The tragedy following Saturday's Kentucky Derby brings back memories of a bizarre horse racing incident 72 years ago this week that ended happily for jockey Ralph Neves.

Neves, a hall of fame jockey who won 173 stakes races and 3,771 starts overall, actually walked out of a mortuary May 8, 1936, after being declared dead following an accident at Bay Meadows Racecourse outside San Francisco.

On the fateful day, Neves was in the running for $500 and a gold watch that would be awarded to the meet's leading jockey. Riding Fannikins in the third race, Neves, found himself behind the leaders who were running four wide when suddenly one of the horses went down. One by one, the accident tripped up all of the leaders; Fannikins, too, got caught up in the carnage and threw Neves while trying to stop.

The horse crashed to the ground — onto the fallen jockey — bringing medical help onto the track immediately. Neves was loaded onto a truck and taken to the first-aid area, where he was pronounced dead by a doctor. A few minutes later, another doctor arrived and delivered an adrenaline-filled syringe to the jockey's heart.

With the shot appearing to have failed to revive Neves, the doctor left, the jockey was toe-tagged and the room was cleared as track officials began making arrangements to have the body removed.

Some 20 minutes later, however, Neves sat up and walked out of the treatment area and returned to the jockeys room &$151; where his fellow horsemen were taking up a collection for Neves' widow. Neves wanted to continue riding his scheduled mounts but was ordered to the hospital to be checked out.

He returned the next day, rode several second-place horses and won the riding title.

Neves, 19 at the time, would live another 59 years before dying in 1995.

A few other highlights from this week in sports history:

May 7, 1925: The Philadelphia Phillies suffer their eighth straight postponement.

May 7, 1957: Indians pitcher Herb Score is injured by a line drive off the bat of Gil McDougald.

May 7, 1959: Roy Campenella Night at the Los Angeles Coliseum attracts 93,103 fans.

May 7, 1960: Catcher Norm Sherry homers and his brother Larry Sherry collects the victory for the Dodgers.

May 7, 1977: Seattle Slew wins the 103rd Kentucky Derby.

May 7, 1982: The NFL's Oakland Raiders move to Los Angeles.

May 7, 1992: Jockey Angel Cordero, winner of more than 7,000 thoroughbred races, retires.

May 7, 1994: Denver finishes off Seattle in overtime, 98-94, in the fifth and deciding game to become the first No. 8 seed to win an NBA playoff series against a No. 1 seed.

May 7, 1995: Indiana's Reggie Miller makes two three-pointers and two free throws in the final 16.4 seconds to stun the Knicks, 107-105, and start the Pacers to a seven-game series triumph.

May 8, 1906: Future Hall of Fame pitcher Chief Bender plays outfield and slugs a pair of home runs in a game for the Philadelphia A's.

May 8, 1935: Cincinnati Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi doubles in four consecutive innings in a 15-4 win over Philadelphia.

May 8, 1968: Jim "Catfish" Hunter of the A's throws a perfect game against the Twins.

May 8, 1970: The Knicks beat the Lakers in Game 7 of the NBA finals, 113-99, as a limping Willis Reed scores the first two baskets of the game and Walt Frazier scores 36 points.

May 9, 1961: Jim Gentile hits two grand slams for the Orioles in a win over the Twins.

May 9, 1987: Eddie Murray becomes the first batter to hit switch-hit home runs in two consecutive games.

May 9, 1995: The Indians score eight runs before making an out and beat the Twins, 10-0.

May 10, 1929: Walter Hagen wins the British Open for the last of his 11 career majors.

May 10, 1967: Hank Aaron hits the only inside-the-park home run of his major-league career.

May 10, 1987: Sleepy Floyd sets an NBA record by scoring 29 of his 51 points in the fourth quarter of Golden State's playoff victory against the Lakers.

May 11, 1923: The Phillies and Cardinals combine for 10 homers in Philadelphia's 20-14 victory.

May 11, 1977: Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner manages the team for a game.

May 11, 1980: Julius Erving makes one of the most memorable baskets in NBA history against the L.A. Lakers. Erving starts out on the right, drives the baseline and avoids a block attempt by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar by seemingly changing course in mid-air and scoops in a reverse layup. "I thought, 'What should we do?" said Magic Johnson. "Should we take the ball out or should we ask him to do it again?"

May 11, 1985: Fifty-six soccer fans die and more than 200 are injured when a fire engulfs the grandstand of Valley Parade Stadium in Bradford, England.

