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Birthdays
Bruce Ogrodowski (February 17, 1912 – March 5, 1956) was an American professional baseball player, a catcher who appeared in 184 Major League games played for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1936–1937. A native of Hoytville, Pennsylvania, he threw and batted right-handed, stood 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and weighed 175 pounds (79 kg). His older brother Joe pitched in one Major League game in 1925.
Bruce Ogrodowski was the second-string catcher, behind Spud Davis, for the 1936 Cardinals, appearing in 94 games and batting .228. In 1937, he appeared in four fewer games but nonetheless was the most-used catcher for the Redbirds; however, he improved his batting average by only five points. The following year, Mickey Owen became the Cardinals’ regular catcher, and Ogrodowski was sent to the Rochester Red Wings. He spent the rest of his career in minor league baseball, including nine seasons (1939–1947) in the highly competitive Pacific Coast League for the Sacramento Solons (1939–1940) and San Francisco Seals (1941–1947). Ogrodowski’s 119 Major League hits included 25 doubles, four triples and four home runs. After managing in the farm systems of the Boston Braves and St. Louis Browns,
Jack Crimian (born February 17, 1926 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a retired American Major League Baseball pitcher. He played for the St. Louis Cardinals during the 1951 and 1952 seasons, the Kansas City Athletics during the 1956 season, and the Detroit Tigers during the 1957 season. He had a career record of 5 wins and 9 losses.
Roger Craig– played for the Cardinals in 1964 and is a former pitcher, coach and manager in Major League Baseball.
During a 12-year playing career, Craig won 10 or more games in 1956, 1957, and 1962. A master at the split-finger fastball, Craig started his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and closed out his career with the Philadelphia Phillies. Craig was the starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game One of the 1959 World Series, a series in which he also started Game Four. Craig was also the starting pitcher for one game apiece in the 1955 and 1956 World Series with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and he also pitched in relief in two World Series games for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1964, winning one game. Craig’s overall World Series record was two wins and two losses, and his teams won three of the four series.
Craig was perhaps best known after that as a player for being an original 1962 New York Met (actually, a 1962–63 Met), and for losing the first game in team history, 11–4 in St. Louis. (It has been erroneously believed that he gave up the first run in New York Mets history on a balk; although he did commit a balk in the first inning, he already trailed 1–0, and the balk was not a scoring play.) He was a stalwart of the legendarily bad team’s pitching staff, finishing 10–24 and 5–22 games in those first two murderous seasons. (The Mets lost 120 games in 1962.) In 1963, Craig suffered through a personal 18-game losing streak as a pitcher. Remarkably, during those two seasons, he pitched 27 complete games, while winning a total of only 15, demonstrating that he was one of the best pitchers on the staff.
During the 1962 and 1963 seasons, when Roger Craig lost 24 and 22 games respectively, the New York Mets played all of their home games at the antiquated Polo Grounds stadium, the former home of the New York Giants baseball team.
Lonnie Maclin – (born February 17, 1967 in Clayton, Missouri) is a former Major League Baseball left-fielder. Maclin played for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1993 season. In 12 career games, Maclin had one hit in 13 at-bats. He batted and threw left-handed.
Deaths
Finner Quinlan 1966
Howie Nunn 2012