St. Louis' 10 Greatest Athletes

Left to right: Bruce Sutter, Bob Gibson, Red Schoendienst,

Stan Musial, Whitey Herzog, Lou Brock and Ozzie Smith.

Today, the Mets opened the 2018 baseball season at home to the St. Louis Cardinals, winning 9-4.

St. Louis' 10 Greatest Athletes

My metro areas lists won't be like my lists for the States: While it is possible for someone to qualify on both lists, this is about players who played for local teams, not necessarily athletes who grew up there. In other words, great players in individual sports like boxing or tennis or track are out.

Honorable Mention to members of the Baseball Hall of Fame not otherwise in the Top 10: From the Cardinals, 1st basemen Charles Comiskey, Jake Beckley, Jim Bottomley, Johnny Mize and Orlando Cepeda; 2nd basemen Frankie Frisch and Red Schoendienst shortstop Ozzie Smith; left fielders Chick Hafey and Joe Medwick; and pitchers Grover Cleveland Alexander, Jessie Haines, Burleigh Grimes, Dizzy Dean, Steve Carlton and Bruce Sutter. (Ol' Diz was an all-time great, but an injury kept him from being great long enough to make the Top 10.

And from the Browns, shortstop Bobby Wallace, left fielder Goose Goslin, catcher Rick Ferrell, and pitcher Satchel Paige.

Honorable Mention to members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame not otherwise in the Top 10: From the Cardinals, tight end Jackie Smith, cornerback Roger Wehrli, and offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf; and from the Rams, offensive tackle Orlando Pace.

Honorable Mention, in particular, to Kurt Warner, quarterback, St. Louis Rams, 1998-2003 -- who is, after all, the only quarterback to lead a St. Louis team to an NFL Championship. The Rams' "Greatest Show On Turf" didn't last long, pretty much from Warner's assumption of the quarterbacking duties in the 1999 preseason following Trent Green's injury, until a finger injury Warner suffered early in the 2003 season -- barely 4 full seasons.

But those seasons, with Warner, running backs Marshall Faulk and Dre Bly, and receivers Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Az-Zahir Hakim and Ricky Proehl, with Orlando Pace blocking for them, was one of the most spectacular offensive shows in NFL history, winning Super Bowl XXXIV -- the 1st NFL Championship in St. Louis history, and the 1st for the Rams franchise in 48 years. Warner was named Most Valuable Player of that game, and would be named NFL MVP in 1999 and 2001.

A 4-time Pro Bowler, he got the Rams into Super Bowl XXXVI, but they lost. He was later be signed by the Arizona Cardinals, the former St. Louis football team, and got them into Super Bowl XLIII, their 1st NFC Championship, and their 1st NFL Championship Game under any name in 60 years. But they lost, too.

He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame earlier this year. He was elected to the St. Louis Football Ring of Fame and the Arizona Cardinals Ring of Honor. In 2010, the NFL Network ranked him 90th on their list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. If the Rams institute a new team hall of fame once their permanent Los Angeles (Inglewood) stadium opens, he might be named to it, even though he never played a professional game in the L.A. metropolitan area.

Honorable Mention to members of the Basketball Hall of Fame not otherwise in the Top 10: From the Hawks, centers Ed Macauley and Clyde Lovellette; forwards Cliff Hagan and Lenny Wilkens; and guard Slater Martin, Richie Gerin and Zelmo Beaty; and from the Spirits, forward Maurice Lucas.

Honorable Mention to Blues who are members of the Basketball Hall of Fame not otherwise in the Top 10: Goaltenders Glenn Hall and Grant Fuhr, defensemen Al MacInnis and Chris Pronger, left wing Brendan Shanahan, right wing Joe Mullen, and centers Bernie Federko, Doug Gilmour and Adam Oates.

Honorable Mention to the St. Louis Boys of 1950. Of the 11 players of the U.S. team that upset England at the 1950 World Cup, 5 were from St. Louis. Goalkeeper Frank Borghi and center-half Charlie Colombo, outside right Frank "Pee Wee" Wallace and inside right Gino Parianiplayed for St. Louis Simpkins-Ford. Right back Harry Keough played for St. Louis McMahon, St. Louis Raiders and St. Louis Kutis.

Left back Joe Maca played for Brooklyn Hispano. Center forward Joe Gaetjens played for Brookhattan. Left half Walter Bahr, the last survivor, and midfielder Ed McIlvenny were playing for Philadelphia Nationals. Inside left John Souza and outside left Ed Souza played for Fall River Delponta Delgada in Massachusetts.

10. Larry Wilson, safety, St. Louis Cardinals (football), 1960-72. Like 1920s football star George Wilson, to whom he appears not to have been related, he was nicknamed Wildcat, but the earlier Wilson is not the reason. When he was drafted by the Chicago Cardinals in 1960 -- they moved to St. Louis between the draft and the next season -- their defensive coordinator, Chuck Drulis, created a play he code-named "Wildcat," inventing the safety blitz. The Cards drafted Larry specifically to take advantage of this, as his play at the University of Utah showed him to be both really fast and hard-hitting.

Larry Wilson was so tough! (How tough was he?) He was so tough, he once played a game with both hands taped over, including his fingers, because he had broken both wrists -- and still intercepted a pass. It was 1 of 52 he picked off in his career, for 800 yards, including 5 touchdowns.

The aforementioned Jerry Kramer called him "the finest football player in the NFL." It seems a crime that he never appeared in a Playoff game in his 13 seasons, but Kramer's Packers dominated the NFL Western Division at the time, so the closest the Cardinals came was finishing 2nd in 1964, making the subsequent Bert Bell Benefit Bowl (a.k.a. the Playoff Bowl).

It's not that they weren't good: They were 9-5 in 1963, 9-3-2 in 1964, 8-5-1 in 1966, 9-4-1 in 1968, and 8-5-1 in 1970. We're not talking about a one-man team here. Had he hung on just a little longer, he could have been a part of the Cardinals' 1974 and '75 NFC Eastern Division Champions.

He made 8 Pro Bowls, and was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the NFL 1960s and 1970s All-Decade Teams (even though he retired in 1972, and the only other man named to both teams was Dick Butkus), and the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team.

In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 43rd on their list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. It is a crime that he was not named to the NFL Network's 100 Greatest Players in 2010, especially since he was still alive and available for an interview (and still is now). No player from the 1999 TSN 100 had a bigger dropoff. Along with Ronnie Lott, Paul Krause, Ken Houston and Emlen Tunnell, he is probably still 1 of the top 5 safeties in football history.

The Cardinals retired his Number 8 well before they moved to Arizona. Even though he never played for Arizona (though he was a Cardinals executive both before and after the move, serving as scouting director, personnel director, general manager and vice president, retiring from an active role in 2002), he is in their Ring of Honor at University of Phoenix Stadium. Although he never played for the Rams, they (before moving back to Los Angeles) named him to the St. Louis Football Ring of Fame at the Edwards Jones Dome.

9. Marshall Faulk, running back, St. Louis Rams, 1999-2005. A star at San Diego State University, he made 7 Pro Bowls, and was named the NFL's Rookie of the Year in 1994 and Most Valuable Player in 2000. At the turn of the 21st Century, he was probably the NFL's best all-around player, helping the Rams reach Super Bowls XXXIV (won) and XXXVI (lost).

He finished his career with 12,280 rushing yards and an even 100 rushing touchdowns; and 767 catches for 6,875 yards and 36 touchdowns. The Indianapolis Colts, with whom he started, named him to their Ring of Honor. San Diego State and the Rams both retired Number 28 for him. He was elected to both the College and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 2010, the NFL Network listed him 70th on their list of the NFL's 100 Greatest Players.

His cousin Kevin Faulk was also a star running back, and helped the Patriots win 3 Super Bowls, including beating the Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.

8. Rogers Hornsby, 2nd base, St. Louis Cardinals, 1915-26 and 1933; and St. Louis Browns, 1933-37. He would rank a bit higher on this list had he stayed in St. Louis for his entire career, but he was traded away from the Cardinals -- despite being their best hitter and their manager of their 1st World Series-winning team -- because he was a rotten guy. This included being a racist and a compulsive gambler.

He also might have been the greatest righthanded pure hitter who ever lived. His .358 lifetime batting average is a record for righthanders. He batted .402 over a 5-year stretch from 1922 to 1926, including .424 in 1924, the highest in Major League Baseball since 1894.

He won 7 National League batting titles, 2 home run titles, 4 RBI titles, and all 3, the Triple Crown, in 1922 and 1925. He was named NL Most Valuable Player in 1925 and 1929. He collected 2,930 hits, and had 301 home runs. That doesn't sound like much now, but when he played his last game in 1937, only Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx had more. In addition to his 1926 World Championship with the Cardinals, he also won Pennants with the Chicago Cubs in 1929 and 1932.

But he went on to make 2 troubling discoveries: He was respected, but hated, and teams couldn't wait to get rid of him, his ego, and his private troubles; and he was a far better manager with himself as a player than without, frequently frustrated when his players weren't very good, let alone as good as he was.

He was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. When The Sporting News named its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, Hornsby came in 9th, the highest-ranked 2nd baseman.

The Cardinals named him to their team Hall of Fame, and dedicated a statue to him outside Busch Stadium. While uniform numbers began to be used during his career, he never wore the same number long enough to be identified with it, so a Cardinal "STL" logo stands in for a retired number along with their other honorees.

7. Brett Hull, right wing, St. Louis Blues, 1988-98. Picking a player for the Blues is difficult, because most of their better players also spent significant time with other teams, including Hull, Al MacInnis, Chris Pronger and Keith Tkachuk. But Hull is the only one with a statue outside their arena. He scored 741 goals in his NHL career, 527 of them with the Blues.

6. Bob Pettit, forward, St. Louis Hawks, 1955-65. He was an 11-time NBA All-Star, a 2-time NBA MVP, and the 1st NBA player to score 20,000 points. (This wouldn't be a big deal today. It was a huge deal then, in 1965.) He won the 1958 NBA Championship with the Hawks. After they moved to Atlanta, they retired his Number 9. He was named to the Basketball Hall of Fame and the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players.

5. George Sisler, 1st base, St. Louis Browns, 1915-27. He started out as a pitcher, and in his rookie year, 1915, he outpitched his hero, Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators, twice. But, like another lefthanded pitcher who had his 1st full season in 1915, Babe Ruth, he turned out to be a much better hitter.

"Gorgeous George" -- or "the Sizzler" -- had a .340 lifetime batting average, including American League batting titles in 1920 and 1922. In 1922, he nearly led the Browns to the Pennant, falling 1 game short of the Yankees. He collected 257 hits, a major league record that stood until Ichiro Suzuki got 262 in 2004. For his career, he had 2,812 hits, and he might be much better remembered had he gotten the remaining 188 to get to 3,000.

He also led the AL in stolen bases 4 times, and for decades was regarded as the best-fielding 1st baseman in the game's history. When the Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1939, there were 25 inductees, 12 of whom were still alive, and 11 of them attended the opening ceremony -- all but Ty Cobb, who got held up getting there and just missed it. Sisler was the last survivor of those 12, living until 1973.

Many people forgot him, but The Sporting News didn't, ranking him 33rd on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999. When the current Busch Stadium opened in 2006, a statue of Sisler was placed outside, even though he never played for the Cardinals.

(The Browns became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954, but they have not honored him in any way. And since his last season in the majors was 1930, the last year before every team adopted uniform numbers, there is no number to retire for him, which is another reason why he's not as well remembered as, say, Cobb or Ruth.)

He had 3 sons involved with professional baseball, including Dick Sisler, whose home run on the last day of the 1950 regular season gave the Philadelphia Phillies the National League Pennant over the Brooklyn Dodgers -- whose team president, fellow University of Michigan graduate Branch Rickey, had signed him as a scout. George said, "I felt awful and terrific at the same time."

4. Albert Pujols, 1st base, St. Louis Cardinals, 2001-11. In 11 seasons with the Cards, Phat Albert made 10 All-Star teams. He also drove in at least 100 runs every season until 2011, when he had 99. He batted .328 with the Cardinals, with a 170 OPS+, 455 doubles, and 445 home runs. With all of that, and his being a 1st baseman, he was frequently compared with Stan Musial, a.k.a. Stan the Man, even getting the same nickname, "El Hombre."

