Jan. 9
1942 — Joe Louis knocks out Buddy Baer with four seconds left in the first round at Madison Square Garden in New York to retain the world heavyweight title.
1977 — Oakland captures its first NFL Championship and the Minnesota Vikings drop their fourth Super Bowl, with the Raiders winning 32-14.
1988 — Anthony Carter catches 10 passes for an NFL postseason-record 227 yards to lead the Minnesota Vikings to a 36-24 victory over the San Francisco 49ers and advances to the NFC title game.
1996 — The Toronto Raptors set an NBA record by not making a single free throw in a 92-91 loss to the Charlotte Hornets. The expansion Raptors go 0-for-3 from the line.
2004 — Brian Boucher of Phoenix posts his fifth consecutive shutout in a 2-0 win over Minnesota. He stops 21 shots and passes Bill Durnan’s NHL mark of 309 minutes, 21 seconds without a goal early in the third period.
2006 — Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers scores 45 points against Indiana, making him the first player since Wilt Chamberlain — in November 1964 — to score at least that many in four straight games.
2007 — Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mark McGwire, whose 583 home runs ranked seventh on the career list, does not make it on his first ballot.
2010 — Peyton Manning becomes the first player to win The Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player honors four times.
2010 — Detroit’s Ben Gordon scores 20 points, including the 10 millionth point in NBA history, in a 104-04 loss to Philadelphia.
2012 — Jeremy Shelley kicks five field goals and Trent Richardson breaks a 34-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter as No. 2 Alabama beats No. 1 LSU 21-0 — the first shutout in BCS title game history.
2013 — No one is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. For the second time in four decades, baseball writers fail to give any player the 75 percent required for induction to Cooperstown. Craig Biggio, 20th on the career list with 3,060 hits, appears on 68.2 percent of the 569 ballots, the highest total but 39 votes shy.
2016 — Quarterback Carson Wentz, out since mid-October with a broke wrist, returns to lead North Dakota State to an unprecedented fifth straight FCS championship with a 37-10 victory over top-seeded Jacksonville State.
2016 — Chris Boswell kicks a 35-yard field goal with 14 seconds remaining, sending the Steelers past Cincinnati 18-16 in the AFC wild-card game. Pittsburgh moves into field goal position after two 15-yard penalties on the Bengals, one on linebacker Vontaze Burfict and another on Adam Jones after Burfict hits defenseless Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown.
2017 — Deshaun Watson and Clemson dethrone the defending champions and become the first team to beat Nick Saban’s Alabama dynasty in a national title game, taking down the top-ranked Crimson Tide 35-31 in the College Football Playoff. Watson finds Hunter Renfrow for a 2-yard touchdown pass with a second remaining to give the Tigers their first national championship since 1981.
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Jan. 10
1972 — The longest winning streak in major professional sports ends when the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Los Angeles Lakers 120-104. The Lakers had won 33 straight, but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 39 points give Los Angeles its first loss since Oct. 31.
1980 — Goaltender Jim Stewart, playing in his first and only game with the Boston Bruins, gives up three goals in the first four minutes of the game and five in the first period. He’s replaced and never plays in the NHL again.
1982 — Joe Montana’s third touchdown pass of the game, a 6-yarder to Dwight Clark, with 51 seconds remaining, lifts the San Francisco 49ers to 28-27 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC title game.
1998 — Michelle Kwan receives eight perfect 6.0s out of nine marks for artistry in the free skate to win her second U.S. Figure Skating Championship in three years.
2002 — Todd Eldredge wins his sixth U.S. Figure Skating Championships title. After skipping two seasons of competition, Eldredge edges defending champion Tim Goebel.
2004 — Michelle Kwan wins her seventh straight title and eighth overall at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Only one of the sport’s greats, Maribel Vinson, has more U.S. championships, with nine.
2009 — Arizona, the lone NFC team not to make it to a conference championship game since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970, gets to host its’ first NFC championship game after a stunning 33-13 win at Carolina.
