TRIVIA WINNER: The first year the Oakland A's drew over one million fans was in 1973. Jerry Adami, of Los Angeles, had the correct answer. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.
TRIVIA CONTEST: By answering the TRIVIA QUESTION CORRECTLY you are automatically entered into a weekly drawing for a Starbucks Gift Card. YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN. Please put your mailing address in with the answer so if you win we can send you the gift card in the mail.
NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: What do Mel Rojas, Luis Rojas and Moises Alou have in common with the story below?
The date was September 15, 1963. It's a date of a first and to date a last event.
Never before had three brothers appeared in the same line-up in the same outfield in baseball's nearly 100 year history. That day three brothers did. Not that there weren't three brothers or relatives in the bigs at one time, but this, this was rare, and to date, it hasn't happened since.
Felipe, Matty and Jesus, the three Alou brothers all played in the Giants game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. They didn't start there. Felipe was the only one who started and he was in right, while Willie Mays was in center and Willie McCovey started in left.
It was a momentous occasion for the 18,000 fans (probably less by the ninth inning) who attended the game at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Many probably didn't realize the moment and it's spot in history. More fans likely remembered Mays homered and Billy O'Dell tossed a complete game win. Matty would eventually be a Pirate, traded for Joe Gibbon for the 1966 season, where the young outfielder would become a star and win a batting title at .342 his first season in Black & Gold.
Pittsburgh would make it's own history in the 1970s when the Bucs became the first ever team to start an all-Black line-up with all nine players.
TRIVIA CONTEST;