May 11, 1992: Portland defeats Phoenix in a double-OT NBA playoff game, 153-151.

May 11, 1997: IBM computer Deep Blue wins a six-game series against chess champion Garry Kasparov.

May 12, 1970: Ernie Banks hits his 500th home run.

May 12, 1979: Tracy Austin snaps Chris Evert's 125-match winning streak in women's tennis.

May 12, 1985: The Knicks win the NBA's first draft lottery, setting the table for their selection of Patrick Ewing.

May 13, 1911: Fred Merkle of the New York Giants becomes the first batter to drive in six runs in an inning.

May 13, 1958: Stan Musial reaches the 3,000-hit mark.

May 13, 1967: Mickey Mantle goes deep against Stu Miller for career homer No. 500.

May 13, 1973: Bobby Riggs beats Margaret Court in a tennis exhibition.

May 13, 1976: The New York Nets win the final ABA championship before joining Denver, San Antonio and Indiana as members of the NBA.

May 13, 1983: Reggie Jackson becomes the first player in the majors to strike out 2,000 times.

Catching up with the best of the worst from a week in sports that was so busy that Jose Canseco and Pat Riley are off the hook on the premise that they'll mess up again sooner rather than later. And I'm not even going to get into the dust-up over the dad who accidentally served Mike's Hard Lemonade to his 7-year-old son at a recent Detroit Tigers game:

(10) Ryan Perrilloux: The LSU sophomore quarterback reminds me of the old gag in which a man complains that he gave his wife a credit card with no limit on it - and she exceeded it anyway. Perrilloux was finally tossed off the team Friday after having been the recipient of more breaks than Evel Knievel's skeletal system. Perrilloux was suspended last summer when his name surfaced during a counterfeiting investigation and he was also caught trying to enter a casino with a phony ID. He was involved in a nightclub fight in November, causing him to miss the Alabama game, and was suspended again in February for his casual approach toward attending classes and workouts. He was benched for LSU's spring game and finally earned his one-way ticket out of football amidst reports he may have failed a drug test. I imagine the Bengals will now petition the NFL for a do-over of the seventh round of the recent draft because they overlooked a newly available QB prospect.

(9) Hobart College: Last weekend, the board of trustees announced that the Upstate New York men's lacrosse team would drop down from Division I to Division III, where the Statesmen once won 12 consecutive NCAA championships. By Friday, they'd changed their minds in the face of an angry response by the alums and announced the team would stay in Division I. Way to be decisive, gents. Their next announcement will be that they've split the difference and decided to give Division II a shot.

(8) H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger: The "Friday Night Lights" author came across like the north end of a south-bound horse on Bob Costas' much-discussed HBO special, obfuscating whatever valid points he might have had regarding the cesspoolish nature of some blogging by letting fly with a profane attack against Deadspin.com editor Will Leitch. There is a lot of God-awful blogging out there and Deadspin can sometimes be to journalism what Wilt Chamberlain was to abstinence, but Bissinger looked like the new-media hate-mongers that he was railing against. And let's not even visit the discussion about the lives that Bissinger affected in a negative way with the book that gave birth to the movie and TV series of the same name. I happen to think that a lot of what Bissinger wrote about Texas high school football was probably dead-on accurate, but others feel he might have taken journalistic license with some aspects of the story along the way. Is his work automatically more credible because it appeared in three forms of "traditional" media rather than on the Internet? I'll leave it to media ethicists to decide who's done more damage - me for not seeking Bissinger's response before writing this or Bissinger for his affront to civil discussion in a national forum.

(7) Pat Putnam: Breaking new Bottom 10 ground, the Sports Illustrated boxing writer earns his place posthumously as it now appears that the stories he told before dying in 2005 about his time as a Marine and Korean War prisoner were less accurate than Wesley Snipes' tax returns. Details that emerged just hours before the Boxing Writers Association of America was scheduled to present the Pat Putnam Award for courage and perseverance caused the organization to delete references to the writer during the annual awards dinner in Los Angeles. In the aftermath of the damning investigation by a group that sniffs out phony war tales, Marines officials said they cannot find evidence that Putnam ever earned four Purple Hearts or the Navy Cross.

