October 24, 1884: Providence, World Champions

The 1884 Providence Grays. Old Hoss is at the far left,

holding a bat despite his fame coming as a pitcher.

October 24, 1884: The New York Mets lose the World Series. Well, not exactly.

The Providence Grays, Champions of the National League, defeat the New York Metropolitans -- and, yes, this early franchise was called the Mets for short -- 3-1, behind the pitching of future Hall-of-Famer Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourn, at the Polo Grounds in New York. This gives the Grays the first-ever postseason series between champions of 2 major professional baseball leagues, a series that was officially called the "World's Series."

In those days, pitching was mostly done underhanded, and most teams had as few as 2 pitchers. The Grays had 2: Radbourn and Charlie Sweeney. But they hated each other, and even fought in the clubhouse. Following a drunken incident on July 22, Sweeney left the team.

Radbourn had pitched 76 of the team's last 98 games in 1883, and offered to pitch every game for the rest of the season. Of the remaining 43, he ended up starting 40 and winning 36. His final won-lost record was 60-12 -- or 59-12, depending on whose rules and accounting you go by. (The criteria for which pitcher to credit with a win had yet to be standardized.) Either way, it's an all-time record that was never seriously challenged even before 1893, when the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate was increased from 50 feet to 60 feet, 6 inches.

A Game 3 was played, for charity, and the Grays won that, too. The Grays had won the NL Pennant in 1879, too, but would go out of business after the 1885 season. Radbourn went on to the Grays' arch-rivals, the Boston Beaneaters (forerunners of the Atlanta Braves), probably because they could pay the most. In an 1886 team photo, he raised his middle finger, and this is believed to be the earliest photographic evidence of anyone "flipping the bird," although the gesture goes back at least as far as ancient Rome.

He stayed in the majors through the 1891 season, retired with a record of 310-194, ran a billiard parlor, and died in 1897, possibly of the effects of syphilis. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, but his plaque reads "CHARLIE RADBOURNE," with an extra E on the end. His tombstone in Bloomington, Illinois also puts the extra E on the end.

The last survivor of the 1884 Providence Grays was outfielder Paul Radford, who lived until 1945 -- 61 years, 10 States and 11 Presidents later.

Aside from teams known as the the Providence Steam Rollers in the NFL (1920-1931, 1928 Champions) and the NBA (only the inaugural 1946-47 season), the State of Rhode Island has never had another major league sports team -- the New England Patriots, who play 25 miles from downtown Providence in Foxboro, Massachusetts, don't count.

The Grays had previously won the NL Pennant, and thus became de facto World Champions, in 1879. With a population of about 105,000 in 1884, Providence remains the smallest city ever to be home to the World Champions of baseball. Today, the population is nearly double that, about 191,000, but still much too small to be home to a major league sports team. The Grays' home, the Messer Street Grounds, had a suburban-style housing development built on it.

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October 24, 1884 was a Friday. No other baseball games were played. No college football games were played, although a few were played the next day. Hockey was still all-amateur and all in Canada. And basketball wouldn't be invented for another 7 years. So, no other scores on this historic day.

October 23, 1886: The $15,000 Slide

October 23, 1886: The St. Louis Browns, Champions of the American Association, win the World Championship of baseball, by beating the Chicago White Stockings, Champions of the National League, 4-3 in 10 innings at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. They win the series, 4 games to 2.

Sportsman's Park, as it would have looked in 1886

Although the teams had played each other for the previous season's title, also won by the Browns, this game is the real beginning of the rivalry between the teams now known as the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs, respectively. This is sometimes considered the greatest rivalry in the National League, although more people think of the greatest as the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the San Francisco Giants.

Pitching his 4th game in 6 days, John Clarkson holds the Browns hitless for 6 innings, as the White Stockings build a 3-0 lead. The Browns tie the game in the 8th, and in the 10th, Clarkson throws a wild pitch, Curt Welch scores "the $15,000 Run" on "the $15,000 Slide."

That figure was estimated in the press. In fact, when the Browns were presented with the entire gate receipts from the series, it comes to $13,920, about $413,000 in 2022 money. Each of the Browns' 12 players gets about $580 ($17,200, exceeding the originally-cited amount).

Despite having future Hall-of-Famers Clarkson, 1st baseman (and manager) Adrian "Cap" Anson and catcher Mike "King" Kelly, and stars 2nd baseman Fred Pfeffer, 3rd baseman Ned Williamson and center fielder George Gore, the White Stockings were beaten.

In addition to center fielder Welch, the Browns stars included pitcher "Parisian" Bob Caruthers, 1st baseman (and manager) Charlie Comiskey (yes, the man who would own the later American League team named the Chicago White Sox), shortstop Bill Gleason, 3rd baseman Walter Arlington "Arlie" Latham, and left fielder James O'Neill, whose nickname "Tip" led to a lot of men who spelled their names "O'Neill" being nicknamed Tip, including 1980s Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill -- but not 1990s Yankee right fielder Paul O'Neill.

Latham, also nicknamed "The Freshest Man On Earth," was the last survivor of the 1886 St. Louis Browns, living until 1952. Welch didn't last nearly as long, drinking himself to death in 1896.

UPDATE: The Cardinals have a team Hall of Fame. However, from their founding period, 1882 until their 1st "real" World Series win in 1926, only Charlie Comiskey has been elected.

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October 23, 1886 was a Saturday. There were no other baseball games played, hockey was still all-amateur, and basketball wouldn't be invented for another 5 years. But there were college football games played that day:

* The College of New Jersey, later to be renamed Princeton University, hosted the University of Pennsylvania, and won, 55-9. (Rutgers College played 4 games that season, none of them on this day.)

* Lafayette College went to Hoboken, New Jersey to play Stevens Institute, and won, 5-0.

* Harvard University went to Andover, Massachusetts to play Andover College, and won, 86-0.

* Yale University traveled to Williamstown, Massachusetts to play Williams College, and won, 76-0.

* Dartmouth College hosted Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at Hanover, New Hampshire, and won, 11-6.

* The University of Massachusetts and Amherst College, both located in Amherst, Massachusetts, played each other, and Amherst beat UMass, 13-0.

* Swarthmore College went to Carlisle, Pennsylvania to play Dickinson College, and won, 28-15.

