Starting Position Players
C Bob “Red” Kinsella
As far as I can tell, Kinsella never even put on the tools of ignorance in the majestic total of four games he played for the New York Giants. Why is he behind the plate for the Color Guard, then? Well, his name is Kinsella, and Ray Kinsella’s father in Field of Dreams was a catcher.

…Named John, I know I know I know. But I can put this guy behind the plate; I can put Todd Greene back there (“Who?” Exactly); or I can convert Deion Sanders to a catcher, and after over a decade at cornerback, I don’t think boyfriend’s knees are going to go for that. At least Kinsella has a good story, even if it’s one I made up.

1B Hank Greenberg
Greenberg, however, is legit. He put up huge numbers despite the anti-Semitic crap he had to cope with (even the most glancing reference to Greenberg usually manages to include the fact that he skipped a game once because of Yom Kippur, and although I’m mentioning it because I think the obligatory nature allusion is obnoxious, I’m…still mentioning it myself, in the end), won the MVP twice, and went on to become the GM of the Indians, although reviews of his performance in that role are not always positive.

He’s also on a postage stamp, which is nice for him.

2B Red Schoendienst
A St. Louis institution, Schoendienst manned the center bag for about a billion years starting in the ’40s, then managed the club for another dozen, including the Bob Gibson era, during which time the Redbirds won two pennants and a World Series. This is his primary association for most contemporary fans, but as a player he was a many-time All-Star who led the league in hits and stolen bases at various times.

In his last stint as Cardinals’ manager, he was preceded by The White Rat, and followed by Joe Torre.

SS Pumpsie Green
One of the patron saints of trivia night. Everybody knows Jackie Robinson integrated major-league baseball; most people also know that, shortly after Jackie came to the Dodgers in the NL, Larry Doby integrated the AL, playing with the Indians. Not many remember the last “first” African-American: Pumpsie Green, the first black man to play for the Red Sox when the club finally got with the now in 1959. The Sox didn’t use him much, either — mostly for pinch-running and late-inning defense in blow-outs. Then he got traded to the Mets, which in the early ’60s was “major-league baseball” in only the most technical of senses.

He’s first-line infield on this team, though.Green played more second base than short, but if I ain’t making Deion a catcher, you’d better believe I ain’t making Deion learn a DP pivot.

3B Red Rolfe
Thank God Rolfe is a bona fide third baseman; this was getting ridiculous. Not the greatest hitter in the world, but he played for the great Yankee teams of the DiMaggio era and he made the All-Star team a bunch of times.

Rolfe went to Dartmouth; one of the Ivy League’s baseball divisions is named in his honor. (The other is named for Columbia’s Lou Gehrig.)

OF Mike Greenwell
When he hits, he hits — he once batted in all nine runs in a Red Sox victory. But the Color Guard better hope he stays healthy. According to Wikipedia:

Greenwell is perhaps the biggest bust in the history of Nippon Pro Baseball. After signing the largest contract ever given by the Hanshin Tigers, he hurt his back in spring training, injured his foot a week after returning, then decided to call it quits after hitting .231/.310/.346 in 7 games in Japan, saying that God told him to retire. He then took the money and ran, using the dough to build an amusement park in Florida.

Uhhhhh huh. You sit through The Curse for a dozen years in Boston, you wash out of the American big leagues, you hurt your back, you hurt your foot, and then He takes an interest and decides it’s time for you to retire, because…the Florida amusement-park market is so woefully under-served? And what exactly is this festival of good Christian/Floridian fun called — Breach Of Contractneyworld? Six Flags Over Sayonara, Suckers?

This is what years of playing doubles off the Green Monster does to you, my friends. It makes you think deities care about the tea-cups ride. High-ranked draft prospects, beware!

…Although, now that I think about it, it’s probably pretty handy to have a guy on the team who’s a lifetime .303 hitter and knows something about machinery. He can help work the tarp doodad during rain delays.

OF Rusty “Le Grand Orange” Staub
Somewhat fearsome hitter, and durable as hell — the big redhead played for over 20 years, and led the league in games played twice — with a great eye for the strike zone; he hung on primarily as a pinch-hitter at the end of his career, which indicates a proven usefulness in clutch situations. Before he came to the majors, he was the MVP of the Durham Bulls. Staub also bears an unfortunate generalized resemblance to that one friend of your parents’ who stands too close to you at barbecues and slurs about how pretty you turned out, and you know he mostly does it because he’s unhappy and longs for his misspent youth and he’d probably never Actually Do anything, but he still creeps you.

