Last but not least

I wasn’t ignoring the Dominican Republic until now. I wanted the final featured team to be a showstopper.

In the post about Cuba, I mentioned that Castro’s emergence put an end to the run of great players from Cuba coming to the major leagues. In the meantime, the Dominican Republic, which didn’t send its first player to the big leagues until 1956, has become a baseball factory of sorts.

That first player was Ozzie Virgil Sr., the father of the All-Star catcher, and perhaps best remembered now as one of Dick Williams’ coaches at several stops. In 2010, the Dominican Republic will send player No. 500 to the show. Dominicans now account for about 10 percent of major league rosters.

As Whitey Herzog said a few years ago, the kids there play the game the way youngsters once played it here – all the time. But it’s more than that for them. It’s a means to an end

With the success of players like Pedro Martinez or Manny Ramirez, the youngsters see baseball as a way off the island – and to a life with things they can only imagine if they are growing up in poverty, as many are.

The man, or “El Hombre,” now is Albert Pujols. His success already has him as a certain Hall of Famer; it’s just a matter of how high he can go. He’s the 10th player to win three or more MVPs. Some of the other three-time MVPs: Berra, DiMaggio, Mantle, Musial, Schmidt. Albert is up there already, and he doesn’t turn 30 until next year.

This roster is powerful, and evolving. You might be surprised at some of the names missing, but it was very difficult to chop the last five or so. If we continue through the years with this project as I hope, I expect to see a lot of changes on this thing, perhaps year to year. (If you’re a young Dominican-born player, and you want to be on this team for a long time, I suggest taking up catching.)

Manager Felipe Alou, who would probably have been a starter on an all-Dominican team a couple of decades ago, has some tough choices to make. If he wanted to, he could have an all-offense team with David Ortiz at first base, Pujols at third, Alfonso Soriano at second and any three guys in the outfield, Manny Ramirez in left and perhaps Vlad Guerrero or Sammy Sosa in center in place of Cesar Cedeno, the only true CF on the roster. The defense would be suspect, to say the least.

Even with a more defensively-minded group on the field, this team will have no problem putting runs on the scoreboard. When Pedro or Juan Marichal is on the mound, it is going to be extremely difficult to beat. The rest of the time, I’m not so sure. And the bullpen might be a little frightening at times. But it is the best of the international group, a solid contender for the title, and is only getting better all the time.

Thanks for following along. That’s it for the teams, although we may go back and revisit a few of the rosters before we start playing. It has been a lot of fun on this journey, looking at each of the states and the corners of the world that have produced our players.

Before we begin, we’ll take a look at the whole thing, and then we’ll break our teams down into their groups.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC DOMINICANS

3B Adrian Beltre
RH Armando Benitez
OF Cesar Cedeno
RH Bartolo Colon
RH Octavio Dotel
CA Tony Eusebio
SS Tony Fernandez
UT Julio Franco
OF Pedro Guerrero
OF Vladimir Guerrero
RH Juan Guzman
RH Juan Marichal
RH Pedro Martinez
RH Jose Mesa
CA Miguel Olivo
1B David Ortiz
RH Alejandro Pena
CA Tony Pena
2B Placido Polanco
1B Albert Pujols
SS Hanley Ramirez
OF Manny Ramirez
RH Jose Rijo
UT Alfonso Soriano
OF Sammy Sosa
RH Mario Soto
SS Miguel Tejada
RH Jose Valverde

Next: Overview.

Rising sun

Japan today, then the Dominican Republic, and “Play Ball” is just around the corner.

A few words about the cards and ratings that will allow us to play not only the big leaguers from Japan, but also the greats from the Japanese leagues who didn’t make it over here. Fred Bobberts, Len Durrant and others should take a bow (sorry). It’s fantastic to see players like Shigeo Nagashima and Masaichi Kaneda included in our project.

As such, this is going to be a deservedly strong team. If I had only the MLB guys to pick from, it would include a decent lineup, almost no bench, OK starting pitching and a strong bullpen. With the Japanese leagues’ players included, they’re strong almost all the way around except in the depth department. The lineup is much stronger than the backups.