October 21, 1887: Detroit Wins the World Championship -- For the National League

Charlie Bennett

October 21, 1887: The National League Champion Detroit Wolverines clinch the World Championship with their 8th victory in Game 11 of the series this afternoon, over the American Association Champions, the St. Louis Browns, 13-3 on neutral ground at Oriole Park in Baltimore.

With a rainout yesterday in Washington‚ this morning's rescheduled Game 10 sees the Browns pull off a triple play and win‚ 11-4‚ to delay elimination. But the Wolverines take Game 11 later in the day to clinch.

The Browns were managed by their 1st baseman, Charles Comiskey. Having become the 1st modern-style player at the position, he later became the founding owner of the American League's Chicago White Sox. Other Browns stars included 3rd baseman Walter Arlington "Arlie" Latham; outfielders Dave Foutz, Curt Welch and "Parisian" Bob Caruthers; and pitcher Charles "Silver" King.

But they were no match for the Wolverines, managed by Bill Watkins, a former 3rd baseman who was the greatest athlete ever to come from Brantford, Ontario, Canada -- until Wayne Gretzky came along. He had 4 players who would later be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame: Center fielder Ned Hanlon, right fielder Sam Thompson, 1st baseman Dan Brouthers and 3rd baseman James "Deacon" White. Pitcher Charlie Getzlen went 29-13.

For this win, the Wolverines became the 1st team to receive the Dauvray Cup, donated by Helen Dauvray, one of the top American stage actresses of the time, who had married New York Giants star John Montgomery Ward 9 days before this game. It would be awarded to the winner of the World's Championship Series until it stopped running after the 1890 season. It was then awarded to the NL Pennant winner through the 1893 season.

By that point, Dauvray and Ward had divorced. In an article in June 1894, a writer for Sporting Life magazine wondered where the Dauvray Cup was, indicating it had already been lost. Unlike its brief successors, the Temple Cup and the Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, both of which have survived and are on display in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Dauvray Cup's whereabouts remain unknown. Helen Dauvray married a U.S. Navy Admiral, died in 1923, and was buried alongside him in Arlington National Cemetery.

As far as we know, this single photograph

is all that remains of the Dauvray Cup.

I've often wondered if having a named trophy, like the NFL's Vince Lombardi Trophy or the NHL's Stanley Cup, would have made the World Series more meaningful to baseball teams and fans. There would be no trophy for the World Series winner until 1967, and it would not be named until 1985: The Commissioner's Trophy. And who wants to celebrate the Commissioner of Baseball?

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In spite of their success, the Wolverines ended up losing money for the 1887 season, and fold at the end of the next season. Detroit did not return to major league ball until the American League and the Tigers arrive in 1901, and will not win another World Championship for 48 years.

The Browns won win their 4th straight AA title the next season, but will go 38 years before winning another Pennant. In 1892 they join the NL; by 1901, they will be named the Cardinals.

One more player of note for Detroit: Charlie Bennett was their starting catcher. He helped the Boston Beaneaters, later the Braves, win the NL Pennant in 1891, '92 and '93. In 1894, at age 39, his playing career came to an end when he lost his legs in a train accident in Kansas.

In 1896, the Detroit team of the Western League, which became the Tigers in 1901, opened a new ballpark. It was named Bennett Park in his honor. Wearing prosthetic legs, he caught the ceremonial first ball on Opening Day. He did this every year until 1926, dying early in 1927. He did this through 1911-12, when Bennett Park was torn down and replaced with a new ballpark on the site, named Navin Field for the Tigers' owner. He lived long enough to see Ty Cobb and Harry Heilmann star for Detroit.

In 1938, the ballpark was renamed Briggs Stadium, for the current owner. In 1961, another new owner renamed it Tiger Stadium. The Tigers are a charter American League franchise, and have won its Pennant 11 times, so it's hard to imagine the city being in the National League. But, from 1881 to 1888, it was. And, in 1887, they were National League Champions, and World Champions of baseball.

Detroit is in Michigan, and Michigan is the Wolverine State. The University of Michigan has always called its sports teams the Wolverines. There would be one more professional sports team known as the Detroit Wolverines, playing in the NFL in the 1928 season. Despite going 7-2-1 and finishing 3rd, they never played again: Tim Mara, the founding owner of the New York Giants, bought the Wolverines, and transferred their best players to the Giants. Apparently, at the time, that was within NFL rules.

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October 21, 1887 was a Friday. There were no other scores on this historic day. 

October 14, 1888: "Roundhay Garden Scene"

October 14, 1888: The oldest known surviving motion picture is filmed, in the backyard -- or, as the English would call it, the garden -- of a house in the Roundhay section of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is known as Roundhay Garden Scene, is recorded by Frenchman Louis Le Prince, and features his son Adolphe, and his English in-laws, Joseph and Sarah Whitley, who owned the home. It lasts all of 2.11 seconds.

Louis Le Prince

A little over 2 years later, Louis Le Prince disappeared from a Dijon-to-Paris train, and was never seen again. He was 49, and it is suspected that he left the train at some point, and drowned.

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October 14, 1888 was a Sunday. There was no pro football yet. But despite it being late in the year by today's standards, there were regular-season baseball games, all in the American Association, none in the National League, which then banned Sunday baseball:

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-2 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Dodgers-to-be had seen several members get married a couple of off-seasons earlier. Both of these teams would join the National League, but the Orioles went out of business after the 1899 season.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cleveland Blues, 7-3. Since Pennsylvania forbid Sunday sports until 1933, this game was played at the Gloucester Point Grounds, across the Delaware River in Gloucester City, Camden County (not Gloucester County), New Jersey.

These Athletics folded after the 1890 season, and had no connection to the later American League team of the same name. The Blues became the Cleveland Spiders, joined the NL, and, like the Orioles, failed after the 1899 season.

* A doubleheader was split at League Park in Cincinnati. The St. Louis Browns, who would go on to win the AA Pennant, won the 1st game, 6-1. The Cincinnati Red Stockings won the 2nd game, 10-1. Both teams would join the National League, and are still in it today.

These Red Stockings were founded in 1882, and bear no connection to those of 1869-70. So when the modern Reds call themselves "baseball's oldest professional team," they're lying. The Browns became the Cardinals, and bear no direct connection to the later American League Browns.

