Greg Briley didn’t have the longest or greatest Major League Baseball career. Many diehard Florida/Miami Marlins fans may not even know his name.

Nonetheless, Briley does hold a distinction for this young Marlins franchise: he recorded the first multi-home run game in club history. It came on this day 30 years ago.

Briley had just one home run for the season as the Florida Marlins got set to host the San Francisco Giants in a doubleheader on June 1, 1993. Before the start of the second game, Briley had already tripled his home run total for the year in a 7-3 victory.

It was the Marlins who drew first blood with two runs in the third inning on an RBI double from Bret Barberie and an RBI single from Orestes Destrade. In the bottom of the fourth, Briley would double the Florida advantage.

After Benito Santiago singled on the first pitch of the frame from San Francisco’s Bill Swift, Briley pulled Swift’s pitch over the right-field wall to push the advantage to 4-0.

The Giants cut the deficit to one against Florida starter Chris Hammond with three runs in the fifth inning. Will Clark’s RBI double was followed by RBI singles from Matt Williams and Mark Carreon. Hammond, Trevor Hoffman and Bryan Harvey proceeded to keep San Francisco off the scoreboard for the remainder of the contest.

Florida added an insurance run in the seventh on an RBI single from Dave Magadan to increase its lead to 5-3. In the eighth, Briley made Marlins history by going the other way for a solo homer off Dave Burba.

Chuck Carr would cap the scoring with an RBI single to right to score Walt Weiss. Barberie, Destrade and Santiago also finished with two hits in the victory, but the story of the game was Briley. In what would also be the franchise’s first doubleheader, the Marlins dropped the second game, 4-3. Briley went 0-for-1 with a strikeout in a pinch-hitting appearance in that one.

In six years in the big leagues, including his first five with the Seattle Mariners, Briley hit just 29 career home runs. His final two came in the same game and made Marlins history on this day three decades ago.

Featured image courtesy of Upper Deck Trading Cards