Aug. 30
1887 — Seven U.S. men’s national tennis championships and Richard Sears captures his seventh title. Sears beats Henry Slocum, 6-1, 6-3, 6-2 at the Newport Casino in Newport, R.I. Sears retires with an 18-match unbeaten streak over the 1881-1887 championships.
1905 — Ty Cobb makes his MLB debut with the Detroit Tigers doubling off Jack Chesbro in a Tigers 5-3 win over the NY Highlanders.
1926 — Guy McKinney, driven by Nat Ray, wins the first Hambletonian Stakes.
1927 — Helen Wills wins her fourth U.S. women’s tennis singles title, defeating 16-year-old Betty Nuthall of Britain, 6-1, 6-4.
1937 — Joe Louis wins a 15-round unanimous decision over Tommy Farr at Yankee Stadium in the first defense of his heavyweight title.
1961 — Harlan Dean, driven by Jimmy Arthur, wins the Hambletonian Stakes and sets a record for combined time in the two heats at 3:57 2-5.
1979 — Kathy Horvath, five days past her 14th birthday, loses a first round match to Diane Fromholtz, 7-6, 6-2, to become the youngest person to play a match at the U.S. Open. Later in the day, John McEnroe defeats Ilie Nastase, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, in a match that features Nastase being defaulted by chair umpire Frank Hammond. An 18-minute free-for-all ensues in which fans become uncontrollable and Nastase is reinstated by tournament referee Mike Blanchard. Blanchard replaces Hammond in the chair for the remainder of the match.
1981 — Bill Shoemaker becomes the first jockey to win a $1 million race when he rode John Henry to a nose victory over The Bart in the inaugural Arlington Million at Arlington Park.
1986 — Dawn Patrol and Falcon Bret record the fastest dead heat at Roosevelt Raceway at 1:58.1.
1987 — Ben Johnson of Canada sets the world record in the 100 meters bettering Calvin Smith’s 4-year-old mark of 9.93 by 0.10 seconds in the World Track and Field Championships in Rome. Johnson later lost the record because of steroid use.
1991 — Mike Powell smashes Bob Beamon’s world long jump record with a leap of 29 feet, 4½ inches, two inches beyond the record, in the World Track and Field Championships in Tokyo. The leap also ends Carl Lewis’ 10-year, 65-meet winning streak.
2001 — Ashley Martin becomes the first woman to play in a Division I football game, kicking three extra points without a miss to help I-AA Jacksonville State hand Cumberland its 18th straight loss, 71-10.
2005 — Andy Roddick has a shocking first-round exit from the U.S. Open against Gilles Muller, a player making his debut in the tournament. Roddick, the champion two years earlier and the No. 4 seed this year, falls 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 7-6 (1) on his 23rd birthday to the first man from Luxembourg to compete in the Open.
2006 — Curt Schilling becomes the 14th pitcher in major league history to reach 3,000 strikeouts when he fans Oakland’s Nick Swisher in the first inning of the Red Sox’s 7-2 loss to Oakland.
2006 — Greg Mattox wins his 330th career game.
2007 — Tyson Gay completes a sprint double at the world championships when he wins the 200 meters in 19.76 seconds. Gay’s time breaks the meet record of 19.79 set 12 years ago by American Michael Johnson in Goteborg, Sweden. Gay, who beat world record holder Asafa Powell in the 100, joins Maurice Greene (1999) and Justin Gatlin (2005) as the only male athletes to have won sprint doubles at the championships.
2015 — Scott Dixon captures a fourth IndyCar championship by winning the season finale to snatch away the title from Juan Pablo Montoya. Montoya led the points from the season-opening race right until the final lap. But he finishes the race in sixth, which allows Dixon to tie him in the standings. Dixon is awarded the title based on wins (3-2).
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Aug. 31
1881 — The first U.S. men’s single tennis championships begin at the Newport Casino, in Newport, Rhode Island.
1895 — The first professional football game is played at Latrobe, Pa., between Latrobe and Jeannette, Pa. Latrobe pays $10 to quarterback John Brallier for expenses.
1934 — The Chicago Bears and the College All-Stars played to a 0-0 tie before 79,432 in the first game of this series.
1950 — Brooklyn’s Gil Hodges ties a major league record by hitting Boston Brave pitching for four homers in the Dodgers’ 19-3 rout. Hodges also added a single for 17 total bases.
1955 — Nashua, ridden by Eddie Arcaro, goes wire-to-wire to defeat Swaps, ridden by Bill Shoemaker in a match race at Washington Park. Nashua’s victory avenges his second-place finish, behind Swaps, in the 1955 Kentucky Derby.
1977 — John McEnroe plays his first U.S. Open match and receives his first Open code of conduct penalty in a 6-1, 6-3 first-round win over fellow 18-year-old Eliot Teltscher.
1979 — Sixteen-year-old Tracy Austin defeats 14-year-old Andrea Jaeger, 6-2, 6-2, in the second round of the U.S. Open Earlier in the day, John Lloyd defeats Paul McNamee, 5-7, 6-7, 7-5, 7-6, 7-6, in the longest match by games at the Open since the introduction of the tie-break. The two play 63 of a maximum 65 games in three hours and 56 minutes.
1984 — Pinklon Thomas wins a 12-round decision over Tim Witherspoon in Las Vegas to win the WBC heavyweight title.