2010 — Karlos Dansby’s 17-yard fumble return for a touchdown in overtime gives the Arizona Cardinals a 51-45 victory over the Green Bay Packers in the highest-scoring playoff game in NFL history.
2011 — Top-ranked Auburn beats No. 2 Oregon 22-19 in the BCS title game. Wes Byrum’s 19-yard field goal with no time left — his sixth career game-winning field goal — caps off a perfect, 14-0 season.
2015 — North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz runs 5 yards for the winning touchdown about a minute after Tre Roberson’s 58-yard run puts Illinois State ahead, and the Bison became the first team to win four straight FCS championships with a 29-27 victory.
2015 — Tom Brady sets a career record for postseason touchdown passes, rallying New England from two 14-point deficits for a 35-31 victory over Baltimore. Brady breaks Joe Montana’s record with 46 postseason TD passes and the Patriots reach their fourth straight AFC championship game.
2016 — Blair Walsh’s 27-yard field goal try into the frigid wind for Minnesota hooks left with 22 seconds left, handing the Seattle Seahawks a 10-9 victory over the Vikings in their wild-card game.
2016 — Alex Ovechkin scores his 500th and 501st goals to become the 43rd NHL player to reach the milestone, and the Washington Capitals beat the Ottawa Senators 7-1.
2017 — FIFA expands the World Cup to 48 teams, adding 16 extra nations to the 2026 tournament. There will be 16 three-team groups, with the top two advancing to a round of 32.
2017 — Baylor, playing as the No. 1 team for the first time in school history, loses to No. 10 West Virginia 89-68.
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Jan. 11
1970 — The AFL wins its second straight Super Bowl as the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 behind Len Dawson’s superb quarterbacking and Jan Stenerud’s three field goals.
1973 — The American League adopts the designated hitter rule.
1981 — Jim Plunkett completes 14 of 18 passes for 261 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Oakland Raiders to 34-27 victory over the San Diego Chargers for the AFC title. The Raiders are the first AFC wild-card team to advance to the Super Bowl.
1984 — The Denver Nuggets beats the San Antonio Spurs 163-155 in the highest scoring regulation-length NBA game.
1987 — Denver’s John Elway leads the Broncos to a 23-20 overtime victory over the Cleveland Browns to win the AFC Championship. Elway caps a 15-play, 98-yard march with a 5-yard TD pass to Mark Jackson to tie the game with 37 seconds remaining. Rich Karlis kicks a 33-yard field goal in overtime to give Denver the win.
1992 — Kristi Yamaguchi, runner-up the previous three years, wins her first title in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Christopher Bowman, the 1989 U.S. champion, wins the men’s title.
1998 — Lleyton Hewitt, an Australian high school student ranked 550th, wins the Australian Men’s Hardcourt Championship to become the lowest-ranked player to win an ATP Tour event.
2004 — Detroit allows 100 points for the first time this season, but the Pistons were still able to outlast Dallas 115-102. Detroit has its NBA-record streak of not allowing 100 points snapped at 38 games, including 36 this season.
2009 — Philadelphia, led by Donovan McNabb, eliminates the New York Giants 23-11 to reach the NFC title game for the fifth time in eight seasons. This is the first game in NFL history to finish 23-11.
2014 — Gracie Gold wins her first U.S. figure skating title and 15-year-old Polina Edmunds finishes second. Charlie White and Meryl Davis win a record sixth straight U.S. ice dance title — one more than American ice dance pioneers Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto.
2014 — Alex Rodriguez is dealt the most severe punishment in the history of baseball’s drug agreement when arbitrator Fredric Horowitz rules the New York Yankees third baseman is suspended for the entire 2014 season as a result of a drug investigation by Major League Baseball. The decision cuts the suspension issued Aug. 5, 2013 by baseball Commissioner Bud Selig from 211 games.
2015 — Roger Federer beats the up-and-coming Milos Raonic 6-4, 6-7 (2), 6-4 to register his 1,000th career match and win the Brisbane International. Federer is the third player to win 1,000 times on the men’s professional tour’ joining Jimmy Connors (1,253) and Ivan Lendl (1,071).
