The Mountain West trio

And we are back out West, for good (well, except for a few trips to foreign lands). The next team we’re featuring is a hybrid of Utah, Nevada and New Mexico. Nevada went into the union in 1864 so the other two whose statehood came later get to move up in line.

How did we arrive at this combination? What do I call this unlikely grouping? For now I’ve settled on Mountain West. There’s nothing else that really connects the three … in fact, unless you’re standing at the Four Corners Monument you can’t go directly from New Mexico to Utah.

It makes sense to combine Utah and Nevada as together they have produced fewer than 60 MLB players. New Mexico only has 20 or so players and obviously can’t have its own team. I could have put the Land of Enchantment with Arizona, right next door, but Arizona has 80 or so players and with the population gains of the last decade or two will probably be over 100 before too long. So I decided to move the New Mexico guys to Utah and Nevada’s team.

The top two guys on the team, actually, are New Mexico players. Vern (Junior) Stephens was a big RBI man playing shortstop for the St. Louis Browns and Boston Red Sox in the 1940s and early ’50s. And then there’s Ralph Kiner.

Ralph today is probably remembered more for his malapropisms on Mets broadcasts, and let me say right here that I love those and will never tire of them. But Ralph was one of the great power hitters of all time, and that should be remembered too.

As for the others … Nevada could have used Greg Maddux, who went to school in Las Vegas, but wasn’t born there. He’s on the already loaded Texas team. The Silver State’s top non-pitcher is Marty Cordova, the 1995 AL Rookie of the Year with the Twins who hit 122 major league homers. Nate Schierholtz of the Giants moved into a second-place tie for Nevadans with 6, equaling the output of Justin Leone of the 2004 Mariners.

Barry Zito is the winningest Nevada pitcher with 133. Another A’s hurler, Jumbo Jim Nash, had 68. No one active seems likely to top Zito.

Utah’s top home run hitter is Duke Sims, who caught for a bunch of teams in the ’60s and ’70s, with exactly 100. I’d go with Bruce Hurst as the top Utahn overall as he won 145 games, with a decade-long run of double-digit win seasons, and came as close as you can come to winning a World Series MVP award without actually winning one.

There are two good managers to choose from. Salt Lake City’s Herman Franks is a backup catcher on this team, and after being a longtime lieutenant for Leo Durocher, he got to manage the Giants and Cubs. He had some solid years, finishing second four times with the Giants, but never saw the postseason as a skipper.

Fred Haney, on the other hand, won a World Series in 1957 with the Milwaukee Braves, took the Braves back in ’58 – though they lost a 3-1 Series lead – and lost in an NL playoff in ’59. Haney, from Albuquerque, also will play a fair amount of infield in addition to managing the Cougars – about the only nickname I could think of to connect the three. And imagine the promotional possibilities.

Haney will find this team to be more like his experience managing the Browns and Pirates (a .454 percentage) than his glory years with the Braves (.594). Leaning on Kiner and Stephens and Zito and Hurst will help, but competing with the big boys is going to be a challenge.

MOUNTAIN WEST COUGARS

OF Marty Cordova
2B Brian Dallimore
RH Wheezer Dell
RH Kelly Downs
CA Herman Franks
IF Fred Haney (mgr)
RH Ed Heusser
RH Ken Hunt
LH Bruce Hurst
OF Ralph Kiner
3B Justin Leone
RH Brandon Lyon
RH Mike Macdougal
OF Billy McMillon
OF Bobby Mitchell
RH Jim Nash
RH Steve Ontiveros
RH Gordon Rhodes
OF Rob Richie
OF Cody Ross
OF Nate Schierholtz
UT Chris Shelton
CA Duke Sims
SS Gordon Slade
SS Vern Stephens
1B Chuck Stevens
RH Duane Ward
LH Barry Zito

Next: Nebraska.

