If Your Birthday is November 4th...

 ...you share it with Dick Groat, the shortstop on a pair of  World Series champions, the 1960 Pirates and '64 Cardinals. The 1960 NL batting champ (seen here in the Cards 1965 Yearbook) also holds an offbeat honor... he's one of just four stars to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated wearing the uniform of 3 different teams -- the others are LeBron James, Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin. He's also a member of another exclusive club, the 2-sport athlete.. This onetime Duke basketball standout played the '52-53 season for the NBA's Ft. Wayne Pistons before concentrating on baseball, when Pirates officials convinced him his future was best served on the diamond.

Carlos Baerga, Cleveland's 2nd baseman was an emerging star with in the early and mid-'90s, but his production fell off after a 1996 trade to the Mets for Jeff Kent and Jose Vizcaino. The switch hitter made history on April 8th, 1993, when he became the first player ever to homer from both sides of the plate in the same inning -- a 15-5 win over the Yankees in the Bronx.

Ryan Thompson played for both the Mets and Yankees during his nine season big league career. He bookended Baerga in a sense -- he came to Queens in a 1992 trade that sent Jeff Kent to Toronto. Thompson had power potential --belting 18 homers in 98 games during the '94 season, but never hit enough to be a big league regular.

Chad Wallach, the son of longtime major leaguer Tim Wallach has been a backup catcher with several clubs since 2017.


We've also got a pair of "one and done" Yankee pitchers, whose only big league appearances came in games against Detroit:


Loyd Colson finished out a 3-1 loss to Detroit on September 25th, 1970. 

Roger Slagle worked the last two innings of a 6-0 loss to the Tigers on September 7th, 1979.

It's rare enough to find players whose MLB careers consisted of just one game.  Now, think of the odds to find two that share the same birthday, and who played for the same franchise against the same opponent!



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