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Saturday, June 12, 2010

This Day in Angels Baseball: June 12th, 1965

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June 12, 1965 the California Angels beat the New York Yankees 13-3 at Dodger Stadium. Rudy May pitched a complete game, allowing 3 runs on 8 hits with 9 walks and a strikeout, to get the win. The Angels were led in scoring by Willie Smith (3-5, 3 RBI); Vic Power (2-5, 2 runs, 3 RBI) and Buck Rodgers (2-4, 5 RBI). Buck Rodgers would be signed by the Los Angeles Angels in the 1960 expansion draft as a catcher and would play his entire 9 year MLB career (1961-1969) with the Angels, hitting 31 home runs, scoring 259 runs, knocking in 288 with a .232 average. Rodgers would catch Bo Belinsky's no-hitter in 1962. After his playing days with the Angels, Rodgers would go on to a managerial career in baseball, winning the NL Manager of the Year award with the Montreal Expos in 1987. Rodgers would come back to the Angels in August of 1991 to manage, after the Angels fired Doug Rader. Only a quarter of the way into his first full season as manager of the Angels, Rodgers would be seriously injured on a New Jersey Turnpike after one of the team buses went off the road, and would miss most of the 1992 season and the Angels would finish the year at 72-90. 1993 would go no better for the Angels and Rodgers as they took 5th in the American League West for the second straight year, finishing at 71-91. After a slow start to the 1994 season, the Angels would replace Rodgers with Marcel Lachemann in May of that year. Rodgers would have a 140-173 record while managing the Angels.