Elsewhere 100 years ago today, the Red Sox are "making goo goo eyes" at Jim Thorpe and Babe Borton, the backup first baseman on today's Birthday Team, has ten hits in his last ten at-bats for St. Joseph in the Western League.

We need more Borton license plates in the gift shop! I repeat, we are sold out of Borton license plates!

I think Earl Weaver's going to like his Birthday Team's pitching staff. Won't much care for the position players, though, other than McKinnon and Loretta.

I didn't know much about McKinnon before today, but he's got a pretty interesting story: He was a member of the 1879 Troy Trojans, one would assume as a backup to Dan Brouthers, when he decided to jump his contract. McKinnon fell ill, missed most of the rest of the 1879 season, then "retired" from baseball to pursue other interests. After three seasons out of the game, McKinnon was reinstated in the Spring of 1883 and missed the entire season with another illness. He finally started his big league career in 1884 and became one of the best first basemen in the league (career OPS+ of 125, two of his four seasons above 135) before contracting typhoid in the middle of the 1887 season. McKinnon died 20 days after his final MLB game.

In another time and place, with better medical attention and a bit of luck, Alex McKinnon could have been a Hall of Famer instead of a guy nobody's ever heard of.

C: Oscar Siemer
1B: Alex McKinnon
2B: Mark Loretta
3B: Harry Schafer
SS: Billy Myers
LF: Mark Leonard
CF: Juan Pierre
RF: Bill O'Hara

SP: Joe Horlen
SP: Mark Gubicza
SP: Clay Buchholz
SP: Don Carman
SP: Mark Fidrych
RP: Paul Dean

Manager: Earl Weaver
Owner: Magic Johnson

I've been wondering this, when Dan links to these stories from El Paso or Salt Lake, where are the far flung newspapers of 1912 getting the stories? And is it a coincidence that some of the wilder stories are from such papers? Was W A Phelon a syndicated columnist? Would these same stories show up the same day in bigger (or even tiny) cities too?

I don't know if we have any posters to whom it would apply but "Young Jewish Medico" is a great handle

An interesting pitching staff but that's an awful line-up, with Juan Pierre as arguably their second best hitter. They'll need some real Earl Weaver magic just to win 60 games.

Mike, I've never seen the W.A. Phelon stuff in other newspapers, but most of these sorts of things were syndicated. I'll see a "Cy Young has advice for young twirlers!" article in the Toledo News-Bee one day, then a few days later it'll appear verbatim in Ogden or El Paso.

I've been trying to figure out how the wire services of 1912 distributed pictures. With text it's easy - telegraphs were essentially instantaneous - but it's not like they could just send a photo of John McGraw via Morse code.

Game of the day (yesterday): Blue Jays 3, White Sox 2 (11). This was what is generally referred to as a "marvelously pitched game."

Toronto's Carlos Villanueva walked Kevin Youkilis in the first, but didn't put another runner on through the first three innings, and struck out the side in the third. Chicago's Jake Peavy, meanwhile, allowed two hits in the second, but Dan Cooper, who was responsible for the first one, was thrown out trying to stretch it, so the later single by Moises Sierra didn't accomplish anything in scoreboard terms.

The Jays scored in the third. Peavy hit Anthony Gose and Kelly Johnson with pitches, putting runners on first and second with two away. Edwin Encarnacion followed with a single that brought Gose home and resulted in Johnson getting thrown out in what has to be one of the longer rundowns executed this season: 9-2-6-4-2-5-1-5. Watching the video, the initial throw came home, and the catcher then tried to catch Encarnacion off of first, which induced Johnson to try (and fail) to score.

The Sox finally managed their first hit of the game in the fourth. Since it was by Adam Dunn, it was a game-tying solo homer (and a very long one). AJ Pierzynski singled later in the inning, but no further damage occurred, and that remained true in the bottom of the fourth (despite a walk to Sierra), the top of the fifth (despite a single by Tyler Flowers), the bottom of the fifth (walk to Jeff Mathis and steal by Gose after a forceout), the top of the sixth (single by Dunn, steal by Alexis Rios after a force), the bottom of the sixth (nothing, breaking an impressive string of one-baserunner-only innings), and the top of the seventh (single by Dayan Viciedo erased on a double play ball).

