If Your Birthday is February 26th...

...you share it with Kevin Plawecki. A Mets first round draft pick in 2012, he hasn't yet developed into a capable hitter. But GM Sandy Alderson hasn't lost faith in his potential -- or that of Travis d'Arnaud, with whom he'll share the catching job in 2018.

If you grew up watching the great Yankees teams of the early '60s, you'll remember power-hitting Johnny Blanchard. In 1961, the year of Mantle and Maris chasing the Babe, he smacked 21 homers in just 243 at-bats. He was born February 26th, 1933. Exactly two years later on this date, the Yankees released Babe Ruth.

J.T. Snow's also on today's birthday list along with "the other" Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez, who' appeared in 53 games, all in relief, for the 2010 and '11 Angels. Mark DeRosa spent 16 years in the majors, and is now one of the mainstays of MLB Network.
Then there's William Frawley, a TV legend as Fred Mertz, Grandpa Bub of My Three Sons -- and very possibly the most avid baseball fan ever in show biz. How can you not love a guy who had it written into his I Love Lucy contract that he got time off to attend the World Series if his beloved Yankees made it -- which during the 1950s, happened eight out of ten years! When he made the cover of TV Guide in August 1961 he was in a very baseball-esque scene with co-stars Fred MacMurray and Stanley Livingston. In fact, when I interviewed Stan a few years ago, he recalled Frawley taking him to a few Dodger games as "his unofficial grandson."
Frawley also mixed business and pleasure, appearing in more than few baseball-themed movies, such as Safe at Home (in which Yankee stars Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris appeared), The Babe Ruth Story (as Jack Dunn, who ran the minor league Baltimore Orioles, Babe's first professional team) and Kill the Umpire (as the head of the umpiring school William Bendix's lead character attended). He also did a couple of comedies involving the Dodgers: in It Happened in Flatbush, he played Brooklyn's general manager. And who remembers Rhubarb, in which a cat inherited the Dodgers?
And to top it off, he even filmed a promotional spot for baseball which along with one by Humphrey Bogart, were re-run during the 1986 World Series. So, happy birthday, Fred and Bub and all those other great characters you brought to life! I'll have a hot dog in your honor when I get to my first spring training game next week.




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