Infield: Second baseman Bobby Doerr (1937-51) is a Hall of Famer and a Red Sox institution, one of the co-stars from the heyday of Ted Williams’ career. Doerr was a good hitter whose stats were inflated by Fenway Park – his career triple crown splits are .315-145-744 at home, .261-78-502 on the road. Defensively, he was one of the best ever to play the game. Doerr was a soft-spoken gentleman, dubbed by Teddy as “the silent captain” of those Red Sox teams. He played in nine all-star games and was still a fine player when back problems forced him to retire at age 33. Shortstop Bill Dahlen (1891-1911) committed 1,085 errors in his career, second most all-time. That number is a bit misleading, because Dahlen played a demanding position for 21 seasons during an era when a lot of errors were made. He was actually considered to be a very good defensive shortstop. He also accumulated 2,461 hits, scored 1,590 runs and stole 548 bases. Dahlen was a heavy drinker and a fanatic gambler (he would sometimes get thrown out of games on purpose so he could go catch the horse races), but he cleaned up his act when his off-field behavior was threatening to curtail his baseball career. Third baseman Bob Dillinger (1946-51) had the start of his career delayed by World War II, but when he arrived he batted .300, led the AL in stolen bases three straight years, and had a league-high 207 hits in 1948. He was still batting .300 in his early 30s when his playing time started to diminish. Dillinger went back to the minors, won a batting title and continued to hit .300 for a few more years. First baseman Brian Daubach (1998-2005) was a lefty slugger who had a few good years for the Red Sox – he hit 20-22 home runs for four straight years.
Outfield: Left fielder Brian Downing (1973-92) had a unique and marvelous career. He came up as a catcher and was a very ordinary player for a few years. In his late 20s, Downing got heavily into weight training – a new concept for ballplayers in the 1970s – and he bulked up considerably and adopted a distinctive batting stance that had him squared up to directly face the pitcher. In 1979 he batted .326, and with his batting eye and line-drive power, he was a tremendously valuable player. After a couple of years beset by injuries, Downing moved from catcher to the outfield and became one of the most consistent players in the American League – hitting for power, drawing walks, scoring and driving in runs, and playing nearly errorless defense. He finished his career with 275 home runs, 228 of which came after the age of 30. At age 41, relegated to playing DH, he still had a .407 on-base percentage and a .428 slugging percentage. He retired with 1,188 runs and 1,073 RBI. Center fielder Buttercup Dickerson (1878-85) was a 5-foot-6 speedster who played for eight teams in seven seasons, jumping around the National League, American Association and Union Association. He batted .284 in his career and scored 302 runs in a 408-game career. Right fielder Brian Dayett (1983-87) had a couple of big years in the minors – 34 homers in Double-A and 35 in Triple-A, both time with lots of walks – but when he made it to the majors at age 26 he didn’t set the world on fire, and the Yankees gave up on him very quickly. We’re going to put him in right field and see if he can rediscover his power stroke.
Catcher: Hall of Famer Bill Dickey (1928-46) was the Yankees catcher who bridged the Ruth and DiMaggio eras. As such, he played on eight pennant winners and seven World Series champions. He batted .313 in his career, and after he learned in mid-career to use his lefty stroke to pull the ball toward Yankee Stadium’s short right-field porch, he hit half of his 202 career home runs in a four-year stretch. He was a fine defensive catcher and a highly respected handler of pitchers, and several subsequent Yankees catchers (including Berra and Elston Howard) credited Dickey with teaching them the position.
Rotation: Wild Bill Donovan (1898-18) earned his nickname both ways – with a volcanic temper and a fastball that sometimes couldn’t find the strike zone. He was a good pitcher, with 185 wins and a 2.69 ERA, which was pretty good even in the deadball era. He had two seasons of 25 victories. He later worked as a manager in both the majors and the minors, and he died at age 47 in a train crash on the way to the winter meetings. Spittin’ Bill Doak (1912-29) won 169 games, mostly for the Cardinals, and led the NL in earned run average twice. He was a good pitcher – one of the legal spitballers of the 1920s – but his biggest contribution to the sport was his development of a modern fielder’s mitt. Whereas mitts used to be tiny gloves that did nothing more than pad the fingers against the impact of the ball, Doak developed the idea of a larger mitt with webbing between the thumb and forefinger. Rawlings produced and marketed the mitt, and the “Bill Doak model” was available for several decades. Big Bill Dinneen (1898-1909) won 170 games and was the star of the first World Series – he won three games for the Red Sox in the 1903 Series, including two shutouts (one of them in the decisive game). After he retired he had a long career as an umpire, working eight World Series as well as the inaugural all-star game. (According to baseballreference.com, the most statistically common player in baseball history to Bill Dinneen is … Bill Doak. We’ll let them room together.) Frosty Bill Duggleby (1898-1907) had a career record of 93-102, and he was the first player ever to hit a grand slam in his first at-bat in the majors (a feat that was not repeated for more than a century). The rotation begins with Wild Bill, Spittin’ Bill, Big Bill and Frosty Bill, and it ends with lefty Bud Daley (1955-64). They will be known as Four Bills and a Bud. Daley, a swingman for three AL teams, won 60 games in his career and pitched eight shutout innings in the World Series for the Yankees championship teams of 1961 and ’62.
