West Plains native Bill Virdon will visit West Plains and attend a meet and greet at the Ozark Heritage Welcome Center, 2999 Porter Wagoner Blvd., on Friday, May 21 from 4:00-5:00 p.m. The public is invited to attend.
Virdon, who will celebrate his 90th birthday in June, moved to West Plains with his family when he was 12 years old. Virdon graduated from West Plains High School in 1949. At the age of eighteen, he was signed by the New York Yankees. He later joined the St. Louis Cardinals and became the National League’s Rookie of the Year. At the age of 31, Virdon won the Golden Glove Award. Virdon was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1956 and was a key player in the Pirates’ 1960 World Series Championship.
Virdon retired in 1965 with 1,596 MLB hits, a career batting average of .267 with 91 home runs during his 1,583-game NL career.
Virdon spent the next two seasons as a manager in the New York Mets minor league system. Bill returned to the Pirates in ’68 and, while serving primarily as a coach, was activated as a player for two weeks in July, then continued as a full-time coach for Pittsburgh through their 1971 World Series Championship. After the 1971 season, Virdon was named manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Virdon managed the New York Yankees in 1974, being awarded the American League Manager of the Year at the end of that year, and 1975.
He managed the Houston Astros from 1975 through 1982. In 1980, Bill was awarded the National League Manager of the Year after taking the Astros to their first National League Championship Series in franchise history. Virdon still has the most wins of any manager in Astros’ history. Bill Virdon closed out his Major League Baseball managing career in Montreal where he was the Expos’ skipper in the 1983 and 1984 seasons. Virdon would go on to coach under Pirates’ Manager Jim Leyland, Astros’ Manager Larry Dierker, and back again to Pittsburgh under Manager Lloyd McClenden.
Virdon retired from full-time involvement in Major League Baseball at the end of the 2002 season.
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