And a holiday, of course, means a visit to Batter's Box's own Baseball Hall of Names, where in the past we've seen rosters built for Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Canada Day and others. But where sometimes we will simply build a team of players born on the designated holiday (Dec. 25 for Christmas, etc.), with a "floating date" holiday like today, that would be, well, entirely too laborious.
So instead, we invite your contributions to build a team of players who sound like they deserve the day off today ... for instance ...
There actually have been 10 players in big league history to bear the middle or family name "Carpenter," but RHSP and ex-Jay Chris has clearly been the best (sorry, Gregory Carpenter Gagne) ... There have also been 90 Millers and 63 Taylors (Tailors) ...
For the record, we will (unless the team proves particularly hard to fill out, which seems unlikely) only allow the use of each workman position once. So for the Carpenters, it's Chris; his former Cardinal teammate Lance Painter, a LHRP, also earns a spot on the roster ...
You can see by the name of our probable backup catcher (and the earlier reference to "Taylors") that we won't exactly be a stickler for exact spelling, as long as the pronunciation is pretty clear ... Mike Welday doesn't quite make it as a "welder" even in that stretched definition ... True, the probable starting catcher is a bit of a reach, as we just sort add on the -er to Phil Roof's name to make him a contracted roofer ... Ed Sales might be a bit of a reach, too, but he was in fact male, making him truly a "Sales man" -- and hey, that works better than Jeff Sellers, doesn't it?
MAKIN' A LIST ...
** indicates Hall of Famer
* indicates All-Star
Player/MGR Harry Craft(360-485, parts of 1957-64; first HOU manager)
C Phil Roof[er] (.215, 1961-77)
C Bill Plummer (.188, 1968-78)
1B Ben Taylor** (Negro League Hall of Famer)
SS/2B Eddie Miller* (.238, 97 homers, 1936-50)
SS Ed Sales (.228, 1890 Pittsburg Alleghenys)
SS/IF Jim Mason (.203, 1971-79)
OF Harry Craft (.253, 1937-42)
OF/3B Chuck Workman (.242, 50 homers, 1938, '41-46)
RHSP Chris Carpenter* (100-69 so far through 2007)
LHRP Lance Painter (25-18, 3 saves, 1993-2003)
Well, we can ALMOST put together at least a starting lineup here,
but one of our catchers would have to play in the OF -- and neither
Plummer nor Roof ever did that in the big leagues, even for an inning
... But no doubt, this list is missing LOTS of incredibly obvious
workmanlike ballplayers. So, Bauxites ...
Like who?
