JA: The Jack Ankersons

Infield: First baseman Joe Adcock (1950-66) was a big, brawny fellow who hit prodigious home runs. He was a teammate of Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron with the Milwaukee Braves, and he hit the walk-off home run that ended Harvey Haddix’s legendary perfect game. In one game in 1954, he hit four home runs and a double, and the 18 total bases stood as a single-game record for several decades. Defensively, he was not tremendously mobile but was a sure-handed first baseman. He finished his career with 336 home runs and 1,122 RBI. Third baseman Jimmy Austin (1909-29) was a slick-fielding, strong-armed, enthusiastic player who was an average hitter at best in the deadball era. (Don’t let the dates fool you – his career, for all intents and purposes, ended in the early 1920s, but he remained as a coach with the St. Louis Browns and he was so popular that he would occasionally be re-activated for one game just so he could go out and take the field once a year.) For a few years during his playing career, Austin was the Browns’ “Sunday manager,” running things once a week while the devout Branch Rickey stayed home to observe the Sabbath. Second baseman Jerry Adair (1958-70) was a great fielder and a weak hitter. Shortstop Jim Anderson (1978-84) wasn’t a bad fielder, and he made Jerry Adair look like Jimmie Foxx by comparison. After the California Angels won the division title in 1979, Anderson celebrated by pouring a beer over Richard Nixon’s head. It’s not clear whether Nixon turned up in the clubhouse or whether Anderson sought him out at San Clemente to douse him.

Outfield: Left fielder Jesus Alou (1963-79) was the fourth best outfielder in his own family, behind brothers Matty and Felipe and nephew Moises. He was a .280 hitter, which sounds OK, but he didn’t draw walks, wasn’t a good baserunner and had no power. He was the first Latino ballplayer named Jesus to hit the majors, and apparently some broadcasters were afraid that his name was somehow blasphemous, so they tried referring to him as “Jay Alou,” but Jesus balked at that, pointed out that it was a common name in the Dominican, and insisted that they call him by his proper name (pronounced “Hey-ZOOS,” of course.) Center fielder Honest John Anderson (1894-1908) led the NL with 22 home runs and a .494 slugging percentage in 1898. In 1908, he led the AL with 39 stolen bases. This makes him one of five players in the 20th century to have been a league leader in both steals and home runs (along with Willie Mays, Chuck Klein, Ty Cobb and Jimmy Sheckard). He also has the distinction of being the first (and easily the best) major-leaguer born in Norway. Right fielder Jeff Abbott (1997-2001) hit .320 or so at every stop in the minors, but he never did enough in the majors to hold down a fulltime job.

Catcher: Jimmy Archer (1904-18) was a light-hitting catcher with a reputation for a strong throwing arm. He was a respected player and a member of two pennant winners.

Rotation: Johnny Antonelli (1948-61) was a lefty who bided his time as a teenaged bonus baby with the Braves and then came into his own with the New York (and later San Francisco) Giants. He won 20 games twice, led the league in ERA in 1954 and twice led the league in shutouts. He pitched masterfully in the Giants’ sweep of the 1954 World Series, beating Cleveland 3-1 in Game 2 and getting the final five outs of the decisive Game 4. Johnny Allen (1932-44) and Joaquin Andujar (1976-88) are the resident hotheads in the rotation. Allen was a very good pitcher, with a career record of 142-75. He was a temperamental Southern boy who was working as a bellhop at a hotel when he convinced legendary Yankees scout Paul Krichell to give him a tryout. He went 17-4 as a rookie, but he eventually wore out his welcome in New York. He later went 15-1 in Cleveland, setting a record for winning percentage that would stand until Roy Face took it away. His temper was so well known that opposing players would look for ways to piss him off. A favorite was complaining to the umpire that they were distracted by some item of jewelry he was wearing, or some part of his uniform – because they knew it would cause him to blow his stack and lose his composure on the mound. They used to do the same thing to Andujar, with similar results. He wasn’t quite as good as Allen, but he was good. He drove managers up the wall in Cincinnati and Houston before he finally arrived in St. Louis and Whitey Herzog essentially told him, “Act as crazy as you want, as long as you take a regular turn in the rotation and get people out.” He was the ace of the staff for the World Series champs of 1982, and he won 20 games in ’84 and ’85, but in the disastrous seventh game of the 1985 World Series, Herzog made the mistake of bringing Andujar into a situation that had already become quite volatile, and Andujar ended up going all Mount Vesuvius, charging at the plate umpire with his fists raised and getting ejected. He went to Oakland and pitched well the next year, but the decline had set in. Among other things, he was famous for his insistence that he was a great hitter (in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary) and his propensity for saying quasi-profound thing such as, “There is one word to describe baseball, and that word is ‘You never know.’ " Jim Abbott (1989-99) was born without a right hand but went on to become a successful left-handed pitcher – an All-American at Michigan, a gold medalist in the Olympics and a fine major-leaguer who won 87 games, finished third in the 1991 Cy Young voting and pitched a no-hitter. In a neat little tribute, at baseballreference.com lists him as “Bats: Left” and “Throws: Left,” then adds “Fields: Left as well.” (And, yes, it says the same thing under Pete Gray.) He actually fielded his position quite well, balancing his mitt on the stump of his right wrist and then slipping it onto his left hand during the follow-through and ending up in position to field any comebackers. Upon fielding a grounder, he would flip the ball just high enough to allow him to slip the glove off, then catch the ball and make the throw. For whatever it’s worth, Abbott had a higher lifetime fielding percentage than Jim Kaat or Greg Maddux, who won 34 Gold Gloves between them. Jack Armstrong (1988-94) had a great name for a pitcher. In 1990, he began the season 11-3 and started the all-star game for the NL. He went 1-6 the rest of the way, and then went 22-46 for the rest of his career.

Bullpen: Jack Aker (1964-74) saved 32 games for the A's in 1966, which stood as a major-league record for a few years. He had some good seasons, finished with 47 wins, 123 saves and a 3.28 ERA. John Axford (2009- ) emerged out of nowhere as the Brewers' closer in 2010 and has been very effective in that role, leading the National League with 46 saves in 2011. We'll see if he can sustain it, but if he does he could push Aker aside and claim the closer role on this team. Juan “Sasquatch” Acevedo (1995-2003) had a big year in Double-A at age 24, got marked as a hot prospect and spent the next decade failing to live up to that label, though in truth he did a fairly successful job of morphing from a disappointing starter into an occasionally effective reliever. He finished with 53 career saves. Juan Agosto (1981-93) was never a fulltime closer but always picked up a few saves here and there. He was frequently good, and when he wasn’t he was willing to work as a guy who could eat up some innings during blowout losses (earning the nickname “Juan Digusto” in some quarters). Jim Acker (1983-92) was a respectable middle reliever in Toronto and Atlanta for many years. Lefty Jerry Augustine (1975-84) came up as a starter, shifted to the bullpen and spent a decade as one of the nondescript arms in the Milwaukee Brewers’ arsenal. Jose Alvarez (1981-89) pitched briefly for Atlanta in 1981 and ’82, knocked around the minors for the next five years, and then returned to the Braves as a highly effective reliever for a couple of years at the end of the decade.

Bench: Backup catcher Joe (The Immortal) Azcue (1960-72) was billed as a “can’t miss” star, but he was actually very ordinary. Best known for his nickname, and for the fact that he sat out the 1971 season in a contract dispute and spend the year pouring concrete rather than accept the Angels’ contract offer. Joey Amalfitano (1954-67) was a light-hitting middle infielder who later managed the Cubs. Outfielder Jermaine Allensworth (1996-99) was one of those guys who looked like a really good player but really wasn’t one. Utility infielder Jose Altuve (2011- ) batted .276 and showed some speed as an Astros rookie. He doesn't get on base much, but he's young and could improve. J.P. Arencibia (2010- ), another backup catcher, hits home runs and does nothing else. He strikes out a lot, does not walk, and his career average thus far is .213. But in 478 career at-bats, he's got 25 home runs and 82 RBI, so there is some value in that.

Manager: Joe Altobelli managed the 1983 World Series champion Orioles. He will be assisted by Amalfitano, and on Sundays he will turn the team over to Jimmy Austin.

