My old (blog) buddy Tim Dierkes writes mlb trade rumors. I was looking through it the other day at an entry discussing Jose Valverde’s impending free agency and noticed that he stated that Jose is 32.
I thought – Tim mis-typed, I’d better send him a note. You see, Jose’s birthday is July 24, which is Barry Lamar Bonds and Barry Lamar Dog’s birthday, so I PARTICULARLY remembered that, and I also remembered the talk about him turning 30 this July. I also noted that it is interesting that the Astros had TWO players on the team with that PARTICULAR birthday, Jason “ofer” Smith being the other.
But, surprise, surprise, even though Jose’s birthday was listed as July 24, 1979 in last year’s media guide and on the Opening Day lineup card, it is now listed as April 24, 1978 on the Astros website, Yahoo and Espn. Not surprisingly, it is still listed as July 24, 1979 on Baseball-reference.com and Baseball Cube.
Is this a mistake? Or is Jose yet another person who, uh, had an, um, er, birth certificate whose numbers were, uh, um, let’s say, illegible?
This isn’t my imagination or me mis-remembering. According to the Chron, Valverde was 28 in December of 07 when we obtained him from the Diamondbacks. In fact, almost every Chron story which lists Valverde’s age corresponds to him having a July 79 birthday.
Might could be that the extra 15 months may affect Valverde’s value as far as long term contracts go, even though he is still obviously a top-notch closer.
I guess that after the whoop-to-doo over Miggy and the 2 years, the Astros are trying to sneak this one under the radar. And they woulda gotten away with it, too, iffn it wasn’t for them meddling bloggers.
ADDENDUM 9/9/09 3:23 PM
Brian McTaggart of mlb.com asked Ed Wade about Valverde’s age. I sure nuff would like to hear Eddie’s explanation of how it was that every single publication listed Valverde’s birthday as 7/24/79 prior to today. Or, at least until after July 24 of this very year.
It certainly wasn’t a “mistake” made by just the Astros. I would also point out that this is the second Astros player acquired by Fast Eddie whose birthday was, uh, um, er, “discovered” to “accidentally” be somehow published incorrectly for years. I am not particularly happy with a GM who has noooooooooo idea that Miguel Tejada is on the Mitchell list, or that he is actually 2 years older than his listed age (even though that “rumor” was common knowledge for years, or that MLB and the Diamondbacks had been “mistaken” about Valverde’s birthday for 7 years.
This, by the way, is my first “scoop.” Sort of…..
This is actually going to hurt him big time the next time he hits free agency which just so happens to be in four weeks. By the way at least he kept the 24 consistent with both birthdays.
This is pretty funny.
Base hit. GiDP
Base hit. GiDP
Lance singles, Lee is up. Lance steals.
He probably forgot there were two outs and wanted to stay out of the DP.
Lee grounds out. Of course. Would have been a double play if there weren’t already two out.
yeah. and jose ortiz checked out valverde’s own website and he has his own borthday wrong on his own website
his baseball age will be 32 at the start of the 2010 season and that is a big difference from 30 at the start of the 2010 season
not real too surprised that he and the stros were trying to keep that quiet