Thursday, Oct. 30, was a day Blake Butera will never forget.

At 1:17 p.m. his wife, Caroline, gave birth to the couple’s first child at Wake Med Hospital in Raleigh, N.C., an 8-pound, 10-ounce girl named Blaire Margaux Butera.

A few hours later, Butera officially signed a multi-year contract to become the manager of the Washington Nationals. At 33, the New Orleans native and former Mandeville High School standout became the youngest Major League Baseball manager in 53 years, since Frank Quilici in 1972.

Not bad for a kid, who learned to hit a baseball on the field behind the one-story brick schoolhouse at Lake Castle School in Madisonville.

“Thursday was one for the books,” said Barry Butera Sr., Blake’s father, while commuting to the Raleigh-Durham airport Friday with wife, Rhonda,

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