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From the Astros Dugout:

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.

--snip--

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.

All this is quite amusing, of course; it's fun to catch the kid with his hand in the cookie jar. But aside from eventually costing Valverde a few million bucks he probably couldn't spend anyway, I can't figure out how this revelation actually hurts anyone.

Valverde -- who, by the way, isn't 32; apparently he'll turn 32 next April -- is pitching this season on a one-year deal for $8 million, and he's pitching sort of brilliantly.*

* Did you know that among all pitchers (past or present) with at least 300 career innings, only seven have struck out more than 11 batters per nine innings, and "Papa Grande" is one of them?

A 31-year-old relief pitcher who's doing brilliantly ... I have to think he's going to sign essentially the same deal this winter that he would sign if he were instead 29.

So why do I even bring this up? Because I'll take every chance I get to mention my research, still never published or duplicated, revealing that something like half the players in the 1930s and '40s lied about their ages. Jose Valverde is, if nothing else, a throwback.