His subsequent tenure with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim hasn't been as successful, but he goes into the 2018 season with 614 home runs, more than any player has ever hit honestly except Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Ken Griffey Jr. (Jim Thome finished with 612.) By the year 2027, expect to see him in the Hall and to see his Number 5 retired at Busch Stadium.

3. Lou Brock, left field, St. Louis Cardinals, 1964-79. He led Southern University of Baton Rouge, Louisiana to the 1959 NAIA Championship (national championship for small schools). Based on this, and on his major league achievements, he was elected to the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

An 8-time MLB All-Star, he collected over 3,000 hits, and set records (which still stand, at least within the National League) for stolen bases in a season and a career. He led the St. Louis Cardinals to the 1964 (won), 1967 (won) and 1968 (lost) World Series. In 1967, he won the Babe Ruth Award, 1 of the 2 awards given to the Most Valuable Player of the World Series. (Bob Gibson got the better-known award, the Sport Magazine Award.)

The Cardinals retired his Number 20. He was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame and The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players, ranked 58th.

2. Bob Gibson, pitcher, St. Louis Cardinals, 1959-75. Like Wilt Chamberlain, he played college basketball, in his case for Omaha's Creighton University. Also like Wilt, he played for the Harlem Globetrotters. Unlike Wilt, he couldn't stand the clowning, and wanted to play serious sports only. And since baseball paid more than basketball at that point, he chose baseball. And when Bob Gibson played baseball, it was a serious sport.

He didn't regret his choice of sports, but many men did. More so than even Don Drysdale, he was considered the meanest pitcher of his generation. He once said, "I didn't throw at a lot of guys, but when I did, I made sure I hit them." He also presaged Charles Barkley with this remark: "Why do I have to be a role model for your kid? You be a role model for your kid."

Along with Brock and Ken Boyer, he helped the St. Louis Cardinals win the 1964 and (with the additions of Orlando Cepeda and Roger Maris) 1967 World Series, and was named the Series MVP both times. In Game 1 in 1968, he set a Series record with 17 strikeouts. He seemed unbeatable, having already won Game 7 in both 1964 and 1967, but the Detroit Tigers got to him in Game 7 in 1968.

That 1968 season saw him put together the lowest earned-run average of the post-1920 Lively Ball Era, 1.12. For his career, he was 251-714, with 3,117 strikeouts, making him the 1st National League pitcher to fan 3,000. He made 9 All-Star Games, won 2 Cy Young Awards (1968 and 1970), and won 9 Gold Gloves. He also pitched a no-hitter in 1971.

He was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame, The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. The Cardinals elected him to their team Hall of Fame, retired his Number 45, and erected a statue of him outside Busch Stadium.

Do you want to tell Gibson he's not the greatest athlete ever to play for a St. Louis sports team? Neither do I. But he respects the history of the game, and of the Cardinals in particular, to accept that, in St. Louis, only Stan was truly The Man.

1. Stan Musial, left field, St. Louis Cardinals, 1941-63. Like Sisler and Babe Ruth, he was a lefthander who started as a pitcher. Like Ruth, but also played the outfield. Unlike Sisler and Ruth, his pitching career ended when he landed on his shoulder while making a great catch in the minor leagues. So he became a full-time outfielder -- and, along with Hornsby and Hank Aaron, a candidate for the title of greatest hitter in National League History.

Ted Williams, Stan's contemporary, always said he wanted people to think of him as the greatest hitter who ever lived. If there's one thing Ted liked more than hitting, it was talking about hitting. Once, he went on and on about Stan, until his son, John Henry Williams, asked if he thought Stan was as good a hitter as he was, and Ted said, "Yes, I do." That says it all; the rest is details.

Here's some of the details. He shares with Aaron and Willie Mays the record of 24 All-Star Game appearances. (There were 2 ASGs every year from 1958 to 1962, so he appeared in them in the last 20 of his 22 MLB seasons.) He had a career batting average of .331. Someone once asked him why he was always smiling, and he said, "If you had a lifetime batting average of .331, you'd be smiling, too!" He won 7 batting titles. His OPS+ was a whopping 159, meaning he was 59 percent better at producing runs than the average player of his time.

He was the 1st man to collect his 3,000th career hit on television, in 1958. He finished with 3,630 hits -- exactly 1,815 at home and 1,815 on the road. He hit 725 doubles, 3rd all-time behind Tris Speaker and Pete Rose -- and Stan's last hit, in 1963, went under the glove of Rose, then a rookie 2nd baseman for the Cincinnati Reds.

He hit 475 home runs, more than any National Leaguer before him except Mel Ott. He had 1,951 RBIs, more than any NLer before him and still 7th all-time, including 10 100+ seasons. He finished with more extra-base hits (1,377) and more total bases (6,134) than any other player (with both records having been broken by Aaron).

He won 4 Pennants with the Cardinals, winning the World Series in 1942, 1944 and 1946, and losing it in 1943. He won 3 NL MVP awards, in 1943, 1946 and 1948 -- in this last, missing the Triple Crown by 1 home run -- and finished 2nd 4 other times, including 1957, when he won his last batting title, and Sports Illustrated named him Sportsman of the Year.

He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility. In 1999, The Sporting News listed him 10th on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and fan balloting put him on the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.

In 2011, Barack Obama awarded him the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Reflecting his service to his adopted hometown, and to his country, serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II in 1945 -- the only year between 1942 and 1946 that the Cardinals didn't win the Pennant -- a new bridge for Interstate 70 over the Mississippi River, which opened just after his death in 2013, was named the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge, and is nicknamed the Stan Span.

The Cardinals retired his Number 6, and dedicated a statue to him outside Busch Stadium, having since moved it to the new ballpark with that name. On its base is a quote from the Commissioner at the time, Ford Frick: "Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's perfect knight."

Top 10 Athletes From Texas

December 29, 1845: Texas is admitted to the Union as the 28th State.

Top 10 Athletes From Texas

This was a tough one, due not to the immense size of Texas' land area, but to the large population base. Had I decided to only rank the State's Top 10 Football Players, it would have been tough to narrow it down.

Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Kathy Whitworth, Lee Trevino, Ben Crenshaw and Jordan Spieth are all golf legends, but they don't count for this list, because golfers are not athletes. Trevino was, however, named Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated in 1971. Nor is auto racing a sport, which eliminates Texans A.J. Foyt and Johnny Rutherford.

Assault, the horse that won the Triple Crown in 1946, was born at King Ranch outside Corpus Christi. Wild Again, the horse that won the 1st Breeders' Cup Classic in 1984, was born at Black Chip Stables in Clarendon, in the Panhandle.

Honorable Mention to Yankees from Texas who contributed to World Series wins: Cliff Johnson of San Antonio (1977 and 1978), Randy Choate of San Antonio (2000), and, especially, Andy Pettitte of the Houston suburb of Deer Park (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2009).

Now, we come to an elephant in the room: Steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Chuck Knoblauch of Houston (1998, 1999 and 2000)? Accused in the Mitchell Report, which, as we now know, has no credibility. Accused by Brian McNamee, ditto. Mike Stanton of Midland (1998, 1999 and 2000)? Also named in the Mitchell Report, and accused by Kirk Radomski. Innocent until proven guilty.

And Roger Clemens of Houston (1999 and 2000)? Aside from Barry Bonds, no player has been more harshly accused. But he is the one player who, thus far, has legally beaten the rap. That doesn't mean we have to like him. It does mean that we have to stop assuming that he's guilty. As was said in another courtroom, You should never assume, because, when you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME.

Honorable Mention Baseball Hall-of-Famers who didn't make the Top 10: Ross Youngs of San Antonio, and Negro Leaguers Andrew "Rube" Foster of Calvert, Smokey Joe Williams of Seguin, and Willie Wells of Austin.

Honorable Mention to Nolan Ryan of the Houston suburb of Alvin. It's a little ironic that he won his only World Series, indeed his only Pennant, with the 1969 Mets, before he became a star. But he might not have become a star if the Mets hadn't made that dumb trade with the California Angels after the 1971 season.

"The Ryan Express," owner of one of the fastest pitches ever, set records for strikeouts in a game (19), a season (383 in 1973), and in a career (5,714). Most K's in a game has been broken, but, unless the way pitchers are handled changes, his records for a season and a career will probably never be broken).

He pitched 7 no-hitters, shattering the old record of 4. He reached the postseason with the Angels in 1979. In 1980, with his hometown Astros, he became the 1st player paid $1 million a season (about $3.2 million in today's money). He helped them reach the postseason in 1980 and 1986. He made 8 All-Star Games, his last at age 42.

But he never won a Cy Young Award. His career record of 324-292 gives him one of the lowest winning percentages of any Hall of Fame pitcher. He was the all-time leader in batters walked 6 years before he was the all-time leader in batters struck out. He is often called the most overrated player of all time.

He did have some bad luck. In 1987, he led the National League in strikeouts and earned run average, but went 8-16 because the Astros stopped hitting. That season included the only time I ever saw him pitch, and it was typical of that season: He was 40 years old, and still pitching superbly, but lost 2-1 to the Philadelphia Phillies at Veterans Stadium. He was still a solid pitcher at 44, for the Texas Rangers, and kept pitching until he was 46, a record-tying 27 major league seasons.

He is a member of the 300 Win and 3,000 Strikeout Clubs, and in 1999 became a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame (his 1st year of eligibility), The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. He is the only player to have his number retired 3 by teams: 30 by the Angels, 34 by the Astros and Rangers. He has a statue outside Globe Life Park in Arlington, and a nearby highway is named the Nolan Ryan Freeway.

Honorable Mention to a whole slew of football players who didn't make the Top 10. The Heisman Trophy winners alone are astounding: Davey O'Brien of Dallas, 1938; Earl Campbell of Tyler, 1977; Billy Sims of Hooks, 1978; Tim Brown of Dallas, 1987, he and O'Brien make Dallas' Woodrow Wilson High School the only high school in the country with 2 winners; Andre Ware of the Houston suburb of Dickinson, 1989; Ty Detmer of San Marcos, 1990; Robert Griffin III of Copperas Cove, 2011; and Baker Mayfield of the Austin suburb of Lake Travis, 2017, the current holder.

Also, the following have made the Pro Football Hall of Fame. On offense: Campbell, Brown, Bobby Layne of Dallas and Yale Lary of Fort Worth (each winning 3 NFL Championships with the Detroit Lions), Y.A. Tittle of Marshall, Raymond Berry of Paris (2 NFL Championships with the Baltimore Colts), Forrest Gregg of the Dallas suburb of Sulphur Springs (5 NFL Championships with the Green Bay Packers), Charley Taylor of the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie (once the all-time leader in receptions), Gene Upshaw of Robstown (3 Super Bowl wins with the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders), Eric Dickerson of Sealy (still the single-season rushing yardage record holder),

On defense: Mean Joe Greene of Temple (4 Super Bowl wins with the Pittsburgh Steelers), and Mike Singletary of Houston (Captain of the Chicago Bears' Super Bowl XX winners).

Also: Harvey Martin of Dallas (MVP of Super Bowl XII), Vince Young of Houston (led the University of Texas to the 2005 National Championship), Drew Brees of Austin (MVP of Super Bowl XLIV and 2010 Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year), Adrian Peterson of Palestine (over 12,000 rushing yards), Von Miller of the Dallas suburb of DeSoto (MVP of Super Bowl 50), and Dez Bryant of Lufkin (528 receptions, and he just turned 29).

In 2008, ESPN named ranked Vince Young 10th and Earl Campbell 12th on their list of the Top 25 College Football Players of All Time.

UPDATE: Nick Foles is a graduate of Westlake High School in Austin, as is Brees. Before Super Bowl LII, Brees, still the starting quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, called him to give him a pep talk. Foles, who wasn't even the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles when the season began, led the Eagles to victory, and was named the game's MVP.

Dishonorable Mention to Russell Erxleben of Seguin. In 1977, playing for the University of Texas, he set an NCAA record that has since been tied, but never broken: He kicked a 67-yard field goal. He went into the securities business, and is now in prison for fraud -- for the 2nd time.

Honorable Mention to members of the Basketball Hall of Fame who didn't make the Top 10: Slater Martin of the Houston suburb of Elmina, Jay Arnette of Austin, Zelmo Beaty of Woodville, Clyde "the Glide" Drexler of Houston, Dennis Rodman of Dallas, and Sheryl Swoopes of the Lubbock suburb of Brownfield.