Ichiro is one of my favorites and I could talk about him at length. He visited George Sisler’s grave when he was in St. Louis for the All-Star Game … could you imagine any other player doing something like that? The guy just gets it. And he might even be honored to participate in this thing, who knows.

But I want to turn the clock back to the 1970s and discuss Sadaharu Oh. Hank Aaron had just broken Babe Ruth’s career home run record. But in Japan, Oh was about to pass Aaron. He would finish his career in 1980, with 868 homers.

Not much was known about the Japanese leagues then. Oh’s home run total wasn’t taken very seriously because the ballparks were too small, the competition was like Triple-A, any number of reasons. It was true that guys like Randy Bass were going over to Japan and succeeding where they hadn’t in the States. But Oh certainly could have succeeded in the majors with that Mel Ott type leg kick. No one else was close to him in Japan.

The feeling started to change when Cecil Fielder made a mid-career stop in Japan. He returned, hit 51 homers in Detroit, and Japan was getting baseball attention in the U.S. again.

Next came Nomo. He took the U.S. by storm in 1995 and while his career didn’t sustain at that level, he proved that a Japanese player could succeed.

Ichiro came in 2001 and is still performing at the level he was when he arrived. He seems certain to get 3,000 hits, not even counting all the ones he had in Japan. Hideki “Godzilla” Matsui arrived a couple years later and has done well for the Yankees, and made history with his MVP performance earlier this month in the World Series. There are other guys with big postseason moments here such as So Taguchi, Tadahito Iguchi and Dave Roberts (born in Okinawa).

For the manager, we could go with Oh or Nagashima, but I’ll take Tetsuharu Kawakami, who won nine consecutive Japan Series in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Sort of like UCLA basketball at that time.

If you’re looking for a dark horse candidate to win this thing, look no further. Remember, Japan won the World Baseball Classic in 2006 and 2009. They know how to do it.

JAPAN SAMURAI

CA Shinnosuki Abe
2B Shigeru Chiba
RH Yu Darvish
OF Kusoke Fukudome
OF Isao Harimoto
2B Tadahito Iguchi
RH Kazuhisa Inao
RH Hisashi Iwakuma
2B Akinori Iwamura
CA Kenji Johjima
LH Masaichi Kaneda
RH Hiroki Kuroda
OF Hideki Matsui
SS Kazuo Matsui
RH Daisuke Matsuzaka
LH Masanori Murakami
3B Shuichi Murata
3B Shigeo Nagashima
RH Hideo Nomo
CA Katsuya Nomura
1B Sadaharu Oh
LH Hideki Okajima
OF Dave Roberts
RH Takashi Saito
RH Kazuhiro Sasaki
RH Eiji Sawamura
OF Tsuyoshi Shinjo
OF Ichiro Suzuki
OF So Taguchi

Next: The final team, the Dominican Republic.

Whaa? NJAA?

Finally, the U.S.-based teams are in the books. Three international teams remain. This is … one of them.

About 20 years ago, all of Asia and Australia would have been combined into one team. But then came Nomo, Ichiro and the rest of the Japanese players into the major leagues, and so those guys have broken off and formed their own team (which we’ll look at in the next post).

So what to do about the rest of the Eastern Hemisphere? We can form a team, but there aren’t very many guys to choose from. Still, we want everyone to have a chance to play if they’re good enough, and we would prefer a certain number of teams. We have 54, with 44 from the U.S., and 10 international squads. Since 53 is a prime number, it would be hard to come up with a league without breaking it oddly in “half” somehow.

So for those reasons, we have this team. Maybe in 10 years, the Aussies or the Koreans will be able to go it alone as well. The NJA name stands for Non-Japan Asia … and I threw the second A on there for Australia. I don’t think I’ll be able to settle on a nickname to cover all of them, so we’ll go with Easterners for the hemisphere.

