OK. Let the arguments begin.
By: Hank Kalet
A wonderful feature on ESPN.com‘s Sports Nation page that is guaranteed to keep baseball junkies like myself talk for weeks.
http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/neyer/Rob Neyer gives us his all-time teams, a starting lineup for each Major League Baseball teams.
I have some issues. I’d take:
1. Jimmie Foxx and his lifetime 325 batting average, 534 homers and 1,922 runs batted in over Mark McGuire and his lifetime .263, 583 homers and 1,414 runs batted as Athletics first basemen.
2. Eddie Matthews and his .271 batting average, 512 homers and 1,453 runs batted in in 8,537 at bats over Chipper Jones and his .309, 253 homes and 837 runs batted in 4,589 at bats for Braves third baseman. This one was very close a lot closer than Neyer allows.
3. His Dodger team is bizarre: He picks Davey Lopes at second. What about Jackie Robinson and his .311 batting average? Robinson drove in more runs and scored nearly as many runs in about three quarters of the at bats.
I’d take Pee Wee Reese over Maury Wills at short, Gil Hodges over Steve Garvey at first,
And his outfield: Raul Mondesi, Gary Sheffield and Willie Davis ignores the greatest Dodger outfielder of all time, Duke Snider. And what about Babe Herman? Or Reggie Smith? (I go with Sheffield, Snider and Herman.)
I could go on, but I’ll leave it to the reader to decide.
My Mets team? Piazza behind the plate; Hernandez at first; Alfonzo at second; Harrelson at short; HoJo at third; Cleon Jones in left, Tommie Agee in center and Daryl Strawberry in right; Seaver, Gooden, Koosman, Leiter and Franco on the mound with honorable mentions to Gary Carter, Jerry Grote, Mookie Wilson, Rusty Staub, Felix Millan and Lee Mazzilli and pitchers Jon Matlack, Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda, Sid Fernandez, David Cone, Roger McDowell, Jesse Orosco, Armando Benitez and Tug McGraw.