Burnitz is 35?!?

One of my everyday rituals is to head over to Baseball-Reference.com and check out the “birthdays” page. Today, I noticed, is Jeromy Burnitz’s birthday (among others). That’s not so weird — everybody’s got a birthday. What shocked me is the fact that Burnitz is now 35 years old.

I knew that Burnitz became a regular a little late, but I always assumed that he was maybe 25 or 26 when that happened. That would put him at around 32-33 this year. In reality, Burnitz was 28 when he first became a regular, with Milwaukee in 1997.

Did he deserve a job before that? Probably. In half a season at age 24, in 1993, Burnitz hit .243/.339/.475 (120 OPS+) for the Mets. I know he was in Dallas Green’s doghouse with the Mets, which got him sent to Cleveland, but why he played in just 9 games with the Indians in 1995 is beyond me (he hit .284/.359/.503 at AAA that year). Burnitz was a part-timer with the Tribe in 1996, and hit .281/.406/.523 before being traded to Milwaukee. By this time he was 27…