A Weekend's Worth of Baseball Birthdays

Let's start on Friday with Jorge de la Rosa.  The Mexican righthander pitched in parts of 15 big league seasons -- eight of them with Rockies, where he reached double digit victories four times and built the alltime best winning percentage at Coors Field (.763) among  Colorado hurlers.

Also born on April 5th:

  • Lastings Milledge, a highly touted Mets 1st round draft pick, who never lived up to expectations.  The Mets got more value when they traded him after the 2007 season to Washington for Brian Schneider and Ryan Church.
  • Ross Gload, the lefty bench player who wrapped his 10 MLB seasons with the 2010 and 2011 Phillies.
  • Ron Hansen, an outstanding defensive infielder who earned his place in history pulling off an unassisted triple play while with the 1968 Washington Senators.

Saturday's list starts with Bert Blyleven (left) who punched his ticket to Cooperstown with 287 victories and 3701 strikeouts over 22 seasons, 11 with the Twins.  He later spent 25 seasons as the Twins TV analyst.

Rounding out our April 6th birthdays:

Lou Merloni spent a half dozen years as a Red Sox reserve and is now a member of Boston's broadcast team.

  • Tommy Greene enjoyed two big seasons with the Phillies: 1991, when he threw a no-hitter and won 13 games; two years later, he went 16-4 and finished sixth for the NL Cy Young Award.
  • Jake Alu (below): the New Jersey-born utilityman played in 51 games for the Nationals in 2023 and batted .226.  Failing to make Washington's opening day roster, I caught him in the AAA season opener when Rochester visited Syracuse.

Sunday begins with a newly minted Hall of Famer.  Adrian Beltre (below) heads the class of 2024, after earning five Gold Gloves, smacking 477 homers and hitting .286, mostly with the Dodgers, Mariners and Rangers.  

Joining Beltre on the 7th of April:
  • Josh Hader, the Astros closer who jumped to Houston this off-season for a five-year, $95-million deal.
  • Bill Stoneman who threw two no-hitters for the Montreal Expos -- the first came in the franchise's ninth game in April 1969. He later served as the club's general manager.

And we remember:

Bobby Doerr, the Red Sox greatest second baseman before the arrival of Dustin Pedroia. Ironically, both men's careers were cut short by injury. In Doerr's case, back problems led to his retirement after the 1951 season, when he was just 33. He remained active with Boston into the 2000s, and is credited as the batting coach who helped Carl Yastrzemski develop into a Hall of Fame hitter. A nine-time All Star who batted a career .286, Doerr was voted into Cooperstown in 1986. His number-one hangs alongside those of other Red Sox legends above right field at Fenway Park.


John McGraw was a scrappy player during the late 1800s, a .344 career hitter whose on-base percentage was the third best of all time -- trailing only Ted Williams and Babe Ruth. A true student of the game, he is credited with such innovations as using squeeze bunts to drive home runners, perfecting the hit and run play, having batters hit downward creating those hard-to-field Baltimore chops, and getting pitchers to cover first base on fielding plays. Between his days with the Orioles and Giants, McGraw's clubs won 2763 games, second only to Connie Mack, along with three World Series titles.



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