I'll be honest -- I'm not much of a fisherman. Been out maybe four or
five times in my life, mostly for perch on Lake Erie when I was
much younger. So when the idea came to do an All-Fish Hall of
Names team, I had some misgivings. Most of what I know about fish
comes from the menus of fine seafood restaurants.
And did you realize ...
... there has never been a player named "Fish" in all of big league history?
Oh, there are the 24 Fishers
and a half-dozen others with "Fish" in the surname somewhere. But never
just a simple "Fish." That's okay, though, this team is open to any
kind of fish, a list we take from the greatness of The Internets,
whereby we simply Googled "types of fish."
That took us beyond the off-the-top-of-the-head Tim Salmon and Steve
Trout types of players and, with thanks to the greatness that is
BaseballReference.com, to an ocean (literally) of other options ...
That said, I guarantee I missed some obvious ones -- so let us know what they are! Let's see how we did as we meet ....
ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH
**indicates Hall of Fame
* indicates All-Star
LINEUP
| POSITION | PLAYER NAME [FISH TYPE] | COMMENT |
| C | Del Rice* [RICE EEL] |
Hit .237, 1945-61; Sam was a HOFer and Jim an All-Star, but Delbert Rice has the letters "eel" in his first name! |
| 1B | Sid Bream [BREAM] |
Hit .264 with 90 homers from 1983-94 with LAD, PIT, ATL, HOU |
| 2B | Frank White* [WHITEFISH] |
Hit
.255, 1973-90, eight Gold Gloves; 40 Whites have played MLB, including
five All-Stars, plus one Hall of Fame Negro League executive. |
| SS | Dickie Thon* [TUNA] |
Hit .264 from 1979-93; "thon" is the French word for "tuna." |
| 3B | Bobby Sturgeon [STURGEON] |
Mostly 2B/SS; hit .247 from 1940-42, '46-48 Cubs, Braves |
| LF | Ralph Garr* [GAR] |
Hit .306 with 172 SB, 1968-80 with ATL, CHW, CAL |
| CF | Mickey Rivers* [RIVER GOBY] |
Hit .295 with 267 SB, 1970-84; .300 in final season with TEX |
| RF | Kevin Bass* [BASS] |
Hit .270 with 118 HR and 151 SB, 1982-95 |
| DH | Tim Salmon* [SALMON] |
Nicknamed "Kingfish," hit .282 with 299 homers, for 1992-2006 Angels. |
BENCH
| C | Pop Tate [TOMTATE] |
Seven Tates have played MLB, but none named "Thomas." Pop hit .218, 1885-90 |
| IF | George Bone [BONEFISH] |
Mostly SS, hit .302 in 43 AB with 1901 Milwaukee Brewers |
| OF | Jason Lane [LANE SNAPPER] |
Hitting career .245 midway through '07; with HOU since '02; best of six Lanes to play MLB so far. |
| OF | Johnny Gill [BLUEGILL] |
Hit.245, 1927-31, '34-36 CLE, WSH, CHC |
| DH/PH/1B | Calvine Pickering [PICKEREL] |
Hit .223 with 14 homers, 1998-2001, '04-05. |
| UTIL | Lip Pike [PIKE] |
Hit .321 from 1871-87, mostly an OF, but did everything but pitch and catch. |
ROTATION
| LHSP | Eddie Plank** [PLANKTON] |
326-194, 1901-17 |
| RHSP | Dizzy Trout* [TROUT] |
170-161, 1939-52, '57 |
| LHSP | Vida Blue* [BLUEFISH] |
209-161, 1969-86 |
| RHSP |
Dave Burba [BURBOT] |
115-87, 1990-2004 |
| LHSP |
Howie Pollet* [POLLOCK] |
131-116, 1941-55 |
| CL-RH | Horacio Pina [PINFISH] |
23-23, 28 saves, 1968-74, '78 |
| LHRP |
Lafayette Sharkey "Lave" Winham [SHARK] | 3-1, 1902 BRK, 1903 PIT; middle name is only instance of "Shark" in big league annals |
| RHRP | Art Herring [HERRING] |
34-38, 13 saves, 1929-34, '39, '44-47 |
| RH-LONG | Lee Tunnell [LITTLE TUNNY] |
Exactly half of 132 career games were starts, exactly half (66 each) in relief .... 22-28, 1982-87, '89 |
| RH-LONG | Galen Cisco [LONGJAW CISCO] |
25-26, 1961-69 |
The best of the lot to not make the team is probably LHSP
Shawn Estes, an All-Star who won 99 games from 1995-2006, who would
have made the team representing the Shawnee darter ("Shawn E.," get
it?) ... Farewell, also, to Nate Bump, Frank Snook, Hanson Horsey and
Donne Wall as the Atlantic bumper, common snook, horseeye jack and
walleye will go unrepresented on this team as well ...
Plenty
of fish types go unrepresented here, though ... Among those searched
for and returning nothing but empty nets were the smelt, halibut,
flounder, hake, scamp, sardine, sailfish, jewfish (Sorry, Sandy Koufax,
not gonna happen), dog snapper, barracuda, black crevalle, anchovie,
black drum, spotted pleco, gemfish, golden orfe, bowfin, haimara,
sábalo, darter, saluda darter, sunfish, crappie, sauger, steelhead,
muskie, perch, mackerel, minnow, bonejack, and carp ... Speaking of
carp, there have been lots of Carpenters (and one Carpin) to play MLB
ball, but nobody with "just" that fishy name ...
Vida wasn't
around long enough, and nobody named Blue has ever played for the
Florida Marlins, so there is no blue marlin on this team .... Neither
is the tarpon represented, but face it, isn't that more of a great groundskeeper's name? (Hey Willy! Roll the Tarpon, it's gonna rain! ...)
So like I said earlier, this is probably missing something obvious
... chip in (cast away!) and let us know the fish type, the player and
how this roster can be better!
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20070728201226400