Not a whole lot to work with on the Birthday Team, though the catcher can rake, the center fielder's excellent, and the closer is twice as good as Three Finger Brown.

C: Babe Phelps
1B: Bob Montgomery
2B: Fernando Vina
3B: Rich Rollins
SS: Pete Suder
LF: Piggy Ward
CF: Paul Waner
RF: Frank Fernandez

SP: Left-Handed Dutch Leonard
SP: Jim Lonborg
SP: Curt Young
SP: The other Jim Devlin
SP: Rick Jones
RP: Antonio Alfonseca

Manager: Bruce Bochy
Goofy name: Pop Swett

Up at THT, an article on the odd career arc of former Dodger/Pirate skipper and curt Rockies helmsman Jim Tracy: The rise and fall (and re-rise and re-fall) of Jim Tracy.

Also, today is the 40th anniversary of Burt Hooten's no-hitter. It was especially impressive because it was only his fourth career start, and in his previous start starts he'd tossed a three-hitter (with 15 Ks) and a two-hitter. Rarely has a career started with such a bang.

Boy that Hooten trade to the Dodgers really worked out well. Not that he was destined for the Coop or anything, but he was a good solid young, top of the rotation starter. And for Geoff Zahn and Eddie Solomon? Zahn was a 29 year old rookie and Solomon was a guy who, if very lucky, might be almost as good as Hooten. I don't get it.

And that's how it worked out. Hooten was a solid rotation anchor for the Dodgers for 7-8 years. Zahn was terrible and was released after 2 years (after which, he became a serviceable starter for 8 years), and Solomon pitched 37 lousy innings and was then traded for a guy who was even worse.

The Dodgers got 26.6 WAR from Hooten. The Cubs -1.4 from Zahn and Solomon. Well done.

Hooton. Hooton.

I was just a wee tot when Hooton threw that no-hitter, but I remember my mom always hated him, because he was interviewed after the game on WGN and came across as an arrogant snot.

Yeah, I misspelled his name -- and misspelled it in the title so trying to fix it could screw up the url. I noted the mistake in the comments. Sorry about that.

I was just a wee tot when Hooton threw that no-hitter, but I remember my mom always hated him, because he was interviewed after the game on WGN and came across as an arrogant snot.

IIRC Hooton was known as "Happy", at least after he went to the Dodgers. I think the name might have been in response to his perpetual scowl.

One year (1975) in spring training with the Cubs sportswiters wrote that Hooton wanted a trade to the Dodgers (friendship with Lasorda was rumored). After three starts and an ERA over 8, his wish was granted. Tha rat-bastard went 18-7 the rest of the year with the Dodgers. I believe he intentionally sucked in order to get traded and I still hate that creep.

Didn't Vin Scully once say of Hooton that he was so low-key that after the Dodger won the pennant he went out and painted the town beige?

Didn't Vin Scully once say of Hooton that he was so low-key that after the Dodger won the pennant he went out and painted the town beige?

I hope that is true. That is a phenomenal line.

Game of the day (yesterday): Marlins 5, Astros 4 (11). The teams traded runs early on an Omar Infante home run (his fourth of the year already - what the heck?) and a JD Martinez double. The Astros scored two in the fourth on a pair of singles, an error, and a groundout. Miami closed the margin to 1 in the bottom of the inning, as Logan Morrison drove in Giancarlo Stanton. Both teams threatened in the 6th, the Astros loading the bases with 2 outs and the Marlins putting runners on the corners with one away, but neither scored. In the 8th, Houston picked up an insurance run on a Jose Altuve double, and once again loaded the bases before the inning ended without further scoring. After a walk to lead off the bottom of the inning, Hanley Ramirez made them pay for that, tying the game on his second home run of the year. Neither team threatened in the 9th. In the 10th, the Astros had a runner on second with one out before Altuve lined into a double play, and the Marlins put runners on the corners with 2 outs before pitcher Chad Gaudin, hitting for himself, ended the inning by grounding to second. (Anyone familiar with the Marlins bench situation who can elucidate why no pinch hitter here?)

In the top of the 11th, Jordan Schafer reached on an error with 1 out, and was promptly caught stealing. The next two hitters walked and doubled, which makes it seem like he should have just stayed where he was. For the third time in the game, an inning ended with the bases packed full of Astros, and Hanley Ramirez once again took advantage with a game-ending RBI single. On the day, Hanley was 4/5 with a homer and 3 RBI, good for a WPA of .669.

For the third consecutive day, the NL had its best game of the year so far. I'm guessing this one will hold up for a while, but that's what I thought yesterday.

Game of the day (last year): Nationals 4, Brewers 3 (10). This one's actually pretty milquetoast as Games of the Day go, especially considering it's an extra-innings effort in which there was a game-tying 9th-inning rally. But regulation was pretty tame up to that point; the Nationals scored three in the second on two bases-loaded walks and a sac fly, the Brewers countered with two in the 5th on a Rickie Weeks home run, and managed to get the tying run in scoring position with one out in the 8th before failing to bring it home. The game-tying rally in the 9th was unorthodox to say the least; Weeks doubled with 2 outs, and scored on a Carlos Gomez single - but Gomez was thrown out at second on the play, ending the inning. This was probably pretty exciting to watch, but the method I use would have preferred it if Gomez had stayed put and kept the inning alive, then been caught stealing during the next AB, because it would be counted as a separate play.

