IN THE NEWS: Connie Mack accuses Christy Mathewson of reneging on a Philadelphia contact signed in January. The young pitcher had accepted advance money from Mack, but jumped back to the Giants in March. Mack considers going to court, but eventually accepts the loss of the pitcher.
IN THE NEWS: Brooklyn’s Jimmy Sheckard has three triples against the host Phils to lead his team to a 12-7 Opening Day win.
IN THE NEWS: At the Polo Grounds, the Giants open a day late, losing 7-0 to Boston. Dummy Taylor is hit hard and takes the loss.
In an exhibition game in Detroit, the Tigers beat Grand Rapids, 8-0. It is the first game ever between a National Agreement club and an American League team.
IN THE NEWS: The Reds open at home with a 4-2 loss to Pittsburgh. Sam Leever wins over Noodles Hahn.
IN THE NEWS: Three rain postponements give Chicago the honor of hosting the first game of the new AL. Roy Patterson’s 8-2 win over the Cleveland Blues is the first of his 20; with manager Clark Griffith’s 24, the White Stockings will win the AL’s first pennant.
IN THE NEWS: In its AL debut before 10,023, Detroit scores the greatest Opening Day rally with 10 runs in the bottom of the 9th for a 14-13 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. Detroit spots the Brewers a 13-3 lead-7-0 after three innings-by making seven errors, including three by SS Kid Elberfeld. Tiger 1B Pop Dillon hits four doubles, including a pair in the record 9th inning, the last is the game-winner off reliever Bert Husting. Dillon's four doubles is an opening day record that will be matched by Jim Greengrass in 1954.
Cleveland 2B Erve Beck hits the first HR in AL history, off Chicago’s John Skopec. But the White Sox prevail, 7-2.
IN THE NEWS: Eight days after the Phillies’ opener before 4,593, the Athletics, home opener at Columbus Park draws 16,000 for a 5-1 loss to the Washington Nationals. Chick Fraser is the winner. Nap Lajoie has three hits in the Athletics’ first game, and will have three in the 2nd game and four in the 3rd on the way to an AL-record .422 batting average.
After six postponements, the New York Giants down the Brooklyn Superbas 5-3 for their season’s first win and Christy Mathewson’s first ML victory. Matty allows four hits and strikes out 8.
The visiting Boston Americans play their first game, losing to Baltimore, 10-6. Iron Joe McGinnity strikes out nine in the win, and Mike Donlin cracks two triples off losing pitcher Win Kellum.
IN THE NEWS: The Cleveland Blues (AL) record their first victory, beating Chicago, 10-4, behind the pitching of Bill Hart. The vet Hart will lose his stuff and finish the season as an AL umpire.
Behind Sam Crawford's five hits, including a triple and a HR, the Reds beat Chicago, 9-2. Jack Taylor surrenders the hits and loses.
IN THE NEWS: Veteran SS Hugh Jennings, teammate and roommate of John McGraw in Baltimore’s great days, will play for Connie Mack’s Athletics after getting his law degree at Cornell. McGraw persuades him to play for Baltimore instead, touching off a battle royal with Mack and Ban Johnson. The result is ill feelings that never heal. Jennings winds up playing for the Phillies.
Cleveland's rookie pitcher Charles "Bock" Baker gives up an AL record 23 singles in a 13-1 loss to the White Stockings. Bock will pitch only one other game, also a loss, in the ML. Bock's 23 singles allowed is short of the ML-record of 28, set by Jack Wadsworth in 1894.
IN THE NEWS: Admiral George Dewey, the Spanish American War hero, throws out the first ball. Then he and other prominent guests watch Washington defeat Baltimore 5-2 in the AL opener in the nation’s capital. Joe McGinnity is the loser to Bill Carrick.
IN THE NEWS: At Baker Bowl, the Giants edge the Phils, 3-2, behind Christy Mathewson's 3-hitter.
At Philadelphia's Columbus Park The Boston Somersets beat the Athletics, 8-6, in 10 innings, the AL's first extra-inning game.
Thomas "Dude" Esterbrook, a star in the 1880s with the Mets, dies in a fall from a moving train. Esterbrook is on his way to a mental hospital in Middlebrook, NY when he squeezes through a lavatory window and falls to the rail bed below.
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