Over its history Texas has been part of 6 different nations and therefore flew 6 National flags. Spain, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Unites States of America and the Confederate States of America.

The community of Ysleta, Texas is considered the oldest settlement in Texas. In 1680 the Ysleta Mission began with the settlement built around it. Ysleta has been annexed and is currently part of El Paso, Texas.

Confederate Heroes Day, January 19th, is a holiday in Texas. January 19th is the birthday of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s and in 1931 Texas approved the Robert E. Lee Birthday Holiday. In 1973 Jefferson Davis’ Birthday holiday (June 3rd) was eliminated and the two were combined and renamed Confederate Heroes Day.

The Kansas City Chiefs began as the Dallas Texans as one of the first six teams in the American Football League (AFL), forming in 1959. They moved to Kansas City in 1962. The Indianapolis Colts franchise also started in Dallas and also called the Texans. This Dallas Texans team played for two years before moving to Baltimore in 1953 taking the name Colts.

Until 2010, Baseball’s Texas Rangers were the oldest team in the Major League Baseball to have never played in a World Series. The franchise began as the Washington Senators in 1961 after the original Washington Senators moved to Minnesota and renamed the Twins in 1960. They advanced to the World Series again in 2011, but lost in seven games to St. Louis.

The Seattle Mariners and the Washington Nationals, originally the Montreal Expos, now are the only major league teams not to appear in a World Series. The Mariners debuted in 1977 while the Expos debuted in 1969 moving to Washington in 2005.

Since the day happens only a quarter of the time, less since 1900 was not a leap year, this mean that less things could happen on this day than on any other day in the year. Here’s a couple of things that have occurred on the 29th of February.

In 1892 the city of St. Petersburg, Florida was incorporated. At the time it only had 300 people, now it’s population is around 250,000. St. Petersburg is it the fourth largest city in the state of Florida and the largest city in Florida that is not a county seat.

In 1956, Dwight David Eisenhower announced that he was going to run for a second term as President of the United States. In 2008, it’d already be to late for a major party candidate to announce a run, but stay tuned some one may announce still.

When Hank Aaron signed his contract in 1972, he became the first baseball player to make 200,000 a year. Today that’s below the minimum.

Entertainer Dinah Shore was born on February 29, 1916. She celebrated 19 birthdays before passing away two years before her 20th.

The Pittsburgh Pirates led by shortstop Honus Wagner won their 3rd straight National League pennant. They ended the year with a .650 winning percentage and a 6.5 game lead over the New York Giants.

The American League team was the team from Boston, they wouldn’t adopt the official nickname Red Sox until 1908. They ended the year 14.5 games ahead of the Philadelphia Athletics with 91 wins, the same number of wins as the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The series was planned for 9 games, but only 8 were played since Boston won 5 of the 8. Pittsburgh won 3 of the first 4, 7-3 in game 1, 4-2 in game 3 and 5-4 in game 4. Before Boston won the next 4, 11-2, 6-3, 7-3 and 3-0. Boston also won the 2nd game of the series on a 3 hit shut out.

Wagner would only bat .222 in the series. The entire Pittsburgh team batted .237 for the series. They had batted .286 for the season.

Cy Young pitching for the Boston home team lost the first game to Pittsburgh’s Deacon Phillippe. In the first inning he gave up 4 of the 7 runs that the pirates scored, although there was also three Boston errors leading to 3 of the 4 runs being unearned. Young would go on to win two of the five games won by Boston. He pitched in 4 games to an ERA of 1.85 Phillippe would win all three games won by Pittsburgh, but he also lost 2 with a 3.07 ERA.

This first All-Star Game was held as part of the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois and was initiated at the insistence of Arch Ward, a sports editor for the Chicago Tribune.

The American League team was managed by Philadelphia A’s manager Connie Mack with John McGraw managing the National league.

With all of the great hitters of the game that played that day such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Frankie Frisch, the first RBI was recorded by American League pitcher Lefty Gomez. Gomez was also the winning pitcher.

Others firsts were Babe Ruth hitting the first Home Run with Frankie Frisch hitting the first for the National League later in the game. Lou Gehrig made the first error.

The 2 hour 9 minute game was seen by 49,200 fans. The American League won that first game with the final score being 4-2.

In the first few years of the 20th Century the Chicago Cubs were one of the best, if not the best, teams in Baseball. Frank Chance, who was born on September 9, 1877, was one of the reasons. Not only did he play First Base, he was the team’s manager.

Chance became the Cubs Manager in 1905 and at the helm when the Cubs won 4 National League in 5 years. They were the first team to play in three World Series and the first to win two. These were Back-to-back wins in 1907 and 1908.

Frank Chance was part of one of the greatest double play combination to ever play the game. Tinker to Evers to Chance. Joe Tinker and Short to Johnny Evers at Second with Chance at First. The New York Evening Mail published a poem about the trio on July 10, 1910.

These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double –
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

Chance left the Cubs after the 1912 season. He went to manage the New York Yankees. Doing so for two years, before returning to his his native California. He managed the Boston Red Sox for one year in 1923 with a lifetime record as a manager of 946-648. Joe Tinker was traded to Cincinnati at the end of 1912 as well. A year later Evers was traded to the Boston Braves.

Frank Chance died at the young age of 48 on October 15, 1925 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946 along with Tinker and Evers.

From this point until the end of the 1919 season Ruth played for the Red Sox. He was primarily a Pitcher for them until 1918, when he was used both as a pitcher and an outfielder. He was 18-8 in 1915, 23-12 in 1916, 24-13 in 1917, and 13-7 in 1918 and was winningest left-handed pitcher in baseball from 1915-1917.

In 1919 he played in 130 games, pitching 133.3 innings in 17 games with a record of 9 wins 5 lost. He had 29 Home Runs, 114 RBIs with a batting average of .322. At the end of the season his contract was sold to the New York Yankees.

After going to the Yankees he would only pitch in 5 more games. Once in 1920, twice in 1922, once in 1930 and again in 1933.

Ruth pitched in 163 in his career pitching with 148 of these games being starts and 107 complete games. His career pitching record was 94 wins, 46 lost with an ERA of 2.28. The only year in which he gave up more Home Runs as a Pitcher than he hit as a batter was in 1914.

In his 22 year career Ruth would have a career average of .342, have 2,873 hits of which 714 were Home Runs and 136 were Triples. He also received 2,062 walks. It makes you wonder what his numbers would have been if he hadn’t spent the first 4 years primarily as a pitcher.