(6) Loose lips in the NBA: If you thought the Cleveland Cavaliers' dissing of LeBron James was out of line, how about the people who are spilling the NBA's secrets. Once again, the results of balloting for one of the league's major awards - this time MVP - seeped out prematurely as the Los Angeles Times reported that Kobe Bryant is the winner. Compared to the way the NBA leaks, the Titantic really was just making a scheduled stop to pick up ice.

(5) Tim Montgomery: Already awaiting sentencing for his role in an elaborate stolen-checks scheme, the former Olympic sprinter was indicted last week on heroin distribution charges. The former Fastest Man of Earth, 33, stands accused of dealing more than 100 grams of the drug in Virginia in the last year. A U.S. District Court magistrate ordered him jailed pending a bond hearing, which probably won't go well considering his May 16 sentencing on the checks charge could fetch him nearly four years in prison. Marion Jones is starting to look like the model citizen in that former relationship.

(4) New York Daily News: Most multiple-part series that you read in newspapers are in the form of book excerpts. Rather than giving a sneak peak of an upcoming book, the tab pulled a sneak attack on Roger Clemens. Likely hand-fed The Rocket's dirty laundry - and there certainly was a lot of it - by someone with a rooting interest in Brian McNamee in the upcoming defamation suit, the paper went into full tabloid mode and milked it for most of the week instead of hitting us with it all at once. Just another case of Mainstream Media out of control, I guess.

(3) Jay Bergman: The veteran baseball coach, six wins shy of 1,000 for his 26-year career at Central Florida, was fired amidst allegations of sexual harassment of a team equipment manager. According to The Orlando Sentinel, Bergman, 69, wielded a bat last month to simulate raping the employee. Bergman denies the allegation, but school officials have made him persona non grata and are saying they will not pay him for the remaining two years on his contract.

And that brings us to the final two "honorees" of the week, a pair of men whose time in the spotlight can be summed up as a case of "Lola, meet Lolita; Lolita, this is Lola."

(2) Ronaldo: The Brazilian soccer star drove his girlfriend to her house Monday night and then picked up three prostitutes in Rio de Janeiro (where "play for pay" is legal, by the way). Upon reaching the hotel, though, the three-time FIFA player of the year discovered that the "ladies" were in fact transvestites. Police had to be called in to sift through a classic "he said, he said" dispute when the player said the prostitutes tried to extort money. For their part, the faux-females claimed Ronaldo threatened to harm them and also alleged the injured AC Milan striker is a druggie. Ronaldo's statement to police said he was having psychological problems related to his bum knee. Umm, OK.

(1) Roger Clemens: The top three signs you've had a bad week? (a) You play for the Phoenix Suns; (b) The loyal opposition throws the anniversary of "Mission Accomplished" in your face 24/7; or (c) Your name is Roger Clemens. The week got worse by the day for Clemens, but it started pretty low - the newspaper story strongly implying that his friendship with country music performer Mindy McCready may have been of a physical nature while she was still a young teen. As any blackjack player would tell you, Raj, nothing good comes from hitting on 15.

 

Except for hitting, hitting for power, fielding and throwing, Herb Washington was a five-tool major-league player. Ah, but that fifth tool — running — made him arguably the most unique big-league player ever (who wasn't a Bill Veeck brainchild) right up until his release on May 5, 1975.

Washington made his debut with the Oakland Athletics in 1974 at the age of 22 after a career as a top-notch sprinter in high school and at Michigan State, where he won one NCAA and seven Big Ten track championships.

What made that career ususual, though, was that not once in his 105 appearances did Washington bat, pitch or play a position in the field. Rather, Charlie Finley put Washington on the roster to be a full-time pinch-runner at a time when the somewhat eccentric owner was pushing for a rule change for runners along the lines of the designated hitter. Finley envisioned each team having a player who could pinch-run once or twice a game without having to replace someone in the lineup.

Washington made his debut on April 4, 1974, and got into 105 games. He was 31-for-48 in steal attempts, scored 33 runs and earned a World Series ring in 1974. He was offered several chances to pinch-hit but, recognizing his place in baseball history, turned them down. His 1975 baseball card is the only one manufactured by Topps listing a player's position as "pinch runner."

A few other highlights from this week in sports history:

April 30, 1944: Phil Weintraub of the New York Giants doubles twice, triples, homers and drives in 11 runs in a 26-8 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mell Ott draws five walks and scores six runs.

April 30, 1946: Bob Feller of Cleveland no-hits the Yankees, 1-0.

April 30, 1961: Willie Mays homers twice off Lew Burdette and four times overall in a 14-4 victory over Milwaukee.