JB: The Jim Beams

Infield: Jeff Bagwell (1991-2005) was a third base prospect in the Red Sox organization, stuck behind Wade Boggs, so the Sox traded him to the Astros near the end of the 1990 season to pick up aging (but highly effective) reliever Larry Andersen for the stretch drive. Andersen pitched great, Boston won its division – and Bagwell shifted across the infield and became one of the greatest first basemen of all time. He was a .300 hitter who would draw 120 walks and hit 30-40 home runs, scoring and driving in 100 runs like clockwork. Actually that’s conservative, as he would frequently top 120 in those categories. Add in Gold Glove-caliber defense and 202 career stolen bases and you’ve got a complete package. Shortstop Jay Bell (1986-2003) was somewhat underrated. He was an effective fielder, not great but at least average, and he was good for 30 doubles and 10-20 home runs per year (excepting 1999, when he went nuts and hit 38). He was a fine bunter, led the league in sacrifices twice, and was the first player since World War II to have 150 home runs and 150 sacrifice hits. Second baseman Jimmy Bloodworth (1937-51) was a strong defensive infielder but a weak hitter who was a starter on the Whiz Kids Phillies who won the NL pennant in 1950. Third baseman Sunset Jimmy Burke (1898-1905) was a very weak hitter, and he was no great shakes in the field either, but he had a long career coaching and managing in the minors and majors after he was done playing.

Outfield: Hall of Fame left fielder Jesse Burkett (1890-1905) was a terrible fielder, and as for his disposition, they didn’t call him The Crab because of astrology (he was a Taurus) or because he favored shellfish. But the man could hit - .338 lifetime, three batting titles including two .400s. He stole 389 bases and scored more than 1,700 runs. Across the outfield in right, Jesse Barfield (1981-92) was a good glove with a great arm, maybe the best outfield arm in the years between Clemente and Ichiro. He was a good hitter as well, putting up about 25 home runs per year. Center fielder Jim Busby (1950-62) was a defensive specialist, with great hands and terrific range. As a hitter, he was functional in his better seasons.

Catcher: There is a good argument to make for Johnny Bench (1966-82) as the greatest catcher in major-league history. He hit 30-40 home runs in a good year, led the NL in RBI three times, won two MVP awards, was a key player on one of history’s best teams, and was the standard of defensive excellence for his era. You didn’t try to run on him, and when you did you regretted it. He was very recognizable in his era but lacked charisma, so he came off as very wooden in commercials for Krylon spray paint (“No drips, no runs, no errors!”) and as the host of a children’s show called “The Baseball Bunch.”

Rotation: Jim Bunning (1955-71), at his peak, was a dominant pitcher with a slider that was one of the most unhittable pitchers in the game. He was a star for Detroit and Philadelphia, leading the league in strikeouts three times and, for good measure, leading the National League in hit batsmen four years running. After his Hall of Fame career, he went on to become a U.S. Senator from Kentucky, and he still has the same combative spirit even as he beings to wrap up his time in Congress – he recently made national news by obstinately blocking, over and over, a Senate action that would make sure a million Americans didn’t lose their unemployment benefits prematurely. When other senators expressed frustration with him, Bunning replied, “Tough shit.” Josh Beckett (2001- ) may never become a politician, but he is starting to emerge as baseball royalty, having won World Series titles with the Marlins and the Red Sox and racking up three postseason shutouts before his 30th birthday. Bullet Joe Bush (1912-28) had a great name for a pitcher, though you don’t often hear a guy called “Bullet” who struck out fewer than four batters per nine innings. He pitched for seven teams in his career, playing in five World Series and winning championships with the Athletics (1913), the Red Sox (1918) and the Yankees (1923). He won 196 games in his career, and if you put together a lineup of players who were his teammates at one time or another, that team would kick ass. He played with almost three dozen Hall of Famers including Lefty Grove, Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott and Mickey Cochrane, and six of his managers went into the Hall of Fame as well, including John McGraw, Miller Huggins and Connie Mack. Jack Billingham (1968-80), who was reportedly a very distant cousin of Christy Mathewson, had the good fortune of being traded in 1971 to the Cincinnati Reds as part of the same deal that brought Joe Morgan (and Denis Menke and Cesar Geronimo). If the Reds had opted for a different pitcher in the deal, then it might have been Wade Blasingame or Ken Forsch or someone like that who joined the staff of the Big Red Machine. Instead, it was Billingham who landed in Cincinnati, where he won 87 games in six years, pitched in three World Series (with an 0.36 ERA) and will forever be associated with that great team. Jim Bagby Sr. (1912-23) learned the screwball from Christy Mathewson and used it to win 127 games, including 31 in 1920. (He in turn taught the screwball to his son, Jim Jr., who won 97 games and had some good seasons during World War II. Junior would go to spring training with the JB team and could fill in as needed in the rotation or bullpen.)

Bullpen: Jeff Brantley (1988-2001) had 172 saves, including a league-leading 44 in 1996. He was a good reliever, but a little too prone to the gopher ball to be an elite closer. He’ll start out as the closer here, but there will be plenty of arms ready to take over if he falters. Jim Brewer (1960-76), another screwball specialist, saved 132 games, mostly for the Dodgers in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. His screwball was so sharp that it frequently produced a “reverse platoon” effect, which is good because it will help make up for the shortage of lefties in this bullpen. Jim Brosnan (1954-63) was an intellectual reliever whose diary “The Long Season” predated “Ball Four” (by a certain other J.B. who didn’t quite make this roster) by several years and was produced without the use of a ghostwriter. Brosnan won 55 games and saved 67 in his career. Joe Beggs (1938-48) had a 2.96 career ERA and retroactively led the NL in saves in 1940 with seven. Joe Boever (1985-96) was a junkballer who bounced around seven teams and spent a brief period as a closer, partly because people wanted the chance to call him Boever the Saver. He had 49 career saves. Juan Berenguer (1978-92) was a starter for the 1984 championship Tigers and a reliever for the 1987 championship Twins. Joe Borowski (1995-2008) had a decent career with 131 saves, but for many fans his legacy will be that he became the ultimate proof of how misleading the save stat can be. In 2007, pitching for Cleveland, he led the AL in saves with 45 despite giving up huge numbers of hits, a lot of home runs and putting up an ERA over 5.00. But, doggone it, he had led the league in saves, so the Indians couldn’t very well take him out of the closer role just because he’d gotten royally rocked, so he started the 2008 season in that same job and essentially pitched batting practice for a few weeks before the team threw up its hands and released him.

Bench: Sunny Jim Bottomley (1922-37) was a Hall of Fame first baseman who is reduced on this team to pinch-hitting and asking the very durable Jeff Bagwell how he’s feeling today. Bottomley was a .310 hitter who led the league in RBI twice, played in four World Series and won an MVP award. He once had 12 RBI in a single game, a major-league record. Outfielder Jason Bay (2003- ) is pressing for playing time in left or right. He is, like Burkett, a terrific hitter but a problematic fielder, and if he took the right field job from Barfield, we worry that even a great center fielder like Busby might not be able to make up for the defensive deficiencies around him. Still, Bay can hit all day long, so maybe he and Burkett will form an absolutely deadly platoon combination in left field. Catcher Johnny Bassler (1913-27) would start on a lot of initial teams, but he’s on the bench (behind Bench) here. Bassler had no power, but he was a .300 hitter who drew a lot of walks and finished in the top 10 in the MVP voting for three straight years. Infielder Jeff Blauser (1987-99) hit 122 career home runs and was a regular on the Atlanta teams that won all those division titles. The good news is that he can play all three infield spots, but the bad news is, he wasn’t exactly a Gold Glover. (If the team decides to go in the opposite direction, slick fielding Jack Barry, the light-hitting shortstop from Connie Mack’s famed $100,000 Infield will replace Blauser.) Jimmy Barrett (1899-1908) was a talented but hot-tempered guy who played center field for the Tigers until the even more talented and more hot-tempered Ty Cobb came along and took the job. Barrett was a good hitter who led the American League in on-base percentage in 1903, and he had 126 outfield assists between 1900-04, which suggests that he could be a defensive sub in left and could have some good pre-game “throw the ball from the warning track” contests with Barfield.

