This is one hell of a Birthday Team. Dennis Martinez is the third starter, for crying out loud! Earle Combs isn't the best hitter* on the team!

May 14 is a legit contender in a Birthday Team tournament.

C: Pat Borders
1B: Tony Perez
2B: Joey Cora
3B: Fran Mullins
SS/Manager: Dick Howser
LF: Bob Thurman
CF: Earle Combs
RF: Hosken Powell

SP: Ed Walsh
SP: Roy Halladay
SP: Dennis Martinez
SP: Dick Tidrow
SP: Brian Lawrence
RP: Dave LaRoche

Co-Owners: J.L. Wilkinson and Alex Pompez
Cool Name: Wimpy Quinn

* - Combs has a better career OPS+ than Perez, but Doggie had the better peak. It's just that Perez hung on FOREVER at the end of his career.

Y'know, looking at Wimpy Quinn's career stats, I'm just totally baffled.

In his age 21 and 22 seasons, he hit a combined .337 with 48 total home runs in the Class B Western International League. So they made him a pitcher the next year. (Of course.) Quinn pitched for two seasons, walked 157 batters in 189 innings, also in Class B ball, so the Cubs called him up to the majors as a pitcher in 1942. (Of course.) He went back to first base the next season and hit .236 with no power in the PCL before spending 1944 and 1945 in the Marines. Back in baseball in 1946, he once again didn't hit.

Eventually he hit, but it was as a 30-something in the Cal League. Quinn died of cancer at age 36.

It's like a case study in "how to completely derail a kid's career". The Western International League, which he utterly destroyed as a hitter, was admittedly hitter-friendly, but I don't understand what they were thinking. If you've got a young position player who's in the top ten in his league in hitting, and he's hitting with power, what in the world are you doing turning him into a pitcher? A glance at the stats suggests he was a pretty awful defensive player, but jeez. It's easier to turn a bad defensive first baseman into a tolerable defensive first baseman than it is to turn a good young hitter into a good young pitcher.

I imagine there's not a ton of contemporary source material on Wimpy Quinn's career, but I'd really like to read more about it. It's just...odd.

edit to add: The Eugene Register-Guard mentions that Jimmie Wilson wanted to make Quinn a pitcher, just like he did with Bucky Walters. When Wilson made his decision to turn Quinn into a pitcher, Walters had just led the NL in wins, ERA, innings, batters faced, and ERA+ in back-to-back seasons, not to mention his 1939 MVP award. I dunno, I guess Wilson thought he had some sort of magical ability to turn corner infielders into pitchers. Because it couldn't possibly have been that Walters was a pitcher playing out of position at third base the entire time.

I feel the need to note that Wilson went 493-735 as a manager.

i am going to keep posting until thoses ####### soccer and nba threads go away

get that crap outta here

Today also marks the 90th anniversary of the last time the Phillies were at sea level. On May 14, 1922, a win gave them a cumulative franchise record of .500 - it's never been that high since then.

Also, today's the anniversary of an unfortunate reporter asking Tommy Lasorda his opinion of Kingman's performance. A transcript of Lasorda's full response is given in the link above. (Well, parts just say "BLEEP" instead of the actual word, of course ... .

Also, I have a regular article up at THT: 50 years from the Mets junk drawer. This isn't a list of their greatest moments - there's no '69 World Series of '86 postseason. Those aren't junk drawer stuff. Instead, it's a list of the odder or more unusual games the Mets played in. The walk-off balks, back-to-back one hitters, the time Lenny Randle tripled on the rare 4-2 count, an 18-inning scoreless game, the Rick Camp Game, etc. There are some fun items in there and some obscure ones. I like looking up stuff like that.

I should have mentioned that it's also Dag Nabbit's birthday. Nice Birthday Team you've got there.

I'm happy to see you remembered the July 22, 1986 game, Dag. That was one of the craziest sporting events I've ever watched.

Hey Harv, I've got a golf thread up somewhere. Enjoy!

I'm off to my first Rangers game of the year tonight: the enthralling matchup of Bruce Chen vs. Scott Feldman. Somehow my work and travel schedules haven't had me in Arlington conveniently for a ballgame yet this year (though I saw one in Philly). But now I have tickets for three games in the next four days, including Thursday afternoon. It was at a Thursday day game against Oakland exactly two years ago that I began to think that this version of the Rangers might be competent to win something for once in franchise history, and it's been an amazing two years since.

Thanks, Dan. The b-day team can have David Byrne sing the National Anthem and George Lucas direct the team video.

I'm happy to see you remembered the July 22, 1986 game, Dag. That was one of the craziest sporting events I've ever watched.

Yeah, due to space constraints I had to leave out that Ray Knight had a nice punch out in a brawl late in the game.

Slight caveat once again before we get to GotD today - B-R is currently missing the boxscore for Rays 8, Orioles 8 yesterday. Despite the interesting-sounding score, this game doesn't look to have been a threat to yesteday's top 3, as Baltimore never led, so let's get on with the show, such as it is.

