TODAY IN BASEBALL courtesy of National Pastime
1972 – After playing a round of golf in West Palm Beach with his coaches on Easter Sunday, Mets manager Gil Hodges, two days shy of his 48th birthday, suffers a fatal heart attack. The club will name current first base coach and former Yankee skipper Yogi Berra to run the team when the strike-delayed season begins.
1996 – Tigers first baseman Cecil Fielder steals the first base of his eleven-year career. The swipe of second comes in the 1,097th game ‘Big Daddy’ has played in the majors, establishing the longest duration a player has ever gone without a stolen base.
2001 – For the first time in Major League history, a Japanese-born position player participates in a regular-season major league game. Ichiro Suzuki, hitless in his first three at-bats, singles in the seventh inning to ignite a two-run rally and bunts for a hit in the eighth in his Mariner debut at Safeco Field.
And finally…in 2003, at the age of 27 years, 249 days of age, Alex Rodriguez becomes the youngest player in major league history to hit 300 home runs. The Ranger shortstop’s fifth inning three-run blast off Anaheim’s Ramon Ortiz in the Rangers’ 11-5 loss at Edison Field surpasses the mark established in 1935 by Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx, who had accomplished the feat when being 79 days older than A-Rod.
PLAYERS BORN TODAY
George Bamberger (1923), Gregg Jefferies (1967), Adam Jones (1985) and Madison Bumgarner (1989)
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