This team includes Russian Eddie Ainsmith; Jeff Bronkey, probably the only MLB player born in Afghanistan for the forseeable future; Saudi Arabia-born Craig Stansberry; Vietnam’s Danny Graves; Robin Jennings, a Harry Caray favorite from Singapore; and Tony Solaita from American Samoa (and another Harry favorite). Unforunately, Harry Kingman, the only player born in China so far, didn’t make the team.

The rotation is headed by Chan Ho Park, whose name Harry Caray famously mangled, with Chien-Ming Wang and Jae Seo behind him. The bullpen is good, with Graves, Byung-Hyun Kim, Peter Moylan, Hong-Chih Kuo, Grant Balfour and Graeme Lloyd. The more I think about it, the best strategy for this team might be to use six or seven pitchers in most games. There are 13 on the staff. What do they have to lose?

One reason there are so many pitchers though is there just aren’t very many position players to choose from. The best hitter is probably Shin Soo-Choo or Dave Nilsson. There are only two catchers on the whole team, Ainsmith and Nilsson.

One of the players, Joe Quinn, is the only MLB manager from this region. Born in Australia, he was the first one from his country to make it to the majors – by 102 years, until Craig Shipley arrived in 1986. Quinn ran the 1895 St. Louis Browns and the infamous 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who went 12-104 under Quinn (20-132 overall, the worst MLB record ever). That wasn’t really his fault, as the St. Louis team owners also owned the Spiders and shifted Cleveland’s best assets to the St. Louis team.

Here we are, 110 years later, and no other native Aussie has since been given a shot to manage in the big leagues. Quinn, perhaps fittingly, owned a funeral home after his career ended. In any case he’s getting another shot to manage. Unfortunately, this team could be the Spiders of our league.

NJAA EASTERNERS

CA Eddie Ainsmith
RH Grant Balfour
RH Jeff Bronkey
OF Chin-Feng Chen
1B Hee Seop Choi
OF Shin-Soo Choo
UT Trent Durrington
RH Danny Graves
2B Brad Harman
SS Chin-Lung Hu
OF Justin Huber
RH Mark Hutton
OF Robin Jennings
RH Byung-Hyun Kim
LH Hong Chih-Kuo
LH Graeme Lloyd
LH Damian Moss
RH Peter Moylan
CA Dave Nilsson
RH Chan Ho Park
2B Joe Quinn
LH Ryan Rowland-Smith
RH Jae Seo
3B Craig Shipley
1B Tony Solaita
2B Craig Stansberry
RH Chien-Ming Wang
3B Glenn Williams

Next: Japan. Down to the last two.

The 59ers

We have reached the final frontier of the U.S. teams – Alaska and Hawai’i. The nickname 59ers comes from the year, half a century ago, when the two became the last states to join the union.

They’re combining for obvious reasons – small populations and not a whole lot of history. Alaska has just 11 players, the fewest of any state, but has sent one to the big leagues in back-to-back years for the first time in its history. Last year it was the A’s Aaron Cunningham; this year it was Diamondbacks pitcher Daniel Schlereth, the son of NFL lineman Mark.

Hawai’i has produced 35, so together there is still a smaller talent base than the entire First State of Delaware (remember them, a long long time ago?) and any other standalone state. The pitching here is going to make things a little bit interesting, however. Alaskan Curt Schilling and Hawai’ians Charlie Hough, Sid Fernandez and Ron Darling should mean the 59ers will have a chance to stay close. And Scott Feldman, a 17-game winner with Texas last season, could become the fifth member of that rotation someday.

They’ll have to rely heavily on that pitching staff because there’s not a lot of offense here. There aren’t a lot of non-pitchers, period. Benny Agbayani, Mike Lum, Josh Phelps, Shane Victorino … those are your big hitters. So look for a lot of 3-2 type games. Maybe they can steal a few.

There are no managers from either the 49th or 50th states. I’ll tap Tony Rego, a catcher with the 1924-25 St. Louis Browns. He did manage in the minor leagues, and he’s going to be on the team as a catcher. He was 5-foot-4, so I’d guess he was more like a John McGraw-type manager.

Almost there. Three more to go – all outside the U.S. Who’s the best American team? There are a handful of candidates for that designation. I’ll make some guesses at it in a few more posts.