Having produced no outs to this point in the game, Sierra led off the bottom of the seventh. He did so with his first career home run, putting Toronto back in the lead. Brandon Lyon came in for Villanueva and worked a spotless eighth, and Peavy stayed in the game and matched him in the bottom of the inning, bringing on Casey Janssen for the save situation. The first batter of the ninth was, of course, Dunn, and he, of course, homered again on the first pitch; this one didn't go quite as far, but it was to the opposite field, so it's still pretty impressive. Janssen recovered to keep the Sox from scoring again, and Brett Myers shut out the Jays to send the game into extras.

In the top of the tenth, Steve Delabar struck out four hitters, which I know has been done before, but I don't think I've been aware of a game in which it has occurred. The second strikeout was of Flowers, who reached on a passed ball; he would later reach second on a wild pitch (which came with two strikes - if Alejandro de Aza had swung, Delabar might have had a shot at five). After Jesse Crain allowed a walk, then saw Gose get caught stealing in the bottom of the inning, Delabar struck out Youkilis to start the eleventh. The next hitter up was Dunn; naturally, the most strikeout-prone hitter in baseball was the only batter in two innings that Delabar didn't whiff (he grounded out).

Crain recorded the first out in the eleventh, then was pulled in favor of Leyson Septimo. Septimo walked Johnson, and Nate Jones took his place on the mound; Jones fared no better, allowing consecutive hits to Encarnacion and Cooper, the second of which brought in Johnson with the winning run.

Good game - game-tying homer in the ninth, excellent games by Dunn on one side and Sierra on the other, plus outstanding work from both starters. And four strikeouts in an inning. That's always thoroughly awesome.

Game of the day (last year): White Sox 5, Royals 4. So apparently buy tickets for next year's White Sox game on August 13, especially if Jake Peavy is pitching.

Jake Peavy was pitching; for the Royals, so was Luke Hochevar. For a while, they were both pitching pretty well - Peavy allowed only one hit through three, and Hochevar just a single and a walk through two. Tyler Flowers led off the bottom of the third with another single; Juan Pierre hit into a force at second, then stole second to partially make up for it. And with two outs, Paul Konerko hit a two-run homer to put the Sox on the board.

Peavy allowed his second hit of the game to start the fourth, but induced a one-out double play ball to cancel it out. Hochevar worked around a hit as well, despite a steal-and-error that put Alexei Ramirez at third with one out. Jeff Francoeur led off the fifth with a hit, and pulled the same steal/error combo that Ramirez had managed; unlike Ramirez, he would come in to score when Johnny Giovatella singled. Salvador Perez followed that with a double, putting the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position. After Mike Moustakas lined out, Alcides Escobar singled to eliminate Kansas City's deficit. Escobar stole second, Alex Gordon popped up, Melky Cabrera was intentionally walked (and who thought before the '11 season we'd ever hear that statement in a non-pitcher-due-up-next context again?), and Billy Butler singled up the middle to bring in two runs.

Flowers led off the bottom of the fifth with a solo homer, bringing Chicago to within one. Pierre then singled and took second on a groundout, but didn't advance from there. Peavy set the Royals down 1-2-3 in the sixth; Hochevar had a bit more trouble, walking Alejandro de Aza with one away and allowing a two-out hit to Brent Lillibridge that moved de Aza's potential tying run to third before Flowers hit into an inning-ending force. Peavy allowed a pair of two-out hits in the seventh before Jesse Crain replaced him and coaxed a Butler foulout to strand the runners, keeping the Sox close.

Pierre singled to start the bottom of the seventh, and Omar Vizquel walked behind him. That drove Hochevar from the mound and brought Aaron Crow into the game. Crow struck out Konerko, but gave up an RBI double to Carlos Quentin to tie the score. Ramirez then walked to load the bases, and de Aza also walked on four pitches to force in the go-ahead run. Crow rallied to strike out Brent Morel and ended the inning when Lillibridge lined out.

Crain stayed in the game for the eighth, and made it a bit of an adventure. Eric Hosmer led off with a single, and Francoeur matched him, putting the go-ahead run on base. Giovatella flied out, however, and Perez hit into a double play to end the inning. The Sox loaded the bases with walks (one of them intentional) against Blake Wood in the bottom of the inning, but didn't score; Chris Sale made sure they didn't need to, setting the Royals down in order in the ninth to preserve the win.

Should a game be docked points for being decided on a four-pitch walk with the bases loaded? I can see an argument for that. In this case, it wouldn't especially matter, as this one was head-and-shoulders above the other games of 8/13/11. Also, it allows me to point out the fact that Chris Sale's ERA is lower this year as a starter than it was last year as a reliever, which is... impressive.