Chicago Cubs history unpacked, April 15

Free of charge for the discerning reader. Happy birthday to King Cole and a mighty host of others, plus more baseball stories, like the Babe turning into THE Babe, Jackie Robinson debut, Hank’s first hit, and California baseball.

Today in baseball history:

• 1911 – At the age of 24, Grover Cleveland Alexander makes his major league debut, losing a 5-4 decision to the Rustlers on an unearned run in the tenth inning at Boston’s South End Grounds.
• 1915– Rube Marquard of the New York Giants no-hits the Brooklyn Robins, winning, 2 – 0.
• 1918 – The American League season opens with Babe Ruth pitching a four-hit, 7 – 1, victory over the Philadelphia Athletics. Boston Red Sox manager Ed Barrow will start Ruth’s conversion to slugger later that season by working him into 72 games in the outfield and at first base.
• 1947– 28-year-old Jackie Robinson makes a historic debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African-American to play in either the  or the  in the . Robinson goes 0 for 3 in his debut, but scores the deciding run in a 5 – 3 victory over the  at . He handles 11  at , a new position for him. Robinson is the first black player to appear in a predominantly white major league since .

Cubs Birthdays: Trey Wingenter, Milton Bradley, Jeromy Burnitz, Mike Diaz, Ted Sizemore, Ed Bailey, King Cole*, Elmer Sutcliffe.

Today in history:

• 1493 –Christopher Columbus is received by the Spanish monarchs Isabella I and Ferdinand II in Barcelona upon his return from the New World. Columbus presents kidnapped Taínos indigenous people, plants and items collected from the Caribbean.
• 1862 – American poet Emily Dickinson first corresponds with author and future literary mentor Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a relationship that lasts the rest of her life.
• 1874 – First Impressionist art exhibition opens in Paris, features Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot.
• 1877– World’s first home telephone is installed in Somerville, Massachusetts at the house of Charles Williams Jr.
• 1892 – General Electric Company formed by merger of Thomas Edison‘s General Electric Company with Thomson-Houston Electric Company, arranged by J. P. Morgan and incorporated in NY.
• 1948 – F. H. Thornton observes a flash of light in crater Plato on the Moon.
• 1955 – Ray Kroc opens the first McDonald’s Inc. fast food restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.
• 2010 -Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland leads to the closure of airspace over most of Europe.

*pictured.