If Your Birthday is January 17th...

...you share it with Trevor Bauer. One of the Indians crew of quality young starters, he won 12 games during the 2016 regular season, but lost both his starts in the World Series. With training camps opening three weeks from now, you can bet that he and his teammates, having missed a title by what amounts to one inning and one rally, will be even more focused on getting back to the fall classic and changing that outcome.

While no Baseball Hall of Famers were born on this date, there are some notable names linked to January 17th:

Emmauel Burris (seen right:), the veteran utilityman who spent 2016 with the Phillies.

 Brad Fullmer, a power-hitting 1st baseman with the Expos, Blue Jays and Angels, whose most famous play was stealing home in game two of the 2002 World Series was the first in 38 years -- since Tim McCarver in 1964.

Chili Davis, who belted 350 home runs in his 19 year career and is now one of the game's most respecting hitting coaches.

Pete LaCock, the 1st baseman-son of game show legend Peter Marshall, who was born in (Beautiful Downtown) Burbank, the town where his dad worked at NBC Studios, hosting Hollywood Squares.

 Don Zimmer, whose amazing 65 years in baseball spanned the iconic Brooklyn Dodgers, the inept expansion 1962 Mets and the industrious Joe Torre/Derek Jeter Yankees dynasty. The last member of the Brooklyn Dodgers to wear a major league uniform was also the last Cincinnati Red to wear number 14 before Pete Rose. Zim was the only man to be in uniform for all three perfect games in Yankees history. He was in the opponents' dugout when Don Larsen threw his against Brooklyn in the 1956 World Series and was on Joe Torre's staff when David Wells ('98) and David Wells ('99) pitched theirs. A student of the game, he became Torre's trusted bench coach, the Yoda of the last Yankee dynasty.

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