Happy ’80s Birthday to Ned Yost, who played in the 1982 World Series with the Brewers and managed the Royals to World Series title in 2015.
Happy ’80s Birthday to Gary Gaetti, who went 10-17 to begin the 1982 season, his first full season in the bigs. He went 7-50 in his next 15 games, but finished the season with 25 dingers and he finished 5th in the Rookie of the Year balloting.
Happy ’80s Birthday to Ron Darling, who was drafted in the first round by the Rangers in 1981 and traded to the Mets less than a year later along with Walt Terrell for Lee Mazzilli. Oops.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Tim Blackwell, who spent ten years in the bigs, primarily as a backup catcher, but the man had a Hall of Fame mustache.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Paul Mitchell, who pitched in the bigs for six seasons and was traded for Reggie.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Mike Phillips, who was a first-round draft pick in 1969 and spent eleven years in the bigs. After retirement, he worked in corporate sales for the Royals and Rangers.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Luis Gomez, who was the first Mexican-born player ever drafted and played nine professional seasons as well as a season and a half in the senior league and never hit a home run.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Terry Harper, who spent eight years in the bigs with three teams and enjoyed his best season in 1985 when he hit .264 with 17 homers for the Braves.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Silvio Martinez, who spent five years in the bigs and won a career-high 15 games for the Cardinals in 1979.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Ron Roenicke, who spent eight years in the bigs with multiple teams and later managed the Brewers.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to David Palmer, who was a 21st-round draft pick and spent ten seasons in the bigs with multiple teams.
He won a career-high 11 games with Atlanta in 1986 but had trouble staying healthy throughout his career.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Luis DeLeon, who pitched in the big leagues for seven seasons and was inducted into the Caribbean Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Sap Randall, who spent eight years in the minor leagues and appeared in four games for the 1988 White Sox.
He later became the head coach at his alma mater, Grambling State University.
Happy ‘80s Birthday to Mark Ciardi, who went 1-1 for the 1987 Brewers and is now a Hollywood producer, with films such as The Rookie, Miracle, and Invincible to his credit.
8/19/83
The Dodgers trade a player to be named later, Dave Stewart and $200,000 to the Texas Rangers for Rick Honeycutt. Stew would go 12-12 for Texas before being traded to the Phillies, who would release him after 12 appearances in 1986, in which he posts a 6.48 E.R.A. He wins 20 or more in the next four seasons.
8/19/83
The Pirates trade Steve Nicosia to the Giants in exchange for Milt May.
May finishes his career in Pittsburgh after 1984, while Nicosia plays for multiple teams and retires after 1985.
8/19/84
Ozzie Smith comes off the DL and the Cardinals trade SS Chris Speier to Minnesota for cash and a PTBNL.
8/19/88
The White Sox trade Gary Redus to the Pirates in exchange for Mike Diaz. Redus plays in Pittsburgh until 1993 and finishes his career with the Rangers after the 1994 season.
8/18/81
The Mets sign Mike Marshall as a free agent. He goes 3-2 in 20 games and his career is over.
8/19/88
Norm Charlton gets knocked around a bit in his big league debut, giving up five runs in 2 2/3 innings against the Cardinals.
Cincinnati converts him to a relief pitcher the following season and he becomes a key member of the 1990 World Champion Reds bullpen.
8/19/88
Reds reliever Rob Murphy allows five runs in 1 2/3 innings against the Cardinals and it was obviously his glove’s fault because Murphy throws it into the stands.
Dave Concepcion trades a baseball for the glove but Murphy says he doesn’t want it back.
“Get that away from me,” he says. “It’s 0-5. It’s like an albatross.”
8/19/80
Steve Stone wins his 20th game en route to the A.L. Cy Young award. He finishes the year at 25-7. Prior to 1980 he’d averaged 9 wins per season.
8/19/80
George Brett’s 30-game hitting streak is snapped but he’s still batting .401 so it’s all good. He hits .467 during the streak.
8/19/80
Darrell Evans hits his 200th career homer in a 5-4 Giants win over the Braves. He’d finish his career with 414.
8/19/81
Lloyd Moseby drives in six runs on the strength of zero extra-base hits in a 9-4 Blue Jays win over the Royals.
8/19/83
Rickey goes 2 for 3 with 4 SBs against the Brewers. It was one of 19 times in his career that he stole 4 or more bases in a game.
8/19/81
Relief pitcher Dave Smith is the only player in the Astros lineup to not record a hit as Houston beats Montreal 9-1.
8/19/83
A 44-year-old Gaylord Perry takes a no-hitter into the 8th inning against Baltimore before losing it, and the game, 5-4. Perry would have been the oldest player to throw a no-no had he pulled it off.
8/19/83
Garth Iorg goes 3 for 3 with a homer as the Blue Jays overcome a 6-0 deficit to beat the Red Sox.
8/19/86
Mark Langston throws a CG and strikes out 14 in a 7-3 win over the Yankees.
8/19/86
The Rangers grab a 7-1 lead over the Royals but KC comes roaring back to tie it and send the game to extra innings. Frank White hits a walk-off homer off Dale Mohorcic to end it. White finishes the day 4 for 7 with 2 homers and 7 RBI.
8/19/88
Andre Dawson homers twice and drives in 5 in an 8-7 Cubs win over the Braves. Hawk had 37 two-homer games.
8/19/88
Mike Moore throws a CG and strikes out 16 in a 6-1 win over the Yankees.
8/19/88
Carlton Fisk goes 5 for 5 for the White Sox in a 5-4 loss to Detroit. There were eleven 5-hit games by players 40 or older in the 20th century and 5 of them came in the ‘80s.
8/19/89
The Marriott Corp. pays $110,000 for the original painting used in Mickey Mantle’s 1953 Topps card as part of an auction of rare proofs and original. Marriott also buys the art for Willie Mays’ 1953 card for $80,000.
8/19/82
The Phillies DFA Sparky Lyle. He’s purchased by the White Sox a few days later and finishes his career on the South Side.
8/19/85
The Phillies release John Wockenfuss and his career is over.
He finishes with 543 hits over 12 seasons with Detroit and Philadelphia.
Powered by BlueHost
Monetize your website with Monumetric
An excerpt from Patrick Montgomery's new book, Baseball's Great Expectations: Candid Stories of Ballplayers Who…
An excerpt from Eric Vickrey's new book about the 1982 St. Louis Cardinals
An open letter to MLB Network and YOUTUBE TV about their stubbornness.
Nearly half of the players in MLB history to reach 3,000 hits played in the…
A breakdown of the men who managed the Cincinnati Reds in the 1980s