In the bottom of the 9th, Ian Desmond made it to third with 2 outs and was left there. The Brewers managed a solitary single in the top of the 10th; in the lower half of the inning, Jayson Werth did his best to define the manufactured run: Reached second on a throwing error by Yuniesky Betancourt (of course), stole third, and scored on a ground ball.

It's a good game, to be sure. But it would have been better if, say, the Brewers had a lead at any point, or if there had been more than one game-tying rally.

In case anyone missed it, Diamond Mind has on their website that they plan to release the 2012 Zips Projection Season Disk tomorrow.

re: #10, that was the second 5-4 11 inning loss for the Astros in the last 3 days. Brett Myers, who is their highest-paid pitcher and slotted at the top of the relief pitcher depth chart, pitched in neither of those games. He presumably could pitch more than one inning given his SP background, and again is their highest paid pitcher; yet he has pitched the 2nd-fewest innings on the staff even though they have not played in a blowout yet.

Since I cannot submit a news item from my Blackberry anymore, I'll post this here:

The Wall Street Journal
"Soon on Display in Brooklyn: 'Holy Grails' of Baseball"
April 16, 2012
By Sophia Hollander ...

But this week, a century-long odyssey will come to an end when the original 1912 blueprints for Ebbets Field, the iconic home of the beloved, bedeviling Brooklyn Dodgers, will be displayed in public for the first time in decades.

They will be the centerpiece of an exhibit on the Dodgers at Brooklyn College set to open on Thursday. Three of the 18 plans will be on display, alongside team photographs, cartoons and one of the last home plates used at Ebbets Field—one with a memorable dedication to the owner who moved the team to Los Angeles after the 1957 season: "May Walter O'Mally [sic] roast in hell." ...

They were actually found in 1992 after a dedicated search by Rod Kennedy, a Manhattan writer who has often examined the subject of Brooklyn. They sat in his closet for 20 years after he and Marty Adler, founder of the Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame, discovered them in a musty room filled with cobwebs in a subbasement of a city Department of Buildings archive. ...

In 1908, then-owner Charles Ebbets—a former ticket seller for the team—started secretly purchasing land for a new stadium to replace the team's wooden structure near Washington Park. It was to be designed by architect Clarence Van Buskirk, with the intent of creating the most magnificent, state-of-the-art park in baseball.

Ebbets focused on a former pig farm in a neighborhood known then as Crow Hill that had remained undeveloped despite grand plans for a botanical garden and museum nearby. To hide his intentions, he created a shell company with the name, Pylon, plucked at random out of the dictionary, said Bob McGee, author of "The Greatest Ballpark Ever: Ebbets Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers."

"His great fear," said Mr. McGee, was that "if word got out the price would skyrocket, and it would be beyond what he could afford." ...

The Mets' plan to model Citi Field after Ebbets Field jump-started Mr. Kennedy's plans. He offered Mets officials the prints, and there was an initial plan to display them in the entrance rotunda, Mr. Kennedy said.

But the team ultimately decided against it, he said. A spokesman for the Mets declined to comment.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304299304577345920613196782.html

I shook Bert Hooton's hand once, a few years back when he was coaching with the Astros. It was like I was putting my hand in the web of an infielder's glove - just swallowed my normal-man-sized hand right up.

I hope that is true. That is a phenomenal line.

It is. I have no idea if it was Scully or not, but it kinda sounds more like Jim Murray to me.

I was at Hooton's no-hitter. Hooray me!

He walked roughly 17 guys* that day so it wasn't until the 8th inning that it even sunk into me that it was a no-hitter. Somehow, in those early days, his knuckle curve simply mesmerized hitters.

I see the Cubs added 12 hits and 5 walks of their own but only 4 runs. There were guys on base all day and the game took forever!**

* actual number is 7.
** 2:33

There were guys on base all day and the game took forever!

I've mentioned this before, but my wife and I went to this game in 1999. I bought tickets a few weeks in advance, taking a shot in the dark that I'd see Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run of the season.

20 walks, 10 relief pitchers, 7 pinch hitters, a hit batter, and a pinch runner later, she's pretty much vowed never to attend another MLB game. Looking at the box score, I'm shocked the game "only" took 3:42.

Wikipedia cites the quote from Larry Dierker's book.

That link has Dierker referring to Scully as "Dodgers broadcaster Vince Scully." Is that a typo or has he ever been called that?

[19]

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Vince+Scully,+Vin+Scully&year_start=1940&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3

The phrase "Vince Scully" outpaced "Vin Scully" in frequency until the mid 1970s, according to Google's Ngram viewer.

Thanks - never knew that he was ever anything other than Vin.