Elsewhere in the Pittsburgh Press, there's a conflicting report about Davis's plans for 1913:

Pitcher Rube Benton of the Cincinnati Reds has the smallest hands of any baseball pitcher in the majors...Harry Davis expects to be with Connie Mack next season in some capacity. Davis will in all probability act as scout or coach for the team...Some ball players rise to great distinction, while others play with the New York Highlanders.

Davis spent 1913-1917 as a player-coach for the Athletics, then stuck around as a coach for another decade afterwards. Alas, he didn't become an international baseball ambassador.

"We're talkin' baseball! Gonzalez and Bob Turley.
Talkin' baseball! Knuckleballs with Charlie.
Abbott's no-hitter was a fluke.
They knew 'em all from Boston to Dubuque,
Especially Stuffy, Sadie, and the Duke."

Birthday Team:
C: Joe Ferguson
1B/Manager: Stuffy McInnis
2B: Joe Morgan
3B: Yank Robinson
SS: Lefty Marr
LF: Hersh Martin
CF: Duke Snider
RF: Pedro Munoz

SP: Sadie McMahon
SP: Chris Short
SP: Bob Turley
SP: Jim Abbott
SP: Gio Gonzalez
RP: Randy Myers

Knuckles: Charlie Haeger
Fun Name: Astyanax Douglass
Umpires: Billy Williams, Charlie Reliford
Writers: Roger Angell, Mike Royko

andrew mccutchen vs. ryan braun

defense--andrew

baserunning--braun. not just basestealing. braun is a very good baserunner.

team performance--even

batting--andrew's home park is much tougher than braun's miller park

interestingly, andrew hits just fine in pnc

braun hits everywhere but 24 of the 40 homers have been in miller

andrew has been good in the second half despite a tough august

braun has been consistently great all season. every monthly ops is over .941 and has 3 different months with an ops of 1.007, 1.008 and 1.009.

i lean toward andrew as being better this year.

As noted up at THT, today is the 10th anniversary of one of this century's most infamous games. Can you guess what it is before clicking here and seeing the account of it?

It's also the anniversary of the day Tom Yawkey decided to clear the left field wall in Fenway of all adverts.

Posey is going to get a lot of attention. He won ROY because he was a catcher... may happen again. giants will likely now cruz into the post season though, so that may hurt his chances, as folks like people who battle to the last out, but Brewers and Pirates will be out of contention soon....

As for me, I think McCutchen is the guy, though I thought he was going to lose it in August..

Id be happy if Posey won though... as Im a homer.

"We're talkin' baseball! Gonzalez and Bob Turley.
Talkin' baseball! Knuckleballs with Charlie.
Abbott's no-hitter was a fluke.
They knew 'em all from Boston to Dubuque,
Especially Stuffy, Sadie, and the Duke."

You'd think the Sept. 19th Birthday Song was written by Hal McCoy.

And is Marr the only lefthanded middle infielder on any of the birthday teams?

I met Jim Abbott once, and without thinking, stuck out my right hand. He laughed and said, "Wrong one, dude!"

I was embarrassed, so I kneed him in the groin. Was that wrong?

And is Marr the only lefthanded middle infielder on any of the birthday teams?

Billy Hulen was the shortstop for March 12.

Game of the day (yesterday): Orioles 4, Mariners 2 (18). I'll wait until you all recover from your heart attacks.

The first nine innings were relatively tame. Seattle loaded the bases with two outs against Wei-Yin Chen in the second, then opened the scoring in the fourth when Casper Wells walked and Miguel Olivo homered. After that, Chen allowed doubles in the fifth and sixth, the second of which resulted in his being removed in favor of Jake Arrieta. Arrieta set down ten Mariners in a row.

Meanwhile, Erasmo Ramirez turned in a virtuoso pitching performance. No Orioles reached base until the fourth, which Nate McLouth led off with a single. No Orioles reached after that until McLouth doubled with two out in the sixth. And no Orioles reached after that until Ryan Flaherty and McLouth hit back-to-back singles to start the ninth. Ramirez was pulled in favor of Tom Wilhelmsen, who allowed a sac bunt to JJ Hardy and a two-run single to Chris Davis, and suddenly, the game was tied.

Then the second game started. Wilhelmsen worked a perfect tenth. Brian Matusz allowed singles to Dustin Ackley and Kyle Seager; fortunately for the O's, Franklin Gutierrez's bunt in between them was popped up, and Darren O'Day came on to strand both runners. Charlie Furbush started the eleventh and gave up a hit to Steven Tolleson and a sac bunt to McLouth; Josh Kinney replaced Furbush, walked JJ Hardy, and after the second out, hit Adam Jones to load the bases before whiffing Matt Wieters to end the inning. The bottom of the eleventh was highlighted by a steal of second by Miguel Olivo, who didn't advance beyond there.

Kinney worked a spotless twelfth; Pedro Strop allowed a leadoff double to Ackley, but worked around it. Stephen Pryor walked Omar Quintanilla to start the thirteenth, but gave up nothing else, while Steve Johnson was flawless in the bottom of the inning, and Pryor and Johnson traded perfect fourteenths.

