Also in the linked column:

Allen Scheer is not at all discouraged at being sent to the Boston Nationals. "I suppose Boston is a better town than Youngstown, Ohio," he said.

Young Scheer speaks the truth.

Not a bunch of quality ballplayers on today's Birthday Team, but a bunch of quality nicknames: Shanty, Good Time Bill, Thunderpup, and Mysterious.

C: Shanty Hogan
1B: Manny Sanguillen
2B: Aaron Hill
3B: Tommy Davis
SS: Cristian Guzman
LF: John Sullivan
CF: Good Time Bill Lamar
RF: Shawon Dunston

SP: Al Fitzmorris
SP: Luis Leal
SP: Rickey Clark
SP: Fernando Arroyo
SP: Mysterious Walker
RP: Ed Klieman

Manager: Bill Plummer
Umpire: Bill McGowan

"Thunderpup" sounds like a character in some movie for kids.

Mysterious Walker is not a good name for a pitcher to have.

There was an article and thread here about the Royals Hall of Fame yesterday. Al Fitzmorris is one of the finalists. I can't remember the last time I thought about Al Fitzmorris, and now it's happened two days in a row. The nation officially has Al Fitzmorris fever.

As noted at THT, today marks 30,000 days since the birth of Ernie Banks

Shanty Hogan - one of my favourite old-time catchers

a bunch of quality nicknames

Manny Sanguillen was "The Roadrunner," sometimes reduced to "Beep-beep." Not many catchers get that.

I'm guessing it was Regino Garcia that Lavender hit:

Regino Garcia Playing Career

I was having a conversation with occasional poster BobbyMac, and he posed the questions:

- Which Diamondback would you most want to add to your team's 2014 roster?

He said Miguel Montero, I said Paul Goldschmidt.

- Whichever one you chose, is there a team that has a less desirable "best 2014-and-forward keeper"?

Surprisingly, we found that there wasn't a clear choice. Would you expect to want to trade Jose Altuve for Montero or Goldschmidt next offseason? How about Starlin Castro, or Anthony Rizzo? You'd have to think about those for sure.

This certainly says something about the Diamondbacks' current offseason, in which they traded away one and arguably two of the guys whom you might otherwise have taken.

A bunch of current and former pro athletes have formed a pro-gay rights group to file a brief to the Supreme Court on their upcoming gay marriage rulings. Many NFL players are on board, but notably, not a single MLB player (not even Billy Bean?)

Athletes Brief

Wow, a team that has to shift Sanguillen to 1B, Tommy Davis to 3B and Dunston to RF ... that's sad.

(In real life, it would probably be Dunston or Guzman at 3B and Davis in RF but Davis does have more 3B starts than either of those.)

On the keeper question: How long are we keeping for?

The Padres don't look real good ... Headley should be fine for the next couple of years but he's already 29. Maybin (26) is a perfectly OK real-life player but has no fantasy value.

The Phils have Hamels if you want pitcher risk, but nothing else. The A's ... Cespedes although I'd like to see him repeat it. Twins ... I know they've got a prospect or two but on the ML roster it's 30-year-old Mauer or nothing (or course in fantasy land, he's your full-time C). For the White Sox your only choice is to roll the dice with Sale. The Red Sox only choice is a 29-year-old Pedroia and the Yanks only choice is Cano (who I would gladly draft in a keeper league but am not sure I'd pay for in a keeper auction.)

Toronto is interesting -- they've become a rather old team overnight, even Reyes is 30. Bautista is 32 and still probably the best choice but coming off injury. Reyes and EE are 30 and how confident are you in the new EE (and he's stuck at 1B/DH). Johnson and Romero are injury risks. Rasmus and especially Lawrie are both young and you'd take real-life Lawrie in a heartbeat for defense (even if WAR might overstate it) but it's not clear that either is going to hit real well.

Wow, Mauer had a really nice year last year that I didn't realize. A full healthy season, led the AL in OBP. Only 72 starts at C but you can live with that for 4-5 WAR.

I think we were thinking you would be able to keep the player indefinitely, but you had an average team, not some sort of long-term rebuilding project. So you would definitely prefer someone like Pedroia or Cano who has a ton of immediate value and still very good medium-term value, without really worrying about 10 years from now. (Montero will be 30 himself in '14. Goldschmidt is four years younger.)