Happy Birthday Mike Hllywa

It's a good thing we actually got baseball in earlier because otherwise it would look like we just sit around and pat each other on the back here at Off Base Percentage. And believe me, we do way more of that over text messages and Twitter. But I can't let Mike Hllywa's birthday nearly pass without wishing him a happy one filled with empty promises of Carvel Ice Cream cake. Cookiepuss haunts my dreams at night.

Mike, of course, is a crazy Angels fan and can be found writing at Halo Hangout and Gammons Daily and here and probably a few other places. If I wasn't so bad with birthdays despite writing about them frequently, I had planned on getting a Kickstarter together so we could pay Peter Bourjos enough to deliver a singing-cowboy-birthday-telegram. A regular one costs about $90 so I figure Bourjos would do it for, what, like $900? I might be underestimating pro athletes' general dignity by a wide margin. Thanks, Jose Canseco.

On to the birthdays! So, Mike shares a birthday with Zac Hanson of the "MmmBop" famous band Hanson. And, if you know Mike, he's totally a Zac. Ichiro. Jonathan Lipnicki turned 23 and the last Tom Cruise movie I watched was Magnolia. Robinson Cano. Jesse Tyler Ferguson, now of Modern Family fame, was in The Class with Lizzy Caplan who was in Party Down with Adam Scott who is in Parks and Recreation which was created by Michael Schur who is Ken Tremendous from FJM and gave us this...

I could go on but I wanted to share the amazing t-shirt, which hopefully he markets and sells, that his mother-in-law made for his birthday...

I approve. Happy birthday, bud.

Happy Birthday To Me!

While the popular trivia question "what do MTD and Vince DiMaggio share?" is asked in bars across the country, the answer is not "we both hit .000 in 1946 for the Giants." Technically it is accurate but we share the same birthday, September 6th.

It's been a long standing tradition, say two-ish years, for me to announce my birthday in blog format so all of you can lavish attention on me. Why yes, I am an only child, why do you ask? But, I'm sure Mitch Moreland is doing the same thing today on some Rangers fan forum. Don't judge us.

But today isn't just about me and empty boxes of Carvel ice cream cake, it's about celebrating me and my baseball brethren. I hit .023 in my single season of little league before they asked me not to sign up for the following year. However, there are some real baseball players born on 9/6...

-Who can forget when Jumbo Latham hit 6 triples in 1877 for the Grays? Shoulda seen that fourth one. Ran like a gazelle.

-Oyster Burns hit .307/.388/.430 in his final season in 1895. He tragically died of oyster burns the following summer. Or in 1928 of a random ailment. I'm not a historian.

-The only Hall of Famer born on my birthday was spitballer Red Faber, inducted by the Veteran's Committee in 1964 after retiring in 1933.

-Bill Murray played one season in 1917.

-Bill Murray played one season in 1917.

-Delphia Louis Bissonette is a name.

Okay, fine, let's move to players born after TV was invented.

-Derrek Lee scored some black ink in 2005 leading the NL in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging, OPS, OPS+ and finished third in MVP voting. Who the hell is this Albert Pujols fellow?

-Mark Teahen collected four home runs playing for the White Sox and Blue Jays in 2011. If you listen closely, you can hear him sifting through your garbage can.

-Jerry Blevins. He's apparently been pitching for the A's for six years in the Angels division but I wouldn't know him if he hit me with an autographed wiffle ball.

-The aforementioned Mitch Moreland. Oh, to be 27 again and in the peak of, hmmm, I'm sure I was good at something back then.

So, if you haven't sent me cash or autographed Mike Trout goodies yet, I'd appreciate it if you "liked" Halo Hangout on Facebook. Fansided gives me three grapes every time we get a new liker.