Aug. 2
Today in sports history
Today is Aug. 2. On this date in:
1907: Walter Johnson made his major league debut for Washington, beginning a Hall of Fame career that produced 417 victories.
1912: Golfer John McDermott successfully defended his U.S. Open title, becoming the first American-born golfer to win the championship twice.
1921: A Chicago jury acquitted the eight Chicago White Sox players accused in the Black Sox scandal, one of the most significant legal outcomes in baseball history. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned them from Organized Baseball for life the following day.
1952: Seventeen-year-old Floyd Patterson captured the Olympic middleweight boxing gold medal in Helsinki, launching a career that later led to the world heavyweight championship.
1959: Willie McCovey hit the first home run of his career for the San Francisco Giants. He finished with 521 homers and a plaque in Cooperstown.
1972: Houston Astros star César Cedeño hit for the cycle against the Cincinnati Reds.
1973: George Brett made his major league debut with the Kansas City Royals, collecting a hit in the first game of a Hall of Fame career that yielded 3,154 hits.
1979: New York Yankees captain Thurman Munson died at age 32 when the plane he was piloting crashed near Canton, Ohio. The Yankees immediately retired his No. 15.
1980: Thomas Hearns stopped Pipino Cuevas in the second round in Detroit to capture the WBA welterweight championship.
1980: Herb Adderley, Deacon Jones, Bob Lilly and Jim Otto were enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
1982: Oakland’s Rickey Henderson stole his 100th base of the season, becoming the first player of baseball’s modern era to record multiple 100-steal seasons.
1987: Cincinnati Reds outfielder Eric Davis hit a walk-off homer against the San Francisco Giants for his 30th of the season, making him the seventh major league player to record 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in a season.
1987: Kansas City Royals rookie Kevin Seitzer went 6-for-6 with two home runs and seven RBIs in a 13-5 victory over the Boston Red Sox.
1993: A group led by Peter Angelos won a bankruptcy auction for the Baltimore Orioles with a then-record bid of $173 million, setting a new benchmark for the value of a Major League Baseball franchise.
2005: In a five-team, 13-player trade announced by the Heat, Miami acquired Antoine Walker, Jason Williams and James Posey in what was then the NBA’s largest trade.
2012: Gabby Douglas won the Olympic women’s gymnastics all-around championship in London, becoming the first Black woman to capture the title.
2012: Michael Phelps won the Olympic 200-meter individual medley for the third consecutive games, becoming the first male swimmer to win the same individual event at three Olympics.
2015: Inbee Park won the Women’s British Open at Turnberry to complete the LPGA career Grand Slam.
2020: Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix for a record seventh time despite completing the final lap at Silverstone with a punctured tire.
2024: French swimmer Léon Marchand won the Olympic 200-meter individual medley in an Olympic-record 1:54.06, completing a four-gold performance in which he set an Olympic record in every event.
2024: Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei won the Olympic men’s 10,000 meters in an Olympic-record 26 minutes, 43.14 seconds.
2024: San Francisco’s Blake Snell threw the first no-hitter of his career, blanking the Cincinnati Reds for the Giants.
— USA TODAY Network
This story was created with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of information gathering, review, editing and publishing. Learn more at cm.usatoday.com/ethical-conduct.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY Sports: Today in sports history, Aug. 2