Franchise Positions: Taking the Challenge Further
Wednesday, June 04 2008 @ 12:45 PM EDT
Contributed by: Mick Doherty
Earlier this week, we took up a Reader Challenge to find "the greatese single Franchise Position in baseball history" ... after a variety of responses, including a Magpie Chart (always a sign of worthiness!) we have found candidates for every position on the diamond (including DH!) except second base.
Let's review and answer the following questions ...
- Do the Tigers (Gehringer, McAuliffe, Whitaker) deserve the 2B (or not 2B, that is the question) nod?
- What, if any, other historical team positions should bump one of those listed above?
- We need some pitching. Anyone want to take a stab at Rotation, Bullpen and Closer? (Off the top of my head, my nominees there would be Dodgers, Reds and Athletics, but that's just a wild guess ...)
That said, here are the current teams filling each position ...
- C: NYY (Dickey, Berra, Howard, Munson, Posada)
- 1B: STL (Pujols, McGwire, Guerrero, Clark, Hernandez, Torre, Cepeda, B. White, Musial, Mize, Bottomley)
- 2B: TBD!
- SS: SLB/BAL (Wallace, Wallace, Stephens, Aparicio, Belanger, Ripken, Bordick, Tejada)
- 3B: CHC (Anson, Williamson, T. Burns, Steinfeldt, Zimmerman, Hack, R. Jackson, Santo, Madlock, Cey, A. Ramirez)
- LF: BOS (D. Lewis, T. Williams, Yastrzemski, Rice, Greenwell, Ramirez)
- CF: NYY (Combs, DiMaggio, Mantle, Murcer, Henderson, B. Williams)
- RF: DET (Crawford, Cobb, Heilmann, Wertz, Kaline, Gibson, Ordonez)
- DH: OAK (F. Thomas, Durazo, Jaha, Stairs, Berroa, Neel, Baines, Kingman, Burroughs)
- SP: TBD!
- CL: TBD!
- RP: TBD!
Other historical team positions that drew mention and consideration in preparing the "lineup" above included:
- 1B NYY (Gehrig, Skowron, Chambliss, Mattingly, T. Martinez, Giambi)
- 1B NYG/SFG (Connor, Merkle, G. Kelly, Terry, Mize, Cepeda, McCovey, W. Clark)
- SS PIT (Wagner, Vaughan, Groat ... then nothin'!)
- 3B PHA/KCA/OAK (L. Cross, J. Collins, F. Baker, Higgins, E. Charles, Bando, Lansford, Chavez)
- LF PIT (Clarke, Carey, Kiner, Skinner, Stargell, Bonds, A. Martin, B. Giles, Bay)
- RF MON (Dawson, Guerrero, Staub, Valentine, Walker)
Bauxites ... over to you!
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