Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president.
J.R. Richard, former pitcher for the Houston Astros. NYT. Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.
Richard, who was part of the Astros’ inaugural Hall of Fame class in 2020, pitched all 10 of his big league seasons with the Astros before his career was cut short when he suffered a stroke while playing catch inside the Astrodome on July 30, 1980.
“He was one of the greatest pitchers we ever had and probably would have been in the Hall of Fame if his career was not cut short,” Richard’s former Astros teammate Enos Cabell said in a statement released by the team. “On the mound, he was devastating and intimidating. Nobody wanted to face him. Guys on the other team would say that they were sick to avoid facing him. This is very sad news. He will be missed.”
Before the stroke, Richard was one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball, leading the league in strikeouts in back-to-back seasons in 1978 and 1979. In that 1979 season – when he set a franchise record with 313 strikeouts, which was broken by Gerrit Cole in 2019 – he also led the National League in ERA at 2.71.