Two Hall of Famers and an ace SP who has finished in the top three in Cy Young voting three times. Heck of a Birthday Team - it's just unfortunate they ended up with the wrong Brian Giles.

C: Tony Eusebio
1B: Willie Upshaw
2B/Manager: Rogers Hornsby
3B: Pedro Feliz
SS: The other Brian Giles
LF: Frank Catalanotto
CF: Hi Myers
RF: Enos Slaughter

SP: Chris Carpenter
SP: Allan Sothoron
SP: George Winter
SP: John Whitehead
SP: Charlie Chech
RP: Bob MacDonald

Owner: Horace Stoneham

That was one damned expensive chair. According to the inflation calculator I found (which only goes back to 1913), $18 in 1913 is $417 today.

And yeah, good bday team, but the "right" Brian Giles at SS ain't gonna help that much. :-)

It was 10,000 days ago the Gary Carter trade happened. Until writing that piece up, I always assumed the trade was an incredibly one-sided one for the Mets. But it wasn't. Heck, according to WAR Montreal won it. Carter really only had two more prime seasons in New York while Hubie Brooks had several good years with the Expos and Floyd Youmans had a nice season. I dunno if I agree with WAR, but it's not that one-sided a trade.

It's like that top 5 Mets article that places Carter well above Reyes. Carter had one Gary Carter season, then another season that was still good but clearly not as good as 1985. Then he had a fork in his back, which just got bigger and bigger until he retired.

I didn't realize Brooks played shorstop for Montreal; I figured the Mets wouldn't have needed him because he was third baseman. Was he decent at short?

IIRC, he was below average at SS, but not "Bobby Bonilla at 3B" trainwreck bad.

edit: Yeah, BBRef has him at an aggregate -1.6 dWAR for the three years he spent at SS. That seems about right. He wasn't very good, but he was adequate enough that you could ignore the defensive shortcomings when he was hitting. About like Jhonny Peralta, I guess.

This must mark the start of the Lively ball error.

There's definitely no chance these will look stupid in five years, right guys?

Are you suggesting they don't look stupid now?

Moose Skowron dies.

Moose Skowron dies.

That's a shame. On the Red Sox radio broadcast last night Joe Castiglione was talking about what a good guy Skowron was and how he always enjoyed speaking with him when the Red Sox were in Chicago. He wrapped up by saying "he's not feeling well so he's not here" or something similarly innocuous. It sounded like he really liked Skowron though.

There's definitely no chance these will look stupid in five years, right guys?

Wait a minute, are you saying my "AOL Keyword: Attackoftheclones" t-shirt looks silly?

For some reason I have a strong memory of Gary Carter's italicized 106 RBI on the back of his Topps card, and thinking that it was such a low total to lead the league.

I few years later I also realized Carter was part of the "single to left - single to center - single to center" mantra that my Dad moaned in the late 80's.

I few years later I also realized Carter was part of the "single to left - single to center - single to center" mantra that my Dad moaned in the late 80's.

He hit a foul pop up that inning that was about 10 rows back. When he first hit it I leaped off my couch prepared to celebrate.

It's amazing how much different I feel about that inning since 2004.

I was too young for it to have much of an effect, but I think it permanently changed my Dad as a fan

Ryan Zimmerman to the DL; Bryce Harper called up, will make MLB Debut Saturday.

Game of the day (yesterday): Giants 6, Reds 5. Only half of the league played yesterday, and it was apparently the Lake Wobegon half, because 7 of the 8 games were solidly above average. 6 of them were contained within a weirdly narrow band of quality, between 65th and 77th percentile so far this season. This is the seventh; it's not necessarily an exceptional game, but it is very good.

The scoring started in the bottom of the second, as the Reds loaded the bases with one out. Devin Mesoraco hit a sacrifice fly to bring in the game's first run, but Ryan Vogelsong had to feel like he'd escaped the inning, since the next hitter was Homer Bailey. Naturally, Bailey singled, doubling Cincinnati's lead. The Giants scored twice in the fourth to tie the score, with Brandon Belt singling in the first and Ryan Theriot hitting a sac fly to drive in the second; unlike Bailey, Vogelsong did not help his own cause, leaving a pair of runners on base to end the inning. (It should be noted that Bailey himself bunted into a double play in the bottom of the inning, so he wasn't exactly spotless with the bat either.) The Reds retook the lead in the sixth on a two-run homer from Jay Bruce; San Francisco countered with a Gregor Blanco sac fly in the top of the seventh, but Scott Rolen added a solo shot in the bottom of the same inning, putting the tally at 5-3. Cincinnati put a pair of runners on with one away in the eighth, but did not extend their lead, leaving it up to Sean Marshall to close the contest. After a walk, single, and strikeout to open the inning, Angel Pagan came to the plate, and in a matchup of ex-Cubs, launched a 3-run homer to left center, giving the Giants their first lead of the day. Santiago Casilla struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth to put an exclamation point on the rally.

