Birthdays: 1/27

[chicoruiz]

Reds:

Bob Borkowski (86) -Dayton native who played with the Reds in the early 1950s. Better known as a username for a longtime RedsZone poster. P.S.- Bob's middle name is "Valerian". BobBorkowski the poster, if you read this, maybe you could post some more info on Bob...

Others:

Phil Plantier (43) -Came up in midseason with the Red Sox in 1991 and kicked butt (11 homers in 148 ABs), then struggled in subsequent years. He does hold the record for most career home runs by a native of New Hampshire.

John Lowenstein (65) -Split his career pretty evenly between Cleveland and Baltimore, but his best years were definitely Baltimore, where Earl Weaver knew how to take advantage of a player like Steiner. Platoon partner of Gary Roenicke for years. After he retired, he did some broadcasting then drifted out of the public eye. He's believed to be living in Nevada, but his present whereabouts seem to be a bit of a mystery.

Bibb Falk -Replaced Shoeless Joe Jackson in left field for the White Sox after the scandal broke. A pretty good player in his own right, hitting .314 for his career. After he retired he returned to his home town of Austin, Texas and coached the UT team for almost thirty years. The diamond at the university is named for him.

Milt Gaston -Holds an unfortunate pitching record: most games under .500 for a career (his record was 97-164). Two other fun facts: He was Lou Gehrig's roomie for a while, and he lived to be 100.

[Bob Borkowski]

Reds:

Bob Borkowski (86) -Dayton native who played with the Reds in the early 1950s. Better known as a username for a longtime RedsZone poster. P.S.- Bob's middle name is "Valerian". BobBorkowski the poster, if you read this, maybe you could post some more info on Bob...

Hey, Happy Birthday to the real Bob Borkowski. Redszone's own Roy Tucker is related to Bob (by marriage) so I'm hoping Roy will stop by and give us all some info concerning BB. All I know is that he is doing well right now. Anything else I learn about him I comes from Roy.

[Roy Tucker]

Reds:

Bob Borkowski (86) -Dayton native who played with the Reds in the early 1950s. Better known as a username for a longtime RedsZone poster. P.S.- Bob's middle name is "Valerian". BobBorkowski the poster, if you read this, maybe you could post some more info on Bob...

I mentioned a few times here on RZ that the real Bob Borkowski is my wife's uncle. We see him often and he is still hale and hearty at 86. He and my son Zach share this 1/27 birthday so its always a special day around here. Saw him for a bit over the holidays and he is slowed down a bit and his eyes are getting bad, but still a a wonderful guy.

I first met Bob and all the extended Borkowski clan back in 1983 when I first started dating my now-wife of 26 years. Being a Centerville guy walking into a solid east Dayton Polish family, they all gave me the skunk eye and a "who the hell does he think he is" look. But after I took all of their verbal shots and laughed them off and drank a few gallons of beer with them, I was welcomed into the family and found out that "Bush" (what all Bob's friends call him) played for the Reds. So over the years, we've talked baseball and the Reds often. He's told me stories about playing for the Reds and Cubs and rooming for a few weeks with Sandy Koufax and playing winter ball down in Venezuela and playing on the '55 Brooklyn Dodgers in their breakthrough WS winning year.

But more than anything else, Bush is just a great guy and a joy to be around. I can always count on him for a big smile, a still-vise-like handshake (he had Honus Wagner-like hands), and always great conversation about a wide-range of baseball and a whole lot of other things (and always a good dirty joke). I always look forward to getting together with my wife's family because I know I'll share some time with Bob. Just a great guy and one of my favorite people in the world.

Nice articles about Bush at:

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/12e168ac

and

http://www.daytondailynews.com/sport...borkowski.html


Happy birthday Bush (and my son Zach too).

[George Anderson]

Hey, Happy Birthday to the real Bob Borkowski. Redszone's own Roy Tucker is related to Bob (by marriage) so I'm hoping Roy will stop by and give us all some info concerning BB. All I know is that he is doing well right now. Anything else I learn about him I comes from Roy.

Why did you choose his name?

[Bob Borkowski]

Why did you choose his name?

I chose the name 'Bob Borkowski' for a couple of reasons. First, my real first name is Bob so I was shuffling through the file cabinets in my brain trying to think of Reds players from the past who also had the first name of Bob. Even though this was in 2000 the names I conjured up seemed to come from the time when I was a kid of 9 or 10 or 11 and that was in the early 50s. Bob Borkowski was my choice because he was from that era and he just seemed like a good guy...always did a workmanlike job as a Red.

Nobody appreciates the Big Red Machine days more than I do. Those days were glorious and I somehow thought that they would just go on and on and on. I was pretty shocked in '77 and '78 when things kind of fell apart. But to this day it is the awful teams of the early 50s that I remember with the most affection. Ted Kluszewski, Johnny Wyrostek, Roy McMillan, Bobby Adams, Ewell Blackwell, Willard Marshall...those are guys I think of first.

