If Your Birthday is October 7th...

...you share it with Red Sox leadoff man and MVP candidate Mookie Betts. The American League's 2018 batting champ added 32 homers, 80 RBI and 30 stolen bases for the team with the best regular season record in the majors.

Joining him at our baseball birthday party:

  • Mike Foltynewicz, who won 13 this season for the NL East champion Atlanta Braves.
  • Alex Cobb, the veteran righthander who left the Rays for the Orioles as a free agent and went to go 5-15 for the worst team in the majors.
  • Evan Longoria, Cobb's longtime teammate and Tampa Bay "face of the franchise." He also donned a new uniform in 2018, but hit a career-worst .244 with 16 home runs after being traded to the Giants.
  • Bud Daley is a name Yankee fans of the Mantle-Maris era might remember. A "crafty lefty" whose best seasons came with the Kansas City A's, he came to the Bronx in 1961 for Art Ditmar and Deron Johnson. That was a rare deal where the A's got more value than the Yankees. Daley was mostly injured and ineffective in his three Yankee seasons.
And we remember Hall of Famer Chuck Klein, a .320 lifetime hitter who spent most of his career with the Phillies. Playing in an era when uniform numbers didn't have the historic or marketing singnificance they do now, Klein wore 1, 3, 14, 26 and 29 at Baker Bowl and Shibe Park.
One plaque along the club's Wall of Fame just bears a stylized P in his honor. Another tells his story to fans born decades too early to have seen this four-time home run champ, 1932 MVP and 1933 NL batting champ. Cooperstown finally welcomed the Indianapolis native in 1980 -- but he never lived to enjoy the moment.
Chuck died young, in 1958 at just 53, so baby boomers and fans in the early years of the Vet never got to meet him or cheer for him.

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