This Day in Baseball History.....August 3

[Mickey Mental]

1933: The Yankees are shut out for the first time in 309 games, dating back to August 2, 1931, as the A's southpaw Lefty Grove blanks the Bronx Bombers, 7-0.

1939: Back-up catcher Williard Hershberger commits suicide. Although the team is devastated by the mid-season tragedy, the Reds will go on to capture the National league pennant.

1948: Negro League legend Satchel Paige makes his major league debut hurling seven innings to lead the Indians over the Senators, 5-3.

1957: Bobby Bragan hears on the radio he has been fired as the Pirates' manager and replaced by Philadelphia third base coach Danny Murtaugh. Pittsburgh general manager Joe L. Brown leaked news of the hiring before informing his disposed skipper. Ouch!!

1959: For the first time in major league history a second All-Star game is played in the same season. The American League posts a 5-3 victory at the Los Angeles Coliseum as White Sox Nellie Fox singles in the decisive run.

1961: In the largest shutout score in a National League night game, the Pirates beat the Cardinals, 19-0.

1989: The Reds set a major league record for the most hits in the first inning of a game with 16 as they score 14 runs at Riverfront Stadium off woeful Astro pitching. The half of an inning lasts 38 minutes with the Reds eventually winning the game, 18-1.

[Mickey Mental]

1939: Back-up catcher Williard Hershberger commits suicide. Although the team is devastated by the mid-season tragedy, the Reds will go on to capture the National league pennant.

Hershberger was a back-up to Ernie Lombardi, who also once tried to kill himself. Also, Hershberger's father, Claude, killed himself when Willard was 18 years old. It was Willard who found the body. Gabe Paul was the one who found Willard's body at the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston. He had slahed his own throat in the bathtub.

[Old Sweater]

Read that Willard Hershberger even laid out towels so he wouldn't bloody up the floor. They have the wrong date though, Hershberger committed suicide in 1940, the year they won the WS, not 1939 when they lost to the Yankees.

[BobH]

Man, what a way to go! I can't imagine slashing one's own throat. To me, that's kinda like stabbing yourself in the heart. The poor guy had to have had an awfully low self-esteem to get that depressed over a loss for which he felt responsible.-BH

[soberdennis]

1933: The Yankees are shut out for the first time in 309 games, dating back to August 2, 1931, as the A's southpaw Lefty Grove blanks the Bronx Bombers, 7-0.
That is incredible. Two full years without being shutout.