Once in a while I have a little trouble getting to sleep at night and I have found a technique that works really well in helping me drift off. In order to clear my mind of the day's activities I go through the alphabet A to Z and focus on which Red player comes to my mind first whose last name begins with that letter. 'A' for example is usually Bronson Arroyo...not sure why. But 'B' is a different story. Sometimes the name I think of is Bench but oftentimes it is Rocky Bridges or Fred Baczewski or even Bob Borkowski. I'm sure this all sounds kind of goofy but this system really works! I hardly ever reach the latter part of the alphabet. Oh, and by the way, I have lots of trouble with the letter 'I'.

Anyone else have a baseball-related system like this? Probably not, I'm goofy.

[Bob Borkowski]

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/12e168ac

There is an extensive bio of Bob Borkowski at this location.

[Edskin]

I chose the name 'Bob Borkowski' for a couple of reasons. First, my real first name is Bob so I was shuffling through the file cabinets in my brain trying to think of Reds players from the past who also had the first name of Bob. Even though this was in 2000 the names I conjured up seemed to come from the time when I was a kid of 9 or 10 or 11 and that was in the early 50s. Bob Borkowski was my choice because he was from that era and he just seemed like a good guy...always did a workmanlike job as a Red.

Nobody appreciates the Big Red Machine days more than I do. Those days were glorious and I somehow thought that they would just go on and on and on. I was pretty shocked in '77 and '78 when things kind of fell apart. But to this day it is the awful teams of the early 50s that I remember with the most affection. Ted Kluszewski, Johnny Wyrostek, Roy McMillan, Bobby Adams, Ewell Blackwell, Willard Marshall...those are guys I think of first.

Once in a while I have a little trouble getting to sleep at night and I have found a technique that works really well in helping me drift off. In order to clear my mind of the day's activities I go through the alphabet A to Z and focus on which Red player comes to my mind first whose last name begins with that letter. 'A' for example is usually Bronson Arroyo...not sure why. But 'B' is a different story. Sometimes the name I think of is Bench but oftentimes it is Rocky Bridges or Fred Baczewski or even Bob Borkowski. I'm sure this all sounds kind of goofy but this system really works! I hardly ever reach the latter part of the alphabet. Oh, and by the way, I have lots of trouble with the letter 'I'.

Anyone else have a baseball-related system like this? Probably not, I'm goofy.

I am answering your question a year after you asked it, but yes, I've sometimes used baseball as a means to fall asleep when I am having trouble. What I will do is simple.... Whoever our next game is against, I play it pitch by pitch in my head. I almost never make it past the first inning

[Roy Tucker]

Even though we're pretty far from 1/27, I'll put this Bob Borkowski update in since it's still fresh in my mind and I'll forget about it come next January.

We saw him at my niece's wedding last weekend. Sometimes at weddings he's pretty hard to talk to since some people discover that he was a big league ballplayer and talk to him endlessly. I've had to rescue him a few times from a well-meaning but long-winded person and say "hey Bush, we need you for a photo" when he just needs to get away. He's too nice to just say get outta here. But this wedding there weren't a whole lot of those folks around so I got to chat with him at length. He's doing pretty well for an 87 yr. old guy and still a handshake like an iron vise.

Out of the clear blue, he started talking about throwing BP to Jackie Robinson. At the end of his career, the Reds traded Bob to the Dodgers just in time for their pennant run and eventual World Series win. He said he hardly talked to Robinson, but one day Bob threw BP (he said he was doing whatever he could to hang on) and Robinson had a good day. So the next month or so, he threw BP to him. I think I've mentioned that Bob went to the 50 year reunion of the '55 Dodgers out in LA in 2005 and it was a big deal. Not many guys from that club left.

Reminisced about playing winter ball in Venezuela. He was newly married to Mary Anne then and they got treated like royalty. He said the team put them up in this gorgeous hacienda and they had a whole house staff of people waiting on them.

He said the Reds need to replace the whole left side of their team. Not a Cozart/Frazier/whoever in LF fan. He also said they have the best pitching he's ever seen.

He was happy that I've lost weight. The last time I saw him last fall, he really got on my case about it. And actually, he's one of the few people in my life that their opinion really matters so that really got to me. So I lost 30 lbs. Yay.

We made a lunch date with him and his daughter and her husband for later this summer.

[Bob Borkowski]

Bringing this one to the top because today (1-27) is the real Bob Borkowski's birthday. The last time I heard, Roy Tucker said that he is still doing well as he now turns 91 years old. Happy Birthday, Bob!

[RedsBaron]

I've really enjoyed reading Roy and Bob's posts and the links to this thread. Happy Birthday to the "real" Bob B.