Today in Sports - Week Ahead, August 18 - August 24

Aug. 22

1851 — The United States wins the first international yacht race. The schooner named “America” beats 14 British yachts.

1885 — Richard Sears beats Godfrey M. Brinley, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 to win the U.S. men’s national tennis championship held at the Newport (R.I.) Casino.

1898 — Malcolm Whitman beats Dwight F. Davis, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 to win the U.S. men’s national tennis championship held at the Newport (R.I.) Casino.

1948 — The Chicago Cardinals beat the College All-Stars 28-0 in front 101,220 fans at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

1949 — The Philadelphia Eagles beat the College All-Stars 38-0 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. It’s the largest shutout in the series, later matched by Green Bay in 1966.

1950 — Althea Gibson becomes the first black tennis player to be accepted in competition for the national championship.

1957 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Pete Rademacher in the sixth round to retain his world heavyweight title at Sicks Stadium in Seattle.

1965 — In the third inning of a game against Los Angeles, pitcher Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants hits catcher John Roseboro of the Dodgers in the head with his bat. A 14-minute brawl ensues and Roseboro suffers cuts on the head. Marichal thought Roseboro threw too close to his head when returning the ball to Sandy Koufax.

1984 — Evelyn Ashford sets the world record in the 100-meter dash with a clocking of 10.76 seconds in a meet at Zurich, Switzerland.

1987 — Brazil snaps the 34-game winning streak of the U.S. men’s basketball team with a 120-115 victory in the Pan Am Games. Oscar Schmidt scores 46 points to lead Brazil. Cuba wins a record 10 of 12 gold medals in boxing and beats the U.S. 13-9 in the baseball final.

1989 — Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers becomes the first pitcher to strike out 5,000 batters in a 2-0 loss to the Oakland Athletics. Ryan fans Rickey Henderson swinging on a 3-2, 96 mph fastball for No. 5,000.

1994 — DNA testing links O.J. Simpson to murder of Nicole Simpson & Ron Goldman.

1999 — Jenny Thompson breaks Mary T. Meagher’s 18-year-old 100-meter butterfly record at the Pan Pacific swim championships. Thompson with a time of 57.88 seconds lowers the mark of 57.93 set by Meagher.

2004 — American sprinter Justin Gatlin wins the coveted Olympic 100m gold medal in Athens in 9.85 ahead of Francis Obikwelu of Portugal & American Maurice Greene.

2007 — The Texas Rangers becomes the first team in 110 years to score 30 runs in a game, setting an American League record in a 30-3 rout of the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader.

2008 — Usain Bolt helps Jamaica win the 400-meter relay final in 37.10 seconds for his third gold medal and third world record of the Beijing Games. Bolt becomes only the fourth man, and the first since Carl Lewis in 1984, to win all three Olympic sprint events. Bryan Clay wins the decathlon, the first American to win the 10-discipline event at the Olympics since Dan O’Brien at Atlanta in 1996.

2018 — Ohio State suspends football coach Urban Meyer three games for mishandling repeated professional and behavioral problems of an assistant coach, with investigators finding Meyer protected his protege for years through domestic violence allegations, a drug problem and poor job performance.

2018 — The NCAA ditches the RPI for its own evaluation tool to select teams for the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Evaluation Tool will rely on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency and quality of wins and losses. NET will be used for the 2018-19 season by the committee that selects schools and seeds the tournament.

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Aug. 23

1898 — Malcolm Whitman wins the men’s singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championship.

1926 — Molla Bjurstedt Mallory beats Elizabeth Ryan to capture her seventh singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships.

1933 — The first televised boxing match is an exhibition fight between Archie Sexton and Laurie Raiteri, staged at the Broadcasting House in London.

1946 — The College All-Stars beat the Los Angeles Rams 16-0 at Chicago’s Soldier Field.

1947 — The College All-Stars beat the Chicago Bears 16-0, before a record crowd of 105,840 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. It’s the second and last time that the college team won in consecutive years.

1969 — Audrey McElmory becomes the first American to win the world road cycling championship which is held in Brno, Czechoslovakia. McElmury overcomes rain and a fall during the fourth lap of the 62-kilometer race to beat Britain’s Bernadette Swinnerton by one minute and 10 seconds.

1975 — Classical Way completes the trotting sweep by winning the Challenge Cup in 3:07.1 at Roosevelt Raceway.

1987 — Callit wins the International Trot in 2:33.4 at Roosevelt Raceway.

1995 — Denis Pankratov of Russia breaks a 9-year-old world record in the men’s 100-meter butterfly at the European swimming championships in Vienna, Austria with a time of 52.32 seconds.

2004 — The U.S. softball team wins its third straight gold medal with a nearly unblemished romp through the Olympics, capped by a 5-1 victory over Australia. Lisa Fernandez pitches a four-hitter and Crystl Bustos homers twice in the Americans’ best all-around game of the tournament.

