The legendary greatness of Lou Brock (who truly was "great," much to the chagrin of Ernie Broglio and Chicago Cub fans everywhere) turned the ripe old age of 71 last week.

Brock, who led the National League in stolen bases eight times (and in caught stealings a full seven times, as well!) hereby inspires another edition of Baseball's Hall of Names. No, we're not celebrating the seven Major League vets named "Brock" (two first names, five last/family names), but rather correcting the oversight that has been our error in ignoring the many great players in baseball history named "Lou" or "Lew."

First, as always, a few rules ...

Bauxite Anders' most recent Minor League Update (Groundouts, Groundouts, Everywhere) leads off with the exploits of Baby Jay hurlers Lance Broadway and Kyle Drabek. Those are two given first names you didn't hear a lot in Major League Baseball's earlier days, a time stuffed with guys named George and Joe and Honus and monikers of that ilk.

Now quick, though, consider that MLB of more recent vintage has featured 20 players with the given first or middle name "Kyle" and another 16 named "Lance" and that's decently even odds, so make your guess ... sure, we can't fill out a full 25-man roster for either, but which name, Lance or Kyle, will fill out a lineup card better?

Let's find out ...

So hooray for Dallas Braden for his recent perfecto, but what's with the Texas-themed given first name to a native of Phoenix, Arizona? And couldn't we have arranged it so that somehow the final batter in the gem was Austin Kearns or Austin Jackson? And wouldn't it have been WAY cool if the double-Texas-town-named Tyler Houston had been catching?

Okay, naybe not. But heads up for a Hall of Names team composed entirely of players who share a name (given first or middle, or family -- all good, unless noted otherwise) with one of the largest towns in the great sovereign nation -- er, U.S. state -- of Texas.

Words from valued Bauxite mamboon in a recent thread:

Right on with the name "Callix Crabbe".  A name like that should automatically earn a 30% bonus on any future contract he gets in baseball.  Callix Crabbe should indeed go down as one of the great names in baseball.  What are some other names that rival ol' Callix?  Can't think of any.

Fabulous question, deserves its own Hall of Names discussion. A few suggestions, not to say rules, as you pursue your best contributions ...

Perhaps you heard ... earlier this week, catcher Wilson Ramos of the Minnesota Twins appeared in his first career game, in lieu of the ongoing injury to Joe Mauer. In that debut, Ramos had four base hits, just the twelfth player -- and the very first catcher! -- in major league history to accomplish that feat.

In one of the great quirks of baseball -- which is, of course, filled with great quirks! -- Ramos fills out a full "starting lineup" of these four-hit wonders. Let's meet the, um, "a-four-mentioned" team now as we introduce ...

Okay, we've got the junior-high pun out of the way. Yes, I headlined this feature in a way that invites frivilous, juvenile humor. But that's only because none of the four men surnamed "Cassidy" who have played in the major leagues (including 2002 Blue Jay righty reliever Scott) have gone by "Butch."

Perhaps most surprising Butch-related factoid of all is that none of the 26 men who played big league ball bearing that nickname are currently active. And that's not likely to change any time soon, as none of the nearly 40 minor leaguers to have that appellation are active either, though two were briefly in 2009

Some other notes that will affect our roster-building ...

With all the news about Cliff Lee recently -- he was involved in a series of trades that Blue Jay fans paid some attention to, as I recall -- I found myself wondering if we could build a full roster of MLB "Cliffs."

The short answer is "yes." The longer answer is "wow, this team is a lot better than I expected it to be." The disorientingly long final roster-driven answer follows if you just click through ...

 

A recent essay by Batter's Box's own #2JBrumfield examined arbitration-eligibility news in the world of Major Leage Baseball. That called to mind recent efforts to build teams for our ongoing Baseball's Hall of Names based on player initials ... we've done dozens of such rosters of all types, ranging from G.M. to M.D. and P.R. to B.S. (that latter pairing, some wags would argue, is repetitive). But we've never done one for "R.B."

To do so, as always, we first need to set some ground rules ...

