Sept. 4
Today in sports history
Today is Sept. 4. On this date in:
1906: The New York Highlanders swept their fifth consecutive doubleheader, setting a major league record with five straight twin-bill sweeps and extending their winning streak to 10 games.
1916: Hall of Fame pitchers Christy Mathewson and Mordecai Brown faced each other for the final time in their careers as Cincinnati defeated Chicago, ending one of baseball’s great pitching rivalries.
1923: New York Yankees pitcher Sad Sam Jones threw a no-hitter in a 2-0 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics despite recording no strikeouts.
1927: The New York Yankees football franchise, built around Red Grange, joined the NFL after competing in the first American Football League.
1935: The Chicago Cubs defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 8-2 to begin a 21-game winning streak that carried them to the National League pennant.
1941: The New York Yankees clinched the American League pennant with a 6-3 win over Boston, securing the flag on the earliest AL date to that point aside from the shortened 1918 season.
1944: Frank Parker and Pauline Betz captured U.S. National Championships singles titles at Forest Hills during a wartime season in which the tournament served as the year’s lone Grand Slam event.
1950: Johnny Mantz won the inaugural Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, NASCAR’s first 500-mile race.
1951: Sixteen-year-old Maureen Connolly won the U.S. women’s national tennis championship for her first major title.
1955: Sporting CP and Partizan played to a 3-3 draw in Lisbon in the first match in European Champion Clubs’ Cup history, launching the competition that became the UEFA Champions League.
1966: Jack Brabham clinched his third Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship.
1972: American swimmer Mark Spitz won the 4x100-meter medley relay at the Munich Olympics for his record seventh gold medal of the games, completing a sweep in which he set world records in all seven events.
1972: Valeriy Borzov won the Olympic 200 meters in Munich to complete the Olympic sprint double, having earlier won the 100 meters.
1983: Greg LeMond won the UCI Road World Championship, becoming the first American man to claim the world road-race title.
1988: The Phoenix Cardinals played their first game under their new city identity after having moved from St. Louis.
1991: Major League Baseball officially recognized Roger Maris’ 61-home-run season as the single-season record and adopted a definition requiring a no-hitter to last at least nine innings.
1993: Jim Abbott threw a no-hitter as the New York Yankees defeated the Cleveland Indians 4-0 at Yankee Stadium.
1994: Dan Marino returned from a ruptured Achilles tendon and passed for 473 yards and five touchdowns as the Miami Dolphins defeated the New England Patriots 39-35.
1995: Robin Ventura hit grand slams in consecutive innings and drove in eight runs as the Chicago White Sox defeated the Texas Rangers 14-3.
1998: The New York Yankees recorded their 100th victory of the season on the earliest date in major league history.
1999: The Cincinnati Reds hit nine home runs in one game, setting a National League record.
2002: Scott Hatteberg’s pinch-hit walk-off homer gave Oakland a 12-11 victory over Kansas City and an American League-record 20th straight win.
2002: Arizona’s Randy Johnson pitched a three-hitter for his 20th victory and passed Bert Blyleven for fourth place on Major League Baseball’s career strikeout list.
2002: Argentina defeated the United States 87-80 at the FIBA World Championship, handing the Americans their first loss in a major international tournament since NBA players began competing.
2005: Kyle Busch became the youngest driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race.
2013: The Boston Red Sox tied a franchise record with eight home runs in a 20-4 rout of the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park.
2017: Arizona’s J.D. Martinez hit four home runs in a 13-0 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, becoming the 18th player in major league history to homer four times in a game.
2019: The Los Angeles Dodgers hit their 250th home run of the season, setting a National League single-season team record.
2024: Shota Imanaga, Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge combined for a no-hitter as the Chicago Cubs defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 12-0, producing the team’s first no-hitter at Wrigley Field since 1972.
— USA TODAY Network
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY Sports: Today in sports history, September 4