May 3 in sports history: A great 'unknown' goes to Giants

1977: USC running back Ricky Bell went No. 1 to Tampa Bay in the NFL Draft, a somewhat controversial choice since Heisman winner Tony Dorsett was still on the board. But Bell was picked by his old college coach John McVay, who had converted Bell from linebacker his freshman year and gave him some great advice, “What I had to learn to do was simple,” Bell told the Tampa Tribune. “To run straight over that fellow opposite me, and if I did that, I would score a touchdown. I have found out it works.”

1975: In what may have been the key move to put the Big Red Machine over the top, Sparky Anderson moved Pete Rose from left field to third base, opening up a spot in the everyday lineup for George Foster. It worked out despite Rose having played a grand total of 16 games at third base in his career and none since 1966. Foster responded by going 2-for-3 with a home run and double that day and would hit .300 the rest of the way for the Reds, who won the first of two straight World Series titles that fall. 

Yankees were decent

1936: In a 14-5 win over the Browns at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio made his belated major-league debut, after a burned foot had kept him out of the start of the season. He wasted no time, collecting three hits. "That son of destiny,” the New York Daily News called him afterward. By August, he’d established himself as the regular center fielder, at the age of 21.

1951: In a 17-3 win over the Browns in St. Louis, Gil McDougald tied a major-league record with six RBI in one inning. The NY Daily News said that “three alleged pitchers took the ninth-inning humiliation,” during which the Yankees scored 11 runs, with McDougald contributing a two-run triple and a grand slam. The record would hold up until 1999, when Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams in one inning off Chan Ho Park to set the record of eight.

Upsets 

1981: The Celtics completed an epic comeback in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the 76ers, winning a thriller 91-90. The Sixers didn’t make a single field goal in the final five minutes of the game, as Boston, particularly Larry Bird, clawed back from an 89-82 deficit by turning up its defense. Boston, which came back from being down three games to one against Philadelphia, went on to beat the Houston Rockets in the Finals.  

1997: Garry Kasparov began his rematch with IBM supercomputer Deep Blue on this date in 1997 by winning his first match. That would be his only win, as Deep Blue would win two of the remaining five matches and draw the other three. Since then, computers have gotten much better at chess and can even dominate at Jeopardy!

2007: The Golden State Warriors became the first eight seed to knock off a No. 1 in a seven-game series when they took out MVP Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks. Only two teams have done it since, and none did it over a 67-win team such as the Mavs. 

One year after Dallas' Finals collapse, this defeat seemed to haunt the Mavericks, who lost three of their next four playoff series before putting it together with their championship run in 2011. 

Goofiness 

1999: A man with one of the all-time great baseball names, Creighton Gubanich, hit a grand slam for his first major-league hit in a 12-11, 10-inning loss to Oakland. Gubanich became the fourth player to accomplish the feat and the first since Seattle’s Orlando Mercado did it Sept. 19, 1982. Unfortunately for Gubanich, catcher Scott Hatteberg was soon to return from a rehab assignment, and despite his heroics, Gubanich would appear in only 15 more major-league games after this.

2009: Carl Crawford tied a modern major-league record with six stolen bases to help Tampa Bay beat his future team, the Boston Red Sox, 5-3. Of course, he had no idea he did anything historic.  

The Orlando Sentinel wrote, “Everybody in the building seemed to know what was going on. That is, except Crawford, who was aware of how many steals he had but had no clue that just three other players had accomplished the feat since 1900.” 

1899: Jack McCarthy hit a truly bizarre game-winning home run to beat St. Louis when the ball went through a door in the wall, and a fan (some reports call him a “crank”) shut the door behind it. The National League later ordered that the game be replayed, and it’s honestly inexplicable that an umpire ever allowed the play to stand. Five years later, McCarthy would have another strange run-in with umpires when he injured his ankle tripping over the broom used for sweeping home plate, leading to umpires switching to a whisk broom. McCarthy never hit another home run for the rest of his career.  

Happy Birthday ...

• Former All-Star second baseman Davey Lopes, who was part of a legendary Dodger infield along with Steve Garvey, Bill Russell, and Ron Cey (75).
• Golfer Brooks Koepka, who has won two U.S. Opens and the last two PGA Championships – and posed nude for the Cover of ESPN the Magazine’s Body Issue (30).

R.I.P. 

1999: Former first baseman and manager Joe Adcock, who tied the major-league record by hitting four home runs in a game with the Braves in 1954. He died at age 71 of Alzheimer’s disease.

2006: Legendary golf dad Earl Woods, who died of a heart attack at 74 after a battle with prostate cancer. Woods was the first player to break the Big Eight Conference's color line as a catcher at Kansas State, but he’s best known for his relentless coaching of his son, Tiger.

May 2: Streak finally ends for "luckiest man."