On This Day In Baseball...

As we all know, there are plenty of sweet baseball names ranging from "classic" ball player names like Chipper Jones to the odd ball Stubby Clapp and Johnny Dickshot. On this day, May 18th  let us remember some of those great names who have fallen:

1913: The Only Nolan

1934: Jumbo McGinnis

1952: Spec Harkness

1966: Lee Gooch
1972: Babe Barna

1979: Ray Blades

1986: Spades Wood

1937: Brooks Robinson is born, one of the all-time great third basemen and likely the best fielding third basemen we've ever seen. With Scott Rolen and Adrian Beltre considered near-HOF talent, it's a testament to how good Brooks Robinson was considering his 94.6 fWAR completely trumps Rolen (73.6) and Beltre (56.8). 

1946: Reggie Jackson is born. The all-time leader in career strikeouts and post-season clutchness/heroics, Reggie Jackson's career has taken a nice upswing in the era of new-age stats. If you just look at his raw numbers they pale in comparison to some of the 90s sluggers, but considering the context and the era he played in, which we can luckily do with today's stats, we can better appreciate his career. For example, Jackson's career OPS ranks 188 all-time, but his adjusted OPS/OPS+ ranks 78th. Jackson struck out a lot, hit a lot of homers, played on some great championship teams and if you ask him, he'd probably say he's the best player ever. 

1999: Edgar Martinez hits 3 home runs against the Minnesota Twins, tying a record of 5 home runs in two games. The Mariners would only win 79 games in 1999 but not because of Edgar, as he hit .337/.447/.554 in 142 games. Edgar could hit baseballs very well, so well in fact that he's deserving of the Hall of Fame

2000: The Colorado Rockies release relief pitcher Brandon Puffer, we can only assume because he started living up to the reputation of his last name - smoking kills!