Feb. 2
1876 — The National League forms, consisting of teams in Philadelphia, Hartford, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis and New York.
1936 — Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson are the first members elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1954 — Bevo Francis of Rio Grande College scores 113 points in a 134-91 victory over Hillsdale. Francis, breaking his own record for small colleges (84) set two weeks earlier against Alliance College.
1959 — Vince Lombardi signs a 5 year contract to coach NFL Green Bay Packers.
1962 — Using a fiberglass pole, John Uelses becomes the first man to vault more than 16 feet, indoors or out. Uelses, a Marine Corps corporal, clears 16¼ during the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden in New York.
1970 — Pete Maravich becomes 1st to score 3,000 college basketball points.
1977 — Toronto’s Ian Turnbull scores five goals to set an NHL record for defensemen, leading the Maple Leafs past the Detroit Red Wings 9-1.
1991 — New Hampshire’s basketball team ends its 32-game losing streak at home with a 72-56 win over Holy Cross. The NCAA-record streak started on Feb. 9, 1988.
1994 — Lenny Wilkens gets his 900th NBA victory, and the Atlanta Hawks beat the Orlando Magic 118-99. Wilkens runs his regular-season mark to 900-760, trailing only Red Auerbach’s 938 in NBA regular-season victories.
1999 — Austria’s Hermann Maier and Norway’s Lasse Kjus ski to an unprecedented tie in the super-G to mark the start of the world championships.
2001 — Stacy Dragila breaks her world indoor pole vault record by a half-inch with a 15-2 1/4 vault at the Millrose Games.
2003 — Atlanta Thrashers star Dany Heatley joins Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux by scoring a record-tying four goals in the NHL All-Star Game. His Eastern Conference team loses the first All-Star shootout 6-5.
2009 — Kobe Bryant breaks the current Madison Square Garden record with 61 points to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a 126-117 victory over New York. Bryant, who hits all 20 of his free throws, tops the previous visitor record of 55 points held by Michael Jordan and the overall record of 60 by Bernard King.
2012 — Sam Gagner has four goals and four assists in the NHL’s first eight-point game in 23 years, and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Chicago Blackhawks 8-4.
2013 — California Institute of Technology’s baseball team ends a 228-game losing streak with a 9-7 victory against Pacifica, the Beavers’ first win in nearly 10 years. Caltech hadn’t won since Feb. 15, 2003, 5-4 against Cal State-Monterey Bay.
2014 — The Seattle Seahawks win their first Super Bowl title, crushing the favored Denver Broncos 43-8. The Seahawks led 36-0 before Denver finally scored on the last play of the third quarter.
2014 — The Seattle Seahawks win their first Super Bowl title in overpowering fashion, punishing Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos 42-8 at the New Jersey Meadowlands.
2017 — Patrick Marleau scores his 500th career goal, Chris Tierney tallies twice and San Jose beat Vancouver 4-1. Marleau becomes the 45th NHL player to reach 500 goals, scoring in the first period on a power play.
2020 – Super Bowl LIV, Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL: Kansas City Chiefs beat San Francisco 49ers, 31-20; MVP: Patrick Mahomes, KC Chiefs, QB; Chiefs’ 1st victory in 50 years.
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Feb. 3
1944 — Syd Howe of the Detroit Red Wings scores six goals in a 12-6 victory over the New York Rangers. Howe is the first player to score six goals in a game since Cy Denneny of the Ottawa Senators in 1921.
1956 — Austria’s Toni Sailer wins the men’s downhill to become first Olympic skier to sweep three Alpine events.
1976 — Washington’s Dave Bing, in his final NBA All-Star game apperance, wins the MVP and leads the East to a 123-109 victory over the West in Philadelphia. Bing has 16 points and four assists.
1980 — Larry Bird hits the first 3-point shot in the history of the NBA All-Star Game. Bird’ 3 came in overtime. The East wins 144-136.
1982 — Steve Mahre, twin brother of overall champion Phil Mahre, becomes the first American male skier to win a gold medal in an Olympics or world championship competition when he edges Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark in the giant slalom at the worlds.
1990 — Bill Shoemaker, the world’s winningest jockey, finishes fourth on Patchy Groundfog in his final ride at Santa Anita. The 58-year-old Shoemaker finishes his 40-year career with $123,375,524 in earnings, a record 8,833 wins, 6,136 seconds and 4,987 thirds in 40,350 starts.
