Aug. 13
1919 — Upset scores a win against Man o’ War in the Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga. The defeat is Big Red’s only loss in 21 starts.
1933 — Gene Sarazen wins the PGA Championship by defeating Willie Goggin 5 and 4 in the final round.
1935 — The first roller derby begins in Chicago by promoter Leo Seltzer.
1979 — Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals reaches 3,000 career hits with an infield hit off Chicago Cubs pitcher Dennis Lamp.
1987 — Jackie Joyner-Kersee equals the world record in the women’s long jump — 24 feet, 5½ inches — in the Pan American Games at Indianapolis. She matches the mark set in 1986 by Heike Dreschler of East Germany.
1995 — Cuba’s Ana Quirot, severely burned in a 1993 kitchen accident, wins the 800 meters at the world championships at Gothenburg, Sweden.
1995 — Steve Elkington shoots a final-round 64 and birdies the first playoff hole to beat Colin Montgomerie and win the PGA Championship. The 64 is the lowest final round by a PGA Championship winner.
1997 — Wilson Kipketer topples Sebastian Coe’s 16-year-old record in the 800 meters, finishing in 1 minute, 41.24 seconds in Zurich, Switzerland. Haile Gebrselassie also shatters his own 5,000 record with a time of 12 minutes, 41.86 seconds.
2002 — Natalie Coughlin breaks the 100-meter backstroke world record, timed in 59.58 seconds at the U.S. national championships. She is the first American to hold the world record since Catherine Ferguson in 1966.
2008 — Michael Phelps swims into history as the winningest Olympic athlete with his 10th and 11th career gold medals and five world records in five events at the Beijing Games. He wins the 200-meter butterfly and swims leadoff for the U.S. 800 freestyle relay team.
2016 — The U.S. women’s 4×100-meter medley relay team of Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Simone Manuel — winners at the Rio Games — delivers the nation’s 1,000th gold medal in Summer Olympics history. Michael Phelps closes the Rio Olympics with a gold medal in the butterfly leg of the 4×100 medley relay. Phelps finishes his career with 28 medals, having won five golds and a silver at these games.
Aug. 14
1903 — Jim Jeffries knocks out Jim Corbett in the 10th round to retain his world heavyweight title in San Francisco.
1936 — In Berlin, the U.S. wins the first Olympic basketball gold medal with a 19-8 win over Canada. The game is played outdoors on a dirt court in a driving rain. Joe Fortenberry leads the U.S. with seven points. James Naismith, the inventor of the game, presents the medals.
1959 — The formation of the American Football League is announced in Chicago. Play will begin in 1960 with franchises in six cities with the probability of adding two more teams.
1977 — Lanny Wadkins beats Gene Littler on the third hole of sudden death to take the PGA Championship.
1977 — The Cosmos, led by Pele, play before a Meadowlands crowd of 77,961 in East Rutherford, N.J., the most to see a soccer game in the U.S. The Cosmos beat the Fort Lauderdale Strikers 8-3 in an NASL quarterfinal playoff game.
1994 — Nick Price wins the PGA Championship, finishing at 11-under 269 for 72 holes, six strokes ahead of Corey Pavin. It is the lowest stroke total in an American major championship.
2003 — The New York blackout forces the evacuation of workers and players from Shea Stadium hours before the Mets-Giants game. It’s the only major league baseball game affected by the blackout that stretches from the Northeast to Ohio and Michigan. Elsewhere, two WNBA games are postponed, and Yonkers (N.Y.) Raceway cancels its card.
2005 — The U.S. 4×400 relay team, anchored by Jeremy Wariner, races to a record 14th gold medal for the United States at the field world championships.
2011 — Keegan Bradley wins the PGA Championship after trailing by five shots with three holes and then defeating Jason Dufner in a three-hole playoff. Bradley becomes the third player in at least 100 years to win a major championship in his first try.
2014 — Rob Manfred is elected baseball’s 10th commissioner, winning a three-man race to succeed Bud Selig.
2016 — South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk breaks Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old world record in the 400-meter final in Rio de Janeiro. Usain Bolt becomes the first to capture three straight 100-meter titles at the Olympics. He finishes in 9.81 — 0.08 seconds ahead of Justin Gatlin.
Aug. 15
1948 — Babe Didrikson Zaharias wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf title over Betty Hicks.
1950 — Ezzard Charles knocks out Freddie Beshore in the 14th round to retain his world heavyweight title.
1965 — Dave Marr edges Jack Nicklaus and Billy Casper to take the PGA Championship.
1966 — Jose Torres retains his world light-heavyweight title with a unanimous decision over Eddie Cotton in Las Vegas.
1993 — Greg Norman lips his putt on the PGA Championship’s second playoff hole, giving Paul Azinger the title and leaving Norman with an unprecedented career of Grand Slam playoff losses. Norman, despite winning his second British Open title a month earlier, has lost playoffs in three other majors — 1984 U.S. Open, 1987 Masters, 1989 British Open.
1993 — Damon Hill, son of the late Graham Hill, becomes the first father-son Formula One winners when he takes the Hungarian Grand Prix.
