April 19
1897 – John J. McDermott wins the first Boston Marathon in 2 hours, 55 minutes, 10 seconds.
1930 – Clarence DeMar wins the Boston Marathon for a record seventh time, in 2:34:48.2.
1947 – The Toronto Maple Leafs post a 2-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens to take the NHL Stanley Cup in six games.
1948 – Gerard Cote of Canada wins his fourth Boston Marathon with a time of 2:31:02.
1950 – Nineteen-year-old Ham Kee Yong becomes the youngest to win the Boston Marathon with a 2:32:39 clocking.
1965 – The Boston Celtics have five players score 20 or more points in a 129-123 victory over Los Angeles in Game 2 of the NBA Finals. It’s the first time in Finals history there are five 20-point scorers on one team. John Havlicek leads Boston with 24 points, Tom Sanders and Bill Russell each score 23, Tommy Heinsohn adds 22 and Sam Jones finished with 20. Jerry West leads the Lakers with 45.
1986 – Michael Spinks wins a split decision against Larry Holmes to retain the world heavyweight title in Las Vegas.
1991 – Evander Holyfield retains the heavyweight title with a unanimous 12-round decision over 42-year-old challenger George Foreman in Atlantic City, N.J.
1992 – Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls wins his sixth straight NBA scoring title with a 30.1 average.
1998 – San Antonio beats Denver 96-82 to set an NBA record for the largest single-season turnaround. The Spurs improve by 36 games from 20 wins in 1997.
1998 – Chicago’s Michael Jordan scores 44 points to lead the Bulls over the Knicks, 111-109, in the final game of the regular season, securing his record 10th NBA scoring title with a 28.7-point average.
2009 – Rafael Nadal becomes the first player to win five straight Monte Carlo Masters titles by beating Novak Djokovic 6-3, 2-6, 6-1. The top-ranked Spaniard, however, loses a set at the clay court tournament for the first time since the 2006 final against Roger Federer.
2010 – Kenya’s Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot wins the Boston Marathon, breaking the course record with a time of 2:05:52. Ethiopia’s Teyba Erkesso wins the women’s race in a time of 2:26:11, outsprinting Russia’s Tatyana Pushkareva to win by three seconds.
2017 – James Harden scores 35 points and the Houston Rockets overcome 51 points from Oklahoma’s Russell Westbrook in the highest-scoring triple-double in playoff history. The Rockets win 115-111 to take a 2-0 lead in the first-round Western Conference playoff series. Westbrook sets a franchise playoff scoring record and adds 13 assists and 10 rebounds. It’s the sixth career playoff triple-double for Westbrook, who had an NBA-record 42 in the regular season. But he shoots just 4 for 18 in the fourth quarter as the Rockets clawed back from a double-digit deficit to surge ahead before holding on.
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April 20
1912 – Fenway Park opens in Boston with the Red Sox beating the New York Yankees 7-6 in 11 innings. Tiger Stadium in Detroit also opens its doors as the Tigers defeat the Cleveland Indians 6-5.
1958 – The Montreal Canadiens win the NHL Stanley Cup for the third straight year with a 5-3 victory over the Boston Bruins in the sixth game.
1986 – Chicago’s Michael Jordan sets an NBA single-game playoff scoring record with 63 points in a 135-131 double overtime loss to the Boston Celtics, in Game 2 of the first round in the Eastern Conference.
1991 – Mark Lenzi becomes the first person to score 100 points on a single dive. On his last dive, Lenzi scores 101.85 points on a reverse 3+ somersault from the tuck position to win the 3-meter springboard title at the U.S. Indoor Diving Championships.
1997 – Chicago’s Michael Jordan wins an unprecedented ninth scoring title with an average of 29.6 points, the first time in those nine seasons that he fails to average at least 30 points.
2007 – Roger Federer wins his 500th career match, defeating David Ferrer 6-4, 6-0 in the quarterfinals of the Monte Carlo Masters.
2008 – Danica Patrick becomes the first female winner in IndyCar history, capturing the Indy Japan 300 in her 50th career start. Patrick takes the lead from pole-sitter Helio Castroneves on the 198th lap in the 200-lap race and finishes 5.8594 seconds ahead of Castroneves.