* The Louisville Colonels swept a doubleheader from the Kansas City Cowboys, at Eclipse Park in Louisville. The hosts won the 1st game, 2-1; and the 2nd game, 9-1. The Colonels would join the NL, but, like Baltimore and Cleveland, fail after the 1899 season. The Cowboys only lasted through 1889.

October 9, 1890: The End of the Players' League War

John Montgomery Ward

October 9, 1890: The National League, the American Association, and the insurgent Players' League, all hit hard financially by their 3-way "war" for players and fans, reach a truce. The PL folds, and their players are welcomed back to their former teams at their former salaries.

The PL was formed by the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players in November 1889, after a dispute over pay with the NL and the AA. The NL had implemented a reserve clause in 1879, which limited the ability of players to negotiate across teams for their salaries. Both the AA and NL had passed a salary cap of $2,000 per player in 1885, equivalent to about $60,300 in 2022. The owners of the NL teams had agreed to remove the salary cap in 1887, but broke their word.

The Brotherhood included most of the best players of the NL. Brotherhood members, led by John Montgomery Ward -- who could play just about any position, including pitcher, and was also a practicing attorney -- left the NL and formed the PL after failing to change the NL's lopsided player–management relationship.

The PL had 8 teams. The New York Giants were named after their NL counterparts. The PL also directly challenged the NL with the Boston Reds, the Brooklyn Ward's Wonders ("Monte" Ward's team), the Philadelphia Athletics (no connection to the later American League team of that name), the Chicago Pirates, the Pittsburgh Burghers (the NL's Pittsburgh team was still called the Alleghenys, not the Pirates), and the Cleveland Infants.

The Cincinnati Reds were the only NL team that did not have a direct PL competitor, and the Buffalo Bisons were the only PL team not directly competing with an NL team. The AA had teams in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, and those were the 2 least-attended teams in their league -- directly leading to their being the 2 worst. The AA also had teams in Baltimore, Syracuse, Rochester, Columbus, Toledo, Louisville and St. Louis.

The Pennants were won by Brooklyn in the NL, by Louisville in the AA, and by Boston in the PL. The PL was well-attended, at least in some cities, but was underfunded, and its owners lacked the confidence to continue beyond the one season.

After the PL folded, the Boston and Philadelphia franchises joined the AA, and both folded together with the AA after the 1891 season. The PL franchises in Brooklyn, New York, Chicago and Pittsburgh each merged with their NL counterparts after the 1890 season, as the rebel players were welcomed back.

Although the league was started by the players themselves, essentially as an elaborate job-action to improve their lot, the venture proved to be a setback for them in the longer term. The hated reserve clause remained intact, and would remain thus for the next 85. The already-shaky AA had been further weakened by the presence of the PL.

One benefit of the league, from the management standpoint, was the construction of new facilities, several of which were used for a while by the established major league clubs. The most prominent of these was a new Polo Grounds, originally constructed as Brotherhood Park for the New York Giants of the PL. The NL's Giants moved in for the 1891 season, and stayed until a fire burned it down in 1911. A new Polo Grounds was built on the site, and the Giants stayed until moving to San Francisco after the 1957 season. This would be paralleled by one Federal League ballpark entering the remaining major leagues for 1916: The Chicago park that was later renamed Wrigley Field.

The NL survives to this day. The AA, however, was mortally wounded, and folded after one more season. That brought a vacuum that was filled by the American League in 1901. In 1902, a new American Association was formed, at the highest minor-league level.

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October 9, 1890 was a Thursday. There were 4 baseball games played that day, all in the American Association:

* The Rochester Broncos beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 10-4 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Syracuse Stars, 6-3 at Oriole Park in Baltimore.

* The Toledo Maumees beat the Louisville Colonels, 7-0 at Eclipse Park in Louisville.

* And the Columbus Solons beat the St. Louis Browns, 7-5 at an early version of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

October 6, 1886: The Rookie With 513 Strikeouts

October 6, 1886: The Baltimore Orioles beat the Pittsburgh Alleghenys, 6-0 at Recreation Park in Pittsburgh. This is a game in the American Association. It is virtually meaningless: The Alleghenys finished 12 games behind the Pennant-winning St. Louis Browns; the Orioles, 41 games back.

Both of these teams would go on to join the National League. The Alleghenys would be accused of a transaction that was "nothing but piratical," and became known as the Pittsburgh Pirates, and became a dominant team in the 1900s. The Orioles won the Pennant in 1894, 1895 and 1896, and nearly did so again in 1897, and then were broken up, to the point where their elimination from the NL after the 1899 season was just an afterthought.

In 1886, the Orioles gave no indication of being a dominant team later on. They won 48 games and lost 83. The winning pitcher in 29 of those games, and the losing pitcher in a league-leading 34 of them was Matt Kilroy, who pitched a no-hitter in the October 6 game.

Matthew Aloysius Kilroy was born on June 21, 1866 in Philadelphia. In 1885, the lefthander pitched for the Augusta Browns of the Southern League, and went 29-22 with an earned-run average of 0.97, and 363 strikeouts.

That got the Orioles' attention. In 1886, overhanded pitching was still relatively new, and the distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound was just 50 feet, not reaching the current 60 feet, 6 inches until 1893. "Matches" Kilroy, just 20 years old and a major league rookie, went 29-34, had an ERA of 3.37, and struck out 513 batters, still the all-time single season record. The 1893-onward record is 383 by Nolan Ryan in 1973, and Kilroy exceeded that by one-third.

But it ended up being almost half the strikeouts in his entire career. In 1887, the Orioles were better, and he went 46-19, and probably would have won the Cy Young Award, except that Cy Young hadn't yet made his major league debut. Kilroy won 127 games before turning 24 -- but he must have burned himself out, because he ended up just 141-133 for his career, with a 3.47 ERA.

He pitched only 13 major league games after turning 28. He did, however, pitch for the Boston Red Stockings team that won the one and only Players League Pennant, in 1890. (Alas, there was no World Series then, and his team, in an "outlaw" league, wouldn't have been eligible for it anyway.) After leaving baseball for good in 1898, he returned to Philadelphia, married, had 7 children, and owned a saloon.

He died on March 2, 1940, at the age of 73. He was buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. Also buried there are baseball figures Connie Mack, Steve Yerkes and 1919 Black Sox scandal figure Billy Maharg; rowing Olympic medalists Jack Kelly Sr. and Jr., father and brother of Princess Grace Kelly; Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Bill Hewitt; and Philadelphia's legendary racist Mayor Frank Rizzo.

