How to Be a Yankee Fan In Kansas City -- 2022 Edition

Next Friday, April 29, the Yankees head to Kansas City to play the Royals.

Going to Kansas City.
Kansas City, here I come.
They got some crazy little women there
and I'm a-gonna get me one.

Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller wrote that tune back in the 1950s, and it's been recorded by a lot of people. It hit Number 1 for Wilbert Harrison in 1959.

It doesn't say anything about baseball, though. Until recently, the Royals had a very spotty history -- they didn't make the Playoffs for 28 seasons (1986 to 2013), and in 58 seasons of Major League Baseball (13 for the A's, 1955-67; 45 for the Royals, 1969-2013), the city had been in the postseason just 7 times.

That changed in 2014, as they won one of the American League's Wild Card slots, won the Pennant for the 1st time since their 1985 World Championship, took the San Francisco Giants to the 9th inning of Game 7 of the World Series, won another Pennant last year, and reaped the rewards of the Mets embarrassing themselves in the World Series to take their 1st title in 30 years.

Kansas City has quite a fascinating baseball history, and should still be regarded as a good baseball town.

Before You Go. Check the Kansas City Star website for the weather forecast before you go. (The rival Kansas City Times stopped publishing in 1990.) K.C. can get really hot in the summer, but, this time, the problem won't be the temperatures, but the rain: It should be in the low 70s by day, and the low 50s at night, but "Scattered Thunderstorms" are predicted for Friday. There could be at least one rain delay, maybe even a rainout, and Kauffman Stadium has no seats covered.

Kansas City is in the Central Time Zone, an hour behind New York and New Jersey. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.

Tickets. The Royals averaged 18,661 fans per home game in 2019, the last pre-COVID season. What this means for a fan visiting Kansas City is that you can pretty much walk up to the ticket booth on the day of the game and buy any seat you can afford.

Dugout Boxes run $92, Field Boxes $52, Outfield Boxes $39, Hy-Vee Boxes (these and all after them are upper deck) $23, and Hy-Vee View $16.

Getting There. Kansas City's Crown Center is 1,194 road miles from New York's Times Square, and it's 1,190 miles from Yankee Stadium to Kauffman Stadium. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there. Round-trip, nonstop, on United Airlines can be just $438. When you get there, the 129 bus takes you from Kansas City Mid-Continent Airport to downtown in under an hour, so that's convenient.

Bus? Not a good idea. Greyhound runs 6 buses a day between Port Authority and Kansas City, and only 2 of them are without changes in Pennsylvania (possibly in Philadelphia, possibly in Pittsburgh). The total time is about 29 hours, and costs $614 round-trip, although it can drop to as little as $363 with advanced purchase -- only a little less than flying this time. The Greyhound terminal is at 1101 Troost Avenue, at E. 11th Street. Number 25 bus to downtown.

Train? Amtrak sends the Lake Shore Limited out of Penn Station at 3:40 PM Eastern Time, to Union Station in Chicago at 9:50 AM Central Time. Then you have to switch to the Southwest Chief – the modern version of the Santa Fe Railroad's Chicago-to-Los Angeles Super Chief, the train that, along with his Cherokee heritage, gave 1950s Yankee pitcher Allie Reynolds his nickname.

The Southwest Chief leaves Chicago at 2:50 PM, and arrives at Union Station in K.C. at 10:00 PM, meaning you would need to leave New York on Wednesday afternoon to get there Thursday night, about 21 hours ahead of the Friday game, in order to attend the entire series. Round trip fare is $427, also only slightly less than flying. K.C.'s Union Station is at Pershing Road and Main Street. Take the MAX bus to get downtown.

Union Station in Kansas City. This city has a fountain fetish.

If you decide to drive, it's far enough that it will help to get someone to go with you and split the duties, and to trade off driving and sleeping. You'll need to get on the New Jersey Turnpike, and take Interstate 78 West across New Jersey, and at Harrisburg get on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which at this point will be both I-70 and I-76. When the two Interstates split outside Pittsburgh, stay on I-70 west.

You'll cross the northern tip of West Virginia, and go all the way across Ohio (through Columbus), Indiana (through Indianapolis), Illinois and very nearly Missouri (through the northern suburbs of St. Louis). You'll begin the Missouri section in St. Louis, on the Stan Musial Memorial Bridge; and end it in Kansas City, on the George Brett Super Highway. (The St. Louis portion of I-70 had been the Mark McGwire Highway, but after the steroid revelations, it was renamed the Mark Twain Highway.) In Missouri, Exit 9 will be for the Sports Complex. But you'd be crazy to come all this way and not get a hotel so you'll get a decent night's sleep, so take I-70 right into downtown.

If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and 15 minutes in New Jersey, 5 hours in Pennsylvania, 15 minutes in West Virginia, 3 hours and 45 minutes in Ohio, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Indiana, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Illinois, and 4 hours and 15 minutes in Missouri before you reach the exit for your hotel. That's going to be nearly 19 and a half hours. Counting rest stops, preferably 7 of them, and accounting for traffic in both New York and Kansas City, it should be about 28 hours.

Once In the City. Kansas City, founded in 1838 and named for the Kanza tribe of Native Americans who lived there, is one of the smallest cities in the major leagues, with just 480,000 people, and one of the smallest metropolitan areas, with 2.4 million -- indeed, if you rank the 30 MLB markets (remembering to divide New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco in half, although the fandom doesn't really break that way), only Milwaukee has a smaller market.

Kansas City is set on the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, and on the Missouri/Kansas State Line. Kansas City, Kansas is a separate city with about 150,000 people, and is known locally as KCK, while the more familiar city is KCMO. As for KCMO, Main Street runs north-south and divides Kansas City addresses between East and West, while the north-south addresses start at 1 at the Missouri River. Famously (or infamously), prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Kansas City was segregated: North of 27th Street was white, south of it was black.

The base fare for buses and light rail  on the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority is $1.50, though to go to the Missouri suburbs or KCK it's doubled to $3.00. A 3-day pass is $10. The sales tax in Missouri is 4.225 percent, but it more than doubles to 8.475 within Kansas City. If you go into Kansas, their sales tax is 6.5 percent.

The Kansas City Streetcar light rail system

The State Capitol is in Jefferson City, 147 miles east of downtown Kansas City, 126 miles west of downtown St. Louis, and 30 miles south of the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

The Missouri State House,

on the Missouri River in Jefferson City

ZIP Codes for the Missouri side of the Kansas City area start with the digits 640 and 641; and for the Kansas side, 660 and 661. The Area Codes are 816 in Missouri, 913 in Kansas. The metro area does not have a "beltway." Kansas City Power & Light Company (KCP&L) runs the electricity.

KCMO is about 55 percent white, 30 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic and 3 percent Asian. KCK is more balanced: About 40 percent white, 28 percent Hispanic, 27 percent black and 3 percent Asian. Strangely, the State Line flips the housing segregation: On the Missouri side to the east, it's white on the North Side, black on the South; but on the Kansas side to the west, it's minorities on the North Side, and white on the South.

With its legacy of jazz and the Negro Leagues' Monarchs, Kansas City has been one of the top cities for black American culture. And it has been luckier than most in terms of racial disturbances. But in back-to-back years, it suffered one of the 1967 "Long Hot Summer" riots and another following the assassination of Martin Luther King.

Going In. The Harry S Truman Sports Complex, including Kauffman Stadium (known as Royals Stadium from its opening in 1973 until the 1993 death of founder-owner-pharmaceutical titan Ewing M. Kauffman) and Arrowhead Stadium, home of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and site of a 2001 U.S. soccer team win over Costa Rica, is 8 miles southeast of downtown Kansas City, at the intersection of Interstates 70 and 435, still in the city but on the suburban edge of it.

The official address of "The K" is 1 Royal Way. You don't have to worry about the ballpark being in a bad neighborhood: It's not in any neighborhood. Parking costs $11.

Public transportation is not much of an option. In fact, aside from Arlington, Texas, this may be the most unfriendly ballpark in the majors for those without a car. The Number 28 bus will drop you off at 35th Street South and Blue Ridge Cutoff, and then it's a one-mile walk down the Cutoff, over I-70, to the ballpark. The Number 47 bus will drop you off a little closer, on the Cutoff at 40th Terrace, about half a mile away.

Most fans will enter by the spiral walkways behind home plate, a holdover from the 1960s sports stadium architecture that also befell Giants Stadium, among others.

The ballpark faces northeast, and if you're old enough to remember those Yankees-Royals Playoffs from 1976 to 1980, you'll notice some differences. For one thing, the field, then artificial and a very pale green, is now all-natural grass and a much deeper green. For another, the red seats that you might remember as horribly clashing with the artificial turf and the Royals blue & white uniforms are gone, replaced by navy blue – or, should I say, "Royal blue." There is 1 red seat left in the park, and I'll get to that in "Team History Displays."

A revamped version of the old big crown scoreboard is in center field, and so is the Water Spectacular, the fountains that remain the stadium's most famous feature.

The park's outfield distances have never changed: 330 feet to the poles, 387 to the power alleys, and 410 to center. This means the park has traditionally favored pitchers and, due to its distances and (formerly) artificial turf, contact hitters and speedsters.

Johnny Bench hit a 480-foot home run there in the 1973 All-Star Game, in the park's 1st season. If you only count the regular season, the park's longest home run was a 475-foot shot by Bo Jackson in 1986. In 2014, Mike Trout hit one there that ESPN said went 489 feet, but they measure from home plate to where the ball would have landed if nothing had gotten in the way. You're supposed to measure from home plate to where the ball first hits anything, and so Bench's drive is still, well, the benchmark.

