On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Bleed Cubbie Blue is pleased to present a Cubs-centric look at baseball’s colorful past. Here’s a handy Cubs timeline, to help you follow the various narrative paths.
“Maybe I called it wrong, but it’s official.” — Tom Connolly, HoF Umpire.
Happy Birthday, Dale Long*, who held a significant record while he was a Pirate, and other stories. 10,000 BCB points if you can identify that record.
Today in baseball history:
1958 – Ted Williams signs with the Red Sox for $135,000, making him the highest-paid player in major-league history at the time. (1,2)
1995 – US President Bill Clinton‘s deadline for a resolution to the baseball strike passes without a resolution. On January 26th, Clinton had told the players and owners to resume bargaining and reach an agreement by today. The strike will continue for nearly two more months. (2)
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Cubs Birthdays: Walt Huntzinger, Dale Long*, Smoky Burgess, Travis Wood. Also notable: Babe Ruth HOF.
Today in History:
1508 – Maximilian I proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor, 1st Emperor in centuries not to be crowned by the Pope.
1778 – Britain declares war on France. France recognizes USA, signs Treaty of Alliance in Paris, 1st US treaty.
1867 – American financier and philanthropist George Peabody establishes the Peabody Education Fund to provide improvements to existing schools in poor areas of the southern USA.
1951 – Radio commentator Paul Harvey arrested for trying to sneak into Argonne National Laboratory, a nuclear test site located 20 miles (32 km) west of Chicago.
2020 – Date of the first COVID-19 related death in the US (confirmed by the CDC April 21).
Common sources:
*pictured.
Some of these items spread from site to site without being fact-checked, and that is why we ask for verifiable sources, in order to help correct the record.