1985 — Angel Cordero Jr., 42, becomes the third rider in history behind Bill Shoemaker and Laffit Pincay Jr. to have his mounts earn $100 million, while riding at Belmont Park.
1991 — Houston quarterback David Klingler sets an NCAA record with six touchdown passes in the second quarter as the Cougars pound Louisiana Tech 73-3.
1996 — Oklahoma State becomes the first Division I-A team to win a regular-season overtime game, avoiding an embarrassing loss to Division I-AA Southwest Missouri State, when David Thompson’s 13-yard touchdown run gives the Cowboys a 23-20 win.
1997 — Eddie George rushes for 216 yards, the second best opening-day NFL performance, in helping Tennessee past Oakland 24-21 in overtime.
1999 — The U.S. Open loses two-time defending champion Patrick Rafter because of injury. Rafter, bothered by a right shoulder injury, retires after Cedric Pioline breaks his serve in the opening game of the fifth set. It’s the first time a defending champion — man or woman — loses in the first round in the history of this Grand Slam tournament going back to 1881.
2001 — Pitcher Danny Almonte who dominated the Little League World Series with his 70 mph fastballs is ruled ineligible after government records experts determine he actually is 14, and that birth certificates showing he was two years younger are false. The finding nullifies all the victories by his Bronx, N.Y., team, the Rolando Paulino Little League All-Stars.
2007 — Jeremy Wariner leads an American sweep of the medals in the 400 meters at the track and field world championships. Wariner wins in a personal best 43.45 seconds, with LaShawn Merritt taking silver and Angelo Taylor getting bronze. It’s the first medal sweep for any country in the men’s 400 at the world championships.
2007 — Exactly 28 years to the day, No. 3 Novak Djokovic and Radek Stepanek tie the U.S. Open record for most games played (63 of a maximum 65) in a match. Djokovic outlasts Stepanek 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5), 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (2), in the four-hour, 44-minute match.
2018 — Aaron Donald of the Los Angeles Rams becomes the NFL’s highest-paid defensive player. The All-Pro defensive tackle agrees to a six-year, $135 million deal, which surpasses Von Miller’s contract in Denver as the new benchmark for defenders.
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Sept. 1
1923 — The United States wins its fourth consecutive Davis Cup by beating Australia four matches to one.
1946 — Patty Berg wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf title by beating Betty Jameson in the final round.
1971 — John Newcombe becomes the first top-seeded man to lose in the first round of the U.S. Open when he loses to Jan Kodes, 2-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-3.
1973 — George Foreman knocks out Jose Roman at 2:00 of the first round in Tokyo to retain the heavyweight title.
1977 — Renee Richards, the 43-year-old transsexual who fought for more than a year for the right to play in the women’s singles of a major tennis championship, is beaten in the first round by Virginia Wade, 6-1, 6-4. Tracy Austin, at the age of 14 years, eight months, 20 days, becomes the youngest player to play in the U.S. Open, defeating Heidi Eisterlehner, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1, in the first round. Austin’s mark is broken in 1979 by 14-year-old Kathy Horvath.
1984 — Willie Totten of Mississippi Valley State passes for a Division I-AA record 536 yards and nine touchdowns in a 86-0 rout of Kentucky State. Jerry Rice catches 17 passes for 294 yards and five touchdowns and breaks his own Division I-AA record for receiving yards.
1987 — Fifteen-year-old Michael Chang beats Paul McNamee, 6-3, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, to become the youngest man to win a match at the U.S. Open.
1989 — Chris Evert becomes the first 100-match winner in 108 years of U.S. tennis championships. Evert, playing her final U.S. Open, beat Patricia Tarabini 6-2, 6-4.
1993 — Goran Ivanisevic and Daniel Nestor play the longest tie-break in the history of the U.S. Open (38 points). Ivanisevic wins the first-round match 6-4, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (18).
1998 — Mark McGwire breaks Hack Wilson’s 68-year-old National League record for home runs in a season, hitting his 56th and 57th in the St. Louis Cardinals’ victory over the Florida Marlins.
2007 — Appalachian State 34, No. 5 Michigan 32. Julian Rauch’s 24-yard field goal with 26 seconds left puts the Mountaineers ahead of the Wolverines and Corey Lynch blocks a field goal in the final seconds to seal one of college football’s biggest upsets.
2012 — Eureka (Ill.) College quarterback Sam Durley passes for 736 yards in a 62-55 victory over Knox to break the NCAA single-game passing record. Durley completes 34 of 52 passes and throws for five touchdowns, including two in the final two minutes as the Red Devils close the Division III game with 17 unanswered points.
2014 — Kei Nishikori outlasts Milos Raonic in a five-set marathon that ends a 2:26 a.m., tying the latest finish in U.S. Open history.
2015 — Indiana’s Tamika Catchings scores 13 points, and the Fever beat the Connecticut Sun 81-51 to reach the playoffs for a WNBA-record 11th straight season.
2019 — Justin Verlander, Houston Astros, strikes out 14 batters as he throws his third career no-hitter in a 2-0 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
2021 — Christiano Renaldo breaks the world record for goals scores in men’s international football with his 110th and 111th goals for Portugal in a 2-1 World Cup qualifying win over the Republic of Ireland.
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