Elsewhere 100 years ago, 49-year-old Boston mayor (and President Kennedy's grandfather) John Fitzgerald is preparing to race Jim Thorpe in a 100-yard dash at Fenway Park.

Meanwhile, the St. Louis Browns have offered Columbus $8,000 for the services of Wally Gerber, but the Senators want players instead of cash. One problem: the Browns can't come up with the players to make the deal work. Because, y'know, if they had any players anybody wanted, they wouldn't have been the St. Louis Browns*.

(* - This is not literally true; the 1912 Browns had 22-year-old Carl Weilman, 20-year-old Earl Hamilton, and 24-year-old Del Pratt. But beyond those three guys, who the Browns were planning to build around and probably wouldn't have given up anyway, there's not a whole lot they could have given Columbus that was worth a highly-regarded 20-year-old shortstop.)

It's another one of those awkward Birthday Teams on which the best ballplayer wasn't allowed to play in the major leagues because he had too much melanin in his skin. I still don't really know what to do with Negro Leagues guys - obviously Willie Wells is the best of the August 10 bunch and it's not particularly close.

Speaking of shortstops born on August 10, I had no idea - none - that Tom Brookens played 119 career games at short. That's about 117 more than I'd have guessed.

C: Wilson Ramos
1B: Sid Farrar
2B: Odell Hale
3B: Buddy Lewis
SS: Tom Brookens
LF: Taffy Wright
CF: Gerald Williams
RF: Rocky Colavito

SP: Larry Corcoran
SP: Bob Porterfield
SP: Elmer Jacobs
SP: Ed Beatin
SP: Clint Hartung
RP: Brandon Lyon
RP: Mike Schooler

Manager: Scott Hastings
Negro Leagues Great: Willie Wells

I still don't really know what to do with Negro Leagues guys

These are your teams - do what you think is most appropriate. If Wells and Brookens were battling it out at SS in Spring Training, pick the one you'd believe would win the position.

I had no idea - none - that Tom Brookens played 119 career games at short.

It's okay. I had no idea that a guy named Tom Brookens played next to my childhood idols.

Starting June 26, the Astros are 3-4 against the Padres and 3-30 against everyone else.

Jon Heyman now blatantly shilling for Boras clients:

derek lowe is willing to start or relieve, which may help create interest.

now?

Game of the day (yesterday): Yankees 4, Tigers 3. Detroit's Doug Fister and New York's Hiroki Kuroda both worked scoreless firsts. The Yanks got to Fister in the second, with Eric Chavez singling, Raul Ibanez tripling him home, and Ichiro bringing in a second run with a single. Kuroda was perfect in the second, as was Fister in the third; Omar Infante led off the bottom of the third with a hit, but was removed from the bases on a double play. Ibanez doubled and Ichiro walked in the fourth, but Fister retired Chris Stewart to leave both runners on. Kuroda worked around a single in the fourth, and Fister allowed a hit to Derek Jeter and a double to Robinson Cano in the fifth, but an intervening double play kept the Yanks from padding their lead.

That proved to be important in the bottom of the inning. Jhonny Peralta led off with a double, Alex Avila followed with a homer, and just that quickly, the game was tied. Ramon Santiago picked up an infield hit with one out; he was forced at second by Quintin Berry, but Berry would then score on Andy Dirks's double, putting Detroit in the lead.

Now ahead for the first time in the game, Fister worked a perfect sixth. Kuroda allowed a single, but worked around it. In the seventh, Fister retired Ichiro, but allowed a double to Stewart that chased him from the game; Octavio Dotel relieved and retired both Jeter and Nick Swisher to leave the tying run in scoring position. Kuroda allowed another hit to Infante, then a bunt that moved him to second before being pulled. Like Dotel, Clay Rapada left the runner on second.

Joaquin Benoit entered for the eighth, and started the inning by retiring Cano. He fell behind Mark Teixeira 2-0, and promptly paid for it, as Tex took him deep to right on the next pitch to tie the game. Chavez followed by making it two homers on two pitches, putting the Yanks in the lead. New York used David Phelps to preserve their newfound advantage in the eighth. Phelps recorded two outs, but also allowed a hit to Prince Fielder and balked him to second, so Rafael Soriano came in to preserve the one-run edge.

Jose Valverde worked a scoreless ninth for the Tigers, leaving Soriano with the same single-run cushion. Avila and Infante quickly put that lead in mortal peril, with a double and a single placing runners on the corners before any outs were recorded. Soriano recovered, though, getting Santiago to line out, Berry to pop up, and Dirks to fly out, leaving Miguel Cabrera on deck to end the game.

Lead changes in the sixth and eighth, and the always-fun situation in the ninth where the trailing team is favored to win. That's not necessarily a stone cold classic, but it is in the 93rd percentile so far this year. Also, it marks the 14th time in 16 games that Ichiro had exactly one hit for the Yankees, not to mention his first walk in pinstripes.

