My Not-so-Rational Favorite Baseball Players

I’ve seen lists of ‘best ever’ and things like that for teams and leagues.  I decided to do something different–a team of players that have weird special meanings to me.  With each player, I’ll explain.

C – Mickey Tettleton / Ron Karkovice.  This goes back to playing something called APBA baseball in computer leagues from about 1990-2017.  I’m cheating right off the bat by having two guys, but there two were part of my teams for much of their careers (1989-96).  Tettleton couldn’t field, but his OBP meant I could hit him leadoff, but in a close game after six innings, Karkovice would come in and shut the running game down for the opponent.  It’s a pity both were playing 30 years ago rather than today.  Tettleton would’ve been feared for his ability to take a walk and hit with power–and used more wisely, while Karkovice’s defense would earn him repeated all-star appearances now that catchers are valued for framing and defense more than hitting.

1B – Frank Thomas (the one from the White Sox, not the Phillies).  I had Thomas with those two catchers, but Thomas is here for a completely different reason.  Early in his career, Thomas did something pretty gutsy–before anyone else was talking, he came out and said players were juicing and using performance-drugs and it was ruining the game for people doing things the right way.  He didn’t need to do that, he risked blowback, and he said it anyways.  Scary thing is–what would his stats have looked like if you eliminated juiced pitchers?

2B – Ryne Sandberg.  I’m a Cubs fan  Given when I grew up, Sandberg at second is an obvious choice though as a young boy, I really liked Manny Trillo for some reason.  Sandberg’s here though because of my APBA hobby.  His 1984 card was the first I ever saw with a “2” on a single-column card.

SS – Larry Lintz.  I think of him at SS for some reason though he played more at second.  What I remember from watching him was he could fly.  The pity is he couldn’t hit or field great–a poor man’s Billy Hamilton, I guess.  Still, I remember the year he stole like 241 bases.  Runner-up here goes to Steve Jeltz who couldn’t hit, couldn’t field, but walked quite a bit–and the stat-guy in me has ALWAYS appreciated on-base percentage.

3B – Bill Madlock.  He only spent 1/6th of his career with the Cubs, but he was the batting champ when I was a boy and had a couple base hits in the first game I ever went to as a kid back in 74/75.  I have no idea why the Cubs traded him other than the usual Cubs management are idiots that defined 1946-1983.

LF – Dave Kingman.  I liked Kingman before he was a Cub and after.  He’s another guy who would’ve been better suited to a different era.  Kingman struck out a ton and he hit monstrous home runs.  He didn’t run well, didn’t field–but he could sail a ball for miles.  If he’d juiced up, I bet he would’ve hit 70…or torn his body in two from the torque of his swing.  Beyond his famous home run he hit about 550ft out of Wrigley onto a porch, I remember him taking a swing in a game so violently, he spun about 540-degrees and wound up on his butt.  That was 1980, I think…6th grade.

CF – Albert Almora.  He’s here for the reason every baseball fan realizes–tagging up from first in Game 7 of the World Series and putting himself in scoring position.  It was the right play, but one I don’t think many runners would have done.  They would have done the usual go halfway to second, see it caught, and jog back to first.  One shining moment.  There’s another,  a different Cub–and not really for baseball.  That’d be Rick Monday.  At a game in LA, two clowns decided to burn an American flag on the field (welcome to post-Watergate America)…Monday raced over and snagged it before they could do anything to it.  As a kid, I thought that was important.  Later, I realized he also did it because he was a Marine Corps officer–served in the Reserves.

RF – Hank Aaron.  As a kid, I probably would’ve put Dwight Evans here.  Actually, screw it–my blog…I want both.  I love Aaron’s overall ability, that he maintained his grace and composure in an era of civil unrest and broke the home run record as a black man playing for a southern team.  He has represented sports in a dignified fashion his entire life.  As for Evans, I think he’s the best player not in the Hall of Fame…and belongs there more than someone like Jack Freakin’ Morris (Morris had 25 fewer WAR and has a Neanderthal-like opinion of women, including driving one reporter to her eventual death as well as preferring racist caricatures of Shohei Ohtani).  Evans hit for power, hit for good average, walked a ton, played great defense, and other than Ichiro, I think had the best arm of any right fielder I’ve seen…so make it four–gotta have Ichiro and the ‘Shohei Kid’ here, too.

SP1 – When I was real young, my dad took me to a minor league game.  The starter was Frank Tanana…this tells you I was 4 and the year was 1972.  The year after, I likely was present for a game with a parent of one of my LLCC VB athletes, Rod Maxwell (his daughter, Haley, was the first MH ever at LLCC to be an all-American).  From that point on, I always liked Tanana.  I was too young to realize who I was watching or anything, but it’s cool that my first minor league game and I saw a future major leaguer (a really good one)

SP2 – Nolan Ryan.  It’d be easy to talk about his strikeouts and stuff.  I always liked him.  He’s here because of an ESPN contest from 15 or so years ago.  A bunch of winners got to hit BP off of Ryan.  The first guy took the second pitch way out of the park they were at and got excited/talked trash.  Don’t do that to a 55-60yr old Ryan…Ryan threw the next one up and over the guy’s head, the one after that full-force inside at about 83-84mph.  That was the end of trash-talking and the end of hitters going deep off Ryan.  I love his reaction.  He’s 73 now and still throws as hard as an average juco pitcher. AT 73.  Also–this.

SP3 – Rick Reuschel.  He’s a better pitcher than you remember.  Given that Jack Morris is in the Hall of Fame, Reuschel should be, too.  In any event, I love Reuschel because he never really looked like a baseball player should in my opinion.  Still–he was a good hitting pitcher, had some speed, and after an arm injury, changed styles and pitched another decade.  In 1987, I was there for him winning a 1-0 game over young Jamie Moyer (yes, Moyer was once young…).  Giants won it with a home run by Jose Uribe hit three rows in front of our bleacher seats.

SP4 – Luis Tiant.  Any boy in the 1970s (60s, too, I’d reckon) who didn’t imitate Tiant’s crazy wind-up is un-American.  I remember him as Red Sox, but until I set up the link for this, completely forgot he’d come up as an Indian.

RP1 – Al Hrabosky.  Kinda like Tiant–Hrabosky was known for standing off the mound and making himself get angry before pitching to hitters.  For a while it worked.  Gave him the nickname ‘The Mad Hungarian’.  Again, how could you not imitate this when playing backyard ball?  (Just don’t imitate him as a broadcaster–PLEASE!)

RP2 – Mitch Williams.  When the Cubs traded for him, they said they had a dominating closer.  I remember the home opener for the Cubs in ’89, his first game at Wrigley.  He walked the bases loaded in the ninth, then proceeded to strike the side out.  It was exciting and it wound up making for an interesting season.  In the playoffs, he gave up a hit to Will Clark in one of the longest at-bats ever–as my memory goes.  Williams threw nothing but fastballs, Clark wasn’t looking for anything else.  Clark BARELY stayed alive on several pitches, but eventually connected.  So much for 1989.

So–if you have players you like for non-objective reasons, feel free to put them in the comments.  I love reading about the crazy reasons we like certain players.