Early agate
ON THIS DATE
May 7
1925 – Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Glenn Wright turns the first unassisted triple play in franchise history against the St. Louis Cardinals. In the ninth inning, Wright catches Jim Bottomley’s line drive, steps on second to double Jimmy Cooney and tags Rogers Hornsby coming from first.
1956 – Bethlehem Joint High School football and baseball head coach Jim Freeman resigns to become head football coach at Ball State University. He guided Bethlehem Joint’s football team to a 25-9-2 record.
1958 – West Greene, under coach Dale Kennedy, wins the team title at the Washington-Greene County Conference track meet in Canonsburg. West Greene has five individual champions. Midway’s Wayne Fullterton wins the 220 and broad jump, and McDonald’s Bill Hyser wins the 440 and ties for first in the high jump.
1973 – The Pittsburgh Pirates become the first team in major league history to score their five runs on five solo homers in a 5-4 win over Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium. Willie Stargell, Dave Cash, Richie Hebner, Manny Sanguillen and Al Oliver homered.
1979 – Derek Hull, with first-place finishes in the 440-yard dash, 120 hurdles, a third in the 220 and a spot on the winning mile relay team, helps Washington High School to the team title at the Washington County track meet.
1984 – Washington wins its third WPIAL team track championship in five years by defeating North Allegheny, 93-57, and Hempfield, 88-62.
1987 – Scott Smith pitches a no-hitter and Charleroi clinches a WPIAL Class AA baseball playoff berth with a 7-0 victory over visiting Monessen.
1988 – The Pittsburgh Gladiators set the Arena Football League scoring record with an 82-26 victory over the New England Steamrollers at the Civic Arena.
1998 – Sparked by wins from Trayor Lesnock in the 1,600 meters (4:34.7) and Will Burgess in the triple jump (40-9 1/2), and a career-best throw of 48-11 1/2 by Justin Gatten in the shot put, the Washington High School boys track team wins the WPIAL Class AA team championship.
2002 – John Luckhardt, who had a 137-37-2 record at Washington & Jefferson and took the Presidents to two NCAA Division III national championship games, comes out of retirement to be head football coach at California University.
2005 – In a lightweight unification bout, Diego Corrales (40-2) gets off the canvas after two 10th-round knockdowns and moments later scores a TKO over Jose Luis Castillo (52-7-1) in a bout heralded as a classic. Corrales cagily buys time after each knockdown by spitting out his mouthpiece, necessitating a delay.
2012 – T.D. Conway tosses a no-hitter as the California baseball team wins its 17th game in a row with a 9-0 Section 1-A victory at Beth-Center. Conway strikes out 11 and is only a first-inning walk away from a perfect game. Patrick Tunney, Matt Bakewell, Jacob Columbus and Josh Luko each have three hits for the Trojans.
2012 – Jefferson-Morgan hires Liam Ryan, who spent the last five years as a coach at Waynesburg, as its head football coach.
May 8
1929 – Carl Hubbell of the New York Giants pitches a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the first by a left-hander in the majors in 13 seasons.
1963 – For the second time, Willie Stargell of the Pittsburgh Pirates hits a home run that travels out of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Stargell connects on a pitch from the Dodgers’ Andy Messersmith and the ball hits the roof of the right-field pavilion and caroms off a bus in the parking lot.
1972 – Peters Township wins the two-mile relay to force a tie with Canon-McMillan for the team title at the County Coaches Track Meet. Charleroi’s Jack Patrick is named the Outstanding Performer after winning the 880-yard and mile runs, and placing second in the 440.
1979 – California State College sweeps a baseball doubleheader at Indiana for the first time in 16 years, winning 4-1 and 11-4, to clinch the PSAC West Division championship.
2008 – Canon-McMillan wins the final event of the meet, the 1,600-meter relay, to clinch the WPIAL Class AAA Boys Team Track & Field championship.
2014 – Logan Bowman was one error away from throwing a perfect game, settling for a five-inning no-hitter in Jefferson-Morgan’s 13-0 win at Geibel Catholic. Bowman didn’t walk a batter and struck out the side in the first, second, fourth and fifth innings.