You're not likely to find a better right side of the infield on a Birthday Team than today's duo. The rest of the position players are pretty meh, though.

The pitching isn't fantastic, but they've got a solid ace and a pile of league-averageish arms.

C: Hal Naragon
1B: Mark McGwire
2B: Rod Carew
3B: Vance Law
SS: Steve Bellan
LF: Bob Boyd
CF: Roberto Kelly
RF: Jim Russell

SP: Matt Cain
SP: John Thomson
SP: Ray Kolp
SP: Bill Bonham
SP: Pete Falcone
RP: Jeff Reardon
RP: Chuck McElroy

Manager: Roy "Hardrock" Johnson
One-Month Wonder: Duster Mails

Elsewhere 100 years ago, Phillies president Horace Fogel is beginning to feel the wrath of the National League after accusing the umpires of handing New York the pennant.

NL president Thomas Lynch says the league will investigate the charges and that Fogel's personal insults don't bother him, but he can't overlook the "imputation of dishonesty on the part of the umpires".

Umpire Bill Brennan also demands an apology from Fogel.

Baseball history thing at THT today is the 30th anniversary of the greatest & most clutch day of Phil Niekro's life. Oh, and it's also the 80th anniversary of maybe baseball's most famous homer. Stop and see if you can guess what it is and then click on the link to find the results (scroll down to the litany-of-events portion and look what's there from 80 years ago today, obviously).

Also, my main THT article for the week, A stroll down Houston Astros memory lane, a list of some of the odds'n'ends from Houston's 52 years as an NL team. Not the greatest and most famous moments, but the quirkier things like walk-off balks and the only Astrodome rainout. Plus: Steve Treder's first game attended makes the list.

Called shot?

Eric - yup.

Game of the day (yesterday): Reds 4, Pirates 3. Pittsburgh's Wandy Rodriguez and Cincinnati's Johnny Cueto kept the game scoreless through two innings despite allowing three baserunners apiece. The Reds broke through in the third when Brandon Phillips and Wilson Valdez singled, Joey Votto hit a ground-rule double to bring Phillips home, and Todd Frazier grounded out to score Valdez. In the bottom of the inning, Alex Presley reached on a Votto error, and two outs later, Garret Jones homered to tie the game at two.

Rodriguez worked perfect innings in the fourth and fifth, and Cueto matched him in the first of those. Presley led off the bottom of the fifth with a double, took third on Josh Harrison's sac bunt, and scored on Andrew McCutchen's single, giving the Pirates the lead and keeping their hopes of a .500 season alive. Miguel Cairo hit a two-out double against Rodriguez in the sixth, but didn't score; Cueto was spotless in the bottom of the inning, and Tony Watson and Cueto traded flawless frames in the seventh as well.

Jason Grilli allowed a one-out single by Votto in the eighth, but struck out the other three Reds he faced; Sam LeCure and Sean Marshall combined to retire the Pirates in order in the bottom of the inning. Joel Hanrahan came on for the ninth. Pinch hitter Xavier Paul worked a 2-2 count, then launched a game-tying homer to right. Hanrahan got Drew Stubbs to pop up and Ryan Hanigan to ground out, but Ryan Ludwick then doubled, and Zack Cozart followed with a double of his own to give Cincinnati the lead.

With the Reds now in front by a run, Aroldis Chapman was summoned. He walked Jose Tabata on four pitches, then threw erratically over to first. Tabata took off, rounding second and heading for third, but Valdez ran the ball down along the right field line and fired a lengthy throw to third to get Tabata by a couple of steps. Having been granted an unlikely reprieve, Chapman promptly walked Clint Barmes and gave up a single to Rod Barajas, putting the tying run in scoring position, but he rallied to strike out Michael McKenry and Starling Marte, ending the game and handing the Pirates their 82nd loss of the year.

Open question for the Dugout: Is there a past year you'd be especially interested in revisiting during next season's Game of the Day posts? I'll plan to take the offseason as a break, I think, and work on some other projects that have been patiently awaiting my attention (some of which may get posted about). But I'll also plan to be back next year with 2013's best daily games, and with another year's as well. Barring any specific requests, I'll probably just do 2010, but if there's some kind of consensus preference, I'm open to any of the other seasons for which B-R has complete info, which I believe would be 1974 and onward.

Open question for the Dugout: Is there a past year you'd be especially interested in revisiting during next season's Game of the Day posts? I'll plan to take the offseason as a break, I think, and work on some other projects that have been patiently awaiting my attention (some of which may get posted about). But I'll also plan to be back next year with 2013's best daily games, and with another year's as well. Barring any specific requests, I'll probably just do 2010, but if there's some kind of consensus preference, I'm open to any of the other seasons for which B-R has complete info, which I believe would be 1974 and onward.

Do you have this set up in some kind of database? If it's easily accessible I'd love to see this with a "best of" from that period each day. So one day might be a 1977 Royals-Indians game and the next would be a 2002 Red Sox-Mariners game with different names and blasts from the past.

Other than that I'll throw out a general call for any year from the 70s/80s. I think it would be fun to see different names and I suspect a lot of us would have recollections of various players involved that would be interesting to read.

