1926: Babe Ruth becomes first MLB player to hit 3 home runs in a World Series game as NY Yankees beat St Louis Cardinals, 10-5 in Game 4 at Sportsman’s Park, St Louis.
1975: The birth of Reon King, the athletic Guyanese fast bowler with a slinky run-up sometimes compared to Michael Holding’s. King was considered West Indies’ fastest bowler at the end of the 1990s and picked up his first Test five-for against Zimbabwe in Jamaica in 2000. Two months later, after setting up a tight win over Pakistan, he and Franklyn Rose seemed almost ready to succeed Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. But both fell away during the 2000 tour of England, where King was said to be troubled by a heel injury. He was a forgotten man for four years, until he was recalled for the home series against South Africa in 2004-05, when a raft of leading players were sidelined by a contract dispute.
1993: Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls announced his retirement from the NBA at a news conference in Deerfield, IL. Jordan’s retirement after nine seasons came less than four months after he helped lead the Bulls to their third consecutive NBA Championship with a six-game victory over Phoenix in the 1993 NBA Finals. His nine-year totals included 21,541 career points, seven straight league scoring titles (1987-93), an NBA record-high career scoring average (32.3 ppg), and three regular season and three NBA Finals MVP awards. Jordan announced his return to the NBA on March 18, 1995 and 24 hours later played in a game against Indiana at Market Square Arena, scoring 19 points in the Bulls’ 103-96 overtime loss.
1998: The NBA announced that all 114 preseason games for this year have been canceled because of the stalled collective bargaining negotiations with the National Basketball Players Association.
2018: Eighteen-year-old Prithvi Shaw became the youngest Indian to score a century on debut in the side’s biggest Test win ever – by an innings and 272 runs, against West Indies in Rajkot. It took India under 100 overs to bowl West Indies out twice – 14 of the 20 wickets fell in two sessions and a bit on the third day – in the three-day mismatch. Ravindra Jadeja also cashed in and made his maiden Test hundred.
2019: Records tumbled in Visakhapatnam, on the first Test of South Africa’s tour of India. Rohit Sharma, making his debut as Test opener, bludgeoned 13 sixes – the most for any batter in a Test – of the 27 by India in the match, the most by any team in a Test. The game also broke the record for the most sixes – 37 in total. Mayank Agarwal converted his maiden Test hundred into a double. Dean Elgar made 160 in the first innings for South Africa but a batting collapse in the second brought saw the team struggle at 70 for 8. A valiant 91-run stand between debutant Senuran Muthusamy and Dane Piedt couldn’t bring them back from the brink, and South Africa lost by 203 runs.
