If Your Birthday is January 17th...

..you share it with Trevor Bauer.  Cleveland's ace for much of the 2010s, who spent 2019-'20 in Cincinnati before jumping to the Dodgers as a 2021 free agent.  There, he saw his career put on hold by sexual abuse allegations.  Suspended but never tried in a courtroom, he was forced into exile playing the next two years in Japan, and 2024 posting a 10-0 record in Mexico.  Despite that success, his personal issues have kept any MLB team from signing him.

Also in today's birthday circle:
  • Kyle Tucker, who developed into one of baseball's top all-around players with the Astros.  Fearful they wouldn't be able to extend the pending 2026 free agent, he was traded last month to the Cubs in one of baseball's biggest winter deals.
  • Chili Davis, the hard-hitting outfielder/DH who played 19 big seasons, capped by coming off the bench for the champions 1998 and '99 Yankees.
  • Pete LaCock, the 1st baseman-son of game show legend Peter Marshall, who was born in (Beautiful Downtown) Burbank, the town where his dad worked at NBC Studios, hosting the original Hollywood Squares.
And we remember:
  • Don Zimmer, whose amazing 65 years in baseball spanned the iconic Brooklyn Dodgers, the inept expansion 1962 Mets and the industrious Joe Torre/Derek Jeter Yankees dynasty.  The last member of the Brooklyn Dodgers to wear a major league uniform was also the last Cincinnati Red to wear number 14 before Pete Rose.  The only man to be in uniform for the first three perfect games by the Yankees, Zim was in the opponents' dugout when Don Larsen threw his against Brooklyn in the 1956 World Series and was on Joe Torre's staff when David Wells ('98) and David Wells ('99) pitched theirs.  A deep student of the game, he was recognized as Torre's trusted bench coach, the Yoda of the last Yankee dynasty.


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