1998 — Dino Ciccarelli becomes the ninth NHL player to reach 600 goals when he scores on a power play with 5:09 remaining in the third period to give the Florida Panthers a 1-1 tie against the Detroit Red Wings.
2000 — World Wrestling Federation mastermind Vince McMahon unveils his latest creation: the XFL, a new pro football league.
2001 — One year later, the XFL muscles its way onto the national sports scene with its first two games. With exuberant cheerleaders and trash-talking players, the Las Vegas Outlaws beat the New York/New Jersey Hitmen 19-0, while the Orlando Rage beat the Chicago Enforcers 33-29 before a crowd of 35,603 in Orlando.
2002 — Adam Vinatieri’s 48-yard field goal as time expires gives Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots their first Super Bowl title with a 20-17 win over the two-touchdown favorite St. Louis Rams.
2006 — Martin Brodeur becomes the third goaltender in NHL history to reach 100 shutouts when New Jersey blanks Carolina 3-0. Brodeur joins Terry Sawchuk (115) and George Hainsworth (102).
2008 — Eli Manning and the New York Giants end New England’s unbeaten season and pull off one of the great Super Bowl upsets. Manning throws a 13-yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds left to beat the Patriots 17-14.
2013 — The Baltimore Ravens survive a power outage at the Super Bowl to edge the San Francisco 49ers 34-31. Jacoby Jones returns the second-half kickoff 108 yards, a Super Bowl record, to give Baltimore a 28-6 lead. Moments later, lights lining the Superdome fade. When action resumes 34 minutes later, Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers score 17 consecutive points, getting as close as 31-29. Baltimore stops San Francisco on fourth-and-goal from the 5 with under 2 minutes left when Kaepernick’s pass sails beyond Michael Crabtree in the end zone.
2017 — Tara VanDerveer becomes the second NCAA women’s coach to reach 1,000 career victories when No. 8 Stanford beats Southern California 58-42 to give the Hall of Famer a milestone before a home crowd at Maples Pavilion.
2019 – Super Bowl LIII, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA: New England Patriots beat Los Angeles Rams, 13-3; MVP: Julian Edelman, NE Patriots, WR; Patriots’ 6th SB victory
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Feb. 4
1861 — The Philadelphia Athletics beat Charter Oak 36-27 in a baseball game played on frozen Litchfield Pond in Brooklyn, N.Y., with the players wearing ice skates.
1924 — The first Winter Olympics close in Chamonix, France. Sixteen countries competed in 17 events from seven sports.
1932 — The Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, N.Y., the first Winter Games in the United States.
1957 — Joe McCarthy and Sam Crawford are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
1969 — The 24 major league owners unanimously select Bowie Kuhn as commissioner for a one-year term at a salary of $100,000.
1971 — The Baseball Hall of Fame establishes a separate section for players from the old Negro Leagues. In July, commissioner Bowie Kuhn, along with Hall president Paul Kirk, announce a change of heart and scrap plans for the separate section.
1976 — U.S. District Court Judge John W. Oliver upholds the ruling of arbitrator Peter Seitz that declared Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally free agents.
1977 — Rick Martin scores two goals in the third period, including the game-winning goal with under two minutes to play, to lead the Wales Conference to a 4-3 win over the Campbell conference in the NHL All-Star game at Vancouver.
1979 — Denver’s David Thompson scores 25 points on 11-of-17 shooting to lead the West Conference to a 134-129 victory over the East at the 1979 NBA All-Star Game in Detroit. Thompson also grabs five rebounds and is named the games MVP. Philadelphia’s Julius Erving leads all scorers with 29 points and san Antonio’s George Gervin adds 26 for the East.
1987 — The Sacramento Kings have the worst first quarter since the inception of the shot clock in 1954. The Kings set the NBA record with only four points in the opening quarter of a 128-92 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
1987 — Stars & Stripes, skippered by Dennis Conner, sweeps Kookaburra III 4-0 at Fremantle, Australia, to bring sailing’s America’s Cup back to the United States.
1991 — The doors of Cooperstown are slammed shut on Pete Rose when the Hall of Fame’s board of directors votes 12-0 to bar players on the permanently ineligible list from consideration.
1997 — Mario Lemieux scores his 600th goal, an empty netter, to help the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 6-4 win against the Vancouver Canucks. Lemieux is the first player to score 600 goals while spending his NHL career with one team.