With the carpet replaced by real grass, the Royals' go-go-go game of the 1976-85 era is reduced, although the franchise was in decline well before the switchover to grass in 1995. Seating capacity is currently listed as 37,903, pushable to 40,933 with standing room.

Arrowhead Stadium has been selected by the U.S. Soccer Federation as a finalist to be one of the host venues for the 2026 World Cup. (UPDATE: FIFA approved it as a venue.)

Food. Kansas City has a reputation for great barbecue, and "The K" has that, and some other good food items. Royals All-Star Barbecue is behind Sections 221 (3rd base) and 422 (Upper Deck behind home plate). The .390 Bar & Grill (named for George Brett's 1980 batting average) is in the upper deck on the 3rd base side.

Blue Moose Sausage Emporium is under the right field stands. Boulevard Brewing Company is behind 223. Boulevard Pub is at 230. The Captain Morgan Bar is at 420. Crown Classics (presumably the usual ballpark fare with a team-themed name) are all over the place. Dugout Dog House stands are behind 208 and 247. Farmland Grill is at 239.

There are several Hot Corner Grills and FryWorks stands. There are 4 Hostess Sweet Spot stands (Deep-fried Twinkies, perhaps?), Mexican-themed KC Cantina Cart at 224 and 232, an Irish Pub (no cutesy faux-Hibernian name) at 218 and 237, German-themed Leinenkugel's Leinie Lodge at 412 and Nutty Bavarian at 213 and 242, and – brace yourselves, Yankee Fans – the Pine Tar Pub in the outfield corners.

According to a recent Thrillist article on the best food at each big-league ballpark, the best food at Kauffman Stadium isn't anything barbecue-related -- the author, Wil Fulton, said, "We know, 'blasphemy,' 'heresy,' 'we'll burn for this,' blah, blah, blah. Hear us out" -- but Belfonte Ice Cream, which, like the Royals, began operation in 1969. Considering how hot the weather (and the barbecued meats) are, they may have a point. It's available all over the stadium.

Team History Displays. The Royals have their championship flags on poles in the outfield: 1985 and 2015 World Champions; 1980 and 2014 American League Champions; 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1984 AL Western Division Champions. Once they were realigned into the AL Central Division, they didn't win it until 2015, entering the 2014 postseason as Wild Card winners.

Their retired numbers have been moved from the crown scoreboard to the left field corner, above the Royals Hall of Fame: 5, George Brett, 3rd base, 1973-93; 10, Dick Howser, manager, 1981-86 (also former Yankee infielder, coach and 1980 manager); 20, Frank White, 2nd base, 1973-90. Number 29 was worn by relief pitcher Dan Quisenberry, 1979-88; and 1st baseman Mike Sweeney, 1995-2007. It has not been officially retired for either, but it has been removed from circulation.

The 26 members of the Royals Hall of Fame are: Brett, White, Howser, Quisenberry and Sweeney; team founders-owners Ewing and Muriel Kauffman, general manager Joe Burke, chief scout Art Stewart, manager Whitey Herzog; pitchers Steve Busby, Dennis Leonard, Paul Splittorff, Larry Gura, Bret Saberhagen, Kevin Appier, Mark Gubicza and Jeff Montgomery; 1st baseman John Mayberry Sr.; 2nd baseman Octavio "Cookie" Rojas; shortstop Freddie Patek; outfielders Amos Otis and Willie Wilson; DH Hal McRae; broadcaster Denny Matthews; and groundskeeper George Toma.

No players from the 2014 and 2015 Pennant winners have yet been elected. The fact that only 3 players who have arrived in the 37 years since the 1985 World Championship -- Montgomery, Appier and Sweeney -- have been elected says a lot.

Outside of this Hall, in left field, includes statues of the Kauffmans, the retired number players, and Buck O'Neil -- more about him in a moment.

The Kauffmans' statue

Splittorff was also a Royals broadcaster before his death in 2011. Toma, a.k.a. "The Sod God," has worked for Kansas City sports teams since the 1950s, including the A's, and was recommended by Chiefs founder-owner Lamar Hunt to prepare the field for Super Bowl I, where the Chiefs lost to the Green Bay Packers at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

The NFL was so impressed with this AFL groundskeeper that he was kept on, and while he retired from active work in 1999, at age 93, he still oversees the work at Kauffman and Arrowhead, and is 1 of 7 people known to have been in attendance at all 56 Super Bowls. The others are Norma Hunt, Lamar's widow; former Detroit News sportswriter Jerry Green, who has still never covered his hometown Lions in one; photographer John Biever; and fans Don Crisman, Gregory Eaton and Tom Henschel (who, at 80, is the youngest).

The Sod God

He also took care of Arrowhead's newly-planted real grass for the 1994 World Cup, and was imported for the Olympics by Los Angeles in 1984 and Atlanta in 1996. The oddity is that, as good as he was with grass, for over 20 years he was working with artificial turf at both Kansas City stadiums.

Beginning with the 2007 season, the Royals had a red seat placed in the stadium amongst the all-blue seats behind home plate to honor John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil, the star 1st baseman and manager for the city's long-ago Negro League team, the Kansas City Monarchs. He had died the previous October.

One person, "a person who embodies the spirit of Buck O'Neil," is selected every game from community nominees to sit in that seat, formerly Buck's free season-ticket seat.

Previously, the Buck O'Neil Legacy Seat was Section 101, Row C, Seat 1. Due to the renovations and section renumbering in 2009, the seat number is now Section 127, Row C, Seat 9. 

In 2016, O'Neil was honored with the renaming of the Broadway Bridge, carrying U.S. Route 169 over the Missouri River, as the Buck O'Neil Bridge.

Based on this, it would be easy to guess that the Royals were named for the Monarchs. It could also be guessed that they were named for the downtown Crown Center complex. In fact, neither is true: They were named after Kansas City's annual American Royal Livestock Show.

Brett and Matthews are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. So is Whitey Herzog, who was their manager before crossing Missouri and doing what really got him in, being the manager and general manager of the Cardinals. So is John Schuerholz, who was the Royals' GM before moving on to the Atlanta Braves, building World Champions with both teams.

Also associated, however briefly, with the Royals, and in the Hall of Fame, are players who played with them toward the ends of their great careers, Orlando Cepeda, Harmon Killebrew and Gaylord Perry; and managers Joe Gordon and Bob Lemon, who were elected for what they did as players.

Herzog played for the Kansas City Athletics. So did Enos Slaughter, Tommy Lasorda, and, for 1 game in 1965, at age 59, making him the oldest MLB player ever, Negro League legend Leroy "Satchel" Paige. Luke Appling and Lou Boudreau managed the A's, but that's not part of what got them into the Hall of Fame.

Monarchs in the Hall include Paige, James "Cool Papa" Bell, Willard Brown, Hilton Smith, Bullet Joe Rogan, Andy Cooper, their owner J.L. Wilkinson, and a teenaged shortstop who went on to bigger things in Chicago, Ernie Banks. And, briefly in 1945, which is where the Brooklyn Dodgers found him, Jackie Robinson. One of the great unfairnesses of baseball history is that it took until 2021 for Buck O'Neil to be elected.

Also a bit unfair, considering that the A's and Royals combined have won just 4 Pennants in 66 seasons of play, is that there is no display at The K honoring the Monarchs' 13 Pennants: 1923, 1924, 1925, 1929, 1937, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1946, 1950, 1953 and 1955; or their wins in the 1924 and 1942 Negro World Series. Nor is there a display honoring the 10 minor-league Pennants won by the Kansas City Blues: 1888, 1890, 1898, 1901, 1918, 1923, 1929, 1938, 1952 and 1953 -- the last 5 as a Yankee farm team.

The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame is located in Springfield, 174 miles southeast of Kauffman Stadium. As a way of showing who rules the roost in Missouri sports, the Hall is considerably further away from St. Louis, but its address is 3861 East Stan Musial Drive.

Every member of the Royals Hall of Fame is in the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, except Muriel Kauffman, Joe Burke, Dayton Moore, Denny Matthews, Dick Howser, Larry Gura, Cookie Rojas, Bret Saberhagen and Kevin Appier.

But they have also elected Cepeda and Perry; pitchers Al Hrabosky and Jeff Suppan, catcher Darrell Porter, 3rd baseman Terry Pendleton and left fielder Vince Coleman, though they are all better known for their associations with the Cardinals; catchers Jamie Quirk and John Wathan; outfielders Bo Jackson, Jim Eisenreich and Alex Gordon; catcher Mike MacFarlane; and manager Ned Yost. Yost and Gordon are the earliest honorees, by any agency, of the 2014-15 Pennant winners.

George Brett, Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell were named to The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999. Brett was Kansas City's choice in the DHL Hometown Heroes poll in 2006. In 2022, ESPN named its 100 Greatest Baseball Players. Among players who played significant time for the Royals, only George Brett was selected, ranked 43rd.

There is no trophy for the annual season-series winner against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals lead it 71-46 -- 74-50 if you count the 1985 World Series. The Cardinals have won the season series 16 times, the Royals 8 (counting the '85 Series), and there have been 3 ties.

Stuff. The Royals Majestic Team Store is located at Gate C, behind home plate. The usual items that can be found at a souvenir store can be found there. I suppose this could include crowns with the KC logo on them.

Books about the Royals are not exactly well-known outside the K.C. area. Their Hall of Fame (Cooperstown and Kansas City) broadcaster Denny Matthews wrote Tales from the Royals Dugout, but that's probably the closest you're going to get to an inside story about the club.