Back East – to West Virginia

If you’ve read through all of these posts, thanks very much. You may recall that we’re doing this in the order that the states were admitted to the union (as in the states’ quarters series). We’re up to the 1860s.

West Virginia of course became independent from Virginia during the Civil War. It was the only state to secede from a Confederate state.

When I was putting together the groups for our competition, coming up next month, it was kind of a challenge to keep the teams together in terms of rivalries, while not putting too many strong teams in one group. I did put West Virginia back with Virginia, with D.C. and Ohio also in there. More about that when we’re ready to play.

Its statehood roughly coincides with the era where base ball was starting to catch on as the national pastime. It’s a pretty good team for having just 114 players.

George Brett was born in Glen Dale, up in that tip part of the state. Again, the family moved west and ended up in California. (Apparently the family moved a lot because older brother and fellow big leaguer Ken was born in Brooklyn.)

He was not touted as a future superstar, though he was drafted in the second round, and eventually made it to Kansas City in 1973. He batted .282 in his first full year in ’74, and then he really took off. He won his first batting title in ’76 when the Royals won their first division title. In 1980, he made his famous run at .400, coming within just a few days at the end of the season of the mark before settling for .390. He was the easy selection for the MVP and his home run off Goose Gossage in the ALCS lifted the Royals to the World Series for the first time.

In 1985, he had perhaps his greatest year. He won a Gold Glove for the only time in his career. He hit .335 with 30 homers and 112 RBI, the Royals won the AL West and took their long-awaited World Series title. He won another batting title in 1990 and ended up as one of four players with 3,000 hits, 300 homers and a .300 career average. The others were Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Stan Musial.

More than that, though, Brett was a highly respected player. As a White Sox fan in the 1970s, the Royals were disliked because they were the top team in the West in the second half of the decade. But no one I knew then, or have met since, disliked George Brett. The phrase “he plays the game like it was meant to be played” is overused these days, but George Brett did just that. And he had fun doing it.

That’s a lot on one player compared to most posts but hey, everyone liked the guy. The rest of the team is interesting, too. World Series hero Bill Mazeroski and old-time outfielder Jesse Burkett are the only other Hall of Famers, but there are top 19th Century shortstop Jack Glasscock, famed non-athlete and TV talking head John Kruk, Reds outfielder and legendary football coach Greasy Neale, and another World Series hero, pitcher Lew Burdette.

Charlie Manuel, who loves to teach hitting, didn’t make the team as a player, but he’s about the easiest choice for manager of any state. Only Glasscock among the other five options for manager was even at .500. Manuel is as of this writing 114 games over .500, and has won four division titles, two pennants and (so far) one World Series. He may get to add to that in the next 48 hours. His teams almost always play better in the second half of the season. “Cholly” for some reason isn’t mentioned among the game’s top managers even though the record says he belongs. We might say the same about West Virginia’s team.

WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS

2B Sam Barkley
RH Sheriff Blake
3B George Brett
UT Larry Brown
RH Lew Burdette
OF Jesse Burkett
RH Max Butcher
OF Mel Clark
LH Wilbur Cooper
RH Wayland Dean
RH Earl Francis
3B Gene Freese
SS Jack Glasscock
1B Joe Hague
SS Toby Harrah
OF Lee King
1B John Kruk
2B Bill Mazeroski
RH Jock Menefee
RH Win Mercer
OF Greasy Neale
2B Dick Padden
RH Rick Reed
CA Andy Seminick
LH Chuck Stobbs
OF Farmer Weaver
UT John Wockenfuss
CA Steve Yeager

Next: Back out West and more mountains.

Barney and friends

It’s back to the Heartland and the state of Kansas.

I mentioned in the Iowa post about the Plains producing some of the very best pitchers. Walter Johnson is possibly the best of them all.

He was born 112 years ago this week on a farm outside Humboldt. His family moved to California (another one!) when Walter was 14. Eventually he made his way to Idaho, where he was spotted by a Washington Senators scout.