Arnette, who played a few years with the Cincinnati Royals, was elected to the Hall, collectively, with his teammates on the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Drexler was a member of the "Dream Team" at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and was named to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players.

Honorable Mention to Carla Overbeck of the Dallas suburb of Richardson. She was a member of the U.S. team that won the 1999 Women's World Cup, collectively named Sportswomen of the Year by Sports Illustrated. She had previously won the 1st Women's World Cup in 1991, and the Gold Medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. She is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention to Bobby Morrow of San Benito. The sprinter won 3 Gold Medals at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, and Sports Illustrated named him Sportsman of the Year. In 1957, he was given the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award as the outstanding American amateur athlete of the year.

Honorable Mention to Randy Matson of Pampa. In 1964, he won the Silver Medal in the shot put at the Olympics in Tokyo. In 1967, he won the Sullivan Award. In 1968, in Mexico City, he won the Gold Medal.

Honorable Mention to Michael Johnson of Dallas. He won a Gold Medal as a member of a U.S. relay team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. In 1996, he won Gold Medals in the 200 and 400 meters in Atlanta, and received the Sullivan Award. He won the 400 again in 2000 in Sydney, giving him 4 Olympic Gold Medals.

Honorable Mention to Chip Rives of Dallas. While a football player at Wake Forest University, he was named 1 of 8 "Athletes Who Care" by Sports Illustrated, who received the Sportspeople of the Year award, for leading a toy drive. He became a film producer, and specializes in sports documentaries.

Honorable Mention to Paulie Ayala of Fort Worth. He was recognized as Bantamweight Champion of the World by the WBA from 1999 to 2002, and named Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine in 1999.

Honorable Mention to winners of the Honda-Broderick Cup as the leading female collegiate athlete of the schoolyear, all basketball players: Kamie Ethridge of Lubbock and the University of Texas, 1985-86; Teresa Weatherspoon of Pineland and Louisiana Tech, 1987-88; and Brittney Griner of Houston and Baylor University, 2011-12.

Dishonorable Mention to Lance Armstrong of the Dallas suburb of Plano. All those Tours de France, and the 2002 Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year. But it doesn't matter how inspirational you were if you're exposed as a cheat.

Dishonorable Mention to Mike Timlin of Midland and Keith Foulke of the Houston suburb of Huffman. Members of the 2004 Boston Red Sox, the team collectively awarded Sportspeople of the Year by Sports Illustrated. And Foulke was named World Series Most Valuable Player. But, as I said, cheaters don't get counted here. As far as I know, Timlin and Foulke were not, themselves, culpable. But they benefited from those who were.

Dishonorable Mention to Josh Beckett of the Houston suburb of Spring. Named World Series MVP with the 2003 Florida Marlins, he also won it with the Red Sox in 2007. But there's a reason he's called Super Punk, above and beyond the cheating of teammates on both ballclubs.

Dishonorable Mention to Johnny Manziel of the San Antonio suburb of Kerrville. He won the Heisman in 2012, but has been disgraceful ever since.

Now, the Top 10:

10. Dick Lane of Austin. In 1952, "Night Train" was a hit record by Jimmy Forrest, and Lane was a rookie cornerback with the Los Angeles Rams. It became his nickname, particularly sticking after a game against the Washington Redskins, when he clobbered Charlie Justice, whose nickname was also train-related: A newspaper headline read, "Night Train Derails Choo Choo."

He was known as a ferocious tackler, specializing in "the horse-collar tackle," later outlawed. A 2009 NFL Films documentary rated him the Number 2 tackler of all time, behind Dick Butkus. But it was his speed that really fit the nickname. That speed enabled him to set an incredible record: In that 12-game season, he intercepted 14 passes. Even in a 16-game schedule, that has never been matched.

A 7-time Pro Bowler, he also starred with the Chicago Cardinals and the Detroit Lions, but never appeared in a Playoff game. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the NFL's 1950s All-Decade Team, and its 50th and 75th Anniversary All-Time Teams. In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 20th, the highest-ranking defensive back, on its 100 Greatest Football Players.

9. Ernie Banks of Dallas. "Mr. Cub" is so identified with Chicago that it's easy to forget that it's not where he's from. Indeed, he's from Big D, not the City of the Big Shoulders. It's just as well that he played baseball: Nobody ever played football and said, "Let's play two!"

A 14-time All-Star, he won back-to-back National League Most Valuable Player awards in 1958 and 1959, despite the Cubs not being anywhere near the Pennant race. He won a Gold Glove in 1960, and finished his career with 2,583 hits, including 512 home runs, an astonishing number for a player who spent the 1st half of his career as a shortstop, before moving to 1st base.

The Cubs retired his Number 14, and erected a statue of him outside Wrigley Field. He was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame, The Sporting News' 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. in 2013, President Barack Obama awarded him the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom

In spite of the achievements of Red Grange, Walter Payton, Bobby Hull and even Michael Jordan, Ernie may still be, even after his death, the most popular athlete in Chicago's history.

8. George Foreman of Houston. There have been 2 George Foremans -- and, no, that's not a reference to his having named all 5 of his sons George. They're the same guy, but very different men.

The 1st George was a proud winner of the Gold Medal in Heavyweight boxing at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, then a ferocious beast who worked his way up the ranks until 1973, when he destroyed first Joe Frazier to take the Heavyweight Championship of the World, and then Ken Norton, the only 2 men who had yet beaten Muhammad Ali.

Big George was scary. In the leadup to his fight with Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) on October 30, 1974, Ali was talking to film and TV cameras, saying what he was going to do in order to win back the title, going on and on. George, by then 40-0 as a professional, was succinct: He looked into the camera, and said, "I'm gonna kill you." And then he smiled, as if to say he was kidding. But there were people who thought that he might actually end Ali's life in the ring.

Ali surprised everybody, dominating the fight -- it wasn't all "rope-a-dope" -- and knocking Foreman out in the 8th round. George didn't really recover: He regained his contender status, and won The Ring magazine's Fighter of the Year award in 1976, having already won it in 1973. But a loss to Jimmy Young in 1977 ended his fight career.

Or so everyone thought. George took stock of his life, found religion, and became an ordained minister. He said that Young had knocked the Devil out of him. He spent most of his boxing earnings on building a youth center in Houston. To keep it going, he returned to the ring, as an old (already 38), bald, fat guy who charmed the people he used to scare. Until he got into the ring, and then, he was all business.

In 1990, he went into Boardwalk Hall, next-door to Caesars Atlantic City, to face former heavyweight challenger Gerry Cooney. The promoters called it "The War at the Shore," but the comedians called it "Two Geezers at Caesars." Some war: George knocked Gerry out in 2 rounds. He was serious!

In 4 years, he went 23-0, and actually got another shot at the title, and went the full 12 rounds with Evander Holyfield at age 42. Most people, myself included, thought he'd proved his point, and that he should get out of the ring before he got hurt. He didn't think so, and kept going. On November 5, 1994, 20 years to the week after "The Rumble In the Jungle," wearing the same trunks he wore that night, he went into the ring at the MGM Grand Garden outside Las Vegas, against Michael Moorer, who held the WBA and IBF Heavyweight Titles. George knocked him out in the 10th round. At 45, he was the oldest Heavyweight Champion of the World ever.

He held it until 1997, losing to Shannon Briggs. His final record was 76-5. He had become beloved, knocking guys out, selling his George Foreman Grill, doing commercials for other products. In 2016, he, fellow sports legend Terry Bradshaw, and acting icons William Shatner and Henry Winkler toured Asia together for the NBC miniseries Better Late Than Never, earning him a new generation of fans. They've since filmed a 2nd season, in Europe, which will air in the coming weeks. As hard as it was to believe in 1974 -- or even 1987 -- now, everybody loves George Foreman.

7. Tris Speaker of the Dallas suburb of Hubbard. Like Edwin "Duke" Snider, Richie "Whitey" Ashburn and Edward "Whitey" Ford, his prematurely light hair got him a nickname, "The Grey Eagle." (Always written that way, never as "Gray.") In the 1910s and 1920s, he was right up there with Ty Cobb as the best all-around player in baseball.

He was an incredible hitter, with a .345 lifetime batting average, and 3,514 career hits, a total still surpassed only by Cobb, Pete Rose, Hank Aaron and Stan Musial. He holds the career record for doubles with 792. He was also the best-fielding outfielder of his time, and he still holds the career record for assists by an outfielder with 449.

He helped the Boston Red Sox win the World Series in 1912 and 1915, was traded to the Cleveland Indians, became their player-manager, and won the Series with them in 1920. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with its 2nd class in 1937, and ranked 27th on The Sporting News' 1999 list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players.

Despite allegations that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, in 1947 Speaker came out of retirement, at the request of Indians owner Bill Veeck, to assist the American League's 1st black player, Larry Doby, in learning how to play center field, which he hadn't played before. Speaker assisted the other black players that Veeck brought in as well, and won another World Series ring as one of their coaches in 1948. Although he is in the Indians' team Hall of Fame (and the Red Sox' as well), the uniform number he wore as a coach, 43, is not retired.

6. Jack Johnson of Galveston. In 1908, he became the 1st black man to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World. This "conquest" of the white man, and his flamboyant lifestyle, made him the most hated man in America. Even many black people hated him, for making them look bad. He didn't care. Even when convicted on a bullshit charge in 1912, and forced to flee the country and fight elsewhere, he was still going to be Jack Johnson.

Until he finally got tired of it. Did he throw that fight to Jess Willard in Cuba in 1915? It was just as hot for Willard. Or maybe, at 37, everything just caught up with him. He still stands as one of the greatest heavyweights ever, a man Muhammad Ali admired tremendously.

5. Doak Walker of Dallas. You'd go by "Doak," too, if your name was Ewell Doak Walker Jr. Despite delaying his college career to serve in the U.S. Merchant Marine in World War II, he did for Texas running backs what Sammy Baugh did for Texas quarterbacks: Raised the role to the status of icon.

He helped Dallas' Southern Methodist University (SMU) win the 1947 and 1948 Southwest Conference Championships and the 1949 Cotton Bowl. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1948 and finished 2nd in the voting in 1949. He brought so many fans to SMU games that they had to move their home games to the Cotton Bowl stadium. It wasn't enough: The Bowl had to be double-decked, and it became known as "The House That Doak Built."

He was drafted by the Detroit Lions, where he was reunited with his Highland Park High School teammate and University of Texas rival, quarterback Bobby Layne. He won NFL Rookie of the Year in 1950, and NFL Championships in 1952 and 1953. He was named to 5 Pro Bowls.

Despite only playing 6 professional seasons, he was elected to the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame, and SMU and the Lions both retired his Number 37. The NCAA instituted the Doak Walker Award for the best running back of the year. In 2008, ESPN named ranked him 4th on their list of the Top 25 College Football Players of All Time.

4. Rogers Hornsby of Fort Worth. He was a racist, a compulsive gambler, and a rotten guy. He also might have been the greatest righthanded pure hitter who ever lived. His .358 lifetime batting average is a record for righthanders. He batted .402 over a 5-year stretch from 1922 to 1926, including .424 in 1924, the highest in Major League Baseball since 1894.

He won 7 National League batting titles, 2 home run titles, 4 RBI titles, and all 3, the Triple Crown, in 1922 and 1925. He was named NL Most Valuable Player in 1925 and 1929. He collected 2,930 hits, and had 301 home runs. That doesn't sound like much now, but when he played his last game in 1937, only Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx had more. And in 1926, as both 2nd baseman and manager, he led the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Championship. He also won Pennants with the Chicago Cubs in 1929 and 1932.

But he went on to make 2 troubling discoveries: He was respected, but hated, and teams couldn't wait to get rid of him, his ego, and his private troubles; and he was a far better manager with himself as a player than without, frequently frustrated when his players weren't very good, let alone as good as he was.

He was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. When The Sporting News named its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, Hornsby came in 9th, the highest-ranked 2nd baseman. The Cardinals named him to their team Hall of Fame, and dedicated a statue to him outside Busch Stadium. While uniform numbers began to be used during his career, he never wore the same number long enough to be identified with it, so a Cardinal "STL" logo stands in for a retired number along with their other honorees.

3. Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias of Beaumont. Yes, I know, I said golfers were not athletes, but she was a star in actual sports before that. She was an expert softball pitcher, an All-State basketball player, and a good bowler, but starred in track & field. At the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, she won Gold Medals in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin throw, and the Silver Medal in the high jump. Had there then been a women's decathlon, or its current women's sports equivalent, the heptathlon, she probably would have won that, too.

After competing in track and basketball professionally, she switched her attention to golf in 1935. At the time, there were 3 major championships for women: The Western Open, which she won in 1940, 1944, 1945 and 1950; the Titleholders Championship, which she won in 1947, 1950 and 1952; and the U.S. Women's Open, which she won in 1948, 1950 and 1954. So, no "Grand Slam" available, but a "Triple Crown" in 1950.

She won the 1954 U.S. Women's Open having already come back from colon cancer once. It came back. When she died in 1956, only 45 years old, she said, "I can't die now, I'm just learning how to play golf."

She was elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame, was a charter inductee into the LPGA Hall of Fame, and the Associated Press named her the greatest female athlete of the Half-Century in 1950, and then of the Century in 1999. Sports Illustrated named her the 2nd-greatest female athlete of the 20th Century, behind Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

She was married to George Zaharias, who quit his career as a professional wrestler to become her manager. In 1975, the movie Babe starred Susan Clark as Didrikson and former football star Alex Karras, himself a Greek-American former athlete, as Zaharias. Art imitated life: Clark and Karras got married.

But she competed at a time when the competition among female athletes was not extensive. That was not the case for this lady, who faced much sterner on-field tests:

2. Mia Hamm of Wichita Falls. She might be the greatest female soccer player of all time. She won the National Championship all 4 years she was at the University of North Carolina. She won the 1993-94 Honda-Broderick Cup. She helped the U.S. team win the 1st Women's World Cup in 1991. She helped them win it again in 1999, and with her teammates was named one of Sports Illustrated's Sportswomen of the Year.

She won Olympic Gold Medals with the U.S. team in 1996 in Atlanta and 2004 in Athens. Until 2013, she held the record for most goals scored in international soccer play, regardless of gender. She is now a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame, and was the 1st woman elected to the World Football Hall of Fame. She is married to former baseball star Nomar Garciaparra, and they are part-owners of Major League Soccer expansion franchise Los Angeles FC.

But when you think "Sports in Texas," the 1st sport you think about is football, rather than futbol. And this man might have been the greatest all-around football player of all time:

1. Sammy Baugh of Temple. Maybe Slingin' Sammy wasn't quite "the first quarterback," but he was the 1st truly great passer in football. He played football, baseball and basketball at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth. He nearly led their football team to the National Championship in 1935, and did lead them to win the 1936 Sugar Bowl and the 1st Cotton Bowl in 1937.

He was drafted by the Washington Redskins in 1937, and, that year, he did something that no other human being had done before, and none has since: He led a team to the NFL Championship as a rookie quarterback. Johnny Unitas didn't do it. Nor did Joe Montana. Nor did Tom Brady. Otto Graham did it in the AAFC, and in his 1st season in the NFL, but not as a rookie and an NFL quarterback.

A 6-time Pro Bowler, he and Sid Luckman of the Chicago Bears reinvented the quarterback position, just as Don Hutson of the Green Bay Packers was doing to the position of end, inventing the wide receiver. Baugh and Luckman played each other in 4 NFL Championship Games, with Baugh's Redskins winning in 1937 and 1942, and Luckman's Bears winning in 1940 and 1943.

In 1943, Baugh led the NFL in passer rating, punting yards, and interceptions -- made, not thrown. Think about that: In one year, he was Tom Brady (without cheating), Shane Lechler and Darius Slay at the same time.

He played until 1952, and remains one of the greatest quarterbacks ever, and still has the highest career punting yard average. In 1960 and 1961, he was the 1st head coach of the New York Jets (then the New York Titans.) In 1963, he was a charter inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and he turned out to be the last survivor of those, living until 2008.

TCU retired his Number 45, and his 33 is the only number officially retired by the Redskins. He was named to the Redskins Ring of Fame, the NFL 1940s All-Decade Team, and the NFL 75th Anniversary Team. In 1999, The Sporting News named him to its 100 Greatest Football Players. In 2008, ESPN named ranked him 5th on their list of the Top 25 College Football Players of All Time.

Interviewed for the NFL's 75th Anniversary TV special, he said, "I love the way they play today. I wish I was playing now." The football world isn't sure if they agree: They might want to watch him, but they wouldn't want to play against him.

Dallas' All-Time Baseball Team

The Texas League featured the Dallas Eagles and the Fort Worth Cats, before 1965 when Turnpike Stadium was built in Arlington, and became home to the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs. It seated 10,000, with room for expansion, in the hope of landing a moving major league team.

After failing to convince Charlie Finley to move the Kansas City Athletics there (before he eventually moved them to Oakland for 1968), Turnpike Stadium was expanded to 20,000 in 1970. With the announcement that the "new" Washington Senators were coming, under the Texas Rangers name, it was expanded to 35,000 in 1972, renamed Arlington Stadium, before a final expansion to 43,000 in 1978.

The new stadium, previously known as "The Ballpark in Arlington" and Ameriquest Field before the insurance company bearing that name went to the last roundup, opened in 1994, right next to Arlington Stadium, which was demolished. The new ballpark hosted the All-Star Game in 1995 and the Rangers' home games in the 1996, '98 and '99 American League Division Series -- all of them won by the Yankees.

This was before the Rangers won the AL West in 2010 and finally beat the Yankees in the AL Championship Series, but lost 2010 and '11 World Series (the latter in crushing fashion), and choking away the 2012 AL West title.

23. Dallas' All-Time Baseball Team

This is a powerful team, with Hall-of-Famers at every position but 1st base (and even that comes pretty close), and 1st base and the outfield are particularly deep. The pitching is quite strong, with 2 starters whose careers were sadly cut short, but one made the Hall of Fame anyway and the other could have. It also includes the former all-time saves leader.

For all players mentioned below, their hometowns are in the State of Texas, unless otherwise specified.

1B Joe Carter of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He starred for the San Diego Padres and Cleveland Indians before becoming a 5-time All-Star with the Toronto Blue Jays, hitting 396 home runs with 10 100-RBI seasons. In 1992, he caught the final out as the Jays won the World Series. He was also involved in the final play of the 1993 World Series, hitting a home run off Mitch Williams to take the Jays from a 6-5 deficit against the Philadelphia Phillies to an 8-6 win in Game 6 to clinch.

Baseball-Reference.com has him at 87 on its Hall of Fame Monitor, where a "Likely HOFer" is at 100; and a 32 on its Hall of Fame Standards, where the "Average HOFer" is at 50, so he'll probably never make it. But you'd have to be a Phillies fan who still hasn't gotten over '93 to not like Joe Carter. The Jays have only retired one number to date (Roberto Alomar's 12), but Carter's Number 29 is on their "Level of Excellence," a sort of combined Jays and CFL Toronto Argonauts hall of fame on the luxury boxes of the Rogers Centre.

Honorable Mention to Norm Cash of Post. He was a rookie on the 1959 American League Pennant-winning Chicago White Sox, but general manager Frank Lane then traded him to the Detroit Tigers for Steve Demeter.

Bone. Head. Trade. Stormin' Norman became a 4-time All-Star for the Tigers, winning the batting title with a .361 average in 1961 (he later admitted to having corked his bat that season) and helping them win the 1968 World Series, also coming close in 1961, '67 and '72. He finished with 377 home runs and a career OPS+ of 139. Sadly, he drowned in a boating accident near Detroit in 1986, shortly before his 52nd birthday.

Honorable Mention to Mike Hargrove of Perryton. Actually, Perryton is at the northernmost edge of the Texas Panhandle, almost exactly halfway between Dallas and Denver, so, theoretically, I could have made him the manager of the Colorado Rockies' all-time regional team. But his ties to the Rangers solidify his case for this team.

He was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1974, and an All-Star for the Rangers and Indians, batting .290 lifetime. Unfortunately, as a player, he is best remembered for all his fidgeting with his equipment at the plate, giving him the nickname "the Human Rain Delay."

He is also the manager of this team, leading the Indians to Pennants in 1995 and 1997, making him the only living human ever to do so. (Tris Speaker in 1920, Lou Boudreau in 1948 and Al Lopez in 1954 are all dead.) He managed the Tribe to the AL Central Division title 5 straight seasons, 1995 to '99. He later managed the Baltimore Orioles and Seattle Mariners, and is now a special advisor in the Indians' front office.

Honorable Mention to Chris Davis of Longview. He just turned 28, but the Oriole made his 1st All-Star team last season, leading the AL in home runs with 53 and RBIs with 138, finishing 3rd in the AL Most Valuable Player voting. His career OPS+ is 120, and the Rangers are going to look dumber and dumber for dumping him after 3 injury-plagued seasons that he definitely seems to have shaken off.

2B Rogers Hornsby of Fort Worth. He was a rotten person: A grouch, a snob, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and on more than one occasion was nearly suspended from baseball due to his compulsive gambling. And, as it turned out, Rogers Hornsby the manager was lousy when he didn't have Rogers Hornsby the player in anything resembling his prime.

He may also have been the greatest right-handed hitter who ever lived. He batted .358. For his career. That's 2nd all-time behind Ty Cobb, and 1st among righthanders and among players who played mainly in the National League. He averaged .402 from 1921 to 1925. That's (roughly) 2 hits in every 5 at-bats for 5 years. In 1924, he set a 20th Century record (or just one for the NL, depending on whose stats you believe) with a .424 average. He won the Triple Crown in 1922 and 1925, along with Ted Williams one of only 2 men to do it twice (and the only one to do it in the NL).

In 1926, he was the player-manager for the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. But he could never get along with management anywhere, and was immediately traded to the New York Giants for All-Star Frankie Frisch. It was a great trade for the Cards, and it might've been a great one for the Giants, if they could have hung onto him. Except Hornsby didn't let anyone tell him what to do, not even John McGraw, the imperious manager of the Giants. He did win 2 more Pennants, with the 1929 and 1932 Chicago Cubs.

He didn't quite make it to the 3,000 Hit Club, finishing with 2,930. But he had a career OPS+ of a staggering 175. He hit 301 home runs, 3rd all-time behind Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig at the time he retired, and 1st among NLers.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame and the All-Century Team -- keeping in mind that, when the ACT was voted on in 1999, he'd had his last good season 68 years earlier, played his last game 62 years earlier, and had been dead for 36 years, so hardly anybody who voted had seen him play, and he didn't live long enough to give a comprehensive interview in the age of baseball nostalgia. Also in that year, when The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players, he came in at Number 9.

He played most of his career before uniform numbers were worn, and, as a result, the modern Cardinals have honored him on the retired-number display of the wall at the new Busch Stadium with a representation of their "STL" logo instead of a number, instead of the only number he actually wore in a Cardinal uniform, in a return to them in 1933, which was Number 4. (He also wore that number with the St. Louis Browns.)

SS Ernie Banks of Dallas. Dallas gets insanely hot in the summer, so Chicago's summers must've seemed cool to him by comparison, enabling him to say, "It's a beautiful day for a ballgame, let's play two!" He was the NL MVP with the Cubs in 1958 and '59, even though they were in the second division. He hit 512 home runs for his career, still the honest record in Chicago. (Sammy Sosa hit 545 as a Cub, and 28 as a White Sock, but in a city noted for official corruption, his homers fit in a lot better than Ernie's.)

He labored so long and so hard to bring Cub fans a Pennant, only getting close in 1969 and '70. (People forget the Cubs actually finished closer in '70, mainly because they finished 2nd to Pittsburgh, not to New York.)

Despite the achievements of Michael Jordan, Walter Payton and Bobby Hull, "Mr. Cub," now 83 years old, remains the most popular athlete in Chicago history -- among Chicagoans, anyway. Hall of Fame, All-Century Team, and his Number 14 was the 1st retired by either Chicago ballclub. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 38.

3B Brooks Robinson of Little Rock, Arkansas. Until Cal Ripken Jr., Brooksie was the most popular athlete in Baltimore history, even more so than Johnny Unitas. He won 16 Gold Gloves. In a row. And gained himself one of the great nicknames, for the way he sucked up grounders and liners: The Human Vacuum Cleaner.

