Here's a question to start the year, as the long winter vacations at universities across North America come to a close ...
Question of the Day: What's the best possible team your once or future college's alumni rolls could field? If you didn't go to college or went to Southeastern Podunk Polytechnic Institute for the Little Sisters of the Poor with no baseball team (or at least no alumni that made it to The Show), pick the school you think could form the best or most interesting all-alumni team(s) and go from there.
My own proud alma mater has one borderline HOF pitcher, a rock-solid back of the bullpen and a "lineup" that Kerry Ligtenberg could no-hit ...
Since Bowling Green State University has so far fielded just 15 big league players, I'm going to have to cheat a little bit to get a full team by including the next BG alum who will make it to the big leagues, Kelly Hunt, a young 1B who hit .275/21/103 for West Michigan (A ball). And although he went to Eastern Michigan, let's give a spot on the team to former Oriole All-Star catcher Chris Hoiles, the best player who is a native of Bowling Green the city, not the school -- with apologies to Andy Tracy who was also born there and went there.
That gives us eight able bodies in the starting lineup, though some folks are going to have to play out of position, because only one player -- Danny Godby -- ever appeared in a major league outfield; well, that's not quite true, as Roger McDowell also played several batters in the OF a few times for the Phillies while they were trying to conserve bullpen arms and switched him between the mound and the OF in the same inning to get matchups, but he's at the back of what is a really fine bullpen out of BG, so we'll leave him there.
It probably won't be hard for Gizzi out of USC to top this Bowling Green alumni lineup -- are there any Arizona State alumni out there reading this? -- and should you want to give it a try with your alma mater (or current or future school of choice) find all the help you need here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/schools
C Chris Hoiles (Eastern Michigan)
1B Kelly Hunt
2B John Knox
SS Brian Koelling
3B Larry Arndt
LF Andy Tracy (sure, he can do it!)
CF Danny Godby
RF Larry Owen (normally a C -- who broke Mike Schmidt's conference career HR record)
Nice rotation horse and a heckuva a bullpen, but not much beyond "Orel and pray for rain." McDowell, Jackson and Bair were all solid closers at one time.
RHSP Orel Hershiser
RHSP Kip Young
CL Roger McDowell
RHRP Doug Bair
LHRP Grant Jackson
LHRP Roy Lee
RHRP Jeff Jones
LHRP Barney Mussill
LHRP Scott Taylor
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050103125922999