A List Updated After Nine Years: First World Series Homer in Franchise History

Some of you longtime readers may remember a list I made when the Rangers were in their first World Series back in 2010. Mitch Moreland was the first Ranger to homer in World Series play, and I thought it'd be fun to look back on who held the distinction for other franchises.

Now that the Nationals have played their first World Series game, it's time to update it. Instead of editing that old post with my outdated Google Sheet embed method, I'll put a table here:

Franchise	Batter	Pitcher	Date
Pirates	Jimmy Sebring	Cy Young	10/1/1903
Red Sox	Patsy Dougherty	Sam Leever	10/2/1903
Cubs	Joe Tinker	Bill Donovan	10/11/1908
Tigers	Davy Jones	Babe Adams	10/13/1909
Athletics	Danny Murphy	Harry McIntire	10/20/1910
Giants	Larry Doyle	Charley Hall	10/15/1912
Braves	Hank Gowdy	Joe Bush	10/12/1914
Phillies	Fred Luderus	Rube Foster	10/13/1915
Dodgers	Hi Myers	Babe Ruth	10/9/1916
White Sox	Happy Felsch	Slim Sallee	10/6/1917
Indians	Elmer Smith	Burleigh Grimes	10/10/1920
Yankees	Babe Ruth	Phil Douglas	10/9/1921
Twins	Goose Goslin	Jack Bentley	10/5/1924
Cardinals	Billy Southworth	Urban Shocker	10/3/1926
Reds	Jimmy Ripple	Schoolboy Rowe	10/3/1940
Orioles	George McQuinn	Mort Cooper	10/4/1944
Mets	Donn Clendenon	Dave McNally	10/12/1969
Royals	Amos Otis	Bob Walk	10/14/1980
Brewers	Ted Simmons	Bob Forsch	10/12/1982
Padres	Kurt Bevacqua	Dan Petry	10/10/1984
Blue Jays	Joe Carter	Tom Glavine	10/17/1992
Marlins	Moises Alou	Orel Hershiser	10/18/1997
Diamondbacks	Craig Counsell	Mike Mussina	10/27/2001
Angels	Troy Glaus	Jason Schmidt	10/19/2002
Astros	Mike Lamb	Jose Contreras	10/22/2005
Rockies	Matt Holliday	Hideki Okajima	10/27/2007
Rays	Carl Crawford	Cole Hamels	10/22/2008
Rangers	Mitch Moreland	Jonathan Sanchez	10/30/2010
Nationals	Ryan Zimmerman	Gerrit Cole	10/22/2019
Mariners	???	???	???

If you go back and read that original post, you can see I classified each of these guys based on how fitting they were for the distinction, and I think Ryan Zimmerman definitely falls into the "Franchise Stars" category. Congrats, Mr. National, and let's go Nats!

Oldest Ringless Players and Playoff Predicitons: 2019 Edition

Yes, folks, I'm still alive. I decided to take a break from compulsively updating this blog because it was getting to be too much of a distraction. But I'm back for playoff time, the part we all look forward to each season.

To start out, here's the annual Oldest Ringless Players list:

Atlanta Braves: Darren O'Day (b. October 22, 1982)
Houston Astros: Zack Greinke (b. October 21, 1983)
Los Angeles Dodgers: Rich Hill (b. March 11, 1980)
Milwaukee Brewers: Matt Albers (b. January 20, 1983)
Minnesota Twins: Nelson Cruz (b. July 1, 1980)
New York Yankees: Edwin Encarnacion (b. January 7, 1983)
Oakland Athletics: Joakim Soria (b. May 18, 1984)
St. Louis Cardinals: Matt Wieters (b. May 21, 1986)
Tampa Bay Rays: Eric Sogard (b. May 22, 1986)
Washington Nationals: Fernando Rodney (b. March 18, 1977)

I can still remember when it was rare for any players on this list to have been born in the 1980s. I've been doing this for a long time. Wouldn't it be great if Fernando Rodney, who seems to frequently show up on this blog around this time of year, finally got that ring? Hey, it could happen. The NHL's St. Louis Blues and the NBA's Toronto Raptors both won their first championships this season, so maybe 2019 is the year of franchises' first titles. The Nats would be perfect for that in baseball, and it'd be funny if it happened right after Bryce Harper left town. I can dream.

My preseason predictions actually weren't terribly far off, though obviously I didn't get everything right. For my predictions now that we have the real thing, here we go:

Stupid Wild Card Games That Nobody Wanted

Washington over Milwaukee
Tampa Bay over Oakland

Trying to predict a one-game playoff is a fool's errand, since it's basically a coin flip, but what the heck.

I think Washington is a better team than Milwaukee in terms of actual talent, and they don't have the injury problems the Brewers are facing. Throw in the fact that they're at home and Milwaukee's probably out of gas after going on a late-season tear to clinch a postseason spot, and I give the Nats the edge here. Personally, I'm rooting for them as well.

