If Your Birthday is October 29th...

...you share it with R.A. Dickey. The onetime 1st round draft pick of the Texas Rangers reinvented himself as a knuckleballer and finally found success -- as a Met. Dickey went 20-6 in 2012, with a 2.73 ERA and 230 strikeouts to earn the NL Cy Young Award. While that was absolutely a career year, he continued to post double digit win totals through age 42, when he finished his big league career with the Braves.

Also getting their cake and candles today:

Ender Inciarte, the speedy Braves center fielder, who was held to just 65 games in 2019 by injury.

Will Venable, the Princeton grad who enjoyed a nine-season big league career, mostly with the Padres. The son of former outfielder Max Venable went into coaching and has interviewed for several managerial openings this fall.

Karim Garcia put up some big home run totals in the minors, but never quite lived up to his potential. He hit 66 homers over parts of 10 big league seasons, including stops with the Dodgers and Yankees.

Jesse Barfield had real home run power -- 241 round trippers in his career, highlighted by 40 with the '86 Blue Jays.

Frank Baker, a classic fielding-first shortstop, played parts of four seasons with the Yankees and Orioles. Occasionally nicknamed "Home Run" after his early 20th century namesake -- a slugger in the dead ball era -- this Baker cleared the fences just once in 288 career at bats.

And we remember Jim Bibby, who came up through the Mets farm system, before being traded to the Cardinals in the deal that brought Harry Parker to New York in 1972. He won 111 games in his 12 season career. Sports have been his family's trademark. His kid brother Henry enjoyed a long and productive NBA career, as did Henry's son (and Jim's nephew) Mike Bibby. Jim died of cancer in 2010.

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