Please note that Staub gives a lot of time and money to charities, and as far as I know is not actually that guy. He just looks like other guys who are that guy.

OF Duke “The Silver Fox” Snider
Hard to argue with Snider’s qualifications, though I can’t say I’ve ever heard the Duke called “The Silver Fox,” and I live in Brooklyn, where a lot of people still talk about the Dodgers like the team left them personally, like they came home and found a bunch of empty hangers and a note where the Dodgers used to sit.

One of the best hitters on the team, Snider’s also got brass ones when it counts. When Dixie Walker and other members of the Dodgers circulated the infamous petition they planned to present to Branch Rickey that said they wouldn’t play alongside Jackie Robinson, Snider — a rookie at the time — refused to sign it. Snider and Robinson had grown up near each other in Southern California; Snider had greatly admired Robinson’s athletic talent as a kid.

Note also that Snider didn’t feel the need to inform anyone that God had told him to do this. Shut up, Mike Greenwell.

Bench
1B Lu Blue
Decent hitter; ran a baseball school after retiring. Real first name is “Luzerne.”

OF “Neon” Deion Sanders
Deion is a better hitter than his OPS indicates; in 1992, he led the league in triples and hit .533 during that year’s World Series. Everyone tends to remember him as a dilettante, classing him with the likes of Jim Thorpe and Michael Jordan — novelties, stars in other sports messing around with baseball for funsies. Not necessarily a fair assessment of those guys, either, but Deion could really play; because he split his time with the NFL, a league in which he was a hugely productive star, he never quite reached his potential on the diamond between lost time and injuries.

He was fast as hell and exciting to watch; you only get him for the first half of the season, but he’d make some shit happen.

Pitching Staff

Yeah, the position-player roster is on the slender side, but pitching is where the Color Guard is a Viking boat.

Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown
Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown, also known as Miner, led the Cubs’ staff a hundred years ago. He lost several fingers in a farming accident as a child, but this “disability” allowed him to throw tricky pitches that abled pitchers couldn’t. His season ERA of 1.04 in 1906 (ERA+ for that season: a jaw-dropping 253) is still the lowest on record in the modern era.

Anyone else ever wonder if the “Mind you don’t cut yourself, Mordecai” line in Raising Arizona is a reference to Brown? It probably isn’t — it hadn’t occurred to me before now — but if it were, I would love the Coens even more.

Kevin Brown
An excellent pitcher at his peak…at his pique, not so much. Yankee fans haaaaaaate the dude after he pitched a hissy and punched a wall in the clubhouse, breaking his hand and landing himself on the DL during a pennant race. “But it was my non-pitching hand!” You’re still a horse’s ass, Kev.

He did lead the league in various things at various times, though — including wins, ERA, hit batsmen, and salary. Make of that potent cocktail what you will, but the man majored in chemical engineering, so even if his manager can keep him out of the rage-ohol, he can still make his own.

Red Faber
One of the last pitchers allowed under a grandfather clause to throw a legal spitball, he pitched for the White Sox his entire career — including for the 1919 team, but he missed that series due to the flu, so his name isn’t tainted. You could make the argument that Faber’s absence from the rotation indirectly contributed to the Dirty Hose throwing the Series; manager Kid Gleason did suspect both Lefty Williams and Eddie Cicotte, correctly, of throwing games, but without Faber, Gleason had no choice but to keep handing Williams and Cicotte the ball.

Faber’s given name is “Urban”; the only other major-leaguer named Urban, Urban Shocker, was also a pitcher, and was a contemporary of Faber’s. Insert pope joke here.

Red Ruffing
He’s in the Hall of Fame, although his stats don’t look that hot, but he pitched in a big-hitting era, and he did it for the Yankees, who did almost nothing but win back then. He also coached the expansion Mets for a while.

Vida Blue
Championship experience; AL MVP in ’71 (he struck out 301 that year and also won the Cy Young). Isn’t likely to make Cooperstown at this point, but he’s a good arm.

Pink Hawley
Hawley pitched all around the National League at the end of the nineteenth century, notching more than 440 innings in 1895. (Somewhere, Leo Mazzone is feeling kind of faint, and he doesn’t know why.) A northpaw on the mound, he batted lefty. Full name: “Emerson Pink Hawley,” which is a mouthful. They called him “Pink” because he had a twin brother, and their mother put ribbons on the babies to distinguish between them, blue for the brother and pink for Pink.

