October 2, 1909: Twickenham Stadium Opens

October 2, 1909: Twickenham Stadium opens. Its 1st match is between 2 London teams: Harlequins beat Richmond, 14-0.

Usually called Twickenham for its Southwest London neighborhood, or Twickers for short, it is the capital of English rugby, the game from which American football developed. (Both are offshoots of association football, or soccer.)

The Rugby Football Union, the governing body of English rugby, built the original stadium on a site that had been a cabbage farm, so the stadium is also nicknamed The Cabbage Patch, kids. The stadium has been rebuilt in pieces: The current North Stand went up in 1990, the East Stand and the West Stand in 1995, and the South Stand in 2006. So despite the site having been used even before Fenway Park opened, it's a modern stadium.

The pitch, the playing surface, is Desso GrassMaster, a hybrid of natural grass and artificial fibers. It is aligned northwest-to-southeast -- really, north-to-south, like a standard American football field, so neither team is moving the ball into the sun at gametime.

Twickenham is home to the World Rugby Museum, effectively the sport's Hall of Fame. It has hosted Rugby World Cup matches in 1991, 1999 and 2015, and Six Nations matches every year. It also hosts The Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge universities (Britain's Harvard and Yale), and the Army Navy Match (their Army-Navy Game).

It's hosted 3 regular-season NFL games: October 23, 2016, New York Giants 17, Los Angeles Rams 10; October 22, 2017, Rams 33, Arizona Cardinals 0; and October 29, 2017, Minnesota Vikings 33, Cleveland Browns 16. It's also hosted rock concerts, which can increase seating capacity to 110,000.

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October 2, 1909 was a Saturday. Alex Raymond, the cartoonist who created the science-fiction hero Flash Gordon, was born on this day.

Elsewhere in English sport, Woolwich Arsenal, the South London team that would eventually become Arsenal F.C., the North London team that I now support, were having a bad season, and went to Lancashire, and lost to Blackburn Rovers, 7-0 at Ewood Park.

It was a college football day in America, and these were among the games played:

* Army beat Tufts, 22-0 on The Plain in West Point, New York. (Navy did not play that week.)

* Yale beat Syracuse, 15-0 at Yale Field in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Fordham beat Rutgers, 9-0 at Neilson Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

* Princeton beat Villanova, 12-0 at University Field in Princeton, New Jersey.

* In what would become a big rivalry, Minnesota beat Iowa, 41-0 at Northrop Field in Minneapolis.

And baseball's regular season was wrapping up. These games were played:

* The New York Highlanders, the team that would become the Yankees in 1913, split a doubleheader with the team that was already their rivals, the Boston Red Sox, at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. The Highlanders won the opener, 6-5. Pete Wilson was the winning pitcher, and the losing pitcher was former New York ace, but Massachusetts native, Jack Chesbro. Hal Chase hit a home run.

The Red Sox won the nightcap, 6-1. Bill Carrigan, who went on to manage the Sox to win the 1915 and '16 World Series, hit a home run. Over the 2 games, Sox rookie Tris Speaker, on the way to one of the greatest careers in baseball history, 2-for-9 with 4 RBIs.

* The New York Giants were swept in a doubleheader by the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-2 and 2-1 at the Polo Grounds. Christy Mathewson lost the 2nd game.

* The Brooklyn Superbas, who would become the Dodgers in 1911, split a doubleheader with the Boston Doves, who would become the Braves in 1912, at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Brooklyn won the 1st game, 6-2. Boston won the 2nd game, 1-0. Lew Richie pitched a 3-hit shutout.

* The Philadelphia Athletics swept a doubleheader from the Washington Senators, 6-5 and 7-2 at Shibe Park. Walter Johnson lost the 1st game.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 8-3 at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers were tied 6-6 after 10 innings at Bennett Park in Detroit, when the game was called due to darkness. Ty Cobb, about to win the Triple Crown, went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 at the West Side Grounds in Chicago. Honus Wagner did not play.

* And the Cleveland Naps and the St. Louis Browns were rained out at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Browns won the 1st game, 6-4. The Naps were leading the 2nd game, 3-1, after 6 innings, when the game was called due to darkness. Over the 2 games, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the manager, slugger and 2nd baseman for whom the Cleveland team was then named, went 3-for-7. The Naps became the Indians in 1915 and the Guardians in 2022, while the Browns became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954.