Manager: John Boles never played in the majors, or even in the minors, but he was a college coach who became a major-league coach and player development executive who eventually achieved his career goal of managing in the majors. He managed the Marlins for two full seasons and parts of two others. Wayne Huizenga wouldn’t let him manage all the high-priced talent in 1997 (he brought in Jim Leyland), so we’ll never know if Boles could have won the World Series with that team.

JC: The Jolbert Cabreras

Infield: Jack Clark (1975-92), a.k.a. Jack the Ripper, was one of the best hitters of his generation. He played in parks that didn’t help him, and he was plagued by nagging injuries that always seemed to heal slowly, but the man hit the ball hard. He came up with San Francisco as a passable defensive right fielder, but by the time he moved to St. Louis the injuries had reduced him to an immobile first baseman. He was an ornery cuss who sometimes fought with teammates and managers, and he left the game rather suddenly in his mid-30s after blowing millions on cars and homes and ending up in bankruptcy. But the guy could hit – finished with 340 home runs, 1,100-plus runs and RBI in a career that was consistently sidetracked by injuries. Shortstop Joe Cronin (1926-45) was a .300 hitter who drove in 100 runs eight times and generally had about 40 doubles and a dozen home runs. He was a Hall of Fame shortstop, and as a 26-year-old player-manager he led the Washington Senators to the AL pennant. He later went to the Red Sox and spent 13 years as their player-manager, ushering in the Ted Williams era and winning a pennant in 1946. He served in the team’s front office for several prosperous years thereafter, and capped everything off with a 14-year run as president of the American League. Just in case he didn’t have enough baseball in his life as a player, manager, executive and league president, he married the niece of legendary Senators owner Clark Griffith. Third baseman Jimmy Collins (1895-1908) is also in the Hall of Fame, and for decades after his retirement he was widely recognized as the greatest third baseman of all time. He was a classic turn-of-the-century ballplayer – a great baserunner, superb bunter and an exceptional defensive infielder who is often credited with redefining everything about the way third basemen play the position. He played almost his entire career in Boston, equally split between the Beaneaters in the NL and the Americans in the AL. Second baseman Julio Cruz (1977-86) batted .237 with no power whatsoever. He drew enough walks to make his batting average a little bit less of a drain on the team’s offense, and he had two major plusses to his game – he stole 40-50 bases a year at an 80 percent success rate, and he was a fantastic defensive second baseman.

Outfield: Left fielder Jose Cruz (1970-88) was, for a decade or so, one of the best outfielders in the National League, a fact that was largely hidden by the fact that he played in the Astrodome. In his career, Cruz hit 106 home runs on the road and 59 at home. He batted .300 six times, hit plenty of doubles and stole 30-40 bases a year, and he was a sensational defensive outfielder who somehow never won a Gold Glove. (He also had two brothers, Hector and Tommy, who played in the majors but weren’t nearly as good, and a son, Jose Jr., who could easily have made the bench as a reserve outfielder on this team.) Center fielder Jose Cardenal (1963-80) was a very useful ballplayer for a very long time who was largely overlooked because he was originally billed as a bigger star than he actually turned out to be. Even so, he was a decent hitter with speed and some pop who could play a decent center field. He was a bit flaky and was known to sit out games for odd reasons. He once begged out of a game because he said his eyelid was stuck shut, another time because a cricket in his hotel room had kept him awake all night, and he reportedly once sat out three straight winter league games in the Dominican because his uniform pants weren’t tight enough to suit him. Finally, we go from the staid Jose Cruz to the colorful Jose Cardenal to the often ridiculous right fielder Jose Canseco (1985-2001), whose listed weight of 195 pounds at baseballreference.com suggests that he last stepped on a scale in middle school. These days, he is primarily known for his outsized ego, his many eccentricities (dating Madonna, having fly balls bounce off his skull and over the outfield fence, severely damaging his throwing arm will an ill-fated attempt at pitching), his litany of post-career money-grubbing sideshows (including a boxing match with Danny Bonaduce and a variety of enterprises in which people could pay him money to find out what he ate for lunch) and of course for his steroid use (while other players have fallen all over themselves denying and/or apologizing, Canseco has actually bragged about how many performance-enhancing drugs he used and how he helped spread them around the majors). Putting all of that aside for the next 30 seconds, he was a good ballplayer for many years. He hit 462 home runs and had 1,407 RBI, and while he struck out a lot, he also drew a good number of walks. He ran well, at least until he puffed up like the Michelin Man, and he was the first player to have 40 home runs and 40 steals in the same season. He was Rookie of the Year and won an MVP award. Somewhere in the rule books it is written: If there are three Joses in the outfield, anything goes.

Catcher: Jimmie Coker (1958-67) was a career backup who had a little bit of pop In his bat, but not enough to ever land him much playing time.

Rotation: Jack Chesbro (1899-1909) is famous today as the guy who won a “modern record” 41 games in 1904. He was notorious in his own time for a wild pitch, on the final day of that 41-win season, that cost his team the AL pennant. Both of these characterizations are a bit unfair. After all, if a team finishes in second place, it’s kind of harsh to blame the guy who had 41 wins and a 1.82 ERA (no one else in the league won more than 26 that year). And the “modern record” thing is a bit misleading. In the 19th century, there were 37 instances of pitchers winning 40-60 games in a season, so when Chesbro won 41 in 1904 it’s not as though it was unprecedented or shocking. But decades later, the arbitrary decision was made that “modern baseball” began in 1900, posthumously giving Chesbro a “modern record” that came to look all the more impressive after the “lively ball era” arrived and 30-win seasons went the way of the dinosaur. Taking those two exaggerations out of the equation – the “modern record holder” and the wild pitch that overshadowed 41 victories – we are left with a good, durable spitball specialist who went 198-132 in his career. John Clarkson (1882-1894) probably laughs at the notion of Chesbro holding the single-season record for wins, or maybe he is pissed off about it in the afterlife, depending on his perspective. After all, Clarkson won 53 games in 1885 and won 49 games in 1889, so Chesbro’s 41 wins isn’t even the record for victories by a guy with the initials J.C. For the record, Clarkson went 328-178 in his career, and his 2.81 ERA was more impressive in the context of his time than Chesbro’s 2.68 ERA. Bill James describes how Clarkson used to wear a large, shiny belt buckle and then gyrate on the mound until he could use it to reflect the sun into the batter’s eyes. Joe Coleman Jr. (1965-79) was a bit of a workhorse, too, working 280 innings a year in the era when four-man rotations were going out of vogue, so our rotation is going to eat up some innings. Coleman had two 20-win seasons and finished with a 142-135 record. (His father, Joe Sr., will serve as the team’s pitching coach.) John Candelaria (1975-93) was a 6-foot-7 lefty who went 20-5 and led the NL in ERA at age 23. He was a good pitcher for a decade in Pittsburgh, the ace of the “We Are Family” championship staff in 1979, and then hung around until he was 40 by bouncing around to any team that needed a lefty specialist. He finished his career with a very fine record of 177-122. Jim Colborn (1969-78) won 83 games in his career, which pales next to the other guys in this rotation, but he was a good pitcher – first 20-game winner in Brewers history, first no-hitter in Royals history – and he has had a long, successful career as a pitching coach. (As a bonus, he was once traded for Jose Cardenal.)

Bullpen: It’s a good thing the rotation is stacked, because the bullpen is a bit iffy. Juan Cruz (2001- ) will start out in the closer role. He’s got the gas you want in that role, and he strikes out a batter an inning, but his career ERA is nothing special, he walks a ton of batters and he has the princely sum of three career saves. Joba Chamberlain (2007- ) is a media sensation with the Yankees, and certainly a promising young pitcher. He’s done much better in relief than in the rotation to this point in his career, so we’re penciling him into the set-up role for now, but his future with the J.C.s, as with the Yankees, remains in flux. Jim Corsi (1988-99) excelled in the middle relief and set-up roles for several teams and could be pressed into duty as closer if the guys ahead of him falter. John Curtis (1970-84) was a bespectacled lefty who had a decent career as a junkballer. John Cerutti (1985-91) was a solid lefty swingman for the Blue Jays and later a broadcaster until his sudden death at age 44, on the last day of the 2004 season, due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition. Jose Contreras (2003- ) made big news as a Cuban star defecting to the U.S. and signing with the Yankees. He has had a decent, but hardly noteworthy, career as a starter, and he will join Cerutti in this bullpen as long relievers begging for starts like table scraps. Jim Coates (1956-67) was a role player at the tail end of the great Yankees dynasty, pitching in three consecutive World Series from 1960-62. He apparently had the reputation as a guy who would throw at batters’ heads, which doesn’t go over real well. Coates lives near here, in eastern Virginia, and recently published a memoir, “Always a Yankee.”