Game of the day (yesterday): Reds 9, Nationals 6. Being the most exciting team in baseball isn't always a good thing, Nats! Cincinnati's Joey Votto started the scoring with a solo homer in the bottom of the first. Washington tied the score in the second on a pair of singles and a sac fly, then took the lead in the third on back-to-back doubles from Ian Desmond and Roger Bernadina. Votto went deep again in the fourth to tie the game at 2, but the Nats quickly answered with a 2-run double from Danny Espinosa in the fifth. Down a pair of runs, the Reds put runners on second and third with nobody out in the bottom of the inning, scoring once on a sac fly before stranding the other runner. Washington extended its lead with single runs in the seventh and eighth, the first on a two-out pinch hit RBI single from Chad Tracy and the second on a hit by Adam LaRoche that came after Bernadina had walked and advanced to third on a SB/error. Cincy rebounded in the bottom of the eighth when Drew Stubbs reached on an error, Votto doubled with one out, and Jay Bruce doubled with two out, bringing the Reds within one.

You probably already know what happened in the ninth. Ryan Hanigan led off with a single, but a sac bunt and a foulout later, the Reds were down to their last shot. Henry Rodriguez then walked the next two hitters, which had the dual effect of loading the bases and bringing Votto to the plate again. And Votto put a capper on what's probably the best non-Hamilton day by any hitter so far this season, hitting his third home run to end the game. Line for the day: 4/5, 3 HR, 1 2B, 4 R, 6 RBI, 1.046 WPA.

The Nats are having a very good year, but Henry Rodriguez is a problem as the closer. He's wild, and not Carlos Marmol wild where he strikes out 16 batters per 9 to make up for it (not that Marmol does this any more either). He led the NL in wild pitches last year in 65.2 innings, and already has an MLB-high 6 this year in 15.1 innings, which is impressive in a very bad way.

Anyway, the game gets a 4.69, a fine effort that manages to beat both another game with a walkoff grand slam and a 12-inning game.

Game of the day (last year): Marlins 6, Nationals 5 (11). Florida struck early with a single from Hanley Ramirez and back-to-back homers by Gaby Sanchez and John Buck giving them a 3-0 lead before Washington batted. The Nats closed a bit in the third, scoring once on three singles, but the Marlins picked up a solo homer from then-Mike Stanton in the fourth to reset the lead to three runs. The bottom of the fourth pushed the reset button on the game, as Laynce Nix's homer and Roger Bernadina's 2-run double tied the score at 4. The game remained in that state for the next three innings, with the teams putting only occasional runners on until Logan Morrison led off the eighth with the fourth Marlin homer of the day. Washington came back in the bottom of the inning with a pair of walks, a double play, and a two-out RBI double from Nix to even the score at 5. They went on to load the bases in the ninth, but didn't score, and picked up a two-out double in the tenth, again without bringing anyone home. In the eleventh, the Marlins finally scored while keeping the ball in the park, as Omar Infante singled and Greg Dobbs doubled him in, and the Nats went in order against then-Leo Nunez to end the game. This one gets a 5.33, 96th percentile for 2011 so far.

Thanks, Dan. The b-day team can have David Byrne sing the National Anthem and George Lucas direct the team video.


And Werner Klemperer** can lead the heavenly chorus backing David Byrne.

** This of course would be the father, not the Colonel Klink-playing son.

[7]

Thanks, Dan. The b-day team can have David Byrne sing the National Anthem and George Lucas direct the team video.

I'm happy to see you remembered the July 22, 1986 game, Dag. That was one of the craziest sporting events I've ever watched.

Yeah, due to space constraints I had to leave out that Ray Knight had a nice punch out in a brawl late in the game.

This game epitomizes the 1986 Mets: Knight brawling, Davey Johnson's strategy, Keith Hernandez's unbelievable DP charging a pitcher's routine sac bunt towards the 3rd base side of the infield, and an extra inning home run to win it.

2 minutes of video of the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyABg5WIRHg (starts at 22:56)
Gary Carter plays 3B after Knight-Davis brawl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU-5le51RhE (Keith Hernandez charge on the sac bunt begins at 2:00)

The father was named Otto Klemperer, not Werner.

According to Wikipedia, Otto Klemperer was a Sabathian 6-foot-6 and 290 pounds. He also, at one point, escaped from a mental hospital. I'm sure if you were playing in an orchestra he was conducting, you'd be inclined to do whatever he said.

Tom, I plead extended case of jet lag. Geesh, I read Otto and converted it to Werner, all the while knowing it was the conductor's birthday.

Report -- MLB fires Shyam Das, arbitrator from Milwaukee Brewers' Ryan Braun case - ESPN

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7929521/report-mlb-fires-shyam-das-arbitrator-milwaukee-brewers-ryan-braun-case

How is that allowed? He rules against MLB so he has to go? Now the next person who gets the job is going to always feel pressured not to rule against them.

Either side(MLB or MLBPA) can fire the arbitrator at any time.

14 - nature of the gig, they're hired to be fired.

Shyam Das has been MLB's all-purpose arbitrator since 1999. MLB must be really upset about the precedent set by the Braun ruling.