He won Pennants with the Orioles in 1966, '69, '70 and '71, winning the World Series in '66 and '70 (Series MVP in the latter). A 15-time All-Star, and not just for his fielding: He collected 2,848 hits, including 482 doubles and 268 home runs, despite playing his home games in Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.

He went on to become a broadcaster, in effect Baltimore's answer to Phil Rizzuto and Richie Ashburn, although he was a better all-around player than either one of them.  He was named to the Hall of Fame and the All-Century Team. His Number 5 was retired, and he and Frank Robinson were the 1st 2 inductees into the Orioles Hall of Fame. (Frank was born in Texas, but grew up in Oakland, California, and is thus eligible for the A's regional all-time team, not the Rangers'. This is also true of Willie Stargell and Joe Morgan.) When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 80.

Honorable Mention to Travis Jackson of Waldo, Arkansas. A lifetime .291 hitter, he played on 4 Pennant winners for the New York Giants, including winning the 1933 World Series. He might not have been an obvious choice for the Hall of Fame, but he's in.

LF Lou Brock of Monroe, Louisiana. While Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox and Maury Wills reawakened interest in baserunning, Brock took it to another level. He was a better runner than Aparicio and Fox, and better at everything else than Wills.

He set major league records, which still stand as NL records, with 118 stolen bases in a season (1974) and 938 in a career. Lifetime batting average .293, 3,023 hits including 486 doubles, and might have had a lot more than 149 home runs if he'd played most of his career at the last Sportsman's Park (a.k.a. the 1st Busch Stadium) with its 310-foot right-field fence, instead of the spacious Busch Stadium II.

He won World Series with the Cardinals in 1964 and '67, and nearly again in '68. In '67, he became 1 of only 3 players (Bobby Richardson in '64 and Marty Barrett in '86 are the others) to collect 13 hits in a single Series, and stole a record 7 bases in the '67 Series and again in '68.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame, his Number 20 was retired, and has a statue outside Busch Stadium III (previously outside Busch II) dedicated by the Cardinals. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 58.

Dishonorable Mention to Albert Jojuan Belle of Shreveport, Louisiana. Known first as "Joey" and then, after angry protests, as Albert, he brings to mind what Sparky Lyle said about Thurman Munson: "(He's) not moody, he's just mean. When you're moody, you're nice sometimes." And yet, he was an Eagle Scout as a boy.

His lifetime batting average is .295, his OPS+ is a mighty 143, he hit 381 homers including 50 in the strike-truncated 1995 season, and had 9 straight 100-RBI seasons with a peak of 152 in 1998, leading the AL 3 times. He made 5 All-Star teams, finished 3rd in AL MVP voting in '94 and '96 and 2nd in '95, as he helped the Indians win a Pennant.

But his anger issues hurt his reputation, and a hip injury ended his career in 2000, at age 32 -- despite batting .281 with 23 homers and 103 RBI that year. He hit a home run in his last major-league at-bat, and among all players who've done that, only Ted Williams hit more career homers. Baseball-Reference.com's Hall of Fame Monitor has him at 135 to 100, and their Hall of Fame Standards at 36 to 50. Another season or two at the same pace, and he might be in, even with his issues.

CF Tris Speaker of Hubbard. "The Grey Eagle" (always written as "Grey," never "Gray") was regarded as perhaps the greatest defensive outfielder in history until Joe DiMaggio came along, known for playing shallow enough to turn 6 unassisted double plays at 2nd base in his career. He would have been ideal for today's shifts on lefty hitters who won't hit to the opposite field.

And he was as good a hitter as anyone who played in the Dead Ball Era. In 1912, he had over 50 doubles and 50 stolen bases, a feat since matched only by Craig Biggio. He helped the Boston Red Sox win the World Series in 1912 and 1915, then refused to take a salary cut when his batting average dropped, yes, dropped, to .322.

So the Sox traded him to the Indians, and although they also won the Series in 1916 and 1918, this was one of the dumbest trades ever. Speaker became player-manager of the Indians and won the 1920 World Series, also finishing 2nd to the Yankees in 1921, '23 and '26.

He had to resign as Indians manager, and Ty Cobb as Tigers manager, after the 1926 season because they were accused of colluding to fix games; however, when the main witness against them didn't show up at the hearing, they were allowed to remain in the game, but both retired as players 2 years later. Thanks to playing at the same time and in the same League as Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson and George Sisler, he only won 1 batting title, in 1916, but (probably unbeknownst to him, as the category wasn't well-known then) he led the AL in on-base percentage 4 times.

He batted .345 lifetime, with 3,515 hits, 2nd all-time to Cobb upon his retirement and still 5th. His 792 doubles (some sources say 793) and 449 outfield assists make him the all-time leader in those categories. Career OPS+ of a whopping 157.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in its 2nd election in 1937. In 1947, despite (as was Hornsby) having once been a member of the Klan, Speaker accepted an appointment from new Indians manager Bill Veeck to coach Larry Doby, the AL's first black player, on how to play center field, which he hadn't played before. Speaker would assist other black players on the Indians as well, showing no outward signs of racism, and earning praise for this from Doby in his Hall of Fame induction speech.

As an Indians coach, Speaker wore Number 43, and while that number has not been retired by the team, they have honored him with a plaque in their Heritage Park at Progressive Field. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 27, even though he'd played his last game 71 years earlier.

Honorable Mention of Lloyd Waner of Harrah, Oklahoma, who along with his brother Paul forms one of only 2 brother combinations in the Hall of Fame (the others being pioneers Harry and George Wright, the Wright Brothers who invented professional baseball rather than the airplane).

Some people say Lloyd doesn't deserve to be in the Hall, and B-R.com backs them up: 86 out of 100 on their HOF Monitor, 31 of 50 on their HOF Standards. But he wasn't that far behind HOF quality: He batted .316 lifetime, and had 2,459 hits. He also struck out 173 times. In his entire 18-year career. (For perspective: The aforementioned Chris Davis struck out 199 times last year alone, and 169 times the year before.) And, like his brother Paul, he helped the Pittsburgh Pirates win the NL Pennant in 1927, and nearly again in 1938.

Honorable Mention to Bobby Murcer of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who wasn't "the next Mickey Mantle" but was something beloved anyway. Beyond his role as a Yankee broadcaster and de facto club ambassador, he was a 5-time All-Star, and had a 124 OPS+. He led the AL in slugging in 1971, and in runs and total bases in 1972. He hit 252 home runs, despite missing 2 early seasons (1967 and '68) serving in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War (although not in combat).

Although he helped the Yankees get close to the Playoffs in 1972, '73 and '74, and then went to San Francisco and Chicago before being brought back, he did help the Yankees win the AL East in 1980 and the Pennant in 1981. He wore Number 1 the first time around, and it is retired, although for Billy Martin. He wore Number 2 the second time around, and it will be retired, although for Derek Jeter.

Honorable Mention to Torii Hunter of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. One of the best glove men of his generation, he was nicknamed Spider-Man because of his ability to climb walls to make catches, including one of a Barry Bonds drive in the 2002 All-Star Game that is his signature moment. He's made 4 All-Star teams, won 9 Gold Gloves, has a 111 OPS+, 443 doubles, 314 homers, and 8 seasons of at least 90 RBIs (twice reaching 100 and just missing another).

He helped the Minnesota Twins win the AL Central in 2002, '03, '04 and '06, and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim the AL West in 2008 and '09. He turns 39 this season, and comes off a year with the Detroit Tigers in which he batted .304, hit 17 homers and had 84 RBIs, on route to the AL Central title and the ALCS.

Honorable Mention to Matt Kemp of Midwest City, Oklahoma. Only 29 years old, "the Bison" (one of the few really good nicknames in baseball these days) is one of the top players in the game at the moment. Already with 2 All-Star berths, 2 Gold Gloves, a .293 lifetime batting average, a 126 OPS+, and 157 home runs despite playing his entire career at pitcher-friendly Dodger Stadium. He led the NL with 39 homers and 126 RBIs in 2011, and has now led them to 3 NL West titles. This could be a future Hall-of-Famer.

By the way, if you're seeing these Oklahoma players, and remembering that Mickey Mantle was from Oklahoma, and that he lived his off-season life in Dallas, and wondering why I haven't mentioned him here, it's because his hometown of Commerce was in the northeastern corner of the Sooner State, which puts him in the Kansas City market, not the Dallas one.

RF Paul Waner of Harrah, Oklahoma. A reporter from Brooklyn called Paul and his brother Lloyd "a big person and a little person." Another reporter overheard this, in the Brooklyn reporter's accent, and started calling them "Big Poison" and "Little Poison." Except that Paul was 5-foot-8 and 153 pounds, and Lloyd was 5-foot-9 albeit roughly the same weight

Unlike Lloyd, there is no doubt about Paul's HOF credentials: He was the NL MVP in the Pennant-winning 1927 season (he came up in '26 and missed out on the Bucs' '25 World Championship), he had a .333 BA, a 134 OPS+, 3 batting titles and 3,152 hits (the only player to crack the 3,000 barrier between 1925 and 1958), including 605 doubles -- 62 in 1932, an NL record until broken by Joe Medwick 4 years later and not surpassed since.

He had 5 seasons batting .360 or above. He was the NL's starting right fielder in the 1st 3 All-Star Games. The Pirates retired his Number 11 -- but have not retired Lloyd's Number 10. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 62.

Honorable Mention to Willard Brown of Shreveport, Louisiana, a powerful slugger who starred in the Negro Leagues for the Kansas City Monarchs in the 1930s and '40s, before playing 21 games in the majors, all with the St. Louis Browns in 1947. For his Negro League contributions, he is in the Hall of Fame, included in that making-up-for-lost-time election of 2006.

Honorable Mention to Hunter Pence of Arlington. He's about to turn 31, but he's already got a 120 OPS+, made 2 All-Star teams, and hit 165 home runs. He now plays for the San Francisco Giants, having helped them win the 2012 World Series after getting to the postseason the year before with the Philadelphia Phillies.

C Johnny Bench of Binger, Oklahoma.  He was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1968, and its MVP in 1970 and '72. He won NL Pennants in '70 and '72, and the World Series in '75 (he was named Series MVP) and '76. His 389 homers made him the all-time leader among catchers until passed by Carlton Fisk.

His manager on the Reds, Sparky Anderson, may not have been intentionally slighting Thurman Munson by saying this after the '76 Series, in which Munson got hits in his last 6 at-bats but Bench hit 2 homers in the Game 4 clincher, but, insulting or not, Sparky had a point: "Don't ever embarrass anybody by comparing them to Johnny Bench."

Late in his career, he hosted the kids' TV series The Baseball Bunch as a warmup act for NBC's Saturday Game of the Week. He was named to the Hall of Fame and the All-Century Team. The Reds have retired his Number 5. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 16 -- the highest-ranking catcher, and the highest-ranking Oklahoman, ahead of Mantle.

Honorable Mention to Sherm Lollar of Durham, Arkansas. A 9-time All-Star, he was the catcher for the 1959 "Go-Go White Sox," Chicago's only Pennant-winner from 1945 to 2005.

Honorable Mention to Louis Santop of Tyler. Because he played before the founding of the original Negro National League, he was sort of lost by history, before the 2006 Hall of Fame election to find great black players from the pre-Jackie Robinson era who were deserving of a long-overdue election. Starring in both Philadelphia and New York, he appears to have been one of the most sensational hitters of the 1910s and '20s, black or white.

Whether he was as good as Negro League catchers Biz Mackey and Josh Gibson, let alone Negro Leaguer-turned-big-leaguer Roy Campanella, or big leaguers such as the aforementioned Bench, we may never know. But he's in the Hall, and he should have been in decades before.

SP Jay Hanna “Dizzy” Dean of Lucas, Arkansas, born in 1910. Or is that Jerome Herman Dean of Hodgenville, Oklahoma, born in 1911? Or was he born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1912? (The first set of name, birthplace and year of birth is officially, legally true.) One time-honored story is that Dean gave conflicting information to 3 different reporters, in quick succession, as to his name and birthplace. A teammate questioned him about that, and he answered, "I wanted to give each of them fellers an exclusive story!"

