22 | Baseball Almanac
Baseball history on April 22, including a list of every Major League baseball player born on April 22, a list of every Major League baseball player who died on April 22, a list of every Major League baseball player who made their big league debut on April 22, and a list of every Major League baseball player whose final big league game was on April 22.
"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 22 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 22 in Baseball History...
- 1876 - In the first National League game ever played, Joe Borden of Boston beat the hometown Philadelphia 5-4.
- 1898 - Ted Breitenstein of the Cincinnati Reds and James Hughes of Baltimore each pitched no-hit ball games. Breitenstein no-hit the Pittsburgh Pirates 11-0 and Hughes no-hit the Boston Braves 8-0.
- 1906 - A new rule puts the umpire in sole charge of all game balls. The home team manager previously had some say as to when a new ball was introduced.
- 1914 - At age 19, Babe Ruth's first professional game (as a pitcher) is a six hit 6-0 win for Baltimore (International League) over Buffalo. The second batter he faces is Joe McCarthy, the manager he will play for 17 years later with New York. At the plate, Ruth has two hits.
- 1915 - Pinstripes first appeared on the Yankees uniforms.
- 1955 - The Athletics won their major league debut in Kansas City with a 6-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers before a standing-room crowd of 32,147 ó the largest paid crowd for any event in Kansas City.
- 1957 - John Kennedy becomes the first black to play for the Philadelphia Phillies, making them the last N.L. team to integrate. Kennedy pinch runs for Solly Hemus in the 5-1 loss to Brooklyn. He will play only briefly in five games and goes hitless.
- 1959 - The Chicago White Sox scored 11 runs with only one hit in the seventh inning of a 20-6 rout of the Kansas City A's. Johnny Callison had the hit ó a single. In the inning, Chicago was the recipients of 10 walks ó five with the bases loaded ó three Kansas City errors and one hit batsman.
- 1962 - The Pirates win their tenth straight game, matching the major league record to start a season, while the Mets tie a N.L. record by opening 0-9.
- 1966 - The Braves won their first game in Atlanta by beating the New York Mets 8-4.
- 1970 - Tom Seaver strikes out 19 Padres, including the last ten in succession, in winning 2-1 for the Mets. To date, only Steve Carlton has struck out this many in a game in the twentieth century. No one had ever struck out ten in a row.
- 1981 - Dodgers rookie Fernando Valenzuela tosses his third shutout in four starts, strikes out 11, and drives in the game's only run with a single in a 1-0 win over Houston.
- 1982 - After opening the season with 13 straight wins, the Braves finally lose 2-1 to the Reds.
- 1991 - Frank Thomas is the first White Sox player to homer at the new Comiskey Park. Chicago is an 8-7 winner over Baltimore.
- 1993 - Chris Bosio, a $16 million free agent acquisition of the Mariners, pays immediate dividends with a no-hitter against Boston. Bosio fans four and walks two in his 97-pitch gem.
- 1996 - John Franco becomes the first lefthander to reach the 300-save plateau with a scoreless ninth inning in a 3-2 Mets win over the Expos at foggy Shea Stadium.
- 1997 - After months of on-again, off-again negotiations, the Yankees and Padres agree on a trade for the rights to Japanese pitcher Hideki Irabu. The Padres had worked out a deal in January for Irabu through his Japanese team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, but Irabu refused to report to the Padres and insisted he would only play for the Yankees. Finally, with minor leaguers Ruben Rivera and Rafael Medina plus $3 million heading to San Diego, Irabu gets his wish.
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.