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October 6, 1886 was a Wednesday. These other games were played in the American Association:

* The New York Metropolitans split a doubleheader with the Cincinnati Red Stockings at American Park in Cincinnati. Cincinnati won the opener, 12-6; while New York won the nightcap, 8-3. These are the modern Reds, but the other team is not the modern Mets.

* The Brooklyn Grays beat the Louisville Colonels, 7-4 at Eclipse Park in Louisville, Kentucky. The Grays eventually became the Dodgers.

* The St. Louis Browns, the team that would become the Cardinals, and the Philadelphia Athletics, not the team that would have that name in the American League, were not schedule.

In the National League:

* The New York Giants beat the Chicago White Stockings, the team that would become the Cubs, 4-1 at the original Polo Grounds in New York.

* The Boston Beaneaters, the team that would become the Braves, beat the St. Louis Maroons, who went out of business after the season, 11-5 at the original South End Grounds in Boston.

* The Kansas City Cowboys, who went out of business after the season, and the Philadelphia Philllies played to a 6-6 tie at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia, before darkness stopped the game.

* And the Detroit Wolverines beat the Washington Nationals, 2-1 at the Swampoodle Grounds in Washington. Neither team would survive to the 20th Century.

October 6, 1882: Not Quite the World Series

The 1882 Cincinnati Red Stockings

October 6, 1882: In the 1st postseason matchup between the Champions of 2 different major leagues in baseball, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, Champions of the American Association, shut out the Chicago White Stockings, Champions of the National League, 4-0 behind the pitching of Will White.

The next day, Chicago returns the favor by blanking Cincinnati 2-0. At this point, Cincinnati‚ under pressure from the AA‚ reluctantly cancels the exhibition series to avoid expulsion from the league. So, with the NL still the unquestioned superior league, the White Stockings are the unofficial World Champions, for the 3rd year in a row.

At the time, nobody is calling this "the World Series," or even "the World's Series." It is not officially recognized as such now: The establishment of Major League Baseball recognizes the 1903 contest between the NL's Pittsburgh Pirates and the American League's Boston Americans (Red Sox) as the first official World Series.

This was the 3rd straight Pennant for the White Stockings, who lost their founding owner when William Hulbert right before the season began. Al Spalding, once a great pitcher and by this point what would now be called the general manager, became the owner, and held ownership until 1902.

The Red Stockings joined the NL and changed their name to the Cincinnati Reds, both in 1890. The White Stockings went through a few name changes before becoming the Chicago Cubs in 1903.

UPDATE: The Cubs have a team Hall of Fame. Inducted from their 1880s Pennant winners have been Hulbert, Spalding, and catcher Mike "King" Kelly. Pitcher John Clarkson would join Kelly on the 1885 and 1886 Pennant winners. From the 1890s, they have inducted pitcher Clark Griffith (better known as the later owner and stadium namesake of the Washington Senators), and outfielders Jimmy Ryan and Bill Lange.

The Reds also have a team Hall of Fame. Inducted from this 1882 team have been pitcher Will White, 1st baseman John Reilly, and 2nd baseman John "Bid" McPhee. From the rest of the 19th Century, they have inducted pitcher Tony Mullane and deaf center fielder William "Dummy" Hoy.

And for the early 20th Century, they have inducted outfielders Sam Crawford, Cy Seymour and Bob Ewing; and pitcher Frank "Noodles" Hahn.

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October 6, 1882 was a Friday. There were no other baseball games played on this day. There were no college football games played. Basketball did not yet exist. And hockey barely did. So there were no other scores on this historic day.

September 7, 1885: "Back to the Future Part III"

September 7, 1885: The events of the film Back to the Future Part III come to a climax. Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) faces off against Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) on the dusty Main Street of Wild West-era Hill Valley, California, and beats him.

Then Marty and Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) hijack a train in order to get their gasoline-less, flying-prevented DeLorean time machine up to 88 miles per hour, so it can get them back to 1985 Hill Valley, where they belong.

But the woman Doc Brown never could have imagined, Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen), finds out the truth about the scientist, and wants to join him. One thing leads to another, and, instead of Clara joining Doc and Marty in 1985, Marty has to go back without Doc, and Doc and Clara live happily ever after in the past.

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Believe it or not, there were scores on this long-ago Monday. Three, all in what would later be called Major League Baseball:

* In the National League, the Philadelphia Quakers, the team that would become the Phillies in 1890, beat the New York Giants, 3-1 at Recreation Park in North Philadelphia.

* Also in the NL, the Boston Beaneaters beat their nearby rivals, the Providence Grays, 9-6 at the South End Grounds in Boston. The Grays were defending Champions, but the new salary demands of their players put the team out of business at the end of the season. The Beaneaters would go through a few name changes, and by 1912 were the Boston Braves.

* And in the American Association, the New York Metropolitans beat the Brooklyn Grays, 2-0 at the original Polo Grounds, at 111th Street and 5th Avenue in Upper Manhattan. Yes, those Metropolitans were called the Mets for short, and the NL team that began in 1962 was named partly in the earlier team's memory. Those earlier Mets went out of business after the 1887 season. The Grays joined the NL in 1890, and by 1911 were known as the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

September 4, 1888: Pud Galvin Starts the 300 Win Club

September 4, 1888: The Pittsburgh Alleghenys beat the Indianapolis Hoosiers, 5-4 at Athletic Park (later renamed Tinker Park) in Indianapolis. For Alleghenys pitcher Pud Galvin, it is the 300th win of his career. He is the 1st pitcher to win that many.

James Francis Galvin is born on a Christmas Day, December 25, 1856, in St. Louis. The Hall of Fame pitcher was nicknamed "Pud" because he was said to have "reduced hitters to pudding." No word on whether it was figgy pudding. He was also known as "Gentle Jeems" -- it's been a long time since men named James were nicknamed "Jem" or "Jeems" -- and "the Little Steam Engine," as he was 5-foot-8, and 190 pounds.

He won 365 games -- a total topped by only 4 pitchers ever -- for the Buffalo Bisons (who went out of business in 1885) and the Pittsburgh team that would be renamed the Pirates before he retired, plus 12 games at the end with the team now known as the St. Louis Cardinals, in a career that lasted from 1875 to 1892. In 1883, and again in 1884, both with Buffalo, he won 46 games.