I hope that scout got a bonus, because Johnson was possibly the greatest pitcher who ever lived. He won 417 games, behind only Cy Young, and far ahead of anyone else. His career ERA was 2.17. He struck out 3,509 batters, a total that held up for more than a half-century as the most in history. He won the pitchers’ triple crown (wins, ERA, strikeouts) three times. Perhaps most impressive of all, he recorded 110 shutouts. Safe to say that one’s going to hold up for a while.

Like with most of his Nats teams, though, the Kansas crew is not really up to the standards of “Barney” – Johnson’s nickname, after auto racer Barney Oldfield. Because Johnson threw very hard, you see, and the sportswriters also called him the Big Train because locomotives were still the thing 100 years ago. Airplanes were just, um, taking off.

The only other Hall of Famer on the squad is Joe Tinker, who is mostly enshrined because he was in a poem. A good shortstop, though. The biggest threats on offense are George Grantham of the 1920s Pirates, Braves 1978 Rookie of the Year Bob Horner and former Phillie catcher Darren “Dutch” Daulton. Johnny Damon is here too. Johnson will have some help from Negro league greats Chet Brewer and Frank Wickware.

As for the manager, I could have gone with Ralph Houk, who won World Series in his first two seasons, a pennant in his third, then managed mostly mediocre teams in New York, Detroit and Boston. But “The Major” is needed as the third-string catcher, so I’m going with the fiery Gene Mauch.

Gene is better known for never reaching the World Series despite coming ridiculously close three times (’64, ’82 and ’86). He managed and won more than anyone else in that category, by far. This seems more like his kind of team, at least in terms of speed and talent. And he does have the Big Train, making this a tough team to beat when “Barney” takes the mound at least.

KANSAS JAYHAWKS

RH Elden Auker
OF Beals Becker
RH Chet Brewer
OF George Brickell
RH Larry Cheney
1B Tony Clark
OF Johnny Damon
CA Darren Daulton
2B Bingo DeMoss
2B George Grantham
RH Claude Hendrix
3B Bob Horner
CA Ralph Houk
RH Walter Johnson
2B Pete Kilduff
LH Paul Lindblad
OF Don Lock
LH Rudy May
CA Ray Mueller
OF Butch Nieman
RH Steve Renko
SS Bill Russell
1B David Segui
LH Ed Siever
RH Luther Taylor
SS Joe Tinker
OF Mitch Webster
RH Frank Wickware

Next: West Virginia.

On the Oregon trail

We are in the Pacific Northwest for the first time. Unlike Lewis and Clark, Oregon doesn’t represent the end of the journey for us. Although I guess it didn’t for them either, because they had to turn around and go home. But it was the big moment.

Oregon – outfitted in Nike uniforms, of course – does have some talent among its relatively small group of players, including World Series hero Mickey Lolich, All-Star second baseman and MLB commentator Harold Reynolds, slugger Dave “Kong” Kingman and early power-speed guy Ken Williams (not the White Sox GM but the Browns’ outfielder of the 1920s). Also Red Sox legend Johnny Pesky and current Boston favorite Jacoby Ellsbury, the first Navajo in MLB.

The closest thing to a Hall of Famer here is Dale Murphy. While he was playing, he certainly seemed like he was on his way. He won a couple of home run titles in the ’80s while the Braves games were televised from coast to coast on TBS. Like Williams, he had a 30-30 season. Murphy also won five Gold Gloves, mastering center field after a failed beginning as a catcher.

But he fell off sharply, and ended up out of baseball by age 36, two homers short of 400. He also missed out on the Braves’ glory years of the 1990s. I don’t think he’ll make the Hall, even though he was a quality guy on and off the field, because his numbers probably won’t gain enough support (like his .265 career batting average). But he wouldn’t be the worst guy in there, by far. He could do it all.