Bench: Joe Carter (1983-98) had 396 home runs, drove in 1,400 runs and had ten 100-RBI seasons. He was a good player, but he also had a terrible K-BB ratio, a poor on-base percentage and a dreadful fielding record. He would start on most initial teams, but he’ll be scrambling for playing time here. Outfielder Johnny Callison (1958-73) had a fine career, mostly with the Phillies, leading the NL in doubles once and triples twice, and hitting 20-30 home runs a year in the middle of a pitching-dominated era. Second baseman Joey Cora (1987-98) was a slightly better hitter than Julio Cruz, but his deficiencies in the field keep him from taking the starting job. Joe Cunningham (1954-66) was a first baseman and corner outfielder with a .291 career batting average and a .403 on-base percentage. He’ll get his share of playing time while Jack Clark is nursing injuries. Backup catcher Jim Campanis (1966-73) was the son of longtime Dodgers exec Al Campanis. He had a career batting average of .147 and his defensive stats suggest that Estelle Getty could have stolen second base if Campanis was behind the plate, but his minor-league stats are decent enough that we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he made it to the majors on merit, not nepotism.

Manager: Joe Cantillon had a brief and unsuccessful career as a major-league umpire, had a terrible record for three years managing the Senators (where he helped develop a young chucker named Walter Johnson), and then had a long, successful run as a minor-league manager. He will have the title of manager here, but there’s a nagging suspicion that he’s a figurehead and that Joe Cronin is actually running things.

JD: The James Deans

Infield: First baseman Jake Daubert (1910-24) was a terrific player in the mold of Keith Hernandez or Mark Grace – a consistent .300 hitter who drew a few walks and had gap power (led the league in triples twice and was in double-digits six more times). He was a spectacular bunter, a good fielder and a respected team leader. He was still playing regularly for Cincinnati at the time of his death at age 40, apparently from complications after an appendectomy. He was the National League MVP in 1913 with Brooklyn. Third baseman Jumping Joe Dugan (1917-31) was an average player at best who would most likely be forgotten today had he not been traded to the Yankees in 1922, becoming a teammate of Babe Ruth and a lesser light on the Murderers Row teams that played in five World Series. Second baseman Jim Delahanty (1901-15) was part of the great baseball family of the early 20th century. His brother, Big Ed Delahanty, was a Hall of Fame outfielder. His other brothers – Frank, Joe and Tom – also played in the majors, though they were nowhere near as good as Jim or Ed. Jim Delahanty bounced around eight teams and batted .283 for his career. Shortstop Joe DeMaestri (1951-61) was an absolutely terrible hitter but a slick fielder.

Outfield: Center fielder Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio (1936-51) was a mythical figure in his own time and has only grown more so since his retirement (at age 36) and his death (at age 84). As a ballplayer, he was a .325 hitter with power and speed, the biggest star on the Yankees juggernaut in between Gehrig and Mantle. He played in 10 World Series, winning nine, and won the AL MVP award three times. In the field, he was so swift and graceful that those who watched him insist that he was downright perfect, and that if you didn’t actually witness his defensive prowess you could never fully understand it. His 56-game hitting streak might be the most legendary record in all of American sports. Off the field, he crafted a public image of class, dignity and polite reticence, which prompted such hosannas as Paul Simon’s famous lament for lost heroes: “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” After his death, this public image was revealed to be a mask for pettiness and an obsessive vanity that no one could have ever imagined. (Example: An unscientific poll in the late 1960s chose him as “The Greatest Living Ballplayer.” For the rest of his life, any time he would appear at any function associated with the Yankees or major-league baseball, he would be the last player introduced and he would be introduced as “The Greatest Living Ballplayer.” He would emerge, waving almost bashfully, as though humbled by such praise. People always assumed this was a show of respect for the Yankee Clipper. After he died, it was revealed that DiMaggio had it written into any and all appearance contracts – he had to be introduced last, and he had to be introduced as “The Greatest Living Ballplayer.”) Balance it all out and he remains one of the greatest, most well-rounded ballplayers of all time. Left fielder Johnny Damon (1995- ) has more career hits than Joe DiMaggio, or any other J.D. for that matter. He is closing in on 2,700 hits and and still has an outside shot at 3,000. Add in 500 doubles, 200-plus home runs, 1,600 runs scored. Then add in almost 400 steals at an 81 percent success rate, and the fact that he almost never grounds into a double play. He’s also won World Series titles with both the Red Sox and the Yankees. Right fielder J.D. Drew (1998- ) takes a lot of heat. He is despised in Philadelphia, because he (and agent Scott Boras) refused to sign after the Phillies took him with the second pick in the 1997 draft, even resorting to some underhanded tactics in an unsuccessful attempt to have Drew declared a free agent. More than a decade into his career, he is still criticized for being injury-prone, and there are those who see him as someone who has never been quite as good as he was supposed to be. But in spite of all this, he has had a fine career – a .280 hitter who draws walks, hits doubles and home runs, and plays very good defense in right field. The Damon-DiMag-Drew outfield will cover a lot of ground and help out the pitching staff a great deal.

Catcher: Jody Davis (1981-90) – or, as Harry Caray would sing to the tune of the Davy Crockett theme song, “Jo-deeee! Jo-o-o-odee Davis!” – hit 127 home runs, most of them for the Cubs, and often seemed to have a knack for clutch hits. He batted .389 and hit two home runs in the ill-fated 1984 NLCS.

Rotation: Joe Dobson (1939-54) was a consistent righty throughout the 1940s, winning 137 games. He never led the league in ERA but was almost always better than the league average. His short bio at baseballreference.com says that he lost his left thumb and part of the forefinger while playing with dynamite at age 9 or 10, which leads you to wonder a bit about his upbringing. (He was the youngest child of 14, so maybe we should be impressed that he still had 8½ digits by the time he was a teen.) Jose DeLeon (1983-95) went 2-19 for the Pirates in 1984, pulling off the rare feat of a winning percentage below .100 (but higher than zero). He also went 7-19 for the Cardinals in 1984. Those two seasons led to a rather ugly career record of 86-119, but he was actually a pretty fair pitcher – career ERA better than league average, and more strikeouts than hits allowed during his career. John Denny (1974-86) led the National League in ERA in 1976, in victories and winning percentage in 1983, and he won the Cy Young Award in ‘83. Pretty heady stuff for a guy who was a fairly nondescript pitcher. He finished with a career record of 123-108 – he was no better than Jose DeLeon, but Denny finished 15 games over .500 while DeLeon finished 33 games below .500. Breaks of the game, kid. Jim Deshaies (1984-95), a lefty with a wicked pickoff move, had some good seasons with the Astros. He won 84 games, went on to a career in the broadcast booth, and good-naturedly staged an ultimately successful campaign to get one vote when he appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot. He actually holds an all-time major-league record: most career at-bats for a player without an extra-base hit (373). John Danks (2007- ) is off to a good start on his career. If he stays healthy and continues to develop, this will be a very solid rotation.

