Baseball
- April 8 – One-handed pitcher Jim Abbott makes his major-league debut with the California Angels, without spending a single day in the minor leagues. He went on to a 12–12 record for the season.
- August 10 – Ten months after undergoing surgery for cancer in his pitching arm, San Francisco Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky returns to the major leagues, winning his comeback 4–3.
- August 15 – Dave Dravecky's comeback bid ends when his pitching arm breaks in the sixth inning of his second start. Two years later, the cancer-stricken arm would be amputated.
- August 24 – Following an investigation that he gambled on baseball, superstar player Pete Rose is banned from baseball for life.
- World Series – Oakland Athletics won 4 games to 0 over the San Francisco Giants. The Series MVP was Dave Stewart, Oakland.
Read more about this topic: 1989 In Sports
Famous quotes containing the word baseball:
“Baseball is the religion that worships the obvious and gives thanks that things are exactly as they seem. Instead of celebrating mysteries, baseball rejoices in the absence of mysteries and trusts that, if we watch what is laid before our eyes, down to the last detail, we will cultivate the gift of seeing things as they really are.”
—Thomas Boswell, U.S. sports journalist. “The Church of Baseball,” Baseball: An Illustrated History, ed. Geoffrey C. Ward, Knopf (1994)
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
“Spooky things happen in houses densely occupied by adolescent boys. When I checked out a four-inch dent in the living room ceiling one afternoon, even the kid still holding the baseball bat looked genuinely baffled about how he possibly could have done it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)