That career curiously stopped at age 36 -- aging, but hardly old, for a pitcher, even then -- right before the distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound was extended from 50 feet to the now-traditional 60 feet, 6 inches, thus making it harder on pitchers.

He was also widely regarded as the best-fielding pitcher of his generation, and his pickoff move was the stuff of legend. on September 23, 1886, against the Brooklyn team that would become the Dodgers, he got out of a bases-loaded jam by picking off the runner at first base, then the runner at third, followed by the runner at second. The Alleghenys won, 8-2.

A 2006 National Public Radio article refers to Galvin as "the first baseball player to be widely known for using a performance enhancer." The Washington Post reported that Galvin used the Brown-Séquard elixir, which contained monkey testosterone, before a game in 1889. However, no one then seemed bothered by his use of the elixir, and the Post practically endorsed it after the game, saying that Galvin's performance was "the best proof yet furnished of the value of the discovery."

He was poor, and couldn't afford to take care of himself, and died on March 7, 1902, of a stomach disorder. He was only 45 years old.

Through the 2022 season, 24 pitchers have reached 300 wins. Galvin was followed by both Tim Keefe and Mickey Welch in 1890, Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn in 1891, John Clarkson in 1892, Charles "Kid" Nichols in 1900, Cy Young in 1901, Christy Mathewson in 1912, Eddie Plank in 1915, Walter Johnson in 1920, Grover Cleveland Alexander in 1924, Lefty Grove in 1941, Warren Spahn in 1961, Early Wynn in 1963, Gaylord Perry in 1982, Steve Carlton in 1983, Tom Seaver and Phil Niekro in 1985, Don Sutton in 1986, Nolan Ryan in 1990, Roger Clemens in 2003, Greg Maddux in 2004, Tom Glavine in 2007, and Randy Johnson (no relation to Walter) in 2009.

Only Clemens, Maddux, Glavine and Randy Johnson have done it while pitching all or most of their careers in the Post-1990 Five-Man Rotation Era. Only they, Grove, Spahn, Wynn, Perry Carlton, Seaver, Niekro, Sutton and Ryan have done so in the Post-1920 Lively Ball Era. As of September 4, 2022, the active leader in wins is Justin Verlander, with 244. It might be a long time, and with a significant change in how pitchers are used, before we ever see another 300-game winner. Even 250-game winners might become rare.

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September 4, 1888 was a Tuesday. In addition to Pittsburgh vs. Indianapolis, these games were played in the National League:

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1 at the original Polo Grounds.

* The Boston Beaneaters beat the Washington Nationals, 9-4 at the South End Grounds in Boston.

* And the Detroit Wolverines beat the Chicago White Stockings, 5-2 at West Side Park in Chicago.

And these games were played in the American Association:

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms, so named because several of their players got married the previous off-season, beat the St. Louis Browns, 3-1 at the original Washington Park in Brooklyn.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Kansas City Cowboys, 9-2 at the original Oriole Park in Baltimore.

* And the Cleveland Blues beat the Louisville Colonels, 12-3 at National League Park in Cleveland. Yes, that was the ballpark's name, even though the Blues were in the AA. Both teams did enter the NL later, but were contracted out of existence after the 1899 season.

September 4, 1886: Geronimo Surrenders

The best-known image of Geronimo, 1887

September 4, 1886: Geronimo surrenders to the U.S. Army. The last great at-large Native American opponent of "the white man" gives up the fight.

He was born to the Apache tribe on June 16, 1829, in No-doyohn Cañon, Arizona, then a part of Mexico, with the name Goyaałé, meaning "The One Who Yawns." No one should be stuck with what he was called as a baby, but he wouldn't have to be.

In 1851, with the Apaches having to move south following the Mexican-American War, they were attacked by the Mexican Army, and another Apache heard a Mexican soldier that Goyaałé was killing yell, ¡Jerónimo!" invoking his patron saint, St. Jerome, for help. The warrior was known as "Geronimo" from then on.

Reservation life was confining to the free-moving Apache people, and they resented restrictions on their customary way of life. Geronimo led breakouts from the reservations, in attempts to return his people to their previous nomadic lifestyle.

While well-known, Geronimo was not a chief of the Bedonkohe band of the Central Apache, but a shaman. However, since he was a superb leader in raiding and warfare, he frequently led large numbers of 30 to 50 Apache men.

In 1886, after an intense pursuit in northern Mexico by American forces that followed his 3rd 1885 reservation breakout, Geronimo surrendered for the last time, at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, to Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood. Geronimo and 27 other Apaches were later sent to join the rest of the Chiricahua tribe.

While holding him as a prisoner, the United States capitalized on Geronimo’s fame among non-Indians by displaying him at various fairs and exhibitions. In 1905, the Indian Office provided Geronimo for use in a parade at the Inauguration of President Theodore Roosevelt. He and Geronimo admired each other, as Geronimo admitted in a memoir published later that year.

He died on February 17, 1909, of pneumonia, at the age of 79, at the Army hospital at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, still a prisoner of war, and was buried at the Fort Sill Indian Agency Cemetery, among the graves of relatives and other Apache prisoners of war. He has living descendants today.

In 1939, Victor Daniels, who claimed to be of Cherokee ancestry, acted under the name Chief Thundercloud, and was the 1st actor to play Tonto in a Lone Ranger film, starred in the film Geronimo: The Story of a Great Enemy. Inspired by the film, U.S. Army paratroopers, testing the practice of parachuting from planes, began a tradition of shouting "Geronimo!" to show they had no fear of jumping out of an airplane.

Geronimo has also been played by John Doucette in the 1958 ABC movie Tombstone Territory, Chuck Connors in the 1962 film Geronimo!, Enrique Lucero in the 1979 CBS miniseries Mr. Horn, and in 2 films in 1993, both with Native American actors in the role: Geronimo, starring Joseph Runningfox; and Geronimo: An American Legend, starring Wes Studi.

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September 4, 1886 was a Saturday. The only professional team sport in America at the time was baseball. In the National League:

* The New York Giants lost to the Detroit Wolverines, 7-1 at Recreation Park in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Stockings (forerunners of the Cubs) beat the Washington Nationals, 13-6 at West Side Park in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Maroons beat the Boston Beaneaters (forerunners of the Braves), 12-2 at an early version of Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* The Philadelphia Quakers (forerunners of the Phillies) beat the Kansas City Cowboys, 3-0 at Association Park in Kansas City.