ALASKA/HAWAI’I 59ERS

OF Benny Agbayani
LH Doug Capilla
LH Steve Cooke
OF Aaron Cunningham
RH Ron Darling
LH Carlos Diaz
RH Scott Feldman
LH Sid Fernandez
RH Charlie Hough
OF Michael Huff
UT Randy Kutcher
OF Scott Loucks
OF Mike Lum
1B Joey Meyer
OF Prince Oana
1B Josh Phelps
CA Tony Rego (mgr)
UT Lenn Sakata
OF Bronson Sardinha
CA Dane Sardinha
RH Curt Schilling
2B Steve Staggs
CA Kurt Suzuki
OF Shane Victorino
RH Milt Wilcox
RH Dave Williams
RH Jerome Williams
RH Tyler Yates

Next: Across the Pacific.

Oklahoma!

Just six more to go, and here is the last of our smaller-state gems.

Oklahoma, a state for barely a century, has a fantastic sports legacy. There are so many candidates to be the featured player. There’s Johnny Bench, Mickey Mantle, Willie Stargell, the Waner brothers, Allie Reynolds and quite a few others.

If not for the strict rules about being born in the state, they could add Warren Spahn and Carl Hubbell, who lived most of their lives in the Sooner State. And there was a pretty good athlete who played some major league ball named Jim Thorpe who was born in Prague.

But I want to talk about Bullet Joe Rogan for a bit. Wilber Rogan played in the ’20s and ’30s and, on top of being one of the very best pitchers in the Negro leagues, was also good enough to bat cleanup when he wasn’t pitching.

As a pitcher, he was compared to Satchel Paige. Casey Stengel, who played against him in Army games, said the hard-throwing Rogan was one of the best pitchers who ever lived – if not the best. As a hitter, Buck O’Neil compared Rogan to Ernie Banks. He could run, too. He later managed and even umpired for a while. It took many years before he was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame, in 1998.

When he’s not pitching, of course, he goes into the lineup. The outfield is pretty well spoken for with Mantle, Stargell, the Waners and several others, though we could move Pops or Big Poison (or Rogan for that matter) to first base. Rogan also played some second base, kind of a waste of that great arm, but putting him there would provide maximum offense for the Oilers – not that they need it.

Two managers born in Oklahoma have won a World Series. Al Dark made it to the Series with the Giants in 1962 and a dozen years later completed the A’s three-peat. But Al is the regular shortstop here. And besides, Bobby Cox is the runaway choice.

Cox will be a Hall of Famer as soon as the veterans’ committee meets after his retirement next year. His playing career was short, lasting just from 1968-69 with the Yankees. He was a teammate of Mantle’s in ’68 and roomed for a while with another player on this team, Bobby Murcer.

People mostly talk about Cox regarding his ejections record – he’s just short of an entire season’s worth – and the performance of his teams in the playoffs. But he did win 100 games six times, tied with Joe McCarthy for the most ever. He’s going to retire as the fourth-winningest manager of all time.

This is going to be a contender for the whole thing. With Rogan, they have an ace pitcher to go with Allie Reynolds. The lineup is well balanced. When they get to the tournament, they’ll be mighty tough.

OKLAHOMA OILERS

CA Johnny Bench
RH Jesse Barnes
RH Cy Blanton
LH Harry Brecheen
OF Johnny Callison
OF Joe Carter
3B Harlond Clift
SS Al Dark
RH Joe Dobson
OF Matt Holliday
OF Bob Johnson
OF Mickey Mantle
UT Pepper Martin
RH Lindy McDaniel
OF Bobby Murcer
RH Brad Penny
LH Jesse Petty
2B Johnny Ray
RH Allie Reynolds
RH Joe Rogan
1B Willie Stargell
CA Kelly Stinnett
RH Ralph Terry
CA Mickey Tettleton
RH Ralph Terry
OF Lloyd Waner
OF Paul Waner
SS U.L. Washington

Next: Arizona.

Evergreen giants

We finish our tour of the Great Northwest in the Evergreen State.

