Story of the Week

MY FANTASY BASEBALL TEAM

    This one is going to be fun; at least it was for me. It’s my version of fantasy baseball. Imagine that you are the owner of a baseball team, and you can select one player per position on that team, plus two pitchers, one left and one right. And you have to name a field manager. And that’s it!

    Remember—they don’t have to be the best ever at those positions; they are simply the ones you want on your all-time team. You absolutely can use your heart instead of total and complete objectivity in making your selections; I did.

    The one ground-rule is that you have to have seen your selected players play. For example, Babe Ruth was before my time, so I can’t pick him.

    My personal fantasy baseball team:

1B. Stan Musial. Left. .331. 3630 Hits. 475 HR’s. 1951 RBI’s. Second best hitter I ever saw.

2B. Jackie Robinson. Right. .311. Rookie-Of-Year At 28. MVP At 30. He has his own wall in my office.

3B. Pete Rose. Switch. .303. 4256 More hits than I had. Judge him only inside the chalk lines.

SS. Ozzie Smith. Switch. .261. Best ever at the position. This was my easiest pick at his position.

LF. Ted Williams. Left. .344. Missed five years to two wars. Best hitter I ever saw.

CF. Willie Mays. Right. .302. 3283 Hits. 660 HR’s. 1903 RBI’s. Remember the catch on Wertz in '54?

RF. Henry Aaron. Right. .305. 3771 Hits. 755 HR’s. 2297 RBI’s. Lots of assists as well. Silky smooth.

LP. Sandy Koufax. 2.76 ERA. W’s vs L’s 2:1. K’s vs BB’s 3:1. And all those no-hitters. Too bad short career.

RP. Bob Gibson. 2.91 ERA. W’s vs L’s 6:4. K’s vs BB’s 7:3. 1.12 ERA set modern-day record in '68.

Mgr. Leo Durocher. The best managing job I ever saw was 1951; he wouldn't permit the Giants to quit.

    I salivate thinking about Robinson, Rose and Mays being at the top of my lineup, in that order. They would be followed in the order by Williams, Aaron, Musial, Campanella, Smith. I’ve purposely staggered lefts and rights to further complicate the opposition pitching, as if I need to do so with these guys.

    What really makes me salivate is thinking about what my all-time team would do to the ball of the modern era. My team had to hit real baseballs in their era, and not the jet-propelled oversized golf balls of today. And they had to hit them off quality major leaguers; not watered-down AAA and AA pitchers. Yeah, that’s old news.

    And what would Koufax and Gibson roll up in K’s today with the modern baseball and the minor-league hitters they would face? No contest! That’s old news, too.

    Then there’s Leo as the field boss. None better ever. His players loved him, and he knew every sub-facet of every facet of the game. Just ask Charley Dressen if he knew what he was doing.

    That’s it! Regrets to Yogi, Joe D, Frank Robinson, Mike Schmidt, Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, and the list goes on and on. I’ll now sit back and get ready for all the e-mails. If this one stirs up enough action and controversy, maybe I’ll eventually do my football, basketball and hockey teams as well. After all, who could possibly question my picking Ray Felix as my starting NBA center!

Last Week’s Trivia

    What NBA team won a championship as its starting guards set a game seven record for the poorest % shooting in history for that position? It was the Celtics who did that on April 13, 1957, in game seven of the NBA finals, as they won their very first NBA title in double-overtime over the St. Louis Hawks. Boston won despite the performances of their great guards (Bob Cousy was 2-for-20 and Bill Sharman was 3-for-20 for a combined .125 from the field.)

Trivia Question of the Week

    One team in NFL history lost four games in one season in which they had scored 30 or more points in each game, and at one juncture held a double-digit lead. What team and when? See next week’s Sports Junkie for the answer.