The Pecan Park Eagle

Native Houstonian Frank Mancuso batted .667 im the 1944 World Series as a catcher for the only St. Louis Browns club that ever won a pennant.

Sometimes a column idea is either harder than it first looks – or it just takes more time than I immediately have for the job. Most often, that results in me putting it aside and working off the clock on the subject to get it done for some undetermined future date.

Today I’m choosing to a different route by inviting those of you who are interested in joining with on coming up with the best 9-player starting lineup of native Houstonians we can either recall or discover. Feel free to suggest alternatives to the six names I have put forth already, but double-check the birthplaces of those former big leaguers you may want to use. Roger Clemens, Josh Beckett, and Wayne Graham, for example, were all born elsewhere.

Simply put what you have, even if it’s a completely fresh lineup from the one started here, as a comment on the column in the section below – and please include the birth dates of your choices. And please contribute. For the moment. I can’t even come up with the names of native Houstonians who played at least one game of big league ball at 3B, 2B, or SS.

Here is my Incomplete Big Leaguer Batting Order (by date of birth in Houston & position)

ORIGINAL INCOMPLETE NATIVE HOUSTONIAN LINEUP

1) Curt Flood (01/18/1938) CF

2) Carl Crawford (08/05/1981) RF

3) James Loney (05/07/1984) 1B

4) Steve Henderson (11/18/52) LF

5) 3B

6) 2B

7) SS

8) Frank Mancuso (05/18/1918) C

9) George “Red” Munger (10/04/1918) P

IN PROGRESS COMPLETE NATIVE HOUSTONIAN LINEUP

1) Michael Bourn (12/27/1982) CF

2) Curt Flood (01/18/1938) LF

3) Carl Crawford (08/05/1981) RF

4) James Loney (05/07/1984) 1B

5) Chuck Knoblauch (07/07/1968) 2B

6) Kelly Gruber (02/26/62) 3B *

7) Craig Reynolds (12/27/1952) SS

8) Frank Mancuso (05/18/1918) C

9) George “Red” Munger (10/04/1918) P

* Thanks to Cliff Blau for his advisory on to use the state and city features of the Baseball Reference search engine. I will happily take Kelly Gruber as our 3rd baseman as we send Curt Flood out to LF and retire Steve Henderson to the bench,

Also, thanks again to Bob Dorrill, Tom Kleinworth, and Harold Jones for the help.

Tags: native Houstonian big leaguers

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