Game of the day (last year): Indians 3, Tigers 2 (14). This game... this game was kind of weird.

It started out as a matchup of two solid starting pitchers, Justin Masterson for Cleveland and Doug Fister for Detroit. Masterson gave up a couple of two-out hits in the first (to Andy Dirks and Miguel Cabrera; yes, Andy Dirks was hitting third for the Tigers in this game), but no runs. Fister wasn't as fortunate. Jason Kipnis doubled with one out, Asdrubal Cabrera singled him in, Travis Hafner singled to put runners on the corners, and Carlos Santana added a sac fly to put his team ahead by two.

The Tigers came back in the second. Jhonny Peralta led off with a single, and Carlos Guillen matched him, sending Peralta to third. Alex Avila drew a walk to load the bases, and Don Kelly and Austin Jackson hit back-to-back run-scoring groundouts to tie the game. Fister worked around a leadoff hit in the bottom of the inning, and then the rains came.

The rains hung around for a couple of hours. When they left, so did the starting pitchers... and the hitting.

Chad Durbin set the Tigers down in order for two innings. He gave up a leadoff hit to Kelly in the fifth, but got out of trouble with a K/CS double play. Rafael Perez replaced him in the sixth, allowing hits to Dirks and Martinez that put runners on the corners with one out before Peralta and Guillen stranded them. Meanwhile, Duane Below was retiring twelve consecutive Clevelanders.

Tony Sipp allowed a leadoff hit to Avila in the seventh. The Tigers pinch hit with Ramon Santiago and asked him to bunt; he popped it up back to Sipp and got Avila doubled off of first (on a very nice play by the Cleveland pitcher). Daniel Schlereth replaced Below in the seventh, and quickly allowed Cleveland's first baserunner since the delay. The fact that it was a one-out walk and that the runner didn't advance spoils the drama just a bit, though. Sipp and Vinnie Pestano combined for a perfect eighth, but Schlereth had a bit more trouble. Jason Donald led off the inning with a double, and moved to third on a groundout by Ezequiel Carrera. With Michael Brantley at the plate, the Indians called for a squeeze. Schlereth threw a practically un-buntable pitch, and Donald was a sitting duck, running straight into Avila's ball-containing glove.

Victor Martinez started the ninth with a hit against Pestano, and was pulled for pinch runner Ryan Raburn. Raburn made it to second on a groundout, but no further. Facing Phil Coke, Asdrubal Cabrera also singled, but didn't advance and ended the inning being forced at second. Chris Perez threw a perfect tenth for the Indians, and Coke and Al Albuquerque (or Alberto Albuquerque, for Mike Francesca's benefit) combined to do the same.

Joe Smith allowed a leadoff hit to Miguel Cabrera in the eleventh, then set down six straight Tigers. Albuquerque allowed two walks in the eleventh, one of them intentional, but no runs. Joaquin Benoit came on for the twelfth and was perfect for two innings. Frank Herrmann pitched the thirteenth and fourteenth for Cleveland, starting both innings with walks but not allowing any runners to reach scoring position.

David Pauley came on for the home half of the fourteenth. He struck out Kipnis on three pitches, then walked Asdrubal Cabrera on four. Hafner singled, putting runners on the corners, and Santana was intentionally walked to load the bases. Pauley then worked a 1-2 count on Kosuke Fukudome, and...

... hit him with a pitch. On the back (left) elbow, which is pretty unusual. But probably not quite as unusual as the walkoff HBP.

So yeah. Good starters both get hit around a little, then leave after the rain delay. Bullpens combine for eleven and a half scoreless innings. And a walkoff hit batsman.

Baseball! Bask in it.

It's (arguably) worth pointing out that 8/9/11 was a very good day of baseball on the whole. Full slate of games, which is always a good start. Including the Tigers-Indians matchup recapped above, there were 3 extra-inning games. Among the twelve 9-inning affairs were six one-run games and three two-run games, and one of the latter was a ninth-inning loss by Mariano Rivera. Overall, it's the third-best day of 2011 so far, and not too far behind the best one.

Game of the day (yesterday): Reds 10, Cubs 8. Yesterday had a decent number of solid games, but no great ones... it's late, so I'll be brief here. There was a lot of scoring, and it alternated to an extent, but the Cubs were never actually tied or ahead after the Reds took the lead in the top of the second. The starters were both pretty bad, and the bullpens were rather spotty as well, until Aroldis Chapman came in and struck out three of the four batters he faced. On the hitting side, Todd Frazier had 3 hits and 4 RBI for the Reds, while Ryan Ludwick homered and scored 4 times; Alfonso Soriano (who is still available) had only one hit, but drove in three for the Cubs. The Cubs made 5 errors, which is kind of an enormous number, and allowed two unearned runs, which you may notice corresponds exactly with the margin of victory. In fact, this game featured a double milestone - the first career errors by both Brett Jackson and Josh Vitters!

Onward and backward... last year's game to come.

Game of the day (last year): Rays 8, Royals 7. This is more like it.