Jeff and Jeffrey Spivak, father and son, wrote a 25th Anniversary retrospective, Crowning the Kansas City Royals: Remember the 1985 World Series Champs; and Sara Gilbert (not the Roseanne actress, now a panelist on CBS' The Talk) wrote The Story of the Kansas City Royals, which takes the franchise from its 1969 beginning to the 2006 season.

The 2015 title resulted in some books, including Matt Fulks' and Dayton Moore's Taking the Crown: The Kansas City Royals' Amazing 2015 Season; and a children's version, Jason Sivewright's and Kevin Howdeshell's The Year a Royal Dream Came True.

There is, as yet, no video of Essential Games of the Kansas City Royals (or Essential Games of Royals/Kauffman Stadium), but the official 1985 and 2015 World Series highlight film packages are available.

During the Game. A recent Thrillist article on "Baseball's Most Intolerable Fans" ranks the Royals 19th, putting them in the "more tolerable" half:

It's hard not to be a little bit happy for the Royals, what with their interminably long stretch of bleakness followed by consecutive World Series appearances, including winning the damn thing last year. It finally worked! But be warned -- winning has a tendency to breed obnoxiousness, and they're already exhibiting some of those "aw shucks, aren't we just the best" symptoms trademarked by another Missouri team.

That, of course, refers to the St. Louis Cardinals. Royals fans don't like the Cardinals.

Because of their Great Plains/Heartland image, Royals fans like a "family atmosphere." Therefore, while they hate the Yankees more than they hate their Central Division opponents Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Minnesota, and their former Western Division rivals in Oakland and Anaheim, they will not directly antagonize you. At least, they won't initiate it. But don't call them rednecks, hicks or sheep-shaggers. And don't say anything unkind about George Brett. Sure, he deserves it, but what's the point? He can't hurt you anymore; his supporters, theoretically, can.

The Friday game will feature postgame fireworks. The Sunday game will be Family FunDay Sunday, including a kids-run-the-bases event after the game.

The Royals hold auditions for National Anthem singers, rather than having a regular. They have a mascot, Sluggerrr, a lion (royal, king of the jungle) with a crown on his head. (Why the 3 R's, I don't know, maybe he encourages kids with the legendary "Three R's: Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic." I didn't make those up, and neither did the Royals.) From his page on the Royals' site:

Height: 7'0".  (That may be his actual height, but it may also be a nod to Interstate 70.) Weight: Muscle weighs more than fat. Position: King of the Jungle. Bats: Doesn't remember, "It's been a while since I was a designated hitter." Throws: Hot Dogs, T-shirts, and visiting fans out of the park! Steals: Cotton candy, peanuts, and sometimes popcorn. Favorite Food: Cardinal Wings, Filet O' Mariner, Rays Soup, Tiger Steak, Oriole Sandwich, Blue Jay Bites.

Steals popcorn? Shades of Don Mattingly. No mention of Yankee Bean Soup among his favorite foods? Sorry, Sluggerrr: No soup for you! But he has been elected to the Mascot Hall of Fame.

Sluggerrr also manged to cuckold Mr. Met

during the 2015 World Series.

The Royals do a takeoff on the Milwaukee Brewers' Sausage Race, with a "Heinz Condiment Race," featuring Ketchup, Mustard and Relish. They don't play a song after "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th stretch, but in the middle of the 8th inning, they play "Friends in Low Places" by Oklahoma native and Royals fan Garth Brooks. The Beatles' version of "Kansas City" is their postgame victory song. Perhaps, to welcome people to the ticket windows before the game, they should play "Come to My Window" by Leavenworth, Kansas native and Royals fan Melissa Etheridge.

Starting in the 2014 season, in a reflection of the Chicago Cubs and their W flag on the scoreboard, the Royals have placed a W on the Hall of Fame wall after every win.

After the Game. Since the sports complex is not in any neighborhood, let alone a bad one, you should be safe after a game, day or night. As I said, leave the home fans alone, and they'll probably leave you alone.

Chappell's Restaurant & Sports Museum, not really a museum but with a huge memorabilia collection, has been called the best sports bar in town. 323 Armour Rd., at Erie St, 11 miles northeast of the sports complex, and 5 miles north of downtown. 

If you want to be around other New Yorkers, Johnny's Tavern, 1310 Grand Blvd., downtown, across from the T-Mobile Center (the new arena), is known as a Giants fan's bar. Be advised that it is also known as a Sporting Kansas City bar -- and a U.S. national soccer team bar, and a University of Kansas bar.

If you visit Kansas City during the European soccer season, which is now over until early August, you can probably find your favorite club on TV at either Johnny's Tavern, or practically next-door at No Other Pub, 1370 Grand Blvd.

Sidelights. Kansas City's sports history is a bit uneven. When the Royals and Chiefs have been good, they've been exceptional. But they've also had long stretches of mediocrity. Still, there are some local sites worth checking out.

* Site of Municipal Stadium. The single-decked, 17,000-seat Muehlebach Field was built in 1923, by George Muehlebach, who also owned the beer and the hotel that bore his name, and the American Association's Kansas City Blues.

It hosted the Blues' Pennants in 1929, 1938, 1952 and 1953 – the last 3 as a farm club of the Yankees. (They'd previously won Pennants in 1888, 1890, 1898 and 1901, for a total of 8 Pennants -- or 6 more than the A's and Royals combined in nearly 60 years thus far.) Future Yankee legends Phil Rizzuto (Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year in 1940) and Mickey Mantle (1951) played for this club at this ballpark.

The Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues also played at Muehlebach, renamed Ruppert Stadium for the Yankees' owner in 1937 and Blues Stadium in 1943. They won 13 Pennants there from 1923 to 1955, including 3 straight, 1923-25, and 4 straight, 1939-42.

Hall-of-Famers Satchel Paige, Willard Brown and Hilton Smith, and, of course, Buck O'Neil, were their biggest stars, although it should be noted that, while he played with them in the 1945 season, Jackie Robinson was, at the time, not considered as much of a baseball prospect some of the other players who were thought of as potential "first black players," like Paige, Monte Irvin and Larry Doby; it was his competitiveness and his temperament, as much as his talent, that got Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey interested in him. The Monarchs had to leave after the 1955 season, because of the arrival of the A's.

Muehlebach Field, as it was then known was also the home to Kansas City's 1st pro football team, the team known as the Blues in 1924 and the Cowboys in 1925 and '26.

In 1954, the Philadelphia Athletics were sold to trucking company owner Arnold Johnson, and he moved the club to Kansas City, where his pal Del Webb, co-owner of the Yankees, had his construction company put an upper deck on what was renamed Municipal Stadium, raising the capacity to 35,020.

Thanks to the Webb-Johnson friendship, a lot of trades went back and forth (including Billy Martin out there in 1957, and Don Larsen sent as part of the package that brought Roger Maris to New York in the 1959-60 off-season), and it was joked that Kansas City was still a Yankee farm club. When Johnson died during spring training in 1960, insurance magnate Charles O. Finley bought the club, and he put a stop to that.

Finley was convinced that the reason the Yankees won all those Pennants was the 296-foot right field foul pole at the old Yankee Stadium, and so he brought the fence at Municipal in to 296 feet – though reaching back to its former 353-foot pole, thus obeying the letter of the law that said that all parks entering the majors had to be at least 325 feet to the poles.

Note the 296 marker, the pole maintained at 325,

and the 353 marker behind them.

(This rule has notably not been enforced every time: The new Yankee Stadium maintained the outfield distances that the old one had in its last years, and Baltimore's Camden Yards, opened well after the 1958 debut of the rule, is 318 feet to right.)

Commissioner Ford Frick ruled that what Finley called the "KC Pennant Porch," with a small bleacher between the old and new fences, was illegal. So Finley scaled it back to 325 feet at its closest point, making it the "KC One-Half Pennant Porch."

Finley also debuted some of his promotional shenanigans at Municipal, including Harvey the Rabbit, a Bugs Bunny lookalike that mechanically popped out of home plate to deliver fresh baseballs to the plate umpire.

But Finley wanted a new ballpark, and Kansas City wouldn't give it to him. It's not that they didn't support big-league ball, it's that they couldn't stand him. After flirting with Atlanta, Louisville, Dallas, New Orleans and Denver, he moved the team out of Kansas City in 1967, leading Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri to say, "Oakland, California just became the luckiest city since Hiroshima."

Despite being from the St. Louis side of the State, Symington lobbied Major League Baseball for a replacement team in K.C., and MLB granted an expansion franchise to Ewing Kauffman, to start play in 1969. Symington was invited to throw out the first ball at the first Royals home game. For the new team, with Kauffman rather than Finley as owner, the city built a new park. The Royals moved out after the 1972 season. Neither the Royals nor the A's ever came close to October while playing there.

The Chiefs began playing at Municipal Stadium in 1963, won AFL Championships in 1966 and 1969 (in addition to their 1962 title as the Dallas Texans), won Super Bowl IV, and played their last game there on Christmas Day 1971, a double-overtime Playoff loss to the Miami Dolphins that is still the longest game in NFL history. And Finley convinced Brian Epstein to let the Beatles play there, on September 17, 1964, their only concert in Kansas City. (Having covered the song "Kansas City," of course, they played it that night.)

The U.S. soccer team played Bermuda at Municipal Stadium on November 2, 1968, and won. The attendance was 2,265. That gives you an idea of how far U.S. soccer has come.

The stadium was torn down in 1976, and a housing development named Monarch Manor going up on the site. 2123 Brooklyn Avenue, near the 18th and Vine district that was the home of Kansas City jazz, making it a favorite of the Monarchs players. The original Arthur Bryant's barbecue restaurant, now a chain due to its legendary status, is 4 blocks away at 1727 Brooklyn Avenue. Number 123 bus.

* Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and American Jazz Museum. Founded by Buck O'Neil and some friends, this museum "tells the other side of the story." The pre-1947 all-white major leagues called themselves "Organized Baseball," but, as Buck himself said, "We were organized."

The museum's lobby features statues of several Negro League legends, including Paige, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard and Oscar Charleston – having played for the Monarchs was by no means a requirement for that.

Buck and his statue at the Museum

The Negro Leagues were a sometimes dignified, sometimes willingly silly, and very successful response to the color bar. But the raiding of their rosters, with no regard to contracts and thus no money changing hands, by the white majors from 1947 onward, was the beginning of the end. Buck had the right perspective, as he said in Ken Burns' Baseball miniseries: "Happy. Happy... Of course, it meant the death of our baseball, but who cared? Who cared?" The owners of the Negro League teams cared. Other than that...

1616 E. 18th Street. The same building is home to the American Jazz Museum, which includes a working jazz club, the Blue Room. Number 108 bus. The Museum is 5 blocks west of Arthur Bryant's, and a short walk from the site of Municipal Stadium, and neither of these facts is a coincidence. In fact, for the Monarchs, baseball and jazz were so intertwined that Ken Burns interviewed Buck for his documentaries on both subjects.

* Municipal Auditorium. Built in 1935 in the Art Deco style then common to public buildings (especially in New York), it replaced the Convention Hall that was across the street, which hosted the 1900 Democratic Convention which nominated William Jennings Bryan for President (and at which a 16-year-old Harry S Truman served as a page) and the 1928 Republican Convention that nominated Herbert Hoover.

The arena seats 7,316 people, but for special events can be expanded to 10,721. The NCAA hosted what would later be called the Final Four here in 1940 (Indiana over Kansas), '41 (Wisconsin over Washington State), '42 (Stanford over Dartmouth, '53 (Indiana over Kansas), '54 (Tom Gola's La Salle over Bradley), '55  (Bill Russell's San Francisco over Gola's LaSalle), '57 (North Carolina over Kansas, Wilt Chamberlain losing in triple overtime), '61 (Cincinnati over Ohio State's defending champs, including Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek) and '64 (John Wooden starting his UCLA dynasty by beating Duke and completing an undefeated season with Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich).

The NBA's Kansas City Kings played their 1972-73 and 1973-74 home games here after moving from Cincinnati – having to change their name because Kansas City already had a team called the Royals. An accident at the Kemper Arena forced the Kings to move back to the Auditorium for a few games in the 1979-80 season. The basketball team at the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC) played their home games here from its opening until they opened an on-campus arena in 2010.

Elvis Presley sang there as a new national star on May 24, 1956, and as an entertainment legend on November 15, 1971 and June 29, 1974. The 2nd Presidential Debate of 1984 was held there. This is where Ronald Reagan joked about his age and experience compared to Walter Mondale's, then gave a closing statement that made him look like the Alzheimer's he was later diagnosed with was already in effect. 301 W. 13th Street. Pretty much any downtown bus will get you close.

* Kemper Arena. Built in 1974, it immediately began hosting 2 major league sports teams – neither of which lasted very long. The NBA's Kansas City Kings played here until 1985, when they moved to Sacramento.

The NHL's Kansas City Scouts were the ne plus ultra – or should that be ne minus ultra? – of expansion teams, lasting only 2 seasons before moving in 1976 to become the Colorado Rockies, and then again in 1982 to become the New Jersey Devils. A few minor league hockey teams have played here since, but its only current tenant is the American Royal show.

In the Kings' final season, they hosted the Knicks in a game that resulted in one of the most frustrating injuries in NBA history, Knick star Bernard King jumping for a rebound and tearing up his knee. I'll never forget watching on TV and hearing him yell, "Oh, damn! Oh, damn!" and then crumpling to the floor, repeatedly slapping it with his hand. Bernard did play again, and well, but a great career turned into a what-might-have-been.

But that wasn't the worst injury here, and I don't mean the 1979 roof damage, either: This was where professional wrestler Owen Hart was killed in an accident on May 23, 1999.

Kemper was also the last building seating under 20,000 people to host a Final Four, hosting the 50th Anniversary edition in 1988, in which the University of Kansas, led by Danny Manning, upset heavily favored Oklahoma. In fact, KU made the 40-mile trip from Lawrence many times, creating an atmosphere that got the place nicknamed Allen Fieldhouse East, a name they have now transplanted to the T-Mobile Center. They went 80-24 at Kemper, including the 1988 title game.

The 1976 Republican Convention was held there, nominating Gerald Ford. Elvis sang there on April 21, 1976 and, in one of his last concerts, June 18, 1977.

The building has been sold to Mosaic Life Center, which will convert it into a combination regional sports facility and medical clinic, and rename it the Mosaic Arena. 1800 Genesee Street, at American Royal Drive, a block from the Missouri-Kansas State Line. Number 12 bus.

In addition to the preceding, Elvis sang in Western Missouri at the Shrine Mosque in Springfield on May 17, 1956; and the Hammons Student Center at Southwest State University (now Missouri State) in Springfield on June 17, 1977.

* T-Mobile Center. This arena opened in 2007, as the Sprint Center, with the idea of bringing the NBA or NHL back to Kansas City. (The arena builders appear not to care which one they get, but with K.C. being a "small market," they'll be lucky to get one, and will not get both.) It almost got the Pittsburgh Penguins, before a deal to build the Consol Energy Center was finalized. It was also being considered for the New York Islanders, before they cut a deal to move to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

For basketball, it seats 18,555; for hockey, 17,752. For the moment, no teams, major- or minor-league, play here regularly, although has hosted college basketball: KU games, the Big 12 Tournament, NCAA Tournament games. 1407 Grand Boulevard, at W. 14th Street. Number 57 or MAX bus from downtown. In 2020, it was renamed the T-Mobile Center.

On May 12, 2014, the New York Times printed a story that shows NBA fandom by ZIP Code, according to Facebook likes. You would think that, being between Chicago and Oklahoma City, with no team in St. Louis, the Kansas City area would be divided between Bulls and Thunder fans. Instead, the distance is so great (509 miles from T-Mobile Center to United Center, 349 miles to whatever OKC's arena is called now, and 475 miles to Indiana's Bankers Life Fieldhouse), that they divide up their fandom among the "cool" teams: The Bulls, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat. (As yet, there is no hockey version.)

The closest NHL team to Kansas City is the St. Louis Blues, 249 miles away. The Kansas City metropolitan area's population would rank it 24th in the NBA, and 23rd in the NHL.

* Children's Mercy Park. The new home of Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City, formerly the Kansas City Wizards, has also hosted 5 games, by the U.S. soccer team, 4 wins and a draw, most recently a 4-0 win over Bolivia in the Copa America on May 28, 2016. It hosted 5 games of the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

SKC won the MLS Cup in 2000, and again in 2013, with the Final on home soil. They shared their stadium with FC Kansas City, who had to move to Salt Lake City after the 2017 season, despite winning the Championship of the National Women's Soccer League in 2014 and 2015. In 2021, a new NWSL team, the Kansas City Current, began playing there.

It is across the State Line in Kansas City, Kansas. Seating 18,467, it is at State Aveune & France Family Drive, with the ballpark for the independent baseball team the Kansas City T-Bones, the Kansas Speedway racetrack, and the Legends Shopping Mall all adjacent. Number 57 bus, transferring to Number 101 bus.

* Swope Soccer Village. FC Kansas City played here in 2015, and won another NWSL title. They also played here in 2016 and 2017, before moving to Salt Lake City and becoming the Utah Royals. 6310 Lewis Road, 7 1/2 miles south of downtown. Any of several buses can get you to 63rd and Paseo, where you would transfer to Bus 63.

* Museums. Kansas City has 2 prominent art museums. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is K.C.'s "Metropolitan Museum of Art," 3 miles north of downtown, at 4525 Oak Street, in Southmoreland Park. And their "Museum of Modern Art" is the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2 blocks away, at 4420 Warwick Boulevard at 45th Street. Both can be reached by the Number 57 bus.

Kansas City is still, in a way, Harry Truman's town. The 33rd President, serving from April 12, 1945 to January 20, 1953, was born in nearby Lamar, and grew up in nearby Independence. He opened his Presidential Library and Museum in 1957, and frequently hosted events there until a household accident in 1964 pretty much ended his public life.

Upon his death in 1972, he was buried in the Library's courtyard; his wife Bess, born Elizabeth Wallace, followed him in 1982, at age 97, to date the oldest former First Lady; and their only child, Margaret Truman Daniel, was laid to rest there in 2008. Currently, the Library is run by his only grandchild, Clifton Truman Daniel.

500 West U.S. Highway 24, Independence. Number 24X bus to Osage & White Oak Streets, and then 4 blocks north on Osage and 3 blocks west on Route 24. The Truman Home – actually the Wallace House, as Bess' family always owned it – is nearby at 219 N. Delaware Street. Same bus.

Just west of the Crown Center is the Liberty Memorial, including the National World War I Museum, honoring the 1914-18 conflict that was then frequently called "The Great War" (accurate) and "The War to End All Wars" (not accurate, as it turned out). 100 West 26th Street.

Satchel Paige, Buck O'Neil, and Zack Wheat, the the Hall of Fame left fielder for the 1910s and '20s Brooklyn Dodgers who collected nearly 3,000 hits, are all buried at Forest Hill & Calvary Cemetery. 6901 Troost Avenue, about 7 miles south of downtown. Bus 85.

