The Day in Sports : COUNTDOWN TO 2000 / A day-by-day recap of some of the most important sports moments of the 20th Century: SEPT. 1, 1960 : It Was No Roman Holiday for Two U.S. Olympians

Many called it one of the darkest days for the U.S. track and field team in the Olympics, the day two of America’s giants fell in Rome.

First came the 100-meter final. Ray Norton of San Jose State, who had swept the sprints in that year’s U.S-U.S.S.R. meet and the Olympic trials, was the favorite.

Not only did Norton lose, he came in last.

Germany’s Armin Hary, who had set a world record of 10 seconds earlier in the year, won the Olympic gold in 10.2.

Norton was sixth in 10.4.

The worst was yet to come.

John Thomas was unbeaten in the high jump for two years, had cleared seven feet more than 30 times, including 7-3 3/4 at the Olympic trials at Stanford. But he had never experienced the pressure of the Olympics, and there was plenty of that as the competition wound down to a razor-thin finish.

The U.S.S.R.’s Robert Shavlakadze, a handlebar-mustached Georgian, cleared the winning height, 7-1, on his first try. Valery Brumel cleared it on his second jump, and won the silver medal. Thomas, who got the bronze, missed all three tries at 7-1 but had cleared 7- 1/4 on his second jump.

Many sportswriters blasted Norton and Thomas. But not UPI’s Oscar Fraley, who wrote about “crybaby” Americans: “Respect is the biggest victory we can carry home and this one, too, we’re losing daily,” he wrote.

Also on this date: In 1971, 24 years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, the Pittsburgh Pirates fielded what is believed to be the first all-black starting lineup in major league history. The Pirates beat the Expos, 8-4. . . . In 1989, baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, 51, died of a heart attack. . . . In 1958, St. Louis’ Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell set a major league record for walks--nine--in winning a shutout. He beat the Reds, 1-0. . . . In 1905, Pittsburgh’s Honus Wagner became one of the first professional athletes to endorse a commercial product when he signed with J.F. Hillerich & Son, permitting the bat maker to stamp his autograph on the firm’s bats.