Only three Oregonians have managed in the big leagues, with Pesky and current Mariners skipper Don Wakamatsu being two of them. But our manager is Del Baker, who guided the Tigers to the pennant in 1940, and was a coach under Mickey Cochrane when Detroit won the pennant in ’34 and won its first World Series in ’35.

The pitching beyond Lolich isn’t great, so if the Oregonians are going to do anything, the offense is going to have to blaze the trail.

OREGON TRAIL BLAZERS

RH Larry Andersen
UT Wally Backman
RH Bill Bevens
3B Scott Brosius
2B Dick Egan
OF Jacoby Ellsbury
RH Kevin Gregg
RH Jeremy Guthrie
CA Scott Hatteberg
1B John Jaha
RH Larry Jansen
RH Syl Johnson
OF Dave Kingman
RH Jeff Lahti
LH Mickey Lolich
OF Dale Murphy
RH Steve Olin
CA Mark Parent
OF Tom Parrott
SS Johnny Pesky
CA Ben Petrick
2B Harold Reynolds
LH Jim Rooker
OF Aaron Rowand
OF Wes Schulmerich
1B Richie Sexson
RH Wayne Twitchell
OF Ken Williams

Next: Kansas.

M for Minnesota, Muskies and Mauer

We’re into the home stretch now and it’s exciting to think of playing some games between these teams. Not too much longer to go … there are many states to cover, of course, but some are combined to make one team.

Minnesota completes our slightly delayed upper Midwest tour. The Muskies name was used by the ABA franchise in the 1960s and I like it – alliterative and also descriptive of the state’s fishing vast resources.

The center of the state’s talent base seems to be the capital, St. Paul. Four prominent players came from there.

In order of age, there are Dave Winfield, Jack Morris, Paul Molitor and Joe Mauer. The first three were contemporaries, all with World Series rings and great careers. Winfield and Molitor were easy Hall of Fame selections. Morris, much like the recently discussed Bert Blyleven, has supporters and detractors for his Hall bid. After his 10-inning, 1-0 Game 7 victory over the Braves in the 1991 World Series, many people thought it was a done deal that Morris would go to Cooperstown. But he’s still waiting.

The last guy of course is the local guy who was able to stay home. The others eventually found their way to the Twins, but Mauer was drafted by them, from the same high school as Molitor, and the No. 1 pick overall over Mark Prior. That was roundly criticized at the time as favoring the hometown kid and/or going the cheap route (high school prospect versus major league ready pitcher). At first, of course, Prior was as good as advertised, but as he began to break down physically, Mauer was rising through the Twins’ system and now owns three batting titles, a Gold Glove and soon an MVP award.

Mauer has proved himself beyond a shadow of a doubt; the only question is, where will he play after 2010, when he becomes a free agent? The Twins will certainly have to open up the checkbook to have any hope of keeping him.

At least with the Minnesota team here, he will stay home. He’ll catch, among others, Hall of Famer Charles “Chief” Bender, a great big-game pitcher who posted a 2.44 ERA in World Series play. There are a lot of guys who can get behind the plate on the roster though, five of the 17 position players who made the Muskies are rated at catcher.

Other pitchers include Mets star Jerry Koosman, curveball specialist Bill Gullickson and ’20s ace Bullet Joe Bush. It seems that a lot of pitchers named Joe were called either Bullet Joe or Smokey Joe.

The manager, like his catcher, achieved his professional heights in his home state. Tom Kelly’s only big-league playing appearance was as a Twin in 1975. He got a couple of months to impress as a first baseman, but he only hit .181 with one homer, so it was back to the minors. About a decade later, he was back as the manager and he ended up leading the Twins to their only two world championships.