Oliver Perez (Oliver Perez!) set the Mariners down 1-2-3 in the fifteenth; Johnson allowed a two out hit to Trayvon Robinson, then walked Chone Figgins, then stranded both runners. Perez retired McLouth before being pulled for Shawn Kelley. Kelley allowed a hit to Hardy, then balked him to second, then induced a pair of groundouts; the first moved Hardy to third, and the second left him there. Tommy Hunter came on for the bottom of the inning, and walked Miguel Olivo to start it; a bunt and a groundout moved him to third, but Gutierrez fouled out to end the inning.

Lucas Luetge struck out the first batter he faced in the top of the seventeenth, then hit Mark Reynolds and allowed a single to Manny Machado that put runners on the corners. Lew Ford and Quintanilla both hit line drives, but both of them were caught, and both of the runners were left on base. The bottom of the inning started with a Seager double, but Hunter rallied to retire the next three hitters and keep the game going.

The eighteenth began with Luetge walking McLouth. Hardy then singled, moving the go-ahead run to third. That brought up Taylor Teagarden, whose regular season is starting to bear a striking resemblance to Francisco Cabrera's postseason career. Teagarden singled in the go-ahead run, and after a groundout and an intentional walk loaded the bases, Reynolds brought home a second with a force at third. Jim Johnson then set Seattle's hitters down in order to preserve the victory.

The game lasted 18 innings. Is that enough? If not, it also featured 31 at bats with runners in scoring position (the Mariners were 0/17, which seems like it has to be approaching a record of some kind) and 28 runners left on base, 18 of those during extras. The Baltimore bullpen pitched 12.2 innings and allowed 6 hits, 4 walks (one intentional), and no runs, while striking out 16. Want to know how to wih 14 extra-inning games in a row? Have your bullpen pitch like that.

The game grades out at #7 on the year, without making any adjustment for pennant race context. If you adjust for that, it (obviously) goes up. It also relegates Twins 6, Indians 5 (12) to the honorable scrap heap of the best second-place games of the year (#31 on the season overall).

Game of the day (last year): Mets 7, Braves 5. Atlanta's Brandon Beachy worked into a bit of two-out trouble in the first, giving up a hit to David Wright and a walk to Lucas Duda before Jason Bay hit into an inning-ending force. In the second, New York's Dillon Gee had a similar inning; a one-out single by Matt Diaz followed by a steal of second on strike 3 to the next hitter, followed by an intentional walk and a groundout by Beachy. After a walk and steal by Ruben Tejada in the top of the third, Atlanta broke through in the bottom of the inning when Michael Bourn led off with a single and Chipper Jones doubled him home.

New York came back in the top of the fourth. Bay walked with one out, and Nick Evans moved him to third with a single. Josh Thole grounded out, moving Evans to second and keeping Bay in place. Beachy then intentionally walked Justin Turner, loading the bases and bringing Gee to the plate. Naturally, Gee walked on six pitches, forcing in the tying run, and Tejada then doubled, clearing the bases and putting the Mets ahead by 3.

The lead was short-lived. Alex Gonzalez led off the bottom of the fourth with a solo homer. Jason Heyward singled, Beachy bunted him to second, and Bourn singled him home, also taking second on an error. Martin Prado singled Bourn to third, Jones walked to load the bases, and Dan Uggla grounded out to bring the tying run home. After an intentional walk to Brian McCann reloaded the bases, Diaz popped up to end the inning.

Beachy allowed hits to Duda and Bay before being removed in the fifth, and Cristhian Martinez coaxed an immediate double play out of Evans to escape the jam. Gee was pulled after a one-out Heyward single, and Danny Herrera walked Freddie Freeman but allowed no further damage. Martinez and Miguel Batista were both scoreless in the sixth, as was Eric O'Flaherty in the top of the seventh. Gonzalez doubled with one away in the bottom of the seventh, chasing Batista from the game, and Freeman singled him home against Tim Byrdak to put Atlanta in front by a run.

In the top of the eighth, Jonny Venters walked Bay with one out, then gave up a single to Evans. Jose Reyes hit into a force at second, and Turner walked to load the bases. Ronny Paulino stepped up as a pinch hitter, and Venters walked him on four pitches to force in the tying run. Tejada followed with a single that ended the inning when Turner was thrown out at home, but naturally resulted in Reyes scoring the go-ahead run before that.

Bobby Parnell walked Jones and Uggla in the bottom of the eighth, but he and Manny Acosta rallied to strand both runners. Duda went deep against Craig Kimbrel in the ninth, giving New York an extra run of padding that proved comforting when the Braves put Heyward and Freeman on base with a single and a walk, but ultimately unnecessary, as Acosta induced back-to-back forces at second to end the game.

The Braves fell a bit closer to the Cards yet again - 3.5 games ahead at the end of this one, and counting (down). Given the generally unassailable nature of their bullpen for most of the year, this one has to have smarted.

Jon Heyman @JonHeymanCBS

if i'm on survivor w/ everyone i ever met, the only 2 i'd vote off the island before jeff kent r pat burrell & pete harnisch