1939 – The hometown White Sox play the first “day-night” doubleheader against Cleveland, but lose both games, 5 – 2 and 7 – 5. Fans are charged separate admissions for each game.
With the Pirates 11 1/2 games up on the Cubs, Dizzy Dean shuts out the Bucs for 8 innings. In the 9th Bill Lee relieves Dean, and the Cubs win, 2 – 1.
In Detroit’s 10-2 rout of St. Louis in the nightcap of a twin bill, Hank Greenberg hits two home runs, both off Bill Cox, to extend his major league-leading total to 58. The pair of round-trippers gives the Tiger first baseman a total of 39 at Briggs Stadium, establishing a major league record for the most round-trippers hit at home in one season.
An ailing Lou Gehrig hits his 493rd and final major league home run off Senators’ right-hander Dutch Leonard. On the same date 15 years earlier, the Yankee first baseman had gone deep off Bill Piercy at Fenway Park for his first career home run.
1938 – Although they drop a doubleheader to the Browns, the Yankees clinch the pennant.
In the top of the seventh inning of the Cubs’ 4-0 victory over New York at the Polo Grounds, Ripper Collins hits his last career home run, finishing with 135 round-trippers during his nine-year tenure in the major leagues. The Chicago first baseman will remain the all-time switch-hitter home run leader for 18 years until Yankee slugger Mickey Mantle surpasses his total in 1956.
Johnny Rizzo becomes the first Pirates player in franchise history to hit 20 home runs in a season. The 25 year-old rookie outfielder from Texas, who becomes hurt next season, never playing regularly for the Bucs again, finishes the campaign batting .301 with 23 round-trippers and 111 RBIs.
For the fifth time in a major league game, brothers homer in the same contest when Pirates teammates Lloyd and Paul Waner both go deep off Cliff Melton in the fifth inning in the fifth inning of the Bucs’ 7-2 victory over New York at the Polo Grounds. Although ‘Big and Little Poison’ have completed the deed twice before, they are the first siblings in history to hit the home runs in consecutive at-bats, a feat which will not be duplicated again until the Upton Brothers go back-to-back for the Braves in 2013.
1938 – A special committee names Alexander Cartwright to Baseball’s Hall of Fame for originating the sport’s basic concepts. Henry Chadwick, inventor of the box score and the first baseball writer, is also honored.
On September 11, 1938, the St. Louis Cardinals fire manager Frankie Frisch. St. Louis replaces him with Mike Gonzalez, who becomes the first Cuban-born manager in major league history.