A's History in Birthdays for January 5th

With 2024 potentially being the last season of A's baseball in Oakland, it's going to be a season of reflection of all of the memories that we have shared at the Coliseum. With that in mind, this year we are going through each and every player that has worn the green and gold and writing up a couple of paragraphs about their time with the A's, their careers, and sometimes a wacky story from their life in an effort to bring back memories, and perhaps even learn a thing or two about the franchise so many have grown attached to.

Yesterday we had an unfortunate injury that led to arguably the most memorable season in recent memory, and a cheating scandal that involved a telescope and a buzzer that led to one of the most memorable moments in Baseball history. 

Today's birthday's: Mark Redman and Jim Byrnes

Mark Redman

The left-hander was born in 1974 and was selected by the Minnesota Twins in the first round (13^th overall) of the 1995 Draft. He debuted in '99 with the Twins and played his rookie season in 2000, finishing tied for sixth in the AL Rookie of the Year voting with Barry Zito. Another former A, Terrence Long, finished second.

Redman was traded twice before packing his bags for Oakland in December of 2003. He only played one season for the A's, in 2004, and held a 4.71 ERA in 191 innings pitched. This was the middle of a five year stretch with five different teams where he held a cumulative ERA of 4.59, but he also averaged 186 innings per season. 

The A's traded him, Arthur Rhodes, and cash to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Jason Kendall following the 2004 season. In the final year of his five year stretch, Redman was an All Star with the Kansas City Royals even though he held a 5.27 ERA. The Royals didn't have a ton of great options that season. Over the full season Mark Teahen may have been the better choice, but it was his second half that really stood out. He was league average in the first half of 2006. 

Redman was granted free agency following the '06 campaign and went on to be signed by, and released by, four teams in 2007. He finished his career with the Colorado Rockies in 2008. 

Jim Byrnes

Byrnes was born in 1880 in San Francisco, and since he played so early in baseball's history, not a ton is know about how he came to be with the A's or where he played minor league ball. What we do know, is that at the age of 26 in 1906 he played ten games with Philadelphia at catcher, starting three of them.

Byrnes received 23 plate appearances in the big leagues and collected four hits, which may or may not have included a triple. In looking at his game logs, there is no triple to be seen. So he may or may not have hit a triple. He did go 1-for-2 in his final game, but again, there is no detailed record of the game. With a 50/50 shot that his hit came in his final at-bat, let's go ahead and say that he went out on top with a single the last time he stepped up to the plate. 

The catcher died in 1941 in San Francisco at the age of 61.