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Cubs<\/a> TV analyst Jim Deshaies took a few minutes Tuesday to scroll through Baseball Reference\u2019s \u201cToday in Baseball History\u201d page, something he\u2019d done many times before. Mining for a nugget that might fit into that night\u2019s broadcast is never a bad idea, especially when the team is bordering on unwatchable<\/a>.<\/p>\n He saw the name of Ty Cobb, who recorded his 1,000th extra-base hit on March 26, 1925, against the White Sox. And the name of Josh Gibson, who on that same date in 1946 homered for the Homestead Grays at Yankee Stadium. And that of Hank Aaron, who in 1969 swatted his 500th double to go with his 519 homers at the time.<\/p>\n Great stuff. What\u2019s better than nerding out about baseball?<\/p>\n The 65-year-old southpaw scrolled on, and there it was:\u201c1986 \u2014 Houston Astros pitcher Jim Deshaies records his first major league win.\u201d<\/p>\n How about that?<\/p>\n It was 40 years to the day since Deshaies toed the rubber in St. Louis, struck out 10 Cardinals hitters \u2014 slugger Jack Clark three times \u2014 and got himself off the schneid in his fifth start of the season and the seventh of his career.<\/p>\n It\u2019s safe to say the details of that game aren\u2019t burned into Deshaies\u2019 brain.<\/p>\n \u201cHad I not seen it today and if someone would\u2019ve asked me who my first win came against, I don\u2019t think I would have known,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n What he does remember, though, is the feeling he had early on as a rookie that his leash was short. He\u2019d won a three-man battle for the Astros\u2019 final rotation spot that had lasted all of spring training, and it was a team and a veteran rotation \u2014 with Nolan Ryan going strong at 39, and eventual 1986 Cy Young winner Mike Scott and Bob Knepper also in their 30s \u2014 built to win now.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody had said anything to me, but I felt pressure,\u201d Deshaies said. \u201cI hadn\u2019t had a win yet, and it was Memorial Day. I didn\u2019t know if I might get shipped out.\u201d<\/p>\n In the last days of spring training in Kissimmee, Florida, Deshaies had braced for news \u2014 good or bad \u2014 from manager Hal Lanier. Instead, Lanier never got around to telling him he\u2019d made the team. As Deshaies\u2019 wife, Lori, prepared to hit the road from Kissimmee a day or two ahead of the team for wherever they\u2019d be living, Deshaies told her, \u201cJust head toward Houston.\u201d If it was going to be the Triple-A Tucson (Arizona) Toros, she could simply keep barreling west on Interstate 10.<\/p>\n It turned out nicely that year for Deshaies, who won 12 games \u2014 at the time, the Astros\u2019 rookie record \u2014 on a 96-win team that ran away with the National League West by 10 games only to be felled by the glory-bound Mets in the NLCS.<\/p>\n Deshaies was even more effective for the Astros in 1988 and especially in 1989, when he posted career bests in wins (15), ERA (2.91), innings (225\u2154) and strikeouts (153). He later pitched for the Padres, Giants, Twins and Phillies and retired in 1995 with 84 wins in 257 appearances, 253 of them starts.<\/p>\n But his favorite start? That came in his rookie season, and it wasn\u2019t his maiden \u201cW\u201d in St. Louis. It was in late September in Houston against the Dodgers, whom Deshaies mowed through in a two-hit shutout, striking out the first eight hitters he faced \u2014 at the time, a major league record \u2014 and 10 in all. It put him in double digits in wins and gave him a sense that maybe, just maybe, he was where he belonged even if he wasn\u2019t as dominant as Scott or as awe-inspiring as the godlike Ryan.<\/p>\n