Compiled by PAUL MONTELLA
By The Associated Press
Sept. 27
1923 -- Lou Gehrig hit his first homer in the majors off Bill Piercy of the Boston Red Sox. On the same date 15 years later, he hit his 493rd and last off Dutch Leonard of the Senators.
1930 -- Hack Wilson hit two home runs for the Chicago Cubs, giving him an NL-record 56 for the season.
1935 -- The Chicago Cubs clinched the NL pennant and won their 21st consecutive game with a doubleheader sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cubs won the pennant with the opening-game victory.
1936 -- Hall of Fame manager Walter Alston played in his only major league game as a late-inning substitute at first base for Johnny Mize of the St. Louis Cardinals. He made one error in two chances and struck out in his only at-bat.
1940 -- Rookie Floyd Giebell pitched the Detroit Tigers to a pennant-clinching 2-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians. It was Giebell's second and last major league win.
1973 -- The California Angels beat the Minnesota Twins 5-4 in 11 innings as Nolan Ryan struck out 16, including No. 383 of the season, a modern major league record.
1993 -- Randy Myers became the first NL reliever with 50 saves in a season as the Chicago Cubs beat Los Angeles 7-3.
1996 -- San Francisco's Barry Bonds became the second player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in a season. Jose Canseco was the other. Bonds, who had 42 homers, stole his 40th base in a 9-3 win over Colorado. 1998 -- Mark McGwire gave baseball a new magic number, hitting two homers to reach No. 70 in the St. Louis Cardinals' season finale against Montreal. It was McGwire's fifth homer in the season-ending, three-game series. McGwire's 70th and final home run of the season was a line shot over the left-field wall on a first-pitch fastball from Carl Pavano in the seventh.
1998 -- The New York Yankees won their seventh straight game and ended their regular season with 114 victories. With a .704 winning percentage, the Yankees (114-48) became the first team since the 1954 Cleveland Indians (111-43) to play .700 ball over an entire season.
2000 -- Anaheim's Darin Erstad was 4-for-5 with an RBI in a 9-7 loss to Oakland. Erstad with 99 RBIs, broke the major league record for RBIs in a season by a leadoff batter set by Boston's Nomar Garciaparra (98) in 1997.
2003 -- Edgar Renteria became the first National League shortstop in 18 years to drive in 100 runs as St. Louis beat Arizona 3-2. Montreal's Hubie Brooks was the last NL shortstop to have at least 100, in 1985.
2003 -- Sammy Sosa hit his 40th home run as Chicago beat Pittsburgh 7-2 in the second game of a doubleheader. Sosa set an NL record by reaching the mark for the sixth straight year.
2005 -- The Atlanta Braves clinched their 14th straight division title thanks to Philadelphia's loss to the New York Mets. The Braves began their record-setting streak in 1991 -- when they were in the NL West.
2006 -- Florida is the first team in major league history to have four rookie pitchers with 10 wins after Anibal Sanchez (10-3) joined Scott Olsen (12-9), Josh Johnson (12-7) and Ricky Nolasco (11-10) following a 7-2 win over Cincinnati. Dontrelle Willis (12-12) gives the Marlins five 10-game winners for the first time in franchise history.
2008 -- Mike Mussina of the New York Yankees became the oldest pitcher to win 20 games in a season for the first time, reaching the milestone on the final day of the season. The 39-year-old Mussina (20-9), finishing his 18th major league season, allowed three hits in six shutout innings. Previously, the oldest first-time 20-game winner was Jamie Moyer, who was 38 when he went 20-6 for Seattle in 2001.
2011 -- The Tampa Bay Rays moved into a tie with the Boston Red Sox for the wild-card lead, beating the New York Yankees 5-2. Boston found another way to lose, this time on a broken-bat single and an inside-the-park homer, for a 6-3 loss to Baltimore. The Rays, who trailed by nine games after play on Sept. 3, pulled even with Boston, which suffered its 17th loss in the last 22 games.
2011 -- The St. Louis Cardinals tied the Atlanta Braves for the NL wild-card lead, with a 13-6 victory over the Astros. The Braves lost to Philadelphia 7-1, their fourth in a row and eighth in 11 games.
2012 -- Doug Fister set an AL record by striking out nine straight batters and Detroit beat Kansas City 5-4. Fister came within one strikeout of matching Tom Seaver's major league record of 10 in a row.
2012 -- R.A. Dickey became the first knuckleballer to win 20 games in more than three decades, matching his career high with 13 strikeouts and leading the New York Mets to a 6-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Today's birthdays: David Hale, 27; Matt Shoemaker, 28; Pedro Ciriaco, 29; John Lannan, 30; Mike Schmidt, 65.