Game of the day (last year): Astros 6, Cardinals 5. Both teams staged mild rallies in the third, but the real action opened in the fourth, with St. Louis scoring three times on extra-base hits by utility infielders - a Nick Punto double drove in one, and Daniel Descalso followed with a two-run triple. The Astros managed a leadoff homer by Hunter Pence in the bottom of the inning, then took the lead with three in the sixth on three singles, a walk, and an error. The Cards put the tying run at third in the seventh, and Houston loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the inning, but the next run came on a game-tying Descalso double in the eighth; said double also put the go-ahead run in scoring position with one out, but it wasn't advanced from there. Houston's leadoff hitter reached in the bottom of the eighth, but the ensuing pinch runner was promptly picked off. St. Louis went ahead once more on back-to-back doubles from Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman to start the ninth, but Cards closer Mitchell Boggs succumbed to a series of unfortunate events in the bottom of the inning. Brian Bogusevic led off with a single, took second on a passed ball, advanced to third on a sac bunt+error that put Michael Bourn on base (which is rarely a good idea) and scored the tying run on a wild pitch. From there, the rally progressed along more normal lines, with two singles reloading the bases (still with none out), and, after a popup, a full-count single by Bill Hall walking off with the win.

Two games with identical scores, both decided in regulation. Anyone care to guess which grades out better?

Angels release Abreu

Evan Longoria in: "Why can't I hold all these baseballs?"

The Mariners just intentionally walked Adam Lind, and then gave up a grand slam to Edwin Encarnacion.

There were NO OUTS. Were I in charge of a baseball team, any manager who issued an IBB with no outs in non-ninth inning, tie game situations would be fired immediately after the game (and they'd be told this when hired).

Anyway, now that that's off my chest, Game of the Day coming up momentarily.

Aside from the issues with ever intentionally walking someone who has a .292 OBP over the last 2 1/8 seasons.

Game of the day (yesterday): Royals 7, Twins 6. A lot of games with excellent starts yesterday, but no exceptional endings; if you combine yesterday with Thursday, you have some tremendous contests. Anyway, this game came out of the box with four runs in the first, the Royals with a 2-run homer from Alex Gordon and the Twins with a Joe Mauer RBI triple, Mauer later scoring on a Justin Morneau single. Minnesota took the lead on a home run by Trevor Plouffe, whose name cannot possibly be real, in the bottom of the second, but KC answered with a two-run bomb by Billy Butler in the third. The Twins tied it once more in the fourth, putting a walk and two singles around a GDP, and the Royals once again pressed ahead in the fifth, with Gordon walking, stealing second, and scoring his third run of the game on Butler's single. The Twins rinsed and repeated, evening the score yet again in the sixth on a double from Alexi Casilla. Both teams put a runner in scoring position in the seventh, but failed to score; in the eighth, Kansas City seized its fourth distinct lead of the day on an RBI single from Mike Moustakas (who's hitting behind Jeff Francoeur despite having about 280 points of OPS on him), and added an insurance run on a single by Alcides Escobar (who actually also has a higher OPS than Frenchy, by over 200 points). Minnesota put the tying runs in scoring position with one out in the bottom of the inning, and brought one in on a groundout before stranding the other. Both halves of the ninth went 1-2-3, which is relatively surprising since Jonathan Broxton was involved, and the Royals moved out of last place.

Game of the day (last year): Reds 7, Brewers 6 (10). That's back-to-back GotD pairs with identical scores, which is odd... The Reds put three runs on the board before the first out was recorded, courtesy of a longball from Joey Votto, and added a fourth on a sac fly before the top of the first ended. Milwaukee chipped away in the third on a 2-run single by Carlos Gomez, and picked up another run in the fourth on a groundout with the bases loaded. In the fifth, they finally evened things up on an unusual play - runners on first and second, one out, and Prince Fielder hits a potential DP ball; Cincy gets the force at second, but Paul Janish throws it away, allowing lead runner Rickie Weeks to scamper home. The Reds surged ahead once more in the sixth, with Votto singling in the go-ahead run (after a sac bunt from Jay Bruce - really, Dusty?) and Brandon Phillips tacking on another, but the Brewers responded again in the bottom of the inning on a double, two singles, a wild pitch, and a sac fly. The next three half innings each saw a runner reach first and stay there, but the bottom of the eighth was a bit more eventful, as the Brewers loaded the bases with one out before Gomez struck out and Ryan Braun grounded out to extinguish the threat. The game went to extras, and the tenth inning was placidly decisive, with Drew Stubbs putting Cincinnati ahead with a one-out home run, and the Brewers going down in order to Francisco Cordero.

Aside from the issues with ever intentionally walking someone who has a .292 OBP over the last 2 1/8 seasons.

That, too. But I'm not sure I'd have walked Matt Kemp with the pitcher on deck if there were runners on second and third with nobody out when my team is down 3 runs; it's just not a smart play when you have to get the next three guys (or two, if you're really lucky).

