An excellent Birthday Team today. 48.3 career WAR doesn't come anywhere near doing Oscar Charleston justice; he was one of the very best players in the history of the sport.

Charleston's per-162 averages via BBRef: .364/.449/.615, 213 hits, 71 XBH, 151 runs, 151 RBI, 37 SB, 184 OPS+. Oh, and three triple crowns. Three of them.

C: Joe Girardi (5.6 WAR)
1B: Joe Start (32.5 WAR)
2B: Tommy Harper (25.8 WAR)
3B: Paul Radford (12.2 WAR)
SS: Frank Duffy (10.4 WAR)
LF: Al Oliver (43.6 WAR)
CF/Manager: Oscar Charleston (48.3 WAR)
RF: Kole Calhoun (15.6 WAR)

SP: Harry Brecheen (42.2 WAR)
SP: Ed Figueroa (15.9 WAR)
SP: Ken Heintzelman (14.4 WAR)
SP: Hugh Casey (12.4 WAR)
SP: Bert Gallia (7.0 WAR)
RP: Carlos Marmol (9.8 WAR)

Fun player/Emergency pitcher: Willians Astudillo
Not that one: Joe Walsh
Fun names: Boof Bonser, Ona Dodd, Jimmy Ripple, Zak Shinall
Journalist in the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame: Carlitos Gonzalez

And if you needed some right-handed power, you could trade Frank Duffy for George Foster.

I occ. drop in to the 538 site, because they often have pretty decent typically analytical sports articles...

So here we are, right in the middle of the MLB playoffs.

Right now on their front page (and decided to check their 2nd page) I count 6 NBA articles, 2 NFL articles, and 2 college football articles. They even have 1 NHL articles and 1 WNBA article.

There are NO MLB articles whatsoever. Their last baseball article was on Oct 5, 9 days ago.

In addition, comments are no longer visible on any of my devices.

To be fair, the WNBA is in the middle of a tightly-contested Finals.

NBA fandom continues to elude me. I mean, nothing at all relevant is going to happen for 6 months. How many teams have legit title aspirations? 5?

Astudillo now has close to a season's worth of plate appearances, 533 in his career. He has 25 career strikeouts and 10 career walks. He has as many career HBPs as BBs.

538 doesn't cover MLB because nobody under 35 watches baseball.

You know you've got a strong birthday team when the very worst player on the roster in terms of WAR was still an All-Star. I'm surprised that Duffy (who was a lifetime .232/.279/.311 hitter) had nearly twice as much WAR as Girardi, but bb-ref loves his defense.

538 just posted a baseball article.

The Cardinals are supposedly firing Mike Shildt. Has to be more going on there than just losing the Wild Card game, one would presume.

Tommy Harper's 73 stolen bases in 1969 for the Seattle Pilots is still the Brewers/Pilots single-season record. Nice to see a Pilots' accomplishment still in the record book.

Hugh Casey would have really loved being managed by Oscar Charleston.

Tommy Harper had a 30-30 year when it was rare.

Oscar Charleston had season league leads in home runs and stolen bases. Are there any others besides Ty Cobb and Willie Mays?

48.3 career WAR doesn't come anywhere near doing Oscar Charleston justice; he was one of the very best players in the history of the sport.

Indeed, as the recent Jeremy Beer biography proves. And the Charleston entry in Joe Posnanski's new The Baseball 100 is also outstanding.

Today's Birthday Team first baseman's no slouch, either, as Joe Start's 32.5 WAR came in only 1070 games -- and this was after he played over a decade with Brooklyn's top amateur clubs. He was probably the top first baseman of the pre-Cap Anson era.

Oscar Charleston had season league leads in home runs and stolen bases. Are there any others besides Ty Cobb and Willie Mays?

Chuck Klein led the National League in homers (38) and steals (20) in 1932.

Oscar Charleston had season league leads in home runs and stolen bases. Are there any others besides Ty Cobb and Willie Mays?

And Jimmy Scheckard in the 1903 NL.

Casey belongs in the pen with Merrill Kelly as the 5th starter. Rounding out the roster:

Pitching coach: Brent Strom (1.1 WAR)
Single-game strikeout record: Tom Cheney (5.3 WAR)
Bullpen depth: Dave Jolly, Seth Maness, Duaner Sanchez
Bench bats: Art Shamsky (6.1 WAR), Willie Aikens (7.9 WAR)