Only two guys from Washingto are in the Hall of Fame – Ryne Sandberg and Earl Averill. Sandberg is of course a modern player, and there has been a lot of talk about Ron Santo getting into the Hall. It seems unlikely at this point, as there have been several votes on the matter and he hasn’t come particularly close, however deserving he is.

I’m going to focus on the Earl of Snohomish. Averill was part of the Indians’ great history of center fielders, roaming the “pasture” for the 1930s. He didn’t get to the majors until he was 27, so he began quickly, becoming the first American Leaguer to hit a home run in his first time at the plate.

Averill was picked for the first six All-Star games and hit .318 for his career. At the end of it, he went to the Tigers, who beat out the Indians for the pennant in 1940 and he got to play in a World Series. Then he returned to Snohomish and awaited his Hall selection, which finally happened in 1975.

One thing that jumps out about the Evergreens is that you have two guys named Ron who played a pretty good third base – Santo and Cey. Santo will probably play third so what do you do with Cey? His only other position (one game) was first base, but John Olerud and a lot of other guys are there. Sandberg’s at second and Kevin Stocker is at shortstop. Could Santo play shortstop? Possibly. More likely, Cey will be the top pinch hitter.

Joining Averill in the outfield could be the current member of that Cleveland center field club, Grady Sizemore, and perhaps Bill North or Geoff Jenkins. Or maybe Santo goes there. It’s hard to imagine Cey running in the outfield. Red Sox 1950s All-Star Sammy White is behind the plate.

The staff lacks a long-career ace, but not for long. Vean Gregg had a great rookie year for Cleveland in 1911, but never hit those heights again. Bruce Kison had a solid career for the Pirates though he was never really a star either. That brings us to the twosome of Tim Lincecum and Jon Lester. If they continue to pitch as they have so far, the Evergreens will have a pair of aces in pretty short order.

Another pitcher, Fred Hutchinson, will manage the Evergreens. Hutchinson was almost good enough to make the club, but he really made his mark in the dugout. Just 32 when he managed for the first time in Detroit, he went on to St. Louis, just missing a pennant in 1957, and then Cincinnati where he did win the flag in 1961 with the surprising Reds. The Reds just missed in 1962 and were in the chase in 1964 when Hutch could no longer continue. Just 45, he was ravaged by lung cancer. He missed the last two months and the Reds, trying to win it for their manager, finished a game out in the wild NL race.

About a month later, Hutchinson died. But his legacy lives on in Seattle, where his brother started the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. One of the persons treated there was Jon Lester, who was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2006 and recovered well enough to become the Red Sox ace. He won the Hutch Award in 2008, given by baseball to one person each year to reward a “fighting spirit” … which was, by all accounts, what Fred Hutchinson was.

WASHINGTON EVERGREENS

OF Earl Averill
LH Ed Brandt
RH Wally Bunker
3B Ron Cey
1B Jeff Conine
LH Vean Gregg
OF Geoff Jenkins
UT Mick Kelleher
UT Ed Kirkpatrick
RH Bruce Kison
RH Steve Kline
LH Jon Lester
RH Tim Lincecum
LH Randy Myers
OF Bill North
1B John Olerud
1B Ken Phelps
CA Mike Redmond
OF Roger Repoz
RH David Riske
2B Ryne Sandberg
3B Ron Santo
OF Grady Sizemore
RH Gerry Staley
SS Kevin Stocker
RH Todd Stottlemyre
1B Earl Torgeson
CA Sammy White

Next: Oklahoma.

Yellowstone volcano

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.

Dakota territory

North and South Dakota entered the union on the same day 120 years ago this month. They’ll be together again in this project, because on their own they wouldn’t have enough players.

I mentioned in the Alabama post that my dad watched Satchel Paige pitch in Bismarck. Both of my parents were born in North Dakota and many relatives remain there. My grandfather, my dad’s dad, was born in South Dakota and was on the front lines in World War I when the shooting stopped. My parents both served in WWII and this seems like a good week to honor the service of Americans past and present.

