- Feb 22 “Father of American Golf” John Reid first demonstrates golf on a Yonkers cow pasture to friends
Boxing Title Fight
Mar 10 Heavyweight Boxing champ John L. Sullivan draws Charlie Mitchell in 30 rounds
- Mar 23 50th Grand National: George Mawson aboard 40/1 outsider Playfair easily wins by 10 lengths from Frigate
- Apr 1 Students from Rotterdam, Netherlands establish a cricket club called Rotterdamsche Cricket & Football Club Sparta which evolves into Sparta Rotterdam
- May 11 16th Preakness: F Littlefield aboard Refund wins in 2:49
- May 12 Crouching start 1st used in track and field by Charles Sherrill of Yale
- May 14 14th Kentucky Derby: George Covington aboard MacBeth II wins in 2:38.00
- Jun 3 Baseball poem "Casey at the Bat" 1st published by the San Francisco Examiner
- Jun 9 22nd Belmont: Jim McLaughlin aboard Sir Dixon wins in 2:40.25
- Jun 15 US National Championship Women's Tennis, Philadelphia Cricket Club: Bertha Townsend beats defending champion Ellen Hansell 6-3, 6-5
Wimbledon Men's Tennis
Jul 16 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: 3-time runner-up Ernest Renshaw wins his lone major title; beats defending champion Herbert Lawford 6-3, 7-5, 6-0
Wimbledon Women's Tennis
Jul 21 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Lottie Dod retains her title beating Blanche Bingley-Hillyard 6-3, 6-3
- Aug 20 Longest US men's single tennis tournament match Palmer Presbrey defeats T S Tailer, 19-21, 8-6, 6-1, 6-4, an 80 game 1st-round contest
- Aug 28 US National Championship Men's Tennis, Newport R.I.: Henry Slocum beats Howard Taylor 6-4, 6-1, 6-0
- Oct 3 New Zealand Natives, a privately organised and mainly Māori rugby team, plays first game in UK; beats Surry 4-1; first national rugby team to wear all-black & perform the 'haka'
- Oct 8 British Open Men's Golf, St Andrews: Scotsman Jack Burns wins his lone Open title by 1 stroke from Ben Sayers and David Anderson Jr
- Oct 20 Chicago and All America baseball teams play exhibition in Auckland, New Zealand
- Oct 27 "World Championship" Baseball Series, Sportsman's Park, St. Louis; St. Louis Browns rout NY Giants, 18-7 in Game 10 but lose series, 6-4
- Oct 31 Scottish vet John Boyd Dunlop patents pneumatic bicycle tyre
- Nov 14 St Andrews Golf Club, Yonkers NY, opens with just 6 holes
- Dec 22 Heavyweight boxing champ John L. Sullivan challenges Jake Kilrain
- Dec 25 First indoor baseball game played at fairgrounds in Philadelphia; 2,000 watch the Uptowners beat the Downtowners, 6-1