Blow Out the Candles July 5

 Hall of Famer Rich "Goose" Gossage  is celebrating his 61s birthday today.

1975 Topps #554

1987 Topps #380

Goose pitched in three World Series, twice with the Yankees.  

1973 NL Rookie of the Year Gary Matthews Sr. is 62 today.

1974 Topps #386

1987 Topps #390

Sarge was a big part of the 1984 Cubs Division Championship team hitting .291with 14 HR, 82 RBI, 17 SB and 103 BB.  Damn, we should have finished off the Padres!

Gary is currently an announcer for the Phillies.

Blackhawks great Doug Wilson  is celebrating his 55th birthday today.

1990 Bowman #2

Doug holds the Blackhawks career records for a defenseman in Games Played, Goals, Assists and Points--all by a pretty wide margin.

2008-09 UD Masterpieces #71

Doug ended his playing career with the San Jose Sharks, becoming their first Captain and All-Star.  In 2003 he became the Sharks general manager, a position he still holds.

Artist Chuck Close is celebrating his 72nd birthday today.

"I always thought that one of the reasons why a painter likes especially to have other painters look at his or her work is the shared experience of having pushed paint around."

 Lucas 1986-87

"Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience."

Roy II 1994

"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case."

Musician Huey Lewis turns 62 today.

Huey Lewis and the News