April 12
1906 — Johnny Bates of Boston became the first modern player to hit a home run in his first major league at bat. Irv Young allowed one hit as Boston beat Brooklyn 2-0.
1909 — The Philadelphia Athletics opened Shibe Park with an 8-1 win over the Boston Red Sox. Shibe Park was the first concrete and steel stadium.
1911 — The Washington Senators opened Griffith Stadium with an 8-5 win over the Boston Red Sox.
1912 — The Chicago Cubs’ Tinker-Evers-Chance double play combination played its final major league game together.
1927 — Bill Terry of the New York Giants hit the first grand slam ever hit on opening day. The Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies 15-7.
1955 — In their first game in Kansas City, the transplanted Athletics defeated the Detroit Tigers 6-2 at Municipal Stadium. The standing-room crowd of 32,147 was the largest paid crowd for any event in Kansas City.
1960 — The San Francisco Giants beat the began play St. Louis Cardinals 3-1 in the first game at Candlestick Park.
1965 — The first National League home run in the Houston Astrodome was hit by Richie Allen of the Philadelphia Phillies off Bob Bruce in a 2-0 victory over the Astros.
1966 — A crowd of 50,671 welcomed the Braves to Atlanta, but Willie Stargell spoiled the occasion with a two-run homer in the 13th inning to give the Pirates a 3-2 victory.
1980 — In an awesome display of power, Cecil Cooper and Don Money each hit grand slams in the second inning of Milwaukee’s 18-1 rout of the Boston Red Sox.
1992 — Boston’s Matt Young pitched eight no-hit innings at Cleveland but lost 2-1. In the second game, the Indians managed only two hits off Roger Clemens to set a major league record for fewest hits (2) in a doubleheader.
1994 — Scott Cooper hit for the cycle and drove in five runs to lead the Boston Red Sox to a 22-11 rout of the Kansas City Royals. Cooper went 5-for-6 with two doubles and completed the cycle with a single in the ninth.
2018 — Shohei Ohtani hit a bases-loaded triple in Los Angeles’ five-run seventh inning, helping the Angels beat the Kansas City Royals 7-1 for their fifth straight victory. The pitcher-outfielder was tied with Mike Trout for the Angels’ lead with 11 RBIs in 26 at-bats.
Today’s birthdays: Tomas Nido, 25; Brad Brach, 33.
April 13
1914 — The first Federal League game was played in Baltimore and the Terrapins defeated Buffalo, 3-2, behind Jack Quinn. A crowd estimated at 27,000 stood 15 rows deep in the outfield to witness the return of major league baseball to Baltimore.
1933 — Sammy West of St. Louis went 6-for-6 in an 11-inning win over the Chicago White Sox. He had five singles and a double off Ted Lyons.
1953 — For the first time in half a century, a new city was represented in the American or National leagues. The Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee and opened in Cincinnati, where Max Surkont set down the Reds, 2-0.
1954 — Henry Aaron made his major league debut in left field for the Milwaukee Braves and went 0-for-5 in a 9-8 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. Cincinnati’s Jim Greengrass hit four doubles in his first major league game.
1963 — Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds tripled off Pittsburgh’s Bob Friend for his first major league hit.
1972 — The first player strike in baseball history ended.
1984 — Montreal’s Pete Rose got his 4,000th hit, a double off Philadelphia pitcher Jerry Koosman. The hit came exactly 21 years after his first hit. Rose would score on Tim Raines one out single, sliding into home to give Montreal a 4-1 lead in their eventual 5-1 victory.
1987 — The San Diego Padres set a major league record when the first three batters in the bottom of the first inning hit homers off San Francisco starter Roger Mason in their home opener. The Padres, trailing 2-0, got homers from Marvell Wynne, Tony Gwynn and John Kruk.
1993 — Lee Smith became the all-time saves leader as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-7. Smith got his 358th save, surpassing Jeff Reardon of the Cincinnati Reds.
1999 — Texas catcher Ivan Rodriguez drove in nine runs in the Rangers’ 15-6 victory at Seattle.
2004 — San Francisco’s Barry Bonds hit his 661st homer, passing Willie Mays to take sole possession of third place on baseball’s career list.
2009 — Orlando Hudson hit for the cycle as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat Randy Johnson and San Francisco 11-1.
2009 — Jody Gerut christened the Mets’ new home, Citi Field, with a leadoff homer in San Diego’s 6-5 win over New York. Gerut’s shot off Mike Pelfrey marked the first time in history that the first batter homered in a regular-season opener at a major league ballpark.
2011 — A federal jury convicted Barry Bonds of a single charge of obstruction of justice, but failed to reach a verdict on the three counts at the heart of allegations that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone and lied to a grand jury about it.
2018 — Houston’s Gerrit Cole struck out a career-high 14 batters in seven innings to lead the Astros to a 3-2 win over the Texas Rangers. Cole joined Nolan Ryan as the only pitchers in major league history to strike out at least 11 in three consecutive starts to start a season. Cole also set an major league record with 36 strikeouts in his first three starts with a new team, surpassing Randy Johnson in 1999 with Arizona (34).
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April 14
1910 — William Howard Taft became the first U.S. president to throw out the first ball at a baseball opener in Washington.
1910 — Chicago’s Frank Smith pitched a one-hitter in the season opener to give the White Sox a win over the St. Louis Browns.
1915 — In the opening game at Philadelphia, left-hander Herb Pennock of the A’s blanked the Red Sox 5-0. He gave up only one hit — a scratch single by Harry Hooper with two outs in the ninth.
1917 — Ed Cicotte of the Chicago White Sox pitched an 11-0 no-hitter over the St. Louis Browns.
1925 — The Cleveland Indians opened the season with a 21-14 victory over the St. Louis Browns, the most runs scored by one club on opening day. The Indians scored 12 runs in the eighth inning when the Browns made five errors. Browns first baseman George Sisler had four errors in the game.
1967 — Boston rookie Bill Rohr lost a no-hit bid in his first major league start when Elston Howard singled in the ninth inning for the New York Yankees’ only hit in a 3-0 loss to the Red Sox.
1969 — The first major league game outside the United States was played in Montreal’s Jarry Park with the Expos defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 8-7.
1999 — John Franco struck out the side in the ninth inning of the New York Met’s 4-1 win over the Florida Marlins, becoming only the second pitcher to reach 400 career saves. The only reliever with more saves than Franco is Lee Smith, who retired with 478.
2005 — Yankees outfielder Gary Sheffield got into a brief scuffle with a fan along the right-field fence at Fenway Park during New York’s game against the Boston Red Sox.
2010 — Jorge Cantu homered, making him the first player in major league history to have at least one hit and one RBI in each of his team’s first nine games, and the Florida Marlins beat the Cincinnati Reds 5-3.
2014 — Neil Walker and Gaby Sanchez hit back-to-back homers twice, and the Pirates and Reds combined for 10 homers in only six innings before rain forced a suspension. Pittsburgh had three sets of back-to-back homers, only the third time that’s happened in major league history. The NL Central rivals completed the game the next day. Andrew McCutchen doubled and came around on Russell Martin’s single in the seventh inning, giving the Pirates an 8-7 win.