Baseball Birthdays This Weekend

If your birthday is Friday the 17th, you share it with Carlos Pena.  The power-hitting 1st baseman, who peaked with a 46-homer season with the '07 Rays, is now a top commentator for MLB Network.

There's also Ben Gamel.  Once a top Yankees prospect, he's bounced between six big league clubs, most recently the Padres.  Unable to land an MLB roster spot this spring, he's now enjoying a big season for the Mets AAA club in Syracuse, where he's hitting over .300 with an OPS above 1.0.

Gamel and Pena share their birthday with the late Negro Leagues legend Cool Papa Bell.

Onto Saturday the 18th, with Mister October:
Reggie Jackson crushed 563 home runs over 21 seasons with a knack for grabbing the headlines.  The slugging star of the A's early '70s dynasty, he was among the first of the stars to take advantage of free agency, jumping to the Yankees in 1977 just in time to clash with manager Billy Martin.  While that disfunctional relationship -- co-starring owner George Steinbrenner -- turned into a tabloid-fueling soap opera, Jackson left his mark on the Yankees with four division titles, three pennants and two World Series titles in the Bronx, especially 1977, where he made history with three home runs in the clinching game six.

Sharing the date is Nelson Figueroa, who pitched for a half dozen National League teams during the '00s and '10s.  The native New York is best remembered for his pair of seasons on the mound with the Mets, where he later returned as a TV studio analyst.  These days, he's seen on WPIX channel 11 in his hometown.

And we remember the greatest fielding 3rd baseman ever, the Orioles' Brooks Robinson.  The MVP of the 1970 World Series, he dazzled fans for more than 20 years, making 18 All Star teams and earning 16 Gold Gloves. (My image is from the 2008 All Star Parade that run up Avenue of the Americas in New York in front of my office.)

(Below:) Sunday the 19th begins with Jiman Choi.  The South Korean import brought left power to the Rays from 2018-'22.  After struggling last season with the Pirates and Padres, he's currently Ben Gamel's teammate on the Mets Syracuse farm club.
And we remember a pair of past stars born on May 19th:
  • Curt Simmons, the talented lefthander whose two most productive seasons came on pennant winners: he went 17-8 for the 1950 Phillies Whiz Kids and won 18 for the 1964 Cardinals.
  • Gil McDougald, the 1951 American League Rookie of the Year who played his entire 10-year career as a Yankee.  This six-time All Star enjoyed a successful second career as head baseball coach at Fordham University, whose campus is just over four miles north of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.



 

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