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SLAM! Sports 2000 in Review A LOOK BACK INTERACTIVE CONTESTS ALSO ON SLAM!
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MayMay 1 -- Atlanta's John Rocker was booed loudly by the Dodger Stadium crowd, including one fan who ran on the field and mooned him. Several objects were thrown on the field, prompting a warning from the stadium announcer as the Braves won 2-1.May 2 -- Judy Rankin, a 26-time winner and the first woman to break the $100,000 barrier, was voted into the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame. Rankin was the first player elected from the tour's new Veteran's Category, established in February 1999 when the LPGA revamped its rigid Hall of Fame criteria. May 2 -- Jockey Julie Krone became the first female elected to thoroughbred racing's hall of fame. Neil Drysdale, who trains Kentucky Derby favorite Fusaichi Pegasus, also was elected. May 2 -- Atlanta became the first NL team in 49 years to win 15 straight games by defeating Los Angeles 5-3. May 3 -- The Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 6-4, ending Atlanta's franchise-record 15-game winning streak, the longest in the majors since 1991 and the National League's longest since 1951. May 4 -- Keith Primeau ended the third-longest game in NHL history by scoring at 12:01 of the fifth overtime to give the Philadelphia Flyers a 2-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins, tying their Eastern Conference semifinal series at two games apiece. The game ended at 2:35 a.m. EDT, exactly seven hours after it started. May 6 -- Fusaichi Pegasus became the first favorite to win the Kentucky Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979. The colt, trained by Neil Drysdale, finished 1 1/2 lengths ahead of Aptitude and was hand ridden by Kent Desormeaux through the stretch. May 7 -- Ryan Dempster pitched a one-hitter, striking out eight, for his first career shutout as Florida beat the New York Mets 3-0. May 7 -- Tom Kelly became the 46th manager to win 1,000 games as Minnesota beat Detroit 4-0. May 8 -- The New Jersey Devils held Toronto to an NHL modern record-low six shots and eliminated the Maple Leafs from the Stanley Cup playoffs with a 3-0 victory. New Jersey limited the Leafs to the fewest shots in any NHL game since the start of the expansion era in 1967. May 9 -- Shaquille O'Neal won his first NBA Most Valuable Player award and missed becoming the first-ever unanimous selection by one vote. O'Neal led the league in scoring (29.7 points per game) and field goal percentage (57.4 percent), and finished second in rebounding (13.6) as his team went 67-15. He received 120 of 121 votes, with the remaining vote going to Philadelphia's Allen Iverson. May 10 -- New York Mets outfielder Rickey Henderson became the 21st player in major league history with 10,000th career at-bats in a 13-9 loss to Pittsburgh. May 11 -- The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Chicago Cubs 14-8 in the longest nine-inning game in National League history -- 4 hours, 22 minutes. The teams tied the major league record set by Baltimore and the Yankees on Sept. 5, 1997. May 11 -- Joe Strong, a 37-year-old reliever, became the oldest player to make his major league debut in nearly 40 years when he took the mound for the Florida Marlins in a 5-4 victory over the Atlanta Braves. Strong was the oldest player to make his big league debut since pitcher Diomedes Olivo on Sept. 5, 1960 for the Pittsburgh Pirates at age 41. May 12 -- Adam Petty, 19, the fourth-generation driver of NASCAR's most famous family, died in a crash during practice for the Busch 200 at New Hampshire International Speedway. May 12 -- Boston's Pedro Martinez, who had 17 strikeouts in his last start May 6 against Tampa Bay, struck out 15 in a 9-0 win over Baltimore, to tie an AL record set in 1968 by Cleveland's Luis Tiant for most strikeouts over two games. May 15 -- Ian Thorpe set his third world record in three days, bettering his own 200 meters freestyle mark for the second time in 24 hours. Thorpe continued his record-shattering stretch at the Australian Olympic trials, clocking 1 minute, 45.51 seconds to improve by 0.18 the record of 1:45.69 he set in the semifinals yesterday. Thorpe set a new mark for the 400 meters freestyle on May 13, clocked 1 minute, 45.69 seconds in the 200 to better his own mark by 0.31. May 16 -- The Los Angeles Dodgers went into the Wrigley Field crowd after a fan stole Chad Kreuter's cap and ran off with it in the ninth inning of Los Angeles' 6-5 victory. The game was delayed for nine minutes while some Dodgers and fans fought. May 17 -- Australia's Susie O'Neill broke the oldest record in international swimming, winning the 200-meter butterfly and beating the 1981 mark by Mary T. Meagher. O'Neill was timed in 2 minutes, 5.81 seconds, topping the record by 0.15 seconds. Meagher's time of 2:05.96 was set at Brown Deer, Wis. May 18 -- Mark McGwire homered three times and had a career-high seven RBIs, leading the St. Louis Cardinals over the Philadelphia Phillies 7-2. May 19 -- Patrick Roy tied an NHL record with his 15th career playoff shutout as Colorado blanked Dallas 2-0. Roy matched the shutout mark set by Clint Benedict of Ottawa and the Montreal Maroons in the 1920s, and