As we continue our whirlwind tour of that wacky thing we call "the alphabet," it's time to construct a team entirely made up of players whose last/family name begins (or began) with the letter "K." This leads us to wonder, of course, if they'd fare well against the previously-published All-O squad -- regardless, we can rest assured that it'd be an O-K game to take in.
And no, this team will not be known as the "K Marts" (with blue light, er, light blue uniforms) -- we'll have a better name encircled by the time we get through this process; and given the multitude of options, our team uniform colours seem much more likely to be Kelly (or Kell or Kelley) green ...
... Actually, there have been no less than 11 Hall of Famers with a "K" name -- and with that short list, we can cover pretty much our entire Opening Day starting lineup, save the minor point that there'd be nobody to play the middle infield positions. But we do have a future Hall of Famer at the keystone, anyway.
The pitching staff is very interesting -- you can probably off the top of your head come up with Sandy Koufax and Jim Kaat as lefties in the rotation, and maybe you know about 300-game winner Tim Keefe, but what do you know about Ray Kremer, a righty who didn't make The Show until the age of 31, then ripped off 127 wins in his first six seasons? And we love Jimmy Key here at Batter's Box, and respect the work of 222-game winner Jerry Koosman, but neither one gets the fifth starter's role.
That final rotation slot goes to a 19th-century lefty named Matt Kilroy, who at 141-133 was little better than a .500 career hurler, but who holds the all-time single-season strikeout record with ... are you sitting down? ... 513 in 1886. With Nolan Ryan eclipsing Koufax as an inappropriately-initialed King of K's, how can we not have the all-time K leader on the all-K team?
Just how wide of a margin does Kilroy have on Ryan's 383 punchouts in a single season? Imagine if you will, someone breaking Barry Bonds' record of 73 homers -- and doing it by hitting 98 bombs. Sure, the rules were different in the 19th century, but that's impressive.
Speaking of impressive, with apologies to Keefe, you could certainly make an argument that the K starting rotation should feature no less than five lefties -- Koufax, Kaat, Key, Koosman and Kilroy. But for the sake of consistency with our other alphabet teams, we will stick with the usual RLRL5 formula.
Now, without further ado , please meet ...
THR CIRCLE K's
** indicates Hall of Famer
* indicates All-Star
MGR: Tom Kelly (1140 wins #39 all-time, leads "K" managers)
LINEUP
C King Kelly** (.308, 1813 hits; also played OF/IF)
1B Harmon Killebrew** (573 homers)
2B Jeff Kent* (.289, 302 homers through 2004)
SS Don Kessinger* (,252 over 16 seasons, two Gold Gloves)
3B George Kell** (.306, 2054 hits)
LF Chuck Klein** (.371/83/313, 1930-31)
CF Joe Kelley** (.317, 2220 hits, 1891-1908)
RF Al Kaline** (.297, 399 homers, 10 Gold Gloves)
DH Ralph Kiner ** (seven straight NL homer titles, 1946-52)
BENCH
C Jason Kendall (.306 through 2004)
IF Chuck Knoblauch* (four-time All-Star, 1991 AL Rookie of the Year)
IF Eddie Kasko* (SS/3B/2B hit .264 over 10 seasons)
OF Willie Keeler** (.341, 2932 hits)
PH/DH/OF Dave Kingman* (442 homers)
1B/2B/OF George Kelly** (.297, 1778 hits, 1915-32)
ROTATION
RHSP Tim Keefe** (342-225)
LHSP Sandy Koufax** (165-87)
RHSP Ray Kremer (127-67, 1924-30; 143-85 career)
LHSP Jim Kaat* (283-237)
LHSP Matt Kilroy (141-133 career; 513 K in 1886)
BULLPEN
CL-R Billy Koch (all-time "K" save leader with 163 through 2004)
RHRP Jim Konstanty* (66-48, 74 saves; 1950 NL MVP)
LHRP Darold Knowles* (66-74, 143 saves)
RHRP Jim Kern* (53-57. 88 saves)
LONG-R Ellis Kinder (23-6 in '49; 102 career saves)
Among those not making the roster are as follows; think of them as the group that went ...
DOWN ON K's
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050620133739107