2015 — Green Bay rallies from an 8-point deficit as Aaron Rodgers throws two second-half touchdowns to beat Dallas 26-21 in an NFC divisional-round playoff. The Packers, helped immensely by a video reversal with 4:06 remaining, go undefeated at Lambeau Field this season. Dez Bryant’s leaping catch at the Packers 1 on fourth-and-2 is reversed by referee Gene Steratore after Green Bay challenges. Instead of first-and-goal for Dallas, the ball goes to the Packers.
2016 — No. 2 Alabama wins its fourth national title in the last seven seasons, outlasting the dynamic play of Deshaun Watson and No. 1 Clemson in a 45-40 victory in the College Football Playoff championship game.
2017 — Alex Ovechkin scores 35 seconds into the Washington Capitals’ 5-2 victory over Sidney Crosby and the rival Pittsburgh Penguins to become the 84th player in NHL history to record 1,000 career points.
Jan. 12
1951 — Ezzard Charles knocks out Lee Oma in the 10th round at Madison Square Garden in New York to retain the heavyweight title.
1958 — Dolph Schayes of the Syracuse Nationals sets an NBA record for career points in a 135-109 victory over the Detroit Pistons. Schayes scores 23 points to bring his career mark to 11,770, breaking the record of 11,764 held by George Mikan.
1958 — The NCAA rules committee makes the first change in football scoring rules since 1912 by adding the two-point conversion.
1960 — Syracuse’s Dolph Schayes becomes the first player in NBA history to score 15,000 career points.
1969 — New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath “guarantees” a victory before the game against the 17-point favorite Baltimore Colts, then leads the AFL to its first Super Bowl victory, a 16-7 triumph over a Baltimore team that had lost only once in 16 games all season.
1975 — The Pittsburgh Steelers totally shut down Minnesota’s offense, handing the Vikings their third Super Bowl defeat, 16-6.
1986 — Chicago’s Denis Savard ties an NHL record for the fastest goal to start a period by scoring four seconds into the third period of the Blackhawks’ 4-2 victory over the Hartford Whalers.
1991 — Princeton beats Cornell 164-71 in an unusual swimming meet. The schools agree to compete by telephone due to a blizzard making transportation to Ithaca, N.Y. a problem. Both teams swim in their owns pools and the results are exchanged by FAX.
2007 — Tadd Fujikawa, just shy of his 16th birthday, steals the show at the Sony Open. Fujikawa shoots a 4-under 66, making him the youngest player in 50 years to make the cut on the PGA Tour.
2008 — Tom Brady completes all but two of his 28 passes to lead New England to its second straight AFC championship game with a 31-20 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Patriots improve to 17-0, matching the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only team to go unbeaten from the first game of the season through the Super Bowl.
2008 — The Green Bay Packers beat the Seattle Seahawks 42-20 to reach the NFC championship game. Ryan Grant recovers from two fumbles that put the Packers down 14-0 after only four minutes. Grant then sets a team postseason record by running for 201 yards, and scores three times.
2012 — Dwight Howard breaks Wilt Chamberlain’s nearly 50-year-old NBA record for most free throw attempts in a game, making 21 of 39 in the Orlando Magic’s 117-109 victory over the Golden State Warriors. Chamberlain shot 34 for the Philadelphia Warriors against St. Louis on Feb. 22, 1962.
2013 — Colin Kaepernick rushes for a quarterback playoff-record 181 yards and two touchdowns and throws two scoring passes to Michael Crabtree in San Francisco’s 45-31 win over Green Bay.
2015 — Ezekiel Elliott rushes for 246 yards and four touchdowns and Ohio State wins the first national title in college football’s playoff era, running over Oregon 42-20.
2017 — Team chairman Dean Spanos announces the San Diego Chargers will move to Los Angeles.
2017 — Fresh off his victory on Maui, Justin Thomas becomes the seventh player to join the “59 Club” on the PGA Tour when he makes a 15-foot eagle putt on his last hole at the Sony Open for an 11-under 59.
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