1961 \u2014 The Pacific Coast League\u2019s proposal to use a designated hitter for the pitcher was rejected by the Professional Baseball Rules Committee by a vote of 8-1.<\/p>\n
1968 \u2014 Seattle, the American League\u2019s second new team, announced its nickname \u2014 the Pilots.<\/p>\n
1994 \u2014 The Chicago White Sox assign NBA superstar Michael Jordan to the Double-A Birmingham Barons of the Southern League.<\/p>\n
1995 \u2014 Major league baseball players end their strike when Federal judge Sonia Sotomayor of U.S. District Court in Manhattan rules against the owners in the labor dispute.<\/p>\n
1996 \u2014 The Seattle Mariners beat the Chicago White Sox 3-2 in 12 innings in major league baseball\u2019s season opener, the first major league game played in March.<\/p>\n
1998 \u2014 The Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks looked like expansion teams in their first games. The Devil Rays fell behind 11-0 in an 11-6 loss to Detroit at Tropicana Field, and the Diamondbacks dropped a 9-2 decision to the Colorado Rockies at Bank One Ballpark. Milwaukee dropped a 2-1 decision at Atlanta in the Brewers\u2019 first game since becoming the only team to switch leagues this century.<\/p>\n
2001 \u2014 The Pittsburgh Pirates move into PNC Park, losing to the New York Mets, 4 – 3, in an exhibition game.<\/p>\n
2003 \u2014 The Cincinnati Reds played their first regular season game at the Great American Ballpark. The Pittsburgh Pirates spoiled the day with a 10-1 win.<\/p>\n
2008 \u2014 The Chicago Cubs unveil a statue of Ernie Banks outside of Wrigley Field.<\/p>\n
2009 \u2014 The Detroit Tigers cut DH Gary Sheffield, who is one home run shy of 500 for his career.<\/p>\n
2013 \u2014 The Houston Astros, coming off consecutive 100-loss seasons, made an impressive debut in the American League, trouncing the Texas Rangers 8-2 in the major league opener. Having switched from the National League to the AL in the offseason, the Astros earned their first opening day victory since 2006 and the 4,000th regular-season win in franchise history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1961 \u2014 The Pacific Coast League\u2019s proposal to use a designated hitter for the pitcher was rejected by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1855,96926,12811,68208,1664,1661,79897,135,137,136,96925],"class_list":["post-211748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-arizona","tag-gary-sheffield","tag-manhattan","tag-michael-jordan","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-sonia-sotomayor","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-this-date-in-baseball-march-31"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}