The game of baseball is as American as the 50-star flag and apple pie. If you’ve ever made the great decision to watch Ken Burns Baseball, you know very well just how much this game means to the United States. Heck, you don’t even have to watch that documentary to know this.
In attempting to combine baseball with America’s national holiday, we’ve decided to check in on some of the greatest MLB moments on the Fourth of July. And there are plenty. First off, we start with one of the greatest moments in baseball history.
Lou Gehrig’s Farewell: 1939
These hallowed words were spoken by Gehrig after he was introduced by fellow Yankee great Babe Ruth. They came two weeks after his diagnosis with a fatal disease now known as ALS became public.
Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.
Gehrig was dead less than two years later. Gehrig, who died at the young age of 37, finished his MLB career with some stunning statistics. He hit .340 with 495 homers and nearly 2,000 RBI’s. Though, it’s this one speech and his consecutive games streak that has entrenched Gehrig as one of the most popular players in the history of the game.
Keith Hernandez Cyle, Fireworks at Fulton-County Stadium, 4 AM: 1985
Okay, so the fireworks came on July, 5. But let’s not allow semantics like that to get in the way. Hernandez hit for a cycle, going 4-for-10 and driving in three runs. New York ended up winning 16-13 in 19 innings. The game lasted over six hours, as the teams combined for 46 hits, five errors and 74 total baserunners. A total of 14 pitchers took the bump while there were a whopping 155 at-bats throughout the game.
Heading into the 19th inning tied at 11, the Mets scored five runs to take the lead. Atlanta closed the gap to three in the bottom of the inning before running out of gas…almost literally. The fans at Atlanta’s old Fulton-County Stadium were then treated to 4 am fireworks. Talk about one hell of a game and a memory 45,000 fans will never forget.
Dave Righetti Throws a No-Hitter: 1983
“Rags” did something incredibly special with the New York Yankees on July 4, 1983. He threw the first no-hitter in franchise history since Don Larsen’s perfect game some quarter century before. Adding to the drama and intrigue, he did so 44 years to the day of Gehrig’s farewell speech at Yankee Stadium. Just think about that for a second. It was also the first no-hitter in the Red Sox-Yankees rivarly.
Righetti faced 29 batters, striking out nine and walking four. The simple fact that he got Wade Boggs swinging to end the game made this feat even more amazing. The Hall of Famer was known for making contact, striking out less than seven percent of the time during his 18-year MLB career. Old Yankee Stadium, where the ghosts of the past will never go away.
Rube Waddell and Cy Young Pitcher’s Duel: 1905
Rube Waddell is best known for potentially being mentally handicapped during a 13-year MLB career that saw him characterized as a malcontent and often-distracted figure. Cy Young has a major award named after him and is considered one of the best pitchers in the history of the game. He won 511 games and tallied 749 complete games during an extensive 22-year career.
These two faced off in an epic pitcher’s duel nearly 110 years ago to the day at Boston’s Huntingdon Avenue Grounds. Cy Young’s Boston Americans and Rube Waddell’s Philadelphia Athletics had combined to win four of the last five American League titles when this matchup came to be. It was a game between the two best pitchers and two best teams in baseball. It was also the second leg of an Independence Day doubleheader.
The game lasted 20 innings with both pitchers going the distance. Much like Young’s career statistics, those are aspects of the pre-modern game that we simply cannot even imagine today. For his part, Waddell had pitched the final inning of the first game before deciding not to take warm-ups heading into the second half of the twin bill. He gave up two runs in the first inning, but shutout the Americans in the final 19 innings, while driving in the winning run in a 4-2 victory. This is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest games ever played.
Photo: ESPN.com