How does today affect Frank Tanana? It's his 59th birthday.

Birthday Team:
C: Buddy Rosar
1B: Juan Rivera
2B: Cesar Tovar
3B: Coco Laboy
SS: Heinie Sand
LF: Greg Vaughn
CF: Moises Alou
RF: Curt Walker

SP: Frank Tanana
SP: Nig Cuppy
SP: Luke Hamlin
SP: Matt Keough
SP: Cliff Curtis
RP: Ed Roebuck

General Manager: Brian Cashman
Would be in the rotation if Dusty hadn't broken him: Edinson Volquez
Pinch hitters: Danny Heep, Warren Newson
Fun Name: Bunny Brief

Milwaukee Sentinel, July 3, 1912:

ST. LOUIS, Mo., July 3. -- At the conclusion of the first game of Tuesday's double header between Chicago and St. Louis, which the locals won, Manager Callahan of the visiting club punched and jammed Pitcher Benz around the players' bench for disobeying orders.

With a local player on base and the score tied in the ninth inning Callahan called to Capt. Harry Lord to have Benz pass Laporte, who was batting. Instead, Benz threw a straight ball, which Laporte sent to the field for a single, driving over the winning run.

Take back that fastball, take back George Stovall.
Take back Bobby Wallace, take back Frank Laporte.
And give 'em all some place to go.

That's some ripe writing, right there.

I would assume "Little Brothers of the Rich" implies that the Giants are "The Rich".

Game of the day (yesterday): Brewers 6, Marlins 5. Zack Greinke started for Milwaukee. His day did not start terribly well; he gave up singles to Jose Reyes (groundball past third) and Hanley Ramirez (groundball past third) and a walk to Giancarlo Stanton to load the bases before recording a single out. He did record a single out by striking out Logan Morrison, but Justin Ruggiano followed with a single (groundball to third) that drove in a pair of runs. It should be noted that Aramis Ramirez plays third base for the Brewers.

In the bottom of the first, Carlos Zambrano recorded two quick outs, and then pressed the self destruct button, hitting Ryan Braun with a pitch and issuing consecutive walks to Aramis, Corey Hart, and Rickie Weeks, the last of which was on four pitches and forced in a run. He left the bases loaded by inducing a groundout, but then allowed Milwaukee to tie the game in the second on a Cesar Izturis triple and a Greinke sac fly.

Hanley led off the third with a walk for the Marlins. He moved to second on a groundout, then came around on Morrison's double; Ruggiano followed that with a two-run homer to make it a 5-2 game in Miami's favor. Zambrano settled in from there, and so did Greinke, for that matter; following Ruggiano's homer, the next 15 hitters between the two teams were set down in order. That string ended with another homer, this one by Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez with one out in the fifth. The rest of that inning was adventurous, featuring a Nyjer Morgan ROE that ended with Morgan being thrown out at second and an error by the first baseman on a pickoff throw, but unproductive, leaving the Brewers still behind by two.

That gap closed in the bottom of the sixth. Hart led off the inning by reaching on an error, Hanley's second of the day (although only his 7th on the year, which isn't a horrible total for a half season of third base). Weeks followed with a walk, and Martin Maldonado proceeded to load the bases with a bunt single. With everyone on and noone out, Izturis grounded back to the mound for a 1-2-3 double play; fortunately for him, Travis Ishikawa bailed him out with a pinch hit, two-out, two-run, game tying single.

The bullpens took over in the seventh. Kameron Loe was perfect for the Brewers, and Ryan Webb's only baserunner that inning was a two-out HBP of Aramis. Francisco Rodriguez pitched the eighth for Milwaukee, and Stanton led off with a double. A pair of groundouts advanced him to third, and a pair of walks (one intentional) loaded the bases behind him, but Brett Hayes left all three runners on by grounding to third. Webb remained in the game for Miami to start the bottom of the inning, and quickly allowed a double to Weeks and a single to Maldonado, putting runners at the corners. Randy Choate entered in relief, and pinch hitter Norichika Aoki dropped a bunt down, bringing Weeks home with the go-ahead run. Steve Cishek came in and retired the next three Brewers, but John Axford did the same to all three Marlins he faced in the ninth, and the game ended.

Two comebacks by the eventual winning team, 4 RBIs by Justin Ruggiano, a run scored from 2 outs, nobody on without the benefit of a hit, and an apparent game-winning squeeze play. All in all, that's pretty good.

Game of the day (last year): Phillies 5, Blue Jays 3. Toronto's starter was making his eighth start in a Jay uniform. Philadelphia's starter had made 287.

Carlos Villanueva had a rough start to the day, walking Jimmy Rollins, then walking Placido Polanco after Rollins stole second. Chase Utley struck out, but Ryan Howard singled to drive in the game's first run. The Phils would go on to leave two runners in scoring position, but they still had the lead.

Roy Halladay (in case you didn't figure out who it was from the intro) worked around a single and a walk in the first, and both starters were perfect in the second and third. Villanueva was spotless again in the fourth, stretching the joint streak to 16 batters retired; it was ended abruptly in the bottom of the fourth, when Jose Bautista lauched a 3-1 pitch over the wall to tie the game.

The Phils finally went back to work on offense in the fifth; with one out, Ross Gload and Carlos Ruiz singled, and Rollins hit a ground-rule double to bring home the go-ahead run. Polanco popped up, Utley was intentionally walked, and Howard struck out to end the inning. (The fact that the Jays walked Utley to get to Howard here is... interesting. As overrated as I think Howard is, I still don't think I'd have done that.)

Corey Patterson led off the bottom of the fifth with an infield hit, and in fact ended the play on third thanks to an Utley throwing error. One out later, John McDonald singled to bring in the tying run; McDonald moved to second on a groundout, and scored on a hit by Eric Thames to give Toronto its first lead of the day. Villanueva and Halladay both worked quick sixth innings, maintaining the Toronto lead into the seventh. Ruiz led off that inning with a double and moved to third on a Rollins flyout; Polanco grounded out, with Ruiz staying at third, and Utley provided a nice piece of post facto justification to his earlier intentional walk by hitting a go-ahead 2-run homer to right-center.

Halladay allowed only a two-out single to McDonald in the seventh. Reliever Luis Perez gave up a pair of hits to the Phils in the eighth, but he and Octavio Dotel combined to strand both runners. Doc was spotless in the bottom half, and Philly added an extra run in the top of the ninth, courtesy of a two-out RBI single by Shane Victorino. Having thrown only 100 pitches through 8, Halladay was allowed to start the ninth, and he made the most of the chance, retiring the side on only 10 pitches.

Solid set of lead changes, home runs by Bautista and Utley, and I doubt most of the crowd cared too terribly much about that. Halladay threw a 110-pitch complete game in his return to Toronto, and I expect the fans left pretty happy.

Roy O got absolutely bombed tonight.