Hide your kids, hide your wife, because Fritz Peterson is the Birthday Team's ace.

And don't expect the ownership group to spend a penny more than it has to for anything.

C: Charlie Householder
1B: Bob Oliver
2B: Don Heffner
3B: Bert Haas
SS: Joe Cassidy
LF: Hoot Evers
CF: Bug Holliday
RF: Willard Marshall

SP: Fritz Peterson
SP: Joe Black
SP: Aaron Cook
SP: Fred Blanding
SP: Jim Parque
RP: Burke Badenhop

Owner: Larry Dolan

"Without Krapp and myself"

This would be much funnier if it was heard instead of read.

And the managers of today's all-b-day team: Joe Maddon.

Baseball internet writer on today's all b-day team: Studes.

At any rate, today is also exactly 20,000 days since the Herb Score injury. Ouch. And it's the 50th anniversary of an anti-trust suit filed against Topps that'll take damn near 20 years to play out.

Rangers sign SS Elvis Andrus to a 3 year $14.5 mill extension

Dodgers sign RHP Jamey Wright to a minor league deal

Astros sign OF Justin Ruggiano to a minor league deal

Dodgers DFA 3B Russ Mitchell

SP: Jim Parque

I was a fan of his, for no particular reason I can pinpoint. Might've heard some interview with him or something that just caught me right. But he was never an ace, and I'm not even a Sox fan.

Does this happen to others? You become a big fan of some player who isn't anything amazing in baseball terms? Hell, on the '84 Cubs my favorite pitcher was Eckersley, and again, I can't explain that. (Not that Eck wasn't good or anything, but c'mon, Sutcliffe is standing right there...) Or how much of a fan I was of Thad Bosley and Henry Cotto.

I expect it's just me.

2011's starting shortstops, ranked by WAR. Things start getting really weird down in the 20's.

1. Colorado: Troy Tulowitzki (5.8)
1. NY Mets: Jose Reyes (5.8)
3. LA Angels: Erick Aybar (4.7)
4. Detroit: Jhonny Peralta (4.4)
5. Toronto: Yunel Escobar (4.3)

6. Baltimore: J.J. Hardy (4.1)
7. Cleveland: Asdrubal Cabrera (3.7)
7. Philadelphia: Jimmy Rollins (3.7)
9. Texas: Elvis Andrus (3.5)
10. White Sox: Alexei Ramirez (3.3)

11. Houston: Clint Barmes (2.9)
12. Seattle: Brendan Ryan (2.8) [Jack Wilson- (1.3)]
13. Chi Cubs: Starlin Castro (2.2)
14. Kansas City: Alcides Escobar (2.0)
15. Pittsburgh: Ronny Cedeno (1.6)

16. Arizona: Stephen Drew (1.4)
16. Boston: Marco Scutaro (1.4)
16. Oakland: Cliff Pennington (1.4)
19. Atlanta: Alex Gonzalez (1.3)
20. Washington: Ian Desmond (1.1)

21. Milwaukee: Yuniesky Betancourt (0.7)
21. NY Yankees: Derek Jeter (0.7)
23. Florida: Hanley Ramirez (0.5)
23. Los Angeles: Dee Gordon (0.5) [Rafael Furcal- (-0.5)]
25. San Diego: Jason Bartlett (0.1)
25. San Francisco: Brandon Crawford (0.1) [Miguel Tejada- (1.0)]

27. Cincinnati: Paul Janish (0.0)
27. St. Louis: Ryan Theriot (0.0)
29. Tampa Bay: Reid Brignac (-1.1)
30. Minnesota: Tsuyoshi Nishioka (-1.8) [Alexi Casilla- (1.8)]

Does this happen to others? You become a big fan of some player who isn't anything amazing in baseball terms?

Absolutely. My favorite ballplayer as a kid was Duane Kuiper. It sort of made sense on some level; I was an infielder with a pretty solid glove and not much bat.

Later, I grew really fond of Rex Hudler and Casey Candaele, which again sort of makes sense because by that point I had become an undersized hustling utility guy who played everywhere on the field except SS and C and couldn't really hit. I identified with these guys, even years before I had come to terms with my utter lack of baseball talent.

I actually own an authentic and personalized '96 Indians jersey with Candaele's name and number on the back. I know how ridiculous it is, but I felt like I had to throw logic away and just go with it when one of my favorite players wound up playing for my favorite team.

So what if we rank everyone's infields from last season by adding up the starters' WAR? (Undoubtedly an imperfect measure, but still.)