MINNESOTA MUSKIES

RH Chief Bender
CA Johnny Blanchard
LH Tom Burgmeier
RH Joe Bush
2B Joe Crooks
2B Gene DeMontreville
OF Jim Eisenreich
RH Steve Foucault
RH Bill Gullickson
RH Carmen Hill
1B Kent Hrbek
RH Josh Johnson
2B Jerry Kindall
LH Jerry Koosman
OF Roger Maris
CA Joe Mauer
3B Paul Molitor
RH Jack Morris
OF Walt Moryn
RH Tom Niedenfuer
SS Jimmy Pofahl
OF Rip Repulski
OF Larry Rosenthal
CA Terry Steinbach
OF Joe Visner
LH Rube Walberg
CA Wes Westrum
OF Dave Winfield

Next: Oregon.

A man, a plan, a canal … Panama+

In the last post, I listed Panama as one of the nations that was going to have its own team in our little project. But I ran into two big problems.

First, I don’t really have a team for the players from the smaller Central and South American countries, nor the island nations. I don’t want to leave out the likes of Dennis Martinez, Chili Davis, Andruw Jones and others, but there aren’t enough of them to form their own squad.

The second issue is Panama itself. There are about 50 players from the country who have played in the major leagues. Sure, they could put a team out there, but it wouldn’t be very competitive. So we solve two problems; hey, that was easy. The only thing is what to call this amalgamation of talent. For now I’m settling on the somewhat generic “Panama Plus.”

The best thing about the combined forces team is that the great Mariano Rivera will get to close some games. With the team just consisting of Panamanians, “Mo” would have had very few leads to protect. The ace probably would be Juan Berenguer. Now we have Dennis Martinez and a few other guys who would have a chance to get the game into Mariano’s hands.

I was going to feature one of my longtime favorites, Rod Carew, but I just did his teammate Bert Blyleven in the last post. Before Rivera, Carew was easily the best known Panamanian player, although his family moved to New York City when he was a teen. The name of the team comes from a pinch runner the Oakland A’s used in the ’70s, Allan Lewis. He got a couple of World Series rings for basically staying on the bench and pinch running when needed. But Charlie Finley liked having the “Panamanian Express” around, and he liked nicknames.

Speaking of the World Series … at the beginning of the season I picked the Dodgers. Before the playoffs I guessed Yankees-Cardinals. Now, I don’t know. I probably should stop selling the Phillies short. I don’t know that I’m really disrespecting them, but their bullpen issues scared me off. But Charlie Manuel (who we’ll talk about a few posts down the line) either lucked out or knew exactly what he was doing. Lidge figured out his problems and the Phillies repeated as NL champs for the first time in their history. Perhaps with some help from Carlos Ruiz, one of the players on the roster below.

I’ll go with the Yankees, since I did have them in there, and to give the Phillies the incentive that they seem to be thriving on.

Who manages the Panama and Friends team? None have had the chance in the majors yet, so I decided on Hector Lopez, the former Yankee outfielder-third baseman who ran the Panama team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Lopez managed the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons 40 years ago, the first black man to manage at that level. He was also the first everyday player from Panama, and makes the playing roster as well. From the list below, I would guess Hector will be the regular third baseman.

This certainly isn’t the best team around, or even close to it. But if the Central America crew can get into the eighth and ninth innings with the lead, it might be the team you’d least like to face.

PANAMA PLUS EXPRESS

RH Juan Berenguer
UT Jerry Browne
UT Jolbert Cabrera
SS Orlando Cabrera
2B Rod Carew
LH Bruce Chen
RH Manuel Corpas
OF Chili Davis
CA Elrod Hendricks
OF Andruw Jones
RH Jair Jurrjens
OF Roberto Kelly
OF Carlos Lee
OF Hector Lopez (mgr)
RH Dennis Martinez
RH Ramiro Mendoza
OF Ben Oglivie
RH Vicente Padilla
OF Adolfo Phillips
RH Sidney Ponson
SS Edgar Renteria
RH Mariano Rivera
RH Humberto Robinson
CA Carlos Ruiz
1B Olmedo Saenz
CA Manny Sanguillen
2B Rennie Stennett
OF Devon White

Next: Back to the U.S.A.

The Old World

This project began with me anticipating being able to field 52 teams – 44 representing the U.S., and eight international squads.