2008 — The star-studded American women’s basketball team led by the likes of Lisa Leslie, Sue Bird & Diana Taurasi win the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics with a convincing 92-65 win over Australia.

2008 — At the Beijing Games, Angel Matos of Cuba and his coach are banned for life after the taekwondo athlete kicks the referee in the face following his bronze-medal match disqualification against Kazakhstan’s Arman Chilmanov. Matos is declared the loser for taking too much injury time after hurting his leg. Matos angrily questions the call, pushes a judge, then pushes and kicks referee Chakir Chelbat of Sweden.

2012 — Lance Armstrong chooses not to pursue arbitration in the drug case brought against him by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. That’s his last option in his bitter fight with USADA and his decision sets the stage for the titles to be stripped and his name to be all but wiped from the record books of the sport he once ruled.

2014 — Nick Davila passes for 237 yards and eight touchdowns and the Arizona Rattlers win their third consecutive ArenaBowl title with a 72-32 victory over the Cleveland Gladiators.

2015 — Ohio State becomes the first unanimous preseason No. 1 in The Associated Press college football poll. The defending national champion Buckeyes, receive all 61 first-place votes from the media panel in the rankings.

2015 — Usain Bolt wins the 100-meter race at the World Championships in Beijing, edging Justin Gaitlin by 0.01 seconds.

2020 — UEFA Champions League Final, Lisbon: Kingsley Coman heads German giants Bayern Munich to the club’s 6th crown in a 1-0 win over Paris St-Germain.

2020 — Takuma Sato of Japan wins his second Indianapolis 500 under yellow caution flag after a crash with three laps remaining.

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Aug. 24

1904 — Holcombe Ward wins the men’s singles title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association singles title.

1908 — Tommy Burns knocks out Bill Squires in the 13th round at Sydney, Australia to retain the world heavyweight title.

1925 — Helen Wills, 19, wins her third straight U.S. Lawn Tennis Association singles title with a 3-6, 6-0, 6-2 victory over Kathleen McKane. An hour later, Wills teams up with Mary K. Browne to win the doubles title.

1929 — Helen Wills wins her sixth U.S. Lawn Tennis Association singles title by defeating Phoebe Holcroft Watson, 6-4, 6-2.

1963 — The Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. is covered by ABC’s Wide World of Sports for the first time.

1963 — Don Schollander becomes the first swimmer to break the two-minute barrier in the 200-meter freestyle with a 1:58.4 time in a meet at Osaka, Japan.

1963 — John Pennel breaks the 17-foot barrier in the pole vault with a 17-0¾ vault in a meet at Miami.

1988 — Minnesota North Stars forward Dino Ciccarelli is sentenced to one day in jail and fined $1,000 for hitting another player with his stick. Ciccarelli, who was given a match penalty and 10-game suspension by the league for the Jan. 6, 1988 attack on Toronto’s Luke Richardson, is believed to be the first NHL player to receive a jail term for an on-ice attack of another player.

1989 — Pete Rose is suspended from baseball for life for gambling.

1996 — Hsieh Chin-hsiung sets a Little League World Series record with his seventh home run as Taiwan wins the title for the 17th time with a 13-3 victory over Cranston, R.I.

2003 — Jockey Julie Krone becomes the first female rider to win a million-dollar race taking the Pacific Classic at Del Mar aboard Candy Ride.

2004 — Four-time world 1,500 champion Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, a heartbreak loser at the last two Olympics, holds off Bernard Lagat down the stretch to win in 3 minutes, 34.18 seconds. El Guerrouj edges Lagat by .12 seconds for the gold medal. El Guerrouj had lost four races in the last eight years, but two of those defeats came at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics.

2006 — After signing a one-day contract with the San Francisco 49ers, Jerry Rice officially retires from the NFL.

2007 — The NFL indefinitely suspends Michael Vick without pay just hours after he acknowledged in court papers that he did, indeed, bankroll gambling on dogfighting and helped kill some dogs not worthy of the pit.

2008 — On the final day of the Beijing Games, the United States beats Spain 118-107 and win the gold medal in men’s basketball for the first time since 2000. China has one of the most dominating and diverse performances at an Olympics ever, winning a games-leading 51 golds and an even 100 overall. The United States finishes with 110 medals and trails well behind the Chinese in golds with 36, the first time since 1992 it doesn’t lead the category.

2008 — Hawaii’s mini-mashers get a little help from Mexico’s miscues to win a fourth straight Little League World Series title for the United States. Tanner Tokunaga smacks two homers and Iolana Akau adds a solo blast as the boys from Waipahu, Hawaii, defeat Matamoros, Mexico, 12-3.

2008 — Danny Lee becomes the U.S. Amateur’s youngest champion, supplanting Tiger Woods by holding off Drew Kittleson 5 and 4. The 18-year, 1-month-old Lee is six months and 29 days younger than Woods when he won the first of his three Amateurs in 1994.

2018 — French Open Tennis bans Serena Williams′ black Nike catsuit from future tournaments citing ‘respect for the game and the place’.

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