There aren't a whole lot of tall buildings: One Kansas City Place, at 1200 Main Street, is the tallest in the State, at 624 feet, but only one other building is over 500 feet. The Kansas City Power & Light Building, at 1330 Baltimore Street, and the twin-towered 909 Walnut were built in the early 1930s and are the city's tallest classic buildings.

If you want to copy the song "Kansas City," and be "standing on the corner, 12th Street and Vine," you're out of luck: Due to urban renewal, it no longer exists. There is, however, a park with a plaque roughly where it was.

There haven't been many TV shows set in Kansas City. By far the most notable was Malcolm & Eddie, the 1996-2000 UPN sitcom that starred Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Eddie Griffin (a KCMO native). ABC Family's Switched at Birth is also set there. But both shows were taped in Los Angeles and did no location shots, so if you're a fan of that show, there's nothing in Kansas City to show you. The United States of Tara was set in suburban Overland Park, Kansas.

There have been a few movies set in Kansas City and the surrounding areas. The 1962 horror film Carnival of Souls was filmed in Lawrence, Kansas. The 1983 nuclear-war TV-movie The Day After was filmed in KCMO and Lawrence. Raquel Welch's roller-derby movie Kansas City Bomber was filmed in KCMO, as were Mr. & Mrs. Bridge and Article 99.

Most movies filmed or set in Kansas itself tend to be Westerns, such as The Plainsman, Dodge City, Santa Fe Trail, Red River, Winchester '73, Dances with Wolves and Sarah, Plain and Tall. The TV Western Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, although filmed in Hollywood. Kansas' desolate plains lend themselves well to Depression-era films like Splendor in the Grass, Paper Moon and The Great Waldo Pepper.

The 1978 version of Superman established the hero's hometown of Smallville, previously considered a typical American small town, as being in Kansas, and every version of Superman since has accepted this. Plains, Trains and Automobiles had a big chunk set in Kansas, but actually filmed in Illinois.

And, of course, Kansas was the setting for the "real" parts of L. Frank Baum's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and all its film adaptations since. (Judy Garland's line as Dorothy in the most familiar version, 1939, is one of those movie/TV lines everybody gets wrong: It's actually, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore!")

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Kansas City is a great American city, almost literally in the center of this great country. And its citizens, and the people who come from hundreds of miles around to see the Royals and Chiefs, love their sports. It's well worth saving up to check it out. 

At Last: Six Men Long Overdue Get to Cooperstown

Yesterday, the Committee on Veterans elected 6 new members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. In chronological order:

* John "Bud" Fowler, a multi-position player who is the 1st member of the Hall who ever actually lived in the town where it is located, Cooperstown, New York. In 1877, he is known to have played for a professional baseball team, the 1st black player known to have done so. He eventually played for the Cuban Giants, an all-black team that would play in the Negro National League once that was established. His last known game was in 1898.

Born in 1858, Fowler died in 1913, never knowing that the Negro Leagues or the Baseball Hall of Fame would be founded, 6 years before the birth of Jackie Robinson.

* John "Buck" O'Neil, 1st baseman for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues, starring for them in the 1940s and managing them in the 1950s. In 1962, the Chicago Cubs made him the 1st black member of any major league team's coaching staff. He later scouted for the Kansas City Royals and helped found the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

He is best known for his interview for Ken Burns' 1994 baseball miniseries, introducing him to fans not old enough to remember the Negro Leagues, like me. The reason we didn't know about him is that he was not already in the Hall of Fame, as a few Negro League stars were. He died in 2006, still not a member. He is one now.

* Gil Hodges, the slugging, fine-fielding 1st baseman for the Dodgers, helping them win the World Series in Brooklyn in 1955 and in Los Angeles in 1959. He went on to manage the Mets to win the 1969 World Series, although the Hall doesn't combine playing and managing achievements. If they did, he might have been elected long ago. He died while still the Mets' manager in 1972, not quite 48 years old.

* Saturnino "Minnie" Miñoso, left fielder who played most of his career for the Chicago White Sox. In 1949, with the Cleveland Indians, he became the 1st black Hispanic player in the major leagues. He lasted in the majors until 1964, then became a coach with the White Sox.

White Sox owner Bill Veeck brought him back briefly in 1976, and got a hit in 8 at-bats. At the time, it was believed that he was 53 years old, making him the oldest player to get a hit in a major league game. As it turned out, he was 50, so he was the 4th-oldest. Veeck brought him back once more in 1980, pinch-hitting twice without a hit at 54, making him the 4th-oldest player ever, and 1 of 2 to play in 5 different decades. (The other was also a coach re-activated for publicity reasons, and 1 of the 3 who was older: Nick Altrock.)

He remained on the White Sox payroll, becoming known as Mr. White Sox, until his death in 2015.

* Jim Kaat, pitcher who debuted in 1959 with the "old" Washington Senators, and turned out to be the last active player from that team. He helped the Minnesota Twins win the 1965 American League Pennant. He later reached the Playoffs with the Philadelphia Phillies, and won 16 Gold Gloves for fielding the position of pitcher.

He pitched a season and a half for the Yankees, and finally won a World Series in 1982, with the St. Louis Cardinals, at age 43. He pitched 1 more season, finishing with 283 wins, and became one of the most respected broadcasters in the sport. He could have been elected to the Hall as a player, or been awarded its Ford Frick Award for broadcasters, but never was, until finally being elected now, at age 83.

* Tony Oliva, right fielder for the Minnesota Twins, an 8-time All-Star, a 3-time AL batting champion, and a Gold Glove winner in 1966. He was Kaat's teammate on the Twins' '65 Pennant winners and '69 and '70 Division titlists. Injuries cut his career short, forcing him to retire a couple of years sooner than he might ordinarily have had to, thus preventing him from boosting his career statistics to where his Hall election shouldn't have been an issue. He became a coach for the Twins, and if Miñoso was Mr. White Sox, then Oliva is Mr. Twin.

Falling 1 vote short of election was Dick Allen, who starred with the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1960s and the White Sox in the 1970s. One of the most feared sluggers of his era, he was also its most misunderstood player. He died last year (not from COVID), shortly after the COVID-induced postponement of the vote that was held yesterday. That he didn't get in this time, either, reduces the apparent injustice of his not getting in during his lifetime, but not by much. Like Kaat, he is finally honored at age 83.

But Fowler, O'Neil, Hodges, Miñoso, Kaat and Oliva are in. So the question could be asked: "If these men are worthy now, why weren't they worthy before?" Fowler last played 121 years ago; O'Neil, 66; Hodges, 58; Miñoso, 41; Oliva, 45; and Kaat, 38. None of them has faced, or thrown, a pitch in a game that counts in all that time. None of them has seen his career statistics change in all that time, not even due to a previously unknown error. What made them worthy now, if they weren't before?

They were always worthy. But there are different people voting on them now. Different people have different opinions. And as many people, some of the nasty bigots, will tell us, you can't think less of someone because they have a different opinion than you.

Of course you can. Some opinions are smart, and some opinions are stupid. And anybody whose opinion was that these men were not worthy of election to the Baseball Hall of Fame was just plain stupid.

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Hours until the next Arsenal game: 1, at 3:00 this afternoon, New York time, away to Everton, the blue team of Liverpool.

Days until the New Jersey Devils again play a local rival: 2, this Wednesday night, home to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Days until the next game of the U.S. National Soccer Team: 12, on Saturday, December 18, at 8:00 PM Eastern Time, a friendly against Bosnia & Herzegovina (that's 1 country), at Dignity Health Sports Park, in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California, home of MLS' Los Angeles Galaxy.

Days until the next North London Derby: 41, on Sunday, January 16, 2022, at 11:30 AM New York time, at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Under 6 weeks. It had been scheduled for the day before, but TV programming moved it back.

Days until the 1st Baseball Hall of Fame election for which Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz will be eligible, and we will know for sure whether steroid use keeps a player out, or if it's only being  a Yankee who's accused of it that does: 50, on Tuesday, January 25, 2022. About 7 weeks.

Days until the next Winter Olympics open in Beijing, China: 60, on Friday, February 4, 2022. Just 2 months.

Days until the next New York Red Bulls game: 82, on February 26, 2022, away to the San Jose Sharks. Under 3 months. As is usually the case, MLS has released the 1st 3 games of each team's next season schedule, before the full schedule.

Days until the Red Bulls again play a nearby rival: As yet unknown. None of the 1st 3 games are against New York City F.C., or the Philadelphia Union, or D.C. United, or the New England Revolution.

Days until the Yankees play another game that counts: 115, on March 31, 2022, away to the Texas Rangers. Under 4 months.

Days until the Yankees' home opener: 122, on Thursday, April 7, 2022, against the Boston Red Sox.

Days until the next Yankees series against the Boston Red Sox begins: See the previous answer.

Days until the next Rutgers University football game: 271, on Saturday, September 3, 2022, away to Boston College.

Days until the next East Brunswick High School football game: 277, on Friday, September 9, at 7:00 PM, against arch-rival Old Bridge. Hopefully, our home field, under renovation through the entire 2021 season, will be ready, so we don't have to go back to the purple pit.

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge football game: See the previous answer.

Days until the next elections for Congress and for Governor of most States, including New York and Pennsylvania: 337, on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. A little under a year.

Days until the next World Cup opens: 350, on Friday, November 21, 2022, in Doha, Qatar. Under a year.

Days until the next Rutgers-Penn State football game: 355, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 26, at 12:00 noon, at SHI Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey. Under a year. 

Days until the next Women's World Cup opens: 581, on Friday, July 10, 2023, jointly held in the neighboring nations of Australia and New Zealand. A little over a year and a half.

