Birthdays: 4/18

[chicoruiz]

Reds:

Brady Clark (39) -Coincidentally, both Reds on today's list were signed as undrafted free agents. You have to root for those guys.

Doug Flynn (61) -On August 5, 1980, Doug, of all people, set a record by hitting three triples in one game...My recollection is hazy, but didn't he have a sister or someone that went missing for a long time? Does anyone remember how that was finally resolved?

Others:

Miguel Cabrera (29) -With over 1600 hits by his 29th birthday, he'd seem to be in a good position to make a run at 3000 if he can keep his personal life in order...Oddly, he's never had a 200-hit season.

Jim Eisenreich (53) -His courageous battle with Tourette's led to him being the first recipient of the Tony Conigliaro Award. He currently lives in the Kansas City area and works with a foundation that helps kids with Tourette's.

Steve Blass (70) -Pirate ace remembered now for his sudden inexplicable inability to throw strikes. It didn't carry over to the golf course; on 9/10/2009 he scored two holes-in-one in one 18-hole round.

Sam Crawford -I could have listed him with the Reds since he started his career in Cincy, but the world thinks of him as a Tiger. If you haven't read his chapter in The Glory of Their Times, stop what you're doing and go read it this minute.

[cumberlandreds]

I am now reading Glory of their Times. A truly good book if you like reading oral histories about baseball or anything else. All of the chapters are really good. Great insight to the baseball times and to life in general at the turn of the 20th century.

[chicoruiz]

Here's a sample from Sam's chapter of Glory. Hope it's OK to post here; if not I apologize; mods can go ahead and take it down.

Imagine being a 16-year-old boy at the turn of the century and having this adventure..How much fun would that be???

I remember when I made my first baseball trip. A bunch of us from around Wahoo,
all between sixteen and eighteen years old, made a trip overland in a wagon drawn by a team of horses.
One of the boys got his father to let us take the wagon. It was a lumber wagon, with four wheels, the kind they used
to haul the grain to the elevator, and was pulled by a team of two
horses. It had room to seat all of us-I think there were 11 or 12 of us
and we just started out and went fr;om town to town, playing their teams.
One of the boys was a comet player, and when we'd come to a town
he'd whip out that comet and sound off. People would all come
out to see what was going on, and we'd announce that we were
the Wahoo team and were ready for a ball game. Every little town out
there on the prairie had its own ball team and ball grounds, and we
challenged them all. We didn't have any uniforms or anything, just
baseball shoes maybe, but we had a manager. I pitched and played
the outfield both.

It wasn't easy to win those games, as you can imagine. Each of those
towns had its own umpire, so you really had to go some to win. We
played Freemont, and Dodge, and West Point, and lots of others in
and around Nebraska. Challenged them all. Did pretty well, too.
We were gone three or four weeks. Lived on bread and beefsteak
the whole time. We'd take up a collection at the games-pass the hat,
you know-and that paid our expenses. Or some of them, anyway. One
of the boys was the cook, but all he could cook was round steak. We'd
get 12 pounds for a dollar and have a feast. We'd drive along the
country roads, and if we came to a stream, we'd go swimming; if we
came to an apple orchard, we'd fill up on apples. We'd sleep anywhere.
Sometimes in a tent, lots of times on the ground, out in the open. If
we were near some fairgrounds, we'd slip in there. If we were near a
bam, well ....

[757690]

It wasn't easy to win those games, as you can imagine. Each of those
towns had its own umpire, so you really had to go some to win.

Kinda like now, in St. Louis

Btw, great stuff

[chicoruiz]

BTW, in an effort to be artst-craftsy, I posted the Crawford stuff in a different typeface and I had some kerning issues, so "comet" equals "cornet" and "bam" equals "barn"...

[Bob Borkowski]

Doug Flynn (61) -On August 5, 1980, Doug, of all people, set a record by hitting three triples in one game...My recollection is hazy, but didn't he have a sister or someone that went missing for a long time? Does anyone remember how that was finally resolved?

I've never heard of this situation being resolved. And yes, it was his sister.

[goreds2]

Doug Flynn was the first Major Leaguer I ever saw in person attending my first Reds game in 1975. I saw him in the dugout a few minutes before game time. Will always remember that.