Today is former Padres outfielder Jody Gerut's thirty-seventh birthday, and since I was always a big fan of the guy, I thought I'd write a quick post about him. After I was about two paragraphs deep, I searched for an article about his retirement and accidentally came across a post I wrote about Gerut on his birthday two years ago and forgot about. It hit all the points I was going to make here, so I scrapped my intended post. It wasn't a complete loss, though. At the end of the two-year-old post was this brief paragraph:
Also celebrating a birthday today is former reliever Roger Mason. I might write about him later; I do have a pretty good anecdote about him...
See, I'm a man of my word. I said I might write about him later, and I did write about him later. Two years later. So, before 730 more days go by, here it is:
Roger Mason had quite an eventful Independence Day weekend in 1993. On Friday, July 2, he made his thirty-third and thirty-fourth appearances of the season for the Padres, earning holds in both games of a doubleheader in Philadelphia. The next day he was traded, but didn't have to travel very far; he headed from the visitor's clubhouse over to the home side, where he presumably took the locker of Tim Mauser, the guy the Phillies traded him for. Mason was back in action the next day, Sunday, the fourth of July, pitching against the guys he'd spent every day of the last several months with.
Having to face guys who were your teammates the day before has to add a whole extra layer of weird to the already chaotic situation of getting traded. I always think back to this trade whenever somebody switches dugouts in the middle of a series; Ichiro is the most high-profile example I can think of.
Sorry 'bout the wait!