Bullpen: Jerry DiPoto (1993-2000) was never a fulltime closer, but he was often a part-time closer – double-digits in saves three different times, but never 20 saves in a season. He was a good pitcher, but never a great pitcher. That’s enough to make him the nominal closer here. Joey Devine (2005- ) got off to a great start. In his first full season in the majors, at age 24, he went 6-1 with an 0.59 ERA out of the Oakland pen. He is now 27 years old and coming back from Tommy John surgery. We’ll see what kind of career he is able to fashion. Speaking of Oakland pitchers coming off of major injuries, Justin Duchscherer (2001- ) has used a mix of breaking and off-speed stuff to be an absolutely outstanding pitcher for the past decade – when he’s healthy. He missed most of 2007 with a hip injury, returned as one of the best pitchers in the American League in 2008, and then missed all of 2009 with arm and back problems compounded by clinical depression. Now in the Orioles organization, but back on the sidelines again. He's awfully good when he's able to pitch. John Dopson (1985-94) was an average pitcher who will get a few starts in the rotation here but will spend most of his time in long and middle relief. Jeff (Turn Me On) Dedmon (1983-88) was a very useful, if anonymous, reliever in the Atlanta bullpen in the years before the Braves got good. Jose DeJesus (1988-94) had a hell of a good fastball but he had trouble getting it over the plate. He seemed like he was close to breaking through, but injuries in his mid-20s and those pesky control issues brought his career to an early end. Jeff Darwin (1994-97) beats out John D’Acquisto (another flame thrower who couldn’t find the plate) for the last spot in the bullpen, largely for sentimental reasons. Darwin, brother of Danny Darwin, was a career minor leaguer who pitched 48 innings in the majors. In 1992, he was the closer for the Peninsula Pilots, here in Hampton, Virginia, as they played for the Single-A Carolina League championship. In the decisive game of the best-of-5 series against Lynchburg, Darwin struck out the side on nine pitches in the eighth inning, then pitched a perfect ninth with two more strikeouts to nail down the league title. The Pilots immediately left town and relocated to Wilmington, Delaware, making Darwin the last pitcher in the history of the team as it existed on the Virginia Peninsula.

Bench: Outfielder Jim Dwyer (1973-90) was a great role player who, as such, found his niche in his 30s playing for Earl Weaver. He was a lefty stick who hit .260 or so and drew enough walks to push his on-base percentage 90-100 points above his batting average. Infielder Jim Davenport (1958-70) was an outstanding defensive third baseman who could be stretched to play a passable short or second. As a hitter, he was pretty ordinary, but capable of hitting a dozen home runs in a season. Jack Doyle (1889-1905) was a turn-of-the-century first baseman who could also function as a utility guy. In the changing landscape of baseball at the time, he played for almost a dozen different teams, but he was a .300 hitter (well, .299 career) who ran well. He will see extra playing time on this team because of his ability to be the backup catcher. Outfielder Jim Delsing (1948-60) is best known as the guy who pinch-ran for Eddie Gaedel in 1951. Johnny Dickshot (1936-45) was a pretty good hitter, but he would have made this bench even if he was below-average, just on the “Beavis & Butt-Head” basis.

Manager: Jimmie Dykes, in all honesty, was a better third baseman than Joe Dugan or Jim Davenport. He wasn’t a great player, but he stuck around forever and collected 2,256 hits, and he topped 1,000 in both runs and RBI. But the JD initials have several good third baseman, but only one legitimate managerial candidate, so for now we’ll keep Dykes off the field and in the dugout. He was a manager and coach for several decades, and he had a winning record as often as not. He won 1,406 games as a manager.

JE: The Jerry Espensens

Infield: Second baseman Johnny Evers (1902-29), he of “Tinker to Evers to Chance” fame, was a key player on the Chicago Cubs championship teams in the first decade of the 20th Century. (For the record, his name was pronounced to rhyme with “weavers.”) Intensely smart and competitive, drew a lot of walks, ran well, batted .316 in 20 World Series games, turned a mean double play. Evers was a 125-pound powder keg, a hothead who argued with umpires, fought with opponents and got ejected with alarming frequency. He was always looking for a fistfight (usually finding one), and his most legendary feud was with his teammate Joe Tinker. Depending on your source, the feud either started when one of them threw a ball too hard to the other, or when one of them aced the other of a taxi cab outside the ballpark after a game. Whatever the origin, the two men went several years without speaking to each other despite the fact that they were teammates and double play partners. Evers left the Cubs in an acrimonious salary dispute and landed with the Boston Braves and became the team’s captain, a hard-driving taskmaster who pushed his teammates mercilessly – along the way engineering the “Miracle Braves” of 1914 as the team rallied from last place to win the pennant and sweep the World Series. Evers won the NL MVP and batted .438 in the four World Series games. John Ellis (1969-81) split his career between catcher and first base, but the JE team needs him more at first. He was a .260 hitter who would knock about 12-15 home runs given regular playing time. Third baseman Joe Evans (1915-25) was a weak hitter and a mediocre fielder, but he did play well in the 1920 World Series, helping the Indians win the championship. Shortstop Jimmy Esmond (1911-15), not to be confused with Jimmy Osmond, led the Federal League in triples in 1915.

Outfield: Center fielder Jim Edmonds (1993-2010) won eight Gold Gloves and was a regular on ESPN highlight reels, though there were those who accused him of hotdogging in order to make catches look more difficult than they actually were. He was a lot of fun to watch in the field, and he could hit a bit, too, as evidenced by a .282/.376/.527 career batting line, with 393 home runs, 1,199 RBI and 1,251 runs. He was a good player in California but had his best years after his trade to St. Louis, where he teamed with Albert Pujols on several playoff teams and stuck around long enough to enjoy the championship season of 2006. Right fielder Jim Eisenreich (1982-98) had a solid career that was disrupted and altered, but not stopped, by the nervous disorder Tourette Syndrome. He missed most of 1984-87 while being diagnosed and treated for the disorder, but once he got his symptoms under control he returned to the game and had a fine career in his 30s, batting .290 and helping the Florida Marlins to their 1997 World Series championship. He established a foundation to help children with Tourettes. Left fielder Jacoby Ellsbury (2007- ) completes a spectacular defensive outfield. He’s just hitting his prime with the Red Sox, but he’s already a World Series hero and two-time stolen base champ.

Catcher: Johnny Edwards (1961-74) was a weak hitter but a very good defensive catcher. He won a couple of Gold Gloves and probably would have won a few more if not for Johnny Bench.

Rotation: Jumbo Elliot (1923-34) was a 235-pound lefty who led the NL with 19 victories while pitching for Philadelphia in 1931. He was a pretty average pitcher, won 63 games in the majors and had three 20-win seasons in the minors. After he was done, he went home to Indiana, had a career in law enforcement, ran for sheriff but lost the election to basketball legend Clyde Lovellette. Juan Eichelberger (1978-88) was a mediocre righty for the San Diego Padres. John Ewing (1888-91) was the brother of Hall of Famer Buck Ewing. History did not record his middle name, so we don’t know if he was J.R. Ewing, but he was known in his time as “Long John,” either because he was tall and lanky or because he favored full-length underwear. In 1891, at the age of 28, he went 21-8 for the New York Giants, leading the National League in both winning percentage and ERA (2.27). His ensuing salary holdout was quickly rendered unnecessary by the onset of a serious illness of some sort. He never played baseball again, and he died in 1895 at age 31. James Edwards (1922-28) was known as “Little James” even though he was an inch taller than Long John Ewing. Go figure. He was sort of a lefty version of Juan Eichelberger. Joe Engel (1912-20) had an uneventful playing career followed by a long, prosperous run as a scout who played a key role in signing such future stars as Joe Cronin, Goose Goslin and Bucky Harris.

Bullpen: Gentleman John Enzmann (1914-20) will get first shot at the closer role. He tended to give up a ton of hits but had a career ERA of 2.84. He won almost 200 games in a long minor-league career, mostly in the International League, but pitched mainly in relief in the majors. Jamie Easterly (1974-87) was a mediocre pitcher who hung around for a long time because teams were always willing to give a lefty one more shot. Joey Eischen (1994-2006) is another lefty, much better than Easterly. He had emerged as a dependable one-out specialist and was still going strong in his mid-30s when a shoulder injury ended his career. John Ericks (1995-97) was a 6-foot-7 righty who emerged from University of Illinois and immediately struck out 211 batters (most in all of the minors that year) in the Single-A South Atlantic League in 1989. He eventually made it to the majors but had a short, forgettable career. Jack Easton (1889-94) was a pitcher and outfielder. He was a better pitcher than a hitter, but he didn’t exactly set the world on fire at either one. Jim Ellis (1967-69) had two brief trials in the majors and pitched well enough both times but never stuck around long. In his first at-bat, he hit an RBI double off Hall of Famer Jim Bunning. It was the only hit of his major-league career. John Ely (2010- ) is just getting started with the Dodgers.