He reached the Cardinals' rotation in 1932, along with his brother Paul, known as Daffy Dean (who, unlike Diz, was not particularly odd and hated his nickname). In 1934, Diz said, "Me an' Paul are gonna win 50 games this season." He was almost right: Diz won 30 (losing only 7) and Daff won 19, leading the "Gashouse Gang" to the Pennant. Then Diz said, "Me an' Paul are gonna win this here World Series." He was completely right: Not only did he and Paul each win 2 games of the Series, but Diz pitched a shutout against the mighty Tigers in Game 7.

He remained, with Carl Hubbell and Satchel Paige, one of the 3 best pitchers on the planet, until the 1937 All-Star Game, when he took a line drive off his toe (supposedly telling the doctor, "Fractured, hell, the damn thing's broken!"), and began to favor the toe by changing his motion, thus wrecking his elbow. Despite a favorable trade to the Cubs in 1938 and a memorable "last stand" against the Yankees in Game 2 of that year's World Series, Diz was done after the 1941 season, only 31 years old. (He made a one-game comeback in 1947, which is a hell of a story.)

Although injury limited him to 150 wins, he lost only 83 for a .644 winning percentage. ERA+, 131. "Only" 1,163 strikeouts, and never topped 200 in a season, but led the NL 4 times. Hall of Fame, Number 17 retired and a statue dedicated by the Cards, and since he lived his adult life in Mississippi, a Dizzy Dean Museum was built next to Smith-Wills Stadium in the State capital of Jackson, now a part of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame. When The Sporting News announced its 100 Greatest Baseball Players in 1999, he came in at Number 85.

He went on to become a legendary broadcaster, mangling syntax and pronunciations. A teacher wrote him a letter, saying he shouldn't use the word "ain't" on the air, because children would copy him. He said, on the air, "Teach, a lot o' folks that ain't sayin' 'ain't' ain't eatin'. So you learn 'em English, and I'll learn 'em baseball." I wonder if, while growing up in St. Louis, Yogi Berra's speech was affected by listening to Diz call Cards and Browns games?

Diz was the Terry Bradshaw of his time: A great athlete turned star pundit of his sport, and since people already thought of him as a dumb, even "dizzy" redneck, he decided to use it to his advantage. "The Good Lord was good to me," Diz said. "He gave me a strong right arm and a weak mind."

SP Lon Warneke of Mount Ida, Arkansas. While Diz was the ace of the Cards, "the Arkansas Hummingbird" was the ace of the Cubs, pitching them to Pennants in 1932, '35 and '38 -- including '35 when the Cubs won 20 straight games, most since 1916 (since tied by the 2002 A's), and caught the Gashouse Gang for 1st. The Cubs lost the Series to the Tigers in 6, but both of their wins had Warneke as the winning pitcher. Strangely, he was traded to the Cards in '37 and became Diz' teammate, although only for a year or so; effectively, if not officially, Diz and Lon were traded for each other.

He finished his career 192-121 for .613, an ERA+ of 119. He's not in the Hall of Fame, but according to Baseball-Reference, of his 10 most statistically similar pitchers, 4 are: Jack Chesbro, Dazzy Vance, Stan Coveleski and Bob Lemon; 2 others should be, Urban Shocker and Carl Mays; and the other 4 aren't that far off, Art Nehf, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Jimmy Key.

SP Allie Reynolds of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I thought about cheating a little with Allie, because while he was a great starter, Yankee manager Casey Stengel frequently used him in relief. If he’d been born later, and reached the majors in the 1970s onward, instead of being born in 1917 and reaching the majors in 1942, he probably would have been one of the greatest relievers ever, because he had the speed and the guts for it.

He played on 6 Yankee World Championship teams: 1947, '49, '50, '51, '52 and '53. He formed the "Big Three" with fellow righthanded fireballer Vic Raschi and lefty junkballer Steady Eddie Lopat. He went 182-107 for his career, and while he only won 20 once (in 1952), he also saved 49 games in his career. Of those 182 wins, 36 were shutouts, and 2 were no-hitters, both in 1951, the latter a Pennant-clincher against the Red Sox.

He went 7-2 in World Series play, including a 1-0 duel against Don Newcombe in Game 1 in '49, and 3 clinchers: Game 5 in '49, Game 4 in '50, and Game 7 in relief in '52. Had Casey left him as a starter, he would've had well over 200 wins and he'd be in the Hall of Fame.

The Yankees have honored him with a Plaque in Monument Park, although his Number 22 remains in circulation. His alma mater, Oklahoma State University (known as Oklahoma A&M until 1958), named their baseball stadium after him. Due to his Creek heritage, he was called "the Indian," "the Big Indian," and "the Superchief," which was also a reference to his fastball and the fast Chicago-to-Los Angeles train of the same name on the Santa Fe Railroad, which went through his home State.

He was also responsible for negotiating the first players' pension fund. This he did not have to do, since investing in Oklahoma oil made him richer than most players, and enabled him to retire following a 1954 back injury, only 37, since he didn't need baseball income anymore. So for him to help out his fellow players like that makes him a bigger hero than most players of his era.

SP Johnny Sain of Havana, Arkansas. In 1948, the Boston Braves won the Pennant, their last until moving to Milwaukee, with a superb rotation, with Sain, Warren Spahn, Vernon Bickford and Bill Voiselle. Both Bickford and Voiselle had better ERAs than Spahn that year, but Gerald V. Hern of the Boston Post coined the phrase "Spahn and Sain and two days of rain." (It's frequently been incorrectly printed as "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain." In 1999, Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe would say the Red Sox rotation should be "Pedro and Lowe and three days of snow.")

Sain was later traded to the Yankees, and won the World Series with them in 1952 and '53. As with Reynolds, Casey used him as a reliever, and he led the AL with 22 saves in 1954, a big total for that era. Sain went on to become one of the best pitching coaches ever, winning Pennants with the Yankees in 1961, '62 and '63, and with the '65 Minnesota Twins and the '68 Tigers.

SP Vida Blue of Mansfield, Louisiana. He made his major league debut on July 20, 1969, the day of the 1st Moon walk, although it would be his Oakland Athletics teammate, Johnny Odom, who would (for a reason that escapes me) be known as Blue Moon. In 1971, Vida Blue had one of the most sensational years any pitcher has had in the Divisional Play Era (which is also the post-1968, 10-inch-high pitcher's mound era), going 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA and a 0.952 WHIP, to win both the AL Cy Young Award and MVP.

(This led to a trick question: Who was the last switch-hitter to win the MVP? People who asked that tended to forget that Pete Rose was a switcher, or that he won the NL MVP in '73. Five have done it since, most recently Jimmy Rollins.)

Then Blue demanded a big raise, which was a bad idea, as he pitched for the A's while they were owned by Charlie Finley. He held out for a while, and went 6-10 in '72. But he won 77 for them in the next 6 years, as he helped them with the 1972, '73 and '74 World Series. In 1978, 2 years after his sale of Blue to the Yankees for $1.5 million was vetoed by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, Finley finally traded him, across the Bay to the San Francisco Giants, and he went 18-10. He was 28 and had a nice career record of 142-96.

Then cocaine began to take its toll, and not only would he never again top 14 wins in a season, but he would miss the 1984 season due to prison and suspension. In 1986, at 36, he was done: 209-161. On Baseball-Reference's HOF Monitor, he's at 114 of 100; on its HOF Standards, 35 of 50; of the 10 Most Similar, only 3 are in. (Catfish Hunter, Hal Newhouser and Don Drysdale. The others, all good but not quite good enough for Cooperstown, were Billy Pierce, Orel Hershiser, Bob Welch, Milt Pappas, Luis Tiant, Kevin Brown and Bucky Walters. At his peak, Blue was better than any of those 7 except maybe Hershiser in '88.) What a waste, but he has spent his post-playing days in charitable causes, and promotes youth baseball in the Bay Area.

Honorable Mention to Lynwood “Schoolboy” Rowe of El Dorado, Arkansas. He won 62 games for the Tigers from 1934 to '36, and opposed Dean in the '34 Series (lost) and Warneke in the '35 Series (won). An injury at age 27 curtailed his career, but he still went 16-3 for the Pennant-winning Tigers in 1940, and 14-8 and 11-4 for weak Phillies teams later in the Forties, hanging on until age 39. He went 158-101 for his career.

Honorable Mention to Cliff Lee of Benton. Now 35, he's had a very inconsistent career. His record currently stands at 139-86, but 18-5 of that was in 2005, 22-3 of it in 2008. Take out that 40-8, and he's 99-78, not especially noteworthy. His ERA+ is a neat 119, his WHIP a nifty 1.189. He's a 4-time All-Star, and won the 2008 AL Cy Young.

He reached the postseason with the Phillies in 2009 and '11, and the Rangers in '10, but was not placed on the postseason roster by the Indians in '07 -- meaning that, just 1 year before he went 22-3, he wasn't good enough to help them win the 1 more game they would've needed in the ALCS to win the Pennant.

Clearly, there's reasons why 4 different teams have acquired him (including the Phillies twice) -- but there's also got to be a reason why 4 different teams have let him go (including the Phillies once). Also, it should be noted that, despite playing on 4 teams that reached the postseason in a span of 5 years, he hasn't won a World Series ring.

Honorable Mention to Clayton Kershaw of Highland Park. He just turned 26, but he might be the best starting pitcher in baseball today. He's won the last 3 NL ERA titles, including a miniscule 1.83 ERA last year; and he just missed winning the last 3 NL Cy Youngs. He's 77-46 for his career, has already led the NL in strikeouts twice, and has helped the Dodgers win 3 NL West titles. If he doesn't get hurt, he could be one of the best pitchers we'll ever see.

Very Honorable Mention to Andy Cooper of Waco. Another Negro Leaguer elected in the 2006 vote, he was one of those rare players who batted right but threw left. He starred for the Detroit Stars in the 1920s, and in the 1930s was both pitcher and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs -- which means he had to both share a rotation with and manage Satchel Paige. Unfortunately, a stroke ended his magnificent career and his life in 1941, at just 43 years old.

RP Lee Smith of Castor, Louisiana. The former all-time saves leader with 478, an ERA+ of 132, but only reached the postseason twice, with the 1984 Cubs (infamously giving up a walkoff homer to Steve Garvey in Game 4 of the NLCS) and the 1988 Red Sox (swept). He's eligible for the Hall of Fame, but with Trevor Hoffman and now Mariano Rivera having taken away his all-time saves leader status, I'm not sure he'll ever make it.

Honorable Mention to Fred "Firpo" Marberry of Streetman. Nicknamed for his resemblance to Luis Firpo, the Argentine boxer who nearly knocked out heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey at the Polo Grounds in 1923, he was one of the first real relief pitchers in the game.

The Washington Senator led the AL in games pitched 6 times, and, although it wasn't an official statistic yet, in saves 5 times, with a peak of 22 (then a record) in 1926. He helped the Senators win their only World Championship in 1924 and another Pennant in 1925. In 1929, pitching as both a starter and a reliever for a Senator team that won only 71 games, he went 19-12. He helped the Tigers win a Pennant in 1934 and a World Series in 1935. His career record was 148-88, and his 101 saves were a record upon his 1936 retirement.

Honorable Mention to Lindy McDaniel of Hollis, Oklahoma. A career save total of 172 isn't all that impressive these days, but he led the NL 3 times, with the Cardinals and Cubs. His 987 appearances once made him 2nd on the all-time list to Hoyt Wilhelm, and in 1973 he went 12-6 with 10 saves for the Yankees.

Then he got traded to the Kansas City Royals for Lou Piniella, and it was a great trade: McDaniel was pretty much done but was able to be an extra pitching coach for the Royals' bright young staff, and if you're a Yankee Fan then you know what Sweet Lou did.

Dallas' All-Time Baseball Team

The Yankees begin a 2-game series tonight against the Texas Rangers, at what is currently named Rangers Ballpark, in Arlington, right between Dallas and Fort Worth, roughly 18 miles from the downtowns of each.

The Texas League featured the Dallas Eagles and the Fort Worth Cats, before 1965 when Turnpike Stadium was built in Arlington, and became home to the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs. It seated 10,000, with room for expansion, in the hope of landing a moving major league team. After failing to convince Charlie Finley to move the Kansas City Athletics there (instead of to Oakland, as it turned out), Turnpike Stadium was expanded to 20,000 in 1970, and, with the announcement that the "new" Washington Senators were coming, to 35,000 in 1972, renamed Arlington Stadium, before a final expansion to 43,000 in 1978.