And in the American Association:

* The New York Metropolitans, nicknamed the Mets, beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-2 at the Polo Grounds. Neither of these teams has any connection to the teams using those names today.

* The Brooklyn Grays lost to the Philadelphia Athletics, 15-2 at the original Washington Park in Brooklyn.

* The Pittsburgh Alleghenys (forerunners of the Pirates) beat the Cincinnati Red Stockings (forerunners of the Reds, but not connected to the 1869-70 team of the same name), 1-0 at Recreation Park in Pittsburgh.

* The St. Louis Browns (forerunners of the Cardinals) beat the Louisville Colonels, 11-4 at Eclipse Park in Louisville.

August 27, 1883: The Eruption of Krakatoa

A more recent eruption of Krakatoa.

August 27, 1883: Krakatoa, a volcano on an island between the larger islands of Sumatra and Java, erupts. It is one of the biggest volcanic eruptions ever, equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT. In comparison, it was 13,000 times the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945; and 4 times that of the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated, the 1961 Soviet test of "Tsar Bomba."

The explosion was heard in Alice Springs, Australia, 2,200 miles to the southeast; and on the island of Rodrigues off the coast of Madagascar, nearly 3,000 miles to the west.

Today, Krakatoa, along with Sumatra and Java, is part of the island nation of Indonesia. At the time, it was part of the Dutch East Indies, a colony of the Netherlands. Dutch authorities estimated that over 36,000 people died in the resulting lava flows, earthquake and tsunamis.

Enough ash was thrown into the air to create a "volcanic winter." Temperatures all over the world dropped in 1883 and 1884. It also created more rainfall than the world was used to: The California cities of Los Angeles and San Diego received the most rain in their respective histories.

It also led to the world's skies being darker for a few years. People in several American cities saw orange skies, presumed there were fires, and called fire departments, who found no fires. It's been suggested that Edvard Munch's 1893 painting The Scream reflected the orange sky over his hometown of Oslo, Norway. This was 10 years after the eruption, although he wrote that the inspiration was closer in time to the eruption.

It has been postulated that a previous eruption of Krakatoa, in AD 535, was responsible for a global climate change that led to the period known as the Dark Ages. Ilopango, a volcano in El Salvador, has also been investigated as being the volcano responsible for that.

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August 27, 1883 was a Monday. Baseball was the only real professional sport at this time, and 3 games were played:

* In the National League, the Cleveland Blues beat the Detroit Wolverines, 7-4 at Recreation Park in Detroit. The Blues only lasted one more season. The Wolverines won the Pennant in 1887, but found their title-winning players' salary demands too much, and folded after just 1 more season.

* In the American Association, the St. Louis Browns beat the New York Metropolitans, 8-3 at the original Polo Grounds. These "original Mets" won the AA Pennant in 1884, and lost a postseason series to the Providence Grays. But they went out of business after the 1887 season.

The Browns won the AA Pennant in 1885, 1886, 1887 and 1888. In 1892, they joined the NL. In 1900, they became the Cardinals, and an AL team would be named the St. Louis Browns. That team became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954.

* Also in the AA, the Philadelphia Athletics beat the Columbus Buckeyes, 13-8 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. These Athletics would win the AA Pennant in 1883, but went out of business in 1890, and bear no relationship to the AL team of the same name, now in Oakland. The Buckeyes went out of business after the 1884 season.

August 26, 1883: Friedrich Nietzsche Publishes "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"

August 26, 1883: Friedrich Nietzsche publishes his novel Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen -- Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None.

Born on October 15, 1844 in native of Röcken, in Saxony, in what would be part of East Germany after World War II, Nietzsche became the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland in 1869, when he was only 24 years old. Unfortunately, other things happened to him early: He resigned in 1879, due to health issues.

This allowed him to do the writing that became Also Sprach Zarathustra. Despite purporting to be the words of Zarathustra, usually known to the modern world by his Greek name Zoroaster -- more so even than Judaism, truly an "old-time religion" -- the book is best known for Nietzsche's statement that "God is dead."

In fact, Nietzsche's text goes further than that. He said, "Dead are all the gods: Now do we desire the overman to live." He describes an Übermensch, which was originally translated as "overman" but came to be thought of as "superman" after his death, as someone "beyond good and evil," beyond any definition of morality, not bound by any religious commandments, a man with "the will to power."

As an example, Zarathustra sees a shepherd choking on a black serpent, which has crept into his throat. At Zarathustra's urging, the shepherd bites the serpent's head off and spits it out. In that moment, the shepherd is transformed into "a laughing, radiant being, something greater than human."

In 1889, only 45 years old, Nietzsche suffered a stroke, which led to vascular dementia. For the rest of his life, until August 25, 1900, just 56, he was in the care of his family.

Just as the deaths of Abner Doubleday and William Webb Ellis left them unable to publicly deny that they had, as was later alleged, invented baseball and rugby, respectively, Nietzsche's intellectual death in 1889, well before his actual death in 1900, left him unable to say, "What I really meant was... "

In particular, his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, who became first his medical and then his literary caretaker, misinterpreted much of what he wrote to fit her anti-Semitic views. His surviving letters show that he thought anti-Semitism was stupid, and he ridiculed its practitioners.

But Elisabeth lived long enough to promote her brother's works with the Nazis, who were all too happy to bring them into their mythology. When she died in 1935, Adolf Hitler himself attended her funeral. And so Nietzsche's writing, especially Also Sprach Zarathustra, became associated with the Fascism and bigotry of Nazi Germany, something Nietzsche, based on his own letters, would have deplored.

Others got that, but still used it to spread their belief in what would now be called "toxic masculinity." Jim Morrison, lead singer of the rock band The Doors, thought of the Übermensch as someone who faced his fears and overcame them, quoting Nietzsche's line, written in Twilight of the Idols in 1888: "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." Nietzsche was not the first, nor the last, person to suggest suffering builds character. But Morrison's belief that he was not bound by society's conventions made him unreliable and misogynistic.

Certainly, novelist and journalist Ernest Hemingway thought of himself as an Übermensch: In his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms, he wrote, "We are all broken people, but some of us are stronger at the broken places." But then, he was mentally ill, treated many people (especially his wives) like garbage, and eventually killed himself.

