A solid Birthday Team today. Three strong starting pitchers and a handful of good position players.

C: Ron Hassey (14.74 WAR)
1B: John Wockenfuss (7.17 WAR)
2B: Joe Ardner (-1.47 WAR)
3B: Connie Ryan (16.94 WAR)
SS/Manager: Johnny Pesky (31.84 WAR)
LF: Matt Stairs (14.26 WAR)
CF: Denard Span (25.0 WAR)
RF: Craig Monroe (3.63 WAR)

SP: Hilton Smith (0 WAR)
SP: Yovani Gallardo (23.4 WAR)
SP: Anibal Sanchez (21.4 WAR)
SP: Greg Cadaret (6.69 WAR)
SP: Rube Melton (5.69 WAR)
RP: Cliff Politte (3.78 WAR)

Fun name: Bud Teachout, Jumbo Diaz

English political leader Tony Blair is exactly as old as Mickey Mantle was the day he died (23,308 days).

Anyone who wants to can look up these as-old-as items for themselves here

It rained all weekend, 27-28 August 1927, in New York and in fact across most of major-league baseball's quadrant of the country, sending the schedule into knots. The Robins lost two of a four-or five-game set with the Reds in Brooklyn, with the result that they'd have to play three consecutive double-headers in Cincinnati in late September. One thing I've learned from following these 1920s seasons is that the league wasn't very particular about making up games in the originally-scheduled home parks. I believe it's still occasionally done today to replace a home game with a road game under extraordinary circumstances, but in 1927 it was standard procedure.

For instance, in 1927 the Robins played 74 home games and 80 road games. One home game was a tie, so they had only 153 decisions. Somebody'd bust a gasket if that happened today, but despite the complexities of 21st-century schedules, jet travel means that nearly every game is properly made up in the right place. In 1927, it was a long way by train from Boston to St. Louis, and being able to get two far-flung clubs together in a given city was not a given.

Birthday boy Johnny Pesky was the Pirates 1st base coach in the mid-sixties, and Alex Grammas (who had also put in ten years at short in the majors) was the third base coach. I was just a kid, and they amazed me - they would catch any ground ball barehanded. I haven't seen anything like the pair of them since.

SP: Yovani Gallardo (23.4 WAR)
SP: Anibal Sanchez (21.4 WAR)

These guys have had quite similar careers.

LF: Matt Stairs (14.26 WAR)

Since his enshrinement, I've been tempted to check out the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame. But the only time I would be in Fredericton would be partway through an 11-hour drive, so the desire to press on is greater.

I was at the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame last year! Stairs was the only member I'd ever heard of, and now I've forgotten the others I learned about. My ignorance remains pretty total :(

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that hockey is well-represented there.

They do have 20 baseball player or team honorees. Jason Dickson and Rheal Cormier are the only two other names I recognize.

Oooooh, you mean that New Brunswick...

 7. Nasty Nate Posted: February 27, 2017 at 12:28 PM (#5409364)
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that hockey is well-represented there.

What about bowling?

Oooooh, you mean that New Brunswick...

If the other one has a Hall of Fame, they might have to add a couple of recent Super Bowl champions...

Ron Turcotte! Am I right? I didn't look it up :) They had IIRC quite a display on Turcotte.

What about bowling?

I laughed. Thanks, GGC

According to his SABR bio, Ray Caldwell was struck by lightning when he was pitching with two outs in the ninth. He got back up and got the next guy to ground out.