Bench: Juan Encarnacion (1997-2007) was a useful outfielder, a .270 hitter with 156 career home runs and 127 career steals. His career ended abruptly at age 31 when he was hit in the face with a line drive while standing in the on-deck circle, shattering the bones around his left eye. Jewel Ens (1922-25) was an infielder who batted .290 in a very brief career with Pittsburgh. His full name was Jewel Winklemeyer Ens, which suggests that his parents had a sense of humor. Joe Ellick (1875-84) was a utility guy in those picturesque post-Civil War days, and he spent his time bouncing among teams such as the Worcester Ruby Legs and the Baltimore Monumentals. Jason Ellison (2005-08) is an outfielder who never hit much. Backup catcher Johnny Estrada (2001-08) played at all-star level in 2004 and 2006, but he went downhill fast.

Manager: Jim Essian might very well be the best catcher ever with the initials J.E., but he’s in a very close mix with Johnny Edwards and Johnny Estrada and John Ellis. He is, however, the only manager ever with those initials, so we’re going to let him run things.

JF: The Jeff Fiorentinos

Infield: Jimmie Foxx (1925-45) is sort of Lou Gehrig Lite, the second-best first baseman of all time (though Albert Pujols is increasingly nudging his way into that discussion). Foxx is not nearly as famous as Gehrig, for a variety of reasons. First off, they were exact contemporaries, which means that Foxx was overshadowed by Gehrig even in his own time, and while Foxx played on some truly great teams, Gehrig was teammates with Ruth and DiMaggio in the hallowed pinstripes. Then, of course, there was the whole “tragic story arc”/”fatal disease named after him”/”Today I consider myself the luckiest man” factor. Gary Cooper never played Jimmie Foxx in a movie (though Tom Hanks played a fictionalized version of him in “A League of Their Own”). So let’s put aside the comps to Gehrig and just say that Foxx was arguably the greatest hitter in the history of the right-handed batter’s box. He batted .325 for his career, walked 100 times a year, mashed 534 home runs and came up just short of 2,000 RBI. For good measure, toss in three MVPs and a .344/.424/.609 batting line in 18 World Series games. As Lefty Gomez said, he had muscles on his muscles. Oh, yeah, and in 1945, at age 37, he pitched in nine games (two starts, seven relief) and posted a 1.59 ERA. Julio Franco (1982-2007) played all over the infield, and while he wasn’t a very good defensive player, he was an awfully good hitter. He played more shortstop than anywhere else, but he’ll start at second base here. Franco played until he was 49 years old, and teammates who were half his age were jealous of his physique. He finished his career with a .298 average, 407 doubles and 173 home runs. The man was a wonder to behold. Shortstop Jim Fregosi (1961-78) played his prime seasons during a terrible era for hitters, but he still hit 151 home runs. That, combined with a decent average, a fair number of walks and good defense made him an awfully good shortstop. Third baseman Joe Foy (1966-71) was pretty good, too – double-digit home runs, 20-30 steals, a good number of walks, solid defense. It must be pointed out that Mets fans of a certain age will cringe at the sight of the left side of this infield, because in December 1969 the Mets gave up a young center fielder named Amos Otis in order to get Foy from Kansas City, and two years later, they gave up a young pitcher named Nolan Ryan in order to get Fregosi from California. In both cases, the Mets tossed in other players to sweeten the deals. Amos Otis, Nolan Ryan and a few other players in exchange for Joe Foy and Jim Fregosi. Foy played one season for the Mets, Fregosi about a season and a half. Ouch.

Outfield: Center fielder Jim Fogarty (1884-90) is no relation to that guy from Creedence Clearwater Revivial who later immortalized the position in song (“Put me in, Coach!”). He was a 19th-century speedster who stole 102 bases one year and 99 two years later, though it must be pointed out that stolen bases were much easier to come by in the 1880s. He died of tuberculosis at age 27. Right fielder Junior Felix (1989-94) had a little bit of power, a little bit of speed. He had obvious talent, and since he became a regular with the Blue Jays at age 21, it was thought that the sky was the limit. But he had nagging injuries, a reputation for uninspired play, and before too long, persistent rumors that he had lied about his age by almost a decade. The issue of his actual age was never formally resolved, but he hit very well for Detroit in 1994 and then disappeared from the majors altogether, playing out the string in the minors, in Korea and in Mexico. Left fielder Johnny Frederick (1929-34) was a .300 hitter who banged a ton of doubles for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but he spent most of his career in the Pacific Coast League, both before and after his six seasons in Brooklyn. He had 2,000 hits, including 400 doubles, in the PCL.

Catcher: Joe Ferguson (1970-83) was a man ahead of his time, a sabermetrician’s dream. He drew a ton of walks and hit his share of home runs, which made him very valuable, but in the 1970s people tended to focus on his .240-.250 batting average. He was a good hitter, and if he had come along 20 years later, when baseball people had a better grasp of statistics, he might have had a much more substantial career. As it is, he hit 122 home runs.

Rotation: Jack Fisher (1959-69) was affectionately (or not so affectionately) known as Fat Jack. His career record of 86-139 reflects the four years he spent with the hapless early Mets teams, for whom he went 38-73. (Finally a good Mets trade involving a JF: They traded Fisher to the White Sox as part of a package that brought Tommie Agee, a key player on the ’69 Miracle team.) John Farrell (1987-96) went 14-10 for the Indians in 1988 but never won more than nine games in the rest of his career. Jeff Francis (2004- ) is a lefty who battled the fates of Coors Field and, for a while, came out on top. He began to struggle a bit, and he is currently taking his lumps in Kansas City. Jesse Flores (1942-50) was a good pitcher on some bad Philadelphia A’s teams. Josh Fogg (2001-09) was your basic .500 pitcher who plugged along for several years while folks kept predicting a breakout season. The breakout never came, but he always pitched just well enough for people to think it was still possible.

Bullpen: John Franco (1984-2006) has more saves than any lefty in baseball history – 424 saves. He should hold that distinction for a while, unless (a.) Billy Wagner makes another comeback, or (b.) Eddie Guardado develops a new pitch and sticks around until he’s about 55. Franco came up as one of Cincinnati’s “Nasty Boys” and then pitched for the pennant-winning Mets. John Frascatore (1994-2001) had some good seasons as a set-up man before his arm gave out. Jeff Fassero (1991-2006) was a pretty fair lefty starter – he’ll get his share of starts as a swingman on this team – who then hung around as a reliever until his mid-40s. A better pitcher than Fogg, certainly, but he might be more needed in the bullpen at this point. John Fulgham (1979-80) had a fine rookie year for St. Louis, going 10-6 with a 2.53 ERA, but arm problems ended his career before he turned 25. Jack Fifield (1897-99) and Jeremy Fikac (2001-04) had fun last names. Jason Frasor (2004-09) is a solid reliever for the Blue Jays, in mid-career.

Bench: Jack Fournier (1912-27) was an outstanding first baseman in the generation before Gehrig and Foxx. He certainly isn’t remembered now, and it appears he wasn’t terribly respected in his own time, as he bounced around five times, but the guy was good – a .300 hitter who drew a lot of walks and, after the lively ball came into play, emerged as a good power hitter. Infielder Jeff Frye (1992-2001) was a .290 hitter who ran reasonably well. Outfielder Jeff Francouer (2005- ) drove in 103 runs at age 22 and then 105 the next year, but his career sort of went off the rails after that. If he gets his act together he could easily supplant Junior Felix in the starting lineup. Jocko Fields (1887-92) was an outfielder from Cork, Ireland, who could also catch as needed, and he appeared to have some wheels on him. John Flaherty (1992-2005) beats out Jorge Fabregas for the back-up catching job, though Jocko might get the first crack when Joe Ferguson needs a day off.

Manager: Jim Frey and Jim Fanning both have .530 career winning percentages. We’re not going to figure them to the .000x digit to make a decision. They’re co-managers, with Fregosi adding his input.

