The Chris Moeller Archives

Hometown Heroes and Zeroes

It pains me some to promote another of Major League Baseball's annual corporate internet tie-ins, especially one with all of the potential baggage this one may have, but I'm intrigued nevertheless by "Hometown Heroes," a vote by fans for the most representative player in the history of each franchise.

Before offering up my 30 team choices though, I deliver this important caveat-- "most representative" does not also imply "best representative." Some teams suck. I'm also not interested in "character value" except as it pertains directly to the character of that particular team. I don't give a shit who deserves an equivalent of the "Texas Rangers Heisman Trophy." When the official MLB panel includes an admitted cheater like scuff-baller Don Sutton and a guy who just got canned by ESPN for sexual harassment, I think we can all put our Puritan impulses back in the closet before proceeding.

I also offer this warning: I'm not above hard core stereotyping. This type of vote lends itself too easily to it.

My choices for the players who most embody the legacy of their franchises are:

ANGELS: Fred Lynn
He's not one of the five nominees, but he embodies the club-- Southern California laid-back. Probably too laid-back. Under the radar. Established star purchased by the Cowboy Gene Autry in the 1980s. Their top choice was destined to be cool customer Jim Edmonds, had they had the good sense to keep him.

ASTROS: Lance Berkman
Biggio and Bagwell are too classy for this organization, which until the last decade shared neither their workmanlike ethic nor was consistently good. The Astros played in a butt-ugly dome wearing orange space suit uniforms. Their fans didn't-- and still don't-- know the game, and now they're playing in an amusement park with a ridiculous hill in center field and a choo-choo train. They succeed despite themselves thanks to playing in the largest market in the league that doesn't have to be shared with another team. I picked Berkman because he's a native Texan and he looks like a moron.

ATHLETICS: Mark McGwire
The franchise currently residing in Oakland has been so many things, it's almost impossible to choose. Owner Connie Mack embodied the team, owning it for nearly half a century. It was a juggernaut for half a decade in the 30s in Philadelphia, but one of the worst teams of all time in the '50s and '60s, first under Mack, then under different leadership in Kansas City. McGwire had a Philly work ethic, a California temperment, and maintains loyalties in the Midwest. Like the franchise, he had a couple periods of dominance and some hard falls to match.

BLUE JAYS: Roberto Alomar
Consistent and underrated. Largely forgettable.

BRAVES: Greg Maddux
The Braves, unlike other teams that have relocated more than once, enjoyed some success at each stop. As a result, though, no one area of the country-- Boston, Milwaukee, or Atlanta-- can ever own all of them completely. This also is Maddux. And like his approach on the mound, they don't blow you away but one day you look up and they've claimed nearly as much success as anyone.

BREWERS: Jim Gantner
Choosing Hall-of Famers Yount or Molitor seems too generous for a franchise that's never won anything. Their lesser infield mate fits the part better.

CARDINALS: Stan Musial
I'm so glad you asked. The greatest Cardinal of them all. Extended success. Eye-popping career numbers. Consistent brilliance. Spirited personality. There are never dark clouds over the Cardinals and I believe that to be because four generations of fans and participants have drawn from Musial. I'm proud of the Cardinals entire list of nominees. Committed and brilliant. A great bonus is that if you add Mark McGwire to the mix as a sixth man, only two years have passed since 1941 that one of those players wasn't on the team.

CUBS: LaTroy Hawkins
You expected a great player? They haven't won the World Series since 1908. A Chicago native, Hawkins came to play in his hometown amidst unbridled optimism and wound up laying a giant egg. Par for the course.

DEVIL RAYS: Esteban Yan
Or any one of another several hundred nobodies. It's definitely not Wade Boggs. He was a great hitter.

DIAMONDBACKS: Mark Grace
I'm engaging in a little prognostication here, but I believe Arizona is destined to forever be the franchise players gravitate to to finish their career. Half of them live in Phoenix. Grace made the most of his short visit to the desert, and so have the D'Backs thus far.

DODGERS: Sandy Koufax
Professional, elegant, with a legacy that extends beyond the diamond. I chose the lefty hurler over Jackie Robinson just because his great career seems slightly more representative and included playing tenure in Los Angeles, a great baseball environment.

