Baseball History on August 19
Major League Baseball Events on August 19 | Baseball Almanac
Baseball history on August 19, including a list of every Major League baseball player born on August 19, a list of every Major League baseball player who died on August 19, a list of every Major League baseball player who made their big league debut on August 19, and a list of every Major League baseball player whose final big league game was on August 19.
"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 August 19 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 August 19 in Baseball History...
- 1903 - The Philadelphia Phillies were rained out for the 10th consecutive day, a major league record.
- 1911 - The Reds finally get to Christy Mathewson after 22 straight losses, beating him for the first time since May, 1908. Matty, after saving the 5-4 opener, starts the nightcap, goes five innings, and loses 7-4.
- 1913 - The Chicago Cubs tagged Grover Alexander for nine straight hits and six runs in a 10-4 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
- 1917 - Coaching third in a 1-1 game against Washington, Detroit's Ty Cobb gives Tiger base runner George Burns a shove when Burns stops at third on a long hit. Burns keeps going and scores the winning run for the Tigers. Clark Griffith protests, and Ban Johnson upholds him; the rules now ban coaches from touching a runner. The game is replayed, and Washington wins 2-0.
- 1921 - Ty Cobb gets hit number 3,000 off Boston pitcher Elmer Myers. At 34, he's the youngest ever to do so.
- 1931 - Lefty Grove wins his 16th consecutive game, tying the American League record set by Walter Johnson and Joe Wood in 1912.
- 1941 - Umpire Jocko Conlan ejects Pittsburgh Pirates manager Frankie Frisch from the second game of a doubleheader when he appears on the field with an umbrella to protest the playing conditions at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field. The rainy argument is later portrayed in a famous oil painting by artist Norman Rockwell.
- 1945 - In the second game of a doubleheader against the Reds, 37-year-old slugger Jimmie Foxx pitches the first seven innings for Philadelphia. He leaves with a 4-1 lead, and Andy Karl saves Foxx's only major league decision. His ERA in 10 major league appearances is 1.52.
- 1951 - In his most interesting promotional stunt, Bill Veeck signs a three-foot, seven-inch midget, Eddie Gaedel, who goes to bat wearing the number 1/8 in the first inning of the nightcap with the Tigers. Lefty Bob Cain laughingly walks him on four pitches. Jim Delsing then pinch runs. Two days later, American League president Will Harridge bars Eddie Gaedel from appearing in any more games.
- 1957 - New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham announced that the team's board of directors had voted 9-1 in favor of moving to San Francisco.
- 1965 - Reds pitcher Jim Maloney's second no-hit effort of 1965 is another 0-0 duel through nine innings, until Reds shortstop Leo Cardenas homers off the left field foul pole in the tenth at Wrigley Field. Jim Maloney's sets a no-hit record by allowing ten walks. He also fans twelve in Cincinnati's 1-0 win.
- 1969 - Ken Holtzman of the Cubs blanked the Atlanta Braves with a 3-0 no-hitter at Wrigley Field. Ron Santo's three-run homer in the first inning provided the Cubs' offense.
- 1990 - Bobby Thigpen recorded his 40th save as the Chicago White Sox beat the Texas Rangers, 4-2. Thigpen became the eighth ó and fastest ó to accomplish this feat.
- 1992 - Bret Boone made history when he became part of the first three-generation family to play in major league baseball. Boone is the grandson of Ray Boone, who played from 1948-60, and son of Bob Boone, from 1972-90. Bret, 23, started at second base for the Seattle Mariners against Baltimore.
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.