Three weeks after the All-Star Game, Richard had a stroke and never pitched in the big leagues again. He was on pace to have an even better season in 1980, starting the All-Star Game after going 10-4 with a 1.96 ERA in the first half of the season. 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. He will be missed.”īefore the stroke, Richard was one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball, leading the league in strikeouts in back-to-back seasons in 19. Guys on the other team would say that they were sick to avoid facing him. "On the mound, he was devastating and intimidating. "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. 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. I send my condolences to his wife and kids." He was a great friend and a great teammate. When he was pitching, we knew that we were going to get a ‘W.’ I didn’t get too many balls hit to me in the outfield when he pitched because he was so dominating. “This is very sad to hear," Cruz said in a statement released by the Astros. All rights reserved.Jose Cruz, who was Astros teammates with Richard for six seasons, said the pitcher from Louisiana was one of his good friends. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. Las Vegas Cannabis Dispensary Joins World's Largest P2P Cancer Fundraising Event: American Cancer Society's Relay For LifeĬannabis Dispensaries Doing Fine, Says US Department of Commerce Figures: What State Sold The Most? Photo courtesy of Pleasantrees.Ĭlick here for options trades from Benzinga I call them the ‘Forgotten Ones,’ the people that are forgotten about.” To me, the way to do it is I have a platform, and I stand on that platform, and I do all that I can for those people. I don’t get any of that back, there’s no do-over. I can’t go back and see my dad or my children grow up. I can’t get the time that they took from me. “I want to make sure that it never happens to anybody else. And, you know, I’m still standing, and I’m in society, and I’m thriving, and I’m a positive productive member, after 33 years growing up in a cage,” Wershe said. “It’s tentatively titled 'The Long Road Home.' It’s going to be my version of going through everything that I went through, and the long road it was to get my freedom back. Wershe is working on his own documentary, too - about himself. “The war on drugs is really a war on people in impoverished communities, especially Black and brown communities.” “For better or worse, Rick has become the poster child for what it means to be over-criminalized and prosecuted for drugs,” Crawford said. Jerome Crawford, the director of legal operations and social equity at Pleasantrees, agreed. “So when they started talking to me, it was kind of like a hand fitting the glove perfectly.” “One of the things that sold me about Pleasantrees was their criminal justice reform that they were already working on,” Wershe said. To help set up The 8th, Wershe will partner with the Michigan-based Pleasantrees Cannabis Company, which he chose because the company’s social equity plans were in line with his own, though other companies approached him. Wershe is an outspoken advocate for prisoners affected by the injustices of the war on drugs, which he calls “the biggest sham that has ever existed in America.” “So doesn’t that tell you how crazy our drug laws are?” “I had run into people in prison that were doing life sentences for marijuana, and now it’s legal,” Wershe said. The name refers to a standard measurement for cannabis, but also to the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution that prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment,” which Wershe apparently feels that he and many other drug prisoners were and still are subjected to. Wershe will call his company “The 8th,” a double entendre, he told Detroit Metro Times. His home state of Michigan is just the place to be. Exactly a year later, he sued the FBI and Detroit Police for $100 million for having recruited him at such a young and impressionable age.Īnd now he’s getting into the cannabis industry. Known as White Boy Rick, Wershe, now 52, was released in July 2020 for good behavior after serving 33 years in federal prison under Michigan's 650-Lifer Law. was sentenced to prison for cocaine possession after having been used by the FBI as an informant since he was a boy of 14.
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