2000 – The Rally Monkey is born, thanks to the Anaheim Angels’ video crew playing a clip from the 1994 film Ace Ventura, Pet Detective on the JumboTron. With the words Rally Monkey superimposed over a monkey jumping up and down in the Jim Carrey movie, the crowd goes wild as the Angels score two runs in the bottom of the 9th to beat the San Francisco Giants, 6 – 5.

2000 – Esteban Yan of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays becomes the 77th major league player to hit a home run in his first at bat, but just the fourth American League pitcher and the first since the Angels’ Don Rose in 1972, the year before the designated hitter rule took the bat out of AL pitchers’ hands.

The Expos will wear Maurice Richard’s uniform number (9) on their right sleeves for the remainder of the year to pay tribute to the late Montreal Canadiens star, who played 18 seasons in the National Hockey League. It is the first time a major league team has chosen to honor a hero from a different sport.

Fred McGriff becomes the thirty-first player to hit 400 career homers. The Devil Rays first baseman’s milestone round-tripper comes off Glendon Rusch, a two-run drive in a 5-3 loss to the Mets at Shea Stadium.

With the Tigers visiting Wrigley Field for the first time since the 1945 World Series, Cubs’ reliever Rick Aguilera pitches a perfect ninth inning for his 300th save to nail down Chicago’s 2-0 win.

As owners struggle over the question of realignment, the Players Association suggests a simpler plan which only moves the Houston Astros from the NL Central to the AL West, thus creating two 15-team leagues. The owners’ ideas would have the newest franchises, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks, switch leagues, the elimination of the National League wild card, and the AL Central consisting of six teams to go along with six divisions with only four teams – four of them in the NL. In the end, the status quo will prevail, but the Players Association’s plan will eventually be implemented in 2013.