The new stadium, previously known as "The Ballpark in Arlington" and Ameriquest Field before the insurance company bearing that name went to the last roundup, opened in 1994, right next to Arlington Stadium, which was demolished. The new ballpark hosted the All-Star Game in 1995 and the Rangers' home games in the 1996, '98 and '99 Division Series -- all of them won by the Yankees.

Dallas' All-Time Baseball Team

For all players mentioned below, their hometowns are in the State of Texas, unless otherwise specified.

1B Joe Carter of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Starred for the San Diego Padres and Cleveland Indians before becoming a 5-tie All-Star with the Toronto Blue Jays, hitting 396 home runs with 10 100-RBI seasons. In 1992, caught the final out as the Jays won the World Series. He was also involved in the final play of the 1993 World Series, hitting a home run off Mitch Williams to take the Jays from a 6-5 deficit against the Philadelphia Phillies to an 8-6 win in Game 6 to clinch.

Baseball-Reference.com has him at 86 on its Hall of Fame Monitor, where a "Likely HOFer" is at 100; and a 32 on its Hall of Fame Standards, where the "Average HOFer" is at 50, so he'll probably never make it. But you'd have to be a Phillies fan who still hasn't gotten over '93 to not like Joe Carter. The Jays do not retire numbers, but his Number 29 is on their "Level of Excellence," a sort of combined Jays and CFL Toronto Argonauts hall of fame on the luxury boxes of the Rogers Centre.

Honorable Mention to Norm Cash of Post. He was a rookie on the 1959 American League Pennant-winning Chicago White Sox, but general manager Frank Lane then traded him to the Detroit Tigers for Steve Demeter. Bone. Head. Trade. Stormin' Norman became a 4-time All-Star for the Detroit Tigers, winning the batting title with a .361 average in 1961 (he later admitted to having corked his bat that season) and helping them win the 1968 World Series, also coming close in 1961, '67 and '72. He finished with 377 home runs and a career OPS+ of 139. Sadly, he drowned in a boating accident near Detroit in 1986, shortly before his 52nd birthday.

2B Rogers Hornsby of Fort Worth. He was a rotten person, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and on more than one occasion was nearly suspended from baseball due to his compulsive gambling. He may also have been the greatest right-handed hitter who ever lived.

He batted .358. For his career. That's 2nd all-time behind Ty Cobb, and 1st among righthanders. He averaged .402 from 1921 to 1925. In 1924, he set a 20th Century record (or just one for the National League, depending on whose stats you believe) with a .424 average. He won the Triple Crown in 1922 and 1925, along with Ted Williams one of only 2 men to do it twice.

In 1926, he was the player-manager for the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. But he could never get along with management anywhere, and was immediately traded to the New York Giants for All-Star Frankie Frisch. It was a great trade for the Cards, and it might've been a great one for the Giants, except Hornsby didn't let anyone tell him what to do, not even John McGraw, the imperious manager of the Giants. He did win another Pennant with the 1932 Cubs.

He didn't quite make it to the 3,000 Hit Club, finishing with 2,930. But he had a career OPS+ of a staggering 175. He hit 301 home runs, 3rd all-time behind Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig at the time he retired, and 1st among NLers.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame and the All-Century Team. He played most of his career before uniform numbers were worn, and, as a result, the modern Cardinals have honored him on the retired-number display of the wall at the new Busch Stadium with a representation of their "STL" logo instead of a number, instead of the only number he actually wore in a Cardinal uniform, in a return to them in 1933, which was Number 4.

SS Ernie Banks of Dallas. Dallas gets so hot in the summer, so Chicago's summers must've seemed cool to him by comparison, enabling him to say, "It's a beautiful day for a ballgame. Let's play two!" He was the NL Most Valuable Player with the Cubs in 1958 and '59, even though they were in the second division. He hit 512 home runs for his career, still the honest record in Chicago. (Sammy Sosa hit 545 as a Cub, and 28 as a White Sock, but in a city noted for official corruption, his homers fit in a lot better than Ernie's.)

He labored so long and so hard to bring Cub fans a Pennant, only getting close in 1969 and '70. People forget the Cubs actually finished closer in '70, mainly because they finished 2nd to Pittsburgh, not to New York.

Despite the achievements of Michael Jordan, Walter Payton and Bobby Hull, "Mr. Cub," now 79 years old, remains the most popular athlete in Chicago history -- among Chicagoans, anyway. Hall of Fame, All-Century Team, his Number 14 was the first retired by either Chicago ballclub.

3B Brooks Robinson of Little Rock, Arkansas. Until Cal Ripken Jr., Brooksie was the most popular athlete in Baltimore history, even more so than Johnny Unitas. He won 16 Gold Gloves. In a row. And gained himself one of the great nicknames, for the way he sucked up grounders and liners: The Human Vacuum Cleaner.

He won Pennants with the Orioles in 1966, '69, '70 and '71, winning the World Series in '66 and '70 (Series MVP in the latter). He was a 15-time All-Star, and not just for his fielding: He collected 2,848 hits, including 482 doubles and 268 home runs despite playing his home games in Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.

He went on to become a broadcaster, in effect Baltimore's answer to Phil Rizzuto and Richie Ashburn, although he was a better all-around player than either one of them. Hall of Fame, All-Century Team, Number 5 retired -- the 1st Baltimore athlete ever so honored, and he and Frank Robinson (also born in Texas but grew up in Oakland, California) were the 1st 2 inductees into the Orioles Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention to Travis Jackson of Waldo, Arkansas. A lifetime .291 hitter, he played on 4 Pennant winners for the New York Giants, including winning the 1933 World Series. He might not have been an obvious choice for the Hall of Fame, but he's in.

LF Lou Brock of Monroe, Louisiana. While Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox and Maury Wills reawakened interest in baserunning, Brock took it to another level. He was a better runner than Aparicio and Fox, and better at everything else than Wills.

He set major league records, which still stand as National League records, with 118 stolen bases in a season (1974) and 938 in a career. Lifetime batting average .293, 3,023 hits including 486 doubles, and might have had a lot more than 149 home runs if he'd played most of his career at the last Sportsman's Park (a.k.a. the first Busch Stadium) with its 310-foot right-field fence, instead of the spacious Busch Stadium II.

He won World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1964 and '67, and nearly again in '68. In '67, he became one of only 3 players (Bobby Richardson in '64 and Marty Barrett in '86 are the others) to collect 13 hits in a single Series, and stole a record 7 bases in the '67 Series and again in '68.

Hall of Fame, Number 20 retired and statue outside Busch Stadium III (previously outside Busch II) dedicated by the Cardinals.

Dishonorable Mention to Albert Jojuan Belle of Shreveport, Louisiana. Known first as "Joey" and then, after angry protests, as Albert, he brings to mind what Sparky Lyle said about Thurman Munson: "(He's) not moody, he's just mean. When you're moody, you're nice sometimes." And yet, he was an Eagle Scout as a boy.

He had a lifetime batting average .295, OPS+ a mighty 143, 381 homers including 50 in the strike-truncated 1995 season, and 9 straight 100-RBI seasons with a peak of 152 in 1998, leading the AL 3 times. He made 5 All-Star teams, finished 3rd in AL MVP voting in '94 and '96 and 2nd in '95 as he helped the Cleveland Indians win a Pennant.

But his anger issues hurt his reputation, and a hip injury ended his career in 2000, at age 32 -- despite batting .281 with 23 homers and 103 RBI that year. Homered in his last major-league at-bat, and among all players who've done that, only Ted Williams hit more career homers. Baseball-Reference.com's Hall of Fame Monitor has him at 134 to 100, and their Hall of Fame Standards at 36 to 50. Another season or two at the same pace, and he might be in, even with his issues.

CF Tris Speaker of Hubbard. "The Grey Eagle" (always written as "Grey," never "Gray") was regarded as perhaps the greatest defensive outfielder in history until Joe DiMaggio came along, playing shallow enough to turn 6 unassisted double plays at 2nd base in his career. (He would have been ideal for today's shifts on lefty hitters who won't hit to the opposite field.)

And he was as good a hitter as played in the Dead Ball Era. In 1912 he had over 50 doubles and 50 stolen bases, a feat since matched only by Craig Biggio. He helped the Boston Red Sox win the World Series in 1912 and 1915, then refused to take a salary cut when his batting average dropped, yes, dropped, to .322. So the Sox traded him to the Cleveland Indians, and although they also won the Series in 1916 and 1918, this was one of the dumbest trades ever. Speaker became player-manager of the Indians and won the 1920 World Series, also finishing 2nd to the Yankees in 1921, '23 and '26. 

He had to resign as Indians manager, and Ty Cobb as Detroit Tigers manager, after the 1926 season because they were accused of colluding to fix games; however, when the main witness against them didn't show up at the hearing, they were allowed to remain in the game, but both retired as players 2 years later. Thanks to playing at the same time and in the same League as Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson and George Sisler, he only won 1 batting title, in 1916, but (probably unbeknownst to him, as the category wasn't well-known then) he led the AL in on-base percentage 4 times.

He batted .345 lifetime, with 3,515 hits, 2nd all-time to Cobb upon his retirement and still 5th. His 792 doubles (some sources say 793) and 449 outfield assists make him the all-time leader in those categories. Career OPS+ of a whopping 157.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in its 2nd election in 1937. In 1947, despite having once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan (as had Hornsby), Speaker accepted an appointment from new Indians manager Bill Veeck to coach Larry Doby, the AL's 1st black player, on how to play center field, which he hadn't played before. Speaker would assist other black players on the Indians as well, showing no outward signs of racism, and earning praise for this from Doby in his Hall of Fame induction speech. As an Indians coach, Speaker wore Number 43, and while that number has not been retired by the team, they have honored him with a plaque in their Heritage Park at Progressive Field.

Honorable Mention of Lloyd Waner of Harrah, Oklahoma, who along with his brother Paul forms 1 of only 2 brother combinations in the Hall of Fame (the others being pioneers Harry and George Wright, the Wright Brothers who invented professional baseball rather than the airplane); Bobby Murcer of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who wasn't "the next Mickey Mantle" but was something beloved anyway; and to 2 of the best glove men of our time, Torii Hunter of Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Vernon Wells of Arlington.

RF Paul Waner of Harrah, Oklahoma. A reporter from Brooklyn called Paul and his brother Lloyd "a big person and a little person." Another reporter overheard this, in the Brooklyn reporter's accent, and started calling them "Big Poison" and "Little Poison." Except that Paul was 5-foot-8 and 153 pounds, and Lloyd was 5-foot-9 albeit roughly the same weight.

Lloyd is one of the more dubious HOF selections: While his lifetime batting average is a strong .316, in his era it wasn't great, and his career OPS+ is 99, making him slightly less than average. But his 2,459 hits is nothing to sneeze at, and he did help the Pirates win the NL Pennant in his rookie year of 1927.

There is no doubt about Paul's HOF credentials, though: He was the NL MVP in that '27 season (he came up in '26 and missed out on the Bucs' '25 World Championship), a .333 BA, 134 OPS+, 3 batting titles and 3,152 hits including 605 doubles. The Pirates recently retired his Number 11 -- but have not retired Lloyd's Number 10.

Honorable Mention to Willard Brown of Shreveport, Louisiana, a powerful slugger who starred in the Negro Leagues for the Kansas City Monarchs in the 1930s and '40s, before playing 21 games in the majors, all with the St. Louis Browns in 1947. For his Negro League contributions, he is in the Hall of Fame, included in that making-up-for-lost-time election of 2006.

C Johnny Bench of Binger, Oklahoma. NL Rookie of the Year in 1968, and MVP in 1970 and '72. Won NL Pennants in '70 and '72, and the World Series in '75 (he was named Series MVP) and '76. His 389 homers made him the all-time leader among catchers until passed by Carlton Fisk.

His manager on the Reds, Sparky Anderson, may not have been intentionally slighting Thurman Munson by saying this after the '76 Series, in which Munson got hits in his last 6 at-bats but Bench hit 2 homers in the Game 4 clincher, but, insulting or not, Sparky had a point: "Don't ever embarrass anybody by comparing them to Johnny Bench."

Late in his career, he hosted the kids' TV series The Baseball Bunch as a warmup act for NBC's Saturday Game of the Week. Hall of Fame, All-Century Team, Number 5 retired.