Bullpen: With no natural closer on the roster, Bill “Hello” Dawley (1983-89) will get the first shot at the role. He had a couple of good seasons in the pitcher-friendly AstroDome when he first came up, saving 14 games as a rookie and posting a 1.93 ERA in 98 innings during his second season. He was a big guy, but not an overpowering pitcher, and his career was relatively short. Brendan Donnelly (2002-10) spent a decade in the minors, bouncing from franchise to franchise, before he finally made it to the majors with the Angels at age 30. He then spent nine years in the majors as a highly effective middle reliever and set-up man, posting a 32-10 career record and a tidy 3.22 ERA. He made five appearances for the Angels in the 2002 World Series and did not allow a run. Must be something about the name Donnelly, because Blix Donnelly (1944-51) also bounced around the minors for several years before making it to the majors at age 30 and then having a fine career in the bigs. Blix (his real name was Sylvester Urban Donnelly, so we’re guessing he didn’t mind the nickname too much) won 27 games, had a 3.47 career ERA and pitched six shutout innings in the 1944 World Series for the champion Cardinals. Bruce Dal Canton (1967-77) was working as a high school science teacher when the Pirates signed him out of an amateur baseball league in 1966 and moved him quite quickly to the majors. He had some very good years on his way to 51 career victories and a 3.67 ERA. Dal Canton spent many years as a pitching coach for the Braves and their farm system, helping to develop many of the arms that won all those division titles in the 1990s. Bob “Ach” Duliba (1959-67) won 17 games for four teams. He had a relatively short major-league career – 257 innings in 176 games – and his peripheral numbers aren’t great, but his 3.47 ERA is solid. Bill “The Bullfrog” Dietrich (1933-48) spent most of his career with the White Sox and had a 108-128 record as a starter and reliever. He pitched a no-hitter in 1937, and on two other occasions lost no-hitters in the ninth inning. He will get some starts on this team, and when he replaces Bud Daley it will be a Five-Bill rotation. Bull Durham (1904-09) only appeared in nine games in his career and his ERA was 5.28 during the deadball era, but he had a 2-0 record and a great name, so he gets the mop-up spot in the bullpen.
Bench: Second baseman Bill Doran (1982-93) had some good years for the Astros. His career average was .266, but he drew a lot of walks, stole some bases, hit some doubles and played decent defense. Shortstop Bucky Dent (1973-84) was a light-hitting glove man. He earned his spot in baseball lore (as well as a very unflattering middle name in New England) on Oct. 2, 1978, when he poked a three-run homer into the screen above the Green Monster in Fenway, helping the Yankees to beat the Red Sox in a one-game playoff after the rivals had tied for the AL East title in one of the most famous pennant races in history. (Dent went on to hit . 417 in the World Series that year, winning postseason MVP honors, but people don’t remember that as much as the home run.) Backup catcher Bo Diaz (1977-89) had some power – four seasons between 10-20 home runs – and was a decent defensive catcher. He died at age 37 when he was crushed by the satellite dish he was attempting to install on his roof. Outfilelder Bob Dernier (1980-89) could steal bases but he couldn’t steal first. He’ll primarily be a defensive replacement and pinch-runner here. Outfielder Bobby Darwin (1962-77) was a decent power hitter, but he struck out a ton and was a disaster in the field. Those deficiencies hastened the end of his career, but he’ll be a righty stick off the bench here.
Manager: Bucky Dent had a brief, unsuccessful run as manager of the Yankees, but he was a minor-league manager for several year and a coach at the big-league level for many years as well. He’ll get the managerial reins here. Dickey, Donovan and Dahlen all worked as managers too – only Dickey had a winning record, but that was in a very short career – but since they have much bigger roles on this team, we’ll let them focus on playing. Dent can ask them for advice when he wants it.
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