Todays Highlight in History

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an American history museum and hall of fame, located at 25 Main Street in Cooperstown, New York and operated by private interests. It serves as the central point for the study of the history of baseball in the United States and beyond, displays baseball-related artifacts and exhibits, and honors those who have excelled in playing, managing, and serving the sport. The Hall's motto is "Preserving History, Honoring Excellence, Connecting Generations."

The word Cooperstown is often used as shorthand (or a metonym) for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Hall of Fame was dedicated on June 12, 1939. Stephen Carlton Clark was owner of a local hotel and sought to bring tourists to Cooperstown, which had been suffering economically when the Great Depression significantly reduced the local tourist trade and Prohibition devastated the local hops industry. His granddaughter, Jane Forbes Clark, is the current Chairman of the Board of Directors. The erroneous claim that U.S. Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown, a claim made by former National League president Abraham G. Mills and his 1905 Mills Commission, was instrumental in the early marketing of the Hall.
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Todays Highlight in History

"Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888" is a baseball poem written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. First published in The San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888, it was later popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville performances.

The poem was originally published anonymously (under the pen name "Phin", based on Thayer's college nickname, "Phineas"). The author's identity was not widely known at first. A number falsely claimed to have authored the poem, and Thayer's efforts to set the record straight were often ignored.
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Iconic TV Shows That Have Ended

Quantum Leap is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from March 26, 1989 to May 5, 1993, for a total of five seasons. The series was created by Donald Bellisario, and starred Scott Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist from six years in the future (during the series' original run) who becomes lost in time following a time travel experiment, temporarily taking the places of other people to "put right what once went wrong". Dean Stockwell co-starred as Al Calavicci, Sam's womanizing, cigar-smoking sidekick and best friend, who appeared as a hologram that only Sam, animals, young children, and the mentally ill could see and hear. The series featured a mix of comedy, drama and melodrama, social commentary, nostalgia and science fiction, which won it a broad range of fans. One of its trademarks is that at the end of each episode, Sam "leaps" into the setting for the next episode, usually uttering a dismayed "Oh, boy!"

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Todays Highlight in History

April 20,1912 – Opening day for baseball's Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, and Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.

Todays Highlight in History

Longest professional baseball game

The Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings, two teams from the Triple-A International League, played the longest game in professional baseball history. It lasted for 33 innings over eight hours and 25 minutes. 32 innings were played from 18 to 19 April 1981 at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

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Baseball

Since his conversion to the outfield, former pitcher Rick Ankiel has made plenty of highlight shows for gunning down runners with unbelievable throws. In addition to many others, there were the two rockets he unleashed in one game at Coors Field in 2008 and this one at Great American Ballpark in 2011.

The reputation of Ankiel's mighty left arm has grown so much that he 1) regularly freezes runners at their current station regardless of how deep he's playing in the outfield and 2) can now make the highlight reels and garner standing ovations from a buzzing Nationals Park crowd without actually throwing anyone out.

Watch as the Washington Nationals center fielder fires a throw home in Monday's 6-3 win over the Astros. His Houston counterpart Jordan Schafer never even considers leaving third to tag up and score — a wise move since Ankiel's throw never touches the ground before reaching Wilson Ramos about 300 feet away.

Ankiel later said in the Washington Post that the throw "came out clean" while third baseman Ryan Zimmerman attributed Schafer staying put to it being "kind of predetermined not to test Rick out."

Of course, one of the best parts of the video is that the ball crosses home plate — or at least came darn close to it — which is something Ankiel struggled to do from 6o feet, 6 inches when he was a highly touted pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals.

But good for Ankiel for hatching one of the best second acts in baseball history, building a reputation that really does the unthinkable when it forces the phenomenal arm of teammate Stephen Strasburg into the background for a night.

"I would have called it a strike, that's for sure," the Nats ace told reporters after the game.

A strike in more ways that one, that is.

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Sports

Jonathan Broxton becomes first pitcher in 46 years to hit two batters to end a game.

Jonathan Broxton's errant pitch and Jonny Gomes' ribcage made history on Wednesday.

In what was literally the wildest ending to a baseball game in almost 50 years, the Kansas City closer hit Oakland rookie Yoenis Cespedes to load the bases in the bottom of the 12th inning. Broxton then plunked Gomes just a few moments later for a walkoff hit-by-pitch, a blown save and a 5-4 A's victory at Oakland Coliseum. It was the first time in 46 years that a game ended with two straight batters being hit with pitches.
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The Baseball Reference Play Index counts only 56 previous instances since 1948 that a game ended with a hit by pitch. For list...