1903 - First Baseball World Series game ever played; Pittsburgh Pirates beat Boston Americans 7-3 at Huntington Avenue; Jimmy Sebring hit his first home run while Deacon Phillippe became winning pitcher and Cy Young the loser 1924 - Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi ran a world record of four miles (19:15.4 seconds), and five miles (24:06.2 seconds) at Vilpuri, Russia 1933 - Babe Ruth made his final pitching appearance in Major League Baseball (MLB); pitched all nine innings in a season ending 6-5 win against the Boston Red Sox at the Yankee Stadium. He hit his 34th home run of the season in the fifth innings 1937 - Birth of Pakistani cricketer Saeed Ahmed. A brilliant stroke-maker at No. 3 or 4, the spiky Saeed is unfortunately best remembered for the undignified end to his Test career. He declared himself unfit for the third Test against Australia with a back injury, following a heated altercation with Dennis Lillee in the previous Test in Melbourne. But as Lillee was vowing revenge on a Sydney green top, the Pakistan management was skeptical about Saeed’s injury and sent him home for indiscipline. For all that, Saeed – the half-brother of Younis Ahmed – was a terrific player, as a Test average in excess of 40 suggests. He made 508 runs in his first Test series, in the Caribbean in 1957-58, and had a taste for big hundreds: three of his five at Test level were of 150 or more [caption id="attachment_164936" align="alignnone" width="451"] Saeed Ahmed who played in 41 Test matches between 1958-72[/caption] 1950 - Connie Mack’s last game as Philadelphia Athletics manager (1901-50). He is the longest serving manager in MLB history and managed to beat Washington Senators, 5-3 in his last game in charge at Shibe Park 1975 - “The Thrilla in Manila”; Muhammad Ali stopped Joe Frazier in 14 rounds in Quezon City, Philippines to retain his WBC (World Boxing Council) / WBA (World Boxing Association) heavyweight title [caption id="attachment_164933" align="alignnone" width="357"] “The Thrilla in Manila” on 1 October 1975 at Araneta Coliseum, Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines with WBA and WBC titles on the line. The fight was on on 1 October 1975[/caption] 1985 - Pakistan all-rounder Urooj Mumtaz, born today, played her only Test in March 2004, just days before she made her One-Day International (ODI) debut, against West Indies in Karachi. She bagged a five-for, and her maiden Player of the Match award, in just her second ODI. Urooj captained her side in 26 of the 38 ODIs she played, including the 2006 and 2008 Asia Cups, and the 2009 Women’s World Cup. She retired from cricket in 2009 to pursue a career in dentistry full-time, but returned to head the selection panel for women’s cricket in Pakistan a decade later 1988 - Steffi Graf beat Gabriela Sabatini 6-3, 6-3 to win the women’s singles tennis gold medal at the Seoul Olympics and clinched the first and only Golden Slam in history [caption id="attachment_164934" align="alignnone" width="454"] Steffi Graf won the women’s singles tennis gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics[/caption] 1997 - The first ODI of the series between Zimbabwe and New Zealand ended in a tie. Chris Harris needed two off the last ball to win the match for the tourists, but as he drove it past the bowler, John Rennie, an over-exuberant crowd surged onto the field. Craig Evans beat the throng to the ball – had it reached them New Zealand would have won – and ran out Gavin Larsen as he attempted a second run. It sealed the 13th tie in ODI history