Just want to add that I really love this stuff. I don't comment on it a lot but you do a terrific job with these posts. Thanks a lot.

Manager: Roy "Hardrock" Johnson

Man did I read that nickname wrong the first time.

Do you have this set up in some kind of database? If it's easily accessible I'd love to see this with a "best of" from that period each day. So one day might be a 1977 Royals-Indians game and the next would be a 2002 Red Sox-Mariners game with different names and blasts from the past.

Not really; I'm manually entering the necessary data (which isn't a whole lot, thanks to B-R) for each day's games. Doing that for all past games on a given day would be pretty time-prohibitive.

Also, I'm reluctant to cover all years, or even multiple past years at a time, because as you cover more time, you'll also have epic extra-inning marathons more frequently; I'm sure there's been at least one 15+ inning game on every day of the baseball calendar over the last 39 years. And if I write about one of those every day, I think I'll eventually lose sight of how unusual and special they are.

Also, I'm reluctant to cover all years, or even multiple past years at a time, because as you cover more time, you'll also have epic extra-inning marathons more frequently; I'm sure there's been at least one 15+ inning game on every day of the baseball calendar over the last 39 years. And if I write about one of those every day, I think I'll eventually lose sight of how unusual and special they are.

In that case, take a year that's unusual in some way (big offense/pitching year, expansion season, major rule change), and compare the games of the day to 2013. See how the best games in that particular environment stack up against a more straightforward year (assuming 2013 isnt' an aberration in some way).

My suspicion is there will be no noticable trends, but if you're going to do the work, you might as well see if you stumble upon something in the process.

1977 would be an interesting fit for that - expansion year, heyday of the multi-inning closer, teams still getting used to the DH, and the ball was re-livened from the mini-downturn in offense from, I think, '73 to '76.

Or 1998, for obvious reasons.

Waivers have been asked on Mordecai Brown. It is rather tough on the three-fingered one. He crowded 15 years’ of pitching into seven years. He won pennants and world’s championships. When the Cubs needed one game and had to get that one game or lose all, Mordecai Brown got it for them.

The heartbreaking part was when an angry Brown tried to flip the Cubs GM off; and no one could tell.

Eric - I'd go back as far as you can. It would make a nice contrast to the present day games to see how things were different.

If Brewer pitchers strike out 27 in the remaining three games, they will break the 2003 Cubs' record.

Just realized something:

If the Rangers go 2-1 and the Orioles and Yankees go 3-0 (or some similar situation), then there will be a three way tie for best record, all at 95-67.

HOWEVER, the Orioles and Yankees would then play a Game 163 to determine who is AL East champ. Game 163 would be a regular season game, with regular season rosters and counting in the standings.

Therefore, the winner of the AL East Tiebreaker would be at 96-67, which would PUT THEM A HALF GAME AHEAD OF TEXAS FOR THE NUMBER ONE SEED IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE.

MIND. BLOWN.

Therefore, the winner of the AL East Tiebreaker would be at 96-67, which would PUT THEM A HALF GAME AHEAD OF TEXAS FOR THE NUMBER ONE SEED IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE.

Pretty good for the 6th or 7th best team in the league. (ducks)

MIND. BLOWN.

Oh my god, Gamingboy! The colors! The colors!

So which potential HOF-vote-garnering players might be retiring this year?

Chipper for sure. Vizquel for sure.
Ichiro? Thome? Moyer? Pettitte? Rivera?

That would be an impressive single-year class.

Lance Berkman
Miguel Batista
Jack Wilson
Darren Oliver
Kerry Wood
Randy Wolf
Geoff Blum
Adam Greenberg

Moyer should never retire.

Moyer should never retire.

The back end of the Mariners bullpen beckons...

Just realized something:

If the Rangers go 2-1 and the Orioles and Yankees go 3-0 (or some similar situation), then there will be a three way tie for best record, all at 95-67.

HOWEVER, the Orioles and Yankees would then play a Game 163 to determine who is AL East champ. Game 163 would be a regular season game, with regular season rosters and counting in the standings.

Therefore, the winner of the AL East Tiebreaker would be at 96-67, which would PUT THEM A HALF GAME AHEAD OF TEXAS FOR THE NUMBER ONE SEED IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE.

MIND. BLOWN.

The league did away with counting the one-game playoff as part of the regular season for purposes of playoff inclusion, so presumably it would be the same for seeding. My guess - HFA for all rounds would be determined by the head-to-head record between Texas and the AL East winner (or the next rung down in the tiebreaking procedure).

Just realized something:

If the Rangers go 2-1 and the Orioles and Yankees go 3-0 (or some similar situation), then there will be a three way tie for best record, all at 95-67.

HOWEVER, the Orioles and Yankees would then play a Game 163 to determine who is AL East champ. Game 163 would be a regular season game, with regular season rosters and counting in the standings.

Therefore, the winner of the AL East Tiebreaker would be at 96-67, which would PUT THEM A HALF GAME AHEAD OF TEXAS FOR THE NUMBER ONE SEED IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE.

MIND. BLOWN.

WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!