Days until the next Summer Olympic Games: 963, on Friday, July 26, 2024, in Paris, France. A little over 2 and a half years.

Days until the next Presidential election: 1,065, on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. Under 3 years.

Days until the next election for Governor of New Jersey and Mayor of New York City: 1,429, on Tuesday, November 4, 2025. Under 4 years.

Tampa Bay's All-Time Baseball Team

The Yankees begin a big series with the Rays tonight, although it's overshadowed by the deaths of Yankee owner -- and Tampa native -- George Steinbrenner and public-address announcer Bob Sheppard.

So, with the Rays as the opponent, here's one of the strongest of these squads, as North & Central Florida is a baseball-rich area...

Tampa Bay's All-Time Baseball Team

To be eligible for this team, you need to be from the Tampa Bay Rays' region, which includes every Florida County except the following: Broward, Collier, Dade, Lee, Martin, Monroe, Palm Beach and St. Lucie. Anyone from one of those will be assigned to the Florida Marlins' region, whenever I decide to do that region’s all-time team.

One thing is for sure: I will not make Billy Beane the general manager. A weak-hitting outfielder from Orlando, he's been GM in Oakland since the late 1990s. But anybody who’s a big-league GM for as long as he’s been, and has never built a Pennant-winner, is no genius. Maybe if the A’s still had "genius" manager Tony LaRussa (who I’ll get to later), LaRussa and Beane would have won one together. Maybe not.

1B Constantino "Tino" Martinez of Tampa. The Bamtino was a big part of the Seattle Mariner team that saved big-league baseball in the Northwest with that 1995 American League Western Division title, and he sure didn't let up in the Division Series against the Yankees.

So out went Donnie Regular Season Baseball, and in came Tino, who had worn Number 23 in Seattle, and didn't need enough reminders of who he was replacing. So he switched to 24, and, sorry, Robinson Cano, but it's going to be a while before I can imagine any other Yankee wearing the number.

With a lefty swing tailor-made for Yankee Stadium's short right-field porch, and a glove not that far behind Mattingly's, Tino helped the Yankees win the World Series in 1996 (immediately placing him ahead of Mattingly in my mind), 1998, 1999 and 2000, and almost in 2001.

In 1997, a year when the Yankees didn't win the Pennant, he got the hit that clinched the 1st-ever regular-season series against the Mets, which makes him a huge hero in my eyes. That same year, he hit 44 homers (most by a Yankee between 1961 and 2005) with 144 RBIs (most by a Yankee between 1985 and 2007). His grand slam in Game 1 of the 1998 World Series and his down-to-the-last-out, game-tying homer in Game 4 in 2001 still rank among the most thrilling homers in Yankee history.

The Yankees made a mistake in letting him go after 2001, especially since Jason Giambi never lived up to the hype. Tino went to St. Louis and helped the Cardinals reach the 2002 postseason, and did he ever get a nice hand in 2003 when the Cards game to The Bronx for an Interleague series. Tino played for his hometown Devil Rays in 2004 before one last, reasonably productive season with the Yanks. With 339 homers (192 as a Yankee), he'll never make the Hall of Fame, but so what. He'll make Monument Park at the new Stadium.

Very Honorable Mention to John "Buck" O'Neil of Carrabelle, in the Florida Panhandle. The longtime star and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs became a household name thanks to Ken Burns' miniseries Baseball, and afterward founded the Negro Leagues Museum, just a few blocks from the site of the Monarchs' (and minor-league K.C. Blues', and Athletics', and original Royals') ballpark, Municipal Stadium. That he is not in the Hall of Fame is, as the French say, worse than a crime, it is a blunder.

Honorable Mention to Fred McGriff of Tampa -- in fact, preceded Tino at Tampa's Jefferson High School by just a little bit, being 4 years older. The Yankees had him at Class A ball when, on December 9, 1982, they traded him, didn't-work-out speedster Dave Collins, and pitcher Mike Morgan to the Toronto Blue Jays for an injured Dale Murray and a never-made-it Tom Dodd.

How bad a trade was this? Aside from the Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees with 665 homers to go, McGriff’s 493 post-Yankee homers may be the most round-trippers ever traded away. But the Yanks already had Mattingly, and McGriff still didn't reach the majors until 1986, by which point Mattingly was the best player in baseball, and they had plenty of DHs, so, really, what could the Yanks have done? Still, McGriff and Morgan were still productive players 19 years later -- and don’t forget, the Arizona Diamondbacks would not have won the 2001 World Series against the Yanks without Morgan.

McGriff made 5 All-Star teams, led each League in homers once, helped make the Jays respectable and the Atlanta Braves a quasi-dynasty, including 2 homers in the 1995 World Series. He became the 1st Tampa Bay-area native to play for the Devil Rays when they started in 1998, along with Wade Boggs. It’s a shame he couldn’t get the 7 more homers to reach 500, but he was done.

Honorable Mention to Prince Fielder of Melbourne -- as suggested by a reader (see comment below). I initially missed Prince because he was born in Ontario, California, but grew up in Melbourne and attended Eau Gallie High School (as did Tim Wakefield, listed below).

In just 5 full seasons, plus this half-season, he's already hit 180 home runs, with an OPS+ of a whopping 140, and this while playing his home games at Miller Park in Milwaukee, not exactly a hitter's paradise. He's also helped the Brewers nearly reach the postseason in 2007 and finally do so in 2008, only their 3rd berth in their 40-year history. He led the NL in homers in 2007 and in RBIs in 2009.

To give you an idea: He's only 26, the age at which his father Cecil broke out. Cecil last played at age 34, and finished with 319 homers. Hmmmm... We could say that both Cecil and Prince are too fat to be suspected of steroids, but look at David Ortiz. Still, while Cecil may never make the Hall of Fame, Prince may be on his way.

Honorable Mention to Glenn Davis of Jacksonville. A 2-time All-Star, in 1986 he led the Houston Astros to the National League West title and finished 2nd to Mike Schmidt in the Most Valuable Player voting. He was, for a time, the Astros' all-time home run leader, hitting 166 despite playing his home games in the pitcher-friendly Astrodome. A good fielder, too.

But a back injury in 1990 curtailed his career. Before the 1991 season, the Astros traded him to the Baltimore Orioles for Steve Finley, Pete Harnisch and Curt Schilling. It looked like a good trade for both teams, but it turned into a bad one for both. Finley didn’t get good until after he left the Astros, Harnisch had personal issues that wrecked his career, and Schilling didn't blossom until the Astros traded him to Philadelphia. As for Davis, the injury meant he wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the close RF wall at Camden Yards. His career OPS+ was 123, but because of the injury he was finished at 32, with "only" 192 homers.

Honorable Mention... sort of... to Steve Garvey of Tampa. Like Kirk Gibson, he played both baseball and football at Michigan State University. Ten times an All-Star, 5 times a Gold Glove, 5 times a 100-RBI man, once an MVP in the NL (1974) and twice in the All-Star Game.

He was the Los Angeles Dodgers' Mr. Clean, their Captain America, their... let’s face it, their Ken Doll. He was the red-white-and-blue good guy of the 1970s, in contrast to the green-and-gold gangbangers in Oakland; the funky, Afro-wearing (including a couple of the white guys) street hustlers in Philly; the garish, black-and-gold disco pimps in Pittsburgh; and the wiseass goombas in The Bronx. Or so the believers in the O'Malley/Lasorda/Garvey Dodger Blue myth tried to tell us. 

Garvey played every day (his 1,207 consecutive games played is still an NL record and 4th all-time), and he played well, winning 5 Pennants (4 with L.A. and 1, as Chicago Cub fans don't like to be reminded, with the San Diego Padres) and the 1981 World Series. That year, at a point in his career when it looked like he would one day rank among the game's all-time greats, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time.

So why isn't this guy in the Hall of Fame? On Baseball-Reference.com, their Hall of Fame Monitor, which has a Likely HOFer at 100, has Garvey at 130; but their Hall of Fame Standards, which has the Average HOFer at 50, has him at only 32. So what gives?

Well, it's not that he didn't just plain stop hitting, or get his career curtailed by injury: His last productive season was at age 37. But, while from age 25 to 31, he was one of the top 10 players in baseball, after that, he was only a pretty good one, not putting together the kinds of seasons true greats still do in their early 30s. Only once did he hit more than 28 home runs (granted, Dodger Stadium is a pitcher's park), finishing with 272, not a HOF total. He collected 2,599 hits, a very good total but not, by itself, HOF material. His career OPS+ was 116, very good but, again, not HOF level. And, with Reggie Smith and usually at least 2 really good pitchers, a case can be made that Garvey was never even the best player on his own team. Tha'’s why I have him behind Tino here: He wasn't that, either, and he's not in the Hall, but he helped his team win more.

It has nothing to do with the fact that Garvey's Mr. Clean image was shattered, leading to the bumper sticker (probably most popular with Giants and Angels fans), "STEVE GARVEY IS NOT MY PADRE." At least the Padres retired his Number 6; the Dodgers still haven't, and manager Joe Torre has it now.

2B Davey Johnson of Orlando. I cheated a little on this one: Davey went to high school in San Antonio, which would put him in the Houston Astros' region; but I didn't see another 2nd baseman in the Rays' region that I thought was good enough, and, besides, Davey's not going to finish above Rogers Hornsby in the race for Texas' best at that position.

While he's known now as the only living person to manage the Mets to a World Championship (rest in peace, Gil Hodges), Davey was a pretty good player with the Baltimore Orioles' semi-dynasty of 1966-71, including making the last out in the only other World Series the Mets won, in 1969. He was a 4-time All-Star, a 3-time Gold Glove, and had a little power.

