BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS:
1850 Walter Terry
1858 Milo Lockwood
1873 John McGraw
I know – New York legend.
I don’t buy it. As a player – he was a cheat and an umpire baiter. As an owner/manager, he deliberately tried to destroy the Baltimore Orioles for his own personal gain – leaving his team in a lurch, and taking half the team (and all the good players) with him to the Giants and Reds (who had been owned by the Giants owner, John T. Brush). While managing the Giants, he was accused of getting help from the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, who was throwing games to help the Giants win pennants (that manager was Roger Bresnahan). He threw his own players under the bus after throwing games to Brooklyn so his old friend Wilbert Robertson could top Philadelphia for the 1917 pennant. Then, after he testified in a case against Hal Chase – who was trying to get Giants players to lay down for cash – he then HIRED Chase to play first base for his 1919 Giants – putting in place all the people necessary for his best friend, Arnold Rothstein, to fix a World Series. At the time of his retirement nobody had been thrown out of more games by umpires than John McGraw.
I got more, too.
To me John McGraw was the most despicable man to play a significant role in the development of the game.
1874 Harry Wilhelm
1874 John Ganzel
1879 Art Weaver
1883 Bill Cooney
1885 Charlie Rhodes
1886 Ed Lafitte
1887 Jack Ferry
1891 Otto Briggs
1893 Fletcher Low
1893 Desmond Beatty
1894 Fred Lear
1894 Horace Milan
1900 Slim Branham
1902 Buck Redfern
1904 Pythias Russ
1905 Joe Hassler
1907 Oral Hildebrand
1908 George Hockette
1918 Bobby Doerr
At the time of his death, he was the oldest living Hall of Famer, at 99, and the last man alive to have played a baseball game in the 1930s.
1921 Frank Seward
1929 Bo Wallace
1930 Richie Myers
1933 Joe Hicks
1933 Bobby Del Greco
1942 Tom Phoebus
His first two starts with the Baltimore Orioles were complete game shutouts. He had two good seasons. Then, his arm left him and he became a nomad in search of a place to land. Historically, pitchers who have begun their career with two straight shutout wins have had less than stellar or complete careers. The last one before Phoebus? Karl Spooner.
1944 Bill Stoneman
Threw the first no-hitter in Expos history.
1948 Rick Sawyer
1951 Dave Oliver
1951 Dave Cripe
1955 Bobby Mitchell
1957 Rick Engle
1966 Freddie Benavides
1969 Ricky Bones
1971 Mark Thompson
1973 Brett Tomko
For, like, a decade I thought his career was over – but he kept pitching for somebody with ERAs between 4 and 5.5 all the way to 2011.
1975 Ronnie Belliard
I bet he can still hit about .270.
1977 Jimmy Osting
1977 Ben Petrick
1979 Danny Sandoval
1979 Adrian Beltre
Will be the third guy named Adrian to make it to the Hall of Fame.
1980 Vinny Rottino
1983 Wes Whisler
1986 Chia-Jen Lo
1988 Charles Brewer
1989 Kevin Shackleford
1993 Eduardo Rodriguez
1993 David Bote
1994 Josh Hader
1994 Joel Payamps
1996 Magneuris Sierra
1996 Hoy Park
OBITUARIES:
1899 Bill Gallagher
1914 Charlie Ganzel
1927 Billy Alvord
1927 Ray Miller
1939 Johnnie Carr
1957 Jim Scott
1959 Johnson Fry
1963 Jim Ball
1964 Johnny Tillman
1966 Ambrose Reid
1967 Shanty Hogan (A catcher once traded for Rogers Hornsby. Really.)
1968 Mahlon Higbee
1968 Jesse Houston
1969 Sy Rosenthal
1970 Ollie Voigt
1972 Larry Brown
1993 Bob Alexander
1993 Howie McFarland
1995 Frank Secory
1997 Luis Aloma
2003 Laymon Ramsey
2005 Bob Kennedy
2014 Fred McKelvin
2015 Jose Capellan
2020 John Matias
2021 Jerry Davie
2021 Jack Smith
YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!
1979 Bob Forsch throws a no hitter – his Astros beat Atlanta, 6-0.
1984 Detroit ace Jack Morris wows Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola – he throws a no-hitter and beats the White Sox on the NBC Saturday Game of the Week. (I can remember watching that game on television – and it really set the tone for the Tigers that year, who started 35 – 5 and eventually won the World Series.)
2013 Will Middlebrooks clocks three homers – four hits, four runs four RBIs – in a 13-0 crushing of R.A. Dickey and Toronto.
TRANSACTION WIRE:
1932 The Dodgers trade Pea Ridge Day to Minneapolis to acquire High Pockets Kelly.
1979 Los Angeles trades Rick Rhoden to Pittsburgh for Jerry Reuss.
2005 Anaheim signs free agent first baseman Kendrys Morales.
2006 Cleveland trades Brandon Phillips to Cincinnati for a player to be named later (Jeff Stevens).
Oops.
Mighty Casey Baseball 