Never accuse a major league ballplayer of "jakin' it." Well, maybe San Diego baseball fans would actually be
thrilled
if their entire starting rotation started "Jake-ing it" in the manner
of young Mr. Peavy. Could we build a representative (read:
decent) Hall of Names roster built entirely of choices from the
56 men in big league history who bore the first name "Jake"?
Actually, to clarify, given our usual "no nickname" rule, of those 56
MLB Jakes, only two have actually been
named "Jake" (Mooty and
Westbrook) and just 27 of the 56 -- that's less than half -- were even
named "Jacob," so we will go with the full BaseballReference.com search
on the name, including nicknames, to amass our 56 candidates, finding
just one Hall of Famer and three All-Stars (two active, both pitchers,
both already named here!). But as they say in Cleveland these days,
let's get started -- it's a beautiful day for baseball at ...