…Yeah, that story sounds made up to me, too, the kind of story newspapermen slung together back in the day to hide a much more scandalous set of facts.You know the famous story: Babe Ruth “ate too many hot dogs and drank too much root beer” and collapsed of a “bellyache”? Except that actually Ruth took it to the hoop with too many showgirls, got the syph, didn’t treat it, and keeled over? Now, of course, we know what Ruth was, and God bless that man, but if the Sultan ever chose a root beer over a real one, I’ll eat my hat. The man’s entire family worked in a bar; come on. But this is the sort of corn-fed Americana detail the press generated back then to protect a guy like Ruth.

…I guess. I believe King Kelly’s baroquely pathetic demise was covered without stint, but I would have to look that up. Ruth is always a special case, because everyone really did love him, and I can see how it’s not in the press’s best interests to impugn Ruth because he sells a ton of papers and is a huge hit with children, but I’m not about to stare at microfiche for two hours to confirm that (I’ll just wait for one of y’all to correct me). Anyway, different times, blah blah. All this by way of saying that I wonder where the name “Pink” really came from.

Aaaaand the Hawley estate sues me in three…two…

Blue Moon Odom
Wow, his BB/K ratio is really not that hot. I guess a neato name gets you a long way. He had a few good seasons with the A’s and an impressive record in the postseason, but hung on longer than he should have.

According to a recent article in the SF Gate, a friend Odom grew up with gave him the nickname because he thought Odom’s round face looked like the moon.

Chief Yellow Horse
Given name is “Moses.” TAKE THAT, GREENWELL!

I’ll stop it with that. (For now. That Godsy crap drives me bazoo. “Wanted him to start an amusement park.” Crikey.)

Yellow Horse only pitched a few games over two seasons with the Pirates; he’s believed to be the first full-blooded Native American to play in the majors, which is weirdly late for that to happen (he came up in 1921, and the league’s history is littered with players of Native American heritage tactlessly nicknamed “Chief”). One of his managers thought Yellow Horse threw as hard as Walter Johnson, but YH kept hurting his arm, and developed a drinking problem (anxious about navigating the big city, he nestled under the bourbon-scented wing of Rabbit Maranville, who never met a bar he couldn’t close) that he battled for two decades, though he did quit booze cold turkey in the ’40s and went on to become an elder in his Pawnee tribe.

Manager: Dallas Green
Led the ’80 Phillies to a world championship; led the early-nineties Mets to a cobwebby corner of the NL East cellar.A pitcher during his playing career, he put up a craptastic 5.79 ERA during the Phillies’ legendary swoon season in ’64 before getting punted to the Senators the next season.

Press Box: Red Smith; Red Barber
I never heard Barber call a game, but I’ve always respected a particular comment he makes in the Ken Burns miniseries. Barber’s talking about Jackie Robinson and how a lot of people at that time, who had wrong attitudes or bad information about people of color, learned from Jackie and could move on from their ignorance — or however he put it, and you know, everyone knows this, pretty much, but Barber went on to say that he was one of those people, that he was raised in the South and had certain ideas about African-Americans, and those ideas turned out to be wrong, and he’s glad to have been given the chance to think differently (or, as the Apple ads from back in the day featuring Jackie put it, “think different”).

Barber didn’t have to cop to that. Not to be congratulating the old guy for getting his head right, but I thought that was an important thing to say. Or to have been said.

Tags:   Babe Ruth   Black Sox   Blue Moon Odom   Bob Gibson   Bob Kinsella   Branch Rickey   Chief Yellow Horse   Dallas Green   Deion Sanders   Dixie Walker   Duke Snider   Eddie Cicotte   Hank Greenberg   Jackie Robinson   Jim Thorpe   Joe Torre   Ken Burns   Kevin Brown   Kid Gleason   King Kelly   Larry Doby   Lefty Williams   Leo Mazzone   Lou Gehrig   Lu Blue   Michael Jordan   Mike Greenwell   Mordecai Brown   Pink Hawley   Pumpsie Green   Rabbit Maranville   Red Barber   Red Faber   Red Rolfe   Red Ruffing   Red Schoendienst   Red Smith   Rusty Staub   The Coen Brothers   Todd Greene   Urban Shhhhocker!   Vida Blue   W.P. Kinsella   Walter Johnson   Whitey Herzog