05 May 2007
Looking Back: 5 May 2007
5 MAY is ... Celebration time ... Whoo-hoo! They did it! They won!
Cinco de Mayo. This holiday commemorates the victory of the Mexican army, led by Ignacio Zaragoza, over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. This happened after Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, after the Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848, and after the Mexican Civil War of 1858. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day, which is 16 September.
Sources: MexOnline / Inside Mexico / World Food and Wine: Cinco de Mayo Food / Southern Living Cinco de Mayo Food /
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>>> 103 years since Cy Young of the Boston Americans pitched the first perfect game of the modern era of baseball. He was pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston (1904). "Connie Mack, who has seen more ball games than any other American, living or dead, always considered Young's perfect game against Rube Waddell in 1904 the greatest exhibition of pitching ever performed." -- Tom Meany. (Mack was the Philadelphia A's coach at the time.) There have been only 14 additional perfect games pitched since Young's in 1903. In Young's next pitching start, he threw a 1-0 shutout over the Tigers, becoming the first pitcher in baseball history to throw a shutout after a no-hitter.
Sources: Columbia News Service: Cy Young's Perfect Game: At 100, Still Remarkable / Baseball Almanac: Cy Young Perfect Game Box Score / The Baseball Page.com Perfect Games / Cy Young's 1955 obituary
>>> 34 years since Secretariat, with Canadian jockey Ron Turcotte aboard, won the Kentucky Derby in 1:59.4 (1973). Secretariat, who was born in Doswell, Virginia, in March 1970, will go on to become a Triple Crown winner (one of only eleven), beating the field (and various records) in that year's Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. Author George Plimpton said of Secretariat: ""He was the only honest thing in this country at the time. This huge magnificent animal who wasn't tied up in scandal, wasn't tied up in money, he just ran because he loved running."
Sources: Secretariat.com: History / YouTube video of the Derby / ESPN Sportscentury Biography: Secretariat Remains No. 1 Name in Racing by Ron Flatter / Wikipedia
05:00 Posted in today in history | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: sports, victories, rarities, cy young, secretariat, baseball, horseracing
Comments
I came across your site while doing a blog search for Cinco De Mayo.
I was one of the Americans who was unaware that May 5 wasn't the Mexican Independence day. I was very interested to learn otherwise. Great article.
Posted by: colintheriot | 05 May 2007
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