If This Surprises You, Than You’re and Idiot.

Miguel Tejada was asked how old he was the other day, and he missed by a year... either way. He said 32, but his baseball age is 31 and his real age is 33. Oops! The thing is, this goes on all the time in baseball. Many of the Latin ballplayers who were playing under their brother's identity, or with altered ages were rounded up during the '02 season, following the passage of the PATRIOT act, but some never got caught.

As it turns out Tejada had the right birth date, the one from 1974, on all his official documents for a work visa in the US, and no one at the INS ever bothered to check that data against his baseball card, lazy bureaucrats!

In the end the only impact this has, is on what Tejada will be paid for the 2010 season and beyond, since he is under contract to the Astros till then. Plus, he's bashing the ball like the Ceranno of old, so Houston isn't too worried. He has far more to be concerned about, when it comes to B-12 shots vs the Cream and the Clear then he does about 1976 vs 1974.

And as I said, this kind of thing has been going on in baseball for year. In 1999, when Inky, XL and I all worked in the minors, we saw it first hand. There were guys who went by different names in person from the names they used on the field. This was because they used the birth certificate of their younger brother when they were scouted to appear to be a better/younger prospect. Pedro became Juan, and so on.

The best way I can illustrate how rampant this practice was, is to tell this story. Howie Clark was the team leader of the AA Baysox, since he was a bit of a grizzled veteran by then. 1999 was his third year of spending time at AA, and he went up and down between Bowie and Rochester a few times. One day, when he and a pitcher were preparing to leave for another trip to the Red Wings, they were saying goodbye to the Baysox, who were on their way out of town. Maximo Heredia, who was one of the pitchers, was showing his newborn son around to the assembled crowd who were all busy boarding the bus. Upon seeing the baby, Clark shouted across the parking lot: "Hey Max, cute kid. How old is he, negative 4?"