Not surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of players from the Dakotas. Just barely over the 50 mark. And unfortunately, Roger Maris isn’t one of them.

Maris is big in North Dakota. There’s a Roger Maris Museum in Fargo, which I have visited. He went to high school in Fargo and he’s buried there. But he was born in Hibbing, Minn. So that makes him a member of the Minnesota Muskies for our purposes. Sorry.

The top players will be DH Travis Hafner – who will be forced to wear a glove in this DH-less project – and outfielder-first baseman-punter Darin Erstad. Author/catcher Chris Coste will play a lot as will Carroll Hardy, an NFL player for a while and the only man to pinch hit for Ted Williams. And Ken Hunt, who had a big year in 1961 with the expansion Angels and who was also the stepfather of Butch Patrick, a/k/a Eddie Munster.

The pitching will keep things respectable. The bullpen of Keith Foulke, Terry Forster and Kerry Ligtenberg should hold leads if they get them. The rotation is headed by Floyd Bannister, Jim “Death Valley Days” Scott and Rick Helling.

Two managers, both born in South Dakota, are the candidates. They’ve combined for five World Series wins. For now, Sparky Anderson has a 3-2 edge on Terry Francona. “Tito” still has time though, but he’ll be needed as a player for this team as an outfielder-first baseman. So Sparky will get the call. This won’t be anything like his days with the Reds or the Tigers, of course, but the pitching will keep them from being at the bottom.

DAKOTA ROUGHRIDERS

RH Raleigh Aitchison
LH Floyd Bannister
LH Brandon Claussen
OF Dave Collins
CA Chris Coste
RH Justin Duchscherer
2B Mark Ellis
OF Darin Erstad
LH Terry Forster
RH Keith Foulke
UT Terry Francona
1B Travis Hafner
CA Truck Hannah
OF Carroll Hardy
RH Tom Hausman
RH Rick Helling
OF Ken Hunt
UT Tim Johnson
OF Jason Kubel
RH Kerry Ligtenberg
RH Lynn Nelson
2B Marv Olson
UT Tim Olson
3B Del Paddock
CA Len Rice
RH Jim Scott
RH John Strohmayer
3B Kermit Wahl

Next: The other three-headed monster.

Rare air

Ten teams to go. We’re into the homestretch for sure now.

The Colorado Centennials – so named because the state was ratified in 1876, or 100 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed – are a bit of a riddle.

Colorado is one of the smaller standalone states, with barely 80 players in big-league ball. Most of the good ones have been pitchers, which is a bit surprising given what the rest of us have seen of the effects of altitude on baseball games.

Roy Hartzell has the most at-bats for a Colorado player with 4,548; his last one came in 1916. Johnny Frederick, who played mostly for the Brooklyn Dodgers, hit 85 homers to top all Centennials in career numbers. No one appears likely to challenge those numbers any time soon. There isn’t a real, honest-to-goodness first baseman anywhere on the roster, and that’s a big problem.

But the pitching is solid, and at the top, it’s outstanding. The first native to make the Hall of Fame, Goose Gossage, won 124 and saved 310 after breaking in with “my” 1972 White Sox. Roy Halladay, the top starter, is the state’s all-time winner. With an ace like that at least the Centennials can compete. Modern relievers Tippy Martinez and Dave LaRoche complement the Goose, while Salida Tom Hughes, a 19th Century hurler who was actually born in Coal Creek, gives Halladay some rotation help.

The Centennials (Cents? C-Notes? 100s?) have three options at manager, none of whom had a long career running an MLB team. Two, Chuck Cottier and George Myatt, are on the team as players. So we’ll go with Tom Runnells, who is currently the Rockies’ bench coach. The Greeley native managed the Expos from 1991-92.

I don’t know if it’s because the Broncos are more entrenched or if people just prefer winter sports, but there aren’t a lot of Coloradans who play baseball real well. At least when Halladay starts and Gossage finishes, they have a chance.

