If Your Birthday is December 6th...

 
...you share it with the very bundled-up Larry Bowa. Seen in April 2017 while coaching with the Phillies on a frosty early season evening, the longtime big league shortstop has been a major league fixture for over 50 years...  Bowa played 2247 games, the most of any player with a December 6th birthday -- even more than the only Hall of Fame player born on this date, Tony Lazzeri.

When you think of Larry Bowa, what comes to mind? The tenacity, a self-made player, the little guy choking up on the bat, hitting to the opposite field, a "gamer," a "grinder."  A player whose teams made the post season six times -- highlighted by the Phillies first championship in 1980, a World Series in which he batted .375!

Bowa isn't the only former Phil in today's birthday circle.  So are:

  • Steve Bedrosian, who won the 1987 NL Cy Young Award when he saved 40 games for the Phillies.  (His son and fellow pitcher Cam appeared in 11 games for the 2021 Phis.)
  • Jose Contreras, the Cuban pitcher who spent 2010-'12 in the Philadelphia bullpen (after starting his US career with the Yankees and White Sox).

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