April 30, 1969: Jim Maloney of the Reds beats Houston, 10-0, for his third no-hitter.

April 30, 1970: Billy Williams of the Cubs appears in his 1,000th straight game.

April 30, 1975: Larry O'Brien is named to succeed Walter Kennedy as NBA commissioner.

April 30, 1977: Superstar Billy Graham beats Bruno Sammartino in Baltimore to win the WWF championship.

April 30, 1997: Tino Martinez ends the month with 34 RBIs.

May 1: Babe Ruth (1920) and Mickey Mantle (1951) hit their first home runs with the Yankees.

May 1, 1925: Jimmie Foxx, 17, debuts with the Philadelphia A's.

May 1, 1940: The upcoming Olympics are canceled.

May 1, 1948: Eddie Arcaro and Citation win the 74th Kentucky Derby.

May 1, 1969: Leonard Tose buys the Philadelphia Eagles for $16.1 million.

May 1, 1981: Tennis great Billie Jean King confirms that she was involved in a lesbian relationship.

May 1, 1988: Michael Jordan becomes the first player to score 50 points in back-to-back NBA playoff games.

May 1, 1991: Rickey Henderson steals his 939th base to become the majors' all-time leader but gets upstaged by Nolan Ryan's seventh no-hitter.

May 1, 1992: Rickey Henderson steals his 1,000th base but is overshadowed by violence in Los Angeles related to the Rodney King case.

May 2, 1923: Walter Johnson hurls career shutout No. 100.

May 2, 1939: Lou Gehrig ends his consecutive-games streak at 2,130.

May 2, 1941: Ted Williams' batting average bottoms out for the season at .308 en route to a .406 finish.

May 2, 1988: Reds manager Pete Rose is suspended 30 days for bumping umpire Dave Pallone.

May 3: Joe DiMaggio (1936) bangs out three hits in his Yankees debut and George Brett (1973) gets his first.

May 3, 1974: The expansion New Orleans Jazz send six draft picks to the Atlanta Hawks in a trade for Pete Maravich.

May 3, 1980: Willie McCovey hits his 521st and final home run.

May 3, 1987: Milwaukee eliminates Philadelphia in a first-round playoff series, ending the career of the 76ers' Julius Erving.

May 4, 1919: The New York Giants play the first legal Sunday game in NYC, losing to the Phillies before 35,000 fans.

May 4, 1968: Dancer's Image is disqualified following victory in the 94th Kentucky Derby because traces of phenylbutazone were discovered in the post-race urinalysis.

May 4, 1974: Cannonade wins the 100th Kentucky Derby.

May 4, 1975: Bob Watson of the Houston Astros scores the one millionth run in major-league history, seconds ahead of Cincinnati shortstop Dave Concepcion.

May 4, 1984: Dave Kingman's fly ball gets stuck in the roof of the Metrodome in Minnesota.

May 5, 1969: Bill Russell and Sam Jones close out their Celtics careers with a 108-106 win over the L.A. Lakers in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

May 5, 1973: Secretariat wins the 99th Kentucky Deby, with Ron Turcotte aboard.

May 5, 1978: Pete Rose reaches 3,000 career hits.

May 6, 1954: Roger Bannister runs the first four-minute mile.

May 6, 1978: Affirmed wins the 104th Kentucky Derby, with Steve Cauthen aboard.

May 6, 1982: Gaylord Perry wins his 300th game.

May 6, 1992: Anthony Young of the Mets begins his 26-game losing streak.

May 6, 1997: The Boston Celtics hire Rick Pitono as coach.

Catching up with the best of the worst from the past week in sports:

(10) Los Angeles Dodgers: It's pretty obvious that they were Jonesin' for the wrong Atlanta Braves mainstay when they parted with $14.7 million. Andruw Jones, 31, carried a .162 average with 1 homer, 3 RBIs and 25 whiffs in 74 at-bats into the weekend, has looked chunky since arriving at spring training and has added less to the lineup thus far than a cymbals player in Nine Inch Nails. You would have thought L.A. might have taken the hint when the career .261 hitter fell off to.222 in his walk year. Meanwhile, Chipper Jones is tearing the cover off the ball for the Braves for $12.3 million.

