If Your Birthday is July 15th...

...you share it with Mark Appel, the onetime first-overall draft pick whose long and winding road took him nine years to reach the majors. A college standout at Stanford, he was selected by the Astros in 2013, traded to the Phillies two years later where injuries and ineffectiveness led to his walking away from the game in 2018. A year ago, he mounted a comeback in the Phillies system, which paid off in his promotion last month to the big leagues.

Ramon Laureano made history August 3rd, 2018 when he made his major league debut: he's the first Athletics player (in any of the franchise's three home cities) with a walk-off RBI hit as their first major league hit. Arbitration-eligible next year (though he won't be a free agent until 2025), he could be on the trade block -- though his value could be impacted by the 80-game PED suspension he served which cost him parts of the '21 and '22 seasons.

Among the other players born July 15th, we see some familiar names, such as Cardinal player-turned-broadcaster Mike Shannon -- who played in three World Series during the 1960s and homered in each of them -- but was never named to an All Star Team (even in 1968, when he finished 7th for National League MVP).

Was there a more important non-pitcher on the 1969 Mets than Donn Clendenon?  Acquired at the old June trade deadline, he supplied power and leadership to a young pitching-rich club that went on to shock the baseball world. That October, he -- not Seaver, Koosman or Ryan -- earned World Series MVP honors. A year later, he was even more productive, batting close to .290 with 22 home runs. But playing in the same era that Ernie Banks, Willie McCovey and Willie Stargell were the best at their position in the NL, Clendenon was never chosen for baseball's mid-summer classic.

On Saturday, we find:

Terry Pendleton played on a pair of Cardinals pennant winners in 1985 and '87, then came into his own after signing as a free agent with the Braves. The 1991 National League MVP and batting champion his first Atlanta season, the L.A. native delivered two more strong years in '92 and '93. All told, he played 15 years in the majors, and appeared in five World Series (three with Atlanta) -- oddly, none of those five teams were able to defeat their American League opponent. He later spent 17 years coaching for the Braves organization.

And we remember Norm Sherry, the Dodgers backup catcher whom Sandy Koufax credits for turning him into one of baseball's greatest pitchers.

During a spring training game in 1961, where Sandy walked the first three batters, Sherry walked to the mound to try and get Koufax back on track. It came down to a simple suggestion: to ease back a bit and stop overthrowing. In one of those magical baseball mysteries, Koufax's pitchers came in harder, not softer. He struck out the side that inning -- his chronic wildness replaced by a newfound effectiveness -- as his journey to Cooperstown began in earnest.

The year before, Norm made history as part of baseball's first all-Jewish battery; his younger brother Larry was then the Dodgers star relief pitcher.

He came to the Mets for the final Polo Grounds season (1963); the image above is from my copy of the World Telegram and Sun's reprint booklet of their Meet a Met a Day series.

After his playing career ended, Norm Sherry coached for more than 20 years and spent 1976-'77 managing LA's other team, the Angels.