Free of charge for the discerning reader. This one has a work stoppage, and other stories. Kerry Wood and his coach The Vulture, a birthday boy.

Today in baseball history:

1972 – For the first time in history, the major league season fails to open due to a general player strike. The strike, announced April 1, will erase 86 games from the major league schedule.

1973 – Yankee Ron Blomberg, facing Boston’s Luis Tiant, becomes the first official designated hitter in the major leagues. Blomberg walks with the bases loaded his first time up and winds up 1-for-3 in a 15-5 loss to the Red Sox.

2013 – The Upton brothers, playing together for the Braves, stun the Cubs. With Atlanta trailing 5 – 4, B.J. Upton leads off the bottom of the ninth with a homer off Carlos Marmol, and two batters later, Justin Upton hits a walk-off blast to give the Braves a 6-5 win, his second long ball of the game. They are the first pair of brothers to homer in the same inning since Billy and Cal Ripken did so for Baltimore in 1996.

2014 – Texas P Yu Darvish becomes the fastest starting pitcher to reach 500 strikeouts when he fans David DeJesus and Wil Myers in the first inning of a 1-0 win against the Rays in his first start of the season. It took Yu only 401.2 innings to reach the total, beating Kerry Wood, who had needed 404.2 innings.

2020 – Hall of Famer Al Kaline, who was signed by the Detroit Tigers out of high school, went straight to the majors, and collected 3000 hits during his lifelong association with the team, passes away at age 85. His death will start an unprecedented parade of passings by members of the Hall of the Fame over the rest of the year.

Cubs birthdays: Rudy Schwenck, Don Elston, Phil Regan*, Thomas Diamond. Also notable: Mickey Cochrane HOF, Ernie Lombardi HOF, Bert Blyleven HOF.

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Today in History:

774 – Charles the Great (Charlemagne) confirmed the gift to the Pope of the territories belonging to Ravenna made by his father Pepin the Short at Quiercy-sur-Loire in 753.

1652 – Cape Colony, the 1st European settlement in South Africa, established by Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck.

1772 – Catherine the Great Empress of Russia, ends tax on men with beards, enacted by Tsar Peter the Great in 1698. (There is probably no truth to the rumor that this was then handed down to the New York Yankees.)

1889 – George Eastman begins selling his Kodak flexible rolled film for the first time.

1896 – First modern Summer Olympic Games open in Athens, Greece; American athlete James Connolly becomes first modern Olympic champion when he wins triple jump (then two hops and a jump); later third in long jump, second in high jump.

1909 – North Pole reached by Americans Robert Peary & Matthew Henson.

1930 – Hostess Twinkies invented by bakery executive James Dewar.

1938 – Teflon invented by Roy J. Plunkett.

1974 – 200,000 attend rock concert “California Jam” at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California; line-up includes Earth, Wind & Fire; Black Sabbath; Deep Purple; and Emerson, Lake & Palmer (this was simulcast on WDAI 94.7 FM. I know because I was listening and watching.)

1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers GM Al Campanis appears on TV program ABC News: Nightline saying Blacks may not be equipped to be in baseball management, sparking a racial controversy.

Thanks for reading. À bientôt.

* pictured