On January 12, 2012, I developed the hardest cold I'd ever had. It left me coughing so hard, it would, on some occasions, leave me dizzy, and force me to remain still for about 30 seconds; and, on others, give me a headache that left me scared that I might have a stroke. I thought of the line, "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." Personally, I've often found that some things that hurt me without killing me have made me stronger, but some of them just tick me off.

In 1896, German composer Richard Strauss composed the tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra. Its opening fanfare, titled "Sunrise," was used by director Stanley Kubrick as the theme song for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

That use led Elvis Presley to use it as the opening theme for his concerts from the start of his Las Vegas run in 1969 until his death in 1977. Elvis, too, often operated as if he were an "overman," beyond society's definitions of morality. And, as with Hemingway and Morrison, sometimes this worked to help people, and sometimes it didn't.

Morrison, surely, knew that Nietzsche had said that God was dead. I'm guessing Elvis wasn't aware of it, or else he never would have used the fanfare.

By the time Strauss' composition premiered, Nietzsche was too ill to attend, and it is unlikely he ever heard a recording of it. So it is likely that he never expressed an opinion on it.

In 2000, Britney Spears had a hit single titled "Stronger." In 2002, Christina Aguilera had a song titled "Fighter," sung to an ex-boyfriend whose mistreatment made her stronger. And in 2011, Kelly Clarkson released an album titled Stronger. It included a song titled "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You). It did revive her career after her previous 2 albums didn't do well. It's interesting that all 3 women expressed Nietzsche's idea better than the hyper-masculine Morrison did.

A 2015 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History was titled "Eastern Philosophers vs. Western Philosophers." "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Nietzsche, easily the most recent figure among those involved, alongside "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as Greek philosopher Socrates (470-399 BC) and Zach Sherwin as French philosopher François-Marie Arouet, a.k.a. Voltaire (1694-1778). The Eastern philosophers were all Chinese: Confucius (551-479 BC) played by Jin Au-Yeung, a.k.a. MC Jin; Sun Tzu (544-496 BC), played by Tim Chantarangsu, a.k.a. Timothy DeLaGhetto; and Laozi, a.k.a. Lao Tzu (life dates unknown, but may also have been a contemporary of the other two), played by Terry Im, a.k.a. KRNFX.    

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August 26, 1883 was a Sunday. At the time, the only real team sports in America were baseball and college football, and college football, then as now, resisted playing on Sundays. In many States, the playing of professional sports on Sunday was banned by law. In baseball, the National League chose not to challenge this, and refused to schedule games on Sundays.

Founded in 1882, the American Association did not. And when, after its folding following the 1891 season, 4 of its teams were brought into the NL, the NL began playing Sunday games. However, on this particular Sunday, the AA played no games. So there were no scores on this historic day.

August 20, 1882: The "1812 Overture" Premieres

August 20, 1882: The 1812 Overture, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, makes its public premiere at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Russia.

Tchaikovsky, then 42 years old, did not conduct the work himself. Instead, the conductor was Ippolit Al'tani, a violinist and choirmaster who was the leading conductor in the Russian Empire at the time.

Tchiakovsky had already composed Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1875 and Swan Lake in 1876, and would compose The Nutcracker in 1892. And he wasn't the 1st Russian to turn the failed French expedition in Russia into great art: Leo Tolstoy published War and Peace in 1869.

Written in the key of E-flat major, the Overture is a 15-minute work based on the invasion of Russia by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France and his seemingly invincible Grande Armée in 1812. On September 7, at Borodino, 75 miles west of Moscow, General Mikhail Kutuzov took a stand with his forces. Kutuzov finally had to retreat, but not before both sides had lost about 40,000 men -- one-quarter of the Russian force, one-fifth of the combined French, Polish, Italian and German force.

With considerably fewer resources, and his supply lines stretched too far, Napoleon took his men into Moscow. But Czar Alexander I had had the city evacuated. The Mayor of Moscow, Count Fyodor Rostopchin, stayed behind, and burned the city, hoping to take more of Napoleon's men in the fire; or, failing that, leaving them with nothing to claim, as the Russian capital was still St. Petersburg, to the north.

Napoleon couldn't even set up camp in the ruined city, as there wasn't sufficient food to feed his army. So he retreated on October 19, and was unable to escape the miserably cold Russian Winter, or the ravaging of his men by disease and hunger, or Cossacks launching what would later be called guerilla attacks. By the time the Grande Armée reached Poland -- friendly to him because Russia was a common enemy -- it was one-tenth the size he started with. One thing led to another, and Napoleon fell from power in 1814.

He was exiled to Elba, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, but in 1815, he escaped, returned to France, rebuilt his army, and resumed his threat. On June 18, 1815, at Waterloo, Belgium, he was defeated by a combined British-Prussian-Austrian force, although the British commander, Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, admitted it was "a near-run thing." This time, Napoleon was exiled to the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, far from any civilization, and better-guarded. He died there on May 5, 1821, of stomach cancer, at the age of 51.

Throwing their largest city away to save their country was Russia's favorite, if not "greatest," military victory until "The Great Patriotic War" -- their name for World War II. In 1869, Leo Tolstoy published War and Peace, perhaps the country's greatest novel, about Russia in the Napoleonic period.

Tchaikovsky was commissioned to compose a piece for the opening of the Cathedral, itself dedicated to the memory of those lost in the war. It had been 70 years since the battle, and it would be the last major gathering of veterans of the war. With its appropriation of La Marseillaise (itself a swipe at Napoleon, as he had banned it in 1805, and it had been reinstated as France's national anthem only in 1879), and the cannons at its conclusion, the Overture was a huge success.

In 1974, Arthur Fiedler, conductor of the Boston Pops, began the tradition of the Pops playing the Overture at the Hatch Memorial Shell on the Esplanade on the Charles River every 4th of July. While the piece has nothing to do with America, which was involved in its own struggle for survival in 1812, the cannon fire goes well with the fireworks that are shot off. (The Pops' 4th of July show is always closed with John Philip Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever.)

The Overture was also notably used at both the beginning and the end of the 2005 film V for Vendetta, for the film's dystopian future depiction of the destruction of London's Old Bailey and Palace of Westminster, respectively.