The current epidemic of intentional walks irritates me as a fan and makes my head hurt as an armchair analyst. I keep hoping that we'll eventually see people figure out that it's almost always a stupid thing to do, but they haven't yet... maybe we need ESPN to highlight the ones that backfire on BBTN or something. "See that, everyone? Eric Wedge just cost his team a run by doing something moronic. Of course, they lost 7-0 anyway, so you probably don't care."

Game of the day (yesterday): Dodgers 4, Nationals 3 (10). This should surprise nobody, right? Stephen Strasburg and Chad Billingsley were the starters, and they were both outstanding early on; each team managed only a single runner in scoring position in the first five innings, and they were stranded on a strikeout and erased on a pop fly DP, respectively. In the top of the sixth, Strasburg himself doubled to lead off, but a trio of groundouts only moved him as far as third. Adam LaRoche finally broke the scoring drought with a leadoff homer in the seventh, but the Dodgers rallied to tie in the bottom of the inning on an HBP, an error, and an RBI single from AJ Ellis. The scoring resumed in the ninth, with Washington putting runners on the corners with one out to set up Bryce Harper for a go-ahead sac fly, his first MLB RBI; Wilson Ramos followed with a single to extend the lead to two.

Then came the bottom of the ninth, which is an inning that almost requires me to talk more about my method itself than usual. Down by 2, the Dodgers started off with two singles sandwiched around a wild pitch; that's runners on the corners with nobody out, moving their win expectancy from 8% to 34%. Juan Uribe's ground-rule double brought the score within a run, and jacked LA up to 71% in win expectancy.

It's pretty uncommon for a team to be favored to win while trailing; it's especially uncommon in the ninth inning. It also sets up the potential for enormous swings in the game state, in either direction. For instance: AJ Ellis struck out, dropping LA back to 52%. Then Adam Kennedy hit a ground ball that got lead runner James Loney thrown out at home; that takes it all the way back to 19%. But then Henry Rodriguez threw a wild pitch, allowing Uribe to score and cranking LA's odds back up to 60%. The game graph in this section looks like a deadly weapon.

Anyway, the Dodgers put the potential winning run at third on a K/WP, but left it there as Tony Gwynn Jr. lined out. The extra inning was... not anticlimactic, exactly, but as anticlimactic as it's possible for an extra inning to be, with Washington going 1-2-3 and Matt Kemp leading off the bottom of the tenth with a home run to end the game.

If it'd lasted a few innings longer or had one more late rally, it'd be a candidate for GotY so far. As it is, the method puts it in 7th, and at #2 among NL games (I'd be inclined to give it a subjective bump for prominently involving Harper, Strasburg, and Kemp, and put it at #1 for the NL this year, since the margin is narrow anyway). But that 9th inning is probably the inning of the year to date (I'm not set up to actually check all the innings individually to make sure, but I'd bet on it); on its own, it contained more excitement than about 40% of all complete baseball games.

Game of the day (last year): Can I pass? 4/28/11 was a pretty boring day by the standards of days that include baseball. It had eleven games, and only three were decided by margins of 3 runs or fewer. The Rays swept the Twins in a doubleheader by a combined 21-4; if you add those two games together, the result is still below the median excitement value - and neither of them was the worst game of the day. That "honor" goes to an 11-2 Arizona blowout of the Cubs, in which the D'Backs scored 7 runs in the first inning.

If I have to pick one, it's Blue Jays 5, Rangers 2. Adam Lind started the scoring with a 2-out, 2-run homer in the top of the first. Texas answered as Elvis Andrus singled, stole second, and was driven in by Adrian Beltre in the bottom of the inning, then tied the score in the third when Ian Kinsler singled, stole second, took third on a groundout and came home on a sac fly. The teams both mounted occasional threats from then on, most notably the Jays loading the bases with 2 out in the seventh and the Rangers putting two in scoring position in the eighth, but the game remained 2-2 until the top of the ninth. John McDonald singled with one out, advanced to third on a single by Yunel Escobar, and scored on a bunt single (!) by Corey Patterson. Toronto loaded the bases on a walk to Jose Bautista, and then, with two outs, the Rangers made two errors on the same play, allowing an additional pair of runs to score. Frank Francisco worked a 1-2-3 ninth, including a strikeout of Mike Napoli; through that point in the season, he had a 2.08 ERA in four appearances, so that particular trade... still looked ridiculous, because Napoli had a 1.094 OPS (despite a BABIP of .207) at the end of the game, albeit in less playing time than would have been ideal.

Power outage. The following players hit 30 or more HR last year and have 2 or fewer so far this year:

Pujols - 0
Stanton - 0
Reynolds - 0
Ellsbury - 0
Howard - 0
Berkman - 0
Morse - 0
Upton - 1
Fielder - 2

Yes I know a few of them have been injured, but still, that's 9 out of the 23 guys who hit 30+ last year.

Power outage. The following players hit 30 or more HR last year and have 2 or fewer so far this year:

Well, Prince is off the list now.