It's been a while since I did one of these. Fired up the old randomizer, which spit out a 6, an 11, and a 1999, giving us this.

It was the eighth day of the third year of the abomination that is interleague play. The NL East played the AL East, etc., but only a few of them were "rivalries." New York and Boston were just half a game apart in the AL East (and had identical Pythagorean records), but Cleveland had already run up a nine-and-a-half game lead on the terrible Central. The other leaders were up by between 3 and 5.5 by the end of the day.

Some highlights from Friday, June 11, 1999:

• Your game of the day was this contest between the Red Sox and Mets. Brian Rose started for Boston and pitched what was almost certainly the best game of his short career (he was out of the bigs, presumably for good, in 2001 at age 25). Three hits, one walk, seven innings, lowering his season ERA to 1.91. The Sox got a couple off of Masato Yoshii and went into the ninth up 2-0, but then the normally reliable Tom Gordon came up against some pretty good hitters. John Olerud hit a sharp single to right, followed by a Mike Piazza home run, and it was a tie game. The Mets threatened again in the tenth, but couldn't score the winning run. In the twelfth, John Franco came in and gave up a one-out single to Don's son Damon Buford, who stole second and advanced to third on an errant throw by Piazza. The Mets seemed to get a reprieve when Buford was cut down on a grounder to the drawn-in shortstop by Jose Offerman, but Buford was able to get into a rundown, which got Offerman to second base. He then scored on John Valentin's single. The Mets threatened yet again with two walks in the twelfth, but couldn't come through and lost 3-2. John Wasdin, in his fifth year as mostly a reliever, picked up his first of seven career major league saves.
  
• Sidney Ponson outpitched Greg Maddux in one of the unlikeliest sentences ever written. Maddux was just OK: six innings, ten hits, five runs, three earned, a walk and two strikeouts. Ponson was the guy he kept fooling people into thinking he could be: nine innings, five hits, two runs, a walk and six Ks. I guess Maddux facing Ripken, Will Clark, Surhoff, Conine and Brady Anderson while Ponson got to face a lineup with Ozzie Guillen leading off and (pre-Mariners, .310 OBP) Bret Boone second probably had something to do with it. Maddux ended up driving in one of the Braves' two runs with a successful squeeze bunt. O's won 6-2.
  
• One of the stories of the year was Jeff Zimmerman, a 26 year old rookie who had pitched in the independent Northern League and came out of almost literally nowhere to put up an all-star year out of the bullpen. Today, he comes into a game in the 8th inning with his Rangers down a run to the Rockies at home, and pitches a perfect inning, running his record to 7-0, 1.12 after Palmeiro hits a two-run homer in the bottom of the inning and Wetteland comes in to nail down the save. Zimmerman finishes the year 9-3, 2.36 (217 ERA+). He has an off year in 2000, then a really nice one taking over for Wetteland as closer in 2001, then signs a $10 million contract, throws his arm out in Spring Training and never throws a pitch in the Majors again (yet; now 37, he threw two innings for Seattle's rookie league team in 2009).
  
• The Yankees beat the Marlins, 8-4. The notable things about this game: Derek Jeter goes 3-for-5 to run his average up to .378 (this is probably the year he really should've won the MVP, depending on how you feel about Pedro Martinez); Chuck Knoblauch commits two errors.
  
• Randy Wolf, currently the newest Brewer, makes his Major League debut for the Phillies against the Blue Jays. He throws 107 pitches in just five and two thirds, and permits six hits and three walks, but also strikes out six and gives up just one run, and eventually picks up the win, 8-4. He'd finish the year 6-9, 5.55 in 22 games (21 starts, 122 innings).