Only once did he hit more than 18 homers in a season, but in that year, 1973, with the Atlanta Braves, he hit 43 -- with "only" 99 RBIs. Those of you familiar with Brady Anderson must have an alarm going off in your head, but it wasn't due to steroids, it was due to Fulton County Stadium being at the highest elevation in the majors in those pre-Coors Field days, and it became known as the Launching Pad; if the Braves had stayed in Milwaukee and Hank Aaron had stayed with them, he still might have hit 600 homers, but he wouldn’t have hit 755.

Davey finished with 136, but with 2 World Series rings (1966 and 1970) -- and, of course, a 3rd as a manager (1986), although with all the talent he had to manage in Flushing, Cincinnati, Baltimore and L.A., he should have won more, which is why he’s not also the manager of this team.

SS David Eckstein of Sanford. I had the good fortune to watch him a few times for the Trenton Thunder in their 1999 Division Title-winning season (though they didn't win a Pennant until 2007). But, with former Thunder player Nomar Garciaparra having a hammerlock on the position at the big-league level, the Boston Red Sox let him go, and he made his debut with the Anaheim Angels (as the team was then officially known)

In 2002, he batted .293 with 63 RBIs, and led the AL in both sacrifice hits and hit-by-pitch, and became the first Thunder alumnus to play on a World Champion, hitting .310 with 3 RBIs in the Series. The Angels traded him to the Cardinals in 2005, and he helped them win a Series in 2006. Now 35, he is still a productive player as the starting second baseman for the Padres. The Thunder have retired Nomar's Number 5 and Tony Clark's Number 33 (and, of course, Jackie Robinson's Number 42), so why not Eckstein's Number 22? He is, after all, if not their greatest, then their most accomplished player. (UPDATE: They have since retired it.)

Honorable Mention to Jay Bell of Pensacola, who split time between short and 2nd, and had 195 homers, but I couldn't bring myself to put him at either position on this team.

3B Wade Boggs of Tampa. I almost missed him, because he was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He won 5 batting titles, including a peak of .368 in 1985. Career batting average of .328, career OPS+ of 130. The only man to hit a home run for his 3,000th career hit. Only 118 homers, but a whopping 578 doubles. An All-Star 12 times... in a row. Six straight times, he led the AL in intentional walks, despite being in a powerful Boston lineup. Won 2 Gold Gloves.

After the heartbreak of the 1986 World Series with the Red Sox, finally won one with the Yankees in 1996, and who will ever forget him riding behind the police officer on the horse around the warning track at Yankee Stadium. The Red Sox have not yet retired his Number 26, nor have the Yankees retired his Number 12 or given him a Monument Park Plaque, but when he closed his career with his hometown Devil Rays, they retired Number 12 for him. Yeah, he had his issues, and maybe trying to avoid them makes me... chicken. So what.

(UPDATE: The Red Sox have since retired his number, and Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have also made their 3,000th hits home runs.)

Honorable Mention... sort of... to Larry Wayne Jones Jr. of Deland. Yeah, Chipper. A 142 OPS+, 433 home runs thus far, 488 doubles, 2,468 hits, the 1999 NL MVP, and 11 postseason appearances for the Atlanta Braves... but only 1 ring. Baseball-Reference.com has him at 162 on their Hall of Fame Monitor and 65 on their Hall of Fame Standards, meaning he would make it... although he wouldn't exactly be the last player I'd suspect of steroid use.

Honorable Mention to Howard Johnson of Clearwater. By a weird occurrence, the Mets have won 2 World Series, and each time, the starting 3rd baseman was from the Tampa Bay area. In 1969, they platooned Ed Charles of St. Petersburg and Wayne Garrett of Sarasota (who also started on their 1973 Pennant-winners). After helping the Detroit Tigers win the 1984 World Series, the Mets got him for pitcher Walt Terrell, and he platooned with Ray Knight for a couple of years, including 1986. (Knight breaks the pattern, but not by much: He's from Albany, Georgia, but the Rays aren’t that much further to the south than the Braves are to the north.)

In 1987, '89 and '91, HoJo was the 2nd Met, after Darryl Strawberry, to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in the same season; I often joked that he was actually a 30-30-30 man, having also made 30 errors, but the most he ever made was 24, not good but hardly an atrocious total for a 3rd baseman.

With a .249 lifetime batting average and 228 homers, he'll never make the Hall of Fame, but he's still the best hot-corner man the Mets have ever had -- and will be until David Wright wins a World Series (don't hold your breath). He’s now the Mets' 3rd-base coach, and has managed in their minor-league system, so some people think he'll be the next manager when Jerry Manuel is fired.

Honorable Mention to Larry Parrish of Winter Haven. An All-Star once with the Montreal Expos and once with the Texas Rangers, statistically he had a better career than HoJo (256 homers despite not playing in a hitters' park), but his only trip to the postseason was in 1981 with the Expos, so HoJo made a bigger impact. Not to be confused with Lance Parrish, nor any relation. Also to Jim Presley of Pensacola, a pretty good slugger for the mid-1980s Seattle Mariners, but burned out quickly.

Honorable Mention to Dean Palmer of Tallahassee. Also a 3rd baseman for the Rangers, and later for the Tigers. Hit 275 home runs and had 4 100-RBI seasons.

LF Tim Raines of Sanford. This seems like a tough one at first, because I could have gone with a very similar player, Vince Coleman of Jacksonville, who stole 752 bases in his career, including at least 107 in each of his 1st 3 seasons, but really tailed off before he was 30 years old. By contrast, "Rock" Raines batted .304 as a 21-year-old rookie with the 1981 Expos, and .290 as a 38-year-old veteran with the 1998 Yankees, making the postseason each time. He had to get to the Yankees to win a ring in 1996 and another in '98, but it was well worth it.

He led the NL with a .336 batting average in 1986, but fell victim to collusion, and in his first 2 games back with the Expos in '87, on May 1 and 2, torched the Mets -- I was at the May 2 game at Shea, and the Met fans gave him a nice hand because they knew he was a good guy who got screwed.

Actually, he wasn't always a good guy, as he had to overcome a cocaine addiction, but overcome it he did. Lifetime batting average .294, OPS+ 123, 2,605 hits and 808 stolen bases. He has been eligible for the Hall of Fame since 2008, Baseball-Reference.com’s HOF Monitor has him at 90 of a "necessary" 100, their HOF Standards has him at 47 out of 50. He belongs, but, as Coleman did to him, he may be suffering in comparison to Rickey Henderson. (UPDATE: He's now in the Hall.)

His son, center fielder Tim Raines Jr., played briefly with the Orioles, including the 2002 season with his father, joining the Ken Griffeys as the only father-son combo to play for the same team at the same time. Tim Sr. is now the manager of the Atlantic League's Newark Bears, and Tim Jr. plays for them.

I could have given an Honorable Mention to Luis Gonzalez of Tampa, a Jefferson High School teammate of Tino Martinez. Not to do so would suugest that I'm still upset over his World Series-winning hit against the Yankees in 2001. (Well, I am.) But he's just too suspicious. He debuted in 1990, and from then until 1997, his peak homer year was 18. Then, in 1998, at age 30, he suddenly starts jacking them out: Seasons of 23, 26 and 31, and then, in the Arizona Diamondbacks' World Championship year of 2001, 57. And, just like that, he drops again, to 28, 26, 17, 24, 15, 15, and 8 when he retired. He finished with 354 homers. Something's not right there.

CF Johnny Damon of Orlando. I missed him at first because he was born at Fort Riley, Kansas, where his father was stationed at the time (and where Jackie Robinson was stationed in World War II). But he grew up in Orlando, putting him in the Rays' territory.

A .288 lifetime batting average, he just passed the 2,500 hit mark, he has 213 home runs, he led the AL in hits and stolen bases in 2000 (with the Kansas City Royals), led it in triples in 2002 (with the Red Sox), and, along with Ramiro Mendoza and Eric Hinske, is one of only 3 men in the last 86 years to have won World Series with both the Red Sox and the Yankees.

RF Lou Piniella of Tampa. Now best known as a chunky manager, who led the Cincinnati Reds to the 1990 World Championship, the Mariners to every postseason berth they've ever had, and the Cubs to a couple of NL Central titles, he was one heck of a hitter.

He won the 1969 AL Rookie of the Year award with the Kansas City Royals, before being traded to the Yankees after the 1973 season, a great trade for the Yanks as all they gave up was aging reliever Lindy McDaniel. He had 6 .300 seasons, and although he always seemed to be platooning between left, right and the DH spot with Reggie Jackson and Roy White, he was productive when it counted. It seemed like he saved his best games for the arch-rival Red Sox (including 2 tremendously important defensive plays in the 1978 AL East Playoff), the ALCS against the Royals (revenge for getting rid of him, maybe?) and the World Series against the Dodgers (his 10th-inning single drove home White with the winning run in Game 4 in 1978).

He was known as "Sweet Lou" for his swing, not for his personality: While his teammates loved him, he had a temper that Carl Everett would have envied. I'll never forget him getting nailed at the plate in the '78 ALCS -- looking at the replay years later, it's clear that he was out -- and then going into a tirade that led one sportswriter to call him "the Wild Man of Borneo."

As manager in The Bronx, Cincy, Seattle, Tampa and North Side Chicago, everyone waited for bad calls by the umpires to see "the Eruption of Mount Lou." (He's been compared to Italian volcanoes Mt. Vesuvius and Mt. Etna, but is, in fact, descended from immigrants from Spain.) From the time I first became aware of baseball, he's been one of my favorite personalities in the game. If you don’t like Lou Piniella, you’re a sad case. Or a Red Sox, Royals or Dodgers fan.

