How it works

"Did you know that if you chose up 676 All-Star teams by initials, Bill Russell would probably be on the winning team? The J.C. team would be awfully good ..." - The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1984

OK, so this started as a simple exercise, putting together 25-man rosters from all of baseball history with initials that match our own (J.R. and M.H.). We had fun, so we started doing teams of players with our friends' initials. We had even more fun. So we began trying to see how many "initial teams" we could put together. Some teams came together naturally. Others have tremendous strengths and glaring weaknesses. Along the way, we discovered some fascinating players we had previously overlooked.

Each team, theoretically, has eight starting position players (no DH, thank you very much), five bench players (including a backup catcher, a utility infielder, a fourth outfielder and two others), a five-man rotation and a seven-man bullpen with one identified as the nominal closer. We only deviate from this roster format if necessary. Each team has a manager, and if none is available, we do the best we can to identify one. The teams are given random names - sometimes after our friends - that play off of the initials used to create the roster.

We have tried to pick the best teams possible with each set of initials, though in choosing the final bench or bullpen spots we reserve the right to pick sentimental favorites or, failing that, guys with funny names. We will not list a player at a position he did not play, though if roster requirements dictate (e.g., two outstanding shortstops but no decent second baseman), we will put a guy at his secondary position. We try to manage resources the way a real manager would - for example, if you've got two starting right fielders, you move one of them to left. For what it's worth, some guys might appear on more than one team if they were equally well known by two different names (e.g., Rich Gossage is eligible for the RG team, but he's also eligible for the GGs as Goose Gossage), but we won't abuse this by trying to put Babe Ruth on the GRs or anything like that.

Have fun.