1. Boston: 19.4
2. LA Angels: 15.6. This surprised me, but 3 of their 4 starters ranked in the top at their position.
3. Texas: 13.9. Imagine if they replaced Moreland.
4. Tampa Bay: 13.2
5. Detroit: 12.2

6. Philadelphia: 11.8
7. Cincinnati: 11.2
8. NY Yankees: 10.4
9. NY Mets: 9.4 (over half of which left when Reyes departed)
10. Chi Cubs: 9.0

11. Washington: 8.9
12. White Sox: 8.6
13. Colorado: 8.0
14. Milwaukee: 7.9
15. St. Louis: 7.8

16. Toronto: 7.4
17. Baltimore: 6.9
18. Atlanta: 6.8
18. Florida: 6.8
20. San Francisco: 6.4

21. Cleveland: 6
22. Seattle: 5.6
23. San Diego: 5
24. Arizona: 4.6
25. Kansas City: 4.3

26. Oakland: 3.9
27. LA Dodgers: 3.3
28. Pittsburgh: 2.0
29. Houston: 1
30. Minnesota: (-2.2) Yuck.

Does this happen to others? You become a big fan of some player who isn't anything amazing in baseball terms?

Absolutely. I tend to like types. I'm particularly partial to lefthanded first basemen with good gloves and weak to middling bats (Mike Squires and Pete O'Brien are two of my all-time favorite players), and speedy centerfielders with no power (Juan Pierre, Gary Pettis). They also tend to come up with teams I don't have any rooting interest in (either for or against).

I like having good to great players on the Red Sox. But the guys I really like are usually run-of-the-mill ballplayers in other locales.

26. Oakland: 3.9

Well, sure, that's last year.
But this year, they'll have... um....... huh.

*throws chair*

I think I have it worse with pitchers. Thinking back I can remember having weird fan attachments to Kevin Tapani, Mike Sirotka...all kinds of mediocre-to-decent starters or relievers. (Warren Brusstar!)

8. NY Yankees: 10.4

Thank you, right side of the infield!

Does this happen to others? You become a big fan of some player who isn't anything amazing in baseball terms?

Are you suggesting there might be something wrong with someone who theoretically might have at one point been a Desi Relaford fan?

All my favorites are scrubs.

Does this happen to others? You become a big fan of some player who isn't anything amazing in baseball terms?

Yeah. The 2008 Braves were a bad team (90 losses) beset by injuries, so they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for some of their starters.

Gregor Blanco isn't a good hitter and has absolutely no power. He's aware of this, though, so he fouls off pitches, hopes to get walked, drops down bunts, and tries to avoid hitting the ball in the air. I enjoyed watching this guy who was clearly overmatched scrap his way to an OBP in the .360s. He shouldn't be qualifying for the batting title, which he did in '08, but then that was a bad team, and the Braves are going on almost ten years of not getting much out of left field.

Jorge Campillo was a changeup artist from Mexico who somehow found his way into the bullpen that season. The announcers were impressed by his change; at first they thought it might be a screwball. He kept putting up zeroes until the Braves finally put him in the starting rotation. I remember an article somewhere cited a scout's report on him, in which Campillo was described as "a homeless man's Greg Maddux." The league caught up to him in the second half of the season, but I still got to go to a September game in which he beat Pedro Martinez. 2008 Pedro obviously wasn't the same man who dominated the American League years earlier, but Martinez lost only 104 games in his big league career, so it's not very many pitchers who can say that they've beaten the man.

For whatever reason, I enjoyed rooting for these guys more than I've ever enjoyed rooting for, say, Brian McCann. I guess I get more out of pulling for guys who are overachieving and can lose their spot at any point.

Does this happen to others? You become a big fan of some player who isn't anything amazing in baseball terms?

Well, as you can see from the list above, many fans have idiosyncratically decided to embrace the lovable schlub who's only the 21st best shortstop in baseball.

Campillo was my favorite Brave. He was great in the Mexican League, great in the PCL - teams (mainly the Ms) wouldn't give him a shot. Too bad he didn't stay healthy...

Yanks sign IF Russ Branyan

Reds DFA RHP Carlos Fisher

Giants DFA OF Justin Christian

Padres sign RHP Jeff Suppan to a minor league deal

Padres sign RHP Jeff Suppan to a minor league deal

Wow, remember his contract in Milwaukee?

Good times.

Barney Schultz and later Ted Abernathy were my favorite pitchers as a kid, though Abernathy kinda spoiled it by being really good for a couple of years.