Every All Star team needs a pitcher who can respond to critics as Nolan Ryan did to Robin Ventura back in the day.
Armed with the new (to me) search engine material from Baseball Reference.Com that organizes players in various ways, this time by state of birth, it was far easier coming up with my favorite All Time Starting Nine for the State of Texas Natives than it was for what several of us encountered producing the same outcome for Native Houstonians.
Thank you again, Cliff Blau, for putting me to the wise on that advanced feature of my favorite baseball data site. The data feature, aided by the fact that Texas is also much larger than Houston alone and the birthplace of several Hall of Famers and some others to soon enough be.
Here’s my starting lineup for the Native Texan All Stars:
1) Tris Speaker HOF (Hubbard, TX, 04/04/1888) CF
2) Ross Youngs HOF (Shiner, TX, 04/10/1897) RF
3) Rogers Hornsby HOF (Winters, TX, 04/27/1896) 2B
4) Frank Robinson HOF (Beaumont, TX, 08/31/1935) LF
5) Ernie Banks HOF (Dallas, TX, 01/31/1931) SS
6) Eddie Mathews HOF (Texarkana, TX, 10/13/1931) 3B
7) Norm Cash (Justiceburg, TX, 11/10/1934) 1B
8) Gus Mancuso (Galveston, TX, 12/05/1905) C
9) Nolan Ryan HOF (Refugio, TX, 01/31/1947) P1 & Greg Maddux HOF2B (San Angelo, TX 04/14/1966) P2
OK, Fry me. I couldn’t pick between Ryan and Maddux. Both were great and Texas deserves each of them.
But seriously, would you pay to see that lineup play even a single game with that batting order? I sure would.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
September 8, 2013 at 1:30 pm |
The Rogers Hornsby gravesite is an interesting visit in an isolated location in Travis County. It’s a large family cemetery right off the Colorado River and infested with mosquitos. I forget exactly how, but Governor Perry’s wife is related to Hornsby. He and I talked about it several years back…as I recall, the family wasn’t real fond of the Rajah but I don’t want to put words in their mouths.