GIANTS: Bobby Bonds
He has a link to nearly all of the other nominees. Great talent, some success. Struck out too much.

INDIANS: Bob Feller
It's hard for a National Leaguer to warm to the Cleveland franchise. The idea of Jackie Robinson, Juan Marichal, or Bob Gibson competing balls-out against that offensive depiction of an Indian makes the team seem perpetually out of its time. Feller is, likewise, too angry, too stubborn, and too stuck in 1948.

MARINERS: Edgar Martinez
The giant asterisk. The Mariners play in an untraditional baseball city. They didn't exist before the designated hitter, and have played a majority of their home games indoors. They've hardly ever played meaningful games. Like the Indians, they're from another time, but unlike the Indians, it's a time in the future-- a future I hope never arrives. Martinez was a DH. Nothing more. Lacking completeness.

MARLINS: Jeff Conine
A man in perpetual motion between franchises. Traded from the Marlins and then arriving back again. Not a standout ballplayer by any stretch of the imagination. Still, he's found himself at the top of the baseball universe twice. He must be doing something right.

METS: Darryl Strawberry
Dizzying highs. Horrendous lows. Every peak and valley blown ridiculously out of proportion by the media. The Mets are baseball's "coked-up" franchise.

NATIONALS: Never heard of 'em.

ORIOLES: Eddie Murray
Hmmm, I wonder who will win this vote... It won't be Murray. But I pick him-- workmanlike and intense. If you think Baltimore is blue-eyed and resembles Paul Newman like Cal Ripken, Jr., then you haven't seen HBO's "The Wire." Murray's upbringing in the Watts section of Los Angeles in the '60s hardened him for a career in one of the Eastern seaboard's toughest harbors and for an American League division occupied by the high-priced whorehouses of Boston and New York.

PADRES: Trevor Hoffman
Oh, you've been playing down there all this time? Didn't notice. You have over 400 saves? Interesting. We'll get back to you when we decide if your existence means anything.

PHILLIES: Lenny Dykstra
Particularly the night he crashed his car.

PIRATES: Honus Wagner
Greatest success at the turn of the last century, but still has a lingering gravitas. And I'm not just being complimentary because they're cleaning the Cardinals' clocks this weekend.

RANGERS: Gary Matthews, Jr.
Gary Junior is to Gary Senior as the Rangers are to the Washington Senators.

RED SOX: Ben Affleck
I'm so blinded by hatred, his is the only name or face I can conjure.

REDS: Pete Rose
Rose is to Cincinnati as Larry Flynt is to Cincinnati.

ROCKIES: Dante Bichette
Something's just not natural about either one. But maybe this whole "baseballs in the humidor" thing is just the balance that the league needs to combat Human Growth Hormone.

ROYALS: Juan Gonzalez
Things can really go to hell, can't they?

TIGERS: Lou Whitaker
I'm trying to figure out why Alan Trammell would be on the list of Detroit nominees when Whitaker isn't. Are white guys more traditional heroes? OK, sorry I had to play that card, but I don't have any other explanations for that omission. This is a tough category, so I'm copping out with a protest vote.

TWINS: Kent Hrbek
A pro wrestler wannabe for the franchise whose domed stadium helped bring a taste of professional wrestling to baseball. Have they blown up that place yet?

WHITE SOX: Chick Gandil
Nellie Fox typifies a certain style of ballplaying common to many White Sox teams, but I'm selecting the ringleader of the Black Sox scandal-- Gandil. Fair or otherwise, that incident is still the White Sox franchise's lasting imprint on the game.

YANKEES: Joe DiMaggio
Ruth is too jolly. Gehrig, too heroic, and Mantle, too countrified. Yankees fans believe the rest of the league looks at them as a Yogi Berra, victorious on the field but also charmingly human. We don't. The Yankees are machine-like and callous, awash in their own phony aura and crippling insecurity. DiMaggio pouted on the set of "The Seven Year Itch" when Marilyn's skirt blew up from the street grille and refused to return to the stadium unless he was introduced as "the greatest living ballplayer." Steinbrenner tries to mask his insecurity by trying to buy the pennant. The Yankees might have 26 World Championships, but it's no way to live your life.

posted by CM @ 10:46 AM