Major League Baseball Career
Rhoden broke into the big leagues, at the age of 21, with the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 5, 1974.
He was elected to the All-Star team twice (1976 with the Dodgers and 1986 with the Pirates), and won three Silver Slugger awards (1984–1986).
In 413 career games, Rhoden compiled a 151-125 record, a 3.59 ERA, 1419 strikeouts, and one save. He has also hit nine home runs and had 75 RBIs.
His teams made it to the post-season twice during his career: the Dodgers in two consecutives seasons, 1977 and 1978. In both of those years, the Dodgers reached the World Series against the New York Yankees, but lost in six games each year.
Rhoden earned a reputation as an outstanding hitting pitcher. He had an eleven-game hitting streak in 1984, one of the longest all-time for a pitcher.
On June 11, 1988, New York Yankees manager Billy Martin made him the Yankees' starting designated hitter, going 0-1 with an RBI on a sacrifice fly. He batted 7th in the lineup, ahead of Rafael Santana and Joel Skinner. He was the first pitcher to start a game at DH since the AL's adoption of the DH rule in 1973. He was pinch hit for by José Cruz in the Yankees' 8-6 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.
In his career, Rhoden batted .238 with 9 home runs and 75 RBI.
Rhoden's final game was September 29, 1989 for the Houston Astros.
Read more about this topic: Rick Rhoden
Famous quotes containing the words major, league, baseball and/or career:
“He could jazz up the map-reading class by having a full-size color photograph of Betty Grable in a bathing suit, with a co- ordinate grid system laid over it. The instructor could point to different parts of her and say, “Give me the co-ordinates.”... The Major could see every unit in the Army using his idea.... Hot dog!”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)
“The salary cap ... will be accepted about the time the 13 original states restore the monarchy.”
—Tom Reich, U.S. baseball agent. New York Times, p. 16B (August 11, 1994)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)