If Your Birthday is February 17th...

...you share it with Stephen Tarpley. The lefty reliever saw his stock rapidly rise and fall with the Yankees. After impressive minor league work in 2018, he joined the big club late that season. His run of luck continued through last spring training, when he was named the James Dawson Award winner as the club's best rookie prospect. But it all fell apart during the season, as he allowed just about two baserunners per inning and more alarmingly, four home runs in just 24 innings. After being dropped from the club's 40-man roster, he was traded to the Marlins this winter.

Other notable names on today's cake and candles list:

Roger Craig, one of the last surviving Brooklyn Dodger players, but best remembered for losing more than 20 games in each of his two seasons (1962 and '63) with the expansion Mets. Over his 12 major league seasons, he appeared in three World Series -- three with the '50s Dodgers and in 1964 with the Cardinals.

Danny Farquar's place in baseball history should be for his courageous 2019 comeback attempt a year after suffering a brain hemhorrage during a game a year earlier with the White Sox. Then, he made his biggest headline this winter, as one of the players who revealed the extent of the Astros sign-stealing scheme.

Dave Roberts -- the utility player who appeared mainly with the Padres during the 1970s -- also makes our list (as opposed to the Red Sox 2004 playoff hero and current Dodger manager or the former Colt .45s and Pirate outfielder, or the well traveled pitcher).

And we can't forget Wally Pipp: the Yankee first baseman who missed a game in 1925. Some college kid named Gehrig filled in -- and didn't take a day off for the next 14 years. While the expression Wally Pipp-ed is all over the sports lexicon, he was a darned good player, a .285 career hitter, who gave the Yanks a decade of good production. he was born February 17th, 1893.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rare Remnant of a Lost Ballpark

Image
When the subject of baseball in Brooklyn comes up, the discussion centers around Ebbets Field, the Flatbush venue most famously home to The Boys of Summer.  Those legendary 1940s and '50s teams that featured such historic and beloved players as Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges. Ebbets Field hosted its last major league game in 1957 and was torn down during the winter of 1960. But decades earlier, just before World War One, the Dodgers were based in the Park Slope area and played at Washington Park.  Once they moved out, the land was occupied by another stadium, which housed a different franchise.  The upstart Federal League, which played in the 1914 and '15 seasons, had a Brooklyn team called the TipTops.  Owned by a local baking magnate Robert Ward, whose company produced TipTop bread, the club took over the abandoned lot along 3rd Street and built a new brick and steel venue. The only no-hitter in the Federal League's two-year r
Read more

Another Yankee Trade

Image
Yankee fans: here's a last look at shortstop Trey Sweeney .  The 2021 first round draft choice was part of the three player trade with the Dodgers that brings reliever Victor Gonzalez and infield prospect Jorbit Vivas to New York. Now seeking to rebuild their pitching depth after dealing for Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, the Yanks deemed Sweeney expendable.  While the Louisville native showed promising power in his three seasons with the organization -- he batted only .248 to go with his 36 career homers -- Brian Cashman has committed to Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza as his young middle infielders.  So Sweeney became a trade chip. ( My images of Trey Sweeney are from the Somerset/Binghamton AA games on July 15th and September 19th, 2023. )
Read more

Will He Wear Zero in the Bronx?

Image
The Yankees bolstered their starting rotation with Thursday's signing of Marcus Stroman .  The Long Island native, who spent 2019 and '21 with the Mets before moving onto the Cubs, brings a 77-76 career record to the Bronx, along with a recent loyalty to uniform number (?) zero.  If he requests that, he'd become the third Yank to wear it, following the path of Adam Ottavino and Domingo German.  Of course, neither of their Yankee tenures ended all that well -- Ottavino struggled badly in 2020, before reviving his career with the Red Sox and Mets; German's alcohol and domestic violence issues sabotaged such Yankee highlights as last year's perfect game. Can a number truly be lucky? You can understand kids in little league or high school ball wanting to wear 2 in honor of Derek Jeter or 7 for Mickey Mantle.  But is there an heroic ballplayer associated with 0?  The closest I recall comes from pro football, where the Oakland Raiders Hall of Fame center Jim Otto wore 00
Read more