Monday, April 13, 2009

The Junior Squad

My dad and I were talking about this the other day. Baseball players seem oddly drawn to naming their sons after themselves. No data to back this up, but it seems like there are a heck of a lot more First Last, Jr.'s among the baseball population than the general population.

Enough to field a full squad, in fact:

C - Sandy Alomar
1B - Billy Sullivan
2B - Jerry Hairston
3B - Ed Sprague
SS - Tony Pena
LF - Jose Cruz
CF - Gary Matthews
RF - Ken Griffey
SP - Jim Bagby
RP - Pedro Borbon

You could have Ruben Amaro, Tony Gwynn and Ozzie Virgil on the bench with Mel Queen, Lew Krausse, and Fred Rath (of course) supporting Borbon out of the 'pen.

First base was the toughest position to fill. There just aren't many good options. I was going to move Sprague there, but there aren't many options at third either. That left a choice between 1930's backup catcher/first baseman Billy Sullivan and the forgettable Pete Rose. You can see which way I went.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you could come with 3-4 more starters, a couple more relivers... then figure out how many games the team would likely win over a 162 game season... well, maybe I'm a geek, but I think that would be awesome to detail.

lar said...

You might want to add some room for Cal Ripken, Jr. I suspect he could fit in well at either short or third... just a thought ;-)

Anonymous said...

Cal Ripken wouldn't qualify for the team since his dad didn't play in the major leagues.

Theron Schultz said...

Yeah, I should've said that we were brainstorming fathers and sons who both played in the majors.

Harry Pavlidis said...

Tony Armas could be eligible. Not sure you want him in the rotation...and you can exclude since he's not a "Jr" (different middle names).