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior was brand-new when the Overture premiered. Joseph Stalin had it destroyed in 1931. For the site, he had planned a Palace of the Soviets, a new national capital building. It was supposed to rise to 1,365 feet, making it the tallest building in the world at the time. (For the sake of perspective, the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center were 1,368 and 1,362 feet.) Construction began in 1937, and the foundation was completed in 1939.

But the Nazis destroyed what had been built by 1941. After World War II, Stalin lost interest in the project, and construction was never restarted. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, a replacement Cathedral was planned, and it opened in 2000.

Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791, and Ludwig van Beethoven in 1827. (Beethoven's 5th Symphony premiered in 1808, his 9th in 1824.) So their works precede professional sports, thus preventing any chance at a "Scores On This Historic Day" post for the premieres of any of their notable works. (UPDATE: I have since improvised, doing a profile of Mozart for a post on the 1984 premiere of the film Amadeus. I have not yet done anything for Bach or Beethoven, though.)

Tchaikovsky died on November 6, 1893, in St. Petersburg, Russia, 9 days after conducting the premiere of his 6th Symphony there. He was 53, and the cause is in dispute. There was a cholera outbreak, and he may have drunk tainted water. Whether this was an accident or suicide is also unsure. He was also a prodigious consumer of tobacco and alcohol.

In a 2011 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Napoleon Bonaparte, against "Nice" Peter Shukoff as the fictional character Napoleon Dynamite. The joke was that Lloyd is just 5-foot-6, like Napoleon. However, 5-foot-6 was not considered especially short at the time, and the idea that Napoleon was short is now considered to have been British propaganda.

UPDATE: In 2025, Napoleon became only the 2nd ERB character, after Donald Trump, to be played by both Peter and Lloyd. Peter played him against Lloyd's portrayal of medieval French king Charlemagne.

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August 20, 1882 was a Sunday. The National League then forbade playing games on Sunday. That season, the American Association was founded, and it allowed games on Sunday -- because, the American labor movement then being what it was, it was the one day of the week when most people didn't have to work, thus making higher attendances possible. So the only 2 games played that day were in the AA:

* The Pittsburgh Alleghenys beat the Louisville Eclipse, 3-1 at Eclipse Park in Louisville. Within a few years, the Alleghenys would acquire a player in a move that was called "nothing but piratical," and, noting the alliteration, became the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 1887, the Pirates joined the NL. In 1892, the Eclipse, by then known as the Louisville Colonels, also joined the NL. In 1899, the Eclipse were contracted out of the NL, and their assets, including star shortstop Honus Wagner, a Pittsburgh native, were bought by the Pirates.

* And the Philadelphia Athletics beat the St. Louis Brown Stockings, 10-5 at the original Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Both of these teams would later have teams in the American League named after them. But while these Athletics went out of business after the 1890 season, the Brown Stockings still exist. They were renamed the Browns in 1883, joined the NL in 1892, and were renamed the Cardinals in 1900.  

August 5, 1888: The Journey of Bertha Benz

August 5, 1888: Bertha Benz, 39 years old, puts her 15-year-old son Eugen and her 13-year-old son Richard into a Benz Patent-Motorwagen Model III, and drives it from her home in Mannheim to Pforzheim, where her mother lived. Both cities were in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The distance between them is 121 miles. This was, by far, the longest anyone had ever driven an automobile. Before this historic trip, motorized drives were merely very short trials, returning to the point of origin, made with assistance of mechanics.

She did it without telling her husband, Karl Benz, who invented the thing. She wanted to prove to her husband, who had failed to adequately consider marketing his invention, that the automobile in which they both had heavily invested would become a financial success, once it was shown to be useful to the general public; and to give her husband the confidence that his constructions had a future.

She left Mannheim around dawn, solving numerous problems along the way. She Bertha demonstrated her significant technical capabilities on this journey. With no fuel tank, and only a 4.5-litre supply of petrol in the carburetor, she had to find ligroin, the petroleum solvent needed for the car to run. The solvent was only available at apothecary shops, so she stopped in Wiesloch, at the city pharmacy, to purchase the fuel. This made the chemist in Wiesloch the world's first service station.

She cleaned a blocked fuel line with her hat pin, and used her garter as insulation material. A blacksmith had to help mend a chain at one point. When the wooden brakes began to fail, Benz visited a cobbler to install leather, making the world's first pair of brake linings. An evaporative cooling system was employed to cool the engine, making water supply a big worry along the trip. The trio added water to their supply every time they stopped.

The car's two gears were not enough to surmount uphill inclines, and Eugen and Richard often had to push the vehicle up steep roads. Mrs. Benz reached Pforzheim somewhat after dusk, notifying her husband of her successful journey by telegram. She drove back to Mannheim several days later.

The novel trip received a great deal of publicity, as she had sought. The drive was a key event in the technical development of the automobile. The pioneering couple introduced several improvements after Bertha's experiences. She reported everything that had happened along the way and made important suggestions, such as the introduction of an additional gear for climbing hills, and brake linings to improve brake-power. Her trip demonstrated to the burgeoning automotive industry that test drives were essential to their business.

Karl Benz lived until 1929, Bertha Benz until 1944, Richard Benz until 1955, Eugen Benz until 1958. In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was established, on the route she drove, as part of the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

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August 5, 1888 was a Sunday. Since playing professional sports on Sunday was still illegal in many places, and baseball's National League wouldn't do it, anyway, there were only 3 games played, all in the American Association:

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms -- so named because several of their players had gotten married in the previous off-season -- lost to the St. Louis Browns, 3-1 at the original Washington Park in Brooklyn. The Grays joined the NL in 1890, the Browns in 1892. The Browns would become the Cardinals in 1900, although their former name would be taken up by an AL team in 1902. The Bridegrooms would go through a few name changes, and became the Dodgers in 1911.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Kansas City Cowboys, 6-0 at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia. This version of the Athletics folded after the 1890 season, though their name would be taken up by an AL team in 1901. This version of the Cowboys, not connected to the NL team that folded after the 1886 season, would only play in 1888.

* And the Cincinnati Red Stockings beat the Cleveland Blues, 6-5 at American Park in Cincinnati. The Red Stockings joined the NL and changed their name to the Reds, both in 1890. The Blues joined the NL and became the Cleveland Spiders, both in 1889, but were consolidated out of existence after the 1899 season.