Baseball Birthdays This Weekend

They begin on Friday the 3rd with Davey Lopes, the 2nd baseman in the most durable infield in baseball history.  Along with 3rd baseman Ron Cey, shortstop Bill Russell and 1st baseman Steve Garvey, they played together for a record 810 games over 8-1/2 seasons between 1973 and '81.  A reliable base stealer, he swiped 557 -- while his success rate of 83% ranks third behind only Tim Raines and Willie Wilson.

Miguel Cairo celebrates on Saturday.  The well-traveled infielder played for nine teams over 17 seasons.  He only appeared in 29 games for the 2009 Phillies, when I snapped my only photo of him -- and he barely stayed in the image, after dropping the bat and heading to 1st base following a walk.  These days, the Venezuela native is the Nationals bench coach.

Also on the May 4th birthday list:
  • Ben Grieve, the 1998 American League Rookie of the Year who gave the A's three productive season, but faded after being traded to the Rays.  He later played for the Brewers and Cubs.
  • Ken Oberkfell, who played 16 big league seasons, the first eight with the Cardinals -- where he was the starting 2nd baseman on their 1982 World Champs.
While Sunday's birthday circle includes:
  • Charles Nagy grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut and starred for UConn, but spent 12 of his 13 big league seasons in Cleveland.  The right hander posted double digits in victories eight times during the 1990s.
  • Larry Hisle, the power hitting outfielder who came up with the Phillies, but is best remembered for his five mid-career seasons with the Twins.
  • Mike Redmond, who caught for the Marlins for seven seasons and later managed the franchise for 2-1/2 years (2013-'15).

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 Avenue 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