As I write this, the Marlins and Mets are scheduled (it's raining) to play a regular season game at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in Puerto Rico. Watch your late local news -- or SportsCenter -- for updates, I guess. In the meantime, who would have guessed that no less than eleven (11!) men with the first or middle name "Hiram" have played big league baseball?

The real oddity is ...

... that for more than a half century, from 1948 (a year after Bithorn left the big leagues) through 1999 (a year before Hiram Bocachica debuted with the Dodgers), not a single Hiram appeared in a big league lineup. Four of the 11 played strictly in the 19th century and two others solely in the 21st ...

So anyway, let's be clear and up front -- there's no way we can form a full lineup, as our list of eleven names includes four pitchers, three catchers and four outfielders, and there's no way to spin that into a starting nine ... I suppose we could bend the rules a bit and search for ways to fill out our scorecard with the four men in MLB history surnamed "High" or even the seven surnamed "Lowe" but that seems ... wrong ... So here they are -- no Hall of Famers, no All-Stars, lots of cuppajoe guys ...  At least they'll have a cool mascot, it's time to meet ...

THE HI RAMS

The Backstops
C William Hiram "Bill" Wright (2-for-3, 1887 Washington Nationals)
C Clifford Hiram "Bud" Knox (4-for-18, 1922 PIT)
C/OF/SS Hi Ebright (.254, 1889 Washington Nationals)

The Outfielders
OF/2B/3B Hiram Bocachica (.215, 1 homers, five teams, 2000-07)
OF Morris Hiram "Red" Badgro (.257, 1929-30 SLB)
OF Hiram Cleo Carlyle (.234, '27 BOS)
OF Hi Church (1-for-9, 1890 Brooklyn Gladiators)

The Pitchers
RHSP Hi Bithorn (18-12, '43 CHC; 34-31, parts of 1942-47 CHC, CHW)
RHSP Hiram Kyle Davies (38-50, 2005-10 ATL, KCR)
?HSP Marvin Hiram "Scott" Hawley (0-1, 7.71, 1894 BSN)
RHS/RP Hi West (5-6, 1905, '11 CLE)

Bocachica was part of the package Montreal sent to Los Angeles to acquire another small group of players including Ted Lilly  ... A few years later, the Dodgers shipped Hiram off to Detroit for a pair of players including Jason Frasor ... See how it all ties back to Toronto via Six Degrees of Bocachica? ... Hawley -- there is no record of which hand he threw with -- had a one-game career at the age of 19 back in 1894; his one start was a seven-inning complete game loss in which he surrendured 10 hits and issued seven walks ... Bithorn, the first Puerto Rican to play MLB, is pretty clearly the best Hiram ever to don big league duds thus far, though Davies at least has a chance to wrest that valued crown away ...

So, Bauxites ... what other names bear investigating? We're obviously willing to search Hi and Lowe ...