Our second three-state team consists of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The three of them share Yellowstone National Park, so we’ll give them the Yellowstone name and the nickname of Bison.
Harmon Killebrew of Idaho could hit them out of any park, including Yellowstone (OK, maybe not literally). The Fat Kid, as he was called, hit one 520 feet when he was with the Twins. The Mall of America is on the site of the old ballpark and they commemorated the titanic blast by suspending a chair up at the top of the mall, with home plate in its actual location, now near an amusement park (at least it was when I was there in the ’90s).
The Killer, which was not a good nickname because Harmon is an exceedingly nice guy, retired with 573 home runs, at the time No. 1 among right-handed hitters and second only to Babe Ruth on the all-time American League list. Incredibly, it took four tries before Killebrew was inducted into the Hall of Fame. That’s hard to figure, although people put a lot more stock in batting average back then. He hit .256, but his on-base percentage was .376. Earl Weaver pitched around him in the 1969 ALCS because Harmon was the MVP that year (49 HR, 140 RBI, 145 BB and a .427 OBA all led the league).
Well, he’s probably going to be the Idaho home run leader for awhile. He holds a 502-homer lead over Vance Law, who also isn’t going to hit any more big-league longballs. There are three solid pitchers from Idaho. Larry Jackson won 13 or more games in each of his last 12 seasons, peaking in 1964 with 24 victories for the Cubs. Vern Law, Vance’s dad, was pretty good too, winning the 1960 Cy Young for the Series-winning Pirates. And Jason Schmidt, when healthy, has been very good. He led the NL with a 2.34 ERA in 2003 for the Giants.
Montana’s top player is probably one of the pitchers Killebrew faced in that 1969 playoff series, Oriole lefty Dave McNally. He won 184 games with a career 3.24 ERA. The top position player is another Oriole favorite, John Lowenstein, who made a career out of clobbering right-handed pitching. Maybe he’ll bat in front of Killebrew.
Wyoming only has 12 players, which I think is the fewest of any state except Alaska (which is up to 11 now). But the Cowboy state does contribute a couple of 100-plus game winners, lefties Tom Browning and Dick Ellsworth. This really is a pretty nice pitching staff for a small team. The top hitter from Wyoming for now is Mike Devereaux, with 105 homers. Mike Lansing had 84 and Royals catcher Mike Buck is coming up fast with 70. (The voice of the team, Curt Gowdy, is also from Wyoming.)
The only MLB managers from any of the Yellowstone states are both from Montana. Vedie Himsl managed at some point in the 1961 season for the Cubs during their bizarre College of Coaches experiment. He was 10-21 for a team that finished 64-90. So we’ll go with the other guy, John Gibbons. He’s not going to play a lot behind Buck anyway. And having managed the Blue Jays from 2004-08, he knows a lot about playing against a stacked deck.
The pitching and Killebrew should keep things from getting too out of hand, but there just aren’t enough guys here to contend.
YELLOWSTONE BISON
1B Ed Bouchee
LH Tom Browning
CA John Buck
LH Ken Dayley
OF Mike Devereaux
LH Dick Ellsworth
CA John Gibbons
UT Pep Goodwin
RH Larry Jackson
1B Bucky Jacobsen
3B Harmon Killebrew
2B Mike Lansing
UT Vance Law
RH Vern Law
RH Matt Lindstrom
UT John Lowenstein
3B Hal Luby
OF Bob Martyn
OF Joe Mather
RH Joe McIntosh
LH Dave McNally
OF Dave Meier
2B Herb Plews
CA Bill Salkeld
RH Jason Schmidt
RH Dan Spillner
OF Jim Tyack
LH Bill Wilkinson
Next: Washington.
Base instincts 