Baseball
- April 17 – Luis Aparicio replaces fellow Venezuelan Chico Carrasquel as the White Sox' everyday shortstop. Aparicio, who played 10 seasons with the White Sox, was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1984 and had his #11 retired by the Sox in the same year.
- July 14 – Boston Red Sox lefty Mel Parnell pitches a no-hitter against the Chicago White Sox at Fenway Park, winning 4-0. It is only Parnell's third win against two losses and is the sixth straight loss for second-place Chicago. The no-hitter is the first for the Red Sox since 1923. Parnell will go 4-4 before a torn muscle in his pitching arm ends his career as the Red Sox' winningest southpaw.
- July 25 – Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Roberto Clemente becomes the first (and to date only) player to hit a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam in a win over the Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh's old Forbes Field.
- World Series – New York Yankees win 4 games to 3 over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Yankees pitcher Don Larsen, pitches the only perfect game in World Series history, earning himself MVP honors. It was the only no-hitter thrown in any postseason game until October 6, 2010, in his first postseason appearance, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay pitched a no-hitter against Cincinnati Reds in the NLDS.
- December 1 – Cincinnati slugger Frank Robinson is unanimously voted the NL Rookie of the Year. White Sox shortstop Luis Aparicio is voted AL Rookie of the Year with 22 points, beating out Baltimore's Tito Francona and Rocky Colavito of the Indians.
Read more about this topic: 1956 In Sports
Famous quotes containing the word baseball:
“The talk shows are stuffed full of sufferers who have regained their health—congressmen who suffered through a serious spell of boozing and skirt-chasing, White House aides who were stricken cruelly with overweening ambition, movie stars and baseball players who came down with acute cases of wanting to trash hotel rooms while under the influence of recreational drugs. Most of them have found God, or at least a publisher.”
—Calvin Trillin (b. 1935)
“Compared to football, baseball is almost an Oriental game, minimizing individual stardom, requiring a wide range of aggressive and defensive skills, and filled with long periods of inaction and irresolution. It has no time limitations. Football, on the other hand, has immediate goals, resolution on every single play, and a lot of violence—itself a highlight. It has clearly distinguishable hierarchies: heroes and drones.”
—Jerry Mander, U.S. advertising executive, author. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, ch. 15, Morrow (1978)
“When Dad can’t get the diaper on straight, we laugh at him as though he were trying to walk around in high-heel shoes. Do we ever assist him by pointing out that all you have to do is lay out the diaper like a baseball diamond, put the kid’s butt on the pitcher’s mound, bring home plate up, then fasten the tapes at first and third base?”
—Michael K. Meyerhoff (20th century)