Today's Birthday Team features a bad rotation, an excellent bullpen, and a catcher who wears wooly fur hats.

C: Robert Fick
1B: Kevin Youkilis
2B: Whitey Wietelmann
3B: Arlie Latham
SS: Kim Batiste
LF: Mickey Hatcher
CF: Bobby Bonds
RF: Harold Baines

SP: Lou Fette
SP: Rosy Ryan
SP: Bill Wise
SP: Sailor Stroud
SP: Vladimir Nunez
RP: Jim Kern
RP: Bob Locker
RP: Wayne Granger
RP: Juan Oviedo

Fun Name, Minor League Division: Motorboat Jones

Mann White Slave Act

That's how they nailed Jack Johnson, he was driving across a state line with a white woman.

Speaking of which, Miles Davis's "A Tribute to Jack Johnson" is an awesome fusion album. More rock than jazz, with only two tracks, each over 25 minutes.

Chuck Berry, too. A woman employed by him was doing business on the side, and he had given transportation to her from another state. While in prison he got to listen to the Beach Boys "Surfin' USA" on the radio, which was a complete rip-off of "Sweet Little Sixteen". The Beach Boys later settled with Chuck and paid him for his music.

Right Off and Yesternow. An important record in my life, too.

regards,
Tim

That's how they nailed Jack Johnson, he was driving across a state line with a white woman.

Speaking of which, Miles Davis's "A Tribute to Jack Johnson" is an awesome fusion album. More rock than jazz, with only two tracks, each over 25 minutes.

A little irony here as nearly all of Davis' "electric" albums make excellent music for long distance driving. The long pieces, with their ostinato bass, can be almost hypnotic under the right conditions. One can never listen to too much Miles.

So, I combined all the top prospect lists (Sickels, BA, BPro, Fangraphs, MLB, Minor League Baseball Analyst and Keith Law) to make a consensus:

1. Jurickson Profar, ss, TEX
2. Oscar Taveras, of, STL
3. Dylan Bundy, rhp, BAL
4. Wil Myers, of, TB
5. Gerrit Cole, rhp, PIT
6. Jose Fernandez, rhp, MIA
7. Xander Bogaerts, ss, BOS
8. Taijuan Walker, rhp, SEA
9. Zack Wheeler, rhp, NYM
10. Miguel Sano, 3b, MIN
11. Christian Yelich, of, MIA
12. Travis d'Arnaud, c, NYM
13. Tyler Skaggs, lhp, ARI
14. Mike Zunino, c, SEA
15. Trevor Bauer, rhp, CLE
16. Shelby Miller, rhp, STL
17. Jameson Taillon, rhp, PIT
18. Francisco Lindor, ss, CLE
19. Javier Baez, ss, CHC
20. Byron Buxton, of, MIN
21. Billy Hamilton, of, CIN
22. Anthony Rendon, 3b, WAS
23. Archie Bradley, rhp, ARI
24. Carlos Correa, ss, HOU
25. Jonathan Singleton, 1b, HOU
26. Nick Castellanos, of/3b, DET

26 because the gap between Castellanos and the next guy is the biggest gap in the whole top 100.

Claire's obit/biography (He died of burns in a gasoline fire) says he went to Racine and played semi-pro ball. It doesn't mention the fed. conviction at all. Weird.

edit: No wait, it said after 1916 he went to Racine.

As noted up at THT, today marks 50,000 days since the first NL game.

Yep, Claire went to prison. Here's a reference to him in the - and I'm serious about this title - Western Fruit Jobber, which appears to have been the newsletter of the "Western Fruit Jobbers Association of America".

If you read a lot about the history of jazz, blues, rock music you get extremely familiar with the phrase "the Mann Act". It seems to have been the equivalent of the statutes in Britain against homosexuality, in the sense that it offered free rein for constant blackmail attempts in addition to actually being something people had to worry about violating just because of who they were.

Ichiro could enslave whites if he wanted to.

I'm very curious what Claire actually did. Did he actually transport a prostitue across state lines, a 14 year old girl, an African-American woman, an African-American man, or was he just caught in a car with his face between a woman's legs.

Chuck Berry is said to have had his white groupies pose naked with him for a photograph before they had sexual congress in order to protect himself from after the fact rape charges.

I see Charlie Chaplain was prosecuted under the Mann Act, but acquitted. his circumstances, if Wiki is correct, are ridiculous:

" Chaplin met Joan Barry, age 24, in 1941. He signed her to a $75-a-week contract for a film he was putting together, and she became his mistress. By the summer of 1942, Chaplin let her contract expire. To send her home, Chaplin paid her train fare to New York which led to his arrest"

That's how they nailed Jack Johnson, he was driving across a state line with a white woman.

Chuck Berry, too. A woman employed by him was doing business on the side, and he had given transportation to her from another state.

I was mildly surprised to see a ballplayer -- and thus a white man -- prosecuted for the Mann Act. I assumed it was used almost exclusively on blacks. (Holy miscegenation, Batman!)

A woman employed by him was doing business on the side, and he had given transportation to her from another state.

Not to defend the indefensible prosecutions under the Mann Act, but by "a woman employed by him," you mean a 14-year-old prostitute with whom Berry spent a week on the trip from Texas to St. Louis.

Chuck Berry was in fact transporting an underage prostitute, because he was in fact a repulsive human being. However the Mann Act was also used for general persecution and blackmail purposes all the time.

Chuck Berry was in fact transporting an underage prostitute, because he was in fact a repulsive human being.

"And if that wasn't enough for the jury to reach a decision to convict, I submit that this is the man who released My Ding-a-Ling".


What a below replacement song from one of the great 2 minute storytellers.

Not to defend the indefensible prosecutions under the Mann Act, but by "a woman employed by him," you mean a 14-year-old prostitute with whom Berry spent a week on the trip from Texas to St. Louis.

I didn't know about the 14 part. No excuse for that, of course.

JJ 1986 - Thank you!

What a below replacement song from one of the great 2 minute storytellers.

And yet it was his only #1 single.

-- MWE

Keith Law has a new podcast up at ESPN called Behind the Dish. Interview with Jeff Luhnow (who is showing up all over the place), something from Joe Sheehan as well. Will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Sheehan and Rany J are back with their podcast, too.

-- MWE

What a below replacement song from one of the great 2 minute storytellers.

Disagree. Sure, the song is corny but Chuck's enthusiasm is audible and infectious. I like when a singer is clearly into the song he's singing. If you're talking baseball, the song is more Eddie Mathews in 1966 than Eddie Murray in 1996. Also, although I assume most people know this, that song was written by Dave Bartholomew, a legend in his own right. Bartholomew's list of classic songs is almost as long as Berry's.