THIS DAY IN BÉISBOL August 9: Dennis Martinez passes Juan Marichal’s career wins record
![Dennis-Martinez-2-Latino-Baseball-Twitter](https://latinobaseball.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Dennis-Martinez-2-Latino-Baseball-Twitter.png)
Any conversation about who is the best Latino pitcher of all time will invariably come down to Hall of Famers Juan Marichal and Pedro Martinez.
But there’s another Martinez — Dennis — who deserves some mention, if only because he ended his solid 23-career in 1998 as the winningest Latin American-born pitcher in MLB history with 245 wins, a record he held for 20 years until Bartolo Colon passed him in 2008.
On this day in béisbol, Aug. 9, 1998, the Nicaragua-born Martinez got his 244th major league win in relief to pass Marichal for the top spot among Latino pitchers. The 7-5 victory came against over the San Francisco Giants, Marichal’s original team.
Also on this day: Free swinger Vladimir Guerrero connected for his 200th career home run for the Montreal Expos in an 11-4 victory over the Brewers in Milwaukee. Bartolo Colon got the win, his 15th of the season.
Robert Dominguez is the author of “Bronx Bummers: The Unofficial History of the New York Yankees’ Bad Boys, Blunders and Brawls” and writer of the upcoming “El Salón: The Trials and Triumphs of Baseball’s Latino Hall of Famers.”