(9) Tracy McGrady: The good news for T-Mac is that he earned a spot on The Bottom 10's All-Sarcasm Team with this gem: "It's my fault we missed free throws. It's my fault we lost both games. Blame me. It's my fault we fouled to tie the game up. That's my fault. It's my fault they get easy layups. It's my fault we're not executing well on the offensive end. It's my fault a couple people in the stands ordered Heinekens and they got Budweiser. It's my fault. I'm sorry." If the best defense is a good offense, McGrady and the Rockets are about to be steamrolled. On the surface, McGrady's playoff averages (23.3 points, 8.5 rebounds and 7.8 assists) look fine. In reality, he's shooting 38.3 percent and scored a combined one fourth-quarter point in Games 1 and 2 vs. Utah.

(8) Bob Castellini: Granted, the Cincinnati Reds owner had highly respected Walt Jocketty warming up in the front-office bullpen, but firing general manger Wayne Krivsky was puzzling at best and stupid at worst. Operating on a small-market budget, Krivsky made a handful of miscalculations in his signings that resulted in maybe $10 million of wasted money over the last two years. But he also made a bunch of moves that have stocked the Reds with young talent on the big-league club and sound prospects in the minors. He stole Brandon Phillips from Cleveland and flipped Josh Hamilton (who cost them almost nothing) into hotshot pitcher Edinson Volquez, giving the Reds a fighting chance to steal the division this summer.

(7) The too-brief NFL Draft: Cutting the duration of the first round from 6:08 in 2007 to 3:30 on Saturday was bad news on two fronts: (1) Look for the first round to get moved to prime time on Friday night by 2010 at the latest, which will make it yet another sports event I won't be able to stay awake through, and (2) It left me with too much time on my hands, forcing me to mow the lawn, clean out the basement, sweep the garage and take the kids to soccer practice. And I don't even have kids. Hey, honey, whose kids did I pack into the car and drive over to the park?

(6) The NL West: The Rockies have enough weapons to claw their way back into it, but it looks as though the Giants, Dodgers and Padres really are that bad and have no chance of getting back to .500, let alone catch Arizona. I don't want to say the Diamondbacks are feeling cocky right now, but Bob Melvin is already setting up his pitching rotation for the divisional round of the playoffs.

(5) Larry Brown: Well, more precisely, what's up with the people who tout Brown as a candidate for every job that comes open. Last week it was Stanford, and then his name got floated over the weekend in Charlotte before the Bobcats had even officially parted ways with Sam Vincent. It's almost a certainty he'll get mentioned if (when?) Atlanta fires Mike Woodson, and it's also not out of the question that jobs will open up in Phoenix and Denver, for which he'll also get mentioned. If none of those pan out, Hank Steinbrenner has to be getting the urge to boot Brian Cashman soon and John McCain is going to need a running mate this summer . . .

(4) Hank Steinbrenner: Speaking of Hankenstein, what was up with his Joba Chamberlain meddling? His rant - "I want him as a starter and so does everyone else, including him, and that is what we are working toward, and we need him there now. There is no question about it, you don't have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a set-up guy. You just don't do that. You have to be an idiot to do that.'' - is actually fairly valid from a baseball standpoint. But throwing his staff under the bus with the "idiot" comment does not instill loyalty or confidence in the man running a franchise valued at well over $1 billion.

(3) U.S. women's tennis: The loss to Russia over the weekend in the Federation Cup semifinals brought attention to just how little depth the country has once you get beyond the Williams sisters and Lindsay Davenport. Don't believe me? The only other Americans in the top 100 are all ranked 62nd or lower. And trust me when I say Meghann Shaughnessy, Ashley Harkleroad, Jill Craybas, Meilen Tu and Lilia Osterloh aren't even household names in their own households.

(2) Floppers: No, not the chicks who danced the Charleston in the Roaring '20s. Rather, I refer to the NBA players whose tushes hit the hardwood upon the lightest of contact by an opposing player. European players have historically been the biggest offenders - Vlade Divac is widely acknowledged as the Father of Flopping - but anyone wearing a pair of Chuck Taylors and guarding a guy with four fouls seems to be doing it now.

(1) Howard Schultz : The founder, chairman and CEO of Starbucks is suing to undo his sale of the Seattle SuperSonics to Clay Bennett's Oklahoma City group 21 months ago because he says he was fooled into believing the NBA club would remain in the Pacific Northwest. The suit asks that the club be held in trust until an "honest buyer" can be found. I know Bennett said at the time and in several instances since that the Sonics would stay put, but let's not lose site of the fact that it's now his company and he should be able to run it as he sees fit, although honoring the last two years of the Seattle lease would be nice. Schultz should be focusing on Starbucks, which has seen its stock price plunge by more than 50 percent in the last year, and be grateful no one has sued him for charging for Wi-Fi access in his stores on top of $4.50 for a cup of coffee. God bless, Dunkin' Donuts.