COLORADO CENTENNIALS

OF Buster Adams
2B Chuck Cottier
SS Ike Davis
RH Scott Elarton
OF Johnny Frederick
RH Goose Gossage
RH Roy Halladay
OF Larry Harlow
UT Roy Hartzell
OF Chase Headley
CA Tommy Heath
RH Ron Herbel
RH Brian Holman
RH Tom Hughes
CA Mark L. Johnson
LH Cowboy Jones
LH Dave LaRoche
OF Johnny Lindell
LH Tippy Martinez
OF James Mouton
2B George Myatt
2B Bert Niehoff
LH Gene Packard
LH Frank Papish
OF Buddy Ryan
CA John Stearns
OF Dave Stenhouse
OF Jimmy Welsh

Next: The Dakotas.

Huskers can do

I’ve been looking forward to doing this one.

Obviously I’m eager to play the games and test the rosters. But the most fun I have in any of these projects is putting the teams together. And there aren’t many, if any, that have been more fun to assemble than the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Nebraska has produced 105 major league ballplayers. That puts it pretty close to the bottom of the “independent” states. Only about a dozen teams in our project have fewer players to choose from, and five of them are hybrid teams with two or even three states.

Remarkably, though, Nebraska has five Hall of Fame players (plus a HoF manager). And two of them just happen to be among the greatest pitchers to ever take the mound – especially in big games.

Grover Cleveland Alexander won 373 games. The Elba native won 28 for the Phillies in his rookie year of 1911, and in 1915 he won 31 with a 1.22 ERA as the Phils won the pennant. He followed that with 33 and 30. Then he was sold to the Cubs and never hit those heights again, though he won his third pitching triple crown with Chicago in 1920. In his late career, his big moment was saving the 1926 World Series for the Cardinals – a day after starting and winning Game 6.

Bob Gibson, who turns 74 today, most of you are familiar with. He was the man who set the ERA record of 1.12 — even better than Alexander’s 1915 season — in 1968. Gibson made the All-Century team and Alex somehow did not, which is a big reason why I featured “Old Pete” here.

Pretty good, huh? The Nebraskans can line those guys up in Games 1 and 2, and pitch them five times in a seven-game series. But wait, there’s more!

There are also two Hall of Fame outfielders. Richie Ashburn and Wahoo Sam Crawford (nicknamed for his hometown, a real place that wasn’t just David Letterman’s “home office”) provide great speed, on-base ability and defense. And five-time batting champion Wade Boggs was also born in the state.

There are also Mel Harder, a 223-game winner as a third starter, and ’89 AL Rookie of the Year Gregg Olson, who is joined in the bullpen by new World Series ring owner Joba Chamberlain. Bob Cerv, Ron Hansen and Jackie Brandt give the Huskers a pretty well rounded lineup. This is really an interesting team, especially when we get to the tournament part or as the soccer types say, the knockout stages.

The Hall of Fame skipper, Billy Southworth, wasn’t a bad ballplayer either. On the Nebraska roster, only the three HoF batters plus outfielder Les Mann had more career ABs than Southworth. But his fame came from leading the Cardinals to three straight 100-win seasons in the ’40s with a pair of world titles, then taking the Boston Braves to their last pennant in 1948.

One more thing – if I ever get back to Nebraska I will definitely visit this museum. After all it’s part of what makes all of this so much fun.

http://www.nebraskabaseballmuseum.com

NEBRASKA CORNHUSKERS

RH Grover C. Alexander
OF Richie Ashburn
RH Fred Beebe
2B Pug Bennett
3B Wade Boggs
OF Jackie Brandt
OF Eddie Brown
RH Tim Burke
OF Bob Cerv
RH Joba Chamberlain
OF Sam Crawford
CA Ted Easterly
RH Bob Gibson
3B Alex Gordon
SS Ron Hansen
RH Mel Harder
1B Johnny Hopp
UT Bob Johnson
RH Sheldon Jones
UT Cliff Lee
OF Les Mann
LH Clarence Mitchell
CA Les Nunamaker
RH Gregg Olson
CA Todd Pratt
OF Russ Snyder
OF Billy Southworth
RH Sloppy Thurston

Next: Colorado.