If Your Birthday is June 23rd...

...you share it with Jorge Mateo, the onetime Yankee prospect who has emerged as a star with the division rival Orioles. A sharp fielder and stolen base threat, the shortstop was one of the package of young players sent to the A's in the failed deal for Sonny Gray and bounced to the Padres before finding a home in Baltimore.

He shares his day with another of the AL's best shortstops, Tim Anderson.  The White Sox 1st round draft pick in 2013, he arrived in Chicago three years later and has made the All Star team the last two seasons.

Also in our June 23rd birthday parade:

• Marty Barrett, the 2nd baseman who spent nine of his 10 big league seasons with the Red Sox.
• Juan Castillo, a Venezuelan pitcher whose big league career consisted of a pair of games with the 1994 Mets.
• Hensley Meulens, the first native of Curacao to play in the majors, broke in with the Yankees before spending three productive years in Japan.  "Bam Bam" finished his playing career with the Expos and Diamondbacks.  He's coached for the Giants, Mets and Yankees before joining Bud Black's staff in Colorado this season.

And we remember Tom Haller, who caught for and made the All Star team with both the Giants and Dodgers.  He also served in San Francisco's front office during the '80s and was the White Sox GM in 1986.  The Lockport, IL native died in 2006. 

Looking ahead to Saturday:

Mike Bruhert is the only Met born June 24th. The righthanded pitcher, who grew up just minutes from Shea Stadium in Jamaica, Queens, started 22 games for the '78 Mets, going 4-11. He spent the next few seasons in the Rangers and Yankees farm systems. Bruhert returned home, where in the '80s and '90s as the pitching coach at Fordham University in the Bronx -- where one of his players was the future Met, Pete Harnisch.

George Vukovich divided his six big league seasons between the Phillies and Indians. He never delivered the power expected from an everyday player, until his two seasons (1986-'87) in Japan.

Ken Reitz was the Cardinals regular 3rd baseman for most of the 1970s. Taking over for Joe Torre, he was especially adept at fielding grounders on the slick, fast artificial surface then used at Busch Stadium.

And... Phil Hughes was considered the best starting pitcher produced by the Yankees farm system since Andy Pettitte, but couldn't sustain the success.  After winning 18 in 2010, and 16 two years later he looked like a rotation mainstay -- albeit one who gave up plenty of home runs.  He posted an 88-79 record over a dozen big league seasons that including time with the Twins and  Padres.

My image of Mateo is from a 2017 Yankees/Braves exhibition game in Orlando; I snapped Anderson at Yankee Stadium in a 2019 game; Hughes' came from July 1st, 2012.