Baseball Birthdays

Today, July 29th, doesn't include any Hall of Famers... but features several players worth noting:

Jack Suwinski, the Pirates rookie outfielder who emphasizes power over batting average. While hovering around the .200 mark, he's already belted 14 homers.

Chad Billingsley won 83 games in his eight seasons (2006-'13) pitching for the Dodgers. His best year was 2008, when he won 16 games and struck out 201.

Luis Alicea spent 13 seasons in the majors. Known for his good defense, he broke in with the Cardinals and later played for four American league teams.

Dan Driessen played on three 1970s pennant winners and two World Series champions with the Reds... and ended his career as a bench player on the '87 NL champion Cardinals. The lifetime .267 hitter also owns a "famous first": the first National Leaguer to be a Designated Hitter in a World Series game (1976 vs. the Yankees).

Felix Mantilla broke in with the Braves back-to-back pennant winners of 1957 and '58 and later played for the original 1962 Mets, the Red Sox and Astros. His most prominent place in baseball history took place with Milwaukee in 1959: his 13th inning ground ball was turned into an error by Pirates 3rd baseman Don Hoak; he became the first base runner, breaking up Harvey Haddix's perfect game bid. Later in the inning, Joe Adcock drove him home for the game's only run on the game's only hit.

Saturday the 30th, we remember one of baseball's greatest managers and larger-than-life personalities.

Casey Stengel played for or managed all four of New York's major league teams. Mixing glib comments with the somewhat upside-down logic sportswriters dubbed Stengelese, he was a good player for the Dodgers and Giants -- with whom, in 1923, hit the first-ever World Series homer at Yankee Stadium. 26 years later, he moved to the Bronx as Yankees manager and enjoyed the greatest run of success in baseball history -- 10 pennants and seven World Series titles in 12 years. Then, after being retired -- and promising the media he'd "never make the mistake of being 70 again" -- he took over the expansion Mets where he dazzled the media to ignore the obvious, and recast a poorly stocked expansion team as baseball's most lovable losers 60 years ago this summer.

No Mets player will ever wear #37. Casey wore it during his three-and-a-half years as skipper; it was retired after Stengel was forced to step down after a broken hip during the 1965 season.