I pick Tampa Bay to beat Oakland because that's what my gut says. I'm rooting for Oakland, but I get a feeling that Charlie Morton's going to pitch a gem to put the Rays in the real playoffs.

 
National League Division Series

St. Louis over Atlanta
Los Angeles over Washington

I pick the Cardinals to beat the Braves because they're the Cardinals. Old school readers know how much I hate them and believe them to be evil. Mentally, I always give them the upper hand until they lose. The Dodgers have been too much of a powerhouse this year for me to think they'll be upset in the first round. You gotta go with them here.


American League Division Series

Houston over Tampa Bay
New York over Minnesota

While New York's starting rotation is a question mark and I'd love to see the Twins beat them, I just can't bring myself to pick against the Evil Empire in this matchup. The Twins seem jinxed against the Yankees in the playoffs, and until they beat them, I'm going to be pessimistic about their chances. I pick Houston over Tampa Bay because the Astros are simply the best team in baseball this year.

 
National League Championship Series

Los Angeles over St. Louis

The Cardinals might be evil, but the Dodgers are so good that I think it would be a huge upset for the Cardinals to beat them. Nothing's impossible in a short series, of course, but I'm still not convinced that the Cardinals haven't played above their heads this year. I pick L.A. to win its third straight pennant.

 
American League Championship Series

New York over Houston

Yes, Houston is the better team and they'll have home field advantage, but as I said at the beginning of the season, do you really think we're going to get out of this decade without seeing the Yankees win a pennant? Just when you think they're down, they come back to break your heart. That's the kind of franchise they are. Besides that, they're out for revenge after the Astros beat them in 2017, so this would seem the time to exact it.

 
World Series

New York over Los Angeles

Oh wow, look at this classic matchup. Why, it harkens back to the good old days of the 1950s when no one outside of New York ever won anything in October. It's also reminiscent of the battles between Lasorda's men and the Bronx Zoo pinstripers from the '70s and '80s. It doesn't get any better for baseball than this big-market matchup, does it? So who wins? Eh, let's go with the Yankees, because what could be more fitting? It would be terribly wrong if CC Sabathia couldn't close out his career with one more World Series ring and Brett Gardner retired hitless in World Series play. It's gotta happen. It's just gotta.

The Old Home Boys

As a follow-up to this post, I thought it'd be fun to look at who played the most games for each of today's current franchises when they played under different polity names. In this case, there are two that were so short-lived they had none. Let's see who they were:

Franchise	Player	Games
Philadelphia Athletics	Jimmy Dykes	1702
California Angels	Brian Downing	1661
Boston Braves	John Morrill	1219
St. Louis Browns	Jack Tobin	1133
New York Giants	Frankie Frisch	1000
Florida Marlins	Charles Johnson	587
Brooklyn Dodgers	Willie Keeler	566
Washington Senators (I)	Charles Moran	160
Baltimore Orioles (I)	Bill Keister	115
Kansas City Athletics	John O'Donoghue	80
Milwaukee Braves	Bob Uecker	46
Washington Senators (II)	Johnny Klippstein	42
Montreal Expos	Denis Boucher	15
Milwaukee Brewers (I)	George McBride	3
Anaheim Angels	none	0
Seattle Pilots	none	0

Would've been cool if the Pilots or Anaheim Angels could've participated, but no such luck.

It's amazing that the Milwaukee teams have had so few players born in the city. If you recall the other list, the Brewers' leader is Paul Wagner with 15. It looks like there's a good reason Bob Uecker has such a long-standing relationship with the Brewers: He's Milwaukee's all-time leading native son to play in the majors with a Milwaukee team. 46 whole games!

2019 Predictions

It's a little late, I know, but I thought I'd chime in with my 2019 predictions, which I guarantee will be wrong. But what's baseball without some speculation? I'm going with my gut on these, so these predictions will be a testament to my gut's value.

Regular Season Standings:

AL West

Houston Astros
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland Athletics
Texas Rangers
Seattle Mariners

AL Central

Cleveland Indians
Minnesota Twins
Chicago White Sox
Detroit Tigers
Kansas City Royals

AL East

New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox*
Tampa Bay Rays*
Toronto Blue Jays
Baltimore Orioles

NL West

Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
Colorado Rockies
Arizona Diamondbacks
San Francisco Giants

NL Central

St. Louis Cardinals
Chicago Cubs*
Milwaukee Brewers
Pittsburgh Pirates
Cincinnati Reds

NL East

Atlanta Braves
Washington Nationals*
Philadelphia Phillies
New York Mets
Miami Marlins


Playoffs:

Wild Card games:

Nationals over Cubs
Red Sox over Rays

Division Series:

Dodgers over Nationals
Cardinals over Braves
Astros over Red Sox
Yankees over Indians

League Championship Series:

Cardinals over Dodgers
Yankees over Astros

World Series: 

Yankees over Cardinals


Come on, you really think we're going to get out of this decade without getting stuck seeing the Yankees in the World Series? It's been 100 years since the Yankees completed a calendar decade without a World Series appearance, so the odds are good that this is the year the current crew finally gets their coronation. Borderline Hall of Famer CC Sabathia will get to ride into the sunset a champion, former small-market star Troy Tulowitzki will show the world that that the big city is where it's really at if you want a ring, and hot young stars like Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Luis Severino, Miguel Andujar, and Gleyber Torres will be seen as the building blocks of a new Yankee dynasty, all of whom are destined to have their numbers retired. And losing with class will be the National League's grandest franchise, the St. Louis Cardinals, who do everything the right way, including applauding their opponents as they lose to them. The media will talk about how baseball richly deserved such a beautiful ending to the 2010s. Oh, it'll be sickening.

The Home Boys

Sometimes a player is simply a perfect fit for the team he plays for. Sometimes it's because he embodies the city's personality, sometimes his skill set fits the team's plan to a a T, and sometimes he was born in the very city where he now wears the uniform. As always, I started wondering. Of the current 30 MLB franchises, who is each one's all-time leader in games played having been born in the polity they represent?

Most of the rules should be straightforward. For a team that represents a city, such as the St. Louis Cardinals, we're looking for the player born in St. Louis who played the most games as a Cardinal. For a team that represents, a state, such the Minnesota Twins, the player only has to have been born in Minnesota, not necessarily the city the Twins play in.

For franchises that have changed polity names, we only count games played under the current polity name. The Los Angeles Angels, for example, were inaugurated under that name, before changing to the California Angels, then to the Anaheim Angels, then back to Los Angeles again. We're looking for an Angeleno player who played with the franchise during the years 1961-65 and 2005-present. Any games played for the Angels under the California or Anaheim names don't count.

For New York, I only went by New York City, since I don't believe either the Yankees or Mets franchise is supposed to represent the state as a whole. I counted the various boroughs, although the leaders for both franchises have their birthplaces listed as "New York, NY" in the records.

The only one that was tricky was the Rays, since Tampa Bay is a geographical feature, not a political entity. I decided to count anyone born in the Tampa Bay metro area, mainly the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, plus whatever smaller towns in the area I could find.

So with that said, let's take a look at the list:

Franchise	Player	Games
Cincinnati Reds	Pete Rose	2722
New York Yankees	Lou Gehrig	2164
Chicago Cubs	Phil Cavarretta	1953
Minnesota Twins	Joe Mauer	1858
New York Mets	Ed Kranepool	1853
Detroit Tigers	Bill Freehan	1774
Philadelphia Phillies	Del Ennis	1630
Cleveland Indians	Bill Bradley	1231
Houston Astros	Craig Reynolds	1170
Los Angeles Dodgers	Willie Crawford	989
Chicago White Sox	Johnny Mostil	972
Pittsburgh Pirates	Frank Thomas	925
St. Louis Cardinals	Mike Shannon	882
Texas Rangers	David Murphy	826
San Diego Padres	Adrian Gonzalez	799
Atlanta Braves	Jeff Francoeur	730
Seattle Mariners	John Olerud	702
Tampa Bay Rays	Matthew Joyce	633
Los Angeles Angels	Garret Anderson	536
Oakland Athletics	Dennis Eckersley	525
San Francisco Giants	Willie McGee	444
Boston Red Sox	Manny Delcarmen	289
Kansas City Royals	Steve Mingori	264
Arizona Diamondbacks	Shea Hillenbrand	233
Toronto Blue Jays	Rob Ducey	188
Baltimore Orioles	Tom Phoebus	134
Colorado Rockies	Kyle Freeland	68
Miami Marlins	Gaby Sanchez	55
Milwaukee Brewers	Paul Wagner	15
Washington Nationals	Emmanuel Burriss	5

Some of these records are very impressive. For the guys at the top of the list, it's easy to see why they're so beloved by the hometown fans.

The bottom of the list is much more curious. I'm surprised that San Francisco, Boston, Baltimore, and Milwaukee have all been around for so long without more impressive representatives than the ones they have. Perhaps the city proper doesn't have a lot of little league activity in their cases.

For Rockie fans, they're blessed that after only two seasons in the bigs, Kyle Freeland is already their all-time leader in games among players born in the Centennial State. May he have many more, and not fall prey to Coors Field.

A shame that Emmanuel Burriss is the best National born in the capital city. If we were doing this by franchise, Maury Wills, Clay Kirby, and Curtis Pride are all guys who'd have him beat.