Oct. 5
1900 — Britain’s Harry Vardon wins the U.S. Open golf title, beating J.H. Taylor with a 313 total at the Chicago Golf Club.
1985 — Eddie Robinson becomes college football’s winningest coach as Grambling beats Prairie View A&M 27-7. It’s Robinson’s 324th career victory, one more than Paul “Bear” Bryant had before he retired from Alabama after the 1982 season.
1991 — Fresno State ties an NCAA record for most points in a quarter, with 49 in the second period as it pounds New Mexico 94-17. Fresno State’s Derek Mahoney ties an NCAA record with 13 extra points.
1994 — The NBA shortens the 3-point distance to a uniform 22 feet.
1996 — Byron Hanspard rushes for 287 yards, his fifth straight 200-yard game this season, to lead Texas Tech to a 45-24 win over Baylor.
2001 — Barry Bonds sets a new mark for home runs in a single season, hitting Nos. 71 and 72, but San Francisco is eliminated from the playoffs with an 11-10 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
2001 — The Mariners win their 115th game of the year to become the winningest team in American League history, passing the record the Yankees set three years earlier.
2005 — Daniel Alfredsson scores twice in the final 6 minutes of regulation and once during the first shootout in NHL history, leading Ottawa to a 3-2 win over Toronto.
2006 — Brendan Shanahan of the New York Rangers becomes the 15th player with 600 goals in the NHL when he scores twice in a 5-2 win over Washington.
2008 — Peyton Manning turns a colossal collapse by the Houston Texans into a stunning victory for the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts score 21 points in a late span of 2:10 — two touchdowns thanks to fumbles by Sage Rosenfels — then intercepts Rosenfels’ last-ditch comeback attempt for a 31-27 win.
2013 — Eighth-ranked Florida State stays undefeated in Atlantic Coast Conference play with a 63-0 victory over No. 25 Maryland. Maryland matches the largest losing margin by a ranked team. UCLA beat No. 11 Texas 66-3, on Sept. 13, 1997.
2013 — Marcus Mariota throws five touchdown passes and runs for two scores as No. 2 Oregon routs Colorado 57-16. The Ducks reach the 50-point plateau for a school record fifth straight time. Oregon have scored at least 55 points in all of its games under first-year coach Mark Helfrich.
2014 — Brian Hoyer’s 6-yard touchdown pass to Travis Benjamin with 1:09 left rallies the Cleveland Browns from a 25-point deficit to beat the Tennessee Titans 29-28. It’s the largest comeback in league history by a road team.
2014 — Denver’s Peyton Manning was 31 of 47 for a career-high 479 yards with four TDs, including the 500th of his career, along with two interceptions to help the Broncos beat Arizona 41-20.
2015 — San Jose Sharks forward Raffi Torres is hit with the longest suspension in NHL history when the league banned him for the first 41 games of the season for an illegal check to the head of Anaheim’s Jakob Silfverberg during an Oct. 3 preseason game.
2017 — Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, Wayne Simmonds and Brandon Saad each record a hat trick in his team’s season opener. It’s the first time four different players score at least three goals in his season opener in 100 years, since the NHL’s first two games back in 1917.
Oct. 6
1928 — Leo Diegel wins the PGA championship, beating Al Espinosa 6 and 5.
1956 — Oklahoma blanks Kansas 66-0 to set a modern college football winning streak of 32 straight. The Sooners had the previous record of 31 set 1948-50. The victory is also a conference record of 54 straight wins.
1973 — Washington’s Chris Rowland ties an NCAA record with four touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, but still loses to California, 54-49.
1976 — Roland Erickson of the Minnesota North Stars has four assists in his first NHL game, a 6-5 loss to the New York Rangers.
1980 — Marvin Hagler wins the world middleweight title, beating Alan Minter in three rounds at Wembley Arena in London.
1985 — San Francisco’s Joe Montana passes for 429 yards and five touchdowns and sets an NFL record with 57 passes attempted and no interceptions in a 38-17 win over the Atlanta Falcons.
1990 — Stacey Robinson sets an NCAA quarterback rushing record with 308 yards and scores five touchdowns to lead Northern Illinois to a 73-18 victory over Fresno State.
1993 — Michael Jordan announces his retirement after nine seasons in the NBA.
2000 — Marty McSorley is found guilty of assault with a weapon for his two-fisted stick attack on an opponent by a Canadian court. McSorley is convicted for the Feb. 21 blow that sent Vancouver Canucks forward Donald Brashear sprawling to the ice.
2001 — Maurice Hicks runs for a record 416 yards and four touchdowns, but it isn’t enough as Morgan State defeats N. Carolina A&T 52-42. Hicks breaks the Division I-AA single-game rushing record of 409 yards set by Charles Roberts of Sacramento State in a 1999 game against Idaho State.
2001 — Middle Tennessee State beats Idaho 70-58 as the teams set a Division I record for total points scored in a game. The teams combine for 1,445 yards of offense.
