There has of course been much talk and discussion and argument on this site -- as on virtually any baseball site -- about the value of various numbers in The Great Game. And the yeoman's work Magpie is doing on compiling the "Lobby of Numbers" for each major league franchise is captivating in its own right.
It's simply true that certain numbers almost inevitably call up the images of certain athletes, baseball or otherwise -- 3 is Ruth, 12 is Namath, 33 is Jabbar on the west coast and Bird on the east coast, 99 is Gretzky. So we know the names within the numbers, so to speak -- but in the spirit of our never-ending quest for the perfect Baseball Hall of Names team, we come to wonder ... are there numbers within the names?
With apologies to the occasional Sixto Lezcano, Cy Twombley, Jack Fournier and Gene Tenace, the answer sadly, appears to be "no." That is, unless ...
... well, unless we break one of the long-standing rules of the ongoing Hall of Names assembly process, the one barring nicknames that could've, for instance, added Pie Traynor to our All-Food team.
If we're going to have any chance of an All-Numbers team, we're going to have to open it up to nicknames, which at the very least should add two Hall of Fame hurlers to the front of the starting rotation.
We will leave some of the other standard rules in place, including the one barring use of middle names (there are a surprising of players with middle names like Tenney and Tennyson) -- with an exception of cases where the middle name is actually the number, not just a word containing the number (oddly, there is one instance where this happens, though it really just gains us a poor-hitting infielder).
And though we are looking for and counting both ordinal and cardinal numbers, we are not allowing IIs and IIIs (though only former All-Star RHSP Ross Grimsley II would have even challenged for a spot). Essentially, we are looking for nominal numbers -- those numbers that actually name a thing. In this case, a Hall of Names team.
There has never been a player named or even nicknamed Hundred, Thousand or Million anything, with Todd and Randy Hundley and Randy Milligan/Ralph Milliard coming the closest -- but not nearly close enough to, uh, number among those making this roster.
I should also note that though the character string O-N-E appears in a wide variety of MLB players with monikers like O'Neill and O'Neal, the apostrophe keeps it from being a true "one." So they are right out.
Are we grasping at the straws of anything remotely related to numbers, where a former Rookie of the Year like John "The Count" Montefusco could help the rotation, Champ Summers might be a bat off the bench and Eddie Mathews provide a Hall of Fame upgrade at the hot corner? Well, we are scouring around for a shortstop, so as with the previous names, we'd like to make an exception for Dal Maxvill, but ... well, what the hell. We'll never fill out a full roster without 'em, so they're all in. What other math terms can you come up with to help this team out?
Now that we 've decided all the above name count, let's see how this all, ah, adds up ...
MATH CLASS
** indicates Hall of Famer
* indicates All-Star
MGR Frank Chance (what better leader for a numbers game?)
Bench Coach: Phil Garner ("garner" synonym: "amass")
Player/Hitting Coach: Fred Tenney (202-402 as manager, 1905-11)
LINEUP
C Gene Tenace* (.241, 201 homers)
1B Jack Fournier (.313, 136 homers, 1912-27)
2B Charles Ten Eyck "Chick" Lathers (.228, 1910-11)
SS Dal Maxvill (.217 over 14 seasons; 1968 Gold Glove with STL)
3B Eddie Mathews** (512 homers)
LF Sixto Lezcano (.271, 148 homers, 1974-85)
CF Lance "One Dog" Johnson* (.291, 327 SB)
RF Babe Twombly (.304, 1920-21)
DH Fred Tenney (.294, 285 SB, 1894-1911)
BENCH
C Ed Sixsmith (0-for-2 in one game for 1884 PHI)
C Art "Six O'Clock" Weaver (.183 in 86 games, 1902-08)
OF/1B Tom "Ward Six" Bannon (.265, 1895-96)
OF George Twombly (.211, 1914-19)
UTIL Erv "Four Sack" Dusak (.243 BA, 5.33 ERA as OF/2B/3B/RHRP, 1941-52)
PH/DH Champ Summers (.294/38/122, 1979-80)
ROTATION
RHSP Christy "Big Six" Mathewson** (373-188 career)
RHSP Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown** (239-130 career)
RHSP Elden "Big Six" Auker (130-101, 1933-42)
LHSP Irv "Cy the Second" Young (20-21 for Tenney-managed '05 BSN , 63-95 career)
RHSP Bill "Ninety-Six" Voiselle* (74-84, 1942-50)
BULLPEN
CL-RH Al "Two Gun" Gettel (38-45, six saves, 1935-45)
RHRP Floyd "Three Finger" Newkirk (0-0 in 1 shutout IP for '34 NYY)
RHRP George "Three Star" Hennessey (1-2 for '37 SLB, '42 PHI, '45 CHC)
LONG-RH John "The Count" Montefusco (90-83, 1975 NL Rookie of the Year)
LONG-RH Hugh "One Arm" Daily (51-47, 1883-84, 73-87 career)
Manager Chance Says "No Dice" to ...
LHSP Cy Twombly (1-2 for '21 CHW)
LHSP Henry Fournier (1-3 for 1894 CIN)
RHSP John Tener (25-31, 1888-90)
RHRP Harley "Cy the Third" Young (0-3 for '08 BSN, teammates with Irv)
How can this team be better, Bauxites? Let us count the ways ...
