If Your Birthday is October 18th...

...you share it with Mets sluger Yoenis Cespedes -- seen here about to round 3rd base after homering July 1st against the Cubs. That's one of the 31 he belted during 2016. He shares the day with someone whose big home run output came as more of a surprise -- the Rays 1st baseman Brad Miller. A highly touted prospect with the Mariners, he disappointed over three Seattle seasons, but things seemed to fall into place once he moved to the west coast of Florida. He hit the "big 3-0," as in 30 home runs this past season.
Who else is on today's cake and candles list:

  • Ed Farmer, a longtime relief pitcher who's now the White Sox radio voice.
  • A pair of utility players who enjoyed lengthy careers -- Jerry Royster and Alex Cora.
  • Power hitting Willie Horton, who smacked 262 home runs in parts of 15 seasons with the Tigers. Fittingly, his most biggest total, 36, came in Detroit's World Championship year, 1968.
  • Charlie Berry, a catcher with the A's, White Sox and Red Sox during the 1920s and '30s. But he's not the most famous Charles Berry born October 18th.

That would be the gentleman to the left, arguably the greatest single influence on rock and roll music. Fusing country and R&B with clever lyrics aimed right at the emerging baby boomers, Chuck Berry crafted such iconic songs as "Roll Over Beethoven," "Johnny B. Goode" and "Rock and Roll Music."

Idolized by almost every great band of the '60s, his on stage Duckwalk was an early ancestor of Michael Jackson's Moonwalk. And his blending the musical cultures of black and white America helped make rock and roll the dominant form of pop music for the past sixty years. While I've interviewed Chuck on a couple of occasions, we've never talked baseball. But I'd strongly suspect the St. Louis native is a fan -- why else would be use what's clearly a baseball reference, "Two, three count with nobody on... He hit a high fly into the stand." in his song "Brown Eyed Handsome Man?" (I'll let someone else analyze why he reversed the balls and strikes.) The one and only Chuck Berry turns 90 today.

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