2001 — Michigan’s victory, combined with Yale’s 32-27 loss to Dartmouth, gives the Wolverines the record for all-time wins in all divisions at 809.
2003 — Indianapolis, led by Peyton Manning, becomes the first team in NFL history to win after trailing by 21 or more points with less than 4 minutes left in regulation. Mike Vanderjagt’s 29-yard field goal with 3:47 left in the extra period gives the Colts a 38-35 victory over Tampa Bay.
2007 — Texas Tech’s Michael Crabtree sets the NCAA record for touchdown receptions by a freshman with a 32-yard scoring catch in a 42-17 win over Iowa State. Crabtree scores three times against the Cyclones, giving him 17 for the season.
2010 — Roy Halladay pitches the second no-hitter in postseason history, leading the Philadelphia Phillies over the Cincinnati Reds 4-0 in Game 1 of the NL division series.
2013 — Tiger Woods beats Richard Sterne, 1 up, to give the Americans the 18 points they need to win the Presidents Cup for the fifth straight time. It’s the third straight Presidents Cup that Woods wins the cup-clinching match.
2013 — Matt Prater kicks a 28-yard field goal as time expires and Peyton Manning and Denver overcome the first 500-yard passing game in Dallas history for a 51-48 victory over the Cowboys. Tony Romo throws for 506 yards and five touchdowns for Dallas, but he is intercepted by Danny Trevanthan inside the Dallas 30 to set up Prater’s winning kick. It’s the second-highest scoring game in regulation since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970. Manning finishes with 414 yards and four scores for Denver.
2017 — The Vegas Golden Knights defeat the Dallas Stars 2-1 in franchise’s inaugural season opener. James Neal scores both of the Knight goals in the third period and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury stops 45 of 46 shots for the win.
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Oct. 7
1904 — Jack Chesbro registers his 41st victory of the season as New York defeats Boston 3-2.
1916 — Georgia Tech, coached by John Heisman, beats Cumberland 222-0 in the most lopsided college football game in history.
1945 — The Green Bay Packers score 41 points in the first quarter in a 57-21 win against the Detroit Lions.
1962 — Judy Kimball wins the LPGA championship with a four-stroke victory over Shirley Spork.
1967 — Tulsa wide receivers Ricky Eber and Harry Wood have the best day by a receiving duo in college football history. Eber has 20 receptions for 322 yards and three touchdowns, while Wood grabs 13 passes for 318 yards and three scores in Tulsa’s 58-0 win over Idaho State.
1970 — Willie Shoemaker wins his 6,033rd race to pass Johnny Longden as the winningest jockey. His first race was won on April 20, 1949.
1984 — Walter Payton breaks Jim Brown’s career rushing mark of 12,312 yards and Brown’s career mark of 58 100-yard rushing games in a 20-7 victory over New Orleans. Payton breaks the record on Chicago’s second play from scrimmage in the second half.
1985 — Lynette Woodard, captain of the women’s basketball team that won the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics, is chosen to be the first woman to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.
1995 — Coach Eddie Robinson gets his 400th victory as Grambling beats Mississippi Valley State 42-6.
2000 — Zamir Amin of Menlo College sets an NCAA all-divisions record, passing for 731 yards in the Division III school’s 37-32 loss to Cal Lutheran. Amin, 39-of-66 with four TDs and three interceptions, breaks the mark of 716 set by David Klingler of Division I-A Houston against Arizona State on Dec. 2, 1990.
2001 — San Diego’s Rickey Henderson becomes the 25th player with 3,000 hits with a bloop double in a 14-5 loss to Colorado.
2001 — Barry Bonds wraps up his record-breaking season with his 73rd homer and shatters the slugging percentage record that Babe Ruth had owned for 81 years. He finishes with a slugging percentage of .863, easily surpassing the mark of .847 that Ruth set in 1920.
2006 — Denis Hopovac’s fifth field goal of the game, in an NCAA record-tying seventh overtime, gives North Texas a 25-22 victory over Florida International. The other two seven-overtime games involved Arkansas — against Mississippi in 2001 and Kentucky in 2003.
2011 — Minnesota Lynx beat the Atlanta Dream 73-67 to complete a three-game sweep of the WNBA championship series.
2012 — Drew Brees finishes 29 for 45 for 370 yards with four TD passes and an interception in New Orleans’ 31-24 win over San Diego. Brees breaks the NFL record by throwing a touchdown pass in his 48th straight game. His 40-yard pass to Devery Henderson eclipses the mark of 47 consecutive games set by Johnny Unitas from 1956-60.
2017 — Jarvion Franklin runs in from the 12 to give Western Michigan a 71-68 victory over Buffalo in a record-tying seven overtimes with a record-breaking 139 total points.
2017 — Backup Khalil Tate rushes for 327 yards, an FBS record for a quarterback, and accounts for five touchdowns to help Arizona hold off Colorado 45-42.
2017 — Alex Ovechkin scores four goals to become the first player in 100 years with back-to-back hat tricks to open a season, and the Washington Capitals beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-1.
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