The international contingent, in my mind anyway, consisted of Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Japan, the Dominican Republic and Panama.

The problem with that was that we were leaving out a major portion of the world. Not a ton of baseball players, of course, but I wanted to make this project as inclusive as possible. Unaccounted for: the rest of Asia aside from Japan … the players from smaller countries in South and Central America … and the whole of Europe.

So I’ve bumped it up to 54 teams, including a team from Europe and a team from Asia (not including Japan), and we’ll add some guys to Panama’s crew to make them stronger. We’ll try Europe first.

It’s an interesting mix, with guys who were born on Air Force bases (like Glenn Hubbard) and a lot of 19th Century guys. We have England, France, Germany, West Germany, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia (Elmer Valo) and Austria-Hungary (longtime baseball man Jack Quinn). Bobby Thomson was, of course, the Staten Island Scot, living in New York but born in Glasgow. His 86th birthday is tomorrow, Oct. 25. No one from Italy though, as Reno Bertoia didn’t quite make it here.

The featured guy is from the Netherlands, perhaps you’ve heard of him, a pitcher named Bert Blyleven. Much has been written elsewhere about whether or not he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. I say yes, he does. All those strikeouts and shutouts may not put him at the very top of the pitching lists, but certainly well within the Hall of Fame’s range. Another guy who isn’t in the Hall is left-hander Tony Mullane, born in Ireland and known as “The Apollo of the Box.” He had just three fewer wins than Blyleven (287 to 284) and occasionally threw right-handed, which was actually his natural side before he suffered an arm injury.

Harry Wright is the manager, as he was for the legendary 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. He was a pioneer in strategies such as positioning fielders by who was batting. Born in England, his background of course was in cricket, and he was a fine player himself though his career was interrupted by the war … the Civil War. The odds are stacked against him with this team, but it looks like a fun one to manage.

EUROPE EUROS

OF John Anderson
CA Jimmy Archer
UT Jeff Baker
1B Heinz Becker
3B Mike Blowers
RH Bert Blyleven
RH Tommy Bond
3B Dave Brain
1B Ed Cogswell
OF Patsy Donovan
UT Jack Doyle
RH Moe Drabowsky
2B Hobe Ferris
UT Jocko Fields
SS Jimmy Hallinan
LH Otto Hess
CA Dick Higham
2B Glenn Hubbard
SS Steve Jeltz
RH Charlie Lea
LH Craig Lefferts
RH Ted Lewis
2B Reddy Mack
RH Jim McCormick
RH Tony Mullane
RH Jack Quinn
OF Bobby Thomson
OF Elmer Valo

Next: Central America and a few more.

The beast!

As of last year, 1,893 major-league baseball players were born in the Golden State. Add 37 more to the list for 2009. But you really have to be outstanding even to be considered for the roster of the California Bears.

I can hear the Stanford grads now … why that nickname? There are many possibilities. But the bear is the official state animal. And let’s face it, this team is a bear. I think there are 17 Hall of Famers, and that doesn’t include those who aren’t eligible yet.

The difference between California and the No. 2 state in big leaguers, Pennsylvania, is about the size of Missouri’s MLB population–and Missouri ranks seventh. Talk about a big-market team. And if you included players who lived most of their lives in California but were born somewhere else, well, I wouldn’t have even pursued this project.

There was some thought to splitting the bear in two (you could even do individual teams for most of the big cities), but I wanted to keep it as one for a few reasons. First, to see just how good one team could be. And second, I don’t think this team is unbeatable.

The hitting, of course, is unbelievable. Start with an outfield of Barry Bonds, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. Or you could start the second-string outfield of Harry Heilmann, Duke Snider and Tony Gwynn. No room for Hall of Famers Harry Hooper and Chick Hafey.

The rest of the lineup includes a who’s who of greats as well – Cronin, Murray, Doerr, Gordon and Lombardi.