The starters began the game with pitching that wasn't necessarily brilliant (KC's Felipe Paulino ended the day with 4 walks and 1 strikeout), but was effective, at least for a while. The scoreless tie was broken in the fourth when Jeff Francoeur doubled, Johnny Giovatella tripled him in, and Giovatella scored on a sac fly, putting Wade Davis and the Rays in a 2-0 hole. Kansas City tacked on another run on an Alcides Escobar double and two flyouts in the fifth, while the Rays countered with a solo homer from Matt Joyce. Tampa added another run in the sixth when Ben Zobrist singled against Tim Collins, took second on a wild pitch, and came home on Casey Kotchman's base hit; they would go on to load the bases in the inning before Joyce fouled out to strand all three runners.

Davis notched a hit, an out, and a walk before being pulled in the seventh. JP Howell issued a walk of his own before allowing Melky Cabrera's second sac fly of the game (I wonder if anyone has ever had more than two? Surely someone's done three sac flies in a game, right?), putting the Royals back up by two. The Rays picked up another single tally in the eighth on a walk and two hits, the second coming from Desmond Jennings, to close within 4-3.

Of course, you've seen the final score, so you can now figure out that over half of the game's runs were scored in the ninth. Brandon Gomes recorded the first two outs in the top of the inning before allowing a double to Escobar and being removed. With Jake McGee on the hill, Escobar stole third, and Alex Gordon walked to bring Cabrera back to the plate. With two outs, he couldn't hit another sac fly, so he homered instead, padding his team's advantage to 7-3.

With the Royals now up by four, Aaron Crow, not Joakim Soria, started the ninth. Joyce greeted him with a single, and Johnny Damon matched him; that made it a save situation, so Crow was out and Soria was in. Evan Longoria doubled in one run on Soria's second pitch. Ben Zobrist grounded out to bring in a second, and Kotchman singled to add a third. Elliot Johnson pinch ran for Kotchman, and BJ Upton struck out, bringing Sam Fuld to the plate.

Remember the thread from a few days back in which walkoff triples were mentioned? This demonstrates a way to get a walkoff triple that I hadn't considered. Fuld rifled the ball into the right-center field gap. Francoeur took it on the carom off of the wall and fired it back into the infield, and with the tying run already having scored, Johnny Giovatella threw to third to try to get Fuld. His throw short-hopped Mike Moustakas and escaped into foul ground, allowing Fuld to leap up and dive into home with the winning run.

That's a walkoff triple+error. You don't see that every day - or even most days. Put it at the end of a five-run rally in the ninth, and you've got a sufficiently dynamite finish to make up for the fact that the rest of the game was merely good.

Game of the day (yesterday): My guess is A's 9, White Sox 7. The boxscore is not linked like I'd usually do because B-R currently does not have one, which means I don't have the numbers I need to tell for sure. If that's not it, the best of the other 14 games was Astros 6, Brewers 5 (10). If B-R posts the missing boxscore, either later today or tomorrow, I'll try to recap whichever game grades out better when I get the chance; they're both good. For now, let's move on to last year; hopefully the intervening 365 days will prove to be enough that the games are all available on what's usually quite reliable as the best source of baseball information in the universe.

Game of the day (last year): Cubs 4, Nationals 3. With two outs in the top of the first, Washington's Ryan Zimmerman went deep against Chicago's Ryan Dempster, giving his team an early one-run lead.

Dempster didn't give up another hit until the fifth inning. The Cubs had slightly more success against Jordan Zimmermann - one hit in the first, a pair of them in the third, and in the fourth, a single by Marlon Byrd and a game-tying triple by Alfonso Soriano. The teams put exactly one baserunner on in each of the next five half-innings, but nobody advanced past first base until the bottom of the seventh. With two outs, Reed Johnson singled, and Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena followed that hit with back-to-back homers, putting the Cubs on top.

Dempster was pulled in favor of Jeff Samardzija in the eighth. He gave up a leadoff double to Ian Desmond, then wild pitched Desmond to third. Wilson Ramos struck out, and Samardzija was pulled for Sean Marshall, who gave up back-to-back hits to Brian Bixler (really?) and Rick Ankiel. With the tying runs now on base, Marshall was replaced by Kerry Wood, who struck out Danny Espinosa and Zimmerman to preserve the lead. Todd Coffey worked a hitless bottom of the eighth to keep the Nats within striking distance.

Carlos Marmol entered for the ninth, and that, of course, is when the fun really began. Marmol walked Jonny Gomes, whose tenure with the Nats had heretofore totally escaped my notice. Jayson Werth followed with an infield hit, and Laynce Nix walked to load the bases with nobody out; despite being on the road and down by 2 in the ninth, Washington now had a 42% win expectancy. Desmond struck out, but Ramos reached on the second infield single of the inning, putting the tying run at third. Marmol recovered, however, whiffing Bixler and getting Ankiel to fly out to end the game.

Carlos Marmol: The personification of the eventful ninth inning.