I've always had trouble remembering the difference between Pete Fox (All-Star outfielder, long MLB career) and Pete Gray (one-armed wartime outfielder with 77 career games), and having them on Birthday Teams two days apart isn't helping me.

Today's team:
C: Bill Salkeld
1B: Dick Allen
2B: Ryan Freel
3B/Manager: Harry Lord
SS: Ollie O'Mara
LF: Jim Rice
CF: Pete Fox
RF: Carl Furillo

SP: Jim Bouton
SP: Justin Thompson
SP: Bob Stoddard
SP: Bob Grim
SP: John Butcher
RP: Lance McCullers

Play-By-Play: Jacques Doucet
Umpire: Lance Barksdale
Sad story: Win Remmerswaal

A team with Dick Allen and Jim Bouton will make for interesting clubhouse anecdotes.

Yeah, the idea that Ryan Freel and Win Remmerswaal are approximately the third and fourth most colorful players on the team is pretty amazing.

(For those of you who are unfamiliar with Remmerswaal's flakiness, his SABR Bio has a collection of stories about him.) Among the great Remmerswaal stories:

Remmerswaal made his major-league debut on August 3 at Milwaukee’s County Stadium – but apparently he wasn’t bothered by nerves. Steve Renko left the game after five innings, and as author Tom Boswell described it, “Zimmer called the bullpen, barked ‘Get Win up,’ and was told, ‘He’s out in the bleachers buying peanuts.’”

There would be some serious offense from this team. I have a mental picture of Carl Furillo and Dick Allen getting into a clubhouse disagreement, the result is not pretty.

Having peak Allen and peak Rice in the same lineup, I bet no one would think of Rice in terms of the TEH FEAR.

Pete Fox has some great names among his similarity cohort: Shannon, Jo-Jo, Cy, Baby Doll and Ginger.

I've always had trouble remembering the difference between Pete Fox (All-Star outfielder, long MLB career) and Pete Gray (one-armed wartime outfielder with 77 career games), and having them on Birthday Teams two days apart isn't helping me.

My son pointed out to me the other day that I have an above-average number of arms for a human. So that's how you can tell them apart: Pete Fox is the one with an above-average number of arms.

Question for everyone - what's the best single-player baseball-sim game? I've been using Baseball Mogul, but it's buggy and I hate the fact that when I export stats, players are listed only with one team per season with all of their stats combined.

I think OOTP is pretty widely considered to be the gold standard. For actual game simulation, if you're not concerned about stuff like running a front office and just want to play the games themselves, Diamond Mind is really good.

OOTP for my money.

Birthday League Update:

March 2              13   4  .765 ----     
March 9              11   5  .688  1.5     
March 10             11   6  .647  2.0        
March 5              10   6  .625  2.5        
March 17             10   6  .625  2.5  
March 14             10   7  .588  3.0        
March 25             10   7  .588  3.0

* The March 2 King Kongs lead the way in the early going with a 13-4 record. The Kongs feature Mel Ott, Mort Cooper, Ron Gant, and Woody English.
* On the opposite end of the spectrum, the March 7 Telephones are already 9 games back of the Kongs. The Telephones feature some legitimate stars in Jeff Kent, J.R. Richard, and Joe Carter, but have very little depth.
* Batting Average Leaders: Lloyd Waner (March 16) .439, Willie Keeler (March 3) .397, Mel Ott (March 2) .394.
* John Cangelosi (March 10) and Jimmy Wynn (March 12) lead the league with 15 runs scored.
* Matt Stairs (February 27), Sam Mayer (February 28), and Woodie Held (March 25) are tied for the league lead with five home runs.
* Marty McManus (March 14) leads the league with 17 RBI.
* Cangelosi and Clyde Milan (March 25) have 13 stolen bases each.
* RC/27 Leaders: Ott 13.4, Paul Konerko (March 5) 12.6, Denny Lyons (March 12) 11.8, Home Run Baker (March 13) 11.8
* Ott leads the league with 42 total bases.
* Kent Tekulve (March 5) leads the league with 4 wins.
* Steve Howe (March 10) leads the league with 6 saves.
* Howie Fox (March 1) has two complete game shutouts. In real life, Fox was 43-72 with a 4.33 ERA (93 ERA+). Tom Glavine (March 25) also has two shutouts, which makes a bit more sense.

Stats, standings, box scores, and leaderboards here.

in college baseball action, gt has scored 10+ runs in their last 9 games. iffy strength of schedule and only one of their starters is an ace (though he's one of the best in college baseball) but - bats!