If Your Birthday is February 2nd...



...you share it with St. Louis baseball icon and Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst. This son of a Illinois coal miner grew up just 40 miles from St. Louis and got to live out every young fan's baseball dream -- playing for the team he rooted for as a kid.

A 10-time all star and 1989 Cooperstown inductee, Red remained active in the Cardinals organization well past his 90th birthday. Fittingly, for someone born on the second day of the second month, he wore number-two for almost all of his Cardinals career.

I snapped this image at a 2005 spring training game in Jupiter, Florida.

Also on today's cake and candles list:

  • Melvin Mora, a mainstay with the Orioles for a decade. After first reaching the majors with the 1999 Mets, New York, needing shortstop help a year later, swapped him for Baltimore's Mike Bordick. The O's got the better side of that deal.
  • Dan Winkler, an effective member of the 2018 Braves bullpen. The righthander appeared in 69 games, went 4 - 0 with an under-3 ERA.
  • Pat Tabler was a 1st round draft pick by the Yankees, but never donned the pinstripes. Sent to the Cubs in a 1981 mid-season trade, he made his big league debut with Chicago and ended up as Blue Jay. The Ontario native remains close to the game today as one of Toronto's TV voices.
  • Travis Snyder came up as a Blue Jay and played five of his eight seasons in Toronto, and also spent time as a Pirate. That's the uniform he wore when I snapped my one and only photo of him -- running out a ground ball to 1st base against Matt Harvey and the Mets at Citi Field on Mother's Day, May 12th in 2013.


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