 

Not every defensive gem on the baseball field results in an out, but that doesn't mean it can't qualify as the play of the year anyway. Baseball had one of those moments April 25, 1976, courtesy of Rick Monday. His action that day made him an American hero and overshadowed a decent career — 19 seasons, 241 homers, and two All-Star Game appearances by the first player selected in baseball's first amateur draft (1965).

Monday was playing center field for the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium when two protesters ran onto the field in left-center with the intent of burning an American flag. Monday charged toward them and grabbed the flag away.

His actions got huge play on TV, even in the pre-ESPN era, and in the papers, and the Baseball Hall of Fame named Monday's grab one of the 100 Classic Moments in the history of the game.

A few other highlights from this week in sports history:

April 23, 1903: The New York Highlanders (later the Yankees) beat the Washington Senators for their first win, 7-2.

April 23, 1936: Carl Hubbell begins his streak of 17 straight pitching victories.

April 23, 1939: First career home runs for Ted Williams (1939) and Hank Aaron (1954).

April 23, 1962: The New York Mets put an end to an 0-9 debut by beating Pittsburgh, 9-1.

April 23, 1964: Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt 45s pitches a no-hitter but loses to the Reds, 1-0.

April 23, 1991: Bjorn Borg comes out of retirement after eight years, losing in straight sets to Jordi Arrese.

April 23, 1999: Fernando Tatis of St. Louis hits two grand slams off the Dodgers' Chan Ho Park in the third inning of a 12-5 victory.

April 24, 1945: Happy Chandler is named baseball commissioner.

April 24, 1965: Casey Stengel of the Mets manages his 3,000th victory.

April 24, 1974. The National Football League awards Tampa an expansion franchise.

April 24, 1994: David Robinson of San Antonio scores 71 points in a 112-97 win against the San Diego Clippers to wrap up the regular-season scoring crown.

April 24, 1996: The NBA Board of Governors announces the launch of the WNBA.

April 25, 1904: Jack Chesbro of the Yankees wins his first of 41 games for the season.

April 25, 1952: The American Bowling Congress approves the use of automatic pinsetters.

April 25, 1974: The NFL moves goalposts the the back of the end zone and adopts overtime periods for tied regular-season games.

April 25, 1991: Reporter Lisa Olson files suit against the New England Partiots for sexual harassment in the locker room.

April 26, 1912: Hugh Bradley of the Red Sox hits the first home run at Fenway Park.

April 26, 1961: Roger Maris hits the first of his 61 homers for the season.

April 26, 1988: The NBA approves moving to a three-referee system.

April 27, 1950: The Boston Celtics hire Red Auerbach as coach. He would win nine championships with the club before retiring April 28, 1966.

April 27, 1956: Heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano retires undefeated.

April 27, 1983: Nolan Ryan passes Walter Johnson to become baseball's career strikeout leader.

April 28, 1901: Bock Baker of Cleveland allows 23 singles in a 13-1 loss to the White Sox.

April 28, 1956: Frank Robinson hits the first of his 586 home runs.

April 28, 1961: Warren Spahn no-hits the Giants, 1-0.

April 28, 1967: Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title for refusing induction into the U.S. Army.

April 28, 1985: Billy Martin begins his fourth stint as manager of the New York Yankees.

April 28, 1987: The NBA awards expansion franchises to Charlotte and Miami beginning in 1988 and Minnesota and Orlando the following season.

April 28, 1990: The Celtics set an NBA playoffs scoring record with a 157-128 win over the Knicks.

April 28, 1992: The Brewers hammer out 31 hits and beat the Blue Jays, 22-2.

April 29, 1936: Nagoya and Daitokyo plan Japan's first professional baseball game.

April 29, 1961: Wide World of Sports debuts on ABC.

April 29, 1981: Steve Carlton of the Phillies becomes the first lefty to strike out 3,000 batters.

April 29, 1986: Roger Clemens of the Red Sox strikes out 20 Seattle Mariners.

April 29, 1988: The Orioles snap their 0-21 start by beating the White Sox.