Mike McCann's Field of Fotos

Of course, I'll spotlight a player wearing number-four on the 4th of July. Let's zoom in on Alex Gordon. Against the Yankees in May 2016, the Royals left fielder sends one soaring off Ivan Nova. Gordon knows this one is not going to be caught. How far did it go? The ball landed on the netting over Monument Park in straightaway center field. On the day where the number-four rules, think for a moment about Lou Gehrig. He made his iconic "Luckiest Man" speech on July 4th, 1939. Weakened by ALS and just weeks after retiring from the Yankees, he delivered the that gem of melancholy modesty that still sets the standard for speeches by an athlete. The date and the digit: Gehrig's four became the first number retired by a baseball team on the 4th of July. Almost too perfect a coincidence, but it's absolutely true.

Back in late February, during the first weekend of exhibition games, I heard Steve Selsky's name on a Red Sox/Twins telecast from Florida. The name rang a bell -- but for the Steve in my generation. Steve's dad and namesake was a promising minor leaguer who signed initially with the White Sox and played several years of minor league ball in the '60s, but never made it to the majors. His mother and my mom were first cousins. But that was decades ago. A phone call to another a cousin who has lived in L.A. since the '70s and knows "that" Steve led me to do some online research -- and I realized that this player, who made the majors for the first time in 2016, was indeed a distant relative. Saturday, I got the chance to see him play for the first time, as Pawtucket, the Red Sox top farm club hosted Scranton, their Triple A rivals from the Yankees organization. Number 20 for the PawSox and playing centerfield, here's Steve Selsky, While I didn't get ...

June was the most prolific home run month in baseball history. More home runs were hit in those 30 days than in any month in the game's nearly 150-year history. The record-setting blast belongs to Justin Smoak of the Blue Jays. His 1st inning round tripper against the Red Sox' Doug Fister erased the old mark of 1069, set in May 2000. But it was far from the last one of the night. 31 more were crushed before the calendar flipped to July. ( This image of Smoak comes from a 2015 games against the Yankees in New York .)

Seven superb innings Friday night by Jacob de Grom of the Mets spelled victory and maybe more. The shaggy haired righty struck out 12 while giving up just a run and just three hits and a walk. Looking helpless at times, the Phillies only showed a sign of life in the 5th inning, when Andrew Knapp's fly ball to center turned into a triple after Curtis Granderson lost it in the twilight sky. That was the first hit off de Grom; Ty Kelly's subsequent RBI single was the second. This Mets season has proved a huge disappointment -- injuries, especially to key pitchers -- left the team well under. 500. Recently, Terry Collins' crew has shown signs of life as the opposition turned easier, with recent series against the weakling Giants and Marlins before they welcomed the Phils to Citi Field. A few more dominating games like the one de Grom turned in might keep the Mets from turning into trade-deadline sellers. Now, let's see what July brings to the Boys from Flushing.

I first saw Dustin Fowler in 2016 with the Yankees farm club in Trenton. His combination of speed, power and good defense put him on the fast track to the Bronx. With the rash of recent Yankee injuries -- along with a first half of the Triple A season with 40 extra-base hits, including 13 home runs -- he was the latest top prospect summoned from the minors. Joe Girardi wasted no time to write his name in the lineup. Batting sixth and playing right field, he was on the field in Thursday night's rain-delayed game in Chicago. And then, in a flash, Fowler's season was over -- chasing down a fly ball, he crashed into a wall-mounted electrical box , suffering a devastating knee injury that left Girardi in tears and Fowler's career in jeopardy. A ruptured patella tendon, the same injury that ruined Victor Cruz' career with the Football Giants, will take six months of recovery and rehab. And there's no guarantee that Fowler will have quite the same speed or mobility on...

In a Yankee season brimming with impressive home grown talent such as Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino and Jordan Montgomery, Miguel Andujar made a debut for the Bronx Bombers like no one had in the club's 115 year history. Two weeks and a day after I saw him playing (darned well) for the Double A Trenton Thunder, the Dominican native became the first Yankee ever to have three hits and four RBIs in his first major league game. Those 4 RBI set a debut game record -- erasing the old record of three held by Marv Throneberry and Billy Martin. Run down the list of the retired numbers -- the home grown guys. You know the names from Gehrig to DiMaggio, Rizzuto, Berra, Mantle, Munson and Jeter. None of those beloved players broke in quite the way Andujar did. Of course, he was hardly alone in a 12-3 putdown of the White Sox. Aaron Judge continues to be the Leader of this Pack with a laser shot for his 27th home run (and we're still in June). Tyler Wade, no longer the Ne...

Kenta Maeda (seen stretching before a 2016 game at Citi Field) was one of the Dodgers heroes in Tuesday night's "Freeway Series" win over the Angels. He threw seven shutout innings, allowing just four hits (and walking no one) as he returned to the rotation after working recently out of the bullpen. Joc Pederson belted a three-run home and rookie standout Cody Bellinger added an RBI single as Dave Roberts' crew made it 10 wins in their last 11 games. After paying a lot of attention to the Yankees and Astros the first half of this season, I'll be keeping closer tabs on the Dodgers, who're now just a half-game back of Houston for the best record in all of baseball. One of the more unsung Dodgers, Maeda has now won 22 games in a season-and-half in the U.S; he's 6-3 so far this year and has actually lowered his WHIP (for me, the best measure of a pitcher's effectiveness) to 1.125.