extended his league record for playoff victories to 120. May 19 -- The New York Knicks' 72-70 victory over the Miami Heat tied the NBA record for fewest combined points in a playoff game, matching the 142 by Atlanta and Detroit in a first-round game last season, and tied by Phoenix and San Antonio in the first round this season. May 19 -- Jason Kendall hit for the cycle and drove in a career-high five runs, leading Pittsburgh to a 13-1 rout of St. Louis. Kendall had a two-run homer in the first inning, an RBI single in the second, a double in the third and a two-run triple in the eighth. May 20 -- Red Bullet, with Jerry Bailey up, ran off with a 3 3/4-length victory over Kentucky Derby winner and 1-5 favorite Fusaichi Pegasus in the Preakness Stakes. May 20 -- Sarah Fisher, a 19-year-old rookie, averaged 220.237 mph to become the third woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. Fisher lasted 71 laps in the race. May 20 -- Minnesota Timberwolves basketball player Malik Sealy, 30, was killed when his sport utility vehicle was hit head-on by a pickup truck traveling the wrong way on a divided highway in suburban St. Louis Park, Minn. May 21 -- For the first time in baseball history, there were six grand slams hit in a single day. Anaheim's Garret Anderson hit the record-breaker off Kansas City's Chris Fussell. J.T. Snow of San Francisco, Brian Hunter of Philadelphia, Jason Giambi of Oakland, and Los Angeles' Adrian Beltre and Shawn Green connected with the bases loaded before Anderson. The old mark of five set last Aug. 9. May 23 -- Stanford swept Virginia Commonwealth 4-0 to claim its 17th NCAA men's tennis title, and 13th in the last 16 years. May 24 -- Isiah Thomas, Bob McAdoo and Tennessee women's coach Pat Summitt were elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Also elected were coach Morgan Wootten of DeMatha High School in Hyattsville, Md.; Kentucky athletic director C.M. Newton; and the late Syracuse Nationals founder Danny Biasone, who introduced the 24-second clock. May 24 -- Shawn Estes pulled off a rare baseball double: He pitched a shutout and hit a grand slam. Estes became the first pitcher in 31 years to accomplish the feat throwing a seven-hitter as San Francisco dealt the Montreal Expos their largest loss ever, 18-0. On July 9, 1969, Fred Talbot of the Seattle Pilots hit a slam in an 8-0 victory over the California Angels. May 24 -- Sixteen players and three coaches for the Los Angeles Dodgers were suspended for going into the stands during a fight with fans at Wrigley Field May 16. Catcher Chad Kreuter, hit in the head by a fan grabbing his cap, was suspended for eight games, along with coaches Rick Dempsey, John Shelby and Glenn Hoffman. Fifteen other players were given suspensions of three to five games. Twelve members of the Dodgers had their suspensions overturned on June 29. May 24 -- For the third time in major league history a team was embarrassed by blowing a seven-run lead twice in a week. The Houston Astros saw a 7-0 lead evaporate at home against Philadelphia after blowing a 9-2 lead in the ninth inning at Milwaukee two days earlier. The St. Louis Cardinals twice let that big a lead get away during a series in Boston in June 1900. The Cleveland Indians did the same thing half a century later, in August 1950. May 26 -- New Jersey finished the greatest comeback in a conference final when Patrik Elias scored his second goal of the game with 2:32 to play as the Devils beat the Flyers 2-1 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final. The Devils won the final three games of the series, but the clincher will forever be remembered for Scott Stevens' first-period hit on Eric Lindros that knocked out the Flyers' former captain for the fourth time this season. May 28 -- Dutch swimming star Inge de Bruijn set her third world record in three days, adding the 100 freestyle mark to the 50 and 100 butterfly marks she had set previously at the Sheffield Super Grand Prix. De Bruijn became the first swimmer to finish under 54.00 in the 100 freestyle at 53.80 seconds. She beat the 6-year-old mark of 54.01 held by China's Le Jingyi set in 1994. On May 26, de Bruijn tied Le Jingyi's 50-meter freestyle mark of 24.51, which also has been set in 1994. She also broke her 50 butterfly record when she swam 25.64 in the heats. On May 27, de Bruijn was timed at 56.69 in the 100 butterfly, taking 1.19 off the mark set last year by American Jenny Thompson. It was the fifth world mark De Bruijn had either set or tied in one week, having set a 50-meter butterfly world record at Monaco a week ago. May 28 -- Juan Montoya won the 84th Indianapolis 500, becoming the first rookie champion since Graham Hill in 1966. Montoya overwhelmed the rest of the 33-car field, leading 167 of the 200 laps and crossing the finish line 7.184 seconds -- nearly a full straightaway -- ahead of Buddy Lazier. May 29 -- Oakland second baseman Randy Velarde turned the 10th unassisted triple play in regular-season history during a 4-1 loss to the New York Yankees. With runners on first and second in motion, Shane Spencer hit a line drive to Velarde who caught the ball, tagged out Jorge Posada (running from first) and stepped on second to beat Tino Martinez.
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