Bagwell day

The Astros retired number 5 yesterday - Jeff Bagwell's number. Bagwell, as you may know, got hit by 128 pitches in his career, and while some may have thought it would have been nice for Craig Biggio to celebrate his longtime teammates' career by getting hit by a pitch himself, he instead made a speech and took the day off.

It's entirely possible that Jeff Bagwell is responsible for Biggio's run at the career plunk record and this website. Bagwell jumped into the league as a rookie in 1991, and led the league with 13 HBPs. Biggio didn't lead the leaugue until 1995, and after 1991, Biggio never took fewer than 7 plunks for the team until this season. It could easily have been that Bagwell's refusal to get out of the way of pitches in 1991 inspired Biggio to do the same for the next 15 seasons.


The Astros are off today, meaning that Paul Byrd will remain the only pitcher to plunk Biggio on this date. He did so ten years ago, on August 27, 1997. He scored on a Jeff Bagwell homer.

Dennis Martinez plunked Jeff Bagwell on August 27, 1993 and Frank Castillo hit Bagwell with a pitch on August 27, 1996.