Pitching is very good as well with USC grads Tom Seaver and Randy Johnson heading the rotation and the bullpen of Dennis Eckersley, Dan Quisenberry and Trevor Hoffman. Is the whole group as good as, say, Pennsylvania’s or New York’s? It might not be. We’ll find out when we start playing the games.

Obviously there is no dearth of managerial candidates either. There are 46 to choose from – contrast that with Delaware’s roster total of 48 players. Eleven of the managers had at least one first-place finish. Three won a World Series: Bob Lemon, Billy Martin and Frank Chance. Martin won in ’77 with the Yankees, Lemon in ’78 and Chance is still the only Cub manager to win it all, doing it in 1907 and ’08. Lem and the Peerless Leader made the roster, and Billy did not. This doesn’t really seem like Billy Martin’s kind of team … mostly sitting around, waiting for the big hit. But I’m putting him in charge because he was a winner everywhere he managed, and he managed in a lot of places, some of them several times.

The pressure is going to be on him here, but this team almost can’t fail, not with this offense. The outlook, as usual, is sunny.

CALIFORNIA BEARS

OF Barry Bonds
CA Gary Carter
1B Frank Chance
SS Joe Cronin
OF Joe DiMaggio
2B Bobby Doerr
RH Don Drysdale
RH Dennis Eckersley
LH Lefty Gomez
2B Joe Gordon
OF Tony Gwynn
3B Stan Hack
OF Harry Heilmann
RH Trevor Hoffman
LH Randy Johnson
2B Tony Lazzeri
RH Bob Lemon
CA Ernie Lombardi
1B Mark McGwire
1B Eddie Murray
3B Graig Nettles
RH Dan Quisenberry
RH Tom Seaver
OF Duke Snider
RH Dave Stewart
RH Dave Stieb
SS Alan Trammell
OF Ted Williams

Next: An emerging power outside the U.S.

Hello Wisconsin!

The land of cheese, bratwurst and nostalgia TV shows (I assume there will eventually be a 1990s show set in Wisconsin) has also given us some ballplayers who make us look back to those sometimes happy days.

Three Hall of Fame pitchers called Wisconsin home – Burleigh Grimes, the last legal spitballer; 361-game winner Charles Augustus (Kid) Nichols; and Addie Joss, who died of meningitis after just nine big-league seasons. He won 15 or more games seven times, led the American League in ERA twice and pitched a perfect game in the heat of the 1908 pennant race.

The greatest hitter from America’s Dairyland is an easy choice. Al Simmons had an unconventional style, hitting with his stride heading toward third base from the right-handed batter’s box, earning him the nickname “Bucketfoot Al.” Fortunately no one tried to change him. He was the AL’s all-time leading hitter among righties until Al Kaline passed him.

Simmons drove in 165 runs in 138 games in 1930 as the cleanup hitter for the great Philadelphia Athletics. He’ll probably bat third here, as he’s easily the best hitter. As you can tell, he’s ecstatic about the news. (Those guys in the 1930s just didn’t style like they do now, huh?)

Some other interesting characters populate this team, including hard-throwing reliever Ryne Duren and first baseman Joe Hauser, nicknamed “Unser Choe” by the Germans who watched him play for the long-ago minor league Milwaukee Brewers. Hauser made it to the majors for a while, and then back in the minors in the ’30s, hit 60 homers in a season twice, with the professional record of 69 set in 1933 for the Minneapolis Millers. That mark held up for 21 years.

The manager could have been Harvey Kuenn, who took his hometown Milwaukee Brewers to a World Series. Harvey, though, will be in the lineup every day, maybe at shortstop, maybe in the outfield.

Clarence “Pants” Rowland won the whole thing with the 1917 White Sox. He got out before the Black Sox thing blew up (he’s reunited with Happy Felsch here though), and ended up with a .591 winning percentage. He umpired some games, and served as president of the Pacific Coast League. He might be able to coax a few more wins out of the Wisconsinites.

