A mediocre Birthday Team made worse by having the wrong Ed Walsh.

C: J.R. Towles
1B: Brian Daubach
2B: George Hausmann
3B: Red Shannon
SS: Tom Veryzer
LF: Ben Oglivie
CF: Jimmy Ryan
RF: Ollie Brown

SP: Ray Collins
SP: Sammy Ellis
SP: Yank Terry
SP: Brian Matusz
SP: Ed Walsh the Younger
RP: Matt Lindstrom

Rob Neyer's Archnemesis: Steve Hirdt

Has Dallas Braden retired? The other free agents whom nothing is being heard about are at least pitching in the WBC (Zambrano, Wang)

Last note I had on Braden said that he probably wouldn't be ready to pitch in games until June or July. I expect that someone will sign him to a minor league deal at some point.

-- MWE

Thanks. I missed that he'd had a second surgery.

Holy Cow. Is that Birthday Team in the WBC? Because if it was and I was on the Lesser Antilles squad, I would be saying "we're finally gonna win one today, boys!"

Birthday League Update:

February 5          52  28  .650 ----  
February 6          48  27  .640  1.5        
January 31          46  33  .582  5.5  
February 22         46  34  .575  6.0  
February 1          44  34  .564  7.0        
February 14         44  34  .564  7.0

News and Notes:
* February 11 (today) has lost six in a row.
* After a 21-10 May, January 30 is 4-15 in June.
* Ri Jones (February 4, inexplicably "J. Jones" on the rosters) leads the league with a .379 batting average. In real life, he was a .254/.285/.301 hitter.
* After Jones, the AVG leaderboard makes sense: Roberto Alomar (February 5) .367, Billy Hamilton (February 15) .367, Babe Ruth (February 6) .365.
* Ruth leads the league in runs scored (80), home runs (27), walks (77), intentional walks (12), strikeouts (61), active hitting streak (18), SLG (.789), OBP (.507), RC/27 (17.1), total bases (210), home runs vs. LHP (7), home runs vs. RHP (20), pitching wins (12), winning percentage (1.000), ERA (1.77), and complete games (8). He has allowed one home run in 127.1 IP.
* Red Schoendienst (February 2) leads the league with 115 hits.
* Billy Hamilton leads the league with 40 stolen bases. Honus Wagner (February 24) is second with 34, and Alan Wiggins (February 17) is third with 29.
* Scott Erickson (February 2) leads the league with 14 losses. He has gotten a decision in all 19 of his starts despite only one complete game.
* J.J. Putz (February 22) leads the league with 20 saves. Damaso Marte (February 14) is second with 15, while Dan Plesac (February 4) and Scott Williamson (February 17) are tied for third with 14.
* George Mogridge (February 18) leads the league with five shutouts.
* Nolan Ryan (January 31) has 150 strikeouts. Jack Lynch (February 5) and Jouett Meekin (February 21) are tied for second with...87.
* Ryan has three double-digit strikeout games. Nobody else has more than one.
* The longest game of the season was played on June 12, when February 10 defeated February 4 4-3 in 21 innings.
* Jim Parque (February 8) is the only pitcher in the league to have thrown more than nine innings in a game. He went 9.2 innings on June 17.

Box scores, stats, standings, and leaderboards here.

February 21 is not only in last place, they're 10 games out of 27th. This, despite the fact that they have Alan Trammell at shortstop and he's having a legitimately good year. They have a team batting average of .236, and are scoring less than 4 per game.

From Baseball America:

"The strongest penalty in the CBA is that any team that exceeds its international bonus pool by 15 percent or more will pay a 100 percent tax on the overage and won't be able to sign a player for more than $250,000 during the 2013-14 signing period. Since July 2, the Rays already have spent more than $3.7 million (not counting players signed for $50,000 or less, since there are exemptions for those players), which is 28 percent beyond their international pool. . . . Going well beyond the bonus pool is a curious move, but the Rays did pull in a considerable amount of talent, including arguably the two best 16-year-old pitchers on the market. Given that their 90-win season last year will give them one of the lower bonus pools for the 2013-14 signing period, which many scouts believe is shaping up to be a down year for international talent, perhaps it will be a worthwhile gambit."

Smart team, those Rays.

February 21 is not only in last place, they're 10 games out of 27th. This, despite the fact that they have Alan Trammell at shortstop

Alan is used to that kind of thing

I think it was, like, a week ago when I was saying that I thought someone should do this with the international kids.

Not gonna lie; that is damned clever.

On this day 93 years ago at the Kansas City YMCA, the Negro National League was formed (h/t/ Joe Posnanski)

Gee, I wonder who's going to win the MVP of the February league.

What's Ruth on pace for ... 25 WAR?