As the sports world remains at a virtual standstill due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, let’s take a look back to see what happened on April 1 in sports history.

1972 – MLB players strike for the first time – There were few more significant years for Major League Baseball than 1972. The Washington Senators relocated to Arlington and became the Texas Rangers.  The Flood v. Kuhn decision would open the door to free agency across North American sports. The Oakland Athletics would win their first of three straight World Series titles. Pittsburgh Pirates icon Roberto Clemente would be tragically killed in a plane crash near Puerto Rico while attempting to bring aid to an earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua. That the year would be one of great consequence was signalled early with the first-ever MLB players’ strike. While it wouldn’t be nearly as acrimonious or long as the 1994 work stoppage that wiped out the World Series, the fallout would still be felt in that season and beyond. The strike would only last until April 13, with the owners acquiescing to a number of demands including increased pension funds for the players’ association, as well as the addition of salary arbitration to the existing CBA. From a practical standpoint, the strike wreaked havoc on the 1972 season. In total, 83 games were not played due to the stoppage, and they were not made up. The season was not at all extended because the league didn’t want to pay the players for the time missed while the strike was ongoing. What that meant, then, was uneven and imbalanced schedules for a number of teams in both the American League and National League. Teams lost anywhere from six to eight games, but two teams were hit the hardest in the San Diego Padres and Houston Astros, who both missed nine contests. The Padres were the worst team in the NL that season and the Astros were well out of contending for the NL West title, so the impact of their missing games was minimal, but the league’s refusal to add any additional games was of stark consequence for the AL East. The two best teams in the division that year were the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox. Billy Martin’s Tigers ended up winning the AL East by a half-game over Eddie Kasko’s BoSox, but there was a big asterisk here – Detroit played one more game than the Red Sox and finished with one more win, 86 to 85, allowing the Tigers to claim the division crown. It was a small measure of vindication for the Red Sox, then, to see the Tigers fall to the Athletics in the American League Championship Series.

1978 – Mike Bossy hits No. 50 – That Mike Bossy was going to star in the NHL didn’t come as a surprise. It’s what the New York Islanders hoped when they took the Montreal native with the 15th overall selection in the 1977 NHL Amateur Draft out of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Laval National. Bossy was an offensive dynamo in the Q during his four full seasons there. His lowest goal total during that period was 70. In 1974-75, Bossy scored 84 goals. Bossy’s 309 goals over his QMJHL tenure remain a league record. So while his success in the NHL might not have been a surprise, how quickly he reached it still was. During the 1977-78 season, the 20-year-old Bossy put together the greatest offensive season by a first-year player in years and his goal-scoring prowess was something the NHL had never seen before. Bossy would put an exclamation mark on his freshman campaign during an April 1 game against the Washington Capitals. Bossy was actually ice-cold heading into the date with the Caps. After scoring his 49th goal of the season, Bossy had gone scoreless in six straight, the longest streak of futility in his young career. The Capitals led 2-1 into the third period on goals from Torn Rowe and Guy Charron, with the Isles’ goal coming shorthanded from Lorne Henning. With eight minutes left in the final frame, the Isles headed to the power play and Bossy finally broke out of his slump, beating Caps goaltender Bernie Wolfe on the short side on a rebound from his initial chance. With the goal, Bossy became the first rookie in NHL history to reach the 50-goal plateau. But Bossy wasn’t finished that night. In the game’s final minute, the Caps were again penalized. A wild scramble ensued at the Washington goalmouth and with three seconds left in regulation, Bossy struck again for his 51st goal of the season and an improbable two points for the Islanders in a 3-2 win. Bossy would score two more goals that season to finish the year on 53 goals, a record that would stand for 15 years until “The Finnish Flash” Teemu Selanne came on the scene in 1992-93, potting an astonishing 76 goals in his freshman season.