2003 — Jaromir Jagr scores three goals, including his 500th, for his 11th career hat trick as Washington beat Tampa Bay 5-1.
2007 — Peyton Manning is 25-of-38 for 247 yards and a touchdown as he rallies Indianapolis to a 29-17 Super Bowl victory over Chicago in the South Florida rain. Tony Dungy becomes the first black coach to win the championship, beating good friend and protege Lovie Smith in a game that featured the first two black coaches in the Super Bowl.
2012 — Lindsey Vonn captures her 50th World Cup victory, winning the downhill with temperatures plunging to minus 13 on the demanding Kandahar course in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
2017 — Gregg Popovich becomes the winningest coach with a single franchise in NBA history, leading the San Antonio Spurs to a 121-97 victory over the Denver Nuggets. Popovich earns his 1,128th victory to pass former Utah coach Jerry Sloan for the mark.
2018 — The Philadelphia Eagles win a record-setting shootout between Nick Foles and Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. Foles, the backup quarterback, leads a pressure-packed 75-yard drive to the winning touchdown, 11 yards to Zach Etrz with 2:21 to go. Then the defense makes two final stands to win 41-33.
2022 – XXIV Olympic Winter Games open in Beijing, China.
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Feb. 5
1913 — The New York State Athletic Commission bans boxing matches between fighters of different races.
1919 — Charges against Cincinnati’s Hal Chase of throwing games and betting against his team are dismissed by National League president John Heydler. Two weeks later, Chase is traded to the New York Giants.
1948 — After landing the first double axel in Olympic competition, Dick Button becomes the first American to win the Olympic gold medal in figure skating. Gretchen Fraser becomes the first U.S. woman Olympic slalom champion.
1960 — Bill Russell grabs 51 rebounds in the Boston Celtics’ 124-100 victory over the Syracuse Nationals. Russell is the first player in NBA history to pull in 50 or more rebounds.
1972 — Bob Douglas is the first black elected to Basketball Hall of Fame. Known as “The Father of Black Professional Basketball,” Douglas owned and coached the New York Renaissance from 1922 until 1949.
1976 — Austrian Franz Klammer wins the Olympic gold medal in the downhill at Innsbruck, Austria. Bill Koch wins a silver in the 30-kilometer cross-country race to become the first American to win a medal in a Nordic event.
1980 — Gordie Howe plays his 23rd and final All-Star Game. Howe doesn’t score, but sets up the final goal of the game, by Real Cloutier, in the Wales Conference’s 6-3 win against the Campbell Conference at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
1990 — Notre Dame bucks the College Football Association and becomes the first college to sell its home games to a major network, agreeing to a five-year contract with NBC beginning in 1991.
1991 — Dave Taylor of the Los Angeles Kings has two assists in a 3-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers to become the 29th player in NHL history with 1,000 points.
1999 — Patrick Roy, at 33, becomes the youngest goalie in NHL history to earn 400 wins when he makes 26 saves in the Colorado Avalanche’s 3-1 win against the Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena.
2003 — Bode Miller of the United States captures his first major title, winning the gold medal in the combined at the world championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
2006 — Pittsburgh wins a record-tying fifth Super Bowl, but its first since 1980 with a 21-10 win over the Seattle Seahawks.
2009 — Tennessee’s Pat Summitt becomes the first Division I basketball coach — man or woman — to win 1,000 career games after her Lady Vols beat Georgia 73-43.
2011 — Dejen Gebremeskel of Ethiopia wins the men’s 3,000 at the Boston Indoor Grand Prix, after losing his right shoe at the start of the race. Gebremeskel stays close to the lead throughout the race and takes over on the final lap to finish in 7:35.37. Britain’s Mo Farah finishes second in 7:35.81.
2012 — Eli Manning and the Giants one-up Tom Brady and the Patriots again, coming back with a last-minute score to beat New England 21-17 for New York’s fourth Super Bowl title.
2017 — Tom Brady leads one of the greatest comebacks in sports, let alone Super Bowl history, lifting New England from a 25-point hole to the Patriots’ fifth NFL championship in the game’s first overtime finish. The Patriots score 19 points in the final quarter, including a pair of 2-point conversions, then marches relentlessly to James White’s 2-yard touchdown run in overtime beating the Atlanta Falcons 34-28.
2022 – Six days before his 50th birthday, 11-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater wins his 8th Pipeline title beating 22-year old Hawaiian Seth Moniz in the final.
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