Today in Red Sox History: February 17

On this date in Red Sox history, we saw a recent trade of two fringe pitchers for a couple of solid prospects, and also a guy named Babe was sold to the Yankees.

Today in OTM History

2021: Projecting the Opening Day roster as spring training gets under way; This was actually pretty close!

2016: A new-look Hanley Ramirez, slimmed down, comes to camp; And sure enough, Ramirez did have a big bounce-back year, finishing with a 127 wRC+.

2015: Atlanta is interested in a Jackie Bradley Jr.; Considering this idea was at least in part based on confidence in Rusney Castillo, probably for the best they avoided this one.

2012: Can the Red Sox pull off a John Lackey trade? Yeah, just give it a couple years.

Today in Red Sox History

2021: Chris Mazza and Jeffrey Springs traded to the Tampa Bay Rays for Ronaldo Hernández and Nick Sogard; Springs was actually solid in the Rays bullpen, but Hernández looks like a solid catching prospect and Sogard has had some interesting flashes further down in the minors.

1937: Red Sox sell Babe Dahlgren to the Yankees; It’s not the most famous sale of a Babe to the Yankees, though Dahlgren did get a piece of history as the first baseman to start in place of Lou Gehrig when the latter’s consecutive games played streak ended. Furthermore, he was also the first player to be tested for a non-PED when it was rumored that a key error he had committed was due to smoking marijuana. (He tested negative.)

Today in Red Sox Birthdays

Happy 46th birthday to Scott Williamson, who was in the Red Sox bullpen for the 2003 and 2004 seasons, though he didn’t appear in the postseason in that 2004 run.

Happy would-be 125th birthday to Ike Boone, who is a minor-league legend and in the Pacific Coast League Hall of Famer, but his lack of defense and athleticism kept him from a long major-league career. Even so, he had two outstanding years for the Red Sox, receiving MVP votes in both 1924 and 1925.

Happy 26th birthday to Deivy Grullón, who had a short stint with the Red Sox organization but is currently a free agent and was most recently with the White Sox.

Many thanks to Baseball-Reference, NationalPastime.com and Today in Baseball History for assistance here. Also thanks again to Talking Chop for the inspiration for these posts.