April 26, 1919

Professional baseball pitcher Virgil Trucks was born in Birmingham. Raised during the Great Depression, Trucks played on Birmingham industrial league teams as a teenager and signed with the Detroit Tigers out of high school. Debuting in 1941, he played 17 seasons for five major league teams and is one of only five pitchers to record two complete-game no-hitters in the same season. In 1945, he returned to the Tigers after a two-year stint in the Navy and, within a few weeks, started two postseason games to help win the World Series. Trucks was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1974.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Birmingham native Virgil Trucks poses at his home in Calera, Shelby County, in May 2007. Trucks was a successful major league pitcher during the 1940s and 1950s. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of The Birmingham News. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Photograph by Michelle Williams)

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