WISCONSIN BADGERS

OF Ginger Beaumont
UT Lave Cross
OF Abner Dalrymple
RH Ryne Duren
OF Happy Felsch
2B Jim Gantner
RH Burleigh Grimes
2B Mark Grudzielanek
1B Joe Hauser
RH Addie Joss
3B Ken Keltner
1B Ed Konetchy
LH Dave Koslo
SS Tony Kubek
UT Harvey Kuenn
OF Chet Laabs
SS George McBride
CA Damian Miller
RH Kid Nichols
OF Andy Pafko
CA Don Pavletich
RH Brad Radke
OF Braggo Roth
LH Johnny Schmitz
OF Al Simmons
LH Zane Smith
LH Jarrod Washburn
RH Bob Wickman

Next: The 1,893-pound gorilla.

Orange blossoms

No state has come so far so fast as Florida has.

Fifty years ago, the Sunshine State had just a handful of baseball players. With the population boom and year-round baseball, it’s solidly in the top 15 and still moving up rapidly, although that growth looks like it’s slowing down.

Because of the relatively short history, there aren’t too many all-time greats from Florida but the total is moving up. The first is the great shortstop Pop Lloyd, who was compared to Honus Wagner many years ago. The greatest pitcher, easily, is Steve Carlton and his devastating slider.

The likely Suns’ outfield of Tim Raines, Andre Dawson and Gary Sheffield all have a good chance to get in eventually. But a guy who will probably go right in when he becomes eligible is Chipper Jones.

Larry Wayne Jones has played for the same team, for the same manager even, for his entire 16-year career. He is behind only Mickey Mantle and Eddie Murray among switch-hitters in home runs and most of the power categories. (Obviously Pete Rose is ahead in hits.)

Jones is talking about maybe hanging it up after next season, but I doubt he will. The Braves are contenders again, with a great young rotation, and even if Bobby Cox leaves after 2010 as he says he will.

Chipper will be playing for another future Hall of Fame manager on this Florida team.

Florida has a lot of great managerial candidates. Buck O’Neil could get the job. Six men have won pennants or division titles, four have won the World Series, including second baseman Davey Johnson. Al Lopez, who didn’t win the Series, has the best record (.584), but I’ve decided to use him as a catcher. Lou Piniella is on the squad as well.

So the guy is another of the Tampa group, Tony La Russa. Thirty years after replacing our Arkansas skipper, Don Kessinger, at the helm of the White Sox, La Russa is still at it, taking another team to the postseason. Speaking of which …

I know I picked the Dodgers before the season started, and they did have the best record in the NL for the first time since 1983, but I don’t see how they’re going to beat the Cardinals, who will be able to start Carpenter and Wainwright three or perhaps four times.

I think the Cards and Phillies will prevail in the NLDS (NLDSes?) and that the Yankees will beat the Red Sox, making Fox happy. Then the Yankees will beat the Cards in the World Series.

La Russa has lost World Series before, and he’s won a couple. That happens when you win more games than anyone not named Mack or McGraw (and they were running the whole operation). No one managing now is likely to catch La Russa. This team will, like all of his teams, compete to the end.

FLORIDA SUNS

UT Jay Bell
RH Jack Billingham
LH Steve Carlton
RH Doug Corbett
OF Andre Dawson
SS David Eckstein
RH Alex Fernandez
1B Steve Garvey
OF Luis Gonzalez
RH Dwight Gooden
RH Tom Gordon
LH Mike Hampton
RH Jay Howell
CA Charles Johnson
2B Davey Johnson
3B Howard Johnson
3B Chipper Jones
SS Pop Lloyd
CA Al Lopez
1B Fred McGriff
OF Hal McRae
OF Lou Piniella
1B Boog Powell
OF Tim Raines
OF Gary Sheffield
CA Mike Stanley
RH Bobby Thigpen
RH Tim Wakefield

Next: Texas.