2008 – Lorena Ochoa becomes the first LPGA Tour player in 45 years to win four tournaments in consecutive weeks. Ochoa shoots a 3-under 69 in the final round of the Ginn Open and beats rookie Yani Tseng by three strokes for her fifth victory in six starts. Mickey Wright did it in 1963.
2014 – Bernard Hopkins, 49, becomes the oldest to win a unification light heavyweight bout as he captures a split 12-round decision over 30-year-old Beibut Shumenov of Kazakhstan. Hopkins, who improves to 55-6-2, retains his IBF title and wins the WBA and IBA belts.
2015 – Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia wins the 119th Boston Marathon, his second victory here. Desisa, who finishes in 2:09:17, also won the 2013 race just hours before a pair of bombs exploded at the finish line. Caroline Rotich of Kenya wins the women’s race.
2017 – LeBron James finishes with 41 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists, and the Cleveland Cavaliers set an NBA postseason record by erasing a 25-point halftime deficit to beat the Indiana Pacers 119-114 and take a 3-0 lead. Cleveland trailed by 26 in the first half and was still down 74-49 at halftime. The largest halftime deficit overcome to win a playoff game had been 21 points by Baltimore against Philadelphia in 1948.
2017 – Roman Josi scores twice, Pekka Rinne has 30 saves and the Nashville Predators beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-1 to complete a surprising sweep of the Western Conference’s top seed. It’s the first time a No. 1 seed is swept in the first round since the NHL adopted its current playoff format in 1994.
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April 21
1951 – Bob Davies’ two foul shots and Jack Coleman’s layup give the Rochester Royals a 79-75 triumph over the New York Knicks in the seventh game of the NBA championship series.
1951 – The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup for the fourth time in five years as they beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 in the fifth game.
1980 – Bill Rodgers wins his third straight Boston Marathon. Rosie Ruiz is disqualified eight days later as women’s champion when it’s discovered she did not run the entire distance.
1995 – Defending champion Utah continues its domination of the NCAA women’s gymnastics championships, capturing its ninth national title since the event began in 1982 with a score of 196.650.
1996 – The Chicago Bulls wrap up the most successful regular season in NBA history with their 72nd victory, getting 26 points from Michael Jordan in a 103-93 decision over Washington. Jordan sets an NBA record by winning his eighth NBA scoring title, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s record of seven.
2001 – Hasim Rahman flattens Lennox Lewis with a stunning right hand near the end of the fifth round to capture the WBC and IBF heavyweight titles in one of the biggest upsets in boxing history in Brakpan, South Africa.
2008 – Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya wins the Boston Marathon in 2:07:46 to become the fourth man to win the race four times. Ethiopia’s Dire Tune outkicks Alevtina Biktimirova after a back-and-forth last mile to win by 2 seconds in the closest finish in the history of the women’s race.
2012 – Phil Humber throws the first perfect game in the majors in almost two years, leading the Chicago White Sox to a 4-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners.
2013 – Raphael Jacquelin of France wins a record-tying playoff at the Spanish Open, edging Germany’s Maximilian Kieffer on their ninth try at the 18th hole. The only other European Tour event decided by a nine-hole playoff was the 1989 Dutch Open.
2013 – Takuma Sato becomes the first Japanese driver to win an IndyCar race in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
2013 – Rookie Marc Marquez wins his first MotoGP race, capturing the Grand Prix of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The 20-year-old Spaniard, last season’s Moto2 champion, becomes the youngest winner at motorcycle racing’s top level.
2013 – Joe Scarborough, a 50-year-old self-employed electrical contractor, rolls the first 900 series in Professional Bowlers Association history – three straight perfect games. He opened the first round of qualifying in the PBA50 Sun Bowl with three games of 300, throwing 36 consecutive strikes.
2014 – American Meb Keflezighi wins the Boston Marathon, a year after a bombing at the finish line left three dead and more than 260 people injured. No U.S. runner had won the race since Lisa Larsen-Weidenbach took the women’s title in 1985; the last American man to win was Greg Meyer in 1983. Rita Jeptoo of Kenya successfully defends the Boston Marathon title, becoming the seventh three-time Boston Marathon champion.
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