A Sea Of Red

How many foreign baseball players age do we actually know....

HOUSTON - Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada has told the team he's actually 33, two years older than he's listed in the club's media guide and other baseball records.


Tejada, saying he wanted rid himself of a burden, approached general manager Ed Wade and asked to correct misinformation he gave the Oakland A's when he signed in 1993, the Houston Chronicle reported on its Web site Thursday.

Team officials were not immediately available to comment to The Associated Press. The Astros were wrapping up a three-game series Thursday with the Phillies in Philadelphia.

Tejada was actually 19 when he signed out of poverty-stricken Bani, Dominican Republic. At the time, he says, a local coach encouraged him to say he was 17.

I wonder what implications this will have concerning his contract. With his numbers slipping the past few years amidst a cloud of steroid suspicion, this is definitely not a good thing for the Astros. Two years taken off the "prime" of a middle infielder's career is a huge thing.

Just one more reason while the signing of a player with anal fissures and the trade for an over-aged defensive liable SS...combined with the worst draft in the history of MLB will doom the Astros for the next few years.

To paraphrase that country song from the '70s, the Orioles are saying "thank God & Greyhound he's gone" from Baltimore.

This is hardly surprising. Dominican ages are some of the worst kept secrets in baseball. No one at Minute Maid Parks is panicking about this declaration. Now Jose Valverde is another story.

So is Julio Franco 60 now?

Sly Fox wrote:This is hardly surprising. Dominican ages are some of the worst kept secrets in baseball.

Like El Duque who was always suspected of being at least 4 years older than his stated playing age.

The Cubans learned their tricks from the Domincans. Although I don't think anybody from San Pedro de Macoris has ever made up a story about blood int rh water with sharks circling a raft.