JG: The John Gielguds

Infield: First baseman Jason Giambi (1995- ) has never led the league in home runs, but he’s hit more than 400 in his career. He’s led the league in walks four times, on-base three times and slugging and doubles once apiece. Oh, yeah, and hit by pitches twice. This guy is one hell of a good hitter – a wild-and-crazy type in Oakland who cleaned himself up when he signed with the Yankees. He was strongly suspected of using steroids and eventually issued a very emotional apology, without ever actually saying what the apology was for. Playing out the string now, but still mashing as a role player in Colorado. Second baseman Joe Gordon (1938-50) was a Hall of Famer with the Yankees and Indians. He hit 253 home runs, had more walks than strikeouts and was a great defensive second baseman. Gordon won the AL MVP award in 1942, and he played on five World Series champions. Jim Gilliam (1953-66) was a beloved Dodgers fixture for a long time. He played for the team during the transition from Brooklyn to L.A., won seven pennants and four World Series titles, and then coached for the Dodgers until his death in 1978. He was primarily a second baseman, but he played 761 games at third and also saw time in the outfield. He was part of the Dodgers’ all-switch-hitting infield in the 1960s. He was a great hit-and-run man, drew 90-100 walks a year and basically never struck out, and he was a good glove wherever you put him. He’ll be starting at third base here. Shortstop Pebbly Jack Glasscock (1879-95) got his nickname for his habit of picking out tiny rocks from the infield before games. He was a big star in the 19th Century, a .290 hitter and a fine shortstop, and one of those dandies with a big handlebar mustache.

Outfield: Right fielder Juan Gonzalez (1989-2005) looked, early in his career, like he might hit 700 home runs. Known as “Juan Gone,” he was a regular in his early 20s, playing in a great hitter’s ballpark, and from 1992-98 (a seven-year stretch that included a strike season) he blasted 269 home runs, had 826 RBI and won a couple of MVP awards. But in his early 30s, he began developing back problems, and he soon became a slow, clanky, one-dimensional player, and he slid very quickly from a 40-homer guy to a spare part. He was done by age 35. It says an awful lot about a guy that he can finish with a .295 average, 434 home runs, 1404 RBI, two MVPs and be thought of as somehow disappointing. Left fielder Jack Graney (1908-22) was your basic .250 hitter who spent his career in Cleveland, but he had all sorts of little distinctions about his career. In 1914, he was the first batter to step up to the plate against a rookie southpaw named Babe Ruth. In 1915, when the Indians became the first team to put numbers on their uniforms, he was batting leadoff and therefore the first player ever to bat with a number on his back. After his playing career was done, he became the first player to make a fulltime transition from the field to the radio booth. But the strangest incident of Graney’s career came in 1920, after the death of teammate Ray Chapman because of a beanball. It seems that Chapman was baptized in the Protestant church, so Tris Speaker (a Protestant) believed Chapman should have Protestant funeral. But Chapman’s wife was a Catholic and said he was about to convert, so Graney (a Catholic) said he should have a Catholic burial. An argument ensued, which grew into a fistfight so violent that both Speaker and Graney had to miss Chapman’s funeral service because of their injuries. (Other sources say Graney and Speaker missed the funeral because they were too grief-stricken, but the fistfight version is more entertaining.) Center fielder Johnny Grubb (1972-87) spent much of his career as a fourth outfielder and a lefty platoon hitter. He was a .278 hitter who had more walks than strikeouts and some line-drive pop. He was a far better hitter than anyone ever acknowledged, and as a bonus, in nine postseason games he batted .429.

Catcher: Negro League legend Josh Gibson is on the short list of the greatest power hitters of all time. Some say he sits atop that list. No one knows for sure how many home runs he hit, but it was a lot and they were gargantuan. In his time, he was compared to Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx and guys of that caliber. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor in his early 30s but declined to have surgery to remove it. He died of a stroke at age 35 just a few months before Jackie Robinson integrated the majors.

Rotation: Juan Guzman (1991-2000) and Jose Guzman (1985-94) weren’t related, but their careers overlapped and they were fairly similar pitchers. Jose Guzman, from Puerto Rico, had an 80-74 record and a 4.05 ERA; Juan Guzman, from the Dominican, was 91-79 with a 4.08 ERA. They both had some fine seasons, and they were both finished by their early 30s. Juan pitched for the Blue Jays, led the league in ERA and winning percentage once each (as well as losses once and wild pitches twice). He was a part of two World Series champions, and his postseason record was 5-1 with a 2.44 ERA. Jose didn’t pitch for championship teams, and he never led the league in anything, but he won as many as 16 games and was a pretty solid starter for a few years. Jon Garland (2000- ) is a durable middle-of-the-rotation guy who has racked up 130 career victories before his 31sth birthday (which fell in the final days of the 2010 season). If he keeps plugging and sticks with good teams, there’s no reason he can’t hit 200 victories and maybe more. Jeremy Guthrie (2004- ) had a couple of pretty good seasons for the Orioles. Then the wheels came off, and now he’s trying to get things back together if he wants to stay in this rotation. Joe Genewich (1922-30) was a pretty ordinary pitcher for some bad Boston Braves teams. He served in both World War I and World War II, and he arrived in the majors at age 25 without ever pitching in college or in the minors.

Bullpen: Jim Gott (1982-95) had a long career as a set-up guy and was sometimes pressed into duty as a closer, resulting in 91 career saves. The closer role is his to lose on this team. His surname is the German word for "God," and he once gave up a home run to Tim Teufel, whose surname is the German word for "devil," which is pretty cool. Joe Grahe (1990-99) was a nondescript reliever who was nominally the closer for the Angels for a few years, saving 45 games. Lefty Joe Gibbon (1960-72) spent most of his career with Pittsburgh and San Francisco. He won 61 games and had a 3.52 ERA. John Grabow (2003- ) has done a good job in the “lefty one-out specialist” role to this point in his career. Jerry Don Gleaton (1979-92) was a lefty who bounced around the American League for a decade and was generally effective. Jimmy Gobble (2003- ) is another lefty who has had an up-and-down career in the majors and who is a partner in the fictional minor-league law firm of Egbert, Gobble and Whisler. Jason Grimsley (1989-2006) had a long, relatively productive career that is now being overshadowed by the fact that some have cast him as the Johnny Appleseed of the steroid/HGH generation. On a team with Jason Giambi and Juan Gonzalez, he might be able to get bulk rates.

Bench: First baseman Diamond Jim Gentile (1957-66) hit almost 200 minor-league home runs before he turned 25, but big-league scouts stubbornly believed he wouldn’t be able to hit major-league pitching. He finally got a full-time job in Baltimore in 1960 and had a good season, and then in 1961 he went .302-46-142 and got everyone’s attention. He never approached those numbers again, but he was a good hitter for several more years. Second baseman Jim Gantner (1976-92) was a fine defensive player and ordinary hitter and spent many years turning double plays in Milwaukee with Robin Yount. Outfielder Jose Guillen (1997- ) has a cannon arm from right field and, given playing time, will generally hit enough doubles and home runs to be useful offensively. Outfielder Jody Gerut (2003- ) is a lefty with some line drive power. Backup catcher Jerry Grote (1963-81), best known for his role on the Miracle Mets of 1969, was a weak hitter but a solid catcher. He’ll give Josh Gibson’s knees a rest every now and then.

Manager: Joe Girardi was about as good a catcher as Grote, but we’ll let him stick to managing. He’s intense enough that he might burn himself out as a player-manager. He won three World Series titles backing up Posada with the Yankees, and in 2009 he won his first as a manager.

