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Happy ’80s Birthday to Dickie Thon, who was on the road to stardom until he was hit in the face with a pitch in 1984.
Thon spent 15 years in the bigs with six different teams and retired after the 1993 season.
Happy ’80s Birthday to Doug Gwosdz, who spent four years with the Padres.
His nickname was “eyechart.”
Happy ’80s Birthday to Gary Varsho, who spent eight years in the big leagues and later managed in the minors and major leagues.
Happy ’80s Birthday to Phil Huffman, who pitched for the Blue Jays in 1979 and the Orioles in 1985.
6/20/85
The Detroit Tigers traded Duane James to the Rangers for Frank Tanana.
Tanana pitches in Detroit for eight years and spends 1993 in New York with the Mets and Yankees.
6/20/86
The Indians trade Neal Heaton to the Twins for John Butcher.
Heaton wins 4 games for Minnesota and the Twins trade him to Montreal in the spring of 1987 in a deal involving Jeff Reardon.
6/20/89
Jaime Navarro goes 6.2 innings against the Royals and gets a no-decision in his big league debut.
He wins seven games as a rookie and spends twelve seasons in the major leagues.
Big Days
6/20/80
Terry Kennedy goes 2 for 3 with two homers and drives in six in a 7-5 Cardinals win over the Reds
6/20/80
Freddie Patek goes 4 for 6 with three homers and seven RBI in a 20-2 Angels win over the Red Sox.
6/20/82
Pete Rose goes 1 for 3 with a run scored in a 3-1 loss to the Pirates and becomes just the 5th player to appear in 3,000 games, joining Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, and Carl Yastrzemski.
6/20/82
Ben Oglivie goes 3 for 4 with three home runs and 5 RBI in a 7 – 5 win over Detroit. It is the second three-homer game of his career.
6/20/84
Dave Kingman hits his 3rd Grand Slam of the season in an 8-1 A’s win over the Royals.
6/20/85
Reggie hits his 513th career dinger, a two-run shot off Cleveland’s Don Schulze, and moves into 10th place on the all-time home run list.
Transactions
6/20/80
The Indians purchase Jack Brohamer from the Boston Red Sox. He plays in 54 games and retires.
6/20/80
The Angels select Ed Halicki off waivers from the Giants. Halicki goes 3-1 in ten games and his career is over at the end of the season.
6/20/81
The Tigers sign Bernie Carbo as a free agent. He spends the rest of the season in the minor leagues, plays in Mexico in 1982, and his career is over.
6/20/83
Bobby Murcer retires as an active player.
He finishes with a .277 batting average and 252 home runs.
Fights
6/20/80
Al Cowens hits a ground ball to shortstop in Chicago but makes a left turn halfway down the line to go after Ed Farmer, who had broken his jaw with a pitch the previous season.
6/20/87
Bill Gullickson hits Andres Thomas in the back and sparks a bench-clearing brawl in Atlanta.
Managerial Changes
6/20/86
The White Sox fire manager Tony LaRussa and replace him with Jim Fregosi.
LaRussa moves on to Oakland and wins three pennants before going to St. Louis.
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