Gosh, it's been a while since we brewed up a Baseball's Hall of Names squad, but recent debate in our newest '10 Picture of the Day stirs up an idea centered around Jay uber-prospect Brett Cecil -- and it has nothing to do with Prince Fielder's daddy or old BoSox 1B Cecil Cooper or early All-Star shortstop Cecil Travis. (Or any of them guys!)

In fact, we're going the other direction, away from the young hurler's family name to his given name, Brett; so let's set some ground rules.

Congratulations to Andrew Bailey, winner of the 2009 AL Rookie of the Year award -- he probably shouldn't have won it, frankly, but the voters seem inclined to live by the mantra "when in doubt, give it to an Oakland Athletic" --he's the seventh Oaklander to win it since 1986. (The Jays have one in that time, the immortal Eric Hinske, and just one-and-a-half all-time total, to include 1979 co-winner Alfredo Griffin.)

That niffiness aside, I found myself thinking, "Bailey is a pretty common surname. I bet we could build a pretty good historical Hall of Names team of Baileys -- you know, call them the Irish Creams, the whole deal."

Boy, was I wrong ...

Another Halloween has passed, and we are more than halfway through the Nov. 1 anniversary that is known widely in many Christian denominations as "All Saints Day." I thought we might build a Hall of Names team around men with "Saint" or at least "St." in their names, but these sainted ballplayers are few and far enough between that, certainly moreso than the five dozen or so major leaguers with "Angel"-based names, they could gather to dance on the head of a pin.

Though we might assemble a full active roster if we counted the 75 or so historical minor league Saint/St. ballplayers -- including infdividuals like 1953 Drummondville Royals backstop Marcel St. Pierre (who frankly sounds more like a goaltender than a catcher) -- our major league "archive" of saints includes just three men ...

If you've been reading Da Box over the past four or five years, you know one of the sidelight features in Baseball's Hall of Names deals with players who share(d) certain initials. We've assembled teams for every possible double-initial, as well as many other obvious ones like MD, PR, BS and others.

Recently I got to thinking about baseball initials ... you know, the kind you scratch on your scorecard during a game, abbreviations like HR, RBI and HBP. Forget building a roster of these guys -- it'll be hard enough to find representatives for all the obvious baseball abbreviations we can think of. So go ahead, play along ... what initials are missing? And who would be better to fill a role in the existing All-Baseball-Initials roll-call that follows? ...

I thought this would be an easier team to build, but no such luck. Did you know that only 22 men named Bret or Brett have even played big league ball? So there will be no full roster, for sure. And three of those 22 had the last/family name Brett, including our only Hall of Famer and one of just five All-Stars. Actually, only one man with the first/given name "Brett" has even made an All-Star team (yes, yes ... the Butler did it!) -- the rest were all of the single-t "Bret" variety.

Well, the GM/owner of this team is another former All-Star -- of the NHL variety, anyway -- as Mr. Hull takes up residence in the front office overseeing the development of ...

Veteran Bauxite and original roster expansion choice Mike Green wrote it recently ...  "the RC team ... would be very competitive in the all-initial league (Campanella, Connor, Carew, Chapman, Cey, Colavito, Cullenbine, Clemente, Clemens).  Robinson Cano is a good recent addition to the  bench."

Hm. I could have sworn we did an All-RC club at one point, but apparently not ... we're "limited" in Hall of Names annals, to every single double-initial, from AA to ZZ, as well as G.M., P.R., J.R., M.D., T.O., B.S., M.O., J.V., P.M., K.B., G.B. and M.B. -- and a few others we may have missed -- but never an all R.C. team. So let's see if Mike has it right as we attempt to royally crown a new HoN roster we can only rightfully dub ...

In our recent Perry-themed return to the fun and games of the Hall of Names (after an absence of more than four months), the first reader comment, from long-time Bauxite lexomatic, opined, "I was thinking we needed a hall of names team to break things up. I tried coming up with a the Hill's themed one ... but that's a pretty bad team."

Gauntlet thrown! Challenge accepted! A hill to, if you'll pardon the pun, climb! And lex, far be it from me to say you're wrong, but this isn't a pretty bad team. It's a really bad team. Oh well, at least we built a full roster (with some leftovers, even) ...