JH: The Jason Hirschfelds

Infield: Third baseman Jim Ray Hart (1963-74) could hit all day long. He couldn’t field a lick, and he came up with the Giants at a time when they were already trying to figure out how to use both McCovey and Cepeda at first base, so moving him there wasn’t really an option. Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time. Hart played in a terrible hitter’s park, in an era dominated by pitchers, and there was no defensive position where he truly fit. He went .278/.345/.467 with 170 home runs, but if he had played in the 1990s, in the American League where he could DH, in a good hitter’s ballpark, the dude would have hit twice as many home runs, maybe more. First baseman Jim Hickman (1962-74) went .315-32-115 in 1970, a triple crown line that stands out like a sore thumb in the rest of his career. He wasn’t that good, but he wasn’t a bad player either, good for 15-20 home runs per year and a .250-.260 average. He started his career with the expansion Mets but had his best seasons for the Cubs. In the 1970 All-Star Game, it was his hit that scored Pete Rose with the winning run in the famous collision with Ray Fosse. Jose Hernandez (1991-2006) would have broke the single-season strikeout record in 2002 if he hadn’t sat out some games at the end of the season like a ninny to prevent it. This is especially silly, especially since the record has since been obliterated by Mark Reynolds. So, yes, Jose Hernandez struck out an ungodly amount, and his K-BB ratio would make you wince in pain. But he was also a decent defensive shortstop who could hit you 20-25 home runs per year. He moves to second base on this team – he was a fine fielder all over the infield and even in the outfield – because the JH team has two good shortstops. J.J. Hardy (2005- ) will also hit you 20-25 home runs in a good year and play a decent shortstop. He’s in the prime of his career right now, so the next few years will determine what kind of numbers he ultimately puts up.

Outfield: Left fielder Jeff Heath (1936-49) was a great hitter but, it would seem, a lousy person. He had the reputation for loafing on the field, and he is remembered for an ugly incident in 1947, when he was teammates on the St. Louis Browns with former Negro League star Willard Brown, one of the first black players in the American League. With no bats of his own, Brown picked up a damaged bat that Heath had discarded (since they both liked heavy bats), and he did a patchwork repair job on it and used it to hit the first home run by a black player in American League history. Heath took the bat back from Brown and smashed it to pieces because he didn’t like the idea of a black player using his bat, even one that he had thrown away. But the guy could hit. For his career, he batted .293 and per 162 games he averaged 33 doubles, 12 triples and 23 home runs and 104 RBI. Right fielder Jeffrey Hammonds (1993-05) was a good player but never quite as good as he was expected. He was an All-American at Stanford, a star on the 1992 Olympic team and a first-round draft pick. He made it to the majors at age 22 and batted .305 in 110 at-bats for the Orioles. He never became a star – true, he went .335-20-106 in 2000, but that was in Colorado – but he was a useful player for a long time. He played for six teams over the course of 13 seasons and finished with a .272 average and 110 home runs - a good career, but he will be pushed for the starting job by the platoon combination of Johnny Hopp and Joe Harris (see the "bench" section). It’s hard to know, at this precise moment in time, what to make of center fielder Josh Hamilton (2007- ). His story is well known and inspirational, but its ending is up in the air. He was the top pick in the 1999 draft, the “can’t miss” kid who subsequently pissed it all away with drug addiction and other problems. Then, after everyone wrote him off completely, he got his act together, worked his way back to the majors, and at age 27 he had a monster year for the Texas Rangers. He was sidetracked by injuries in 2009, but he came back and won a batting title and AL MVP award in 2010. Turns out he was the player everyone expected him to be after all.

Catcher: Jim Hegan (1941-60) was a terrific defensive catcher known for his association with the Bob Feller staffs in Cleveland during the 1940s and ‘50s. He never hit much - .228 career, and not enough walks or power to goose those numbers – but he was a respected catcher for a long time.

Rotation: Jim Hunter (1965-79) was a country boy from North Carolina. Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley decided that he wanted Hunter to have a colorful nickname, so he dubbed him “Catfish” and made up some story about the background of the nickname, and Hunter played along. He was an easygoing guy and a fine pitcher whose 224 career victories included a perfect game and five straight seasons between 21-25 victories. Between the “Mustache Gang” A’s and the “Bronx Zoo” Yankees, he played for a half-dozen pennant winners and five World Series champions, contributing a 9-6 record and a 3.26 ERA in 22 World Series games. Hunter was a borderline Hall of Fame candidate but he was voted in quite easily because of his World Series chops, his association with great teams, his high profile as one of the first big-money free agents and his popularity around the sport. Jesse Haines (1918-37) was also a borderline candidate, and he also got into the Hall of Fame, primarily because … well, hell, almost exclusively because … he had cronies on the Veterans Committee who gave him a free pass. He was a good pitcher – career record of 210-158 – and he played on four St. Louis Cardinals pennant winners and two World Series champions. But on the whole, he was a slightly better than average pitcher who benefitted from the fact that he pitched for great teams, and he is commonly cited as the weakest pitcher to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Joe Horlen (1961-72) pitched for the White Sox throughout the 1960s and finished with a 116-117 record, and in 1967 he was second to Jim Lonborg for the AL Cy Young. Jim Hearn (1947-59) won 109 games for the Cardinals, Giants and Phillies. Hearn and Horlen were basically as good as Jesse Haines. They didn’t pitch as long as he did, and their teams weren’t as good, but they were pretty fair pitchers. Jack Harshman (1952-60) was of a similar quality to Horlen and Hearn, actually. His career was shorter, and he also played some first base (though he was a terrible hitter). But he was an above-average pitcher who bounced around five teams.

Bullpen: Closer John Hiller (1965-80) is one of the few players to have a heart attack in mid-career. It happened when he was just 27 years old, during the offseason, and he missed the entire 1971 season and much of the 1972 season. He eased back into the bullpen and pitched very well down the stretch in 1972, and the following year he went 10-5 with 38 saves and a 1.44 ERA and striking out a batter per inning. Now that’s a comeback. Hiller, who spent his entire career with the Tigers, is one of the great lefty closers of all time, with 125 career saves, an ERA of 2.83, and as many strikeouts as hits allowed. Jay Howell (1980-94) was a functional reliever who was equally comfortable as closer and as a set-up guy. He pitched for seven different teams but had his best success for the A’s and the Dodgers, winning a World Series ring with Los Angeles in 1988. Joe Hoerner (1963-77) had a heart attack when he was still in the minors. Must be something about lefty relievers with the initials JH. His heart attack was not as severe as John Hiller’s but his doctors told him that his pitching motion had an adverse effect on his circulation, so he re-invented himself as a sidearmer and went on to a long and successful career. He saved 99 games and finished with a career ERA of 2.99 – we’d like to think that he was torn between going after that 100th save and preserving his sub-3.00 ERA – and was a key reliever on the Cardinals’ pennant winners in 1967 and ’68. He died at age 59 in a farming accident when he was run over by a tractor. Joe Heving (1930-45) compiled 63 saves back in the time before saves were counted. He pitched until his mid-40s, and in 1944, after becoming a grandfather, he pitched in an American League-leading 63 games, going 8-3 with 10 saves and a 1.96 ERA. John Habyan (1985-96) had some fine seasons as a set-up man. Joe Hesketh (1984-94) was a good pitcher. In his first two seasons, he worked a total of 200 innings and had an ERA of 2.34. OK, so he wasn’t that good. But he was certainly above average. He was a lefty reliever who never had a heart attack, but he did once break his leg in an ill-advised attempt to bowl over Mike Scioscia on a play at the plate. Jack Hallet (1940-48) was a World War II-era pitcher for the White Sox and the Pirates.

Bench: Outfielder Johnny Hopp (1939-52) had a lot going for him, a left-handed hitter who batted .300, drew some walks, ran well, could handle center field, and he played in five World Series with the Cardinals and Yankees. Joe Harris (1914-28) was also an outfielder who batted .300 with a lot of walks, and he had a bit more pop than Hopp (as Dr. Seuss might say). Harris, a righty hitter, played in two World Series – with the Senators in 1925 and the Pirates in ’27. His team lost both times, but he batted .350. These guys will get a lot of playing time and could push Hammonds out of the starting lineup. Jerry Hairston Sr. (1973-89) and Jerry Hairston Jr. (1998- ) will be a nice father-son team off the bench. Senior was mostly an outfielder, but Junior could also play some middle infield. Backup catcher Jack Hiatt (1964-72) was mostly a reserve, but he was a decent hitter with a good on-base percentage. (The bullpen catcher is a sentimental favorite: Joe “Moonlight” Hietpas, who appeared in one game, never batted, but caught the last inning of major-league baseball in Montreal.)

Manager: Jack Hendricks had a losing record with the Cardinals in 1918, but he managed in Cincinnati from 1924-29 and had a winning record there despite never winning a pennant.