Honorable Mention to Derek Bell of Tampa, one of the "Killer B's" with Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio on the Astros' 1997-98-99 NL Central Champions. He also helped the Mets win the 2000 NL Pennant, but got hurt and was out of baseball after just one more year. Had he played longer, he might have the starting nod here.

Dishonorable Mention to Gary Sheffield of Tampa. Dwight Gooden's nephew seems to have Hall of Fame credentials, including the 1992 NL batting title, a career OPS+ of 140, 2,689 hits, 509 home runs, 467 doubles and, surprisingly, 253 stolen bases. And, let's face it, we all had to applaud when he faced that guy who was trying to extort his wife, who posed for some racy photos before becoming a gospel singer. Sheff called first his bluff and then the cops. Great.

But... Eight different teams wanted to get him, but all 8 teams ended up wanting to get rid of him. He reached the postseason with 3, but only won 1 Pennant, winning the 1997 World Series with the Marlins. When the Yankees got him in 2004, I was against it, using the cliche "clubhouse cancer." Well, he didn't look like it through that regular season, but he disappeared at the plate during those last 4 ALCS games against the Red Sox. He put up another great regular season in 2005, but again didn't get the job done in October. In 2006, he got hurt, and didn't get the job done in any month, including the embarrassing ALDS loss to the Tigers, and my prophecy was, sadly, fulfilled. He played with the Mets last season, and gave them some big hits at age 40, but got hurt again, and was released.

And then, of course... Seriously, Gary, you didn't know "the cream" had a steroid in it? He may be many things, but he's not stupid. But he didn't respect the baseball establishment, or baseball fans, enough to give us the truth, or even enough to give us a plausible lie. He does not make this team, and, while he's currently not on any roster, and thus stands to become eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2015, I hope he doesn't get in.

DH Hal McRae of Sebring. One of the first players to make his name as a designated hitter, he helped the Kansas City Royals to 10 postseason appearances -- every one they've ever made, including the 1980 Pennant and the 1985 World Championship. A career OPS+ of 122, he led the AL in doubles in 1977 and in doubles and RBIs in 1982. He was less successful as a manager, and although his son Brian McRae also played in the majors, he wasn't nearly as successful as his father.

UT Chone Figgins of Brandon -- originally missed by me because he was born in Leary, Georgia. He's played every position except 1st base, catcher and pitcher, and not just once or twice: Each position he's played, he's played at least 27 times, with 3rd base his most frequent position.

A rookie with the Anaheim Angels' World Champions of 2002, he drove the Yankees crazy in the 2002, '05 and '09 postseasons, and was a big reason why the Angels reached the postseason 6 times in 8 years. He's now with the Seattle Mariners, and at age 32 has a .285 lifetime batting average and 322 stolen bases, leading the AL with 62 in 2005.

C Al Lopez of Tampa. A very good defensive catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates, and in fact once held the record for most games played at the position. Not a great hitter, but did bat .301 in 1933. And the next-best catchers for the Rays' region are Mike Heath of Tampa, Thurman Munson's backup on the 1978 World Champions, who later became a starter in Oakland and Detroit; and Zack Taylor, Gabby Hartnett's backup on the 1929 NL Champion Cubs, who is better known as the St. Louis Browns manager who Bill Veeck usurped for "Grandstand Managers Night" in 1951.

Speaking of managers, Lopez is also the manager of this team. From 1949 to 1964, only twice did the Yankees not win the American League Pennant. That was in 1954 with the Cleveland Indians, and in 1959 with the Chicago White Sox. Both teams had Lopez as their manager. He makes it ahead of Tony LaRussa of Tampa. True, LaRussa has now joined Sparky Anderson as the only managers to win World Series from both Leagues, but if he was really a "genius," he'd have a better World Series won-lost record than 2-3 in series and 9-12 in games, and would have a lot more than the 2 titles in 10 trips to the postseason. In other words, if Bobby Cox were from this region, I wouldn't take him over Lopez, either.

What Lopez did, beating out the Yankee Dynasty of Casey Stengel, was a lot harder. And that, more than his catching, is what got Lopez into the Hall of Fame. Actually, it's amazing how many managers the Tampa Bay area produced, because I could also have tried Davey or Sweet Lou.

Honorable Mention to Anthony John "A.J." Pierzynski of Orlando. Went to Dr. Phillips H.S. with Damon. A 2-time All-Star, he reached the postseason with the 2003 Minnesota Twins, before becoming a key figure in the Chicago White Sox' 2005 World Series run, with that controversial missed 3rd strike in the ALCS. A lot of people who aren't White Sox fans hate him. I think he's a gamer, and if the Yankees ever got him, I'd be fine with it.

SP Jack Billingham of Orlando. Helped the Cincinnati Reds win 3 Pennants and 2 World Series in the 1970s, on his way to 145 career wins.

SP Don Sutton of Pensacola -- originally missed by me because he was born in Clio, Alabama, which also happens to be the birthplace of another somewhat disreputable character, George Wallace. True, Sutton was caught cheating (sandpaper taped to his glove hand, good way to hide it until, of course, he couldn't), but he apparently didn't do it for his entire career. He only won 20 once, in 1976, but won 324 games in his career, and struck out 3,574 batters. Of pitchers with more wins – Nolan Ryan has exactly as many – only Roger Clemens and Steve Carlton have more strikeouts. His career WHIP is 1.142.

Hall of Fame, Number 20 retired by the Los Angeles Dodgers, whom he got to the postseason in 1974, '77, '78 and (through a one-game Playoff for the NL West title) '80. He also reached the postseason with the Houston Astros in '81, the Milwaukee Brewers in '82, and the California Angels in '86. He never won a World Series, though: He was re-signed by the Dodgers in 1988, but was released in August, just before they won the Series (as they had in '81, when he was in Houston).

He was also an occasional panelist on Match Game, one of many Dodgers to take advantage of Hollywood being nearby. He has parlayed that into a broadcasting career for the Atlanta Braves.

SP Dwight Gooden of Tampa. At age 19 and 20, Doctor K was one of the best pitchers we'll ever see. From 21 to 26, he was one of the best pitchers in baseball. From 27 to 35, he was just another pitcher as he battled his demons, which, don't forget, included injuries as well as drugs. And at 35, much too soon, he was done.

He should have been 194-112 at the 2/3rds mark of his career, but that was his final record. But he did pitch a no-hitter (as a Yankee, not a Met), and he did win 3 World Series (1986 as a Met, 1996 and 2000 as a Yankee).

SP Mike Hampton of Crystal River. He helped the Astros to 3 straight postseason appearances, going 22-4 in the last of those seasons, 1999. So the Mets made him a rent-a-star in 2000, and he led them to a Pennant, pitching the NLCS clincher in Game 5 at Shea. But the Mets chose not to sign him to a new contract, and he chose to sign with the Colorado Rockies. So, Hamp, how good are the schools in the Denver area?

Injuries have dogged him ever since. Officially, he's not retired, but it looks like his current career record of 148-115 is going to hold.

SP Tim Wakefield of Melbourne. Since 1995, the Boston Red Sox have reached the postseason 8 times in 15 seasons, and he's been there for all of them. He's still at it at age 43, having won 192 games, including Games 1 and 4 of the 2003 ALCS, before giving up Aaron Boone's homer in Game 7. Still, he has been as much a part of the Sox' success, throughout their history, as anyone.

Honorable Mention to Zack Greinke of Orlando. He won last year's AL Cy Young Award, going 16-8 with an ERA of 2.16, an ERA+ of 205, and a WHIP of 1.073, all leading the League. A far cry from the 5-17 he had with the Kansas City Royals in 2005. For a career, he’s only 55-61... but he's only 26, and the next-best choice for a 5th starter for the Tampa Bay region was Brett Myers of Jacksonville. Greinke will be there, especially if he can get away from Kansas City and get to a contender.

Dishonorable Mention to Kenny Rogers of Plant City (initially missed by me because he was born in Savannah, Georgia). True, he went 219-156 for a .528 winning percentage, and his career ERA of 108 isn't bad, but his career WHIP is 1.403, and he's a known cheater and a massive jackass.

Plus, how many players can say they screwed over both New York baseball teams? The Yankees came back from 6-0 down in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series, but the reason they were in that hole is because Rogers, 12-8 that regular season but with a 14.14 ERA in the postseason, put them there. And he threw the biggest base on balls in baseball history in Game 6 of the 1999 NLCS, walking Andruw Jones with the bases loaded to give the Atlanta Braves the Pennant against the Mets. His name may have been Kenny Rogers, but it was a manager bringing him in who was "The Gambler."

RP Tom Gordon of Avon Park. A pretty good starter for the Royals, he became a great reliever for the Red Sox. In 1998, he saved 46 for the Sox, and Sox fan Stephen King wrote a fantasy novel titled The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

This is how strong the Curse of the Bambino -- if it actually existed -- was: Gordon got hurt the next season, which may have prevented the Sox from beating the Yanks in the '99 ALCS. He was with the Yankees in 2004, and... lost in the ALCS to the Red Sox! He finally got a ring with the 2008 Phillies. At age 41, he appears to be done, with 138 wins and 158 saves. But a good career.

Honorable Mention to Bobby Thigpen of Tallahassee. For a few years, he was a great closer with the Chicago White Sox. In 1990, he saved 57 games, a record that stood until 2008. But injury cut his career short at age 30, with 201 saves. He did make it into a World Series, with the Phillies in 1993.