1990 – WrestleMania VI comes to SkyDome – “The Showcase of the Immortals” came to Toronto’s brand-new SkyDome in the spring of 1990. Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation made it a habit over the years of holding its marquee events at new facilities and the Toronto Blue Jays’ new digs – opened in the summer of 1989 – fit the bill for the sixth edition of WrestleMania, the WWF’s signature event of the year. A 15-match card was held in front of a then-record 67,678 spectators (the WWF/World Wrestling Entertainment’s announced crowds are notoriously inflated) with a first-time ever main event pitting the company’s top two babyfaces, the WWF Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan and the Intercontinental Champion Ultimate Warrior, against one another in a title versus title match. Other matches on the card saw Demolition of Ax and Smash defeat Bobby Heenan’s Colossal Connection of Haku and Andre the Giant for the WWF Tag Team Titles. In the aftermath, Heenan blamed the loss on Andre, slapping him in the face. Andre, now 44 and clearly in a great deal of physical discomfort, took out both Heenan and partner Haku, turning face once again for the first time in years. The match ended up being Andre’s final televised appearance for the promotion as his health worsened and he died less than three years later. Elsewhere, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake pinned “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig in what was Hennig’s first televised defeat in the promotion. Five Canadians competed on the card in front of their countrymen in Rick Martel, “Earthquake” John Tenta, Bret “The Hitman” Hart, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Dino Bravo. The main event saw a changing of the guard when it came to the face of the promotion. With Hogan perceived to be getting stale as the WWF’s top babyface after a years-long run at the top of the card throughout most of the mid-to-late-1980s, McMahon decided to go with the Warrior as the company’s new top star. Warrior would pin Hogan clean in a nearly 23-minute-long bout with the Warrior Splash. After the match, Hogan and the Warrior would embrace, with Hogan endorsing his rival in a seeming passing of the torch. Now both the Heavyweight and Intercontinental Champion, Warrior would go on to relinquish the IC crown, with Hennig winning a tournament for the vacant title later in the year. The Warrior would hold on to the WWF Championship until the following January’s Royal Rumble, dropping it to the promotion’s new top heel, the now Iraqi-sympathizing Sgt. Slaughter.

1996 – John McSherry dies on Opening Day – The 1996 Major League Baseball season was to be John McSherry’s 26th as a major-league umpire. One of the most seasoned officials among big-league umpires, McSherry had a pair of World Series under his belt, along with a number of league championship series. Among the more notable games that McSherry worked were Reggie Jackson’s three-home run performance in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series, a Larry Dierker no-hitter in 1976 and a notorious 1986 game between the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros that went 18 innings over two days and featured 53 players. McSherry began the 1996 season with a series in his hometown of Cincinnati with the Reds hosting the Montreal Expos. McSherry was serving as the home-plate umpire for the series opener. The legendary Sparky Anderson threw out the ceremonial first pitch and Pete Schourek stepped on the hill for the Reds. After only seven pitches, McSherry called timeout from behind the plate and signalled to the second-base umpire to come in. Reds catcher Eddie Taubensee called to McSherry as he walked towards the Reds dugout before suddenly stumbling and collapsing. A frantic attempt to revive McSherry was made by both teams’ medical staffs before an ambulance rushed him to University Hospital. McSherry was pronounced dead within the hour of a massive heart attack. With the rest of the umpiring crew and both clubs visibly shaken, both teams decided not to resume the game. "I don't know how anybody could have played in that situation," Reds manager Ray Knight said. "It was just really difficult and hard, right there before your eyes. The game of baseball is so insignificant to the game of life." Reds owner Marge Schott, though, wanted the game to continue. Schott, who said she felt “cheated,” called the National League’s office to complain. "This is screwy, I'm telling you," Schott said to NL vice-president Katy Feeney. "You can't imagine the boos that are going on here. Why can't we play the game? This man wouldn't want to disappoint 50,000 fans." The game would be replayed the next day, with the Reds winning 4-1.

2016 – Record-breaking Dubs taste defeat at home – The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors were world-beaters. Steve Kerr’s team of superstars set the all-time regular-season wins mark with 73, breaking the previous record of 72 held by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. But before they could do that, their chances to set the new record took a hit when the Boston Celtics played an April Fools’ Day prank on them at Oracle Arena. Heading into that April 1 encounter, the Warriors had last lost a home game on January 27, 2015. On that night, the Warriors fell 113-11 to the Bulls. Chicago got big games from its star trio with Derrick Rose scoring 30, Pau Gasol chipping in with 18 points and 16 rebounds and Joakim Noah adding 18 and hauling down 15 boards. After that game, the Warriors put together the longest home run in NBA history, winning 54 straight games at Oracle with dreams of an undefeated season on homecourt still very much in play. The Celtics headed into Oakland with hopes of home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, vying with the Atlanta Hawks for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. Prior to the April 1 matchup, the Warriors had won five straight meetings with the Celtics, including a 124-119 double-overtime victory the previous December. The Celtics’ recipe for success on that April night was simple – shut down the Splash Bros. as best they could. The Celtics held Steph Curry and Klay Thompson to a combined 15-for-35 from the field and forced Curry into a season-high nine turnovers, thanks to some smothering defence from Isaiah Thomas, Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley. The team commitment to defence led the Celtics to ensuring that the Warriors didn’t make consecutive unanswered field goals once all game. Offensively, Thomas led the way for Boston with 22 points, while Jared Sullinger added 20 points and 12 boards. The loss meant the Warriors would have to go 5-1 in their final five games to break the Bulls’ record, which they managed with their only blemish coming in an April 5 overtime loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The defending champion Warriors would once again reach the NBA Finals, leaving the Houston Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder in their Western Conference wake, but the Cleveland Cavaliers would avenge their loss in the 2015 Finals, beating the Dubs in a classic seven-game series and overturning a 3-1 series deficit to win the franchise’s first ever NBA title.