A Look at Dominating Phillies Pitching Performances: Reliever Gene Garber
Baseball teams did not always employ a closer. There was a time when a relief pitcher came out of the bullpen to rescue a starter who had gotten into trouble in the middle to late innings, and pitch two, three, four innings to finish out a game. The conventional wisdom was to employ a good balance of left-handed and right-handed arms to put out the fire when a team found itself in a jam. Such was the case for the Phillies in the mid to late seventies, when they began their rise to dominance in the National League East. While Phillies fans today can all identify left-hander Tug McGaw’s iconic celebration after striking out Willie Wilson to win the team’s first ever World Series in 1980, few may recall his right-handed cohort who helped the Phils emerge from perennial basement dwellers to a force to be reckoned with in the National League. That Phillies pitching arsenal included a quality right-hander, Gene Garber. Garber may best be known for his y...