Honorable Mention to Sherm Lollar of Durham, Arkansas. A 9-time All-Star, he was the catcher for the 1959 "Go-Go White Sox," Chicago's only Pennant-winner from 1945 to 2005.

Honorable Mention to Louis Santop of Tyler. Because he played before the founding of the original Negro National League, he was sort of lost by history, before the 2006 Hall of Fame election to find great black players from the pre-Jackie Robinson era who were deserving of a long-overdue election. 

Starring in both Philadelphia and New York, he appears to have been one of the most sensational hitters of the 1910s and '20s, black or white. Whether he was as good as Negro League catchers Biz Mackey and Josh Gibson, let alone Negro Leaguer-turned-big-leaguer Roy Campanella, or big leaguers such as the aforementioned Johnny Bench, we may never know. But he's in the Hall, and he should have been in decades before.

SP Jay Hanna "Dizzy" Dean of Lucas, Arkansas, born in 1910. Or is that Jerome Herman Dean of Hodgenville, Oklahoma, born in 1911? (The former name, birthplace and year of birth are officially, legally true. Had the latter been true, he still would have been geographically qualified for this team.) One time-honored story is that Dean gave conflicting information to 3 different reporters, in quick succession, as to his name and birthplace. A teammate questioned him about that, and he answered, "I wanted to give each of them fellers an exclusive story!"

He reached the Cardinals' rotation in 1932, along with his brother Paul, known as Daffy Dean. In 1934, Diz said, "Me an' Paul are gonna win 50 games this season." He was almost right: Diz won 30 (losing only 7) and Daff won 19, leading the "Gashouse Gang" to the Pennant. Then he said, "Me an' Paul are gonna win this here World Series." He was completely right: Not only did he and Paul each win 2 games of the Series, but Diz pitched a shutout against the mighty Tigers in Game 7.

He remained, with Carl Hubbell and Satchel Paige, one of the 3 best pitchers on the planet, until the 1937 All-Star Game, when he took a line drive off his toe (supposedly telling the doctor, "Fractured, hell, the damn thing's broken!"), and began to favor the toe by changing his motion, thus wrecking his elbow. Despite a favorable trade to the Cubs in 1938 and a memorable "last stand" against the Yankees in Game 2 of that year's World Series, Diz was done after the 1941 season, only 31 years old. (He made a one-game comeback in 1947.)

He went on to become a legendary broadcaster, mangling syntax and pronunciations. A teacher wrote him a letter saying he shouldn't use the word "ain't" on the air, because children would copy him. He said, on the air, "Teach, a lot o' folks that ain't sayin' 'ain't' ain't eatin'. So you learn 'em English, and I'll learn 'em baseball." I wonder if, while growing up in St. Louis, Yogi Berra's speech was affected by listening to Diz call Cards and Browns games?

Diz was the Terry Bradshaw of his time: A great athlete turned star pundit of his sport, and since people already thought of him as a dumb, even "dizzy" redneck, he decided to use it to his advantage. "The Good Lord was good to me," Diz said. "He gave me a strong right arm and a weak mind." Although injury limited him to 150 wins, he lost only 83 for a .644 winning percentage. ERA+, 131. "Only" 1,163 strikeouts, and never topped 200 in a season, but led the NL 4 times.

Hall of Fame, Number 17 retired and statue dedicated by the Cards, and since he lived his adult life in Mississippi, a Dizzy Dean Museum was built next to Smith-Wills Stadium in the State capital of Jackson, now a part of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame.

SP Allie Reynolds of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I thought about cheating a little with Allie, because while he was a great starter, Yankee manager Casey Stengel frequently used him in relief. If he'd been born in the 1950s and reached the majors in the 1970s or later, instead of being born in 1917 and reaching the majors in 1942, he probably would have been one of the greatest relievers ever, because he had the speed and the guts.

He played on 6 Yankee World Championship teams: 1947, '49, '50, '51, '52 and '53. He formed the "Big Three" with fellow righthanded fireballer Vic Raschi and lefty junkballer Steady Eddie Lopat. He went 182-107, and while he only won 20 once, in '52, he also saved 49 games in his career. Of those 182 wins, 36 were shutouts, and 2 were no-hitters, both in 1951, the latter a Pennant-clincher against the Red Sox. He went 7-2 in World Series play, including a 1-0 duel against Don Newcombe in Game 1 in '49, and 3 clinhers: Game 5 in '49, Game 4 in '50, and Game 7 in relief in '52. Had Casey left him as a starer, he would've had well over 200 wins, and he'd be in the Hall of Fame.

The Yankees have honored him with a Plaque in Monument Park, although his Number 22 remains in circulation. His alma mater, Oklahoma State University (known as Oklahoma A&M until 1958), named their baseball stadium after him. Due to his Creek heritage, he was called "the Indian," "the Big Indian," and "the Superchief," which was also a reference to his fastball and the fast Chicago-to-Los Angeles train of the same name on the Santa Fe Railroad, which went through his native Oklahoma. He was also responsible for negotiating the first players' pension fund.

SP Johnny Sain of Havana, Arkansas. In 1948, the Boston Braves won the Pennant, their last until moving to Milwaukee, with a superb rotation, with Sain, Warren Spahn, Vernon Bickford and Bill Voiselle. Both Bickford and Voiselle had better ERAs than Spahn that year, but Gerald V. Hern of the Boston Post coined the phrase "Spahn and Sain and two days of rain." (Sometimes printed as "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain"; in 1999, Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe would say of the Red Sox' rotation, "Pedro and Lowe and three days of snow.")

Sain was later traded to the Yankees, and won the World Series with them in 1952 and '53. Casey used him as a reliever, and he led the AL with 22 saves in 1954, a big total for that era. Sain went on to become one of the best pitching coaches ever, winning Pennants with the Yankees in 1961, '62 and '63, and with the '65 Minnesota Twins and the '68 Tigers.

SP Vida Blue of Mansfield, Louisiana. In 1971, he had one of the most sensational years any pitcher has had in the Divisional Play Era, going 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA and a 0.952 WHIP, to win both the AL Cy Young Award and MVP. (This led to a trick question: Who was the last switch-hitter to win the MVP? People who asked that tended to forget that Pete Rose was a switcher, or that he won the NL MVP in '73. Five have done it since, most recently Jimmy Rollins.)

Then he demanded a big raise, which was a bad idea, as he pitched for the Oakland Athletics, who were owned by Charlie Finley. He held out and went 6-10 in '72. But he won 77 for them in the next 6 years, as he helped them with the 1972, '73 and '74 World Series. In 1978, Finley finally traded him, across the Bay to the San Francisco Giants, and he went 18-10. He was 28 and 142-96. Then cocaine began to take its toll, and not only would he never again top 14 wins in a season, but he would miss the 1984 season due to prison and suspension. In 1986, at 36, he was done: 209-161.

On Baseball-Reference.com's Hall of Fame Monitor, he's at 114 of 100; on its HOF Standards, 35 of 50; of the 10 Most Similar, only 3 are in. What a waste, but he has spent his post-playing days in charitable causes and promotes youth baseball in the Bay Area.

SP Greg Maddux of San Angelo. A bit of a cheat here, since his father was in the U.S. Air Force and Greg lived with his father while he was stationed in Madrid, Spain, before moving to Las Vegas, where Greg attended high school.

With 355 wins, he is the winningest living pitcher, 1 ahead of Roger somebody. 3,371 strikeouts. Career ERA+ of 132 and WHIP of 1.143. 8 All-Star Teams, 4 Cy Young Awards (and just missed 3 others), and a record 18 Gold Gloves. (OK, he's a pitcher, but, still... ) Number 31 retired by both the Cubs (NL East title 1989) and the Atlanta Braves (World Champions 1995, NL Pennants in 1996 and '99). Eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2014.

Honorable Mention to SP Lon Warneke of Mount Ida, Arkansas. While Diz was the ace of the Cards, "the Arkansas Hummingbird" was the ace of the Cubs, pitching them to Pennants in 1932, '35 and '38 -- including '35 when the Cubs won 20 straight games, most since 1916 (since tied by the 2002 A's), and caught the Gashouse Gang for 1st. The Cubs lost the Series to the Tigers in 6, but both of their wins had Warneke as the winning pitcher.

Strangely, he was traded to the Cards in '37 and became Diz' teammate, although only for a year or so; effectively, if not officially, Diz and Lon were traded for each other. Finished his career 192-121 for .613, an ERA+ of 119.

He is not in the Hall of Fame, but according to Baseball-Reference.com, of his 10 most statistically similar pitchers, 4 are, Jack Chesbro, Dazzy Vance, Stan Coveleski and Bob Lemon; 2 others should be, Urban Shocker and Carl Mays; and the other 4 aren't that far off, Art Nehf, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar and Jimmy Key.

Honorable Mention to SP Lynwood "Schoolboy" Rowe of El Dorado, Arkansas. He won 62 games for the Tigers from 1934 to '36, and opposed Dean in the '34 Series (lost) and Warneke in the '35 Series (won). An injury at age 27 curtailed his career, but he still went 16-3 for the Pennant-winning Tigers in 1940, and 14-8 and 11-4 for weak Phillies teams later in the Forties, hanging on until age 39. He wjnt 158-101 for his career.

Very Honorable Mention to Andy Cooper of Waco. Another Negro Leaguer elected in the 2006 vote, he was one of those rare players who batted right but threw left. He starred for the Detroit Stars in the 1920s, and in the 1930s was both pitcher and manager of the Kansas City Monarchs -- which means he had to both share a rotation with and manage Satchel Paige. Unfortunately, a stroke ended his magnificent career and his life in 1941, at just 43 years old.

RP Lee Smith of Castor, Louisiana. The former all-time saves leader with 478, he had an ERA+ of 132, but only reached the postseason twice, with the 1984 Cubs (infamously giving up a walkoff homer to Steve Garvey in Game 4 of the NLCS) and the 1988 Red Sox (swept). He's eligible for the Hall of Fame, but with Trevor Hoffman having taken away his all-time saves leader status, I'm not sure he'll ever make it.

Honorable Mention to Fred "Firpo" Marberry of Streetman, Texas. Nicknamed for his resemblance to Luis Firpo, the Argentine boxer who nearly knocked out heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey at the Polo Grounds in 1923, he was one of the first real relief pitchers in the game.

The Washington Senator led the AL in games pitched 6 times, and, although it wasn't an official statistic yet, in saves 5 times, with a peak of 22 (then a record) in 1926. He helped the Senators win their only World Championship in 1924 and another Pennant in 1925. In 1929, pitching as both a starter and a reliever for a Senator team that won only 71 games, he went 19-12. He helped the Detroit Tigers win a Pennant in 1934 and a World Series in 1935. His career record was 148-88, and his 101 saves were a record upon his 1936 retirement.

Honorable Mention to Lindy McDaniel of Hollis, Oklahoma. A career save total of 172 isn't all that impressive these days, but he led the NL 3 times, with the Cardinals and Cubs. His 987 appearances once made him 2nd on the all-time list to Hoyt Wilhelm, and in 1973 he went 12-6 with 10 saves for the Yankees. Then he got traded to the Kansas City Royals for Lou Piniella, and it was a great trade: McDaniel was pretty much done but was able to be an extra pitching coach for the Royals' bright young staff, and if you're a Yankee Fan then you know what Sweet Lou did.

MGR Mike Hargrove of Perryton. Actually, Perryton is at the northernmost edge of the Texas Panhandle, almost exactly halfway between Dallas and Denver, so, theoretically, I could have made him the manager of the Colorado Rockies' all-time regional team. But his ties to the Rangers, having played 1st base for them, solidify his case for this team.

He was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1974, and an All-Star 1st baseman for the Ranges and Cleveland Indians, batting .290 lifetime. Unfortunately, as a player, he is best remembered for all his fidgeting with his equipment at the plate, giving him the nickname "the Human Rain Delay."

He managed the Indians to Pennants in 1995 and 1997, making him the only living human ever to do so. (The aforementioned Tris Speaker in 1920, Lou Boudreau in 1948 and Al Lopez in 1954 are all dead.) He managed the Tribe to the AL Central Division title 5 straight seasons, 1995 to '99. He later managed the Baltimore Orioles and Seattle Mariners, and now runs a semi-pro team in Kansas.