Historically Speaking: 5-15-09

This Royals' game's never gonna get played, so why not deliver some history? It's Friday night. You ain't got no job, you ain't got sh** to do, so hop, past the jump, to it.

* Cecil's favorite baseball player, Ty Cobb, kicks things off today with some old-school Ron Artest in that on May 15, 1922, Cobb charged into the New York stands to attack a heckler. Mayhem ensued; American League President Ban Johnson suspended Cobb indefinitely.

* A decade later, Cobb shenanigans again happened in New York: Cobb beat out an infield grounder and writer Fred Lieb files the hit a single with the Associated Press, while official scorer John Kieran gives the infielder an error. At season's end, Cobb's batting average, based on AP reports, was .401, which New York writers disputed, to no avail, that had the official scorer's ruling been accepted, Cobb would be at .399.

* Today in 1926 the National Hockey League granted the city of New York a franchise. The Rangers quickly learned that they would be joined by two other American teams -- Chicago and Detroit -- in November.

* The year was 1953 when Rocky Marciano knocked out Jersey Joe Wolcott for boxing's heavyweight title. The one-round bout in Chicago was a re-match from September of the previous year when Marciano took the belt from Walcott by KOing him in the 13th round in Philadelphia.

* Twenty years later, California Angel Nolan Ryan tossed his first no-hitter. Ryan fanned 12 Kansas City Royals in a 3-0 win, his first of seven shutouts.\

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



...boxing promoter Don King, who, in 1996, boasted to students at a Harvard Law School assembly when he said, "I've been in more courtrooms than any of you."