This week in Kansas City sports history - August 3-9

August 6, 1952
St. Louis Browns’ pitcher Satchel Paige (who is believed to be 46 years old) becomes the oldest pitcher in major league baseball history to throw a complete-game shutout, with a 1-0 win against opposing hurler Virgil Trucks and the Detroit Tigers. (Page played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues from 1939-47, and becomes the oldest player to pitch in a major league game, at age 59, when he goes three innings for the Kansas City A’s against the Boston Red Sox on Sept. 25, 1965.)

August 3, 1967
Kansas City Athletics’ manager Alvin Dark is fired, and first baseman Ken “Hawk” Harrelson (currently a play-by-play announcer with the Chicago White Sox) is released by A’s owner Charles O. Finley because of reports of “rowdy behavior” on a team airplane flight. Harrelson goes two for three in a 5-3 losing effort against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The A’s were 46-61 under Dark, 15 1/2 games behind the first-place Chicago White Sox.

KC Royals' Hall of Famer Frank White. 

August 3, 1982
Kansas City Royals’ second baseman Frank White hits for the cycle (single, double, triple and homerun) in a 6-5 win over the Detroit Tigers. White goes four for five on the day with four runs batted in. He hit a homerun in the first inning for the first of his four hits.

First week in August, 1990
The Kansas City Chiefs open fall training camp in River Falls, Wis., at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls, marking the first time in its history that the team has trained outside of the Kansas City area. The Chiefs take up a permanent preseason home in River Falls for the next 20 years.

August 3, 2009
Former University of Kansas Basketball coach Ted Owens is inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. Under Owens, who coached the Jayhawks from 1964-83, KU went to two Final Fours. He played high school basketball in Hollis, Okla., and played for the Oklahoma Sooners from 1949-51.

August 4, 2009
Peter Vermes is named head coach of the Kansas City Wizards of Major League Soccer (MLS). He replaces Curt Onalfo, who was fired after the Wizards’ 6-0 shutout loss at FC Dallas. Vermes, was the team’s technical director and a former Wizards defender. He played professional soccer for 15 years and takes over a team that has suffered four consecutive losses and is 5-7-6 on the season, in sixth place in the MLS Eastern Conference. The Wizards’ next game is on Aug. 16 at home against the Chicago Fire.

Kansas City Chiefs' linebacker Derrick Thomas. 

August 8, 2009
Derrick Thomas, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs from 1989-99, will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Thomas is the 13th member of the Chiefs to be enshrined in Canton. He joins team founder and long-time owner Lamar Hunt* (1972), LB Bobby Bell* (1983), LB Willie Lanier* (1986), QB Len Dawson* (1987), DT Buck Buchanan* (1990), K Jan Stenerud (1991), QB Joe Montana (2000), head coach Marv Levy (2001), head coach Hank Stram (2003), RB Marcus Allen (2003), QB Warren Moon (2006), CB Emmitt Thomas* (2008).

Selected nine times to the Pro Bowl, Thomas, one of the most prolific pass rushers in NFL history, recorded 126 1/2 quarterback sacks in 11 NFL seasons. He was Kansas City’s No. 1 selection, fourth overall, in the 1989 NFL spring draft, out of Alabama. Thomas died tragically on February 8, 2000, from complications suffered in an automobile accident.

*Denotes personnel who spent their entire pro football career with the KC Chiefs.

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