If Your Birthday is April 17th...

...you share it with switch-hitting Jed Lowrie.  The versatile infielder, best known for his years with the Red Sox and A's, developed into a power hitter in the middle of his career, reaching his peak with a 23 homer, 99 RBI season for Oakland in 2018.  Lowrie's pre-season grand slam on April 4th, 2009, was the first major league home run at Citi Field.  Ironically, he played briefly for the Mets a decade later, a stint that was sidetracked by a 2019 knee injury.

(These images are from a 2021 A's/Yankees game in the Bronx.)

Below: Infielder Ronny Simon played briefly for the 2025 Pirates, but failed to make the club in spring training.  I snapped this in 2024 when the Dominican native was with the Rays top farm team, the Durham Bulls.

Finally, let's remember Solly Hemus, who spent the 1950s as an infielder with the Cardinals and Phillies, before returning to St. Louis to manage the Cardinals for 2-1/2 years (1959-'61).  While team showed improvement in 1960, things went sour the year after, while his problems getting along with the team's rising Black stars Bob Gibson and Curt Flood led to his being replaced by Johnny Keane -- the skipper who led St. Louis to the 1964 Worlds Championship.

Hemus then moved to New York, as a coach for Casey Stengel's Polo Grounds-era Mets.  I photographed him at the 2012 BAT dinner.