1995 — Monica Seles returns to the WTA Tour after a 28-month absence following her 1993 stabbing with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Kimberly Po at the Canadian Open.
1999 — Tiger Woods makes a par save on the 17th hole and holds on to win the PGA Championship by one stroke over 19-year-old Sergio Garcia. Woods, 23, becomes the youngest player to win two majors since Seve Ballesteros in 1980.
2004 — In Athens, Greece, the U.S. men’s basketball team loses 92-73 to Puerto Rico, the third Olympic defeat for the Americans and first since adding pros. American teams had been 24-0 since the professional Olympic era began with the 1992 Dream Team. The U.S Olympic team’s record was 109-2, entering the game.
2005 — Phil Mickelson delivers another dramatic finish in a major, flopping a chip out of deep rough to 2 feet for a birdie on the final hole and a one-shot victory in the PGA Championship.
2007 — Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleads guilty to felony charges for taking cash payoffs from gamblers and betting on games he officiated in a scandal that rocked the league and raised questions about the integrity of the sport.
2010 — Martin Kaymer wins the PGA Championship in a three-hole playoff against Bubba Watson. Dustin Johnson, with a one-shot lead playing the final hole at Whistling Straits, is penalized two strokes for grounding his club in a bunker on the last hole. The two-shot penalty sends him into a tie for fifth.
2012 — Felix Hernandez pitches the Seattle Mariners’ first perfect game and the 23rd in baseball history, overpowering the Tampa Bay Rays in a brilliant 1-0 victory. It’s the third perfect game in baseball this season.
2012 — The U.S. breaks a 75-year winless streak at Azteca Stadium with an 80th-minute goal by Michael Orozco Fiscal and Tim Howard’s late sprawling saves in a 1-0 victory over Mexico.
2014 — Mo’Ne Davis, one of two girls at the Little League World Series, throws a two-hitter to help Philadelphia beat Nashville 4-0 in the opener for both teams. Davis, the first girl to appear for a U.S. team in South Williamsport since 2004, has eight strikeouts and no walks.
Aug. 16
1920 — Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman is hit in the head with a pitch by New York’s Carl Mays. Chapman suffers a fractured skull and dies the next day. It’s the only field fatality in major league history.
1924 — Helen Wills Moody beats Molla Bjurstedt Mallory again, 6-1, 6-3, to win her second straight singles title at the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships.
1954 — The first Sports Illustrated magazine is issued with a 25-cent price tag. The scene on the cover was a game at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. Eddie Mathews of Braves was swinging with Wes Westrum catching and Augie Donatelli umpiring.
1970 — Dave Stockton wins the PGA Championship by two strokes over Arnold Palmer and Bob Murphy at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.
1976 — Dave Stockton edges Raymond Floyd and Don January by one stroke to win his second PGA Championship. Stockton hits a par-saving 15-foot putt on the 72nd hole to finish with a 1-over 281 at Congressional Country Club (Blue Course) in Bethesda, Md.
1989 — Tom Drees pitches his third no-hitter of the season for Class AAA Vancouver, leading the Canadians over Las Vegas 5-0 in a seven-inning, first game of a doubleheader in the Pacific Coast League. Drees became the first pitcher in the PCL or the major leagues with three no-hitters in a year.
1992 — Nick Price holds off a comeback bid by Nick Faldo with a 1-under 70 in the final round and captures his first major title with a three-stroke victory in the PGA national championship.
1995 — Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie shatters Kenya’s Moses Kiptanui’s record in the 5,000 by nearly 11 seconds with a time of 12 minutes, 44.39 seconds at the Weltklasse meet in Zurich, Switzerland.
1998 — Jeff Gordon drives into the record book, becoming the seventh driver in modern NASCAR history to win four straight races as he comes from far back to take the Pepsi 400.
2008 — In Beijing, Michael Phelps touches the wall a hundredth of a second ahead of Serbia’s Milorad Cavic to win the 100-meter butterfly. The win gives Phelps his seventh gold medal of the Beijing Games, tying Mark Spitz’s performance in the 1972 Munich Games. Usain Bolt of Jamaica runs the 100-meter dash in a stunning world-record time of 9.69 seconds for a blowout win that he starts celebrating a good 10 strides before the finish line.
2009 — Usain Bolt shatters the 100-meter world record at the World Championships in Berlin. Bolt finishes with a stunning time of 9.58 seconds, bettering his own record of 9.69 seconds set in last year’s Beijing Olympics.
2009 — Y.E. Yang of South Korea becomes the first Asian player to win one of golf’s majors with a three-stroke win over Tiger Woods at the PGA Championship.
2015 — Jason Day leads wire-to-wire in the final round at Whistling Straits to close out a record-setting PGA Championship and capture his first major title. The 27-year-old Australian finishes at 20-under 268 to beat Jordan Spieth by three shots. Day becomes the first player to finish at 20 under in a major.
2015 — Brooke Henderson wins the Cambia Portland Classic by eight strokes to become the third-youngest champion in LPGA Tour history at 17 years, 11 months, 6 days.
2018 — The Davis Cup gets a radical makeover beginning in 2019. The top team event in men’s tennis will be decided with a season-ending, 18-team tournament at a neutral site.
