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Happy ’80s Birthday to Cobra! He’s still a total badass.
Happy ’80s Birthday to Bill Virdon, who piloted the Astros to the NLCS in 1980 and also won Rookie of the Year in 1955 with the Cardinals.
Virdon played 12 seasons in the bigs with St. Louis and Pittsburgh and won a ring in 1960. He then managed for another 13 years with the Pirates, Astros, Yankees and Expos.
Happy ’80s Birthday to former Cardinals pitcher John Fulgham, who won 14 games over two seasons in his big league career and also got into a shoving match on the team bus with Keith Hernandez in June of 1980. He had a promising rookie season in 1979, but tore his rotator cuff and never recovered.
Happy ’80s Birthday to Tom Edens, who made his debut in 1987 and won 19 games over seven seasons in the big leagues.
6/9/87
The Cardinals sign Dan Driessen as a free agent.
He plays 58 games in Triple-A and 24 with the big club and his big league career is over.
6/9/88
The Rangers sign Steve Kemp as a free agent.
He plays 37 games in Triple-A and 16 with the big club and his career is over.
Big Days
6/9/81
San Diego St. collegiate player Tony Gwynn is drafted by both the Padres and the San Diego Clippers.
Gwynn wants to try both but “settles” for baseball and becomes a Hall of Famer.
6/9/82
Biff Pocoroba goes 5 for 5 and drives in 5 in an 11-5 Braves win over the Dodgers.
6/9/82
Lefty throws a CG and strikes out 16 as the Phillies beat the Cubs 4-2. He’d win his 4th Cy Young Award in 1982.
6/9/83
Morgana claims her next victim.
6/9/84
Greg Luzinski becomes just the 10th player in history to hit grand slams in back-to-back games. The Bull hits a slam off Minnesota’s Mike Walters a day after hitting one off Frank Viola.
6/9/85
Joe Niekro passes Larry Dierker as the winningest pitcher in Astros history.
He finishes his career in Houston with 144 wins.
6/9/86
Don Sutton throws a two-hit shutout to beat Tom Seaver and the White Sox 3-0 for his 299th career win.
Sutt and Seaver have 604 total wins combined, the highest for opposing pitchers since 1926, when Walter Johnson (406) pitched against Red Faber (197).
6/9/87
Using a bat he had custom made by the fine folks at the Louisville Slugger factory, Iowa Cubs DH Wade Rowdon goes 4 for 4 with 4 homers and 6 RBI in an 18-2 win over Louisville. Rowdon visited the factory earlier in the season and found a Jimmie Foxx model he liked. He made a few adjustments to it and swung it for the rest of his career. It certainly worked well that night.
6/9/89
Darryl Strawberry hits the 200th home run of his career.
6/9/89
Tracy Jones goes 4 for 5 with four singles and drives in 7 in a 12-2 Giants win over the Padres. The bases were loaded in his first three plate appearances.
Transactions
6/9/83
The Yankees release Rick Reuschel.
He signs with the Cubs and wins an additional 81 games over the next nine years for multiple teams along with two Gold Gloves and makes two All-Star teams.
Deaths
We lost Bob Welch OTD in 2014
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