Happy Birthday–August 13

Fielder Jones (1871)
Lou Finney (1910)
Sid Gordon (1917)
Mudcat Grant (1935)
Tony Cloninger (1940)
Fred Stanley (1947)
Andre Thornton (1949)
Tom Niedenfuer (1959)
Tom Prince (1964)
Jay Buhner (1964)
Mark Lemke (1965)
Alex Fernandez (1969)
Jarrod Washburn (1974)
Corey Patterson (1979)

Pitcher Jim "Mudcat" Grant was signed as a free agent by Cleveland in 1954.  He pitched well for a few years in the minors, and made the Indians out of spring training in 1958.  Grant was a solid but unspectacular pitcher for Cleveland for six years, making the all-star team in 1963, but when he got off to a poor start in 1964, he was traded to Minnesota for George Banks and Lee Stange.  Something clicked for him when he came to the Twins, as he had his best years in Minnesota:  for the rest of 1964, he was 11-9 with a 2.82 ERA, in 1965 he went 21-7 with a 3.30 ERA and finished sixth in the MVP voting, and he went 13-13 in 1966 with a 3.25 ERA.  Four consecutive years of pitching between 228 and 270 innings appeared to take its toll, however; 1966 was Grant's last good year as a starter, and after the 1967 season, he was traded to the Dodgers with Zoilo Versalles for Bob Miller, Ron Perranoski, and Johnny Roseboro.  He then had a relatively successful career as a relief pitcher, saving 24 games for Oakland in 1970 and leading major league baseball in appearances with 80.  The last year of his 14-year major league career was split between Oakland and Pittsburgh; he also pitched for Iowa in the Oakland organization in 1972.  Grant pitched in 129 games as a Twin,  111 of them starts, and went 50-35 with a 3.35 ERA.  There are various stories about how he got the nickname "Mudcat", with the most popular being that he was given it by Cleveland teammate Larry Doby or a minor-league teammate named LeRoy Irby.  In recent years, Grant has been promoting education about the history of blacks in baseball.  His book, "The Black Aces", profiles African-American pitchers who have won twenty games in the majors, along with Negro League pitchers who might have done so had they had they opportunity.

Tom Prince came to the Twins near the end of a long career as a reserve catcher.  He was drafted by Pittsburgh in 1984 in the 4th round of the secondary phase of the draft.  Prince did not hit particularly well in the minors, but was a good defensive player, and made his debut in Pittsburgh as a September call-up in 1987.  He spent parts of the next seven seasons with the Pirates, sticking for the whole year only in 1993, which was the only year he got more than 100 at-bats for Pittsburgh.  Let go by the Pirates after that season, Prince spent parts of the next four years with the Dodgers, again only getting 100 at-bats once, in 1997.  He spent 1999-2000 with the Phillies, and was signed as a free agent by the Twins after the 2000 campaign.  With the Twins, Prince was who he was:  a reserve catcher who was good defensively and couldn't hit.  In 2 1/2 years in Minnesota, he got 361 at-bats and hit .219 with 13 homers and 44 RBIs.  Released by the Twins in July of 2003, he signed with the Royals, spending most of the rest of the year in Omaha.  He retired after that year at the age of 38.  Prince's baseball-reference.com page is sponsored by FirstTimeLongTime, who I trust will fill us in on anything else about Tom Prince which should be said.