Historically Speaking: 4-27-09

It's Tuesday, which means we could deliver seven posts before the day's up, or this might be it. Never know. In case it's the latter, get on past the jump and study. There might be a pop quiz.

* Two fantastic baseball stats to kick things off: In 1906, two player-managers steal home plate on the same day. It was Cub Frank Chance in the ninth to give Chicago the 1-0 win over the Cincinnati Redlegs, and Pirate Fred Clark in a 10-1 over the St. Louis Cardinals. Fifty-nine years later, Mets announcer Lindsey Nelson called a contest between New York and Houston at the Astrodome. Instead of doing so from the booth, however, his vantage point was in a gondola that hung 208 feet over second base.

* The year was 1966 when the Boston Celtics knocked off the Los Angeles Lakers four games to three for the National Basketball Association championship.

* It was today in 1967 when boxing champ Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the army and was stripped of his title.

* National Hockey League cheap-shot artist Dale Hunter, then of the New York Islanders, seasoned his weak-sauce body of work today in 1993 when he coughed up the puck to Washington Capital Pierre Turgeon who buried the turnover at the back of the net. You can see footage (early in the clip, hockey haters) here. Though Hunter would receive a 21-game suspension, New York would advance, eventually losing to ultimate Cup champion Montreal.

* Today in 1985, Billy Martin was named manager of the New York Yankees. It was the fourth time Martin was hired for the job. Martin would be hired for the job for a fifth time in 1988, and a sixth the following season, but his untimely death would prevent him from getting further than assembling a coaching staff.

And your Sports Illustrated quote of the day came from the mouth of...



...retired NFL coach Bum Philips, whose name was uber-appropriate in that he summed up, in 1995, how he was spending his retirement like this: "I ain't doing a damn thing, and I don't start until noon."