Happy birthday today to former Ranger pitcher Darrel Akerfelds, who is 46 today.

Don't remember Akerfelds?  That is understandable...he was a guy selected by the Rangers in the Rule 5 draft before the 1989 season, who only appeared in 6 games (and threw 11 innings) for them in 1989.  Akerfelds was a Mariners 1st round pick, #7 overall, in 1983.  They had the #7 pick again in 1985, and took another pitcher who ended up having a brief stint with the Rangers, Mike Campbell. 

If you are a pitcher, you don't want to go #7 overall, it doesn't appear.  Along with Akerfelds and Campbell, Mike Dunne and Brad Brink were picked #7 overall in the 80s, and you probably haven't heard of them.  The Royals took pitchers at #7 overall in 1997 and 1999, and ended up with Dan Reichart and Kyle Snyder.  Matt Harrington went #7 overall to the Rockies in 2000.  The Rangers have had the #7 overall pick only once in their history, and used it to select Jonathon Johnson.  Other high-profile #7 pitching flameouts include Doug Million, Matt White (who got something like $10 million after being declared a free agent in 1996 because of a paperwork snafu, and then got hurt), and Chris Smith.

Homer Bailey went #7 overall in 2004, and Clayton Kershaw in 2006.  So if you have them in a keeper league...well, you might want to try to move them now, before the curse of the #7 strikes.