30-year Marliniversary: Conine, White hit back-to-back bombs as Marlins walk-off Astros

[Mike Ferguson]

A rangy centerfielder with speed, power and the ability to hit for average, Devon White enjoyed a stellar 17-year Major League Baseball career in which he won seven Gold Gloves and was a three-time All-Star.  

White finished with more than 1,900 career hits, 208 career home runs and 364 stolen bases. Of those home runs, two were walk-off blasts, including one that came on this day 30 years ago.

Shut out for eight innings, Jeff Conine and White changed things with two swings of the bat. Their back-to-back home runs lifted the Florida Marlins to a thrilling 2-1 walk-off win over the Houston Astros.

For the first eight innings at Joe Robbie Stadium on Sept. 21, 1996, the Marlins had managed no runs and just five hits. Starting pitcher Doug Drabek had given Houston seven shutout innings of four-hit baseball before Billy Wagner worked a scoreless eighth. With the Astros leading 1-0, Wagner was left in to pitch the ninth, which proved to be a costly mistake.

Conine was 0-for-3 to that point, but after getting ahead in the count 2-1, was able to take a Wagner fastball that was left up to right field and just over the wall for the game-tying opposite-field home run. Hitting from the right side, the switch-hitting White took a breaking ball from Wagner three pitches later and deposited it over “teal tower” in left field for his first walk-off home run in more than a decade.

The teams combined for just 12 hits. White and Houston’s Jeff Bagwell each finished with two. Derek Bell singled home Craig Biggio for the Astros’ lone run in the fourth inning.

On the mound, Al Leiter gave the Marlins a quality start, yielding just a run on three hits and one walk in seven innings while striking out five. Lefty Félix Heredia recorded the final five outs to pick up his first career win.

At 34 years old, the 1996 season would be statistically one of the best of White’s career. For the year, he hit .274 with 17 home runs, 84 RBIs, 37 doubles, six triples and 22 stolen bases. His final home run from that season was a walk-off blast that came on this day three decades ago.

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